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# Projectile structure effects in the Coulomb breakup of one-neutron halo nuclei

## 1 Introduction

It has now been well established that close to the neutron drip line, there exist nuclei having one, or some times two, very loosely bound valence neutrons extending too far out in space with respect to a dense charged core . The properties of these neutron halo nuclei  have been reviewed by several authors (see e.g. ). The halo systems, which involve a new form of nuclear matter, are characterized by large reaction and Coulomb dissociation cross sections . Moreover, in the breakup reactions induced by these nuclei, the angular distributions of neutrons measured in coincidence with the core nuclei  are strongly forward peaked and the parallel momentum distributions of the core fragment have very narrow widths . Due to their strikingly different properties as compared to those of the stable nuclei, such systems provide a stringent test of the nuclear structure models developed for the latter.

The Coulomb dissociation is a significant reaction channel in the scattering of halo nuclei from a stable heavy target nucleus. It provides a convenient tool to investigate their structure. For instance, it would place constraints on their electric dipole response . Of course, in the Serber  type of models , the breakup cross sections are directly related to the momentum space wave function of the projectile ground state. The studies of the Coulomb dissociation of weakly bound nuclei are also of interest due to their application in determining the cross sections of the astrophysically interesting radiative capture reactions at solar temperatures .

The Coulomb dissociation of halo nuclei has been investigated by several authors recently, using a number of different theoretical approaches. A semiclassical coupled channel formalism has been used by authors of Ref. , while in Refs.  the relative motion of the core and the valence particle is described by a time dependent Schrödinger equation. The results within these approaches depend on the range of the impact parameter associated with the straight line trajectories used to describe the motion of the projectile in the field of target nuclei. However, in these studies the emphasis was on investigating the dynamics of the Coulomb dissociation, and not the structure of the projectile ground state which was assumed to have some very simple zero range (ZR) form. Similar assumption for the projectile structure was also made in other semiclassical  and prior form distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) calculations .

On the other hand, the post form DWBA theory of the breakup reactions incorporates the details of the ground state structure of the projectile in the breakup amplitude . However, in an earlier application  of this theory to calculate the breakup of the halo nuclei, the simplifying approximation of the zero range interaction was used. This approximation necessarily excludes the use of this theory to describe the breakup of non-$`s`$ – wave projectiles. Moreover its applicability is questionable even for $`s`$ – wave projectiles at higher beam energies . Therefore, to investigate the details of the projectile structure through breakup reactions within this theory, the inclusion of the finite range effects is necessary. It may be noted that in a recently formulated adiabatic model  of the Coulomb breakup reactions, where it is assumed that the projectile excitation is predominantly to the states of the low internal energy, the details of the ground state wave function also enters in the transition amplitude.

In this paper, we present a theoretical model to describe the Coulomb breakup of a projectile within the framework of the post form DWBA where finite range effects are included, approximately, via a local momentum approximation (LMA) . The exact treatment of the finite range effects within this theory, although desirable, is much too complicated as it would lead to six dimensional integrals involving functions which are oscillatory asymptotically. The LMA leads to two simplifying features. First, it factorises the dynamics of the reaction from the structure effects of the projectile and second, it results in an amplitude where the term describing the dynamics of the process is the same as that evaluated in the ZR approximation. We present the application of this theory to the Coulomb breakup of neutron rich nuclei 11Be and 15,17,19C on a number of heavy targets. We attempt to put constraints on the ground state structure of these nuclei by analyzing almost all the available data on the energy, angular and longitudinal momentum distributions of fragments using various configurations of the projectile ground state.

Our formalism is presented in section 2. In section 3 we present and discuss the results of our calculations for various observable for the reactions mentioned above. The summary and the conclusions of our work are described in section 4. The validity of the approximate method used by us to include the finite range effects is presented in appendix A.

## 2 Formalism

We consider the reaction $`a+tb+c+t`$, where the projectile $`a`$ breaks up into fragments $`b`$ (charged) and $`c`$ (uncharged) in the Coulomb field of a target $`t`$. The coordinate system chosen is shown in Fig. 1.

The position vectors satisfy the following relations

$`𝐫`$ $`=`$ $`𝐫_i\alpha 𝐫_1,\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{m_c}{m_c+m_b}}`$ (1)
$`𝐫_c`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma 𝐫_1+\delta 𝐫_i,\delta ={\displaystyle \frac{m_t}{m_b+m_t}},\gamma =(1\alpha \delta )`$ (2)
The exact post form $`T`$ \- matrix for this case is

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫)\mathrm{\Phi }_b(\xi _b)\chi _c^{()}(𝐤_c,𝐫_c)\mathrm{\Phi }_c(\xi _c)|V_{bc}(𝐫_1)|\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐫_1,𝐫_i),`$ (3)
where $`\chi ^{}s`$ are the distorted waves for relative motions of $`b`$ and $`c`$ with respect to $`t`$ and the center of mass (c.m.) of $`b+t`$ system respectively, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}s`$ are the internal state wave functions of the concerned particles with internal coordinates $`\xi `$. $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐫_1,𝐫_i)`$ is the exact three-body scattering wave function of the projectile with a wave vector $`𝐤_a`$, with outgoing wave boundary condition. $`𝐤_b`$, $`𝐤_c`$ are Jacobi wave vectors of $`b`$ and $`c`$ respectively in the final channel of the reaction. $`V_{bc}(𝐫_1)`$ is the interaction between $`b`$ and $`c`$. The charged fragment $`b`$ interacts with the target by a point Coulomb interaction and hence $`\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫)`$ is a Coulomb distorted wave with incoming wave boundary condition. For pure Coulomb breakup, the interaction between the target and uncharged fragment $`c`$ is zero and hence $`\chi _c^{()}(𝐤_c,𝐫_c)`$ is replaced by a plane wave.

In the distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA), we write

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐫_1,𝐫_i)=\mathrm{\Phi }_a(\xi _a,𝐫_1)\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i),`$ (4)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_a(\xi _a,𝐫_1)`$ represents the bound state wave function of the projectile having its radial and angular parts as $`u_{\mathrm{}}(r_1)`$ and $`Y_\mathrm{}m(\widehat{𝐫}_1)`$ respectively, which are associated with the relative motion of $`b`$ and $`c`$. $`\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i)`$ is the Coulomb distorted scattering wave describing the relative motion of the c.m. of the projectile with respect to the target with outgoing wave boundary condition. The assumption inherent in Eq. (4) is that the breakup channels are very weakly coupled and hence this coupling needs to be treated only in the first order. The transition amplitude (written in the integral form) is now given by

$`T={\displaystyle }`$ $`d\xi d𝐫_1d𝐫_i\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫)\mathrm{\Phi }_b^{}(\xi _b)e^{i𝐤_c.𝐫_c}\mathrm{\Phi }_c^{}(\xi _c)V_{bc}(𝐫_1)`$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_a(\xi _a,𝐫_1)\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i).`$
The integrals over the internal coordinates $`\xi `$ give

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\xi \mathrm{\Phi }_b^{}(\xi _b)\mathrm{\Phi }_c^{}(\xi _c)\mathrm{\Phi }_a(\xi _a,𝐫_1)}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}mj\mu }{}}\mathrm{}mj_c\mu _c|j\mu j_b\mu _bj\mu |j_a\mu _ai^{\mathrm{}}u_{\mathrm{}}(r_1)Y_\mathrm{}m(\widehat{𝐫}_1).`$ (6)
In Eq. (6) $`\mathrm{}`$ is the relative motion angular momentum between $`b`$ and $`c`$ . This is coupled to spin of $`c`$ and the resultant $`j`$ is coupled to spin of (the inert core) $`b`$ to get the spin of $`a`$ ($`j_a`$). Using Eq. (6), the $`T`$-matrix can be written as

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}mj\mu }{}}\mathrm{}mj_c\mu _c|j\mu j_b\mu _bj\mu |j_a\mu _ai^{\mathrm{}}\widehat{\mathrm{}}\beta _\mathrm{}m(𝐤_b,𝐤_c;𝐤_a),`$ (7)
where

$`\widehat{\mathrm{}}\beta _\mathrm{}m(𝐤_b,𝐤_c;𝐤_a)={\displaystyle }`$ $`d𝐫_1d𝐫_i\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫)e^{i𝐤_c.𝐫_c}V_{bc}(𝐫_1)`$ (8)
$`\times \varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i),`$
with $`\beta _\mathrm{}m`$ being the reduced $`T`$ – matrix and $`\widehat{\mathrm{}}=\sqrt{2\mathrm{}+1}`$. We have written $`\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)=u_{\mathrm{}}(r_1)Y_\mathrm{}m(\widehat{𝐫}_1)`$.

It may be noted that the reduced amplitude $`\beta _\mathrm{}m`$ involves a six dimensional integral which makes its evaluation quite complicated. The problem gets further acute due to the fact that the integrand involves three scattering waves which have oscillatory behavior asymptotically. Therefore, several approximate methods have been used in the literature to avoid the evaluation of six dimensional integrals. In the zero range approximation (ZRA)  one assumes

$`V_{bc}(𝐫_1)\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)`$ $`=`$ $`D_0\delta (𝐫_1),`$ (9)
where $`D_0`$ is the usual zero range constant. This approximation reduces the six dimensional integral in Eq.(8) to a three-dimensional one. The corresponding amplitude is written as

$`\beta _{00}^{ZR}`$ $`=`$ $`D_0\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_i)e^{i\delta 𝐤_c.𝐫_i}|\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i).`$ (10)
In Eq. (10), the details of the projectile structure enter in the reaction amplitude only as a multiplicative constant $`D_0`$. However, ZRA necessarily restricts the relative motion between $`b`$ and $`c`$ in the projectile $`a`$ to $`s`$ – state only. Even for such cases, this approximation may not be satisfied for heavier projectiles and at higher beam energies .

