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# Orbital domain state and finite size scaling in ferromagnetic insulating manganites

## Abstract

55Mn and 139La NMR measurements on a high quality single crystal of ferromagnetic (FM) La0.80Ca0.20MnO3 demonstrate the formation of localized Mn3+,4+ states below $`70`$ K, accompanied with strong anomalous increase of certain FM neutron Bragg peaks. $`{}_{}{}^{55,139}(1/T_1)`$ spin-lattice relaxation rates diverge on approaching this temperature from below, signalling a genuine phase transition at $`T_{tr}70`$ K. The increased local magnetic anisotropy of the low temperature phase, the cooling-rate dependence of the Bragg peaks, and the observed finite size scaling of $`T_{tr}`$ with Ca (hole) doping, are suggestive of freezing into an orbital domain state, precursor to a phase transition into an inhomogeneous orbitally ordered state embodying hole-rich walls.

preprint: LCMO20.TEX

Understanding the electronic properties of colossal magnetoresistive manganites has been a challenging subject for both experimentalists and theorists, ever since their discovery almost $`50`$ years ago. There are clearly two types of dominant ground states in these compounds: In La1-xCaxMnO3 (LCMO) for example, the ground state is ferromagnetic and metallic (FMM) for $`0.2x0.5`$, and antiferromagnetic insulating for $`x0.5`$. The establishment of the FMM phase was initially attributed to the double exchange (DE) interaction Zener51 , i.e. ferromagnetism via the strong Hund’s coupling between hopping $`e_g`$ electrons at neighbouring Mn4+,3+ sites. However, the detection of FM insulating (FMI) Endoh99  and AFM metallic Kajimoto99  phases in certain manganites indicates that DE is inadequate for the full description of the magnetic and transport properties in these systems. According to recent theoretical Tokura00 ; Dagotto01 ; Mizokawa00  and experimental results Endoh99 ; Yamada96 , orbital ordering ($`OO`$) is an important factor controling the eg-hole mobility. A characteristic example is La1-xSrxMnO3 (LSMO), where in the doping range $`0.1x0.15`$ a FMM to FMI transition takes place at low temperatures Liu01 ; Zhou00 . Experiments have shown that this transition is associated with charge ordering, $`OO`$, and strong reduction of the cooperative Jahn-Teller (JT) lattice distortions in the low-T phase Endoh99 ; Yamada96 ; Yamada00 . It has been also proposed that the $`OO`$ phase might contain hole-rich layers Yamada96 ; Inami99 , which sets the question of stripe formation into the FMI phase Hotta01 ; Mizokawa00 .

A similar transition has been observed in LCMO for $`0.125x0.2`$, at $`T_{tr}70100`$ K Biotteau01 ; Papavassiliou00 . However, the characteristic resistivity upturn Okuda00 ; Markovich02a ; Markovich02b , which marks the onset of the FMI phase is observed at temperatures sufficiently higher than $`T_{tr}`$. Experiments show that the resistivity upturn is associated with a diffuse structural transition, characterised by strong reduction of the orthorhombicity Biotteau01 , and a remarkable rotation of the easy magnetization axis Markovich02b . These characteristics are considered as the hallmark of orbital rearrangements that take place on cooling. At the same time, a number of peculiar features are observed, which are reminiscent of glassy freezing Dai00  especially in the doping region $`0.17x0.2`$: (i) a steep decrease and frequency dependence of the ac susceptibility at low temperatures Markovich02a ; Markovich02b ; Laiho01 , (ii) strong difference between the field cooled (FC) and zero field cooled (ZFC) magnetization in low fields Markovich02b ; Laiho01 ; Hong01 ; Belesi01 , (iii) the wipe-out of the NMR signal, which has been attributed to ultra-slow fluctuations of the electronic spin, charge, or orbital degrees of freedom Papavassiliou00 ; Belesi01 ; Papavassiliou01 ; Allodi01 ; Savosta02 . On the other hand, the sharp, cooling-rate dependent increase of the FM Bragg peaks Biotteau01  below $`T_{tr}`$, and the sudden slope-change in both the ZFC and FC branches of the magnetization at the same temperature Papavassiliou00 ; Markovich02b ; Belesi01 , indicate rather nonequilibrium phenomena and quasinonergodicity (”freezing”) on cooling, than a reentrant spin-glass transition. It is the competition between critical slowing down and spin freezing that makes characterization of the spin and orbital dynamics in this system a nontrivial task.

In this paper we shed light on this intringuing freezing mechanism by using 139La and 55Mn NMR in comparison with recent neutron scattering measurements, performed on the same high quality single crystal of La0.8Ca0.2MnO3. This system exhibits a PM-to-FM transition at $`T_c180`$ K, and resistivity upturn at $`150`$ K. We provide clear evidence about a novel thermodynamic phase transition occuring at $`T_{tr}70`$ K. The high magnetic anisotropy of the low temperature FMI phase and the finite size scaling of $`T_{tr}`$ upon increasing hole-doping, are indicative of an inhomogeneous $`OO`$ state with hole-stripes below $`70`$ K, while the spin-freezing features may arise from the formation of an indermediate FMI orbital domain state at nanometer length scale. This state creates partial magnetic disorder at orbital domain boundaries, while the establishment of long range $`OO`$ below $`T_{tr}`$ gives rise to full magnetic ordering, as deduced from the neutron scattering experiments Biotteau01 .

Zero external field 139La and 55Mn NMR measurements were acquired by applying a two pulse spin-echo technique, at very low rf power level, due to the very strong rf enhancement that characterizes FM materials Papavassiliou97 . $`T_1`$ was then measured at the peak of the spectra, by applying a saturation recovery technique and by fitting with a multiexponential recovery law as in previous works Papavassiliou01 . Rf enhancement experiments were performed by recording the NMR signal intensity $`I`$ as a function of the level of the applied rf field $`H_1`$. In general, the obtained curves follow an asymmetric bell-shaped law with maximum at $`n\gamma H_1\tau =2\pi /3`$, which allows the calculation of the rf enhancement factor $`n`$ Papavassiliou97 . The neutron scattering data have been recently reported in ref. Biotteau01 .

Figure 1 exhibits 55Mn line shape measurements at various temperatures. The maximum signal was obtained for $`H_1`$ c-axis, which means that the hyperfine field $`H_{hf}`$ is lying on the $`ab`$ plane. A similar result was obtained in 139La NMR in agreement with previous experiments on low doped LSMO Kumagai99 . For $`T70`$K spectra consist of a broad single-peaked line at frequency $`375`$ MHz, which according to the literature corresponds to delocalized Mn states Papavassiliou00 ). However, for $`T70`$K new peaks increase rapidly on cooling, which correspond to localized Mn4+ states (the narrow peak at $`320`$ MHz) and Mn3+ states (the broad peak at $`420`$ MHz) Papavassiliou00 ). At exactly the same temperature a sharp increase of the intensity of certain ferromagnetic Bragg peaks (Figure 2b) is observed on cooling, which implies that the appearance of the localized Mn3+,4+ NMR peaks is associated with better ordering of the Mn spins. The intensity of these Bragg peaks depends on the cooling rate as recently reported in ref. Biotteau01 . The rapid increase of the NMR signal from localized electron states below $`70`$ K is also clearly deduced from the 139La rf enhancement experiments of Figure 2a. For $`T70`$ K only a broad peak with maximum at $`0.3`$ Gauss is present in the $`I`$ vs. $`H_1`$ curves. However, below $`70`$ K a second peak at $`2`$ Gauss appears, which increases rapidly by decreasing temperature. Comparison with Figure 1 implies that this second peak corresponds to localized Mn3+,4+ states, whereas the $`0.3`$ Gauss peak to delocalized Mn states. There are two possible explanations for the different rf enhancement factors of the FMI and FMM signals: (i) the $`OO`$ FMI matrix phase has higher local magnetic anisotropy (smaller response to the applied rf power level) than the orbitally disorder FMM minority phase Belesi01 , (ii) the system consists of hole-rich FMM domain-walls separating FMI domains. The second argument is based on the fact that the rf enhancement $`n310^3`$ from the FMM regions is sufficiently higher than the FMI $`n210^2`$, as expected for FM domain-walls in comparison to FM domains Papavassiliou97 . Finite size scaling arguments given below, are in favour of the second explanation.

Figure 3 shows $`{}_{}{}^{55,139}(1/T_1)`$ measurements as a function of temperature. In case of $`{}_{}{}^{55}(1/T_1)`$ measurements were performed on the M4+ peak and the central FMM peak, whereas in case of $`{}_{}{}^{139}(1/T_1)`$ measurements were obtained at rf power levels $`0.3`$ Gauss and $`2`$ Gauss, which correspond to delocalized and localized Mn3+,4+ states, respectively. The similar temperature dependence of the corresponding $`{}_{}{}^{55,139}1/T_1`$ curves is a proof of the correct assignement of the 139La NMR signals. The crucial point in Figures 3a,b is that both $`{}_{}{}^{55,139}1/T_1`$ from Mn3+,4+ ions are diverging on approaching $`70`$K from below. Such a behaviour is indicative of critical relaxation enhancement on appoaching the phase transition temperature. In a previous work on a series of powder samples the divergence of $`1/T_1`$ was not observed Papavassiliou01 , probably due to inaccurate irradiation conditions in non-oriented powder samples. In contrast, the FMM $`1/T_1`$ is insensitive to the phase transition while crossing $`T_{tr}`$. The hump at $`20`$K on FMM $`{}_{}{}^{55}(1/T_1)`$ is probably due to partial signal contribution at $`375`$ MHz from localized Mn3+ states, which induce a broad inhomogeneous signal extending down to $`350`$ MHz Papavassiliou00 ; Anane96 . At temperatures higher than $`70`$K, where the FMI signal is completely wiped out Papavassiliou01 ; Allodi01 , $`1/T_1`$ reflects solely the dynamics of the FMM states.

The inset in Figure 3a shows $`{}_{}{}^{139}(1/T_1)`$ as a function of doping obtained in powder LCMO samples at $`T=10`$ K. It is observed that in the pure FMM part of the phase diagram ($`x0.25`$), $`1/T_1`$ is almost three orders of magnitude lower than in the pure FMI part ($`x0.15`$). It is thus remarkable that for $`x=0.20`$ no clear distinction in the $`1/T_1`$ values from FMI and FMM states is observed at low temperatures, while $`1/T_1`$’s become particularly different on approaching $`T_{tr}`$ from below. In a recent neutron scattering study (performed on the same $`x=0.20`$ crystal as here) Hennion02  two different FM media were detected, which coexist dynamically in the temperature range $`T_{tr}TT_c`$, and are stabilized into a periodically arranged collective state below $`T_{tr}`$. Hence, at low temperatures the system appears to consist of a regular arrangement of $`OO`$ domains with a uniform relaxation mechanism. In order to envisage how such an orbital domain state could be created, we consider the idea of the random field Ising model Fishman79 ; Bruinsma84 , where the random field mimics the lattice distortions induced by substitution with Ca ions. By taking into account only the isospin $`T=1/2`$ degree of freedom, which describes the twofold $`e_g`$ orbital degeneracy Tokura00 ; Dagotto01 , it can be shown that in strong random fields an intermediate orbital domain state may be realized on cooling Ro85 ; Wong83 ; Yoshizawa84 . This state is metastable exhibiting anomalous slow relaxation with logarithmic time dependence Nattermann88 ; Villain84  and strong difference in the orbital and spin ordering between the ZFC and FC branches Ro85 . The observed cooling rate dependence of the FM Bragg peak intensity below $`T_{tr}`$ is attributed to nucleation or rearrangement of orbital domains and domain walls, which is connected with the large reduction of orthorhombicity upon cooling Biotteau01 . We also note that in case that neighboring orbital domains are arranged in antiphase, stripe-like orbital walls will be formed, where holes are energetically favorable to concentrate Hotta01 , in agreement with the neutron measurements Hennion02 . By increasing hole-doping the number of walls will increase Hotta01 , whereas above a critical doping $`x_c`$ the $`OO`$ phase is expected to be supressed Fisher72 ; Cho93 . Indeed, such doping induced finite size scaling effects are experimentally suggested. Figure 4 shows $`T_{tr}`$ vs. doping $`x`$, obtained from NMR and magnetic measurements in a series of LCMO powder samples. The experimental data for $`0.1x0.25`$ are nicely fitted by the expression $`T_{tr}(x)=T_{tr}^{}(1(x/x_c)^n)`$, where $`T_{tr}^{}=110`$ K, $`x_c=0.28`$, and $`n=2`$. Such a power-law dependence is expected from finite size scaling theory Fisher72 ; Cho93 , which predicts that the effective $`T_{tr}`$ is limited by the finite size $`L`$ of the domains according to the formula, $`T_{tr}(L)=T_{tr}(\mathrm{})(1(L)^{1/\nu })`$. The above equations are consistent with $`L(x)=1/x^{n\nu }`$, which is determined as evidence about the formation of walls separating orbital domains. We also notice that in mean-field approximation $`\nu =1/2`$, so that $`L(x)=1/x`$, which indicates that the wall width is independent of $`x`$ in accordance with theoretical predictions Hotta01 .

