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# A proposal to determine the spectrum of pairing-glue in high-temperature superconductors

## Introduction.

Understanding the mechanism of superconductivity in the high temperature superconducting cuprates requires knowledge of the spectral function of the bosons mediating the pairing as well as their coupling to the fermions. For conventional superconductors, such as Pb or Al, the phonon mechanism of superconductivity was firmly established through development of a procedure to invert the tunneling spectra (conductance as a function of voltage) and obtain the phonon spectral density Scalapino ; Rowell . Here we propose a generalization of this procedure for anisotropic superconductors, which in general may have pairing mediated by the electron-electron interactions, using the angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) data as an input.

Recall that in conventional superconductors the dependence of the normalized tunneling conductance, $`G_s(V)/G_n(V)`$, where $`s`$ and $`n`$ refer to the superconducting and the normal state respectively, on the energy dependent gap function, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\omega )`$, is known. In turn, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\omega )`$ is related to the spectrum of pairing bosons through the Eliashberg theory Eliashberg . This makes the inversion of the tunneling spectra possible.

Several important differences arise in the case of unconventional superconductors. First, since for an anisotropic gap function the tunneling current strongly depends on direction, and since the tunneling spectra are integrals over all the directions (often with a varying weight due to the spatial structure of the matrix element), such spectra in general neither provide sufficient information to resolve the anisotropy of the boson-fermion coupling nor allow its frequency dependence to be determined quantitatively. Second, in contrast to the case of phonons, in superconductors where the pairing is mediated by electron-electron interaction, the pairing spectra change and are temperature dependent below the transition temperature, $`T_c`$, when the single particle spectra are gapped. Also, since the typical energy of interaction between electrons is high, any inversion procedure must determine whether Eliashberg theory is suitable for the analysis.

We propose an inversion procedure using the ARPES data, which is applicable to anisotropic superconductors, uses the Eliashberg theory and contains a consistency check Arnold . Below, we first summarize the procedure and the experimental input required to implement it, and then describe the technical details.

## Outline of the procedure.

As input the following experimental information for an optimally doped or overdoped sample is required: (i) For Normalization. Just above $`T_c`$, for several points at the Fermi surface, we require the integrated area under the momentum distribution curve (MDC) for momentum perpendicular to the Fermi surface, as defined in Eq.(5) below. This step gives the anisotropic equivalent of normal state conductance in the McMillan-Rowell procedure and provides the necessary normalization for the second step. (ii) For Inversion. With the same polarization and incoming photon energy, and at the same set of points at the Fermi surface, we need, at several temperatures below $`T_c`$, the difference in the intensity of the MDCs between the normal state above $`T_c`$ and the superconducting state, for energies up to several times the superconducting gap. These data may be either a function of momentum or (better still) integrated during measurement over the momentum normal to the Fermi surface as in (i). This step allows the extraction of the spectral density of the boson and the form of the coupling function. The data are used to extract the superconducting gap function, according to Eq.(10). The gap function is then inverted by using Eliashberg theory to obtain the boson spectrum and its coupling to fermions in different angular channels according to Eq.(18). The self-consistency check on the Eliashberg theory is obtained by comparing the energy range of the bosons with the input ARPES spectra and with the estimates of the bandwidth.

## ARPES spectra.

The intensity of the ARPES signal, $`I(𝐤,\omega )`$, for a fixed momentum and binding energy of the emitted electron, is Randeria

$$I(𝐤,\omega )=(𝐤)f(\omega /T)A(𝐤,\omega ).$$
(1)
Here $`f`$ is the Fermi function, and $``$ is a prefactor, which depends on the square of the dipole matrix element between the initial and the final states, and on the kinematical factors. The information about the fermion spectrum is contained in the spectral function

$$A(𝐤,\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi }ImG^R(𝐤,\omega ),$$
(2)
where $`G^R`$ is a retarded Green’s function. It is the k-dependent prefactor, $``$, that obscures the true momentum dependence of the spectral function, and prevents direct inversion of the ARPES intensity.

In disentangling the momentum dependence of the spectral density, $`A(𝐤,\omega )`$, from the signal intensity measured in ARPES, we rely on several properties of the prefactor. First, while $``$ depends on the momentum, k, it does not contain a significant dependence on the temperature, $`T`$, or the electron binding energy, $`\omega `$ Randeria . Second, since the momentum dependence of $`(𝐤)`$ is determined by the spatial structure of the electron wave functions, the energy and momentum range over which it varies are of the order of the Fermi energy and the Brillouin Zone respectively. Consequently, if, for fixed $`\omega `$, the spectral density, $`A`$, is sharply peaked in the momentum space, the dependence of the prefactor on $`|𝐤|`$ may be ignored.

## Step (i): MDCs and normalization.

We write the momentum $`𝐤=(k_f+k_{},s)`$, where $`k_f(s)`$ is the Fermi momentum and $`s`$ is the tangential component of k at a point on the Fermi surface. The normal state Green’s function at Matsubara frequencies, $`\omega _n=2\pi T(n+1/2)`$, is

$$G_N(\omega _n,𝐤)=\left[i\omega _n𝒵(𝐤,\omega _n)\xi (𝐤)\right]^1,$$
(3)
where $`𝒵`$ contains the effects of the interactions, $`\xi (𝐤)v_f(s)k_{}`$, and $`v_f`$ is the bare, unrenormalized, Fermi velocity. Therefore the spectral function is

$$A_N(𝐤,\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{\omega Z^{\prime \prime }(𝐤,\omega )}{(\omega Z^{}(𝐤,\omega )v_fk_{})^2+(\omega Z^{\prime \prime }(𝐤,\omega ))^2},$$
(4)
where $`Z=Z^{}+iZ^{\prime \prime }`$ is the analytic continuation of $`𝒵(𝐤,\omega _n)`$ to real frequencies.

Our subsequent analysis assumes that Migdal’s theorem is valid for high-Tc superconductors, and checks for the validity of this assumption at the end. The essential statement of the theorem is that, when the energy range of the interaction is small compared to the electron bandwidth but the momentum ranges of the electrons and the boson are comparable, (a) the electronic self-energy is momentum-independent, (b) the vertex corrections to the interactions are negligible Migdal . Under such conditions, we can approximate $`Z(𝐤,\omega _n)Z(s,\omega _n;k_f)`$ in Eq.(4) to a high degree of accuracy. We believe that this assumption will be borne out by the self-consistency check since both the neutron scattering data Neutrons  and the analysis of the ARPES data in the normal state Valla ; Abrahams  indicate the range of the interactions to be 0.2-0.4 eV, only a fraction of the bandwidth.

In contrast to the usual Eliashberg theory, we must consider the change in the spectrum of the boson in the superconducting state. We show below that the inversion of the ARPES data at different temperatures below $`T_c`$ explicitly gives the evolution of the pairing interaction as the superconducting order develops. This point is very important because the value of $`T_c`$ is determined by the spectrum just above $`T_c`$, while all the properties below $`T_c`$ (for example the temperature dependence of the superconducting gap) are determined by the self-consistent change of the pairing spectrum as a function of temperature.

The momentum distribution curves (MDC), are obtained by plotting the intensity of the ARPES spectra, $`I(𝐤,\omega )`$ at a fixed electron energy $`\omega `$ as a function of $`𝐤`$ Valla . The MDCs needed here are those taken along the lines normal to the Fermi surface for several direction. These curves have Lorentzian shape as a function of $`k_{}`$ Valla , which confirms (by inspection of Eq.(4)) that both the renormalization function, $`Z`$, and the prefactor $``$ depend only weakly on $`k_{}`$ in the neighborhood of the peak of the MDC, $`(s,k_f+k_{})(s,k_f)M(s)`$. Bansil

Divide the ARPES intensity by the Fermi function to remove the temperature dependence, and consider the area under thus rescaled MDC,

$$𝒥(s,\omega )=𝑑k_{}\frac{I(𝐤,\omega )}{f(\omega /T)}M(s)𝑑k_{}A(𝐤,\omega ).$$
(5)
It follows from the Lorentzian shape of the spectral function in the normal state that

$$𝒥_N(s,\omega )\frac{M(s)}{v_f(s)}$$
(6)
is independent of the binding energy, and only depends on the position on the Fermi surface via the prefactor and the bare Fermi velocity. Therefore it serves to normalize the MDCs. It also follows that the energy and temperature dependence of the area under the MDC is simply given by the Fermi function. Note that to recover most of the area under the MDCs in the experiment it is sufficient to carry out the integration over the range of $`k_{}`$ of only a fraction of the Brillouin Zone.Valla

## Step (ii): Extraction of the gap function.

Next consider the difference between the electron Green’s functions in the normal and the superconducting state, and employ the spectral representation to write this difference as

$`G_N(𝐤,\omega _n)G_s(𝐤,\omega _n)`$ (7)
$`={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{i\omega _nx}}\left(A_N(𝐤,x)A_s(𝐤,x)\right).`$
Here $`G_s`$ is the ‘11’ component of the matrix (Nambu-Gorkov) Green’s function of a superconductor

$$\widehat{G}(𝐤,\omega _n)=\frac{i\omega _n𝒵(𝐤,\omega _n)+\xi (𝐤)\tau _3+\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐤,\omega _n)(i\tau _2)}{𝒵^2(𝐤,\omega _n)\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Phi }^2(𝐤,\omega _n)+\xi ^2},$$
(8)
and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the anomalous part of the self-energy. We now integrate both parts of Eq.(7) over the momentum normal to the Fermi surface at a given point $`s`$. Using Migdal’s theorem, we replace both $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`𝒵`$ in the integrand by their values at the Fermi surface, and introduce the gap function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(s,\omega _n)\mathrm{\Phi }(s,\omega _n)/Z(s,\omega _n)`$ to find

$`{\displaystyle \frac{i\pi }{v_f(s)}}\left(\mathrm{sgn}(\omega _n){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _n}{\sqrt{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2(s,\omega _n)}}}\right)`$ (9)
$`={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{i\omega _nx}}{\displaystyle 𝑑k_{}\left(A_N(𝐤,x)A_s(𝐤,x)\right)}.`$
Assuming particle-hole symmetry, $`A(k_{},s,x)=A(k_{},s,x)`$, and the existence of the center of inversion for the Fermi surface, $`(𝐤)=(𝐤)`$, we rewrite the integral over the energy, $`x`$, via an integral over only the occupied states, $`x<0`$ (cf.Norman ). Using the normal state result, Eq.(6), to eliminate $`M(s)/v_f(s)`$, we find ($`\omega _n>0`$)

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(s,\omega _n)=\omega _n\left[\left[1\omega _n𝒦(\omega _n,s)\right]^21\right]^{1/2}`$ (10)
$`𝒦(\omega _n,s)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}\left[𝒥_N(s)\right]^1`$ (11)
$`\times {\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^0}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{\omega _n^2+x^2}}[𝒥_N(s,x)𝒥_s(s,x)]`$
At each $`\omega _n=\pi T(2n+1)`$ and for given direction $`s`$ at the Fermi surface, the function $`𝒦(\omega _n,s)`$ depends solely on experimentally measured intensities. Therefore using Eqs.(10)-(11) the gap function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(s,\omega _n)`$ can be determined directly from the ARPES spectra.

