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# Non Uniformly Hyperbolic Dynamics: Hénon Maps and Related Dynamical Systems

## 1. Introduction

Dynamical systems as a discipline was born in Henri Poincaré’s famous treatise of the three body problem. In retrospect arguably one can view as his most remarkable discovery of the homoclinic phenomenon. Stable and unstable manifolds of a fixed point or periodic point may intersect at a homoclinic point thereby producing a very complicated dynamic behavior—what we now often call chaotic.

In my opinion in the development of theory of dynamical systems—like in the development of all good mathematics—one can clearly see two stages. The first stage is the understanding of concrete examples and the second stage is generalization. A large part of the second encompasses the introduction of the right concepts which makes the arguments in the concrete examples into a theory.

One such development starts with the two famous papers by M. L. Cartwright and J. Littlewood “On non-linear differential equations of the second order I and II”, which was among the first to treat nonlinear differential equations in depth. Littlewood was astonished by the difficulties that arose in studying these model problems and called the second of these papers “the monster”.

S. Smale gives in “Finding a horseshoe on the beaches of Rio” an entertaining account of how he was lead to his now ubiquitous horseshoe model for chaotic dynamics. In fact in his first paper in dynamical systems he made the conjecture that “chaotic dynamics does not exist” but received a letter from N. Levinson with a paper clarifying the previous work by Cartwright and Littlewood and which effectively contained a counterexample to Smale’s conjecture. Levinson’s paper contained extensive calculations which Smale found difficult follow and this lead him to construct a model with minimal complexity but still with the main features of Levinson’s ODE model.

Starting from the horseshoe model, Smale and his group at Berkeley started to develop the theory of uniformly hyperbolic or Axiom A dynamical systems in the seventies. One central concept in this theory is that of an axiom A attractor for a diffeomorphism $`f`$ of a manifold $`M`$.

Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ be an invariant set for a diffeomorphism of a manifold $`M`$. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is said to be a hyperbolic set for $`f`$ if there is a continuous splitting of the tangent bundle of $`M`$ restricted to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`TM|_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which is invariant under the derivative map $`Df`$: $`TM|_\mathrm{\Lambda }=E^sE^u`$; $`Df(E^s)=E^s`$; $`Df(E^u)=E^u`$; and for which there are constants $`C>0`$ and $`c>0`$, such that $`||Df^n|_{E^s}||Ce^{cn}`$ and $`||Df^n|_{E^u}||Ce^{cn}`$, for all $`n0`$ and there is a uniform lower bound for the angle between stable and unstable manifolds: $`\text{angle}(E^u(x),E^s(x))C,x\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is called an attractor (in the sense of Conley) if there is a neighborhood $`U\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ such that $`\overline{f(U)}U`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}f^n(U)`$. This attractor is topologically transitive if there is $`x\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with dense orbit in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. If moreover $`f|_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is uniformly hyperbolic $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is an Axiom A attractor.

The ergodic theory of Axiom A attractors was developed by Sinai, Ruelle and Bowen in the 1970. In particular for an Axiom A attractor they constructed so called SRB-measures: measures with absolutely continuous conditional measures on unstable manifolds. This measures $`\mu `$ are also physical measures in the sense of Ruelle since for $`z_0`$ in a set of initial points of positive Riemannian measure the Birkhoff sums $`\frac{1}{n}_{j=0}^{n1}\delta _{f^jz_0}\mu \text{as }n\mathrm{}`$.

In fact for a topologically transitive Axiom A attractor $`\mu `$ is unique and the Birkhoff sums converges for a.e. $`z_0B`$, where $`B`$ is the basin of attraction $`B=_{j0}f^j(U)`$. Although the Axiom A theory is quite satisfactory and complete it is not applicable to very many concrete dynamical systems. There is a general theory of ergodic theory of smooth dynamical systems due to among others Pesin, Katok, Ledrappier and others but concrete examples were lacking. Around 1980 the theory of chaotic one-dimensional maps was started. M. Misiurewicz studied multimodal maps $`f`$ of the interval, whose critical set or set of turning points, $`𝒞`$, has the property that for all $`z_0𝒞`$ and all $`j1`$, $`\text{dist}(f^jz_0,𝒞)\delta >0`$ and proved existence of absolutely continuous invariant measures. Then Collet and Eckmann  proved abundance, i.e. positive Lebesgue measure, of aperiodic behavior for a family of unimodal maps of the interval and, Jakobson in  proved abundance of existence of absolutely continuous invariant measures for the quadratic family. A new proof of Jakobson’s theorem was then given by Lennart Carleson and myself in  and the methods from this paper were later used by us in  to prove aperiodic, chaotic behavior for a class of Hénon maps, which are small perturbations of quadratic maps. The methods of  have turned out to be useful for several other dynamical systems and the corresponding ergodic theory has been developed. There have been other accounts of this development, in particular by my collaborators Lai-Sang Young (see e.g. ) and Marcelo Viana (see e.g. the proceedings of ICM98 ).

## 2. Hénon maps

In 1978, M. Hénon proposed as a model for non-linear two-dimensional dynamical systems the map

$$(x,y)(1+yax^2,bx)0<a<2,b>0.$$

He chose the parameters $`a=1.4`$ and $`b=0.3`$ and proved that $`f=f_{a,b}`$ has an attractor in the sense of Conley.

He also verified numerically that this Hénon map has sensitive dependence on initial conditions and produced his well-known computer pictures of the attractor. Hénon proposed that this dynamical system should have a “strange attractor” and that it should be more eligible to analysis than the ubiquitous Lorenz system.

In principle most initial points could be attracted to a long periodic cycle. In view of the famous result of S. Newhouse, , periodic attractors are topologically generic, so it was not at all a priori clear that the attractor seen by Hénon was not a long stable periodic orbit.

However Lennart Carleson and I, , managed to prove that what Hénon conjectured was true—not for the parameters $`(a,b)=(1.4,0.3)`$ that Hénon studied—but for small $`b>0`$. In fact we managed to prove the following result:

Theorem 1. There is a constant $`b_0>0`$ such that for all $`b`$, $`0<b<b_0`$ there is a set $`A_b`$ of parameters $`a`$, such that its one-dimensional Lebesgue measure $`|A_b|>0`$ and such that for all $`aA_b`$, $`f=f_{a,b}`$, has the following properties

1. There is an open set $`U=U_{a,b}`$ such that $`\overline{f(U)}U`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}f^n(U)=\overline{W^u(\widehat{z})}`$, where $`W^u(\widehat{z})`$ is the unstable manifold of the fixed point $`\widehat{z}`$ of $`f`$ in the first quadrant.
2. There is a point $`z_0=z_0(a,b)`$ such that $`\{f^j(z_0)\}_{j=0}^{\mathrm{}}`$ is dense on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and there is $`c>0`$ such that $`|Df^j(z_0)(0,1)|e^{cj},j=1,2,`$ .

Hence $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is a topological transitive attractor with sensitive dependence on initial conditions. An immediate consequence of Fubinis theorem is that the “good parameter set” $`A=_{b>0}A_b\times \{b\}`$ is (a Cantor set) of positive two-dimensional Lebesgue measure.

The first part of the theorem is easy to prove and the result is true for an open set of parameters, i.e. for a small rectangle close to $`a=2`$ and $`b=0`$ contained in $`\{(a,b):0<a<2,b>0\}`$. The system is dissipative since $`|\text{det}Df_{a,b}|=|b|<1`$. In this case applying an argument of Palis and Takens, , it follows that a region that is enclosed by pieces of stable and unstable manifolds of the same fixed point $`\widehat{z}`$ is attracted to the unstable manifold $`W^u(\widehat{z})`$. With some additional arguments one can see that also a neighborhood of the closure of the unstable manifold is attracted. However the attractor could a priori be a proper subset of $`\overline{W^u(\widehat{z})}`$.

The second part of the theorem is only true for parameters $`(a,b)A`$. The main ingredient in the proof of the second part of the theorem is the identification of a critical set $`𝒞`$ for these Hénon attractors. The set $`𝒞`$ is countable and located on $`W^u(\widehat{z})`$ but it is natural to expect that the Hausdorff dimension of $`\overline{𝒞}`$ is positive.

For each $`z_0𝒞`$ the following holds: (i) $`|Df^j(z_0)\tau (z_0)|e^{cj}j1`$, where $`\tau (z_0)`$ is the tangent vector of the unstable manifold at $`z_0`$; (ii) trough each $`z_0𝒞`$ there is a local unstable manifold $`W^s(z_0)`$, tangent to $`W^u(\widehat{z})`$.

The proof of the theorem is a huge induction in time $`n`$. Successively preliminary critical points or sets, precritical points, are defined on higher and higher generations of the unstable manifold. We roughly say that $`zW^u(\widehat{z})`$ is of generation $`G`$ if $`zf^G(\gamma )f^{G1}(\gamma )`$, where $`\gamma `$ is the horizontal segment of the local unstable manifold $`W^u(\widehat{z})`$ through the fixed point.

In analogy with the methods from the one-dimensional case of  parameters are chosen so that inductively $`d(f^jz_0,𝒞_G)e^{\alpha j}jn,z_0𝒞_G`$, where $`C_G`$ is the set of precritical points of generation $`G=\theta (b)n`$, where $`\theta (b)=C/\mathrm{log}(1/b)`$ and $`\alpha >0`$ is a suitably chosen numerical constant. Moreover a further parameter selection is made so that, informally speaking, too deep returns close to the critical set do not occur too often. The estimate of the measure of the set, deleted because of this condition, is made by a large deviation argument.

## 3. The ergodic theory

Existence of SRB-measures. For the set of “good parameters” $`A`$ of Theorem 1, Lai-Sang Young and I proved in , the following result

Theorem 2. For all $`(a,b)A`$, $`f_{a,b}`$ has a unique SRB measure supported on the attractor.

As a consequence it follows by general smooth ergodic theory that there is a set of initial points $`E`$ of positive two-dimensional Lebesgue measure, a subset of the topological basin $`B`$, such that for all $`z_0E`$ the Birkhoff sums $`\frac{1}{n}_{j=0}^{n1}\delta _{f^jz_0}\mu `$, weak-$``$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$.

Decay of correlation and the central limit theorem. For the same class of Hénon maps as in Theorem 1, L.S. Young and I, , managed to prove decay of correlation and a version of the central limit theorem. Our main results may be summarized in the following theorem:

Theorem 3. Suppose $`\phi `$ and $`\psi `$ are Hölder observables, i.e. they are functions on the plane that belong to some Hölder class $`\alpha ,0<\alpha 1`$. Then for some $`C>0`$ and $`c>0`$

1. $`\left|\phi (f^j(x))\psi (x)𝑑\mu \left(\phi 𝑑\mu \right)(\psi 𝑑\mu )\right|Ce^{cj}j0`$;
2. $`\mu \left(\{x:\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}\left(_{j=0}^{n1}\phi (f^jx)n\phi 𝑑\mu \right)t\}\right)\mathrm{\Phi }_\sigma (t)`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\sigma (t)`$ is the normal distribution function $`𝒩(0,\sigma )`$.

