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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Diffractive photo- and electroroduction of vector mesons

$$\gamma ^{}pVp,(V=\rho ^0,\mathrm{\Phi }^0,\omega ^0,J/\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\mathrm{})$$
(1)
is presently intensively studied at HERA and represent a good cross check to test the ideas implemented into various theoretical models  within the framework of the perturbative QCD (pQCD). Morevever, the high statistics data at HERA during a several last years allows also to study diffractive electroproduction of radially excited $`V^{}(2S)`$ vector mesons, which are known to have a node (the node effect ) in the radial wave function leading to pecularities in investigation of various aspects of their diffractive production. In this paper we demonstrate further salient features of the node effect in conjunction with the gBFKL phenomenology of the diffraction slope  leading to an anomalous energy and $`Q^2`$ dependence of the diffraction cone.

The details of the gBFKL phenomenology of diffractive electroproduction of vector mesons has been presented in the paper  and will not be repeated here. The same concerns to the color dipole phenomenology of the diffraction slope for photo- and electroproduction of heavy vector mesons developed in the paper . We start with the principal result coming from the analysis of the diffractive production of light  and heavy  vector mesons at $`t=0`$ within the gBFKL phenomenology and leading to the conclusion that the $`1S`$ vector meson production amplitude probes the color dipole cross section (and the dipole diffraction slope as well) at the dipole size $`rr_S`$ (scanning phenomenon ), where the scanning radius can be expressed through the scale parameter $`A`$, photon virtuality $`Q^2`$ and vector meson mass $`m_V`$ :

$$r_S\frac{A}{\sqrt{m_V^2+Q^2}}.$$
(2)
Scanning phenomenon allows to study the transition between the perturbative (hard) and nonperturbative (soft) regimes. Changing $`Q^2`$ and the mass of the produced vector meson, one can probe the dipole cross section $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$, and the dipole diffraction slope $`B(\xi ,r)`$ in a very broad range of the dipole sizes, $`r`$.

Radially excited $`V^{}(2S)`$ vector mesons can extend an additional information on the dipole cross section and dipole diffraction slope. The presence of the node in the $`2S`$ radial wave function leads to the node effect (a strong cancellation of the dipole size contributions to the production amplitude from the region above and below the node position, $`r_n`$, in the $`2S`$ radial wave function ). For this reason, the amplitudes for the electroproduction of the $`1S`$ and $`2S`$ vector mesons probe $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$ and $`B(\xi ,r)`$ in a different way. The onset of the node effect depends on vector meson mass. The node effect has been found to be a strong in electroproduction of radially excited light vector mesons ($`\rho ^0`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }^0`$, $`\omega ^0`$)  leading to an anomalous $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the production cross section. However, node effect is much weaker for the electroproduction of $`2S`$ heavy vector mesons ($`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$, …) For production of charmonia it leads to a slightly different $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the production cross section for $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ vs. $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and to a counterintuitive inequality $`B(\mathrm{\Psi }^{})<B(J/\mathrm{\Psi })`$ .

For $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{}`$ production, the node effect is negligible small and gives approximately the same $`Q^2`$ and energy behaviour of the production cross section and practically the same diffraction slope at $`t=0`$ for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{}`$ production . Therefore, it is very important to explore farther the salient features of the node effect with conjunction with the emerging gBFKL phenomenology of the diffraction slope especially in production of $`V^{}(2S)`$ light vector mesons where the node effect is expected to be very strong.

Two main reasons affect the cancellation pattern in the diffraction slope for $`2S`$ state. The first reason is connected with the $`Q^2`$ behaviour of the scanning radius $`r_S`$ (see (2)); for the electroproduction of $`V^{}(2S)`$ light vector mesons at moderate $`Q^2`$ when the scanning radius $`r_S`$ is close to $`r_n`$, due to $`r^2`$ behaviour of $`B(\xi ,r)`$  even a slight variation of $`r_S`$ with $`Q^2`$ strongly changes the cancellation pattern and leads to an anomalous $`Q^2`$ dependence of the forward diffraction slope, $`B(t=0)`$ . The second reason is due to different energy dependence of $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$ at different dipole sizes $`r`$ coming from the gBFKL dynamics leading also to an anomalous energy dependence of $`B(t=0)`$ for the $`V^{}(2S)`$ production.

The effects mentioned above are sensitive to the form of the dipole cross section and the dipole diffraction slope. In Ref.  () we presented the first direct determination of the color dipole cross section (color dipole diffraction slope) from the data on the photo- and electroproduction of $`V(1S)`$ vector mesons. So extracted dipole cross section (dipole diffraction slope) is in a good agreement with the dipole cross section (dipole diffraction slope) obtained from gBFKL analysis  (). This fact confirms a very reasonable choice of the nonperturbative component of the dipole cross section (dipole diffraction slope) corresponding to a soft nonperturbative mechanism contribution to the scattering amplitude.

Due to a large value of the scale parameter in (2), the large-distance contributions to the production amplitude from the semiperturbative and nonperturbative region of color dipoles $`r\text{ }>R_c`$ becomes substantial ($`R_c0.27fm`$ is gluon correlation radius introduced in ) . Only the virtual $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi ^0`$ photoproduction at $`Q^2\text{ }>100`$ GeV2 can be treated as a purely perturbative process, when the production amplitude is dominantly contributed from the perturbative region, $`r\text{ }<R_c`$.