## Inversion of the gap equation.

We assume a pairing function of the form $`|\mathrm{g}(𝐤,𝐤^{})|^2B(𝐤𝐤^{},\omega _n\omega _n^{})`$, where $`|\mathrm{g}(𝐤,𝐤^{})|`$ is the matrix element of the interaction, and $`B(𝐤,\omega _n)`$ is the propagator of the boson. In the Eliashberg theory the equations for the normal and the anomalous part of the self-energy take the form

$`\left[1𝒵(𝐤,\omega _n)\right]i\omega _n=T{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n^{}}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐤^{}|\mathrm{g}(𝐤,𝐤^{})|^2\frac{i\omega _n^{}𝒵(𝐤^{},\omega _n^{})B(𝐤𝐤^{},\omega _n\omega _n^{})}{\omega _n^{}^2𝒵^2(𝐤^{},\omega _n^{})+\mathrm{\Phi }^2(𝐤^{},\omega _n^{})+\xi ^2(𝐤^{})}}`$ (12)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐤,\omega _n)=\eta T{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n^{}}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐤^{}|\mathrm{g}(𝐤,𝐤^{})|^2\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐤^{},\omega _n^{})B(𝐤𝐤^{},\omega _n\omega _n^{})}{\omega _n^{}^2𝒵^2(𝐤^{},\omega _n^{})+\mathrm{\Phi }^2(𝐤^{},\omega _n^{})+\xi ^2(𝐤^{})}},`$ (13)
where $`\eta =+1`$ ($`\eta =1`$) for coupling in the channel even (odd) under time-reversal Sachdev . Integrating over $`k_{}^{}`$ in the right hand side, we arrive at an equation for the gap function

$$\omega _n\mathrm{\Delta }(s,\omega _n)=\pi T\underset{\omega _n^{}}{}𝑑s^{}g(s,s^{})B(ss^{},\omega _n\omega _n^{})\left[G(s,\omega _n^{})\mathrm{\Delta }(s,\omega _n)\eta \omega _nF(s,\omega _n^{})\right],$$
(14)
where $`g(s,s^{})|\mathrm{g}(s,s^{})|^2/|v_f(s)|`$ is the effective coupling at the Fermi surface, and $`G`$ and $`F`$ are the $`\xi `$-integrated diagonal and off-diagonal components of the Green’s function respectively,

$`G(s,\omega _n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _n}{\sqrt{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2(s,\omega _n)}}}`$ (15)
$`F(s,\omega _n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(s,\omega _n)}{\sqrt{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2(s,\omega _n)}}}.`$ (16)
We now make a simplifying assumption (to be verified) that the pairing function is separable and diagonal in the space of the Fermi surface harmonics, $`\psi _i(s)`$. These harmonics are the orthonormal eigenfunctions of the symmetry operators of the Fermi surface, and correspond to different angular channels for a cylindrical Fermi surface Comment . Therefore

$`g(s,s^{})B(ss^{},\omega _n\omega _n^{})`$ (17)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}B_i(\omega _n\omega _n^{})\psi _i(s)\psi _i(s^{}).`$
Expand in $`\psi _i(s)`$ all functions of $`s`$ in Eq.(14), $`\mathrm{\Delta }(s,\omega _n)=_i\mathrm{\Delta }_i(\omega _n)\psi _i(s)`$ and the same for functions $`G`$ and $`F`$, to obtain a linear system for the coupling function

$$\underset{k,\omega _n^{}}{}\beta _{ik}(\omega _n,\omega _n\omega _n^{})B_k(\omega _n^{})=\alpha _i(\omega _n).$$
(18)
All the coefficients in this equation are known from the form of the gap function and the Fermi surface,

$`\beta _{ik}(\omega _n,\omega _n^{})=\pi T\left[\eta \delta _{ik}\omega _nF_k(\omega _n^{})b_{ik}(\omega _n)G_k(\omega _n^{})\right],`$
$`b_{ik}(\omega _n)={\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}a_{ijk}\mathrm{\Delta }_j(\omega _n),\alpha _i(\omega _n)=\omega _n\mathrm{\Delta }_i(\omega _n),`$
$`a_{ijk}={\displaystyle 𝑑s\psi _i(s)\psi _j(s)\psi _k(s)}.`$
Solution of Eq.(18) gives the pairing function at Matsubara frequencies and in particular angular channels. It can then be analytically continued to real frequencies using either the Pade approximation Serene  or by solving the integral equation obtained by analytic continuation of Eq.(18) in analogy to Ref.Carbotte1, . The full pairing function, $`_iB_i(\omega )\psi _i(s)\psi _i(s^{})`$ can then also be used to obtain the self-energies, $`Z`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, using Eqs.(12)-(13).

## Self-consistency.

Two major assumptions have been made in our analysis, and have to be checked for self-consistency. First, we assumed that Migdal’s theorem holds. If the energy range of the pairing function is significantly smaller than the bandwidth in all channels $`i`$, the procedure is self-consistent. Second, we assumed separable form of the pairing function, Eq.(17). In a realistic calculation we truncate the number of angular channels, $`i`$, in Eq.(18); if inclusion of an additional channel does not change appreciably the pairing functions in the other channels, the approximation is justified. Note that a minimum of two channels is required: the isotropic channel which alone determines the self-energy in the normal state if the Fermi-surface is circular, and the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ channel responsible for pairing; we expect additional channels to enter with smaller couplings. The change of spectral strength with temperatures in these channels, obtained via the outlined procedure, yields crucial information on the change of self-energies below $`T_c`$.

## Experimental constraints.

Most available ARPES spectra are taken on Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ samples. Since our analysis includes only superconducting order and does not account for the pseudogap, the measurements should be done on an optimally doped or overdoped sample. In the normal state the width of the peak in MDCs is a fraction of the Brillouin Zone Valla , and we expect that the data in the superconducting state have to be collected over the same window in momentum space. Since the area $`𝒥_N`$ in Eq.(6) does not depend on the energy $`\omega `$, and since MDC is a Lorentzian with a flat ($`k_{}`$-independent) background at $`\omega =0`$, we suggest that $`𝒥_N`$ is most easily determined at the Fermi energy. Away from the Fermi energy the background becomes momentum-dependent; however, the difference between the signal in the normal and superconducting state, required in Eq.(11) is insensitive to the background. In that equation we expect the energy range over which the $`k_{}`$-integrated difference in intensity is appreciable to be of the order of a few times the superconducting gap, so that the data should be taken up to $`\omega 0.10.2`$eV.

Such data may be difficult to take near the $`(\pi ,0)`$ points because of the bilayer splitting, not accounted for in our one-band approach (generalization to a multi-band case is, however, straightforward). Also, near these points the MDCs corresponding to different Fermi arcs begin to overlap at energies away from $`\omega =0`$ Valla . Consequently, it is more feasible to measure the spectra close to the nodal directions; we expect that spectra taken over half of the angular range between the node and the antinode would contain enough information to carry out the analysis suggested here. Since the analysis of the spectra is complicated by the superstructure in Bi-O layer, samples containing Pb, which suppresses Bi-O modulations, may be more suitable. Finally, the resolution function of the measurement apparatus has to be disentangled from the signal intensity; the separation can be done by an integral transform if the energy dependence of the resolution function is known. A numerical procedure for implementing the method has been developed and will be made available.

We have proposed a method to extract the spectrum of the pairing function from the ARPES measurements in high temperature superconductors which makes a minimum of theoretical assumptions, does not use any prejudicial form of the pairing fluctuation spectrum as an input, and contains a self-consistency test. In contrast to the analysis of optical conductivity Carbotte , our approach uses single particle spectra which contains more information and explicitly gives the evolution of the pairing spectrum with temperature in the superconducting state. Implementation of this approach through appropriate experiments promises to yield the answer to one of the central questions in the high $`T_c`$ problem.

## Acknowledgements.

We have benefitted from discussions with Ar. Abanov and E. Abrahams. This research was supported in part by the DOE Grant W-7405-ENG-36. I. V. is grateful to Aspen Center for Physics for its hospitality during early stages of this work.


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# Controlling Spin Exchange Interactions of Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices

\[

## Abstract

We describe a general technique that allows to induce and control strong interaction between spin states of neighboring atoms in an optical lattice. We show that the properties of spin exchange interactions, such as magnitude, sign, and anisotropy can be designed by adjusting the optical potentials. We illustrate how this technique can be used to efficiently “engineer” quantum spin systems with desired properties, for specific examples ranging from scalable quantum computation to probing a model with complex topological order that supports exotic anyonic excitations.

PACS numbers:03.75.Fi,03.67.-a,71.10.-w,42.50.-p

\]

Recent observations of the superfluid to Mott insulator transition in a system of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice open fascinating prospects for studying many body phenomena associated with strongly correlated systems in a highly controllable environment . For instance, the recent studies have shown that, with spinor bosonic or fermionic atoms in optical lattices, it may be possible to observe complex quantum phase transitions , to probe novel superfluidity mechanisms , or to demonstrate the spin-charge separation predicted from the Luttinger liquid model .

This Letter describes a general technique to control many-body spin Hamiltonians using ultra-cold atoms. Specifically, we show that when two-state bosonic or fermionic atoms are confined in an optical lattice, the interaction between spins of the particles can be controlled by adjusting the intensity, frequency, and polarization of the trapping light. The essential idea is to induce and control virtual spin-dependent tunneling between neighboring atoms in the lattice that results in a controllable Heisenberg exchange interaction. By combining this simple experimental technique with the design of the lattice geometry, it is possible to “engineer” many interesting spin Hamiltonians corresponding to strongly correlated systems.

Such techniques are of particular significance since quantum magnetic interactions are central to understanding complex orders and correlations . We illustrate this with several examples: (i) we show that one of the generated Hamiltonians provides us an easy way to realize the so-called cluster states in two or three dimensions , which are useful for an implementation of scalable quantum computation with neutral atoms; (ii) we show that the realized Hamiltonian has a rich phase diagram, opening up the possibility to observe various quantum magnetic phase transitions in a controllable way; (iii) finally, we show how to implement an exactly-solvable spin Hamiltonian recently proposed by Kitaev , which supports abelian and non-abelian anyonic excitations with exotic fractional statistics. Abelian anyons could also exist in a fast rotating condensate .

We consider an ensemble of ultracold bosonic or fermionic atoms confined in an optical lattice formed by several standing wave laser beams. We are interested in the Mott insulator regime, and the atomic density of roughly one atom per lattice site. Each atom is assumed to have two relevant internal states, which are denoted with the effective spin index $`\sigma =,`$, respectively. We assume that the atoms with spins $`\sigma =,`$ are trapped by independent standing wave laser beams through polarization (or frequency) selection. Each laser beam creates a periodic potential $`V_{\mu \sigma }sin^2(\stackrel{}{k}_\mu \stackrel{}{r})`$ in a certain direction $`\mu `$, where $`\stackrel{}{k}_\mu `$ is the wavevector of light. For sufficiently strong periodic potential and low temperatures, the atoms will be confined to the lowest Bloch band as has been confirmed from experiments , and the low energy Hamiltonian is then given by

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{ij\sigma }{}}(t_{\mu \sigma }a_{i\sigma }^{}a_{j\sigma }+H.c.)`$ (2)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,\sigma }{}}U_\sigma n_{i\sigma }\left(n_{i\sigma }1\right)+U_{}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}n_in_i,`$
Here $`i,j`$ denotes the near neighbor sites in the direction $`\mu `$, $`a_{i\sigma }`$ are bosonic (or fermionic) annihilation operators respectively for bosonic (or fermionic) atoms of spin $`\sigma `$ localized on site $`i`$, and $`n_{i\sigma }=a_{i_\sigma }^{}a_{i_\sigma }`$.

For the cubic lattice ($`\mu =x`$,$`y`$,$`z`$) and using a harmonic approximation around the minima of the potential , the spin-dependent tunneling energies and the on-site interaction energies are given by $`t_{\mu \sigma }\left(4/\sqrt{\pi }\right)E_R^{1/4}\left(V_{\mu \sigma }\right)^{3/4}\mathrm{exp}[2(V_{\mu \sigma }/E_R)^{1/2}]`$, $`U_{}(8/\pi )^{1/2}(ka_s)(E_R\overline{V}_1\overline{V}_2\overline{V}_3)^{1/4}`$. Here $`\overline{V}_\mu =4V_\mu V_\mu /(V_\mu ^{1/2}+V_\mu ^{1/2})^2`$ is the spin average potential in each direction, $`E_R=\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m`$ is the atomic recoil energy, and $`a_s`$ is the scattering length between the atoms of different spins. For bosonic atoms $`U_\sigma (8/\pi )^{1/2}\left(ka_{s\sigma }\right)\left(E_RV_{1\sigma }V_{2\sigma }V_{3\sigma }\right)^{1/4}`$ ($`a_{s\sigma }`$ are the corresponding scattering lengths). For fermionic atoms, $`U_\sigma `$ is on the order of Bloch band separation $`2\sqrt{V_{\mu \sigma }E_R}`$, which is typically much larger than $`U_{}`$ and can be taken to be infinite. In writing Eq. (1), we have neglected overall energy shifts $`_{i\mu }\left(\sqrt{E_RV_\mu }\sqrt{E_RV_\mu }\right)\left(n_in_i\right)/2`$, which can be easily compensated by a homogeneous external magnetic field applied in the $`z`$ direction.