The methods used to prove this theorem involved the definition of a return set $`X=X_uX_s`$, where $`X_u`$ is a set of approximately horizontal long unstable manifolds $`\gamma _u`$ and $`X_s`$ is a set of approximately vertical stable manifolds $`\gamma _s`$, indexed, say, by an arclength coordinate of its intersection with one of the unstable manifolds of $`X_u`$. A dynamical tower construction was made and a Markov extension (Markov partition on the tower) was constructed. One of the key estimates concerns the distribution of the return time $`R(x)=R_i`$ for $`xX^i`$, which is defined as the time the image a partition element $`X^i`$ returns to the base of the tower. $`R_i`$ may be defined as the first time such that $`f^{R_i}(X^i)(\gamma _uX)`$ for all $`\gamma _u`$ such that $`f^{R_i}(X^i)\gamma _u\mathrm{}`$ and $`R(x)X`$. Our estimate is that there are constants $`C`$ and $`c>0`$ such that for each $`\gamma _u`$, $`|\{xX\gamma _u:R(x)>t\}|C^{ct}`$. L.S. Young was then able to give a generalization of this setting of dynamical towers, which applies to other dynamical systems. In particular she managed to prove exponential decay of correlation for dissipative billiards ().

The metric basin problem. A natural question that arises in connection with Theorem 2 is for which set of initial points $`z_0`$ the Birkhoff sums $`n^1_{j=0}^{n1}\delta _{f^jz_0}`$ converge weak-$``$ to the SRB-measure $`\mu `$. As previously mentioned from the smooth ergodic theory it only follows that this is true for a set of initial points of positive two-dimensional Lebesgue measure.

In , Marcelo Viana and I were able to complete the picture: in fact almost all points of the topological basin are generic for the SRB-measure and the basin is foliated by stable manifolds.

Theorem 4. Let us consider the set of Hénon maps $`f_{a,b}`$, where $`(a,b)A`$ (the set of good parameters of Theorem 1). Then the following holds

1. Through Lebesgue a.e. $`z_0B`$ there is an infinitely long stable manifold $`W^s(z_0)`$ that hits the attractor.
2. For a.e. initial point $`z_0B`$, $`\frac{1}{n}_{j=0}^{n1}\delta _{f^jz_0}\mu `$ weak-$``$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$, where $`\mu `$ is the SRB-measure of Theorem 2.

This work was in fact carried out in the more general setting of the Hénon-like maps of Mora &Viana (see Section 4. below). We were also able to characterize the topological basin in this setting: its boundary is the stable manifold of the fixed point in the third quadrant (this was proved independently by Y. Cao ).

## 4. Other dynamical systems

Hénon-like maps. After a rescaling of the second coordinate, the Hénon maps may be written as $`(x,y)(1ax^2,0)+\sqrt{b}(y,x)`$. More generally Mora &Viana,  con-sided maps of the form $`f_a(x,y)=(1ax^2,0)+\psi (x,y)`$, where $`c_1b|\text{det}(Df(x,y)|c_2b`$, $`D(\mathrm{log}|detDf|)_{\mathrm{}}C`$ for some $`c_1`$, $`c_2`$, $`C`$ and $`\psi _{C^3}=𝒪(b^{\frac{1}{2}})`$. They managed to carry out the same program as in Theorem 1 for these class of maps, which they called Hénon-like maps, and managed to prove prevalence of strange attractors, i.e. that there is a set of positive measure of parameters $`a`$ so that $`f_a`$ exhibits a strange attractor.

Mora &Viana used a one-parameter family of maps $`g_\mu `$, $`\epsilon <\mu <\epsilon `$, such that $`g_0`$ has a homoclinic tangency and proved that there is a positive measure set of parameters $`\mu `$ and a neighborhood $`U_\mu `$ such that $`g_\mu ^N|_{U_\mu }`$ has a Hénon-like strange attractor. This is done following Palis &Takens , by proving that there is a linear change of variables and in the parameters $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N`$ so that $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^1g_\mu ^N\mathrm{\Phi }_N(\xi ,\eta )=(1a\xi ^2,0)+\psi (\xi ,\eta )`$, where $`\psi `$ satisfies the appropriate estimates of the Hénon-like maps. Note that the consequence of this is not the existence of a global attractor as in Theorem 1 but the existence of a local attractor close to the homoclinic tangency. (A homoclinic tangency does really occur close to Hénon’s classical parameters $`a=1.4`$ and $`b=0.3`$: this was proved by Fornaess and Gavasto, .)

Saddle node bifurcations. Another case where methods based on those in  turned out to be useful is the case of saddle node bifurcations treated by Diaz, Rocha and Viana in . In that paper they show that when unfolding a one-parameter family with a critical saddle node cycle Hénon like strange attractors appear with positive density at the bifurcation value. Moreover they prove that in an open class of such families the strange attractors are of global type.

This work was continued by M.J. Costa , , who proved that global strange attractors also appear when destroying a hyperbolic set (horseshoe) by collapsing it with a periodic attractor.

Viana’s dynamical systems with multiple expanding directions. In , M. Viana studied the dynamical system $`f:𝐓\times I𝐓\times I`$ given by the the following skew product $`(\theta ,x)(m\theta (\text{mod}1),a_0(\theta )x^2)`$, where $`a(\theta )=a_0+\alpha \mathrm{sin}\pi (\theta \frac{1}{2})`$.

If $`m`$ is a sufficiently large integer ($`16`$ is enough), $`a_0`$ is such that $`f_{a_0}(x)=a_0x^2`$ is a Misiurewicz map, i.e. $`|f^j(0)|\delta ,j1`$, and $`\alpha >0`$ is sufficiently small, he managed to prove that for a.e. $`(\theta ,x)`$ and some constants $`C`$ and $`c>0`$, $`|_xf^j(\theta ,x)|Ce^{cj},j1`$. In the second part of this paper Viana also considers skew products of Hénon maps driven by circle endomorphisms.

An important difference with the situation in this paper compared to earlier work in the area is that the exponential approach rate condition of an orbit relative to the critical set is no longer satisfied. Instead this is replaced by a statistical property: very deep and very frequent returns to the critical region is very unlikely. The argument is based on an extension of the large deviation argument from .

SRB measures for the Viana maps were constructed by J.F. Alves in . An important concept introduced by Alves was the notion of hyperbolic times, which are a generalization of the escape situations that were considered in  and they are also similar to the base in the tower construction in , .

Infinite-modal maps and flows. Motivated by the study of unfolding of saddle-focus connections for flows in three dimensions Pacifico, Rovella and Viana, , studied parameterized families of one-dimensional maps with infinitely many critical points. They prove that for a positive Lebesgue measure set of parameter values the map is transitive and almost all orbits have positive Lyapunov exponent. There has been a considerable amount of work on flows, by Viana, Luzatto, Pumariño, Rodríguez and others, where techniques from  have played an important role. For a survey of these and related results I refer to .

In a different direction is the recent proof by W. Tucker, , of the existence of chaotic behaviour for the Lorenz attractor.

The attractors of Wang and Young. In a recent paper, D. Wang and L.S. Young, , carry out a theory of attractors which generalize the Hénon maps in a different direction. They consider maps of a two-dimensional manifold of the form $`f(x,y,a,b)=(F(x,y,a,b),0)+b(u(x,y,a,b),v(x,y,a,b))`$. This class clearly differs from the Hénon-like maps of Mora &Viana. In particular the theory applies to perturbations of certain one-dimensional multimodal maps, with a transversality condition in the parameter dependence. The techniques are analogous to these in  but more information on the geometric structure, in particular of the critical set, is achieved. Most previous results are obtained in this setting but also new results, e.g. on some similar dynamical systems and on topological entropy.

## 5. Random perturbations and stochastic stability

A natural question is how the statistical properties of a dynamical system with chaotic behavior behaves when it is perturbed randomly by some small noise at each iterate. Here we will mainly consider independent additive noise and assume that the underlying ambient space $`M`$ is either a subset of Euclidean space or a torus but cases of more general manifolds and more general perturbations can also be considered (for this see several papers and books by Y. Kiefer).

Let $`f:MM`$ and suppose that $`\xi _n`$, $`n0`$, are independent identically distributed random variables with an absolutely continuous probability density supported in a small ball $`B(0,\epsilon )`$ around the origin and consider the Markov chain $`\{X_n\}_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}`$ defined by $`X_{n+1}=f(X_n)+\xi _n`$. Then there is a stationary transition probability $`p_\epsilon (E|x)=p(X_{n+1}E|X_n=x)`$ and also at least some stationary measure $`\nu _\epsilon `$ satisfying the fixed point equation $`\nu _\epsilon (E)=p_\epsilon (E|x)𝑑\nu _\epsilon (x)`$.

The obvious questions are here whether $`\nu _\epsilon `$ is unique and in that case if $`\nu _\epsilon `$ tends to an invariant measure of the unperturbed system when $`\epsilon 0`$. This is the problem of Stochastic Stability. For the case of Axiom A attractors such results were proved by Y. Kiefer and L.S. Young.

Now such results have also been obtained for the non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical systems described above. In the case of the quadratic interval maps of , L.S. Young and I proved in , under suitable assumptions on the density of the perturbations, that $`\nu _\epsilon `$ is unique and $`\nu _\epsilon \mu `$ weak-$``$, as $`\epsilon 0`$, where $`d\mu =\phi dx`$ is the absolutely continuous invariant measure. V. Baladi and M. Viana, , managed to improve this to prove that the density of $`\nu _\epsilon `$, $`\psi _\epsilon `$, converges to $`\phi `$ in $`L^1`$-norm.

M. Viana and I have recently proved results on weak-$``$ stochastic stability for the Hénon maps of  and the Hénon-like maps of  (see ). For a recent paper on decay of correlation for random skew products of quadratic maps see Baladi &Benedicks &Maume-Deschampes .

## 6. Open problems and concluding remarks

The most important problem in this general area is the problem of positive Lyapunov exponent for the Standard Map, i.e. the map of the two-dimensional torus defined by $`(x,y)(2xy+K\mathrm{sin}2\pi x,x)(\text{mod }𝐙^2)`$.

The general belief is that at least for some parameters $`K`$ there is at least one ergodic component of positive Lebesgue measure with positive Lyapunov exponent. Nothing is however rigorously known in spite of intensive work by many people. One of the most interesting results by Duarte  goes in the opposite direction: for a residual set of parameters $`K`$ the closure of the elliptic points can have Hausdorff dimension arbitrarily close to 2.

One important difference between the Standard Map and the Hénon maps for the good parameters is that “the critical set” in the Hénon case is rather small. It has a hierarchical structure and conjecturally the Hausdorff dimension of its closure should be $`𝒪(1/(\mathrm{log}(1/b))`$. The critical set for the standard map (if possible to define) should have Hausdorff-dimension $`1`$.

A. Baraviera proved in his recent thesis , positive Lyapunov exponent for the Standard Map with parameters driven by an expanding circle endomorphism.

On natural class of problem is to consider are skew products of Viana’s type, where the parameters are driven by more general maps. One possible choice is to let the driving map be a non-uniformly hyperbolic quadratic map, either a Misiurewicz map or more generally the class of quadratic maps of , . A more difficult project would be to study the case when driving map is a circle rotation.

The general picture for dissipative Hénon maps. It is a natural question to consider what happens for other parameters than the ones considered in . One possible scenario is outlined in the following questions, which are much related to J. Palis conjectures, , in the $`C^r`$-generic setting.

