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# Production of 𝝎 and ϕ Mesons in Near-Threshold 𝝅𝑵 Reactions: Baryon Resonances and Validity of the OZI Rule

## I Introduction

The present interest in a combined study of the $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ meson production in different elementary reactions is mainly related to the investigation of the hidden strangeness degrees of freedom in the nucleon. Since the $`\varphi `$ meson is thought to consist mainly of strange quarks, its production should be suppressed according to the OZI rule  if the entrance channel does not possess a considerable admixture of strangeness. The standard OZI rule violation is described by the deviation from the ideal $`\omega \varphi `$ mixing by the angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _V3.7^0`$ , which is a measure of the small contribution of light $`u,\overline{u}`$ and $`d,\overline{d}`$ quarks in the $`\varphi `$ meson, or strange $`s,\overline{s}`$ quarks in the $`\omega `$ meson. Thus, the ratio of $`\omega `$ to $`\varphi `$ production cross sections is expected to be $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^2\mathrm{ctg}^2\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _V2.4\times 10^2`$.

Indeed, the recent experiments on the proton annihilation at rest (cf.  for references and a compilation of data) point to a large apparent violation of the OZI rule, which is interpreted  as a hint to an intrinsic $`s\overline{s}`$ component in the proton. However, the data can be explained as well by modified meson exchange models  without introducing any strangeness component in the nucleon or OZI rule violation mechanisms.

On the other hand, the analysis of the $`\pi N`$ sigma term  suggests that the proton might contain a strange quark admixture as large as 20%. Thus this issue remains controversial. Therefore it is tempting to look for other observables  that are sensitive to the strangeness content of the nucleon. Most of them are related to a possible strong interference of delicate $`s\overline{s}`$ knock-out (or shake-off) amplitudes and the “non-strange” amplitude which is caused by OZI rule allowed processes, or by processes wherein the standard OZI rule violation comes from the $`\varphi \omega `$ mixing.

A detailed analysis of the current status of the OZI rule in $`\pi N`$ and $`NN`$ reactions has been presented recently in . It is shown in  that existing data for the $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ meson production in $`\pi N`$ reactions give for the ratio of averaged amplitudes the value of $`R_{\omega /\varphi }=8.7\pm 1.8`$, which is much smaller than the standard OZI rule violation value of $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^{OZI}=15.43`$ and may be interpreted as a hint to non-zero strangeness components in the nucleon.

Obviously, reliable information on a manifestation of hidden strangeness in the combined study of $`\varphi `$ and $`\omega `$ production processes can be obtained only when the conventional, i.e. non-exotic, amplitudes have been understood quantitatively. The reaction $`\pi NVN`$ with $`V=\omega `$, $`\varphi `$ has the evident advantage to be a simple hadronic reaction representing a subprocess, e.g., in $`NNVNN`$ reactions. The study of the former reactions is one of the objectives of the present work. The dominant conventional processes are depicted in Fig. 1, where (a) is the $`t`$ channel meson exchange process, while (b) depicts the $`s`$, $`u`$ nucleon and nucleon resonance channels. When taking separately each of the amplitudes, the ratio of $`\omega `$ to $`\varphi `$ production amplitudes is proportional to $`\mathrm{ctg}\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _V=15.43`$ and the question arises how their coherent sum can result in a deviation from this value.

Note that most of the previous considerations of the possible violation of the OZI rule in hadronic reactions are based on one-channel models in the spirit of . But if one assumes that the process is a coherent sum of at least two amplitudes, say for example, a meson exchange and a nucleon term, then the result may be different from the naive expectation. Indeed, let us suppose for a moment that, because of some hadronic dynamics, the nucleon term for the $`\varphi `$ production is suppressed relative to the meson exchange term. Then the ratio of $`\omega `$ to $`\varphi `$ amplitudes becomes

$$R_{\omega /\varphi }=\mathrm{ctg}\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _V\frac{|1+R_{N/M}^\omega |}{|1+R_{N/M}^\varphi |}\mathrm{ctg}\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _V|1+R_{N/M}^\omega |,$$
(1)
where $`R_{N/M}^{\omega ,\varphi }`$ are the ratios of nucleon and meson exchange amplitudes. Thus, one can get immediately an enhancement (suppression) of $`R_{\omega /\varphi }`$, as compared to the OZI rule prediction, for a constructive (destructive) interference between the two $`\omega `$ amplitudes and for $`|R_{N/M}^\varphi ||R_{N/M}^\omega |<1`$. Our previous study  of $`\varphi `$ production shows that the interference between meson exchange and nucleon terms is destructive. Assuming the same for $`\omega `$ production, $`R_{\omega /\varphi }`$ must decrease, even without any speculation on a strangeness content in the nucleon. In case of considering the $`\omega `$ production, however, this two-channel model is by no means longer adequate, because one has to include various strong resonance channels. The ratio $`R_{(N+N^{})/M}^\omega `$ becomes complex which may change the above estimates in any direction.

The resonance contribution to vector meson production has its own interest because it might affect significantly in-medium polarization operators and the corresponding dilepton emissivity of hadronic matter . Therefore its detailed study in elementary $`\pi N`$ processes is another objective of the present work. An important step in this direction has been done recently by Riska and Brown in , where the relevant $`\pi NN^{}`$, $`\omega NN^{}`$ and $`\varphi NN^{}`$ coupling constants are expressed in terms of the corresponding couplings to nucleons using a quark model. Our study here exploits essentially the findings of . The role of the low-lying nucleon resonances in a combined study of $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\omega `$ production based on the relativistic coupled-channel model has been studied in Refs. . Some aspects of the $`\rho `$ meson spectral function in the nucleon resonance model have been discussed in . The contribution of the higher resonances to the $`\omega `$ photo-production has been analyzed in Ref. .

Our analysis of the reaction $`\pi NVN`$ is based on calculations of the diagrams in Fig. 1. While the diagrams in Fig. 1 look like usual Feynman diagrams it should be stressed that they give a guidance of how to obtain from an interaction Lagrangian of hadronic fields a covariant parameterization of observables in strict tree level approximation. Additional ingredients are needed to achieve an accurate description of data within such a framework. In particular, the vertices needs to be dressed by form factors. The early theoretical studies  show, indeed, that predictions for hadronic observables are very sensitive to the parameters of the form factors which can not be fixed unambiguously without adjustments relying on the corresponding experimental data.

In Refs.  the parameters of $`VNN`$ interactions have been determined by analyzing commonly the reactions $`pppp\omega `$ and $`pppp\varphi `$ and the corresponding new DISTO data  at a given beam energy assuming the same production mechanism without resonance contributions. In a previous paper , in order to constrain the parameter space further, we performed a combined analysis of the reactions $`\pi ^{}pn\varphi `$ and $`pppp\varphi `$ at the same energy excess. A good description of available data has been achieved. We did not consider in  the $`\omega `$ production for which the production mechanism is more complicated because of the resonance contributions shown in Fig. 1b. Therefore, the problem of the validity of the OZI rule was beyond the scope of considerations in .

In this paper we attempt a different approach with the goal to check the validity of the OZI rule in a combined study of the related reactions $`\pi NN\omega `$ and $`\pi NN\varphi `$ using the known data within the same interval of excess energies $`10\mathrm{}100`$ MeV and taking into account the nucleon resonance channels.

Our paper is organized as follows. In Section II, we define the effective Lagrangians, derive expressions for the amplitudes of the processes shown in Fig. 1 and discuss the parameter fixing. In Section III the results of numerical calculations and predictions are presented. The summary is given in Section IV.

## II Amplitudes

The differential cross section of the reaction $`\pi ^{}pVn`$ with $`V=\omega ,\varphi `$ (cf. Fig. 1) has the obvious form in standard notation

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{64\pi ^2s}}{\displaystyle \frac{|𝐪|}{|𝐤|}}|T|^2,`$ (2)
where $`k=(E_\pi ,𝐤)`$ and $`q=(E_V,𝐪)`$ are the four-momenta of the pion and the vector meson in the center of mass system (c.m.s.); the squared invariant amplitude $`|T|^2`$ includes the average and sum over the initial and final spin states, respectively. We denote the four-momenta of the initial (target) and final (recoil) nucleons by $`p`$ and $`p^{}`$; $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\theta `$ are the solid and polar angles of the produced vector meson in the c.m.s.; $`s=(p+k)^2`$ is the usual Mandelstam variable.

We also consider the spin density matrix $`\rho _{rr^{}}`$ which defines the angular distribution in the decays $`\omega ,\varphi e^+e^{}`$, $`\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ and $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$. It has a simple form in the system where the vector meson is at rest (for details see ). The decay angles $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ are defined as polar and azimuthal angles of the direction of the three-momentum of one of the decay particles in the vector meson’s rest frame. For the $`\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ decay, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the polar angle of the direction of the vector product $`[𝒌_{\pi ^+}\times 𝒌_\pi ^{}]`$, where $`𝒌_{\pi ^+}`$ and $`𝒌_\pi ^{}`$ are the momenta of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ mesons, respectively . The $`e^+e^{}`$ decay distribution integrated over the azimuthal angle $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, $`𝒲(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })`$, depends only on the diagonal matrix elements $`\rho _{00}`$, $`\rho _{11}=\rho _{11}`$, normalized as $`\rho _{00}+2\rho _{11}=1`$, according to

$`𝒲^{e^+e^{}}(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\left[1+\rho _{00}+(13\rho _{00})\mathrm{cos}^2\mathrm{\Theta }\right].`$ (3)
The corresponding distributions for the hadronic decays $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$, $`\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ are

$`𝒲^h(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })={\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left[1\rho _{00}(13\rho _{00})\mathrm{cos}^2\mathrm{\Theta }\right].`$ (4)
In our calculation we choose the quantization axis $`𝐳`$ along the beam momentum.

### A Effective Lagrangians

In calculating the invariant amplitudes for the basic processes shown in Fig. 1 we use the following effective interaction Lagrangians.
(i) interactions in the meson exchange process (Fig. 1a):

$`_{V\rho \pi }`$ $`=`$ $`g_{V\rho \pi }ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }_\mu ^{(V)}V_\nu \mathrm{Tr}(_\alpha \rho _\beta \pi ),`$ (5)
$`_{\rho NN}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\rho NN}\overline{\psi }_N\left(\gamma _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{\rho NN}}{2M_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }_{(\rho )}^\nu \right)\rho ^\mu \psi _N,`$ (6)
where $`\mathrm{Tr}(\rho \pi )=\rho ^0\pi ^0+\rho ^+\pi ^{}+\rho ^{}\pi ^+`$, and $`\pi `$ and $`\rho ^\mu `$ denote the pion and rho meson fields. The partial derivatives $`_\mu ^{(V)}`$ and $`_{(\rho )}^\nu `$ are meant to act only on the corresponding fields $`V^\mu `$ and $`\rho ^\mu `$; $`ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }`$ is the Levi-Civita symbol.
(ii) interactions in the baryonic channels (Fig. 1b):

