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# The role of 𝜈-induced reactions on lead and iron in neutrino detectors

## I Introduction

Neutrinos play a decisive role in many aspects of astrophysics and determining their properties is considered the most promising gateway to novel physics beyond the standard model of elementary particle physics. Thus detecting and studying accelerator-made or astrophysical neutrinos is a forefront research issue worldwide with many ongoing and planned activities.

One of the fundamental questions currently investigated is whether neutrinos have a finite mass. This question can be answered by the potential detection of neutrino oscillations which would establish the existence of at least one family of massive neutrinos. Furthermore, the existence of massive neutrinos might have profound consequences on many branches of cosmology and astrophysics, e.g. the expansion of the universe and the formation of galaxies, while neutrino oscillations can have interesting effects on supernova nucleosynthesis .

From the many experiments directly searching for neutrino oscillations, only the LSND collaboration has reported positive candidate events . Indirect evidence for neutrino oscillations arises from the deficit of solar neutrinos, as observed by all solar-neutrino detectors , and the suppression and its angular dependence of events induced by atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrinos in Superkamiokande . Due to the obvious importance, the oscillation results implied from these experiments will be cross-checked by future long-baseline experiments like MINOS . From the detectors currently operable KARMEN has a neutrino-oscillation sensitivity similar to the LSND experiment. Currently, the KARMEN collaboration does not observe oscillations covering most of the oscillation parameter space for the positive LSND result .

A type II supernova releases most of its energy in terms of neutrinos. Supernova neutrinos from SN87a had been observed by the Kamiokande and IMB detectors  and have confirmed the general supernova picture. The observed events were most likely due to $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ antineutrinos. However, the models predict distinct differences in the neutrino distributions for the various families and thus a more restrictive test of the current supernova theory requires the abilities of neutrino spectroscopy by the neutrino detectors. Current (e.g. Superkamiokande and SNO) and future detectors (including the proposed OMNIS  and LAND  projects) have this capability and will be able to distinguish between the different neutrino types and determine their individual spectra. For the water Čerenkov detectors (SNO and Superkamiokande) $`\nu _x`$ neutrinos can be detected by specific neutral-current events , while the OMNIS and LAND detectors are proposed to detect neutrons spallated from target nuclei by charged- and neutral-current neutrino interactions.

Some of the supernova-neutrino or neutrino-oscillation detectors use iron or lead as detector material (e.g. MINOS, LAND and OMNIS) or have adopted steel (LSND, KARMEN) and lead (LSND) shielding. Thus, precise theoretical estimates of the neutrino-induced cross sections on Fe and Pb are required for a reliable knowledge of the detection signal or the appropriate simulation of background events. We note that the KARMEN collaboration has recently used its sensitivity to the 56Fe($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)56Co background events to determine a cross section for this reaction . In Ref.  we have calculated this cross section in a hybrid model in which the allowed transitions have been studied based on the interacting shell model, while the forbidden transitions were calculated within the continuum random phase approximation. In this paper we extend this investigation and study the charged- and neutral current reactions on 56Fe and 208Pb for various accelerator-based and supernova neutrino distributions. In particular, we determine the 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}`$) cross sections for the LSND neutrino spectra which will serve for even improved background simulations for this detector. Our calculations of supernova neutrino reaction cross sections on 56Fe and 208Pb are aimed to guide the design of supernova neutrino detectors like OMNIS and LAND. With this goal in mind we have calculated the energy spectrum of neutrons knocked-out by the charged-current or neutral-current neutrino-induced excitation of 56Fe and 208Pb. To allow also the exploration of potential oscillation scenarios we have calculated the cross sections and neutron spectra for various supernova neutrino spectra.

## II Theoretical model

Besides the total cross sections, the partial cross sections for neutrino-induced particle knock-out are of relevance to estimate the signal and background of the various detectors. We will calculate these partial cross sections in a two-step process (e.g. for the charged-current reaction):

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \underset{1.\mathrm{RPA}}{\underset{}{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \nu +{}_{Z}{}^{}X_{N}^{}& & l+{}_{Z+1}{}^{}X_{N1}^{}\hfill \end{array}}}& & \underset{2.\mathrm{Statistical}\mathrm{Model}}{\underset{}{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill {}_{Z+1}{}^{}X_{N1}^{}& & \{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill {}_{Z+1}{}^{}X_{N2}^{}& +& \mathrm{n}\hfill \\ \hfill {}_{Z}{}^{}X_{N1}^{}& +& \mathrm{p}\hfill \\ \hfill {}_{Z1}{}^{}X_{N3}^{}& +& \alpha \hfill \\ \hfill {}_{Z+1}{}^{}X_{N1}^{}& +& \gamma \hfill \end{array}\hfill \end{array}}}\hfill \end{array}$$

In the first step, we calculate the $`\nu `$-induced spectrum $`\frac{d\sigma }{d\omega }(\omega )`$ in the daughter nucleus at excitation energy $`\omega `$. We consider multipole excitations of both parities and angular momenta $`\lambda 9`$, using the formalism developed in. These multipole operators, denoted by $`\lambda ^\pi `$, depend on the momentum transfer $`q`$.

Our strategy to calculate $`\frac{d\sigma }{d\omega }(\omega )`$ has been different for 56Fe and 208Pb. For 56Fe we adopt the same hybrid model which has already been successfully applied in . That is, we calculate all nuclear responses within the random phase approximation (RPA). However, the RPA does not usually recover sufficient nucleon-nucleon correlations to reliably reproduce the quenching and fragmentation of the Gamow-Teller (GT) strength distribution in nuclei. For this reason we determine the response of the $`\lambda ^\pi =1^+`$ operator on the basis of an interacting shell model calculation performed within the complete $`pf`$ shell. Such a study has been proven to reproduce the experimental GT- (in which a neutron is changed into a proton) and GT+ (in which a proton is changed into a neutron) distributions on 56Fe well , if the response is quenched by a universal factor $`(0.74)^2`$ . However, the GT operator corresponds to the appropriate $`\lambda ^\pi =1^+`$ operator only in the limit of momentum transfer $`q0`$. As it has been pointed out in , the consideration of the finite-momentum transfer in the operator results in a reduction of the cross sections, caused by the destructive interference with the higher-order operator $`\tau \stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{p}`$. To account for the effect of the finite momentum transfer we have performed RPA calculations for the $`\lambda ^\pi =1^+`$ multipole operator at finite momentum transfer $`q`$ (i.e. $`\lambda (q)`$) and for $`q=0`$ (i.e. $`\lambda (q=0)`$) and have scaled the shell model GT strength distribution by the ratio of $`\lambda (q)`$ and $`\lambda (q=0)`$ RPA cross sections. The correction is rather small for $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos stemming from muon-decay-at-rest (i.e. for LSND and KARMEN) or for supernova $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos. The correction is, however, sizeable if neutrino oscillations occur in the accelerator-based experiments or a supernova .

For 208Pb a converged shell-model calculation of the GT strength distribution is yet not computationally feasible. Thus we have also calculated the $`\lambda ^\pi =1^+`$ response within the RPA approach. Note that our RPA approach fulfills the Fermi and Ikeda sumrules. As the $`S_{\beta ^+}`$ strength (in this direction a proton is changed into a neutron) is strongly suppressed for 208Pb, the Ikeda sumrule fixes the $`S_\beta ^{}`$ strength. We have renormalized the $`\lambda ^\pi =1^+`$ strength in 208Pb by the universal quenching factor which, due to a very slight $`A`$-dependence is recommended to be $`(0.7)^2`$ in 208Pb . Thus the Ikeda sumrule reads $`S_\beta _{}S_{\beta _+}S_\beta _{}=3(0.7)^2(NZ)`$. For the other multipole operators no experimental evidence exists for such a rescaling and we have used the RPA response.

In our RPA calculations we have chosen the single-particle energies from an appropriate Woods-Saxon potential, which has been adjusted to reproduce the relevant particle thresholds. As residual interaction we used the zero-range Landau-Migdal force from . However, it is well known that this parameterization places the isobaric analog state in 208Bi at too high an energy. This is cured by changing the parameter, which multiplies the $`\tau _i\tau _j`$ term in the interaction from $`f_0^{}=1.5`$ to the value 0.9 . After this adjustment the IAS is very close ($`E_{IAS}=15.4`$ MeV) to the experimental position (15.16 MeV). Furthermore, our RPA parametrization has been demonstrated to describe the 208Pb(p,n) reaction data at small forward angle well . Our RPA approaches are described in details in Refs. . We note that this approach gives quite satisfying results for neutrino scattering , muon capture  and electron scattering .

After having determined the neutrino-induced excitation spectrum in the daughter nucleus, we calculate in the second step for each final state with well-defined energy, angular momentum, and parity the branching ratios into the various decay channels using the statistical model code SMOKER . The decay channels considered are proton, neutron, $`\alpha `$, and $`\gamma `$ emission. As possible final states in the residual nucleus the SMOKER code considers the experimentally known levels supplemented at higher energies by an appropriate level density formula. Note, that the SMOKER code has been successfully applied to many astrophysical problems and that we empirically found good agreement between p/n branching-ratios calculated with SMOKER and within continuum RPA for several neutral current reactions on light nuclei .

As supernova and accelerator-produced neutrinos have an energy spectrum, the final results (total and partial cross sections) are obtained by folding with the appropriate neutrino spectra.

## III Results

### A Reactions induced by decay-at-rest neutrinos

The $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos produced in the muon decay-at-rest (DAR), have the characteristic Michel energy spectrum

$$n(E_\nu )=\frac{96E_\nu ^2}{M_\mu ^4}(M_\mu 2E_\nu ),$$
(1)
where $`M_\mu `$ is the muon mass and $`E_\nu `$ the neutrino energy.

Our calculated excitation spectrum for the 56Fe($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)56Co reaction is shown in . Fig. 1 shows the RPA response for the 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)208Bi reaction, calculated for a muon decay-at-rest neutrino spectrum.

The collective GT transition is found at an excitation energy of around $`E_x=16`$ MeV in 208Bi, again close to the centroid of the experimentally observed GT strength distribution which is at around 15.6 MeV . As has already been observed in , RPA calculations also predict GT- strength at lower excitation energies, which then correspond mainly to individual single-particle transitions. Due to phase space, these low-lying transitions are noticeably enhanced in neutrino-induced reactions with respect to the collective transition. Our calculation indicates the low-lying GT strength to be mainly centered at around $`E_x=7.5`$ MeV in 208Bi. There might be some evidence for such a transition in the experimental (p,n) spectra on 208Pb . However, a doubtless experimental confirmation would be quite desirable. The first-forbidden transitions lead mainly to $`1^{}`$ and $`2^{}`$ states in 208Bi. In our calculation these transitions are fragmented over states in the energy interval between 17 MeV and 26 MeV, although we find $`2^{}`$ strength also at rather low excitation energies $`E_x=2.5`$ MeV and 7.5 MeV. Experimentally $`2^{}`$ strength has been observed at $`E_x=2.8`$ MeV .

