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# Orbital frustration at the origin of the magnetic behavior in LiNiO2

\[

## Abstract

We report on the ESR, magnetization and magnetic susceptibility measurements performed over a large temperature range, from $`1.5`$ to $`750`$ K, on high-quality stoichiometric LiNiO2. We find that this compound displays two distinct temperature regions where its magnetic behavior is anomalous. With the help of a statistical model based on the Kugel’-Khomskii Hamiltonian, we show that below $`T_{of}`$ $`400`$ K, an orbitally-frustrated state characteristic of the triangular lattice is established. This then gives a solution to the long-standing controversial problem of the magnetic behavior in LiNiO2.

PACS numbers: 75.40.Cx, 76.30.-v, 75.30.Et, 75.40.Mg

\]

The problem of orbital degeneracy (OD) in transition-metal oxides has attracted considerable interest recently, due to its drastic effect on the magnetic, elastic, transport and other properties of these compounds . Among the most studied oxides exhibiting OD are manganites, vanadates, some titanates and other systems. Here we discuss a new interesting aspect of OD: the frustration of degenerate orbitals, as applied to lithium nickel oxide.

Since LiNiO2 was first studied as an ionic conductor , the magnetic properties of this layered compound have been reported in numerous publications but are still the subject of considerable controversy. Quantum spin liquid , spin glass , frustrated antiferromagnetism , quantum disordered state without a spin gap  and other scenarios  have been claimed to be responsible for the magnetism of this material. Actually, interest in this compound stems essentially from two facts. First, following the suggestion by Anderson  that a resonating valence bond ground state may exist in a S=1/2 Heisenberg triangular-lattice antiferromagnet, LiNiO2 was proposed by Hirakawa et al.  as a potential physical realization of such a system. The second important feature, overlooked in earlier studies, is the unusual electronic state of Ni3+ ions. The strong crystal field acting on the nickel ions brings them in the low-spin state $`(t_{2g}^6`$, $`e_g^1`$; $`S=1/2)`$, with the two $`e_g`$ levels being degenerate. Clearly, OD should play a crucial role in the magnetic properties of this compound . However, no direct confirmation of this hypothesis exists yet.

In this paper we propose a novel scenario for LiNiO2 based on an interplay between frustration on a triangular lattice and OD of Ni3+ ions. We show experimentally that an anomalous magnetic behavior occurs in two different temperature regions, which we interpret as the consequence of two distinct energy scales present in the system. The first one, of the order of hundreds of Kelvin, is related to the antiferro-orbital coupling between Ni3+ ions and leads to a frustrated distribution of Ni3+ orbitals. The second one, of the order of tens of Kelvin, is due to the spin-spin interactions between electrons in these frustrated Ni3+ orbitals, and drives the very unusual magnetic behavior at low temperatures. Our proposed scenario, which we confirm through a direct comparison between experimental data and simulation results, gives a coherent and natural explanation of this behavior.

High-quality powder samples of stoichiometric LiNiO2 have been prepared following the procedure described by Rougier et al.. We have studied these samples by X-band ($`\nu =9.45`$GHz) electron spin resonance (ESR), magnetization (up to $`15`$T) and dc-susceptibility measurements over a wide temperature range, from $`1.5`$ to $`750`$K.

The ESR spectra have a symmetric shape at all temperatures and show no trace of any particular feature that would be representative of ferrimagnetic cluster formation or of any anisotropy. This is a first but clear indication that the samples studied in this work are homogeneous and of good quality. We show in Fig. 1 the $`T`$-dependence of the ESR linewidth, $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ (half width at half maximum), of a typical sample of LiNiO2 in the low-$`T`$ regime. A huge increase of $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ is noted when the temperature decreases below $`50`$K. This temperature, to which we shall refer below as $`T_m`$, quite naturally gives the scale of the magnetic interaction in LiNiO2. Below $`T10`$K, $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ tends to a saturation value of about $`0.5`$T. The inset of Fig. 1 shows the inverse of the spin susceptibility, $`\chi ^1(T)`$, deduced from the ESR spectra. As already reported earlier , $`\chi (T)`$ follows a Curie-Weiss behavior, $`\chi =C/(T\theta )`$, down to about $`80`$ K, with $`\theta 35\pm 5`$ K. This low value of $`\theta `$ confirms that the sample studied is so close to stoichiometry that we may consider it as pure LiNiO2 . Bearing in mind that $`\theta `$ represents the average sum of exchange interactions on an atomic site, the positive sign of $`\theta `$ implies that the dominant interactions are ferromagnetic (FM). However, the line broadening observed in Fig. 1 is rather indicative of strong antiferromagnetic (AF) fluctuations. Line narrowing would be expected if the interactions were purely ferromagnetic. Futhermore, between $`13`$K and $`50`$K, $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ can be fitted to the empirical formula $`\mathrm{\Delta }H=AT^p`$ with $`p=2.65`$. Such an exponent value is known to be characteristic of AF materials having a strong 2D character . Another important point is the tendency of the linewidth to saturate below $`10`$K. This constitutes strong evidence that the AF correlations do not propagate any longer below this temperature.

Fig. 2 shows the magnetic moment, $`M`$, as a function of magnetic field, $`H`$. The curves deviate from linearity below $`T_m50`$K, the same temperature below which the ESR linewidth was seen to markedly increase. At low temperatures, saturation is almost reached in fields of $`15`$T and, furthermore, below about $`10`$K, temperature has hardly any effect on magnetization. Although the initial susceptibility increases with decreasing temperature in a manner reminiscent of a FM behavior, the $`M(H)`$ curve at the lowest temperature remains below what would be given by a Brillouin function. This confirms the existence of rather strong AF interactions along with ferromagnetism.

The second anomalous aspect of LiNiO2 is found at high temperatures and plays a crucial role in understanding the magnetic properties of this compound. Fig. 3a shows the results of the dc-susceptibility measurements, plotted in the form $`(T+10)\chi (T)`$ between $`300`$K and $`750`$K. The curve presents a weak anomaly at around $`400`$K. At higher temperatures, $`\theta `$, which was found to be around $`35`$K from the low-$`T`$ measurements, decreases to finally settle at the negative value, $`\theta =10\pm 5`$K, for $`T600`$K. The inset of Fig. 3a details the variation of $`\theta (T)`$, as deduced from $`\chi (T)`$. Such a drastic change in $`\theta `$ is quite unusual and gives strong evidence for a concomitant modification of the Ni3+ orbital distribution in the NiO2 layers. Additional support for this argument comes from the ESR data. Fig. 3b presents the $`T`$-dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$, between $`300`$K and $`625`$K. The divergence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ above room temperature is quite in line with what is expected when, due to changes in the Ni3+ orbital distribution, strong fluctuations occur.

In order to explain this extremely rich and unusual magnetic behavior, we use the Kugel’-Khomskii (KK) spin-orbital model. Derived from the two-band Hubbard Hamiltonian in the limit of a large Coulomb repulsion, this model has proven its efficiency to describe the interplay between magnetic and orbital ordering . Here we rewrite the KK Hamiltonian in the following form :

$$H=\underset{}{}\left\{J^o\tau _i\tau _j𝐬_i𝐬_j\left[J_{so}\delta (\tau _i\tau _j1)+J_{do}\delta (\tau _i\tau _j+1)\right]\right\}$$
(1)
where the sum runs over nearest neighbor (NN) atoms and $`\delta (\tau _i\tau _j\pm 1)`$ is equal to $`1`$ if $`\tau _i\tau _j\pm 1=0`$ and to $`0`$ otherwise. As usual, $`𝐬_i`$ is the spin on atomic site $`i`$ while the pseudo-spin, $`\tau _i`$, is introduced to describe the orbital occupancy. The values $`\tau _i=+1`$ and $`\tau _i=1`$ respectively correspond to the two degenerate $`\mathrm{e}_\mathrm{g}`$ orbitals of the Ni3+ ion, $`|x^2y^2`$ and $`|3z^2r^2`$. In the first term, $`J^o`$ is the orbital coupling constant. $`J_{so}`$ and $`J_{do}`$ are the magnetic exchange constants between NN, respectively with the same and with a different orbital occupancy. The spin-orbital model is here taken in its simplest form. First, we consider $`𝐬_i`$ as classical Ising spins. As a consequence, possible quantum effects at low temperatures cannot be described. Second, we do not distinguish between different relative orientations of the same orbital in the same site, as it could be done using a Potts model. Finally, we assume that the orbital coupling between two ions with the same orbital $`\tau _i=\tau _j=1`$ is the same as the one between two ions with $`\tau _i=\tau _j=1`$. These are rather crude approximations but we shall see that this minimal model is apparently able to capture the essential physics of the system, at least for temperatures greater than $`5`$ K.

Recently, van den Bossche, Zhang and Mila  have suggested that the $`SU(4)`$ symmetry ($`J_{so}=J_{do}=J^o`$) could be at the origin of the magnetic properties of LiNiO2. Our high-temperature experimental data presented above suggest that $`|J^o|>>|J_{so}|,|J_{do}|`$. Therefore, we are here testing the relevance of the alternative $`SU(2)SU(2)`$ symmetry in which the magnetic and orbital interactions have different orders of magnitude.