Baur and Trautmann (BT)  have proposed an alternative approximate scheme in which the projectile c.m. coordinate in the corresponding distorted wave in Eq. (8) is replaced by that of the core-target system, i.e. $`𝐫_i𝐫`$. With this approximation the amplitude $`\beta _\mathrm{}m`$ splits into two factors each involving a three dimensional integral

$`\widehat{\mathrm{}}\beta _\mathrm{}m^{BT}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i𝐤_c.𝐫_1}|V_{bc}|\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫)e^{i\delta 𝐤_c.𝐫}|\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫).`$ (11)
The first term, known as the form factor, depends on the structure of the projectile through its ground state wave function $`\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏})`$. The second term involves the dynamics of the reaction. This amplitude (which will be referred to as the BT amplitude), used originally to study the deuteron breakup at sub-Coulomb energies , was applied to the calculations of the Coulomb breakup of halo nuclei in . This approximation, which allows the application of the theory to non-$`s`$ – wave projectiles, may seem to be justified if the c.m of the $`b+c`$ system is shifted towards $`b`$ (which is indeed the case if $`m_bm_c`$). However, the neglected piece of $`𝐫_i`$ ($`\alpha 𝐫_1`$) occurs in association with the wave vector $`𝐤_a`$, whose magnitude may not be negligible for the reactions at the higher beam energies. Therefore, contribution coming to the amplitude from the neglected part of $`𝐫_i`$ may still be substantial.

An approximate way of taking into account the finite range effects in the post form DWBA theory is provided by the local momentum approximation . The attractive feature of this approximation is that it leads to the factorization of the amplitude $`\beta _\mathrm{}m`$ similar to that obtained in the BT case. We use this approximation to write the Coulomb distorted wave of particle $`b`$ in the final channel as

$`\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\alpha 𝐊.𝐫_1}\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_i).`$ (12)
Eq. (12) represents an exact Taylor series expansion about $`𝐫_i`$ if $`𝐊(=i_{𝐫_i})`$ is treated exactly. However, this is not done in the LMA scheme. Instead, the magnitude of the local momentum here is taken to be

$`K(R)=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2m}{\mathrm{}^2}}(EV(R))},`$ (13)
where $`m`$ is the reduced mass of the $`bt`$ system, $`E`$ is the energy of particle $`b`$ relative to the target in the c.m. system and $`V(R)`$ is the Coulomb potential between $`b`$ and the target at a distance $`R`$. Therefore, the local momentum $`𝐊`$ is evaluated at some distance $`R`$, and its magnitude is held fixed for all the values of $`𝐫`$. As is discussed in appendix A, the results of our calculations are almost independent of the choice of the direction the local momentum. Therefore, we have taken the directions of $`𝐊`$ and $`𝐤_𝐛`$ to be the same in all the calculations presented in this paper. It may be noted that in the calculations presented in Ref. , the LMA was applied to the Coulomb distorted wave of the projectile channel, where making a choice of the direction of the local momentum is some what complicated due to the fact that the directions of both the fragments in the final channel has to be brought into the consideration. Detailed discussion on the validity of the local momentum approximation is presented in appendix A.

Substituting Eq. (12) into Eq. (8) we get the following factorized form of the amplitude

$`\widehat{\mathrm{}}\beta _\mathrm{}m^{FRDWBA}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i(\gamma 𝐤_c\alpha 𝐊).𝐫_1}|V_{bc}|\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)`$ (14)
$`\times `$ $`\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_i)e^{i\delta 𝐤_c.𝐫_i}|\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i).`$
Eq. (14) (which will be referred to as the FRDWBA amplitude in the following) looks like Eq (11) of the BT theory but with the very important difference that the form factor is now evaluated at the momentum transfer ($`\gamma 𝐤_c\alpha 𝐊`$), and not at the valence particle momentum $`𝐤_𝐜`$. The two momenta could be quite different for cases of interest in this paper. The second term, involving the dynamics part of the reaction, is the same in both the cases. Therefore, the breakup amplitude obtained in BT approximation differs from that of FRDWBA by a factor

$`F_r={\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\mathrm{}m^{BT}}{\beta _\mathrm{}m^{FRDWBA}}}={\displaystyle \frac{e^{i𝐤_c.𝐫_1}|V_{bc}|\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)}{e^{i(\beta 𝐤_c\alpha 𝐊).𝐫_1}|V_{bc}|\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)}}`$ (15)
Recently, a theory of the Coulomb breakup has been developed within an adiabatic (AD) model , where one assumes that the excitation of the projectile is such that the relative energy ($`E_{bc}`$) of the $`bc`$ system is much smaller than the total incident energy, which allows $`E_{bc}`$ to be replaced by the constant separation energy of the fragments in the projectile ground state. It was shown in  that under these conditions the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐫_1,𝐫_i)`$ has an exact solution as given below

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+),AD}(\xi _a,𝐫_1,𝐫_i)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_a(\xi _a,𝐫_1)e^{i\alpha 𝐤_a.𝐫_1}\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫)`$ (16)
Substituting $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+),AD}`$ for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}`$ in Eq. (3) leads to the reduced amplitude:

$`\widehat{\mathrm{}}\beta _\mathrm{}m^{AD}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i(𝐤_c\alpha 𝐤_a).𝐫_1}|V_{bc}|\varphi _a^\mathrm{}m(𝐫_1)\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫)e^{i\delta 𝐤_c.𝐫}|\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫).`$ (17)
This amplitude differs from those of BT as well as FRDWBA only in the form factor part (first term), which is evaluated here at the momentum transfer $`(𝐤_c\alpha 𝐤_a)`$. Eq. (17) can also be obtained in the DWBA model by making a local momentum approximation to the Coulomb distorted wave in the initial channel of the reaction, and by evaluating the local momentum at $`R=\mathrm{}`$ with its direction being the same as that of the projectile . The adiabatic model does not make the weak coupling approximation of the DWBA. However, it necessarily requires one of the fragments (in this case $`c`$) to be chargeless. In contrast, the DWBA with the LMA could, in principle, be applied to cases where both the fragments $`b`$ and $`c`$ are charged  (of course the dynamical part of the amplitude can not be expressed in terms of the simple bremsstrahlung integral in this case as discussed below). While the effect of nuclear breakup in the adiabatic model description of elastic scattering of the loosely bound projectile has been calculated in Ref. , the nuclear part of the amplitude for breakup reactions is yet to be calculated within this model. At the same time, the nuclear breakup cross section has not been calculated within the FRDWBA theory also (although it is straightforward to do so). These calculations will be presented in a future publication.

The triple differential cross section of the reaction is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_c}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}v_a}}\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_c){\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}m}{}}|\beta _\mathrm{}m|^2,`$ (18)
where $`\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_c)`$ is the appropriate  three-body phase space factor, given by

$`\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{h^6m_bm_cm_tp_bp_c}{m_t+m_cm_c\frac{𝐤_𝐜.(𝐤_𝐚𝐤_𝐛)}{k_c^2}}},`$ (19)
with $`𝐤_a,𝐤_b`$ and $`𝐤_c`$ being evaluated in the appropriate frame of reference. $`v_a`$ is the relative velocity of the projectile in the initial channel. $`p`$ in Eq. (19) are the linear momenta which are related to wave numbers $`k`$ by $`p=\mathrm{}k`$.

Substituting the following expressions for the Coulomb distorted waves

$`\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_i)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\pi \eta _b/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _b)e^{i𝐤_b.𝐫_i}{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _b,1,i(k_br_i+𝐤_b.𝐫_i)),`$ (20)
$`\chi _a^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\pi \eta _a/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _a)e^{i𝐤_a.𝐫_i}{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _a,1,i(k_ar_i𝐤_a.𝐫_i))`$ (21)
in Eq. (14), one gets for the triple differential cross section

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_c}}={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}v_a}}\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_c){\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2\eta _a\eta _b}{(e^{2\pi \eta _b}1)(e^{2\pi \eta _a}1)}}|I|^24\pi {\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}|Z_{\mathrm{}}|^2.`$ (22)
In Eqs. (20 – 22) $`\eta `$’s are the Coulomb parameters for the concerned particles. In Eq. (22) $`I`$ is the Bremsstrahlung integral  which can be evaluated in a closed form:

$`I`$ $`=`$ $`i[B(0)\left({\displaystyle \frac{dD}{dx}}\right)_{x=0}(\eta _a\eta _b)_2F_1(1i\eta _a,1i\eta _b;2;D(0))`$ (23)
$`+`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{dB}{dx}}\right)_{x=0}{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _a,i\eta _b;1;D(0))]`$
where

$`B(x)={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{k^{2(i\eta _a+i\eta _b+1)}}}\left[(k^22𝐤.𝐤_a2xk_a)^{i\eta _a}(k^22𝐤.𝐤_b2xk_b)^{i\eta _b}\right],`$ (24)
$`D(x)={\displaystyle \frac{2k^2(k_ak_b+𝐤_a.𝐤_b)4(𝐤.𝐤_a+xk_a)(𝐤.𝐤_b+xk_b)}{(k^22𝐤.𝐤_a2xk_a)(k^22𝐤.𝐤_b2xk_b)}}`$ (25)
with $`𝐤=𝐤_a𝐤_b\delta 𝐤_c`$. $`Z_{\mathrm{}}`$ contains the projectile structure information and is given by

$`Z_{\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle 𝑑r_1r_1^2j_{\mathrm{}}(k_1r_1)V_{bc}(𝐫_1)u_{\mathrm{}}(r_1)},`$ (26)
with $`k_1=|\gamma 𝐤_c\alpha 𝐊|`$.

## 3 Calculations and discussions

Apart from the distance at which local momentum is calculated (which is taken to be 10 $`fm`$ as discussed in appendix A) and its direction (described already in the previous section), the only other input to our calculations is the radial part of the projectile ground state wave function. The forms for this as chosen by us for the projectiles considered in this paper are discussed in the following.