In summary, NMR in conjunction with recent neutron scattering experiments on a single crystalline LCMO $`x=0.20`$, indicate the presence of a novel phase transition from a high temperature orbital domain state to a low temperature state of arranged orbital domains. Although no direct evidence for stripe formation is claimed here, the difference in the rf enhancement between the FMM and the FMI phases, and the finite size scaling effects on the transition temperature Ttr, suggest that the formation of the domain state and the orbital and spin freezing effects are possibly associated with the formation of hole stripes. By assigning the $`e_g`$ orbital degree of freedom to an isospin, there is a complete analogy between the $`OO`$ phase in manganites and the low temperature hole-striped phase in cuprates and nickelates Cho93 ; Tranquada95 . This is probably due to the similar competitive spin (isospin) ordering under quenched disorder Burgy01  in the layered (2D) structures. We notice the impressive similarity between our NMR results in LCMO $`x=0.20`$, and the 139La NMR in the stripe-ordered nickelate La5/3Sr1/3NiO4 Yoshinari99 . Clearly, further investigations of the orbital and spin dynamics in lightly doped manganites will be particularly helpful in understanding the way that holes are self-assembled - apparently in stripes - in these systems.

This work has been partially supported by the Greek-Slovenian cooperation project No. 2495. We would like to thank Dr. M. Hennion, and Prof. Y. M. Mukovskii, for providing the $`x=0.20`$ single crystal.


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# High-Multiplicity 𝑝𝐴 collisions and the small-𝑥 effective action

## Abstract

I discuss the $`p_t`$ distributions for high-multiplicity events originating from semi-classical variation of the gluon density of the proton. The multiplicity distribution measures the curvature of the effective action for the small-$`x`$ gluon fields. For $`pA`$ collisions at the RHIC and LHC colliders, semi-classically the multiplicity distribution reflects the distribution of saturation momenta of the proton but not that of the nucleus. The average transverse momentum in the central region grows with $`dN/dy`$, while the $`p_t`$ distribution of leading hadrons in the proton fragmentation region should depend less on the multiplicity in the central region.

High-energy hadronic scattering requires understanding of the non-abelian gauge fields of hadrons at small $`x`$, which is the fractional light-cone energy carried by the quanta of the fields. At very high energy, $`\mathrm{log}1/x1`$, the gluon fields in a hadron become very strong, corresponding to high gluon density. This is where one expects that cross sections become comparable to the geometric size of the hadron and where the unitarity limit is reached. A perturbative QCD based mechanism for unitarization of cross sections is provided by gluon saturation effects . A semi-classical approach to gluon saturation and QCD at high energy was developed in  and will be applied here to high energy proton-nucleus collisions.

Large nuclei facilitate the study of gluon saturation effects because the gluon density per unit transverse area is larger than in a proton. The scale associated with the high gluon density, the saturation scale $`Q_s`$, grows with energy and atomic number $`A`$. At a resolution less than $`Q_s^2`$, the color field carries large occupation numbers, of order of the inverse QCD coupling constant, $`1/\alpha _s`$. Thus, the nuclear wave function at $`Q^2<Q_s^2`$ resembles a Bose “condensate”. The local color charge density in the transverse plane is a stochastic variable which eventually has to be averaged over, see below. Also, by Lorentz time dilation the large $`x`$ gluons evolve slowly and so for the small-$`x`$ gluons they appear as a “frozen” source near the light cone. Therefore, the high gluon density state of QCD at $`Q^2\stackrel{<}{}Q_s^2`$ is called a “Color Glass Condensate” .

The small-$`x`$ gluon fields of hadrons or nuclei can be treated semi-classically because the occupation numbers parametrically are of order $`1/\alpha _s1`$. One can integrate out the fields at large $`x`$ whose dynamics is “frozen”, thereby generating an effective action for the small-$`x`$ gluons ,

$$S[\rho ]=𝑑yd^2x_tV[\rho ],$$
(1)
with $`y`$ being the rapidity. The large-$`x`$ gluons effectively act as a source of color charge in the Yang-Mills equations of motion for the small-$`x`$ fields; $`\rho `$ denotes the color charge density per unit transverse area $`d^2x_t`$, and rapidity $`dy`$. This is a stochastic variable which eventually has to be integrated over,

$$O=𝒟\rho \mathrm{exp}(S[\rho ])O[\rho ],$$
(2)
where $`O[\rho ]`$ denotes some observable which is a functional of $`\rho `$. In their original papers , McLerran and Venugopalan suggested the simplest possible effective potential

$$V_2[\rho ;\mu ^2]=\frac{\mathrm{tr}\rho ^2}{\mu ^2}.$$
(3)
This is the lowest-dimensional operator. In (3), $`\mu ^2`$ is a real number, and physically is simply the mean square fluctuation of the density of “hard”, large-$`x`$ gluons in the source. It determines the curvature of the effective potential at the minimum.

In principle, one might try other choices for the effective potential $`V[\rho ]`$, c.f. , as for example the double well potential depicted in Fig. 1, which looks just like the effective potential for a first-order phase transition in thermal $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory near $`T_c`$ . The curvature of the potential in the first well at $`\rho _1`$ is $`1/\mu _1`$, and that in the second well is $`1/\mu _2`$. Semiclassically, one considers only small fluctuations about the states which minimize the action. Thus, for this potential the averaging over $`\rho `$ from eq. (2) turns into***The operator $`O`$ is assumed to be defined such that tadpole contributions are subtracted; for example, for the two-point function $`\rho (x_t,y)\rho (z_t,y^{})\rho _i^2`$. One can then shift variables in (4), $`\rho \rho +\rho _i`$.

$$\underset{i=1,2}{}w_i𝒟\rho \mathrm{exp}\left(𝑑yd^2x_tV_2[\rho \rho _i;\mu _i^2]\right)O[\rho ].$$
(4)
The probabilities for the configurations $`\rho _1`$ or $`\rho _2`$ are determined by the classical action:

$$w_i=\frac{\mathrm{exp}(S[\rho _i])}{\mathrm{exp}(S[\rho _1])+\mathrm{exp}(S[\rho _2])}.$$
(5)
Note that if the effective potential is quadratic for small fluctuations about each of its minima, renormalization-group evolution presumably preserves that functional form . That is, imposing the potential from Fig. 1 as the initial condition (at small rapidity), it will keep its shape at larger rapidity, and the ratio of the curvatures at the two minima stays the same.

One can evidently generalize the above to effective potentials with several classical minima. One could also imagine that there is a continuum of nearly degenerate states near a classical minimum. For example, at a tricritical point the lowest-dimensional operator appearing in the action is $`\mathrm{tr}\rho ^6`$. The state of lowest action is that for $`\rho =0`$ but the potential about that classical state is flat, and so states in its vicinity are nearly degenerate. This type of potential might not be preserved by the RG evolution in rapidity, though.

The distribution $`w(\mu ^2)`$ of correlation lengths determines the multiplicity distribution in hadronic collisions. Here, I do not attempt to compute that distribution. Rather, given a nonvanishing probability for a class of events with higher multiplicity $`dN/dy`$ than the average, I discuss the origin of such events and how the $`p_t`$ distribution in that class of events is different from the average. Nevertheless, it will be very interesting of course to analyze the multiplicity distribution experimentally; for example, at a tricritical point events with larger than average multiplicity could be due to semi-classical fluctuations of the color charge density. A potential with several discrete local minima as in Fig. 1 would lead to multiple peaks in the multiplicity distribution, unless the curvature radii of the potential are the same. For finite temperatures, the effect of a second local minimum in the effective potential on multiplicity and momentum distributions of produced particles has been discussed previously using the hydrodynamical model .

Henceforth, I consider “$`pA`$” collisions, i.e. collisions of a dilute projectile with a dense target. For simplicity, $`\mu ^2`$ for the nucleus is chosen to be constant over the transverse plane. For large nuclei ($`A200`$) this should not be a bad approximation. Realistic transverse density distributions can be treated numerically . Moreover, experimental triggers in the fragmentation region of the nucleus, for example a trigger on the number of knocked-out neutrons, could improve the selection of central events. This might be particularly important for composite projectiles (small nuclei) to ensure that all nucleons have hit the large nuclear target.

For “$`pA`$” collisions an analytical solution for the radiation field in the forward light-cone can be found to first order in the coupling to the proton field, but to all orders in the density of the nucleus (see below). In principle, there is a contribution to large multiplicity events from coupling the radiation field to second (and higher) order to the proton source, down by additional powers of $`\alpha _s`$. That corresponds to attaching additional non-collinear hard gluon lines to the proton source (collinear emissions are already resummed in eq. (22) through the DGLAP logarithm), see e.g. . As already mentioned above, for the simplest quadratic effective potential this is in fact the only contribution to large-multiplicity events since the effective potential exhibits only one classical minimum (i.e. the distribution of saturation momenta is a $`\delta `$-function). In general, if the potential starts out with some higher-dimensional operator, the distribution of saturation momenta is less sharply peaked, or it exhibits several peaks as for the double well potential above, and so high-multiplicity events can occur semi-classically. Their contribution dominates when $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }S[\rho ])>\alpha _s`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }S[\rho ]`$ is the action relative to that at the global minimum. This condition determines the “cut-off” of the semi-classical multiplicity distribution.

In light-cone gauge, the classical fields of the sources before the collision, which occurs at the tip of the light-cone, are given by the single-hadron (nucleus) solutions

$`A_{1,2}^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (6)
$`A_{1,2}^i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{g}}U_{1,2}(x_{})^iU_{1,2}^{}(x_{}).`$ (7)
The $`U_{1,2}`$’s are rotation matrices in color space,

$$U_{1,2}(x_t)=\mathrm{exp}\left(ig\mathrm{\Phi }_{1,2}(x_t)\right).$$
(8)
The gauge potentials $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{1,2}`$ satisfy the two-dimensional Poisson equation

$$^2\mathrm{\Phi }_{1,2}(x_t)=g\rho _{1,2}(x_t).$$
(9)
The average over the color charge density configurations $`\rho _1`$ and $`\rho _2`$ with a Gaussian weight as in eq. (2) thus corresponds to an average over the rotations in color space, $`U_{1,2}`$.