In the present paper we concentrate on the production of $`V^{}(2S)`$ radially excited light vector mesons, where the node in the radial wave function in conjunction with the subasymptotic energy dependence of $`B(\xi ,r)`$ leads to a strikingly different $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the diffraction slope for the production of $`V^{}(2S)`$ vs. $`V(1S)`$ vector mesons. We also study how the position of the node in the radial wave function for $`V^{}(2S)`$ vector mesons can be extracted from the data. We present an exact prescription how the experimental measurement of the $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the diffraction slope for $`V^{}(2S)`$ production could distinguish between the undercompensation and overcompensation scenarios of the $`2S`$ production amplitude (see Section 4). The explicit form of that $`Q^2`$\- and energy behaviour of the diffraction slope is connected with the position of the node in radial wave function for $`V^{}(2S)`$ vector mesons. This paper is organized as follows. In section 2 we present a very short review of the the color dipole phenomenology of the diffractive photo- and electroproduction of vector mesons including some needful results from the gBFKL phenomenology of the diffraction slope. Section 3 contains the model predictions for $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the forward diffraction slope for the $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi ^0`$ real and virtual electroproduction. We predict a substantial growth of the diffraction slope with energy in a good agreement with the low energy data and the data from the HERA collider experiments. The subject of section 4 concerns to the anomalous $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of diffraction slope for electroproduction of $`2S`$ radially excited light vector mesons. The summary and conclusions are presented in section 5.

## 2 Basic formulas from the color dipole phenomenology of vector meson production and the diffraction slope

In the mixed $`(𝐫,z)`$ representation, the high energy meson is considered as a system of color dipole described by the distribution of the transverse separation $`𝐫`$ of the quark and antiquark given by the $`q\overline{q}`$ wave function, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫,z)`$, where $`z`$ is the fraction of meson’s lightcone momentum carried by a quark. The Fock state expansion for the relativistic meson starts with the $`q\overline{q}`$ state and the higher Fock states $`q\overline{q}g\mathrm{}`$ become very important at high energy $`\nu `$. The interaction of the relativistic color dipole of the dipole moment, $`𝐫`$, with the target nucleon is quantified by the energy dependent color dipole cross section, $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$, satisfying the gBFKL equation  for the energy evolution. This reflects the fact that in the leading-log $`\frac{1}{x}`$ approximation the effect of higher Fock states can be reabsorbed into the energy dependence of $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$. The dipole cross section is flavor independent and represents the universal function of $`r`$ which describes various diffractive processes in unified form. At high energy, when the transverse separation, $`𝐫`$, of the quark and antiquark is frozen during the interaction process, the scattering matrix describing the $`q\overline{q}`$-nucleon interaction becomes diagonal in the mixed $`(𝐫,z)`$-representation ($`z`$ is known also as the Sudakov light cone variable). This diagonalization property is held even when the dipole size, $`𝐫`$, is large, i.e. beyond the perturbative region of short distances.

Following an advantage of the $`(𝐫,z)`$-diagonalization of the $`q\overline{q}N`$ scattering matrix, the imaginary part of the production amplitude for the real (virtual) photoproduction of vector mesons with the momentum transfer $`𝐪`$ can be represented in the factorized form

$$\mathrm{Im}(\gamma ^{}V,\xi ,Q^2,𝐪)=V|\sigma (\xi ,r,z,𝐪)|\gamma ^{}=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑zd^2𝐫\sigma (\xi ,r,z,𝐪)\mathrm{\Psi }_V^{}(𝐫,z)\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(𝐫,z)$$
(3)
whose normalization is $`d\sigma /dt|_{t=0}=||^2/16\pi .`$ In Eq. (3), $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(𝐫,z)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_V(𝐫,z)`$ represent the probability amplitudes to find the color dipole of size, $`r`$, in the photon and quarkonium (vector meson), respectively. The color dipole distribution in (virtual) photons was derived in . $`\sigma (\xi ,r,z,𝐪)`$ is the dipole scattering matrix for $`q\overline{q}N`$ interaction. and represents the above mentioned color dipole cross section for $`𝐪=0`$. At small $`𝐪`$ considered in this paper, one can safely neglect the $`z`$-dependence of $`\sigma (\xi ,r,z,𝐪)`$ for light and heavy vector meson production and set $`z=\frac{1}{2}`$. This follows partially from the analysis within double gluon exchange approximation  leading to a slow $`z`$ dependence of the dipole cross section.

The energy dependence of the dipole cross section is quantified in terms of the dimensionless rapidity, $`\xi =\mathrm{log}\frac{1}{x_{eff}}`$, where $`x_{eff}`$ is the effective value of the Bjorken variable

$$x_{eff}=\frac{Q^2+m_V^2}{Q^2+W^2}\frac{m_V^2+Q^2}{2\nu m_p},$$
(4)
where $`m_p`$ is the proton mass. Hereafter, we will write the energy dependence of the dipole cross section in both variables, either in $`\xi `$ or in $`x_{eff}`$.

The production amplitudes for the transversely (T) and the longitudinally (L) polarized vector mesons with the momentum transfer, $`𝐪`$, can be written in more explicit form

$`\mathrm{Im}_T(x_{eff},Q^2,𝐪)={\displaystyle \frac{N_cC_V\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}}{(2\pi )^2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle }d^2𝐫\sigma (x_{eff},r,𝐪){\displaystyle _0^1}{\displaystyle \frac{dz}{z(1z)}}\{m_q^2K_0(\epsilon r)\varphi (r,z)[z^2+(1z)^2]\epsilon K_1(\epsilon r)_r\varphi (r,z)\}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(m_V^2+Q^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{r^2}\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r,𝐪)}{r^2}W_T(Q^2,r^2)}`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{Im}_L(x_{eff},Q^2,𝐪)={\displaystyle \frac{N_cC_V\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}}`$
$`{\displaystyle }d^2𝐫\sigma (x_{eff},r,𝐪){\displaystyle _0^1}dz\{[m_q^2+z(1z)m_V^2]K_0(\epsilon r)\varphi (r,z)\epsilon K_1(\epsilon r)_r\varphi (r,z)\}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(m_V^2+Q^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{r^2}\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r,𝐪)}{r^2}W_L(Q^2,r^2)}`$ (6)
where

$$\epsilon ^2=m_q^2+z(1z)Q^2,$$
(7)
$`\alpha _{em}`$ is the fine structure constant, $`N_c=3`$ is the number of colors, $`C_V=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}},\frac{1}{3\sqrt{2}},\frac{1}{3},\frac{2}{3},\frac{1}{3}`$ for $`\rho ^0,\omega ^0,\varphi ^0,J/\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ production, respectively and $`K_{0,1}(x)`$ are the modified Bessel functions. The detailed discussion and parameterization of the lightcone radial wave function $`\varphi (r,z)`$ of the $`q\overline{q}`$ Fock state of the vector meson is given in .

