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# Calculation of the Pseudoscalar-Isoscalar Hadronic Current Correlation Functions of the Quark-Gluon Plasma

## I INTRODUCTION

Recently we have seen a good deal of interest in the calculation of hadronic current correlation functions at finite temperature using lattice simulations of QCD \[1-5\]. The procedure involves the calculation of the correlation function in Euclidean space and the application of a generalized Laplace transform to obtain the spectral functions. Various temperature-dependent resonant structures are found in the spectral functions. It is of interest to obtain further understanding of the nature of these resonances using chiral Lagrangian models, such as that of the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model , that are successful in reproducing some of the low-energy properties of QCD. We have made some calculations of spectral functions making use of a generalized Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model . In that work we studied correlators for currents with the quantum numbers of the $`a_0`$, $`f_0`$, $`\pi `$, and $`\rho `$ mesons. In the present work we extend our study to the pseudoscalar-isoscalar correlators. In this case the correlators are calculated in terms of excitations that have the quantum numbers of the $`\eta `$ mesons. One of our goals in the present study is to relate the pseudoscalar-isoscalar spectral functions to the properties of the $`\eta `$ mesons at finite temperature. The temperature dependence of the spectrum of the eta mesons is obtained using our generalized NJL model which includes a covariant model of confinement \[8-13\]. At zero temperature our model provides an excellent fit to the properties of the $`\eta `$(547), $`\eta ^{}`$(958) mesons and their radial excitations . (The model gives quite satisfactory results for the decay constants and mixing angles of the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ mesons.) In order to obtain the spectrum of the eta mesons at finite temperature, we make some assumptions which lead to relatively simple calculations. For example, we use temperature-dependent mass values for the constituent quarks obtained in a mean-field analysis and also introduce a temperature-dependent confining interaction that is motivated by some recent results obtained in lattice simulations of QCD with dynamical quarks. In addition, we have introduced a temperature dependence of the coupling constants of the NJL model. Our original motivation for introducing that temperature dependence was to model the various physical mechanisms that work against the development of pion condensation . However, in the present work we argue that, if the NJL model is to be used at high temperatures, such temperature dependence is needed to avoid results that are inconsistent with what is known about QCD thermodynamics. For our studies we have introduced coupling constants $`G(T)=G(0)[10.17T/T_c]`$, where $`T_c`$ is the temperature of the confinement-deconfinement transition, which we take to be $`T_c=170`$ MeV. At that temperature the coupling constants are reduced by 17%. The coupling constants are equal to zero beyond $`T=5.88T_c`$. Thus, we see that in this model the short-range interaction is present in the range 0 $`T`$ 5.88 $`T_c`$, while the confining interaction is taken to vanish for $`T1.2T_c`$. That feature of the model is also consistent with what is known concerning QCD thermodynamics.

Ideally, it would be preferable if we could calculate the temperature-dependent spectrum of the $`\eta `$ mesons, including the radial excitations, in the imaginary-time Matsubara formalism or in the real-time finite-temperature formalism . That is a formidable task which is beyond the scope of the present work, but might be considered at some future time. (On the whole, there are some unresolved questions concerning the use of the field-theoretic finite-temperature theory in the confined phase of QCD which are not present when considering the deconfined phase.) In those cases in which our results may be compared to those of the Matsubara formalism we find general agreement . However, we need to assume for the present work that, with the use of temperature-dependent constituent quark mass values, a temperature-dependent confining interaction and temperature-dependent coupling constants, we have introduced the most important features that influence the $`\eta `$ spectrum for $`T<T_c`$.

The organization of our work is as follows. In Section II we discuss the calculation of polarization functions of the NJL model at finite temperature. In Section III we describe the calculation of the pseudoscalar-isoscalar hadronic current correlation functions and present various results of our numerical computations. Since the use of temperature-dependent coupling constants is an unusual feature of our model, we provide some justification for the use of such coupling constants in Section IV. In Section V we introduce the Lagrangian of our model that is used for our RPA calculations. We make reference to the RPA equations that were used to calculate the properties of the $`\eta `$ mesons at $`T=0`$ in earlier work and describe the motivation for the introduction of a temperature-dependent confining interaction. We present some results of our numerical calculations and relate the results of our RPA calculations for $`T<T_c`$ to the results obtained for the correlation functions for $`T>T_c`$. Finally, Section VI contains some further discussion and conclusions.

## II polarization functions at finite temperature

In an earlier work we carried out a Euclidean-space calculation of the up, down, and strange constituent quark masses taking into account the ’t Hooft interaction and our confining interaction . The ’t Hooft interaction plays only a minor role, but does provide coupling of the equations for the various constituent masses. If we neglect the confining interaction and the ’t Hooft interaction in the mean field calculation of the constituent masses, we can compensate for their absence by making a modest change in the value of $`G_S`$, the coupling constant of the NJL model. For the calculations of this work we calculate the quark masses using the formalism presented in the Klevansky review . (Note that our value of $`G_S`$ is twice the value of $`G`$ used in that review.) The relevant equation is Eq. (5.38) of Ref. . Here, we put $`\mu =0`$ and write

$`m(T)=m^0+4GN_c{\displaystyle \frac{m(T)}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^\mathrm{\Lambda }}𝑑p{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{E_p}}\mathrm{tanh}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta E_p),`$ (2.1)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.631`$ GeV is a cutoff for the momentum integral, $`\beta =1/T`$ and $`E_p=[\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2(T)]^{1/2}`$. In our calculations we replace $`G`$ by $`G_S(T)/2`$ and solve the equation

$`m(T)=m^0+2G_S(T)N_c{\displaystyle \frac{m(T)}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^\mathrm{\Lambda }}𝑑p{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{E_p}}\mathrm{tanh}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta E_p),`$ (2.2)
with $`G_S(T)=11.38[10.17T/T_c]`$ GeV, $`m_u^0=0.0055`$ GeV and $`m_s^0=0.130`$ GeV. Thus, we see that $`G_S(T)`$ is reduced from the value $`G_S(0)`$ by 17% when $`T=T_c`$. The results obtained in this manner for $`m_u(T)`$ and $`m_s(T)`$ are shown in Fig. 1. Here, the temperature dependence we have introduced for $`G_S(T)`$ serves to provide a somewhat more rapid restoration of chiral symmetry than that which is found for a constant value of $`G_S`$. That feature and the temperature dependence of the confining potential leads to the deconfinement of the light mesons considered here at $`TT_c`$.

For the calculation of polarization functions for $`T>1.2T_c`$ we may neglect the confining interaction. However, we include temperature-dependent quark mass values in our calculations. The basic polarization functions that are calculated in the NJL model are shown in Fig. 2. We will consider calculations of such functions in the frame where $`\stackrel{}{P}=0`$. In our earlier work, calculations were made after a confinement vertex was included. That vertex is represented by the filled triangular region in Fig. 2. However, we here consider calculations for $`T1.2T_c`$ where confinement may be neglected.