The fields (7) serve as the initial conditions for solving the Yang-Mills equations of motion in the forward light cone; they were solved in  for the case of asymmetric collisions where the classical field of one of the colliding sources is much stronger than that of the other source. Chosing the gauge $`x^+A^{}+x^{}A^+=0`$, the radiation field in the forward light cone region is given by

$`A^i(\tau ,x_t)`$ $`=`$ $`U(x_t)\left(\beta ^i(\tau ,x_t)+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{g}}^i\right)U^{}(x_t),`$ (10)
$`A^\pm (\tau ,x_t)`$ $`=`$ $`\pm x^\pm U(x_t)\beta (\tau ,x_t)U^{}(x_t).`$ (11)
Here, $`\tau =\sqrt{2x^+x^{}}`$ denotes proper time and $`x_t`$ is the transverse coordinate. The $`U`$’s are rotation matrices in color space, to be specified shortly. At asymptotic times, $`\tau \mathrm{}`$, the fields $`\beta `$ and $`\beta ^i`$ are given by superpositions of plane wave solutions,

$`\beta (\tau \mathrm{},x_t)`$ $`=`$ (13)
$`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^2p_t}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\omega \tau ^3}}}\{a_1(p_t)e^{ip_tx_ti\omega \tau }+c.c.\},`$
$`\beta ^i(\tau \mathrm{},x_t)`$ $`=`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^2p_t}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\omega \tau }}}{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ^{il}p_t^l}{\omega }}\{a_2(p_t)e^{ip_tx_ti\omega \tau }+c.c.\}.`$
The number distribution of produced gluons at rapidity $`y`$ and transverse momentum $`p_t`$ is given by

$$\frac{dN}{d^2p_tdy}=\frac{2}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{tr}\left|a_1(p_t)\right|^2+\left|a_2(p_t)\right|^2.$$
(16)
For $`pA`$ collisions, the $`U`$’s appearing in eq. (11) are just the $`U_2`$’s from eq. (7); that is, to leading order in the weak field, the plane waves in the forward light cone are just gauge rotated by the strong field.

The squared amplitudes now have to be averaged over the density configurations. The radiation number distribution (16) depends on the integrated color charge densities of the sources,

$`\chi _p(y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{y}{\overset{y_p}{}}}𝑑y^{}\mu _p^2(y^{}),`$ (17)
$`\chi _A(y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{y_A}{\overset{y}{}}}𝑑y^{}\mu _A^2(y^{}),`$ (18)
where $`y_p=y_A`$ denote the beam rapidities. Due to the nuclear enhancement, in the central region $`\chi _A\chi _p`$. Up to some proportionality constant which is of no relevance here, the integrated color charge densities $`\chi _{p,A}`$ times $`g^4`$ equal the saturation scales $`Q_{p,A}^2`$ of the sources.

A high-resolution probe with $`p_tQ_A(y)`$ resolves the gluons in the target nucleus, i.e. it appears dilute at that scale, while a low-resolution source with $`p_t\stackrel{<}{}Q_A(y)`$ sees a dense, nearly “black” target without structure (see the expressions for the gluon-nucleus cross section in the various regimes in ). In particular, since $`Q_A(y)Q_p(y)`$ at central rapidity, for gluons produced with transverse momenta $`Q_p(y)\stackrel{<}{}p_t\stackrel{<}{}Q_A(y)`$ the proton projectile is dilute while the nuclear target is dense. Performing the integrals over color charge density configurations with a quadratic potential for fixed saturation momenta $`Q_A`$ and $`Q_p`$, the transverse momentum distributions in the two regimes are given by See also the results of ref. , where gluon bremsstrahlung off nuclear targets was obtained by resumming a Glauber multiple collision series in the dipole model, rather than solving classical Yang Mills equations.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d^2bd^2p_tdy}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_A^2(y)Q_p^2(y)}{p_t^4}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{p_t^2}{Q_A^2(y)}}`$ (20)
$`(p_t>Q_A)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d^2bd^2p_tdy}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_p^2(y)}{p_t^2}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{p_t^2}{Q_p^2(y)}}`$ (22)
$`(Q_p\stackrel{<}{}p_t\stackrel{<}{}Q_A).`$
Again, some proportionality constants which are inessential for the present discussion have been dropped (see ). The logarithm in eq. (22) arises from resumming collinear gluon emissions from the proton source at the scale $`p_t^2`$ , i.e. from DGLAP evolution. For $`Q_AQ_p\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ the dominant contribution to the multiplicity density per unit rapidity is from the region (22),

$$\frac{dN}{d^2bdy}\frac{1}{g^2}Q_p^2(y)\mathrm{log}^2\frac{Q_A^2(y)}{Q_p^2(y)}.$$
(23)
The contribution from the high-$`p_t`$ region (20) is

$$\frac{dN}{d^2bdy}\frac{1}{g^2}Q_p^2(y).$$
(24)
Thus, fluctuations in the $`p_t`$-integrated multiplicity per unit rapidity, $`dN/dy`$, should be dominated by fluctuations of the saturation momentum of the proton. Fluctuations of $`Q_A`$ do occur but their effect on $`dN/dy`$ is logarithmically suppressed, and so the two quantities are approximately uncorrelated. This can be seen also from the fact that for a dense nuclear target, the gluon-nucleus  and the quark-nucleus  cross sections are essentially given by the nuclear area $`\pi R_A^2`$, which does not vary; once the target has reached the “black-body limit”, cross sections are geometrical. Rather, high-multiplicity events originate from larger than average density of partons in the dilute projectile proton. Note that fluctuations of the inelastic $`pA`$ cross section have been considered previously, e.g. ref. . What is new here is that the distribution of inelastic cross sections is related to the distribution of correlation lengths exhibited by the effective action (1), and that the transverse momentum distributions of produced particles changes systematically with multiplicity, see below.

Thus, to first approximation an average over many events within one event class (which is defined by $`dN/dy`$) corresponds to an averageIt is represented here as an integral over a continuous distribution of curvatures but of course $`w(\mu ^2)`$ could just be a sum over delta-functions if one has a potential with several discrete minima. over $`Q_A`$ at fixed $`Q_p`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d^2p_tdy}}(\mu _p^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu _A^2w(\mu _A^2)𝒟\rho _pe^{S[\rho _p,\mu _p^2]}}`$ (26)
$`\times {\displaystyle }𝒟\rho _Ae^{S[\rho _A,\mu _A^2]}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{(2\pi )^2}}\mathrm{tr}(|a_1|^2+|a_2|^2)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟\rho _pe^{S[\rho _p,\mu _p^2]}𝒟\rho _Ae^{S[\rho _A,\overline{\mu _A^2}]}}`$ (28)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{2}{(2\pi )^2}}\mathrm{tr}\left(|a_1|^2+|a_2|^2\right).`$
Note the difference to fluctuations of the multiplicity at high transverse momentum above some (large) fixed cutoff $`p_0`$. The integral of the distribution (20) from binary hard scatterings over $`p_t>p_0`$ (with $`p_0>Q_A`$) is equally sensitive to fluctuations of both the projectile density as well as the target density .

The transverse momentum distribution within one event class therefore has the shape depicted in Fig. 2. At very small transverse momentum $`p_t\stackrel{<}{}Q_p`$, the distribution appears rather flat . Here, both the field of the proton as well as that of the nucleus are in the nonlinear “saturation” regime. As discussed above, the width of this region is proportional to the square root of $`dN/dy`$. For the highest multiplicity classes, when $`dN/dy`$ is about $`200^{1/3}6`$ times larger than on average, this region of transverse momenta could extend all the way up to $`\overline{Q}_A`$. In turn, for low multiplicity events it will shrink.

Above $`Q_p`$, up to about the average nuclear saturation momentum $`\overline{Q}_A`$ the gluon distribution drops approximately like $`1/p_t^2`$. This is the regime where the proton field is weak but that of the nucleus still is “saturated”. It can extend down to small transverse momentum for the lowest multiplicity class, or could be “squeezed” completely at very large $`dN/dy`$.

For a closer look at the $`p_t`$ distributions in different multiplicity classes it is useful to divide the distributions from each class by that corresponding to the highest multiplicity bin, forming the ratio

$$R(p_t;Q_p^2)=\frac{dN}{dp_t^2dy}(Q_p^2)\left(\frac{dN}{dp_t^2dy}(Q_{p,\mathrm{max}}^2)\right)^1.$$
(29)
This should be flat at small transverse momenta, $`p_t\stackrel{<}{}Q_p`$. Above $`Q_p`$ it drops since $`dN/dp_t^2dy(Q_p^2)`$ decreases while $`dN/dp_t^2dy(Q_{p,\mathrm{max}}^2)`$ is approximately constant. Above $`Q_A`$ finally, the ratio flattens and becomes constant since from eq. (20) the distributions in the various multiplicity bins become proportional.

Fig. 3 shows the behavior of $`R(p_t)`$. For this figure, the $`p_t`$ distributions were taken to be

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{dp_t^2dy}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_t^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}},(p_t<Q_p)`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Q_p^2}{p_t^2(Q_p^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)}},(Q_p<p_t<Q_A)`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Q_p^2Q_A^2}{p_t^4(Q_p^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)}},(p_t>Q_A),`$ (32)
with the cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.2`$ GeV, the nuclear saturation scale $`Q_A=1.5`$ GeV and $`Q_{p,\mathrm{max}}=Q_A`$. These numbers may be reasonable for the central rapidity region of $`p+Au`$ collisions at RHIC energy. For LHC they are expected to be bigger by about a factor $`\mathrm{exp}(\lambda (y_{\mathrm{LHC}}y_{\mathrm{RHIC}})/2)1.7`$, where $`y_{\mathrm{LHC}}8.8`$ and $`y_{\mathrm{RHIC}}5.4`$ are the beam rapidities at the two colliders, and the intercept $`\lambda 0.3`$ .

The broadening of the $`p_t`$ distributions with increasing multiplicity then leads to an increase of $`p_t`$ with $`dN/dy`$; at least as long as $`Q_pQ_A`$, $`p_t`$ was shown to scale with the square root of $`dN/dy`$ . This may lead to changes of multiparticle correlations  with increasing $`dN/dy`$. Moreover, at midrapidity, the inelastic cross section is dominated by scattering of small-$`x`$ gluons and a nearly flavor symmetric sea of (anti-)quarks. Therefore, when the typical transverse momentum of produced gluons becomes larger than typical hadronic mass scales, the hadronic final state should as well be nearly flavor symmetric. It might be impossible to achieve sufficiently large $`p_t`$ at either RHIC or LHC to be able to neglect, as an example, the masses of the kaons. Nevertheless, it would be very interesting to see whether multiplicity ratios for e.g. $`K^\pm `$ to $`\pi ^\pm `$ (or $`\eta `$ to $`\pi ^0`$) do increase at all with the multiplicity of the event. Experimentally, this is not seen for $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions up to Tevatron energies . It might be related to the fact that the correlation length for thermal Wilson lines at confinement is large, on the order of the proton radius .

Finally, it may be interesting to consider the distribution of leading hadrons (in the proton fragmentation region) which are produced by fragmentation of large-$`x`$ quarks from the proton , similar to Deep Inelastic $`eA`$ scattering . Far from the beam rapidity of the nucleus, its saturation momentum increases by a factor $`\mathrm{exp}(\lambda y)`$ relative to that at central rapidity, while in turn $`Q_p`$ decreases by the same factor. The quarks from the incident proton are then scattered to rather large transverse momenta of order $`Q_A`$, and the shape of the forward $`p_t`$ distribution should depend less on $`Q_p`$. That is, $`dN/Q_p^2dp_t^2dy`$ should approach a “limiting shape”, which depends rather weakly on the event multiplicity $`dN/dy`$ (or $`Q_p`$).

In summary, experimental analysis of the multiplicity distributions in high-energy $`pA`$ collisions, and of correlated changes of the $`p_t`$ distributions could provide some fundamental insight into the effective action for small-$`x`$ gluons, provided that a semi-classical distribution over saturation momenta exists and that it is not overwhelmed by higher-order corrections in $`\alpha _s`$.
Acknowledgements: I thank Jamal Jalilian-Marian, Mark Strikman, and Raju Venugopalan for useful discussions, the DOE for support from Grant DE-AC02-98CH10886, and the organizers of the workshop “Coherent Effects at RHIC and LHC: Initial Conditions and Hard Probes”, ECT\*, Trento (Italy), October 14-25, 2002, http://pluto.mpi-hd.mpg.de/trento, where part of this work was presented.


text:
# Probing the Short-Range Dynamics in Exclusive Scattering off Polarized Deuteron

## 1 Introduction

The deuteron is the simplest nuclear system, which is barley bound with the rms radius of about $`4fm`$. This fact in the momentum space is reflected in the very steep momentum distribution of the unpolarized deuteron wave function with the strength concentrated predominantly at the small internal momenta, Fig.1. However the fact that the deuteron has a $`D`$ wave which vanishes at small momenta indicates that isolating the $`D`$ wave in any given nuclear reaction with the deuteron as a target will allow effectively suppress the small-momentum/long-range contributions. This can be seen from the polarized density matrices of the deuteron:

$`\rho _d^\stackrel{}{a}(k_1,k_2))=u(k_1)u(k_2)+`$
$`\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{3|k_2a|^2}{k_2^2}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{u(k_1)w(k_2)}{\sqrt{2}}}+\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{3|k_1a|^2}{k_1^2}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{u(k_2)w(k_1)}{\sqrt{2}}}`$
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{9}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(k_1a)(k_2a)^{}(k_1k_2)}{k_1^2k_2^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{|k_1a|^2}{k_1^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{|k_2a|^2}{k_2^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)w(k_1)w(k_2),`$
(1)
where $`u(k)`$ and $`w(k)`$ represent the $`S`$ and $`D`$ partial waves respectively. The polarization vector $`\stackrel{}{a}`$ is defined through the deuteron spin wave functions:

$$\psi ^{10}=ia_z,\psi ^{11}=\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}(a_x+ia_y),\psi ^{11}=\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}(a_xia_y),$$
(2)
where $`\psi ^{1\mu }`$ is the projection of the deuteron’s spin on the $`\mu `$ direction. The unpolarized density matrix of the deuteron is defined as: $`\rho _d^{unp}(k_1,k_2)=\frac{1}{3}_a\rho _d^a(k_1,k_2)`$.