The terms $`ϵK_1(ϵr)_r\varphi (𝐫,z)`$ for $`T`$ polarization and $`K_0(ϵr)_r^2\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫,z)`$ for $`L`$ polarization in the integrands of (5) and (6) represent the relativistic corrections which become important at large $`Q^2`$ and for the production of light vector mesons. For the production of heavy quarkonia, the nonrelativistic approximation can be used with a rather high accuracy .

The weight functions, $`W_T(Q^2,r^2)`$ and $`W_L(Q^2,r^2)`$, introduced in (5) and (6) have a smooth $`Q^2`$ behaviour  and are very convenient for the analysis of the scanning phenomenon. They are sharply peaked at $`rA_{T,L}/\sqrt{Q^2+m_V^2}`$. At small $`Q^2`$ the values of the scale parameter $`A_{T,L}`$ are close to $`A6`$, which follows from $`r_S=3/\epsilon `$ with the nonrelativistic choice $`z=\frac{1}{2}`$. In general, $`A_{T,L}6`$ and increases slowly with $`Q^2`$ . For heavy vector meson production, the scale parameters $`A_{T,L}6`$ for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ at $`Q^2100`$ GeV2 and $`A_{T,L}6`$ at $`Q^2=0`$ and $`A_{T,L}7`$ at $`Q^2=100`$GeV2 for $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$. For this reason, the heavy vector mesons can be treated nonrelativistically, except for small relativistic corrections for the electroproduction of charmonia at very large $`Q^2100`$ GeV2. Not so for the light vector mesons where the relativistic corrections play an important role especially at large $`Q^2m_V^2`$, and lead to $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`A_{L,T}`$ coming from the large-size asymmetric $`q\overline{q}`$ configurations: $`A_L(\rho ^0;Q^2=0)6.5,A_L(\rho ^0;Q^2=100\mathrm{GeV}^2)10,A_T(\rho ^0;Q^2=0)7,A_T(\rho ^0,Q^2=100\mathrm{GeV}^2)12`$ . Due to an extra factor $`z(1z)`$ in the integrand of (6) in comparison with (5), the contribution from asymmetric $`q\overline{q}`$ configurations to the longitudinal meson production is considerably smaller.

The integrands in Eqs. (5) and (6) contain the dipole cross section, $`\sigma (\xi ,r,𝐪)`$. As was mentioned, due to a very slow onset of the pure perturbative region (see Eq. (2)), one can easily anticipate a contribution to the production amplitude coming from the semiperturbative and nonperturbative $`r\text{ }>R_c`$. Following the simplest assumption about an additive property of the perturbative and nonperturbative mechanism of interaction, we can represent the contribution of the bare pomeron exchange to $`\sigma (\xi ,r,𝐪)`$ as a sum of the perturbative and nonperturbative component

$$\sigma (\xi ,r,𝐪)=\sigma _{pt}(\xi ,r,𝐪)+\sigma _{npt}(\xi ,r,𝐪),$$
(8)
with the parameterization of both components at small $`𝐪`$

$$\sigma _{pt,npt}(\xi ,r,𝐪)=\sigma _{pt,npt}(\xi ,r,𝐪=0)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}B_{pt,npt}(\xi ,r)𝐪^\mathrm{𝟐}\right).$$
(9)
Here $`\sigma _{pt,npt}(\xi ,r,𝐪=0)=\sigma _{pt,npt}(\xi ,r)`$ represent the contribution of the perturbative and nonperturbative mechanisms to the $`q\overline{q}`$-nucleon interaction cross section, respectively, $`B_{pt,npt}(\xi ,r)`$ are the corresponding diffraction slopes.

A small real part of production amplitudes can be taken in the form

$$\mathrm{Re}(\xi ,r)=\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{}{\xi }\mathrm{Im}(\xi ,r).$$
(10)
and can be easily included in the production amplitudes (5),(6) using substitution

