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# Neutrino spectra from stellar electron capture

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## Abstract

Using the recent shell model evaluation of stellar weak interaction rates we have calculated the neutrino spectra arising from electron capture on $`pf`$-shell nuclei under presupernova conditions. We present a simple parametrization of the spectra which allows for an easy implementation into collapse simulations. We discuss that the explicit consideration of thermal ensembles in the parent nucleus broadens the neutrino spectra and results in larger average neutrino energies. The capture rates and neutrino spectra can be easily modified to account for phase space blocking by neutrinos which becomes increasingly important during the final stellar collapse.

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Weak interactions play a central role in the final evolution of massive stars . These processes, mainly electron capture and beta decays, create neutrinos which for all densities until the collapse becomes truly hydrodynamic (i.e. $`\rho 10^{11}`$ g cm-3) escape the star carrying away energy and reducing the entropy. Thus, in simulations which follow the star’s evolution until the iron core reaches central densities of order a few $`10^9`$ g cm-3 it is sufficient to know the average neutrino energies of the various weak processes to determine the energy loss rate along the stellar trajectory, e.g. . Such simulations define the ‘presupernova models’, e.g. , which are then being used as input to detailed studies of the collapse and explosion mechanism, e.g. . In recent years it has become apparent that the various neutrino reactions play an essential role in these simulations and, as neutrino reactions depend sensitively on energy, these studies require a detailed bookkeeping of the neutrino spectra. This goal is achieved within hydrodynamical models with explicit neutrino Boltzmann transport . The necessary input into such simulations are the weak rates and the associated neutrino spectra.

So far, electron capture on nuclei has only been treated quite schematically in collapse simulations with neutrino Boltzmann transport, e.g. . The ensemble of nuclei in the stellar composition, given by nuclear statistical equilibrium, is represented by an ‘average nucleus’, whose capture rate then is derived on the basis of the independent particle model (even reduced to a model which only considers $`f_{7/2}`$ and $`f_{5/2}`$ orbitals ). The corresponding neutrino spectrum is then approximated in the spirit of this model, assuming a nucleus-independent energy splitting of 3 MeV between the $`f_{7/2}`$ and $`f_{5/2}`$ orbitals. We note, that the standard for the stellar weak interaction rates in presupernova evolutions, however, was set by the work of Fuller, Fowler and Newman (FFN)  who estimated the rates for the nuclei with mass numbers $`A=2160`$ on the basis of the independent particle model and experimental data, whenever available. Presupernova evolution studies then considered the FFN rate tables for a proper nuclear composition. FFN list the average neutrino energies for the various weak reactions, but to our knowledge neutrino spectra have not been derived on the basis of the FFN compilation. As mentioned above, such spectra are also not required for presupernova studies as the neutrinos leave the star unhindered.

Due to progress in nuclear many-body modeling and in computer hardware and guided by experimental data it has recently been possible to treat the nuclear structure problem involved in the calculation of stellar weak interaction rates in a reliable way . The calculations have been performed on the basis of large-scale shell model studies which reproduce all experimentally available relevant data quite accurately . These shell model rates show some marked differences to the FFN estimates, leading to significant changes in the presupernova evolution of massive stars . It appears therefore reasonable that this compilation  should also be used in collapse and explosion studies which build on the presupernova models. To make such use possible we will here study the neutrino spectra corresponding to the shell model rates and show a way how these spectra can be easily and consistently implemented in collapse codes. It is important to note that under the conditions of the presupernova models and in the subsequent stellar evolution beta decay is strongly blocked by the appreciable electron chemical potential and the total electron capture rates are orders of magnitude larger . Thus it is quite sufficient to focus on the neutrino spectra arising from electron captures for post-presupernova simulations where detailed neutrino transport is important.

Under the stellar conditions we are concerned with electron capture is dominated by Gamow-Teller (GT) transitions . The appropriate formalism has been derived in :

$`\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}2}{K}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{g_A}{g_V}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2J_i+1)e^{E_i/(kT)}}{G(Z,A,T)}}{\displaystyle \frac{|j||_k\sigma ^kt_+^k||i|^2}{2J_i+1}}`$ (1)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle _{w_l}^{\mathrm{}}}wp(Q_{ij}+w)^2F(Z,w)S_e(w)𝑑w,`$ (2)
where the sums in $`i`$ and $`j`$ run over states in the parent and daughter nuclei, respectively. For the constant $`K`$ we used $`K=6146\pm 6`$ s  and $`g_V,g_A`$ are the vector and axialvector coupling constants. $`G(Z,A,T)=_i\mathrm{exp}(E_i/(kT))`$ is the partition function of the parent nucleus. The sum in the GT matrix element runs over all nucleons. In the phase space integral $`w`$ is the total energy of the electron in units of $`m_ec^2`$, and $`p=\sqrt{w^21}`$ is its momentum in units of $`m_ec`$. Finally the Q-value for a transition between two nuclear states $`i,f`$ is defined in units of $`m_ec^2`$ as

$$Q_{ij}=\frac{1}{m_ec^2}(M_pM_d+E_iE_j),$$
(3)
where $`M_p,M_d`$ are the nuclear masses of the parent and daughter nucleus, respectively, while $`E_i,E_j`$ are the excitation energies of the initial and final states. The lower integral limit in (1) is $`w_l=1`$ if $`Q_{ij}>1`$ or $`w_l=|Q_{ij}|`$ if $`Q_{ij}<1`$. For the stellar conditions we are interested in, the electrons are well described by Fermi-Dirac (FD) distributions, with temperature $`T`$ and chemical potential $`\mu _e`$:

$$S_e(E_e)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{E_e\mu _e}{kT}\right)+1},$$
(4)
with $`E_e=wm_ec^2`$. The remaining factor appearing in the phase space integrals is the Fermi function, $`F(Z,w)`$, that corrects the phase space integral for the Coulomb distortion of the electron wave function near the nucleus.

Applying the formalism described above and determining the nuclear matrix elements within large-scale shell model calculations, stellar electron capture rates have recently been calculated for $`pf`$-shell nuclei. These nuclei dominate the weak processes in the presupernova evolution of massive stars and details of the rate evaluations can be found in . Here we will use the same approach to study the neutrino spectra emerging in the electron capture reactions. Energy conservation requires that the neutrino emitted after capture of an electron with energy $`w`$ on an initial state $`i`$ leading to a final state $`j`$ is:

$$E_\nu =m_ec^2(w+Q_{ij}).$$
(5)
The neutrino spectra for a specific nuclear transition $`ij`$ is given by the respective partial rate per energy interval. The total spectrum is then the sum over all possible transitions. The normalized neutrino spectrum $`n(E_\nu )`$ is obtained by dividing by the total electron capture rate.

In the derivation above we have explicitly assumed that the neutrinos produced by the electron capture process leave the star; i.e. there is no blocking of the phase space due to the presence of neutrinos in the stellar environment. The spectra, which we will discuss below, are all derived based on this assumption. In the collapse phase following the presupernova evolution neutrinos are getting increasingly trapped in the core. This will require the inclusion of a neutrino blocking factor $`(1S_\nu (E_\nu ))`$ in the phase space integral of the electron capture formula, Eq. (1). The neutrino distribution $`S_\nu (E_\nu )`$ depends on position and time and can be calculated within the Boltzmann transport formalism. Once $`S_\nu (E_\nu )`$ is known, the present neutrino spectra and the capture rates of  can be easily corrected for neutrino blocking. For the neutrino spectra this is achieved by folding the uncorrected spectra $`n(E_\nu )`$, as presented in this paper, with the blocking factor $`(1S_\nu (E_\nu ))`$. The corrected capture rates are obtained by multiplying the tabulated rates  with $`n(E)(1S_\nu (E))𝑑E`$.

For the following discussion it is useful to realize that the neutrino spectra depend basically on three quantities

* the electron chemical potential
* the ‘effective’ Q-value, $`Q_{\text{eff}}=M_pM_d+E_i`$
* the GT strength distribution.

Generally one expects that neutrino energies are increased for larger electron chemical potentials, favorable mass differences between daughter and parent nuclei $`(M_pM_d)`$, and from thermally excited states. Furthermore, large neutrino energies are favored if the strong GT transition resides at low excitation energies in the daughter nucleus. Due to nuclear pairing structure arguments  this is the case for odd-odd daughter nuclei (capture on even-even parents), while the bulk of the GT strength is somewhat higher ($`23`$ MeV) for odd-A nuclei and is shifted by additional 2-3 MeV in even-even daughter (capture on odd-odd parents) . We note that these differences in the GT distributions result in the fact that low-lying rather weak GT transitions contribute relatively more to the electron capture rates on odd-odd nuclei and odd-A nuclei, while for even-even parents the GT bulk often resides at such low energies (e.g. Ni isotopes) that a distiction between low-lying strength and GT bulk is not very meaningful.

To illustrate the discussion we plot in Fig. 1 the normalized neutrino spectra for electron capture on the A=56 isobars. The calculation has been performed for typical conditions during silicon shell burning of a 15 M star  ($`T=4\times 10^9`$ K, $`\rho =3\times 10^8`$ g cm-3, $`Y_e=0.45`$). The resulting electron chemical potential then is $`\mu _e=2.5`$ MeV.

We note that 56V, 56Cr, 56Mn and 56Fe have $`Q_0=M_pM_d<0`$, thus making electron capture in the laboratory impossible. The other two nuclei 56Co ($`Q_0=4.06`$ MeV) and 56Ni ($`Q_0=1.62`$ MeV) decay dominantly by electron capture. With the exception of 56Co the neutrino spectra for the other 5 nuclei are very similar: they are peaked around rather small neutrino energies $`E_\nu 12`$ MeV with a width of 1.4-1.8 MeV. The reason for this quite similar structure is twofold. For the nuclei with negative $`Q_0`$-values, electron capture is hindered and requires electrons from the exponentially decreasing tail of the FD distribution. Obviously to achieve an appreciable rate it is advantegeous to keep the neutrino energies small. Thus capture to low-lying states occurs with electrons with lower energies than capture to the bulk of the GT strength, but both are accompanied by low-energy neutrinos. For 56Ni the $`Q_0`$-value allows capture of electrons with all energies. However, the GT distribution in the daughter 56Co is well concentrated at low excitation energies, resulting again in a rather narrow neutrino spectrum.