### 3.1 Calculations for reactions induced by 11Be

For the ground state of 11Be, we have considered the following configurations : (a) a $`s`$ – wave valence neutron coupled to $`0^+`$ 10Be core (10Be$`(0^+)1s_{1/2}\nu `$) with a one-neutron separation energy ($`S_{n^{10}Be}`$) of 504 keV and a spectroscopic factor (SF) of 0.74 , (b) a $`d`$ – wave valence neutron coupled to $`2^+`$ 10Be core (10Be$`(2^+)0d_{5/2}\nu `$) with a binding energy of 3.872 MeV (which is the sum of energy of the excited 2+ core (3.368 MeV) and $`S_{n^{10}Be}`$) and (c) an admixture of these two configurations with spectroscopic factors of 0.74 and 0.17 respectively . In each case, the single particle wave function, is constructed by assuming the valence neutron-10Be interaction to be of Woods-Saxon type whose depth is adjusted to reproduce the corresponding value of the binding energy with fixed values of the radius and diffuseness parameters (taken to be 1.15 $`fm`$ and 0.5 $`fm`$ respectively). For configuration (a), this gives a potential depth of 71.03 MeV, a root mean square (rms) radius for the valence neutron of 6.7 $`fm`$ and a rms radius for 11Be of 2.91 $`fm`$ when the size of the 10Be core is taken to be 2.28 $`fm`$ . In some cases we have also used a wave function for the $`s`$ – state of 11Be calculated within a dynamical core polarization (DCP) model .

#### 3.1.1 Energy distributions of the fragments

In Fig. 2, we present the results of our FRDWBA calculations for the double differential cross section ($`d^2\sigma /dE_nd\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$) as a function of the neutron energy at the neutron angle of $`1^{}`$, in the breakup of 11Be on a gold target at the beam energy of 44 MeV/nucleon. The experimental data are taken from . The results obtained with configurations (a), (b) and (c) for the ground state of 11Be are shown by dotted, dashed and full lines respectively. The results of configuration (b) are plotted after multiplying the actual numbers by a factor of 1000. The cross sections obtained with configurations (a) and (c) are indistinguishable from each other. Thus these two configurations produce almost identical results for the Coulomb dissociation of 11Be. In the following, we have used configuration (a) for the ground state state of 11Be in all the calculations.

In Fig. 3, we present a comparison of our calculation with the data (taken from ) for the energy distribution of the neutron emitted in the same reaction as in Fig. 2 at two forward angles. Calculations performed within both FRDWBA and AD model are shown in this figure. The same configuration for the 11Be ground state has been used in both the cases. The beam energy in this experiment  varies between 36.9 – 44.1 MeV/nucleon. To take into account this spread, we have performed calculations at both its upper (44 MeV/nucleon) (solid line) and lower ends (37 MeV/nucleon) (dotted line). Although these data have large statistical errors, the calculations performed at 44 MeV/nucleon are in better agreement with the experimental values. Thus our calculations may serve to remove the uncertainty in the data in this regard. It should also be noted that the AD model calculations over-predict the experimental cross sections in the peak region.

As discussed earlier, the cross sections obtained in the BT theory differs from that of the FRDWBA by the modulus square of the factor $`F_r`$ as defined by Eq. (15). In fig. 4, we have shown the beam energy dependence of $`|F_r|^2`$ for the same reaction as in Fig. 2, for a set of forward angles of the outgoing fragments ($`\theta _b=1^{}`$, $`\theta _c=1^{}`$ and $`\varphi _c=1^{}`$). We can see that this quantity is close to unity only at the sub-Coulomb beam energies (of course at higher beam energies it crosses twice the line representing the value 1). Therefore, the BT and FRDWBA calculations are expected to produce similar results at very low incident energies. Depending upon the beam energy, the BT results can be larger or smaller than those of the FRDWBA.

A comparison of the results of the FRDWBA (solid line) and the BT (dotted line) calculations for the same reaction as in Fig. 2 is presented in Fig. 5. The bombarding energy in this case is 44 MeV/nucleon. We can see that the BT results are larger than those of the FRDWBA in almost entire region of neutron energies. This is to be expected from the results shown in Fig. 4, where the quantity $`|F_r|^2`$ is larger than unity at this beam energy. It may be noted that the FRDWBA results provide a reasonable good description of the data, particularly in the peak region while BT calculations overestimate them.

In Fig. 6, we show the energy distributions of the charged fragment 10Be, calculated within the FRDWBA (upper part) and the AD model (lower part) for the breakup of 11Be on the Au target at the beam energy of 42 MeV/nucleon at three angles of 1, 2 and 3. A noteworthy feature of these results is that the peak position in both the calculations is very close to the energy corresponding to the beam velocity. This suggests that the charged fragment gets almost no post acceleration in the final channel. This feature of the breakup of halo nuclei (which is in contrast to the case of the breakup of stable isotopes ), was first noted in Ref. , and was corroborated later on by the authors of Refs. . The reason for not observing the post acceleration effects, as put forward by authors of Ref. , is that due to their very small binding energies the halo nuclei break up far away from the distance of closest approach, which reduces greatly the effect of Coulomb repulsion on the charged outgoing fragment. This argument has received support from a recent calculation of the Coulomb dissociation potential of the deuteron which is shown  to have a considerably large value even outside the charge density of the target nucleus. A separate reason for not observing this effect has been put forward by the authors of Ref. , according to which these effects are small as the collision time is much less than the characteristic time for the disintegration of the halo.

However, these quasiclassical arguments have been questioned by the authors of Ref. . Esbensen, Bertsch and Bertulani , who include the higher order processes in the Coulomb dissociation of halo nuclei 11Li and 11Be by solving the three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation, and find a magnitude for the post acceleration effect which is quite appreciable for the 9Li fragment in the breakup of 11Li and relatively somewhat smaller for the 10Be fragment in the breakup of 11Be. In the semiclassical calculations of Baur, Bertulani and Kalassa , where breakup is assumed to take place at some classical distance, it is predicted that post acceleration effects should manifest itself in the increase of the average momentum of the charged fragment with the scattering angle. Indeed, the earlier measurements of Nakamura et al.  is consistent with this observation.

In a recent experiment , the momentum of the 10Be core from the breakup of 11Be has been measured with sufficient precision to verify the previously reported post acceleration effect. We have made a comparison of our FRDWBA calculations with this data in Fig. 7, where we show the calculated and experimental 10Be average momenta (defined as $`p_b\frac{d^2\sigma }{dp_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_b}/\frac{d^2\sigma }{dp_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_b}`$) as a function of laboratory angle. In the semiclassical picture of Ref. , the impact parameter decreases with the increase of the scattering angle, thereby making the Coulomb repulsion effects on the charged fragment stronger. Therefore, the post acceleration should show up in the increase of this average momentum with the increase of the scattering angle. However, in both the experimental data of  as well as our calculations no such increase is observed. Thus, neither the data of Ref.  nor our calculations support the results found in Ref. . Therefore, the semiclassical picture presented in  should be viewed with caution.

#### 3.1.2 Neutron Angular Distribution

The measured neutron angular distribution in the exclusive 11Be + $`A`$ $``$ 10Be + n +$`A`$ reaction below the grazing angle is very narrow and is shown to be  dominated by the Coulomb breakup process. This reflects the narrow width of the transverse momentum distribution of the valence neutron in the ground state of 11Be, which is consistent with the presence of a neutron halo structure in 11Be. In the top half of Fig. 8, we compare the calculated and measured exclusive neutron angular distribution $`d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$ as a function of the neutron angle $`\theta _n`$ for the above reaction on a Au target at the beam energy of 41 MeV/nucleon. Calculations (where integrations over the core fragment energy is done in the range of 390 to 430 MeV, which contributes most to the cross section) performed within the FRDWBA (solid line) and the AD model (dotted line) using the same configuration for the 11Be ground state are shown in this figure. Also shown (dashed line) here is the FRDWBA calculation performed with the 11Be ground state wave function obtained in the DCP model. We note that while the FRDWBA and the AD model results agree with each other well below 12, the difference between the two models starts becoming prominent as the angle increases beyond this value, with the latter developing a dip around 25. At small neutron angles, the FRDWBA calculation done with the DCP wave function overestimates somewhat the measured neutron angular distribution.

To understand the origin of the dip in the AD model calculations of the neutron angular distribution, we have plotted the quantity $`G(=d\theta _b\mathrm{sin}\theta _b|Z_{\mathrm{}}|^2`$) as a function of $`\theta _n`$ in the lower half of Fig. 8 for both the FRDWBA (solid line) and the AD (dashed line) cases. The energy of fragment $`b`$ corresponds to the beam velocity. We can see that in the AD case $`G`$ becomes very small around 25, which corresponds to a node in its form factor at the momentum transfer related to this angle.

#### 3.1.3 Relative energy spectrum of fragments

The relative energy spectrum for the breakup of 11Be on a Pb target at 72 MeV/nucleon is shown in Fig. 9. The top half shows the results obtained with the FRDWBA (solid line) and the AD model (dotted line) using configuration (a) with the single particle wave function for the 11Be ground state, while the bottom half depicts the FRDWBA results obtained with the single particle and DCP wave functions. We see that, while both the FRDWBA and the AD model calculations reproduce the peak value of the data  well, the FRDWBA calculations done with the DCP wave function overestimate it. On the other hand, none of the calculations is able to explain the data at higher relative energies. This can be attributed to the fact that nuclear breakup effects, which can contribute substantially  at higher relative energies (for $`E_{rel}`$ $`>`$ 0.6 MeV), are not included in these calculations. Of course, the authors of Ref.  claim that their data have been corrected for these contributions. However, the procedure adopted by them for this purpose is inadequate. They obtained the nuclear breakup contribution on the Pb target, by scaling the cross sections measured on a carbon target. This scaling procedure is unlikely to be accurate for reactions induced by halo nuclei due to the presence of a long tail in their ground state. In a full quantum mechanical theory, both Coulomb and nuclear breakup contributions should be calculated on the same footing and corresponding amplitudes should be added coherently to get the cross sections.