Question 1. Are there for Lebesgue almost every parameter $`(a,b)`$ in $`\{(a,b)𝐑^2:0<a<2,b>0\}`$ at most finitely many coexisting strange attractors and stable periodic orbits?

If this is true the Newhouse phenomenon of infinitely coexisting sinks and Colli’s situation  of infinitely many coexisting Hénon-like strange attractors would only appear for a Lebesgue zero set of parameters $`(a,b)`$?

Question 2. For the parameter values for which only finitely many Hénon-like attractors or sinks coexists: do the respective basins cover Lebesgue almost all points of the phase space?

Question 3. Is the set of parameters for which the Hénon map $`f_{a,b}`$ is hyperbolic dense in the parameter space?

This result if true would correspond to the real Fatou conjecture proved fairly recently by Graczyk &Swiatek, , and Lyubich . A positive answer to Question 1 would correspond to Lyubich’s result that almost all points in the quadratic family is either regular or stochastic, .

As can be seen from the above Dynamical Systems is a beautiful mixture of Topology and Analysis. To the hard analysis of Cartwright, Littlewood and Levinson, Smale was able to provide a topological counterpart. Recently again more analytical methods have played an important role. What will be next?


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# First Stars Contribution to the Near Infrared Background Fluctuations

## 1 Introduction

Different authors have reported the discovery of an excess in the Near Infrared Background (NIRB) which cannot be accounted for by normal galaxies (see Hauser & Dwek 2001 and references therein). This unaccounted excess can be well fitted by the redshifted light of the first population of stars born inside the so-called Population III objects (Pop IIIs) (Santos, Bromm & Kamionkowski 2001, Salvaterra & Ferrara 2003 \[SF03\]). More recently, Kashlinsky et al. (2002) have observed small-scale NIRB fluctuations in the J, H and K bands, which cannot be due to local or low redshift sources.

The aim of this paper is to show that PopIIIs are indeed required to account for the observed small-scale ($`\theta <200^{\prime \prime }`$) background fluctuations at least in the J band. Their contribution – dominant for $`\lambda =1.25\mu `$m – is found to rapidly decrease at longer wavelengths until it becomes negligible for $`\lambda =2.17\mu `$m. We will also show that “normal”, high ($`z3`$) redshift and highly clustered star-forming galaxies of the kind found in the Hubble Deep Fields can provide for the ’missing’ power in the H and K bands, so that the joint contribution from these two populations can reproduce, within the errors, the observed power spectrum of intensity fluctuations at all NIR wavelengths. Note that, due to the high redshifts of the two candidate populations ($`z8.8`$, as found by SF03, for PopIIIs and $`z2`$ for “normal” star-forming galaxies), this is only true at small angular scales. Signals on intermediate-to-large scales detected by other experiments ($`\theta 0.7^{}`$; see e.g. Kashlinsky & Odenwald 2000; Matsumoto et al. 2000) are instead expected to require populations of more local sources.

The outline of the paper is as follows: in Sec. 2 we briefly describe the adopted model for the birth and evolution of Pop III protogalaxies. Sec. 3 presents our predictions for the intensity fluctuations of the NIRB due to the clustering of Pop III sources, while Sec. 4 compares such predictions with the available data and discusses the results. Finally, Sec. 5 summarizes our conclusions.

## 2 The Model

SF03 have shown that the NIRB data (see e.g. Hauser & Dwek (2001) and references therein) are well fitted by a model in which the contribution from PopIIIs is added to the “normal” galaxy background light as obtained from the Hubble Deep Field (Madau & Pozzetti 2000) or from the Subaru Deep Field (Totani et al. 2001). We now briefly summarize some of the many aspects of the SF03 model.

The mean specific intensity of the background due to PopIIIs $`I(\nu _0,z_0)`$, as seen at a frequency $`\nu _0`$ by an observer at redshift $`z_0`$, can be written as

$$I(\nu _0,z_0)=\frac{1}{4\pi }_{z_0}^{z_{\mathrm{max}}}ϵ_\nu (z)e^{\tau _{eff}(\nu _0,z_0,z)}\frac{dl}{dz}𝑑z$$
(1)
(Peebles 1993). Here $`\nu =\nu _0(1+z)/(1+z_0)`$, $`\tau _{eff}(\nu _0,z_0,z)`$ is the effective optical depth at $`\nu _0`$ of the IGM between redshift $`z_0`$ and $`z`$, $`dl/dz`$ is the proper line element, and $`z_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the redshift when the sources begin to shine; $`ϵ_\nu (z)`$ is the comoving specific emissivity in units of erg s-1 Hz-1 cm-3, given by

$$ϵ_\nu (z)=l_\nu (z)f_{}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_b}{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}_{M_{min}(z)}^{\mathrm{}}n(M,z)M𝑑M,$$
(2)
where $`l_\nu (z)`$ is the specific luminosity of the population at redshift $`z`$, computed using the spectra for metal-free stars obtained by Schaerer (2002); $`n(M,z)`$ is the comoving number density of dark matter halos of mass $`M`$ at redshift $`z`$ given by the Press & Schechter formalism (Press & Schechter 1974). The integral gives the dark matter mass per unit volume contained in dark matter halos with mass greater than $`M_{min}(z)`$, where $`M_{min}`$ (computed by Fuller & Couchman 2000) is a cutoff mass below which halos cannot form stars due to the lack of cooling. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ are the total matter and baryon density111 We adopt the ‘concordance’ model values for the cosmological parameters: $`h=0.7`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.038`$, $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.21`$, where $`h`$ is the dimensionless Hubble constant, $`H_0=100h`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 in units of the critical density $`\rho _c=3H_0^2/8\pi G`$. The ratio $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ converts the integral into baryonic mass which is then turned into stars with an efficiency $`f_{}`$. This latter quantity is constrained by the contribution of the redshifted light of PopIIIs to the NIRB (SF03). The PopIII star formation efficiency required to match the NIRB data depends essentially only on their initial mass function (IMF), being in the range $`f_{}=10\%50\%`$ (the top-heaviest requiring lowest efficiency). The redshift at which the formation of metal-free stars ends is tightly constrained to be $`z_{end}8.8`$ by the J band data (SF03).

## 3 Contribution of clustering to background fluctuations

The angular correlation function of intensity fluctuations $`\delta I`$ due to inhomogeneities in the space distribution of unresolved sources (i.e. with fluxes fainter than some threshold $`S_d`$) is defined as:

$`C(\theta )=\delta I(\theta ^{},\varphi ^{})\delta I(\theta ^{\prime \prime },\varphi ^{\prime \prime }),`$ (3)
where $`(\theta ^{},\varphi ^{})`$ and $`(\theta ^{\prime \prime },\varphi ^{\prime \prime })`$ identify two positions on the sky separated by an angle $`\theta `$. The above expression can be written as the sum of two terms, $`C_P`$ and $`C_C`$, the first one due to Poisson noise (i.e. fluctuations given by randomly distributed objects), and the second one owing to source clustering (De Zotti et al. 1996 and Magliocchetti et al. 2001 for a detailed discussion). In the case of strongly clustered sources, as the NIR data seems to indicate (Kashlinsky et al. 2002), the Poisson term $`C_P`$ is found to be negligible when compared to $`C_C`$ (see e.g. Scott & White 1999). We can therefore safely assume $`CC_C`$ (hereafter simply called $`C(\theta )`$), whose expression in the case of Pop III sources is given by

$`C(\theta )=\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}\right)^2{\displaystyle _{z_0}^{z_{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_\nu ^2(z)}{(1+z)^2}}e^{2\tau _{eff}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{dx}{dz}}\right)`$
$`\times {\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}du\xi _g(r,z),`$ (4)
where $`x=l(1+z)`$ is the comoving radial coordinate, $`r=(u^2+x^2\theta ^2)^{1/2}`$ (for a flat universe and in the small angle approximation), $`ϵ_\nu (z)`$ the comoving specific emissivity at the frequency $`\nu `$, and $`z_0`$ and $`z_{\mathrm{max}}`$ are defined as in Sec. 2.

The spatial two-point correlation function of a class of galaxies ’$`g`$’, $`\xi _g(r,z)`$, in general results from a complicated interplay between the clustering properties of the underlying dark matter and physical processes associated to the formation of such galaxies (see e.g. Peacock & Smith 2000; Scoccimarro et al. 2001; Magliocchetti & Porciani 2003). However, at high enough ($`z>0.51`$) redshifts, the probability for a dark matter halo to host more than one galaxy is negligible (see e.g. Somerville et al. 2001), and one can write:

$`\xi _g(r,z)=\xi (r,z)b_{\mathrm{eff}}^2(M_{\mathrm{min}},z),`$ (5)
where $`\xi (r,z)`$ is the mass-mass correlation function and $`b_{\mathrm{eff}}^2(M_{\mathrm{min}},z)`$ the bias associated to all dark matter haloes massive enough to host a galaxy at redshift $`z`$.

In equation (5), $`\xi (r,z)`$ has been obtained following the work by Peacock & Dodds (1996; see also Moscardini et al. 1998 and Magliocchetti et al. 2000), which provides an analytical way to derive the trend of the dark matter correlation function both in the linear and non-linear regime. Note that $`\xi (r,z)`$ only depends on the underlying cosmology and on the normalization of $`\sigma _8`$. The effective bias factor $`b_{\mathrm{eff}}^2`$ of all haloes with masses greater than some threshold $`M_{\mathrm{min}}`$ (quantity which generally may depend on the look-back time) is instead obtained by integrating the quantity $`b(M,z)`$ \- representing the bias of individual haloes of mass $`M`$ \- opportunely weighted by their number density $`n(M,z)`$:

$`b_{\mathrm{eff}}(z)={\displaystyle \frac{_{M_{\mathrm{min}}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑Mb(M,z)n(M,z)}{_{M_{\mathrm{min}}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑Mn(M,z)}},`$ (6)
where, in this case, the mass function is obtained according to the Press & Schechter (1974) approach and we take the functional form for $`b(M,z)`$ from Jing (1998) (but see also Scannapieco & Barkana 2002).

If we then plug into equation (4) the expressions obtained by SF03 (see Sec. 2) for the specific emissivity $`ϵ_\nu (z)`$, the halo cutoff mass $`M_{min}M_{min}(z)`$, and use as the minimum redshift at which these sources contribute to the background the value $`z_{end}=8.8`$ (corresponding to the epoch at which metal-free star formation ends – note that we are making the reasonable assumption that no such a source can be resolved by current observations), then, by also making use of expressions (5) and (6), we can derive predictions for the contribution of the clustering of (unresolved) PopIIIs to the background fluctuations at different wavelengths.

The cases for $`\lambda =1.25\mu `$m, $`\lambda =1.65\mu `$m and $`\lambda =2.17\mu `$m (respectively corresponding to J, H and K bands) are presented in Figure 1 by the solid, dashed and dotted lines. Since these wavelengths at the redshifts under exam are always greater than the rest-frame Ly$`\alpha `$, the contribution from the $`e^{2\tau _{eff}}`$ term in equation 4 can be neglected in the calculation of $`C(\theta )`$ (see SF03).

The first feature to be noticed in the plot is the sharp drop of all the curves at $`\theta 200`$ arcsec. This is due to the fact that such an angular scale corresponds to distances $`r>8.6`$ Mpc (with the minimum value corresponding to $`z_{end}=8.8`$ in the adopted cosmology), where the spatial correlation function has already steepened from its power-law behaviour and rapidly approaches the zero value. As a first conclusion of this work we can then say that the clustering of unresolved PopIII sources cannot account for any of the observed fluctuations on scales $`>200`$ arcsec, which instead require much more local objects (for the Matsumoto et al. 2003 results the maximum acceptable redshift turns out to be $`z12`$).