$$\sigma (x_{eff},r,𝐪)\left(1i\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{}{logx_{eff}}\right)\sigma (x_{eff},r)=\left[1i\alpha _V(x_{eff},r)\right]\sigma (x_{eff},r,𝐪)$$
(11)
The formalism for calculation of $`\sigma _{pt}(\xi ,r)`$ in the leading-log $`s`$ approximation was developed in . The nonperturbative contribution, $`\sigma _{npt}(\xi ,r)`$, to the dipole cross section was used in Refs.  where we assume that this soft nonperturbative component of the pomeron is a simple Regge pole with the intercept, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{npt}=0`$. The particular form together with assumption of the energy independent $`\sigma _{npt}(\xi =\xi _0,r)=\sigma _{npt}(r)`$ ($`\xi _0`$ corresponds to boundary condition for the gBFKL evolution, $`\xi _0=\mathrm{log}1/x_0`$, $`x_0=0.03`$) allows one to successfully describe  the proton structure function at very small $`Q^2`$, the real photoabsorption  and diffractive real and virtual photoproduction of light  and heavy  vector mesons. A larger contribution of the nonperturbative pomeron exchange to $`\sigma _{tot}(\gamma p)`$ vs. $`\sigma _{tot}(\gamma ^{}p)`$ can, for example, explain a much slower rise with energy of the real photoabsorption cross section, $`\sigma _{tot}(\gamma p)`$, in comparison with $`F_2(x,Q^2)\sigma _{tot}(\gamma ^{}p)`$ observed at HERA . Besides, the reasonable form of this soft cross section, $`\sigma _{npt}(r)`$, was confirmed in the process of the first determination of the dipole cross section from the experimental data on vector meson electroproduction . The so extracted dipole cross section is in a good agreement with the dipole cross section obtained from the gBFKL dynamics . Thus, this nonperturbative component of the pomeron exchange plays a dominant role at low NMC energies in the production of the light vector mesons, where the scanning radius, $`r_S`$ (2), is large. However, the perturbative component of the pomeron become more important with the rise of energy also in the nonperturbative region of the dipole sizes.

Now we present the basic aspects of the diffraction slope coming from the gBFKL phenomenology . As the result of the generalization of the factorization formula (3) to the diffraction slope of the reaction $`\gamma ^{}pVp`$ one can write

$$B(\gamma ^{}V,\xi ,Q^2)\mathrm{Im}(\gamma ^{}V,\xi ,Q^2,\stackrel{}{q}=0)=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑zd^2\stackrel{}{r}\lambda (\xi ,r)\mathrm{\Psi }_V^{}(r,z)\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(r,z).$$
(12)
where

$$\lambda (\xi ,r)=d^2\stackrel{}{b}\stackrel{}{b}^2\mathrm{\Gamma }(\xi ,\stackrel{}{r,}\stackrel{}{b}).$$
(13)
Then the diffraction slope expressed through the amplitude of elastic scattering of the color dipole $`\mathrm{Im}`$

$$B(\xi ,r)=2d\mathrm{log}\mathrm{Im}(\xi ,r,𝐪)/dq^2|_{q=0}$$
(14)
equals

$$B(\xi ,r)=\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{b}^2=\lambda (\xi ,r)/\sigma (\xi ,r).$$
(15)
The amplitude $`\mathrm{Im}(\xi ,r,𝐪)`$ in (14) within the impact-parameter representation reads

$$\mathrm{Im}(\xi ,r,\stackrel{}{q})=2d^2\stackrel{}{b}\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{b})\mathrm{\Gamma }(\xi ,\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{b}),$$
(16)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\xi ,r,𝐛)`$ is the profile function and $`𝐛`$ is the impact parameter defined with the respect to the center of the $`q\overline{q}`$ dipole.

The diffraction cone in the color dipole gBFKL approach for production of vector mesons has been detaily studied in . Here we only present the salient feature of the color diffraction slope reflecting the presence of the geometrical contribution from beam dipole - $`r^2/8`$ and the contribution from the target proton size - $`R_N^2/3`$:

$$B(\xi ,r)=\frac{1}{8}r^2+\frac{1}{3}R_N^2+2\alpha _{𝐈𝐏}^{}(\xi \xi _0)+𝒪(R_c^2),$$
(17)
where $`R_N`$ is the radius of the proton. For electroproduction of light vector mesons the scanning radius is larger than the correlation one $`r\text{ }>R_c`$ even for $`Q^2\text{ }<50GeV^2`$ and one recovers a sort of additive quark model, in which the uncorrelated gluonic clouds build up around the beam and target quarks and antiquarks and the term $`2\alpha _{𝐈𝐏}^{}(\xi \xi _0)`$ describe the familiar Regge growth of diffraction slope for the quark-quark scattering. The geometrical contribution to the diffraction slope from the target proton size, $`\frac{1}{3}R_N^2`$, persists for all the dipole sizes, $`r\text{ }>R_c`$ and $`r\text{ }<R_c`$. The last term in (17) is also associated with the proton size and is negligibly small.

The soft pomeron and diffractive scattering of large color dipole has been also detaily studied in the paper . Here we assume the conventional Regge rise of the diffraction slope for the soft pomeron,

$$B_{npt}(\xi ,r)=\mathrm{\Delta }B_d(r)+\mathrm{\Delta }B_N+2\alpha _{npt}^{^{}}(\xi \xi _0),$$
(18)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_d(r)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_N`$ stand for the contribution from the beam dipole and target nucleon size. As a guidance we take the experimental data on the pion-nucleon scattering , which suggest $`\alpha _{npt}^{}=0.15`$ GeV-2. In (18) the proton size contribution is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }B_N=\frac{1}{3}R_N^2,$$
(19)
and the beam dipole contribution has been proposed to have a form

$$B_d(r)=\frac{r^2}{8}\frac{r^2+aR_N^2}{3r^2+aR_N^2},$$
(20)
where $`a`$ is a phenomenological parameter, $`a1`$. We take $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_N=4.8\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. Then the pion-nucleon diffraction slope is reproduced with reasonable values of the parameter $`a`$ in the formula (20): $`a=0.9`$ for $`\alpha _{npt}^{}=0.15`$ GeV-2 .