Calculations done using the BT theory (dashed line in the upper part of Fig. 9) underestimates the data considerably. This difference between the FRDWBA and the BT results can again be traced to the behavior of $`|F_r|^2`$ in Fig. 4, which is smaller than unity at the beam energy of 72 MeV/nucleon of this reaction.

We would like to remark that our post form FRDWBA results for the pure Coulomb breakup contribution to the relative energy spectra for the 11Be agrees quite well with a recent calculation of the breakup reaction in a non-perturbative approach where the time evolution of the projectile is calculated by solving a time-dependent Schrödinger equation . On the other hand, similar perturbative calculations performed previously  overestimate the data in the peak region.

#### 3.1.4 Momentum distribution of the core

The neutron halo structure is reflected in the narrow width of the parallel momentum distribution (PMD) of the charged breakup fragments emitted in breakup reactions induced by the halo nuclei. This is because the PMD has been found to be least affected by the reaction mechanism  and therefore, a narrow PMD can be related to a long tail in the matter distribution in the coordinate space via Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

In Fig. 10 we present the PMD of the 10Be fragment emitted in the breakup of 11Be on U and Ta targets at 63 MeV/nucleon beam energy. Calculations performed within both the FRDWBA and AD model formalisms using the configuration (a) are presented in this figure. The calculated cross sections are normalized to match the peak of the data points (which are given in arbitrary units) , the normalization constant being the same for both cases. The full width at half maximum ( FWHM) for the U and Ta targets are 44 MeV/c and 43 MeV/c respectively in both the FRDWBA and the AD cases. These agree well with the averaged experimental value of 43.6$`\pm `$1.1 MeV/c  and also with those calculated in . The very narrow widths of the parallel momentum distributions signal the presence of a neutron halo structure in 11Be.

It may be noted that the calculations performed with configuration (c) gives results identical to that obtained with configuration (a). The PMD calculated with a pure $`d`$ – wave configuration is too small in magnitude and too wide in width.

#### 3.1.5 Coulomb part of total one-neutron removal cross section

For the breakup of 11Be on a Au target at the beam energy of 41 MeV/nucleon, the values of the pure Coulomb total one-neutron removal cross section ($`\sigma _n^C`$) are found to be 1.91 b and 1.94 b for the FRDWBA and the AD model respectively, using configuration (a) and the single particle wave function for the ground state of 11Be. The corresponding values of $`\sigma _n^C`$ for the breakup of this projectile on the Pb target at the beam energy of 72 MeV/nucleon are 1.25 b and 1.29 barn respectively. The experimental values for the total one-neutron removal cross section ($`\sigma _n`$) for these two reactions are reported to be 2.5$`\pm `$0.5 b  and 1.8 $`\pm `$ 0.4 b  respectively. The difference between $`\sigma _n^C`$ and the experimental value of $`\sigma _n`$ can be attributed to the nuclear breakup effects. Incidentally, FRDWBA calculations performed with the DCP wave function for the 11Be ground state leads to much larger values of 2.82 b and 1.76 b for $`\sigma _n^C`$ for the two cases respectively.

### 3.2 Results for 19,15,17C

In this section,we shall compare results of our calculations with the available data on the breakup of the neutron rich carbon nuclei 19,15,17C on heavier targets.

There is a large uncertainty in the value of the last neutron separation energy in 19C ($`S_{n^{18}C}`$) with quoted values varying between 160 – 530 keV . It has recently been shown  that most of the available data on the Coulomb dissociation of 19C can be satisfactorily explained within the adiabatic model of Coulomb breakup with the one-neutron separation energy of 530 keV. The ground state spin-parity of 19C has been quoted as $`1/2^+,3/2^+`$ and $`5/2^+`$ . The relativistic mean field (RMF)  as well as shell model calculations using Warburton-Brown effective interaction  predict the spin-parity of the ground state of this nucleus to be $`1/2^+`$.

We use single particle wave functions which are constructed by assuming a Woods-Saxon interaction between the valence neutron and the charged core whose depth (for fixed values of the radius and diffuseness parameters) is adjusted to reproduce the binding energies of the nuclei under investigation. The valence neutron binding energies, searched potential depths ($`V_{depth}`$) and calculated rms radii of the projectile with different configurations for the ground state for each isotope are summarized in Table 1.

In this work, we consider two situations: (i) different binding energies (530 keV and 160 keV) with the same configuration for 19C ground state (18C $`(0^+)1s_{1/2}\nu `$), and (ii) different configurations (18C $`(0^+)1s_{1/2}\nu `$ and 18C $`(0^+)0d_{5/2}\nu `$) for 19C ground state with the same binding energy (530 keV). We have considered single particle wave functions in all the cases, except for the 160 keV case where we have additionally considered a DCP wave function for the $`s`$ – state . It may be noted that for all the single particle wave functions, we have used a spectroscopic factor of 1.0.

In Fig. 11, we present the PMD (calculated within the FRDWBA formalism) of the 18C fragment in the breakup of 19C on a Ta target at the beam energy of 88 MeV/nucleon. We have normalized the peaks of the calculated PMDs to that of the data (given in arbitrary units)  (this also involves coinciding the position of maxima of the calculated and experimental PMDs). As can be seen from the upper part of this figure, the experimental data clearly favor $`S_{n^{18}C}`$ = 0.53 MeV with the $`s`$ – wave n-18C relative motion in the ground state of 19C. The results obtained with the $`s`$ – wave configuration within the simple potential and DCP models (with the same value of $`S_{n^{18}C}`$) are similar to each other.

In the lower part of Fig. 11, we have shown the results obtained with the $`d`$ – wave relative motion for this system (with $`S_{n^{18}C}`$ = 0.53 MeV) and have compared it with that obtained with a $`s`$ – wave relative motion with the same value of the binding energy. As can be seen, the FWHM of the experimental PMD is grossly over-estimated by the $`d`$ – wave configuration. The calculated FWHM with the $`s`$ – state configuration (with $`S_{n^{18}C}`$ = 530 keV) is 40 MeV/c, which is in excellent agreement with the experimental value of 41$`\pm `$3 MeV/c . Thus these data favor a configuration 18C($`0^+)1s_{1/2}`$, with a one-neutron separation energy of 0.530 MeV for the ground state of 19C. These results are in agreement with those of Ref. . The narrow width of the PMD provides support to the presence of a one-neutron halo structure in 19C.

The width of the PMD is not expected to change with beam energy . To see this, we have calculated the PMD of 18C in the Coulomb breakup of 19C on a heavy target (Ta) at the high beam energy of 914 MeV/nucleon. The corresponding results are shown in Fig. 12. The FWHM of the distribution in this case is 42 MeV/c which is similar to that obtained above at a lower beam energy. However, FWHM of the PMD of the 18C fragment measured in the breakup of 19C on a carbon target at the same beam energy, has been found  to be of 69$`\pm `$4 MeV/c. It would be interesting, therefore, to repeat measurement at this energy with a heavier target to check our observation.

In Fig. 13, we have shown the results of our FRDWBA calculations for the the relative energy spectrum for the breakup of 19C on Pb at 67 MeV/nucleon beam energy. The experimental data is taken from . The angular integration for the 19C center of mass is done up to the grazing angle of 2.5. It can be seen that in this case also the best agreement with the data (near the peak position) is obtained with the $`s`$ – wave configuration with $`S_{n^{18}C}`$ = 0.53 MeV. Calculations done with the $`d`$ – state configuration for both 530 keV and 160 keV one-neutron separation energy fails to reproduce the data. At the same time, those performed with the $`s`$ – state configuration but with $`S_{n^{18}C}`$ = 0.16 MeV overestimates the data by at least an order of magnitude and also fail to reproduce the its peak position. However, as in the case of 11Be, our calculations underestimate the relative energy spectrum for larger values of relative energies. In this case also, the proper consideration of the nuclear breakup effects is necessary to explain the data in this region. We would also like to remark that the correction for these effects made in the data  by scaling the cross sections for the breakup of 19C on a carbon target is unlikely to be accurate due to the same reasons as stated in case of 11Be.

Table 2 summarizes the FRDWBA results of $`\sigma _n^C`$ for the breakup of 19C on different heavy targets at several beam energies. The experimental value of $`\sigma _n`$ for the breakup of 19C on Ta at the beam energy of 88 MeV/nucleon is 1.1$`\pm `$0.4 b . It is seen from this table that only with the $`s`$ – wave configuration of the 19C ground state with $`S_{n^{18}C}`$ = 0.53 MeV, the calculated cross sections come closer to the experimental data. In this context it must be kept in mind that $`\sigma _n`$ also include contributions from the nuclear breakup effects, which is not included in our present calculations.

We next consider the breakup of 15C which has a relatively larger value for the one-neutron separation energy (1.2181 MeV) and a ground state spin-parity of $`1/2^+`$ . This can be obtained from two configurations: a $`1s_{1/2}`$ neutron coupled to a 14C $`(0^+)`$ core and a $`0d_{5/2}`$ neutron coupled to a 14C $`(0^+)`$ core. One could also considered a 14C $`(2^+)`$ core and $`0d_{5/2}`$ neutron coupling to get a $`1/2^+`$ ground state for 15C, but it would raise the one-neutron separation energy to about 7.01 MeV, which is highly unfavorable for the formation of a halo. We, therefore, do not consider this configuration in our calculations.

In Fig. 14, we present the results of our FRDWBA calculations for the PMD of the 14C fragment in the breakup of 15C on the Ta target at the beam energy of 84 MeV/nucleon. The experimental data is taken from . As before, our calculations are normalized to the peak of the data. The $`s`$ – state configuration for the ground state of 15C gives a FWHM of 62 MeV/c, while with the $`d`$ – state configuration it comes out to be 140 MeV/c. Therefore, the experimental value for the FWHM (67$`\pm `$1 MeV/c)  favors the former configuration. Hence our results provide support to the existence of a halo structure in 15C. This nucleus provides an example of the one-halo system with the largest one-neutron separation energy, known so far.