Since $`lim_{p0}w(p)=0`$, it follows from Eq.(1) that any polarization combination of $`\rho _d^\stackrel{}{a}`$, in which $`u^2`$ term is canceled has an enhanced sensitivity to the larger internal momenta (smaller distances) of the deuteron as compared to the unpolarized case. As it follows from Eq.(1), the $`u(k_1)u(k_2)`$ term does not depend on the polarization vector $`\stackrel{}{a}`$, thus one can cancel this term summing any two components of the density matrix and subtracting the doubled value of the third component.

Fig.1 presents the examples of the density matrices for unpolarized ($`(\rho _{11}+\rho _{11}+\rho _{10})/3`$, transverse $`\rho _{10}`$ and tensor polarized ($`(\rho _{11}+\rho _{11}2\rho _{10})/3`$ deuteron targets as they enter in the impulse approximation term of the $`\stackrel{}{d}(e,e^{}p)n`$ cross section (in this case $`k_1=k_2=p`$). As it can be seen from Eq.(1) the tensor polarized density matrix depends only on the terms proportional to $`u(p)w(p)`$ and $`w(p)^2`$ which results in a substantial suppression of low-momentum part of the density matrix as compared to the unpolarized one .

We will discuss several studies which utilize this unique feature, that choosing special polarization for the deuteron target enhances the short-range space-time aspects of the reaction under the consideration.

## 2 Exclusive $`e+\stackrel{}{d}e^{}+p+n`$ reaction at $`Q^21GeV^2`$.

The density matrices presented in Fig.1 are probed in the electro-disintegration reaction of the polarized deuteron. There are two aspects in studies of these reactions. One corresponds to the kinematics dominated by impulse approximation (IA) which will provide us with the tool for studies of the deuteron properties at small inter-nucleon distances. Another aspect corresponds to the kinematics dominated by final state interactions (FSI) which is a testing ground for studies of the mechanism of FSI at short distances. In general these two contributions are intertwined together and their separation is an important problem.

We discuss $`d(e,e,p)n`$ reaction in the kinematics in which almost entire momentum of the virtual photon is transferred to the knocked-out nucleon (for certainty we choose it to be a proton) with momentum $`p_f`$, while the spectator neutron, with momentum $`p_s`$ is detected in the momentum range of $`0500`$MeV/c. The main kinematic conditions are:

$$Q^2=𝐪^\mathrm{𝟐}q_0^2>1GeV^2,𝐩_𝐟𝐪,p_fp_m,p_s,$$
(3)
where $`𝐩_𝐦=𝐩_𝐟𝐪=𝐩_𝐬`$ is the missing momentum of the reaction, $`m`$ is the mass of the nucleon. In the kinematic region of Eq.(3) only the IA (Fig.(2) (a)) and FSI (Fig.(2) (b)) terms will dominate the cross section (see e.g. Ref.). The FSI contribution in $`Q^21`$ GeV2 limit can be calculated within generalized eikonal approximation (GEA) which accounts for the finite values of recoil/missing momenta (note that in the Glauber theory the Fermi momenta of interacting nucleons are neglected). With IA and FSI terms included, the differential cross section of $`\stackrel{}{d}(e,e,p)n`$ reaction within distorted wave impulse approximation can be represented as:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dE_e^{}d\mathrm{\Omega }_e^{}d^3p_f}=\sigma _{ep}S_d^\stackrel{}{s}(q,p_f,p_s)\delta (q_oM_dE_fE_s),$$
(4)
were $`\sigma _{ep}`$ is the cross section of the electron scattering off a bound proton (up to the flux and proton recoil factor) and $`S_d^\stackrel{}{s}(q,p_f,p_s)`$ is the distorted spectral function of the deuteron . Within GEA, for $`S_d^\stackrel{}{s}(q,p_f,p_s)`$ one obtains

$`S_d^\stackrel{}{s}(q,p_f,p_s)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _d^\stackrel{}{s}(p_m,p_m)e{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i}}{\displaystyle \rho _{d1}^\stackrel{}{s}(p_m,p_m^{})f^{np}(k_t)\frac{d^2k_t}{(2\pi )^2}}`$ (5)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}{\displaystyle \rho _{d2}^\stackrel{}{s}(p_{m1},p_{m2})f^{np}(k_{t1})f^{np}(k_{t2})\frac{d^2k_{t1}}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{d^2k_{t2}}{(2\pi )^2}},`$
were $`\rho _d^\stackrel{}{s}`$ is defined in Eq.(1), whereas $`\rho _{d1}^\stackrel{}{s}`$ and $`\rho _{d2}^\stackrel{}{s}`$ represent the distorted, due to the re-scattering, density matrices of the deuteron. $`f^{np}`$ is the amplitude of small angle proton-neutron scattering.

To analyze the role of the IA and FSI in the $`d(e,e^{}p)n`$ reaction we calculate the ratio of the cross section of Eq.(4) to the cross section calculated within IA only, (Fig.(2(a)):

$$T=\frac{\sigma ^{IA+FSI}}{\sigma ^{IA}}=\frac{S(p_f,p_s)}{|\psi _D(p_s)|^2}.$$
(6)
Figure 3 demonstrates the calculation of $`T`$ as a function of the recoil nucleon angle $`\theta _{sq}`$ with respect to the $`𝐪`$ for the different values of recoil nucleon momentum. It demonstrates the distinctive angular dependence of the ratio T. At recoil nucleon momenta $`p_s300MeV/c`$, $`T`$ has a minimum and generally $`T<1`$ while at $`p_s>300MeV/c`$, $`T>1`$ and has a distinctive maximum. It can be seen from this picture that the FSI is small at kinematics in which recoil momenta of the reaction is parallel or anti-parallel to $`𝐪`$ (referred to as collinear kinematics). The FSI dominates in the kinematics where $`\theta _{pq}90^0`$, more precisely the maximal re-scattering corresponds to the kinematics in which $`\alpha \frac{E_sp_{sz}}{m}=1`$ (referred to as transverse kinematics). The analysis of Fig.3 shows that one indeed can isolate the kinematic domains where IA term is dominant from the domain in which FSI plays a major role. The ability to identify these two kinematics is an important advantage of $`e+de^{}+p+n`$ reactions. It allows to concentrate on the different aspects of the dynamics of $`d(ee^{}p)n`$ reaction with less background effects. Namely the collinear kinematics are best suited for studies of bound nucleon dynamics while in transverse kinematics one can concentrate on the physics of hadronic re-interaction.

### 2.0.1 Studies of electro-production from deeply bound nucleons, relativistic effects

The $`d(e,e^{}p)n`$ reaction within IA, Fig. 2(a) represents the testing ground for investigation of the electromagnetic structure of bound nucleons. Within IA there is a direct correspondence between the momentum of spectator neutron and the binding energy of the interacting proton $`E_b=E_m=m_d\sqrt{m^2+p_s^2}`$. To achieve such a simplicity in studies of bound nucleon structure, according to the discussions in the previous section, one has to choose collinear kinematics in which FSI is a correction. Additionally, one should restrict the $`Q^24`$ GeV2 in which case we expect minimal color transparency effects (see next section) and therefore the FSI, being small, are also well under the control. Furthermore, we focus on the parallel kinematics in which the light cone momentum of spectator nucleon, $`\alpha \frac{E_sp_s^z}{m}>1`$ and $`p_{}0`$. The $`d(e.e^{}p)n`$ reaction in these kinematics are most sensitive to relativistic effects in the deuteron. The sensitivity to relativistic effects persists also at angles of spectator nucleon momenta close to the collinear kinematics. This sensitivity gradually disappears at $`\alpha 1`$ and $`\theta _{sq}90^0`$. There are several techniques for treating the deeply bound nucleons as well as relativistic effects in the deuteron. One group of approaches handles the virtuality of the bound nucleon within a description of the deuteron in the lab. frame (we will call them virtual nucleon (VN) approaches) by taking the residue over the energy of the spectator nucleon. One has to deal with negative energy states which arise for non-zero virtualities (see e.g. Ref.). Due to the binding, the current conservation is not automatic and one has to introduce a prescription to implement electromagnetic gauge invariance (see e.g. Ref.).

Another approach is based on the observation that high energy processes evolve along the light-cone. Therefore, it is natural to describe the reaction within the light-cone (LC) non-covariant framework . Negative energy states do not enter in this case, though one has to take into account so called instantaneous interactions. For this purpose one employs e.m. gauge invariance to express the “bad” electromagnetic current component (containing instantaneous terms) through the “good” component $`J_+^A=q_+/q_{}J_{}^A`$ . In the approximation when non-nucleonic degrees of freedom in the deuteron wave function can be neglected, one can unambiguously relate the light-cone wave functions to those calculated in the Lab frame by introducing the LC $`pn`$ relative three momentum $`k=\sqrt{\frac{m^2+p_t^2}{\alpha (2\alpha )}m^2}`$.

Naturally, VN and LC approaches coincide in the limit of small missing momenta. Their predictions within IA considerably diverge at larger values of spectator momenta $`(300MeV/c`$). According to the discussion in Sec.1 the $`d(e,e^{}p)n`$ reactions with a tensor polarized deuteron is best suited for discrimination between VN and LC prescriptions. This was previously demonstrated within IA in Ref.. Using the recent advances in the calculation of FSI, one can perform a similar comparison for asymmetry:

$$A^d=\frac{\sigma ^{1,1}+\sigma ^{1,1}2\sigma ^{1,0}}{\sigma ^{1,1}+\sigma ^{1,1}+\sigma ^{1,0}},$$
(7)
accounting also for FSI contribution of Fig.2(b). In Eq.(7) $`\sigma ^{1,s_z}\frac{d\sigma ^{\stackrel{}{s},s_z}}{dE_e^{}d\mathrm{\Omega }_e^{}d^3p_s}`$ represents the differential cross section of $`d(e,e^{}p)n`$ reaction with the deuteron helicity, $`s_z`$.

The results of VN and LC comparison which includes both IA and FSI contributions are presented in Fig.4 for collinear kinematics with $`\theta _{sq}=180^o`$. One can see that account of the FSI further increases the difference between VN and LC predictions, thus making their experimental investigation more feasible.

### 2.0.2 Color Transparency studies at intermediate $`Q^2`$

In QCD, the absorption of a high $`Q^2`$ photon by a nucleon produces a point like configuration (PLC), which, at asymptotically high energies, would not interact with the nucleons, thus eliminating FSI. This effect generally is referred as a color transparency (CT). Recently, CT was experimentally observed in the high energy $`\pi +A2jets+A^{}`$ reactions which confirmed the early prediction based on perturbative QCD (pQCD) calculations.