To check the reliability of our approach we have performed several additional calculations. At first we have calculated the GT response for 56Fe within the RPA approach. Then the GT distribution is focussed in two strong transitions at $`E_x=2`$ MeV and 10.5 MeV in 56Co, corresponding to the change of a $`f_{7/2}`$ neutron into $`f_{7/2}`$ and $`f_{5/2}`$ protons, respectively, clearly showing the inappropriate fragmentation of the GT strength within the RPA. However, we find that this shortcoming does not strongly influence the calculated cross section. If we correct for the overestimation of the total RPA $`S_\beta _{}`$ strength compared with the shell model (and data), we find an RPA GT contribution to the 56Fe($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)56Co cross section in close agreement to the shell model result (better than $`3\%`$). We thus conclude that our total 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)208Bi cross section, for which we could not calculate the $`\lambda ^\pi =1^+`$ contribution on the basis of the shell model, is probably quite reliable.

Due to the energy and momentum-transfer involved, muon capture is mainly sensitive to forbidden transitions ($`\lambda ^\pi =1^{}`$ and $`2^{}`$ for 56Fe and $`\lambda ^\pi =1^+,2^+`$ and $`3^+`$ for 208Pb). We have tested our model description for forbidden transitions by calculating the total muon capture rates for 56Fe and 208Pb and obtain results $`(4.4610^6`$ s-1 and $`16.110^6`$ s-1) which agree rather well with experiment ($`(4.4\pm 0.1)10^6`$ s-1 and $`(13.5\pm 0.2)10^6`$ s-1, respectively ). Further details on these studies will be published elsewhere .

The KARMEN collaboration has measured the total 56Fe($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)56Co cross section for the DAR neutrino spectrum and obtains $`\sigma =(2.56\pm 1.08\pm 0.43)10^{40}`$ cm2 . We calculate a result in close agreement $`\sigma =2.410^{40}`$ cm2. In Table 1 we have listed the partial cross sections into the various decay channels. As the isobaric analog state (IAS) at $`E_x=3.5`$ MeV and most of the GT- strength resides below the particle thresholds in 56Co (the proton and neutron thresholds are at 5.85 MeV and 10.08 MeV, respectively), most of the neutrino-induced reactions on 56Fe leads to particle-bound states, which then decay by $`\gamma `$ emission. Due to the lower threshold, neutrino-induced excitation of particle-unbound states in 56Co is dominantly followed by proton decays. The rather high threshold energy (7.76 MeV) and the larger Coulomb barrier makes decay into the $`\alpha `$-channel rather unimportant.

Now we turn our discussion to 208Pb which is the shielding material of the LSND detector. The simple ($`NZ`$) scaling of the Fermi and Ikeda sumrules indicates that the ($`\nu ,e^{}`$) cross section on 208Pb is significantly larger than on 56Fe. The cross section is additionally enlarged by the strong Z-dependence of the Fermi function. In total we find that the ($`\nu _e,e^{}`$) cross section on 208Pb is about 15 times bigger than for 56Fe. Furthermore, as the IAS energy and the GT- strength is above the neutron threshold in 208Bi at 6.9 MeV, most of the ($`\nu _e,e^{}`$) cross section leads to particle-unbound states. These expectations are born out by a detailed calculation which finds a total cross section of $`3.6210^{39}`$ cm2. The partial 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}n`$)207Bi cross section dominates and amounts to about $`91\%`$ of the total cross section. As can be seen in Table 1, the remaining cross section mainly goes to particle-bound levels and hence decays by $`\gamma `$ emission.

For the general reasons given above, our theoretical estimate for the 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)208Bi cross section is probably quite reliable and should be useful for improved background simulations of the LSND detector. It is also quite interesting to turn the problem around and ask whether the LSND collaboration can actually measure this cross section. To this end we have estimated the total number of neutrino-induced events in the lead shielding  (volume $`V=20`$ m3, density $`\rho =11.3`$ g/cm3) of the LSND detector assuming an annual LSND neutrino flux of $`310^{13}`$/y. Then our 208Pb($`\nu ,e^{}`$)208Bi cross section translates into 200 000 events for the 3 year running time from 1996-98. In about 180 000 events a neutron is knocked out of the lead target. The electron will not travel directly into the detector, but will shower in the shielding producing photons which in turn might reach the detector in which they produce Compton electrons. The KARMEN collaboration has observed this process for the 56Fe shielding and quotes an efficiency of their detector of $`0.44\%`$. If the LSND detector has a comparable efficiency for this process, it should be able to observe the 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}n`$)207Bi cross section where the events are most likely at the edges. On the other hand, the correlated observation of a neutron and a lepton constitutes the LSND neutrino oscillation signal. For this reason, the LSND collaboration suppresses the events stemming from neutrino interactions on lead by appropriate energy and spatial cuts. However, our calculated 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}n`$) cross section might allow the LSND collaboration to further improve their background simulations.

The LSND oscillation experiment studies their events as function of energy of the outgoing lepton, setting cuts at 20 MeV, 36 MeV, and 53 MeV. We have therefore also calculated the 208Pb($`\nu ,e^{}n`$)207Bi cross section as function of the final lepton energy, which is shown in Fig. 2.

The LSND neutrino beam has a small admixture of $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrinos stemming from pion-in-flight (DIF) decays. These neutrinos have in fact high enough energies to significantly produce muons by the charged-current ($`\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{}`$) reaction (This beam property allowed the LSND collaboration to measure the inclusive 12C($`\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{}`$)12N cross section and to test universality in a neutrino experiment on nuclei ). For the oscillation search events stemming from the $`(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{}n)`$ reaction, with a possible misinterpretation of the lepton in the final channel, are considered a possible background. For this reason we have also calculated the total and partial ($`\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{}`$) cross sections on 208Pb for the LSND DIF $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrino spectrum. The results are shown in Table 2.

We note that the ‘most effective’ neutrino energy defined by

$$\overline{E}_\nu =\frac{E_\nu \sigma (E_\nu )𝑑E_\nu }{\sigma (E_\nu )𝑑E_\nu }$$
(2)
is larger for DIF neutrinos ($`\overline{E}_\nu =170`$ MeV) than for DAR neutrinos ($`\overline{E}_\nu =37`$ MeV). Thus, even if the mass difference between muon and electron is considered, the phase space favors the reaction induced by DIF $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrinos. Consequently the total cross section for the charged-current reaction on 208Pb induced by DIF $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrinos is larger (by roughly a factor 3) than induced by DAR $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos. Although the average excitation energy in the daughter nucleus is also slightly higher for DIF $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrinos than for DAR $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos, the decay of the particle-unbound states is still dominantly into the neutron channel.

The LSND collaboration observes candidate events which might imply $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ neutrino oscillations . If this is the case the DIF $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrinos can have changed into $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos before reaching the detector now allowing for 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}`$) reactions triggered by $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos with a significantly higher energy. We have studied the respective cross sections and have summarized them in Table 3.

For completeness, Tables 2 and 3 also list the ($`\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{}`$) and ($`\nu _e,e^{}`$) cross sections on 56Fe, in both cases calculated for a DIF neutrino spectrum.

### B Supernova neutrinos

The observation of the neutrinos from SN1987a by the water Čerenkov detectors is generally considered as strong support that the identification of type II supernovae as core collapse supernovae is correct. Theoretical models predict that the proto-neutron star formed in the center of the supernova cools by the production of neutrino pairs, where the luminosity is approximately the same for all 3 neutrino families. The interaction of the neutrinos with the dense surrounding, consisting of ordinary neutron-rich matter, introduces characteristic differences in the neutrino distributions for the various families. As the $`\mu `$ and $`\tau `$ neutrinos and their antiparticles (combined referred to as $`\nu _x`$) have not enough energy to generate a muon or $`\tau `$ lepton, they decouple deepest in the star, i.e. at the highest temperature, and have an average energy of $`\overline{E}_\nu =25`$ MeV. As the $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ neutrinos interact with the neutron-rich matter via $`\nu _e+np+e^{}`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e+pn+e^+`$, the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ neutrinos have a higher average energy ($`\overline{E}_\nu =16`$ MeV) than the $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos ($`\overline{E}_\nu =11`$ MeV). Clearly an observational verification of this temperature hierarchy would establish a strong test of our current supernova models.

The distribution of the various supernova neutrino species is usually described by a Fermi-Dirac spectrum

$$n(E_\nu )=\frac{1}{F_2(\alpha )T^3}\frac{E_\nu ^2}{\mathrm{exp}[(E_\nu /T)\alpha ]+1}$$
(3)
where $`T,\alpha `$ are parameters fitted to numerical spectra, and $`F_2(\alpha )`$ normalizes the spectrum to unit flux. The transport calculations of Janka  yield spectra with $`\alpha 3`$ for all neutrino species. While this choice also gives good fits to the $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ spectra calculated by Wilson and Mayle , their $`\nu _x`$ spectra favor $`\alpha =0`$. In the following we will present results for charged- and neutral current reactions on 56Fe and 208Pb for both values of $`\alpha `$. In particular we will include results for those (T,$`\alpha `$) values which are currently favored for the various neutrino types (T in MeV): (T,$`\alpha `$)= (4,0) and (3,3) for $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos, (5,0) and (4,3) for $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ neutrinos and (8,0) and (6.26,3) for $`\nu _x`$ neutrinos.

Before discussing our neutral-current results for 208Pb we like to present the multipole response as calculated within our RPA study. This is done in Fig. 3 which shows the 208Pb photoabsorption cross section in the upper part as well as the excitation function for inelastic scattering on 208Pb by neutrinos with a Fermi-Dirac distribution with parameters $`T=8`$ MeV and $`\alpha =0`$ in the lower part. The calculated photoabsorption cross section is fragmented between 10-16 MeV excitation energy centred around $`13`$ MeV. This is reasonably close to the experimental spectrum which is centred around 13.8 MeV with a width of 3.8 MeV . Summing over all excitation energies we obtain 3.0 MeV$``$b for the total photoabsorption cross section, which is in agreement with the classical Thomas, Reiche and Kuhn sum rule value (2.98 MeV$``$b) and also lies within the range of experimental values (2.9 to 4.1 MeV$``$b, see table 5 of Ref. ).

The lower part of Fig. 3 demonstrates clearly that inelastic neutrino scattering additionally excites the spin response which is responsible for the two strong $`J=1^{}`$ transitions around 10 MeV and 18 MeV. As expected from the general effects of the residual interaction the $`2^{}`$ part of the spin dipole excitations is located a few MeV lower in energy than the $`1^{}`$ strength . We finally note that the Gamow-Teller strength is calculated between 7 MeV and 8 MeV, in close agreement with the experimentally observed M1 strength.

Table 4 summarizes the total and partial cross sections for neutral current reactions on 56Fe and 208Pb. For 56Fe the neutron and proton thresholds open at 11.2 MeV and 10.18 MeV, respectively. But despite the slightly higher threshold energy, the additional Coulomb barrier in the proton channel makes the neutron channel the dominating decay mode. With increasing average neutrino energies the total cross section grows. But this increase is noticeably weaker than for the nuclei 12C and 16O. This is related to the isovector dominance of the neutrino-induced reactions. In the $`T=0`$ nuclei 12C and 16O inelastic neutrino scattering has to overcome a rather large threshold to reach the $`T=1`$ excitation spectrum in the nuclei making the cross section rather sensitive to the neutrino spectrum.

