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# XPS as a Probe of Gap Opening in Many Electron Systems

## I Introduction

As a many electron system undergoes a phase transition, the nature of its low energy excitations is usually radically altered. For this reason, experiments which are sensitive to the rearrangement, and in particular to the loss of, low energy excitations (to the opening of a gap), can inform us about how phase transitions take place. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) has been used widely in this context to study how low lying spin excitations evolve in different phases. Famously, NMR reveals a second “transition” temperature $`T^{}`$ in the underdoped cuprate superconductors, below which a gap opens to spin excitations, even in the absence of superconducting order .

In several previous articles   one of us proposed the use of core level photoemission (XPS) as a complimentary probe to NMR, offering similar insight into the evolution of charge carrying excitations. In the case of the underdoped cuprates, the comparison of XPS and NMR might shed some light on the existence or absence of spin–charge separation by answering the question of whether or not a gap opens to charge excitations at the spingap temperature $`T^{}`$. In fact there are many senarios in which such a comparison might be informative — for example in metal–insulator transitions where electron–electron interaction is strong.

The opening of a charge gap in a metallic system has certain simple systematic consequences for XPS lineshapes — an overall shift in the core line, and a transfer of spectral weight from high energies to the line threshold. These effects, both due to the suppression of low energy density fluctuations can be understood on quite general physical grounds without recourse to specific models or calculations .

In this article, we develop a more quantitative picture of how XPS lineshapes evolve with the opening of a gap by applying perturbation theory to simple models of a metal–semiconductor and metal–superconductor transitions. A good understanding of the behaviour of the simplest models is clearly a necessary first step for the interpretation of experiment in more complicated material examples, such as the cuprates. With this in mind we make a detailed case study of the of the way in which the familiar asymmetric Doniach–Sunjic lineshape for a core level in a metal  is modified by the opening of a superconducting gap in s– and d–wave superconductors, discussing the role of nodes in the gap.

We begin in Section II with an outline of the simple perturbative formalism used to calculate lineshapes and associated shifts. In Section III we calculate the XPS spectrum for a band metal and a simple toy model of a semiconductor within perturbation theory. In Section IV we consider lineshapes and shifts of s– and d–wave superconductors for a free electron gas and a d–wave superconductor on a two dimensional tight binding lattice at half filling.

The qualitative picture for the evolution of the XPS lineshape set out in  is found to hold; differences in detail for different models are explored quantitatively. In the concluding Section VI we discuss the consequences and limitations of these results, as applied to experiment, emphasizing the potential role of XPS as a diagnostic tool for strongly correlated systems.

## II Formalism

In an XPS experiment a high energy (X–Ray) photon ejects a single electron from a tightly bound atomic level in the sample material, typically a prepared metal surface. The energy distribution of the emited photoelectrons is measured. Within the sudden approximation, and neglecting all momentum dependence of the matrix elements, the XPS lineshape for the core level is simply proportional to the spectral function for the resulting core hole . Because photoemission leaves behind this unscreened and massive positive charge (recoil of the core hole can safely be neglected) it is accompanied by a violent low energy ”shake up” of the remaining itinerent electrons. This manybody effect has important consequences for the core lineshape, as described below, and it is the suppression of the “shake up” by a gap to charge excitations which makes XPS useful as a probe of different phases.

In practice various other mechanisms serve to limit the lifetime of the core hole — which must eventually be filled by the decay of an electron from a higher energy level — and we model these by convoluting the calculated lineshape with a Lorentzian of width the inverse core level lifetime. We neglect a further (temperature dependent) broadening due to phonon processes, which could be accounted for by further convolution with a Gaussian. Perhaps more importantly, we do not consider the case on which the core hole binds an itinerent electron. This leads to the possibility of more than one line accompanying each core level, which has been treated for the ordinary free electron gas by several authors .

We model the combined system of core level and itinerent electrons with the simple Hamiltonian

$$=_0+𝒱_c$$
(1)
where $`_0`$ is the unperturbed Hamiltonian describing the itinerent electron system, and

$`𝒱_c`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_dd^{}d+V(t)`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`ϵ_dd^{}d+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\nu ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,q}{}}V(q)c_{kq}^{}(t)c_k(t)`$ (3)
switched on suddenly at t=0 when the core hole is created. $`ϵ_d`$ is the energy of the core hole, $`d`$ is the core hole annihilation operator and $`c`$ the electron annihilation operator. Spin does not enter into the problem and has been supressed in our notation.

We model gapless systems as a band of spinless non–interacting electrons

$`_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}ϵ_kc_k^{}c_k`$ (4)
characterized by a density of states $`N(\omega )=_k\delta (\omega ϵ_k)`$. Semi–conductors are modeled in the same way, but with zero density of states within the gap $`|\omega |<\mathrm{\Delta }`$. We use the usual BCS description of superconducting systems, with quasi–particle dispersion $`E_k^2=ϵ_k^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_k^2`$, where $`ϵ_k`$ is the underlying band dispersion and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k`$ the (momentum dependant) superconducting order parameter.

Within the sudden approximation , the XPS spectrum is proportional to the core electron spectral function

$`A_h(\omega )=2Im\left\{G_h^{ret}(\omega )\right\}`$ (5)
where $`G_h^{ret}(\omega )`$ is the retarded core hole Green’s function. From this definition it follows that the spectral function is normalized to $`2\pi `$, and spectral weight must always be conserved in XPS lineshapes.

The Green’s function for the core hole must be calculated using the full wavefunction for the many electron system including the itinerent electrons, and therefore involves matrix elements for the overlap of the many–electron groundstate with all the different states excited by the suddenly switched core hole. In this indirect way XPS probes the spectrum of the intinerent electron liquid.

In the absence of any interaction with the core hole ($`V(q)0`$) the itinerent electrons remain in their ground state and the core hole spectral function is a single coherent delta function peak

$`A_h(\omega )=2\pi \delta (\omega ϵ_d)`$ (6)
Interaction with itinerent electrons transfers spectral weight to an incoherent tail and, under certain conditions, eliminates the coherent (delta function) part of the spectral function entirely.