At high but finite energies (pre pQCD domain), a PLC is actually produced, but it expands as it propagates through the nucleus . To suppress the expansion effects, it is necessary to ensure that the expansion length, $`l_h0.4(p/`$GeV), is greater than the characteristic longitudinal distance in the reaction. In the considered $`d(e,e^{}p)n`$ reaction, where one nucleon carries almost all the momentum of the photon while the second nucleon (or its resonance) is a spectator, the actual expansion distances are the distances between the nucleons in the deuteron . Thus, suppressing large distance effects through the deuteron’s polarization, one effectively will diminish the PLC’s expansion, leading to an earlier onset of CT.

The reduced interaction between the PLC and the spectator nucleon can be described in terms of its transverse size and the distance $`z`$ from the photon absorption point in $`d(e,e^{}p)n`$ reaction. As a result the $`pn`$ re-scattering amplitude, $`f^{pn}`$, in Eq.(5) is replaced by $`f^{PLC,N}(z,k_t,Q^2)`$. For numerical estimates of the $`f^{PLC,N}(z,k_t,Q^2)`$, we use the quantum diffusion model (QDM)  as well as the three state model . Latter is based on the assumption that the hard scattering operator acts on a nucleon and produces a PLC, which is represented as a superposition of three baryonic states, $`|PLC=_{m=N,N^{},N^{}}F_{m,N}(Q^2)|m`$.

To study the expected effect of CT we choose now a transverse kinematics, in which FSI is dominant (see Fig.3 . Furthermore we choose the tensor polarization of the deuteron target which is sensitive to the $`D`$ wave and therefore FSI will be dominated at smaller inter-nucleon distances. As a result one will probe the evolution of PLC at smaller space-time intervals.

For numerical estimates, we consider the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the asymmetry $`A_d`$ from Eq(7) for fixed and transverse momenta of the spectator neutron. This dependence for $`p_t=300`$ MeV/c, is presented in Fig.5 One can see from this figure that CT effects can change $`A_d`$ by as much as factor of two for $`Q^210`$ GeV2. It is worth noting that the same models predict 15-20% effect for $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions on unpolarized nuclear targets.

## 3 Coherent production of vector mesons from polarized deuterons at high $`Q^2`$

The ability to select smaller than average inter-nucleon distances in the reactions involving polarized deuteron target is explored further in the reactions of coherent electro-production of vector mesons, i.e. $`e+\stackrel{}{d}e^{}+d^{}+V`$, in which $`V`$ represents a neutral mesons i.e. $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$, $`\varphi `$ etc.

In this case two, impulse approximation (IA) and single re-scattering diagrams define the overall cross section (see Fig.6). At high $`Q^2`$ one may expect that the intermediate state produced by the virtual photon in the FSI amplitude (Fig.6(b)) will be dominated by PLCs. As a result one may observe a diminished re-interaction with the spectator nucleon. The philosophy here is similar to that of deuteron electro-disintegration reaction, which is too look for specific polarization of target deuteron in order to achieve the highest possible sensitivity to the FSI term contributing to the cross section of the reaction.

To see the role of the deuteron polarization we analyze the production amplitude of $`\gamma ^{}+dd^{}+V`$ reaction, which be written as follows

$`F_{df}^{jj^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`F^{(a)}+F^{(b)}=f^{\gamma ^{}NVN}(𝐥)\left[S_{df}^{jj^{}}({\displaystyle \frac{𝐥_{}}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{l_\mathrm{\_}}{2}})+S_{df}^{jj^{}}({\displaystyle \frac{𝐥_{}}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{l_\mathrm{\_}}{2}})\right]`$ (8)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{h}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2k_{}}{(2\pi )^2}f^{\gamma ^{}NhN}\left(\frac{𝐥_{}}{2}𝐤_{}\right)f^{hNVN}\left(\frac{𝐥_{}}{2}+𝐤_{}\right)}`$
$`\times \left[S_{df}^{jj^{}}(𝐤_{},\mathrm{\Delta }_h)+{\displaystyle \frac{2i}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}\mathrm{\Delta }S_{df}^{jj^{}}(𝐤_{},\mathrm{\Delta }_h)\right].`$
where $`S_{df}^{jj^{}}`$ is the transition form-factor of the deuteron, $`f^{\gamma ^{}NVN}`$ and $`f^{hNVN}`$ corresponds to the amplitudes of $`\gamma ^{}+NN+h`$ and $`h+NN+V`$ reactions respectively. $`l_{}=l_0l_z`$, where $`l_0`$ and $`𝐥`$ are the transferred energy and momentum to the final deuteron. The transition form-factor of the deuteron, $`S`$ forms the density matrix that enters in the differential cross section of the reaction. In the general form this density matrix can be represented as follows:

$`\rho ^{1,m}(𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐥_\mathrm{𝟐})={\displaystyle \underset{m^{}}{}}S_d^{s,mm^{}}(𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏})S_d^{1,mm^{}}(𝐥_\mathrm{𝟐})^{}=F_C(l_1)F_C(l_2)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\{[{\displaystyle \frac{3|𝐥_\mathrm{𝟐}ϵ_\mathrm{𝟏}^𝐦|^2}{l_2^2}}1]F_C(l_1)F_Q(l_2)+[{\displaystyle \frac{3|𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏}ϵ_\mathrm{𝟏}^𝐦|^2}{l_1^2}}1]F_C(l_2)F_Q(l_1)`$
$`+\left[9{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏}ϵ_\mathrm{𝟏}^𝐦)(𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏}ϵ_\mathrm{𝟏}^𝐦)^{}𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐥_\mathrm{𝟐}}{l_1^2l_2^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3|𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏}ϵ_\mathrm{𝟏}^𝐦|^2}{l_1^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3|𝐥_\mathrm{𝟐}ϵ_\mathrm{𝟏}^𝐦|^2}{l_2^2}}+1\right]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{F_Q(l_1)F_Q(l_2)}{2}}\},`$ (9)
where $`F_C`$ and $`F_Q`$ are the charge and quadrupole form-factors of the deuteron and $`ϵ_\mathrm{𝟏}^𝐦`$ is the polarization vector of the target deuteron with $`m`$ being the deuteron spin projection on the given quantization axis.

In the IA term the $`\rho `$ function enters with the argument $`𝐥_\mathrm{𝟏}=𝐥_\mathrm{𝟐}=𝐥/\mathrm{𝟐}`$. Since our aim is to identify the kinematic regions in which the IA term vanishes and FSI is dominant, we search for those polarizations of the deuteron for which the $`\rho ^{1,m}(\frac{𝐥}{2})`$ has a vanishing values for accessible range of $`𝐥`$. The analysis of the density matrix as it enters in the IA term of the cross section is presented in Fig.7. The figure demonstrates that for transversely polarized deuterons the $`\rho ^{1,0}(\frac{𝐥}{2})`$ vanishes at $`l0.7`$ GeV/c which corresponds to $`t0.5`$ GeV2. The existence of the zero in $`\rho ^{1,m}(\frac{𝐥}{2})`$ can be understood in the limit of vanishing $`l_{}`$, in which case $`\rho ^{s,1}(\frac{𝐥_{}}{2})=(F_C(l_{}/2)\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}F_Q(l_{}/2))^2`$. Since $`F_c`$ monotonically decreases while $`F_Q`$ increases from the zero value at $`l_{}=0`$, the following equation has a solution $`F_C(l_{}/2)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}F_Q(l_{}/2))`$ which is found to be at $`l_{}0.7`$ GeV/c .

Thus our observation is that one has vanishing IA contribution for $`d(e,e^{}V)d^{}`$ reaction for transversely polarized deuteron target at $`t0.5`$ GeV2. Therefore one expects that at these $`t`$ the cross section should exhibit strong sensitivity to the dynamics of re-interaction of $`h`$ with the spectator nucleon. This situation gives us a clue on where to look for the CT effects that reveal themselves through the decrease of FSI contribution (Fig.6(b) with an increase of $`Q^2`$.

In Fig.8 we estimate the expected CT effects for different values of $`Q^2`$ based on QDM model of CT discussed in the previous section. As Fig.8 demonstrates the onset of CT will result in qualitative changes in the $`t`$ dependence of the cross section with minimum at $`t0.450.5`$ GeV2 which becomes increasingly pronounced with an increase of $`Q^2`$.

Note that the very same method of isolating FSI contribution in $`d(e,e^{}V)d^{}`$ reaction at $`Q^20`$ can be used to determine the interaction cross sections of vector mesons with nucleons. This is especially important for $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ mesons whose interaction cross section with the nucleon is poorly known.

## 4 Measurement of Polarized DIS Structure Function of the Neutron

So far we were interested in isolating the $`D`$ wave contribution of the deuteron wave function which allowed to increase the sensitivity to the short distance phenomena in the reaction involving polarized deuteron. Now we concentrate on the separation of $`S`$ wave contribution which will give a possibility to estimate the polarized structure function of the “free” neutron. Since the deuteron has a spin 1, in the $`S`$ state one has simplified relation between helicity of the deuteron and the bound neutron. To isolate these neutrons in almost free state one considers semi-inclusive $`e+de^{}+p+X`$ reaction in which the protons are detected in the target fragmentation region. Such reaction would be very natural for the electron ion collider in the $`e\stackrel{}{D}`$ mode. By selecting only the slowest recoil protons one should be able to isolate the situation whereby the virtual photon scatters from a nearly on-shell neutron in the deuteron. In this way one may hope to extract the DIS structure functions of the neutron with a minimum of uncertainties arising from modeling nuclear effects in the deuteron. As an example we consider the extraction of $`g_1^n`$ function from $`\stackrel{}{d}(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}p)X`$ reaction in which the deuteron is polarized in the direction opposite to the direction of incoming electron. In this case the asymmetry with respect to the helicity of incoming electron in the Bjorken limit can be expressed as follows:

$$\sigma ^{}\sigma ^{}\frac{2\alpha _{em}^2}{mx(2\alpha )Q^4}(1y)g_{1n}^{\mathrm{eff}}(\frac{x}{2\alpha },Q^2)[u(p)^2\frac{w(p)^2}{2}]$$
(10)
where $`\sigma ^{()}\frac{d\sigma ^{()}}{d\varphi dxdQ^2d(\mathrm{log}\alpha )d^2p_{}}`$ in which $`()`$ corresponds to positive (negative) helicities of incoming electron. For the asymmetry, in Eq.(10, the relativistic corrections due to the Fermi motion are known to be small up to $`x0.5`$. In this region the deuteron to a very good approximation will reduce the asymmetry by the depolarization factor of $`13/2P_D`$ , where $`P_D`$ is the total probability of the $`D`$ state in the deuteron. The example of relativistic description of the density matrix in calculation of $`g_1d`$ is given in Refs.. It is worth noting that the measurement of $`g_{1n}`$ using inclusive scattering off the deuteron has certain disadvantages - one has to subtract $`g_{1p}`$ which is larger in a wide $`x`$ range, and there is a question of the EMC type effects. Hence to extract the free $`g_{1n}`$ in a model independent way one would tag spectator protons (a rather easy task for the collider kinematics) and perform the measurements at $`p0`$

To extract the free $`g_{1n}`$ from Eq.(10) one first measures the limit of $`p0`$. Since the $`D`$ wave vanishes in this limit we are sensitive only to the $`S`$ partial wave. Furthermore, we can extrapolate the measured tagged neutron structure $`g_{1n}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ to the region of negative values of kinetic energy of the spectator proton. This method is analogous to the Chew–Low procedure for extraction of the cross section of scattering off a pion. Such an extrapolation allows us to isolate the pole in the $`S`$ wave which corresponds to the on-shell neutron interacting with virtual photon. This pole in the IA amplitude is located at $`E_{kin}^{pole}=\frac{|ϵ_D|(m_nm_p)}{2}`$. The advantage of this approach is in the fact that the scattering amplitudes containing final state interactions do not have singularities corresponding to on-shell neutron states. Thus, isolating the singularities through the extrapolation of effective structure functions into the negative spectator kinetic energy range will suppress the FSI effects in the extraction of the free DIS structure function.