The 56Co spectrum is quite different, showing a double-bump structure. The reason is explained in Fig. 2 which shows the partial neutrino spectra contributed by selected states in the parent nucleus. The spectra for both, the ground state ($`J=4`$) and the first excited state ($`J=3`$) show the single-peak structure, as generally observed for the other nuclei. We also find the spectra for the first excited state somewhat wider than for the ground state. This reflects the strong angular momentum mismatch for the ground state which does not connect to states in 56Fe below 2 MeV and has only very weak transitions to states below 3 MeV. This is different for the excited state which can reach the lower-lying $`J=2`$ states in 56Fe and in that way produces neutrinos with larger energies. Interestingly the excited $`J=1`$ state at 1.7 MeV excitation energy in 56Co produces a neutrino spectrum with a peak energy around $`E_\nu =8`$ MeV. We note that this state has a rather strong GT matrix element to the 56Fe ground state and hence, considering its favorable effective Q value of $`Q_{\text{eff}}5.8`$ MeV, electron capture on this state generates neutrinos with rather large energies. While the excitation energy in the parent increases the effective Q-value, and thus the average neutrino energy, it reduces the contribution to the rate due to the Boltzmann weight. However, the excited $`1^+`$ state yields the clue to the higher-energy neutrino peak. We notice that there are many more states in the excitation energy range $``$ 2–4 MeV which are connected to the low-lying states in the daughter nucleus 56Fe by strong GT transitions. FFN have coined the term ‘backresonances’ for these states  as they are part of the bulk of the GT strength built on the low-lying states in the inverse direction (Ref.  explains how these states are considered in the rate evaluation.) Electron capture on these backresonances occurs with favorable $`Q_{\text{eff}}`$-value and hence allows the emission of neutrinos with rather high energies. Despite the Boltzmann suppression the gain in phase space combined with the large matrix elements ensure that these states combined contribute noticeably to the total rate and produce the second peak in the total neutrino spectrum. Noting that the integral over the spectrum reflects the relative contribution to the total rate, we remark in passing that Fig. 2 also implies that at the chosen conditions electron capture on 56Co is dominated by the one on the ground state. Although similar in nuclear structure, the electron capture on the odd-odd nuclei 56Mn and 56V does not produce a double-bump structure due to the negative $`Q_0`$ value which favors emission of low-energy neutrinos.

At the conditions of silicon shell burning, depicted in Fig. 2, the electron chemical potential is yet not large enough ($`\mu _e=2.5`$ MeV) to allow significant capture on the odd-odd nucleus 56Co from low-lying states to the bulk of the GT+ distribution in the daughter nucleus which resides at around $``$ 7–9 MeV in 56Fe . However, in the subsequent stellar evolution $`\mu _e`$ increases rather fast. Thus, capture to the bulk, e.g. with significantly larger GT strength, becomes easier for the low-lying states. This increases their relative weight compared with the one of the backresonances and is also not compensated by the relative gain in the Boltzmann factor of the latter. This behavior is demonstrated in Fig. 3, again for 56Co. The temperatures have been chosen accordingly, using the stellar trajectories as given by Heger et al. . We also observe that, once capture to the bulk of the GT distribution dominates the capture rate, the spectrum becomes single-peaked (approximately for $`\mu _e=4.2`$). A further increase in $`\mu _e`$ then simply increases the average neutrino energy (e.g. for $`\mu _e=8.1`$).

We summarize that the relative height of the two peaks reflects the competition between electron chemical potential (its decrease reduces the capture from low-lying states to the bulk of the GT distribution) and temperature (its decrease reduces the Boltzmann weight of the backresonances). If one follows the stellar evolution backwards in time, i.e. to smaller temperatures, densities and electron chemical potential, the spectrum ultimatively becomes single-peaked as it is dominated by the temperature-favored ground state contribution. The spectrum also develops ‘discontinuities’ (see e.g. for $`\mu _e=0.9`$) which reflect the fact that the spectrum represents a sum over several initial and final states which all have a definite minimal neutrino energy $`E_\nu ^{\text{min}}=m_ec^2(Q_{ij}+1)`$. At $`E_\nu ^{\text{min}}`$, the electron momentum vanishes ($`p=0`$), but $`pF(z,\omega )`$ is finite resulting in a finite value for $`n(E_\nu ^{\text{min}})`$. For larger $`\mu _e`$ values these discontinuities are smeared out as the individual spectra noticeably overlap.

As examplified for 56Fe in Fig. 4 the situation is quite different if one studies the neutrino spectrum emerging from capture on an even-even nucleus as function of electron chemical potential. To understand the reason we note two facts. First, as the GT distribution in the daughter is quite concentrated at low excitation energies a double-peak structure related to the distinct capture to low-lying states and the GT bulk does not emerge. Second, in even-even nuclei the backresonances are at higher excitation energies than in odd-odd nuclei . The consequences for the neutrino spectrum are obvious. If compared to 56Co, the relative contribution of the low-lying states to the electron capture on 56Fe is significantly enhanced with respect to the backresonances and no high-energy neutrino peak emerges. As an increase of the electron chemical potential makes the capture energetically easier, the neutrino peak energy moves to higher energies. We mention that the last panel of the figure already corresponds to a phase of the contraction after the presupernova model which we have approximated by $`T=10^{10}`$ K, $`\rho =3\times 10^{10}`$ g/cm3 and $`Y_e=0.42`$. It demonstrates that the simple structure of the spectrum remains also during that stellar evolution stage which requires detailed neutrino transport.

As stated above detailed neutrino transport becomes important in the final evolution of massive stars, following the presupernova models. Due to electron captures the matter in the final presupernova models is neutronrich and the nuclei present have negative $`Q_0`$-values. On the other hand, the electron chemical potential has grown strongly enough until this point thus allowing capture to the bulk of the GT strength. Fig. 5 shows the neutrino spectra for the 6 nuclei which dominate electron capture in the presupernova models of a 15 M star . Due to Heger et al. the core density and temperature are $`\rho =9.1\times 10^9`$ g/cm3 and $`T=7.2\times 10^9`$ K, while the $`Y_e`$ value is 0.432 . The chemical potential then is $`\mu _e=8.1`$ MeV. We note that all neutrino spectra are single-peaked. The average neutrino energy released by nuclei is about 3 MeV, while it is 6.25 MeV for capture on free protons which under these presupernova conditions become abundant enough to significantly contribute to electron capture.

As neutrino cross sections scale with $`E_\nu ^2`$, high-energy neutrinos are more easily trapped. Capture on free protons has a more favorable $`Q_0`$ value than capture on neutronrich nuclei present in the presupernova matter composition. As a consequence the neutrino average energy is higher for capture on free protons. Nevertheless captures on nuclei still produces the larger amount of high-energy neutrinos in lighter stars (M $`<`$ 20 M) as they dominate the rate in the presupernova models. This is different for heavier stars where the capture on free protons in the presupernova model corresponds already to 30–50 % .

For presupernova conditions the shell model evaluation predicts slightly larger average neutrino energies than the FFN rates . A possible explanation for this difference is given by the fact that the shell model rates explicitly consider capture from thermally excited states. The Q-value for 59Fe is $`Q_0=5.696`$ MeV. However, the excited states have more favorable $`Q_{\text{eff}}`$ values than the ground state thus making electron capture more easy and in several cases supporting larger neutrino energies. Fig. 6 shows the neutrino spectrum calculated for the 6 lowest states in 59Fe. (Here the distributions are multiplied by their relative weight in the total rate). One finds that indeed neutrino spectra from excited states often have a wider tail. This results from capture to low-lying states in the daughter. In contrast to the low-lying transitions the GT bulk approximately obeys Brink’s hypothesis, e.g. . This states that the GT strength of excited states is the same as for the ground state, only shifted by the excitation energy of the parent state. In particular, Brink’s hypothesis implies that the relevant energy difference $`Q_{\text{eff}}E_j`$ is the same for capture to the GT bulk for all parent states. Another observation has already been mentioned above. Although the total capture rate is still dominated by the transition to low-lying states, the main source for high-energy neutrinos, however, are the ‘backresonances’ .

If the shell model neutrino spectra are to be used in collapse simulations, they have to be represented by parametrizations which are accurate, fast and can be easily implemented. Our proposal for the parametrization is based on the following approximations. Suppose that i) the electron capture on a state in the parent nucleus, described by GT transitions, leads to a single state in the daughter nucleus at energy $`E_f^{}`$ and that ii) Brink’s hypothesis is valid, i.e. this state is at $`E_f^{}+E_i`$ if the capture is on an excited state in the parent at excitation energy $`E_i`$. If we equal electron energy and momentum, which is a valid approximation for the conditions we are interested in, the neutrino spectrum has the form

$$n(E_\nu )=E_\nu ^2(E_\nu q)^2\frac{N}{1+\mathrm{exp}\left\{(E_\nu q\mu _e)/kT\right\}}$$
(6)
with $`q=Q_0E_f^{}`$ and a constant $`N`$ which normalizes the neutrino spectrum to unity. This form is obviously valid for capture on free protons where the parameter $`q`$ is the reaction $`Q_0`$ value, $`q=1.29`$ MeV. For finite nuclei, $`q`$ should be considered a fit parameter. It can be adjusted to the average neutrino energy which is listed in the shell model rate tabulations  for a grid of temperature/density points and can be easily interpolated in-between. We have tested this proposal and generally find that the parametrization approximates the shell model spectra rather well, as can be seen by the dashed curves in Fig. 5. Of course, our parametrization fails if the spectrum is double-peaked as observed for capture on odd-odd nuclei under special conditions (e.g. see Fig. 1.). However, we do not expect that these conditions occur for $`pf`$-shell nuclei during the collapse phase where the electron chemical potential is high enough compared to the reaction $`Q_0`$ value to allow appreciable electron capture to the GT bulk. Finally we note that for 52V the shell model spectrum is wider than the parametrization. This is caused by the fact that the spectrum for the individual states shows noticeable differences and does not strictly follow the Brink hypothesis. For example, the excited state of 52V at 22 keV has $`J=5`$ and thus there are no low-lying states in the daughter 52Ti which can be reached by GT transitions. This is different for the excited $`J=1`$ state at 141 keV which connects strongly to the 52Ti ground state.

Bruenn suggested a similar parametrization for the neutrino spectra emerging from electron capture on $`pf`$-shell nuclei, however simply setting $`q=Q_03`$ MeV . The resulting spectra are compared to the shell model spectra in Fig. 5. Despite the simple guess for the parameter, the agreement is quite acceptable.

In summary, the knowledge of the neutrino energy spectra at every point and time in the core is quite relevant for simulations of the final collapse and explosion phase of a massive star. In the collapse phase, neutrinos are mainly produced by electron capture on nuclei and protons and their emerging energy spectra are an important ingredient in the simulations. In this paper we have presented neutrino spectra for stellar electron capture during the final presupernova evolution stage of massive stars. The spectra have been consistently derived in the framework of the recently evaluated capture rates which have been calculated on the basis of state-of-the-art large-scale shell model studies. Furthermore we have calculated the spectra for stellar conditions which have been obtained in presupernova evolution of massive stars, using the same shell-model weak interaction rates. The calculated presupernova neutrino spectra show a rather simple structure which is easily parametrizable. This parametrization is easily implementable into the simulation codes and allows for a derivation of the neutrino spectra consistent with the shell-model weak-interaction rates.

###### Acknowledgements.

Our work has been supported by the Danish Research Council. GMP thanks the Carlsberg Foundation for a fellowship. JMS acknowledges a scholarship of the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.


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# Dual proximity effect near superconductor-insulator transition

## Abstract

We show that quantum vortex-loop proliferation may be one possible explanation of the super-long-range proximity effect observed in an insulating underdoped cuprate, using the dual theory of quantum vortices. As a test of this scenario, we propose that a dual proximity effect experiment can confirm the superfluid motion of the quantum vortices in the vortex-proliferated insulator and can measure the divergent correlation lengths near the superconductor-insulator transition.

