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# Phonon-mediated drag at 𝜈=1/2: A test of the Chern-Simons composite fermion theory

## I Introduction

Comparisons between measured transport properties and theoretical predictions have been fruitful in providing important information about elementary excitations in electronic systems. A recent and rather unusual example may be found in studies of the frictional drag between separately contacted, nearby, two-dimensional electron layers. Because it is a measure of the interlayer scattering rate, drag resistance is sensitive to Coulomb and phonon-mediated interactions between the layers and is related to correlated density fluctuations in the coupled bilayer system. Since these depend crucially on underlying electronic degrees of freedom, frictional drag can serve as an important test of specific theoretical predictions concerning the fluctuation spectrum of a given electronic system. At zero field, these studies have verified many qualitative features predicted by the random phase approximation (RPA) theory of correlations in moderate density two-dimensional electron systems. On the other hand, they have also demonstrated the importance, at a quantitative level, of various corrections. These studies have a greater potential importance in the fractional quantum Hall regime, where simple perturbative RPA-like theories fail and our understanding of correlations is much less complete. In the fractional quantum Hall regime, all electrons share the same quantized kinetic-energy and low-energy properties are entirely determined by electron-electron interactions. Electrons in the fractional quantum Hall regime are in the limit of extreme correlations. It is the failure of perturbation theory which admits all the peculiarities and surprises which have been discovered in this field over the past two decades.

One example of a peculiar strong-correlation consequence is presented by the Fermi-liquid-like properties of the compressible states which occur when the lowest Landau level is half-filled. Experimental evidence then supports the existence of gapless fermionic excitations which form a Fermi surface. This is particularly surprising because the kinetic energy of the electrons in the lowest Landau level is quenched by the large magnetic fields, so this Fermi surface must result purely from interaction effects. On the theoretical front, the Chern-Simons composite fermion theory has been spectacularly successful in explaining various experimental findings at the phenomenological level . It starts from a singular gauge transformation which attaches two flux quanta to each electron. These new ‘composite particles’, like electrons, obey Fermi statistics and are therefore called composite fermions. At $`\nu =1/2`$, the mean-field flux-density from the attached flux quanta exactly cancels that coming from the external magnetic field. Neglecting fluctuations, composite fermions at $`\nu =1/2`$ therefore experience zero magnetic field and have a Fermi surface. In the random phase approximation (RPA), the density-density correlation function for composite fermions is equal to the density-density correlation function for completely spin-polarized electrons at zero magnetic field. However, the density-density correlation function of the physical electrons contains an additional local field term associated with the attached flux quanta. We will refer to this additional term as the magnetic local field. In RPA theory, the magnetic-field dependence of the correlation function is completely embedded in this quantity.

Chern-Simons theory has the advantage of being technically and conceptually simple. It suffers, however, from various problems, most associated with the composite fermion mass scale $`m^{}`$. On physical grounds, it is known that $`m^{}`$ is determined by the interaction energy scale in the lowest Landau level. However, the theory does not have a proper lowest Landau level projection so that $`m^{}`$ has to be fixed phenomenologically. Unfortunately, this naive approach leads to a violation of the f-sum rule and Kohn’s theorem in the sense that certain response functions should contain the bare electron mass $`m_b`$. A scheme to correct for this deficiency was developed by Simon and Halperin who introduced the Modified Random Phase Approximation (MRPA). The MRPA includes a Fermi Liquid like correction, and allows for an effective mass $`m^{}`$ different from the band mass $`m_b`$ while still satisfying the f-sum rule and Kohn’s Theorem. Even though this prescription turns out to be surprisingly successful, a more microscopic understanding of the role of the lowest Landau level projection in the theory is desirable.

Recently several attempts have been made to construct a truly lowest Landau level theory of composite fermions. Inspired by $`\nu =1/2`$ variational wavefunction, it has been realized that the position of an electron and a nearby zero of the wavefunction (called a ‘vortex’) are displaced by $`k_il_B^2`$ for each electron labeled by $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$. The lowest Landau level constraint and strong correlations tend to bind vortices to electrons. The composite object that consists of an electron and two vortices satisfies fermionic statistics and, as a result, the $`k_i`$’s have to be chosen differently for each composite object. The ground state of these ‘neutral composite fermions’ is given by a Fermi sea in the space of $`k_i`$. One can also show that $`k_i`$ acts as the guiding-center-translation generator in the lowest Landau level. Within a Hartree-Fock theory of these composite objects, the effective kinetic energy has the form $`k_i^2/2m^{}`$ with an effective mass $`m^{}`$ given correctly by the interaction energy scale . A self-consistent theory of neutral dipolar composite fermions has been constructed and it has been shown that, in the long-wavelength low-energy limit, this theory (taking the bare electron mass to infinity to reflect the absence of a kinetic energy term in the lowest Landau level Hamiltonian) gives the same physical response functions as those of the Chern-Simons composite fermion theory . Coulomb mediated frictional drag between two $`\nu =1/2`$ systems depends mostly on the long wavelength and low energy limits of density-density correlation in each layer. As a result, the two theories mentioned above should make identical predictions for Coulomb drag. This quantity has been measured  and the observations are consistent at relatively high temperatures with the theoretically predicted $`T^{4/3}`$ power law. The data does, however, exhibit a low temperature anomaly that has not yet been fully understood.

When two 2D electron systems are widely separated, the contribution to drag from Coulomb scattering between the layers is suppressed and phonon mediated interaction dominates. Unlike the Coulomb drag case, phonon mediated drag is sensitive to density-density correlations in each layer at relatively high frequencies and at wavevectors comparable to the inverse interparticle separation. Therefore studies of phonon mediated drag should provide useful information about excitations at finite frequencies and at large wavevectors, leading to a test of the underlying theory at many different energy and length scales, not just at the long wavelength and low energy limits. Since the equivalence between Chern-Simons theory and the neutral dipolar composite fermion theories has been established only in the long wavelength and low energy limits, studies of phonon drag may reveal important differences between these two theories. As the first step to investigate the validity of these theories, in this paper we report on a comparison between recent measurements of frictional drag between widely separated two-dimensional electron layers at $`\nu =1/2`$ and Chern-Simons composite fermion theory predictions. We find some qualitative differences between observations and trends predicted by theory and speculate on their implications for the theory of the half-filled Landau level.

In the following section we review the theory of frictional drag and discuss some of the features that are important in analyzing drag at $`\nu =1/2`$. The theoretical framework we use to describe frictional drag is based on earlier $`B=0`$ work involving two of us. While there are some issues in the theoretical literature on frictional drag which are not completely settled, these do not impact on the conclusions we draw here and we do not discuss them further. In Sec. III we present numerical results for drag, calculated from (M)RPA composite-fermion theory, and compare these with recent experimental results obtained by Zelakiewicz et al.. Our conclusions are presented in Sec. IV.

## II Frictional drag

When two or more electronic systems are placed in close proximity, their transport properties are interdependent. In particular, currents in one subsystem can induce (or ’drag’) currents in other subsystems. The first drag experiments were on coupled two-dimensional and three-dimensional electron system. Drag between two-dimensional layers has been measured in electron-electron, electron-hole, and recently in hole-hole systems. In this paper we consider frictional drag between two two-dimensional electron gases embedded in a GaAs-AlGaAs double quantum well system. The quantum wells widths $`L`$ are $`200`$ Å and are separated by a center-to-center distance $`d`$ which is large enough to ensure that interlayer tunneling can be neglected ($`d300`$ Å). We imagine a current density $`J_1`$ being drawn in the first layer while the second layer is an open circuit. To counter balance the stochastic drag force between the layers, an electric field $`E_2`$ will build up in the second layer. The transresistivity, $`\rho _{21}`$, is defined as

$$\rho _{21}E_2/J_1,$$
(1)
$`\rho _{21}`$ depends on the strength of interlayer interactions and on the phase space available for interlayer scattering events.

Theoretical expressions for $`\rho _{21}`$ can be derived by conventional linear response theory at various levels of sophistication. Under conditions which are met in current experiments, the transresistivity is given by

$`\rho _{21}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8\pi ^2e^2n_1n_2k_\mathrm{B}T}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑qq^3`$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega \left|{\displaystyle \frac{W_{21}(q,\omega )}{\epsilon (q,\omega )}}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_1(q,\omega )\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_2(q,\omega )}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\mathrm{}\omega /2k_\mathrm{B}T)}}.`$
Here $`n_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_i(q,\omega )`$ are the two-dimensional electron density and the polarization function, respectively, of layer $`i`$. In Eq. (3) $`W_{ij}(q,\omega )`$ is the reciprocal space interaction between layers $`i`$ and $`j`$, and $`\epsilon (q,\omega )`$ is the interlayer screening function, given by

$$\epsilon =[1+W_{11}\mathrm{\Pi }_1][1+W_{22}\mathrm{\Pi }_2]W_{21}^2\mathrm{\Pi }_1\mathrm{\Pi }_2.$$
(4)
Given the interlayer interaction, this theory of frictional drag depends only on the polarization functions of the 2D electron layers.