17C has a lower one-neutron separation energy (729 keV) as compared to that of 15C. It would be interesting to see if it also has a halo structure, which seems probable if one considers only the binding energies. The quoted ground state spin-parities for this nucleus are $`1/2^+,3/2^+`$ and $`5/2^+`$ . RMF calculations  predict it to have a value of $`3/2^+`$. We consider four possible ground state configurations for this nucleus and calculate the parallel momentum distributions of the 16C fragment in the breakup of 17C on a Ta target at 84 MeV/nucleon beam energy within our FRDWBA formalism. The FWHMs of the PMD obtained with different configurations are listed in Table 3.

It is evident from this table that the $`s`$ – state configurations predict a narrow width for the PMD, providing support to the existence of a halo structure in this nucleus. The experimental data , however, is available only for the breakup of 17C on a light target (Be) at 84 MeV/nucleon, which gives a FWHM of 145$`\pm `$5 MeV/c. Since the PMD is mostly unaffected by the reaction mechanism , it is quite likely that the experimental FWHM will be the same also for the breakup of this nucleus on a heavier target. Therefore, the results shown in Table 3 seem to provide support to a $`d`$ – wave configuration for the ground state of 17C . Hence, the existence of a one-neutron halo structure is quite improbable in 17C. However, to arrive at a more definite conclusion in this regard the data on the breakup of 17C on a heavy target is quite desirable.

## 4 Summary and conclusions

In this paper, we have performed calculations for the Coulomb breakup of the neutron rich nuclei 11Be and 15,17,19C, which have a single valence neutron loosely bound with a stable core. We used a theory developed within the framework of the post form distorted wave Born approximation where finite range effects have been included approximately by using a local momentum approximation on the Coulomb distorted wave of the outgoing charged fragment. Within this method, the breakup amplitude is expressed as a product of factors describing separately the projectile structure and the dynamics of the reaction. This factored form of the breakup amplitude can also be obtained within an adiabatic model which makes the approximation that the strongly excited core-valence particle relative energies in the Coulomb breakup are small. However, unlike the post form DWBA, the adiabatic model does not use the weak coupling approximation to describe the center of mass motion of the fragments with respect to the target.

Both these theories allow the use of realistic wave functions for the ground state of the projectile. Furthermore, unlike the semiclassical and quantum mechanical theories using the zero range approximation which can be applied only to $`s`$ – wave projectiles, these methods are applicable to projectiles with any relative orbital angular momentum structure between their fragments. This provides an opportunity to probe the structure of the ground state of the projectile, by comparing the predictions of these theories with the data for the breakup observable. We have calculated, the energy, angular and parallel momentum distributions of the fragments emitted in the breakup reaction of these nuclei using different configurations for their ground state, By making comparisons of the calculated cross sections with the available experimental data an effort has been made to put constraints on their ground state structure.

All the observable calculated by us are sensitive to the ground state configuration of the projectile. We find that for 11Be, a $`s`$ – wave configuration (10Be$`(0^+)1s_{1/2}\nu `$), with a spectroscopic factor of 0.74 for its ground state provides best agreement with the experimental data in all the cases. In our study, it is not possible to distinguish between this configuration and the one proposed recently where there is an admixture of the $`s`$ – wave and a $`d`$ – wave configuration, (10Be$`(2^+)0d_{5/2}\nu `$), with spectroscopic factors of 0.74 and 0.17 respectively for the ground state of this nucleus. For almost all the observables, there is a general agreement between the FRDWBA and adiabatic model results even in the absolute magnitude in the region where Coulomb breakup is expected to be dominant mode (ie. below the grazing angle). This provides additional support to our choice of the parameters associated with the local momentum in our FRDWBA calculations. It may be noted that the approximation of Baur and Trautmann, which also leads to the factored form for the breakup amplitude, gives results which are very different from those obtained with the FRDWBA and AD model formalisms. The BT approximation fails to explain the data in most of the cases studied here.

In the case of neutron angular distributions for the breakup of 11Be on the gold target at the beam energy of 41 MeV, there is a dip around 25 in the adiabatic model calculations, which is not seen in the corresponding FRDWBA results. It may be noted that this region was excluded in the results shown in Ref. . This dip can be traced back to the fact that the form factor in the adiabatic model has a node at the momentum transfer corresponding to this angle. In any case, this region of the angular distribution is expected to get substantial contribution from the nuclear breakup effects (and also from the Coulomb-nuclear interference terms). Therefore, full implication of this dip can become clear only after nuclear breakup effects are included in these models.

For the 19C case, the results for the PMD of 18C and the relative energy spectrum of the $`n`$ \+ 18C system show that the most probable ground state configuration of 19C is (18C $`(0^+)1s_{1/2}\nu `$) with a one-neutron separation energy of 530 keV and a spectroscopic factor of 1. Our FRDWBA calculations agree well with the experimental data of the MSU group . By performing the calculations at GSI energies we note that the width of the PMD is independent of the beam energy. It would be interesting to perform the GSI experiment with a heavier target to check this prediction. Our FRDWBA results on 19C are in excellent agreement with those of the adiabatic model .

We find that the most probable configuration for 15C is a $`s`$ – wave valence neutron coupled to the 14C core and that for 17C is a $`d`$ – wave valence neutron coupled to a 16C core. Both the experimental and the calculated FWHM of the PMD for the 14C core in the breakup of 15C are small and they agree well with each other. This provides support to the existence of a one-neutron halo structure in 15C. On the other hand, in the case of 17C the value of this quantity for the 16C core is probably closer to that of a stable isotope. Therefore the existence of a halo structure in 17C appears to be unlikely. Interestingly the one-neutron separation energies of 15C and 17C are 1.2181 and 0.729 MeV respectively. So the binding energy of the valence neutron as well as its configuration with respect to the core together decide whether a nucleus has halo properties or not.

## 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are thankful to Horst Lenske for providing them the wave functions of the dynamical polarization model for various projectiles. One of the authors (RS) wishes to acknowledge several fruitful discussions with Dr. M. A. Nagarajan on the local momentum approximation method.

## Appendix A  Validity of the local momentum approximation

As discussed in , a condition for the validity of the local momentum approximation is that the quantity

$`\eta (r)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}K(r)|dK(r)/dr|^1`$ (27)
evaluated at a representative distance $`R`$ should be much larger than $`R_{bc}`$, which is of the order of the range of the interaction $`V_{bc}`$. To check this, we show in Fig. A.1, $`\eta (r)`$ (upper half) and $`K(r)`$ (the magnitude of the local momentum) (lower half) as a function of $`r`$, for the breakup reactions 19C + Ta $``$ 18C + $`n`$ \+ Ta at the beam energy of 88 MeV/nucleon (left side) and 11Be + Au $``$ 10Be + $`n`$ \+ Au at the beam energy of 41 MeV/nucleon (right side). We see that for $`r`$ $`>`$ 8 $`fm`$, $`\eta (r)`$ is several orders of magnitude larger than rms radii of the halo in both the cases. Therefore, the above condition is well satisfied.

From the lower half of Fig. A.1, we note that the value of $`K(r)`$ remains constant for distances larger than 10 $`fm`$. Due to the peripheral nature of the breakup reaction, this region contributes maximum to the cross section. Therefore, our choice of a constant magnitude for the local momentum evaluated at 10 $`fm`$ is well justified. In fact, we noted that as $`R`$ is increased from 5 to 10 $`fm`$ the calculated cross sections vary by at the most 10$`\%`$, and with a further increase the variation is less than 1$`\%`$, in all the cases considered in this paper.

In the application of the LMA in the description of the heavy ion induced transfer reactions, it was noted  that the calculated cross sections were more or less unaffected by the choice of the direction of the local momentum. However, in Ref. , some dependence of the breakup cross sections on this direction has been reported. To study the sensitivity of our FRDWBA results on the direction of $`𝐊`$, we have performed calculations for three cases where we take the angles of the local momentum ($`d_1`$) parallel to those of $`𝐤_b`$, ($`d_2`$) parallel to the direction corresponding to the half of the angles of $`𝐤_b`$ and ($`d_3`$) parallel to the beam direction (zero angles).

In Table A.1, we show the results for $`\sigma _n^C`$ for the breakup of 11Be and 19C (on targets and at beam energies as indicated therein), for these three choices of the direction of $`𝐊`$. We see that between the cases $`d_1`$ to $`d_3`$, the variation in the values of $`\sigma _n^C`$ is less than 5$`\%`$ for 11Be, and less than 2$`\%`$ for 19C. In part A of Fig. A.2, we show the energy distribution of the neutron for the same reaction as described in Fig. 2 The results obtained with cases $`d_1`$, $`d_2`$ and $`d_3`$ are shown by solid, dashed and dotted lines respectively. We note that energy distributions calculated with these choices differ from each other only in the peak region; the variation between them is of the order of only 5$`\%`$. The results for the neutron angular distribution (for the reaction reported in Fig. 8) is of the similar nature.

In part B of Fig. A.2, we show the relative energy spectrum for the same reaction as shown in Fig. (13), for the choices ($`d_1`$), ($`d_2`$) and ($`d_3`$). In this case we observe almost no variation in the calculated cross sections. Similarly, We have noted no dependence of the calculated widths of the parallel momentum distributions of heavy fragments on the direction of $`𝐊`$, in all the reactions investigated in this paper. Therefore, the dependence of various cross sections for the reaction studied in this paper, on the direction of the local momentum is either very minor or almost negligible. The measurements done so far are not able to distinguish the small differences that we see here in some cases. Therefore, we have performed all our calculations in this paper by using $`\widehat{𝐊}`$ = $`\widehat{𝐤}_b`$.


text:
# Upper bound for the Weil-Petersson volumes

## 0. Introduction

After Wolpert in  computed the cohomology of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces as a graded vector space, the question of computing the cohomology ring structure (aka the intersection theory) on the moduli arose. The problem has been intensively studied since then. Witten’s paper  is a good source for available techniques and ideas. Witten’s conjecture, which later became Kontsevich’s theorem , shows that the intersection numbers satisfy a certain KdV equation.