Cuprate superconducting materials exhibit a rich structure of phases depending on the charge-carrier doping and the temperature. Most notably, they exhibit superconducting, antiferromagnetic (AF) Mott-insulating, and $`T>T_c`$ strange metallic phases. To this date, however, the nature of the intervening phases between the superconducting state and the AF Mott-insulating state is not understood. In attempts to understand this region of the phase diagram, there have been a number of theoretical proposals on the mechanism of destruction of superconductivity such as the superconductor-insulator transition into the quantum-disordered insulator with vortex-loop proliferation, superconductor into AF insulator transition with the SO(5)-symmetric theory, transition into novel ground states which are possible in two-dimensional (2D) doped Mott insulators, or striped phases. Therefore, it would be desirable to devise experiments which can shed light on the nature of the underdoped insulating state.

In an experiment performed by Decca et al., Josephson junctions of superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) type were made by generating photo-induced superconducting electrodes on insulating underdoped thin films of $`\mathrm{YBa}_2\mathrm{Cu}_3\mathrm{O}_{6+x}`$ family. Surprisingly, they observed the Josephson effect with an invariant product of the Josephson critical current and the normal states junction resistance for separations as large as 100 nm between superconducting electrodes, much larger than the superconducting coherence length $`\xi _01`$ nm. This finding indicates enhancement of the effective correlation length ($`\xi _c`$) of the superconducting order parameter in the insulator, which can be explained by the proximity to a continuous quantum phase transition. For instance, the SO(5) theory is one possible scenario which predicts such an effect. In this paper, as an alternative scenario, we will demonstrate that the vortex proliferation does provide a long correlation length scale near SIT, which may explain the super-long-range proximity effect in the underdoped insulator. In fact, experiments on the optical conductivity and the thermal Nernst effects provided evidences for strong thermal fluctuations of unbound vortices over a wide range of temperatures above $`T_c`$ in the underdoped pseudogap phase, which suggest a Kosterlitz-Thouless like transition with a broad phase fluctuation regime. In addition, an experiment on current-voltage characteristic of superconducting Bi2212 shows indications of a large density of quantum vortex pairs well below $`T_c`$ and far away from SIT. Therefore, given the indications of strong quantum/thermal phase fluctuations in cuprates, vortex-proliferation is a prospective candidate scenario of SIT.

We also propose an experiment which can detect a qualitatively distinct effect of Josephson tunneling of superfluid vortices in an insulator-superconductor-insulator (ISI) junction. If the SIT is induced by the vortex proliferation, we expect that the divergence in correlation lengths is symmetric between the superconducting and insulating side of the transition due to the electric-magnetic duality. More precisely, the vortex proliferated insulator can be considered as the bose-condensed state of vortices, and consequently superfluid motion of vortices is possible. Therefore, by choosing a superconducting junction sufficiently close to SIT, it will be possible to detect the super-long-range proximity effect of the vortex-condensate superfluid in the dual Josephson (ISI) junction experiment.

In Fig. 1 we show an ISI junction which can be prepared by the same experimental technique used in Ref. . We consider applying an external magnetic field gradient across the junction and subsequently letting it relax, which will impose a time-dependent phase difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi `$) in the vortex-condensate order parameter ($`\mathrm{\Phi }`$) across the junction. The phase difference induces a dual Josephson current of magnetic vortices ($`\stackrel{}{𝒥}`$) across the superconducting junction. The vortex current leads to a transverse electric voltage difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }V_{\mathrm{tr}}`$) across the superconducting junction which can be subsequently measured. As in the superconducting proximity effect experiment, we can imagine varying the length ($`\delta `$) of the junction to probe the correlation length of the magnetic vortex field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}`$ in the superconducting junction. If the superconductor is in proximity to the SIT, we expect a large vortex correlation length ($`\xi _\mathrm{v}`$), analogous to the super-long-range proximity effect in the insulator observed in Ref. . We show that a simple oscillatory solution to the equation of dual Josephson currents can be obtained under certain conditions.

In this paper, we use the dual theory of vortices for a Ginzburg-Landau description of vortex condensates in the insulating state. We first review the dual formulation. Throughout the paper we use the unit $`\mathrm{}=1`$, and denote the space-time three-vectors as $`x=(𝐱,t)`$. We begin with the effective phase-only action of a two-dimensional (2D) zero-temperature superconductor near SIT coupled to the electromagnetic field $`A_\mu `$:

$`S[\varphi ,A_\mu ]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle }d𝐱dt\{\rho _s[(2A_0+_t\varphi )^2/c_s^2(2𝐀+\varphi )^2]`$ (1)
$`+_t\varphi n_s/2\}+{\displaystyle }_k[{\displaystyle \frac{|𝐤|}{4\pi e^2}}A_0^2{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐤^2c^2\omega ^2)d}{8\pi e^2}}𝐀^2],`$ (2)
where $`n_s`$ is the superconducting fermion density, $`\rho _s`$ is the superfluid phase stiffness defined as $`\rho _s=n_s/4m_\mathrm{f}`$, $`m_\mathrm{f}`$ is the effective fermion mass, $`c_s`$ is the superfluid phonon velocity, and $`d`$ is the thickness of the superconducting film. In a BCS superconductor, $`c_s`$ is related to the Fermi velocity $`v_F`$ by $`c_s=v_F/\sqrt{2}`$. Here we chose the Coulomb gauge $`𝐀=0`$.

Since we are interested in the effective theory of magnetic vortices, we first separate $`_\mu \varphi `$ into $`_\mu \varphi =_\mu \theta +𝒜_\mu `$ where $`\theta `$ is the spin-wave type Goldstone fluctuation and $`𝒜_\mu `$ gives the topologically non-trivial phase gradients generated by magnetic vortices, and integrate out both the $`\theta `$ and $`A_\mu `$ fields to obtain the final effective theory of the $`𝒜_\mu `$. The $`𝒜_\mu `$ fields are related to the magnetic vortex current density ($`𝒥^\mu `$) by $`𝒥^\mu =ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda }_\nu 𝒜_\lambda `$. Then we transform the dynamics of single-particle paths of magnetic vortices into the field dynamics by introducing a quantum vortex field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ which is coupled to the superfluid phonon field represented by a gauge field $`G_\mu `$. The resulting well-known dual form  of the effective theory of vortices follows:

$`S[\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Phi }^{},G]={\displaystyle }d^2xdt[|(_t+2\pi iG_0)\mathrm{\Phi }|^2`$ (3)
$`v_\mathrm{v}^2|(+2\pi i𝐆)\mathrm{\Phi }|^2m_\mathrm{v}^2v_\mathrm{v}^4|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2u|\mathrm{\Phi }|^4/2]+S[G_\mu ],`$ (4)
$`S[G_\mu ]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{𝐤^2}{𝒦_T(k)}}|G_0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{𝐤^2}{𝒦_0(k)}}|𝐆|^2\right],`$ (5)
where $`S[G_\mu ]`$ is the action of the new U(1) gauge field $`G_\mu `$. Here $`𝒦_0=\rho _s𝐤^2/(𝐤^2c_s^2\omega ^2+8\pi e^2\rho _s|𝐤|)`$ and $`𝒦_T\rho _s𝐤^2/(\lambda ^2+𝐤^2)`$ where $`\lambda `$ is the penetration depth. We also included the repulsive potential ($`u>0`$) between vortices. The magnetic vortex rest mass is obtained from the energy of a pancake vortex and given by $`m_\mathrm{v}v_\mathrm{v}^2\rho _s\pi \mathrm{ln}\kappa `$ where $`\kappa =\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$, where we assumed a vortex core size of $`\xi _0`$ which provides the momentum (short-range) cutoff at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c=\pi /\xi _0`$ and the frequency (short-time) cutoff at $`v_F\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$. Here we take $`v_\mathrm{v}v_F`$ on physical grounds. From Eq. (3), the vortex number density ($`n_\mathrm{v}`$) and the vortex current can be expressed by $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ as

$`n_\mathrm{v}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒥_0/2\pi =\mathrm{Im}2\mathrm{\Phi }^{}_0\mathrm{\Phi }+4\pi G_0|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2`$ (6)
$`\stackrel{}{𝒥}/2\pi `$ $`=`$ $`v_\mathrm{v}^2(\mathrm{Im}2\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }+4\pi 𝐆|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2).`$ (7)
In addition to Eq. (3), there is a term that couples the vortex currents to the background superfluid density which acts as a dual magnetic field for vortices, but we assume that this does not affect the superfluidity of the quantum vortices in the insulating state where the Cooper pairs are localized.

We now discuss the superconducting proximity effects in the insulating state. The action in Eq. (3), if $`t`$ is analytically continued to the imaginary time, can be viewed as the effective 3D Ginzburg-Landau functional of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. Then SIT occurs upon Bose-condensation of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ fields, when $`m_\mathrm{v}^2<0`$ so that $`\mathrm{\Phi }0`$ and the correlation function in the mean-field approximation is $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(y)|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2>0`$, independent of $`|xy|`$. The correlation function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(y)`$ can be considered as the expectation value of the number of magnetic vortex paths that connect $`x`$ and $`y`$, and therefore $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(y)|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2>0`$ implies a finite probability of arbitrarily long 2+1D vortex loops. Here we demonstrate that the Bose-condensed $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ field introduces a new length scale related to the observed super-long correlation length.

We first derive an effective Ginzburg-Landau functional of the superconducting order parameter ($`\mathrm{\Psi }`$) in the vortex-proliferated insulating state. The derivation is straightforward once we identify the trajectories of Cooper pairs with dual (electric) vortex lines in the dual theory. The symmetry between the Cooper pairs and vortices is clear from the form of Eqs. (2) and (3) which have similar functional forms in $`\rho _se^{i\varphi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ respectively, except for the topological term $`_t\varphi n_s/2`$ in Eq. (2) which is absent in Eq. (3) and action of the gauge fields. Besides, just as a Cooper pair picks up a phase factor of $`2\pi `$ upon encircling a vortex, a vortex picks up the same phase factor upon encircling a Cooper pair. Therefore, in the superfluid state of vortices (insulating state), a Cooper pair is the topological defect, playing the role of a vortex. Thus, we can perform a dual transformation on Eq. (3) to obtain an effective theory of superconducting order parameter, in the same way as the dual theory of vortices in Eqs. (3) and (5) is derived from the original superconducting theory in Eq. (2). The result is following:

$`S[\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Psi }^{},A_\mu ]={\displaystyle }d^2xdt[|(_t+2iA_0)\mathrm{\Psi }|^2/m_cv_c^2`$ (8)
$`|(+2i𝐀)\mathrm{\Psi }|^2/m_cm_\mathrm{c}v_c^2|\mathrm{\Psi }|^2]+S[A_\mu ],`$ (9)
$`S[A_\mu ]={\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2v_\mathrm{v}^2}}\{[𝐤^2+2|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2(2\pi )^2𝒦_0(k)]A_0^2`$ (10)
$`[v_\mathrm{v}^2𝐤^2\omega ^2+v_\mathrm{v}^2|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2(2\pi )^2𝒦_T(k)]𝐀^2\}.`$ (11)
Here we estimate that $`m_cv_c^2=4\pi |\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2v_\mathrm{v}^2\mathrm{ln}(L/\xi _0)`$ and take $`v_cv_\mathrm{v}`$ on physical grounds, where $`L`$ is the linear dimension of the sample. Therefore, we may take the correlation length of the superconducting order parameter from $`\xi _c^1m_cv_c4\pi |\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2v_\mathrm{v}\mathrm{ln}(L/\xi _0)`$, and so $`\xi _c`$ can be a very large number near SIT where $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2`$ is small. This can explain the anomalous proximity effect observed in Ref. , assuming that the insulating compound is in the vortex-proliferated state. The vortex-proliferated insulating state has a physically distinct property of vortex superfluidity as shown below.