Both interlayer Coulomb interactions and phonon-mediated interactions contribute to interlayer friction:

$$W_{ij}(q,\omega )=U_{ij}(q)+𝒟_{ij}(q,\omega ).$$
(5)
Taking account of the finite quantum well widths, the Coulomb contribution is

$$U_{ij}(q)=\frac{e^2}{2\kappa q}B_{ij}(qd,qL/2)$$
(6)
where $`\kappa `$ is the dielectric constant of the semiconductor and $`B_{ij}`$ is a width-dependent form factor. The phonon mediated interaction is given by

$$𝒟_{ij}(q,\omega )=\underset{\lambda }{}\frac{dQ_z}{2\pi \mathrm{}}|M_\lambda (𝐐)|^2F_i(Q_z)F_j(Q_z)D_\lambda (𝐐,\omega )$$
(7)
where $`F_i(Q_z)=𝑑z|\phi _i(z)|^2e^{iQ_Zz}`$ is the Fourier transform of the electron density in the direction perpendicular to the layers ($`\phi _i`$ is the subband wavefunction in layer $`i`$), and $`D_\lambda (𝐐,\omega )`$ is the phonon propagator. We use the notation $`𝐐=(𝐪,Q_z)`$. The index $`\lambda `$ denotes longitudinal and transverse phonon modes, $`\lambda =l,t`$. Both acoustic and optical phonons can contribute to drag, but in GaAs/AlGaAs systems acoustic phonons dominate under the conditions studied in this paper. The electron-acoustic phonon coupling matrix elements are given by

$$|M_l(𝐐)|^2=\frac{\mathrm{}Q}{2\varrho c_l}\left[D^2+(eh_{14})^2\frac{9q^4Q_z^2}{2Q^8}\right]$$
(8)
$$|M_t(𝐐)|^2=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2\varrho c_t}(eh_{14})^2\frac{8q^2Q_z^4+q^6}{4Q^7}$$
(9)
where the $`c_\lambda `$ are the phonon velocities for longitudinal and transverse phonons, $`\varrho `$ is the mass density of GaAs/AlGaAs, $`D`$ is the deformation potential, and $`eh_{14}`$ is the piezoelectric constant. In our numerical evaluations we use $`c_l=5140`$ m/s, $`c_t=3040`$ m/s, $`\varrho =5300`$ kg/m3, $`D=13.0`$ eV, and $`eh_{14}=1.2\times 10^9`$ eV/m.

Because their contributions come dominantly from different regions of wavevector and frequency, it is possible, both experimentally and theoretically, to separate Coulomb and phonon-mediated contributions to drag. Coulomb drag comes from $`qd^1`$, whereas phonon-mediated drag is dominated by contributions from $`q2k_F`$ and frequencies at the peak in $`𝒟_{ij}`$ near $`\omega =c_\lambda q`$. Work at zero magnetic field has established that Coulomb drag dominates at small interlayer separations($`d300`$ Å) but falls off rapidly with increasing $`d`$. Phonon mediated drag, on the other hand, depends only weakly on $`d`$ and has been observed for layers separated by distances approaching $`1\mu `$m.

### A Frictional drag at $`B=0`$

Frictional drag in the absence of a field is now well understood and the extensive literature has recently been reviewed. Eq. (3), combined with the Random Phase Approximation for the 2D electron system polarization function, successfully predicts a low-temperature drag $`\rho _{21}T^2`$, a substantial enhancement of $`\rho _{21}`$ due to the excitation of plasmon modes at around half the Fermi temperature, and a crossover from Coulomb drag to phonon-mediated drag for layers separated by more than $`50\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m}`$. Phonon-mediated drag is readily identified by its signature dependences on the ratio of electron densities in the two layers and on temperature. For phonon-mediated drag $`\rho _{21}T^6`$ at low temperatures ($`T0.1`$ K) and varies approximately linearly at higher temperatures ($`T5`$ K). As a consequence the scaled transresistivity $`\rho _{21}/T^2`$, which is more nearly constant in the Coulomb case, will have a well defined peak. The origin of this peak in $`\rho _{21}/T^2`$ is easily understood by looking at Fig. 1 which shows the phonon resonance and the particle-hole continuum in phase space. The integrand in Eq. (3) is cut off exponentially with $`\omega `$ at $`\mathrm{}\omega k_\mathrm{B}T`$. The full phonon resonance is thus exploited when $`T=T_{\mathrm{peak}}\mathrm{}c_\lambda 2k_F/k_\mathrm{B}`$, and a further increase in the temperature will only lead to a relatively smaller increase in $`\rho _{21}`$.

The occurrence of a peak depends only on the phonon resonance and the existence of a Fermi surface, which leads to a sharp edge of the particle-hole continuum as shown in Fig. 1. The precise location of the peak, however, will depend on detailed properties of the polarization function at large $`q`$ as well as on many other parameters of the experiment. At $`B=0`$, good agreement with experiment for the overall shape of scaled transresistivity curves and for the location of their peaks corroborates the theory. Disagreements in magnitude can in part be attributed to uncertainties in the electron-phonon interaction parameters ($`\rho _{21}`$ varies approximately as the fourth power of the deformation potential constant $`D`$ and this parameter is not accurately known). Corrections to the RPA polarization function at large wavevector may also play a role. Moreover, the magnitude of $`\rho _{21}`$ depends on the phonon mean free path $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ which appears in the phonon propagator. In Ref.  it was shown that for $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ larger than a critical value $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, the transresistivity is enhanced by to a collective mode (i.e. a zero in the real part of the screening function near $`q=2k_F`$). At zero magnetic field $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}200\mu `$m for $`n=1.5\times 10^{15}\mathrm{m}^2`$.

The view taken in this paper is that frictional drag is sufficiently well understood that it can be used to probe, at least at a qualitative level, the wavevector and frequency dependent polarization functions of the coupled 2D electron layers. Just such a probe is urgently needed to test composite fermion theory of the half-filled Landau level.

### B Coulomb drag at $`\nu =1/2`$

Sakhi,, Ussishkin and Stern, and Kim and Millis, using Chern-Simons RPA theory, independently predicted that at $`\nu =1/2`$ the low-temperature transresistivity $`\rho _{21}`$ would be greatly enhanced compared to its $`B=0`$ value. In these theories $`\rho _{21}(T/d)^{4/3}`$ for $`T0`$. This property follows from the form of the Chern-Simons RPA polarization function in the limits $`qk_F`$ and $`\omega v_Fq`$ (see Appendix A). Subsequent experiments by Lilly et al., did demonstrate increased drag which vanished less rapidly than $`T^2`$ with declining temperature. The experimental results are consistent with a $`T^{4/3}`$ law, except below $`0.5\mathrm{K}`$ where the temperature dependence slows further and the drag value becomes sample specific.

In Chern-Simons RPA theory, the Coulomb drag enhancement is due to the diffusive character of composite-fermion density fluctuations at long wavelength and low frequency. In Fig. 2 we plot the Coulomb contribution to $`\rho _{21}`$ (evaluated by numerical integration of Eq. (3)) as a function of $`d`$ for different temperatures. The plot shows that for $`T0.1`$ K, the transresistivity falls of approximately as $`d^2`$, significantly slower than the $`d^4`$ behavior at $`B=0`$, but still fast enough to guarantee that phonon-mediated drag will dominate for widely separated layers. The plots in Fig. 2 were calculated using the Chern-Simons RPA with an effective mass $`m^{}=m_\mathrm{e}`$. In Fig. 3 we illustrate the dependence of Coulomb drag on the choice of the effective mass, and the difference between RPA and MRPA predictions. Phonon mediated drag which is dominated by short wavelengths is not enhanced by the diffusion-like pole in the polarization function. It will, however, as we discuss below, be enhanced over the corresponding zero-field result. A numerical comparison shows that, generally, phonon-mediated drag will dominate over Coulomb drag for $`d200`$ nm.

## III Phonon mediated drag at $`\nu =1/2`$

Two qualitative aspects of the comparison between phonon-mediated drag at $`\nu =1/2`$ and at $`B=0`$ can be anticipated in advance of any detailed calculation. Firstly, since the polarization function is proportional to the effective mass, one would expect the phonon-mediated transresistivity to be larger at $`\nu =1/2`$ by a factor of approximately $`(m^{}/m_b)^2100`$. Notice that this enhancement is weaker than for Coulomb drag which is enhanced by a factor of approximately 1000 (independent of mass for $`T0`$). Secondly, the value of $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ should be larger than at $`B=0`$ for several reasons. The Fermi wavevector is increased by a factor of $`\sqrt{2}`$ if, as we assume here, the electron system is completely spin polarized. The smaller Fermi energy and Fermi velocity, which go along with the larger effective mass, should also increase $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. For larger $`m^{}`$, the ratio of the phonon velocity to the Fermi velocity approaches unity, and the most important drag contributions will then come from energies near the Fermi energy. Correspondingly, within the particle-hole continuum, the largest possible momentum transfer (which is given by $`q=2k_F(1+c_\lambda /v_F)`$) is larger at $`\nu =1/2`$ than for $`B=0`$ ($`c_\lambda v_F`$ for $`B=0`$). Furthermore, since $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is close to the Fermi temperature $`T_F`$, it is necessary to evaluate the polarization functions at finite temperature. (At finite $`T`$ the Fermi gas polarization function can no longer be evaluated analytically. See Appendix A for a detailed discussion of its numerical evaluation.) When evaluated at finite temperature, the polarization function has finite contributions from outside the $`T=0`$ particle-hole continuum (see Fig. 1). This additional effect suggests that a further increase of $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}(\nu =1/2)/T_{\mathrm{peak}}(B=0)`$ which should therefore be larger than $`\sqrt{2}(1+c_\lambda /v_F)`$. Indeed our numerical calculations confirm this expectation which is not, however, in agreement with experiment.

Zelakiewicz et al. have measured the transresistivity in samples with $`d=2600`$ Å and $`d=5200`$ Å where they find no evidence of a contribution from the Coulomb interaction. The transresistivity was indeed found to have the same qualitative features as at $`B=0`$, except that the transresistivity is enhanced by a factor of $`200`$. The scaled transresistivity $`\rho _{21}/T^2`$ does have a peak as a function of temperature whose location scales with electron density as $`\sqrt{n}`$, just as in the $`B=0`$ case. However, the value of $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ was found to be slightly smaller at $`\nu =1/2`$ than at $`B=0`$. The detailed calculations we present below thus tend to indicate that Chern-Simons composite fermion theory overestimates electron polarizability at wavevectors $`2k_F`$, as anticipated by the authors of Ref. . Our calculations are similar to ones performed earlier at $`B=0`$; the most troublesome complication is the requirement that the free-particle polarization function be evaluated at finite temperatures. This aspect of the calculation is explained in detail in Appendix A.