The procedure we adopt is based upon the real-time finite-temperature formalism, in which the imaginary part of the polarization function may be calculated. Then, the real part of the function is obtained using a dispersion relation. The result we need for this work has been already given in the work of Kobes and Semenoff . (In Ref.  the quark momentum in Fig. 2 is $`k`$ and the antiquark momentum is $`kP`$. We will adopt that notation in this section for ease of reference to the results presented in Ref. .) With reference to Eq. (5.4) of Ref. , we write the imaginary part of the scalar polarization function as

$`\text{Im}J^S(P^2,T)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(2N_c)\beta _Sϵ(p^0){\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}e^{\stackrel{}{k}{}_{}{}^{2}/\alpha ^2}\left(\frac{2\pi }{2E_1(k)2E_2(k)}\right)}`$ (2.3)
$`\{(1n_1(k)n_2(k))\delta (p^0E_1(k)E_2(k))`$
$`(n_1(k)n_2(k))\delta (p^0+E_1(k)E_2(k))`$
$`(n_2(k)n_1(k))\delta (p^0E_1(k)+E_2(k))`$
$`(1n_1(k)n_2(k))\delta (p^0+E_1(k)+E_2(k))\}.`$
Here, $`E_1(k)=[\stackrel{}{k}{}_{}{}^{2}+m_1^2(T)]^{1/2}`$. Relative to Eq. (5.4) of Ref. , we have changed the sign, removed a factor of $`g^2`$ and have included a statistical factor of $`2N_c`$, where the factor of 2 arises from the flavor trace. In addition, we have included a Gaussian regulator, $`\mathrm{exp}[\stackrel{}{k}{}_{}{}^{2}/\alpha ^2]`$, with $`\alpha =0.605`$ GeV, which is the same as that used in most of our applications of the NJL model in the calculation of meson properties \[8-15\]. We also note that

$`n_1(k)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta E_1(k)}+1}},`$ (2.4)
and

$`n_2(k)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta E_2(k)}+1}}.`$ (2.5)
For the calculation of the imaginary part of the polarization function, we may put $`k^2=m_1^2(T)`$ and $`(kP)^2=m_2^2(T)`$, since in that calculation the quark and antiquark are on-mass-shell. We will first remark upon the calculation of scalar correlators. In that case, the factor $`\beta _S`$ in Eq. (2.3) arises from a trace involving Dirac matrices, such that

$`\beta _S`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}[(\text{ / }k+m_1)(\text{ / }k\text{ / }P+m_2)]`$ (2.6)
$`=`$ $`2P^22(m_1+m_2)^2,`$ (2.7)
where $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ depend upon temperature. In the frame where $`\stackrel{}{P}=0`$, and in the case $`m_1=m_2`$, we have $`\beta _S=2P_0^2(14m^2/P_0^2)`$. For the scalar case, with $`m_1=m_2`$, we find

$`\text{Im}J^S(P^2,T)={\displaystyle \frac{N_cP_0^2}{4\pi }}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4m^2}{P_0^2}}\right)^{3/2}e^{\stackrel{}{k}{}_{}{}^{2}/\alpha ^2}[12n_1(k)],`$ (2.8)
where

$`\stackrel{}{k}{}_{}{}^{2}={\displaystyle \frac{P_0^2}{4}}m^2(T).`$ (2.9)
We may evaluate Eq. (2.8) for $`m(T)=m_u(T)=m_d(T)`$ and define $`\text{Im}J_u^S(P^2,T)`$. Then we put $`m(T)=m_s(T)`$, we define $`\text{Im}J_s^S(P^2,T)`$. These two functions are needed for a calculation of the scalar-isoscalar correlator. (Note that the factor of 2 arising from the flavor trace should be moved when we define the polarization function for a specific quark flavor.) The real parts of the functions $`J_u^S(P^2,T)`$ and $`J_s^S(P^2,T)`$ may be obtained using a dispersion relation, as noted earlier.

For pseudoscalar mesons, we replace $`\beta _S`$ by

$`\beta _P`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}[i\gamma _5(\text{ / }k+m_1)i\gamma _5(\text{ / }k\text{ / }P+m_2)]`$ (2.10)
$`=`$ $`2P^22(m_1m_2)^2,`$ (2.11)
which for $`m_1=m_2`$ is $`\beta _P=2P_0^2`$ in the frame where $`\stackrel{}{P}=0`$. We find, for the $`\pi `$ mesons,

$`\text{Im}J^P(P^2,T)={\displaystyle \frac{N_cP_0^2}{4\pi }}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4m(T)^2}{P_0^2}}\right)^{1/2}e^{\stackrel{}{k}{}_{}{}^{2}/\alpha ^2}[12n_1(k)],`$ (2.12)
where $`\stackrel{}{k}{}_{}{}^{2}=P_0^2/4m_u^2(T)`$, as above. Thus, we see that, relative to the scalar case, the phase space factor has an exponent of 1/2 corresponding to a s-wave amplitude, rather than the p-wave amplitude of scalar mesons. For the scalars, the exponent of the phase-space factor is 3/2, as seen in Eq. (2.8).

For a study of vector mesons we consider

$`\beta _{\mu \nu }^V=\text{Tr}[\gamma _\mu (\text{ / }k+m_1)\gamma _\nu (\text{ / }k\text{ / }P+m_2)],`$ (2.13)
and calculate

$`g^{\mu \nu }\beta _{\mu \nu }^V=4[P^2m_1^2m_2^2+4m_1m_2],`$ (2.14)
which, in the equal-mass case, is equal to $`4P_0^2+8m^2(T)`$, when $`m_1=m_2`$ and $`\stackrel{}{P}=0`$. Note that for the elevated temperatures considered in this work $`m_u(T)=m_d(T)`$ is quite small, so that $`4P_0^2+8m_u^2(T)`$ can be approximated by $`4P_0^2`$ when we consider the $`\rho `$ meson. The generalization of these results for the study of the pseudoscalar-isoscalar correlators will be taken up in the next section.

## III calculation of hadronic current correlation functions

In this section we consider the calculation of temperature-dependent hadronic current correlation functions. The general form of the correlator is a transform of a time-ordered product of currents,

$`C(P^2,T)=i{\displaystyle }d^4xe^{ipx}<<\text{T}(j(x)j(0)>>,`$ (3.1)
where the double bracket is a reminder that we are considering the finite temperature case.

For the study of pseudoscalar states, we may consider currents of the form $`j_{P,i}(x)=\overline{q}(x)i\gamma _5\lambda ^iq(x)`$, where, in the case of the $`\pi `$ mesons, $`i=1,2,`$ and 3. For the study of pseudoscalar-isoscalar mesons, we again introduce $`j_{P,i}(x)=\overline{q}(x)\lambda ^iq(x)`$, but here $`i=0`$ for the flavor-singlet current and $`i=8`$ for the flavor-octet current.

In the case of the $`\pi `$ mesons, the correlator may be expressed in terms of the basic vacuum polarization function of the NJL model, $`J_P(P^2,T)`$ . Thus,

$`C_\pi (P^2,T)=J_P(P^2,T){\displaystyle \frac{1}{1G_\pi (T)J_P(P^2,T)}},`$ (3.2)
where $`G_\pi (T)`$ is the coupling constant appropriate for our study of the $`\pi `$ mesons. We have found $`G_\pi (0)=13.49`$ GeV-2 by fitting the pion mass in a calculation made at $`T=0`$, with $`m_u=m_d=0.364`$ GeV .

The calculation of the correlator for pseudoscalar-isoscalar states is more complex, since there are both flavor-singlet and flavor-octet states to consider. We may define polarization functions for $`u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$ quarks: $`J_u(P^2,T)`$, $`J_d(P^2,T)`$ and $`J_s(P^2,T)`$. (We recall that the factor of 2 arising from the flavor trace is not included when these functions are calculated.) In terms of these polarization functions we may then define

$`J_{00}(P^2,T)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}[J_u(P^2,T)+J_d(P^2,T)+J_s(P^2,T)],`$ (3.3)
$`J_{08}(P^2,T)={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{3}}[J_u(P^2,T)+J_d(P^2,T)2J_s(P^2,T)],`$ (3.4)
and

$`J_{88}(P^2,T)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}[J_u(P^2,T)+J_d(P^2,T)+4J_s(P^2,T)].`$ (3.5)
We also introduce the matrices

$`J(P^2,T)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}J_{00}(P^2,T)& J_{08}(P^2,T)\\ J_{80}(P^2,T)& J_{88}(P^2,T)\end{array}\right],`$ (3.8)
$`G(T)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}G_{00}(T)& G_{08}(T)\\ G_{80}(T)& G_{88}(T)\end{array}\right],`$ (3.11)
and

$`C(P^2,T)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}C_{00}(P^2,T)& C_{08}(P^2,T)\\ C_{80}(P^2,T)& C_{88}(P^2,T)\end{array}\right].`$ (3.14)
We then write the matrix relation

$`C(P^2,T)=J(P^2,T)[1G(T)J(P^2,T)]^1.`$ (3.15)
For some purposes it may be useful to also define a *t* matrix

$`t(P^2,T)=[1G(T)J(P^2,T)]^1G(T),`$ (3.16)
where $`t(P^2,T)`$ has the structure shown in Eqs. (3.6)-(3.8). The same resonant structures are seen in both $`C(P^2,T)`$ and $`t(P^2,T)`$.