The second point to stress is the remarkably different amplitude of the intensity fluctuations as evaluated at different frequencies. More specifically, $`C(\theta )`$ is found to decrease by about two orders of magnitude when going from $`\lambda =1.25\mu `$m to $`\lambda =2.17\mu `$m. As already argued by SF03, the reason for this decrement has to be found in the extremely strong Ly$`\alpha `$ nebular emission line – responsible for a considerable fraction of the PopIII emissivity – which, once redshifted to the present time, gives its maximum contribution in the J band and rapidly disappears at the other two wavelengths under exam. We discuss the implications of these findings in the next Section.

## 4 Comparison with the data

Kashlinsky et al. (2002) and Odenwald et al. (2003) have recently reported the first detection of small angular scale fluctuations in the Near Infrared Background. Their measurements were obtained by using long integration data constructed from 2MASS (Two Micron Sky Survey) observations and by then coadding images in order to produce a $`8.6^{}\times 1^{}`$ field, divided into seven square patches 512′′ on the side. In each patch, individual stars and galaxies were removed down to a magnitude limit which slightly varied from patch to patch, due to variations in the background level and associated noise. The clipping algorithm was applied for a mash size of 3 by 3 pixels (corresponding to 9 square arcsecs). However, in order to test for its stability, the above procedure was also repeated with increasing mask sizes (up to 5 by 5 pixels) and the corresponding results were found in agreement with each other (S. Kashlinsky, private communication). Such an approach ensures the effective removal of entire galaxies at all redshifts but the lowest ones in which case more extended objects were identified by eye and removed by the clipping algorithm regardless. The remaining diffuse light was then Fourier transformed, with the resulting power spectrum showing a positive signal at all 1-30 arcsec scales and in all the seven patches.
The authors estimate contributions to the observed power spectrum from possible non-cosmological components such as atmospheric fluctuations, remaining Galactic stars, cirrus emission, zodiacal light (expected to be the largest source of uncertainty in the treatment of NIRB data), instrument noise and extinction, and conclude that they all have different slopes and negligible amplitudes when compared to the observed signal. Odenwald et al. (2003) and Kashlinsky et al. (2002) identify the measured power spectrum as due to clustering of faint (K $``$ 18.5-19 mag), high redshift, galaxies undergoing significant star-formation.

Their results (kindly provided by S. Kashlinsky in electronic form) are presented in Figures 2, 3 and 4 respectively for the J, H and K bands. The lower panels show the power spectrum as measured at the different wavelengths from Field 3, considered by Odenwald et al. (2003) as the most representative one due to its depth (limiting magnitudes for sources removal: J=20, H=19.2, K=19). The upper panels instead report the signal obtained by averaging measurements in all their seven fields. The shaded areas illustrate the levels of uncertainty due to both statistical (Poissonian) errors (corresponding to the errorbars in the lower panels) and field-to-field variations, found to be the dominant effect possibly because of the small area covered by each of the patches (cosmic variance). Note that the data has already been corrected for the atmospheric contribution.

In order to compare these measurements with predictions from Sec. 3, we have converted our results for the intensity fluctuations $`C(\theta )`$ due to PopIIIs into the corresponding signal in the angular wavenumber $`k`$ space, $`P(k)`$, where

$`P(k)=2\pi {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}C(\theta )J_0(k\theta )\theta 𝑑\theta ,`$ (7)
with $`J_0`$ zero-th order Bessel function.

The resulting power spectrum at the different wavelenghts is illustrated in Figures 2, 3 and 4 by the dashed lines. As it is clear by comparing data with model predictions in both panels of Figure 2, the clustering properties of PopIIIs can nicely explain the observed fluctuations in the J band, even though there seems to be some discrepancy at the smallest angular scales. The situation however gets increasingly worse when one goes to longer wavelengths and it is found that, while in the H band this class of sources can only (possibly) account for the observed spectrum at the highest angular scales probed by the data, their contribution in the K band falls short by at least one order of magnitude. Also, especially in the H and K bands, the predicted slopes for the power spectrum result too steep when compared to the measured ones.

The missing ingredient to this analysis has to be searched amongst “normal galaxies” which can at least partially account for the extragalactic light emitted at the wavelengths under exam (see Madau & Pozzetti 2000; Totani et al. 2001). In their work, Kashlinsky et al. (2002) and Odenwald et al. (2003) remove from the maps all resolved sources up to K$`19^m`$ which, they claim, corresponds to the removal of possibly all resolvable galaxies to redshifts $`z1`$ (with some allowance made for low-surface brightness systems). However, we argue that the population of galaxies responsible – together with PopIIIs – for the observed NIRB fluctuations must reside at redshifts $`z>2`$ 222The possibility for a non-negligible part of the unaccounted signal to be due to residual disk emission from low-redshift galaxies whose nuclei have been removed can be discarded with a high confidence level both on the basis of the arguments introduced in this section re the clipping procedure and also by noticing that (relatively local) galaxies up to the clipping threshold K$`19^m`$ contribute only a very small fraction of the CIB at this wavelength (see e.g. Kashlinsky et al. 2002). So, even if some (outer) parts of these galaxies were to remain, their contribution to the observed signal would be extremely small.. The argument supporting this conclusion goes as follows.

The power spectrum of fluctuations as measured by 2MASS features a remarkable power-law behaviour down to angular scales of 1 arcsec. Under the hypothesis for this signal to be generated by large-scale structure, one has that – since the correlation function of dark matter haloes (see equation 5) must drop to -1 on distances smaller than two virial radii due to spatial halo-halo exclusion (see e.g. Magliocchetti & Porciani 2003) – the power-law trend exhibited by the data down to 1 arcsec sets a strong limit on the minimum redshift at which these “normal galaxies” appear. More in detail, one has that for masses of the order of $`10^8M_{\mathrm{}}`$ (value taken as a reasonable lower limit for the kind of objects under exam) and the cosmology adopted in this paper, the condition for a power-law behaviour to hold at the minimum scales probed by the data is only met for redshifts $`z>2`$.

What are then these $`z>2`$ “normal galaxies”, faint enough not to be resolved by a K$`<19`$ survey, which can significantly contribute to the observed fluctuations of the NIRB, especially in the H and K bands? A natural candidate can be found in the population of high-$`z`$, star-forming galaxies detected in the Hubble Deep Fields to $`I_{\mathrm{AB}}`$=29. Magliocchetti & Maddox (1999) have measured the clustering signal for this class of galaxies and shown that they are indeed strongly clustered, with an amplitude $`A7\times 10^3`$ (where the angular correlation function was parametrized as $`w(\theta )=A\theta ^{0.8}`$), constant within the errors at all redshifts $`2<z<4.8`$.

The contribution of this class of galaxies to intensity fluctuations in the NIRB can then be written as $`C_{\mathrm{gal}}(\theta )I_\mathrm{B}^2w(\theta )`$, where $`I_\mathrm{B}`$ is the residual background intensity after source removal. Suitable values for $`I_\mathrm{B}`$ at the wavelengths relevant to this work can be obtained by taking the estimates for the total extragalactic light emitted in the J, H and K bands from Madau & Pozzetti (2000), and by then subtracting the contributions from resolved sources as given in Kashlinsky et al. (2002). Note that the resulting $`I_\mathrm{B}`$’s, can in principle only be considered as upper limits, since the Kashlinsky and collaborators figures were given by assuming source removal up to $`z1`$, while we are considering background fluctuations made by $`z>2`$ galaxies.

The power spectrum of intensity fluctuations in the NIRB obtained for these “normal” galaxies in the J, H and K bands is shown in Figures 2, 3 and 4 by the dotted lines. The solid lines instead illustrate the total signal steaming from the sum of the contribution of this class of sources with the one deriving from PopIIIs. “Normal”, faint, high-redshift galaxies are able to reproduce the observed power spectrum at all angular scales in the K band, both in its amplitude and its slope. Their contribution however becomes less and less important as one moves towards shorter wavelengths and – at $`\lambda =1.25\mu `$m – not only can just account for $`10`$% of the observed signal, but also has a different (shallower) dependence on the angular scale than what the data indicates.
It is then found that, since PopIIIs and “normal” galaxies seem to be responsible for the observed fluctuations with a different relevance at the different wavelengths (PopIIIs mainly appearing in the J band, “normal” galaxies giving the strongest contribution in the K band), their sum is able to reproduce the data within the errors at all wavelengths (with some allowance made in the H band). In more detail, by considering both populations we can give account for the observed (roughly constant) amplitude of the observed power spectrum at the different wavelengths, and can also naturally explain the steepening of its slope when moving to shorter wavelengths as due to the intervening contribution of PopIII sources. Note that the match is particularly good, especially if one considers that there are no free parameters in the model. Our predictions do not depend on the exact functional form for the chosen IMF and star-formation efficiency $`f_{}`$, as long as their combination is able to reproduce the observed NIRB (SF03). Obviously, one of the main uncertainties of this work is associated to the determination of the slope of the predicted power spectrum. This is due to the lack of solid determinations of the two-point correlation function, from both an observational and a theoretical point of view, at the high redshifts and small masses under exam. The fact that our predictions result – within the errors – in agreement with the observed trend however gives us some confidence that the assumptions made in the course of our analysis are (at least) plausible.

As a last remark we note that, even if in the above analysis we have considered $`I_\mathrm{B}`$ in the different bands as an upper limit of the true background intensity, the fact that the data at $`\lambda =2.17\mu `$m is perfectly reproduced by the population of “normal” galaxies suggests this upper limit to be very close to the real value for otherwise the curves would have fallen below the observations. Under this assumption, there is then no need for the emergence of a third, still-unknown, population of objects, since PopIIIs, together with high-redshift/star-forming “normal” galaxies, can fully explain the observed level of fluctuations.

## 5 conclusions

In this paper we have used the model of SF03 to derive the expected contribution of the clustering of (unresolved) PopIIIs to the intensity fluctuations of the NIRB. Comparisons with the recent observations by Odenwald et al. (2003) show that this class of sources can indeed account for the observed level of fluctuations at almost all the $``$1-30 arcsec scales probed by the data, at least in the J band where the Ly$`\alpha `$ nebular emission line – responsible for most of the PopIII emissivity – once redshifted to the present time gives its maximum contribution. Their relevance however rapidly fades away for shorter frequencies and becomes negligible in the K band.

“Normal”, highly clustered, $`2<z<5`$ galaxies undergoing intense star-formation such a those found in the Hubble Deep Fields can ’fill in’ this gap and provide for the missing signal. If we in fact assume these objects to produce a clustering signal as measured by Magliocchetti & Maddox (1999) and associate them to a background intensity in in the J, H and K bands as taken from Madau & Pozzetti (2000) (after source removal), we find that their contribution to the intensity fluctuations is the dominant one at $`\lambda =2.17\mu `$m, while it gradually looses importance in the H and J bands.