Concerning the sign of the orbital coupling, a ferro-orbital constant ($`J^o>0`$) would lead to a structural ferrodistortive phase transition. This possibility is completely ruled out by the available X-ray data so that we have to consider an antiferro-orbital coupling constant ($`J^o<0`$). Since the Ni3+ ions form a triangular arrangement, we then expect orbital frustration to occur below a temperature $`T_{of}`$ ($`T_{of}`$ $`=(3/2)\left|J^o\right|/k_B`$, using the mean-field approximation) in a manner similar to the well-known AF-spin-frustration phenomenon. From the experimental results shown in Fig. 3, $`T_{of}`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}400}`$K, which gives $`\left|J^o\right|/k_B270`$K. The orbitally-frustrated state may be described as a Wannier state (WS) . A particular property of a WS is that three NN cannot have the same orbital occupancy. This is illustrated in Fig. 4 (a and b) where we represent typical orbital distributions above and below $`T_{of}`$. It is evident that at high temperatures the probability to find a link between NN with a different orbital occupancy is $`1/2`$ and that this probability is $`2/3`$ in the WS. The mean-field values of $`\theta `$ are then given by:

$`\theta _{ht}=(3J_{do}+3J_{so})/k_B\text{ and }\theta _{ws}=(4J_{do}+2J_{so})/k_B`$

where $`\theta _{ht}`$ and $`\theta _{ws}`$ denote the values in the high-temperature state and in the WS, respectively. The assumption of AF-orbital coupling, together with the experimentally inferred $`\theta _{ht}=10\pm 5`$ K and $`\theta _{ws}=35\pm 5`$ K, allows us to determine the two magnetic coupling constants, $`J_{do}`$ and $`J_{so}`$. We find a FM exchange between NN with different orbitals ($`J_{do}/k_B=18\pm 6`$K) and an AF one between NN with similar orbitals ($`J_{so}/k_B=20\pm 6`$K). It is interesting to note that this simple treatment of Hamiltonian (1) is sufficient for the qualitative understanding of the magnetic behavior of LiNiO2 in a large temperature interval ($`T>T_m`$). It can also be shown that these values of $`J_{do}`$ and $`J_{so}`$ constitute the only combination of magnetic coupling constants that ensures the absence of a trivial long-range order, as indicated by the saturation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }H(T)`$ at low temperatures (Fig. 1).

To test the ability of the model to describe the low-temperature magnetic properties, we have performed Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations. The simulated system contains $`N_i`$ = $`36\times `$ $`36`$ coplanar ions and the classical Metropolis algorithm  is used. At each step both a spin and a pseudo-spin are chosen randomly and attempts to flip them are performed independently. A MC step consists of $`N_i`$ such attempts. After a first run of $`2\times `$ $`10^4`$ MC steps to ensure equilibrium, the magnetization and susceptibility are computed from uncorrelated configurations recorded during a second run of $`5\times `$ $`10^4`$ MC steps. The best fit to the experimental results is obtained for $`J_{do}/k_B=21.0`$K and $`J_{so}/k_B=22.5`$K. Considering the simplicity of the model, the slight difference between these values and those deduced experimentally is not surprising. The good overall agreement found with the experimental data is rather satisfactory (Figs. 1 and 2) and allows us to interpret the magnetic behavior at intermediate and low temperatures. In the range $`T_m<T<T_{of}`$, the magnetic state is a paramagnetic one with $`\theta >0`$. There are two thirds of NN pairs with different orbitals and hence a majority of FM exchanges ($`J_{do}>0`$) so that the system behaves as if approaching a FM transition. Since $`|J_{so}|>|J_{do}|`$, at lower temperatures the links between the NN having identical orbitals are preferably satisfied (see Fig. 4c), inducing AF-like fluctuations because $`J_{so}<0`$. This situation finally leads to a magnetically frustrated state in LiNiO2 at low temperatures.

To conclude, an important outcome of our experimental results is that there are two distinct energy scales characteristic of the magnetism of LiNiO2, which respectively correspond to the antiferro-orbital coupling between Ni3+ ions in the NiO2 layers and to their spin-spin interactions. The adjunction of two facts, orbital degeneracy of the Ni3+ ions, and their triangular arrangement, leads to the build-up of a Wannier orbitally-frustrated state below $`T_{of}400`$K. This uncommon orbital state is at the origin of the observed low-$`T`$ complex magnetic behavior of LiNiO2.

We would like to thank D. I. Khomskii, Y. Ksari, F. Mila and F.-C. Zhang for fruitful discussions and V. A. Pashchenko for assistance in the magnetic measurements.


text:
# Field theory models for variable cosmological constant

## I Introduction

Particle physics models suggest that natural values for the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are set by a high-energy scale, anywhere between 1 TeV and the Planck scale $`M_P`$ (for reviews see ). The corresponding vacuum energy density $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is then between $`(1TeV)^4`$ and $`M_P^4`$. On the other hand, recent observations indicate  that the actual value is $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }(10^3eV)^4`$, at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller. It is hard to explain why $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ should be so small. Even more puzzling is the fact that $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ appears to be comparable to the present matter density $`\rho _{m0}`$. The two densities scale very differently with the expansion of the universe, and it is very surprising that they nearly coincide at the present time.

To our knowlege, the only approach that can explain both of these puzzles is the one that attributes them to anthropic selection effects . In this approach, what we perceive as the cosmological constant is in fact a variable that can take different values in different parts of the universe and it is assumed that the fundamental theory allows such a variation of the effective $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. However, the particle physics models of variable $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ suggested so far appear to have some unnatural features.

In one class of models, the role of $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is played by a slowly varying potential $`V(\varphi )`$ of some scalar field $`\varphi `$ which is very weakly coupled to ordinary matter. The simplest example is

$$V(\varphi )=\rho _{bare}+\frac{1}{2}\mu ^2\varphi ^2,$$
(1)
where $`\rho _{bare}`$ is the “true” cosmological constant and it is assumed that $`\rho _{bare}`$ and $`\mu ^2`$ have opposite signs. The two terms on the right-hand side of (1) nearly cancel one another in habitable parts of the universe. In order for the evolution of $`\varphi `$ to be slow on the cosmological timescale, the mass parameter $`\mu `$ has to satisfy the condition

$$|\mu |10^{120}M_P^3|\rho _{bare}|^{1/2}.$$
(2)
The challenge here is to explain this exceedingly small mass scale in a natural way. The possibilities suggested so far include a pseudo-Goldstone field $`\varphi `$ which acquires a potential through instanton effects , a large running of the field renormalization , and a non-minimal kinetic term with an exponential $`\varphi `$-dependence .

In the above mentioned class of models, the vacuum energy density $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ takes values in a continuous range. An alternative possibility is that the spectrum of $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is discrete, as in the “washboard” potential model suggested in the early paper by Abbott . A simple example of such a potential is

$$V(\varphi )=A\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \varphi /\eta )+ϵ\varphi /\eta .$$
(3)
For $`ϵ2\pi A`$, the potential has local minima at $`\varphi _nn\eta `$ with $`n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$, separated from one another by barriers. The vacuum at $`\varphi =\varphi _n`$ has energy density

$$\rho _{\mathrm{\Lambda }n}nϵ.$$
(4)
Transitions between different vacua can occur through bubble nucleation.

Another version of the discrete model, first discussed by Brown and Teitelboim , assumes that the cosmological constant is due to a four-form field ,

$$F^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }=\frac{F}{\sqrt{g}}ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta },$$
(5)
which can change its value through nucleation of branes. The total vacuum energy density is given by

$$\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }=\rho _{bare}+F^2/2$$
(6)
and it is assumed that $`\rho _{bare}<0`$. The change of the field across the brane is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }F=q,$$
(7)
where the “charge” $`q`$ is a constant fixed by the model. The four-form model has recently attracted much attention  because four-form fields coupled to branes naturally arise in the context of string theory.

In the range where the bare cosmological constant is almost neutralized, $`|F||2\rho _{bare}|^{1/2}`$, the spectrum of $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is nearly equidistant, with a separation

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }|2\rho _{bare}|^{1/2}q.$$
(8)
In order for the anthropic explanation to work, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ should not exceed the present matter density,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }\rho _{m0}(10^3eV)^4.$$
(9)
With $`\rho _{bare}(1TeV)^4`$, it follows that

$$q10^{90}M_P^2.$$
(10)
Once again, the challenge is to find a natural explanation for such very small values of $`q`$.

Feng, March-Russell, Sethi and Wilczek (FMSW)  have argued that the required small values of the charge $`q`$ can naturally arise due to non-perturbative effects in M-theory. Their assumption is that some of the fundamental string theory branes can have an extraordinarily small tension $`\sigma 10^{90}M_P^3`$. The idea was to use D2-branes obtained by wrapping of $`k`$ world-volume coordinates of a higher-dimensional Dp-branes ($`p=2+k`$) on a collapsing $`k`$-cycle. The volume of the cycle $`V_k`$ then determines the effective tension of the resulting 2D-brane in lower dimension $`\sigma V_k`$. It was assumed that non-perturbative quantum corrections may stabilize the volume at an exponentially small size, resulting in an exponentially small 2-brane tension. Then, assuming a typical tension-to-charge relation,

$$q\frac{\sigma }{M_P},$$
(11)
one arrives at the required value (10) of the brane charge.

The problem with this approach is that the small brane tension is not protected against quantum corrections below the supersymmetry breaking scale. Branes of the kind discussed by Feng et. al. originate as solitons of the fundamental theory, valid above the field theory cutoff $`M`$.***In our discussion everywhere $`M`$ should be understood as the ultraviolet cut-off of the field theory, for which we take the string scale. We shall assume that the string coupling is of order one and none of the string compactification radii are large. Thus the theory below $`M`$ is an effective four-dimensional theory and roughly $`M_PM`$. As a result, in the low energy effective field theory valid below the scale “M” these branes behave as fundamental objects, in the sense that the low energy observer cannot “resolve” their structure. Thus, the world-volume theory of these branes is a $`2+1`$-dimensional field theory with a cut-off $`M`$. In the absence of supersymmetry such branes would be expected to have a tension $`\sigma M^3`$ and the assumption of $`\sigma M^3`$ would be extremely unnatural. The existence of a spontaneously broken low-energy supersymmetry may ameliorate the situation a bit, but unfortunately not up to a sufficient level, as we shall argue below.