$`_{MNN}^{N_{\frac{1}{2}^+}(940)N}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left[{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN}}{m_\pi }}\gamma _5\gamma _\mu ^\mu 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉g_{VNN}\left(\gamma _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{VNN}}{2M_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }^\nu \right)V^\mu \right]\psi _N,`$ (7)
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{1}{2}^+}(1440)P_{11}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left[{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1440}}{m_\pi }}\gamma _5\gamma _\mu ^\mu 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉g_{VNN^{}}^{1440}(\gamma _\mu +_\mu \overline{)}m_V^2)V^\mu \right]\psi _N^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (8)
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{3}{2}^{}}(1520)D_{13}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left[i{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1520}}{m_\pi }}\gamma _5^\alpha 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{VNN^{}}^{1520}}{m_V^2}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }^\nu ^\alpha V^\mu \right]\psi _{N^{}}^{}{}_{\alpha }{}^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (9)
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{1}{2}^{}}(1535)S_{11}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left[{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1535}}{m_\pi }}\gamma _\mu ^\mu 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉g_{VNN^{}}^{1535}\gamma _5(\gamma _\mu +_\mu \overline{)}m_V^2)V^\mu \right]\psi _N^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (10)
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{1}{2}^{}}(1650)S_{11}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left[{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1650}}{m_\pi }}\gamma _\mu ^\mu 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉g_{VNN^{}}^{1650}\gamma _5(\gamma _\mu +_\mu \overline{)}m_V^2)V^\mu \right]\psi _N^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (11)
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{5}{2}^{}}(1675)D_{15}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left[{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1675}}{m_\pi ^2}}^\alpha ^\beta 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{VNN^{}}^{1675}}{m_V^2}}ϵ^{\alpha \gamma \mu \nu }\gamma _\nu _\gamma ^\beta V_\mu \right]\psi _{N^{}}^{}{}_{\alpha \beta }{}^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (12)
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{5}{2}^+}(1680)F_{15}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N[i{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1680}}{m_\pi ^2}}\gamma _5^\alpha ^\beta 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉`$ (14)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{VNN^{}}^{1680}}{m_V^2}}(\gamma _\mu +_\mu \overline{)}m_V^2)^\alpha ^\beta V^\mu ]\psi _N^{}_{\alpha \beta }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{3}{2}^{}}(1700)D_{13}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left[i{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1700}}{m_\pi }}\gamma _5^\alpha 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{VNN^{}}^{1700}}{m_V^2}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }^\nu ^\alpha V^\mu \right]\psi _{N^{}}^{}{}_{\alpha }{}^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (15)
$`_{MNN^{}}^{N_{\frac{3}{2}^{}}(1720)P_{13}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N[i{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}^{1720}}{m_\pi }}^\alpha 𝝅\mathbf{}𝝉`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{VNN^{}}^{1720}}{M_N^{}+M_N}}\gamma _5(\gamma _\mu ^\alpha g_\mu ^\alpha \overline{)})V^\mu ]\psi _N^{}_\alpha +\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$
where $`𝝅`$, $`V_\mu `$, $`\psi _N`$ and $`\psi _N^{}`$ are the pion iso-vector, iso-scalar vector meson $`V=\omega ,\varphi `$, nucleon and Rarita-Schwinger nucleon resonances field operators, respectively, and the subscript $`M`$ stands for ”meson”. $`𝝉`$ denotes the Pauli matrix. Note that these interaction Lagrangians do not contain partial derivatives of the fields $`\psi _{\mathrm{}}`$ and their adjoints $`\overline{\psi }_{\mathrm{}}`$. The notation of the masses is self-explaining. We use the convention of Bjorken and Drell  in definitions of $`\gamma `$ matrices and the spin matrix $`\sigma _{\mu \nu }`$. The expressions Eqs. (7 \- 17) are based on .§§§ Our notation differs from that in  by the substitutions $`i`$ and $`ig_{VNN}g_{VNN}`$ keeping the relative phases between $`f_{\pi NN}`$ and $`f_{\pi NN^{}}`$ and $`g_{VNN}`$ and $`g_{VNN^{}}`$ the same as in . We also express $`_{MNN^{}}`$ in a manifestly gauge-invariant form. As in  we include here all \**** resonances up to 1720 MeV according to  and the \*** resonance $`N_{\frac{3}{2}^{}}(1700)D_{13}`$ as well. The contribution of the \*** resonance $`N_{\frac{1}{2}^{}}(1710)P_{13}`$ will be discussed below.

All coupling constants with off-shell mesons are dressed by monopole form factors  $`F_i=(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i^2m_i^2)/(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i^2k_i^2)`$, where $`k_i`$ is the four-momentum of the exchanged meson. Following the scheme of the meson photo-production in  we assume that the $`VNN`$ and $`VNN^{}`$ vertices must be dressed by form factors for off-shell baryons

$`F_B(r^2)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_B^4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_B^4+(r^2M_B^2)^2}},`$ (18)
where $`M_B`$ is the baryon mass and $`r`$ is the four-momentum of the virtual baryons $`B=N,N^{}`$ in Fig. 1b.

### B Invariant amplitudes

The total invariant amplitude is sum of the meson exchange, nucleon and nucleon resonance channels,

$`T_\lambda =T_\lambda ^{(M)}+T_\lambda ^{(N)}+T_\lambda ^{(N^{})},`$ (19)
where $`\lambda =0,\pm 1`$ is the polarization projection of the produced vector meson. The amplitude for the meson exchange channel in Fig. 1a reads

$`T_\lambda ^{(M)}=K^{\pi N}ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }\left[\overline{u}(p^{})\mathrm{\Gamma }_\delta ^{(\rho )}(k_{(\rho )})u(p)\right]q_\alpha k_\gamma \epsilon _\beta ^\lambda I_\pi ,`$ (20)
where

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha ^{(\rho )}(k_{(\rho )})`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _\alpha +i{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{\rho NN}}{2M_N}}\sigma _{\alpha \beta }k_{(\rho )}^\beta ,`$ (21)
$`K^{\pi N}(k_{(\rho )})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\rho NN}g_{V\rho \pi }}{k_{(\rho )}^2m_\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\rho NN}^2m_\rho ^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\rho NN}^2k_{(\rho )}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V\rho \pi }^{\rho \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m_\rho ^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V\rho \pi }^{\rho 2}k_{(\rho )}^2}}`$ (22)
with $`k_{(\rho )}=p^{}p`$ as the virtual $`\rho `$ meson’s four-momentum; $`\epsilon _\beta ^\lambda `$ is the vector meson’s polarization four-vector, $`I_\pi `$ denotes the isospin factor being $`\sqrt{2}`$ (1) for a $`\pi ^{}`$ ($`\pi ^0`$) meson in the entrance channel; the nucleon spin indices are not displayed; $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta ,\mu ,\nu ,\tau `$ are Lorentz indices throughout the paper (not to be mixed with the notations of meson species $`\pi ,\rho ,\omega ,\varphi `$), and $`u(p)`$ denotes bispinors (not to be mixed with the Mandelstam variable $`u`$).

The invariant amplitudes for the nucleon and resonant channels in Fig. 1b have the following form

$`T_\lambda ^{(N)}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{VNN}{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN}}{m_\pi }}\overline{u}(p^{})𝒜^\mu (N)u(p)\epsilon _\mu ^\lambda I_\pi ,`$ (23)
$`T_\lambda ^{(N^{})}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{VNN^{}}{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN^{}}}{m_\pi }}\overline{u}(p^{})𝒜^\mu (N^{})u(p)\epsilon _\mu ^\lambda I_\pi ,`$ (24)
where the operators $`𝒜_\mu (N)`$ and $`𝒜_\mu (N^{})`$ follow from the effective Lagrangians of Eqs. (7 \- 17) as

$`𝒜_\mu (N^{940})`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^V(q)\mathrm{\Lambda }(p_L,M_N^{})\gamma _5\overline{)}kF_N(s)}{sm_N^2}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5\overline{)}k\mathrm{\Lambda }(p_R,M_N^{})\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^V(q)F_N(u)}{um_N^2}},`$ (25)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1440})`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }(p_L,M_N^{})\gamma _5\overline{)}kF_N^{}(s)}{sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5\overline{)}k\mathrm{\Lambda }(p_R,M_N^{})\gamma _\mu F_N^{}(u)}{uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}},`$ (27)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1520})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu q^\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta }(p_L,M_N^{})\gamma _5k^\beta F_N^{}(s)}{m_V^2(sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{})}}`$ (29)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5k^\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta }(p_R,M_N^{})\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu q^\beta F_N^{}(u)}{m_V^2(uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{})}},`$ (30)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1535})`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }(p_L,M_N^{})\overline{)}kF_N^{}(s)}{sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{)}k\mathrm{\Lambda }(p_R,M_N^{})\gamma _5\gamma _\mu F_N^{}(u)}{uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}},`$ (32)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1650})`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }(p_L,M_N^{})\overline{)}kF_N^{}(s)}{sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{)}k\mathrm{\Lambda }(p_R,M_N^{})\gamma _5\gamma _\mu F_N^{}(u)}{uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}},`$ (34)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1675})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_{\tau \mu \nu }^\alpha q^\tau q^\beta k^\gamma k^\delta }{m_\pi m_V^2}}({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^\nu \mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta ,\gamma \delta }(p_L,M_N^{})F_N^{}(s)}{sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}}`$ (36)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\gamma \delta ,\alpha \beta }(p_R,M_N^{})\gamma ^\nu F_N^{}(u)}{uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}}),`$ (37)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1680})`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{q^\alpha q^\beta k^\gamma k^\delta }{m_\pi m_V^2}}({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta ,\gamma \delta }(p_L,M_N^{})\gamma _5F_N^{}(s)}{sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}}`$ (39)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\gamma \delta ,\alpha \beta }(p_R,M_N^{})F_N^{}(u)}{uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}}}),`$ (40)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1700})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu q^\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta }(p_L,M_N^{})\gamma _5k^\beta F_N^{}(s)}{m_V^2(sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{})}}`$ (42)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5k^\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta }(p_R,M_N^{})\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu q^\beta F_N^{}(u)}{m_V^2(uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{})}},`$ (43)
$`𝒜_\mu (N^{1720})`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _5(q^\alpha \gamma _\mu g_\mu ^\alpha \overline{)}q)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta }(p_L,M_N^{})k^\beta F_N^{}(s)}{(M_N^{}+M_N)(sM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{})}},`$ (45)
$`+i{\displaystyle \frac{k^\beta \mathrm{\Lambda }_{\beta \alpha }(p_R,M_N^{})\gamma _5(q^\alpha \gamma _\mu g_\mu ^\alpha \overline{)}q)F_N^{}(u)}{(M_N^{}+M_N)(uM_N^{}^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{})}},`$ (46)
with $`p_L=p+k`$, $`p_R=pq`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^V`$ as in Eq. (21) but with $`\kappa _{VNN}`$.

The resonance propagators in Eqs. (27 \- 46) are defined by the conventional method  assuming the validity of the spectral decomposition

$`\psi _N^{}(x)={\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐩}{(2\pi )^3\sqrt{2E_p}}\left[a_{𝐩,r}u_N^{}^r(p)e^{ipx}+b_{𝐩,r}^+v_N^{}^r(p)e^{+ipx}\right]}.`$ (47)
The finite decay width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}`$ is introduced into the propagator denominators by substituting $`M_N^{}M_N^{}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}`$. Therefore, the operators $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(p,M)`$ are defined as

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }(p,M)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}((1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_0}{E_0}})u^r(𝐩,E_0)\overline{u}^r(𝐩,E_0)`$ (49)
$`(1{\displaystyle \frac{p_0}{E_0}})v^r(𝐩,E_0)\overline{v}^r(𝐩,E_0))=\overline{)}p+M,`$
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta }(p,M)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}((1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_0}{E_0}})𝒰_\alpha ^r(𝐩,E_0)\overline{𝒰}_\beta ^r(𝐩,E_0)`$ (51)
$`(1{\displaystyle \frac{p_0}{E_0}})𝒱_\alpha ^r(𝐩,E_0)\overline{𝒱}_\beta ^r(𝐩,E_0)),`$
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta ,\gamma \delta }(p,M)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}((1+{\displaystyle \frac{p_0}{E_0}})𝒰_{\alpha \beta }^r(𝐩,E_0)\overline{𝒰}_{\gamma \delta }^r(𝐩,E_0)`$ (53)
$`(1{\displaystyle \frac{p_0}{E_0}})𝒱_{\alpha \beta }^r(𝐩,E_0)\overline{𝒱}_{\gamma \delta }^r(𝐩,E_0)),`$
where $`E_0=\sqrt{𝐩^2+M^2}`$, and the Rarita-Schwinger spinors read

$`𝒰_\alpha ^r(p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda ,s}{}}1\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}s|{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}r\epsilon _\alpha ^\lambda (p)u^s(p),`$ (54)
$`𝒰_{\alpha \beta }^r(p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}s,t}{}}1\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}s|{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}t{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}t\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\lambda ^{}|{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}r\epsilon _\alpha ^\lambda (p)\epsilon _\beta ^\lambda ^{}(p)u^s(p).`$ (55)
The spinors $`v`$ and $`𝒱`$ are related to $`u`$ and $`𝒰`$ as $`v(p)=i\gamma _2u^{}(p)`$ and $`𝒱(p)=i\gamma _2𝒰^{}(p)`$, respectively.