The sum of the two PopIIIs and “normal” galaxies components is able, within the errors, to reproduce the observed power spectrum of intensity fluctuations in the whole Near Infrared range on small angular scales ($`\theta <200^{\prime \prime }`$ for PopIII sources). The match is particularly good, especially if one considers that our model is not associated to any free parameter. Signals on larger scales as detected by other experiments (see Hauser & Dwek 2001 for review) are instead expected to require populations of more local sources.

The present results strongly support the scenario presented by Schneider et al. (2002) (see also Scannapieco, Schneider & Ferrara 2003), in which the first stars where biased towards high masses, thus producing copious amounts of ionizing photons and heavy elements which caused cosmic reionization and enrichment of the otherwise pristine intergalactic medium. It is only when the gas metallicity reached a critical value (still subject to uncertainties due to the complicated physics of molecular cloud fragmentation) in the range $`Z=10^610^4Z_{}`$ that a relatively abrupt transition to the ‘normal’ star formation mode took place. This epoch has left a remarkable imprint both in the intensity and the fluctuations of the NIRB that we have here isolated for the first time.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sasha Kashlinsky is warmly thanked for providing us with the data shown in Figures 2, 3 and 4 and for useful clarifications on its derivation.


text:
# The Impact of Discoveries of Ferroelectricity and Charge Disproportionation in Organic Conductors.

## I Introduction. Interplay of electronic and structural phases.

The family $`(TMTCF)_2X`$, with $`C=T,S`$, demonstrates almost all known electronic phases, see . At higher temperatures $`T_{ao}`$ there is also a set of weak structural transitions of ”anion orderings” -AOs which are slight arrangements of chains of counterions X . At even higher $`TT_0`$, another “structureless“transitions where observed sometimes  which origin stayed mysterious till now. Very recently their nature was elucidated by discoveries of the huge dielectric anomaly  and of the charge disproportionation seen by the NMR . The phase transition has been interpreted  as the least expected one: to the Ferroelectric (FE) state. It is triggered by the uniform shift of ions yielding a macroscopic FE polarization which is gigantically amplified by the charge disproportionation at the molecular stack. The microscopic theory  for the ”combined Mott-Hubbard state” was based on accounting for two orthogonal contributions, $`U_b`$ and $`U_s`$ to the Umklapp scattering coming from two symmetry breaking effects: the build in nonequivalence of bonds and the spontaneous nonequivalence of sites. This interference resembles the orthogonal mixing in the ”combined Peierls state”  in conjugated polymers of the $`(AB)_x`$ type.

The FE transition in $`TMTTFX`$ is a very particular, as well as very bright, manifestation of the a more general phenomenon of the ”charge disproportionation” or ”charge ordering” which becomes recognized as a common feature of organic conductors (see the review  and other talks at this session). Similarly the earliest theoretical prediction  applies well to a common situation while the pronouncedly $`1D`$ electronic regime for the observed transition in $`(TMTTF)_2X`$ invokes particular difficulties as well as allows for a specially efficient treatment  which is also particularly suited for the FE transition.

The new events call for revaluation of studies in what was thought to be the abnormal metallic state  and return us to the old concept of the universal phase diagram  which was based upon effects of interference between electronic properties and fine symmetry changes due to the AOs or external fields. (See more in the Appendix.)

The usual $`𝐪0`$ AOs were always observed for non centrosymmetric (NCS) ions, so that the orientational ordering, related to establishing short contacts of $`O`$ to $`Se`$ or $`S`$ atoms, was supposed to be a leading mechanism with positional displacements being its consequences only. But today we should think about a universal mechanism related to the displacive instability. These two orderings seem to be independent as it is supported by the latest finding of a sequence of the FE $`𝐪=0`$ and $`𝐪0`$ transitions in $`(TMTTF)_2ReO_4`$ . Already within the nonperturbed crystal structure the anions provoke the dielectrization. They dimerize intermolecular distances thus doubling the on-stack unit cell, hence changing the mean electronic occupation from $`1/2`$ per molecule to $`1`$ per their dimer. It originates  the small Umklapp scattering $`U_b`$ which opens (according to Dzyaloshinskii and Larkin, Luther and Emery) the route to the Mott-Hubbard insulator. (See  for a history introduction).

While bonds are dimerized, the molecules stay equivalent above $`T_0`$. The adventure of the NMR was a clear detection  for appearance at $`T_0`$ of the site nonequivalence as a sign of the charge disproportionation. But it brought the same observation both for the structureless transitions and for the AO already known as a very rare structure of the type $`𝐪_2=(0,1/2,1/2)`$ in $`(TMTTF)_2SCN`$ where the site inequivalence was already known from the structural studies, see . *What is the difference then between the $`𝐪_2`$ and the ”structureless” transitions?* A clear cut fitting of the anomaly in $`ϵ(T)`$ to the Curie law  suggests that we are dealing with the least expected case of the Ferroelectric -FE phase. Even more curiously, it is the FE version of the Mott-Hubbard state which usually is associated rather with magnetic orderings. The $`𝐪_2`$ transition showed already the common polarization along a single stack but alternating in perpendicular directions which is the anti-FE ordering. For the ”structureless” transition all displacements must be identical $`𝐪=0`$, both along and among the chains/stacks, thus leading fortunately to the FE state. The polar displacement give rise also to the joint effect of the build-in and the spontaneous contributions to the dimerization, due to alternations of bonds and sites. (Both contributions can be of the build in type in the particular case of the $`(TMTSF)_{0.5}(TMTTF)_{0.5}`$ mixture .)

## II The combined Mott - Hubbard state and the ferroelectricity.

The charge gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }(U)`$ appears as interference of two contributions to the Umklapp scattering: site $`U_s`$ and bond $`U_b`$, and it is a function of the total amplitude $`U=\sqrt{U_s^2+U_b^2}`$. The electronic energy $`F_e`$ depends only on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ that is on the total $`U`$. But the energy $`F_i`$ of ionic displacements and of the related molecular distortions depends only on the spontaneous site component $`U_s`$: $`F_i=1/2KU_s^2`$. The total energy $`F_{tot}=F_e(U)+1/2KU^21/2KU_b^2`$ must be minimal over $`U`$ under the restriction $`U>U_b`$. The ground state will change if the minimum appears at some $`U=U_0>U_b`$ . Since $`U_0=U_0(T)`$ increases with decreasing $`T`$, there will be a phase transition at $`T=T_0`$ such that $`U_0(T_0)=U_b`$.

Forms of the Umklapp energy $`H`$ can be derived from the symmetry alone . The non dimerized system allows only for $`U_4\mathrm{cos}4\phi `$, which usually is negligibly small as demonstrated by common 4-fold commensurate CDWs. The site and bond dimerizations originate $`H_U^s=U_s\mathrm{cos}2\phi `$ and $`H_U^b=U_b\mathrm{sin}2\phi `$ correspondingly. At presence of both types of dimerization the nonlinear Hamiltonian becomes

$`H_U=U_s\mathrm{cos}2\phi U_b\mathrm{sin}2\phi =U\mathrm{cos}(2\phi 2\alpha ),;\mathrm{tan}2\alpha =U_b/U_s`$

For a given $`U_s`$, the ground state is still doubly degenerate between $`\phi =\alpha `$ and $`\phi =\alpha +\pi `$ which allows for phase $`\pi `$ solitons which are the charge $`e`$ spinless particles, the holons, observed in conductivity. Also $`U_s`$ itself can change the sign between different domains of ionic displacements. Then the electronic system must also adjust its ground state from $`\alpha `$ to $`\alpha `$ or to $`\pi \alpha `$, whichever is closer. Hence the domain boundary $`U_sU_s`$ requires for the phase soliton of the increment $`\delta \phi =2\alpha `$ or $`\pi 2\alpha `$ which will concentrate the non integer charge $`q=2\alpha /\pi `$ or $`12\alpha /\pi `$ per chain. While the $`3D`$ coupled ionic displacements are described by the MF approach, the electronic degrees of freedom must be treated exactly at given $`U_s`$ as described in . The total Umklapp value is renormalized from $`U`$ to $`U^{}(U)\mathrm{\Delta }^2=\mathrm{\Delta }^2(U)`$.

There are three contributions to the electronic polarizability:
1. Ionic displacements would already lead to the macroscopic polarization, like in usual ferroelectrics, but alone they cannot explain the observed gigantic magnitude of the effect. Their contribution was estimated  as $`ϵ_i10^1T_0/|TT_0|`$ which is by $`10^3`$ below the experimental value $`ϵ2.5\times 10^4T_0/(TT_0)`$.
2. Intergap electronic polarizability is regular at $`T_0`$: $`ϵ_\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _p^2/\omega _t^2`$ where $`\omega _p`$ is the plasma frequency of the parent metal. This value can be as large as $`10^4`$ which corresponds indeed to the background upon which the anomaly at $`T_0`$ is developed.
3. Collective electronic contribution. can be estimated roughly, see more in , as a product of above two, $`ϵ_{el}ϵ_iϵ_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ which provides both the correct $`T`$ dependence and the right order of magnitude of the effect. We see that the anomalous diverging polarizability is coming from the electronic system, even if the instability is triggered by the ions which stabilize the long range $`3D`$ FE order.

## III Discussion, Perspectives and Conclusions.

By now the revaluation concerns only the $`TMTTF`$ subfamily which usually, by the temperature $`T_0`$, is already in the Mott-Hubbard regime. The $`TMTSF`$ compounds are highly conductive which today does not allow for these difficult experiments. Nevertheless the transition may be their, just being hidden or existing in a fluctuational regime like for stripes in High-$`T_c`$ cuprates. When it is confirmed, then the whole analyses  of intriguing abnormal metallic state will be revised as it already should be done for the $`TMTTF`$ case. Probably the signature of the FE charge ordered state is already seen in optical experiments . Indeed the Drude peak with a surprisingly low oscillation strength appearing within the pseudogap can be interpreted now as the optically active mode of the FE polarization; the joint lattice mass will naturally explain the low weight. Vice versa, the FE mode must exist in $`TMTTF`$ compounds where it is probably located below the optically accessible range of frequencies. Even the optical pseudogap itself , being unexpectedly big for $`TMTSF`$ compounds with their less pronounced dimerization of bonds, can be enlarged by the spontaneous dimerization of sites as it was seen explicitly in $`TMTTF`$ compounds.

More generally, there are two conflicting philosophies for these magnificent materials:
A. The picture of  implies that the sequence of electronic phases follows a smooth variation of basic parameters reducible to the effective pressure, see Fig. 5 in . The majority of compounds with NCS anions were abandoned, presumably their AOs were thought to exhort ill defined or undesirable complications. The advantages are appealing:
a) Concentration on simplest examples avoiding structural effects;
b) Generality in a common frame of strongly correlated systems driven mostly by basic parameters;
c) Extensive use of experiments under pressure and by the NMR.
But there is also another side of the medal:
1) Concentration on only simplest examples avoiding the rich information  on correlation of electronic and structural properties;
2) Necessity to introduce the case of the NCS anion $`ClO_4`$ to demonstrate the appearance of the superconductivity under pressure (The logic of the ”effective pressure” demands to show for this compound only the nonrelaxed phase with the SDW state rather than the relaxed phase where the superconductivity appears only after the particular structural transition of the AO.);
3) Accent upon pressure as a universal parameter and missing the NMR splitting.
4) Ignoring the ”structureless” transitions which are typical just for these selected compounds with centrosymmetric anions. (The wide temperature range of the Curie anomaly in $`ϵ(T)`$ tells that the developing of the charge disproportionation seen as the FE affects a broad temperature region.)