Next we consider the dual proximity effect near SIT. We consider an ISI junction surrounded by a superconducting region so that magnetic flux can be trapped inside. We assume that the vortex condensate density in I1 and I2 is $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2`$. We imagine applying a magnetic flux density difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}`$) between I1 and I2 regions of the ISI junction and relaxing it at a certain time ($`t=0`$) as shown in Fig. 1, and consider the time evolution of the magnetic field difference and the vortex supercurrent across the S region. Here the difference in the total number of magnetic vortices is $`d^2x\mathrm{\Delta }𝒥_0/2\pi =\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}L^2/\varphi _0`$ where $`\varphi _0=hc/2e`$ is a quantum of magnetic flux in a superconductor and $`L`$ is the linear size of the I1 and I2 regions. This condition can be implemented by adding a Lagrange multiplier $`𝑑t\mu _\mathrm{v}(t)d^2x[\mathrm{\Delta }𝒥_0(𝐱,t)2\pi \mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}/\varphi _0]`$ to Eq. (3). The chemical potential difference $`\mu _\mathrm{v}`$ can be absorbed into the dual electro-chemical potential difference $`\overline{G}_0`$ which is the sum of the chemical potential and the dual scalar potential generated by the presence of extra vortices introduced by the external magnetic field. Ignoring the spatial fluctuations in $`\overline{G}_0`$, we can absorb $`\overline{G}_0`$ into the phase difference of the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ by the transformation $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }\phi }`$ where

$$_t\mathrm{\Delta }\phi (t)=2\pi \overline{G}_0(t).$$
(12)
The difference in the vortex number density can be related to $`\overline{G}_0`$ from Eq. (6) as follows:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n_\mathrm{v}=\mathrm{\Delta }𝒥_0/2\pi 4\pi \overline{G}_0(t)|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2,$$
(13)
neglecting the time derivatives of the condensate $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. The value of $`\overline{G}_0`$ is determined by the condition $`\mathrm{\Delta }n_\mathrm{v}=\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}/\varphi _04\pi \overline{G}_0|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2`$, which gives $`\overline{G}_0\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}/(4\pi |\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2\varphi _0)`$. Inside the superconducting junction (S) of length $`\delta `$ and width $`L`$, the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}`$ field is phase-incoherent and does not have non-zero vacuum expectation value. From Eq. (3), ignoring non-linear effects, the semi-classical $`\mathrm{\Phi }_S`$ field minimizes the following action:

$$S=d^2x𝑑t[|_t\mathrm{\Phi }|^2v_\mathrm{v}^2|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2+v_\mathrm{v}^2|\mathrm{\Phi }/\xi _\mathrm{v}|^2],$$
(14)
with a correlation length of $`\xi _\mathrm{v}1/m_\mathrm{v}v_\mathrm{v}`$. If the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}(𝐱,t)`$ is solved in the S region, we can obtain the vortex number current \[$`I_\mathrm{v}=L𝒥_x(𝐱,t)/2\pi `$\] between I1 and I2 (in the $`x`$ direction) flowing through the S region. Then the rate of change of the vortex number density difference can be related to the vortex current as follows:

$$_t\mathrm{\Delta }n_\mathrm{v}=𝒥_x(𝐱,t)/2\pi L.$$
(15)
Below we show that if we assume a nearly one-dimensional geometry of the junction, a simple solution to Eqs. (12), (13), (14), and (15) can be obtained under following conditions: (a) The magnetic field difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}`$) is small so that $`|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2`$ in the insulators can be approximately taken as a constant as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }n_\mathrm{v}`$. (b) Inside the superconducting junction region, the following conditions hold: $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}/\xi _\mathrm{v}|^2|_x\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}|^2`$, which is valid when $`\delta \xi _\mathrm{v}`$, and $`|_t\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}/v_F|^2|_x\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}|^2`$. In this case, from Eq. (14), the equation of motion for $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}(𝐱,t)`$ is simply reduced to a static Laplace equation: $`_x^2\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}=0`$. (c) The phase difference remains small ($`|\mathrm{\Delta }\phi |1`$) due to the small magnitude of the magnetic field difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}`$). From condition (b), along with the boundary conditions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}(0)=\mathrm{\Phi }_0e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }\phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}(\delta )=\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, we can obtain the solution of the Laplace equation in the region S:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}\mathrm{\Phi }_0[e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }\phi }(1x/\delta )+(x/\delta )].$$
(16)
Then one can show that there is a magnetic vortex supercurrent through the region S as follows:

$$𝒥_x2\pi v_\mathrm{v}^2i(\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}_x\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}^{}\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}^{}_x\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S})\widehat{x}J_\mathrm{v}\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }\phi ,$$
(17)
where $`J_\mathrm{v}=4\pi v_\mathrm{v}^2|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2/\delta `$. If $`\delta `$ exceeds the correlation length $`\xi _\mathrm{v}`$, $`J_\mathrm{v}`$ will be exponentially suppressed in $`\delta /\xi _\mathrm{v}`$. From Eqs. (12) and (13), and substituting the vortex current obtained from Eq. (16) into Eq. (15), we obtain the equation $`_t^2\mathrm{\Delta }\phi =\omega _\mathrm{v}^2\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }\phi `$, which reduces to $`_t^2\mathrm{\Delta }\phi \omega _\mathrm{v}^2\mathrm{\Delta }\phi `$ from condition (c) that $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\phi |1`$, where $`\omega _\mathrm{v}=\sqrt{J_\mathrm{v}/4\pi L|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2}=v_\mathrm{v}/sqrtL\delta `$ is the natural frequency of the given ISI junction. The solution in this case is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\phi (t)\phi _\mathrm{M}\mathrm{sin}(\omega _\mathrm{v}t+\alpha )$$
(18)
with $`|\phi _\mathrm{M}|1`$. In the presence of such vortex condensate phase oscillations, we may detect the magnetic vortex supercurrents by measuring the transverse voltage difference across the region S (see Fig. 1) which is induced by the vortex motion as follows:

$$2e\mathrm{\Delta }V_{\mathrm{tr}}=L𝒥_xLJ_\mathrm{v}\phi _\mathrm{M}\mathrm{sin}(\omega _\mathrm{v}t+\alpha ).$$
(19)
As the junction thickness $`\delta `$ is increased above $`\xi _\mathrm{v}`$, the Laplace equation of $`\phi `$ does not hold anymore in the region S, and the relation $`J_\mathrm{v}1/\delta `$ breaks down. Therefore, by varying the thickness $`\delta `$ and studying $`J_\mathrm{v}(\delta )`$, the correlation length $`\xi _\mathrm{v}`$ can be determined as the length scale of $`\delta `$ where $`J_\mathrm{v}(\delta )`$ deviates from $`J_\mathrm{v}1/\delta `$. As we further underdope the charge-carriers of the region S, we expect that $`\xi _\mathrm{v}`$ will grow, resulting in a super-long-ranged dual proximity effect.

We are now able to make estimates of various quantities related to the (dual) proximity effects in the SIS (ISI) junctions, to see if we can find a regime of physical parameters within experimental access. The information on one particular set of parameters is provided by the experimental results of Decca et al. on the SIS junction. The insulating junction (with thickness $`\delta _c`$) described by Eq. (9) leads to a Josephson current $`I_J=I_c\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }\phi `$ where $`I_c=en_sL/2m_\mathrm{f}\delta _c`$, if $`\delta _c\xi _c`$. In Ref. , $`I_c2.6\mu `$A with $`\delta _c45`$ nm and $`L200`$ nm, which leads to $`\rho _s=n_s/4m_\mathrm{f}1.2`$ meV. From this, using the 1D Josephson weak link model, one can estimate the magnetic vortex rest energy $`m_\mathrm{v}v_\mathrm{v}^2=\rho _s\pi \mathrm{ln}\kappa 2.6\times 10^2`$ eV. Note that the above small magnitude of the superfluid phase stiffness $`\rho _s`$ already indicates that the material is under strong vortex fluctuations and the vortex mass $`m_\mathrm{v}`$ may have been significantly renormalized since $`\rho _s<2`$ meV, although we will keep the bare mass for order of magnitude estimates.

Now we consider the ISI junction made of the same superconducting (S) and insulating (I1 and I2) regions as were used in Ref. . Then the correlation length of the vortex fields in the region S is expected to be $`\xi _\mathrm{v}(m_\mathrm{v}v_\mathrm{v})^15.1`$ nm, which is a few times larger than the superconducting coherence length. We can enhance the correlation length $`\xi _\mathrm{v}`$ by further undoping the charge-carrier density. Here we assume a junction of length $`\delta 5.1`$ nm and explore the possibility of the simple solution in Eq. (18). The magnitude of the fluctuations of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in time \[condition (a)\] cannot be checked within the phenomenological theory presented here. Condition (b) ($`\delta \xi _\mathrm{v}`$ and$`|t\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}/v_F||_x\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{S}|`$ ) can be checked by comparing $`v_\mathrm{v}|_x\mathrm{\Phi }|/|\mathrm{\Phi }|v_\mathrm{v}/\delta `$ 10 THz with the natural frequency $`|_t\mathrm{\Phi }|/|\mathrm{\Phi }|\omega _\mathrm{v}=\sqrt{v_\mathrm{v}^2/L\delta }`$ which is about 1 THz; we confirm that condition (b) can be satisfied with the given parameters. Condition (c) ($`|\mathrm{\Delta }\phi |\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}/(2\varphi _0\omega _\mathrm{v}|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2)1`$) gives the upper limit of the magnetic field difference that allows the solution in Eq. (18). From $`\xi _c100`$ nm and $`\xi _c^1=4\pi |\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2v_\mathrm{v}\mathrm{ln}(L/\xi _0)`$, we find that the upper limit of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{B}`$ is $`2.2\times 10^2`$ Gauss. The upper limit of the transverse voltage in this case is about $`|\mathrm{\Delta }V_{\mathrm{tr}}|LJ_\mathrm{v}\phi _\mathrm{M}/2e11`$ mV, obtained from Eq. (19) and the relation $`(J_\mathrm{v}\xi _c)^1=\delta \mathrm{ln}(L/\xi _0)/v_\mathrm{v}`$. Therefore, based on the information obtained by Decca et al., the proposed experiment of dual Josephson junction and the observation of the solution in Eq. (18) may be within the reach of experimental access.

We have shown that the anomalous proximity effect in an underdoped insulating cuprate  can be interpreted in terms of vortex proliferation. We proposed that the dual counterpart of the proximity effect can be observed in an ISI junction experiment. We anticipate that a similar super-long-range proximity effect will be observed in the dual Josephson junction experiment as long as the junctions are prepared in close proximity to the SIT.

We thank H. D. Drew and V. M. Yakovenko for helpful comments. This work was supported by the NSF DMR-9815094 and the Packard Foundation.


text:
# References

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5. Q.A. Wang and A. Le Mehaute, Phys. Lett. A 235, 222 (1997).

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text:
# Testing the Dirac equation11footnote 1To appear in: C. Lämmerzahl, C.W.F. Everitt, and F.W. Hehl (eds.): Gyros, Clocks, Interferometers…: Testing Relativistic Gravity in Space, Lecture Notes in Physics 562, Springer 2001.