The problem is that, in the absence of an exact supersymmetry, the brane world-volume states will induce an unacceptably high brane tension through quantum loops. To demonstrate this, let us assume the most optimistic scenario, when the brane sector is only gravitationally coupled to the sector that spontaneously breaks supersymmetry. The lowest possible scale of supersymmetry breaking compatible with observations is somewhere around TeV energies. Thus, the mass splitting among the brane superfields induced by gravity will be at least

$$m_S^2TeV^4/M_P^2$$
(12)
(this is the usual magnitude for the gravity-mediated supersymmetry breaking). Each brane superfield will induce a linearly-divergent contribution to the brane tension. For instance, at one-loop the contribution coming from a massless supermultiplet is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma m_S^2\frac{d^3p}{p^2m_S^2}m_S^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cutoff}$$
(13)
which we (at best) can cut off at the scale $`MM_P`$. Thus, the resulting contribution to the brane tension from each pair of modes is expected to be

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma =TeV^4/M_P.$$
(14)
Thus, a single world-volume supermultiplet already gives an unacceptably large renormalization of the brane tension.

In addition, we have to sum over all the world-volume modes with masses below $`M`$. In the absence of an explicit model, it is hard to argue what the precise density of the modes is, and we will not speculate further on this issue. However, one may expect that an additional enhancement factor, can be as large as $`M/\sigma ^{1/3}`$ (since we expect the spacing of the modes in the world-volume theory to be set by the brane tension, the only scale in the low energy world-sheet Lagrangian). This would give the resulting tension to be something like $`\sigma TeV^3`$. Although we cannot exclude a miraculous cancellation among the different modes, such a cancellation is not indicated by any symmetry and would be hard to understand in an effective field theory picture. It is unlikely that string theory corrections can cure the problem since they set in only above the scale $`M`$, and such a conspiracy among high and low energy physics would constitute a violation of the decoupling principle.

From the above arguments, we expect that branes with very low tension and charge should be looked for among the effective field theory solitons. The tension of such solitonic branes is much better protected from quantum destabilization. As a simple straightforward example let us construct a solitonic brane with tension $`\sigma TeV^6/M^3`$. Let $`\varphi `$ be a chiral superfield with a superpotential

$$W=\frac{\varphi ^3}{3}$$
(15)
As above, let us assume that supersymmetry is spontaneously broken at the TeV scale in a sector that couples to $`\varphi `$ only gravitationally.

To be more explicit, let $`S`$ be a superfield which spontaneously breaks supersymmetry through the expectation value of its auxiliary ($`F_S`$)-component. By assumption $`F_STeV^2`$, which is the lowest possible phenomenologically acceptable scale. Then according to the standard picture, SUSY breaking in the $`\varphi `$-sector will be transmitted through gravity via couplings of the form

$$d^4\theta \frac{S^{}S}{M_P^2}\varphi ^{}\varphi +d^2\theta \frac{S}{M_P}\varphi ^3+..$$
(16)
where $`\theta `$ is a superspace variable. The resulting soft mass of the $`\varphi `$ scalar is $`m_S^2\frac{|F_S|^2}{M_P^2}TeV^4/M_P^2`$ and the sign depends on the details of the theory. We shall assume that the sign is negative. Then the effective potential for $`\varphi `$ can be written as

$$V(\varphi )=m_S^2\varphi ^{}\varphi (cm_S\varphi ^3+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)+|\varphi |^4,$$
(17)
where $`c`$ is a number of order one. Obviously, this system exhibits a spontaneous breaking of the discrete $`Z_3`$ symmetry ($`\varphi \mathrm{e}^{i\frac{2n\pi }{3}}\varphi `$) and admits topologically stable solitonic brane solutions (domain walls) with tension $`\sigma m_s^3TeV^6/M^3`$. These branes do not suffer from the quantum correction problems discussed above, due to the fact that all the integrals in the brane world volume theory are cut off at the compositness scale, which coincides with the brane tension scale $`m_s`$. Above this scale, one has to do computation in the full theory in which there is no renormalization of the mass parameters beyond the scale $`m_S`$, due to low-scale supersymmetry.

Although the above simple example demonstrates that the field theory branes with low tension are easily possible, it does not achieve our primary goal of generating very low charge branes, since the above branes are not coupled to any four-form field.It was shown in  that domain walls of large-$`N`$ supersymmetric $`SU(N)`$-gluodynamics are automatically charged with respect to a (composite) three-form field. These are $`Z_N`$-walls formed by the gluino condensate, and both the tension and the charge of these objects are set by the $`SU(N)`$-QCD scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. However, there are two points that probably make these walls useless in the present context. First, the four-form field strength is the same on both sides of the wall, due to the fact that its change gets compensated by the change of the phase of gluino condensate. Second, these walls usually cannot exist if the supersymmetry breaking scale is $`>\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Therefore, according to our previous arguments, their charge can at best be $`TeV^4/M_P^2`$, which is too high for our purposes. This will be our task in the following discussion.

Thus, in this paper we report on our search for field-theoretic models in which the smallness of $`q`$ (or of $`\mu `$ in Eq. (1)) can be attributed to some symmetry. We found a class of models in which the value of $`q`$ (or $`\mu `$) can be made arbitrarily small. The charge-to-tension ratio $`q/\sigma `$ can also be made as small as desired. As a byproduct of this research, we found a somewhat unexpected equivalence relation between scalar field and four-form models.

After outlining the general idea in Section II, we shall first discuss, in Section III, a simplified $`(1+1)`$-dimensional version of our model. The equivalence between four-form and scalar field models is demonstrated in Section IV. Models in $`(3+1)`$ dimensions are discussed in Section V. In Section VI we illustrate how our models can be naturally embedded into a left-right symmetric extension of the standard model. Our conclusions are briefly summarized and discussed in Section VII.

## II general philosophy

.

Our idea is the following. 1) Branes with an extremely low four-form charge can appear in the form of solitons (domain walls) of an effective low energy theory. 2) The small value of the charge-to-tension ratio is natural in the sense that it can be arbitrarily suppressed by the symmetries of the model.

Before proceeding to specific examples, let us briefly discuss the main ingredients of our scheme: 1) a real scalar field, $`a`$, which can be thought of as the phase of a certain complex scalar field $`X`$ with a nonzero vacuum expectation value $`X`$; 2) a four form field $`F_{\mu \nu \sigma \tau }`$ which can be obtained from a three-form potential, $`F_{\mu \nu \sigma \tau }=_{[\mu }A_{\nu \sigma \tau ]}`$; 3) a scalar field $`\varphi `$, which spontaneously breaks a $`Z_{2N}`$ discrete symmetry at the scale $`\varphi `$. The crucial assumption is that both scales $`\varphi `$ are $`X=\eta `$ are well below the cutoff scale $`M`$. Having in mind a low energy SUSY, their natural value can be as low as TeV, which we shall adopt for definiteness In practice, even much higher scales can do the job, provided $`N`$ is chosen to be large enough..

We require that the action be invariant under the following three symmetries: 1) $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry under which

$$\varphi \varphi e^{i\pi /N},aa,$$
(18)
2) symmetry under the shift

$$aa+2\pi \eta ,$$
(19)
and 3) the three-form gauge transformation

$$A_{\mu \nu \alpha }A_{\mu \nu \alpha }+_{[\mu }B_{\nu \alpha ]}$$
(20)
where $`B_{\nu \alpha }`$ is a two-form. In addition, we shall assume that there is an (at least) approximate global $`U(1)`$ symmetry $`Xe^{i\theta }X`$, so that it is meaningful to talk of $`a`$ as the phase degree of freedom. Thus, $`a`$ can be regarded as a sort of a (pseudo)Goldstone particle. Note that even if $`U(1)`$ is explicitly broken by some non-perturbative Planck-scale-suppressed corrections, the mass of $`a`$ will be suppressed by the powers of $`\eta /MTeV/M`$, and is much smaller than the masses of other scalars in the theory, which we assume are around the TeV scale. Thus, below TeV energies we can integrate out the heavy quanta, such as $`\varphi `$ and the radial part of $`X`$, and derive an effective low energy action for the remaining light fields, $`A_{\mu \nu \alpha }`$ and $`a`$. We shall assume that the low energy action includes all possible interactions that are compatible with the unbroken symmetries. Obviously, operators that are forbidden by spontaneously broken symmetries must appear suppressed (at least) by powers of the corresponding Higgs VEVs. Among such operators there is a mixing of $`a`$ with the three-form potential,

$$ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }A_{\mu \nu \alpha }_\beta a.$$
(21)
Since at high energies this operator is forbidden by the $`Z_{2N}`$-symmetry (as well as by an approximate global $`U(1)`$-symmetry), in the low energy theory it should appear suppressed by the following factor

$$\frac{\varphi ^N}{M^N}ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }A_{\mu \nu \alpha }_\beta a+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.$$
(22)
Power $`N`$ is dictated from the fact that $`\varphi ^N`$ is the lowest possible power of $`\varphi `$ that makes up $`Z_{2N}`$-invariant in combination with $`a`$. Thus, the mixing can be arbitrarily suppressed by powers of $`TeV/M`$ due to the symmetry reasons. This is enough to realize our program: the extremely small mixing coefficient automatically translates into an extremely small four-form charge of $`a`$-field domain walls. Like axionic domain walls, these walls must be present due to the $`2\pi `$ periodicity of the $`a`$-potential. Since $`a`$ changes by $`2\pi `$ across the wall, each wall acts as a source for the four-form field. The resulting four-form charge is suppressed by the $`aA`$ mixing (22) and is miniscule. We shall discuss this in more detail below.