Following the simple geometrical properties of the gBFKL diffraction slope, $`B(\xi ,r)`$, (see Eq. (17) and ), one can express its energy dependence through the energy dependent effective Regge slope, $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)`$

$$B_{pt}(\xi ,r)\frac{1}{3}<R_N^2>+\frac{1}{8}r^2+2\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)(\xi \xi _0).$$
(21)
The effective Regge slope, $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)`$, varies with energy differently at different size of the color dipole ; at fixed scanning radius and/or $`Q^2+m_V^2`$, it decreases with energy. At fixed rapidity $`\xi `$ and/or $`x_{eff}`$ (4), $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)`$ rises with $`r\text{ }<1.5`$ fm. At fixed energy, it is a flat function of the scanning radius. At the asymptotically large $`\xi `$ ($`W`$), $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)\alpha _{𝐈𝐏}^{}=0.072`$ GeV-2. At the lower and HERA energies, the subasymptotic $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)(0.150.20)`$ GeV-2 and is very close to $`\alpha _{soft}^{}`$ known from the Regge phenomenology of soft scattering. It means, that the gBKFL dynamics predicts a substantial rise with the energy and dipole size, $`r`$, of the diffraction slope, $`B(\xi ,r)`$, in accordance with the energy and dipole size dependence of the effective Regge slope, $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)`$ and due to a presence of the geometrical component, $`r^2`$, in (17) and (18).

Generalized factorization formula (12) for the forward diffraction slope can be re-written for somewhat better understanding of anomalous properties of the forward diffraction slope for production of $`V^{}(2S)`$ vector mesons

$`B(\gamma ^{}V,\xi ,Q^2,𝐪=0)={\displaystyle \frac{V|\sigma (\xi ,r)B(\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}}{V|\sigma (\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}}}=`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑zd^2𝐫\sigma (\xi ,r)B(\xi ,r)\mathrm{\Psi }_V^{}(𝐫,z)\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(𝐫,z)}{\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑zd^2𝐫\sigma (\xi ,r)\mathrm{\Psi }_V^{}(𝐫,z)\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(𝐫,z)}}`$ (22)
## 3 Diffraction slope for $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi ^0`$ electroproduction: model predictions vs. experiment

Firstly the model predictions for the diffraction slope will be tested taking the fixed target and HERA data of $`V(1S)`$ vector meson production. The color dipole gBFKL dynamics predicts a substantial growth with energy of the diffraction slope coming from Eqs. (18) and (21). According to simple geometrical behaviour, $`r^2`$, of the slope parameter (18,21), we expect a shrinkage of the diffraction slope with $`Q^2`$ in accordance with the scanning property in vector meson production (see Eq. (2)). In Fig.1 we compare the model predictions for $`Q^2`$ dependence of the diffraction slope for $`\rho ^0`$ production with the low energy data of the CHIO  NMC  and E665  collaborations and the data from H1  and ZEUS  experiments. Although the experimental data have still large error bars, they show a trend to smaller values of the diffraction slope as $`Q^2`$ increases. We predict a steep shrinkage of $`B(\rho ^0)`$ with $`Q^2`$ on the scale $`Q^2(0,5)`$ GeV2: it falls down, by $`4`$ GeV-2 from $`8.7`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^2=0`$ down to 5.0 GeV-2 at $`Q^2=5`$ GeV2 and to 4.6 GeV-2 at $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2 in accordance with the low energy CHIO, NMC and E665 data. At HERA energy, we predict a higher shrinkage from $`10.7`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^2=0`$ down to $`6.0`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2 not in disagreement with the data of H1 and ZEUS collaborations. Concerning the shrinkage of the diffraction slope with energy $`W`$, in the photoproduction limit $`Q^2=0`$ the data show a possible presence of the considerably large rise from the fixed target to HERA energy range. However, the large error bars of the data affect the large errors on $`\alpha ^{}`$\- fit  and preclude any definitive statement. In Fig.2 we predict this substantial growth, by $`2.32.4`$ GeV-2 from $`8.38.4`$ GeV-2 at $`W=10`$ GeV up to $`10.7`$ GeV-2 at $`W=100`$ GeV in accordance with the data from the fixed target experiments  and the data from HERA experiments . This rise corresponds to effective Regge slope, $`\alpha ^{}0.250.26`$ GeV-2.

We would like to emphasize, that the overall effective Regge slope, $`\alpha ^{}`$, contains the energy dependent contribution of the perturbative component, $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(xi,r)`$, characterizing the energy rise of the gBFKL slope, $`B_{pt}(\xi ,r)`$ (see Eq. (17,(21)), and the constant nonperturbative (soft) Regge slope, $`\alpha _{npt}^{}=0.15`$ GeV-2, corresponding to the soft component of the slope, $`B_{npt}(\xi ,r)`$ (see Eq. (18)). As was mentioned in Ref. , in the energy range, $`W(50200)`$ GeV, the effective Regge slope, $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)`$, varies slowly within the interval $`(0.150.20)`$ GeV-2 at different scanning radii $`\text{ }<1`$ fm and is approximately a flat function of the scanning radius at fixed energy corresponding to HERA experiments; for instance, at $`W=100`$ GeV, $`\alpha _{eff}^{}0.15`$ GeV-2 at $`r_S0.1`$ fm , $`\alpha _{eff}^{}0.160.17`$ GeV-2 at $`r_S0.20.5`$ fm , $`\alpha _{eff}^{}0.19.0.20`$ GeV-2 at $`r_S0.60.9`$ fm , $`\alpha _{eff}^{}\text{ }>0.20`$ GeV-2 at $`r_S\text{ }>1.0`$ fm . $`\alpha _{npt}^{}`$ only slightly modifies the overall effective Regge slope $`\alpha ^{}`$.

In Fig.2 we show also the energy dependence of the slope parameter for $`\rho ^0`$ virtual photoproduction at $`Q^210`$ GeV2 vs. NMC  and H1  data. The growth with energy $`W`$ is much smaller than at $`Q^2=0`$: $`B(\rho ^0)`$ rises from $`4.4`$ GeV-2 at $`W=10`$ GeV up to $`6.0`$ GeV-2 at $`W=100`$ GeV. It correspond to effective Regge slope $`0.17`$ GeV-2. At $`Q^22030`$ GeV2, we predict $`\alpha ^{}0.15`$ GeV-2, which is in accordance with value of the effective shrinkage rate of the diffraction slope for $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ elastic photoproduction ($`Q^2=0`$) presented in the paper . It confirms an approximate flavor independence of the effective Regge slope in the scaling variable $`Q^2+m_V^2`$.