Some of our results for the imaginary parts of the pseudoscalar-isoscalar correlators $`C_{00}(P^2)`$, $`C_{88}(P^2)`$ and $`C_{08}(P^2)`$ are shown in Figs. 3, 4 and 5, respectively. In these figures the values are $`T/T_c=1.2`$ \[solid line\], $`T/T_c=1.6`$ \[dashed line\], $`T/T_c=2.0`$ \[dotted line\], $`T/T_c=4.0`$ \[dashed-dotted line\] and $`T/T_c=6.0`$ \[dashed-(double)dotted line\]. There is a large peak seen in Figs. 3-5 at about 775 MeV. It is worth noting that the state that evolves from the $`\eta ^{}(958)`$ with increasing temperature has a mass of about 750 MeV for $`TT_c`$. However, an analysis of the mixing angle for the state at 775 MeV shows that it is mainly an $`s\overline{s}`$ state. Further work is needed to understand the relation between the bound-state spectrum for $`T<T_c`$ and the resonant structures seen for $`T>T_c`$. We discuss the temperature dependence of the $`\eta `$ spectrum in the Section V.

## IV temperature-dependent coupling constants of the NJL model

Since the introduction of temperature-dependent coupling constants for the NJL model is a novel feature of our work, we provide arguments in this section to justify their introduction. We make reference to Fig. 1.3 of Ref. . That figure shows the behavior of the ratio $`ϵ/T^4`$ and $`3P/T^4`$ for the pure gauge sector of QCD. Here $`ϵ`$ is the energy density and $`P`$ is the pressure. Ideal gas behavior implies $`ϵ=3P`$. The values of $`ϵ/T^4`$ and $`3P/T^4`$ are compared to the value $`ϵ_{SB}/T^4=8\pi ^2/15`$ for an ideal gluon gas. It may be seen from the figure that at $`T=3T_c`$ there are still significant differences from the ideal gluon gas result. Deviations from ideal gas behavior become progressively smaller with increasing $`T/T_c`$ and could be considered to be relatively unimportant for $`T/T_c>5`$.

The use of our energy-dependent coupling constants is meant to be consistent with the approach to asymptotic freedom at high temperature. In order to understand this feature in our model, we can calculate the correlator with *constant* values of $`G_{00}`$, $`G_{88}`$ and $`G_{08}`$ and with $`G_{00}(T)=G_{00}[10.17T/T_c]`$, etc. (In this work we use $`G_{00}=8.09`$ GeV-2, $`G_{88}=13.02`$ GeV-2 and $`G_{08}=0.4953`$ GeV-2.)

We now consider the values of $`\text{Im}C_{88}(P^2)`$ for $`T/T_c=4.0`$. In Fig. 6 we show the values of $`\text{Im}C_{88}(P^2)`$ calculated in our model with temperature-dependent coupling constants as a dashed line. The dotted line shows the values of the correlator for $`G_{00}=G_{88}=G_{08}=0`$, while the solid line shows the values when the coupling constants are kept at their values at $`T=0`$. We see that we have some resonant behavior in the case the constants are temperature independent.

In Fig. 7 we show similar results for $`T/T_c=5.88`$. Here the temperature-dependent coupling constants are equal to zero, so that the lines corresponding to the dashed and dotted lines of Fig. 6 coincide. The solid line again shows some resonant behavior at a value of $`T/T_c`$, where we expect only very weak interactions associated with asymptotic freedom. We conclude that the model with constant values of the coupling constants yields unacceptable results, while our model, which has temperature-dependent coupling constants, behaves as one may expect, when the results of lattice simulations of QCD thermodynamics are taken into account.

## V calculation of meson properties at finite temperature in a generalized NJL model with confinement

It is useful to record the Lagrangian used in our calculations of meson properties

$`=`$ $`\overline{q}(i\text{ / }m^0)q+{\displaystyle \frac{G_S}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{8}{}}}[(\overline{q}\lambda ^iq)^2+(\overline{q}i\gamma _5\lambda ^iq)^2]`$ (5.1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G_V}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{8}{}}}[(\overline{q}\lambda ^i\gamma _\mu q)^2+(\overline{q}\lambda ^i\gamma _5\gamma _\mu q)^2]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{G_D}{2}}\{det[\overline{q}(1+\gamma _5)q]+det[\overline{q}(1\gamma _5)q]\}`$
$`+_{conf},`$
Here, $`m^0`$ is a current quark mass matrix, $`m^0=\text{diag}(m_u^0,m_d^0,m_s^0)`$. The $`\lambda ^i`$ are the Gell-Mann (flavor) matrices, $`\lambda ^0=\sqrt{2/3}\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ with $`\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ being the unit matrix. The fourth term on the right-hand side of Eq. (5.1) is the ’t Hooft interaction. Finally, $`_{conf}`$ represents the model of confinement we have used in our work.

As noted earlier, we have recently reported results of our calculations of the temperature dependence of the spectra of various mesons . These calculations were made using our generalized NJL model which includes a covariant model of confinement. We have presented results for the $`\pi `$, $`K`$, $`a_0`$, $`f_0`$ and $`K_0^{}`$ mesons in Ref. . The equations that we solve are of the form of relativistic random-phase-approximation equations. The derivation of these equations for pseudoscalar mesons is given in Ref. , where we discuss the equations for pionic, kaonic and eta mesons. The equations for the eta mesons are the most complicated, since we consider singlet-octet mixing as well as pseudoscalar–axial-vector mixing. In that case there are eight vertex functions to consider, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{P,0}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{A,0}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{P,8}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{A,8}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{P,0}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{A,0}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{P,8}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{A,8}^+`$, where $`P`$ refers to the $`\gamma _5`$ vertex and $`A`$ refers to the $`\gamma _0\gamma _5`$ vertex, which mixes with the $`\gamma _5`$ vertex. Corresponding to the eight vertex functions one may define eight wave function amplitudes . Since the RPA equations for the study of the eta meson are quite lengthy , we do not reproduce them here.

In the RPA equations we replace $`m_u`$ and $`m_s`$ by $`m_u(T)`$ and $`m_s(T)`$ of Fig. 1 and use the temperature-dependent coupling constants described earlier in this work. In addition to the temperature dependence of the coupling constants and constituent mass values, we also introduced a temperature-dependent confining potential, whose form was motivated by recent lattice simulations of QCD in which the temperature dependence of the confining interaction was calculated with dynamical quarks . (See Fig. 8.) In order to include such effects, we modified the form of our confining interaction, $`V^C(r)=\kappa r\mathrm{exp}[\mu r]`$, by replacing $`\mu `$ by

$`\mu (T)={\displaystyle \frac{\mu _0}{\left[10.7\left({\displaystyle \frac{T}{T_c}}\right)^2\right]}},`$ (5.2)
with $`\mu _0=0.010`$ GeV. The maximum value of $`V^C(r,T)`$ is then

$`V_{max}^C(T)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{\mu (T)e}},`$ (5.3)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa \left[10.7(T/T_c)^2\right]}{\mu _0e}},`$ (5.4)
with $`r_{max}=1/\mu (T)`$. To better represent the qualitative features of the results shown in Fig. 8, we use $`V^C(r,T)=\kappa r\mathrm{exp}[\mu (T)r]`$ for $`rr_{max}`$ and $`V^C(r,T)=V_{max}^C(T)`$ for $`r>r_{max}`$. We also note that we use Lorentz-vector confinement and carry out all our calculations in momentum-space. (The value of $`\kappa `$ used in our work is 0.055 GeV2.) Values of $`V^C(r,T)`$ are shown is Fig. 9.