Figs. 4, 5, and 6 show numerical evaluations of $`\rho _{21}/T^2`$ as a function of $`T`$ for $`m^{}=0.067m_e`$, $`m^{}=0.4m_e`$ and $`m^{}=m_e`$ respectively. Calculations at intermediate values of $`m^{}`$ interpolate smoothly between the trends illustrated in these three figures. The striking differences we find in the temperature and density dependences for the different values of $`m^{}`$ are due primarily to the different values of the Fermi temperature compared to the energy of an acoustic phonon with a wavelength comparable to the distance between electrons. We concentrate first on the property which is most prominent in the experimental data, as conventionally presented, $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. We discuss its dependence on density and the phenomenological mass parameter $`m^{}`$. At zero magnetic field $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}=2.6\mathrm{K}`$ in a calculation which uses the same parameters as in Fig. 4. Fig. 4 shows results obtained when the band mass is used for $`m^{}`$ so that differences from the $`B=0`$ case are due only to spin-polarization and the introduction of the magnetic local field. The local field increases the relative importance of small angle scattering and decreases $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ below the naively expected value $`\sqrt{2}\times 2.6`$ K. This tendency of the local field is closely connected to the modification which changes the temperature dependence from $`T^2`$ to $`T^{4/3}`$ in the Coulomb drag case. Even with this effect, however, $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is safely above its zero field value, in disagreement with the experimental findings of Ref. . For this mass, $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ increases with density approximately as $`\sqrt{n}`$ as in the $`B=0`$ case. The origin of this behavior is simply that the highest momentum transfer within the particle-hole continuum is proportional to $`\sqrt{n}`$ and that the Fermi temperature for these values of $`m^{}`$ is sufficiently high compared to $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ that Im$`\mathrm{\Pi }(q,\omega )`$ has negligible weight outside the particle-hole continuum.

In Figs. 5 and 6 we see that $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is still larger at the larger values of $`m^{}`$ required to fit other data in the quantum Hall regime. This is in accord with the considerations outlined above. With increasing $`m^{}`$ the Fermi temperature decreases and momentum transfers greater than $`2k_F`$ receive more weight. For higher values of the mass, it is interesting to see that the value of $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ has a more complex density dependence, reflecting a competition between two effects. As the density increases, the maximum possible momentum transfer increases, which tends to increase $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. At the same time, however, the Fermi temperature increases which leads to a smaller contribution from outside the particle-hole continuum. This tends to decrease $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. Because of this competition, the density-dependence of $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}(n)`$ changes from increasing at $`m^{}=0.067m_e`$, to decreasing at $`m^{}=0.4m_e`$, to approximately constant for $`m^{}>0.4m_e`$. As for the magnitude of the transresistivity, we see that for a phonon mean free path $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}=100\mu \mathrm{m}`$, we would have to choose an effective mass in the neighborhood of $`m^{}=0.3m_\mathrm{e}`$ in order to match the experimental result that $`\rho _{21}/T_{\mathrm{peak}}^2200\mathrm{m}\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{K}^2`$. (For this choice of parameters , the numerical results need to be multiplied by a factor of 5.7 to match the experimental results at zero magnetic field).

Phonon mediated drag might not, however, be a good way of determining the effective mass of Composite Fermions. The critical phonon mean free path $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ itself depends on $`m^{}`$ ($`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}1/(m^{})^2`$) and will thus be different for $`B=0`$ and $`\nu =1/2`$. In Fig. 7 we plot the transresistivity as a function of $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ for different values of $`m^{}`$. At $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ a long-lived collective mode develops, leading to an enhancement of $`\rho _{21}`$ before it saturates at $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}`$. The qualitative distance dependence is rather similar to the zero magnetic field case (see Ref. ): For $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, the transresistivity depends logarithmically on $`d/\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$, i.e. $`\rho _{21}\mathrm{ln}(Ad/\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}})`$ for $`d\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}/A`$ where $`A`$ is a constant of order $`2k_FL`$. For $`d\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}}/A`$ the transresistivity falls off exponentially, $`\rho _{21}\mathrm{exp}(Ad/\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{ph}})/d`$. If, on the other hand, the phonon mean free path is larger than the critical value $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, the distance dependence is more complicated.

## IV Discussion

In this paper we describe the dependence of phonon mediated drag at $`\nu =1/2`$ on system parameters and composite fermion mass predicted by the Chern-Simons MRPA theory. We have focused on the characteristic temperatures $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ at which the scaled drag resistivity $`\rho _{21}(T)/T^2`$ reaches its peak. Crudely we expect $`k_BT_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ to equal the phonon energy at the largest wavevector for which the two-dimensional electron systems have substantial charge fluctuations. Because of the sharp particle-hole continuum of Chern-Simons composite fermion theory, the maximum momentum transfer is close to $`2k_F^{\mathrm{cf}}`$, where $`k_F^{\mathrm{cf}}`$ is the Fermi wavevector of the composite fermion Fermi sea. These considerations lead to $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}\mathrm{}c_\lambda 2k_F^{\mathrm{cf}}/k_B`$. Since $`k_F^{cf}=\sqrt{2}k_F`$ for completely spin polarized composite fermions, $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ at $`\nu =1/2`$ should be larger than $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ at $`B=0`$, in disagreement with experiment. Our detailed calculations confirm that, at a qualitative level, this is indeed the prediction of Chern-Simons composite fermion theory.

At a quantitative level, the change of Fermi radius is not the only difference which arises in comparing phonon-mediated drag at $`B=0`$ and at $`\nu =1/2`$. One source of complication is the strong dependence of the drag resistivity on the effective mass $`m^{}`$ of the composite fermions. The large effective mass of composite fermions leads to a substantially smaller Fermi energy and Fermi velocity. This in turn leads to larger maximum momentum transfer, $`q=2k_F^{\mathrm{cf}}(1+c_\lambda /v_F)`$, since $`c_\lambda `$ is then comparable to $`v_F`$. In addition, contributions to drag from outside the $`T=0`$ particle-hole continuum increase. On the other hand, the magnetic local field correction increases the relative importance of small angle scattering and tends to decrease $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. Because of these mutually competing effects, the position of the maximum is sometimes larger than value expected on the basis of naive considerations and quoted above. For example, when $`m^{}`$ is comparable to $`m_b`$, the Fermi temperature effect is relatively small and the magnetic local field effect leads to a $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ smaller than the naive value. Nevertheless, the position of $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ at $`\nu =1/2`$ is always well above that of $`B=0`$ case.

We now present a detailed summary of the comparison between our theoretical results and experiment . The following aspects of the experimental data  are consistent with theoretical results.

1. The magnitude of the phonon mediated drag at $`\nu =1/2`$ is about 200 times larger than at $`B=0`$. In the theory, the factor of a few hundred comes from the enhanced density of states, $`m^{}/2\pi \mathrm{}^2`$, of composite fermions compared to the bare density of states, $`m_b/2\pi \mathrm{}^2`$, of electrons at $`B=0`$. $`m^{}/m_b10`$ according to numerical and theoretical estimations . The presence of two layers leads to $`(m^{}/m_b)^2100`$ fold enhancement in the drag rate.
2. When the phonon mean free path of $`\mathrm{}_{ph}=100\mu m`$ is chosen consistently for $`B=0`$ and $`\nu =1/2`$, the experimental data can be fit by choosing $`m^{}`$ around $`0.3m_e`$ which is consistent with previous numerical and theoretical estimations .
3. There is a well defined maximum of $`\rho _{21}/T^2`$, suggesting that $`\nu =1/2`$ systems have a fairly sharp wavevector cutoff for low-energy charge fluctuation, as predicted by Chern-Simons composite fermion theory.

On the other hand, the following experimental results do not agree with theoretical predictions.

1. Experimentally, $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ at $`\nu =1/2`$ is always smaller than that of $`B=0`$. Theoretically it is always larger, even when unrealistically small values are used for the composite fermion effective mass.
2. Experimentally, $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is proportional to $`\sqrt{n}`$. Theoretically, this simple behavior is found only when unrealistically small values are used for the composite fermion effective mass.

We now discuss some possible sources of these discrepancies.

Incomplete spin polarization: In our calculations, we assumed complete spin polarization. If the spins are only partially polarized, the Fermi sea of the majority spin would be smaller than in the fully polarized case, leading to a smaller maximum momentum transfer and a smaller $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. Recently the spin polarization of $`\nu =1/2`$ state was measured by NMR . In the experiment by S. Melinte et al. , the electron density, $`n=1.4\times 10^{11}cm^2`$, of their sample M242 is similar to the density, $`n=1.5\times 10^{11}cm^2`$, of the sample studied in the drag experiment of S. Zelakiewicz et al. . In the NMR experiment , $`\nu =1/2`$ is reached when the external magnetic field is $`B=11.4`$ T, compared to the field strength $`B=12.82`$ T for $`\nu =1/2`$ in the drag experiment . This NMR experiment can therefore be used to get a reasonable estimate of the $`\nu =1/2`$ spin polarization in the drag experiment. We conclude that the spin polarization in the $`\nu =1/2`$ drag experiment at $`12`$ K was about $`70\%`$ of the full polarization. This would imply that majority-spin Fermi wavevector was $`\sqrt{1.7}k_F1.3k_F`$ and that of the minority spin Fermi wavevector is $`\sqrt{0.3}k_F0.55k_F`$. This reduction in the majority spin-wavevector ($`1.3k_F`$ compared to $`\sqrt{2}k_F`$) is not sufficient to explain the low $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ values seen in the experiments. In our theory, we would not expect a large contribution to drag from the minority spins, and in any event the Fermi radius $`0.55k_F`$ is too small for it to be associated with the observed value of $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ slightly below that of $`B=0`$ case. We conclude that incomplete spin polarization alone cannot explain the discrepancy between theory and experiment.