Fig.3 shows the analogical $`W`$ dependence of the slope for real $`\varphi ^0`$ photoproduction together with the data from fixed target  and collider HERA experiments . Unfortunately, the error bars are quite a large to see a clear evidence of the shrinkage of $`B(\varphi ^0)`$ with energy. The model predictions do not show a deviation from the data and it is not in disagreement with the conclusion about a shrinkage of the diffraction peak with energy expected from the gBFKL dynamics. The energy growth of $`B(\varphi ^0)`$ on the interval of $`W(10100)`$ GeV, is expected to correspond to overall effective Regge slope $`\alpha ^{}0.200.21`$ GeV-2.

Regarding a comparison with the data, the most straightforward theoretical predictions are for the forward production and we calculate $`d\sigma /dt|_{t=0}`$ and $`B(t=0)`$. The data on the vector meson production correspond to a slope extracted over quite a broad range of $`t`$ using an extrapolation to $`t=0`$, and the minimal value of $`t`$, corresponding to the fist experimental point in $`t`$\- distribution, is relatively far from $`t=0`$. Also the range of $`t`$ is different in different experiments. This fact explains quite a large dispersion of the low-energy data which is the most striking for $`\varphi ^0`$ production depicted on Fig.3 (see also Fig.2). Moreover, the above extrapolation is not always possible and one often reports the $`t`$-integrated production cross sections. Because of the model calculations are at $`t=0`$ and because of a well known rapid rise of the diffraction slope towards $`t=0`$ , the experimental data may underestimate $`B(V)`$ at $`t=0`$. For average $`t`$ 0.1-0.2 GeV2 which dominate the integrated total cross section, the diffraction slope is smaller than at $`t=0`$ by $`1`$ GeV-2 . We take these $`\pi N`$ scattering data for the guidance, and for more direct comparison with the presently available experimental data instead of the directly calculated $`B(t=0)`$ we report in Figs.1-3 the value

$$B=B(t=0)1GeV^2$$
(23)
The uncertainties in the value of $`B`$ and with this evaluation (23) presumably do not exceed $`10\%`$ and can be reduced when more accurate data will become available. However, hereafter we will present the model predictions for the diffraction slope at $`t=0`$.

More detailed predictions for the energy and $`Q^2`$ dependence of the forward diffraction slope $`B(V,t=0)`$ for the $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi ^0`$ production (for $`T`$, $`L`$ and mixed $`T+ϵL`$ polarizations, with $`ϵ=1`$) are presented in Fig.4. They show a substantial shrinkage of the elastic peak with energy at different $`Q^2`$. The energy rise of the diffraction slope is more evident than for the production of heavy vector mesons .

The rate of rise with energy of the diffraction slope decreases slowly with $`Q^2`$: on the interval of the c.m.s. energy $`W(10100)`$ GeV the corresponding $`\alpha ^{}0.25`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^2=0`$, $`\alpha ^{}0.21`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^20.5`$ GeV2, $`\alpha ^{}0.19`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^21.0`$ GeV2, $`\alpha ^{}0.17`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^25.0`$ GeV2 and $`\alpha ^{}0.16`$ GeV-2 at $`Q^220`$ GeV2. The effective Regge slope becomes still smaller at very large $`Q^2`$ and $`W`$ when the scanning radius $`r_S\text{ }<R_c`$ and a contribution of $`\alpha _{npt}^{}=0.15`$ GeV-2 to overall $`\alpha ^{}`$ becomes practically insignificant. At $`Q^2\text{ }>100`$ GeV2 when the scanning radius $`r_S\text{ }<R_c`$, and one can observe a standard picture of a decreasing rate of energy growth of $`B(V)`$ expected from gBFKL dynamics (see Fig. 4).

The above results for the energy growth of the slope parameter can be tested in higher statistics data from HERA experiments measuring the exclusive electroproduction of vector mesons. The measurement of energy rise of the slope parameter at different $`Q^2`$ can give an information about a contribution of the nonperturbative component of the diffraction slope, $`B_{npt}(\xi ,r)`$, and the effective Regge slope, $`\alpha _{eff}^{}(\xi ,r)`$. The more precise data could also test the universal properties of diffraction slope and effective Regge slope for production of different vector mesons, i.e. a similarity between the production of different vector mesons when compared at the same value of the scanning radius $`r_S`$ and/or the same value of $`Q^2+m_V^2`$ (see Eq. (2)). Such a comparison must be performed at the same energy and/or rapidity $`\xi `$, which also means the equality of $`x_{eff}`$ at equal $`Q^2+m_V^2`$ (see ). The value of $`Q^2`$ must be large enough so that the scanning radius $`r_S`$ is smaller than the radii of vector mesons, $`r_S\text{ }<R_V`$. It means, that for all reactions $`\gamma ^{}pVp`$ with the same $`r_S`$ and $`\xi `$, we predict approximately the same $`B(V)`$ and $`\alpha _{eff}^{}`$ .