However, the problem of getting explicit numerical results still remains, as the recursive computations become exceedingly complicated as the genus and number of punctures grow. Carel Faber computed some low-genus intersection numbers in  and has obtained numerous results in other papers.

Recently Zograf  and Manin and Zograf  have obtained quite explicit generating functions for the Weil-Petersson volumes, and computed the asymptotics of the volume growth for genus being fixed and the number of punctures growing to infinity.

In this paper we use a completely different set of tools, namely the decorated Teichmüller theory, to obtain an explicit asymptotic upper bound for the Weil-Petersson volumes for a fixed number of punctures and the genus growing to infinity.

## 1. Decorated Teichmüller Theory

Let us recall the notations and relevant constructions. All of these come from Penner’s work : this is just a brief summary.

Let $`_{g,n}`$ denote the moduli space of Riemann surfaces of genus $`g`$ with $`n`$ punctures — it has complex dimension $`3g3+n`$. Let $`\omega _{WP}`$ denote the two-form of the Weil-Petersson scalar product on $`_{g,n}`$. It can be extended to a closed current on the Deligne-Mumford compactification $`\overline{_{g,n}}`$ of the moduli space. Taking its highest power produces a volume form on $`_{g,n}`$, integrating which over $`\overline{_{g,n}}`$ gives the Weil-Petersson volume $`\mathrm{vol}_{WP}(_{g,n})`$, which is the principal object of our study. We will only be concerned with hyperbolic punctured surfaces, i.e. the case when $`2g+n3`$ and $`n>0`$.

An ideal triangulation of a punctured surface is a triangulation of the surface with vertices only at punctures. We can straighten an ideal triangulation so that every edge of it is a geodesic arc for the hyperbolic metric on the surface. From Euler characteristics considerations it follows that such a triangulation consists of $`V:=4g4+2n`$ triangles, and has $`N:=6g6+3n`$ edges.

The decoration of a punctured Riemann surface is an addition of a horocycle around each puncture. More rigorously, on the uniformizing hyperbolic plane we take a horocycle around a preimage of a puncture, and consider its projection to the Riemann surface. For a decorated Riemann surface with an ideal geodesic triangulation define the $`\lambda `$-length of arc $`e`$ of the triangulation to be $`\lambda (e)=\sqrt{2e^\delta }`$, where $`\delta `$ is the (signed) hyperbolic distance from the point where $`e`$ intersects the horocycle around one its end to the point of intersection with the horocycle at the other end. It turns out (, theorem 3.1) that for a fixed triangulation the $`\lambda `$-lengths establish a homeomorphism of the decorated Teichmüller space $`\stackrel{~}{𝒯_{g,n}}`$ and $`_+^{6g6+3n}`$.

An embedded graph is a graph embedded in a Riemann surface. Combinatorially it can be represented as a usual graph endowed with a cyclic order of the edges around each vertex. Given an ideal triangulation of a surface, taking its Poincaré dual produces a trivalent embedded graph on the surface, which we denote $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ has $`N`$ edges and $`V`$ vertices. We define $`\lambda (e)`$, the $`\lambda `$-length of an edge $`e`$ of the graph, to be the $`\lambda `$-length of its Poincaré dual geodesic arc of the ideal triangulation.

## 2. Moduli space description

Our goal is to use Penner’s description of the moduli space in the $`\lambda `$-length coordinates to obtain an explicit upper bound of the Weil-Petersson volumes.

For any edge $`e`$ of the trivalent embedded graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ let $`f_i`$ and $`g_i`$ be the adjacent edges of the graph at $`i`$’s end of $`e`$. Then define the associated simplicial coordinate to be

$$X_e:=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}\frac{\lambda (f_i)}{\lambda (e)\lambda (g_i)}+\frac{\lambda (g_i)}{\lambda (e)\lambda (f_i)}\frac{\lambda (e)}{\lambda (f_i)\lambda (g_i)}.$$

Further, let $`\rho _i`$ be the sum of simplicial coordinates of the edges in a path around puncture number $`i`$, where the path has to go to “the next edge to the left” at each vertex in the cyclic order corresponding to the embedding of the graph. Notice that if we take any edge and start going to “the next edge to the left” from it, we will end up with a loop around some puncture. Since you can “go to the left” in two directions, i.e. since it matters in which way you start going, we have

$$\rho :=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\rho _i=2\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}X_{e_i}=2\frac{\lambda (e)}{\lambda (f)\lambda (g)},$$

where the sum is over all triples of edges having a common vertex, including the possible renamings of $`e`$, $`f`$ and $`g`$.

In these notations Penner proves the following result:

###### Fact 2.1 (, 3.2.1 and 3.4.3).

Let $`\omega `$ be a top-dimension differential form on $`_{g,n}`$. Then

(2.1)
$$_{\overline{}_{g,n}}\omega =\underset{[\mathrm{\Gamma }]}{}\frac{1}{\mathrm{Aut}\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{D(\mathrm{\Gamma })}\pi ^{}(\omega ),$$

where $`\pi :\stackrel{~}{𝒯}_{g,n}_{g,n}`$ is the forgetful projection, $`[\mathrm{\Gamma }]`$ denotes the isomorphism class of an embedded trivalent graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and $`D(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ is the domain in the decorated Teichmüller space given by

(2.2)
$$D(\mathrm{\Gamma })=\left\{\rho _i=1;X_e>0\right|e\mathrm{\Gamma },i=1\mathrm{}n\}$$

in the $`\lambda `$-coordinates corresponding to the embedded graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

## 3. Weil-Petersson Volume form

In further computations for simplicity we drop the $`\lambda `$’s and simply write $`e`$ for $`\lambda (e)`$, if no confusion is possible.

In $`\lambda `$-length coordinates on the moduli the Weil-Petersson two-form is given by (, theorem A.2)

(3.1)
$$\omega _{WP}=2\underset{v\mathrm{\Gamma };e,f,gv}{}\frac{\mathrm{d}e}{e}\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}+\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}+\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\frac{\mathrm{d}e}{e}.$$

The Weil-Petersson volume form is the $`3g3+n`$’s external power of $`w_{WP}`$. In general, letting $`I`$ be a multi-index, and denoting the exclusion of factors by a hat, it would be the sum

(3.2)
$$\omega _{WP}^{(3g3+n)}=\underset{|I|=n}{}a_Id\mathrm{ln}\lambda _1\mathrm{}\widehat{d\mathrm{ln}\lambda _I}\mathrm{}d\mathrm{ln}\lambda _N.$$

###### Proposition 3.1.

In the above notations, $`|a_I|2^N`$.

###### Proof.

Use the expression (3.1) for the two-form to straightforwardly take an exterior power and compute the total number of summands of one kind (with fixed $`I`$). Suppose the product contains some $`d\mathrm{ln}e`$; then it must come in pair with one of the adjoining edges — let it be $`f_i`$ in the above notations, so there are four choices. Then $`g_i`$ must come (if it is in the sum) with one of the two edges at its other end, and then the other edge at its other end must come with still another, and so on. Thus we have one factor of four, and many factors of two. Each new factor of four appears if we encounter an edge in $`I`$, so the total number of summands of one kind is at most $`2^|I|2^{3g3+n}=2^{3g3+2n}`$. Recalling the $`2`$ in the two-form, $`|a_I|2^{3g3+2n}2^{3g3+n}=2^N`$. ∎

For the case of one puncture Penner explicitly computes the Weil-Petersson volume form to be (, theorem 6.1.2)

(3.3)
$$\omega _{WP}^{(3g2)}=\pm 2^{4g2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}(1)^id\mathrm{ln}\lambda _1\mathrm{}\widehat{d\mathrm{ln}\lambda _i}\mathrm{}d\mathrm{ln}\lambda _N.$$

Thus we are dealing with a form which is singular when the $`\lambda `$ coordinates approach zero. However, this is not a problem:

###### Proposition 3.2.

In the domain of integration $`D(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ (formula 2.1) for any edge $`e\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ we have $`\lambda (e)>4`$ in $`D`$.

###### Proof.

We can construct at most two paths around punctures “going to the left” including the edge $`e`$ — a path can be constructed by deciding at which end of $`e`$ we start building it. Let one of these paths go through edges $`f_1,e,f_2`$, and the other — through $`g_1,e,g_2`$; let $`\rho _i`$ and $`\rho _j`$ be the sums of the simplicial coordinates of the edges in these paths. Then using the formula for $`\rho `$ in terms of $`\alpha `$-lengths of sectors (, lemma 3.4.2) we see that

$$\rho _i>\frac{2}{e}\left(\frac{g_1}{f_1}+\frac{g_2}{f_2}\right)\mathrm{and}\rho _j>\frac{2}{e}\left(\frac{f_1}{g_1}+\frac{f_2}{g_2}\right).$$

Since $`\rho _i=\rho _j=1`$ in the domain $`D`$, we get

$$2>\frac{2}{e}\left(\frac{f_1}{g_1}+\frac{g_1}{f_1}+\frac{f_2}{g_2}+\frac{g_2}{f_2}\right)>\frac{8}{e},$$

so that $`e>4`$. If there were only one path going through $`e`$, i.e. if $`i=j`$, we would have $`1=\rho _i>\frac{8}{e}`$, and thus $`e>8`$, which is even better. ∎

Thus in the domain of integration $`D(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ the $`\lambda `$-lengths are bounded below. However, $`D`$ can have limit points at infinities of $`\lambda `$\- lengths, and since the integral of $`d\mathrm{ln}x`$ does not converge at infinity, we have to deal with this problem in great detail, using the triangle inequality.