From the above expressions, we observe that $`t_{\mu \sigma }`$ depend sensitively (exponentially) upon the ratios $`V_{\mu \sigma }/E_R`$ while $`U_{}`$ and $`U_\sigma `$ exhibit only weak dependence. So we can easily introduce spin-dependent tunneling $`t_{\mu \sigma }`$ by varying the potential depth $`V_\mu `$ and $`V_\mu `$ with control of the intensity of the trapping laser. We now show that this simple experimental method provides us a powerful tool to engineer many-body Hamiltonians. We are interested in the regime where $`t_{\mu \sigma }U_\sigma ,U_{}`$ and $`n_i+n_i1`$, which corresponds to an insulating phase. In this regime, the terms proportional to tunneling $`t_{\mu \sigma }`$ can be considered via perturbation theory. We use a simple generalization of the Schriffer-Wolf transformation  (see another method in ), and to the leading order in $`t_{\mu \sigma }/U_{}`$, Eq. (1) is equivalent to the following effective Hamiltonian

$$H=\underset{i,j}{}\left[\lambda _{\mu z}\sigma _i^z\sigma _j^z\pm \lambda _\mu \left(\sigma _i^x\sigma _j^x+\sigma _i^y\sigma _j^y\right)\right],$$
(3)
Here $`\sigma _i^z=n_in_i`$, $`\sigma _i^x=a_i^{}a_i+a_i^{}a_i`$, and $`\sigma _i^y=i\left(a_i^{}a_ia_i^{}a_i\right)`$ are the usual spin operators. The $`+`$ and $``$ signs before $`\lambda _\mu `$ in Eq. (4) correspond respectively to the cases of fermionic and bosonic atoms. The parameters $`\lambda _{\mu z}`$ and $`\lambda _\mu `$ for the bosonic atoms are given by

$$\lambda _{\mu z}=\frac{t_\mu ^2+t_\mu ^2}{2U_{}}\frac{t_\mu ^2}{U_{}}\frac{t_\mu ^2}{U_{}},\lambda _\mu =\frac{t_\mu t_\mu }{U_{}}.$$
(4)
For fermionic atoms the expression for $`\lambda _{}`$ is the same as in (4), but in the expression for $`\lambda _z`$ the last two terms vanish since $`U_\sigma U_{}`$. In writing Eq. (2), we neglected the term $`_{i\mu }4\left(t_\mu ^2/U_{}t_\mu ^2/U_{}\right)\sigma _i^z`$, which can be easily compensated by an applied external magnetic field.

The Hamiltonian (2) represents the well-known anisotropic Heisenberg model ($`XXZ`$ model), which arises in the context of various condensed matter systems . However, the approach involving ultracold atoms has a unique advantage in that the parameters $`\lambda _{\mu z}`$ and $`\lambda _\mu `$ can be easily controlled by adjusting the intensity of the trapping laser beams. They can also be changed within a broad range by tuning the ratio between the scattering lengths $`a_s`$ and $`a_{s\sigma }`$ $`\left(\sigma =,\right)`$ by adjusting an external magnetic field through Feshbach resonance . Therefore, even with bosonic atoms alone, it is possible to realize the entire class of Hamiltonians in the general form (3) with an arbitrary ratio $`\lambda _{\mu z}/\lambda _\mu `$. This is important since bosonic atoms are generally easier to cool. In Figure 1a we show the phase diagram of the Hamiltonian (3) on a bipartite lattice as a function of $`\beta _t=t_{}/t_{}+t_{}/t_{}`$ and $`U_{}/U_\sigma `$  for the case when $`U_{}=U_{}`$ and $`t_{\mu \sigma }`$ independent of the spatial direction $`\mu `$. Certain lines on this phase diagram correspond to well known spin systems: when $`U_{}/U_\sigma =1/2`$ we have an $`XY`$ model; when $`\beta _t=\mathrm{}`$ ($`t_{}`$ or $`t_{}`$ is zero) we have an Ising model; for $`\beta _t=\pm (1/2U_{}/U_\sigma )^1`$ we have an $`SU(2)`$ symmetric antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic systems, respectively.

Before proceeding, we estimate the typical energy scales and discuss the influence of imperfections and noise. For Rb atoms with a lattice constant $`\pi /\left|\stackrel{}{k}\right|426`$nm, the typical tunnelling rate $`t/\mathrm{}`$ can be chosen from zero to a few kHz . The on-site interaction $`U/\mathrm{}`$ corresponds to a few kHz at zero magnetic field, but can be much larger near the Feshbach resonance. The energy scale for magnetic interaction is about $`t^2/\mathrm{}U0.1`$kHz (corresponding to a time scale of $`10`$ms) with a conservative choice of $`U2`$kHz and $`\left(t/U\right)^21/20`$. These energy scales are clearly compatible with current experiments . We further note that the present system should be quite robust to realistic noise and imperfections. First of all, the next order correction to the Hamiltonian (2) is proportional to $`\left(t/U\right)^2`$, which is small in the Mott regime. Second, since the atoms only virtually tunnel to the neighboring sites with a small probability $`\left(t/U\right)^2`$, the dephasing rate and the inelastic decay rate are significantly reduced compared with the cold collision scheme . Finally, the spontaneous emission noise rate can be made very small by using a blue-detuned optical lattice or by increasing the detuning. In a blue-detuned lattice, even with a moderate detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }5`$GHz, the effective spontaneous emission rate is estimated to be of the order of Hz, which is significantly smaller than $`t^2/\left(\mathrm{}U\right)`$.

We now illustrate the ability to engineer many-body spin Hamiltonians with specific examples. For the first example, we set $`V_\mu /V_\mu 1`$, so that $`t_\mu `$ becomes negligible while $`t_\mu `$ remains finite. In this case, the Hamiltonian (2) reduces to the Ising model $`H=_{i,j}\lambda _{\mu z}\sigma _i^z\sigma _j^z`$, with $`\lambda _{\mu z}=t_\mu ^2/\left(0.5/U_{}1/U_{}\right)`$. Though this Hamiltonian has quite trivial properties for its ground states and excitations, its realization in optical lattices can be very useful for a dynamical generation of the so-called cluster states . Specifically, we note that this Ising interaction can be easily turned on and off by adjusting the potential depth $`V_\mu `$. If we first prepare each atom in the lattice into the superposition state $`\left(|+|\right)/\sqrt{2}`$, and then lower $`V_\mu `$ for a time $`T`$ with $`\lambda _{\mu z}T=\pi /4`$ mod $`\pi /2`$, the final state is a cluster state with its dimension determined by the dimension of the lattice . The $`d`$-dimensional ($`d2`$) cluster states have important applications for implementation of scalable quantum computation with neutral atoms: after its preparation, one can implement universal quantum computation simply via a series of single-bit measurements only . The use of such cluster states can significantly alleviate the stringent requirements on separate addressing of the neighboring atoms in the proposed quantum computation schemes . Although the present approach is somewhat slower that the cold collision scheme , it allows to take advantage of its simplicity and the reduced dephasing rate.

As our second example, we explore the rich phase diagram of the Hamiltonian (3) in the presence of magnetic fields. For simplicity, we assume a bipartite lattice and identical spin exchange constants for all links. Figure 1b shows the mean-field phase diagram for bosonic particles in the presence of a longitudinal field $`h_z`$. This diagram was obtained by comparing energies of the variational wavefunctions of two kinds: (i) the Neel state in the $`z`$ direction $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i=(1)^i\stackrel{}{e}_z`$; (ii) canted phase with ferromagnetic order in the $`xy`$ plane and finite polarization in the $`z`$ direction $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i=\stackrel{}{e}_xcos\theta +\stackrel{}{e}_zsin\theta `$. Here, $`\theta `$ is a variational parameter, and $`\stackrel{}{e}_{z,x}`$ are unit vectors in the directions $`z,x`$. Transition between the $`z`$-Neel and the canted phases is a first order spin-flop transition  at $`h_z=Z(\lambda _z^2\lambda _{}^2)^{1/2}`$ ($`Z`$ is the number of neighboring atoms of each lattice site), and transition between the $`xy`$-Neel phase and the $`z`$ polarized phase is a second order transition of the $`XY`$ type at $`h_z=Z(\lambda _z+\lambda _{})`$. In the absence of transverse magnetic field one can use the existence of two sub-lattices to change the sign of $`\lambda _{}`$ using the transformation $`\sigma _i^{x,y}()^i\sigma _i^{x,y}`$. Hence, fermionic atoms in the longitudinal magnetic field have the same phase diagram as shown in Figure 1b, except that their canted phase has transverse Neel rather than transverse ferromagnetic order. Results of a similar mean-field analysis of the Hamiltonian (3) for bosonic atoms with a transverse magnetic field $`h_x`$ are shown in Fig. 1c. For fermionic atoms in a transverse field, there is one more phase with a Neel order along $`y`$ direction.

The third example involves the anisotropic spin model on a 2-D hexagonal lattice proposed recently by Kitaev . In this model interactions between nearest neighbors are of the XX, YY or ZZ type, depending on the direction of the link

$$H=\underset{\nu =x,y,z;i,jD_\nu }{}\lambda _\nu \sigma _i^\nu \sigma _j^\nu ,$$
(5)
where the symbol $`i,jD_\nu `$ denotes the neighboring atoms in the $`D_\nu `$ $`\left(\nu =x,y,z\right)`$ direction (see Fig. 2b).

To implement this model using ultracold atoms, we first raise the potential barriers along the vertical direction Z in the 3-dimensional (3D) optical lattice so that the tunneling and the spin exchange interactions in Z direction are completely suppressed . In this way, we get an effective 2D configuration with a set of independent identical 2D lattice in the X-Y plane. We then apply in the X-Y plane three trapping potentials (identical for all spin states) of the forms

$$V_j(x,y)=V_0\mathrm{sin}^2\left[k_{}\left(x\mathrm{cos}\theta _j+y\mathrm{sin}\theta _j\right)+\phi _0\right],$$
(6)
where $`j=1,2,3`$, and $`\theta _1=\pi /6`$, $`\theta _2=\pi /2`$, $`\theta _3=\pi /6`$. Each of the potentials is formed by two blue-detuned interfering traveling laser beams above the X-Y plane with an angle $`\phi _{}=2\mathrm{arcsin}\left(1/\sqrt{3}\right)`$, so that the wave vector $`k_{}`$ projected onto the X-Y plane has the value $`k_{}=k\mathrm{sin}\left(\phi _{}/2\right)=k/\sqrt{3}`$. We choose the relative phase $`\phi _0=\pi /2`$ in Eq. (5) so that the maxima of the three potentials overlap. In this case, the atoms are trapped at the minima of the potentials, which form a hexagonal lattice as shown by the centers of the triangles in Fig. 2a. We assume that there is one atom per each lattice site, and this atom interacts with the three neighbors in different directions through virtual tunneling with a potential barrier given by $`V_0/4`$.

In such a hexagonal lattice, we wish to engineer anisotropic Heisenberg exchange for each tunneling direction (denoted by $`D_x`$, $`D_y`$, and $`D_z`$, respectively). To this end, we apply three blue-detuned standing-wave laser beams in the X-Y plane along these tunneling directions:

$$V_{\nu \sigma }(x,y)=V_{\nu \sigma }\mathrm{sin}^2\left[k\left(x\mathrm{cos}\theta _\nu ^{}+y\mathrm{sin}\theta _\nu ^{}\right)\right],$$
(7)
where $`\nu =x,y,z`$, and $`\theta _x^{}=\pi /3`$, $`\theta _y^{}=\pi `$, $`\theta _z^{}=\pi /3`$. In general, we require that the potential depth $`V_{\nu \sigma }`$ depend on the atomic spin state as

$$V_{\nu \sigma }=V_{\nu +}|+_\nu +|+V_\nu |_\nu |,\text{ }(\nu =x,y,z),$$
(8)
where $`|+_\nu `$ ($`|_\nu `$) is the eigenstate of the corresponding Pauli operator $`\sigma ^\nu `$ with the eigenvalue $`+1`$ ($`1`$).