The total and partial cross sections for charged current ($`\nu _e,e^{}`$) and ($`\overline{\nu }_e,e^+`$) reactions on 56Fe and 208Pb are listed in Table 5. As the average energy for supernova $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos ($`\overline{E}_\nu 11`$ MeV) is less than for DAR neutrinos ($`\overline{E}_\nu 37`$ MeV), the total cross sections are significantly smaller for supernova (i.e. (T,$`\alpha `$)=(4,0) or (3,3)) neutrinos. Relatedly the low-energy excitation spectrum is stronger weighted by phase space. Hence, the $`\nu _e`$-induced reaction on 56Fe leads dominantly to particle-bound states ($`60\%`$) and therefore decays by $`\gamma `$ emission. As for DAR neutrinos, the strongest decay mode for $`\nu _e`$-induced reactions on 208Pb is given by the neutron channel.

As lead is discussed as material for potential supernova neutrino detectors (like LAND and OMNIS), the relevant neutrino-induced reactions on 208Pb have been estimated previously. The first work, performed in , has been criticized and improved in . These authors estimated the allowed transitions to the charged-current and neutral-current cross sections empirically using data from (p,n) scattering and from the M1 response to fix the Gamow-Teller contributions to the cross section. We note that these data place the GT- strength in one resonance centered just above the 2n threshold. Low-lying GT- transitions, as indicated by the present RPA calculation, have not been considered in . Ref.  completed their cross section estimates by calculating the first-forbidden contributions on the basis of the Goldhaber-Teller model.

Although the total charged-current 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)208Bi cross section is strongly constrained by sumrules and our calculation as well as the work of Ref.  reproduce the energies of the IAS state and the main GT resonance, our results clearly deviate with increasing neutrino energies from the calculation of Ref. . For $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos with a (T,$`\alpha `$)=(3,3) Fermi-Dirac distribution our cross section ($`1.6\times 10^{40}`$ cm2) is in rough agreement with the one obtained in . (As  does not give the cross section for a (T=3,$`\alpha `$=3) spectrum, we have estimated it from the cross sections given at neighboring temperatures taken from Table I of .) But with increasing neutrino energies our calculated cross sections become significantly smaller than the estimate given in , and for a $`\nu _e`$ spectrum with (T,$`\alpha `$)=(8,0) our value ($`25\times 10^{40}`$ cm2) is about $`55\%`$ smaller than the estimate by Ref.  ($`58\times 10^{40}`$ cm2). For the latter neutrino spectrum the cross section is dominated by forbidden transitions, and the observed difference might reflect the uncertainties of the Goldhaber-Teller model to describe this response.

For the total neutral-current cross sections on 208Pb the estimates in  are noticeably larger than our results (by factors in the range 2–3 for the various Fermi-Dirac spectra) for all energies. As pointed out by Haxton  the total ($`\nu ,\nu ^{}`$) cross sections on nuclei induced by supernova neutrinos with high energetic Fermi-Dirac distributions follow a simple rule of thumb:

$$\sigma (\nu ,\nu ^{})=c(T,\alpha )A10^{42}\mathrm{cm}^2.$$
(4)
The proportionality factor depends on the parameters of the Fermi-Dirac spectrum. From RPA studies one finds $`c(T,\alpha )0.70.9`$ for $`T=8`$ MeV and $`\alpha =0`$ , while the proportionality factor is slightly smaller for closed-shell nuclei. We note that our present results fit well into the expected systematics: $`c(T=8MeV,\alpha =0)=0.77`$ for 56Fe (open shell) and 0.67 for 208Pb (closed shell).

Besides detecting a supernova neutrino signal, modern detectors should also have a ‘neutrino spectroscopy ability’, i.e. it is desirable to assign observed events to the neutrino type which has triggered it. Detectors like LAND and OMNIS will observe the neutrons produced by neutrino-induced reactions on 208Pb. An obvious neutrino signal then is the total count rate. However, as already pointed out in , the total neutron count rate in a lead detector does not allow to distinguish between events triggered by $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos and $`\nu _x`$ neutrinos. We confirm this argument as our total ($`\nu _e,e^{}n`$) cross section (e.g. for (T,$`\alpha `$)=(4,0) it is $`2.3\times 10^{40}`$ cm2) is quite similar to the neutral current cross section (for (T,$`\alpha `$)=(8,0) neutrinos we find $`1.4\times 10^{40}`$ cm2 per neutrino family). The situation is, however, different for 56Fe. Here we find, for the same neutrino spectra as above, that the total neutron counting rate in the neutral-current reaction is about 30 times larger than for the charged-current reaction. If we consider that supernova $`\nu _x`$ neutrinos comprise 4 neutrino types with about the same spectrum, the neutron response of a 56Fe detector to supernova neutrinos is expected to be dominated by neutral current events caused by $`\nu _x`$ neutrinos.

The differences in the ratios for neutral- and charged current neutron yields again reflect the more general tendency that neutral-current cross sections for supernova $`\nu _x`$ neutrinos scale approximately with the mass number $`A`$ of the target, while the charged-current cross sections for supernova $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos depends on the $`NZ`$ neutron excess of the target via the Fermi and Ikeda sumrules (e.g. ). This suggests  that neutrino detectors which can only determine total neutron counting rates can have supernova neutrino spectroscopy ability if they are made of various materials with quite different $`Z`$ values as the ratio of neutral- to charged-current cross sections is quite sensitive to the charge number of the detector material. Of course, it is then necessary to assign observed events to the detector material.

Neutrino detectors of large size will probably not be build from isotopically enriched iron or lead, because the costs will be very high. Therefore, in principle, in addition to 56Fe (91.75% natural abundance) and 208Pb (52.4%), also cross sections for neutrino induced reactions on the other stable isotopes 54Fe (5.85%), 57Fe (2.12%), 58Fe (0.28%), 206Pb (24.1%), 207Pb (22.1%), 204Pb (1.4%) are needed. But from the rule of thumb (Eq. 4) we can already conclude that the isotope effect on the neutral-current cross sections will be small. This has been confirmed for the iron isotope chain 52-58Fe within a recent shell model plus RPA approach which finds less than 16% deviation from the simple scaling rule (Eq. 4) . Contrary the isotope effect on the charged-current cross sections will be strong, because they dominantly scale with (N-Z) like mentioned above via the Fermi and Ikeda sumrules. This is again confirmed in the shell model plus RPA study which finds less than $`10\%`$ deviation in the charged-current cross sections for $`T=4`$ MeV and $`\alpha =0`$ neutrinos from the simple $`(NZ)`$ scaling . We expect that the rule of thumb (Eq. (4)) and the $`(NZ)`$ scaling is also valid for the neutral-current and charged-current reactions on 208Pb, respectively. This provides then a simple scheme to estimate the charged-current cross sections for the other lead and iron isotopes.

Both the LAND and the OMNIS detectors will also be capable of detecting the neutron energy spectrum following the decay of states in the daughter nucleus after excitation by charged- and neutral-current neutrino reactions. We have calculated the relevant neutron energy spectra for both possible detector materials, 56Fe and 208Pb. To this end we have used the statistical model code SMOKER iteratively by following the decay of the daughter states after the first particle decay. We have kept book of the neutron energies produced in these (sequential) decays and have binned them in 500-keV bins. The neutron energy spectra obtained this way are shown in Figs. 4–7. The calculations have been performed for different neutrino spectra which also allows one to study the potential sensitivity of the detectors if neutrino oscillations occur.

For the charged- and neutral-current reactions on 56Fe the response is mainly below the 2n-threshold. Most of the Gamow-Teller distribution is below the neutron-threshold, as is the IAS in the charged-current reaction. The neutron energy spectrum of the 56Fe($`\nu _e,e^{}n`$) reaction is shown in Fig. 4.

The spectrum is rather structureless with a broad peak centred around neutron energies $`E_n=11.5`$ MeV and basically reflects the GT- distribution above the neutron threshold of 10.08 MeV. The respective neutron spectrum for the neutral current reaction is shown in Fig. 5.

The spectrum is composed by several (mainly first-forbidden) transitions which combined lead to a rather smooth neutron energy distribution. We note that the GT distribution is taken from the shell model calculation and leads to a rather broad neutron spectrum.

The neutron spectrum for the charged current reaction on 208Pb is dominated by the Fermi transition to the IAS and by the GT- transitions. To understand the neutron spectrum we have to consider the neutron threshold energies for one-neutron decay (6.9 MeV) and for two-neutron decay (14.98 MeV) in 208Bi. Hence the IAS and the collective GT resonance (with an excitation energy of about 16 MeV) will decay dominantly by 2n emission, while the low-lying GT- resonance at $`E_x=7.6`$ MeV decays by the emission of one neutron. This has significant consequences for the neutron spectrum. In the 2-neutron decay the available energy is shared between the two emitted particles, leading to a rather broad and structureless neutron energy distribution. As can be seen in Fig. 6, this broad structure is overlaid with a peak at neutron energy around $`E_n=1`$ MeV caused by the one-neutron decay of the lower GT- transition.

We expect that due to fragmentation, not properly described in our RPA calculation, the width of this peak might be broader than the 0.5 MeV-binning which we have assumed in Fig. 6. We note that the relative height of the peak compared with the broad structure stemming from the 2n-emission is more pronounced for the (T,$`\alpha `$)=(4,0) neutrino distribution than for a potential (T,$`\alpha `$)=(8,0) $`\nu _e`$ spectrum as it might arise after complete $`\nu _e\nu _\mu `$ oscillations.

Fig. 7 shows the neutron energy spectrum for the neutral-current reactions on 208Pb.

Our RPA response places the strong GT transitions around the neutron threshold (at 7.37 MeV), while the first-forbidden transitions are split into several transitions between the excitation energies 9 MeV and 18 MeV. In particular, the two strong $`1^{}`$ resonances at around 15 MeV and 18 MeV are above the 2-neutron threshold at 14.12 MeV and their decay leads, for the same reasons as given above for the charged-current reaction, two a rather broad neutron energy spectrum. Several transitions above the one-neutron threshold superimpose in our RPA neutron spectrum this broad structure and lead to rather pronounced peaks. But nucleon-nucleon correlations beyond the RPA will induce a stronger fragmentation which will smear out these peaks. We expect therefore that the neutral-current neutron energy spectrum will be rather broad and structureless.