Breakdown of (M)RPA at large wavevectors: This experimental result may signal that the (M)RPA is not adequate to describe the large wavevector response of a $`\nu =1/2`$ system. It is generally accepted that Ward identities  related to conservation laws, limit beyond (M)RPA contributions to density-density and current-current response functions in the long wavevectors and low energy limit. However, it has been also shown that response functions at large wavevectors, in particular near $`2k_F`$, may be modified at low energies by singular vertex corrections . Even though these singular corrections appear at low energies at $`2k_F`$, it is certainly possible that these singular corrections persist to higher energy scales comparable to $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ or $`\mathrm{}c_\lambda 2k_F^{\mathrm{cf}}/k_B`$. If this is true, it may be necessary to get beyond the (M)RPA to obtain an accurate description of phonon-mediated drag.

Dipolar Composite Fermions: As discussed in the introduction, there exist at present two descriptions of $`\nu =1/2`$ composite fermions. It has been established that these two descriptions are equivalent in the low energy and long wavelength limits. However, these two descriptions may lead to quite different predictions at large wavevectors because dipolar composite fermions have a finite size which can be comparable to $`k_F^1`$. Indeed, it has been observed that the equivalence of two approaches may break down at higher energies even in the long wavelength limit . The singular behavior of the response functions near $`2k_F`$ mentioned above in the Chern-Simons theory approach may be a signature of the breakdown of the theory at large wavevector scales and a proper description of the system at large wavevectors may require the fully lowest Landau level dipolar composite-fermion theory. Calculations of the relevant response functions and of the drag resistivity in the dipolar composite fermion approach are in progress .

In conclusion, the Chern-Simons theory of composite fermions overestimates charge fluctuations at the Fermi wavelength scale and a proper description of the system at large wavevectors may have to take into account the extended nature of dipolar composite fermions.

## V Acknowledgements

This work was initiated at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in University of California at Santa Barbara (NFS grant PHY9407194), and was further supported by the NSF under grants DMR-9714055 (M.C.B and A.H.M) and DMR-9983783 (Y.B.K.), by the Danish Research Academy (M.C.B), and by the A. P. Sloan Foundation (Y.B.K.). The authors are grateful T. J. Gramila, B. Y.-K. Hu, and S. Zelakiewicz, for informative and stimulating interactions. Y.B.K. would like to thank also Isaac Newton Institute at the University of Cambridge for the hospitality.

## A Polarization functions

In this appendix we summarize the techniques we use to evaluate the free-fermion polarization functions which appear in Eq. (3) at finite temperatures and, for completeness, present explicit expressions for the (Modified) Random Phase Approximation polarization functions.

The electron polarization function $`\mathrm{\Pi }^\mathrm{e}(q,\omega )`$ expresses the linear response of an electron system to the total electromagnetic field. For a two-dimensional system (in the $`x`$-$`y`$ plane) and a magnetic induction restricted to the $`z`$-direction, $`𝐁=B\widehat{z}`$, it is sufficient to consider the number density $`n`$ and the $`y`$-component of the number current density $`j_y`$ ($`j_x`$ is fixed by particle conservation). In a 2-vector notation, the polarization function is defined by

$$j^\alpha (q,\omega )=ec^2\mathrm{\Pi }^{\mathrm{e},\alpha \beta }(q,\omega )A_{\mathrm{total}}^\beta (q,\omega ),$$
(A1)
where $`𝐣=(cn,j_y)`$ and $`𝐀=(\mathrm{\Phi }/c,A_y)`$. The scalar potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and vector potential $`𝐀`$ are related to the electric field $`𝐄`$ and the magnetic induction $`𝐁`$ is given by $`𝐄=\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`𝐁=\times 𝐀`$ with $`𝐀=0`$. This choice is known as the Coulomb gauge. The total field is the sum of the external field and the field induced by the current and charge response of the system.

The tensor $`\mathrm{\Pi }^\mathrm{e}(q,\omega )`$ has four components $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^\mathrm{e}`$, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{01}^\mathrm{e}`$, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{10}^\mathrm{e}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^\mathrm{e}`$, which are related by linear response theory to density-density, density-current, current-density, and current-current correlation functions, respectively. For the drag calculations we are only interested in the density-density response $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^\mathrm{e}`$ which is called $`\mathrm{\Pi }(q,\omega )`$ in the main text.

$`\mathrm{\Pi }^\mathrm{e}(q,\omega )`$ is known only approximately, even at $`B=0`$. In the Random Phase Approximation, the polarization function correlation functions are approximated by their non-interacting fermion forms. At $`B=0`$ we thus use $`\mathrm{\Pi }^\mathrm{e}=2\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}`$ with

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}=\frac{1}{A}\underset{𝐤}{}\frac{n_F(\xi _{𝐤+𝐪})n_F(\xi _𝐤)}{\mathrm{}\omega \xi _{𝐤+𝐪}+\xi _𝐤+i\eta }.$$
(A2)
At zero temperature the wavevector integral can be evaluated analytically:

$`\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_0}{2z}}(2zC_{}[(zu)^21]^{1/2}`$ (A4)
$`C_+[(z+u)^21]^{1/2})`$
$`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_0}{2z}}(D_{}[1(zu)^2]^{1/2}`$ (A6)
$`D_+[1(z+u)^2]^{1/2})`$
where $`g_0=m_b/2\pi \mathrm{}^2`$, $`z=q/2k_F`$, $`u=\omega /qv_F`$, $`m_b`$ is the band mass, $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity, and

$$C_\pm =\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{z\pm u}{|z\pm u|}\hfill & ,|z\pm u|>1\hfill \\ 0\hfill & ,|z\pm u|<1\hfill \end{array}$$
(A7)
$$D_\pm =\{\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & ,|z\pm u|>1\hfill \\ 1\hfill & ,|z\pm u|<1\hfill \end{array}$$
(A8)
In the fractional quantum Hall regime, electron-electron interactions cannot be ignored. In Chern-Simons composite fermion theory interactions enter only through the local field produced by attached flux quanta. The composite fermion polarization function is defined by

$$j^\alpha (q,\omega )=ec^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{CF}}^{\alpha \beta }(q,\omega )A_{\mathrm{CF},\mathrm{total}}^\beta (q,\omega ),$$
(A9)
where $`𝐀_{\mathrm{CF},\mathrm{total}}`$ is the total electromagnetic field seen by the Composite Fermions which includes the Chern-Simons field. In the RPA (MRPA) one approximates $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{CF}}`$ by $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{(0)}`$ and relates $`\mathrm{\Pi }^\mathrm{e}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{CF}}`$ by

$$[\mathrm{\Pi }^\mathrm{e}]^1=[\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{CF}}]^1+𝐂+𝐅$$
(A10)
with

$$𝐂=\frac{ec\mathrm{\Phi }_0\stackrel{~}{\varphi }}{q}\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& i\\ i& 0\end{array}\right]$$
(A11)
and

$$𝐅=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }m}{n_0}\left[\begin{array}{cc}(\frac{\omega }{q})^2& 0\\ 0& c^2\end{array}\right]$$
(A12)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=m^{}m_b`$ where $`m^{}`$ it the effective mass, and $`n_0`$ is the equilibrium electron number density, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=2\pi \mathrm{}/e`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }=2`$ at half filling. The difference between RPA and MRPA lies in the matrix $`𝐅`$ which is set to zero for the RPA. Notice that MRPA reduces to RPA if the effective mass is chosen to be equal to the band mass. Solving for $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^\mathrm{e}`$ we get (since $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{01}^{(0)}=\mathrm{\Pi }_{10}^{(0)}=0`$)

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^\mathrm{e}=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}}{1+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }m}{n_0}\left(\frac{\omega }{q}\right)^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}\left(\frac{ec\mathrm{\Phi }_0\stackrel{~}{\varphi }}{q}\right)^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}\frac{n_0}{n_0+c^2\mathrm{\Delta }m\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}}}$$
(A13)
In Eq. (A13) the band mass in the expression for $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}`$ is replaced by the effective mass. $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}`$ is related to the current-current correlation function and is given by

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}=\frac{n_0}{m^{}c^2}+\frac{1}{A}\underset{𝐤}{}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}k_y}{m^{}c}\right)^2\frac{n_F(\xi _{𝐤+𝐪})n_F(\xi _𝐤)}{\mathrm{}\omega \xi _{𝐤+𝐪}+\xi _𝐤+i\eta }$$
(A14)
which at zero temperature is

$`\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{m^{}c^2}}+({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}k_F}{m^{}c}})^2{\displaystyle \frac{g_0^{}}{6z}}(3z+C_+[(z+u)^21]^{3/2}`$ (A16)
$`+C_{}[(zu)^21]^{3/2}(z+u)^3(zu)^3)`$
$`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}k_F}{m^{}c}})^2{\displaystyle \frac{g_0^{}}{6z}}(D_{}[1(zu)^2]^{3/2}`$ (A19)
$`D_+[1(z+u)^2]^{3/2})`$
with $`g_0^{}=m^{}/2\pi \mathrm{}^2`$.