## 5 Outlook

Use of the polarized deuteron targets in high energy electro-production reaction gives unique possibility to study the strong interaction at short space-time distances. These studies are the part of the broad program dedicated to the investigation of the structure of deeply bound nucleon as well as the physics of color transparency. In semi-inclusive DIS reactions with low momenta of recoil protons the use of the polarized deuterons allow to perform very accurate measurements of polarized structure functions of the neutron. This program could benefit tremendously from the advances of the building the polarized deuteron targets that can be operated under the high current electron beams as well as from building the polarized electron -ion collider.


text:
# Ultra Fast Self-Compton Cooling

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Relativistic shocks often arise in astrophysics when a faster flow hits upon a slower one such as in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) (e.g., Piran 1999), blazars (e.g., Inoue & Takahara 1996; Kino, Takahara & Kusunose 2002; Rees 1978), microquasars (e.g., Mirabel & Rodríguez 1999; Levinson & Waxman 2001; Kaiser, Sunyaev & Spruit 2000) and so on. In the relativistic shocks, the kinetic energy of the flow turns into the internal one, and some fraction of the internal energy is distributed to electrons and magnetic fields. The electrons are accelerated in the shock front while the magnetic fields are amplified by the shock. Under these conditions, the accelerated electrons radiate nonthermal emission, such as synchrotron and inverse Compton (IC) emission. In this paper we will consider the synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) process, in which the seed photons for the IC emission are the synchrotron photons.

The intensity of the IC emission is proportional to the energy density of the seed photons (Rybicki & Lightman 1979). So far the energy density of the seed photons has been estimated from the one-zone argument (e.g., Inoue & Takahara 1996; Sari, Narayan & Piran 1996; Sari & Esin 2001). In the one-zone model we assume that the seed photons are distributed uniformly over space. However the one-zone approximation is too crude at times. In fact the shock structure, such as the cooling layer (e.g., Granot, Piran & Sari 2000) or the magnetized layer (e.g., Rossi & Rees 2002), could bring new features. Also for the seed photons, the shock structure may be important since the uniformity is violated near the shock front. At least we should evaluate the validity of the one-zone approximation quantitatively taking the shock structure into account.

In this paper, we will investigate the effects of the shock structure on the energy density of the seed photons in the SSC process. Especially we will concentrate on the geometrical effects. We will find that for some parameters the energy density of the seed photons could deviate from the one-zone estimate by order of unity.

## 2 PLANAR MODEL

Let us consider the following simple model. Our model is not so sophisticated as the realistic ones. However simplicity should be helpful in elucidating the main features.

We consider an optically thin uniform shell with a thickness $`D`$ and a shock propagating with a velocity $`c\beta =c(1\gamma ^2)^{1/2}`$ measured in the shocked fluid frame (see Fig. 1). Electrons are accelerated just behind the shock and the motion of the electrons is negligible in the shocked fluid frame, if the electron acceleration time is shorter than other timescales. To extract the geometrical effects, we assume that all particles and magnetic fields are isotropic in the shocked fluid frame. We consider only single scattering assuming that the higher order IC is suppressed by the Klein-Nishina effect.

Note that if the shock is strong and the shocked fluid is extremely hot, the shock velocity measured in the shocked fluid frame is given by $`\beta =[(\gamma _r1)/(\gamma _r+1)]^{1/2}/3`$ (Blandford & Mckee 1976), where $`\gamma _r(\gamma _f/\gamma _s+\gamma _s/\gamma _f)/2`$ is the relative Lorentz factor between the faster fluid with the Lorentz factor $`\gamma _f`$ and the slower fluid with $`\gamma _s`$. When $`\gamma _f/\gamma _s2`$ and $`\gamma _f/\gamma _s1`$, $`\beta 0.1`$ and $`\beta =1/3`$, respectively. Therefore we will consider the cases $`\beta =0.1`$ and $`\beta =1/3`$.

The energy density of the seed photons at a point $`r=R`$ is given by the integration of all synchrotron radiation from the accelerated electrons as

$`U_\gamma \left(t,r=R\right)={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{c}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu 𝑑s\frac{1}{4\pi }P(t\frac{s}{c},r)},`$ (1)
where $`P(t,r)\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^3`$ is the synchrotron power at a time $`t`$ and a position $`r`$, $`\mu =\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ and $`s>0`$ (see Fig. 1). Note that the retarded time $`ts/c`$ is used in equation (1). For simplicity, we consider the monoenergetic injection of the electrons. Since we concentrate on the total energy density of the seed photons, we can regard these monoenergetic electrons as the electrons that contribute most of the radiation energy even for the power-law injection case. To extract the essence, we adopt the following simple form as the synchrotron power,

$`P(t,r)=A\left[H\left(t{\displaystyle \frac{r}{c\beta }}\right)H\left(t{\displaystyle \frac{r}{c\beta }}\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}\right)\right],`$ (2)
which means that electrons radiate with a constant power $`A\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^3`$ for a duration $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}\mathrm{s}`$ since the shock has passed. This is sufficient for the following argument, since the synchrotron power is proportional to the square of the electron Lorentz factor (Rybicki & Lightman 1979) and hence the cooled electrons have a small contribution to the total energy density of the seed photons.

Equation (2) makes it possible to integrate equation (1) analytically. As shown in § A, during the electron emission,

$`0<\stackrel{~}{t}t{\displaystyle \frac{R}{c\beta }}<\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool},`$ (3)
the energy density in equation (1) is given by

$`U_\gamma (t,R)={\displaystyle \frac{A}{2}}\left[\beta (\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}\stackrel{~}{t})\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(1\beta )(t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool})}{\beta (\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}\stackrel{~}{t})}}+{\displaystyle \frac{R}{c}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{t}{t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}}}+\beta \stackrel{~}{t}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\beta )t}{\beta \stackrel{~}{t}}}\right],`$ (4)
if

$`\stackrel{~}{t}>\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}{\displaystyle \frac{(1\beta )R}{c\beta }},`$ (5)
and

$`\stackrel{~}{t}<{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\beta )(DR)}{c\beta }},`$ (6)
are satisfied. If equations (3) and (6) are satisfied but equation (5) is not, we have

$`U_\gamma (t,R)={\displaystyle \frac{A}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{R}{c}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{ct}{R}}+\beta \stackrel{~}{t}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\beta )t}{\beta \stackrel{~}{t}}}\right].`$ (7)
## 3 ENERGY DENSITY OF SEED PHOTONS

Let us consider the energy density of the seed photons when the shock is in the region $`0<r<D`$. The shock crossing time is given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{dyn}=D/c\beta `$. We call the case $`f\mathrm{\Delta }t_{dyn}/\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}>1`$ fast cooling, and $`f<1`$ slow cooing.

First, let us consider the one-zone model. In fast cooing, electrons emit almost all energy before the shock crosses the shell, so that the energy density of the seed photons is given by

$`U_\gamma ^{1zone}={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}}}𝑑\stackrel{~}{t}P(t,r)=A\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool},`$ (8)
with equation (2). In slow cooing, electrons do not emit all the energy within $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{dyn}`$. The electrons radiate with a power $`A`$ for a duration $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{dyn}`$, so that

$`U_\gamma ^{1zone}=A\mathrm{\Delta }t_{dyn}={\displaystyle \frac{AD}{c\beta }}.`$ (9)
In the planar model, the energy density of the seed photons is given by equations (4) and (7). To compare the planar model with the one-zone model, we take the time and position average of the energy density, $`U_\gamma (t,r)_0^D(dr/D)_0^{\mathrm{\Delta }t}(d\stackrel{~}{t}/\mathrm{\Delta }t)U_\gamma (t,r)`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t\mathrm{min}[\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool},(Dr)/c\beta ]`$. In the fast cooling limit $`f1`$, we have

$`U_\gamma (t,r)={\displaystyle \frac{\beta A\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{f}{\beta \gamma }}\right].`$ (10)
Note that the logarithmic term originates from the integral of $`1/\mu `$, i.e., the geometrical effect (see § A). In the slow cooling limit $`f1`$, we have

$`U_\gamma (t,r)={\displaystyle \frac{AD}{24c}}\left[\pi ^26+3\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1+\beta }{\beta ^3}}\right].`$ (11)
In Fig. 2 we show the ratio of the energy density of the seed photons to the one-zone estimate $`U_\gamma (t,r)/U_\gamma ^{1zone}`$ for $`\beta =1/3`$ and $`\beta =0.1`$. The analytical approximations in equations (10) and (11) are also shown by dashed lines. We see that the analytical approximations are quite good.

From Fig. 2, we can find the following features. First, for some parameters, e.g., $`\beta =0.1`$ and $`f1`$, the energy density of the seed photons deviates from the one-zone estimate by order of unity. Second, the dependence of the energy density on the shock velocity $`c\beta `$ differs between in the planar model and the one-zone model. Finally, in fast cooling the energy density of the seed photons increases as the ratio $`f`$ increases, because of the logarithmic term in equation (10). This is an interesting new feature due to the geometrical effect. Increasing the seed photons enhances the IC emission and hence the IC cooling. Therefore this mechanism may be termed “ultra” fast cooling. The difference between $`f=1`$ and $`f10^6`$ is about order of unity when $`A\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}=\mathrm{const}`$. Surprisingly the energy density of the seed photons can be larger than that of the electrons which supply the seed photons.

To make the physical situation clear, the region from which photons come is shade in Fig. 3. Here we assume that equations (3), (5) and (6) are satisfied. This causal region is bounded by four constraints as in Fig. 4 (see § A), (a) $`s=R/\mu `$, (b) $`s=(DR)/\mu `$, (c) $`s=(c\beta tR)/(\beta \mu )`$ and (d) $`s=[c\beta (t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool})R]/(\beta \mu )`$. The boundary (c) represents the hyperboloid of two sheets,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{x^2+y^2}{\gamma ^2c^2\beta ^2\stackrel{~}{t}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(rR\gamma ^2c\beta \stackrel{~}{t})^2}{\gamma ^4c^2\beta ^4\stackrel{~}{t}^2}}=1,`$ (12)
where $`x^2+y^2=s^2(1\mu ^2)`$. The boundary (d) is also described by equation (12) with $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ replaced by $`\stackrel{~}{t}\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}`$. From equation (12) we can see that the photons approximately come from the direction $`\mathrm{tan}\theta =\beta ^1\gamma ^1`$. This is physically reasonable since the cooling layer for fast cooling is very close to the shock front and the shock front has the same velocity towards the $`r`$-axis as the photons traveling in the direction of $`\mathrm{tan}\theta =\beta ^1\gamma ^1`$. In a sense, photons are accumulated around the shock front as the shock sweeps. The approximation of the planar shell is valid when the size of the shell is larger than $`\beta ^1\gamma ^1D`$.

## 4 APPLICATIONS

(I) In the internal shocks of the GRBs (e.g., Piran 1999; Sari, Narayan & Piran 1996), the cooling time of electrons is about $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}6\pi \gamma _em_ec^2/\sigma _Tc\gamma _e^2B^210^6\gamma _{e,3}^1B_6^2\mathrm{s}`$, where $`\gamma _e=10^3\gamma _{e,3}m_p/m_e`$ is the Lorentz factor of the electrons which contribute most of the radiation energy, and $`B=10^6B_6\mathrm{G}`$ is the magnetic field. The shock crossing time is about $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{dyn}\mathrm{\Gamma }d/c1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2d_8\mathrm{s}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=10^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ is the Lorentz factor of the shell and $`d=10^8d_8\mathrm{cm}`$ is the shell thickness in the lab frame. A large dispersion of the Lorentz factors may be needed for the efficient internal shock (Beloborodov 2000; Kobayashi & Sari 2001). Thus $`\beta 1/3`$ and $`f=\mathrm{\Delta }t_{dyn}/\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}10^6`$. From Fig. 2, the energy density of the seed photons is larger than the one-zone estimate by a factor of $`3`$.

(II) The late afterglows of the GRBs are likely in the slow cooling regime (Sari & Esin 2001). Most of the radiation energy is emitted by electrons with $`f=1`$. For the forward shock the shock velocity is $`\beta 1/3`$, while for the reverse shock the shock velocity has various values depending on the parameters (Sari & Piran 1995). From Fig. 2, the one-zone estimate may overestimate the energy density of the seed photons by order of unity for $`\beta =0.1`$.