## 1 Introduction

Experimental Quantum Gravity, the experimental search for deviations from Einstein’s General Relativity, which includes also Special Relativity, has been an very active area in physics since a few years. All unifying theories or quantum gravity theories predict small modifications from General Relativity, for example deviations from the $`1/r`$–potential, and violation of the equivalence principle, see e.g. , violation of Lorentz–invariance and violations of the universality of the gravitational red shift. Violations of these basic principles underlying General Relativity go together with a modification of the equations of motion for test matter in the gravitational field.

Questions about the structure of the field equations for quantum objects came up very recently in the context of quantum gravity: From loop gravity  as well as from string theory  there are predictions about quantum gravity induced modifications of the field equations governing the motion of spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$–particles. Up to now the predictions consist in directional derivatives and higher–order spatial derivatives added to the usual Dirac equation. However, more general modifications can also be expected. For example, the prediction of second order spatial derivatives, which is worked out in a distinguished frame of reference, makes it reasonable to expect also second order time derivatives. Therefore, it is important to study experimental consequences of general non–standard modifications of the Dirac equation. In order to have a guiding principle at hand which tells us something about the meaning and the physical consequences of certain modifications of the usual Dirac equation, we will study these modifications in the frame of a constructive axiomatic derivation of the Dirac equation.

In that approach it is possible to derive the Dirac equation from a very few fundamental operational principles which can be tested directly in experiments. The derivation of the Dirac equation can be divided into two parts: The first part consists in the derivation of a system of linear hyperbolic field equations, which we call a generalized Dirac equation, from four fundamental principles which the quantum field has to obey, namely (i) the unique deterministic evolution, (ii) the superposition principle, (iii) finite propagation speed, and (iv) conservation of probability:

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{unique deterministic evolution}\\ \text{superposition principle}\\ \text{finite propagation speed}\\ \text{conservation law}\end{array}\}\{\begin{array}{c}\text{generalized Dirac–equation}\\ 0=i\gamma ^a(x)_a\phi (x)M(x)\phi (x)\end{array}$$

Here $`\gamma ^a`$ ($`a=0,\mathrm{},3`$) are some matrices which are not assumed to fulfill a Clifford algebra. Also $`M`$ is a matrix.

The usual Dirac equation where the matrices $`\gamma ^a`$ fulfill a Clifford algebra and where $`M`$ is proportional to the unit matrix, can be derived from the additional assumptions (v) uniquenes of the null cones, (vi) two helicity states only, and (vii) uniqueness of the mass shell, compare . From these demands we arrive at a Dirac equation in Riemann–Cartan space–time, where the coupling to torsion consists in the axial part only. All these principles are operational since they can be proven directly by experiments.

Some basic features of quantum theory mentioned above have been questioned previously and subsequently been tested or estimated from some existing data on atoms, for example. One of these features is the linearity of quantum theory which is basic in our understanding of all quantum phenomena. A generalized quantum field equation including a non–linear term has been introduced and discussed by e.g. Shimony , and Weinberg , and references therein. Shimony himself proposed a neutron interferometry experiment which subsequently was performed by Shull et al  giving a strong restriction on the strength of a hypothetical nonlinear term in the Schrödinger equation. Also spectral data of the hydrogen atom have been used for this purpose. Another features which has been discussed was the conservation of probability . The second part of assumptions (v) to (vii) manifests itself in a breaking of local Lorentz– and local position invariance which can be tested by Hughes–Drever, red–shift and atomic interferometry experiments .

In this paper we want to question the first of the four basic principles (i) to (iv) underlying our basic understanding of quantum theory, namely the unique deterministic evolution. Here, unique deterministic evolution means that if a quantum state $`\psi (x)`$ is prepared at a time $`t_0`$, then the state is uniquely determined for times $`t>t_0`$. This implies that the evolution of quantum states is described by an evolution equation which contains a first time derivative only, that is, $`\frac{d}{dt}\psi =A\psi `$, where $`A`$ is some operator.

In order to test this principle, we propose a generalization of the usual Dirac equation by adding a second time derivative which violates this principle. This modified Dirac equation is used to calculate modifications of the propagation of spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$–particles as well as the corresponding modifications of the atomic spectrum (The hydrogen spectrum can also be used as justification of the four–dimensionality of space–time on atomic scales ). Up to now, all the experimental results are well explained using the standard theory, that is, the usual Dirac equation together with quantum corrections. If everything is well explained using the standard theory, then the modifications of the results due to the modifications in the Dirac equation, can be only smaller than the experimental error. Therefore, all the modifications can be restricted by comparing the calculated effects with the accuracy for the various measured effects. – However, future observation of neutrinos and high energy photons from gamma ray bursts (GRB) may be capable to distinguish between the various models of the Dirac equation. Nevertheless, one has to keep in mind, that on cosmological distances the parameters may depend on the position and thus the effect we are looking for may be cancelled during the propagation over long distances. Therefore, these observations have to be complemented by laboratory experiments like spectroscopy.

## 2 The model: A modification of the Dirac equation

The unique deterministic evolution implies that the evolution equation for the quantum field is of first order in the time derivative. This means especially, that the evolution equation is an equation without memory. In terms of a system of partial differential equations this means that this system should be of first order in time as it is the case for the Dirac equation $`i\mathrm{}_t\psi =i\mathrm{}c𝜶\mathbf{}\psi +\beta mc^2\psi `$. If an evolution possesses a memory, the time derivative has to be replaced by an operator, for example, an integral expression: $`B\psi =i\mathrm{}c𝜶\mathbf{}\psi +\beta mc^2\psi `$ with, for example, $`B\psi =B(t,t^{})\psi (t^{})𝑑t^{}`$. In the case that the kernel $`B(t,t^{})`$ of that kind of equation possesses certain properties (it should be analytic), then one can expand that kernel resulting in a system of partial differential equations with an infinite sum of terms containing time derivatives of arbitrary order, $`_0^{\mathrm{}}a_i_t^i\psi `$.

Therefore, if the quantum field does not evolve uniquely deterministic or if quantum theory has a memory, then the resulting field equation in these cases contains arbitrary high orders of time derivatives. In a first approximation, this may be modeled by adding to a conventional quantum field equation like the Dirac equation or the Schrödinger equation, a term containing a second time derivative:

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}\psi =i\mathrm{}c𝜶\mathbf{}\psi +\beta mc^2\psi ϵ\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}\frac{^2}{t^2}\psi .$$
(1)
In order to make $`ϵ`$ dimensionless, we introduced a factor $`1/mc^2`$ in the term containing the last term. Here we assume that $`ϵ`$ is constant, i.e. does not depend on time or position. For $`ϵ=0`$, the above equation reduces to the usual Dirac equation. It is clear that the last term in (1) violates Lorentz covariance.

This modified Dirac equation can be derived from a Lagrangian:

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}i\mathrm{}\left(\psi ^+_t\psi _t\psi ^+\psi \right)`$ (2)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}i\mathrm{}c\left(\psi ^+𝜶\mathbf{}\psi \mathbf{}\psi ^+𝜶\psi \right)mc^2\psi ^+\beta \psi +ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}}_t\psi ^+_t\psi `$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}i\mathrm{}\left(\overline{\psi }\gamma ^a_a\psi _a\overline{\psi }\gamma ^a\psi \right)mc^2\overline{\psi }\psi ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}}_t\overline{\psi }\gamma ^0_t\psi .`$ (3)
This implies, in particular, that we have a conservation law

$$0=_t\rho +\mathbf{}𝒋$$
(4)
with the probability density

$$\rho =\psi ^+\psi ϵ\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}i\left(_t\psi ^+\psi \psi ^+_t\psi \right)$$
(5)
and a current

$$𝒋=\mathrm{}c\psi ^+𝜶\psi .$$
(6)
The coupling to the electromagnetic field can, as usual, be introduced by means of the minimal coupling procedure:

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}i\mathrm{}\left(\psi ^+(_t+ie\varphi )\psi (_tie\varphi )\psi ^+\psi \right)`$ (7)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}i\mathrm{}c\left(\psi ^+𝜶\left(\mathbf{}{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨\right)\psi \left(\mathbf{}+{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨\right)\psi ^+𝜶\psi \right)`$
$`mc^2\psi ^+\beta \psi +ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}}(_tie\varphi )\psi ^+(_t+ie\varphi )\psi .`$
The corresponding modified Dirac equation is

$$i\mathrm{}_t\psi =i\mathrm{}c𝜶\left(\mathbf{}\frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}𝑨\right)\psi +\beta mc^2\psi +e\varphi +ϵ\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}(_tie\varphi )^2\psi .$$
(8)
## 3 Plane wave solutions and neutrino propagation

It is not difficult to present an exact plane wave solution for (1). Inserting the ansatz $`\psi =\mathrm{exp}\left(i(Et𝒑𝒙)\right)a`$ into (1) gives $`Ea=\left(𝜶𝒑c+\beta mc^2+\frac{ϵ}{mc^2}E^2\right)a`$, or222Indices with a hat run from 1 to 3 and, for example, $`p_{\widehat{a}}`$ is represented by $`𝒑`$.

$$0=\left(\gamma ^0\left(E\frac{ϵ}{mc^2}E^2\right)+\gamma ^{\widehat{a}}p_{\widehat{a}}cmc^2\right)a.$$
(9)
The corresponding dispersion relation reads

$$\left(E\frac{ϵ}{mc^2}E^2\right)^2𝒑^2c^2=m^2c^4$$
(10)
which possesses the four solutions

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill E_\pm ^{(1)}& =\frac{mc^2\sqrt{m^2c^44ϵmc^3\sqrt{𝒑^2c^2+m^2c^2}}}{2ϵ}\hfill \\ \hfill E_\pm ^{(2)}& =\frac{mc^2+\sqrt{m^2c^4\pm 4ϵmc^3\sqrt{𝒑^2c^2+m^2c^2}}}{2ϵ}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
For small $`ϵ`$ this reduces to

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill E_\pm ^{(1)}& =\pm c\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}+ϵ\left(mc^2+\frac{𝒑^2}{m}\right)\hfill \\ \hfill E_\pm ^{(2)}& =\frac{mc^2}{ϵ}\pm c\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}ϵ\left(mc^2+\frac{𝒑^2}{m}\right).\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
That means that for $`ϵ0`$ the solutions $`E_\pm ^{(1)}`$ reduce to the well–known solutions. The other two solutions are new and diverge for small $`ϵ`$. However, this large quantity will drop out by considering energy differences. The $`\pm `$ in the solutions for the energy corresponds to positive/negative energies, the (1), (2) corresponds to the two solutions which come up with $`ϵ0`$.