At finite temperature, the expressions for $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}`$ must be evaluated numerically. We have done this by evaluating the angular integral analytically and expressing the functions in terms of Fermi-Dirac Integrals which are defined according to

$$_j(x,b)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(j+1)}_b^{\mathrm{}}\frac{t^j}{1+\mathrm{exp}(tx)}𝑑t.$$
(A20)
We find

$`(g^{})^1\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }\stackrel{~}{T}^{1/2}}{4z}}(_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0)`$ (A22)
$`_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}}))`$
$``$ $`\mathrm{sgn}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{}){\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }\stackrel{~}{T}^{1/2}}{4z}}(_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0)`$ (A24)
$`_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}}))`$
$`(g^{})^1\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }\stackrel{~}{T}^{1/2}}{4z}}(_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\mu }\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0)`$ (A26)
$`_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\mu }\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0))`$
$`({\displaystyle \frac{m^{}c}{\mathrm{}k_F}})^2(g_0^{})^1\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`u^2z^2/3`$ (A27)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }\stackrel{~}{T}^{3/2}}{8z}}(_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0)`$ (A29)
$`_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}}))`$
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{sgn}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{}){\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }\stackrel{~}{T}^{3/2}}{8z}}(_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0)`$ (A31)
$`_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}}))`$
$`({\displaystyle \frac{m^{}c}{\mathrm{}k_F}})^2(g_0^{})^1\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{11}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }\stackrel{~}{T}^{3/2}}{8z}}(_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\mu }\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0)`$ (A33)
$`_{1/2}({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\mu }\mathrm{\Omega }_+^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}}},0))`$
Here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\pm =z\pm u`$, and we have defined the dimensionless quantities $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }=\mu /E_F`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{T}=k_BT/E_F`$ where $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential and $`E_F`$ is the Fermi energy. For parabolic bands $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }/\stackrel{~}{T}=\mathrm{ln}(e^{1/\stackrel{~}{T}}1)`$. For evaluating the Fermi-Dirac Integrals we have used efficient algorithms that are publicly available.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The coupling of light vector mesons \[$`\rho `$(770) and $`\omega `$(782)\] to low-lying baryon resonances is still to a large extent unknown. This lack of information is a particularly important source of uncertainties in the theoretical description of the propagation of vector mesons in a nuclear medium, where resonance-hole states are expected to contribute largely to the dynamics.

The $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ processes have been described recently in the framework of a relativistic coupled-channel model . They are particular processes included in a broader scheme aiming at reproducing data on pion-nucleon elastic scattering and pion-induced production reactions involving the $`\pi \mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\rho `$N, $`\omega `$N, K$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, K$`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\eta `$N channels. The model is restricted to s-wave scattering in the $`\rho `$N and $`\omega `$N channels. The corresponding s- and d-wave resonances in the $`\pi `$N channel are generated dynamically. The meson-baryon coupling strengths are determined from the fit to the available data on the channels included in the calculation.

The $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ amplitudes are very sensitive to the presence of the s- and d-wave pion-nucleon resonances lying below the vector meson production threshold ($`1.3<\sqrt{s}<1.7`$ GeV). This point is discussed and illustrated in Section 2. Data that directly reflect these amplitudes would provide very useful constraints on the underlying dynamics. The $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction appears as a particularly relevant process to study the $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ amplitudes. This reaction offers the possibility to test experimentally the $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\omega `$ strengths below threshold and the quantum interference in the $`e^+e^{}`$ decays of the $`\rho ^0`$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons is very sensitive to the magnitudes and the relative phase of the production amplitudes. In Section 3 we present briefly the formalism and preliminary numerical results. The perspectives of this work are discussed in Section 4.

## 2 The $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ amplitudes close to the vector meson production threshold

The $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ amplitudes of Ref.  entering our calculation of the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction are displayed in Fig. 1. We shall restrict our discussion to $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs of invariant masses ranging from 0.5 to 0.8 GeV. The exclusive measurement of the $`e^+e^{}n`$ outgoing channel ensures that the $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs come from vector meson decays (pseudoscalar mesons decay into an $`e^+e^{}`$ pair and an additional photon). We recall however that only s- and d-wave pion-nucleon resonances are at present included in the model of Ref. . To be complete, the description of the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction in the energy range discussed in this work ($`1.2<\sqrt{s}<1.8`$ GeV) should include also the effect of other partial waves. We will return to this question in Section 4.

The $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ scattering amplitudes of Fig. 1 illustrate the importance of baryon resonances in vector meson production below threshold. These resonances induce a rich structure in both the real and imaginary parts of the amplitudes. In particular, the presence of the d-wave N\*(1520) resonance is clearly reflected in the J=3/2 amplitudes for $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\omega `$ production. This is an immediate consequence of the strong coupling of the N\*(1520) to both the $`\rho ^0n`$ and $`\omega n`$ channels . The strong couplings imply that there is considerable vector-meson strength in the N\*-hole modes in the nuclear medium.

An experimental test of the N\*N$`\rho ^0`$ and N\*N$`\omega `$ vertices through the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction below the vector meson production threshold would be a most valuable constraint on the in-medium propagation of $`\rho ^0`$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons.

## 3 The $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction

The $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ amplitudes are simply related to the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ amplitudes through the Vector Dominance assumption . In this picture, the $`e^+e^{}`$ decay of vector mesons is described by their conversion into time-like photons which subsequently materialize into $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs. The magnitude of the coupling constants $`f_\rho `$ and $`f_\omega `$, which characterize the conversion of $`\rho `$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons into photons, is determined from the measured partial widths of $`\rho ^0`$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons into $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs . The relative phase of the $`\rho `$ and $`\omega `$ amplitudes is not determined by hadronic observables. We determine this phase in each channel by comparing with the photon-decay helicity amplitudes of the corresponding resonance , assuming Vector Meson Dominance. We use $`f_\rho `$=0.036 GeV2 and $`f_\omega `$=0.011 GeV2 .

The squared amplitude for the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction with intermediate $`\rho ^0`$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons in the Vector Dominance Model is illustrated in Fig. 2. Schematically, this quantity can be written as

$`\left|<ne^+e^{}|\pi ^{}p>\right|^2={\displaystyle \frac{|<e^+e^{}|\gamma >|^2}{m^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{f_\rho _{\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n}}{m^2m_\rho ^2+im_\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (m)}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{f_\omega _{\pi ^{}p\omega n}}{m^2m_\omega ^2+im_\omega \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega (m)}}^2,`$ (1)
where the first term of the right-hand side describes the propagation of the time-like photon and its decay into an $`e^+e^{}`$ pair of invariant mass m and the second term contains the vector meson production dynamics. The vector mesons are characterized by their mass mV and energy-dependent width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_V(m)`$. The interference of the complex $`_{\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n}`$ and $`_{\pi ^{}p\omega n}`$ amplitudes (Fig. 1) in the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ cross section is sensitive to their relative phase. The importance of measuring such a phase in the $`e^+e^{}`$ or $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ decays of $`\rho ^0`$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons has been evidenced by the contribution of such data to the understanding of other processes, like the photoproduction of $`\rho ^0`$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons in the diffractive regime ($`\gamma Bee^+e^{}Be`$)  and the $`e^+e^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ reaction .

We indicate the magnitude of the $`\rho ^0\omega `$ interference in the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction as function of the total center of mass energy in Fig. 3. We have selected $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs of invariant mass m=0.55 GeV. This figure illustrates the role of baryon resonances with masses in the range of 1.5 to 1.6 GeV in generating strong interference effects.

Above the vector meson threshold, the $`\rho ^0\omega `$ interference in the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ cross section is particularly interesting for $`e^+e^{}`$ pair invariant masses close to the $`\omega `$ mass. This effect is manifested in the invariant mass spectrum displayed in Fig. 4 ($`\sqrt{s}`$=1.8 GeV). The model of Ref.  for the $`_{\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n}`$ and $`_{\pi ^{}p\omega n}`$ amplitudes predicts a constructive interference at this energy. This feature appears to be a very sensitive test of the model.

A detailed discussion of these interference patterns will be presented in a forthcoming publication .

## 4 Perspectives

The study of the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction provides a particularly stringent test of the $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ amplitudes close and below the vector meson production threshold ($`1.2<\sqrt{s}<1.8`$ GeV).

We have computed the cross section of the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ reaction using the model of Ref.  for the vector meson production amplitude and indicated its main features as function of the total center of mass energy.

A natural extension of the present work would be to include the p-wave pion-nucleon resonances in the coupled channel scheme of Ref. , thereby increasing the expected domain of validity of the $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ amplitudes. Projecting the coupled-channel amplitudes on specific s- and t-channel exchanges could be a useful step in providing a simple interpretation of our numerical results.

We note that the study of the quantum interference of $`\rho ^0`$\- and $`\omega `$-mesons produced in the $`\pi ^{}p\rho ^0n`$ and $`\pi ^{}p\omega n`$ reactions in other channels than the $`e^+e^{}`$ decay ($`\pi ^0\gamma `$ for example) may also be of interest.

Data on the $`\pi ^{}pe^+e^{}n`$ cross section in the energy range considered in this work are at present not available. Such measurements would provide an important test of the dynamics in a reaction which is crucial for the understanding of the in-medium propagation of vector mesons.

## 5 Acknowledgements

One of us (M. S.) acknowledges the generous hospitality of the Theory Group of GSI, where much of this work was done.


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# Disentangling Intertwined Embedded-States and Spin Effects in Light-Front Quantization

## I Introduction

With the advent of Light-Front field theory, one can be quite hopeful to develop a connection between Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and the relativistic constituent quark model which is used in various electroweak form factor calculations. QCD provides a fundamental description of hadronic and nuclear structure in terms of elementary quark and gluon degrees of freedom. It is very succesful in the perturbative regime, for instance when it is used in the explanation of the evolution of distribution functions in deep-inelastic scattering. There, the basic hard interaction is described by perturbative QCD and the Electro-weak interaction. The soft parts, distribution and fragmentation functions, are non-perturbative ingredients, which are less well understood. Lattice calculations are becoming increasingly accurate, but there is still much room and need for other non-perturbative approaches.