The spin-dependent potentials in the form of Eqs. (6,7) can be realized, for instance, with the specific atomic level configuration shown in Fig. 2c. Here, $`\sigma =,`$ denote two hyperfine levels of the atom with different energies. They are coupled to the common excited level $`|e`$ with a blue detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, respectively through the laser beams $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ with frequencies matching the corresponding transitions. The quantization axis is chosen to be perpendicular to the X-Y plane, and the phase-locked laser beams $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ are both polarized along this direction. In the tunneling direction $`D_z`$, we only apply the $`L_1`$ laser beam, which induces the potential $`V_{z\sigma }(x,y)`$ with the desired form (7) of its depth $`V_{z\sigma }`$. In the tunneling direction $`D_x`$ or $`D_y`$, we apply both lasers $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$, but with different relative phases, which realize the desired potential depth $`V_{x\sigma }`$ or $`V_{y\sigma }`$ of the form (7) in the corresponding direction.

The potentials (6,7) do not have influence on the equilibrium positions of the atoms, but they change the potential barrier between the neighboring atoms in the $`D_\nu `$ direction from $`V_0/4`$ to $`V_{\nu \sigma }^{}=V_0/4+V_{\nu \sigma }`$. The parameters $`V_{\nu +}`$ and $`V_\nu `$ in Eq. (7) can be tuned by varying the laser intensity of $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ in the $`D_\nu `$ direction, and one can easily find their appropriate values so that in the $`D_\nu `$ direction, the atom can virtually tunnel with a rate $`t_{+\nu }`$ only when it is in the eigenstate $`|+_\nu `$. Hence, it follows from Eqs.(2,3) that the effective Hamiltonian for our system is given by Eq.(4) with $`\lambda _\nu t_{+\nu }^2/\left(2U\right)`$ for bosonic atoms with $`U_{}U_{}U_{}U`$. After compensating effective magnetic fields, we find exactly the model described by the Hamiltonian (5).

The model (5) is exactly solvable due to the existence of many conserved operators, and it has been shown to possess very interesting properties . In particular, it supports both abelian and non-abelian anyonic excitations, depending on the ratios between the three parameters $`\lambda _\nu `$. In the region where $`2\lambda _\nu /\left(\lambda _x+\lambda _y+\lambda _z\right)1,`$ ($`\nu =`$ $`x,y,z`$), the excitation spectrum of the Hamiltonian (5) is gapless, but a gap opens when perturbation magnetic fields are applied in the $`x,y,z`$ directions, and the excitations in this case obey non-abelian fractional statistics. Out of this region, except at some trivial points with $`\lambda _x\lambda _y\lambda _z=0`$, the Hamiltonian (5) has gapped excitations which satisfy abelian fractional statistics. Thus, the present implementation opens up an exciting possibility to realize experimentally the exotic abelian and non-abelian anyons.

Now we briefly discuss the techniques for probing the resulting states. To detect the quantum phase transitions in the XXZ model with magnetic fields or in Kitaev’s model, one can probe the excitation spectra via Bragg or Raman spectroscopy. In general, different quantum phases are characterized by specific dispersion relations (for instance, in Kitaev’s model, one phase is gapped while the other is gapless). If the two probe light beams have the momentum and frequency differences which match those of the dispersion relation in the corresponding phase, a resonant absorption of the probe light could be observed . The direct observation of the fractional statistics in Kitaev’s model can be based on atomic interferometry with a procedure similar to that described in Ref. : one generates a pair of anyonic excitations with a spin-dependent laser focused on two lattice sites, rotates one anyon around the other, and then brings them together for fusion which gives different results depending on the anyonic statistics. Other methods for detecting complex quantum states of atoms have also been developed recently .

In summary, we have described a general technique to engineer many-body spin Hamiltonians.

We thank J.I.Cirac, D.DiVincenzo, W. Hofstetter, A.Kitaev, and P. Zoller for helpful discussions. This work was supported by NSF (EIA-0086038, DMR-0132874 and PHY-0134776), and by Sloan and Packard Foundations. L.M.D. also acknowledges support from the MURI Center DAAD19-00-1-0374, the CNSF, the CAS, and the ”97.3” project 2001CB309300.


text:
# Effects of light scalar mesons in 𝜂→3𝜋 decay

## I Introduction

There has been a revival of interest recently kyotoconf  in the possible existence of a broad scalar meson (sigma) with a mass in the 560 MeV region and its corresponding nonet partners. A large number of workers vanBev -Deirdreetal  have found evidence for the sigma in models of $`\pi \pi `$ scattering even though it is partially obscured by background. Generally this state is considered to be of exotic nature (more complicated than $`q\overline{q}`$) and hence an important clue to an understanding of QCD in its low energy non-perturbative regime. Similarly, analyses of $`\pi \pi `$ , $`\pi `$K and $`\pi \eta `$ scattering have provided evidence for the existence of the remaining members of a possible light scalar nonet: the $`\kappa `$, the $`a_0(980)`$ and the $`f_0(980)`$. In fact, the latter two states have been well established experimentally for some time. Of course, the treatment of such strongly interacting processes is inevitably model dependent and there are a number of different opinions as to the correct approach kyotoconf . Thus it is of great interest to see whether treatments of the role of scalars in other processes using the same models employed in the scattering processes above give consistency with experiment.

From this point of view we will study the role of possible light scalars in the interesting $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay. Typically this process has been treated by chiral perturbation theory Gasser85 , in which the possible effects of scalars have been amalgamated into effective contact interactions among the pseudoscalars. This is probably the most effective way to study the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay. However, our goal here is to learn more about the scalars so it is natural to keep them rather than integrating them out. Also there is a possibility that a light scalar \[like the $`\sigma (560)`$\] might give an enhancement due to closeness of its propagator to the pole \[see for instance Feynman diagrams like (a) and (b) of Fig.2\]. Another reason for including light scalars explicitly is to become more familiar with the isospin violating $`a_0(980)f_0(980)`$ transition which should play a role in the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay and has also recently been postulated Close01  to provide an explanation for observations of anomalously strong $`a_0(980)`$ central production and the large $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi f_0\gamma )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi a_0\gamma )`$ ratio. It is important to know whether the value consistent with the eta decay determination is consistent with these proposed new effects. Doubts about whether an unreasonably large value was assumed in Close01  were expressed in Achasov02 . These doubts were confirmed Black02  using the work of the present paper. Still another reason for the interest in the effects of the scalars in $`\eta 3\pi `$ is to provide an orientation for the discussion of the apparently puzzling $`\eta ^{}3\pi `$ decays in which light scalar mesons can be reasonably expected to have very large effects. We will give only a preliminary discussion of this process here.

In section II we give a brief historical outline of treatments of $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay based on chiral symmetry. A number of well known ambiguities in the analysis are briefly described.

Our calculation is based on the tree level treatment of a chiral Lagrangian containing pseudoscalars, vectors and a postulated nonet of light scalars. Since the calculation is somewhat complicated, it seems to us helpful to present the results in a series of steps. First, in section III we give the results of using a Lagrangian containing only pseudoscalars with minimal symmetry breaking terms.

To this Lagrangian we add, in section IV, the scalar mesons. It will be seen that the individual scalar diagrams are quite large but there is a lot of cancellation so that the net effect is not at all dominant. However the scalars do, as desired, increase the predicted decay rate in a noticeable way. Next, the effect of adding some derivative type symmetry breakers for the pseudoscalars is described in section V. This doesn’t much change the overall rate but modifies the somewhat delicate cancellations so that the scalars end up making a larger percentage contribution than before. In low energy calculations of this sort one always may expect some contributions from the vector mesons. This is discussed in section VI where it is shown that, although there is a new type of diagram the vectors do not produce a big change in the previous results.

Section VII contains a discussion of the results and directions for further work. For the convenience of readers, material describing the chiral Lagrangian used is brought together in Appendix A. Similarly the detailed expression for the decay amplitude is given in Appendix B.

## II Historical Background on the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay

The study of $`\eta 3\pi `$ has turned out to be surprisingly complicated and correspondingly important for understanding the non-perturbative (low energy) structure of QCD. Chiral dynamics in various forms has been the basic tool. Since the process violates G-parity it was initially assumed to be of electromagnetic nature, mediated by an effective photon exchange operator proportional to the product of two electromagnetic currents. The old “current algebra” approach had previously predicted the $`K_L\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ spectrum shape haranambu  to be

$$1\frac{2E_0}{m},$$
(1)
where $`m`$ is the $`K_L`$ mass and $`E_0`$ the energy of the $`\pi ^0`$ in the $`K_L`$ rest frame. This shape, which is in reasonable agreement with experiment, resulted from the vanishing commutator of the axial charge transforming like a $`\pi ^+`$ with the appropriate product of two weak currents. When Sutherland Sutherland66  repeated this type of calculation for $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ with the product of two electromagnetic currents he found that the decay amplitude was actually zero (to this leading order). Thus the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay did not seem to be mediated by a virtual photon emission and reabsorption. In fact, it was found bose  that a quark scalar density operator with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1`$ property proportional to

$$\overline{u}u\overline{d}d$$
(2)
would give a non-zero result for the decay rate. A more detailed treatment Chiu67  showed that the quark density operator gave the same spectrum for $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ as in Eq.(1) with $`m`$ the $`\eta `$ mass in this case. Such a result is in fairly good agreement with experiment. The scalar density interaction in Eq.(2) was recognized su  to be the fundamental up-down quark mass difference generated by the Higgs boson in the electroweak theory.

However, the predicted rates of the $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$ modes (both the ratios and the absolute values) did not agree well with experiment at that time. Some years later, after more precise experiments, the ratio of the rates for $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ to $`3\pi ^0`$ modes stabilized around the value expected from isospin invariance. On the other hand the absolute rate has only recently stabilized to a value notably larger than that predicted by theory. The theory behind the current algebra results could be economically presented in the framework of an effective chiral Lagrangian. For most low energy processes where the scheme could be expected to work, the tree level computation did produce results within 25 $`\%`$ or so of experiment. Thus the relatively poor prediction for $`\eta 3\pi `$ at tree level is somewhat surprising.

An improvement was obtained by Gasser and Leutwyler Gasser85  who carried the computation of the chiral Lagrangian amplitude to one loop level. Since the non-linear chiral Lagrangian is non-renormalizable, this required the addition of new counterterms. Their finite parts were new parameters which could be mostly determined from other processes. They obtained the result $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)=160\pm 50`$ eV which may be compared with the present experimental value pdg  $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0\right)_{\mathrm{expt}}=267\pm 25`$ eV. The extra effects included involve both the implicitly integrated-out heavier meson exchanges and partial unitarization to one loop order. One might expect a two loop calculation in the chiral perturbation scheme to be valuable but this may involve too many unknown parameters at the present stage. A dispersion approach using the Gasser-Leutwyler result as a subtraction gave an improved estimate Kambor96  $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0\right)=209\pm 20`$ eV, which still seems too small.

A possible source of ambiguity arises from the determination of the coefficient of the driving scalar density interaction in Eq.(2). This is determined from the $`K^0K^+`$ mass difference, which in turn has two components

$`m^2(K^0)m^2(K^+)`$ $`=`$ $`\left[m^2(K^0)m^2(K^+)\right]_{\mathrm{quark}\mathrm{mass}}+\left[m^2(K^0)m^2(K^+)\right]_\gamma ,`$ (3)
corresponding to the quark mass differences and the virtual photon emission and reabsorption diagrams respectively. The latter is given in the chiral limit by $`m^2(\pi ^0)m^2(\pi ^+)`$ according to Dashen’s theorem dashen  and the reasonable assumption that the photon contribution saturates the pion mass difference. A number of authors Donoghue92  have argued that there are important corrections to Dashen’s theorem which have the effect of boosting the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay rate.

If one questions Dashen’s theorem it is natural to also question Sutherland’s result, which deals with the direct electromagnetic contribution to $`\eta 3\pi `$ . An investigation of this point yielded Baur96  the estimate that there was only about a 2$`\%`$ change arising from this, although it decreased rather than raised the rate.

Still another point which may repay further investigation concerns the possible subtleties arising from $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing. An understanding of the $`\eta ^{}3\pi `$ process, for example, might clarify this point. This process has been treated by some authors hudnall , paula  in the literature but has received only a fraction of the attention given to $`\eta 3\pi `$ .

In the present paper we will focus on learning more about the putative nonet of light scalar mesons by studying their contribution to $`\eta 3\pi `$.

## III Chiral symmetry results to lowest order

For comparison, we first present the well-known results when only the terms present in the lowest order chiral Lagrangian of pseudoscalars are kept.