In Fig. 10 we show the results of our calculations of the temperature-dependent spectrum of the $`\eta `$ mesons. We show the behavior of the $`\eta `$(547), $`\eta ^{}`$(958) and seven states which represent radial excitations. The energies of the additional states found when diagonalizing the RPA Hamiltonian are represented by dots in the range 0 $`T/T_c`$ 0.6. We note that the masses of the nodeless states (the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$) are fairly constant over a broad range of temperatures. That characteristic seems to be a feature of the behavior of pseudo-Goldstone bosons at finite temperature.

As the temperature is increased, fewer states are bound by the confining field which decreases in magnitude with increasing temperature. At $`T=T_c`$ only the state that evolves from the $`\eta `$(547) is bound. That state disappears from the spectrum for $`T>T_c`$. We believe that the crossing of levels seen at $`T/T_c=0.9`$ is due to the rapid decrease of $`m_u(T)`$ relative to $`m_s(T)`$ with increasing $`T/T_c`$. \[See Fig. 1.\] That feature could lead to a (predominately) $`n\overline{n}`$ state with a node to have a lower energy than a (predominantly) nodeless $`s\overline{s}`$ state.

## VI discussion and conclusions

We believe is of interest to supplement lattice studies of hadronic current correlation functions with calculations made using chiral Lagrangian models of the type considered in this work. We have made some progress in exhibiting results for such correlators in Ref.  and in the present study. It might be of some interest to compare our results for our temperature-dependent RPA calculations with results obtained in the imaginary-time or real-time formalisms, if these formalisms could be modified so that calculations could be made in the confined phase of QCD. The study of radial excitations in these finite-temperature theories may be quite difficult since their study requires a model of confinement. It is also very difficult to obtain information concerning radial excitations, if an analytic continuation to real time is necessary.

One interesting feature of our analysis is the use of temperature-dependent coupling constants in the NJL model. In the present work, we have provided some justification for the introduction of such constants. Our work suggests that the coupling constants of the NJL model may also be density-dependent, since one expects that high density may play a similar role as high temperature, leading ultimately to a weakly interacting system at high density. We have introduced density-dependent coupling constants in Ref.  where we considered the confinement-deconfinement transition in the presence of matter. Since the study of matter at high density is a topic of active investigation \[25-31\], our suggestion of density-dependent coupling constants may have important consequences for such studies.


text:
# ATMOSPHERIC NEUTRINOS IN 2002

## 1 Introduction

Atmospheric neutrinos are produced by the decay of pions, kaons, and muons in cosmic ray showers. They have provided a fortuitous laboratory for neutrino oscillations, where the oscillation probability:

$$P(\nu _a\nu _b)=sin^22\theta sin^2\frac{1.27\mathrm{\Delta }m^2L}{E}$$
(1)
is probed over a wide range of $`L`$ (10-10000 km) and $`E`$ (0.5-100 GeV).

Two normalizing principles are used to understand the data. First, cosmic ray showers consist mostly of pions, which decay to $`\mu +\nu _\mu `$, and the $`\mu `$ decays to $`e+\nu _\mu +\nu _e`$, resulting in a flux ratio $`(\nu _\mu /\nu _e)2`$. This ratio grows to larger values at high energy, as the time-dilated muon may strike the ground before decaying (removing $`\nu _e`$ from the beam), but at all relevant energies the ratio is predicted to about 5% accuracy. The second principle is that at equal zenith and nadir angles the flux of high energy neutrinos must be nearly identical. Again, this is predicted with an accuracy of a few percent.

Before I review the experimental data, I should mention some developments in the neutrino flux calculation, which is a key input to more detailed understanding of the data. First, there is new data providing clarity regarding the flux of primary cosmic rays, which is the starting point for these calculations. The BESS and AMS spectrometers have made new precision measurements in the important range of 5-100 GeV/nucleon, with data in good agreement with each other whereas older measurements had fairly sizeable disagreements.

Second, increased computational power and the large Super-K data sample have motivated the transition from 1-dimensional calculations, where the $`p_t`$ of the daughter particles is neglected and every neutrino is assumed to follow the trajectory of the primary proton, to 3-dimensional calculations. In 3-dimensions, one should account for $`p_t`$ as well as bending in the geomagnetic field. The first 3-D calculations showed a relatively surprising effect that turns out to play little if any role in oscillation studies. The effect is an enhanced neutrino flux at the horizon. Indeed, below $`1`$ GeV, there is fairly sharp peaking as a function of zenith angle, as shown in Fig. 1. The central dip in the 1-D curve is caused by geomagnetic cutoff; the central enhancement in the 3-D curves overwhelms the cutoff. These effects are stronger with decreasing neutrino energy, but the lower the energy of the neutrino, the poorer is the correlation between the neutrino direction and that of the outgoing lepton. The net result is that the any structure at the horizon is washed out of the angular distributions of the lepton, as also shown in Fig. 1. The predicted shapes are nearly the same for each calculation. There are some differences in the overall normalization between the models, but in neutrino oscillation studies, the flux normalization is usually allowed to float as a free parameter.

## 2 Evidence for Neutrino Oscillations

The evidence for neutrino oscillations hinges on the two aforementioned normalizations of the atmospheric neutrino flux: that it should be composed of a well-predicted ratio of $`\nu _\mu `$ to $`\nu _e`$, and that it should be up-down symmetric at all zenith angles. To further cancel experimental systematic uncertainties, the flux ratio of $`\nu _\mu `$ to $`\nu _e`$ is compared to a detailed Monte Carlo simulation by forming a double-ratio, $`R`$. For the sub-GeV sample of events ($`E_\nu <1.5`$ GeV), the Super-Kamiokande analysis of 1489 days of data shows:

$$R=\frac{(N_\mu /N_e)_{data}}{(N_\mu /N_e)_{m.c.}}=0.688\pm 0.016\pm 0.050.$$
(2)
The up-down asymmetry is expected to be zero for the multi-GeV muon sample ($`E_\nu >1.5`$ GeV), but is measured to be:

$$A=\frac{N_{up}N_{down}}{N_{up}+N_{down}}=0.303\pm 0.030\pm 0.004,$$
(3)
whereas the asymmetry is consistent with zero for the multi-GeV electron sample and the multi-GeV muon Monte Carlo. The up-down asymmetry deviates from expectation by more than 10$`\sigma `$, essentially independent of any Monte Carlo input.

To estimate the parameters of neutrino oscillation, Super-K bins the single-ring $`\nu _e`$ and $`\nu _\mu `$ events in energy and zenith angle (effectively path-length $`L`$). Additional $`\nu _\mu `$ bins are also used: partially contained events where the muon exits the detector, multiple-ring events where the brightest ring is $`\mu `$-like, or upward-going muons where the muon enters the detector from a neutrino interaction in the surrounding rock. Another category of multiple-ring events are selected where the brightest ring is $`e`$-like; these have an enhanced fraction of neutral current ($`35\%`$). These bins play a negligible role in the $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ fits but are valuable in restricting alternative models involving sterile neutrinos or neutrino decay. In total, 155 bins are formed, too many to easily display. Figure 2 shows 95 bins in 10 zenith angle distributions, where some of the 155 bins have been combined. The data fits the prediction beautifully if a two-flavor $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ oscillation is applied to the neutrino flux with $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta =1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=3\times 10^3`$ eV2. The contours for this best fit are shown later, in Fig. 5.

In the past, the value of $`R`$ measured by iron calorimeters such as NUSEX and Frejus seemed to show little evidence for neutrino oscillations, compared to the contemporaneous water Cherenkov detectors Kamiokande and IMB. Currently, the Soudan 2 fine-grained iron tracking calorimeter in Minnesota, U.S.A., has recorded the largest data set of contained atmospheric neutrino vertices using iron. They confirm the picture of atmospheric neutrino oscillation, with some quite different systematics such as geomagnetic location, target nucleus, and reconstruction technique. For their analysis of 5.9 kt$``$yrs of data, using a minimum momentum of 300 MeV/c, Soudan 2 reports $`R=0.71\pm .09`$, in agreement with the results from water Cherenkov experiments.