Before proceeding, let us make a brief note. Below the energies comparable to the masses of either $`\varphi `$ or the radial $`X`$ quanta, $`\varphi `$ and $`|X|`$ can be regarded as constants and the coupling (22) is a local gauge-invariant operator. For higher energies, however, one has to include additional momentum-dependent interactions. These become relevant for processes with external $`\varphi `$ and $`X`$ legs and must be included because of gauge invariance. Any interaction that will be responsible for inducing the above mixing term in the low energy theory will also generate momentum-dependent operators required by this gauge invariance (see the next section). These additional interactions, however, will play no role in our analysis, since they only contribute to processes with $`\varphi `$ and $`X`$-quanta emission that are forbidden at energies of our interest.

## III A toy model in $`(1+1)`$ dimensions

The field content of our $`(1+1)`$-dimensional toy model is: the “electromagnetic” vector potential $`A_\mu `$, a real scalar field $`a`$, an electrically charged (Dirac) fermion $`\psi `$, and a complex scalar field $`\varphi `$. The Lagrangian is

$`L`$ $`=`$ $`i\overline{\psi }\gamma _\mu D^\mu \psi +\overline{\psi }\gamma _\mu \psi {\displaystyle \frac{\varphi ^N}{M^N}}ϵ^{\mu \nu }_\nu a+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(_\mu a)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(_\mu \varphi )^2`$ (23)
$``$ $`V(a,\varphi ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+higherderivativeterms,`$ (24)
where $`D^\mu `$ is the usual covariant derivative with respect to the electromagnetic $`U(1)`$ group, $`V(a,\varphi )`$ is some potential function, and $`1/M`$ is a constant of order one. Note that in $`(1+1)`$ dimensions $`M`$ must be dimensionless, since the canonical dimensionalities of $`A_\mu `$, $`\varphi `$ and $`a`$ are zero. For simplicity, here and below we use flat spacetime metric. Our sign conventions are $`g_{00}=ϵ^{01}=1`$.

We must stress that the interaction with fermions is introduced exclusively for the illustrative purpose. It allows us to trace explicitly how the gauge-invariant mixing operator arises in perturbation theory. In reality we will not necessarily rely on fermions, but assume that the mixing is induced by some perturbative or non-perturbative physics at the cut-off scale.

As before, we require that the action be invariant under the following three symmetries: 1) $`U(1)`$-gauge invariance, 2) $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry (18), and 3) the shift symmetry (19). Under these symmetries the function $`V(a,\varphi )`$ is determined to depend on $`a`$ and $`\varphi `$ only through the invariants $`\mathrm{cos}(a)`$, $`\varphi ^{2N}`$ and $`\varphi ^N\mathrm{sin}(a)`$. The precise form of this function will be of no importance for us, as long as the vacuum expectation value $`\varphi `$ of $`\varphi `$ is nonzero and $`\varphi <<M`$. This expectation value spontaneously breaks $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry down to nothing, and some operators forbidden by this symmetry will be generated with strength suppressed by powers of the ratio $`ϵ=\frac{\varphi }{M}`$.

Among such operators we shall be interested in $`A_\mu `$-$`a`$ mixing, which appears as a result of one-loop fermionic exchange. The corresponding operator has the form§§§We thank A. Grassi for a clarifying discussion on this issue.

$$g\frac{\varphi ^N}{M^N}ϵ^{\mu \nu }_\mu a(g_{\nu \rho }\frac{_\nu _\rho }{^2})A^\rho ,$$
(25)
where $`g`$ is a loop factor that includes a dimensionful gauge coupling. Shifting the $`\varphi `$ field, we shall expand the theory around the vacuum state: $`\varphi \varphi +\varphi (x_\mu )`$. Performing integration by parts in the first term of the expansion, Eq. (25) can be written as

$$gϵ^Nϵ^{\nu \mu }A_\mu _\nu a+g\left(\frac{Nϵ^{N1}\varphi (x_\mu )}{M^N}+\mathrm{}\right)ϵ^{\mu \nu }_\mu a(g_{\nu \rho }\frac{_\nu _\rho }{^2})A^\rho ,$$
(26)
where ellipses stand for the terms that contain higher powers of $`\varphi (x_\mu )`$. These terms describe $`A_\mu `$-to-$`a`$ transition via emission of $`\varphi `$-particles, and therefore are not relevant at the energies below the mass of the $`\varphi `$-quanta. Thus, at low energies the only relevant operator is the first term in (26). An important fact is that this term is parametrically suppressed by powers of small quantity $`ϵ`$. After integrating out the heavy fields and the fermions, the relevant part of the low energy Lagrangian can be written as

$$L=\frac{1}{2}(_\mu a)^2\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }V(a)+gϵ^Nϵ^{\nu \mu }A_\mu _\nu a+higherderivativeterms$$
(27)
The potential $`V(a)`$ in (27) is the effective potential for $`a`$. As indicated above, the shift symmetry requires it to be an arbitrary periodic function of $`a`$. In the absence of $`aA`$ mixing, the theory would have an infinite set of degenerate vacua at the minima of this potential, and standard topological arguments would imply that there must be domain wall configurations with $`a`$ changing by $`\mathrm{\Delta }a=2\pi `$ across the wall.

Let us now see how this situation is affected by the $`aA`$ mixing term in (27). The gauge field strength can be expressed as

$$F^{\mu \nu }=ϵ^{\mu \nu }F.$$
(28)
The equation of motion for $`A`$ field

$$_\nu F^{\mu \nu }=gϵ^Nϵ^{\mu \nu }_\nu a$$
(29)
then implies that the change of $`a`$ across the wall is accompanied by a change of the field strength,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }F=gϵ^N\mathrm{\Delta }a.$$
(30)
The vacua on the two sides of the wall will not generally be degenerate, due to this difference in the field strength. Higher-energy vacua will decay into lower-energy ones through nucleation of bubbles with the domain walls at their boundaries.

We thus see that the walls have acquired a charge

$$q=2\pi gϵ^N,$$
(31)
which is suppressed by a power of the small parameter $`ϵ`$. A remarkable property of the above model is that, with a suitable choice of $`N`$, this charge can be made arbitrarily small.

## IV Equivalent scalar field model

The scalar field equation, obtained by varying Eq. (27) with respect to $`a`$, is

$$^2a+V^{}(a)gϵ^NF=0.$$
(32)
Now, the field equation (29) for $`F`$ can be integreated to yield

$$F=gϵ^N(aa_0),$$
(33)
where $`a_0`$ is an integration constant. Substituting this into (32), we see that the resulting equation for $`a`$ is that for a scalar field with a potential

$$U(a)=V(a)+\frac{1}{2}\mu ^2(aa_0)^2,$$
(34)
where

$$\mu =gϵ^N.$$
(35)
Let us recall that $`V(a)`$ is periodic in $`a`$, $`V(a+2\pi )=V(a)`$. Hence, the potential $`U(a)`$ is a “washboard” potential of the kind considered by Abbott .

The energy-momentum tensor for our model is

$`T_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`_\mu a_\nu a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\mu \nu }_\sigma a^\sigma a+g_{\mu \nu }V(a)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\mu \nu }F^2`$ (36)
$`=`$ $`_\mu a_\nu a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\mu \nu }_\sigma a^\sigma a+g_{\mu \nu }U(a),`$ (37)
where we have used Eq. (33). The last expression in (37) coincides with the energy-momentum tensor for a scalar field with a potential $`U(a)`$. We thus see that, as long as non-gravitational interactions of $`a`$ and $`A_\mu `$ are negligible (apart from their interaction with one another), the model (27) is equivalent to that of a scalar field with a potential $`U(a)`$ given by Eq. (34). Tunneling between vacua with different values of $`F`$ is replaced in this scalar model by tunneling between different minima of the washboard potential.

## V Models in $`(3+1)`$ dimensions

We can easily generalize our model to $`3+1`$ dimensions. The main difference is that instead of the vector potential we shall consider a three-form field $`A_{\mu \nu \alpha }`$ and require the gauge invariance under $`A_{\mu \nu \alpha }A_{\mu \nu \alpha }+_{[\mu }B_{\nu \alpha ]}`$. The Lagrangian of interest then becomes

$$L=\frac{1}{2}\eta ^2(_\mu a)^2\frac{1}{4}F^2V(a)+g\eta ^2\frac{\varphi ^N}{M^N}\stackrel{~}{A}^\mu _\mu a,$$
(38)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{A}^\mu =ϵ^{\mu \nu \sigma \tau }A_{\nu \sigma \tau },$$
(39)
$`a`$ is dimensionless and $`\eta `$ has dimension of energy (it has the meaning of the shift symmetry breaking scale). The last term in (38) should be understood as an effective low-energy interaction arising from some fundamental theory, with $`M`$ being understood as the Planck scale. It is the lowest-dimension operator consistent with gauge, shift and $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetries.