$`_{LO}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{8}}\mathrm{Tr}\left(_\mu U_\mu U^{}\right)+\delta ^{}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\left(U+U^{}\right)\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{576}}\mathrm{ln}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{det}U}{\mathrm{det}U^{}}}\right),`$ (4)
where the last term \[see Eq.(36) and comments there\] supplies mass to the SU(3) singlet state and $``$ is defined in (33). Fitting $`_{LO}`$ to the experimental masses determines $`\delta ^{}=F_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2/8`$.

The $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ amplitude receives, in this approximation, contributions from diagrams (a), (b) and (c) of Fig.1, which are given in Eq.(45) (with the non leading corrections deleted). To a reasonable approximation which displays the key dependences these sum up to the lowest order result for the $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ amplitude

$$M_{0+}(E_1,E_2,E_3)\frac{16i\delta ^{}y}{F_\pi ^4}\mathrm{cos}\theta _p(1\frac{2E_1}{m_\eta }).$$
(5)
Here $`E_1`$ is the $`\pi ^0`$ energy in the $`\eta `$ restframe and $`y`$ is the dimensionless parameter in Eq.(33) which measures the isospin violation in the quark mass matrix. Assuming Dashen’s theorem, Eq.(4) yields

$$8\delta ^{}y=F_\pi ^2(m_{K^0}^2m_{K^+}^2m_{\pi ^0}^2+m_{\pi ^+}^2),$$
(6)
which allows us to solve for $`y`$. Furthermore $`\theta _p`$ is the “nonstrange-strange” pseudoscalar mixing angle defined in Eq.(37); it is generally taken to be about $`37^o`$. It is related to the “octet-singlet” angle, $`\theta `$ by

$$\mathrm{cos}\theta _p=\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta \sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\sqrt{3}}.$$
(7)
Then Eq.(5) agrees with Eq. (1.14) of Gasser85  except that they neglected $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing by replacing $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _p1/\sqrt{3}`$ in what was denoted the current algebra formula. The matrix element for $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$ is given in general by

$$M_{000}=M_{0+}(E_1,E_2,E_3)+M_{0+}(E_2,E_1,E_3)+M_{0+}(E_3,E_2,E_1).$$
(8)
The widths are then, defining $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}=\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}=\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 3\pi ^0)`$:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{64\pi ^3m_\eta }}{\displaystyle dE_1dE_2\left|M_{0+}\right|^2},`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{384\pi ^3m_\eta }}{\displaystyle dE_1dE_2\left|M_{000}\right|^2}.`$ (9)
Using $`_{LO}`$, with parameters determined as described above, we get the tree-level results \[from the first terms in each of $`M_{contact}^{a,b,c}`$ in Eqs.(45)\]:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}`$ $`=`$ $`106\mathrm{eV},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}}}`$ $`=`$ $`1.40.`$ (10)
These may be compared with the experimental results pdg

$`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+})_{\mathrm{expt}}`$ $`=`$ $`267\pm 25\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V},`$
$`({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}}})_{\mathrm{expt}}`$ $`=`$ $`1.40\pm 0.01,`$ (11)
which demonstrate the disagreement with experiment for the overall rates in the simplest model. However the width ratio has about the correct magnitude. The related energy spectrum is also about the correct magnitude. The squared matrix element is usually described by quantities $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`c`$ defined from

$$\left|M_{0+}\right|^2(1+aY+bY^2+cX^2\mathrm{}),$$
(12)
with $`X=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{m_\eta 3m_\pi }(E_2E_3)`$ and $`Y=\frac{3}{m_\eta 3m_\pi }(E_1m_\pi )1`$. In the present paper we shall not take into account the (not completely negligible) kinematic $`\pi ^0\pi ^+`$ mass difference. See Gasser85  for a discussion of this point. The predictions from this simple model, $`a1`$ and $`b0.25`$ are similar to the experimental results Abele  $`a_{\mathrm{exp}}=1.19\pm 0.07`$ and $`b_{\mathrm{exp}}=0.19\pm 0.11`$ with $`c`$=0.

It is of some interest to also give the predictions for the $`\eta ^{}3\pi `$ decay process at tree level using the simple Lagrangian Eq.(4). It just is necessary (see Appendix B) to replace $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _p`$ by $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _p`$ and $`m_\eta `$ by $`m_\eta ^{}`$ in Eq.(5) to get for the $`\eta ^{}\pi ^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ matrix element:

$$M_{0+}^{}(E_1,E_2,E_3)\frac{16i\delta ^{}y}{F_\pi ^4}\mathrm{sin}\theta _p(1\frac{2E_1}{m_\eta ^{}}).$$
(13)
This leads to the predictions for the $`\eta ^{}`$ modes:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}^{}`$ $`=497\mathrm{eV},`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}^{}`$ $`=562\mathrm{eV}.`$ (14)
The experimental results are given as pdg

$`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}^{})_{\mathrm{exp}}`$ $`<10^4\mathrm{eV},`$
$`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}^{})_{\mathrm{exp}}`$ $`=315\pm 56\mathrm{eV}.`$ (15)
Only the $`3\pi ^0`$ mode has really been measured; its width is smaller than predicted in the simple model just presented. One would, of course, expect better agreement for the low energy process $`\eta 3\pi `$ for which chiral perturbation theory should be more clearly reliable. In the present paper we shall just make a few remarks on this more complicated process.

It may also be worthwhile to give a rough estimate of the corrections to the rates corresponding to violations of Dashen’s Theorem mentioned earlier. If we parameterize the electromagnetic contribution to the $`K^+K^0`$ mass difference as

$$(m_{K^0}^2m_{K^+}^2)_\gamma =f(m_{\pi ^0}^2m_{\pi ^+}^2),$$
(16)
where $`f=1`$ corresponds to Dashen’s Theorem, we would find by using Eq.(3) that the $`\eta ,\eta ^{}3\pi `$ rates predicted for $`_{LO}`$ should be multiplied by

$$\left[\frac{(m_{K^0}^2m_{K^+}^2)f(m_{\pi ^0}^2m_{\pi ^+}^2)}{(m_{K^0}^2m_{K^+}^2)(m_{\pi ^0}^2m_{\pi ^+}^2)}\right]^2.$$
(17)
For $`f2`$, which was actually found many years ago Socolow65  the correction factor is about $`1.54`$ and would give $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}163`$ eV. This corresponds to the overall factor, $`y`$ taking the value $`0.33`$ while the Dashen’s theorem value used to obtain Eqs.(10) and (14) is $`y=0.277`$.

## IV Including light scalar meson interactions

Now we will study what effects the inclusion of a nonet of light scalar mesons will have on the $`\eta 3\pi `$ calculation. We designate the scalar nonet by the $`3\times 3`$ matrix $`N_a^b`$ whose interactions are also listed in Appendix A. $`N`$ is assumed to contain the well-established $`f_0(980)`$ isoscalar and the $`a_0(980)`$ isovector as well as the $`\sigma (560)`$ and the strange $`\kappa (900)`$. Of these only the $`\kappa (900)`$ will not contribute to $`\eta 3\pi `$ at tree level. The quark structure of such a nonet has been the subject of much discussion kyotoconf -Deirdreetal . If this were an ideal nonet like $`\rho \omega K^{}\varphi `$ one would expect the roughly degenerate $`a_0(980)`$ and $`f_0(980)`$ to be lowest rather than highest in mass. Actually the masses are better understood intuitively jaffe  if $`N_a^b`$ is an “ideal dual nonet” constructed as $`Q_a\overline{Q}^b`$ with $`Q_aϵ_{abc}\overline{q}^b\overline{q}^c`$; $`q_a`$ being the ordinary quark. Then the observed inverted mass ordering is easily seen to follow just from counting the number of strange quarks in $`N_b^a`$. It is important to note that the form of the couplings of $`N_a^b`$ to the particles of the non-linear chiral Lagrangian being used depend only on the flavor transformation properties of $`N_a^b`$. This does not distinguish different quark substructures. What is sensitive to the quark substructure is the scalar mixing angle, $`\theta _s`$, defined from

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\sigma \\ f_0\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\theta _s& \mathrm{sin}\theta _s\\ \mathrm{sin}\theta _s& \mathrm{cos}\theta _s\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}N_3^3\\ \frac{N_1^1+N_2^2}{\sqrt{2}}\end{array}\right).$$
(18)
Small values of $`\theta _s`$ would typify a dual ideal nonet while $`\left|\theta _s\right|`$ about $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ would typify a conventional nonet. Fitting the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`\pi `$K scattering amplitudes, including the effects of these scalar resonances, selects BFSS2  the small value $`\theta _s=20.3^o`$.

The scalar nonet mass terms in Appendix A are specified by the four parameters $`(a,b,c,d)`$. The needed chiral invariant scalar -pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar $`S\varphi \varphi `$-type couplings are specified by the parameters $`(A,B,C,D)`$ and the mixing angle $`\theta _s`$. These were all determined from fitting to $`\pi \pi `$ scattering, $`\pi `$K scattering and the strong decay $`\eta ^{}\eta \pi \pi `$.

Actually there is reason to believe 2nonetmixing  that the scalars may be best understood as mixtures of a lighter dual nonet and a heavier ordinary nonet. From that point of view, which will be explored more fully in the future, the present single nonet, $`N_b^a`$ should be regarded as an approximation to the situation where the heavier (after mixing) particles have been integrated out.

The Feynman diagrams for the scalar contributions to $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ are shown in Fig.2. Notice that the diagram in (d) involves new $`a_0\sigma `$ and $`a_0f_0`$ isospin violating transitions rather than the $`\pi ^0\eta `$ and $`\pi ^0\eta ^{}`$ transitions which play an important role in the other diagrams. Their strengths $`A_{a\sigma }`$ and $`A_{af}`$ (see Appendix B) were determined simply by including the effects of isospin violation contained in the spurion matrix $``$ in the $`b`$ and $`d`$ scalar mass terms. Therefore, this does not introduce any new parameters. Actually, the possibility of such contributions was suggested a long time ago hudnall  as a possible solution of the $`\eta 3\pi `$ width problem. Recently a relatively large $`a_0f_0`$ mixing has been suggested Close01  as a way of understanding both anomalously large $`a_0`$ central production and the large $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi f_0\gamma )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi a_0\gamma )`$ ratio. However criticisms of this explanation have also been presented Achasov02 . Clearly it may be useful for studies of processes other than $`\eta 3\pi `$ to give the coefficients of the scalar isospin violating two point Lagrangian,

$$=A_{a\sigma }a_0^0\sigma +A_{af}a_0^0f_0,$$
(19)
determined consistently with the $`\eta 3\pi `$ calculation. Using the parameters from Eq.(43) in Eq.(48) we find $`A_{a\sigma }=0.0170y`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, $`A_{af}=0.0234y`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, where $`y`$ is the quark mass ratio $`\frac{m_um_d}{m_u+m_d}`$. Notice that $`y`$ (which is negative) is an overall factor for the $`\eta 3\pi `$ amplitude in the present model.