## 4. Triangle Inequality

The problem with the decorated Teichmüller theory is that the domain of intgeration $`D(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ cannot be simply described in $`\lambda `$-lengths. Our success will come from the following observation:

###### Theorem 4.1 (Triangle inequality: , lemma 5.2).

Let $`e`$, $`f`$, and $`g`$ be three edges of the graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ having a common vertex. Then in the domain of integration $`D(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ the triangle inequality between them holds:

(4.1)
$$ef+g.$$

###### Proof.

Assume for contradiction that $`e>f+g`$. Note that

(4.2)
$$\frac{g}{f}+\frac{f}{g}\frac{e^2}{fg}<2e>f+g$$

by clearing the denominators and extracting full squares. Similarly

(4.3)
$$\frac{e}{f}+\frac{f}{e}\frac{g^2}{ef}>2g<|ef|,$$

and both inequalities hold if $`e>f+g`$.

Denote by $`f_1`$ and $`g_1`$ the edges at the other end of $`e`$. From above it then follows that

$$0<eX_e=\frac{g_1}{f_1}+\frac{f_1}{g_1}\frac{e^2}{f_1g_1}+\frac{g}{f}+\frac{f}{g}\frac{e^2}{fg}<\frac{g_1}{f_1}+\frac{f_1}{g_1}\frac{e^2}{f_1g_1}2$$

using inequality (4.2). But this is just the inequality (4.3) for edges $`e`$, $`f_1`$ and $`g_1`$, and thus $`e<|f_1g_1|`$. Suppose $`f_1>g_1`$; then it follows that $`f_1>g_1+e`$, and we can apply a similar argument to the edges $`f_2`$ and $`g_2`$ at the other end of $`f_1`$ to obtain $`f_1<|f_2g_2|`$. Continuing this process inductively, and assuming at each step that $`f_i>g_i`$, we end up with an infinite strictly increasing sequence of edges $`e<f_1<\mathrm{}<f_n<\mathrm{}`$, which is rather hard to achieve on a finite graph. Thus assuming that one triangle inequality among $`\lambda `$-lengths fails, we have arrived at a contradiction. ∎

To demonstrate the power of the triangle inequality we prove a simple corollary:

###### Proposition 4.2.

Let $`\rho `$ be twice the sum of all simplicial coordinates of all edges in the graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, as before. Denote the minimal edge in the graph by $`\mu `$. If the triangle inequalities are satisfied, then $`\rho <\frac{8V}{\mu }`$.

###### Proof.

For any vertex $`v`$ denote by $`e_v`$, $`f_v`$ and $`g_v`$ the edges containing it, with $`e_v`$ being the maximal among the three. Then using the triangle inequalities we have

$$\frac{\rho }{2}=\underset{v}{}\frac{e_v}{f_vg_v}+\frac{f_v}{e_vg_v}+\frac{g_v}{e_vf_v}\underset{v}{}\frac{f_v+g_v}{f_vg_v}+\frac{1}{f_v}+\frac{1}{g_v}\underset{v}{}\frac{4}{\mu }$$

## 5. Stoke’s theorem

In section 3 we obtained an expression for the Weil-Petersson form in terms of $`\lambda `$-lengths. However, this expression has multiple summands, each omitting $`n`$ variables. In this section we use the Stoke’s theorem to combine the integrals of the summands into one integral of the highest degree form over a domain in $`^N`$.

###### Proposition 5.1.

Let $`\omega `$ be an $`(Nn)`$-form in $`^N`$. Then

$$\underset{D(\mathrm{\Gamma })}{}\omega =\pm \underset{0\rho _i1,X_e>0}{}d\rho _1\mathrm{}\mathrm{d}\rho _n\omega $$

###### Proof.

We apply the Stoke’s theorem multiply. Indeed,

$$\underset{D}{}\omega =\underset{D}{}\rho _1\omega =\pm \underset{X_e>0,\rho _2=\mathrm{}=\rho _n=1,0\rho _11}{}d\rho _1\omega =$$

$$=\underset{X_e>0,\rho _2=\mathrm{}=\rho _n=1,0\rho _11}{}\rho _2d\rho _1\omega =\mathrm{}=\pm \underset{0\rho _i1,X_e>0}{}d\rho _1\mathrm{}\mathrm{d}\rho _n\omega .$$

Now we need to deal with the $`\mathrm{d}\rho _i`$ factors. We prove the following

###### Theorem 5.2.

For $`I`$ being some set of indices with $`|I|=Nn`$,

$$\left|\underset{0\rho _i1,X_e>0}{}d\rho _1\mathrm{}\mathrm{d}\rho _n\underset{iI}{}\frac{\mathrm{d}e_i}{e_i}\right|\left|\underset{0\rho _i1,X_e>0}{}n!\rho ^n\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}e_i}{e_i}\right|$$

###### Proof.

Indeed, recall (, section 3.3.4) the definition of the $`\alpha `$-lengths $`\alpha (e,v):=\frac{e}{fg}`$ in the usual notations. Lemma 3.4.2 in  states that $`\rho _i`$ is twice the sum of $`\alpha `$-lengths of the sectors it traverses. What matters for us is that it is a sum of some $`\alpha `$-lengths. For any $`\alpha `$-length we have

$$\frac{\alpha (e,v)}{e}=\frac{1}{e}\alpha (e,v)\mathrm{and}\frac{\alpha (e,v)}{f}=\frac{1}{f}\alpha (e,v).$$

Thus for $`\rho _i=2\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\alpha (f_i,v_i)`$ we have

$$\left|\frac{\rho _i}{e}\right|==\frac{2}{e}|\pm \alpha (f_j,v_j)|\frac{2}{e}\alpha (f_j,v_j)=\frac{\rho _i}{e}<\frac{\rho }{e}.$$

Applying this trick to each of $`\mathrm{d}\rho _i`$ yields the theorem. ∎

Combining this theorem with the bound on the coefficients of the Weil-Petersson from theorem 3.1, noting that there are $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N}{n}\right)<N^n/n!`$ summands in the Weil-Petersson form, and enlarging $`D`$ to the domain $`0\rho n,X_e>0e`$, we get the following

###### Corollary 5.3.

The integral of the Weil-Petersson volume over the domain of integration is bounded by

$$\underset{D}{}\omega _{WP}^{(3g3+n)}<2^NN^n\left|\underset{0\rho <n,X_e>0}{}\rho ^n\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}e_i}{e_i}\right|$$

## 6. Triangle inequality combinatorics

Now we proceed to show how the triangle inequalities lead to a converging integral as an upper bound for the Weil-Petersson volume. We develop an algorithm for inductive estimation of the integral of the Weil-Petersson volume form over the domain where the triangle inequalities hold.

###### Definition 6.1.

Two edges $`e`$ and $`f`$ of the graph are called linked if they are adjacent at a vertex $`v`$, and the third edge $`g`$ at $`v`$ is the minimal of the three (not necessarily strictly). Notice that from the triangle inequalities $`e<f+g`$ and $`f<e+g`$ it then follows that $`\frac{1}{2}\frac{e}{f}2`$.

###### Definition 6.2.

A chain is a sequence of edges in which every two consecutive ones are linked. We will only be interested in maximal chains — the ones which are not a part of any longer chain. Such a chain must either form a loop in the graph, or end by two edges which are minimal at their outer-end vertices.

###### Definition 6.3.

Define a wheel to be an ordered sequence of (maximal) chains $`c_1,\mathrm{},c_m`$ such that for any $`i`$ there is at least one chain among $`c_1,\mathrm{},c_{i1}`$ ending at a vertex inside the chain $`c_i`$. In further considerations, we will only be interested in maximal wheels, the ones which cannot be enlarged any further. Basically this means that the ends of all chains in the wheel belong to other chains already included in the wheel, so that there are no edges “sticking out” of the wheel.

For further computations we split the domain of integration into at most $`3^V`$ parts by deciding which two edges at each vertex are linked. We then use chains and wheels to introduce some order on the set of edges, and to integrate inductively. In this we will be aided by the following technical lemmas. The notations are as in the definition of linking: $`e`$, $`f`$ and $`g`$ are the three edges at some vertex, among which $`g`$ is minimal. We are working in the domain $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ where the triangle inequalities hold, noting that $`\mathrm{\Delta }D(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ by theorem 4.1.

###### Lemma 6.4.

For fixed $`e`$ we have $`_\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}\mathrm{ln}4`$, where $`_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ denotes integration over the possible values of $`f`$ within domain $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for fixed $`e`$.