We evaluate $`G_h^{ret}(t)`$ in the presence of interaction ($`V(q)0`$) using a linked cluster expansion

$`G_h^{ret}(t)=i\theta (t)e^{iϵ_dt}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}F_l(t)\right]`$ (7)
where the coefficents $`F_l(t)`$ are given by:

$`F_l(t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{l}}(i)^l{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t_1\mathrm{}{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t_lTV(t_1)\mathrm{}V(t_l)_{connected}`$ (8)
The leading term in this series, $`F_1(t)`$, is purely real and contributes only an absolute shift in the core line. For a purely local interaction ($`V(q)=V_0`$), this is simply proportional to the density of electrons, and therefore unchanged by the opening of a gap.

It is the second order term, $`F_2(t)`$, which contains interesting many body physics and, to second order in $`V(q)`$, determines the XPS lineshape. This is seen to be related to the density–density correlation function (charge susceptibility), and indeed it can be rewritten as:

$`F_2(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\nu }}{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}|V(q)|^2\{{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\chi _\rho ^{}(q,\omega =0)t`$ (9)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega \chi _\rho ^{\prime \prime }(q,\omega ){\displaystyle \frac{1e^{i\omega t}}{\omega ^2}}\}`$ (10)
where $`\chi _\rho ^{}`$ and $`\chi _\rho ^{\prime \prime }`$ are the real and imaginary parts of the retarded density–density correlation function in frequency space .

The first part of this expression is an energy shift. It is sensitive to the opening of a gap and for delta function interaction it is proportional to the real part of the local charge susceptibility. The second, more complicated term, determines the line shape. We write this as :

$`\overline{F}_2(t)={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}R(\omega ){\displaystyle \frac{1e^{i\omega t}}{\omega ^2}}`$ (11)
where:

$`R(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}|V(q)|^2\chi _\rho ^{\prime \prime }(q,\omega )`$ (12)
is a spectral representation of the perturbation. The core hole—itinerent electron interaction $`V(q)`$ is short ranged, and for the purposes of this article may be approximated by the purely local interaction $`V(q)=V_0`$, so

$`R(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}|V_0|^2{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\chi _\rho ^{\prime \prime }(q,\omega )`$ (13)
To find the XPS lineshape within these approximations is then a matter of calculating the imaginary part of the local density-density correlation function as a function of frequency. In the next section we work several examples, rederiving the familiar asymmetric (Doniach–Sunjic) lineshape for a core level in a metal and showing how it is modified by the opening of a gap in the excitation spectrum.

## III Band metals and semi–conductors

In this section we will calculate the lineshape for a normal metal, modeled as a band of non–interacting electrons using Eqn. 11, and observe how it changes when a gap is opened in the density of states. For simplicity we assume zero temperature and a delta function potential for the core hole.

Within a non–interacting picture, $`R(\omega )`$ can be found from the imaginary part of the particle–hole bubble

$`R(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{|V_0|^2}{\nu ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,p}{}}[n(\xi _p)n(\xi _k)]\delta (\omega +\xi _p\xi _k)`$ (14)
We consider a flat density of states centered about the fermi energy, such that :

$`N(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{cc}N_0\hfill & \omega <ϵ\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \omega >ϵ\hfill \end{array}`$ (17)
$`R(\omega )`$ is then easily calculated.

$`R(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{cc}\alpha \omega \hfill & 0<\omega <ϵ\hfill \\ \alpha (2ϵ\omega )\hfill & ϵ<\omega <2ϵ\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \omega >2ϵ\hfill \end{array}`$ (21)
where $`\alpha =2N_0^2|V_0|^2`$ (the 2 is from the spin summation). In what follows we will use $`\alpha `$ as a parameter, rather than separately specifying the bare density of states $`N_0`$ and the interaction strength $`V_0`$. Since these are unchanged by the opening of a gap, values of $`\alpha `$ found from experiments on the metallic phase of materials can be used to parameterize predictions for the their XPS lineshapes in a gapped phase. Empirically, $`\alpha 0.1`$ for most simple metals, and all plots in this paper have been calculated for $`\alpha =0.1`$.

On substitution of Eqn. 21 in Eqn. 11 we find that the expected deltafunction at threshold is lost and instead $`A(\omega )`$ diverges as $`\omega ^{\alpha 1}`$ as $`\omega 0_+`$. This power law singularity is broadened by the core hole lifetime, yielding an asymmetric lineshape essentially equivalent to that calculated by Doniach and Sunjic . The XPS lineshape for this simple band metal formed by numerically convoluting the spectral function with a Lorentzian lifetime envelope is plotted in Fig. 2. We have reversed the energy axis in this and all other plots of lineshapes for ease of comparison with photoemission spectra.

The replacement of the delta function peak in $`A_h(\omega )`$ with a power law singularity is a consequence of Anderson’s orthogonality catastrophy . The sudden switching of the core hole in the photoemission process leads to the creation of itinerent electron–hole pairs with all possible energies and therefore to a high energy tail in the spectral function. Since the number of electron–hole pairs created with zero energy is logarithmically divergant, the ground states of the perturbed and unperturbed systems are orthogonal, and there is no delta function peak at threshold. The orthogonality catastrophe is effective in a band of non–interacting electrons whenever the density of states at the chemical potential is finite, i. e. for any band metal. While all our analysis is limited to second order in the potential $`𝒱`$, this is usually small, and the physics of the orthogonality catastrophe is in any case essentially unaltered by the inclusion of higher order processes (multiple particle–hole excitations) .

We now calculate the lineshape for a toy model of a gapped system. The presence of the gap will cut off the number of low energy excitations made by the core hole, eliminating the orthogonality catastrophe. The gap has little effect at higher energies, so away from threshold the lineshape for a system with a small gap should be essentially unchanged. The failure of the orthogonality catastrophe will however lead to the restoration of a delta function peak at threshold. As the gap becomes bigger progressively more spectral weight is transfered to this peak, so that for large gaps the effective lineshape after convolution with a Lorentzian will be the symmetric peak associated with an insulator.