An exciting question is whether supernova neutrino detectors have the ability to detect neutrino oscillations. This can be achieved by a suited signal which allows to distinguish between charged-current and neutral-current events and which is quite sensitive to the neutrino distribution. It is hoped for that the detectors OMNIS and LAND have such an ability. However, as has been shown in , the total neutron counting rate is by itself not a suited mean to detect neutrino oscillations, even if results from various detectors with different material (hence different ratios of charged-to-neutral current cross sections, as discussed above) are combined. In Ref.  it is pointed out that in the case of 208Pb an attractive signal might emerge. Due to the fact that the IAS and large portions of the GT- strength resides in 208Bi just above the 2-neutron emission threshold, Fuller et al. discuss that the 2-neutron emission rate is both, flavor-specific and very sensitive to the temperature of the $`\nu _e`$ distribution. To quantify this argument we have calculated the cross sections for the 208Pb($`\nu _e,e^{}2n`$)206Bi reaction in our combined model of RPA for the neutrino-induced response and statistical model for the decay of the daughter states. We find the partial cross sections of $`43.9\times 10^{42}`$ cm2 and $`13.0\times 10^{42}`$ cm2 for $`\nu _e`$ neutrinos with (T,$`\alpha `$)=(4,0) and (3,3) Fermi-Dirac distributions. As pointed out in  these cross sections increase significantly if neutrino oscillations occur. For example, we find for total $`\nu _e\nu _\mu `$ oscillations partial 2n cross sections of $`1053\times 10^{42}`$ cm2 and $`742\times 10^{42}`$ cm2 (for neutrino distributions with parameters (T,$`\alpha `$)= (8,0) and (6.26,3), respectively). We remark that these numbers will probably be reduced, if correlations beyond the RPA are taken into account, as part of the GT- distribution might be shifted below the 2n-threshold.

As pointed out above, also portions of the neutral-current excitation spectrum are above the respective 2n-emission threshold. This decay will compete with the one stemming from the charged-current reaction and hence will reduce the flavor-sensitivity of the signal. We have therefore also calculated the 208Pb($`\nu ,\nu ^{}2n`$)206Pb cross sections and find $`41.3\times 10^{42}`$ cm2 and $`23.5\times 10^{42}`$ cm2 (for neutrino distributions with (T,$`\alpha `$)= (8,0) and (6.26,3), respectively and averaged over neutrinos and antineutrinos). Thus, if no neutrino oscillations occur the combined 2n-signal resulting from neutral-current reactions for the 4 $`\nu _x`$ neutrino types is larger than the one from the charged-current reactions. However, if neutrino oscillations occur the neutral-current signal is unaffected while the charged-current signal is drastically enhanced. Thus, our calculations support the suggestions of Ref.  that the 2n-signal for 208Pb detectors might be an interesting neutrino oscillation signal. However, our calculations also indicate that, for an analysis of the potential observation of the signal, 2-neutron emission from neutral-current events have to be accounted for as well.

Finally, as the predicted energy spectra of neutrinos from supernovae change with time and furthermore can be affected in a variety of ways (especially oscillation scenarios), Table 6 lists the cross sections for ($`\nu _e,e^{}`$)- and ($`\nu ,\nu ^{}`$)-scattering on 56Fe and 208Pb as a function of neutrino energy.

## IV Conclusions

We have studied the charged- and neutral current reactions on 56Fe and 208Pb which are the shielding materials for current accelerator-based neutrino experiments like LSND and KARMEN and the material for proposed supernova neutrino detectors like LAND and OMNIS.

Our calculations for 56Fe are performed within a model which uses the interacting shell model to determine the Gamow-Teller response and the RPA for forbidden transitions. For 208Pb the complete nuclear response is evaluated within the RPA model. The correct momentum-dependence of the various multipole-operators is considered. This leads to a reduction of the cross sections, compared to calculations performed at $`q=0`$ due to destructive interference with ‘higher-order’ multipole operators.

At first we have calculated the total cross sections and the partial cross sections for spallating a neutron from the target for muon-decay-at-rest neutrinos. Additionally we have evaluated the charged-current cross section on 208Pb as a function of final lepton energy. All these quantities are expected to allow for (even) more reliable background simulations for the LSND and KARMEN detectors. As the LSND collaboration might have observed a neutrino-oscillation signal we have also calculated the various cross sections on 56Fe and 208Pb for pion-in-flight-decay neutrinos as they comprise a small admixture of $`\nu _\mu `$ neutrinos in the LSND beam.

Detecting supernova neutrinos is generally considered an important test of theoretical models for core-collapse supernovae. OMNIS and LAND are two proposed detectors, consisting of lead and possibly iron, which will have the capability to count the total rate of neutrons produced by neutrino reactions in the detector and further to detect the related neutron energy spectrum. For 56Fe the decay is mainly by emission of one neutron. Nevertheless the neutron energy spectrum is rather broad and structureless following both charged- and neutral-current excitations.

For 208Pb the situation is different as a significant portion of the charged-current response (and also of the neutral-current response) is above the 2n-threshold. As the two neutrons share the available decay energy this leads to a rather broad neutron spectrum. For the charged-current reaction we predict that this broad pattern is superimposed by a peak structure, due to a yet unobserved Gamow-Teller transition at lower energies. We find that the height of this peak relative to the broad structure is more pronounced for ‘ordinary’ $`\nu _e`$ supernova neutrinos than for a $`\nu _e`$ neutrino spectrum arising after $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ oscillations. Another possible oscillation signal for a 208Pb detector is the emission rate of 2 neutrons, as suggested by Fuller, Haxton and McLaughlin. We have quantitatively confirmed the argument of these authors and have also calculated the 2-neutron emission rate for the neutral-current reaction which has to be considered if, in the event of a nearby supernova, the 2-neutron emission signal would be observed and analyzed for oscillation information.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank G. Drexlin and M. Steidl from the KARMEN-Group for stimulating and helpful discussions. We are also grateful to G. Martínez-Pinedo for his help with the shell model calculations. The work has partly been supported by a grant of the Danish Research Council.


text:
# Canonical Formulation of Gravitational Teleparallelism in 2+1 Dimensions in Schwinger’s Time Gauge

We consider the most general class of teleparallel gravitational theories quadratic in the torsion tensor, in three space-time dimensions, and carry out a detailed investigation of its Hamiltonian formulation in Schwinger’s time gauge. This general class is given by a family of three-parameter theories. A consistent implementation of the Legendre transform reduces the original theory to a one-parameter family of theories. By calculating Poisson brackets we show explicitly that the constraints of the theory constitute a first-class set. Therefore the resulting theory is well defined with regard to time evolution. The structure of the Hamiltonian theory rules out the existence of the Newtonian limit.

(\*) e-mail: wadih@fis.unb.br

§1. Introduction

Gravitational theories in three space-time dimensions have attracted considerable attention in the last years. In particular quantum effects in this simplified geometrical context were investigated (see, for instance, references). The hope is that lower dimensional theories would provide hints as to the quantization of four-dimensional general relativity. It is known that vacuum Einstein’s theory in 2+1 dimensions does not yield a suitable description of the gravitational field. Since in 2+1 dimensions the Riemann and Ricci tensors have the same number of components, the vanishing of Einstein’s equations imply that the full curvature tensor vanishes as well. Therefore the source-free space-time is flat, and thus the existence of black holes is prevented. It would be interesting to find a theoretical formulation of 2+1 general relativity that display two important features: the Newtonian limit and a black hole solution.

General relativity can be described in the alternative framework of the teleparallel geometry. A four-dimensional formulation of gravitational teleparallel theories, quadratic in the torsion tensor, and formulated with arbitrary parameters was proposed by Hayashi and Shirafuji. This formulation was successful in that the desirable features above were obtained for a large class of theories. A canonical formulation of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) was developed in .

In this paper we consider an arbitrary teleparallel theory of gravity in 2+1 dimensions, expressed by a three-parameter family of theories, and show that by means of a consistent Legendre transform this arbitrary theory reduces to a one-parameter family of theories. The 2+1 decomposition is carried out in Schwinger’s time gauge. Moreover, we calculate all relevant Poisson brackets and conclude that the constraints of the theory are first class. As we will show, the 2+1 constraint algebra differs slightly from the previously evaluated algebra in 3+1 dimensions. The resulting theory shares similarities with the Hamiltonian formulation of the four-dimensional teleparallel equivalent of general relativity.

The main motivation for considering the TEGR is that the energy and momentum of the gravitational field can be interpreted as arising from the constraint equations of the theory. All analysis carried out so far indicate that the gravitational energy is consistently defined by means of the expression that arises in the realm of the TEGR. The most relevant and successful application amounts to the evaluation of the irreducible mass of rotating black holes. Recently the loss of mass by means of gravitational waves in the context of Bondi’s radiating metric has been investigated.

A family of three-parameter teleparallel theories in 2+1 dimensions, in the Lagrangian formulation, was proposed and investigated by Kawai. By establishing conditions on the parameters, black hole solutions were obtained. Such black hole solutions are quite different from the Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes in 3+1 dimensions. However, Kawai did not consider the cosmological constant in the theory.

The arbitrary teleparallel theory we address corresponds precisely to Kawai’s formulation. We have constructed the canonical formulation of the latter by applying Dirac’s formalism for constrained Hamiltonian systems. Therefore we arrive at a one-parameter class of theories by only requiring it to have a well defined Hamiltonian formulation.

The paper is divided as follows. In §2 we introduce the Lagrangian formulation. The 2+1 space-time decomposition and the canonical formalism is developed in §3. In this section we provide the details of the Legendre transform. The constraint algebra is presented in §4. The calculations that yield the constraint algebra are too intricate, and therefore we have omitted it here. In §5 we show that the conditions obtained on the parameters of the theory rule out the existence of the Newtonian limit. Finally in §6 we present our conclusions.

Our notation is the following: space-time indices $`\mu ,\nu ,\mathrm{}`$ and global SO(2,1) indices $`a,b,\mathrm{}`$ run from 0 to 2. In the 2+1 canonical decomposition Latin indices from the middle of the alphabet indicate space indices according to $`\mu =0,i`$, $`a=(0),(i)`$. The flat space-time metric is fixed by $`\eta _{(0)(0)}=1`$.

§2. Lagrangian formulation of teleparallelism

in (2+1) dimensions

We begin by stating the four basic postulates that the Lagrangian density for the gravitational field in the empty space, in the teleparallel geometry, must satisfy. It must be invariant under (i) coordinate transformations, (ii) global Lorentz (SO(2,1)) transformations, (iii) parity transformations, and (iv) must be quadratic in the torsion tensor. The most general Lagrangian density is constructed out of triads $`e_\mu ^a`$, and is given by

$$L_0=e(c_1t^{abc}t_{abc}+c_2v^av_a+c_3a_{abc}a^{abc})$$
$`(2.1)`$
where $`c_1`$, $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$ are constants and

$$t_{abc}=\frac{1}{2}\left(T_{abc}+T_{bac}\right)+\frac{1}{4}\left(\eta _{ca}v_b+\eta _{cb}v_a\right)\frac{1}{2}\eta _{ab}v_c,$$
$`(2.2)`$
$$v_a=T^b{}_{ba}{}^{}T_a,$$
$`(2.3)`$
$$a_{abc}=\frac{1}{3}\left(T_{abc}+T_{cab}+T_{bca}\right),$$
$`(2.4)`$
$$T_{abc}=e_b{}_{}{}^{\mu }e_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{\nu }T_{a\mu \nu }^{}=e_b^\mu e_c^\nu (_\mu e_{a\nu }_\nu e_{a\mu }).$$
$`(2.5)`$
where $`e=\mathrm{𝚍𝚎𝚝}(e_\mu ^a)`$.