The shift symmetry (19) suggests that $`a`$ might be an axion-like field arising as a phase of some complex scalar, $`X=Re^{ia}`$. Then $`|X|=\eta `$ and the $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry is

$$\varphi \varphi e^{i\pi /N},XX^{}.$$
(40)
In terms of the fields $`X`$ and $`\varphi `$, the last term in (38) can be written as

$$ig(\varphi /M)^N\stackrel{~}{A}^\mu (X_\mu X^{}X^{}_\mu X).$$
(41)
We shall assume that the $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry is spontaneously broken at a scale much below $`M`$. Having in mind a low energy supersymmetry, this breaking scale may be as small as TeV, without fine tuning. This would imply that the parameter $`ϵ=\varphi /M10^{15}`$.

As before, at low energies we can keep only a constant part in $`\varphi `$, in which case the last term in (38) reduces to

$$g\eta ^2ϵ^N\stackrel{~}{A}^\mu _\mu a.$$
(42)
The field equation for the four-form field (5) is

$$_\mu F=g\eta ^2ϵ^N_\mu a,$$
(43)
and we obtain

$$\mathrm{\Delta }F=g\eta ^2ϵ^N\mathrm{\Delta }a.$$
(44)
With a periodic potential $`V(a)`$, the model has domain wall solutions with $`a`$ changing by $`2\pi `$ across the wall, and Eq. (44) indicates that these domain walls acquire a charge

$$q=2\pi g\eta ^2ϵ^N.$$
(45)
For $`ϵ10^{15}`$ and $`\eta M`$, the condition (10) is satisfied with $`N6`$.

With $`ϵ`$ so small, the effect of the field $`F`$ on the structure of domain walls is negligible. The wall tension $`\sigma `$ is determined solely by the potential $`V(a)`$ and is not suppressed by powers of $`ϵ`$. This is in contrast to M-theory based models, where $`q`$ and $`\sigma `$ are related by (11).

Following the same steps as in Section III, it can be shown that our model is equivalent to a scalar field model with a potential $`U(a)`$ given by (34),

$$U(a)=V(a)+\frac{1}{2}\mu ^2(aa_0)^2,$$
(46)
where now

$$\mu =gϵ^N\eta .$$
(47)
With $`\mu `$ suppressed by powers of $`ϵ`$, this washboard potential is of the type required in the Abbott’s model .

An interesting version of the model is obtained by replacing the discrete shift symmetry by a symmetry with respect to arbitrary translations,

$$aa+\mathrm{const}.$$
(48)
Then $`a`$ is a Goldstone boson and $`V(a)=0`$. The equivalent scalar model has the potential

$$U(a)=\frac{1}{2}\mu ^2(aa_0)^2.$$
(49)
This is of the same form as in the simple model (1) in which the effective vacuum energy density takes values in a continuous range. With $`|\rho _{bare}|(1TeV)^4`$, the condition (2) on $`\mu `$ is satisfied for $`N6`$.

## VI Embedding into Particle Physics Models

.

In this section we would like to show that our model can be naturally embedded in well-motivated particle physics models. As an example we shall consider an embedding into a left-right symmetric extension of the standard model. We will see that the breaking of $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry can be associated with the spontaneous breaking of a left-right symmetry. We shall start by briefly reviewing a minimal left-right symmetric extension of the standard model The gauge group is $`SU(3)SU(2)_LSU(2)_RU(1)P`$ where $`P`$-parity interchanges left and right $`SU(2)`$-subgroups. This will be identified with our parity symmetry. Left handed and right handed fermions form doublets of $`SU(2)_L`$ and $`SU(2)_R`$ groups respectively. Fermion masses are generated via coupling to a by-doublet Higgs field (doublet under both $`SU(2)`$-s) which we shall denote by $`H`$. From the point of view of the standard model subgroup, this by-doublet field includes two electroweak Higgs doublets $`H_U`$ and $`H_D`$, which give masses to “up” and “down” quarks (and leptons) respectively. For instance, the Yukawa couplings that give masses to quarks $`Q_{L,R}=(U_{L,R},D_{L,R})`$

$$H\overline{Q_L}Q_R=H_U\overline{Q_L}U_R+H_D\overline{Q_L}D_R,$$
(50)
where we have written the $`SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y`$-decomposition. This coupling has an accidental Peccei-Quinn type global symmetry. The pseudo-Goldstone boson of this would-be symmetry is the phase difference of the electrically-neutral components of $`H_U`$ and $`H_D`$ doublets. This pseudoscalar state changes the sign under $`P`$-parity transformation. However, since this global symmetry is not exact, the would-be Goldstone boson is massive. Below our $`a`$ field will be identified with this boson.

The left-right symmetry can be broken by introducing two doublet Higgs fields, $`H_L`$ and $`H_R`$, that are doublets under left and right $`SU(2)`$s respectively. One of them must develop an expectation value around the TeV scale (or above) thereby breaking the corresponding $`SU(2)`$ and left-right symmetry. The remaining $`SU(2)`$ subgroup then has to be identified with the electroweak $`SU(2)_L`$ group of the standard model.

A symmetry breaking in which only one of the doublets gets an expectation value can be achieved by an appropriate choice of the parameters in the Higgs potential. An important point, however, is that the presence of quartic terms in the potential is essential for the symmetry breaking. In a supersymmetric theory, such terms cannot be written at the renormilizable level, and as a result one has to introduce additional singlets, that are parity odd.Note that without such singlet fields, one would have to include non-renormalizable quartic couplings suppressed by $`M_P`$ in the superpotential. These, however, will create asymmetric minima at a very high scale, which is incompatible with the phenomenologically most interesting low energy LR-symmetric extension.

The role of one such signlet in our case will be played by the $`\varphi `$ field. The relevant couplings in the potential have the form

$$\frac{\varphi ^N}{M^{N2}}(H_L^{}H_LH_R^{}H_R)m^2(H_L^{}H_L+H_R^{}H_R)+\lambda (H_L^{}H_L+H_R^{}H_R)^2+\lambda ^{}(H_L^{}H_LH_R^{}H_R)$$
(51)
where $`M,m`$ are the mass scales around TeV and $`\lambda ,\lambda ^{}`$ are positive constants. There are many other possible terms that are not essential for our discussion. The only requirement to the rest of the potential is that it forces $`\varphi `$ to get a nonzero expectation value. Then, since the coupling with $`\varphi `$ creates a left-right asymmetry, only one of the doublets is expected to get a VEV.

The coupling between $`\varphi `$ and the doublets in (51) is non-renormalizable. However, it can be easily obtained by integrating out additional singlet fields of mass $`M`$ and zero VEV. For instance, for $`N=6`$ it is enough to introduce a single scalar field $`\chi `$ that under $`Z_{12}`$ symmetry transforms as $`\chi \mathrm{e}^{i\pi /2}\chi `$

$$\varphi ^3\chi +\varphi ^3\chi ^{}+M^2\chi ^{}\chi +\chi ^2(H_L^{}H_LH_R^{}H_R)$$
(52)
Integrating out $`\chi `$ we arrive at the effective non-renormalizable coupling given in Eq. (51). Below the TeV scale, the remaining effective low energy theory is the standard model coupled to our field $`a`$, via the pseudoscalar interaction. All other ingredients of our scheme (e.g. mixing with a three-form, etc.) are assumed to be unchanged. This completes the embedding of our model into a $`LR`$ symmetric extension of the standard model.

## VII Discussion

As explained in the Introduction, anthropic solutions to the cosmological constant problems require scalar field potentials with a very small slope or domain walls (branes) with a very small coupling to a four-form field. Here we introduced some models in which the smallness of the corresponding parameters can be attributed to a $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry, (18) or (40).

We note that, apart from the desired domain walls with small coupling to the four-form field, our models may have a variety of other topological defects. The breaking of the discrete $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry is accompanied by the formation of $`\varphi `$-walls such that the value of $`\varphi `$ changes by a factor of $`e^{i\pi /N}`$ across the wall. $`2N`$ such walls can be joined along a $`\varphi `$-string, with the phase of $`\varphi `$ changing by $`2\pi `$ around the string.

If the field $`a`$ is the phase of a complex scalar, $`X=Re^{ia}`$, then the translation symmetry (48) is a $`U(1)`$ symmetry of phase transformations, $`Xe^{i\alpha }X`$. When $`X`$ gets an expectation value, this symmetry is broken and we expect global string solutions with $`a`$ changing by $`2\pi `$ around a string. An interesting question is what happens to these strings at the $`Z_{2N}`$-breaking phase transition when $`\varphi `$ gets an expectation value (we assume that it does so after $`X`$). With $`\varphi =const`$, the field strength $`F`$ changes around the string by the amount (44) with $`\mathrm{\Delta }a=2\pi `$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }F=2\pi g\eta ^2ϵ^N,$$
(53)
suggesting that there should be a discontinuity along a sheet attached to the string. One way of resolving this obstruction is to assume that each $`X`$-string gets covered by a $`\varphi `$-string with $`2N`$ walls attached to it, so that the cores of the two strings coincide.We thank J. Garriga for pointing this out to us. As we go around such a combined string, the sign of $`\varphi ^N`$ changes every time we cross a $`\varphi `$-wall, and with it the coupling between $`\stackrel{~}{A}^\mu `$ and $`a`$ in (38) also changes sign. As a result, the change $`\mathrm{\Delta }F`$ will have different sign in different sections between the $`\varphi `$-walls, and the overall change around the string will vanish. Another possibility is that the field $`F`$ changes by the amount (53) inside a wall which gets attached to the $`X`$-string. Within such $`F`$-walls, the field $`\varphi `$ should deviate from its vacuum value and the higher-derivative terms omitted in the Lagrangian (38) should become important. Which of the two options is realized may depend on the specific dynamics of the model.