In addition, the Soudan 2 group exploits the good charged particle recognition of the detector to define a high resolution sample. The sample includes high energy quasi-elastics (single tracks), low energy quasi-elastics where the recoil proton from $`\nu +nl+p`$ is identified, and high energy multi-prong events. In each case, the neutrino direction is well determined, with approximately $`25^{}`$ angular resolution (for $`\nu _\mu `$) and resolution in $`\mathrm{log}(L/E)`$ of $`0.5`$. The data is binned by $`L/E`$ and compared to Monte Carlo expectation for different oscillation parameters. Figure 3 shows the best agreement, found at $`1\times 10^2\mathrm{eV}^2`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta =0.97`$. The apparent suppression of downward-going $`\nu _\mu `$ ($`\mathrm{log}(L/E)<2.5`$) explains the high value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ compared to the Super-K best fit value. When uncertainties are incorporated, the 90% confidence interval for this fit does allow $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ down to a few times $`10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$.

The MACRO detector is too coarsely grained and lightweight (4.7 kt) to effectively study contained interactions. However, it has a solid angle acceptance that rivals that of Super-Kamiokande, and is ideally suited to identify neutrino induced upward-going muons using time-of-flight. MACRO consists of a lower section filled with crushed rock absorber and an upper section that is hollow; both sections are instrumented with planes of streamer tube tracking. Fast timing is measured by tanks of liquid scintillator that surround the detector, and the plane between upper and lower sections is also a timing plane of liquid scintillator. The simplest analysis is to measure the distortion in zenith angle flux for upward muons that pass completely through the detector; this is shown in the left panel of Fig. 4. These data demonstrate a best-fit to neutrino oscillation of $`2.5\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta =1`$, in perfect agreement with the Super-K result. MACRO has also studied the approximate energy distribution of these events (in four bins of 14, 35, 90, and 150 GeV) by considering the amount of multiple scattering. This analysis shows consistency with neutrino oscillations, with the greatest $`\nu _\mu `$ disappearance in the lowest energy bins.

MACRO also measures the rate of lower energy ($``$ 4 GeV) neutrino events that do not pass all of the way through the detector. Internal upgoing events originate in the lower absorber but can be distinguished from downward stopping muons if they pass through two upper timing planes. In addition, there is a sample of internal downgoing events that start in the absorber and exit through the bottom. These have an indistinguishable topology from neutrino induced upward stopping muons. Fortunately, both of these topologies are neutrino induced, with similar parent energy distributions. The results for these samples are shown in the right panels of Fig. 4. These data also favor neutrino mixing in the range of $`10^3`$ to $`10^2\mathrm{eV}^2`$.

Figure 5 shows the confidence intervals for the atmospheric neutrino analyses just described. The Super-Kamiokande, Soudan 2, and MACRO results are consistent with each other, with the Super-K result yielding the most significant and precise estimation of mass splitting and mixing angle. Despite the varied techniques of these three experiments, they do all rely upon atmospheric neutrinos, hence a further confirmation using a completely different neutrino source is desirable. The K2K experiment is the first long baseline experiment to probe neutrino oscillations with energy and flight distance comparable to atmospheric neutrinos. K2K uses a 98% pure $`\nu _\mu `$ beam with mean energy 1.3 GeV that travels 250 km from KEK to the Super-K detector. The preliminary results from about one half of the planned running have recently been made public, and the contour from K2K is also overlayed in Fig. 5; the deepest minimum coincides exactly with the Super-Kamiokande best fit region.

## 3 Unlikely Alternatives

An important question is whether the Super-K atmospheric neutrino observations are only consistent with $`\nu `$-oscillation or could alternatively be explained by neutrino decay, or other exotic ideas such as violations of Lorentz invariance, flavor changing neutral currents etc. Table 1 summarizes the results of a fit to the Super-K data, again binned in by energy and zenith angle for fully- and partially-contained events, upward going muons, and multi-ring events. The multi-ring events are subdivided into charged current $`\nu _\mu `$ and neutral current enhanced samples. The Monte Carlo sample used for $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ includes tau lepton appearance.

In Table 1 both the absolute $`\chi ^2`$ and the differences in $`\chi ^2`$ compared to the best fit of $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ oscillation are reported. In some cases, the functional form of the transformation probability approaches that of the accepted hypothesis of pure $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$. But in each case, there are typically several bins that constrain the alternative hypothesis. For example, matter effects suppress the oscillation probability for high energy $`\mu `$-like bins ($`>5`$ GeV $`\times [\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ in units of $`10^3\mathrm{eV}^2]`$). For another example, neutral current events should disappear with sterile neutrinos or neutrino decay. By observing the differences in $`\chi ^2`$, one effectively ignores whichever bins are not sensitive to the differences in model. None of these pure alternatives fit the data very well; the decoherence model is the most difficult to reject. Observation of an oscillatory minimum that is not washed out by $`L/E`$ resolution would greatly assist in discrimination.

Clearly, one can generally include any exotic alternative as an admixture with “standard” neutrino oscillations. In fact, one is forced to consider both in the decay scenarios, where the neutrinos are required to have mass. For the important case of an admixture of sterile neutrino oscillation, Super-K has quoted limits on the allowable fraction of sterile neutrinos in a 4-neutrino scheme. The $`\nu _{sterile}`$ mixture is found to be less than 20% (at 90% CL), with best fit to the Super-K data is at pure $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ mixing. Figure 6 shows the allowed region a function of the admixture fraction.

## 4 Three Flavor Oscillations

Having established nearly maximal $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ mixing as the explanation for the disappearance of atmospheric neutrinos, it is logical to search for a smaller component of mixing with $`\nu _e`$. This is properly done in a 3-neutrino framework, where a $`3\times 3`$ unitary matrix mixes the mass eigenstates with the flavor eigenstates. Because the earth is full of electrons, but devoid of free muons or tauons, a component of electron neutrino flavor passing through the earth may be enhanced by a matter effect resonance. The size of the resonant enhancement depends on neutrino energy and the pathlength through matter; therefore, this can potentially be observed by measuring a larger rate than expected in some narrow regions of zenith angle and energy. If one mass splitting dominates in scale over the other, as seems to be the case considering the likely results for solar neutrinos, the oscillation probabilities $`P(\nu _e\nu _\mu )`$, $`P(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )`$, and $`P(\nu _\tau \nu _e)`$ may be expressed as functions of three parameters: two mixing angles ($`\theta _{13}`$, $`\theta _{23}`$) and the larger mass splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$.

The Super-Kamiokande group has analyzed the sample of electron neutrino interactions with fine binning, but sees no deviation from the predicted rates. This null result is then turned into limits on the three mixing parameters, as shown by contours in Fig. 7. The left panel shows that the small fraction of $`\nu _e`$ appearance allowed by the data is consistent with the limit on $`\nu _e`$ disappearance from the Chooz reactor experiment. In fact, the data is consistent with no $`\nu _e`$ mixing whatsoever.

## 5 Tau Appearance

If $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ oscillation is taking place, tau leptons should appear in the atmospheric neutrino flux. Most atmospheric $`\nu _\tau `$ do not have more than the $`3.5GeV`$ of energy needed to produce a $`\tau `$ lepton, however, in the large Super-K sample one does expect approximately 85 charged current $`\nu _\tau `$ interactions. The events have many final state particles above Cherenkov threshold making exclusive reconstruction difficult, but a statistical analysis is possible. One preliminary analysis uses a neural network to select for characteristics of high $`p_t`$ pion production, based on event variables such as number of rings, number of ring seeds, number-of-decay electrons, particle classification of the brightest ring, and so on.

For $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ less than a few times $`10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$, it is expected that charged current tau appearance will only occur in the upward-going zenith bins. Therefore, the analysis is based on the up-down ratio of a sample selected for enhanced tau production, and the downward-going data may be used to check the performance of the neural network, as shown on the left of Fig. 8. This analysis has a 55% efficiency to save $`\nu _\tau `$ interactions in the fiducial volume while keeping 4.5% of the background. After cuts, a fit is done to the zenith angle distribution with components for both the background and the expected tau appearance signal. The data and fit results are shown on the right of Fig. 8. The best fit implies that the number of charged current $`\nu _\tau `$ interactions was: $`99\pm 39_{stat}\pm 13_{\mathrm{\Delta }m^2}_{15(3\nu )}^{+0}`$. The first systematic error comes from varying the assumed $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ between 1 and 5 $`\times 10^3eV^2`$ and the second comes from allowing three flavor oscillation at the CHOOZ limit. Although this is only a 2.3$`\sigma `$ result, it shows that the Super-K data set is consistent with the expected rate of tau appearance.