At the same time the overall threshold for the XPS line is shifted to lower energies because the redistribution of charge in the electron gas is suppressed by the opening of the gap, and therefore less work is done inserting a core hole into the system.

If, for sake of illustration, we assume that a gap opens such that the new density of states is :

$`N(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{cc}N_0(\frac{ϵ}{ϵ\mathrm{\Delta }})\hfill & ϵ<\omega <\mathrm{\Delta }\hfill \\ N_0(\frac{ϵ}{ϵ\mathrm{\Delta }})\hfill & \mathrm{\Delta }<\omega <ϵ\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}`$ (25)
$`R(\omega )`$ is modified in a straightforward way

$`R(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & \omega <2\mathrm{\Delta }\hfill \\ \stackrel{~}{\alpha }(\omega 2\mathrm{\Delta })\hfill & 2\mathrm{\Delta }<\omega <ϵ+\mathrm{\Delta }\hfill \\ \stackrel{~}{\alpha }(2ϵ\omega )\hfill & ϵ+\mathrm{\Delta }<\omega <2ϵ\hfill \end{array}`$ (29)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }=(ϵ/ϵ\mathrm{\Delta })^2\alpha `$. (Fig. 1). This new form of $`R(\omega )`$ (imaginary part of the charge susceptibility) completely determines the revised lineshape through Eqn. 11.

On the other hand it is the change in the real susceptibility which leads to the shift in the XPS line. The real and imaginary parts of the the density density correlation function are connected via Kramers–Kronig relations.

$`\chi _\rho ^{}(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{\omega }\chi _\rho ^{\prime \prime }(\stackrel{~}{\omega })}{\stackrel{~}{\omega }\omega }}`$ (30)
So the net line shift caused by the opening of the gap is given by:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\stackrel{~}{\omega }{\displaystyle \frac{R_N(\stackrel{~}{\omega })R_G(\stackrel{~}{\omega })}{\stackrel{~}{\omega }}}`$ (31)
This is easily calculated for our model system.

$`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{model}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha \{2ϵlog2({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{ϵ\mathrm{\Delta }}})^2[2ϵlog({\displaystyle \frac{2ϵ}{ϵ+\mathrm{\Delta }}})`$ (32)
$`+`$ $`2\mathrm{\Delta }log\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }}{ϵ+\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)]\}`$ (33)
We plot this shift as a function of gap in Fig. 3 It is a shift away from the power law tail, i. e. towards lower binding energy.

A plot of the modified spectral function, convoluted with a Lorentzian to mimic the finite core lifetime, is shown in Fig 2. While the coherent part of the spectral function (delta function) and its incoherent power law tail have been mixed by the convolution into one smooth lineshape, this clearly demonstrates both of the effects discussed above — there is an overall shift on the line towards lower binding energy (to the right), and spectral weight is transfered from the tail of the line to the peak, making it seem sharper and more symmetric. It is this sharpening of the line, observable provided that the charge gap (in this case $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$) is larger than the inverse of the core hole lifetime $`1/\tau `$, which is the key signature of the failure of the orthogonality catatrophe.

While this model is obviously a gross oversimplification, it does illustrate the two main effects of opening a gap at the fermi energy; to restate — the delta function peak at threshold is partially restored, and there is an overall shift in the position of the line shape towards lower binding energy.

## IV Superconducting Systems

A similar analysis can be performed for a superconductor. The same basic physics holds as for the toy model considered above, but the density-density correlation function now factorizes into normal and anomalous parts, so we must consider

$`P(i\mathrm{\Omega }_n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\nu ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{p,k}{}}|V(k,p)|^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{ip_n}{}}[𝒢(p,ip_n)𝒢(k,ip_n+i\mathrm{\Omega }_n)`$ (34)
$``$ $`(p,ip_n)^{}(k,ip_n+i\mathrm{\Omega }_n)]`$ (35)
where $`i\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$ and $`ip_n`$ are Matsubara frequencies.

Performing the frequency sum and continuing back to real frequencies yields the expression for $`R(\omega )`$ in a superconductor. At zero temperature, and for $`\omega >0`$ this reduces to:

$`R(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\nu ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,p}{}}|V(k,p)|^2`$ (36)
$`\times `$ $`\{(v_p^2u_k^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_p\mathrm{\Delta }_k}{4E_pE_k}})\delta (\omega E_pE_k)\}`$ (37)
where $`u_k^2=\frac{1}{2}(1+\frac{\xi _k}{E_k})`$ and $`v_k^2=\frac{1}{2}(1\frac{\xi _k}{E_k})`$ are the coherence factors and $`E_k=\sqrt{\xi _k^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_k^2}`$ is the excitation energy.

We now examine both s and d–wave superconductors for two different single particle energy dispersions, the linear dispersion of the previous section and a two dimensional tight binding model, and observe how the XPS lineshapes change upon the opening of the superconducting gap.

### A Linear Dispersion

As before, we assume a flat single particle density of states of the form:

$`N(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{cc}N_0\hfill & \omega <ϵ\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \omega >ϵ\hfill \end{array}`$ (40)
In a BCS s–wave superconductor with a spherical fermi surface in the normal state, the density of excitations is given by:

$`N(E)=\{\begin{array}{cc}N_0\frac{E}{\sqrt{E^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2}}\hfill & \text{if }E>\mathrm{\Delta }_0\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}`$ (43)
Taking advantage of the delta function, an integral expression for the $`R(\omega )`$ of an s–wave superconductor is obtained.

$$R_S(\omega )=\alpha _\mathrm{\Delta }^{\omega \mathrm{\Delta }}\frac{E_p(\omega E_p)+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\sqrt{E_p^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\sqrt{(\omega E_p)^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}𝑑E_p$$
(44)
We plot $`R_S(\omega )`$ in Fig. 4. The finite value of $`R_S(\omega )=\pi \mathrm{\Delta }`$ at $`\omega =2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a consequence of the divergant, but integrable, density of states for $`E\mathrm{\Delta }`$. In the same manner as before we can calculate the lineshape (Fig. 5) and shift (Fig. 6) for an s wave superconductor. The existence of the gap in a superconductor produces the same effects as it does in the band metal. Again there is a partial restoration of the delta function peak, with a supression of the powerlaw tail for $`\omega <2\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and an overall shift of the line. These effects are however somewhat less pronounced than in the toy model.