The Lagrangian density (2.1) is constructed out of the anti-symmetric part of the connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =e^{a\lambda }_\mu e_{a\nu }`$, whose curvature tensor vanishes identically. Such connection defines a space with absolute parallelism, or teleparallelism.

The definitions above correspond to the irreducible components of the torsion tensor. In order to construct the Hamiltonian formulation we need to rewrite $`L_0`$ such that the torsion tensor appears as a multiplicative quantity. It can be shown that $`L_0`$ can be rewritten as

$$L_0=e(c_1X^{abc}T_{abc}+c_2Y^{abc}T_{abc}+c_3Z^{abc}T_{abc}),$$
$`(2.6)`$
where

$$X^{abc}=\frac{1}{2}T^{abc}+\frac{1}{4}T^{bac}\frac{1}{4}T^{cab}+\frac{3}{8}\left(\eta ^{ca}v^b\eta ^{ba}v^c\right),$$
$`(2.7)`$
$$Y^{abc}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\eta ^{ab}v^c\eta ^{ac}v^b\right),$$
$`(2.8)`$
$$Z^{abc}=\frac{1}{3}\left(T^{abc}+T^{bca}+T^{cab}\right).$$
$`(2.9)`$
The definitions above satisfy

$$X^{abc}=X^{acb};Y^{abc}=Y^{acb};Z^{abc}=Z^{acb},$$
$`(2.10)`$
The quantities $`X^{abc},`$ $`Y^{abc},`$ $`Z^{abc}`$ have altogether the same number of components of $`T^{abc}`$. It can be verified that

$$X^{abc}+X^{bca}+X^{cab}0.$$
$`(2.11)`$
Let us define $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{abc}`$ by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^{abc}=c_1X^{abc}+c_2Y^{abc}+c_3Z^{abc}.$$
$`(2.12)`$
In terms of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{abc}`$, $`L_0`$ can be simply written as

$$L_0=e\mathrm{\Sigma }^{abc}T_{abc}.$$
$`(2.13)`$
In order to carry out the Hamiltonian formulation we need to write the Lagrangian density in a Palatini-type Lagrangian density. The latter is achieved by introducing the field variable $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{acb}`$, that will be ultimately identified with the torsion tensor by means of the field equations. By following the procedure of  we write the first order differential form of $`L_0`$ as

$$L(e_{a\mu },\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc})=e\left(c_1\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}+c_2\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}+c_3\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}\right)\left(\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}2T_{abc}\right),$$
$`(2.14)`$
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc},`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}`$ are defined in similarity to $`X^{abc}`$, $`Y^{abc}`$ and $`Z^{abc}`$, respectively:

$$\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }^{abc}+\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{\Delta }^{bac}\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{\Delta }^{cab}+\frac{3}{8}\left(\eta ^{ca}\mathrm{\Delta }^b\eta ^{ba}\mathrm{\Delta }^c\right),$$
$`(2.15)`$
$$\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\eta ^{ab}\mathrm{\Delta }^c\eta ^{ac}\mathrm{\Delta }^b\right),$$
$`(2.16)`$
$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}=\frac{1}{3}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }^{abc}+\mathrm{\Delta }^{bca}+\mathrm{\Delta }^{cab}\right).$$
$`(2.17)`$
The three quantities above are anti-symmetric in the last two indices. The quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }^b`$ is defined by $`\mathrm{\Delta }^b=\mathrm{\Delta }_a^a^b`$.

The field equations are most easily obtained by making use of the following three identities:

$$X^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}=\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}T_{abc},$$
$`(2.18)`$
$$Y^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}=\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}T_{abc},$$
$`(2.19)`$
$$Z^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}T_{abc}.$$
$`(2.20)`$
By taking into account the identities above the Lagrangian density in first order formalism is identically rewritten as

$$L=ec_1\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}+2ec_1X^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}ec_2\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}+2ec_2Y^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}$$

$$ec_3\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}+2ec_3Z^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}.$$
$`(2.21)`$
The variation of $`L`$ with respect to $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{def}`$ is given by

$$\frac{\delta L}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}=ec_1\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}+2ec_1X^{abc}\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}$$

$$ec_2\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}+2ec_2Y^{abc}\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}$$

$$ec_3\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}+2ec_3Z^{abc}\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}},$$
$`(2.22)`$
$$\frac{\delta L}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}=2ec_1\mathrm{\Theta }^{def}+2ec_1X^{def}2ec_2\mathrm{\Omega }^{def}$$

$$+2ec_2Y^{def}2ec_3\mathrm{\Gamma }^{def}+2ec_3Z^{def},$$
$`(2.23)`$
where we have used

$$\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}=2\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}},$$
$`(2.24)`$
$$\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}=2\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}},$$
$`(2.25)`$
$$\frac{\delta \left(\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}\right)}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}=2\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}},$$
$`(2.26)`$
since the quantities between parentheses in the left hand side of the expressions above are quadratic in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}`$. This result can be verified by explicit calculations.

By considering the action integral

$$I=Ld^3x,$$
$`(2.27)`$
and imposing the variation

$$\frac{\delta I}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}=\frac{\delta L}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_{def}}d^3x=0,$$
$`(2.28)`$
we arrive at

$$c_1\left(X^{def}\mathrm{\Theta }^{def}\right)+c_2\left(Y^{def}\mathrm{\Omega }^{def}\right)+c_3\left(Z^{def}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{def}\right)=0.$$
$`(2.29)`$
By taking into account equations $`(2.7)(2.9)`$ and $`(2.15)(2.17)`$, the only solution to equation (2.29), for arbitrary values of $`c_i`$, is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}=T_{abc}=e_b{}_{}{}^{\mu }e_{c}^{\nu }T_{a\mu \nu },$$
$`(2.30)`$
that implies

$$X^{abc}=\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc},$$
$`(2.31)`$
$$Y^{abc}=\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc},$$
$`(2.32)`$
$$Z^{abc}=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc}.$$
$`(2.33)`$
Note that the equation (2.29) represents nine equations for nine unknown quantities $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}`$.

§3. The Hamiltonian formulation

In this section it will be necessary to make a change of notation. The three-dimensional space-time triads of the last section will be denoted here as $`{}_{}{}^{3}e_{}^{a}_\mu `$, whereas diads restricted to the two-dimensional spacelike surface will be represented simply by $`e^a_\mu `$. This distinction is mandatory in the 2+1 decomposition of the triads. The latter is similar to the 3+1 decomposition of tetrad fields.

The 2+1 decomposition of triads is given by

$${}_{}{}^{3}e_{}^{a}{}_{k}{}^{}=e^a_k$$

$${}_{}{}^{3}e_{}^{ai}=e^{ai}+\frac{N^i}{N}\eta ^a$$

$$e^{ai}=\overline{g}^{ik}e^a{}_{k}{}^{}\eta ^a=N^{3}e^{a0}$$

$${}_{}{}^{3}e_{}^{a}{}_{0}{}^{}=N^ie^a{}_{i}{}^{}+N\eta ^a$$

$$\eta ^ae_a{}_{k}{}^{}=0\eta _a\eta ^a=1^3e=Ne$$
$`(3.1)`$
where $`N`$ and $`N^i`$ are the lapse and shift functions, respectively, and

$${}_{}{}^{3}e=det({}_{}{}^{3}e_{}^{a}{}_{\mu }{}^{})$$

$$g_{ij}=e^a{}_{i}{}^{}e_{aj}^{}$$

$$\overline{g}^{ij}g_{jk}=\delta _k^i.$$
$`(3.2)`$
Therefore,

$$\left(\overline{g}^{ik}\right)\left(g_{ij}\right)^1.$$
$`(3.3)`$
It follows that

$$e^{bk}e_{bj}=\delta _j^k,$$

$$e^a{}_{i}{}^{}e_{}^{bi}=\eta ^{ab}+\eta ^a\eta ^b.$$
$`(3.4)`$
The components $`e^{ai}`$ and $`e^a_k`$ are now restricted to the two-dimensional spacelike surface.

The Hamiltonian formulation is achieved by rewriting the Lagrangian density (2.14) in the form $`L=p\dot{q}H`$. For this purpose we define, in analogy with (2.12), the field quantity $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}`$ according to

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}=c_1\mathrm{\Theta }^{abc}+c_2\mathrm{\Omega }^{abc}+c_3\mathrm{\Gamma }^{abc},$$
$`(3.5)`$
By means of (3.5) we define $`P^{ai}`$, the momentum canonically conjugated to $`e_{ai}`$. It is given by

$$P^{ai}=4^3e\mathrm{\Lambda }^{a0i}=4ee_b{}_{}{}^{i}\eta _{c}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}.$$
$`(3.6)`$
In terms of $`P^{ai}`$ we write the Lagrangian density as

$$L=P^{ai}\underset{ai}{\overset{.}{e}}+^3e_{a0}_iP^{ai}$$

$$+2Ne\mathrm{\Lambda }^{aij}T_{aij}+N^kP^{ai}T_{aik}$$

$$Ne\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}_i\left[{}_{}{}^{3}e_{a0}^{}P^{ai}\right].$$
$`(3.7)`$
We note that there is no time derivative of $`{}_{}{}^{3}e_{a0}^{}`$. Thus the momentum $`P^{a0}`$ canonically conjugated to $`e_{a0}`$ is taken to vanish from the outset.

At this point we adopt Schwinger’s time gauge ,

$$\eta ^a=\delta _{(0)}^a,\eta _a=\delta _a^{(0)}.$$
$`(3.8)`$
Conditions above imply

$${}_{}{}^{3}e_{(k)}^{0}=e_i^{(0)}=0.$$

The time gauge is taken to hold before varying the action, since the fixing of this gauge is not a consequence of any local symmetry of the theory. The imposition of time gauge actually corresponds to a reduction in the configuration space of the theory. Whereas the fixation of this gauge in the Lagrangian formulation of a teleparallel theory involves some intrincacies, in the Hamiltonian formulation it amounts to a straightforward procedure.

By making use of the Lagrangian field equations we identify

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{aij}=T_{aij}$$
$`(3.9)`$
in $`L`$, since these equations do not involve time derivatives.

Following , we wish to establish a 2+1 decomposition for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}`$ that distinguishes the components of the latter that are projected (restricted) to the two-dimensional spacelike surface from those that define the canonical momenta. Assuming Schwinger’s time gauge we write

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}=\frac{1}{4e}\left(\eta ^be^c{}_{i}{}^{}P_{}^{ai}\eta ^ce^b{}_{i}{}^{}P_{}^{ai}\right)+e^b{}_{i}{}^{}e_{}^{c}{}_{j}{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{aij},$$
$`(3.10)`$
where

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{aij}=e^a{}_{k}{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{kij}.$$
$`(3.11)`$
In the expression above $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{kij}`$ is a tensor on the two-dimensional spacelike surface.