We would like to discuss the effects of the scalars when added to the more realistic Lagrangian presented in Appendix A which contains both pseudoscalars and vectors. This Lagrangian contains additional symmetry breaking terms ($`\alpha _p`$ and $`\lambda ^{}`$) to account for the ratio of pseudoscalar decay constants, $`F_K/F_\pi `$ being different from unity as well as a number of terms describing the properties of the vector mesons. Of course, the vector mesons play an important role in low energy processes. Since there are many terms it seems useful to add these new features one at a time. Thus in the present section we will consider just the minimal pseudoscalar Lagrangian, $`_{LO}`$ \[Eq.(4)\], to be present in addition to the scalars. Furthermore, it is instructive to look at the contributions to the amplitude from different diagrams in order to see how they combine to give the predicted total $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ width. In section III we reviewed the leading order calculation of the $`\eta 3\pi `$ amplitude which gives the result $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)=106`$ eV in the Dashen’s theorem limit. In Fig.4 we show how the individual contributions of the diagrams in Fig.1 combine to give the leading order amplitude. The magnitude of the $`\eta \pi ^0`$ and $`\eta ^{}\pi ^0`$ transition coefficiencts \[Eq.(48) with $`\alpha _p=\lambda ^{}=0`$, so independent of which state is on-shell\] are (in $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$):

$$C_{\pi \eta }0.0042,C_{\pi \eta ^{}}0.0031.$$
(20)
Three of the twelve scalar diagrams in Fig.2 can be seen to be larger (by at least an order of magnitude) than all the rest. These are the three diagrams involving the lightest of the scalar mesons, $`\sigma `$, and are contained in Figs.2a, 2b and 2d. For the case of Fig.2b the graph with an $`\eta \pi ^0`$ transition dominates that with an $`\eta ^{}`$ transition because the latter is suppressed by the (square of) the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass in the denominator of the propagator and also the smallness of the associated coupling constants/transition coefficients. In Fig.5 we present the $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ amplitudes arising from the three diagrams just mentioned and notice that they cancel almost completely. In particular the $`\sigma `$ exchange diagrams in Figs.2a and 2b have opposite signs, as expected – their structure is roughly similar except the propagators have a relative minus sign. We note also that the new isospin violating diagram, involving an $`a_0\sigma `$ transition, turns out not to lead to dramatically larger contributions than the other diagrams. The cancellation between different diagrams involving the sigma means that the total scalar contribution to the $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ width is smaller than might be expected and in fact arises mainly from the $`a_0^\pm `$ exchanges in Fig.2c. Comparing Fig.5b with Fig.4b shows that the net scalar contribution does enhance the overall $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ rate. Specifically, including the scalar contributions with the pseudoscalar Lagrangian $`_𝒪`$ has increased $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}`$ by 16 per cent, from 106 eV to 124 eV. The ratio $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}/\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}`$ is essentially unchanged.

Actually, the calculations above have neglected the finite widths of the $`\sigma `$, $`f_0`$ and $`a_0`$ particles. We take these into account by making the replacements in the corresponding propagators \[see Eq.(46)\]:

$$\frac{1}{m_X^2+q^2}\frac{1}{m_X^2+q^2im_X\mathrm{\Gamma }_X},$$
(21)
where X stands for $`\sigma `$, $`f_0`$ or $`a_0`$. The $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_X`$ are given in Appendix A. These replacements modify the result to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}=120`$ eV, a 13 per cent increase relative to the leading order result. The width effect is mainly due to the $`\sigma `$ propagator.

We may note that the improvement due to the scalars is consistent with the lower values of the prediction, $`160\pm 50`$ eV obtained from the next order of chiral perturbation theory in ref.Gasser85 . The numerical amount of suppression of the scalar contribution to the decay rate from cancellation of Figs. (a) and (b) of Fig.2 is due to the fitted values of $`\gamma _{\sigma \pi \pi }`$ and $`\gamma _{\sigma \eta \eta }`$ given in Eq.(44). If we wanted to raise the predicted rate to about 150 eV (still keeping Dashen’s theorem in the evaluation of $`y`$) it would be necessary to raise $`\gamma _{\sigma \eta \eta }`$ to about 10.

## V Effects of Higher Order Pseudoscalar Symmetry Breakers

So far we have worked only with the leading order chiral Lagrangian of pseudoscalars and scalars and obtained (to linear order in $`y=\frac{m_dm_u}{m_d+m_u}`$) isospin-breaking amplitudes proportional to $`\delta ^{},b`$ and $`d`$ in Eq. (35) of Appendix A. In order to better fit the properties of the pseudoscalar mesons we consider, as mentioned above, the higher-order symmetry breaking terms in Eq.(35) with coefficients $`\alpha _p`$ and $`\lambda ^{}`$. The numerical values of these parameters are obtained in section 4 of Appendix A, based on an overall fitting of pseudoscalar meson properties.

Next we examine the effects of these two new symmetry breaking terms on our previous calculation. It will be seen that these effects include an interesting redistribution of the contributions from the scalar and pseudoscalar diagrams to the total amplitude. First, the contact diagram Fig.1a will receive corrections due to the $`\alpha _p`$ and $`\lambda ^{}`$ terms \[see Eq.(45)\]. This results in some energy dependence since $`\alpha _p`$ gives a four-point derivative coupling. More importantly, the $`\eta \pi ^0`$ and $`\eta ^{}\pi ^0`$ transition coefficients relevant for $`\eta 3\pi `$ now depend on which particle is on-shell and are numerically (in $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$):

$`C_{\pi \eta }^\eta 0.00583y,`$ $`C_{\pi \eta }^\pi 0.0151y`$
$`C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi `$ $``$ $`0.0113y.`$ (22)
Since $`C_{\pi \eta }^\eta `$ is now considerably suppressed in magnitude, the Feynman amplitude for Fig.1b is now suppressed, while $`C_{\pi \eta }^\pi `$ and the amplitude for Fig.1c remain about the same. These results, due to only pseudoscalars, are summarized in Fig.6 which may be compared with Fig.4. The net result is that the total $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ amplitude (shown in the second of Fig.6) due to pseudoscalar mesons is reduced compared with the leading order result. The pseudoscalars themselves now give $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}=`$ 81 eV rather than 106 eV, as in section IV.

However, for the diagrams involving scalar mesons the effect of higher order symmetry breaking is even more important. As we noted above, the scalar meson contribution to $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ was rather small as the main diagrams tended to cancel. When we include the $`\alpha _p`$ and $`\lambda ^{}`$ corrections to the $`\eta \pi ^0`$ transition this cancellation will not be so complete. Specifically, comparing Eqs.(20) and (22) we see that the magnitude of the amplitude for Fig.2a, where the $`\eta \pi ^0`$ transition occurs with an on-shell $`\eta `$, will be reduced by a factor of approximately four, while that of Fig.2b, where the $`\eta \pi ^0`$ transition has an on-shell pion, will remain about the same relative to our result in Section IV. Fig.2d will be unchanged. There will now be a non-negligible contribution from the scalar mesons. It will be more negative in sign (the contribution from Fig.2a is positive, but now smaller in magnitude) and will add “constructively” to the pseudoscalar diagrams in Fig.1 and so increase our prediction for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^+\pi ^{})`$. This is shown in Fig. 7. Adding all of the pseudoscalar and scalar diagrams in Fig.1 and Fig.2 with the inclusion of the symmetry breaking effects due to $`\alpha _p`$ and $`\lambda ^{}`$ we get: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^+\pi ^{})=119.6\mathrm{eV}`$. This is essentially the same as the result in section IV but now a larger portion is due to the scalar meson diagrams. Since this is the case the damping effect of the sigma width will be more prominent; in fact it reduces the predicted rate to 103.6 eV in the Dashen’s theorem limit.

It may be of interest to see how the detailed pattern just described depends on the precise value of the quark mass ratio $`x`$ and, as explained in section 4 of appendix A, correspondingly on the crucial isospin violating quark mass ratio $`y`$. This is shown for the predicted value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}`$ in Table 1.

## VI Including Vectors in the calculation

It is well known that the inclusion of vector mesons is important for a realistic discussion of low energy chiral dynamics. For example, in the chiral pertubation scheme, most of the finite pieces of the counterterms can be explained by integrating out various vector contributions DRG . In our present approach, of course, we are keeping the resonances, rather than integrating them out, in order to learn more about the scalars.

First, the vector mesons contribute to the $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ amplitude corresponding to Fig.3a, which is just a correction to $`\pi \pi `$ scattering. Its value given by the amplitude, $`M_\rho ^a`$ in (47) is easily seen to be comparatively large. However the fourth term of the $`U(3)_L\times U(3)_R`$ invariant Lagrangian Eq.(32) gives, in addition to the $`\rho \pi \pi `$ vertex a four pion contact term \[included in $`M_{contact}^a`$ in (45)\]. Actually this contact term cancels most of the contribution from the $`\rho `$-exchange diagram in Fig.3a. This is well known from chiral treatments of $`\pi \pi `$ scattering: when the $`\rho `$ is added to the Lagrangian, chiral symmetry requires a contact term which cancels most of the $`\rho `$ contribution near threshold, thereby maintaining the current algebra threshold result.

However, the situation is actually a bit more complicated since the process of obtaining an adequate fit to the properties of both the vectors and pseudoscalars Harada96  requires a number of additional symmetry breaking terms shown in Eq.(35) of Appendix A. As well as the symmetry breaking terms we have already discussed involving the pseudoscalars alone, there are, in particular, two new terms, measured by the coefficients $`\alpha _+`$ and $`\alpha _{}`$. It turns out that their effects are very minor. They include an additional contribution to the 4-point isospin violating $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ vertex due to the $`\alpha _{}`$ term, corrections to the 4-pion vertex in Fig.1b due to both $`\alpha _+`$ and $`\alpha _{}`$ and an additional diagram, shown in Fig.3b, which contains a new G-parity (and isospin) violating $`\rho \pi \eta `$ vertex \[the amplitude for this is given as $`M_\rho ^b`$ in (47)\]. Note that there there exists a $`\rho ^0\omega `$ mixing transition, which is the analog of the $`\pi ^0\eta `$ and $`a_0^0f_0`$ mixing transitions, but it does not contribute to $`\eta 3\pi `$ at tree level.

The decay widths with inclusion of vectors are tabulated in Table 2 for the same values of $`x,y`$ used in the last section. In this table the neutral modes are also included. Furthermore, the effect of both the scalar and (actually negligible) vector widths are included too. We see that, as expected from our discussion above, the vectors do not change the overall predictions compared to the last column of Table 1 very much but they do give a little enhancement. This is also clear by comparing the pseudoscalars + vectors column of table 2 with the pseudoscalars only column of Table 1. It is seen again that the scalars make a non negligible contribution to the total amplitude.

Finally it is interesting to display the energy spectrum parameters $`a,b`$ and $`c`$ defined in Eq.(12) for the various models we have examined. These are given in Table 3 and are seen to be reasonable. The $`\chi ^2`$ measures the fit of our model to the spectrum shape assumed in Eq.(12) and seems to be small.

## VII Discussion

We studied the role of a possible nonet of light scalar mesons in the still interesting $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay process. Our motivation was primarily to learn more about the scalars themselves. The framework is a conventional non-linear chiral Lagrangian of pseudoscalars and vectors, extended to include scalars (the Lagrangian is described in Appendix A). The parameters involving the scalars were previously obtained to fit the s-wave $`\pi \pi `$ and $`\pi K`$ scattering in the region up to about 1 GeV as well as the strong decay $`\eta ^{}\eta \pi \pi `$. An initial concern is whether the model as it stands, containing essentially no undetermined main parameters (up to possible uncertainties in the quark mass ratios $`x=2m_s/(m_u+m_d)`$ and $`y=(m_um_d)/(m_u+m_d)`$), does not make the $`\eta 3\pi `$ amplitude too large.

In particular, the $`\sigma (560)`$ exchange diagrams (a) and (b) of Fig.2 might lead to a great deal of enhancement due to the possibility of the $`\sigma (560)`$’s momentum being close to mass shell. However this turns out not to be the case. In our initial calculation where the scalars are added to the minimal model of pseudoscalars given in Eq.(4), the left part of Fig.5 shows that these two diagrams, though not individually small, tend to cancel each other. This partial cancellation occurs because the $`\eta \pi ^0`$ transition leads to opposite signs when the $`\eta `$ is on mass shell and when the $`\pi ^0`$ is on mass shell (In the first case we have a $`\pi ^0`$ propagator carrying the momentum squared of an on-shell $`\eta `$ while in the second case, the reverse holds). In addition, the enhancement due to the sigma propagator is further suppressed by the inclusion of an imaginary piece, needed to satisfy unitarity in the scattering calculation. The net result is that the effect of including scalars in the minimal pseudoscalar Lagrangian, Eq.(4) is to increase the width for $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ decay by about 13 per cent. This relatively small, due to cancellation, increase illustrates the difficulty of finding dramatic “smoking gun” evidence for the existence of a light sigma. In the scattering calculation a light sigma appears (see for example HSS1 ) obscured by a large background and does not have a simple Breit Wigner shape.

It is amusing to note the effect of higher derivative terms in the Lagrangian of pseudoscalars (see section V for details). The higher derivative terms allow one to conveniently implement at tree level the fact that the ratio of the pseudoscalar decay constants $`F_{Kp}/F_{\pi p}`$ is somewhat greater than unity. With these terms the important $`\pi ^0\eta `$ transition vertex has a momentum dependent piece. Together with a needed modification in the parameter fitting (see section 4 of Appendix A) this reduces the contribution of the pseudoscalars to the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay width. However the modification of the $`\pi ^0\eta `$ transition noticeably upsets the cancellation between the two sigma exchange diagrams in (a) and (b) of Fig.2. The net result is that, while the total prediction for the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decay width remains about the same, now about thirty percent of the value is contributed by the scalars.