The polarization four-vector for a spin-1 particle with spin projection $`\lambda `$, four-momentum $`p=(E,𝐩)`$ and mass $`m_V`$ reads

$`\epsilon ^\lambda (p)=({\displaystyle \frac{\mathit{ϵ}^\lambda 𝐩}{m_V}},{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩(\mathit{ϵ}^\lambda 𝐩)}{m_V(E+m_V)}}),`$ (56)
where the three-dimensional polarization vector $`\mathit{ϵ}`$ is defined as

$`\mathit{ϵ}^{\pm 1}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},\pm i,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0})\mathit{ϵ}^0=(\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}).`$ (57)
In our calculations we use energy-dependent total resonance decay widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}`$. However, taking into account that the effect of a finite width is quite different for $`s`$ and $`u`$ channels, because of the evident relation $`|u|+M_N^{}^2|sM_N^{}^2|`$, we use $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}^0`$ for the $`u`$ channels and

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}^0\left[1B_N^{}^\pi +B_N^{}^\pi \left(\frac{𝐤}{𝐤_0}\right)^{2J}\right],$$
(58)
for the $`s`$ channels, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}^0`$ is the total on-shell resonance decay width and $`B_N^{}^\pi `$ stands for the branching ratio of the $`N^{}N\pi `$ decay channel taken from ; $`𝐤_0`$ is the pion momentum at the resonance position, i.e. at $`\sqrt{s}=M_N^{}`$, and the factor $`(𝐤/𝐤_0)^{2J}`$ comes from a direct calculation of the $`N^{}N\pi `$ decay width using the effective Lagrangians of Eqs. (8 \- 17), where we keep the leading term proportional to $`𝐤^{2J}`$. Note, that the effect of the energy dependent finite decay width is more essential in near-threshold $`\omega `$ production for the higher resonances $`N_{\frac{3}{2}}(1700)D_{13}`$ and $`N_{\frac{3}{2}}(1720)P_{13}`$, where $`|sM_N^{}^2|\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}M_N^{}`$, but even there it becomes not so important because, as we will see, the contribution of these resonances to the total amplitude is rather small. Nevertheless, for completeness, we use the above prescription for all eight considered resonances.

### C Fixing parameters

The coupling constant $`g_{\varphi \rho \pi }`$ is determined by the $`\varphi \rho \pi `$ decay. The value $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\varphi \rho \pi }=0.69`$ MeV  results in $`|g_{\varphi \rho \pi }|=1.1`$ GeV-1. The SU(3) symmetry considerations  predict a negative value for it. Thus $`g_{\varphi \rho \pi }=1.1`$ GeV-1.

The coupling constant $`g_{\omega \rho \pi }`$ is determined by the $`\omega \gamma \pi `$ decay. Relying on the vector dominance model one gets $`g_{\omega \rho \pi }=12.9`$ GeV-1 .

The remaining parameters of the meson exchange amplitude for the process in Fig. 1a are taken from the Bonn model as listed in Table B.1 (Model II) of Ref. : $`g_{\rho NN}=3.72`$, $`\kappa _{\rho NN}=6.1`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\rho NN}=1.3`$. The parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{V\rho \pi }^\rho `$ will be determined later.

The nucleon and nucleon resonance amplitudes in Fig. 1b and Eqs. (25 \- 46) are determined by the couplings $`f_{\pi NN}`$, $`f_{\pi NN^{}}`$, $`g_{\omega NN}`$, $`g_{\omega NN^{}}`$, $`g_{\varphi NN}`$, $`g_{\varphi NN^{}}`$, $`g_{VNN}\kappa _{VNN}`$, the resonance widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_N^{}^0`$ the branching ratios $`B_N^{}^\pi `$, and the cut-offs $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_B`$. For the coupling constant $`f_{\pi NN}`$ we use the standard value $`f_{\pi NN}=1.0`$ . For the $`\omega NN`$ coupling we use the value $`g_{\omega NN}=10.35`$ determined recently  by fitting the nucleon-nucleon scattering data. This value as well as $`\kappa _{\omega NN}=0`$ is close to the one which has been found in a study of $`\pi N`$ scattering and the reaction $`\gamma N\pi N`$ .

The values of coupling constants $`f_{\pi NN^{}}`$ are determined from a comparison of calculated decay widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{N^{}N\pi }`$ with the corresponding experimental values . The corresponding signs are taken in accordance with the quark model prediction of Ref. .

The values of coupling constants $`g_{\omega NN^{}}`$ are found as $`g_{\omega NN^{}}=[g_{\omega NN^{}}/g_{\omega NN}]g_{\omega NN}`$, where the ratio $`[g_{\omega NN^{}}/g_{\omega NN}]`$ is determined by the quark model calculation of Ref. . For convenience we show all the coupling constants, decay widths and branching ratios used in our calculation in Table 1. The masses, decay widths and branching ratios in Table 1 represent the averages in . Slightly different values have been extracted in  in a recent reanalysis of the data.

The couplings $`\varphi NN`$, $`\varphi NN^{}`$ determined by SU(3) symmetry considerations are

$`g_{\varphi NN}=\mathrm{tg}\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _Vg_{\omega NN},g_{\varphi NN^{}}=\mathrm{tg}\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _Vg_{\omega NN^{}},`$ (59)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _V3.7^0`$ is the deviation from the ideal $`\omega \varphi `$ mixing. Similarly, we assume $`g_{\varphi NN}\kappa _{\varphi NN}\mathrm{tg}\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _Vg_{\omega NN}\kappa _{\omega NN}=0`$, or $`\kappa _{\varphi NN}0`$, which is consistent with the estimate in .

The yet undetermined parameters are: the cut-off parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\varphi \rho \pi }^\rho `$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\omega \rho \pi }^\rho `$ for the virtual $`\rho `$ meson in the $`V\rho \pi `$ vertex, the cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_N`$ and the eight cut-offs $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_N^{}`$ in Eq. (18). We can reduce the number of parameters by making the natural assumptions

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\varphi \rho \pi }^\rho `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\omega \rho \pi }^\rho \mathrm{\Lambda }_V^\rho ,`$ (60)
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_N`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_N^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_B.`$ (61)
Our best fit of total cross sections of existing data is obtained by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_V^\rho =1.24`$ GeV and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_B=0.66`$ GeV.

## III Results

The results of our full calculation of the total cross sections as a function of the energy excess $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=\sqrt{s}M_Nm_V`$, including all amplitudes depicted in Fig. 1, are represented by the solid curves in Fig. 2. We also show separately the contributions of meson exchange, nucleon and nucleon resonance channels. The data for the reaction $`\pi ^{}p\varphi n`$ are taken from Ref. , while the data for the reactions $`\pi ^+n\omega p`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ are from Refs. , respectively. Note that here we display the total cross section of the reaction $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{tot}}`$, which differs from the differential cross section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dif}}`$ in Ref.  by a factor  included in the phase space of the unstable $`\omega `$ meson,

$`\sigma _{\mathrm{tot}}=\sigma _{\mathrm{dif}}\left\{{\displaystyle \underset{\sqrt{P_{\mathrm{min}}^2+M_N^2}}{\overset{\sqrt{P_{\mathrm{max}}^2+M_N^2}}{}}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _f(s^{})\lambda _i(s)}{\lambda _f(s)\lambda _i(s^{})}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{s^{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega m_\omega dE}{\pi ((m_\omega ^2s^{}+2\sqrt{s^{}}EM_N^2)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega ^2m_\omega ^2)}}\right\}^1,`$ (62)
where $`\sqrt{s^{}}=E+\sqrt{E^2M_N^2+m_\omega ^2}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$ is the $`\omega `$ decay width and $`\lambda _i(s)(\lambda _f(s))=\lambda (s,m_\pi ^2,M_N^2)(\lambda (s,m_\omega ^2,M_N^2))`$ with $`\lambda (x,y,z)=(xyz)^24yz`$. The intervals $`[P_{\mathrm{max}},P_{\mathrm{min}}]`$ for given $`p^{}`$ (or $`s`$) are as in .

From Fig. 2 (left panel) it is evident that the total amplitude of $`\omega `$ production is a result of strong interferences of all channels: the meson exchange (dot-dashed curve), the nucleon term (long dashed curve) and the resonance contribution (dashed curve) play a comparative role. For the $`\varphi `$ production (cf. Fig. 2, right panel) only meson and nucleon terms are important. The resonance contribution is rather small and is therefore not displayed here. Moreover the relative contribution of the nucleon term in $`\varphi `$ production is much smaller than for $`\omega `$ production. That is because the initial energy $`\sqrt{s}=M_N+m_V+\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}`$ is greater for the $`\varphi `$ production at the same energy excess and as a consequence, we have two suppression factors: (i) the nucleon/resonance denominators and (ii) the form factors $`F_{N,N^{}}`$ in Eqs. (25 \- 46). The interference of the meson exchange and nucleon terms is almost destructive, while the contribution of the resonant part is more complicated because the amplitude is complex with different phases for different resonances.

In order to illustrate the structure of the resonant part we show in Fig. 3 the contribution of each resonance separately as a function of the $`\omega `$ production angle at two excess energies $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=20`$ (100) MeV at left (right) panel. One can see that just near the threshold the resonances with $`J=\frac{1}{2}`$ are important. Together with the nucleon term they are $`N_{\frac{1}{2}^+}(1440)P_{11}`$, $`N_{\frac{1}{2}^{}}(1535)S_{11}`$ and $`N_{\frac{1}{2}^{}}(1650)S_{11}`$. It is interesting that the separate contributions of the two latter ones are greater than the nucleon term. But their phases are opposite and, therefore, they cancel each other. The cancellation increases with energy which results in a total decrease of the resonance contribution. On the other hand one can see that the relative role of the higher spin resonances with orbital/radial excitations, being proportional to $`𝐪^2`$ and $`𝐪^4`$, increases with increasing values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}`$, as illustrated in Fig. 4. This enhancement, however, is smaller than the effect of the strong destructive interference of the resonance amplitudes and, therefore, the total contribution of the resonance channel decreases with energy as shown in Fig. 2.

In our analyses we do not include the \*** resonance $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1710)P_{11}`$ , as in . A simple estimate shows that its contribution is rather small. Indeed, the calculation in , within the vector dominance model, shows that the $`\omega NN^{}`$ coupling for $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1710)P_{11}`$ is about four times smaller than for the $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1440)P_{11}`$ resonance. Observing further that the corresponding pion decay width of $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1710)P_{11}`$, 5$`\mathrm{}`$15 MeV, is much smaller than that of $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1440)P_{11}`$, 210$`\mathrm{}`$250 MeV, we can expect a negligible contribution of $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1710)P_{11}`$ being about one order of magnitude smaller than the one of $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1440)P_{11}`$.

Figs. 5 and 6 show the angular distributions of the $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ production cross sections at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=20`$ and $`100`$ MeV, respectively. One can see that the destructive interference between meson exchange and nucleon channels, which is stronger for backward production, results in a non-monotonic angular distribution. The effect is stronger at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=100`$ MeV.