The case of a d–wave superconductor, where gap nodes lead to the presence of low energy excitations even for $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$, is subtly different. In this case the orthogonality catastrophe fails not because of the absence of zero energy excitations, but because the number of zero energy particle–hole pairs produced remains countable. More formally, the opening of a d–wave gap at zero temperature means that the leading term in $`R(\omega )`$ is no longer $`\alpha \omega `$ but $`\beta \omega ^3`$, and so the logarithm found from Eqn. 11 in the case of a metal is eliminated. Unlike the s–wave case, the spectral function does have incoherent structure for $`0<\omega <2\mathrm{\Delta }`$, but this is accompanied by a slightly less pronounced transfer of spectral weight to a delta function at threshold.

The normal state has a circular fermi surface, the superconducting a two dimensional d-wave gap given by:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_D(\varphi )=\mathrm{\Delta }_0cos(2\varphi )$$
(45)
with $`0\varphi 2\pi `$. Both $`R(\omega )`$ and the lineshift were obtained numerically via monte carlo integration. The lineshape was calculated as above.

The d-wave lineshape is shown along with that of the s–wave superconductor in Fig. 5 and the shift in Fig. 6. The presence of nodes in the gap leads to a slightly different gap dependence of the shift in the core line; in fact the d–wave line shift is larger at small $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ than in the s–wave case. The shifts can be fitted to power laws at small $`\delta =\mathrm{\Delta }/ϵ`$. The shift for the s–wave superconductor is given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_s=1.11\alpha \delta ^{1.60}`$ and the d–wave shift by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_d=0.51\alpha \delta ^{1.18}`$ with an uncertainty of $`\pm 0.01`$ in both the coefficient and the power.

If we assume that the gap opens as $`\sqrt{t}`$ (where $`t=(TcT)/Tc`$), as would be expected of a meanfield order parameter for $`TT_c`$, this translates into a shift in the line scaling as $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_st^{0.8}`$ in the s– and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_dt^{0.25}`$ in the d–wave case.

### B Tight Binding Model

In order to make closer contact with real HTc superconductors, we also evaluated lineshapes and shifts for a d–wave superconductor on a half–filled square lattice with underlying tight binding electron dispersion

$`ϵ(k_x,k_y)=2t(cosk_x+cosk_y)4t^{}cosk_xcosk_y`$ (46)
where $`t`$ and is the nearest neighbour and $`t^{}`$ the next nearest neighbour hopping integral. We chose $`t^{}/t=0.35`$ as being representative of the in–plane $`Cu`$ $`d`$ band in a ’standard’ 123 compound such as $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{7\delta }`$. A ’standard’ 2212 compound such as $`Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+x}`$ would have $`t^{}/t=0.2`$  but this will not change our results significantly.

We model a superconductor with d–wave symmetry on a square lattice with a gap function of the form

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_d(k_x,k_y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{2}}(cos(k_x)cos(k_y))`$ (47)
The results for $`R(\omega )`$ for this model of the normal and superconducting state are shown in Fig. 7. Once again we have set the coefficient of the leading linear term in the tight binding metal to be $`0.1`$, so that the XPS asymmetry exponent for the system without gap is $`\alpha =0.1`$. For comparison with our previous models we consider a gap size of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0.05(4|t|)`$. In general, $`t`$ is of the order of $`0.25meV`$. This gives $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=50meV`$ which is clearly larger than in the real compounds, but not unreasonably so; estimates for YBCO yield $`\mathrm{\Delta }_016meV`$ and for BSSCO $`\mathrm{\Delta }_030meV`$ .

The resulting lineshapes and shifts for these coefficients are displayed in Figs. 8 and 9. Clearly the overall trends are exactly the same as found in the more general models; a sharpening of the XPS line and a shift to lower binding energy, but both trends are somewhat more marked than in the constant density of states model with the same parameters (c. f. Figs. 5 and 6), and the shift is now very nearly linear in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$.

The size of shift which we find must be something of an underestimate of the true shift in the cuprates, since we neglect all corrections to screening of the core hole which arise from electron–electron interaction, which is known to be strong in these systems. An improved estimate could be found by incorporating a Hubbard $`U`$ term in the model, and evaluating an RPA series for the screened susceptibility. Such a proceedure has been found to be necessary to obtain quantative estimates of the local spin susceptility in these systems . Screening through electron–electron interaction is of course a dynamical process, and leads to corrections to the lineshape and gap dependance of the shift, as well as to its overall scale. These effects do not change the underlying physics, but can in principle be included in our calculation scheme, and may need to be included in any serious quantitive attempt to fit experimental lineshapes and shifts. We note also that attempts to fit the modified asymmetric lineshape found which we find in the presence of a gap with a standard Doniach–Sunjic lineshape can lead to artificially low values of $`\alpha `$.

## V Pseudogaps and comparison with experiment

Pseudogap behaviour, which can be loosely defined as the (partial) loss of low energy excitations without the emergence of order, has been observed in many strongly correlated electron systems . The best known example is provided by the underdoped cuprate superconductors, where evidence for the opening of a pseudogap is found from NMR and ARPES experiments at temperatures between some high energy scale $`T^{}`$ and the superconducting transition temperature $`T_c`$. As a function of doping, $`T^{}`$ interpolates between the Néel temperature $`T_N800K`$ of the undoped Mott insulator and the transition temperature $`T_c100K`$ of the optimally doped superconductor.