The Legendre transform would be straightforward if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{aij}`$ would depend only on $`e_{(k)j}`$ and its spatial derivatives. However in general this is not the case. The main issue is that after the Legendre transform has been performed, the Hamiltonian density cannot depend on the “velocities” $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{a0j}=T_{a0j}`$, which contain terms of the type $`\underset{ai}{\overset{.}{e}}`$. The quantities $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{aij}`$ in (3.10) in general contain terms like $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{a0j}`$. Such terms cannot be present in the final form of the Hamiltonian density obtained via $`H=P^{ai}(x)\dot{e}_{ai}(x)L`$. This goal will be achieved by posing restrictions on the constants $`c_i`$, as we will see, and by invoking the time gauge condition.

Since the momenta is defined by (3.6), and since $`P^{ai}`$ is an irreducible component of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}`$ as given by (3.10), we expect the contribution of (3.11) to the Lagrangian density not to yield velocities terms of the type $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{a0j}`$. Thus $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{aij}`$ in (3.10) must not depend on the momenta, and therefore it cannot lead to the emergence of velocities in the final form of $`L`$.

As we mentioned earlier, the time gauge condition reduces the configuration space of the theory from the SO(2,1) (in $`L`$) to the SO(2) group (in $`H`$). As a consequence of $`\dot{e}_{(0)i}=0`$ the teleparallel geometry is restricted to the two-dimensional spacelike surface.

We will now express the several components of $`L`$ in (3.7) by means of the 2+1 decomposition of the triads and of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}`$. Considering definitions (3.5) and (3.6) we can obtain by explicit calculations the expression of $`P^{(0)k}`$. It is given by

$$P^{\left(0\right)k}=2eT^{\left(0\right)}{}_{\left(0\right)}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{k}(\frac{3}{4}c_1+c_2)+eT^k(\frac{3}{2}c_12c_2).$$
$`(3.12)`$
where $`T^k=T_{(i)}^{(i)}^k`$.

Considering first $`{}_{}{}^{3}e_{a0}^{}_iP^{ai}`$ we find

$${}_{}{}^{3}e_{a0}^{}_iP^{ai}=N^ke_{\left(j\right)k}_iP^{\left(j\right)i}N_kP^{\left(0\right)k}.$$
$`(3.13)`$
As to the surfaced term $`_i(^3e_{a0}P^{ai})`$ we have

$$_i\left[P^{ai}\left(N^ke_{ak}+N\eta _a\right)\right]=_i\left[N_kP^{ki}\right]+_i\left[NP^{\left(0\right)i}\right].$$
$`(3.14)`$
Let us consider the term $`Ne\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}`$. By means of (3.1), (3.8) and (3.10) this term can be rewritten after a long calculation as

$$Ne\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}\mathrm{\Delta }_{abc}=+N(\frac{c_1}{4}\frac{c_3}{3})^1\times $$

$$\times \{\frac{1}{16e}(P^{ij}P_{ji}P^{\left(0\right)l}P^{\left(0\right)}{}_{l}{}^{})$$

$$+\frac{1}{2}\left(e_{\left(m\right)i}P^{\left(m\right)}{}_{j}{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{\left(0\right)ij}\right)$$

$$ee^{\left(m\right)}{}_{i}{}^{}e_{\left(n\right)}^{}{}_{}{}^{k}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{\left(n\right)ij}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\left(m\right)kj}$$

$$+(\frac{3c_1}{8c_2}\frac{1}{2})\{\frac{1}{16e}[P^2P^{\left(0\right)l}P^{\left(0\right)}{}_{l}{}^{}]$$

$$+\frac{1}{2}P^{\left(0\right)}{}_{k}{}^{}e_{\left(m\right)j}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\left(m\right)jk}$$

$$ee_{\left(m\right)i}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\left(m\right)ik}e_{\left(n\right)j}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\left(n\right)j}{}_{k}{}^{}\}$$

$$+(\frac{c_1}{4}+\frac{2c_3}{3})\{\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij\left(0\right)}P^{ji}e\mathrm{\Delta }_{i\left(0\right)j}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\left(0\right)ij}$$

$$+e\mathrm{\Delta }_{ikj}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{kij}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(0\right)\left(0\right)i}P^{\left(0\right)i}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(0\right)ij}P^{ij}\}\}$$
$`(3.15)`$
Space indices are raised and lowered by means of $`e_{(i)j}`$ and $`e^{(k)l}`$. The quantity $`P`$ is defined by $`P=P^{(i)j}e_{(i)j}`$. We observe that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(0)ij}`$ contains time derivatives $`\dot{e}_{(i)j}`$. However, we note that the third term on the right hand side of the expression above can be rewritten as

$$\frac{1}{2}(e_{(m)i}P_j^{(m)}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(0)ij})=\frac{1}{2}(P_{[ij]}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(0)ij}),$$
$`(3.16)`$
where $`[..]`$ denotes anti-symmetrization. It is known that in tetrad type theories of gravity the anti-symmetric part of the canonical momenta vanishes weakly. Let us obtain here the full expression of $`P_{[ij]}`$. Making use of (3.5) and (3.6) we find

$$P_{\left[ij\right]}+eT_{\left(0\right)ij}\left(c_1\frac{4}{3}c_3\right)+eT_{\left[i\left|\left(0\right)\right|j\right]}\left(c_1+\frac{8}{3}c_3\right)=0.$$
$`(3.17)`$
Note that in the time gauge the term $`T_{\left(0\right)ij}`$ vanishes.

We consider finally the term $`2Ne\mathrm{\Lambda }^{aij}T_{aij}`$. In the 2+1 decomposition it reads

$$2Ne\mathrm{\Lambda }^{aij}T_{aij}=2Ne(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\left(0\right)ij}T_{\left(0\right)ij}+\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\left(k\right)ij}T_{\left(k\right)ij}).$$
$`(3.18)`$
The time gauge simplifies the expression above in two aspects. Because of it, the first term on the right hand side vanishes. Moreover, it can be verified by explicit calculations that the second term does not contain velocity terms $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{a0j}=T_{a0j}`$.

By carefully inspecting expressions (3.12) and (3.15) we arrive at the conditions that allow a well defined Legendre transform. From (3.12) we observe that we must demand

$$c_2+\frac{3c_1}{4}=0.$$
$`(3.19)`$
Furthermore by requiring

$$c_1+\frac{8c_3}{3}=0,$$
$`(3.20)`$
the last five terms of expression (3.15) drop out. Four of these terms are velocity dependent. In view of the argument presented above, according to which the momentum $`P^{ai}`$ is an irreducible component of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{abc}`$, these terms must be eliminated in the Legendre transform. As a consequence, expression (3.17) also becomes exempt of velocity terms. In the time gauge equation (3.17) reads

$$P_{\left[ij\right]}=0,$$
$`(3.21)`$
and therefore it must appear in the Hamiltonian formulation as constraint equations.

We remark that the imposition of (3.19) implies the elimination of the “velocity” $`T_{(0)0k}`$ from the expression of $`P^{(0)i}`$. However, in view of the time gauge condition such term does not contain any time derivative. It contains only a spatial derivative of the lapse function. We know that the variation of the Hamiltonian with respect to the lapse function yields the Hamiltonian constraint. It turns out that we still have to require (3.19), otherwise the presence of such derivative of the lapse function would render a very complicated expression for the Hamiltonian constraint, which does not satisfy the constraint algebra to be presented in the next section. Moreover the lapse function would no longer play the role of a genuine Lagrange multiplier.

The actual necessity of demanding condition (3.19) will be demonstrated in §4. It will be shown that without this condition the Hamiltonian formulation cannot be consistently established.

We can write the final form of $`L`$ by collecting the remaining terms. We choose to write the Lagrangian density in terms of $`c_1`$ only. By factorizing the lapse and shift functions we obtain

$$L=P^{\left(j\right)i}\underset{\left(j\right)i}{\overset{.}{e}}+N^kC_k+NC_i\left[N_kP^{ki}+N(3c_1eT^i)\right]+\lambda ^{ij}P_{\left[ij\right]}$$
$`(3.22)`$
where $`\lambda ^{ij}`$ are Lagrange multipliers. The Hamiltonian and vector constraints are given respectively by

$$C=\frac{1}{6ec_1}\left(P^{ij}P_{ji}P^2\right)+eT^{ikj}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ikj}_k\left[3c_1eT^k\right],$$
$`(3.23)`$
$$C_k=e_{\left(j\right)k}_iP^{\left(j\right)i}+P^{\left(j\right)i}T_{\left(j\right)ik}.$$
$`(3.24)`$
We remark that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{kij}`$ that appears in $`C`$ is a function of $`e_{(i)j}`$ and its spatial derivatives only. The Lagrange multipliers $`\lambda ^{ij}`$ are ultimately determined by evaluating the field equation $`\dot{e}_{(i)j}(x)=\{e_{(i)j}(x),\}`$, where $``$ is the total Hamiltonian, and by imposing $`P_{[ij]}=0`$.

Therefore we conclude this section by observing that the imposition of a well defined Legendre transform has reduced the three-parameter to a one-parameter family of theories.

§4. The constraint algebra

A consistent implementation of the constraint algebra is a necessary condition for the Hamiltonian formulation. However, it is not a sufficient condition. It remains to be verified whether the constraint structure of the theory is consistently implemented in the sense of Dirac’s formulation of constrained Hamiltonian systems. We recall that the Hamiltonian formulation of the TEGR is determined by a set of first class constraints.

The Hamiltonian formulation determined by $`(3.21)(3.24)`$ is very much similar to the 3+1 Hamiltonian formulation of the TEGR, the difference residing in the presence of the constant $`c_1`$ in $`(3.22)(3.24)`$ and in the numerical coefficient of the $`P^2`$ term in the Hamiltonian constraint $`C`$.

The calculations that lead to the constraint algebra between (3.21), (3.23) and (3.24) are extremely long and intricate. Here we just provide the final expressions. Regardless of the value of $`c_1`$ the constraint algebra “closes”, and therefore (3.21), (3.23) and (3.24) constitute a first class set. Except for the numerical value of the contraction of the metric tensor with itself, the calculations in 2+1 are almost identical to the calculations in the 3+1 formulation.