B. The specific picture developed in  suggested the synthesis of structural and electronic phase transitions with the accent upon compounds with AOs. It extends naturally to new observations on charge disproportionation and ferroelectricity. Its main statements are the following (see  and Ch.6 of  for applications):
a) Displacive, rather than orientational, mechanisms are driving the AOs (the Ernshaw instability of separated charges);
b) Each fine structural change exerts a symmetrically defined effect which triggers a particular electronic state;
c) $`1D`$ ”g-ological” phase diagram of the LL results in $`2D`$, $`3D`$ phase transitions only with the backup of special symmetry lowering effects;
d) Main proof for the 1D physics of the Mott transitions is given by the $`𝐪_2`$ structure of the $`(TMTTF)_2SCN`$. (Today it is seen as the charge disproportionation with the anti FE arrangement.)
e) Superconductivity appears only if the system is drawn away from the half filling thus avoiding the Mott insulator state. It happens in the relaxed phase of the $`(TMTSF)_2ClO_4`$ thanks to the unique $`𝐪_3`$ type AO leading to inequivalence of chains (This is a purely defined case of what today is called the ”internal doping”. Its magnitude, i.e. the ”interchain charge disproportionation”, was exactly determined from data on fast magnetic oscillations .)
But there are major difficulties of this picture as well.
1. In applications to $`Se`$ compounds there are common problems of any quasi 1D approach confronting the success of the band picture for the FISDWs (and vice versa!).
2. There are cases of the superconducting state without observation of the particular $`𝐪_3`$ type of the AO. (Nevertheless, the recent views on independent AOs allows to suggest that the $`𝐪_3`$ structure is still their, at least in local or dynamic form without the long range order. Low $`T`$ structural studies of, particularly, $`(TMTSF)_2PF_6`$ are required.)

We finish to say that new events call for a substantial revision of the contemporary picture of the most intriguing family of organic metals and for further efforts to integrate various approaches to their studies.

## IV APPENDIX: History Excursions.

The recent events call again for a unifying picture of electronic and structural effects which returns us to suggestions already made about two decades ago. Below we quote from publications written in early-mid 80’ which views usually have been ignored by now.

Extracts from . For more details see Ch.6 in .

… We suggest a general model for the phase diagram of the Bechgaard salts in a way that the variation of electronic states is mainly determined by the crystal symmetry changes.

… a complicated phase diagram PD includes the states: Metal M, insulator I, Peierls insulator CDW, magnetic (paramagnetic) insulator MI (PI), antiferromagnetic AF insulator SDW, field induced SDW, superconductivity SC of singlet or, not excluded yet, triplet types.

… 1D divergent susceptibilities give rise to observable phenomena only if the pair coherence is preserved in the course of the interchain tunneling. In the gapless regime it can be maintained by proper interchain electronic phase shifts which can appear due to some symmetry changes. There are alternating or random potentials for superconductivity and high magnetic fields for SDW.

… This theory permits us to suggest a general model for the phase diagram of the Bechgaard salts in a way that the variation of electronic states is mainly determined by the crystal symmetry changes. The variation of phases follows the change of an anion type $`X`$, anion structure, pressure, temperature, magnetic field.

… We suggest a simple general model where details of the PD are uniquely determined by the anion structure changes. Experimental data show us the following correlation between the anionic structure (characterized by the wave vector $`\stackrel{}{q}`$) and the state of the electronic system.

1. Unperturbed structure. Bonds are dimerized. PD: M$``$MI$``$ SDW.
The last two phases are clearly separated only in $`TMTTF`$ subfamily.
2. $`\stackrel{}{q}_2=(0,1/2,1/2)`$. The molecules are not equivalent. PD: M$``$MI$``$SDW (or CDW = Spin-Peierls). $`T_{MI}`$ and $`T_{SDW}`$ are well separated ($`X=SCN`$: $`T_{MI}=160K`$ while $`T_{SDW}=7K`$)
3. $`\stackrel{}{q}_3=(0,1/2,0)`$. The neighboring stacks are not equivalent. PD: M$``$SC$``$FISDW.
4. $`\stackrel{}{q}_4=(1/2,1/2,1/2)`$. The tetramerization. PD: M$``$I transition being driven externally by the AO.

The rare case 2. helps us to fix the model for the whole family: a strongly correlated $`1D`$ state with the separation of charge- and spin degrees of freedom. The typical case 1. qualitatively corresponds to the same model while the separation is less pronounced and interpretation may be controversial.

The most important for appearance of the SC is the case 3.: the alternating potentials lead to some redistribution of the charge between the two types of stacks, hence their system is driven from the two fold commensurability which removes the Umklapp scattering, destroys the Mott-Hubbard effect and stabilizes the conducting state down to lower temperatures where the SC can appear.

Extracts from .

Here are some extracts from  which itself was an extension of earlier observations on effects of counterions in charge transfer CDWs of the KCP type .

…we propose an alternative explanation of $`(TMTSF)_2PF_6`$, based on the fact that this material possesses a weak dimerization gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This gap is due to the environment of the given chain, which, unlike the chain itself, does not posses a screw symmetry along the chain axis. Without the effect of the environment the band is quarter-filled. The environment ( $`PF_6`$, etc.) opens a small gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the middle of this band which therefore becomes half-filled. Hence also small are the corresponding constant for the Umklapp scattering: $`g_3g_1\mathrm{\Delta }/E_F`$. The effect of $`g_3`$ appears only below sufficiently low temperature $`T_3E_Fg^{1/2}(g_3/g)^{1/g}`$, $`g=2g_2g_1`$.

…Assuming the pressure suppresses $`g_3`$ and with it $`T_3`$, the Josephson coupling $`J`$ of superconducting fluctuation will finally overcome the Umklapp scattering. This interpretation explains the observations in $`(TMTSF)_2PF_6`$ as a result of competition of the two small (off-chain) parameters, $`g_3`$ and $`J`$, rather than as a result of the accidental cancellation of the large coupling constants $`2g_2`$ and $`g_1`$.

… In this way there appears a region in the phase diagram where the superconductivity exists in absence of $`g_3`$, but where the CDW is introduced by $`g_3`$.

… A closer examination of the model shows that it is the triplet superconductivity.


text:
# Angular asymmetries in the reactions 𝒑⃗𝒑→𝒅𝝅⁺𝜼 and 𝒑⃗𝒏→𝒅𝝅^𝟎𝜼 and 𝒂_𝟎-𝒇_𝟎 mixing

## I Introduction

The reactions $`ppdK^+\overline{K}^0`$ and $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$ are presently the subject of experimental investigations by the ANKE collaboration at the COSY accelerator in Jülich . The main issue of this study is to obtain further information about the scalar $`a_0^+`$(980) resonance, which decays dominantly into the $`K^+\overline{K}^0`$ and $`\pi ^+\eta `$ channels . Also a measurement of the production of the neutral $`a_0^0`$ meson in the reaction $`pnda_0^0`$ with the ANKE spectrometer is planned . The $`a_0^0`$ production is closely related to the problem of $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing . A nonzero value for the transition amplitude $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ provides a forward-backward asymmetry for the reaction $`pnda_0^0`$. As was shown in ref. , near the threshold this forward-backward asymmetry is large, of the order of 10% – 15%. Thus, it is evident that the study of this asymmetry can provide useful information on the process of $`a_0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing.

In a recent paper  some aspects of the reaction $`\stackrel{}{p}nda_0^0`$ were discussed for the case of a perpendicular polarized proton beam. Specifically, it was shown that for energies close to threshold the angular-asymmetry parameter defined by

$$A(\theta ,\phi )=\frac{\sigma (\theta ,\phi )\sigma (\pi \theta ,\phi +\pi )}{\sigma (\theta ,\phi )+\sigma (\pi \theta ,\phi +\pi )},$$
(1)
with

$$\sigma (\theta ,\phi )\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\theta ,\phi ),$$
(2)
($`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$ are the polar and azimuthal angles of the outgoing $`\pi \eta `$ system in the CMS of the reaction) is proportional to the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing amplitude. I.e.

$$A(\theta ,\phi )\xi k,$$
(3)
where $`k`$ is the relative momentum of the $`a_0^0`$ meson with respect to the deuteron and $`\xi `$ is the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing parameter. This result is valid in lowest order with respect to the momentum $`k`$, i.e. keeping only contributions that are at most linear in $`k`$. It was shown in ref.  that corrections to $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ from isospin-conserving terms are of order $`k^3`$ and, therefore, they are of relevance at higher energies only. Thus, the study of the angular asymmetry (Eq. (1)) near the $`a_0^0`$ threshold in the reaction $`\stackrel{}{p}nda_0^0`$ gives information on various invariant amplitudes for this reaction  but, in particular, on the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing parameter $`\xi `$.

The present paper focusses on the reaction $`NNd\pi \eta `$. We take into consideration that the $`\pi \eta `$ system can not only be produced via the formation of the $`a_0`$(980) resonance, i.e. in an $`S`$-wave state, but also via other reaction mechanisms and then can be in a $`P`$ wave or in even higher partial waves. For brevity, in the following we will refer to the latter contributions as nonresonant or as background of the $`NNda_0d\pi \eta `$ amplitude. (Note that there can be also a background in the $`S`$-wave state, as discussed in Refs.  – but this is not the issue we are concerned with here.) Consequences of this nonresonant background contribution for polarization observables of the reactions $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}nd\pi ^0\eta `$ will be discussed. Specifically, it will be shown that, because of the presence of the nonresonant background, in these reactions the angular-asymmetry parameter $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ becomes nonzero even without isospin-violation. Indeed, like the effect induced by the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing discussed above, the contribution of the nonresonant background is also linear in $`k`$ and therefore is difficult to separate from effects of the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing in the reaction $`\stackrel{}{p}nd\pi ^0\eta `$. However, a measurement of this asymmetry in the reaction $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ can provide us with information on the contribution of the nonresonant background to the reaction $`ppda_0^+d\pi ^+\eta `$.

Recently the reactions $`ppdK^+\overline{K}^0`$ and $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$ were studied theoretically in a chiral unitary approach taking into account the coupling between the $`K^+\overline{K}^0`$ and $`\pi ^+\eta `$ channels . The elementary $`\pi \eta `$ production amplitude was assumed to be given by the diagram shown in Fig. 1a where the $`\pi `$ and $`\eta `$ mesons emerge from different nucleons and rescatter with each other before being emitted. Since chiral dynamics suppressed the coupling of the $`\pi \eta `$ system to $`P`$-waves , it follows within this approach that the $`\pi ^+\eta `$ system is preferably produced in $`S`$-waves and that $`P`$ waves, i.e. the nonresonant background discussed above, should be practically negligible ***Note, however, that $`P`$-waves arise naturally in the effective Lagrangian approach of Achasov et al.  based on the anomolous Wess-Zumino action.. Their result motivated us to consider in the present paper a different production mechanism that does not involve the $`\pi \eta `$ amplitude directly and therefore is not constrained by chiral symmetry. We assume that the reaction $`ppd\pi \eta `$ proceeds via pion exchange between the nucleons followed by the exitation of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$(1232) and the $`N^{}`$(1535) resonances  which then produce the $`\pi `$ and $`\eta `$ mesons in their respective decay, cf. Fig. 1b. Such a reaction mechanism is certainly suppressed at energies near the $`\pi \eta `$ threshold where chiral dynamics should be dominating. However, in the region of the $`a_0`$ resonance the excess energy for the $`\pi \eta `$ system is already around 300 MeV. Therefore this mechanism could be already of relevance and, specifically, it will introduce $`P`$-wave contributions. We will present corresponding results for the angular symmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ and also for differential cross sections. Clearly, in this context an experimental study of this asymmetry parameter is very interesting because it may shed light on the validity of the chiral unitary approach  for the calculation of amplitudes for the reactions $`ppdK^+\overline{K}^0`$ and $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$ near the $`a_0`$ threshold.