What could XPS teach us about the opening of a pseudogap in this case ? If the pseudogap seen in NMR is a precursor to the formation of superconducting order at low temperatures, coming about, for example, through the formation of “incoherent” pairs of electrons, then its effects on XPS lines will be broadly the same as those for a true gap. If on the other hand the pseudogap is not a precursor to superconductivity but, as has been suggested, a gap to spin excitations only, then XPS spectra would undergo little or no change at $`T^{}`$. In this way the characteristic XPS signatures of gap opening — the sharpening of an asymmetric core line and/or a shift of lines to lower binding energy — could be used to distinguish between different theories of pseudogapped systems.

A shift in core lines to lower binding energy has been reported for XPS spectra taken above and below $`T_c`$, and for spectra taken above and below $`T^{}`$ in the cuprate high temperature superconductor $`Bi_2Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_{8+\delta }`$ . At first sight this seems to offer confirmation of exactly the type of effect which we predict on the basis of core hole screening. However, the quoted experimental values of the shift are of order $`100meV`$ for lines with an asymmetry $`\alpha =0.04`$. This is much larger than can be reconciled with our simple model; using the tight binding model considered above, together with the parametrization $`\alpha =0.04`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=30meV`$, we would anticpate a shift in the XPS line of order $`1.2meV`$.

Of course, analyzing the metal superconductor transition in $`Bi_2Sr_2Ca_{1x}Y_xCu_2O_{8+\delta }`$ in terms of tight binding model and BCS models will not always give reliable answers, especially in the underdoped “pseudogap” regime. Nevertheless we believe our calculation provides the correct starting point for understanding such experiments, and mechanisms other than the supression of screening of the core hole by the opening of the gap should therefore also be considered.

## VI Conclusions

The gross effects seen in XPS lineshapes for metallic systems when a gap opens are very robust and independent of the choice of model. The core line undergoes an overall shift to lower binding energy and spectral weight is transfered from the powerlaw tail of the line to its peak, leading to a sharpening of the line and some loss of overall asymmetry. Modifications to lineshape are more easily seen in systems where the gap is large compared with the intrinsic width of the core level. In this limit subtle differences can be also seen between different models.

The shift in core lines shows power law dependence on the size of the gap, with different power laws for superconductors with s– and d–wave gap symmetries and for a tight binding model as compared with a model with a constant density of states. In principle XPS offers a means of distinguishing between different gap symmetries in systems with complicated order parameters.

Where sufficiently narrow core lines can be found, XPS offers a potentially rich source of information about the changes which take place in many electron systems when a gap opens, and might be particularly useful if taken in parallel with NMR measurements. The opening of pseudogaps could also be studied from the perspective of XPS measurements.

For simplicity, we have chosen to work within perturbation theory and to discuss only models which have simple non–interacting quasi–particle excitations. Both of these restrictions can be relaxed, and many of the same physical considerations apply to core levels coupled to strongly interacting electron systems. Experimentally it might well be interesting to look at the effect on XPS lines of metal–insulator or charge density wave transitions where the intrinsic gap scale is very much larger, and the effects of gap opening can be expected to be more pronounced.

Acknowledgments. It is our pleasure to acknowledge many helpful converstaion with Jim Allen, Franz Himpsel, and Robert Joynt. This work was supported under the grant DMR–9704972 .


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The quark-parton model (QPM) is a simple picture of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) which gives a basic framework for nucleon’s parton distributions. Taking into account quark-gluon interactions at $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$ in the leading-order (LO) approximation, this picture is modified by QCD Compton (QCDC) and Boson-Gluon Fusion (BGF) processes as shown in Fig. 1. High-order perturbative QCD emissions of partons are usually included through the parton shower mechanism in the leading-log approximation.

Nowadays, the hard QCD processes are well understood and can be modeled successfully with Monte Carlo (MC) models. This knowledge can be used to investigate various less-understood non-perturbative effects that are often obscured by perturbative QCD. For example, manifestations of instantons , leading particles  and intrinsic charm  in hadronic final-states of DIS are affected by the conventional perturbative QCD radiations.

In this paper we discuss how to reduce unwanted perturbative QCD effects related to the BGF processes in the study of the nature of the struck quark at HERA energies. We suggest to constrain an event sample in order to obtain DIS events with a single struck quark recoiled against the proton (with possible initial- and final-state gluon radiations). After this selection, the resulting events have kinematic signatures similar to QPM/QCDC events. Such a selection is especially important for analysing the properties of the struck quark which carries important information on the proton structure. Using this selection, we investigate the mean charge of leading particles, i.e. hadrons emerging from the struck quark after fragmentation. Being a simple quantity to measure, the leading-particle charge is shown to be sensitive to details in fragmentation as well as the sea parton distribution inside the proton. We also investigate the production of charm in DIS by isolating the QPM/QCDC from the BGF source of charm production.

The DIS is characterised by the 4-momentum transfer $`Q^2=q^2`$ and the Bjorken scaling variable $`x=Q^2/(2Pq)`$, where $`P`$ is the 4-momentum of the proton. For the QPM in the Breit frame , by convention, the incident quark carries $`Q/2`$ momentum in the positive $`Z`$-direction and the outgoing struck quark carries the same momentum in the negative $`Z`$-direction. The phase space of the event can be divided into two regions. Particles with negative $`p_Z^{\mathrm{Breit}}`$ components of momenta form the current region. In the QPM all these particles are produced from hadronisation of the struck quark. Particles with positive $`p_Z^{\mathrm{Breit}}`$ are assigned to the target region, which is associated with the proton remnant.

The LO QCD processes, QCDC and BGF, give rise to two final-state partons leading to two jets, in addition to the proton remnant in the target region. The LO effects lead to anti-correlations between the current- and target-region multiplicities .

To conform the theoretical expectations discussed in this paper, we use LEPTO 6.5 . This model incorporates the $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$ LO matrix elements matched to parton showers (MEPS). The parton showers and hadronisation are described by the JETSET 7.4 . Here it is important to emphasize a few points: We use default parameters in the LEPTO, while our results depend on the values of cut-offs on the LO matrix elements. A dependence of the results on the cut-offs values should be studied. This requires a re-tuning of the LEPTO with a new set of the cut-offs. This has not been done yet. Secondly, a MC dependence of the results should also be investigated. However, the most popular models, such as ARIADNE  and HERWIG , do not contain exact matrix elements. Thus they cannot distinguish between QPM, QCDC and BGF on an event-by-event basis, which is important for our studies. In addition, a theoretical conclusion which might be drawn from these models is far from clear due to an ambiguity in the modeling of the parton cascade.