In the high energy limit $`m0`$ we get ($`p=|𝒑|`$)

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill E_\pm ^{(1)}& =\pm cp\pm \frac{m^2c^3}{2p}+ϵ\left(mc^2+\frac{p^2}{m}\right)\hfill \\ \hfill E_\pm ^{(2)}& =\frac{mc^2}{ϵ}\pm cp\pm \frac{m^2c^3}{2p}ϵ\left(mc^2+\frac{𝒑^2}{m}\right).\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
In the low energy limit $`𝒑0`$ we get instead

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill E_\pm ^{(1)}& =\pm mc^2\pm \frac{𝒑^2}{2m}+ϵ\left(mc^2+\frac{𝒑^2}{m}\right)\hfill \\ \hfill E_\pm ^{(2)}& =\frac{mc^2}{ϵ}\pm mc^2\pm \frac{𝒑^2}{2m}ϵ\left(mc^2+\frac{𝒑^2}{m}\right).\hfill \end{array}$$
(14)
The exact expression for the group velocity reads

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill (v_\pm ^{(1)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}c}{\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}\sqrt{14\frac{ϵ}{mc}\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}}}\hfill \\ \hfill (v_\pm ^{(2)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}c}{\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}\sqrt{1\pm 4\frac{ϵ}{mc}\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}}}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
Therefore, for positive energies, particles with the same momentum but with different directions propagate with different velocities (the same is true for particles with negative energies). This property can be used for a comparison with data from neutrino propagation.

For small $`ϵ`$ we get from (15)

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill (v_\pm ^{(1)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}c}{\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}}+2ϵ\frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m}\hfill \\ \hfill (v_\pm ^{(2)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}c}{\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2c^2}}2ϵ\frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m},\hfill \end{array}$$
(16)
for $`m0`$

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill (v_\pm ^{(1)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{p}c\frac{m^2c^3}{2p^3}p_{\widehat{a}}+2ϵ\frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m}\hfill \\ \hfill (v_\pm ^{(2)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{p}c\frac{m^2c^3}{2p^3}p_{\widehat{a}}2ϵ\frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m},\hfill \end{array}$$
(17)
and for $`p_{\widehat{a}}0`$

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill (v_\pm ^{(1)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m}+2ϵ\frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m}\hfill \\ \hfill (v_\pm ^{(2)})^{\widehat{a}}& =\pm \frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m}2ϵ\frac{p_{\widehat{a}}}{m}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
For a comparison with data from the propagation of neutrinos, which may be produced in connection with GRBs, we use (17). We compare the arrival time of neutrinos with the arrival time of light over a distance of $`l=10^{10}\text{ly}`$. If the neutrinos and the photons are produced during the same event, and if we take the mass of the neutrinos to be 1 eV and the momentum $`p=10^5\text{GeV}`$, then we get as difference of the time–of–arrival

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t=\frac{l}{c}\frac{l}{v_+^{(1,2)}}\frac{l}{c}\left(\frac{m^4c^4}{8p^4}\pm 2ϵ\frac{p}{mc}\right)\left(4\times 10^9\pm 6.4ϵ\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{31}\right)\text{sec}.$$
(19)
The first term can be neglected compared to the second one, so that we get $`|\mathrm{\Delta }t|=|ϵ|6.4\times 10^{31}\text{sec}`$. Asssuming a temporal structure of the source of about a millisecond  and assuming a null–result, then we can get from observations of the propagation of neutrinos and of photons the estimate

$$|ϵ|1.6\times 10^{35}.$$
(20)
Thus, neutrino observations in the future have the potentiality of high precision determination of the parameter $`ϵ`$. Any $`|ϵ|`$ larger than that given by (20) should be detectable by this means.

In quantum gravity theories, $`|ϵ|`$ is proportional to the ratio of the Planck length and some intermediate length, $`ϵ=\kappa l_p/L`$ where $`\kappa `$ is assumed to be of the order 1 . If we take $`L=\mathrm{}/p`$, then, in terms of $`\kappa `$, the above estimate means $`|\kappa |1.6\times 10^{21}`$ which certainly is in contradiction to the assumption that $`\kappa `$ is of the order 1. From this we conclude, that, if the Dirac equation contains an additional quantum gravity induced term with the second time derivative of the neutrino field, then this term should be observable in the future by comparing neutrino propagation with photon propagation.

However, from the derivation of the modifications of the Dirac equation , the parameter $`ϵ`$ or $`\kappa `$ may be constant over the scale $`L`$ of the “weave” states only. Therefore, it may be possible that the effect, as we calculated it, may not occur due to an averaging to zero over larger distances. Consequently, it is necessary also to perform tests which take place on a small scale only. One kind of such tests is atomic spectroscopy what we are going to discuss below.

## 4 The non–relativistic limit

### 4.1 The non–relativistic field equation

First we calculate the modified Pauli equation corresponding to eqn (1). In order to do so, we first subtract the rest energy from the wave function by means of the substitution

$$\psi =e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}(1+ϵ)mc^2t}\psi ^{}$$
(21)
resulting in an elimination of the rest mass in one part of the wave function. This gives

$`(1+2ϵ(1+ϵ))i\mathrm{}_t\psi ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{}c𝜶\left(\mathbf{}{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨\right)\psi ^{}+(\beta 1)mc^2\psi ^{}+e\varphi \psi ^{}`$ (22)
$`ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}}(_t+ie\varphi )^2\psi ^{}.`$
With the projection operators $`P_\pm :=\frac{1}{2}(1\pm \beta )`$ we define the ‘large’ and ‘small’ parts of the wave function: $`\psi _\pm ^{}=P_\pm \psi ^{}`$. Multiplication of (1) with $`P_+`$ and $`P_{}`$ gives the two equations

$`(1+2ϵ(1+ϵ))i\mathrm{}_t\psi _+^{}`$ $`=i\mathrm{}c𝜶(\mathbf{}{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨)\psi _{}^{}+e\varphi \psi _+ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}}(_t+ie\varphi )^2\psi _+^{}`$ (23)
$`(1+2ϵ)i\mathrm{}_t\psi _{}^{}`$ $`=i\mathrm{}c𝜶\left(\mathbf{}{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨\right)\psi _+^{}+e\varphi \psi _{}2mc^2\psi _{}^{}`$
$`ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}}(_t+ie\varphi )^2\psi _{}^{}.`$ (24)
As usual, we assume that in the second equation the energies $`i\mathrm{}_t\psi _{}^{}`$ and $`e\varphi \psi _{}`$ are small compared with the rest mass term $`mc^2\psi _{}^{}`$. Therefore, we approximate

$$\psi _{}^{}\frac{1}{2mc}i\mathrm{}𝜶\left(\mathbf{}\frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}𝑨\right)\psi _+^{}.$$
(25)
Inserting this into the first equation (23) gives

$`(1+2ϵ(1+ϵ))i\mathrm{}_t\psi _+^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}\left(\mathbf{}{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨\right)^2\psi _+^{}+e\varphi \psi _+^{}`$ (26)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e}{mc}}𝚺𝑩ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{mc^2}}(_t+ie\varphi )^2\psi _+^{},`$
with $`𝚺=\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝝈& 0\\ 0& 𝝈\end{array}\right)`$ and $`𝑩=\mathbf{}\times 𝑨`$. Here $`𝝈`$ are the three Pauli matrices. After division through $`1+2ϵ(1+ϵ)`$ we get

$$i\mathrm{}_t\psi _+^{}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}\left(\mathbf{}\frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}𝑨\right)^2\psi _+^{}+e^{}\varphi \psi _+^{}+\frac{e}{m^{}c}𝚺𝑩ϵ\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m^{}c^2}(_t+ie\varphi )^2\psi _+^{},$$
(27)
where we absorbed the $`ϵ`$–factor in a redefinition of mass and charge: $`m^{}:=(1+2ϵ(1+ϵ))m`$, $`e^{}=e/(1+2ϵ(1+ϵ))`$.

As our result we get a modified Schrödinger equation for a two–spinor $`\psi `$

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}\psi =\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}\left(\mathbf{}\frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}𝑨\right)^2\psi +e^{}\varphi \psi +\frac{e}{mc}𝝈𝑩ϵ\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m^{}c^2}(_t+ie\varphi )^2\psi .$$
(28)
This equation can also be derived from a Lagrangian

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\mathrm{}(\psi ^{}(_tie\varphi )\psi (_t+ie\varphi )\psi ^{}\psi )`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}}\left(\mathbf{}+{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨\right)\psi ^{}\left(\mathbf{}{\displaystyle \frac{ie}{\mathrm{}c}}𝑨\right)\psi ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m^{}c^2}}(_tie\varphi )\psi ^{}(_t+ie\varphi )\psi .`$
Equation (28) also possesses plane wave solutions whose energies are given by (14). We also have a conservation law

$$\frac{d}{dt}\rho +\mathbf{}𝒋=0$$
(30)
with the probability

$$\rho =\psi ^{}\psi +iϵ\frac{\mathrm{}}{m^{}c^2}\left(\frac{}{t}\psi ^{}\psi \psi ^{}\frac{}{t}\psi \right).$$
(31)
and the current

$$𝒋=\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2m^{}}\left(\psi ^{}\psi \psi ^{}\psi \right).$$
(32)
Like in the Klein–Gordon equation there seems to exist the possibility to get negative probablities. However, using the Schrödinger equation, we get for the probability

$`\rho `$ $`=`$ $`\psi ^{}\psi ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{mc^2}}\left(i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\psi ^{}\psi +\psi ^{}i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\psi \right)`$ (33)
$`=`$ $`\psi ^{}\psi +ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m^{}c^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}}\mathrm{\Delta }\psi \psi +\psi ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}}\mathrm{\Delta }\psi \right).`$
This quantity is strictly positive if $`ϵ<0`$, and for $`ϵ>0`$ this is positive if $`|ϵ|`$ is small enough.

### 4.2 Modifications of the energy levels

It is possible to calculate the energy levels of the hydrogen atom exactly. In order to do so we choose $`𝑨=0`$ and $`\varphi =\varphi (r)`$ as the usual spherically symmetric electrostatic potential:

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}\psi =\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}\mathrm{\Delta }\psi +e^{}\varphi \psi +ϵ\frac{1}{m^{}c^2}\left(i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}e\varphi \right)^2\psi .$$
(34)
We asume a stationary solution, then $`i\mathrm{}_t\psi =E\psi `$, and we get from the above Hamiltonian

$$\left(Eϵ\frac{1}{m^{}c^2}E^2\right)\psi =\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}\mathrm{\Delta }\psi +\left(e^{}2ϵ\frac{e}{m^{}c^2}E\right)\varphi \psi +ϵ\frac{1}{m^{}c^2}e^2\varphi ^2\psi .$$
(35)
With $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{1}{r^2}\frac{}{r}\left(r^2\frac{}{r}\right)\frac{1}{r^2}\widehat{𝑳}^2`$, where $`\widehat{𝑳}`$ is the angular momentum operator with the eigenvalue equation $`\widehat{𝑳}^2Y_l^m=l(l+1)Y_l^m`$ with $`l=1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$. With a splitting of the wave function into a radial and an angular part $`\psi =R(r)Y_l^m(\vartheta ,\phi )`$ we get the radial part of the wave equation

$`\left(Eϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m^{}c^2}}E^2\right)R`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}\left(r^2{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}R\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}l(l+1)R\right)`$ (36)
$`+\left(e^{}2ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{e}{m^{}c^2}}E\right)\varphi R+ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m^{}c^2}}e^2\varphi ^2R.`$
With the explicit expression for the electrostatic potential $`\varphi =e/r`$ we get by multiplication with $`2m^{}/\mathrm{}^2`$