Finally, we will show that a systematic study of the angular-asymmetry parameters for both reactions, $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}nd\pi ^0\eta `$, may allow to obtain quantitative information on the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing parameter.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. II we provide the general form of the reaction amplitude for the process $`NNd\pi \eta `$ near threshold where we allow the $`\pi \eta `$ system to be in an $`S`$ or a $`P`$ wave. Furthermore we derive expressions for the corresponding differential cross sections. In Sect. III we consider a phenomenological model for the nonresonant ($`P`$ wave) contributions to the reaction $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$ and present concrete estimations for the angular symmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ and also for differential cross sections. Implications of a possibly non-zero background contribution to the reaction $`NNd\pi \eta `$ on the issue of $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ is discussed in Sect. IV. The paper ends with a short summary.

## II General form of reaction amplitude

Let us consider first the reaction $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$. If the $`\pi ^+\eta `$ system is produced by the decay of the $`a_0^+`$ meson it is in an $`S`$-wave. However, if we produce the $`\pi ^+\eta `$ state with an invariant mass of $`mm_{a_0}980`$ MeV but not via the $`a_0^+`$ resonance then the orbital angular momentum of the $`\pi \eta `$ system may be large because, as mentioned, the energy available in the $`\pi \eta `$ system is already around 300 MeV.

We start with the most general form of the amplitude $``$ for the reaction $`NNd\pi \eta `$. It is given by

$$=\varphi _1^T\sigma _y[F+𝑮𝝈]\varphi _2,$$
(4)
where $`\varphi _1^T`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ are the spinors of the nucleons ($`T`$ indicates the transposed state vector). The amplitude in Eq. (4) involves two terms, $`F`$ and $`𝑮𝝈`$, corresponding to the initial total spin of the nucleons of $`S_{NN}=0`$ and $`S_{NN}=1`$, respectively.

Note, that both functions $`F`$ and $`𝑮`$ are to be linear functions of the polarization vector $`\mathit{ϵ}^{}`$ of the outgoing deuteron. In the following we limit ourselves to the consideration of $`S`$\- and $`P`$-wave states for the produced $`\pi \eta `$ system and, accordingly, we write both functions $`F`$ and $`𝑮`$ as $`F=F_S+F_P`$ and $`𝑮=𝑮_S+𝑮_P`$. Taking into account the Pauli principle together with parity and angular momentum conservation and considering only terms that are at most linear in $`k`$ we get

$`F_S`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (5)
$`𝑮_S`$ $`=`$ $`a_S𝒑(𝒌\mathit{ϵ}^{})+b_S\mathit{ϵ}^{}(𝒌𝒑)+c_S𝒌(𝒑\mathit{ϵ}^{})+d_S𝒑(𝒑\mathit{ϵ}^{})(𝒌𝒑)`$ (6)
for the case of the $`\pi \eta `$ system being in an $`S`$-wave (e.g. production via the $`a_0`$ resonance) and

$$F_P=a_0(\mathit{ϵ}^{}[𝒌\times 𝒒])+b_0(\mathit{ϵ}^{}[𝒑\times 𝒒])(𝒑𝒌)+c_0(\mathit{ϵ}^{}[𝒑\times 𝒌])(𝒑𝒒),$$
(7)
$$𝑮_P=a_1\mathit{ϵ}^{}(𝒑𝒒)+b_1𝒑(\mathit{ϵ}^{}𝒒)+c_1𝒒(\mathit{ϵ}^{}𝒑)+d_1𝒑(\mathit{ϵ}^{}𝒑)(𝒑𝒒)$$
(8)
for the case of the $`\pi \eta `$ system being produced in a $`P`$-wave. Here $`a_S`$, $`a_0`$, $`a_1`$, $`b_S`$, $`b_0`$, $`b_1`$, $`c_S`$, $`c_0`$, $`c_1`$, $`d_S`$, and $`d_1`$ are independent scalar amplitudes, which may be considered as being basically constants for the near-threshold production ($`k`$ is small) of the $`\pi \eta `$ system with an invariant mass $`m=m_{a_0}`$ of the $`a_0`$ meson. In Eqs. (6)-(8) we used the following notations:

$`𝒑`$ is the initial relative momentum in the center-of-mass system (CMS) of the reaction;

$`𝒌`$ is the final relative momentum of the deuteron with respect to the $`\pi \eta `$ system in the CMS of the reaction;

$`𝒒`$ is the relative momentum between the pion and the $`\eta `$ in the $`\pi \eta `$ CM frame.

The matrix element $``$ (Eq. (4)) squared and summed over the polarizations of the initial neutron is given by

$$\overline{||^2}=\frac{1}{2}\left[|F|^2+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{Re}\left(F^{}𝑮𝜻\right)+(𝑮^{}𝑮)+i\left(𝜻[𝑮\times 𝑮^{}]\right)\right],$$
(9)
where $`𝜻`$ is the polarization vector of the initial proton, i.e. $`𝜻=\varphi _1^+𝝈\varphi _1`$. In what follows we shall consider the vector $`𝒑`$ to be aligned in the direction of the $`z`$-axis and the vector $`𝜻`$ to be aligned in $`x`$-direction, so that $`𝜻𝒑`$.

Since we are interested in the behaviour of the differential cross section $`d^2\sigma /dmd\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒌`$ and in the angular-asymmetry parameter $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$, we are to integrate the expression (9) over the direction of the momentum $`𝒒`$ :

$$\frac{d^2\sigma }{dmd\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒌}=N\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒒}{4\pi }\overline{||^2}:=\sigma (m;\theta ,\phi ).$$
(10)
Here $`m`$ is the invariant mass of the $`\pi \eta `$ system, $`N=kq/(4\pi )^4ps`$ and $`s`$ is the square of the total energy in the CMS of the reaction. After the integration over $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒒`$ the $`SP`$ interference term in $`\sigma (m;\theta ,\phi )`$ disappears. The contribution of the $`S`$-wave part of $``$ (4) to $`\sigma (m;\theta ,\phi )`$ can be obtained from Eqs. (22) and (23) of ref.  and reads

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma }{dmd\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒌}}\right)_S`$ $`=`$ $`N\{p^2k^2[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|a_S|^2+|b_S|^2)`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`[|b_S|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|b_S+p^2d_S|^2+\mathrm{Re}(a_S^{}c_S+(a_S+c_S)^{}(b_S+p^2d_S))]\mathrm{cos}^2\theta ]`$ (12)
$`+`$ $`\zeta pk\mathrm{Im}(a_S^{}b_S+a_S^{}c_S+b_S^{}c_S+p^2d_S^{}c_S)\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}\phi \}.`$ (13)
The contribution from the $`P`$-wave part can be deduced from Eqs. (7)–(10) and amounts to

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma }{dmd\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒌}}\right)_P`$ $`=`$ $`N\{{\displaystyle \frac{k^2q^2}{6}}[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}|a_0|^2+2|b_0|^2p^4\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +|c_0|^2p^4\mathrm{sin}^2\theta +4\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}(a_0^{}b_0)p^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$ (14)
$``$ $`2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}(a_0^{}c_0)p^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ]+{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{3}}\mathrm{Re}(a_0^{}a_1a_0^{}c_1c_0^{}a_1p^2)(𝜻[𝒌\times 𝒑])`$ (15)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p^2q^2}{6}}[(3|a_1|^2+|b_1|^2+|c_1|^2)+p^4|d_1|^2`$ (16)
$`+`$ $`2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\left((a_1^{}(b_1+c_1+p^2d_1)+b_1^{}c_1+(b_1^{}+c_1^{})p^2d_1)\right]\}.`$ (17)
It can be easily seen from Eq. (17) that the only contribution to the angular-asymmetry parameter $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$, defined in Eq. (1), comes from the term proportional to $`𝜻[𝒌\times 𝒑]=\zeta pk\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\phi `$, where $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$ are the polar and azimuthal angles of the outgoing $`\pi \eta `$ system in the CMS of the reaction. Hence, because of the $`P`$-wave (nonresonant background) contribution, we get a nonvanishing angular asymmetry and this asymmetry is linear in $`k`$. Note that $`A(\theta ,\phi )=0`$ in the case where the $`\pi \eta `$ system is produced in an $`S`$-wave, as follows from Eq. (13).

Therefore, it is clear that the angular asymmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ in the reaction $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ can provide information on the magnitude of contributions from partial waves with $`l1`$ in the $`\pi \eta `$ system.

## III Estimation of the angular asymmetry for nonresonant $`\pi ^+\eta `$ production

Let us now come to a concrete estimation for the angular-asymmetry parameter. For that purpose we consider a simple model for the reaction $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$ in which the $`\pi ^+\eta `$ system can be produced with nonzero internal angular momentum ($`l1`$). Specifically, we adopt the one-pion-exchange diagram in Fig. 1b. We assume that the dominant contribution arises from the intermediate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$(1232) state in the subprocess $`\pi N\pi N`$ and from the $`S`$-wave amplitude of the subprocess $`\pi N\eta N`$. The latter is basically given by the contribution of the $`N^{}`$(1535) resonance state. This diagram with the same subprocesses was already used in ref.  in the context of the $`a_0`$ production process in $`pNda_0d(\pi \eta )`$. However, in that work the authors were primarily interested in the $`S`$-wave part of the one-pion-exchange $`\pi \eta `$ production amplitude. Therefore, the angular distribution of the outgoing pion was not calculated in .