Fig. 7 (left panel) shows the ratio of the averaged amplitudes $`|T_V|`$ of $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ production as a function of the vector meson’s production angle at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=20`$ MeV. $`|T_V|`$ is defined by

$$|T_V|=\left[\underset{m_i,m_f,\lambda }{}|T_{m_f,\lambda ;m_i}^V|^2\right]^{\frac{1}{2}},$$
(63)
where $`m_i,m_f,\lambda `$ are the spin projection of target, recoil protons and vector meson, respectively. The dotted straight lines in Fig. 7 correspond to the standard OZI rule violation value $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^{OZI}=\mathrm{ctg}\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _V=15.43`$. The long dashed curve corresponds to the ratio of pure nucleon channels taken separately, the dot-dashed curve is result for a pure meson exchange, while the solid line represents the full calculation. Note that the ratio even for pure meson exchange amplitudes $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^M`$ is smaller than $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^{OZI}`$. That is because at the threshold

$`R_{\omega /\varphi }^M{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\omega \rho \pi }}{g_{\varphi \rho \pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_\omega }{m_\varphi }}{\displaystyle \frac{f(m_\omega )}{f(m_\varphi )}}9.9{\displaystyle \frac{f(m_\omega )}{f(m_\varphi )}},`$ (64)
where $`f(m)`$ is a smooth function of $`m`$. The ratio for pure resonance terms is greater than $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^{OZI}`$ by an order of magnitude and more, i.e., $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^N^{}500(250)`$ at $`\theta =\pi (0)`$, because of a strong propagator and form factor suppression for $`\varphi `$ production. In the absence of the resonant amplitude the destructive interference of meson exchange (M) and nucleon (N) channels results in $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^{M+N}<R_{\omega /\varphi }^M`$. The presence of the resonance components leads to $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^M<R_{\omega /\varphi }<R_{\omega /\varphi }^{OZI}`$.

Fig. 7 (right panel) shows the ratio of the angular integrated amplitudes

$$<|T_V|>_\mathrm{\Omega }=\left[\underset{m_i,m_f,\lambda }{}\frac{1}{4\pi }𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }|T_{m_f,\lambda ;m_i}^V|^2\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(65)
of $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ production as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}`$. One can see that $`R_{\omega /\varphi }`$ (solid curve) may be slightly above or below the pure $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^M`$ value (dot-dashed curve), however, remaining much smaller than $`R_{\omega /\varphi }^{OZI}`$, namely $`R_{\omega /\varphi }=7.5\mathrm{}10`$, in agreement with the analysis in .

Fig. 8 shows the results of our full calculation of the spin density matrix element $`\rho _{00}`$ at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=20`$ and 100 MeV in the left and right panels, respectively. Near the threshold the meson exchange amplitude behaves as

$`T_\lambda ^{(M)}𝐤[𝐤\times \mathit{ϵ}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\lambda }].`$ (66)
That means that only $`\lambda =\pm 1`$ contributes and, therefore, $`\rho _{00}`$ is suppressed. The pure nucleon $`s`$ channel amplitude behaves as

$`T_\lambda ^{(N)}f|𝝈\mathit{ϵ}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\lambda }|i,`$ (67)
which results in an isotropic spin density, i.e., $`\rho _{00}=\rho _{11}=\rho _{11}=1/3`$. The resonance amplitudes have additional terms proportional to $`𝐤\mathit{ϵ}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\lambda }`$, which also enhance $`\rho _{00}`$. This effect is seen clearly in the left panel of Fig. 8 for which our qualitative analysis is valid. For $`\varphi `$ production, where the main contribution comes from the meson exchange channel (cf. Figs. 2 and 5), $`\rho _{00}`$ is relatively small, $`\rho _{00}<0.05`$. But for $`\omega `$ production, where the contribution of the resonance channel is essential, we find $`\rho _{00}0.3`$ which is close to an isotropic spin-density distribution with $`\rho _{00}\rho _{11}=\rho _{11}1/3`$.

Fig. 9 shows the angular distribution of hadronic decays $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$ and $`\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ in $`\pi ^{}pnV`$ reactions at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=20`$ MeV. The left panel corresponds to a calculation of the vector meson production in forward direction, $`0.9<\mathrm{cos}\theta <1`$, where the cross section achieves a maximum, while the right panel shows its average value in the full angular interval $`1<\mathrm{cos}\theta <1`$. One can see a striking difference between the $`\varphi `$ and $`\omega `$ cases: an almost anisotropic distribution for $`\varphi `$ production ($`𝒲\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Theta }`$) and almost isotropic distribution for $`\omega `$ production ($`𝒲1`$), respectively, which reflect the difference in the corresponding production mechanisms.

A similar difference is predicted for the angular distribution of electrons in $`\pi ^{}pnVne^+e^{}`$ reactions shown in Figs. 10 and 11 at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=20`$ and 100 MeV, respectively. Again one can see that at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=20`$ MeV (Fig. 10) the $`\varphi `$ and $`\omega `$ cases are very different: an almost anisotropic distribution for $`\varphi `$ production ($`𝒲\frac{3}{4}(1+\mathrm{cos}^2\mathrm{\Theta })`$), and almost isotropic distribution for $`\omega `$ production ($`𝒲1`$), respectively. This pronounced difference disappears at $`\mathrm{\Delta }s^{1/2}=100`$ MeV (Fig. 11).

It should be emphasized that our prediction for the separate decay $`\omega e^+e^{}`$ may be tested experimentally supposed the corresponding detector acceptance is sufficiently large for distinguishing the sharp $`\omega `$ resonance peak in the dielectron invariant mass distribution sitting on the background of the wide $`\rho ^0`$ meson contribution. Otherwise one should consider the $`\omega \rho ^0`$ interference as calculated for unpolarized observables in . However, having in mind that the $`\rho ^0`$ production is a competing channel to the $`\omega `$ production, where the role of the resonances is expected to be even more important because of the larger number of intermediate $`N^{}`$ states, we expect that our prediction of an almost isotropic $`e^+e^{}`$ distribution at invariant mass $`M_{e^+e^{}}m_\omega `$ remains valid in general, reflecting the role of the baryon resonances in the production mechanism.

## IV Summary

In summary we have performed a combined analysis of $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ production in $`\pi N`$ reactions near the threshold at the same energy excess. We find that the meson-exchange amplitude alone can not describe the existing data, rather the role of the direct nucleon term and the nucleon resonance amplitudes is essential. The latter statement is very important for the $`\omega `$ production, and therefore we investigate the role of nucleon resonances in detail. The $`\omega NN^{}`$ couplings as well as the phases of the $`\pi NN^{}`$ couplings are taken from the recent work . It is found that the resonance contributions can influence significantly the total and the differential cross sections at small energy excess as well as the ratio of the averaged amplitudes of $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ production. For this ratio we get the value $`8.7\pm 1.5`$ which is much smaller than the value based on the standard OZI rule violation. The dominant contributions are found to stem from the nucleon resonances $`N_{\frac{1}{2}}(1535)S_{11}`$, $`N_{\frac{1}{2}}(1650)S_{11}`$, and $`N_{\frac{1}{2}+}(1440)P_{11}`$. However, the other resonances become also important with increasing energy excess.

We have shown that our predictions can essentially be tested by measuring the angular distribution of decay particles in the reactions $`\pi NN\varphi NK^+K^{}`$, $`\pi NN\omega N3\pi `$ and $`\pi NNVNe^+e^{}`$. Near the thresholds, for the $`\varphi `$ production we predict an almost anisotropic distribution, while for the $`\omega `$ production an almost isotropic distributions is obtained. Experimentally, this prediction can be tested with the pion beam at the HADES spectrometer at GSI/Darmstadt .

It should be stressed that the present investigation is completely based on the conventional meson-nucleon dynamics and, therefore, our predictions may be considered as a necessary background for forthcoming studies of the hidden strangeness degrees of freedom in non-strange hadrons. Finally, it should be emphasized that our study here is a first step from the point of view of a dynamical treatment of the problem, thus going beyond . The main uncertain part is the poor knowledge of the strong cut-off factors for the virtual nucleon and nucleon resonances which are important for the present consideration. Also, the effects of the final state interaction must be investigated which may be pursued by extending the approach of Refs. .

### Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge fruitful discussions with H.W. Barz, R. Dressler, S.B. Gerasimov, L.P. Kaptari, and J. Ritman. One of the authors (A.I.T.) thanks for the warm hospitality of the nuclear theory group in the Research Center Rossendorf. This work is supported by BMBF grant 06DR921, Heisenberg-Landau program, HADES-JINR participation project #03-1-1020-95/2002, and Russian Foundation for Basic Research under Grant No. 96-15-96426.


text:
# QCD sum rules for the pseudoscalar decay constants — To constrain the strange quark mass

## I INTRODUCTION

According to PCAC , the decay constant of a pion measures the coupling strength of the corresponding axial-vector current to the pion. One useful constraint which can be derived by combining PCAC with the soft-pion theorem is the Gell-Mann$``$Oakes$``$Renner (GOR) relation

$`4m_q\overline{q}q=m_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2,(f_\pi =131\mathrm{MeV}).`$ (1)
As the pion decay constant $`f_\pi `$ is well-known, this GOR relation can be used to constrain either the quark condensate or the quark mass. In particular, the small quark mass $`m_q=(m_u+m_d)/27`$ MeV  at 1 GeV scale restricts the quark condensate to be $`\overline{q}q(225\mathrm{MeV})^3`$, the value being widely used in practical QCD sum rule calculations. Corrections to the GOR relation are an order of $`𝒪(m_q^2)`$ or higher, which should be small.

When a strange quark is involved, the corresponding GOR relation may not be a reliable constraint. For kaon, one may start from the kaon PCAC relation

$`0|\overline{s}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5u|K^+(p)=ip_\mu f_K.`$ (2)
By taking the divergence and using the soft-kaon theorem, one arrives at the kaon GOR relation

$`(m_q+m_s)[\overline{q}q+\overline{s}s]=m_K^2f_K^2.`$ (3)
Due to the large strange quark mass $`m_s`$, one may expect nonnegligible corrections from $`𝒪(m_s^2)`$ or higher order, and this kaon GOR relation, though exact to leading order in quark mass, may not be a good constraining equation for $`m_s`$ and $`f_K`$. Indeed, using the conventional QCD parameters \[for example, see Ref. .\]

$`m_s=150\mathrm{MeV};\overline{s}s=0.8\overline{q}q,`$ (4)
Eq.(3) yields $`f_K=116`$ MeV, which is much smaller than its experimental value $`f_K^{expt}160`$ MeV . Much smaller $`m_s`$ from the baryon sum rules  leads to much larger discrepancy. To reproduce $`f_K^{expt}`$ from this kaon GOR relation, the strange quark mass (assuming that $`\overline{s}s`$ is fixed as above) needs to be around 300 MeV, which is evidently too large for the current mass of strange quark. Consideration for the $`\eta _8`$ case leads to a similar (even larger) discrepancy from the $`\eta _8`$ GOR relation.

Then one may naturally attempt to improve the GOR relations especially when strange quark is involved. We look for the improvement that provides a reliable relation between $`f_K`$ and $`m_s`$. This improvement of course should not affect the well-established GOR relation in $`u,d`$ quark sector, i.e. Eq.(1). We then look for the $`m_s`$ in this improvement that reproduces $`f_K^{expt}`$. For this prediction to be reliable, this $`m_s`$ must be tested in the other case such as $`\eta _8`$.

As the discrepancy mentioned above comes from the large strange quark mass, it may be natural to calculate higher quark mass corrections to the GOR relations. For this purpose, we use QCD sum rules  for the axial-vector correlation function. Specifically, we wish to construct a sum rule whose phenomenological side contains only the pseudoscalar meson contributions while the QCD side is proportional to the quark masses. To leading order in quark masses, we want it to reproduce the GOR relation precisely so that we can systematically study the corrections from higher orders in quark mass to the GOR relation. Similar QCD sum rule calculations of the kaon decay constant $`f_K`$  did not quite look into this higher order corrections and our approach in this work is different from them.