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dr^2}}R+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}R+{\displaystyle \frac{2m^{}}{\mathrm{}^2}}\left(Eϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m^{}c^2}}E^2\right)R`$ (37)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2m^{}}{\mathrm{}^2}}\left(e^{}2ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{e}{m^{}c^2}}E\right){\displaystyle \frac{e}{r}}R{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}\left(l(l+1)+ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{2e^4}{\mathrm{}^2c^2}}\right)R.`$
Since the $`r`$–dependence is the same as for the usual hydrogen atom, this equation can be solved using the standard scheme: With

$$:=\frac{2m^{}}{\mathrm{}^2}\left(E\frac{ϵ}{m^{}c^2}E^2\right),q:=\frac{2m^{}e}{\mathrm{}^2}\left(e^{}\frac{2ϵe}{m^{}c^2}E\right),\mathrm{}:=l(l+1)+2ϵ\alpha ^2$$
(38)
where $`\alpha =e^2/\mathrm{}c`$ is the fine structure constant, we get for the radial part of the wave function

$$\left(\frac{d^2}{dr^2}+\frac{2}{r}\frac{d}{dr}++\frac{q}{r}\frac{\mathrm{}}{r^2}\right)R=0.$$
(39)
We introduce dimensionless coordinates by

$$r^{}=\frac{r}{r_0},=\frac{1}{4r_0^2},q^{}=qr_0$$
(40)
and get with $`R^{}(r^{}):=R(r(r^{}))`$

$$\left(\frac{d^2}{dr_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}+\frac{2}{r^{}}\frac{d}{dr^{}}\frac{1}{4}+\frac{q^{}}{r^{}}\frac{1}{r_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\mathrm{}\right)R^{}=0.$$
(41)
We also introduce a new variable $`f(r^{})`$ through

$$R=e^{\frac{1}{2}r^{}}r^\gamma f(r^{})$$
(42)
with a parameter $`\gamma `$ which will be specified later. We get the following equation for the function $`f`$:

$$0=r\frac{d^2f(r^{})}{dr_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}+\left(2\gamma +2r\right)\frac{df(r^{})}{dr^{}}+\left(\frac{\gamma (\gamma +1)\mathrm{}}{r^{}}+q^{}\gamma 1\right)f(r^{}).$$
(43)
In order to solve this equation we specify the value of $`\gamma `$ by the requirement that the term $`1/r^{}`$ should vanish:

$$\gamma \left(\gamma +1\right)\mathrm{}=0.$$
(44)
This gives the two possibilities

$$\gamma _\pm =\frac{1}{2}\pm \sqrt{\mathrm{}+\frac{1}{4}}=\frac{1}{2}\pm \sqrt{\left(l+\frac{1}{2}\right)^2+2ϵ\alpha ^2},$$
(45)
and from (43) the differential equations

$$zf^{\prime \prime }+(\vartheta _\pm z)f^{}\beta _\pm f=0,$$
(46)
with

$`\vartheta _\pm `$ $`=`$ $`2\gamma _\pm +2=1\pm 2\sqrt{\mathrm{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}}`$ (47)
$`\beta _\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _\pm +1q^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\pm \sqrt{\mathrm{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}}q^{}.`$ (48)
Eqn. (46) is the confluent hypergeometric differential equation with the solution

$$f(\beta _\pm ,\vartheta _\pm ,z)=\underset{\nu =0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(\beta _\pm +\nu )!\vartheta _\pm !}{\beta _\pm !(\vartheta _\pm +\nu )!}\frac{z^\nu }{\nu !}.$$
(49)
which is appropriate for our problem.

It is clear that, in order to get no infinite terms, $`\vartheta _\pm `$ is not allowed to be a negative integer: $`\vartheta _\pm 1,2,\mathrm{}`$, which is fulfilled if $`ϵ0`$ and $`|ϵ|<1`$. For $`ϵ=0`$ we cannot use the solution $`\vartheta _{}`$. In addition, if the sum in (49) does not terminate, then the solution diverges for large $`r`$ faster than $`\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}r^{}\right)`$ which leads to non–normalizable solutions. The condition for a termination of the sum is $`\beta _\pm ^{}`$, or

$$\beta _\pm =k,k.$$
(50)
With (48), (40), and (38) we get four energy eigenvalues $`E`$

$`E_\pm ^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^{}c^2}{2ϵ}}{\displaystyle \frac{K_\pm ^22ϵ\alpha \alpha ^{}\frac{e}{e^{}}}{K_\pm ^22ϵ\alpha ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{m^{}c^2}{2ϵ}}{\displaystyle \frac{K_\pm \sqrt{K_\pm ^2+2ϵ\alpha \alpha ^{}(12\frac{e}{e^{}})}}{K_\pm ^22ϵ\alpha ^2}}`$ (51)
$`E_\pm ^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^{}c^2}{2ϵ}}{\displaystyle \frac{K_\pm ^22ϵ\alpha \alpha ^{}\frac{e}{e^{}}}{K_\pm ^22ϵ\alpha ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^{}c^2}{2ϵ}}{\displaystyle \frac{K_\pm \sqrt{K_\pm ^2+2ϵ\alpha \alpha ^{}(12\frac{e}{e^{}})}}{K_\pm ^22ϵ\alpha ^2}}`$ (52)
with $`K_\pm =k\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{(l+\frac{1}{2})^2+2ϵ\alpha ^2}`$ and $`\alpha ^{}=e_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}/\mathrm{}c`$. To first order in $`ϵ`$ we get

$`E_+^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`m^{}c^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1k+l)^2}}\alpha ^4ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{58k+2l}{4(1k+l)^4(1+2l)}}+𝒪(ϵ^2)\right)`$ (53)
$`E_{}^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`m^{}c^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k+l)^2}}+ϵ\alpha ^4{\displaystyle \frac{38k2l}{4(k+l)^4(1+2l)}}+𝒪(ϵ^2)\right)`$ (54)
$`E_+^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`m^{}c^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1k+l)^2}}ϵ\alpha ^4{\displaystyle \frac{58k+2l}{4(1k+l)^4(1+2l)}}+𝒪(ϵ^2)\right)`$ (55)
$`E_{}^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`m^{}c^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k+l)^2}}+ϵ\alpha ^4{\displaystyle \frac{38k2l}{4(k+l)^4(1+2l)}}+𝒪(ϵ^2)\right).`$ (56)
The solution is then given by

$$R(r)=R(r(r^{}))=R^{}(r^{})=Ae^{\frac{1}{2}r^{}}r^\gamma f(r^{})=Ae^{\frac{1}{2}r^{}}r_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\gamma _\pm }f(k,\vartheta _\pm ,r^{})$$
(57)
where $`A`$ is a normalization constant and where all parameters depend on $`l`$.

For $`ϵ0`$ all these energy values are well defined. Even for very small $`ϵ`$ the first two energies (53,54) are valuable solutions, too, since only energy differences are observable and thus the first term drops out. However, there are two reasons which justify to drop the first two solutions: (i) Except the first term $`mc^2/ϵ`$, the upper two sets of energy levels (53,54) are the same as the lower two sets (55,56) up to sign. For the first two sets of energy levels the continuum is below the discrete spectrum. By postulating that all particles fall into the lowest energy level, then all atoms will fall into the continuous part of the spectrum which has never been observed. (One also can postulate that all particles want to go to the highest energy level. But due to the symmetry of the two sets of spectra, this will give the same answer. Therefore we do not consider the upper two sets by convention.) (ii) We want to describe small modifications of the known energy levels given for $`ϵ=0`$. Owing to these reasons, we keep the last two sets of energy levels.

Defining for $`E_+^{(2)}`$ the principal quantum number $`n:=1k+l`$, then the energy levels are given by

$$E_+^{(2)}=m^{}c^2\frac{\alpha ^2}{2}\left(\frac{1}{n^2}+ϵ\alpha ^2\left(\frac{3}{2n^4}\frac{4}{n^3(1+2l)}\right)+𝒪(ϵ^2)\right)$$
(58)
and if we define for $`E_{}^{(2)}`$ the principal quantum number $`n:=k+l`$, then the energy levels are

$$E_{}^{(2)}=m^{}c^2\frac{\alpha ^2}{2}\left(\frac{1}{n^2}+ϵ\alpha ^2\left(\frac{3}{2n^4}\frac{4}{n^3(1+2l)}\right)+𝒪(ϵ^2)\right),$$
(59)
where $`mc^2\alpha ^2/2`$ is the Rydberg constant $`Ry`$. It is remarkable, that in both cases we get the same scheme of energy differences. Therefore, at this order we cannot distinguish between energies $`E_+`$ and $`E_{}`$.

There are two differences between this result and the usual spectrum of the hydrogen atom: (i) No degeneracy with respect to $`l`$. (ii) Additional $`1/n^4`$– and $`1/n^3`$–terms. From (58) we get for the Lyman–series with $`n=1`$ and $`l=0`$ as ground state, for example, the energy differences

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\text{Lyman}}=Ry(1\frac{1}{n^2}+ϵ\alpha ^2\left(\frac{3}{2}\left(1\frac{1}{n^4}\right)4\left(1\frac{1}{n^3(1+2l)}\right)\right)+𝒪(ϵ^2)).$$
(60)
The additional terms $`1/n^4`$ and $`n^3(1+2l)`$ modify the structure of this series. The ionization energy is given by $`n\mathrm{}`$ and is

$$E_{\text{ionization}}=Ry\left(1\frac{5}{2}ϵ\alpha ^2+𝒪(ϵ^2)\right).$$
(61)
From numbers related to $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\text{Lyman}}`$ or $`E_{\text{ionization}}`$ one can draw estimates on the value of $`ϵ`$.

Since the accuracy $`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }E/\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ for recent measurements, see for example , is of the order of $`10^{13}`$ which agrees completely with the conventional theory, we can conclude that the relative deviation from the usually calculated energy has to be smaller than this uncertainty:

$$\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }E}{\mathrm{\Delta }E}=ϵ\alpha ^2\frac{\left|\frac{5}{2}\frac{3}{2n^4}+\frac{4}{n^3}\right|}{1\frac{1}{n^2}}10^{13}.$$
(62)
This means that

$$ϵ10^{13}\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}\frac{1\frac{1}{n^2}}{\left|\frac{5}{2}\frac{3}{2n^4}+\frac{4}{n^3}\right|}=10^{13}\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}\frac{3}{8+\frac{3}{8}}7\times 10^{10}.$$
(63)
In terms of a $`\kappa `$ as introduced after Eqn. (20) we have the estimate $`\kappa 7\times 10^4`$ which is outside the assumption that $`\kappa `$ is of the order unity. Therefore, the accuracy of atomic spectroscopy is still at least five orders of magnitude too small in order to be able to detect any influence of quantum gravity on atomic levels.

## 5 Conclusion

We have shown that an additional term in the Dirac equation containing a second time derivative, as it is motivated from quantum gravity, influences neutrino propagation and atomic spectroscopy. While neutrino propagation may be capable to ‘see’ this additional term, the accuracy of spectroscopy has still to be improved by five orders of magnitude in order to be sensitive to this term.