###### Proof.

Since $`e`$ and $`f`$ link, we have $`e/2<f<2e`$. Thus

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}_{e/2}^{2e}\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}=\mathrm{ln}4.$$

###### Corollary 6.5.

Let $`e_1\mathrm{}e_m`$ be a chain. If we fix (the $`\lambda `$-length of) an edge $`e_i`$, then

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }\underset{ji}{}\frac{de_j}{e_j}(\mathrm{ln}4)^{m1}$$

###### Proof.

Start from the ends of the chain, and apply the lemma to eliminate edges one by one, coming from the ends towards $`e_i`$. ∎

###### Lemma 6.6.

If we fix the edge $`g`$, then the integral over the linked edges $`e`$ and $`f`$ can be estimated as $`_\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{\mathrm{d}e\mathrm{d}f}{ef}<2`$

###### Proof.

Split the integral into two parts depending on whether $`e>f`$ or $`f>e`$. The computation for them is identical; if $`f<e`$, we have

$$\underset{\mathrm{\Delta }\{f<e\}}{}\frac{\mathrm{d}e\mathrm{d}f}{ef}\underset{g}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}\underset{f}{\overset{f+g}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}e}{e}=\underset{g}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}\mathrm{ln}\left(1+\frac{g}{f}\right)<\underset{g}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}\frac{g}{f}=1.$$

###### Proposition 6.7.

Starting from two linked edges $`e`$ and $`f`$, construct a wheel consisting of edges $`e_1\mathrm{}e_m`$, where the list includes $`e`$ and $`f`$ themselves. Then for fixed $`g`$

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}e_i}{e_i}(\mathrm{max}(\mathrm{ln}4,\sqrt{2}))^m$$

###### Proof.

The wheel is a collection of chains $`c_1\mathrm{}c_k`$. Keep the two edges of $`c_k`$ in between which some chain $`c_i`$ ends (existent by definition of a wheel), and integrate the other ones out using corollary 6.5 — by this we pick up a factor of $`\mathrm{ln}4`$ for each edge. Then use lemma 6.6 above to integrate out the last two remaining edges of the chain $`c_k`$ — here we pick up a factor of $`2`$ for two edges, i.e. $`\sqrt{2}`$ per edge. Performing induction in $`k`$ finishes the proof. ∎

If a wheel were the whole graph, we would be able to estimate the integral using the above proposition. However, if the wheel is not the whole graph, we need to be able to link it to the rest of the graph. Thus we will need the following

###### Lemma 6.8.

In the usual notations for fixed $`e`$ we have

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{\mathrm{d}f\mathrm{d}g}{fg}<\frac{8}{3}$$

###### Proof.

Indeed, recall that $`g>4`$ by proposition 3.2. Thus

$$\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\underset{\mathrm{max}(g,eg)}{\overset{g}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}+\underset{4}{\overset{g}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\underset{e}{\overset{e+g}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}f}{f}\underset{4}{\overset{e/2}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\mathrm{ln}\frac{e}{eg}+\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\mathrm{ln}\left(1+\frac{g}{e}\right)$$

Since $`\mathrm{ln}(1+x)<x`$ for $`x>0`$, for the second summand we have

$$\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\mathrm{ln}(1+\frac{g}{e})<\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\frac{g}{e}=\frac{e4}{e}<1.$$

For the first summand we compute

$$\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\mathrm{ln}\frac{e}{eg}=\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\mathrm{ln}\left(1\frac{g}{e}\right)=\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}g}{g}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{g^n}{ne^n}=$$

$$=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{ne^n}\underset{4}{\overset{e}{}}g^{n1}dg=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{ne^n}\frac{e^n4^n}{n}<\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n^2}<\frac{5}{3}.$$

Combining the above estimates, we get the lemma. ∎

###### Theorem 6.9.

Let $`\mu `$ be the minimal edge of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and let $`e_1\mathrm{}e_{N1}`$ be all the other edges of the graph. Then for a fixed value of $`\mu `$ and a fixed choice of the two linking edges at each vertex we have

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }\underset{i=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}e_i}{e_i}<\left(\frac{8}{3}\right)^{(N1)/2}$$

###### Proof.

Construct a wheel $`w_1`$ starting from edge $`\mu `$. If this wheel is not the whole graph, consider a chain $`c_{1,1}`$ ending on $`w_1`$ by at least one end. If it ends on $`w_1`$ by the other end also, consider another such chain $`c_{1,2}`$ and so on, until we either exhaust the graph, or get a chain $`c_{1,m_1}`$ which has an end not on $`w_1`$. Then construct a wheel $`w_2`$ at the other end of the chain $`c_{1,m_1}`$. If the union of these two wheels and the chains constructed is still not the whole graph, we repeat the process.

As a result, we decompose the graph into a disjoint union of wheels $`w_1\mathrm{}w_k`$ and chains $`c_{i,j}`$ for $`ik`$ and $`jm_i`$ such that the chains $`c_{i,j}`$ have both ends on $`w_i`$ for $`i=k`$ or $`j<m_i`$, and that $`c_{i,m_i}`$ connects $`w_i`$ and $`w_{i+1}`$ for $`i<k`$. Then use corollary 6.5 to eliminate all edges of chains $`c_{k,i}`$ except the terminal ones, which end at $`w_k`$. Using lemma 6.8, we can then include these terminal edges of $`c_{k,i}`$’s while implementing the proof of proposition 6.7 — integrating out the edges of $`w_k`$ one by one. Doing this, we get a factor of $`8/3`$ for eliminating two edges, instead of the smaller factor of $`(\mathrm{ln}4)^2`$, which we were getting originally.

At the last step of integrating over the edges of $`w_k`$ we use the edge at the end of $`c_{k1,m_{k1}}`$ for lemma 6.6, and thus reduce the problem to $`k1`$ wheels. Induction in $`k`$ then yields the desired result. ∎

Now we combine all the above estimates to finally obtain

###### Theorem 6.10.

In the above notations,

$$_{D(\mathrm{\Gamma })}\omega _{WP}^{(3g3+n)}<2^N3^VN^n\left(\frac{8}{3}\right)^{(N1)/2}(2V)^n$$

###### Proof.

Combining the results of corollary 5.3 and proposition 4.2, we see that the integral in question is bounded above by

$$2^NN^n\left|\rho ^n\frac{\mathrm{d}\mu }{\mu }\underset{i=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}e_i}{e_i}\right|<2^NN^n\left|\left(\frac{8V}{\mu }\right)^n\frac{\mathrm{d}\mu }{\mu }\underset{i=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}e_i}{e_i}\right|.$$

Using theorem 6.9, we can integrate out all variables except $`\mu `$, by acquiring an extra factor of $`(8/3)^{(N1)/2}`$. Remembering the factor of $`3^V`$ for choosing the minimal edge at each vertex, our final upper bound becomes

$$2^N3^VN^n\left(\frac{8}{3}\right)^{(N1)/2}(8V)^n\underset{4}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}\mu }{\mu ^{n+1}}=2^N3^VN^n\left(\frac{8}{3}\right)^{(N1)/2}(2V)^n$$

Using our explicit knowledge of the Weil-Petersson volume form, in the case of one puncture we get

$$\underset{D}{}\omega _{WP}^{(3g3+n)}<2^{4g2}3^V(8/3)^{(N1)/2}N.$$

## 7. Conclusion

For the case of one puncture, combining our estimates with Penner’s asymptotic computation of the number of cells in formula 2.1 (being $`\frac{(2g)!}{N}\left(e/6\right)^{2g}`$), and estimating $`1/\mathrm{Aut}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from above by one, we finally get

$$\mathrm{vol}_{WP}(_{g,1})<(2g)!\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}^{4g2}3^{4g2}(\mathrm{ln}4)^{6g3}\left(\frac{6}{e}\right)^{2g}=:c_1^g(2g)!,$$

which has the same leading order infinity as Penner’s lower bound

$$\mathrm{vol}_{WP}(_{g,1})>\left(\frac{8e^2}{9}\right)^{2g}\frac{(2g)!}{2(6g3)^2}=:c_2^g(2g)!,$$

where $`c_i`$ are some explicit constants. Thus we have proven that

$$c_2^g(2g)!<\mathrm{vol}_{WP}(_{g,1})<c_1^g(2g)!\mathrm{and}\underset{g\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{vol}_{WP}(_{g,1})}{g\mathrm{ln}g}=2.$$

Intuitively, for more than one puncture the number of graphs should grow with genus in the same way as for one puncture, since all the punctures are far away from the additional handles being added, and their number should not matter.

Rigorously, let $`T(g,n)`$ denote the set of isomorphism classes of ideal triangulations of a surface of genus $`g`$ with $`n`$ punctures. Then we prove

###### Proposition 7.1.

There is a following upper bound on the number of triangulations:

$$|T(g,n)|<\frac{N^2}{2}|T(g,n1)<\mathrm{}<\frac{N^{2n2}}{2^{n1}}|T(g,1)|<\frac{(2g)!N^{2n3}}{2^{n1}}\left(\frac{6}{e}\right)^{2g}$$

###### Proof.

For $`n>1`$ we construct a relation $`\varphi T(g,n)\times T(g,n1)`$ in the following way. Consider two distinct punctures $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ connected by an edge $`e`$ of a triangulation $`xT(g,n)`$ — if such did not exist, i.e. if all edges emanating from a puncture went back to the puncture itself, it would not be a triangulation of the surface. Shrinking $`e`$ to a point, and collapsing triangles on both sides of $`e`$ into arcs of a triangulations, thus identifying $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$, produces a new triangulation $`yT(g,n1)`$. We define $`\varphi `$ to be the set of all pairs $`(x,y)`$ obtained in such a way.

Now consider some $`yT(g,n1)`$. Any graph in $`xT(g,n)`$ such that $`(x,y)\varphi `$ can be reconstructed from $`y`$ by “blowing up” a pair of edges emanating from a vertex to triangles. Since there are $`(6g6+3(n1))(6g6+3(n1)1)/2<N^2/2`$ ways to choose a pair of edges of $`y`$, there are at most $`N^2/2`$ triangulations $`xT(g,n)`$ such that $`(x,y)\varphi `$. The argument works for all $`y`$, and thus $`|T(g,n)|<N^2|T(g,n1)|/2`$. Applying this argument until we decrease the number of punctures to one, and then utilizing Penner’s asymptotic computation for that case finishes the proof. ∎

Combining all our estimates, for $`gn`$ we get

$$\mathrm{vol}_{WP}(_{g,n})<\frac{(2g)!N^{2n3}}{2^{n1}}\left(\frac{6}{e}\right)^{2g}2^N3^VN^n\left(\frac{8}{3}\right)^{N/2}(2V)^n<C^g(2g)!,$$

where $`c`$ is any constant greater than $`2^{17}3^3/e^2`$ (notice that is is independent of $`n`$, since the $`g^n`$ has a lower growth order), and thus

$$\underset{g\mathrm{},n\mathrm{fixed}}{lim}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{vol}_{WP}(_{g,n})}{g\mathrm{ln}g}2.$$

## Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Yum-Tong Siu for suggesting the problem and for many invaluable discussions. Without Professor Siu’s continuous support this work would have been impossible. We would also like to thank the University of Hong Kong for hospitality during November 1999, when this work was finalized.