To illustrate our approach briefly, we start by noting that the correlation function of the axial-vector current for example $`A_\mu =\overline{u}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5d`$ contains the two invariant functions, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2`$, defined by

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle d^4xe^{ipx}0|T[A_\mu (x)A_\nu (0)]|0},`$ (5)
$``$ $`g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Pi }_1+p_\mu p_\nu \mathrm{\Pi }_2.`$ (6)
This is in contrast to the vector correlation function which contains (under the isospin symmetry) one invariant function due to the current conservation. PCAC tells us that pion and its higher resonances contribute only to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2`$ while the axial-vector meson contributions are contained in both $`\mathrm{\Pi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2`$. PCAC further imposes that $`p^\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^A`$ picks up contributions only from the pionic resonances. Therefore, to investigate the properties of a pion without having contamination from the $`a_1`$ meson, it may be useful to consider the correlation function defined by

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2){\displaystyle \frac{p^\mu p^\nu }{p^2}}\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\Pi }_1p^2\mathrm{\Pi }_2.`$ (7)
This projected correlation function in the QCD side must be proportional to quark masses. Therefore, the sum rule from $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$ may provide a useful constraint which directly relates quark masses to the pion decay constant. By generalizing this sum rule to the strange quark sector, we investigate the quark mass corrections of the order $`𝒪(m_s^2)`$ or higher to the corresponding GOR relation. This may give stringent constraints for $`m_s`$.

This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, we present the OPE calculation for the projected correlation function of the general axial-vector current $`\overline{q}_1\gamma _\mu \gamma _5q_2`$. Using this OPE up to dimension 6, we construct QCD sum rules for $`f_\pi `$ in Section III and estimate how large the higher order corrections in quark mass to the GOR relation. In Section IV, we apply this framework to the kaon sum rule. We use this kaon sum rule to determine the strange quark mass $`m_s`$ by using $`f_K^{expt}`$ as an input. In Section V, we test this $`m_s`$ in the $`\eta _8`$ sum rule and see if it reproduces $`f_{\eta _8}`$ consistent with the phenomenology. We summarize in Section VI

## II The projected sum rule for the general axial-vector current

In this section, we calculate the operator product expansion (OPE) for the projected correlation function of the general axial-vector current $`\overline{q}_1\gamma _\mu \gamma _5q_2`$

$`\mathrm{\Pi }^A(p^2)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\nu }{p^2}}\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^A`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\nu }{p^2}}i{\displaystyle d^4xe^{ipx}0|T[\overline{q}_1(x)\gamma _\mu \gamma _5q_2(x)\overline{q}_2(0)\gamma _\nu \gamma _5q_1(0)]|0}`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{p^2}}{\displaystyle d^4xe^{ipx}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\begin{array}{c}\text{/}\\ p\hfill \end{array}\gamma _5iS_2(x,0)\begin{array}{c}\text{/}\\ p\hfill \end{array}\gamma _5iS_1(0,x)\right]},`$ (14)
where $`q_j(j=1,2)=u,d\mathrm{or}s`$, and $`iS_j(x,0)`$ is the quark propagator of the flavor $`q_j`$ in the fixed-point gauge. Once the OPE of this correlation function is calculated, it will be straightforward to obtain the OPE for pion, kaon and $`\eta _8`$. The advantage of using this projected correlation function is that the axial-vector meson contributions are canceled and the continuum threshold starts at a larger scale so that the correlation function is well saturated by the low-lying resonance.

A few technical remarks are in order before we proceed to the detailed OPE calculation. As $`\mathrm{\Pi }^A(p^2)`$ is a scalar function, the OPE involves only even dimensional operators. No odd dimensional operators can contribute to the sum rule. Also, as the axial-vector current is not conserved by the finite quark mass, all the OPE must be proportional to the quark masses. Thus we can focus on the operators that contain quark masses. This sum rule in the end will give sensitive constraints relating quark mass to the corresponding meson decay constant.

The OPE of the correlator Eq.(14) can be calculated by the standard techniques in the fixed-point gauge . To include the finite quark mass effectively, we calculate the correlator in the momentum space,

$`\mathrm{\Pi }^A(p^2)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{p^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\begin{array}{c}\text{/}\\ p\hfill \end{array}\gamma _5iS_1(k)\begin{array}{c}\text{/}\\ p\hfill \end{array}\gamma _5iS_2(kp)\right]}.`$ (19)
In the coordinate space, one has to expand the propagator in $`m_j`$ and hence it is difficult to keep the quark mass terms to all orders at each dimension. The perturbative part can be calculated straightforwardly using the free quark propagator

$`iS_j^{free}(k)=i{\displaystyle \frac{\begin{array}{c}\text{/}\\ k\hfill \end{array}+m_j}{k^2m_j^2}}(j=1,2).`$ (22)
Putting this into Eq. (19) and using the standard techniques of the dimensional regularization and the Feynman parameterization, we readily compute the perturbative part of Eq. (19),

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{pert}^A(p^2)=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑u[m_1^2u(m_1^2m_2^2)+m_1m_2]`$ (24)
$`\times \mathrm{ln}[u(1u)p^2+m_1^2u(m_1^2m_2^2)].`$
Note, this is an order of $`𝒪(m_j^2)`$ or higher. For the vector correlation function, the $`m_1m_2`$ term will have the negative sign so that when the two quark flavors are equal ($`q_1=q_2`$), the perturbative part vanishes as can be expected from the current conservation.

For the nonperturbative part, various even dimensional operators can contribute to the sum rule. In this work, we will calculate the OPE up to dimension 6. First we consider the case when one quark propagator in Eq. (19) is disconnected to form quark condensate In our notation, $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma \mathrm{}`$ refer Dirac indices and $`a,b,c\mathrm{}`$ color indices. $`iS_{ab}^{\alpha \beta }(k)d^4xe^{ikx}q_a^\alpha (x)\overline{q}_b^\beta (0)`$ while the other is remained to be the free propagator. By performing the Tayler expansion around $`x_\mu =0`$ and the Fourier transformation to the momentum space, we obtain the expansion for the quark condensate ,

$`{\displaystyle d^4x}`$ $`e^{ikx}q_a^\alpha (x)\overline{q}_b^\beta (0)={\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ab}}{12}}(2\pi )^4`$ (27)
$`\times \{\delta ^{\alpha \beta }[\overline{q}q\delta ^{(4)}(k)+\overline{q}D_\mu q{\displaystyle \frac{}{ik^\mu }}\delta ^{(4)}(k)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{q}D_\mu D_\nu q{\displaystyle \frac{}{ik^\mu }}{\displaystyle \frac{}{ik^\nu }}\delta ^{(4)}(k)+\mathrm{}]`$
$`+\gamma _\lambda ^{\alpha \beta }[\overline{q}\gamma ^\lambda q\delta ^{(4)}(k)+\overline{q}\gamma ^\lambda D_\mu q{\displaystyle \frac{}{ip^\mu }}\delta ^{(4)}(k)+\mathrm{}]\}.`$
One technical remark  is that the Wilson coefficient of the condensate $`\overline{q}D_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}D_{\mu _n}q`$ is related to the Wilson coefficient of $`\overline{q}q`$ via

$`C_{\overline{q}D_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}D_{\mu _n}q}(k)={\displaystyle \frac{(i)^n}{n!}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{\mu _1}}}\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{\mu _n}}}\right]C_{\overline{q}q}(k),`$ (28)
and similarly

$`C_{\overline{q}\gamma _\mu D_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}D_{\mu _n}q}(k)={\displaystyle \frac{(i)^n}{n!}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{\mu _1}}}\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{k_{\mu _n}}}\right]C_{\overline{q}\gamma _\mu q}(k).`$ (29)
Using this technique, we calculate the OPE involving the quark condensate up to dimension 6. Recalling that only even dimensional condensates contribute to the sum rule, the $`\delta ^{\alpha \beta }`$ part of Eq. (27) gives nonzero contributions when the quark-mass part of Eq. (22) is taken for the remaining propagator. Similarly, the $`\gamma _\lambda ^{\alpha \beta }`$ part of Eq. (27) contributes when the   /  $`k`$  part of the free propagator is taken. Also, since the OPE must be proportional to quark mass we need to extract only the quark mass dependent part from various quark condensates ($`j=1,2`$),

$`\overline{q}_j\gamma _\lambda D_\alpha q_j`$ $``$ $`g_{\lambda \alpha }{\displaystyle \frac{im_j}{4}}\overline{q}_jq_j,`$ (30)
$`\overline{q}_jD_\alpha D_\beta q_j`$ $``$ $`g_{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{m_j^2}{4}}\overline{q}_jq_j,`$ (31)
$`\overline{q}_j\gamma _\lambda D_\alpha D_\beta D_\sigma q_j`$ $``$ $`\left(g_{\lambda \alpha }g_{\beta \sigma }+g_{\lambda \beta }g_{\alpha \sigma }+g_{\lambda \sigma }g_{\alpha \beta }\right){\displaystyle \frac{im_j^3}{24}}\overline{q}_jq_j.`$ (32)
In doing so, we obtain the OPE containing the quark condensate up to dimension 6,

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\overline{q}q}^A(p^2)`$ $`=`$ $`(m_1+m_2)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{q}_1q_1}{p^2m_2^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{q}_2q_2}{p^2m_1^2}}\right]`$ (33)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(m_1^2m_2^2)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{m_1\overline{q}_1q_1}{(p^2m_2^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_2\overline{q}_2q_2}{(p^2m_1^2)^2}}\right].`$ (34)
The corresponding OPE for the vector correlation function is obtained by replacing $`m_2m_2`$ and $`\overline{q}_2q_2\overline{q}_2q_2`$. The first term is the one that leads to the GOR relation at the order $`𝒪(m_j)`$. In our calculation we kept the quark mass in the denominator of the free quark propagator. Thus, when we analytically continue to the time-like region, the imaginary part picks up the pole at $`p^2=m_j^2`$. This aspect is slightly different from the usual application of QCD sum rules where the pole of the nonperturbative OPE is located at $`p^2=0`$. The modification of a sum rule result due to this is marginal in usual practices. However, in our sum rule with $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)`$, we are looking at small strength both in the phenomenological and QCD side. In this case, this small distinction due to the quark mass in the quark propagator could be important especially when strange quark is involved.

The contribution from the dimension-4 gluon condensate $`\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }𝒢^2`$ should be vanished in our sum rule as it is not proportional to quark mass. The other possible dimension 6 operators would be $`m_im_j\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }𝒢^2`$ ($`i,j=1,2`$) and $`m_j\overline{q}_jg_s\sigma 𝒢q_j`$. These however do not contribute to our sum rule. The disappearance of the $`m_j\overline{q}_jg_s\sigma 𝒢q_j`$ contribution can be easily understood by recalling that the GOR relation is exact at the order $`𝒪(m_j)`$. If $`m_j\overline{q}_jg_s\sigma 𝒢q_j`$ does contribute, then the GOR relation is no longer valid even at the order $`𝒪(m_j)`$. Indeed, one can show by a direct calculation that $`m_j\overline{q}_jg_s\sigma 𝒢q_j`$ does not contribute to our sum rule To check this easily, it is useful to use the quark propagator in the coordinate space as given in Eq.(8) and Eq.(13) of the first reference in Ref. . The two contributions to this dimension 6 condensate indeed cancel each other in our sum rule..

Verifying the disappearance of the $`m_im_j\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }𝒢^2`$ contribution (more precisely its imaginary part) is technically more involved. For a consistent calculation, one needs to consider the quark propagators with one and two gluons attached. Using the quark propagators interacting with gluons (see Ref.  for their explicit expressions), we readily compute this contribution and obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }}𝒢^2{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑u\left[(1u)^2m_1+u^2m_2\right]{\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{L^2}}`$ (35)
$`\mathrm{where}L=u(1u)p^2m_1^2+u(m_1^2m_2^2).`$ (36)
Note, the numerator is already dimension 6. Thus, up to dimension 6, we can safely drop the quark mass dependence in $`L`$. Now the imaginary part of the first term involving $`(1u)^2m_1`$ is proportional to $`_0^1𝑑u\delta ^{}(up^2)`$ which of course vanishes. By the same reasoning, the second term involving $`u^2m_2`$ also does not pick up the imaginary part. Therefore, the dimension 6 contribution involving the gluon condensate does not contribute to our sum rule.