A clear difficulty with the hydrogen spectrum is that, precisely, it cannot be calculated exactly with an arbitrary accuracy with the present state–of–the–art. There is a number of corrections to the Dirac solutions: recoil, QED, finite nucleus size, see  for a review. These corrections scale with $`1/n^3`$ and amount to a few kilohertz. They are very difficult to calculate and there are still some discrepancies between theoretical results. Fortunately, some combinations of frequencies are independent of these corrections at their leading order and can be used for higher accuracies. Concerning the measurements themselves, there is presently a very rapid evolution towards much higher accuracies. For example, it was shown recently that, because of the extreme regularity of the frequency comb generated by femtosecond lasers over a very wide spectrum , they could be used to compare frequencies of oscillators which differ by several orders of magnitude. This provides a way to compare many transition frequencies of the hydrogen atom between themselves and with microwave clocks, with the potential accuracy of the cesium fountain clock which is presently $`10^{15}`$ and should improve quickly by another order of magnitude. Also, the techniques to interrogate narrow transitions of cold atom hydrogen by sub–Doppler methods or atom interferometry have improved very significantly either in cold thermal beams (Hänsch and coworkers in Garching, Biraben and coworkers in Paris) or in clouds generated from Bose–Einstein condensates (Kleppner and coworkers at MIT). A subkilohertz linewidth is presently achieved for the 1S-2S two–photon transition  and could still be reduced by one or two orders of magnitude in the near future. The hydrogen atom is thus potentially a universal clock by itself covering the full spectrum from UV to microwaves (hydrogen maser).

## Acknowledgement

Ch.B. thanks C. Lämmerzahl and J. Mlynek for their hospitality at the University of Konstanz. We acknowledge financial support of the Optik–Zentrum of the University of Konstanz.


text:
# Variational separable expansion scheme for two-body Coulomb-scattering problems

## Abstract

We present a separable expansion approximation method for Coulomb-like potentials which is based on Schwinger variational principle and uses Coulomb-Sturmian functions as basis states. The new scheme provides faster convergence with respect to our formerly used non-variational approach.

Both variational approaches and separable expansion schemes are extensively used in solving few-body problems. Some time ago Adhikari and Tomio presented an unified treatment of separable expansion schemes based on Schwinger variational principles . They proposed various approximation schemes for the transition operator $`t`$ satisfying the Lippmann-Schwinger equation

$$t=v+vg^0t,$$
(1)
where $`v`$ is the potential and $`g^0`$ is the free Green’s operator. It was found that using these schemes with appropriate choice of expansion functions a rapid convergence could be obtained. However, in this paper, not a single word was devoted to Coulomb-like potentials.

At about the same time in a series of papers  a separable expansion scheme for Coulomb-like potentials was proposed by one of us. The Coulomb interaction was kept in the Green’s operator and only the short range part of the potential was subject to the separable expansion. This approach uses Coulomb-Sturmian (CS) functions as basis allowing an exact analytical calculation of the matrix elements of the Coulomb Green’s operator (see , and recently ). Thereby only the short-range part of the interaction is approximated and the correct Coulomb asymptotic properties of all quantities are guaranteed. The method has also been applied in three-body Faddeev calculations for bound-state and scattering problems with Coulomb interactions .

In this paper we generalize one of the separable expansion schemes proposed by Adhikari and Tomio for two-body Coulomb-scattering problems.

The expansion schemes in Ref.  are based on a finite rank $`N`$ approximation of the product of operators

$$AB^1C\underset{i,j}{\overset{N}{}}A|\eta _iD_{ij}\zeta _j|C,$$
(2)
where

$$(D^1)_{ji}=\zeta _j|B|\eta _i.$$
(3)
Here the sets $`|\eta _i`$ and $`|\zeta _j`$ are assumed to be complete sets of states in the Hilbert space. If $`N`$ tends to infinity Eq. (2) becomes an identity.

From among the separable approximation schemes of Ref.  let us start with the form of $`t`$ following from Eq. (1)

$$t=\mathrm{𝟏}(v^1g_0)^1\mathrm{𝟏}.$$
(4)
Applying Eq. (2) we get

$$t\underset{i,j}{\overset{N}{}}|\eta _iD_{ij}\eta _j|$$
(5)
with

$$(D^1)_{ji}=\eta _j|v^1|\eta _i\eta _j|g_0|\eta _i.$$
(6)
The first term in Eq. (6) can again be approximated as before

$`\eta _j|v^1|\eta _i`$ $`=`$ $`\eta _j|\mathrm{𝟏}v^1\mathrm{𝟏}|\eta _i`$ (7)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i^{},j^{}}{\overset{N}{}}}\eta _j|\zeta _j^{}C_{j^{}i^{}}\zeta _i^{}|\eta _i,`$ (8)
where

$$(C^1)_{i^{}j^{}}=\zeta _i^{}|v|\zeta _j^{}.$$
(9)
This approximation scheme can easily be generalized for Coulomb-like potentials. A Coulomb-like potential in some partial wave $`l`$ can be written in the form

$$v_l=v^C+v_l^s,$$
(10)
where $`v^C`$ is the pure Coulomb potential and $`v_l^s`$ is short ranged. The Lippmann-Schwinger equation for the Coulomb-modified transition operator $`t^{sC}`$ reads

$$t_l^{sC}=v_l^s+v_l^sg_l^C(E)t_l^{sC},$$
(11)
where $`g_l^C(E)=(Eh_l^0v^C)^1`$ is the Coulomb Green’s operator and $`h_l^0`$ is the free Hamiltonian. The solution of this equation can be given in a form analogous to Eq. (4)

$$t_l^{sC}=\mathrm{𝟏}\left[(v_l^s)^1g_l^C(E)\right]^1\mathrm{𝟏},$$
(12)
and the whole procedure of Eqs. (5)-(7) can be repeated. Only the free Green’s operator has to be replaced by the Coulomb one.

As basis states we choose CS functions because they allow an exact analytical calculation of matrix elements of $`g_l^C(E)`$. In coordinate representation they have the form

$$r|n;b=\left[\frac{n!}{(n+2l+1)!}\right]^{1/2}(2br)^{l+1}\mathrm{exp}(br)L_n^{2l+1}(2br),$$
(13)
where $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$, $`L_n^{2l+1}`$ are the Laguerre polynomials and $`b`$ is a scaling parameter. They have an analogous simple form also in momentum representation

$`p|n;b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2^{l+3/2}l!(n+l+1)\sqrt{n!}}{\sqrt{\pi (n+2l+1)!}}}`$ (15)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{b(2bp)^{l+1}}{(p^2+b^2)^{2l+2}}}G_n^{l+1}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p^2b^2}{p^2+b^2}}\right),`$
where $`G`$ denotes the Gegenbauer polynomials. Introducing the notation $`r|\stackrel{~}{n;b}=r|n;b/r`$ we can express the orthogonality and completeness of the CS functions as

$$n;b|\stackrel{~}{n^{};b}=\delta _{nn^{}}$$
(16)
and

$$\mathrm{𝟏}=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}|\stackrel{~}{n;b}n;b|=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|n;b\stackrel{~}{n;b}|,$$
(17)
respectively.

As $`|\eta _i`$ and $`|\zeta _j`$ we take CS bases with different $`b`$ parameters:

$$t_l^{sC}\underset{n,n^{}=0}{\overset{N}{}}|\stackrel{~}{n;b_1}D_{nn^{}}\stackrel{~}{n^{};b_1}|,$$
(18)
$`(D^1)_{n^{}n}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,m^{}=0}{\overset{N}{}}}n^{};b_1|\stackrel{~}{m;b_2}C_{mm^{}}\stackrel{~}{m^{};b_2}|n;b_1`$ (20)
$`n^{};b_1|g_l^C|n;b_1,`$
$$(C^1)_{m^{}m}=m^{};b_2|v_l^s|m;b_2.$$
(21)
While the matrix elements of the potential and the overlap of CS functions should be calculated numerically either in configuration or momentum space the matrix elements of the Coulomb Green’s operator can be calculated analytically .

This scheme is essentially equivalent with a twofold separable expansion for potential $`v_l^s`$

$`v_l^s{\displaystyle \underset{n,n^{},m,m^{}=0}{\overset{N}{}}}`$ $`|\stackrel{~}{n;b_1}(n;b_1|\stackrel{~}{m^{};b_2})^1`$ (24)
$`m^{};b_2|v_l^s|m;b_2`$
$`(\stackrel{~}{m;b_2}|n^{};b_1)^1\stackrel{~}{n^{};b_1}|.`$
It is easy to verify that Eqs. (18)-(21) are the solutions of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation Eq. (11), with this approximate potential.

This scheme should be compared with the CS potential separable expansion scheme of Refs.  which is not supported by variational principle. It is based on the approximation of the unit operator

$$\mathrm{𝟏}=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}|\stackrel{~}{n}\sigma _n^Nn|,$$
(25)
with $`\sigma `$ factors possessing the properties $`lim_n\mathrm{}\sigma _n^N=0`$ and $`lim_N\mathrm{}\sigma _n^N=1`$. Now, the approximation takes the form

$$v_l^s=\mathrm{𝟏}v_l^s\mathrm{𝟏}\underset{n,n^{}=0}{\overset{N}{}}|\stackrel{~}{n}\sigma _n^Nn|v_{sl}|n^{}\sigma _n^{}^N\stackrel{~}{n^{}}|.$$
(26)
For $`\sigma _n^N`$ the form

$$\sigma _n^N=\frac{1\mathrm{exp}\{[\alpha (nN1)/(N+1)]^2\}}{1\mathrm{exp}(\alpha ^2)}$$
(27)
was used with $`\alpha 5`$. This value of the arbitrary parameter $`\alpha `$ yielded the fastest convergence.

To show the relative power of these separable expansion schemes we have calculated the Coulomb-modified nuclear phase shifts $`\delta _l^{sC}`$ at $`l=0`$ and at various energies for a $`pp`$ scattering. The short range potential was taken in Malfliet-Tjon form

$$v_l^s=v_0\mathrm{exp}(\beta _0r)/r+v_1\mathrm{exp}(\beta _1r)/r,$$
(28)
with $`v_0=626.885\text{MeV}`$, $`\beta _0=1.55\text{fm}`$, $`v_1=1438.720\text{MeV}`$, $`\beta _1=3.11\text{fm}`$. In the method of Eq. (26) CS basis parameter $`b=3\text{fm}^1`$ was used, while in the expansion Eq. (24) $`b_1=3.8\text{fm}^1`$ and $`b_2=2.5\text{fm}^1`$ were taken. It can be seen in Table I that in both approximation schemes it is possible to choose the $`b`$ parameters so that the expansions give almost equally fast convergence over the whole spectrum and provide extremely accurate results. To reach 6-digits accuracy the method of Eq. (24) needs 10-13 basis states, while the method of Eq. (26) needs 20-23 states. We have observed similar results over a wide range of $`b`$ parameters. It should be noted, however, that the method of Eq. (24) is more complicated numerically, so the numerical effectivity of both methods are more or less the same.

In this Brief Report we have combined two separable expansion methods. One based on Schwinger variational principle has been proposed by Adhikari and Tomio in Ref. . The other approach proposed by Papp in Refs.  is not variational and it was designed for Coulomb-like potentials. This new scheme is a variational separable expansion method and is applicable for Coulomb-like potentials. It converges considerably faster in terms of basis states then the non-variational method of Eq. (26). This property could be useful in three-body calculations where the rank of the expansion is of crucial importance. The method of Eq. (26) has been generalized for solving Faddeev-type integral equations of three-body Coulombic systems. Whether or not the method of Eq. (24) can be extended in this direction is still an open question.

This work has been supported by the OTKA Gratns No. T026233 and T029003 and the NSF Grant No.Phy-0088936.