Although a new data on the diffraction slope were obtained from collider HERA experiments measuring the real (virtual) photoproduction of vector mesons, the present experimental information on the energy and $`Q^2`$ dependence of the diffraction slope for vector meson production is not still very conclusive. Especially, it concerns to $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ photoproduction. There are no data yet on the diffraction slope for the real (virtual) photoproduction of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and the radially excited $`(2S)`$ heavy vector mesons111 More detailed discussion of the data on the slope parameter for heavy vector meson production is presented in Ref. . The data on the diffraction slope measuring the photo- and electroproduction of light vector mesons presented on Figs. 1-3 have still large error bars. The ZEUS and H1 data on virtual photoproduction give $`B(\rho ^0,W80`$ GeV,$`7<Q^2<25`$ GeV$`{}_{}{}^{2})=5.1+1.20.9(stat)\pm 1.0(syst)`$ GeV-2 , $`B(\rho ^0,W100`$ GeV,$`Q^2=28`$ GeV$`{}_{}{}^{2})=4.4+3.52.8(stat)+3.71.2(syst)`$ GeV-2  and $`B(\rho ^0,W75`$ GeV,$`Q^2=21.2`$ GeV$`{}_{}{}^{2})=4.7\pm 1.0(stat)\pm 0.7(syst)`$ GeV-2  which is close to $`B(J/\mathrm{\Psi },W=90`$ GeV$`,Q^2=0)=4.7\pm 1.9`$ GeV-2, $`B(J/\mathrm{\Psi },W=90`$ GeV$`,Q^2=0)=4.0\pm 0.3`$ GeV-2 from H1 data  and to $`B(J/\mathrm{\Psi },W=90`$ GeV$`,Q^2=0)=4.5\pm 1.4`$ GeV-2 $`B(J/\mathrm{\Psi },W=90`$ GeV$`,Q^2=0)=4.6\pm 0.4(stat)+0.40.6(syst)`$ GeV-2 from ZEUS data  in accordance with $`(Q^2+m_V^2)`$\- scaling of the diffraction slope. High statistics data are needed from the both fixed target and the collider HERA experiments for both the exploratory study of very interesting $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of $`B(V)`$ and the precise test of the $`(Q^2+m_V^2)`$\- scaling of the diffraction slope.

## 4 Anomalous diffraction slope in electroproduction of $`2S`$ radially excited vector mesons

Now we concentrate on the production of radially excited $`V(2S)`$ light vector mesons, where the node effect is known to be presented \- the $`Q^2`$ and energy dependent cancellations from the soft (large size) and hard (small size) contributions, i.e. from the region above and below the node position, $`r_n`$, to the $`V^{}(2S)`$ production amplitude. The strong $`Q^2`$ dependence of these cancellations comes from the scanning phenomenon (2) when the scanning radius $`r_S`$ for some value of $`Q^2`$ is close to $`r_nR_V`$. The energy dependence of the node effect comes from the different energy dependence of the dipole cross section at small ($`r<R_V`$) and large ($`r>R_V`$) dipole sizes. The strong node effect in production of radially excited light vector mesons leading to an anomalous $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the production cross section has been demonstrated in Ref. 222 Manifestations of the node effect in electroproduction on nuclei were discussed earlier, see  and

Note, that the predictive power is weak and is strongly model dependent in the region of $`Q^2`$ and energy where the node effect becomes exact.

For the production of $`V^{}(2S)`$ light vector mesons, the node effect depends on the polarization of the virtual photon and of the produced vector meson . The wave functions of $`T`$ and $`L`$ polarized (virtual) photon are different. Different regions of $`z`$ contribute to the $`_T`$ and $`_L`$. Different scanning radii for production of $`T`$ and $`L`$ polarized vector mesons and different energy dependence of $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$ at these scanning radii lead to a different $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the node effect in production of $`T`$ and $`L`$ polarized $`V^{}(2S)`$ vector mesons. Not so for production of heavy quarkonia, where the node effect is very weak and is approximately polarization independent. However, there is a weak polarization dependence of the node effect for $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ photoproduction  and this weak node effect still leads to a nonmonotonic $`Q^2`$ dependence of the diffraction slope. For $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{}`$ production the node effect is negligibly small and is polarization independent with very high accuracy.

There are two possible scenarios for the node effect: the undercompensation and the overcompensation regime . In the undercompensation case, the $`2S`$ production amplitude $`V^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$ is dominated by the positive contribution coming from small dipole sizes, $`r\text{ }<r_n`$ ($`r_n`$ is the node position), and the $`V(1S)`$ and $`V^{}(2S)`$ photoproduction amplitudes have the same sign. This scenario corresponds namely to the production of $`2S`$ heavy vector mesons, $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(2S)`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{}(2S)`$. In the overcompensation case, the $`2S`$ production amplitude $`V^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$ is dominated by the negative contribution coming from large dipole sizes, $`r\text{ }>r_n`$, and the $`V(1S)`$ and $`V^{}(2S)`$ photoproduction amplitudes have the opposite sign.

The anomalous properties of the diffraction slope can be understood from the expression (22). The denominator represents the well known production amplitude $`V(V^{})|\sigma (\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$. As it was mentioned, the $`1S`$ production amplitude is dominated by contribution from dipole size $`rr_S`$ (2). However, due to $`r^2`$ behaviour of the slope parameter (see (18) and (21)), the integrand of the matrix element in the numerator, $`V(1S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)B(\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$, is $`r^5\mathrm{exp}(ϵr)`$ and is peaked by $`rr_B=5/3r_S`$.

Let us start from $`T`$ polarized $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ In Ref.  using our model wave functions for vector mesons, we found the undercompensation scenario at $`Q^2=0`$ for the production amplitude $`V_T^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$, which is positive valued. However, because of the large numerical factor $`10`$ for $`r_B10/\sqrt{Q^2+m_V^2}>r_S`$, the matrix element $`V_T^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)B(\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$ in the numerator of Eq. (22) corresponds to the overcompensation scenario at $`Q^2=0`$ and at energy range $`\text{ }<1520`$ GeV and is negative valued. As the result, the numerator and denominator have the opposite signs resulting in a negative value for the diffraction slope, $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ at $`Q^2=0`$. However the node effect for production of $`phi^{}(2S)`$ is weaker resulting in positive valued numerator of Eq. (22). Both the numerator and denominator have the same sign and we start with positive valued diffraction slope. Such a situation is depicted in Fig. 5 (bottom boxes) for both the $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ production, where we present the model predictions for the forward diffraction slope $`(t=0)`$ as a function of $`Q^2`$ at different values of the c.m.s. energy $`W`$.