The constraint algebra is given by

$$\{C(x),C(y)\}=[g^{ik}(x)C_i(x)2_jP^{\left[jk\right]}(x)$$

$$+P_{\left[mn\right]}(\frac{1}{2}T^{kmn}+T^{mnk})\left]\frac{}{x^k}\delta \right(xy)(xy),$$
$`(4.1)`$
$$\{C(x),C_k(y)\}=C(y)\frac{}{y^k}\delta \left(xy\right),$$
$`(4.2)`$
$$\{C_j(x),C_k(y)\}=C_k(x)\frac{}{x^j}\delta \left(xy\right)+C_j(y)\frac{}{y^k}\delta \left(xy\right).$$
$`(4.3)`$
Moreover we have

$$\{C(x),P^{\left[\left(m\right)\left(n\right)\right]}(y)\}=\{C_k(x),P^{\left[\left(m\right)\left(n\right)\right]}(y)\}=0$$
$`(4.4)`$
$$\{P^{\left[\left(m\right)\left(n\right)\right]}(x),P^{\left[\left(i\right)\left(j\right)\right]}(y)\}=(\eta ^{\left(n\right)\left(j\right)}P^{\left[\left(m\right)\left(i\right)\right]}(x)\eta ^{\left(n\right)\left(i\right)}P^{\left[\left(m\right)\left(j\right)\right]}(x)$$

$$+\eta ^{\left(m\right)\left(i\right)}P^{\left[\left(n\right)\left(j\right)\right]}(x)\eta ^{\left(m\right)\left(j\right)}P^{\left[\left(n\right)\left(i\right)\right]}(x)\left)\delta \right(xy)$$
$`(4.5)`$
Note that by making $`P^{\left[\left(m\right)\left(n\right)\right]}=0`$, we obtain the constraint algebra of the 2+1 ADM formulation. The value of $`c_1`$ remains arbitrary.

We are now in a position to discuss the necessity of (3.19). By not requiring (3.19) the expression of $`P^{(0)k}`$, given by (3.12), acquires an extra term given by

$$2eT_{(0)}^{(0)}{}_{}{}^{k}(\frac{3}{4}c_1+c_2)=2e(\frac{3}{4}c_1+c_2)g^{kl}\frac{1}{N}_lN.$$

As a consequence the Hamiltonian density acquires an extra term as well. Considering equation (3.13) this extra term reads

$$W=2eN\left(\frac{3}{4}c_1+c_2\right)_k\left(eg^{kl}\frac{1}{N}_lN\right).$$

It is easy to see that this extra term spoils the closure of the constraint algebra. The simplest way of observing the emergence of troublesome terms in the constraint algebra of the theory is by verifying the consistency of the vector constraint $`C_k`$. We remark that the expression of $`C_k`$ does not depend on the imposition of condition (3.19). Therefore this condition is not a priori assumed. By calculating the time evolution $`\dot{C}_k(x)=\{C_k(x),\}`$, where $``$ is the total Hamiltonian, we must evaluate

$$d^3y\{C_k(x),W(y)\}=$$

$$2e\left(c_2+\frac{3}{4}c_1\right)\frac{1}{N}(_iN)(_jN)(e^{al}g^{ij}2g^{il}e^{aj})(_le_{ak}+_ke_{al}).$$

We cannot take the right hand side of the expression above as a constraint (either first class or second class) in conjunction with the additional terms in the expression of $`\dot{C}_k(x)`$, otherwise several other constraints would emerge by means of consistency conditions, and eventually all degrees of freedom would be exhausted. Therefore condition (3.19) is mandatory.

§5. The absence of a Newtonian limit

The existence of the Newtonian limit was investigated in ref.  by considering static fields with circular symmetry, in the absence of spinorial particles and without cosmological constant. It was found a relation that leads to the Newtonian limit and that in our notation reads

$$3c_1+4c_2=6c_1c_2,$$

$$c_1c_20.$$
$`(5.1)`$
Conditions (3.19) and (3.20) violate conditions above for the existence of a Newtonian limit. Therefore a well defined theory from the point of view of the initial value problem cannot display such limit.

The field equations for the Lagrangian density (2.1) were obtained in ref. . It was noticed that the field equations are equivalent to Einstein’s three-dimensional field equations if the parameters satisfy

$$c_1+\frac{2}{3}=0,$$

$$c_2\frac{1}{2}=0,$$

$$c_3\frac{1}{4}=0.$$
$`(5.2)`$
By comparing the equations above with (3.19) and (3.20) we conclude that the theory defined by $`(3.22)(3.24)`$ is equivalent to the source free Einstein’s general relativity in 2+1 dimensions provided we fix $`c_1=\frac{2}{3}`$. However, it must be noted that the interaction type between matter (spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$) fields and the gravitational field in teleparallel theories is different from that in Einstein’s theory (see equation (3.20’) of ).

§6. Conclusions

In this paper we have investigated the existence of a viable theory of 2+1 dimensional gravity by only requiring it to have a well defined Hamiltonian formulation. A consistent implementation of the Legendre transform reduced the original three-parameter to a one-parameter theory. The resulting theory corresponds to a constrained Hamiltonian system with first class constraints, with total Hamiltonian given by

$$=d^3x\left(NC+N^iC_i+\lambda ^{ij}P_{ij}_i[N_kP^{ki}+N(3c_1eT^i)]\right).$$

The final form of the theory shares similarities with the 3+1 canonical formulation of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity. The successful applicability of the Hamiltonian formalism to lower dimensional formalisms is a positive feature of Dirac’s formulation of Hamiltonian constrained systems. Furthermore it supports the conjecture that teleparallel theories may acquire a prominent status in the investigation of gravity theories.

Finally we mention that a theory obtainable from the Lagrangian density (3.22) by adding a negative cosmological constant has the well known BTZ black hole solution. The BTZ black hole solution is found by ascribing the free parameter $`c_1`$ the value $`c_1=\frac{2}{3}`$. This investigation will be presented elsewhere.

Acknowledgements

A. A. Sousa is grateful to the Brazilian agency CNPQ for financial support.


text:
# Timing Noise in SGR 1806-20

## 1 Introduction

The soft gamma repeater (SGR), SGR 1806$``$20 is one of four known SGRs or sources of brief ($``$0.1 s), intense ($``$ 1042 ergs s-1) hard X-ray/soft $`\gamma `$-ray burst emission (for a review, see Hurley 2000 and Woods 2000). All of the SGRs have persistent X-ray counterparts that are positionally coincident with young ($``$ 104 yr) supernova remnants. Two SGRs (1806$``$20 and 1900$`+`$14) are also X-ray pulsars that have been found to spin down at a rapid rate (Kouveliotou et al. 1998; Hurley et al. 1999; Kouveliotou et al. 1999). The physical interpretation for this rapid spin-down has been proposed to be magnetic braking of a strongly magnetized neutron star, or ‘magnetar’ (Kouveliotou et al. 1998, 1999). The magnetar theory was first developed to explain the extraordinary burst emission from the SGRs (Duncan & Thompson 1992; Paczyński 1992; Thompson & Duncan 1995), and later extended to include a second class of rare X-ray sources, the so-called anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs; Thompson & Duncan 1996).

Thompson & Duncan noted that the AXPs have a number of characteristics (with the exception of burst emission) that are similar to the SGRs (see Mereghetti 2000 for a review of AXPs). The AXPs and SGRs have fairly steady X-ray luminosities ($``$ 1035 ergs s-1). The persistent spectra of most AXPs and SGR 1900$`+`$14 (Woods et al. 1999a) are well represented by a two-component (blackbody $`+`$ power-law) model. The pulse periods of both groups fall within a narrow range (5 – 12 s) and are observed to spin down at rapid rates ($``$ 10$`{}_{}{}^{12}10^{10}`$ s s-1). For three AXPs (4U 0142$`+`$61, 1E 2259$`+`$586, 1E 1048.1$``$5937), the spin-down is dominated by a secular component, but shows small, yet significant deviations from this linear trend. Heyl & Hernquist (1999) have estimated the noise level within the frequency histories covering more than 10 years for each of these AXPs. They find that the timing noise levels of these AXPs are consistent with an extrapolation of the correlation found between timing noise and spin-down rate present in radio pulsars (Arzoumanian et al. 1994). Kaspi, Chakrabarty & Steinberger (1999) have recently analyzed an extended sequence of Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) Proportional Counter Array (PCA) observations of two AXPs (1E 2259$`+`$586 and 1RXS J1709$``$40). For each source, they were able to phase-connect the data over a two year time span. They found that the spin-down was fairly constant, although, the residuals did show some marginally significant timing noise (i.e. a third-order phase term).

Similar to the aforementioned AXPs, recent work has shown that SGR 1900$`+`$14 does not spin down at a constant rate either (Kouveliotou et al. 1999; Woods et al. 1999a; Marsden et al. 1999; Woods et al. 1999b). In the magnetar model, the SGRs are seismically active neutron stars, and there are a few possible sources of spindown variations. The relative strengths of the conduction current and the displacement current in the outer magnetosphere will be modified by bursting activity: both by direct ejection of particles, and by the rearrangement of the surface magnetic field (Thompson et al. 1999). The resulting increase in the spindown torque could be significant for a slowly rotating neutron star, if the magnetic dipole were (approximately) aligned with the rotation axis. Alternative possibilities include enhanced angular momentum loss due to persistent emission of Alfvén waves and particles (Thompson & Blaes 1998; Harding, Contopoulos, & Kazanas 1999); and long-period precession driven by the asymmetric inertia of the corotating magnetic field (Melatos 1999) or by crustal fractures (Thompson et al. 1999).

Alternatively, the variable spindown of the SGRs has been ascribed to an enhanced propeller or accretion torque acting on more conventional magnetic fields ($`B_{\mathrm{dipole}}10^{11}10^{12}`$ G), by several authors. Marsden et al. (1999, 2000) suggest that the SGRs are neutron stars born with large kick velocities in a dense inter-stellar medium (ISM). In such a situation, the neutron star may catch up with the slowing ejecta, but accretion at the rate inferred from the luminosities of these sources requires a small relative motion ($`<10`$ km s-1). Van Paradijs et al. (1995) earlier proposed that the AXPs are surrounded by fossil disks, left over from the evolution of Thorne-Żytkow objects (TŻO). The TŻOs are compact objects that have entered the stellar envelope of their companion and spiraled into the center (Thorne & Żytkow 1977). A variant of this model, involving fallback disks formed during the early dynamical evolution of supernova, was recently applied to the SGRs by Chatterjee, Hernquist, & Narayan (1999) and Alpar (1999). While these scenarios plausibly account for the observed timing noise, the relation between accretion and the hyper-Eddington SGR flares (in particular the intense $`L10^7L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ gamma-ray spikes of the giant flares) remains largely mysterious.

Until now, the spin history of SGR 1806$``$20 was composed of three widely spaced period measurements covering three years (Kouveliotou et al. 1998). Here, we have phase connected a long sequence of RXTE-PCA observations between 1999 February 12 and 1999 August 8. We find that superposed on the dominant quadratic trend in the phases (spin-down term) are significant residuals, i.e., timing noise. We quanitify the level of timing noise and compare it to the levels found in AXPs, magnetically braking radio pulsars, and accreting pulsars. We place limits on any periodicities in the phase residuals and constrain the orbital parameters of any potential companion.