## 6 Super-Kamiokande Accident and Reconstruction

On Nov 12, 2001 at 11:01 JST, a single photomultiplier on the bottom of the Super-Kamiokande tank imploded. At that time, the tank was 2/3 full of water; it was refilling after PMT replacement work in the preceding summer. The imploding tube caused a chain reaction that destroyed 6777 inner PMTs and 1100 outer PMTs. Subsequently, the collaboration made several studies to determine the mechanism of the chain reaction. A corrective measure was devised: the PMTs should be encased in a secondary shell consisting of a transparent acrylic hemisphere over the photocathode and a fiberglass shell surrounding the rest of the tube. This enclosure is not intended to withstand static water pressure; instead, several small holes are placed in the shell. Then, if a PMT were to implode, water rushes into the resulting vacancy more slowly and a high pressure shock wave is not developed. This has been tested several times in situ up to the full level of the Super-K tank. The tests show that if the center tube of a grid of $`3\times 3`$ tubes is imploded, the damage is contained within the protective vessel, and the eight surrounding tubes do not implode – even if they themselves are unprotected.

It will take several years to fabricate replacement photomultipliers for the inner detector. In the meantime, the detector is being recommissioned using the remaining tubes plus some spares to populate every other lattice point of the original photomultiplier tube array. This will be sufficient for nearly all research to continue, particularly the K2K long baseline experiment. The detector should be operational by the end of 2002.

## 7 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the organizers of the Heavy Quarks and Leptons Workshop, particularly G. Cataldi. I am also thankful for assistance with the latest experimental results from M. Shiozawa, M. Goodman, and M. Spurio. Finally, I gratefully acknowledge support from the U.S. Department of Energy.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently, a new method was proposed to approach the fine structure phenomenon of cluster- and alpha-decays in odd-nuclei. These decays modes are considered as superasymmetric fission processes. Assuming the existence of few collective variables, associated to some generalized coordinates describing the nuclear shape parametrization, this approach allows to handle approximately the behavior of many other intrinsic variables. At any values of the shape generalized coordinates, the single particle level scheme and the potential barrier are determined. During the whole process and after the disintegration, the single particle occupation probabilities of the orbitals of interest are computed using the Landau-Zener promotion mechanism alone. This method was successfully used to describe the 14C- and alpha-decays ?,?,?. Despite the overlook of residual interactions, the agreement obtained with data gives a strong experimental support to the formalism. Unfortunately, the approach based on the Landau-Zener effect alone is not able to describe the fine structure in the case of the disintegration of even-even nuclei. That motivated us to develop the model in order to actually obtain the final occupation probabilities of the nucleons in different orbitals using the equation of motion derived for pairing residual interactions including the Landau-Zener effect.

The decaying system provides a time dependent single-particle potential in which the nucleons move independently. This description is consistent within the essence of the Hartree-Fock approximation where the many body wave function is constrained to be Slater determinants and with the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) problem where the function is constrained to be of BCS form all time. In the HFB model, the level slippage is treated automatically due to the simultaneous presence of many Slater determinants in the wave function. Such calculations are very cumbersome. A way to bypass this problem is to use the superfluid model constructed over a single particle potential and introducing the Landau-Zener effect to replace the effect given by a part of the residual interactions.

In the next section, the equations describing the microscopic dynamics of a many nucleon system with pairing residual interaction, including the Landau-Zener effect applied to the unpaired nucleon, are deduced. This effect allows the transition of an unpaired nucleon between levels with the same quantum numbers associated to some symmetries of the system. Solving the equations, the response of the system is estimated when the nuclear shape parametrization is changed. In the following, a nuclear shape parametrization given only by two intersected spheres, the radius of the sphere associated to the light fragment kept as constant, will be used. The single degree of freedom remains the elongation characterized by $`R`$, the distance between the centers of the nascent fragments. Sometimes a normalized elongation $`(RR_i)/(R_fR_i)`$ will be used for convenience. The parameter $`R_1`$ being the radius of the daughter determined from the condition of volume conservation and $`R_2=41A_2^{1/3}`$ being the radius of the light fragment kept as constant, the next values are determined $`R_i=R_1R_2`$ and $`R_f=R_1+R_2`$ for the configuration of the initial nucleus considered as a sphere and for that of two tangent spheres, respectively.

## 2 Formalism

In order to obtain the equations of motion, we shall start from the variational principle taking the Lagrangian as

$$=<\varphi Hi\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}+H^{}\lambda N\varphi >$$
(1)
and assuming the many-body state formally expanded as a superposition of time dependent BCS seniority one diabatic wave functions

$$\varphi >=\underset{i}{}c_i(t)a_i^+\underset{ji}{}(u_j(t)+v_j(t)a_j^+a_{\overline{j}}^+)0>$$
(2)
Each of these seniority one diabatic wave functions being associated to a state with an unpaired nucleon in the orbital $`i`$, the orbitals $`ji`$ being pairwise filled. Furthermore

$$H(t)=\underset{k>0}{}ϵ_k(t)(a_k^+a_k+a_{\overline{k}}^+a_{\overline{k}})G\underset{k,l>0}{}a_k^+a_{\overline{k}}^+a_{\overline{l}}a_l$$
(3)
is the time dependent many-body Hamiltonian with pairing residual interactions,

$$\begin{array}{c}H^{}=\frac{1}{2}_{i,j}h_{ij}(t)[(u_ia_iv_ia_i^+)(u_j^{}a_j^++v_j^{}a_{\overline{j}})+(u_ja_jv_ja_j^+)(u_i^{}a_i^++v_i^{}a_{\overline{i}})]\end{array}$$
(4)
is the residual interaction between diabatic levels characterized by the same quantum numbers associated to some symmetries of the system. This interaction is responsible for the existence of avoiding level crossing levels in the case of adiabatic states. The presence of this interaction term $`H^{}`$ allows the level slippage of an unpaired nucleon and allows the possibility that a unpaired nucleon (or hole) located on the diabatic level $`i`$ jumps on the level $`j`$ due to the interaction $`h_{ij}(t)`$, in the same manner as in the classical two level Landau–Zener effect ?,?. The element $`h_{ij}(t)`$ is different from zero only in the regions of the avoided crossings. The term $`\lambda N`$ represents the well known constraint on the total number of particles. In this picture, $`a_i^+`$ and $`a_i`$ denote operators for creating and destroying, respectively, a particle in the diabatic state $`i`$ (not, as usual, in the adiabatic state $`i`$) and the label $`\overline{i}`$ denotes the time-reversed orbital conjugate to, and degenerate with, $`i`$. Furthermore, $`ϵ_k`$ are the single particle energies obtained within the shell model. The blocking correlations (the variation in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and in the $`u_j`$’s and $`v_j`$’s due to the change of the blocking level?) are neglected.