Before closing this section, here we give the imaginary part of the OPE \[Eqs.(24) and (34)\] up to dimension 6 for the correlation function of the general axial-vector current $`A^\mu =\overline{q}_1\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5q_2`$,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(s)`$ (37)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8\pi ^2}}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{2(m_1^2+m_2^2)}{s}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(m_1^2m_2^2)^2}{s^2}}}\left[(m_1+m_2)^2{\displaystyle \frac{(m_1^2m_2^2)^2}{s}}\right]\theta \left[s(m_1+m_2)^2\right]`$ (38)
$`+`$ $`(m_1+m_2)\left[\overline{q}_1q_1\delta (sm_2^2)+\overline{q}_2q_2\delta (sm_1^2)\right]`$ (39)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(m_1^2m_2^2)\left[m_1\overline{q}_1q_1{\displaystyle \frac{d}{ds}}\delta (sm_2^2)m_2\overline{q}_2q_2{\displaystyle \frac{d}{ds}}\delta (sm_1^2)\right].`$ (40)
Note, this is symmetric under $`12`$. From this, it will be straightforward to obtain the OPE for the pion, kaon and $`\eta `$ sum rules to be discussed below.

Now, the advantage of working with the projected correlation function becomes clear. This OPE contains a few sources of uncertainties, quark condensates and quark masses. Other sources of uncertainty such as quark-gluon mixed condensate, gluon condensate, or four-quark operator do not appear in our sum rule, which will certainly reduce the error in our prediction. Furthermore, $`\overline{q}q`$ ($`q=u,d`$) can be determined rather accurately from the pion GOR relation Eq. (1) once $`m_q`$ is fixed. As we will see in the next section, the higher order corrections in quark mass are small in this $`u,d`$ sector. When strange quark is involved, we have only the two additional QCD parameters, $`m_s`$ and $`\overline{s}s`$. Thus, as long as it is stable under the modeling of higher resonances or Borel mass variation, this sum rule can give a stringent constraint for $`m_s`$.

## III The pion sum rule

Having calculated the OPE for the general axial-vector correlator, we can easily obtain the pion sum rule. To do this, we set $`q_1=u`$, $`q_2=d`$ in Eq.(40). As the normal GOR relation Eq. (1) is well established, our improvement including higher orders in quark masses is not expected to be large for this pion case. In fact, the small quark masses can guarantee this expectation but we will check this for completeness.

Using the isospin symmetry, $`m_u=m_dm_q`$ and $`\overline{u}u=\overline{d}d\overline{q}q`$, we obtain the spectral density (the imaginary part) of the OPE up to dimension 6 ,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_\pi ^{ope}(s)={\displaystyle \frac{3m_q^2}{2\pi ^2}}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_q^2}{s}}}\theta (s4m_q^2)+4m_q\overline{q}q\delta (sm_q^2).`$ (41)
The phenomenological spectral density has pion and higher resonances of pion, namely,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_\pi ^{phen}(s)=f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2\delta (sm_\pi ^2)+(\pi ^{}\mathrm{contribution})+\mathrm{}.`$ (42)
Note that there is no $`a_1`$ meson contribution in our projected sum rule. Matching the two expressions under the Borel transformation and invoking QCD duality for higher resonances, we obtain the pion sum rule

$`{\displaystyle _0^{S_0}}𝑑se^{s/M^2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}\left[\mathrm{\Pi }_\pi ^{ope}(s)\mathrm{\Pi }_\pi ^{phen}(s)\right]=0`$ (43)
$`f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2e^{m_\pi ^2/M^2}={\displaystyle \frac{3m_q^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{S_0}}𝑑se^{s/M^2}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_q^2}{s}}}\theta (s4m_q^2)4m_q\overline{q}qe^{m_q^2/M^2}.`$ (44)
The first term (the perturbative part) is an order $`𝒪(m_q^2)`$ or higher. To the order $`𝒪(m_q)`$, we recover precisely the GOR relation Eq.(1) as expected. Therefore, the perturbative part is the correction to the GOR relation.

We use this sum rule to plot the Borel curve for $`f_\pi `$ setting $`m_\pi =138`$ MeV, $`m_q=7.2`$ MeV . The GOR relation gives (assuming $`f_\pi =131`$ MeV) $`\overline{q}q=(225\mathrm{MeV})^3`$. The continuum threshold is taken to be $`S_0=1.7`$ corresponding to the $`\pi ^{}`$ mass. Figure 1 shows the Borel curve for $`f_\pi `$, which is quite stable with respect to the variation of the Borel mass $`M^2`$. Furthermore, the resulting $`f_\pi `$ is not sensitive to $`S_0`$. Also shown by the straight line is the $`f_\pi `$ obtained from the GOR relation. The deviation from GOR relation is about 3 %. Thus our sum rule including the higher mass corrections does not change the established pion GOR relation.

## IV The kaon sum rule–to constrain the strange quark mass

We now construct a sum rule for kaon. The small deviation from the GOR relation observed in the pion sum rule can not be guaranteed in this case because of the large strange quark mass. In this sum rule, we set $`q_1=q`$ (here $`q=u\mathrm{or}d`$) and $`q_2=s`$ in Eq. (40). The similar procedure as before leads to the kaon sum rule

$`f_K^2m_K^2e^{m_K^2/M^2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _{(m_q+m_s)^2}^{S_0}}𝑑se^{s/M^2}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{2(m_q^2+m_s^2)}{s}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(m_q^2m_s^2)^2}{s^2}}}`$ (45)
$`\times `$ $`\left[(m_q+m_s)^2{\displaystyle \frac{(m_q^2m_s^2)^2}{s}}\right]\theta \left[s(m_q+m_s)^2\right]`$ (46)
$``$ $`(m_q+m_s)\left[\overline{q}qe^{m_s^2/M^2}+\overline{s}se^{m_q^2/M^2}\right]`$ (47)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(m_q^2m_s^2)\left[m_q\overline{q}q{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M^2}}e^{m_s^2/M^2}m_s\overline{s}s{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M^2}}e^{m_q^2/M^2}\right].`$ (48)
Again, to leading order in $`m_q`$ (or $`m_s`$), we recover the kaon GOR relation Eq. (3). The first and third terms are therefore the higher order corrections to the kaon GOR relation. To estimate how large the corrections are, we plot for $`f_K`$ with respect to $`M^2`$ in figure 2. In this plot, we use $`m_K=494`$ MeV and the continuum threshold is set to $`S_0=2`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> corresponding to $`K_0^{}`$ (1430) <sup>§</sup><sup>§</sup>§However, the sensitivity to $`S_0`$ is very weak. For $`S_0=2.5`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>, the result is changed only by 2 % .. For the strange quark condensate, we set $`\overline{s}s=0.8\overline{q}q`$ . As for the strange quark mass, a wide range of its value can be found in literatures . It is within the range $`m_s100200`$ MeV. To cover this range of $`m_s`$, we plot the Borel curves for $`m_s=100`$ (solid), 150 (dashed), 200 (dot-dashed) MeV. The corresponding straight lines are the ones from the kaon GOR relation Eq. (3). We see that all three Borel curves become quite flat for $`M^21`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>, but the extracted $`f_K`$ is quite different from the $`f_K`$ given by the kaon GOR relation, about 20 -25 % level. The corrections shift the Borel curves upward and it is clear that the $`f_K`$ extracted from them is closer to its experimental value $`f_K^{expt}160`$ MeV. Thus our improvement helps to achieve a better agreement with the experiment. To reproduce $`f_K^{expt}`$ only from the kaon GOR relation, $`m_s`$ should be abnormally large like $`m_s300`$ MeV, which is obviously not acceptable.

Most interesting feature is that the stable Borel curve is shifted noticeably as we change $`m_s`$. It means that, once $`f_K`$ is fixed, this sum rule can give a stringent constraint for $`m_s`$ or vice versa. We therefore look for $`m_s`$ which reproduces the experimental kaon decay constant $`f_K^{expt}160`$. Since $`m_q`$ and $`\overline{q}q`$ are well fixed by the GOR relation for pion, only uncertainty in our sum rule comes from $`\overline{s}s`$. According to the baryon sum rules , the strange quark condensate at 1 GeV is estimated as

$`\overline{s}s=(0.8\pm 0.1)\overline{q}q.`$ (49)
Using this input, we obtain the strange quark mass that reproduces the experimental $`f_K`$ at $`M^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>,

$`m_s=186.5\pm 8.5\mathrm{MeV}.`$ (50)
The error comes from the uncertainty in $`\overline{s}s`$. This $`m_s`$ is the value at 1 GeV scale because other parameters used in extracting this is defined at 1 GeV. The Borel stability in extracting this is fairly good. Even if we take into account the additional error of an order 5 MeV from the continuum threshold $`S_0`$, the extracted $`m_s`$ from this sum rule is sufficiently accurate. Higher dimensional operators starts at dimension 8, which are expected to be small. Our $`m_s`$ is somewhat larger than the conventional value of $`m_s=150`$ MeV or the value from hadronic $`\tau `$ decay $`m_s=159`$ MeV . But it is smaller than the one from Ref.  and is somewhat consistent with the value from the current algebra ratio $`m_s=175\pm 25`$ MeV  or with the one in Ref. .

Possible modification to our results can be expected from $`\alpha _s`$ correction to the perturbative part. Note however that the dominant piece to our sum rule is the dimension 4 OPE containing quark condensates. Contribution from the perturbative part, which is an order $`𝒪(m_q^2)`$, is about 20 % level in our kaon sum rule. The $`\alpha _s`$ correction is expected to be proportional to $`\alpha _s/\pi `$ times the perturbative part \[For example, see the $`\rho `$ meson sum rule in Ref. .\]. At $`M=1`$ GeV, $`\alpha _s`$ is around 0.3 , which gives the correction of an order 0.1 to the perturbative part. Thus, unless it involves a large numerical coefficient, the $`\alpha _s`$ correction to our results is expected to be small. Nevertheless, in future, it will be interesting to calculate the $`\alpha _s`$ correction explicitly and make sure this expectation.

## V The $`\eta _8`$ sum rule

Having determined $`m_s`$ from the kaon sum rule, we now test whether it gives a consistent result for the $`\eta _8`$ case by constructing a sum rule for the current

$`A_\mu ^8={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}\left(\overline{u}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5u+\overline{d}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5d2\overline{s}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5s\right).`$ (51)
We recall that the $`\eta _8`$ decay constant is defined by the matrix element

$`0|A_\mu ^8|\eta _8(p)=if_{\eta _8}p_\mu .`$ (52)
Refs.  give $`f_{\eta _8}157165`$ MeV. Using $`m_s`$ from the kaon sum rule, we will see if the $`f_{\eta _8}`$ from our sum rule is consistent within this range.

Taking the divergence of the axial-vector current and the subsequent use of the soft-$`\eta _8`$ theorem lead to the following $`\eta _8`$ GOR relation

$`f_{\eta _8}^2m_{\eta _8}^2={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}m_q\overline{q}q{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}m_s\overline{s}s.`$ (53)
Here again, we have used the isospin symmetry $`m_u=m_dm_q`$ and $`\overline{u}u=\overline{d}d\overline{q}q`$. The OPE for the correlation function

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(p^2)={\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\nu }{p^2}}i{\displaystyle d^4xe^{ipx}0|TA_\mu ^8(x)A_\nu ^8(0)|0}`$ (54)
can be easily obtained from the general formula Eq. (40). Assuming that the continuum contribution starts at the $`\eta ^{}`$ resonance (i.e. $`S_0=0.92`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>), we easily obtain the $`\eta _8`$ sum rule,

$`f_{\eta _8}^2m_{\eta _8}^2e^{m_{\eta _8}^2/M^2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_q^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _{4m_q^2}^{S_0}}𝑑se^{s/M^2}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_q^2}{s}}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}m_q\overline{q}qe^{m_q^2/M^2}`$ (55)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_s^2}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _{4m_s^2}^{S_0}}𝑑se^{s/M^2}\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_s^2}{s}}}{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}m_s\overline{s}se^{m_s^2/M^2}.`$ (56)
Again, to leading order in quark mass, this reproduces the $`\eta _8`$ GOR relation Eq. (53). The perturbative terms that are the second order in quark mass constitute the higher order corrections.