The vector meson contribution, discussed in section VI, actually does not change things much. This is because the $`\rho `$ exchange diagrams for $`\pi \pi `$ s-wave scattering are essentially canceled at very low energies by an extra four pion contact term which automatically arises due to the chiral symmetric formulation. Experimentalists fit the Dalitz plot describing the $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ spectrum to the form given in Eq.(12). A fit of this type to the predicted spectrum from the Lagrangian of pseudoscalars, scalars and vectors was seen to be close to the experimental one. The basic spectrum shape is already reasonable with the very simplest model discussed in section III. As both the theory and experiment get more precise, the importance of the spectrum shape toward a deeper understanding of the underlying physics increases.

A particularly interesting scalar contribution to $`\eta 3\pi `$ arises from the $`a_0\sigma `$ transition shown in (d) of Fig.2 (The $`a_0f_0`$ transition contribution to $`\eta 3\pi `$ is suppressed due to the propagator of the heavier $`f_0(980)`$). This is the analog of the important $`\pi ^0\eta `$ transition and, in a sense, is a new mechanism for $`\eta 3\pi `$ (although it was investigated a long time ago hudnall  as a possible way to increase the $`\eta 3\pi `$ width). The formula in raw form for this transition is given in Eq.(48). We evaluated its strength from the knowledge of the isospin violating piece of the dimensionless quark mass matrix $``$ in Eq.(33), determined from the pseudoscalar sector and the coefficients: $`a,b,c`$ and $`d`$ of the scalar meson mass terms \[see Eqs.(32\] and (35)) determined from the isospin conserving sector of the scalars. However as one can see from the left sides of Figs.5 and 7, the contribution to $`\eta 3\pi `$ due to the $`a_0\sigma `$ transition is not very large, although it has the right sign to boost the decay rate.

The method just described also evaluates the strength of the $`a_0(980)f_0(980)`$ transition. For convenience this is given after Eq.(19), where the overall factor, $`y`$ is displayed. This transition has been very much “in the news” recently as a proposed Close01  explanation for the large observed $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi f_0\gamma )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi a_0\gamma )`$ ratio and the anomalously strong $`a_0`$ central production. However criticisms of this explanation have been given Achasov02 , Black02 , pointing out that the $`a_0f_0`$ mixing expected from a transition strength like the one determined above is insufficient to give a large effect. Intuitively, because of the near degeneracy of the $`a_0(980)`$ and $`f_0(980)`$ as well as the similarity of their widths, one might expect the mixing to be very large. But the mixing amplitude is governed by a dimensionless factor $`iA_{af}/(m_a\mathrm{\Gamma }_a)`$ \[see for example Eq.(12) of Black02 \] which is suppressed by the scalar meson width, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a`$.

In section II we discussed the current comparison between theory and experiment for the $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ width. The experimental width pdg  is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0+}=267\pm 25`$ eV. This may be compared with the one loop chiral perturbation theory result Gasser85  of $`160\pm 50`$ eV. More recent attempts Kambor96  to estimate final state interaction effect outside of the chiral perturbation theory approach have increased this somewhat to $`209\pm 20`$ eV. It seems to us that the thirty per cent contribution of the scalars compared to the pseudoscalars we have found should probably not be considered on top of this latter figure. That is because a good portion of the increase due to scalars we have found may be considered as resulting from final state interactions. Many attempts to close the gap between theory and experiment have focused Donoghue92  on a reanalysis of electromagnetic corrections to the $`K^+K^0`$ mass difference. This is argued to increase the quark mass ratio, $`y`$ which is an overall factor for the $`\eta 3\pi `$ amplitude.

From the standpoint of learning more about the properties of the scalar mesons it is clear that the $`\eta ^{}3\pi `$ decays represent a potentially important source of information. In this case there is sufficient energy available for the $`a_0(980)`$ and $`f_0(980)`$ propagators to be close enough to their mass shells to avoid suppressing the contributions of these resonances. On the other hand, the theoretical analysis is more difficult since large non-perturbative unitarity corrections are expected. In addition, other more massive particles may also contribute. The experimental information \[see Eq.(15)\] is more preliminary than in the $`\eta 3\pi `$ case. While a number with reasonably small errors has been presented for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}^{}`$, there is only a weak upper bound for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{+0}^{}`$ and also no information on its Dalitz plot. In the model employed in the present papper the $`\eta ^{}3\pi `$ amplitudes are simply obtained from the $`\eta 3\pi `$ amplitudes by the simple substitution given in Eq.(49). Notice that this substitution rule would get modified if a more complicated $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing scheme \[e.g. the one mentioned after Eq.(37)\] is adopted. As shown in Eq.(14) the prediction of the minimal model of only pseudoscalars is somewhat too high, but at least of the correct order of magnitude. Adding the scalars without any readjustment of parameters does not improve the prediction for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{000}^{}`$ but makes it considerably larger (about 2300 eV). A similar large value was recently found in paula . Since the phase space is fairly large it is perhaps to be expected that large values are typically obtained. Presumably it is a sign for including more detailed unitarity corrections or other physical effects which result in cancellations. We are particularly hopeful that a careful study of mixing between a lower mass exotic scalar nonet and a more conventional higher mass scalar nonet BFS3 ; Deirdreetal ; 2nonetmixing  may solve this problem and perhaps contribute to an improved understanding of the $`\eta 3\pi `$ decays also.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to Masayasu Harada, Paula Herrera-Siklody and Francesco Sannino for very helpful discussions related to this problem. The work of A. A-R. and J.S. has been supported in part by the US DOE under contract DE-FG-02-85ER 40231. D.B. wishes to acknowledge support from the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility operated by the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) under DOE Contract No. DE-AC05-84ER40150. The work of A.H.F. has been supported by grants from the State of New York/UUP Professional Development Committee, and the 2002 Faculty Grant from the School of Arts and Sciences, SUNY Institute of Technology.

## Appendix A The chiral Lagrangian

For convenience we collect here needed terms from the pseudoscalar-vector chiral Lagrangian presented in Harada96  and from the scalar addition presented in BFSS2 .

### A.1 Transformation Properties

These are constructed to mock up the symmetry properties of the fundamental quark Lagrangian, under which left and right projected light quark fields tranfsorm as

$$q_{L,R}U_{L,R}q_{L,R},$$
(23)
$`U_L`$ and $`U_R`$ being $`3\times 3`$ constant unitary matrices. The pseudoscalar nonet $`\varphi (x)`$ is a $`3\times 3`$ matrix which fits into the unitary chiral matrix

$$U=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2i\varphi (x)}{F_\pi })$$
(24)
where $`F_\pi `$ is the (bare) pion decay constant. Under a chiral transformation

$$UU_LUU_R^{}.$$
(25)
It is convenient to define the $`3\times 3`$ unitary matrix $`\xi `$ by $`U=\xi ^2`$. Then $`\xi `$ transforms as

$$\xi U_L\xi K^{}(\varphi ,x)=K(\varphi ,x)\xi U_R^{},$$
(26)
which implicitly defines the unitary matrix $`K`$. The intuitive significance of $`K`$ is that the objects $`Kq`$ behave like bare quarks surrounded by a pseudoscalar meson cloud, or “constituent quarks”. The objects

$$v_\mu p_\mu =\frac{i}{2}(\xi _\mu \xi ^{}\pm \xi ^{}_\mu \xi ),$$
(27)
transform as

$`p_\mu `$ $``$ $`Kp_\mu K^{}`$
$`v_\mu `$ $``$ $`Kv_\mu K^{}+iK_\mu K^{}.`$ (28)
A putative scalar nonet matrix $`N(x)`$ is taken to transform as

$$NKNK^{},$$
(29)
The vector meson nonet $`\rho _\mu `$ transforms as

$$\rho _\mu K\rho _\mu K^{}+\frac{i}{\stackrel{~}{g}}K_\mu K^{},$$
(30)
where we have included the dimensionless coupling constant, $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$. The “field-strength tensor”

$$F_{\mu \nu }(\rho )=_\mu \rho _\nu _\nu \rho _\mu i\stackrel{~}{g}[\rho _\mu ,\rho _\nu ]KF_{\mu \nu }K^{}.$$
(31)
### A.2 $`U(3)_L\times U(3)_R`$ Invariant Terms

These comprise the kinetic terms for the three multiplets, mass terms for the scalars and vectors and appropriate interaction terms:

$`_0=`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_\pi ^2}{8}}\mathrm{Tr}(_\mu U_\mu U^{}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{Tr}(F_{\mu \nu }(\rho )F_{\mu \nu }(\rho ))`$ (32)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}(𝒟_\mu N𝒟_\mu N){\displaystyle \frac{m_v^2}{2\stackrel{~}{g}^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[(\stackrel{~}{g}\rho _\mu v_\mu )^2\right]`$
$``$ $`a\mathrm{Tr}(NN)c\mathrm{Tr}(N)\mathrm{Tr}(N)`$
$`+`$ $`F_\pi ^2\left[Aϵ^{abc}ϵ_{def}N_a^d(p_\mu )_b^e(p_\mu )_c^f+B\mathrm{Tr}(N)\mathrm{Tr}(p_\mu p_\mu )+C\mathrm{Tr}(Np_\mu )\mathrm{Tr}(p_\mu )+D\mathrm{Tr}(N)\mathrm{Tr}(p_\mu )\mathrm{Tr}(p_\mu )\right],`$
where $`𝒟_\mu N=_\mu Niv_\mu N+iNv_\mu `$. These include the parameters $`m_v^2,a,c,A,B,C`$ and $`D`$. Note that the pseudoscalars are still massless at this level. Further note that for the interactions and mass terms of the scalars we do not restrict ourselves to a single trace. For $`q\overline{q}`$ mesons the single trace is suggested by the OZI rule while for an ideal dual nonet the A term is in fact expected to be dominant. We made a fit for $`m_v^2,a,c,A,B,C`$ and $`D`$ assuming only SU(3) invariance.

### A.3 Symmetry Breaking Terms

The fundamental QCD Lagrangian contains the quark mass term $`\frac{(m_u+m_d)}{2}\overline{q}q`$, with the dimensionless matrix

$$=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1+y& 0& 0\\ 0& 1y& 0\\ 0& 0& x\end{array}\right]$$
(33)
where $`x=\frac{2m_s}{m_u+m_d}`$ and $`y=\frac{m_dm_u}{m_d+m_u}`$.

It is convenient to define

$$\widehat{}_\pm =\frac{1}{2}\left(\xi \xi \pm \xi ^{}\xi ^{}\right).$$
(34)
Then, the symmetry breaking Lagrangian is taken as

$`_{SB}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta ^{}\mathrm{Tr}\left[(U+U^{})\right]+\lambda _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{Tr}\left[U^{}U^{}+UU\right]`$ (35)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _p}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left(\widehat{}_+p_\mu p_\mu \right)+2\alpha _+\mathrm{Tr}\left[\widehat{}_+\left(\rho _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{v_\mu }{\stackrel{~}{g}}}\right)\left(\rho _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{v_\mu }{\stackrel{~}{g}}}\right)\right]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _{}}{\mathrm{Tr}}}\left(\widehat{}_{}[\left(\rho _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{v_\mu }{\stackrel{~}{g}}}\right),p_\mu ]\right)`$
$`+`$ $`2\gamma ^{}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\widehat{}_+F_{\mu \nu }(\rho )F_{\mu \nu }(\rho )\right]`$
$``$ $`b\mathrm{Tr}(NN)d\mathrm{Tr}(N)\mathrm{Tr}(N).`$
Only the parameters $`\delta ^{}`$, $`\lambda _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$, $`\alpha _p`$, $`b`$ and $`d`$ here contribute to the isospin violating vertices of interest in the present paper. The parameter $`\gamma ^{}`$ was included in the overall parameter fit obtained in Harada96  but its small effect on the isospin-conserving vertices will be neglected.