By performing the variation of the Lagrangian in a way similar as in Ref ?, the next system of coupled differential equations are obtained.

$$i\mathrm{}\dot{\rho }_l=\underset{m}{}p_m\{\kappa _l\mathrm{\Delta }_m^{}\kappa _l^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_m\}$$
(5)
$$i\mathrm{}\dot{\kappa }_l=\underset{m}{}p_m\{(2\rho _l1)\mathrm{\Delta }_m2\kappa _l(ϵ_l(t)\lambda (t))\}$$
(6)
$$i\mathrm{}\dot{p}_m=\frac{1}{2}\underset{j}{}h_{mj}(t)(S_{mj}S_{jm})$$
(7)
$$\begin{array}{c}i\mathrm{}\dot{S}_{jm}=S_{jm}\{\frac{1}{G}(\mathrm{\Delta }_m^2\mathrm{\Delta }_j^2)+(ϵ_m(t)ϵ_j(t))\\ \frac{1}{2}[\frac{\rho _m}{\kappa _m}+2\kappa _m^{}+\frac{\rho _j}{\kappa _j}2\kappa _j^{}]_lp_l\mathrm{\Delta }_l\\ \frac{1}{2}[\frac{\rho _m}{\kappa _m^{}}+2\kappa _m+\frac{\rho _j}{\kappa _j^{}}2\kappa _j]_lp_l\mathrm{\Delta }_l^{}\}+\frac{1}{2}_{km,j}(h_{mk}(t)S_{jk}h_{jk}(t)S_{km})+\frac{1}{2}h_{jm}(t)(p_jp_m)\end{array}$$
(8)
where

$$\begin{array}{c}p_m=c_m^{}c_m\\ S_{jm}=c_j^{}c_m\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_m=G_{km}\kappa _k\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_m^{}=G_{km}\kappa _k^{}\\ \kappa _k=u_k^{}v_k\\ \rho _k=v_k^2\end{array}$$
(9)
In this description, $`p_m`$ represents the single particle occupation probability of the orbital $`m`$, and $`\rho _k`$ is the pairwise occupation probability of the orbital $`k`$. The previous system is a generalization of the equations of motions obtained in Refs. ?,?,? and are applied in the case of fine structure of the 14C emission from 223Ra. This is a rare phenomenon where the theory ?,? has superseded the experiments ?,?. However, the predictions were not able to assess that transitions to the first excited state are favored. The system is solved by taking as initial values those corresponding to the ground state $`1i_{11/2}`$ of the parent 223Ra. The starting elongation is that which gives the minimal value of the microscopic-macroscopic deformation energy.

## 3 Results Concerning the 14C Decay of 223Ra

The neutron and proton level schemes are obtained with the superasymmetric two-center shell model ? improved in Ref. ?. The single particle neutron levels are displayed in Fig. 3. The 223Ra has the spin $`\frac{3}{2}`$ emerging from 1$`i_{11/2}`$. Adiabatically, this unpaired neutron reaches the 2$`g_{9/2}`$ level of the daughter 209Pb. In the frame of this formalism, the fine structure of the 14C radioactivity can be understood by an enhanced transition probability of the unpaired neutron from the adiabatic level with $`\mathrm{\Omega }=3/2`$ emerging from 1$`i_{11/2}`$, to the adiabatic level with the same spin projection emerging from $`1j_{15/2}`$. The level scheme presented in Fig. 3 shows that the 1$`i_{11/2}`$ level reaches adiabatically the 2$`g_{9/2}`$ state, the $`1j_{15/2}`$ reaches the 1$`i_{11/2}`$ state, and the 3$`d_{5/2}`$ level reaches 1$`j_{15/2}`$ state of the daughter 209Pb. In system with cylindrical symmetries, Landau-Zener transitions can be realized only between levels with the same spin projection $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

Four avoided level crossings can be observed in Fig. 3 produced at $`(RR_i)/(R_fR_i)`$ 0.75, 1, 1.1 and 1.2. Without these interactions, diabatically, the levels $`1i_{11/2}`$, $`1j_{15/2}`$ and $`3d_{5/2}`$ attain ? the 1$`i_{11/2}`$, $`1j_{15/2}`$ and $`2g_{9/2}`$ daughter orbitals, respectively.

In Ref. ?, a particular form of the equations (5-8) (without Landau-Zener included) were used to study the dumping (or the dissipation) process. The dissipation was defined as the flow of energy between collective and intrinsic modes. This energy flow must be irreversible. Unfortunately, accordingly with the discussion of Ref. ?, neglecting the Landau-Zener effect, the calculation is microscopically reversible in the sense that if all the coordinates are time-reversed the system retraces its path. An unknown fraction of the energy that is identified as dissipated energy is in fact collective kinetic energy. Through the presence of the Landau-Zener term in the equations of motion the requirement of irreversibility is satisfied. Therefore, The Landau-Zener probabilities $`p_m`$ describe a true dissipation process, while the variations of $`\rho _k`$ and $`\kappa _k`$ values take partially into account the collective kinetic energy. In these circumstances, it can be assumed that, after the disintegration, the spectroscopic factor can be approximated with only the leading term:

$$S_m=<\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }_{0m}>^2p_m$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the BCS wave function given by the equations of motion after the scission, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{0m}=a_m^+_{jm}(u_{0j}+v_{0j}a_j^+a_{\overline{j}}^+)0>`$, with $`m`$=$`2g_{9/2}`$, $`1i_{11/2}`$, $`1j_{15/2}`$, are the orthogonal set of seniority one wave functions constructed on the asymptotic overlapped energy levels of the daughter and the emitted nucleus with the ground state $`u_{0j}`$ and $`v_{0j}`$ values.

The partial half-life for the state $`i`$ is obtained with the equation in the WKB approximation:

$$T_{1/2}^m=\frac{h\mathrm{ln}2}{2E_vp_m}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}_{R^{\mathrm{g}.\mathrm{s}.}}^{R^m}\sqrt{2\frac{A_1A_2}{A_0}E_d^m}dR\right)=\frac{h\mathrm{ln}2}{2E_vp_m}\mathrm{exp}(K_m)$$
(11)
where $`p_m`$ is the final occupation probability and has the meaning of a spectroscopic factor. $`E_d^m`$ is the deformation energy computed in the framework of the Yukawa-plus-exponential model ? extended for binary systems with different charge densities ?. This deformation energy is corrected within shell effect computed within Strutinsky’s method as in Ref. ?. The deformation energies for the excited states are obtained by adding the difference between the single particle energy of the excited state and the single particle energy of the nucleon in the ground state. The values of $`K_i`$ are 2.10$`\times 10^{27}`$, 1.27$`\times 10^{29}`$ and 1.87$`\times 10^{31}`$ for transitions to the daughter ground state, first excited state and second excited state, respectively. These deformation energies are plotted with thick line in Fig. 3. $`R^{\mathrm{g}.\mathrm{s}.}`$ is the ground state elongation used as starting point of the decay, $`R^i`$ is the channel exit point from the barrier and $`E_v`$ is the zero point vibration energy.

The effort is mainly focused to reproduce the experimental ratio $`R`$ of the partial half-lives for transitions to the first excited state and to ground state,

$$R=\frac{T_{1/2}^{i_{11/2}}}{T_{1/2}^{g_{9/2}}}=\frac{p_{g_{9/2}}}{p_{i_{11/2}}}\frac{\mathrm{exp}(K_{i_{11/2}})}{\mathrm{exp}(K_{g_{9/2}})}$$
(12)
which has approximately the value 0.218. A critical parameter in the model is the quantity which characterizes the variations in time of the generalized coordinates. In the present work, it is matter of the velocity $`v`$ of the inter-nuclear distance (or the elongation). Some models are able to determine this quantity ?, but in the present work the velocity of the elongation is considered as a fitting parameter and its optimal value will be briefly discussed in comparison with previous results. In Fig. 3, the final single-particle occupation probabilities as function of the internuclear distance velocity are plotted. As expected, for large velocities the system becomes mainly diabatic and the occupation probabilities of the first daughter excited state tends to 1 while that of the ground state reaches 0. For lower velocities, the g.s. transitions are favored. In the bottom of Fig. 3, the ratio $`R`$ is plotted. When $`v9\times 10^43\times 10^5`$, $`R`$ reaches the vicinity of the experimental value. The value of $`v`$ determined in this way is approximately one order of magnitude lower than that determined from the tunneling times of Ref. ? using macroscopic models, that means, approximating the effective mass with a value close to the reduced mass. However, in the region of avoided crossing levels, the more realistic cranking approximation predicts that the inertia increase with orders of magnitude. If the effective mass increases, the deformation velocity must decrease in order to conserve the available energy. Therefore, the lower values of $`v`$ are qualitatively consistent with the use of the cranking model for the inertia.