Although the physics of topological defects in our model may be quite interesting, these defects are probably irrelevant for cosmology. The reason is that $`\varphi `$-walls would be disastrous if allowed to survive until present. The $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry breaking should therefore occur before the end of inflation, so that all $`X`$ and $`\varphi `$ strings and walls are inflated away and we are left only with $`a`$-walls at the boundaries of nucleating bubbles.

## VIII Acknowledgments

We are grateful to G.Gabadadze, J.Garriga and A. Grassi for useful discussions. The work of GD was supported in part by David and Lucille Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering, by Alfred P. Sloan foundation fellowship and by the NSF grant PHY-0070787. The work of A.V. was supported in part by the NSF grant PHY-9601896.


text:
# Nuclear shadowing at low photon energies

## I Introduction

At high energies the total cross section for the reaction of a hadronic projectile with a nucleus of mass number $`A`$ is usually smaller than $`A`$ times the nucleonic cross section. This phenomenon, called the shadowing effect, can be understood if the mean free path of the projectile inside the nucleus is smaller than the nuclear dimension. In that case the nucleons on the front side of the nucleus shadow the downstream nucleons which therefore do not contribute to the total nuclear cross section. Since the nucleonic cross section of photons is smaller than typical hadronic ones by a factor $`\alpha _{em}`$ in order of magnitude it is at first sight astonishing that photonuclear reactions are shadowed at high energies. A qualitative explanation for the shadowing of high energy photons is given by their property to fluctuate into a hadronic state with the quantum numbers of the photon. This happens with a probability of order $`\alpha _{em}`$. The distance that such a hadronic fluctuation travels, the so called coherence length, can be estimated from the uncertainty principle:

$$l_h\left|k\sqrt{\nu ^2m_h^2}\right|^1$$
(1)
where $`k`$ denotes the momentum of the photon, $`\nu `$ its energy and $`m_h`$ the mass of the hadronic fluctuation ($`k=\nu `$ for real photons). If the coherence length becomes larger than the mean free path of the hadronic fluctuation inside the nucleus its total nuclear cross section and therefore also that of the photon is shadowed.

Quantitatively, the shadowing of nuclear photoabsorption can be understood within the simple Glauber model  by relating the nuclear photoabsorption cross section via the optical theorem to the nuclear Compton forward scattering amplitude. In order $`\alpha _{em}`$ one gets two contributions to this amplitude (see Fig 1). The first one stems from forward scattering of the photon from a single nucleon inside the nucleus. Taking only this contribution into account leads to an unshadowed nuclear cross section. Its interference with the second amplitude in order $`\alpha _{em}`$ causes the shadowing effect. Assuming that at high energies all scattering events are dominated in the forward direction (eikonal approximation) this second amplitude takes the following form: The incoming photon produces an intermediate hadronic state $`X`$ at one nucleon without exciting the nucleus. Within the eikonal approximation this process is presumed to happen in the forward direction so that the hadronic state must have the quantum numbers of the photon. One therefore usually expects that these states are dominated by vector mesons. The intermediate hadronic state then scatters at fixed impact parameter through the nucleus and finally at some nucleon into the outgoing photon. One assumes that during the whole process the nucleus stays in its ground state and neglects processes with intermediate excitation of the nucleus. This so called multiple scattering approximation corresponds roughly to neglecting two body and higher nuclear correlations and is expected to be reasonable for high energies (see e.g. ).

Within the Glauber approach one can quantitatively understand nuclear shadowing of high energy photons (see e.g.  and references therein), but recent photoabsorption data  on C, Al, Cu, Sn and Pb in the energy range from 1 to 2.6 GeV display an early onset of the shadowing effect which some of the newer models  cannot explain. In  we showed that one can understand the data within the simple Glauber model by taking the negative real part of the $`\rho ^0N`$ scattering amplitude into account. However, some of the assumptions that are made in this simple model, like the validity of the eikonal approximation and the neglect of the finite width of the $`\rho ^0`$ meson become questionable at low energies. In the present work we therefore use a multiple scattering approach  that we consider as more reliable in the shadowing onset region. Within this approach one can account for the vacuum self-energy of the $`\rho ^0`$ and include scattering processes in nonforward direction. We find that the latter allow for a new contribution to nuclear shadowing in photoabsorption at low energies, namely the production of $`\pi ^0`$ as intermediate hadronic states. Since neutral pions cannot be produced in the forward direction without exciting the nucleus they do not contribute in calculations based on the eikonal approximation.

In Sec. II we give a brief description of the multiple scattering formalism as a method for calculating the nuclear Compton forward scattering amplitude from free scattering amplitudes. The calculated ratio $`\sigma _{\gamma A}/A\sigma _{\gamma N}`$ that we obtain within this model is presented in Sec. III. If one only considers vector mesons as intermediate hadronic states and accounts for the finite width of the $`\rho ^0`$ meson the results are already in good agreement with the experimental data. In Sec. IV we show that the shadowing effect is enhanced at photon energies around 1 GeV by taking the contribution of the $`\pi ^0`$ as an intermediate state into account. We summarize our results in Sec. V.

## II Glauber-Gribov multiple scattering formalism

To calculate the photoabsorption cross section of a nucleus with mass number $`A`$ we make use of the optical theorem. Assuming that the projectile scatters from individual nucleons inside the nucleus we can express the nuclear photoabsorption cross section in terms of multiple scattering amplitudes $`𝒜^{(n)}`$:

$$\sigma _{\gamma A}=\frac{1}{2m_Nk}\text{Im}\underset{n=1}{\overset{A}{}}𝒜^{(n)},$$
(2)
where $`k`$ denotes the momentum of the photon and $`n`$ the number of nucleons that participate in each multiple scattering process. Our goal is to calculate the amplitudes $`𝒜^{(n)}`$ from free nucleonic scattering amplitudes $``$:

$$\stackrel{}{p}^{};\stackrel{}{k}^{}|iT|\stackrel{}{k};\stackrel{}{p}=(2\pi )^4\delta ^{(4)}(p+k(p^{}+k^{}))i_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{}{p}^{})$$
(3)
where $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ ($`\stackrel{}{p}^{}`$) and $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ ($`\stackrel{}{k}^{}`$) denote the momenta of the incoming (outgoing) nucleon and projectile respectively. We therefore have to express the bound nucleon states in terms of free nucleon states $`|\stackrel{}{p}`$ of momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$. The bound nucleons are treated nonrelativistically and we assume that they are described by nonrelativistic one-particle wave functions

$$\psi _\alpha (x)=\psi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{x})e^{iE_\alpha t}.$$
(4)
The probability amplitude for finding the momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ in the bound nucleon state $`|\psi _\alpha `$ is given by the Fourier transform $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_\alpha (\stackrel{}{p})`$ of (4) with the normalisation

$$\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_\alpha (\stackrel{}{p})|^2=1.$$
(5)
Therefore we can write for the bound nucleon states

$`|\psi _\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_\alpha (\stackrel{}{p})\frac{1}{\sqrt{2E_\stackrel{}{p}}}|\stackrel{}{p}}`$ (6)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_\alpha (\stackrel{}{p})\frac{1}{\sqrt{2m_N}}|\stackrel{}{p}}.`$ (7)
The factor of $`\sqrt{2E_\stackrel{}{p}}`$ converts the relativistic normalization of $`|\stackrel{}{p}`$

$$\stackrel{}{p}|\stackrel{}{p}^{}=2E_\stackrel{}{p}(2\pi )^3\delta ^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{p}^{})$$
(8)
to the conventional normalization $`\psi _\alpha |\psi _\alpha =1`$.

The amplitude $`𝒜^{(1)}`$ for forward scattering of a photon with momentum $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ and energy $`\nu `$($`=|\stackrel{}{k}|`$ for real photons) from a single bound nucleon (see Fig. 2) then takes the form

$$i𝒜^{(1)}=\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{A}{}}\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_\alpha ^{}(\stackrel{}{p})i_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p})\stackrel{~}{\psi }_\alpha (\stackrel{}{p})$$
(9)
where $`_\gamma `$ is the free invariant photon nucleon scattering amplitude. We use the local approximation and neglect the dependence of the amplitude $`_\gamma `$ on the momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ of the incoming nucleon, i.e. we make the replacement

$$_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p})_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}_0\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}_0).$$
(10)
Since the momentum of the photon $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ is much larger than the Fermi momentum of the bound nucleons, we set $`\stackrel{}{p}_0\stackrel{}{0}`$ and the amplitude $`𝒜^{(1)}`$ takes the simple form

$`i𝒜^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`i_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}_0\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}_0){\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{A}{}}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_\alpha (\stackrel{}{p})|^2`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`Ai_\gamma (\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{0}\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{0})`$ (12)
which leads to the unshadowed cross section $`A\sigma _{\gamma N}`$ when used in Eq. (2).