## 2 BGF reduction

The two-parton production at the LO approximation can be studied in terms of five independent variables . Particularly important are two of them: $`x_p=Q^2/(2pq)`$ and the scaling variable $`z_p=(p^{}p)/(p^{}q)`$, where $`p`$ is the momentum of the incoming parton and $`p^{}`$ is that of the final-state parton. At the $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{s})`$, the singularities in the two-parton cross section are given by :

$$d\sigma _{2+1}^{\text{BGF}}\frac{[z_p^2+(1z_p)^2][x_p^2+(1x_p)^2]}{z_p(1z_p)},d\sigma _{2+1}^{\text{QCDC}}\frac{1+x_p^2z_p^2}{(1x_p)(1z_p)}.$$
(1)
In the BGF process, the poles are related to the emissions of two quarks collinear to the initial gluon or when the partons are soft ($`z_p1,0`$). The QCDC diverges if the radiated gluon is collinear to initial- or final-state quark or if it is soft ($`z_p`$, $`x_p1`$). The singularity $`x_p=1`$, corresponding to the gluon radiated collinear to the final-state quark, favours the production of two partons in the current regions. This effect is not present in the BGF as illustrated in Fig. 2. Indeed, according to , let us introduce two new variables, $`z_1=(1x_pz_p)/x_p`$ and $`z_2=(z_px_p)/x_p`$, which are proportional to the longitudinal momenta of the two final-state partons in the Breit frame. For the QCDC singularities, these partons move to the current region if $`z_1<0`$ and $`z_2<0`$. For the singularities $`z_p0,1`$ in the BGF cross section this situation is impossible for any value of $`x_p`$. Thus, in this limit, the BGF cannot produce two partons in the current region.

To conform this expectation, we simulated the production of two final-state partons in the Breit frame using the LO matrix elements implemented in LEPTO. The parton shower and hadronisation were turned off. We used the GRV proton structure function  from the PDFLIB . To generate DIS events, the energy of the positron and that of the proton are chosen to be 27.5 GeV and 820 GeV, respectively. The production rate for each parton configuration in the current region is shown in Fig. 3, where the notation “jet” refers to one of the LO hard partons. The BGF has many events without partons in the current region (“0 jet”). This configuration and that with a single parton in the current region (“1 jet”) are characteristic for both BGF and QCDC. At a sufficiently high $`Q^2`$, QCDC gives rise to a fraction of events with two partons (quark and gluon) in the current region (“2 jet”).

According to this observation, the BGF contribution to DIS can be reduced following the strategy:

* To identify phase-space regions with minimum QCD radiations. DIS events at not very high $`Q^2`$ and a sufficiently large $`x`$ are the most obvious choice.
* To require to detect more than one jet in the current region. This selection is likely to be possible at a sufficiently large $`Q^2`$. At low $`Q^2`$, the jet structure is less prominent. In this case, however, many BGF events have both jets in the target region (see Fig. 3). Therefore, for small $`Q^2`$, one could simply require to detect at least one or two final-state hadrons in the current region.
* To restrict the transverse momentum imbalance in the current region, $`P_{\mathrm{imb}}=_ip_{T,i}`$, where $`p_{T,i}`$ is the transverse momentum of the $`i`$th particle in the current region of the Breit frame and the sum runs over all current-region particles. The QPM leads to a single jet, collinear to the $`Z`$-direction, while the QCDC can produce two jets in the current region with well balanced transverse momenta. Therefore, $`P_{\mathrm{imb}}0`$ for these cases. In reality, of course, the imbalance is not zero due to high-order QCD effects, hadronisation or resonance decays. Fig. 4 shows the current-region transverse imbalance for charged final-state hadrons in QPM, QCDC and BGF processes simulated with LEPTO MEPS. The BGF events have the broadest distribution of $`P_{\mathrm{imb}}`$. Thus, imposing a restriction on the $`P_{\mathrm{imb}}`$ can help to reduce the BGF events in the selected subsample.

Fig. 5 illustrates the method. Using LEPTO MEPS, we simulated DIS events before and after the cuts. We require to have at least two final-state charged hadrons in the current region and $`P_{\mathrm{imb}}<0.7`$, in order to keep the transverse current-region imbalance as small as possible but without a large reduction of the number of events passed this cut. For the default LEPTO parameters, the production rate of BGF varies from $`7\%`$ to $`16\%`$, depending on $`x`$. The selection results to a subsample with only $`24\%`$ of the BGF events. The efficiency of such selection is about $`20\%`$.

A suppression effect exists also for the QCDC, but it is not as strong as for the BGF. For the kinematic regions shown in Fig. 5, the QCDC production rate varies from $`4\%`$ to $`5\%`$. After the cuts, about half of these events survive (not shown).

Note that this method is quite different to that in which one requires to observe a single jet, in addition to the remnant jet, using cluster algorithms. Our method is intended to reduce the BGF, rather than QCDC. In contrast, the requirement to observe a single jet in an event rejects both BGF and QCDC. In addition, our method is well suited to study DIS events at rather low $`Q^2`$, independent of a jet transverse energy $`E_T`$ used in jet reconstruction.

## 3 Mean Charge of Leading Hadrons

Below we estimate the average electric charge of a leading current-region particle, i.e. a hadron with a minimum value of $`p_Z^{\mathrm{Breit}}`$. We expect that it is this hadron that retains main properties of the struck quark. To demonstrate a sensitivity of the leading-particle charge to details in fragmentation and sea quark production, we shall obtain this quantity analytically and using a MC simulation after the BGF reduction.