The evaluation of this diagram, treating the intermediate nucleons and the final deuteron nonrelativistically, leads to the following expression for the corresponding $`\pi \eta `$ production amplitude $``$:

$$=_1+_2,_{1,2}=\pm A_{1,2}\varphi _{1,2}^T\sigma _y(\mathit{ϵ}^{}𝝈)(2𝒏_{1,2}𝒏_2+i𝝈[𝒏_{1,2}\times 𝒏_2])\varphi _{2,1},$$
(18)
Note that the amplitude $``$ is antisymmetric with respect to the initial nucleons, i.e. $`_1_2`$ when the nucleons are interchanged. The quantities $`A_{1,2}`$ are given by

$$A_{1,2}=T\frac{E+m_N}{2m_N\sqrt{2m_N}}M_{\pi ^0N\eta N}M_{\pi N\pi N}\frac{d𝒒}{(2\pi )^3}u(q)G_\pi (t_{1,2}).$$
(19)
Further, $`2𝒏_{1,2}^{}𝒏_2+i𝝈[𝒏_{1,2}^{}\times 𝒏_2]`$ is the spin operator of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ state in the $`\pi N`$ scattering amplitude and $`𝒏_{1,2}^{}=𝒓_{1,2}/r_{1,2}`$ and $`𝒏_2=𝒌_2/k_2`$ are unit vectors. The corresponding momenta, $`𝒓_{1,2}=𝒌_2+𝒒_2𝒑_{2,1}`$ and $`𝒌_2`$, are the 3-momenta of the intermediate (virtual) and final pion in the CMS of the reaction, in the notation used in Fig. 1b. $`T=4\sqrt{2}/3`$ is an isospin factor and $`m_N`$ and $`E`$ are the mass and total CMS energy of the initial proton. The $`S`$-wave amplitude for $`\pi ^0N\eta N`$ is obtained from the relation (see also ref. )

$$|M_{\pi ^0N\eta N}(s_1)|^2=8\pi s_1\frac{p_{cm}^\pi }{p_{cm}^\eta }\sigma _{\pi ^{}p\eta N}(s_1=m_{\eta N}^2),$$
(20)
where the cross section $`\sigma _{\pi ^{}p\eta N}=(21.2\pm 1.8)p_{cm}^\eta `$ \[$`\mu b`$\] ($`p_{cm}^\eta `$ in MeV$`/c`$) is taken from the experiment . The scalar amplitude for $`\pi N\pi N`$ resulting from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance reads

$$M_{\pi N\pi N}(m_{\pi N})=\frac{g_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}^2k_{cm}(\pi ^{})k_{cm}(\pi )}{m_{\pi N}M_\mathrm{\Delta }+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }/2},g_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}^2=\frac{4\pi M_\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{\Delta }\pi N}}{k_R^3},$$
(21)
where $`k_{cm}(\pi ^{})`$, $`k_{cm}(\pi )`$ are the relative momenta at the $`\mathrm{\Delta }N\pi `$ vertices with the virtual and final pion, respectively. $`k_R`$ is the relative momentum in the decay $`\mathrm{\Delta }N\pi `$ at the nominal mass $`m_{\pi N}=M_\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

In the following all the values which are taken out of the loop integral (19) are calculated at fixed values $`𝒒_1=𝒒_2=𝒑_d/2`$ of the intermediate on-mass-shell nucleons, where $`𝒑_d`$ is the momentum of final deutron in the reaction CM. The loop integral in Eq. (19) contains only the wave function $`u(q)`$ of the deuteron and the pion propagator $`G_\pi (t)`$. We use the $`S`$-wave part of the deuteron wave function of the full Bonn potential . The propagator of the virtual pion, including a form factor $`F_\pi (t)`$ of monopole type for each $`\mathrm{\Delta }N\pi `$ vertex, reads

$$G_\pi (t)=\frac{F_\pi ^2(t)}{t\mu ^2+i0},F_\pi (t)=\frac{\mu ^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{t\mathrm{\Lambda }^2},$$
(22)
where $`\mu `$ is the pion mass. For the cutoff parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ we consider the values $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1÷1.3`$ GeV . The four-momentum transfer squared $`t`$ for nonrelativistic intermediate nucleons is given by the relations ($`t=t_{1,2}`$ for the corresponding part $`_{1,2}`$ of the total antisymmetric amplitude $``$ according to Eq. (18))

$$t_{1,2}\mu ^2+i0=x\left[(𝒒𝚫_{1,2})^2a_{1,2}^2i0\right],x=(E\omega _2)/m,$$
(23)
$$a_{1,2}^2=\frac{1}{x}\left[(T_N\omega _2)^2+(𝒑_{2,1}𝒌_2)^2\left(\frac{1}{x}1\right)\mu ^2\right],𝚫_{1,2}=\frac{𝒑_{2,1}𝒌_2}{x}\frac{𝒑_d}{2}.$$

where $`T_N=Em_N`$ and $`\omega _2`$ is the total energy of the final pion in the CMS of the reaction.

Let us rewrite the total amplitude $``$ (Eq. (18)) in the form of Eq. (4). Then we get

$$=_1+_2=\varphi _1^T\sigma _y[F+𝑮𝝈]\varphi _2,_{1,2}=\pm A_{1,2}\varphi _{1,2}^T\sigma _y[F_{1,2}+𝑮_{1,2}𝝈]\varphi _{2,1},$$
(24)
where

$$F=A_1F_1+A_2F_2,𝑮=A_1𝑮_1A_2𝑮_2,$$

$$F_{1,2}=i(\mathit{ϵ}[𝒏_{1,2}^{}\times 𝒏_2]),𝑮_1=2(𝒏_{1,2}^{}𝒏_2)\mathit{ϵ}+(𝒏_{1,2}\mathit{ϵ})𝒏_2(𝒏_2\mathit{ϵ})𝒏_{1,2}^{}.$$
(25)
Using Eqs. (9), (10) and (18)-(25), we evaluated the angular asymmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$, defined in Eq. (1), at the angle $`\theta =90^0`$, where the term $`2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}(F^{}𝑮𝜻)𝜻[𝒌\times 𝒑]=\zeta pk\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\phi `$ should produce the maximal effect. The calculations were performed at $`m=980`$ MeV (i.e. in the $`a_0`$-meson region). It turned out that the resulting angular asymmetry parameter $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ is very small, i.e. $`A(90^0,\phi )`$ 1%. In order to understand this we need to go back to the equations above. Indeed one can immediately see, that in the case of zero relative phase between the quantities $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ given by Eq. (19), one should obtain exactly $`A(\theta ,\phi )=0`$. This is due to the relative phase of $`90^0`$ between the functions $`F`$ and $`𝑮`$ in the term $`2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}(F^{}𝑮𝜻)`$ of Eq. (9) because of the factor $`i`$ in $`F`$ (see Eq. (25) for $`F_1`$). The latter results from the spin structure of the $`\pi N`$ scattering amplitude, which in our case is given by the excitation of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance alone, and is connected with the Hermitian form of the interaction (cf. the factor $`i`$ in front of the $`\sigma `$ matrix in Eq. (18)). In fact, the loop integral in Eq. (19) generates an imaginary part from the on-mass-shell contribution of the exchanged pion. Therefore, due to permutation of the initial protons, the quantities $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ acquire some nonzero relative phase. But still there is only a small effect on the angular asymmetry.

In this context let us mention that the interaction in the initial $`NN`$ system, which is neglected in the simple model calculation presented here, should also introduce a relative phase between those two amplitudes and therefore might lead to an enhancement in the predictions for the angular-asymmetry parameter.

In any case, the smallness of this asymmetry effect does not mean that the $`P`$-wave fraction in the $`\pi \eta `$ system is also small. To illustrate this, we present here some results for the reaction with unpolarized proton beam, namely the distribution $`d^2\sigma /dmdz_1`$ at selected values of the invariant mass $`m`$ of the $`\pi \eta `$ system around the $`a_0`$ mass and for two values of the cutoff parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ = 1 and 1.3 GeV). Here $`z_1=\mathrm{cos}\theta _1`$, where $`\theta _1`$ is the polar angle of the outgoing $`\pi ^+`$ meson with respect to the direction of the proton-beam momentum in the $`\pi ^+\eta `$ rest frame. The calculations were done at the proton beam energy $`T_{lab}=2.65`$ GeV. The resulting angular spectra are shown in the Figs. 2 and 3. Evidently, they are not isotropic but exhibit a strong angular dependence and, therefore, demonstrate that there are significant contributions from higher partial waves ($`l1`$). Thus, a measurement of the angular distribution for the produced $`\pi ^+\eta `$ system would be rather instructive. In particular it should allow to examine the validity of the chiral unitary approach used in ref. , which implies a completely isotropic angular distribution, in the energy region of the $`a_0`$(980) resonance.

## IV The reaction $`\stackrel{\mathbf{}}{𝒑}𝒏\mathbf{}𝒅𝝅^\mathrm{𝟎}𝜼`$ and the $`𝒂_\mathrm{𝟎}`$$`\mathbf{}`$$`𝒇_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ mixing amplitude

Let us now consider the reaction $`ppd\pi ^0\eta `$. As discussed in ref. , if the $`\pi ^0\eta `$ system is produced in an $`S`$-wave then the only nonzero contribution to the angular-asymmetry parameter comes from the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing amplitude. Indeed, we have shown there that – in lowest order in $`k`$ – the isospin-violating contribution to $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ is proportional to $`\xi k`$. Thus, an extraction of the $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing parameter $`\xi `$ would, in principle, be feasible from experimental information on the angular asymmetry.

However, as should be clear after the discussion in Sect. II, there could be also contributions to $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ from isospin-conserving terms, because of the possible presence of $`P`$ waves in the $`\pi \eta `$ system. Such contributions arise from the term in the differential cross section proportional to $`𝜻[𝒌\times 𝒑]`$. This term is maximal at $`\theta `$ = 900 and vanishes at $`\theta =0^0`$. As a consequence, a separation of both contributions to $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ is rather complicated.

Still, there is a possibility to separate the contribution from the isospin-violating part, namely by carrying out a combined study of the polarized differential cross sections for both reactions $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}nd\pi ^0\eta `$. In order to illustrate how this can be achieved, let us first remind the reader that the amplitudes of those reactions are related by

$$(pnd\pi ^0\eta )=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(ppd\pi ^+\eta ),$$
(26)
if isospin is conserved. This relation suggests that one should consider a “subtracted” differential cross section,

$$\sigma _\mathrm{\Delta }(m;\theta ,\phi ):=\frac{d^2\sigma _0}{dmd\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒌}\frac{1}{2}\frac{d^2\sigma _+}{dmd\mathrm{\Omega }_𝒌},$$
(27)
where $`\sigma _0`$ and $`\sigma _+`$ are the cross sections of the processes $`\stackrel{}{p}nd\pi ^0\eta `$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$, respectively. Evidently, the angular asymmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$, evaluated according to Eq. (1) for this “substracted” differential cross section $`\sigma _\mathrm{\Delta }(m;\theta ,\phi )`$ does not contain terms induced by isospin-conserving processes and hence provides only information on isospin violating effects. Note that in the simple model considered in Sect. III the angular asymmetry in the reaction $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ is small in any case and, therefore, one might expect that any effects seen in the experiment should come mainly from isospin-violating $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing.

## V Summary

We presented a discussion on effects of background contributions to differential cross sections and the angular asymmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ for the reactions $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$ and $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$. Specifically, we pointed out that already in lowest order in the relative momentum between the deuteron and the $`\pi \eta `$ system the angular asymmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ can be nonzero – even without isospin mixing effects – because of the presence of higher partial waves in the $`\pi \eta `$ system. As a consequence, a measurement of the angular asymmetry $`A(\theta ,\phi )`$ with polarized proton beams for the reaction $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ should provide useful information on the role of higher partial waves in this reaction. It would also allow to examine the validity of model calculations of the reaction $`ppd\pi ^+\eta `$ based on chiral constraints  for energies around the the $`a_0`$ threshold.

We also argued that a combined analysis of differential cross sections for both reactions, $`\stackrel{}{p}pd\pi ^+\eta `$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}nd\pi ^0\eta `$, may facilitate the extraction of isospin-violating effects induced by $`a_0^0`$$``$$`f_0`$ mixing and allow to shed light on the nature of these scalar mesons.

## Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to V.V. Baru and M. Büscher for useful discussions. This work was partly supported by the DFG-RFBI Grant No. 02-02-04001 (436 RUS 113/652/1-1) and by the RFBR Grant No. 00-15-96562.

Fig. 1a

Fig. 1b