(III) In the TeV blazars, most of the radiation is emitted by electrons with the maximum Lorentz factor $`\gamma _{max}10^5`$ if the power law index of the electron distribution is $`s<2`$ (see Kino, Takahara & Kusunose 2002). Since electrons with the break Lorentz factor $`\gamma _{br}10^3`$ corresponds to the electrons with $`f=1`$ and the cooling time is proportional to the inverse of the electron Lorentz factor, the electrons with $`\gamma _{max}`$ have $`f10^2`$. If we take the Klein-Nishina effect into account, photons emitted by the electrons with $`\gamma _{max}`$ cannot be seed photons for the electrons with $`\gamma _{max}`$. In this case $`f`$ is reduced to $`f10`$ or so. If the emission arises from the internal shock with the relative Lorentz factor $`\gamma _r2`$ (Rees 1978), $`\beta 0.1`$. From Fig. 2, the one-zone estimate may overestimate the energy density of the seed photons by a factor of $`4`$.

(IV) In the microquasars, according to Levinson & Waxman (2001), the ratio of the shock crossing time to the cooling time is about $`f10^5l_8^1`$ where $`l`$ is the collision radius of the internal shock. If we take the Klein-Nishina effect into account in the case $`l_8=1`$, $`f`$ is reduced to $`f10^4`$ or so. If the relative Lorentz factor between shells is $`\gamma _r2`$, $`\beta 0.1`$. From Fig. 2, if $`l=10^8`$ cm, the one-zone estimate is correct within a factor of 2, while if $`l=10^{13}`$ cm, the one-zone estimate may overestimate the energy density of the seed photons by order of unity.

## 5 DISCUSSIONS

We have not dealt with the emission spectrum since we concern the total energy density in this paper. If we consider the energy distribution of electrons, the ultra fast cooling may modify the emission spectrum conventionally used in the one-zone model. This is because the cooling time depends on the electron energy, i.e., less energetic electrons cool slower. As expected from our analyses, the seed photon field that electrons feel will depend on the cooling time of the electrons. Therefore the spectrum of the IC emission should be modified, since the seed photon density is independent of the electron cooling time in the one-zone model. Furthermore if the IC cooling dominates the synchrotron one, the well known fact that the energy distribution of the cooled electrons breaks by one power in the index (e.g., Heavens & Meisenheimer 1987) should be modified because of the same reason. Detail studies will be presented in the future paper.

To be precise, when the IC cooling dominates, we have to solve the electron cooling together with equation (1). This problem is the one-dimensional radiative transfer with the electron cooling. We may be able to solve this problem numerically, although a large memory will be necessary for resolving the cooling layer in fast cooling.

We may have to consider other effects. For example, the approximation of the uniform shell may not be good. The reverse shock emission and the deceleration of the shock may be important. If the synchrotron power is not constant but a function of the distance from the center, the logarithmic correction may become a power law one. These are interesting future problems.

I am grateful F. Takahara and M. Kino for useful comments. This work was supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, No.00660.

## Appendix A INTEGRATION IN EQUATION (1)

In Fig. 4, the region to be integrated in equation (1) is shaded. There are four constraints on the integral in equation (1), which are shown by solid lines in Fig. 4. (a) $`s<R/\mu `$ since the shell has an end $`r=Rs\mu >0`$ and we consider $`R>0`$. (b) $`s<(DR)/\mu `$ since the shell has an end $`r=Rs\mu <D`$ and we consider $`R<D`$. (c) $`s<(c\beta tR)/(\beta \mu )`$ since the first Heaviside step function in equation (2) has to be unity at the retarded time $`ts/c`$, i.e., $`ts/c(Rs\mu )/c\beta >0`$. (d) $`s<[c\beta (t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool})R]/(\beta \mu )`$ since the second step function in equation (2) has to be zero at the retarded time $`ts/c`$, i.e., $`t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool}s/c(Rs\mu )/c\beta <0`$. Here we consider the interval during which electrons are emitting in equation (3), so that the line (c) is in the region $`\mu <\beta `$ and the line (d) is in $`\mu >\beta `$ as in Fig. 4. The lines (a) and (d) cross in the region $`\beta <\mu <1`$ as in Fig. 4 if equation (5) is satisfied, and vice versa. The lines (b) and (c) do not cross in the region $`1<\mu <0`$ as in Fig. 4 if equation (6) is satisfied, and vice versa. If equations (3), (5) and (6) are satisfied, equation (1) can be integrated as

$`U_\gamma (t,R)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A}{2c}}[{\displaystyle _{R/c(t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool})}^1}d\mu {\displaystyle \frac{c\beta (t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool})R}{\beta \mu }}`$ (A1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _{R/ct}^{R/c(t\mathrm{\Delta }t_{cool})}}d\mu {\displaystyle \frac{R}{\mu }}+{\displaystyle _1^{R/ct}}d\mu {\displaystyle \frac{c\beta tR}{\beta \mu }}],`$
which gives equation (4). If equations (3) and (6) are satisfied but equation (5) is not, we have

$`U_\gamma (t,R)={\displaystyle \frac{A}{2c}}\left[{\displaystyle _{R/ct}^1}𝑑\mu {\displaystyle \frac{R}{\mu }}+{\displaystyle _1^{R/ct}}𝑑\mu {\displaystyle \frac{c\beta tR}{\beta \mu }}\right],`$ (A2)
which gives equation (7).


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

We observe extensive air showers produced when a cosmic ray from outer space hits a nucleon in the upper atmosphere. The energy of the particle starting the shower can be very large, with observed events of up to $`10^{12}`$ GeV. In particular, there are events above the so called GZK cutoff energy $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}5\times 10^{19}`$ eV. These events present a problem because, although the profile of the shower is consistent with a primary proton, the process

$$p+\gamma _{2.7\mathrm{K}}\mathrm{\Delta }^+p+\pi ^0(n+\pi ^+)$$
(1)
is very effective on reducing the energy of a proton propagating in the cosmic background. Since in principle there are no near sources of such energetic particles, these cosmic rays should not be protons. One could then especulate if they are neutrinos. Neutrinos can come from a very far source with no loss of energy and following straight trajectories, which would explain the observation of doublets and triplets of events. The problem with neutrinos is that their standard cross section (c.s.) with the atmosphere is five orders of magnitude too small. A first motivation to study the neutrino-nucleon c.s. is then: Can new TeV physics increase this c.s. up to hadronic size?

A second motivation would go the other way around. There are experiments designed to measure the standard model (SM) neutrino-nucleon c.s. at ultrahigh energies. The question is: Can new TeV physics give observable signals in horizontal air showers or neutrino telescopes? Note that since they are weakly interacting the relative effect of new physics on neutrino interactions is going to be much larger than in proton or charged lepton interactions.

Let us make a naive estimate of the impact of new physics on the cross section. The $`\nu `$-$`q`$ amplitude is mediated in the SM by a $`Z`$ boson in the $`t`$ channel: $`𝒜_{\mathrm{SM}}(s,t)g^2s/(tM_Z^2)`$, where $`s`$ and $`t`$ are the usual Mandelstam variables ($`t=q^2=\frac{1}{2}(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$). In the limit $`sM_Z^2`$ the c.s.

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{SM}}(s)=\frac{1}{16\pi }\frac{1}{s^2}_s^0dt|𝒜_{\mathrm{SM}}|^2\frac{g^4}{M_Z^2}\frac{g^4}{s+M_Z^2}$$
(2)
is dominated by $`t`$ of order $`M_Z^2`$, and becomes just $`\sigma _{\mathrm{SM}}(s)g^4/M_Z^2`$. This simple result tells us that even at large center of mass energies the c.s. is very sensitive to the mass of the exchanged particle. It explains why the c.s. would be much larger if the exchanged particle were a gluon or a photon, and also that a $`Z^{}`$ boson would introduce only a small correction to the SM result.

The presence of extra dimensions would have a more promising impact. A graviton-mediated Born amplitude will present two main features. First, the spin 2 of the intermediate field gives amplitudes growing like $`s^2`$, versus just $`s`$ for the spin 1 $`Z`$ boson. Second, one has to sum the contributions of the infinite tower of KK gravitons. Actually, this gives a divergence for more than one extra dimension. Although both effects push the cross section in the right direction, they both imply the presence of an ultraviolet cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ above which the model is not consistent. It is then easy to conclude that at the cutoff the c.s. $`\sigma _{4+n}1/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ does not seem large enough.

String theory provides another scenario with an infinite tower of higher spin fields (the string excitations) which, in addition, does not require an ultraviolet cutoff. In the brane world picture matter and gauge fields correspond to the zero modes of open strings, whereas the graviton is the massless mode of a closed string. A four fermion amplitude will include diagrams exchanging open and closed strings, with the later subleading in the string coupling $`g`$ (the exchange of a closed string can be also seen as the one-loop exchange of two open strings). We would expect:

(i) At s

<

MS2

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𝑠superscriptsubscript𝑀𝑆2s\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$<$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}M_{S}^{2} the diagram with exchange of an open string dominates the amplitude, giving at $`s0`$ a $`Z`$ boson in the $`t`$ channel. The diagram with an intermediate closed string gives at low energy the gravitational interactions.

(ii) At $`sM_S^2`$ both types of diagrams give string resonances (Regge excitations). Closed string excitations, however, couple weaker ($`g^2`$) to fermions.

(iii) At $`sM_S^2`$ both diagrams give the usual soft behaviour of the string in the ultraviolet: the amplitudes go to zero exponentially at fixed angle ($`t/s`$ fixed) and like a power law in the Regge limit ($`t`$ fixed). Essentially, the string amplitude goes to zero everywhere except forward (t

<

MS2

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𝑡superscriptsubscript𝑀𝑆2-t\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$<$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}M_{S}^{2}), where only survives the contribution of the massles mode of the intermediate string. In this regime the exchange of open and closed string gives, respectively,

$$𝒜(s,t)g^2\frac{s}{t}$$
(3)
and

$$𝒜(s,t)g^4\frac{s^2}{M_S^{n+2}}\frac{\mathrm{d}^nq_T}{tq_T^2}$$
(4)
Although the amplitude mediated by a closed string is subleading in $`g`$, it grows faster with $`s`$. As the center of mass energy increases the string amplitude is dominated by the long distance (small $`t`$) contributions of the higher dimensional graviton.

In the next sections we will evaluate the contributions to the $`\nu `$-$`N`$ c.s. from the production of open string excitations and from graviton exchange. We will go beyond the Born level and use the eikonal approximation to resumate the dominant long distance graviton contributions. At shorter distances (but still larger than $`1/M_S^2`$) nonlinear effects become important. There we will estimate the cross section to produce a microscopic black hole.

## 2 String excitations

We will consider a simple brane model where matter and gauge fields are the zero modes of open strings with both ends attached to a set of $`N`$ 4-dimensional branes. These D3-branes would be sitting at a fixed point of a higher dimensional bulk. Such a framework would define a model with $`U(N)`$ gauge symmetry and N=4 SUSY, but we will asume that an orbifold projection eliminates the extra symmetry of the massless modes leaving just the SM.

The four fermion amplitude corresponding to the exchange of an open string is then very simple:

$`𝒜(1,2,3,4)`$ $`=`$ $`g^2𝒮(s,t)F^{1243}(s,t,u)\mathrm{Tr}[t^1t^2t^4t^3+t^3t^4t^2t^1]`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`g^2𝒮(s,u)F^{1234}(s,u,t)\mathrm{Tr}[t^1t^2t^3t^4+t^4t^3t^2t^1]`$
$`+`$ $`g^2𝒮(t,u)F^{1324}(t,u,s)\mathrm{Tr}[t^1t^3t^2t^4+t^4t^2t^3t^1].`$
In this expression $`g`$ is the gauge coupling, $`𝒮(s,t)=\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\alpha ^{}s)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\alpha ^{}t)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\alpha ^{}s\alpha ^{}t)`$ with $`\alpha ^{}=M_S^2`$ is the Veneziano factor ($`M_S`$ is the string scale), the factors $`F^{abcd}`$ depend on the helicity of the external fermions, and the Chan-Paton traces describe the gauge numbers of the fermions ($`t^a`$ are representation matrices of $`U(N)`$).