The double scattering amplitude $`𝒜^{(2)}`$ is shown in Fig. 3 and corresponds to the process where the incoming photon produces a hadronic state $`X`$ which propagates freely without further scattering to a second nucleon and there scatters into the outgoing photon. We assume that the nucleus stays in its ground state, i.e. we neglect nondiagonal contributions with an excited nucleus between the two scattering events (multiple scattering approximation). Hence there is no energy transfer to the two nucleons. If $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ denotes the momentum transfer to the first nucleon the fact that we are dealing with the nuclear forward scattering amplitude fixes the momentum transfer to the second nucleon to $`\stackrel{}{q}`$. Using again the local approximation and introducing the nuclear formfactor

$$F(\stackrel{}{q})=d^3xe^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{x}}|\psi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{x})|^2=\frac{1}{A}d^3xe^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{x}}n(\stackrel{}{x})$$
(13)
where $`n(\stackrel{}{x})`$ denotes the nucleon number density, the double scattering amplitude takes the simple form

$`i𝒜^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`A(A1){\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{2m_N(2\pi )^3}}`$ (15)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{X}{}}i_{\gamma X}(\stackrel{}{q})F(\stackrel{}{q}){\displaystyle \frac{i}{\nu ^2(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q})^2\stackrel{~}{m}_X^2\mathrm{\Pi }_X(\nu ^2(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q})^2)}}i_{X\gamma }(\stackrel{}{q})F(\stackrel{}{q}).`$
Here $`\stackrel{~}{m}_X`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_X`$ denote the bare mass and the vacuum self energy of the intermediate state $`X`$ and we used the following abbreviation for the invariant production amplitudes:

$`i_{\gamma X}(\stackrel{}{q})`$ $`=`$ $`i_{\gamma X}(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}_0\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q},\stackrel{}{p}_0+\stackrel{}{q})`$ (16)
$`i_{X\gamma }(\stackrel{}{q})`$ $`=`$ $`i_{X\gamma }(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q},\stackrel{}{p}_0\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p}_0\stackrel{}{q}).`$ (17)
The nuclear formfactor $`F(q)`$ suppresses large values of $`q=|\stackrel{}{q}|`$ and therefore favors light intermediate states. Though it is in principle possible to produce slow, massive $`\rho ^0`$ mesons, their contributions are suppressed by the nuclear formfactor. The important contributions stem from light $`\rho ^0`$ mesons having the energy of the photon ($`>1`$ GeV) so that the effect of Fermi motion becomes negligible. We therefore set again $`\stackrel{}{p}_0\stackrel{}{0}`$. In Sec. III we will show that double scattering gives the leading contribution to nuclear shadowing.

The form of the $`n`$-fold scattering amplitude $`𝒜^{(n)}`$ can be read off from Fig. 4. Using the same approximations as before one gets

$$i𝒜^{(n)}=\frac{A!}{(An)!}\underset{i=1}{\overset{n1}{}}\left[\frac{d^3q_i}{2m_N(2\pi )^3}\right]F(\stackrel{}{q}_1)\mathrm{}F(\stackrel{}{q}_n)i𝒱^{(n)}(\{\stackrel{}{q}_i\})$$
(18)
with

$`i𝒱^{(n)}(\{\stackrel{}{q}_i\})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{X_i}{}}i_{\gamma X_1}(\stackrel{}{q}_1){\displaystyle \frac{i}{\nu ^2(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q}_1)^2\stackrel{~}{m}_{X_1}^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{X_1}(\nu ^2(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q}_1)^2)}}i_{X_1X_2}(\stackrel{}{q}_2)`$ (21)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{i}{\nu ^2(\stackrel{}{k}(\stackrel{}{q}_1+\stackrel{}{q}_2))^2\stackrel{~}{m}_{X_2}^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{X_2}(\nu ^2(\stackrel{}{k}(\stackrel{}{q}_1+\stackrel{}{q}_2))^2)}}`$
$`\times \mathrm{}i_{X_{n1}\gamma }(\stackrel{}{q}_n)`$
and

$`\stackrel{}{q}_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n1}{}}}\stackrel{}{q}_i`$ (22)
$`_{\alpha \beta }(\stackrel{}{q}_i)`$ $`=`$ $`_{\alpha \beta }(\stackrel{}{k}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{i1}{}}}\stackrel{}{q}_j,\stackrel{}{0}\stackrel{}{k}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{i}{}}}\stackrel{}{q}_j,\stackrel{}{q}_i).`$ (23)
Using the eikonal approximation within this approach corresponds to the neglect of any dependence of $`𝒱^{(n)}`$ on the momentum transfer $`\stackrel{}{q}_{,i}`$ transverse to the initial photon direction, i.e. setting $`\stackrel{}{q}_{,i}=0`$ in Eq. (21) (see e.g. ). At high energies this is certainly a good approximation, so that for high energies and in the large $`A`$ limit this multiple scattering series can be summed up and reduces to the simple Glauber formula used in  if one neglects the widths of the vector mesons. To describe photoabsorption also at lower energies in the following we will relax the eikonal approximation by allowing nonforward scattering events.

## III Beyond the eikonal approximation

The nuclear formfactor $`F(\stackrel{}{q})`$ suppresses large momentum transfer $`\stackrel{}{q}`$. Hence at very high energies the scattering processes tend predominantly into the forward direction, justifying the usage of the eikonal approximation. In the eikonal limit the intermediate hadronic states $`X_i`$ in (21) must have the quantum numbers of the photon since they are produced without nuclear excitation. With decreasing energy nonforward scattering becomes more important. In this section we present a calculation that goes beyond the eikonal approximation but we still restrict the intermediate hadronic states $`X_i`$ to the light vector mesons $`V=\rho ^0,\omega ,\varphi `$ that are the only possible intermediate states in the eikonal limit. Note that the nuclear formfactor suppresses the production of more massive states in the energy regime we are interested in. In Sec. IV we will see that at photon energies around 1 GeV it becomes also important to have a $`\pi ^0`$ as an intermediate state. In the following we will neglect nondiagonal contributions where a state $`X_i`$ scatters into a different state $`X_j`$.

For $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ mesons we use constant self energies such that:

$`\stackrel{~}{m}_{\omega ,\varphi }^2+\text{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }_{\omega ,\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\omega ,\varphi }^2`$ (24)
$`\text{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{\omega ,\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\omega ,\varphi }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\omega ,\varphi },`$ (25)
with the physical masses $`m_\omega `$ and $`m_\varphi `$ and the widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi `$ taken from . For the $`\rho ^0`$ we use a momentum dependent vacuum self energy $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho (p^2)`$ .

The nuclear formfactor $`F(q)`$ is calculated via Eq. (13) assuming a Woods-Saxon distribution

$$n(\stackrel{}{r})=\frac{\rho _0}{1+\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{rR}{a}\right]}$$
(26)
with the parameters listed in Tab. I.

We make the following ansatz for the elastic $`VN`$ scattering amplitudes, motivated by the angular distribution of $`\rho ^0`$ in photoproduction data :

$$_V(s,t,m)=8\pi m_Nf_V(\stackrel{}{0},k_V(s,m))e^{\frac{1}{2}Bt}$$
(27)
where $`k_V`$ denotes the momentum of the vector meson with invariant mass $`m`$ in the rest frame of the nucleon at invariant energy $`\sqrt{s}`$. For $`t=0`$ this expression yields exactly the invariant forward scattering amplitude which is related to the total $`VN`$ cross section via the optical theorem:

$`\sigma _{VN}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_Nk_V}}\text{Im}(s,t=0,m)`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{k_V}}\text{Im}f_V(\stackrel{}{0},k_V(s,m)).`$ (29)
The slope parameter in the considered energy region can be estimated from $`\rho ^0`$ photoproduction data :

$$B6\text{ GeV}^2.$$
(30)
We use the $`\rho ^0N`$ forward scattering amplitude $`f_\rho (\stackrel{}{0},k_V)`$ from . In  we already showed that the negative real part of $`f_\rho `$ enhances the shadowing effect at low energies and leads to a higher effective mass of the $`\rho ^0`$ meson in nuclei. Also in the present calculation the real part of $`f_\rho `$ turns out to be important. We set

$`f_\omega (\stackrel{}{0},k_\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`f_\rho (\stackrel{}{0},k_\omega )`$ (31)
$`f_\varphi (\stackrel{}{0},k_\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{k_\varphi }{4\pi }}\sigma _\varphi ,`$ (32)
assuming the total $`\varphi N`$ cross section $`\sigma _\varphi =12\text{ mb}`$ . We relate the photoproduction amplitude of a vector meson of invariant mass $`m`$ to the elastic $`VN`$ scattering amplitudes via the vector meson dominance model (VDM) and use the formfactor

$$(m^2,m_V^2)=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^4+\left(m^2m_V^2\right)^2}$$
(33)
with a cutoff parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1.2`$ GeV  to describe the off-shell behavior of the photoproduction amplitude for a broad vector meson:

$$_{\gamma V}(s,t,m)=_{V\gamma }(s,t,m)=\frac{e}{g_V}_V(s,t,m)(m^2,m_V^2).$$
(34)
Here the first equality is given by detailed balance. The coupling constants $`g_V`$ are taken from model I of Ref. . Note that expression (34) is not based on experimental data. It is an off-shell extrapolation for the production amplitude which in the on-shell case reproduces the experimental $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\omega `$ photoproduction data . A low value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ suppresses the production of vector mesons that are far off their mass shell. However, the formfactor (33) is only important in the case of a $`\rho ^0`$ as an intermediate state since contributions to nuclear shadowing originating from off-shell $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ are already strongly suppressed by their propagators in (15) because of their much smaller widths.

The photon nucleon cross section $`\sigma _{\gamma N}`$ is approximated for each nucleus with mass number $`A`$ and proton number $`Z`$ by the isospin averaged cross section

$$\sigma _{\gamma N}=\frac{Z\sigma _{\gamma p}+(AZ)\sigma _{\gamma n}}{A},$$
(35)
fitting the data on $`\sigma _{\gamma p}`$ and $`\sigma _{\gamma n}`$ in the considered energy region.