The previous treatment provides a different way to attack the fine structure of superasymmetric fission for odd and even nuclei. To our knowledge, it is the unique model which can explain the favored transitions to the excited state in the case of cluster-decay. Also, the inclusion of the Landau-Zener effect in the equations of motion offers a more complete description of dumping phenomena during the disintegration.

Acknowledgments

This work was partially sponsored by the European Excellence Center IDRANAP.

References


text:
# Cosmological Implications of Neutrino Mass

## 1 Introduction

Recent SNO results  when combined with other solar neutrino data especially that of Super-Kamiokande  strongly favour the large mixing angle (LMA) MSW solar solution  with three active light neutrino states, and $`\theta _{12}\pi /6`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^25\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}^2`$ . The atmospheric neutrino data  is consistent with maximal $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ neutrino mixing $`\theta _{23}\pi /4`$ with $`|\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2|2.5\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$ and the sign of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ undetermined. The CHOOZ experiment limits $`\theta _{13}\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.2`$ over the favoured atmospheric range .

The minimal neutrino sector required to account for the atmospheric and solar neutrino oscillation data consists of three light physical neutrinos with left-handed flavour eigenstates, $`\nu _e`$, $`\nu _\mu `$, and $`\nu _\tau `$, defined to be those states that share the same electroweak doublet as the left-handed charged lepton mass eigenstates. Within the framework of three–neutrino oscillations, the neutrino flavor eigenstates $`\nu _e`$, $`\nu _\mu `$, and $`\nu _\tau `$ are related to the neutrino mass eigenstates $`\nu _1`$, $`\nu _2`$, and $`\nu _3`$ with mass $`m_1`$, $`m_2`$, and $`m_3`$, respectively, by a $`3\times 3`$ unitary matrix called the MNS matrix $`U_{MNS}`$

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _e\\ \nu _\mu \\ \nu _\tau \end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}U_{e1}& U_{e2}& U_{e3}\\ U_{\mu 1}& U_{\mu 2}& U_{\mu 3}\\ U_{\tau 1}& U_{\tau 2}& U_{\tau 3}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _1\\ \nu _2\\ \nu _3\end{array}\right).$$
(1)
Neutrino oscillation experiments give information about the mass squared splittings $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{ij}^2m_i^2m_j^2`$, and MNS parameters. In this talk I shall show that cosmology and astrophysics provides complementary information about the absolute values of neutrino masses.

## 2 Cosmological relic density and dark matter

In the early universe neutrinos were in thermal equilibrium with photons, electrons and positrons. When the universe cooled to temperatures of order 1 MeV the neutrinos decoupled, leading to a present day number density similar to photons. If neutrinos have mass they contribute to the mass density of the universe, leading to the constraint

$$\underset{i}{}m_i28\mathrm{eV}$$
(2)
corresponding to

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu h^20.3$$
(3)
in the standard notation where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu `$ is the ratio of the energy density in neutrinos to the critical energy density of the universe (corresponding to a flat universe), and $`h=H/100\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{Mpc}/\mathrm{s}`$ is the scaled Hubble parameter.

From the current tritium limit on the electron neutrino mass in  together with the atmospheric and solar mass splittings we have a stronger constraint

$$0.05\mathrm{eV}\underset{i}{}m_i6.6\mathrm{eV}$$
(4)
corresponding to the range

$$0.0005\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu h^20.07$$
(5)
which implies that neutrinos cannot be regarded as the dominant component of dark matter, but make up between 0.1% and 14% of the mass-energy of the universe.

## 3 Galaxy structure limits on neutrino mass

Recent results from the 2df galaxy redshift survey indicate that

$$\underset{i}{}m_i<1.8\mathrm{eV}(95\%C.L.)$$
(6)
under certain mild assumptions . This bound arises from the fact that the galaxy power spectrum is reduced on small distance scales (large wavenumber) as the amount of hot dark matter increases. Thus excessive amounts of free-streaming hot dark matter would lead to galaxies being less clumped than they appear to be on small distance scales.

However as discussed in  such bounds suffer from parameter degeneracies due to a restricted parameter space, and a more robust bound is

$$\underset{i}{}m_i<3\mathrm{eV}(95\%C.L.)$$
(7)
Combined with the solar and atmospheric oscillation data this brackets the heaviest neutrino mass to be in the approximate range 0.04-1 eV. The fact that the mass of the heaviest neutrino is known to within an order of magnitude represents remarkable progress in neutrino physics over recent years. This implies that neutrinos make up less than about 7% of the total mass-energy of the universe, which is a stronger limit than that quoted in the previous sub-section.

## 4 Nucleosynthesis

The number of light “neutrino species” $`N_\nu `$ (or any light species) affects the freeze-out temperature of weak processes which determine the neutron to proton ratio, and successful nucleosynthesis leads to constraints on $`N_\nu `$ discussed in .

The limit on $`N_\nu `$ applies also to sterile neutrinos, but they need to be produced during the time when nucleosynthesis was taking place, and the only way to produce them is via neutrino oscillations. This leads to strong limits on sterile-active neutrino mixing angles which tend to disfavour the LSND region, also discussed in ). Note that these limits assume that the lepton asymmetry is not anomalously large .

## 5 Supernovae

It is well known that 99% of the energy of a supernova is emitted in the form of neutrinos, so one might hope that by studying supernovae one can learn something about neutrino physics. Indeed studies of the neutrino arrival times over a 10s interval from SN1987A in the Small Magellanic Cloud have led to the mass bound

$$m_{\nu _e}620\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}$$
(8)
The LMA MSW parameter range may also have some observable consequences for SN1987A .

However it should be remarked that Supernova physics has difficulties simulating explosions, and understanding how the spinning neutron star remnant is kick-started.

## 6 Cosmic Rays

It has been a long standing puzzle why ultra high energy (UHE) cosmic rays are apparently observed beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff of $`5\times 10^{19}`$ GeV. The problem is that such cosmic rays appear to arrive isotropically, which would imply an extragalactic origin, whereas neither protons nor neutrons of such energies could have originated from more than 50 Mpc away due to their scattering off the cosmic background photons which would excite a delta resonance if the energy exceeds $`5\times 10^{19}`$ GeV. Yet despite this, several groups have reported handfuls of events above the GZK cut-off, and various models such as the Z-burst model have been invented to explain how the GZK cut-off could be overcome . See also . The basic idea of the Z-burst model is that UHE neutrinos can travel much further, and scatter off the relic background neutrinos to produce Z bosons within 50 Mpc. Neutrino mass is required to increase the Z production rate, so UHE cosmic rays and neutrino mass are linked in this model.

Reecently data from Fly’s Eye, Yakutsk and expecially HiRes have brought into question whether the GZK cut-off is being exceeded at all. A recent analysis based on these data suggests that there might be no problem with the GZK cut-off , as shown in Figure 1. On the other hand Fly’s Eye and HiRes establish the cosmic ray energy from observing the fluorescence of Nitrogen molecules using a rather dated technique. The issue should be resolved soon by the Pierre Auger Observatory, which can both measure the shower’s pattern on the Earth’s surface, and the fluorescence of the shower in the air.

## 7 Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs)

GRBs are distant ($`z1`$), energetic and enigmatic. According to the fireball model (for a review see ) GRBs may result from the core collapse of a very massive supernova to a compact, rotating black hole. The energy is emitted in beamed relativistic fireball jets which are expected to contain copious neutrino fluxes. GRBs can thus be regarded as a high intensity, high energy neutrino beam with a cosmological baseline.

In some models of quantum gravity  neutrinos of mass $`m`$ obey the dispersion relation

$$p^2c^2E^2(1\xi \frac{E}{E_{QG}})m^2c^4$$
(9)
where $`E_{QG}`$ is the scale of quantum gravity. A consequence of this dispersion relation is that the effects of both quantum gravity and neutrino mass will cause time delays in the arrival times of neutrinos compared to low energy massless photons, as shown in Figure 2 . Using the millisecond time structure of GRBs it may be possible to measure neutrino masses from time of flight delays, in principle down to 0.001 eV . However this estimate assumes complete understanding of GRBs, and large enough event rates, and in practice there are many theoretical and experimental challenges to be overcome.