Let us consider the process $`\nu _Lu_L\nu _Lu_L`$. We find that if the Chan-Paton traces satisfy $`T_{1243}T_{1324}=1/10`$ and $`T_{1234}=T_{1324}a/10`$ then at low energies the string amplitude reproduces the SM result: a massless $`Z`$ boson (it gets mass only through the Higgs mechanism) in the $`t`$ channel with $`s_W^2=3/8`$ (as our model has only one gauge coupling). In particular, for $`a=0`$ our string amplitude reads

$$𝒜(s,t)=\frac{2}{5}g^2\frac{s}{t}𝒮(s,t).$$
(6)
This amplitude has poles at $`s=nM_S^2`$, corresponding to the exchange of string resonances in the $`s`$ channel. Near the $`n`$ pole the amplitude is

$$𝒜_n\frac{2}{5}\frac{g^2}{snM_S^2}\frac{nM_S^4}{t}\frac{(t/M_S^2)(t/M_S^2+1)\mathrm{}(t/M_S^2+n1)}{(n1)!}$$
(7)
The residue is a polinomial of order $`n1`$ in $`t`$, indicating that the spin of the resonances in this mass level goes up to $`J=n1`$. To separate the contribution of each resonance we express the amplitude in terms of the scattering angle and parametrice it in terms of rotation matrix elements:

$$𝒜_n=\frac{2}{5}g^2\frac{nM_S^2}{snM_S^2}\underset{J=0}{\overset{n1}{}}\alpha _n^Jd_{00}^J(\theta ).$$
(8)
The coefficient $`\alpha _n^J`$ gives the contribution to $`𝒜(\nu _L,u_L\nu _L,u_L)`$ of the resonance with mass $`\sqrt{n}M_S`$ and spin $`J`$. For example, at the first mass level we obtain a scalar resonance with $`\alpha _1^0=1`$, at $`s=2M_S^2`$ there is a single vector resonance with $`\alpha _2^1=1`$, whereas at $`s=3M_S^2`$ there are modes of spin $`J=2`$ ($`\alpha _3^2=3/4`$) and $`J=0`$ ($`\alpha _3^0=1/4`$). We find an interesting sum rule for the $`\alpha _n^J`$ coefficients: $`_{J=0}^{n1}\alpha _n^J=1`$, independent of the mass level $`n`$.

We would like to emphasize that the presence of leptoquarks (color and isospin triplets) mediating the $`\nu `$-$`q`$ amplitude in the $`s`$ channel is not a peculiarity of our toy model but a generic result. Due to the $`s`$-$`t`$ duality of the string amplitude they will appear in any model that has the SM as low energy limit.

From the elastic $`\nu _L`$-$`u_L`$ amplitude we can deduce the c.s. to produce resonances in the narrow width approximation and estimate $`\nu _Lu_Lanything`$ from $`\nu _Lu_LX_n^Janything`$. The estimate will be good for energies up to $`n(2/5)g_0^2/(4\pi )1`$. Above $`M_X7M_S`$ ($`n=50`$) the width of the resonances is similar to the energy separation with the next mass level and the amplitude is dominated by interference effects.

We obtain that the partial width of the spin $`J`$ resonance at the $`n`$ mass level is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(X_n^J\nu _Lu_L)\mathrm{\Gamma }_n^J=\frac{2}{5}\frac{g^2|\alpha _n^J|}{16\pi }\frac{\sqrt{n}M_S}{2J+1}.$$
(9)
Taking

$$\frac{M\mathrm{\Gamma }}{|\widehat{s}M^2+i\mathrm{\Gamma }M|^2}\pi \delta (\widehat{s}M^2)$$
(10)
we find

$$\sigma (\nu _Lu_LX_n^J\text{all})\sigma _n^J(\nu _Lu_L)=\frac{4\pi ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_n^J}{\sqrt{n}M_S}(2J+1)\delta (\widehat{s}nM_S^2),$$
(11)
and the cross section to create in the collision any resonance at the $`n`$ mass level is just

$$\sigma _n(\nu _Lu_L)=\underset{J=0}{\overset{n1}{}}\sigma _n^J=\frac{\pi g^2}{4}\frac{2}{5}\delta (\widehat{s}nM_S^2),$$
(12)
independent of the mass level.

We repeat the procedure for the rest of partons in the nucleon and plot in Fig. 1 the total $`\nu `$-$`N`$ c.s. to create string resonances for a particular choice of Chan-Paton traces.

## 3 Graviton exchange: eikonal approximation

Although matter and gauge fields are attached to a 4-dimensional brane, gravity propagates in the 10 dimensions. We will asume that $`n`$ of the 6 extra compact dimensions are large and gravity is D-dimensional ($`D=4+n`$) at the distances of interest. The higher dimensional Newton’s constant is usually defined as

$$G_D=V_nG_N\frac{(2\pi )^{n1}}{M_D^{n+2}},$$
(13)
where $`V_n`$ is the volume of the compact space, $`G_N`$ is the 4-dimensional constant, and $`M_D`$ the higher dimensional Planck scale. Obviously, $`M_D`$ is related to the string scale $`M_S`$. From the low-energy limit of the closed string amplitude we obtain

$$G_N=\frac{g^4}{64\pi ^2}\frac{1}{M_S^{n+2}R^n}M_D^{n+2}=\frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^2}M_S^{n+2}.$$
(14)
For $`n=2`$ $`M_D=3.5M_S`$, whereas for $`n=6`$ $`M_D=1.9M_S`$.

As explained in the introduction, at transplanckian energies the $`\nu `$-$`q`$ amplitude will be dominated by forward (long distance) graviton-mediated contributions. This is precisely the regime where we can use the eikonal approximation, that resumates all the ladder and cross-ladder contributions. Essentially, it is the exponentiation of the Born amplitude in impact parameter space:

$`𝒜_{eik}(s,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2s}{i}}{\displaystyle d^2be^{i𝐪𝐛}\left(e^{i\chi (s,b)}1\right)}`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi s}{i}}{\displaystyle 𝑑bbJ_0(bq)\left(e^{i\chi (s,b)}1\right)},`$
where $`\chi (s,b)`$ is the eikonal phase fixing the amplitude and $`𝐛`$ spans the (2-dimensional) impact parameter space. The Born amplitude corresponds to the limit of small $`\chi (s,b)`$:

$$𝒜_{Born}(s,t)=\frac{4\pi s}{i}𝑑bbJ_0(bq)i\chi (s,b).$$
(16)
We can then deduce the eikonal phase from the Fourier transform to impact parameter space of the Born amplitude:

$$\chi (s,b)=\frac{i}{2s}\frac{d^2q}{(2\pi )^2}e^{i𝐪𝐛}i𝒜_{Born}.$$
(17)
In our case the $`𝒜_{Born}`$ comes from the exchange in the $`t`$ channel of a higher dimensional graviton:

$$i𝒜_{Born}=i\frac{s^2}{M_D^{n+2}}\frac{\mathrm{d}^nq_T}{tq_T^2}=i\pi ^{n/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1\frac{n}{2}\right)\frac{s^2}{M_D^{2+n}}(t)^{\frac{n}{2}1},$$
(18)
where the integral over momentum along the extra dimensional $`q_T`$ (equivalent to the sum over KK modes) gives an ultraviolet contribution that we have regularized using dimensional regularization. The magic of the eikonal approximation is that it will be well defined although we obtain it from an ultraviolet dependent Born amplitude: the contributions from large $`q_T`$ introduce corrections to the phase $`\chi (s,b)`$ only at small $`b`$ ($`1/q_T`$), but this small $`b`$ region (see Eq. (15)) gives no sizeable contribution to the eikonal amplitude.

We obtain that the eikonal phase is

$$\chi (s,b)=(b_c/b)^n,b_c^n=\frac{(4\pi )^{\frac{n}{2}1}}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{n}{2}\right)\frac{s}{M_D^{2+n}}.$$
(19)
We note that $`\chi (s,b)`$ introduces a new scale, $`q_c=1/b_c`$, that sets the size of the total cross section. From the optical theorem we deduce

$$\sigma _{el}=\frac{\mathrm{Im}𝒜_{eik}(s,0)}{s}=2\pi b_c^2\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1\frac{2}{n}\right)\mathrm{cos}\frac{\pi }{n}s^{2/n}.$$
(20)
$`𝒜_{eik}(s,t)`$ can be evaluated numerically from Eq. (15) for any values of $`s`$ and $`t`$. We can also obtain approximate expressions in the limits of small and large $`q\sqrt{t}`$. For $`qq_c`$ we get an expression analogous to the Born amplitude but with an effective cutoff of $`𝒪(q_c)`$. In particular, at $`t=0`$ the amplitude goes to

$$𝒜_{eik}(s,0)=2\pi isb_c^2\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1\frac{2}{n}\right)e^{\frac{i\pi }{n}}.$$
(21)
For $`qq_c`$ the integral over impact parameter space is dominated by a saddle poing at $`b_s=b_c(qb_c/n)^{1/(n+1)}b_c`$, resulting

$$𝒜_{eik}(s,q)=Z_n\left(\frac{s}{qM_D}\right)^{\frac{n+2}{n+1}},$$
(22)
with $`Z_n`$ a complex phase.

We give in Fig. 2 the $`\nu `$-$`N`$ eikonal cross section in terms of the fraction of energy $`y=(E_\nu E_\nu ^{})/E_\nu `$ lost by the incident neutrino. For low values of $`n`$ the neutrino would interact with the atmosphere, but losing only a small fraction of its energy (the cross section could be very large but soft).

## 4 Black hole production

The eikonal approximation provides an acceptable description of the scattering as far the dominant impact parameters (given by the position of the saddle poing $`b_s`$) are larger than the Schwarzschild radius $`R_S`$ of the system:

$$R_S=\left(\frac{2^n\pi ^{\frac{n3}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{n+3}{2}\right)}{n+2}\right)^{\frac{1}{n+1}}\left(\frac{s}{M_D^{2n+4}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2(n+1)}}.$$
(23)
Diagramatically, at b

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RS

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𝑏subscript𝑅𝑆b\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$<$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}R_{S} one finds that $`H`$ diagrams (non-linear effects of gravity) become as important as the eikonal ladder diagrams. In this regime the system would collapse into a microscopic black hole with an approximate c.s.

$$\sigma (s)=_{M^2/s}^1𝑑x\left(\underset{i}{}f_i(x,\mu )\right)\pi R_S^2.$$
(24)
This estimate would be reduced by graviton emision during the collapse but enhanced by the fact that a black hole acts as a somehow larger scatterer, so it should not be off by any large factors. Note also that the scale in the parton distribution functions must be $`\mu =R_S^1`$ and not the black hole mass. The process becomes softer for larger center of mass energy and black hole mass. Actually, for cross sections of order $`1/m_p^2`$ the neutrino would not see partons at all, it would interact coherently with the whole proton. We give in Fig. 1 the c.s. for black hole production.

Comparing this process with the eikonal scattering we find that the energy transfer from an ultrahigh energy neutrino to the atmosphere would be dominated by hard processes:

(i) For a given flux of neutrinos of fixed energy, the total energy deposited in the atmosphere via small $`y`$ scatterings will be smaller than through the (less frequent) events with large $`y`$ or black hole formation.

(ii) In addition, for neutrino fluxes $`J(E)E^\alpha `$ with α

<

2

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𝛼2\alpha\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$<$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}-2 a shower event of given energy would more likely come from a neutrino of similar energy than from a more energetic neutrino that lost only a fraction of its energy.

To conclude, the elastic exchange of higher dimensional gravitons or the production of string excitations or microscopic black holes can not explain the cosmic ray events above the GZK limit. Contrary to some claims, the last two processes are similar in size (see Fig. 1). Black hole production does not dominate (especially for low values of $`n`$) because the center of mass energy at the parton level is never too large: the increasing number of partons at small $`x`$ favors the production of light black holes, with masses around the fundamental scale. All these processes, nevertheless, could give deviations to the signals expected in horizontal air showers and neutrino telescopes.

## Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Fernando Cornet, Roberto Emparan, José Ignacio Illana and Riccardo Rattazzi for their collaboration, the organizers of Quarks 2002 for their kind hospitality, and the Universidad de Granada for finantial support to attend the meeting.