In Fig. 5 we compare the calculated ratio $`\sigma _{\gamma A}/A\sigma _{\gamma N}`$ for several nuclei with experimental data . The dotted line represents the calculation using Eq. (2) and including terms up to double scattering ($`n=2`$). The inclusion of triple scattering ($`n=3`$) leads to the solid curve. The result including $`𝒜^{(4)}`$ lies between the two curves because (2) is an alternating series as can be seen by neglecting the real part of the amplitudes $``$ in (21). Thus at low energies the calculation up to triple scattering is already a good approximation. The dominant contribution to shadowing stems from the double scattering term. At higher energies the terms with $`n>3`$ become important. More than 90% of the shadowing is caused by the $`\rho ^0`$ meson as an intermediate particle because its photoproduction amplitude and its width are larger than those of $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$. At small energies light $`\rho ^0`$ mesons ($`mm_\rho `$), albeit suppressed by the propagator in (15), play the dominant role because the nuclear formfactor favors small invariant masses. This can be verified by choosing a smaller value for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in (33) or a smaller $`\rho ^0`$ width in the propagator of (15) which in both cases suppresses contributions from lighter $`\rho ^0`$. In the limit of vanishing $`\rho ^0`$ width there will be no $`\rho ^0`$ contributions to shadowing below the $`\rho `$ photoproduction threshold $`\nu _{th}1.1`$ GeV and the contribution above threshold will be strongly suppressed by the nuclear formfactor. This can also be understood in terms of the coherence length $`l_h`$. Lighter $`\rho ^0`$ mesons have a larger coherence length as can be seen from Eq. (1). Therefore their interactions are shadowed more than those of on-shell $`\rho `$ mesons. Note that $`l_h`$ is connected directly to the momentum transfer $`|\stackrel{}{q}|`$: $`l_h=|\stackrel{}{q}|^1`$. For heavier nuclei our result is in good agreement with the data. The shadowing at very small photon energies ($`\nu <1.25\text{ GeV}`$) is enhanced by the inclusion of the $`\pi ^0`$ as will be shown in Sec. IV. The result within the eikonal approximation, i.e. setting $`\stackrel{}{q}_{,i}=0`$ in Eq. (21), leads to a $``$10% stronger shadowing in the considered energy region in case of the vector mesons as intermediate states only. Note that additional shadowing stemming from intermediate $`\pi ^0`$ is not possible in the eikonal approximation.

At the end of this section we want to discuss briefly the effect of $`NN`$ correlations. In our simple Glauber calculation  the results were very sensitive to two body correlations which were needed to describe the experimental data. The reason for this was the narrow width approximation that allowed only for $`\rho ^0`$ mesons with mass $`m=m_\rho =770`$ MeV as intermediate states and led to a large momentum transfer in the production process, especially at low photon energies. In the present work the main contribution to shadowing stems from the lighter $`\rho ^0`$ that are connected with a momentum transfer much smaller than the characteristic momentum $`q_c=780`$ MeV  at which correlations become important. Therefore any correlations between the nucleons can be omitted in the present work.

## IV $`\pi ^0`$ contribution

If one does not restrict the scattering events to the forward direction it becomes possible to produce neutral pions without exciting the nucleus. In this process the helicity of the nucleon at which the $`\pi ^0`$ is produced is not allowed to change. Decomposing the $`\pi ^0`$ photoproduction amplitude on the free nucleon into helicity amplitudes $`H_i`$ , one can construct the invariant photoproduction amplitude without helicity change of the nucleon:

$$_{\gamma \pi ^0}^{coh}(s,t)=\sqrt{2s}8\pi (H_1(s,t)+H_4(s,t)).$$
(36)
The helicity amplitudes are calculated using the partial wave analysis from Arndt et al. . For each nucleus we use the isospin averaged amplitude $`_{\gamma N\pi ^0N}^{coh}`$ in analogy to (35). The production in forward direction is forbidden by angular momentum conservation. Therefore a large transverse momentum transfer is necessary to produce the $`\pi ^0`$ at high energies. Since large momentum transfers are suppressed by the nuclear formfactor, we expect the $`\pi ^0`$ not to contribute to shadowing at high energies.

The $`\pi ^0`$ contribution to $`\sigma _{\gamma A}`$ is calculated using Eq. (2) and (15):

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _{\gamma A}^{(\pi ^0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A(A1)}{2m_Nk}}\text{Re}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{2m_N(2\pi )^3}}`$ (38)
$`F(\stackrel{}{q})i_{\gamma N\pi ^0N}^{coh}(s,t)\stackrel{~}{D}_{\pi ^0}(|\stackrel{}{k}|^2(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q})^2)i_{\pi ^0N\gamma N}^{coh}(s,t)F(\stackrel{}{q})`$
where we have introduced the effective propagator

$$\stackrel{~}{D}(p^2)=\frac{i}{p^2m_{\pi ^0}^2im_{\pi ^0}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\pi ^0}^{}}.$$
(39)
This propagator takes the multiple $`\pi ^0N`$ scattering into account. Therefore equation (38) is not merely the double scattering contribution with an intermediate $`\pi ^0`$ but includes all higher order scattering terms within the eikonal form of the propagator (39). This is equivalent to the propagation of the intermediate $`\pi ^0`$ in an optical potential . One could in principle also use the free propagators and sum up all multiple scattering terms for the $`\pi ^0`$ to obtain the same result, but this is numerically more tedious. The use of the eikonal approximation for the intermediate $`\pi ^0`$ scattering is justified because the $`\pi ^0`$ has the energy of the initial photon and therefore large momentum. To make the same approximation for the intermediate vector mesons is not possible since for the energies of interest vector mesons are much slower because of their larger mass. The momentum dependent effective mass and the collisional broadening of the $`\pi ^0`$ in the nucleus is related to the $`\pi ^0N`$ forward scattering amplitude $`f_{\pi ^0}`$ :

$`m_{\pi ^0}^2`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\pi ^0}^24\pi \text{Re}f_{\pi ^0}(\stackrel{}{0},k_\pi )\rho _N`$ (40)
$`m_{\pi ^0}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\pi ^0}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi \text{Im}f_{\pi ^0}(\stackrel{}{0},k_\pi )\rho _N.`$ (41)
The average nucleon number density

$$\rho _N=\frac{1}{A}𝑑r^3n(\stackrel{}{r})^2$$
(42)
is determined separately for each nucleus using Eq. (26) and the parameters listed in Tab. I. For $`\pi ^0`$ momenta $`k_\pi `$ up to 1.65 GeV ($`\sqrt{s}2\text{ GeV}`$) we take the partial waves from the SM95 solution of Ref.  to construct the $`\pi ^0N`$ forward scattering amplitude $`f_{\pi ^0}`$. For higher $`\pi ^0`$ momenta we use the KA84 solution . Note that $`m_{\pi ^0}^2`$ as well as $`m_{\pi ^0}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\pi ^0}^{}`$ are small compared to the squared energy of the $`\pi ^0`$ that enters the propagator in (39). Therefore our results are not very sensitive to the in-medium changes of the $`\pi ^0`$.

Taking the $`\pi ^0`$ contribution into account leads to an enhancement of the shadowing effect at small energies as can be seen in Fig. 6. The solid line represents the old result including only $`\rho ^0`$, $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ as intermediate states and including terms up to triple scattering in the multiple scattering series. The dashed line shows the result one gets by including the $`\pi ^0`$ as an intermediate hadronic state. At small energies and light nuclei the $`\pi ^0`$ contribution (38) to nuclear shadowing is about 30%. Here the $`\rho ^0`$ photoproduction, even in forward direction, is suppressed by the nuclear formfactor because of its much larger mass. Because of angular momentum conservation the lighter $`\pi ^0`$ cannot be produced in the forward direction without exciting the nucleus. The necessary transverse momentum transfer increases with rising photon energy. Therefore the nuclear formfactor suppresses the $`\pi ^0`$ contribution to nuclear shadowing at high energies. This suppression is larger for the heavier nuclei as one would expect from the $`A`$ dependence of the nuclear formfactor. This reduces the $`\pi ^0`$ contribution to shadowing in the case of Pb to about 10% at small energies.

## V Summary

In this work we have presented a description of nuclear shadowing in photoabsorption at low energies that is more realistic than the simple Glauber model. We use a multiple scattering expansion to express the nuclear forward Compton amplitude in terms of nucleonic scattering amplitudes. From that the total nuclear cross section is calculated via the optical theorem. The main contribution to nuclear shadowing results from the double scattering term. Here the incoming photon produces an intermediate hadronic state at one nucleon that scatters on a second nucleon into the outgoing photon. In contrast to the simple Glauber model we also allow for off-shell vector mesons as intermediate states and avoid the eikonal approximation that is usually made in such calculations. We find that very light $`\rho ^0`$ mesons below their pole mass $`m_\rho =770\text{ MeV}`$ give the biggest contribution to nuclear shadowing at low energies. This is reasonable because these light states have the largest coherence length among the intermediate vector meson states. By including only the light vector mesons $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ as intermediate states in the multiple scattering series, we can already reproduce the photoabsorption data for heavy nuclei. At low energies the shadowing effect is enhanced by intermediate $`\pi ^0`$. Since a $`\pi ^0`$ has no spin it cannot be produced in the forward direction without excitation of the nucleus. Therefore $`\pi ^0`$ contribution to nuclear shadowing in photoabsorption is absent in any calculation based on the eikonal approximation. In the present work we have shown that at low energies intermediate $`\pi ^0`$ are responsible for about 10-30% of the total shadowing effect. At high energies and for heavy nuclei their contribution is suppressed by the nuclear formfactor.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by BMBF.


text:
# Acknowledgement

## Acknowledgement

I would like to thank B. Harms, M. Kreuzer, D. Marolf, H.J. Schnitzer and P.K. Townsend for valuable discussion. This work is supported by the Austrian Research Funds FWF under grant No. M597-TPH.