### 3.1 Fragmentation in the QPM

First let us find the mean charge of the struck quark in the QPM assuming that the proton consists of three valence quarks, $`p=(\mathrm{uud})`$. We define the electric charge $`q_i`$ of quarks $`\mathrm{u}`$ and $`\mathrm{d}`$ as $`q_\mathrm{u}=2/3`$ and $`q_\mathrm{d}=1/3`$, respectively. The virtual boson couples to the valence quark with a probability proportional to $`q_i^2`$. Using this fact and that there are two valence quarks $`\mathrm{u}`$ and only one quark $`\mathrm{d}`$, the probabilities $`P_\mathrm{q}`$ for the virtual boson to interact with the valence quark $`\mathrm{q}=\mathrm{u},\mathrm{d}`$ are $`P_\mathrm{u}=8/9`$ and $`P_\mathrm{d}=1/9`$, respectively. The mean charge of the current region is

$$q=\underset{\mathrm{u},\mathrm{d}}{}P_iq_i=5/90.55.$$
(2)
After the hard interaction, the struck quark $`\mathrm{u}`$ couples to an antiquark $`\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i=\overline{\mathrm{d}}`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{u}}`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{s}}`$ (the contribution from heavy quarks is neglected). Taking into account the suppression factor $`0.3`$ for strange quarks, similar to , the probabilities $`W^\mathrm{u}(\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i)`$ for the valence quark $`\mathrm{u}`$ to join the antiquark $`\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i`$ are

$$W^\mathrm{u}(\overline{\mathrm{u}})=10/23,W^\mathrm{u}(\overline{\mathrm{d}})=10/23,W^\mathrm{u}(\overline{\mathrm{s}})=3/23.$$
(3)
The probabilities $`W^\mathrm{d}(\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i)`$ that this happens with the valence quark $`\mathrm{d}`$ are equal to $`W^\mathrm{u}(\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i)`$. Assuming that the fragmentation does not depend on the probability $`P_\mathrm{q}`$ for the hard interaction, the probability to find a final-state hadron $`h_i`$ after the fragmentation is

$$P(h_i)=P_\mathrm{q}W^\mathrm{q}(\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i),\mathrm{q}=\mathrm{u}\text{or}\mathrm{d},\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i=\overline{\mathrm{d}},\overline{\mathrm{u}},\overline{\mathrm{s}},$$
(4)
where the flavour of antiquark $`\overline{\mathrm{q}}_i`$ is taken in such a way in order to provide a correct flavour content of a meson $`h_i=(\pi ^0,\pi ^+,\pi ^{},K^0,K^+)`$. The average charge $`q^h`$ of the leading current-region hadrons is

$$q^h=\left[1P(\pi ^0)P(K^0)\right]\underset{i}{}q_i^hP(h_i)0.25,$$
(5)
where the first factor represents the probability of observing a charged leading particle and $`q_i^h`$ is the electric charge of the $`i`$th charged leading meson.

It should be noted that result (5) stays without changes even if one considers high-mass meson states: One could split $`P(h_i)`$ into probabilities for different multiplets, but this splitting does not affect the electric charge of a specific flavour combination and $`q^h0.25`$ still be valid. We have also verified that if one uses the suppression factor 0.1 for diquark production similar to , the contribution of the lowest-mass leading baryons ($`p`$ and $`n`$) increases $`q^h`$ by $`4\%`$ only.

### 3.2 Contribution of sea quarks and LO QCD effects

The interactions with sea quarks change (5). If one considers the QPM type of the hard interactions with sea quarks only, the average charge seen in the current region is zero, since quarks and antiquarks can be knocked out of the proton with equal probabilities. Let us define $`R_{\mathrm{sea}}`$ as the probability of the interaction with sea quarks. Such interactions decrease the average charge by a factor $`(1R_{\mathrm{sea}})`$, which is just the probability that the struck parton happens to be one of the valence quarks.

The first-order QCD processes further decrease (5). For the BGF events with two hard partons moving the target region and for events with a single quark in the current region, one obtains $`q^h=0`$ (quark and antiquark can be emitted to the current region with equal probabilities). Therefore, this further decreases $`q^h`$ by a factor $`(1R_{\mathrm{BGF}})`$, where $`R_{\mathrm{BGF}}`$ is the probability for the BGF event to occur.

It is more complicated to include the QCDC process. Let us define the production rate of the QCDC events as $`R_{\mathrm{QCDC}}`$. If only a single quark moves to the current region, this gives a similar contribution to the leading particle charge as in the QPM. However, one can notice that there is a fraction of QCDC events which does not contribute to the average charge. These events can be classified as: 1) Events with a single hard gluon moving to the current region; 2) Events without partons in the current region; 3) Events with both quark and gluon moving to the current region, in which the transverse motion of the string connecting both current-region partons cannot produce a preferable longitudinal momentum of hadrons steaming from the hadronisation of the hard parton. We define a fraction of the events for these three types as $`\stackrel{~}{R}_{\mathrm{QCDC}}`$ ($`\stackrel{~}{R}_{\mathrm{QCDC}}<R_{\mathrm{QCDC}})`$.

Taking into account all of the contributions discussed above, one obtains

$$q^h=0.25(1R_{\mathrm{sea}})(1R_{\mathrm{BGF}})(1\stackrel{~}{R}_{\mathrm{QCDC}}).$$
(6)
At a fixed $`Q^2`$, the values of $`R_{\mathrm{sea}}`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{BGF}}`$ decrease with increase of $`x`$. Thus $`q^h`$ rises as $`x`$ increases.

From the point of view of non-perturbative physics, it is interesting to investigate the factor $`0.25(1R_{\mathrm{sea}})`$ in (6) which comes from our consideration along the line of independent or the LUND fragmentation. Therefore, the cluster hadronisation may give different results. The contribution $`R_{\mathrm{sea}}`$ is interesting since it contains information on the proton structure function.

Note that high-order QCD, hadronisation and resonance decays should further decrease the $`q^h`$ since they produce an additional smearing effect which can properly be taken into account using a MC simulation.