In addition to the quark mass induced symmetry breaking terms there is an important term induced by instanton effects which breaks just the $`U(1)_A`$ piece of $`\mathrm{SU}(3)_L\times \mathrm{SU}(3)_R\times \mathrm{U}(1)_V\times \mathrm{U}(1)_A`$. It may be summarized as

$$_\eta ^{}=\frac{\kappa }{576}\mathrm{ln}^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{det}U}{\mathrm{det}U^{}}\right)+\mathrm{}$$
(36)
where $`\kappa `$ is a constant essentially proportional to the squared mass of the $`\eta ^{}`$ meson. The three dots stand for other terms which will be neglected here but are listed in Eq. (2.12) of Schechter93 . Effectively this term gives an important contribution to the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass and an $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing angle defined by

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\eta \\ \eta ^{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\theta _p& \mathrm{sin}\theta _p\\ \mathrm{sin}\theta _p& \mathrm{cos}\theta _p\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}(\varphi _1^1+\varphi _2^2)/\sqrt{2}\\ \varphi _3^3\end{array}\right).$$
(37)
When the extra terms in Eq. 36 are included they will not only give rise to an additional isospin violating transition but will also modify the $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing transformation above to be the non-orthogonal one given in Eq. (4.9) of Schechter93 . We will not include these effects in the present paper, however.

### A.4 Numerical values of parameters used

For the averaged pseudoscalar masses we used,

$$m_\pi =0.137\mathrm{GeV},m_K=0.4957\mathrm{GeV}.$$
(38)
In section III we gave the fitted parameters for the lowest order Lagrangian containing only pseudoscalars. This also yields the isospin conserving quark mass ratio $`x=25.1`$ (assuming that $`f`$, defined in Eq. (16) is unity). A refitting of these parameters is necessary when the $`\alpha _p/\stackrel{~}{g}^2`$ and $`\lambda ^2`$ symmetry breaking terms are included. This can be conveniently done following the method used in preparing Table III of Harada96 . There, a value of $`x`$ is assumed and the four quantities $`F_\pi `$ (unrenormalized pion decay constant), $`\delta ^{}`$, $`|\lambda ^{}|^2`$ and $`\alpha _p/\stackrel{~}{g}^2`$ are calculated in terms of the four physical quantities $`m_\pi `$, $`m_K`$, $`F_{\pi p}=0.1307`$ GeV and $`F_{Kp}=0.1598`$ GeV, using:

$`\lambda ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1+x)F_{\pi p}^2m_\pi ^2/16F_{Kp}^2m_K^2/8}{1x^2}},`$
$`\delta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`F_{\pi p}^2m_\pi ^2/84\lambda ^2,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _p}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_\pi ^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(F_{Kp}/F_{\pi p})^21}{2(1+x)4(F_{Kp}/F_{\pi p})^2}},`$
$`F_\pi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_{\pi p}}{(1+4\alpha _p/(\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_\pi ^2))^{1/2}}},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _p}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`F_\pi ^2({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _p}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_\pi ^2}}).`$ (39)
In addition, the isospin violating quark mass ratio $`y`$ is obtained from

$$(m_{K^0}^2m_{K^+}^2)f(m_{\pi ^0}^2m_{\pi ^+}^2)=(4y/F_{Kp}^2)(2\delta ^{}8(1+x)\lambda ^2+m_K^2\alpha _p/\stackrel{~}{g}^2),$$
(40)
for a particular value of $`f`$. To isolate the effects of the scalars we may choose an $`x`$ such that, with the value $`f=1`$ corresponding to Dashen theorem, we recover the value $`y=0.277`$ found in sections III and IV. That gives $`x=25.1`$ and

$`F_\pi =0.128\mathrm{GeV},\delta ^{}=0.0386\times 10^3\mathrm{GeV}^4,`$
$`\alpha _p/\stackrel{~}{g}^2=0.176\times 10^3\mathrm{GeV}^2,|\lambda ^{}|=0.643\times 10^3\mathrm{GeV}^2.`$ (41)
The needed dependences on the quark mass ratio ,$`x`$ of the parameters involving vector mesons ($`\gamma ^{}`$ , $`\alpha _+`$, $`\alpha _{}`$, $`m_v`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$) are given in Table 3 of Harada96 ; the additional point $`x=25.1`$ used in Table 2 above was treated by interpolation.

The masses and widths of the scalars are taken to be (in MeV)

$`m_\sigma =550,m_\kappa =897,m_{a_0}=983.5,m_{f_0}=980`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma =370,\mathrm{\Gamma }_{a_0}=70.0,\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0}=64.6.`$ (42)
Note that the values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\kappa `$ are not “Breit-Wigner” widths but are chosen to unitarize the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`\pi K`$ scattering amplitudes. The masses above fix the parameters (in $`\mathrm{GeV}^2)`$ in (32) and (35)

$$a=0.492,b=0.00834,c=0.0160,d=0.00557$$
(43)
and the mixing angle $`\theta _s=20.3^0`$. The parameters $`A,B,C,D`$ define all the trilinear $`S\varphi \varphi `$ coupling constants according to the formulas given in Appendix C of BFSS2 . The needed coupling constants are (in $`\mathrm{GeV}^1`$)

$`\gamma _{\sigma \pi \pi }=7.27,\gamma _{\sigma \eta \eta }=3.90,\gamma _{\sigma \eta \eta ^{}}=1.25,\gamma _{\sigma \eta ^{}\eta ^{}}=3.82,`$
$`\gamma _{f\pi \pi }=1.47,\gamma _{f\eta \eta }=1.50,\gamma _{f\eta \eta ^{}}=10.19,\gamma _{f\eta ^{}\eta ^{}}=1.04,`$
$`\gamma _{a\pi \eta }=6.87,\gamma _{a\pi \eta ^{}}=8.02.`$ (44)
## Appendix B Decay amplitude

The Feynman diagrams representing the $`\eta (p)\pi ^0(p_1)\pi ^+(p_2)\pi ^{}(p_3)`$ decay are shown in Figs.1-3. The contact diagrams (1a, 1b and 1c) receive contributions from the pseudoscalar and vector part of the Lagrangian

$`M_{contact}^a`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{16y\delta ^{}\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{3F_{\pi p}^4}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{8y\alpha _p\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{3\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^4}}(3p_2.p_3+p.p_1+p.p_2+p.p_3)+i{\displaystyle \frac{512y\lambda ^2\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{3F_{\pi p}^4}}`$
$`M_{contact}^b`$ $`=`$ $`+i(1{\displaystyle \frac{3m_v^2}{4\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta }^\eta }{m_\pi ^2m_\eta ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3F_{\pi p}^2}}(2p_2.p_3+p_1.p_3p.p_3+p_1.p_2p.p_2+2p.p_1)`$
$`+`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _+C_{\pi \eta }^\eta }{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^4((m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}m_{\eta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2})}}(2p.p_1+2p_2.p_3+p_3.pp_3.p_1+p_3.pp_2.p_1)`$
$`+`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{8\alpha _pC_{\pi \eta }^\eta }{3\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^4(m_\pi ^2m_\eta ^2)}}(5p.p_15p_2.p_3p.p_3+p_1.p_3p.p_2+p_1.p_2)`$
$`+`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{256\lambda ^2C_{\pi \eta }^\eta }{3F_{\pi p}^4(m_\pi ^2m_\eta ^2)}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{16\delta ^{}C_{\pi \eta }^\eta }{3F_{\pi p}^4(m_\pi ^2m_\eta ^2)}}`$
$`M_{contact}^c`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{16\delta ^{}}{F_{\pi p}^4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta }^\pi \mathrm{cos}^2\theta _p}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta _p\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{m_\eta ^{}^2m_\pi ^2}}\right)`$ (45)
$`+`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{8\alpha _p}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^4}}({\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta }^\pi \mathrm{cos}^2\theta _p}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta _p\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{m_\eta ^{}^2m_\pi ^2}})(p.p_1p_2.p_3+p.p_3+p.p_2p_1.p_3p_1.p_2)`$
$`+`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{256\lambda ^2}{F_{\pi p}^4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta }^\pi \mathrm{cos}^2\theta _p}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta _p\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{m_\eta ^{}^2m_\pi ^2}}\right)`$
The scalar contributions (Figs.2a, b, c, and d) are:

$`M_{scalar}^a`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{2C_{\pi \eta }^\eta \gamma _{\sigma \pi \pi }^2}{m_\pi ^2m_\eta ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(p.p_1)(p_2.p_3)}{m_\sigma ^2+(pp_1)^2}}+(\sigma f_0)`$
$`M_{scalar}^b`$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{2}({\displaystyle \frac{2C_{\pi \eta }^\pi \gamma _{\sigma \pi \pi }\gamma _{\sigma \eta \eta }}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi \gamma _{\sigma \pi \pi }\gamma _{\sigma \eta \eta ^{}}}{m_\eta ^{}^2m_\pi ^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{(p.p_1)(p_2.p_3)}{m_\sigma ^2+(pp_1)^2}}+(\sigma f_0)`$
$`M_{scalar}^c`$ $`=`$ $`i({\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta }^\pi \gamma _{a\pi \eta }^2}{m_\eta ^2m_\pi ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi \gamma _{a\pi \eta }\gamma _{a\pi \eta ^{}}}{m_\eta ^{}^2m_\pi ^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{(p.p_3)(p_1.p_2)}{m_{a_0}^2+(pp_3)^2}}+(p_2p_3)`$
$`M_{scalar}^d`$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{2}A_{a\sigma }\gamma _{a\pi \eta }\gamma _{\sigma \pi \pi }{\displaystyle \frac{(p.p_1)(p_2.p_3)}{\left[m_{a_0}^2+(pp_3)^2\right]\left[m_\sigma ^2+(pp_1)^2\right]}}+(\sigma f_0)`$ (46)
The $`\rho `$ contributions are:

$`M_\rho ^a`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{m_\rho ^4C_{\pi \eta }^\eta }{2\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^4(m_\pi ^2m_\eta ^2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{p.p_1+p_1.p_3p.p_2p_2.p_3}{m_\rho ^2+(pp_3)^2}}+(p_2p_3)`$
$`M_\rho ^b`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha _{}y\mathrm{cos}\theta _pg_{\rho \pi \pi }}{\stackrel{~}{g}F_{\pi p}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_2(p_3p_1)}{m_\rho ^2+(pp_2)^2}}+(p_2p_3)`$ (47)
.

The two point vertices are:

$`C_{\pi \eta }^\pi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8y\mathrm{cos}\theta _p\delta ^{}}{F_{\pi p}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{64y\lambda ^2\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{F_{\pi p}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4y\alpha _p\mathrm{cos}\theta _pm_\pi ^2}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^2}}`$
$`C_{\pi \eta }^\eta `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8y\mathrm{cos}\theta _p\delta ^{}}{F_{\pi p}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{64y\lambda ^2\mathrm{cos}\theta _p}{F_{\pi p}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4y\alpha _p\mathrm{cos}\theta _pm_\eta ^2}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^2}}`$
$`C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8y\mathrm{sin}\theta _p\delta ^{}}{F_{\pi p}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{64y\lambda ^2\mathrm{sin}\theta _p}{F_{\pi p}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4y\alpha _p\mathrm{sin}\theta _pm_\pi ^2}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^2}}`$
$`C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\eta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8y\mathrm{sin}\theta _p\delta ^{}}{F_{\pi p}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{64y\lambda ^2\mathrm{sin}\theta _p}{F_{\pi p}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4y\alpha _p\mathrm{sin}\theta _pm_\eta ^{}^2}{\stackrel{~}{g}^2F_{\pi p}^2}}`$
$`A_{a\sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`2y(b+d)\mathrm{sin}\theta _s\sqrt{2}yd\mathrm{cos}\theta _s`$
$`A_{af}`$ $`=`$ $`2y(b+d)\mathrm{cos}\theta _s\sqrt{2}yd\mathrm{sin}\theta _s`$ (48)
Notice that the superscript on $`C`$ indicates which of the two particles involved in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1`$ transition is on-shell; this only affects the $`\alpha _p`$ term which has derivative coupling.

It is not difficult to verify that the $`\eta ^{}\pi ^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ amplitude may be gotten from the one above by simply making the interchanges

$$\eta \eta ^{},\mathrm{cos}\theta _p\mathrm{sin}\theta _p,$$
(49)
everywhere in Eqs. (B1)-(B3). This should not be done in Eqs. (B4) since changing, for example, $`C_{\pi \eta }^\pi `$ to $`C_{\pi \eta ^{}}^\pi `$ accomplishes the desired result automatically.