## 2 Timing Analysis

Between 1999 February 12 and 1999 August 8, SGR 1806$``$20 was routinely observed with the PCA aboard RXTE for a total of 322 ks. The monitoring campaign started with a 50 ks exposure, followed by twenty-two 10 ks observations whose spacing grew from 0.5 days to 7 days where it remained until August. Near the end of the observing sequence, the intervals between observations gradually became shorter and terminated with another 50 ks observation. For each observation, we avoided intervals with clear burst emission, extracted 2 – 10 keV photons, and binned them at 0.125 s time resolution. We barycenter corrected the bin times and performed an epoch-fold search (7.480 s $``$ 7.485 s) on the data about the period predicted from the spin-down measured by Kouveliotou et al. (1998). The initial $``$50 ks of data were folded on the frequency with the largest $`\chi ^2`$ value from the epoch-fold search in order to create a template profile. We then folded individual 3 – 11 ks segments of the same data on this frequency. A fast Fourier transform was applied to the folded profiles of both the individual segments and the net template profile. Using the first four harmonics of the Fourier representation of the profiles, the individual profiles were cross-correlated with the template profile yielding the relative phase, and intensity of each segment. A new ephemeris was obtained by fitting these phases to a polynomial of the form $`\varphi (t)=\varphi _0+\nu \left(tt_0\right)+\frac{1}{2}\dot{\nu }\left(tt_0\right)^2+\frac{1}{6}\ddot{\nu }\left(tt_0\right)^3+\mathrm{}+\frac{1}{n!}\nu ^{(n)}\left(tt_0\right)^n`$, where $`\varphi (t)`$ is the phase, $`\varphi _0`$ is a phase offset, $`t_0`$ is the epoch, $`\nu `$ is the frequency, $`\dot{\nu }`$ is the frequency derivative, $`\ddot{\nu }`$ is the second time derivative of the frequency, and $`\nu ^{(n)}`$ is the $`n^{\mathrm{th}}`$ derivative of the frequency. This procedure was iterated, each time using a revised template profile determined from the previous data set. As more data were gradually included in the analysis, the addition of higher order polynomials became necessary to obtain an adequate fit to the phases (see Figure 1). When the entire data set was fit, we were able to determine the frequency and the first three derivatives (the detection of the 4th frequency derivative is marginal; see Table 1 for all fitted parameters). Throughout this sequence of observations, the pulsed intensity remained constant.

In order to directly compare with the 1996 PCA observations of SGR 1806$``$20 (Kouveliotou et al. 1998), we applied the same technique to the 1996 data and measured a frequency and frequency derivative (see Table 1). These values are consistent with those found by Kouveliotou et al. (1998). The temporal baseline of these data is much shorter (13 days) than the 1999 observations, and so, timing noise of the same magnitude as that found in 1999 is undetectable. The pulse profile (2 – 10 keV) generated from the 1996 observations is very similar to the 2 – 24 keV profile shown in Kouveliotou et al. (1998), having a single broad peak with a narrow valley. The pulse profile in 1999 is similar in that it only shows one peak, however, the width of the valley at this epoch is slightly broader than the peak.

Combining our results with the ASCA results reported in Kouveliotou et al. (1998), we construct a period history of SGR 1806$``$20 over 6 years (Figure 2). We have also performed an off-line search for untriggered events in the BATSE data using the methodology described in Woods et al. (1999b). Plotted along with the period history is the burst rate history as seen with BATSE (Figure 2). To demonstrate the non-uniformity of the period derivative, we plot an exploded view of the period derivative versus time during the 1999 observations.

Motivated by the techniques applied to other pulsars in estimating timing noise, we calculated a power-density spectrum of the frequency derivative residuals and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8`$ value for SGR 1806$``$20. Using the method described by Deeter & Boynton (1982) for unevenly sampled data, we obtained a spectrum for the frequency derivative residuals. We detect significant power in the range 0.3 – 4 $`\times `$ 10-7 Hz at an average level of $``$ 7 $`\times `$ 10-20 cyc2 s-3 and consistent with being a flat spectrum. An alternative method to estimate the level of timing noise in a pulsar is to calculate the $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ parameter ($`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)\mathrm{log}\frac{|\ddot{\nu }|t^3}{6\nu }`$ \[Arzoumanian et al. 1994\]). In order to compare our results to those of Arzoumanian et al., we calculated $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }(10^8)`$ for SGR 1806$``$20. Taking the average $`\ddot{\nu }`$ over the span of the data ($`|\ddot{\nu }|`$ 5.1 $`\times `$ 10-20 Hz s-2), we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8`$ = 4.8 for SGR 1806$``$20. Figure 3 displays the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8`$ values for 139 radio pulsars (Arzoumanian et al. 1994), 4 AXPs (Heyl & Hernquist 1999; Kaspi et al. 1999), 2 accreting X-ray pulsars (Chakrabarty 1996), and SGR 1806$``$20. All measurements of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_8`$ for the AXPs and SGR 1806$``$20 are positioned above an extrapolation of the trend found for the radio pulsars. The 2$`\sigma `$ upper limit of 1E 2259$`+`$586 from Kaspi et al. is consistent with the trend.

If the timing noise is instead a product of Doppler shifts due to a binary companion, we can fit the phase residuals to an orbit. To do so, we assume a constant period derivative equal to the long-term trend given by a fit to the period measurements ($`\dot{P}`$ 8.47 $`\times `$ 10-11 s s-1). For this analysis, we used both the phases from the 1996 and 1999 RXTE observations as well as the frequency measurements from the earlier ASCA observations given by Kouveliotou et al. (1998). We fit these data to an array of orbits with fixed periods between 10 and 5000 days, allowing for a cycle slip between the separate observations. The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ reaches a minimum value of 1.3 at an orbital period $`P_{\mathrm{orb}}`$ = 733 $`\pm `$ 14 days. For this best fit period, we find a mass function $`f(M)`$ $``$ 8.8 $`\times `$ 10-2 $`M_{}`$ and an orbital separation $`A_\mathrm{x}\mathrm{sin}i`$ $``$ 360 lt-s. There is also a secondary minimum in $`\chi ^2`$ at $`P_{\mathrm{orb}}`$ 380 days ($`\chi _\nu ^2`$ = 1.7) that is only marginally less favorable than the 733 day orbit.

## 3 Discussion

We have shown that SGR 1806$``$20 exhibits strong timing noise during its rapid spindown. The amplitude of the torque variations is significantly higher than in recent measurements of the AXPs 1E 2259$`+`$586 and 1RXS J1709$``$40 by Kaspi et al. (1999), and lies well above the trend established by Arzoumanian et al. (1994) for radio pulsars. The noise could, in principle, be caused by orbital Doppler shifts, variations in magnetospheric current flows driven by magnetic activity in a magnetar, stellar precession, or variations in the torque from an accretion disk. The noise in SGR 1806$``$20 does not appear to be predominantly due to glitches.

If the spin frequency variations of SGR 1806$``$20 are due to a gravitationally bound companion, then the stars must be widely separated and the companion mass ($`M_\mathrm{c}`$) must be small (0.74 $`M_{}<M_\mathrm{c}<`$ 1.7 $`M_{}`$ for an inclination angle $`i>`$ 10 and an assumed 1.4 $`M_{}`$ neutron star). For this particular orbital solution, accretion from the companion can be excluded as the energy source powering the persistent X-ray emission (i.e., $`\dot{M}10^{15}`$ g s-1). Alternatively, one may conjecture that the SGR is accreting from a circumstellar disk (Chatterjee et al. 1999; Alpar 1999), or perhaps from co-moving ejecta/ISM material (Marsden et al. 2000). The magnitude of the timing noise in SGR 1806$``$20 is larger than any known radio pulsar, yet falls within the boundaries of accreting X-ray pulsars (see Figure 2). Over a similar frequency range (see Table 5 of Bildsten et al. 1997), the accreting systems Vela X$``$1, 4U 1538$``$52 and 4U 1626$``$67 have average power levels of 2.2, 1.7, and $``$0.1 $`\times `$ 10-20 cyc2 s-3. Accretion models can account for the frequency derivative variations as due to torque fluctuations from interactions between the stellar magnetic field and the surrounding material. Torque fluctuations may then lead to variations in the source luminosity (Ghosh & Lamb 1979; see also Bildsten et al. 1997 for observational evidence that suggests the torque/luminosity relationship may be more complicated), however, the pulsed intensity of SGR 1806$``$20 remained constant throughout this interval. Furthermore, an important difference between these accreting systems and SGR 1806$``$20 is that the accreting systems have shown extended intervals of spin-up (Bildsten et al. 1997), whereas SGR 1806$``$20 and all other SGRs and AXPs have not.

Variations in spin-down are not, however, limited to accreting neutron stars. Timing noise is present in isolated radio pulsars, and is strongest in the youngest members of that population (Cordes & Helfand 1980; Arzoumanian et al. 1994). One of the key premises of the magnetar model is that the SGRs are young and seismically active, with their recurrent outbursts being triggered by energetic fractures of the neutron star crust (Thompson & Duncan 1995). Seismic activity in any magnetized neutron star can modify the external torque through the production of an outward flowing relativistic wind (Thompson & Blaes 1998); or by increasing the conduction current relative to the displacement current in the outer magnetosphere (Thompson et al. 1999). For example, a mass as large as $`\mathrm{\Delta }MB_{dipole}^2R_{NS}^6\mathrm{\Omega }^{4/3}/4\pi (GM_{NS})^{5/3}=2\times 10^{20}(B_{dipole}/4\times 10^{14}\mathrm{G})^2(P/8\mathrm{s})^{4/3}`$ g can be suspended in the outer magnetosphere by centrifugal forces, and can easily be supplied through hyper-Eddington bursting activity. It is not surprising then to find a high level of timing noise in SGR 1806$``$20, compared with radio pulsars. Furthermore, the strength of the timing noise in SGR 1806$``$20 relative to the AXPs provides a strong hint that torque variations in an isolated, highly-magnetized neutron star are correlated, perhaps indirectly, with activity as a burst source.

Long period precession has been suggested as a source of spindown variations in magnetars. Melatos (1999) proposed that precession would be driven by the asymmetric inertia of the external magnetic field, coupled to the hydromagnetic distortion of the star. Alternatively, free precession (of a lower amplitude) could be excited by bursting activity (Thompson et al. 1999). However, a precession period $`\tau _{\mathrm{pr}}`$ requires that the moment of inertia of the pinned crustal superfluid does not exceed $`I_{pinned}/I_{NS}P/\tau _{\mathrm{pr}}=3\times 10^7(\tau _{\mathrm{pr}}/1\mathrm{yr})^1(P/8\mathrm{s})`$ (Shaham 1977), several orders of magnitude smaller than is inferred for young, glitching pulsars. Thus far, there is no compelling evidence that shows the observed spin-down variations are periodic. Further monitoring of the pulse frequency is required to demonstrate otherwise.

Acknowledgements – We thank the RXTE SDC for pre-processing the RXTE data. We also thank J. Heyl and Z. Arzoumanian for providing the AXP and radio data, respectively. We thank the referee J. Heyl for useful comments. PMW, CK, MHF, EG, and DMS acknowledge support from the cooperative agreement NCC 8-65. CT acknowledges support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and NASA grant NAG 5-3100. RD acknowledges support from both the Texas Advanced Research Project grant ARP-028 and NASA grant NAG 5-8381.