### 3.3 MC Study

Fig. 6 shows the average charge of leading particles in LEPTO as a function of $`Q^2`$ and $`x`$. A leading particle with a minimum value of $`p_Z^{\mathrm{Breit}}`$ was identified among all charged and neutral final-state hadrons in the current region of the Breit frame. To investigate the contribution from sea quarks, we generated a DIS sample after the rejection of struck antiquarks $`\overline{\mathrm{u}}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{d}}`$ from sea as well as all heavy flavour sea quarks and antiquarks. This can easily be performed using the LST(25) parameter in LEPTO, without redefinition of the structure function. Note that this method does not completely remove the contribution of sea quarks $`\mathrm{u}`$ and $`\mathrm{d}`$ to valence quarks in the proton, since LEPTO does not distinguish between light valence and sea quarks . Fig. 6 also shows the average charge after the use of the cuts to reject the BGF contribution.

According to the simulation, the expected limit $`0.25`$ is still not reached for the given energy scale. The contribution of sea quarks is very large and depends on $`x`$: At low $`x`$, sea quarks dominate and this reduces $`q^h`$. The cuts described in Sect. 2 increase the value of the average leading-particle charge, as one expects from a decrease of $`R_{\mathrm{BGF}}`$ in (6).

## 4 Charm

The study of the charm production in DIS is of importance for the understanding of the sea parton densities in the nucleon. The three diagrams shown in Fig. 1 can contribute to the charm cross section. There is an evidence that the main fraction of charm quarks is created in the BGF , rather than through the QPM type of scattering. This, however, cannot be considered as a solid conclusion yet due to small statistics available at that time and since the LEPTO used to measure $`(2\stackrel{}{p}_D)/W`$ in  had no QCDC process, which is an additional non-BGF contribution to the QPM picture at medium $`Q^2`$.

In addition to the perturbative QCD charm mechanisms, it was suggested long time ago the hypothesis of intrinsic charm . Possibilities of probing the intrinsic charm at HERA have been discussed in . According to this model, the proton wave function has an additional contribution from $`uudc\overline{c}`$. In this model the intrinsic charm is created due to scattering either on the intrinsic charm quark or a light valence quark, so that intrinsic $`c\overline{c}`$ pair moves along the proton remnants. For these cases, the only DIS processes contributing to the production of intrinsic charm are the QPM and QCDC.

One of the important issues in the intrinsic charm studies is to find a method to isolate the QPM and QCDC processes from the BGF. Having obtained a subsample with a small fraction of the BGF type of DIS events, one can perform a more detailed study of charm. Some ideas on how to suppress the BGF background in the intrinsic charm study has already been discussed in .

To illustrate the possibility to reduce the events with charm coming from the BGF using our method, we generated the charmed DIS events with AROMA 2.1  and LEPTO 6.5 MEPS models. We used the CTEQ4M  structure function for both simulations. The AROMA models the charm production through the BGF, which is implemented at the LO including heavy quark mass. In the LEPTO, the BGF processes were turned off, so that all charm quarks originate from sea in the proton (charm from fragmentation can be safely neglected). The intrinsic charm was not included explicitly in this simulation: The kinematic signatures of the intrinsic charm are expected to be similar to those of the sea quark production in QPM/QCDC .

Applying the selection described in Sect. 2, only about $`23\%`$ of the BGF events with charm passed the cuts. On the other hand, more than $`20\%`$ of the events with sea charm survive the cuts, i.e. the suppression of BGF events with charm is by a factor 8-10 larger than for the QPM/QCDC type of charm production.

The reconstructed 4-momenta of charm candidates, transformed into the Breit frame, can also be used to distinguish between QPM/QCDC and BGF type of the LO events. This can be done by measuring the transverse current-region momentum of a charm hadron. Such a transverse momentum is expected to be softer for QPM/QCDC than for BGF. Another possible approach is to calculate the ratio $`R=N_{\mathrm{target}}/N_{\mathrm{current}}`$, where $`N_{\mathrm{target}}`$ ($`N_{\mathrm{current}}`$) is the average multiplicity of charm hadrons in the target (current) region. For QPM, $`R=0`$, while for the BGF, $`R>1`$. The QCDC gives also $`R0`$, but this value is not as large as for the BGF (see Fig 3). After applying cuts on the ratio $`R`$ or the transverse current-region momenta of charm candidates, one could obtain a sample of non-BGF charm events to be studied further.

After the BGF suppression, the resulting DIS events might contain a fraction of events with intrinsic charm, large enough to obtain an experimentally detectable excess in the charm production over the conventional QCD processes. This excess can be seen at not very high $`Q^2`$ and a sufficiently large $`x`$, i.e. in the phase-space regions where the BGF has an additional suppression.

### 4.1 Conclusion

In this paper we show that, in the LO formalism with multiple parton emission described by a parton shower, one can obtain a subsample of DIS events where the probability to observe QPM/QCDC type of events with (anti)quark recoiled against the proton is clearly enhanced, in contrast to DIS events without any preselection. This can be done without jet clustering algorithms that reject both QCDC and BGF type of events and suffer from ambiguity in jet definitions and misclustering at low $`Q^2`$ (jet $`E_T`$). The investigation of this subsample can provide a deeper insight into the proton structure by studying the flavour of the struck quark, indirectly, through the measurement of the leading particle charge or, more directly, by reconstructing the heavy flavour quarks. More explicitly, the first measurement is very sensitive to the sea quark contribution to the proton structure function and details in the fragmentation mechanism. The second study may allow to observe an excess in charm production over the conventional perturbative QCD mechanisms and thus to set an upper limit on the intrinsic charm inside the proton in DIS at HERA.

Note that the efficiency of the BGF rejection can be different for different cut-offs on the matrix elements. To study this, it is necessary to re-tune the LEPTO model with a new values of cut-offs in order to obtain a good description of DIS data. Moreover, rather significant reduction of the BGF processes which seen in LEPTO might be a feature of any Monte Carlo model based on matching of the first-order QCD matrix elements with softer emissions in parton showers. Presently, it is difficult to verify this point since less formal models based solely on parton showers, ARIADNE and HERWIG, do not distinguish between different types of the LO processes.

## 5 Acknowledgments:

I thank L. Gladilin, S. Magill and G. Ingelman for valuable discussions.