The Borel curve for $`\eta _8`$ is shown by the thick dashed line in Figure 3. In this plot, we use $`m_s=186`$ MeV obtained from the kaon sum rule and assume that $`m_{\eta _8}=m_\eta =547`$ MeV. To show the sensitivity to the continuum threshold, the curve for $`S_0=1.4`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> is also shown by the thin dashed line. Around $`M^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>, the two curves differ by 5%. The Borel stability is not as good as the kaon case but $`f_{\eta _8}`$ becomes only 5 % smaller at $`M^2=2`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> than the one at $`M^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>. As can be seen, the $`f_{\eta _8}`$ from this sum rule becomes 30 % larger than what the $`\eta _8`$ GOR relation gives. Therefore, $`f_{\eta _8}`$ picks up a large correction from higher orders in quark mass to the $`\eta _8`$ GOR relation. From this sum rule, we extract $`f_{\eta _8}=160`$ MeV at $`M^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>. This is very close to its value in literatures $`157165`$ MeV  even if we take into account the uncertainties due to the continuum threshold or the slight dependence on the Borel mass. Therefore, $`m_s=186`$ MeV extracted from the kaon sum rule consistently reproduces $`f_K`$ and $`f_{\eta _8}`$.

## VI Summary

In this work, we have constructed QCD sum rules exclusively for decay constants of the pseudoscalar mesons, $`\pi `$, kaon and $`\eta _8`$. The phenomenological side of our sum rule contains only the pseudoscalar mesons while the QCD side is proportional to quark masses. Our sum rules give a very stable constraint relating the meson decay constants and the quark masses. To leading order in quark masses, our sum rules produce the GOR relations, which allows us to study the higher order corrections in quark masses. From the kaon sum rule, we have obtained a sensitive constraint relation for $`f_K`$ and $`m_s`$, which restricts $`m_s186`$ MeV in order to reproduce the experimental $`f_K`$. Such a $`m_s`$ when applied to the $`\eta _8`$ sum rule gives $`f_{\eta _8}`$ consistent with its value in literatures.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported by the Brain Korea 21 project. We thank Prof. S. H. Lee for useful discussions.


text:
# Codon Distributions in DNA

## 1 Introduction

The methods of statistical linguistics are used in recent years to study DNA sequences. The genome projects generate large volumes of data on DNA. Fast and reliable computational tools to analyse this huge data of billlions of bases are required. The idea is to identify features in the sequences and to correlate them with known biological functions. The methods of statistical linguistics could provide reliable computational algorithms. This is what we investigate here.

The sequences are made of the nucleotide bases A, C, G and T. The arrangement of the bases over the linear chain determines all the information there is in DNA. The regions that code for proteins, the coding regions (or the exons), have bases working in groups of three to make proteins. These triplets are called codons. The biologically meaningful words are these codons. The noncoding parts consist of the introns and the flanks. These are presumed important in regulatory and promotional activities. The biologically meaningful word structures in these regions are not known. A gene generally comprises of a number of exon regions separated by introns. Since the biological functions thus far are associated with the triplet codons, we concern ourselves only with these triplet words, the codons. Therefore, in our analysis, instead of an entire gene, we consider the coding DNA sequence (CDS) region of the gene, where the exon segments are put together, splicing the introns out.

Natural languages are characterised by structures determined by rules of grammar. The words put together with these rules carry sense. The rules give coherence and meaning to long texts. The languages have this long-range order. The frequency spectra show the presence of the long periods. These are identified by the $`\frac{1}{f^\beta }`$ type behaviour in the low frequency region. Words placed at random will have quite different frequency spectrum with no long-range behavior. The early work on natural languages dealing with the statistical distributions of words, done by Zipf , assigned ranks to the words. The word most frequent has rank=1; the next most has rank=2 and so on. Zipf showed that for natural languages the plot of frequency, $`f_n`$, versus rank, n, is of the power-law form:

$$f_n=\frac{f_1}{n^\alpha }$$
(1)
where $`f_1`$ is the frequency of rank 1. In the Zipf’s original analysis the power-index $`\alpha `$ was assumed to be one. Subsequent studies have allowed for deviations from one.

The DNA sequence of the letters A, C, G and T does have $`\frac{1}{f^\beta }`$ frequency spectrum. It is possible, therefore, that the sequences have long-range order and underlying grammer rules. The opinion on this issue remains divided. Some have taken the view that DNA is language-like. In the coding regions the long periods have lower incidence than in the non-coding parts. The Zipf-type fits in DNA regions (with overlapping n-tuples) have shown that the index $`\alpha `$ is higher in the non-coding segments over the coding ones. The averaged $`\alpha `$ over several overlapping n-tuples is nearer to the value for natural languages for non-coding segments than the coding ones.

The body of evidence presented in support of the language-like features of DNA has remained ambiguous. For one it is not known how the power-law Zipf-behaviour of natural languages is connected to the long-range correlations. It is known, for instance, that pseudorandom sequences satisfy Zipf- behaviour. Further, it is known that the frequencies of A, C, G and T vary somewhat more for the introns and the flanks over the exons. The $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}`$long-range” order that is observed for these noncoding regions may be an outcome of the frequency differences. The higher value of the Zipf index for the noncoding segments may again be ascribed to these differences in the frequencies of the bases.

The importance of statistical linguistics as a computational tool remains insufficiently explored for DNA sequences. While the Zipf law is probably not connected to the deeper features of languages such as the universal grammar, the coherence and the long periods, it could still be useful. For instance, the index $`\alpha `$ of languages could be (and is) used in computer algorithms to identify authors. The texts generated by authors vary slightly in their Zipf index. The index, therefore, identifies the author. Could one use similar algorithms to identify regions from the genome segments and relate them to their biological functions?

As precision and reliability are important we have weighed the merits of power-law fits over exponential fits. Since we are solely concerned with non-overlapping 3-tuples (i.e. the codons), we find the exponential fits have consistently lower $`\chi ^2`$. \[Chi-square ($`\chi ^2`$) is the sum of the ratio of the squared difference between observed value at the ith point (oi) and the expected value at the ith point (ei) to the expected value at the ith point (ei), i.e., $`\chi ^2`$ = $`_i\frac{(o_ie_i)^2}{e_i}`$; where the sum i runs over the number of points of the fit. The value of $`\chi ^2`$ depends on the total number of points to be fit minus one, sometimes called the degree of freedom, df.\] The exponentials, therefore, provide better fits. That the power-law fits for DNA sequences are worse than the exponentials have also been observed by others. The power law of Zipf is characterised by two parameters, the index $`\alpha `$ and the frequency of rank one, i.e. $`f_1`$. The number of parameters for the exponential fit is of interest to us. The Zipf’s law is used to find the relationship connecting vocabulary to the text-length. Such connection does exist for the exponential fit as well.

The parameters of the exponential rank-frequency relation depend crucially on the text-length. Once this parameter is known, the approximate length of the segment gets known as well. Indeed, the exponential fits are largely determined by two quantities, the frequency of rank 1, i.e., $`f_1`$ and the text-length of the sequence. There is however a small part that is characteristic of the gene. This signature of the gene is potentially useful in generating algorithms to identify the gene and relate to the biological functions.

## 2 The Approach

Out of the four bases A, C, G $`\&`$ T we have 4 $`\times `$ 4 $`\times `$ 4 = 64 possible triplets. Three combinations, namely, TAA, TAG $`\&`$ TGA are the stop condons. Thus 64 - 3=61 is the meaningful vocabulary. The codon most frequent has rank n=1, the next most has n=2 and so on. We define frequency, $`f`$, of a particular codon as the number of times it appears in the sequence. \[Note this definition is different from some of the references where $`f_n`$=$`\frac{Numberofwordsofrankn}{Totalnumberofwords}`$. The frequency of rank n is $`f_n`$. Here both frequency($`f`$) and rank(n) are dimensionless.

Observations on the CDS reveal that many codons may have the same frequency. Note that the CDS we are dealing with are relatively short sequences of several hundred to several thousand bases. This problem of multiple codons having the same frequency is called frequency degeneracy.

First, as we consider only codons, 61 in number, the problem of saturation of vocabulary for large text-length is clear. However, for most genes we observe that the actual usage of codons is smaller than 61. The codon usage is sometimes referred to as the vocabulary, i.e. the total number of different codons, used in the CDS.

From the Zipf’s law \[equation(1)\] with $`\alpha `$=1 we have

$$ln(f_n)=ln(f_1)ln(n)$$

If we plot ln($`f_n`$) vs ln(n) we have a straight line with slope -1 and intercept on the y-axis at ln($`f_1`$). Clearly, the maximum rank is just equal to $`f_1`$. When $`\alpha `$ deviates from 1, $`f_1`$ and the maximum rank are connected to each other through $`\alpha `$. The maximum rank (i.e. the vocabulary) along with $`f_1`$ (or $`\alpha `$) determine the text-length l, i.e., the total number of triplets, as follows :

$$l=f_1+f_2+f_1+f_3+\mathrm{}.+f_n$$

$$=f_1(1+\frac{1}{2^\alpha }+\frac{1}{3^\alpha }+\mathrm{}.+\frac{1}{n^\alpha })$$

Thus, $`\alpha `$ may be thought of as a function of $`f_1`$ and the text-length l. We want to arrive at the corresponding relation for our exponential fits.

## 3 The Exponential Fit

All the degenerate frequencies are assigned different rank number. Thus if CCG and CAG have the same frequency of occurrence they belong to two different ranks (one following the other) in our work. Therefore, here too, the codon usage, maximum rank and vocabulary are synonymous. The exponential function that connects frequency to rank is

$$f_n=f_1exp\{\beta (n1)\}$$
(2)
where $`\beta `$, a dimensionless constant for a particular gene, is to be determined from the fit.

We have tried this fit function on over 300 CDS. The CDS are sourced from the EMBL and the GenBank data bases. Table 1 gives the values of $`\beta `$ for some of the sequences under study. The plots showing the fit is figure(1).

The index $`\beta `$ in the exponential of equation(2) takes different values for the genes. It turns out, however, that $`\beta `$ is not completely a free parameter. Indeed, from Table 1, we notice that CDS that have text-lengths and also $`f_1`$ that are close have similar, though not identical, $`\beta `$ values. Notice, for instance, the $`\beta `$-globin CDS from the chicken and the clawed frog have the same l and $`f_1`$, 147 and 9 respectively; whereas the lysozyme CDS from the fish, $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑦𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑠}\mathrm{𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑝𝑖𝑜}`$ has 146 as l and 9 as $`f_1`$. The $`\beta `$ values for the $`\beta `$-globin CDS of the chicken and the frog are 0.05773 and 0.05772; while the lysozyme CDS, though functionally quite unrelated to the $`\beta `$-globin, has the $`\beta `$ value of 0.06056. So the value of $`\beta `$ is determined to a considerable extent by $`f_1`$ and the text-length of the sequence, l. There is but a part in $`\beta `$ that is characteristic of the gene.

## 4 Plot of $`\beta `$ vs. $`f_1`$

Figure(2) gives plots of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ for four complete CDS coding for $`\alpha `$-globin, $`\beta `$-globin, phosphoglycerate kinase and globulin proteins. The $`\chi ^2`$ values indicate that the relationship between $`\beta `$ and $`f_1`$ is linear to a good approximation. The plot for each CDS involves data on the gene from different species. These are sourced from GenBank. Each of the linear plots are specific to the gene. The evolution of the genes, as we move higher in the evolutionary hierarchy, does not significantly alter the overall text-length of the CDS regions.