It is part of the nature of the description of hadronic systems in terms of quarks and gluons that the characteristic momenta are of the same order or even very much larger than the masses of the particles involved. Therefore a relativistic treatment is called for. A very promising technique is Light-Front Dynamics (LFD), which treats relativistic many-body effects in a consistent way . In LFD a Fock-space expansion of bound states is made. The wave function $`\psi _n(x_i,k_i^{},\lambda _i)`$ describes the component with $`n`$ constituents, with longitudinal momentum fraction $`x_i`$, perpendicular momentum $`k_i^{}`$ and helicity $`\lambda _i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$. It is the aim of LFD to determine those wave functions and use them in conjunction with hard scattering amplitudes to describe the properties of hadrons and their response to electroweak probes.

Recently, important steps were taken towards a realization of this goal. In the work of Brodsky,Hiller and McCartor , it is demonstrated how to solve the problem of renormalizing light-front Hamiltonian theories while maintaining Lorentz symmetry and other symmetries. (The genesis of the work presented in  may be found in  and additional examples including the use of LFD methods to solve the bound-state problems in field theory can be found in the review ). These results are indicative of the great potential of LFD for a fundamental description of non-perturbative effects in QCD. However, at present there are no realistic results available for wave functions of hadrons based on QCD alone. In order to calculate the response of hadrons to external probes, one might resort to the use of model wave functions. This way to estimate matrix elements was used by Ji et al.. The same reasons that make LFD so attractive to solve bound-state problems in field theory make it also useful for a relativistic description of nuclear systems. Presently, it is realized that a parametrization of nuclear reactions in terms of non-relativistic wave functions must fail. LF methods have the advantage that they are formally similar to time-ordered many-body theories, yet provide relativistically invariant observables.

Until now we have sketched a rather rosy picture for the application of LFD to hadron physics. However, not all is well and this is just the reason for the present investigation. Since the 1980’s it has been assumed that the observables computed in the framework of LFD using the methods of perturbation theory are invariants, just as in covariant perturbation theory. Many authors have shown that LFD has this feature in particular cases and some years ago some general statements to the same effect could be made . A case in point is the calculation of a current matrix element in quantum field theory. A typical amplitude is given by the triangle diagram. One encounters this diagram e.g. when computing the pion form factor (see Fig. 1).

The vertices denoted by $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ are coupling constants in covariant perturbation theory. The hard scattering process is the absorption of a photon of momentum $`q`$ by a (anti-)quark. In the LFD approach the covariant amplitude is replaced by a series of LF time-ordered diagrams. In the case of the triangle diagram they are depicted in Fig. 2.

The first of these two diagrams is easily interpreted in terms of the LF wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$. However, the other diagram has a vertex that can again be written in the same way as before, but it contains also another vertex, denoted by $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$, that cannot be written as a LF wave function. It is a new element in LFD. We call this vertex the non-wave-function vertex. In order to compute the form factors in the time-like region, the contributions from these vertices must be included. Semileptonic meson decay processes also require the contributions from these vertices. One may try to avoid using them by choosing special kinematic conditions. It is known however that this will not be a simple task .

In the present work, we investigate the contributions from the non-wave-function vertices. We construct both the wave-function and non-wave-function vertices using pointlike covariant ones. The model used here is essentially an extension of Mankiewicz and Sawicki’s $`(1+1)`$-dimensional quantum field theory model , which was later reinvestigated by several others . The starting model wave function is the solution of the covariant Bethe-Salpeter equation in the ladder approximation with a relativistic version of the contact interaction . The covariant model wave function is a product of two free single particle propagators, the overall momentum-conserving Dirac delta function, and a constant vertex function. Consequently, all our form factor calculations are various ways of evaluating the Feynman triangle diagram in quantum field theory.

The importance of the contributions of the non-wave-function vertices was investigated in two cases: the electromagnetic form factors of a scalar and a pseudoscalar meson with spin-1/2 constituents. We also calculated the same form factor of a scalar meson with spin-0 constituents to see the spin effects. In 3+1 dimensions both the covariant and the LF calculations are divergent and the model without any smeared vertex for the fermion loop is not well defined. This is in dramatic contrast to the case of spin-0 (boson) constituents, where regularization is not needed at all. In order to disentangle the issue of the non-wave-function vertices from the need of regularization, we performed our calculations in 1+1 dimensions, where at least the covariant calculations for spin-1/2 constituents give finite results.

It is commonly believed and widely used that the LF energy integration of the covariant Feynman amplitude generates the corresponding equivalent amplitude in the LFD. As we will show in this work, however, the equivalence between the LFD and the covariant Feynman calculation is not always guaranteed. The bad component of the current, $`J^{}`$, with spin-1/2 constituents exhibits a persistent end-point singularity in the contribution from the non-wave-function vertex. Unless the divergence in this contribution is properly subtracted, the singular behavior leads to an infinitely different result from that obtained by the covariant Feynman calculation. Ensuring the equivalence to the Feynman amplitude, we have identified the divergent term that needs to be removed from $`J^{}`$. Only after the identified term is subtracted, the result is covariant and satisfies the current conservation.

In the next Section (Section II), we present both the covariant Feynman calculations and the LF calculations using the LF energy integration for the electromagnetic form factors of a pseudoscalar and a scalar meson with spin-1/2 constituents as well as the same form factor of a scalar meson with spin-0 constituents. Section III contains the numerical estimates of both the wave-function and non-wave-function vertices to the electromagnetic form factors of each case presented in Section II. The conclusion and discussion follow in Section IV.

## II Calculations

The electromagnetic form factors can be extracted from the matrix elements of the current $`J^\mu `$

$$p^{}|J^\mu |p=ie_m(p^\mu +p^\mu )F(q^2),$$
(1)
where $`e_m`$ is the charge of the meson and $`q^2=(p^{}p)^2`$ is the square of the four momentum transfer. If one uses the plus-component, $`J^+=(J^0+J^3)/\sqrt{2}`$, the LF calculation gives two finite contributions, the wave-function part and the non-wave-function part, that add up to the covariant result, as expected. The importance of the non-wave-function contribution varies strongly with the momentum transfer and depends sensitively on the binding energy of the meson. For small values of $`q^2`$ and small binding energy, the wave-function part is dominant, but elsewhere the non-wave-function is essential for agreement between the LF calculation and the covariant results.

The form factor can also be extracted from the minus-component of the current, $`J^{}=(J^0J^3)/\sqrt{2}`$. Covariance guarantees that it makes no difference whether the form factor is determined using the plus or the minus current matrix element. As LFD is not manifestly covariant, it may happen that $`J^{}`$ leads to a form factor different from the one determined using $`J^+`$. As we show in this Section, the matrix element of $`J^{}`$ diverges in LFD. Unless one regulates $`J^{}`$, the current cannot be conserved. To assure the current conservation, it is crucial to identify the term that causes the divergence. We have identified this term exactly and found that it is an infinite function of the momentum transfer. If this infinite term is subtracted, the two LF contributions become finite as it must be in the conserved current. Moreover, their sum equals again the covaraint result as expected. However, the regularized LF contributions are different from the two parts of the form factor extracted from the plus current. The differences grow with increasing binding energy.

### A  Pseudoscalar Meson with the Fermion Loop

The covariant fermion triangle-loop (Fig. 1) for the pseudoscalar meson leads to the amplitude given by

$$p^{}|J^\mu |p=4N\frac{d^2k}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{(m^2k^2+pp^{})k^\mu +(k^2m^2kp^{})p^\mu +(k^2m^2kp)p^\mu }{(k^2m^2+iϵ)((kp)^2m^2+iϵ)((kp^{})^2m^2+iϵ)},$$
(2)
where $`m`$ is the fermion mass and $`N`$ modulo the obvious charge factor $`e_m`$ is the normalization constant fixed by the unity of the form factor at zero momentum transfer. Even though we will present the unequal constituent mass case such as the kaon in the next Section of our numerical analysis, for the clarity of presentation we will focus in this Section on the equal mass case, such as the pion, only.

The usual Feynman parametrization and the covariant integration yields

$$p^{}|J^\mu |p=i(p^\mu +p^\mu )\frac{N}{\pi }_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}𝑑x_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1x}𝑑y\frac{2m^2(1x)(m^2+(x+y1)^2M^2xyq^2)x}{((x+y)(x+y1)M^2+m^2xyq^2)^2},$$
(3)
where $`M`$ is the meson mass. For $`q^2=0`$, the integration leads to fix the normalization as

$$1/N=\frac{4m^2}{\pi M(4m^2M^2)}\left[\frac{M}{4m^2}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{M}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}\right)\right].$$
(4)
In LFD, the form factor $`F(q^2)`$ can be obtained by calculating either $`p^{}|J^+|p`$ or $`p^{}|J^{}|p`$. In principle, the result must be identical to the above covariant Feynman result regardless of which component of the current is used. However, this is not necessarily the case as we demonstrate in the following.

First, the calculation of $`p^{}|J^+|p`$ integrating out the LF energy $`k^{}`$ in Eq. (2) yields $`F(q^2)`$ given by

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi (2+\alpha )}}[{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )^2m^2}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )(\alpha x)[x(\alpha x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2]}{\alpha [(\alpha x)(1+x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2][x(\alpha x)M^2+(1+\alpha )m^2]}}],`$ (6)
where $`\alpha `$ is given by $`q^2=\frac{\alpha ^2M^2}{1+\alpha }`$. In Eq. (6) the first and second terms correspond to the contributions from the wave-function and non-wave-function vertices depicted in the first and second diagrams in Fig. 2, respectively. We have verified that the contribution from the non-wave-function part vanishes at $`\alpha =0`$, i.e. at $`q^2=0`$, indicating the absence of a zero-mode contribution  in the good component of the current $`J^+`$. Adding both contributions in Eq. (6), we obtain

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2N(1+\alpha )m^2}{\pi \alpha M[(2+\alpha )^2m^2(1+\alpha )M^2]}}`$ (9)
$`[{\displaystyle \frac{2+2\alpha +\alpha ^2}{\sqrt{4(1+\alpha )m^2+\alpha ^2M^2}}}\mathrm{Artanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha M}{\sqrt{4(1+\alpha )m^2+\alpha ^2M^2}}}\right)`$
$`\text{ }+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha }{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}}\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}}\right)].`$
This result is identical to the form factor obtained by the covariant Feynman calculation given by Eq. (3) and F(0)=1 gives the same normalization given in Eq. (4).

On the other hand, the calculation of $`p^{}|J^{}|p`$ yields $`F(q^2)`$ given by

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi (2+\alpha )}}[(1+\alpha )M^2{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1x)^2}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (10)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )^2m^2}{\alpha M^2}}{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{\alpha x}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )^2m^2+\{(1+\alpha )^2(1+x)\}(\alpha x)M^2}{[(\alpha x)(1+x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2][x(\alpha x)M^2+(1+\alpha )m^2]}}],`$ (11)
where again it is apparent that the first and second terms correspond to the contributions from the wave-function and non-wave-function vertices, respectively. However, the non-wave-function part shows the end-point singularity coming from $`\frac{1}{\alpha x}`$. Without subtracting the end-point singularity, the result is infinitely different from that obtained in the $`p^{}|J^+|p`$ calculation. This is an astonishing result that deviates from the common belief in the equivalence of the LFD and the covariant Feynman calculation. Neither covariance nor current conservation is satisfied without a certain adjustment. In order to identify the term that must be subtracted, we rewrite the above equation as follows:

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi (2+\alpha )}}[(1+\alpha )M^2{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1x)^2}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (13)
$`\text{ }+{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{R(x,\alpha )}{\alpha x}}],`$
where $`R(x,\alpha )`$ is defined by

$$R(x,\alpha )=\frac{(1+\alpha )^2m^2[(1+\alpha )^2m^2+\{(1+\alpha )^2(1+x)\}(\alpha x)M^2}{\alpha M^2[(\alpha x)(1+x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2][x(\alpha x)M^2+(1+\alpha )m^2]}.$$
(14)
In order to obtain the identical result to Eq. (9) from the $`p^{}|J^+|p`$ calculation, we find that $`R(\alpha ,\alpha )`$ must be subtracted from the numerator of the non-wave-function part integrand, i.e.,

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi (2+\alpha )}}[(1+\alpha )M^2{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1x)^2}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (16)
$`\text{ }+{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{R(x,\alpha )R(\alpha ,\alpha )}{\alpha x}}].`$
The subtracted term $`R(\alpha ,\alpha )=\frac{1+\alpha }{\alpha M^2}`$ depends on the momentum transfer and never vanishes. While the subtracted result Eq. (16) is identical to Eq. (9), it is interesting to note that the zero-mode contribution does not vanish in the $`p^{}|J^{}|p`$ calculation as the non-wave-function part in Eq. (16) still survives even at $`q^2=0`$. However, the subtracted result Eq. (16) with the zero-mode contribution assures covariance and satisfies current conservation.

### B  Scalar Meson with the Fermion Loop

The Feynman parametrization and the covariant integration of the fermion triangle-loop for the scalar meson gives the following amplitude:

$`p^{}|J^\mu |p`$ $`=`$ $`4N{\displaystyle \frac{d^2k}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{(3m^2+k^2pp^{})k^\mu (k^2+m^2kp^{})p^\mu (k^2+m^2kp)p^\mu }{(k^2m^2+iϵ)((kp)^2m^2+iϵ)((kp^{})^2m^2+iϵ)}}`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`i(p^\mu +p^\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}𝑑x{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1x}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{x((1xy)^2M^2m^2xyq^2)}{((x+y)(x+y1)M^2+m^2xyq^2)^2}},`$ (18)
where the normalization $`N`$ is again fixed by $`F(0)=1`$ and given by

$$1/N=\frac{4m^2}{\pi M^3}\left[\frac{M}{4m^2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{M}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}\right)\right].$$
(19)
In LFD, the calculation of $`p^{}|J^+|p`$ leads to $`F(q^2)`$ given by

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi (2+\alpha )}}[{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )\{2(1x)(2x+\alpha )(1+\alpha )\}m^2}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (20)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )(\alpha x)[(1+\alpha )(1+4x\alpha )m^2x(\alpha x)M^2]}{\alpha [(\alpha x)(1+x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2][x(\alpha x)M^2+(1+\alpha )m^2]}}],`$ (21)
where the contribution from the non-wave-function part again vanishes at $`q^2=0`$, indicating the absence of zero-mode contribution  in the good component of the current, $`J^+`$. Adding both contributions, we find

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2N(1+\alpha )m^2}{\pi \alpha M^3[(2+\alpha )^2m^2(1+\alpha )M^2]}}`$ (24)
$`[{\displaystyle \frac{8(1+\alpha )m^2(2+2\alpha \alpha ^2)M^2}{\sqrt{4(1+\alpha )m^2+\alpha ^2M^2}}}\mathrm{Artanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha M}{\sqrt{4(1+\alpha )m^2+\alpha ^2M^2}}}\right)`$
$`\text{ }{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha }{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}}\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}}\right)].`$
This result is identical to the form factor obtained by the covariant Feynman calculation given by Eq. (18) and F(0)=1 gives the same normalization presented in Eq. (18).

However, the calculation of $`p^{}|J^{}|p`$ generates an end-point point singularity similar to the one observed in the pseudoscalar case. Defining the function

$$S(x,\alpha )=\frac{(1+\alpha )^2m^2[(1+\alpha )(1+4x3\alpha )m^2+\{\alpha (2\alpha )+(2\alpha 1)x\}(\alpha x)M^2]}{\alpha M^2[(\alpha x)(1+x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2][x(\alpha x)M^2+(1+\alpha )m^2]},$$
(25)
we find $`F(q^2)`$ given by

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi (2+\alpha )}}[{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )}{M^2}}{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{4(1+\alpha )m^42(2+\alpha )(1x)m^2M^2+(1x)^2M^4}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (27)
$`\text{ }+{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{S(x,\alpha )}{\alpha x}}],`$
where the non-wave-function part again shows the end-point singularity coming from $`\frac{1}{\alpha x}`$. In order to obtain the identical result to Eq. (24) from the $`p^{}|J^+|p`$ calculation, we find that $`S(\alpha ,\alpha )`$ must be subtracted from the numerator of the non-wave-function part integrand, i.e.,

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi (2+\alpha )}}[{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )}{M^2}}{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{4(1+\alpha )m^42(2+\alpha )(1x)m^2M^2+(1x)^2M^4}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (29)
$`\text{ }+{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{S(x,\alpha )S(\alpha ,\alpha )}{\alpha x}}].`$
The subtracted term $`S(\alpha ,\alpha )=\frac{1+\alpha }{\alpha M^2}`$ again cannot vanish. The zero-mode contribution is also visible since the second term in Eq. (29) doesn’t vanish even if $`q^2=0`$. The subtracted result Eq. (29), however, assures the covariance and satisfies the current conservation as in the previous calculation of the pseudoscalar meson.

### C  Scalar Meson with the Boson Loop

For a comparison with the scalar constituents neglecting spin effects, we present in this subsection the calculation of $`F(q^2)`$ for a scalar meson with a boson loop. The Feynman parametrization and the covariant integration of the boson triangle-loop for the scalar meson gives the following amplitude:

$`p^{}|J^\mu |p`$ $`=`$ $`N{\displaystyle \frac{d^2k}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{p^\mu +p^\mu 2k^\mu }{(k^2m^2+iϵ)((kp)^2m^2+iϵ)((kp^{})^2m^2+iϵ)}}`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`i(p^\mu +p^\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{N}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}𝑑x{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1x}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{2x1}{((x+y)(x+y1)M^2+m^2xyq^2)^2}},`$ (31)
where the normalization $`N`$ is given by

$$1/N=\frac{1}{2\pi M^2(4m^2M^2)}\left[1+\frac{2(2m^2M^2)}{M\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{M}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}\right)\right].$$
(32)
In LFD, the calculation of $`p^{}|J^+|p`$ leads to $`F(q^2)`$ given by

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{4\pi (2+\alpha )}}[1{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )(2x+\alpha )(1x)}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (34)
$`+{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )^2(\alpha 2x)(\alpha x)}{\alpha [(\alpha x)(1+x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2][x(\alpha x)M^2+(1+\alpha )m^2]}}],`$
where the contribution from the non-wave-function part again vanishes at $`q^2=0`$, indicating the absence of a zero-mode contribution  in the good component of the current $`J^+`$ as in the fermion loop cases. Adding both contributions, we find

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N(1+\alpha )}{2\pi \alpha M^3[(2+\alpha )^2m^2(1+\alpha )M^2]}}`$ (37)
$`[\sqrt{4(1+\alpha )m^2+\alpha ^2M^2}\mathrm{Artanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha M}{\sqrt{4(1+\alpha )m^2+\alpha ^2M^2}}}\right)`$
$`\text{ }+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha (2m^2M^2)}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}}\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{\sqrt{4m^2M^2}}}\right)].`$
This result is identical to the form factor obtained by the covariant Feynman calculation given by Eq. (31) and F(0)=1 gives the same normalization presented in Eq. (32).