The slope of the globin CDS, the $`\alpha `$ and the $`\beta `$, are nearly equal. As we show in the subsequent pages the value of $`\beta `$ is considerably determined by $`f_1`$ and l. There is but a small part that is unique to the gene. For the case of the $`\alpha `$ and the $`\beta `$ globins notice that the text-lengths of these CDS vary in a small range between 143 and 147. Table 1 shows that any two quite unrelated CDS can have $`\beta `$ values that are close provided their text-lengths and the $`f_1`$ are nearly equal.

The plots in figure(3) of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ keep the text-length l fixed at 140 for the same four genes. Though the closeness in the values of the slope indeed show the influence of l on the $`\beta `$ value, the small differences indicate the presence of the l-independent part in the $`\beta `$ value.

That the $`\beta `$ values are not completely determined by $`f_1`$ and l, but do have a component, albeit small, coming from the genes is illustrated in our next plot, figure(4). A number of different CDS, each from a different organism, were chosen and cut at three different text-lengths 30, 140 and 300, i.e., we considered only the first 30, 140 and 300 triplets respectively out of the whole CDS. The plot of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ for these three different text-lengths indicates that when the text-length is held fixed, but the genes are varied, the exponential gives a better fit over the linear. It is noteworthy that even though the genes are unrelated in as far as their biological functions are concerned, the codon distributions, described by the experimental fit of figure(4), are not completely unrelated.

Taken together, the two plots, figure(3) and figure(4), tell us:
(i) When the text-length, l, is held fixed, and the genes are not varied, the plot of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ is linear and
(ii) When the text-length, l, is held fixed, and the genes are varied, the plot of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ is exponential.

Thus, we conclude that the value of $`\beta `$ does have a part that is gene specific.

## 5 Plot of $`\beta `$ vs l

$`\beta `$, as we have observed from Table 1, depends on $`f_1`$ and l. Beyond that there is the part that is gene specific. In other words the parameters of the functional fit do depend, in a small way, on the gene. This dependence we discuss later. Here, in this section, we concern ourselves with the dependence of $`\beta `$ on the text-length of the CDS.

We plot $`\beta `$ vs l keeping $`f_1`$ fixed. The plots in figure(5) show the dependence for four different values of $`f_1`$, namely $`f_1`$=7, $`f_1`$=9, $`f_1`$=20, and $`f_1`$=38.

In plotting figure(5) we considered the $`f_1`$ values of the natural CDS. We had the option to cut the CDS into fragments to suit our value of $`f_1`$. This procedure turned out to be arbitrary as the $`f_1`$ value may remain fixed over some hundred bases. Cutting into fragments is nonunique. It was, therefore, difficult to restrict our study of $`\beta `$ vs l for a particular gene. For a specific CDS (from different species) the text-length does not vary significantly in most cases. Therefore for a fixed value of $`f_1`$ the CDS were searched over different genes. Thus $`f_1`$ is held fixed, but genes vary.

Though more data for each gene could have improved the result, nevertheless the relationship between $`\beta `$ and l for fixed $`f_1`$ has a linear trend. As the text-length increases $`\beta `$ decreases. However, the plots for different values of $`f_1`$ are not parallel. They depend on $`f_1`$. The slope reaches a maximum at around $`f_1`$ = 10 and tend to decrease as we go away from $`f_1`$=10 on either side. For large values of $`f_1`$, the slopes tend to become parallel.

## 6 Theory of $`\beta `$

We have seen $`\beta `$ depends on the text-length, l, and the frequency of rank 1, $`f_1`$.
(1) When the text-length l is held fixed, genes not varied, $`\beta `$ depends linearly on $`f_1`$. The plot of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ shows that $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\beta }{\mathrm{\Delta }f_1}`$ is positive.
(2) When the text-length is kept fixed, but the genes are varied, the plot of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ show deviations from linearity. An exponential fit appears more appropriate.
(3) When $`f_1`$ is held fixed (genes are varied as well) the plot of $`\beta `$ vs l shows an approximate linear behaviour. $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\beta }{\mathrm{\Delta }l}`$ is negative. Note that, because of the points mentioned earlier, the variations in l (in figure 5) are over a rather small range. As a result the full l-dependence is not clear from figure(5).

In this section we investigate $`\beta `$ theoretically. Let us denote the maximum rank by $`n_{max}`$. Since the frequency of $`n_{max}`$ is almost always one, we get

$$1=f_1exp\{\beta (n_{max}1)\}$$
(3)
Or,

$$n_{max}=\frac{lnf_1}{\beta }+1$$
(4)
The text-length l is just the sum over all the frequencies. Thus,

$$l=\underset{n=1}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}f_1.e^{\beta (n1)}$$
(5)
$$=\frac{f_1(1e^{\beta (n_{max}1)})}{1e^\beta }$$
(6)
Substituting for $`n_{max}`$ from equation(4), we get

$$l=\frac{f_11}{1e^\beta }$$
(7)
Thus,

$$\beta =ln[1\frac{1}{l}(f_11)]$$
(8)
Since, the quantity $`\frac{f_1}{l}`$ is small compared to one, we get, to the first approximation

$$\beta =\frac{f_11}{l}+higherorders$$
(9)
Equation(9) tells us
(i) $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$, when l is kept fixed, is linear; the slope is positive.
(ii) $`\beta `$ vs l, with $`f_1`$ fixed, is hyperbolic. If the text-length variation is small we expect an approximate linear relation with negative slope (as observed in figure(5)). How good the relation(9) is checked in Table 1.

While the relation(9) tells us that $`\beta `$ is entirely determined by the ratio of $`f_1`$-1 to l, figure(3) tells us that this quantity does have a characteristic dependence on the gene family. We conclude, therefore, that the relation(9) does not determine $`\beta `$ entirely. There is a part that is gene specific. The theoretical values of $`\beta `$, equation(9), is reasonably close to the values obtained from the CDS. The dependence of $`\beta `$ on $`f_1`$ and l of equation(9) is gene-independent. It is the universal part of $`\beta `$. The deviation from this universal part, even though small, is established in figure(3) and figure(4). We define the quantity $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ that gives a measure of this deviation through the relation:

$`\beta `$ $`=`$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{f_11}{l}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(f_11)^2}{l^2}}]\beta ^{^{}}`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`\beta _{Th}.\beta ^{^{}}`$
where $`\beta _{Th}=[\frac{f_11}{l}+\frac{1}{2}\frac{(f_11)^2}{l^2}]`$.
We have retained the first two orders in $`\frac{f_1}{l}`$ \[ of equation(8)\]. This is to make sure the higher-orders in $`\frac{f_1}{l}`$ do not account for the deviations. The values of $`\beta ^{}`$ appear in the last columm of Table 1.

## 7 $`\beta `$, $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ and Evolution

We get back to Table 1 for the CDS of $`\alpha `$-globin, $`\beta `$-globin, insulin and globulin. We notice the value of $`f_1`$ increases as we walk up along the ladder of evolution. The increase in $`f_1`$ increases $`\beta `$ while the text-length of the CDS does not change significantly in evolution. The results for insulin and the globulin CDS \[Table 1\] carry at least one exception. Interestingly, for both these CDS, the exceptional species is the same, the rabbit. The rabbit has $`f_1`$ and $`\beta `$ values greater than the human for these two CDS. The number of exceptions increase for the two globins. Some fishes show greater $`f_1`$ (and hence $`\beta `$) values than the amphibian species, the African clawed frog. If we average $`\beta `$ for the mammals we find it always exceeds the other groups.

On the other hand, if we compare the $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ values for each of these four CDS, $`\alpha `$-globin and globulin do not show any clear pattern. In insulin, the $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ values increase as we move from fish to mammals through amphibia. But the syrian hamster CDS is found to have lower $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ than the clawed frog CDS. Besides the rat has greater $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ compared to the human. In $`\beta `$-globin, the Atlantic salmon fish stands as an exception. Otherwise, the $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ value increases from amphibia, bird to mammals. But here the representatives of amphibia and bird have the same value, and the lemur exceeds the value of human. We conclude that the value of $`\beta ^{^{}}`$, though independent of l and f1, is less species specific; whereas the value of $`\beta `$ does have evolutionary content.

## 8 Gene-Specific Signatures

In figure(2) we showed that $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ is a straight line when the genes are not varied. When the genes are varied, but the text-length is held constant, the relationship of $`\beta `$ to $`f_1`$ is no longer linear. The exponential fit is appropriate for this case. This led us to conclude that there is a part to $`\beta `$ that is gene-specific.

In figure(3) we plotted $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$ keeping the genes fixed for different organisms. The slope $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\beta }{\mathrm{\Delta }f_1}`$ is a characteristic of the gene. There is a variation in the slope as we go from one gene to another.

The regular, namely exponential form, obtained in figure(4) in the plot of $`\beta `$ vs $`f_1`$, l being kept constant, tells us that the variations of $`\beta `$, as we go from one gene to another, is orderly.

$`\beta `$ has a part that is gene independent. We isolate this universal component of $`\beta `$ theoretically. This part comes out to be a function of the text-length of the sequence and the frequency of rank 1, i.e. $`f_1`$. The quantity $`\beta ^{^{}}`$, defined in equation(10), measures the deviation of the actual $`\beta `$ from this universal, gene-independent, contribution given in equation(10). If the gene specific features are not dominant, $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ should be close to one. Table 1 gives us the values of $`\beta ^{^{}}`$. Clearly, the gene specific components in $`\beta `$ could be as high as 40$`\%`$ (as in insulin). We are led to conclude that the methods of statistical linguistics, of the Zipf variety, has the potential in algorithms to identify genes from the databases.

The quantity $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ that isolates the gene-specific components of $`\beta `$ is however not unique to genes. Observations on $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ (Table 1) show that the range of variations in $`\beta ^{^{}}`$ do overlap for different genes. There continues to be undetermined fluctuations in the values of $`\beta ^{^{}}`$. Work is currently in progress to isolate the unique gene-identifying signatures in the Zipf-approach.

$`\mathrm{𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞}\mathrm{𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬}`$
Figure 1. The plots of frequency (f) vs. rank (n) are the exponential functions (equation 2). Here different codons with the same frequency of occurrence are given consecutive ranks. The data corresponds to the $`\alpha `$-globin CDS from Duck (Acc. No. J00923). The $`\beta `$ value comes out to be 0.06801. The text-length, l of the CDS is 143; f1 is 10.
Figure 2. $`\beta `$ is plotted as a function of f1 for the natural CDS of 4 different proteins from various species. The relationship turns out to be linear.

\[Keys: m $``$ slope; c $``$ constant; sd $``$ standard deviation\]

Figure 3. The text-length (l) is kept fixed at 140 to plot $`\beta `$ as a function of f1 for the CDS of the same 4 proteins as in figure 2. The best fit here is a linear one.

\[Keys: m $``$ slope; c $``$ constant; sd $``$ standard deviation\]

Figure 4. $`\beta `$ is plotted as a function of f1 at 3 different values of l. Here a number of different CDS from various species are chosen and cut at 3 text-lengths 30, 140 and 300. For text-lengths 30 and 140, 15 CDS were chosen (GenBank accession numbers are AF007570, L37416, M16024, AF053332, AF001310, M15387, V00410, M15052, L47295, X07083, M59772, J05118, AF056080, AF170848 and M64656), while for text-length 300, 13 CDS were chosen (GenBank accession numbers are U02504, AF000953, M73993, AF054895, AF076528, AF053332, M15052, U65090, Z54364, U53218, AB013732, M15668 and U69698). Unlike figure 2 and figure 3, the exponential gives the better fit over the linear. The fit function: Y=Y0 + A.e(X/t) .

Figure 5. $`\beta `$ is plotted as a function of l for 4 different values of f1. For each f1, natural CDS of that particular f1, are considered. The relationship between $`\beta `$ and l for fixed f1 comes out to be linear.

\[Keys: m $``$ slope; c $``$ constant; sd $``$ standard deviation\]