Similarly, the calculation of $`p^{}|J^{}|p`$ generates $`F(q^2)`$ given by

$`F(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{4\pi (2+\alpha )}}[{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )}{M^2}}{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}}dx{\displaystyle \frac{2(1+\alpha )m^2(2+\alpha )(1x)M^2}{[m^2x(1x)M^2][(1+\alpha )^2m^2(1x)(\alpha +x)M^2]}}`$ (39)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\alpha )^2}{\alpha M^2}}{\displaystyle _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }}dx{\displaystyle \frac{2(1+\alpha )m^2+\alpha (\alpha x)M^2}{[(\alpha x)(1+x)M^2(1+\alpha )^2m^2][x(\alpha x)M^2+(1+\alpha )m^2]}}].`$
Unlike the cases of fermion constituents, however, the non-wave-function part here does not exhibit the end-point singularity. Without any adjustment, we find that Eq. (39) is identical to Eq. (37) obtained from $`p^{}|J^+|p`$. Thus, the result is automatically covariant and satisfies current conservation. However, the zero-mode contribution is still present in $`J^{}`$ current as one can easily see that the second term in Eq. (39) doesn’t vanish when $`\alpha `$ goes to zero. In the next section, we numerically estimate the importance of the non-wave-function part in all three cases that we presented in this section.

## III Numerical Results

We have estimated both the wave-function and non-wave-function vertices to the electromagnetic form factors of each case presented in Section II. For the three cases (A,B,C) presented in Section II, we show the numerical results of the form factor calculated via the minus component as well as the plus component of the current. We denote the contributions from the wave-function and non-wave-function vertices as $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{+()}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{+()}`$, respectively when the plus(minus) component of the current is used. The sum of the two contributions is denoted by $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}^{+()}`$,i.e. $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}^{+()}=F_{\mathrm{val}}^{+()}+F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{+()}`$.

For the numerical computation, we take for the experimental meson masses of the pion and the kaon $`m_\pi =0.140`$ GeV and $`m_K=0.494`$ GeV resp. and vary the quark masses to investigate the binding-energy dependence of the meson form factors. We call the pseudoscalar meson with the equal quark masses and mass $`m_\pi =0.140`$ GeV the ”pion”. Likewise, the pseudoscalar meson with the unequal quark masses and the meson mass $`m_K=0.494`$ GeV is called the ”kaon”.

The ”pion” form factor with the quark mass $`m_q=0.250`$ GeV is shown in Fig. 3. When the plus current is used, the valence contribution $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ diminishes very quickly as $`Q^2`$ gets larger even though the normalization at $`Q^2=0`$ is entirely coming from the valence part as we pointed out in Section II. The crossing between $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^+`$ appears at $`Q^2`$ below $`0.05`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>. When the minus current is used, however, the valence contribution $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ is negligible even at $`Q^2=0`$ and the entire result is essentially given by $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}`$. The value of $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}(0)`$ corresponds to the zero-mode contribution in the minus current $`J^{}`$ and it is interesting to note that more than $`90\%`$ of the form factor at $`Q^2=0`$ is contributed by the zero-mode. Since $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}^+=F_{\mathrm{tot}}^{}`$ exactly coincide with the covariant result obtained by Eq.(3) for all $`Q^2`$ as they must, only a single solid line is depicted in Fig. 3. The same applies to all of the other figures presented in this work.

In Fig. 4, we present the results for the ”pion” by changing the quark masses in the following way: $`m_q=0.140`$, 0.077 and 0.0707 GeV, respectively. The closer $`m_q`$ is to $`m_\pi /2=0.07`$ GeV, the smaller the binding energy gets, and the slope of $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}^{+/}`$ at $`Q^2=0`$ (or the charge radius) increases with decreasing quark mass, as expected. We find that the crossing between $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^+`$ occurs at a larger value of $`Q^2`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ becomes larger near $`Q^2=0`$ as the binding gets weaker. This may be explained by the reduction of the probability to generate the non-wave-function vertex (or the higher Fock state) compared to the valence state as the interaction between the constituents gets weaker. Thus, in the weaker binding, $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ dominates over $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^+`$. Similarly, $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ becomes the main contribution near $`Q^2=0`$ which is the only region where the form factor exists in the weak binding limit. Consequently, the zero-mode $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}(0)`$ gets substantially diminished as shown in Fig. 4.

The ”kaon” form factor with $`m_q=0.25`$ GeV and $`m_s=0.37`$ GeV is shown in Fig. 5. Compared to the ”pion” case, the dominance of $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ extends to the larger $`Q^2`$ region and the crossover between $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^+`$ is postponed beyond the range of $`Q^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>. The zero-mode $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}(0)`$ is also much smaller than in the ”pion” case even though $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}`$ rises very quickly as $`Q^2`$ gets away from the zero range. As one can see in Figs.5(a) and (b), the contribution from the heavier quark struck by the photon is larger than that from the lighter quark struck by the photon. We have indeed confirmed that as $`m_s`$ gets larger only the contribution from the heavy quark struck by the photon dominates as expected.

In Fig. 6, the form factors of the scalar partner to the ”pion”, which we call ”s-pion” in the following, with $`m_q=0.25`$, 0.14, 0.077, and 0.0707 GeV are presented for comparison with the ”pion” case. The basic features of $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^+`$ near $`Q^2=0`$ are same as in the ”pion” case because $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+(0)=1`$ must hold for any meson. However, as the binding gets weaker, we find that the ”s-pion” form factors $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}^{+/}`$ change sign at smaller $`Q^2`$-values. This indicates that electron scattering off the ”s-pion” not only has zero cross section at a certain electron energy, but also that the electron energy that yields zero scattering gets smaller as the binding of the ”s-pion” is weaker. Another dramatic difference from the pseudoscalar meson is the astonishing cancellation between $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}`$. Especially in the strong binding case, both $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}`$ are huge but they cancel in a very remarkable way to yield exactly the same result as $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}^+`$.

In Fig. 7, the form factor of the scalar partner to the ”kaon”, i.e. ”s-kaon”, is plotted. The basic feature is similar to the ”s-pion”. In Fig. 8, we show the results for the ”s-pion” when the spinor quark is replaced by a bosonic quark. As we extensively discussed in Section II, the subtraction of the end-point singularity is not required in the scalar quark case in contrast to the spinor quark case. In the scalar quark case, it is interesting to note that $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}`$ reveal a large difference compare to the spinor quark case, while $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^+`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^+`$ are very similar to the spinor quark case. We find that the huge cancellation between $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}`$ observed in the spinor quark case does occur in the scalar quark case only for very strong binding, and the most of $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}^{}`$ is saturated by $`F_{\mathrm{nv}}^{}`$. However, the tiny contribution from $`F_{\mathrm{val}}^{}`$ near $`Q^2=0`$ grows as the binding gets weaker and we have demonstrated the dominance of the valence part in the small binding limit regardless of the spin content, as discussed above. Fig. 9 shows the corresponding results for the ”s-kaon” when the spinor quark is replaced by a bosonic quark. While the general features are similar to the spinor quark case, the bosonic quarks are more tightly bound together than the spinor quarks so that the charge radius of the meson is smaller than the case of spinor quarks as one might expect from the Pauli’s exclusion principle.

## IV Conclusion and Discussion

In this paper, we have analyzed both the plus and minus components of the current quantized on the light-front to compute the electromagnetic form factors of pseudoscalar and scalar mesons. We considered spin-1/2 consituents as well as spin-0 constituents and found dramatic differences between the two cases. Comparing with the covariant Feynman calculations, we notice that the common belief of equivalence between the manifestly covariant calculation and the LF calculation linked by the LF energy integration of the Feynman amplitude is not always realized. The minus component of the LF current generated by the fermion loop has a persistent end-point singularity that must be removed to assure covariance and current conservation. A similar singularity was observed in the calculation of the fermion self-energy in  and . The plus component of the LF current, however, is immune to this disorder and provides a form factor identical to the one obtained doing the covariant Feynman calculation. This phenomenon is also associated with the spin-effect of the constituents because the calculation with the scalar(spin-0) constituents does not have the same symptom. Decomposing the LF amplitude into the wave-function and non-wave-function parts, it is interesting to note that the end-point singularity exists only in the non-wave-function vertex contribution.

Even after the singularity is removed, the minus component of the current sustains the zero-mode contribution while the plus component is free from the zero-mode. We have numerically estimated the importance of the non-wave-function vertices in all three cases that we discussed in Section II. We considered also the unequal constituent mass cases such as the kaon form factor. We find that the behaviors of $`F_{val}^{}`$ and $`F_{nv}^{}`$ are trimendously different between pseudoscalar and scalar meson cases, while $`F_{val}^+`$ and $`F_{nv}^+`$ have very similar features in both cases. The huge but remarkably exact cancellation between $`F_{val}^{}`$ and $`F_{nv}^{}`$ shown in the scalar meson case persists even if the spinor quark is replaced by the bosonic quark. In the bosonic quark case, however, the binding between the constituents is stronger than the spinor quark case. We also notice that the zero-mode $`F_{nv}^{}(0)`$ diminishes as the binding gets weaker. Our results are quite consistent to the earlier observation  exhibiting the smaller zero-mode contribution in the heavier quark systems. In all of these cases, our results show that if the meson is weakly bound then the contributions from the wave-function and the non-wave-function vertices to the plus current are separately almost the same as those for the minus current. Of course, their sums add up to the same number as the covariant Feynman result in both the plus and minus cases.

The calculations carried out so far are semi-realistic as the model was 1+1-dimensional and only a point-vertex was considered. It is clear from a formal analysis of the 3+1-dimensional case, however, that a singularity of the same form will occur in the matrix element of $`J^{}`$ calculated in LFD regardless of dimensionality. A recent analysis of the Burkhardt-Cottingham sum-rule seems to reveal a similar divergence in the polarized spin-1/2 structure functions . While the additional regularization may be provided by smearing the point-vertex with a realistic wave-function in the 3+1-dimensional covariant treatment of the current, the identification of the singular term as we achieved in this work would still be necessary for the smeared vertex cases. The importance of the non-wave-function parts may nevertheless differ numerically from the 1+1-dimensional case. This point is presently under investigation.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by a grant from the US Department of Energy and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).