A decrease of the scanning radius with $`Q^2`$ leads to a very rapid decrease of the negative contribution to the diffraction slope coming from $`r\text{ }>r_n`$ and consequently, leads to a steep rise of the negative valued $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ with $`Q^2`$ for $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ production (positive valued $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ with $`Q^2`$ for $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ production). For $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ production at some value of $`Q^2Q_T^20.01`$ GeV2, one encounters the exact cancellation of the large and small distance contributions, i.e. the exact node effect for the numerator of Eq. (22), and $`B(V_T^{}(2S))=0`$. Not so for $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ production, where the numerator of Eq. (22) is in the undercompensation regime already at very small energies $`5`$ GeV.

We would like to emphasize that the position of $`Q_T^2`$ is model dependent and can be shifted towards to smaller or to larger values.

At larger $`Q^2`$ and smaller scanning radius, one enters the undercompensation scenario also for numerator $`V_T^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)B(\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$. Thus, the diffraction slope will be positive valued and continues to rise strongly with $`Q^2`$ due to a more rapid decrease with $`Q^2`$ of the negative contribution to the slope parameter coming from $`r\text{ }>r_n`$ in numerator than in denominator (the numerator has much stronger node effect than the denominator). At still larger $`Q^2`$, i.e. smaller scanning radii $`r_S`$, the node effect also for the numerator becomes to be weaker and as the result, the slope parameter at fixed energy $`W`$ and some value of $`Q^2(0.52.0)`$ GeV2, has a maximum of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$. At very large $`Q^2m_V^2`$, when the node effect becomes negligible, $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ has the standard $`Q^2`$\- behaviour and decreases monotonously with $`Q^2`$ following the behaviour of the diffraction slope $`B(V_{L,T}(1S))`$ for $`V(1S)`$ mesons (see Fig. 4).

The more interesting situation is for production of $`L`$ polarized $`V^{}(2S)`$ mesons resulting in a very spectacular pattern of $`Q^2`$ dependence of the slope parameter shown in Fig. 5 (middle boxes). Using our model wave functions, we predicted overcompensation for the production amplitude $`V_L^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$ . Because of $`r_B>r_S`$, the matrix element $`V_L^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)B(\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$, will be also in the overcompensation regime. For this reason, the both matrix elements have the same sign and according to (22) the slope parameter $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ will be positive valued at $`Q^2=0`$ (see Fig. 5). Consequently, with the decrease of the scanning radius with $`Q^2`$, there is a rapid decrease of the negative contributions to the numerator and denominator of Eq. (22) coming from $`r\text{ }>r_n`$. For some $`Q^2Q_L^20.51.0`$ GeV2 one encounters the exact node effect firstly for the denominator due to $`r_B>r_S`$. This fact corresponds to a presence of the peak for $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ for both the $`\rho _L^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi _L^{}(2S)`$ production. The value of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ corresponding to this exact node effect will be finite due to a different node effect for the real and imaginary part of the production amplitude. This fact also reflects the continuous transition of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ from positive to negative values when the matrix element in denominator passes from the overcompensation to undercompensation regime. Thus, for $`Q^2Q_L^20.51.0`$ GeV2, the denominator will be in the undercompensation regime and $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ starts to rise from its minimal negative value. Note, that the numerator is still in the overcompensation. The further pattern of the $`Q^2`$ behaviour of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ is analogical to that for $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$. However, the exact node effect for the numerator in Eq. (22), resulting in $`B(V_L^{}(2S))=0`$, will be at $`Q^2Q_L^2>Q_L^2`$. For $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ production because of different node effect for the real and imaginary part of production amplitude, at HERA energy range $`W50200`$ GeV $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ never reaches the zero value corresponding to the exact node effect for the numerator of Eq. (22).

For the production of polarization unseparated $`V^{}(2S)`$, the anomalous properties of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ are essentially invisible and the corresponding slope parameter $`B(V^{}(2S))`$ is shown in Fig. 5 (bottom boxes). Although the above value of $`Q_T^2`$ is too small to be measured experimentally (we can not exclude that $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ will start from positive valued $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ at small energies also for $`\rho ^{}(2S`$) production), we predict nonmonotonic $`Q^2`$ dependence of the diffraction slope for production of $`T`$ polarized and polarization unseparated $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$, strikingly different from monotonic $`Q^2`$ behaviour of the slope parameter for $`V(1S)`$ production (see Fig. 4). For production of $`\rho _L^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi _L^{}(2S)`$, we predict anomalous $`Q^2`$ behaviour of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$. Here we can not insist on the precise values of $`Q_T^2`$, $`Q_L^2`$ and $`Q_L^2`$ which is subject of the soft-hard cancellations. We would like to only emphasize that the exact node effect for $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ and $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ is at a finite $`Q_T^2`$ and $`Q_L^2`$, $`Q_L^2`$ respectively. Such a nonmonotonic $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ and/or $`B(V^{}(2S))`$ can be tested experimentally at HERA measuring the virtual photoproduction of the $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ at $`Q^2(010)`$ GeV2. The above discussed anomalous $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`B(V_L^{}(2S)`$ could be also investigated at HERA separating $`L`$ polarized $`\rho _L^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi _L^{}(2S)`$ at moderate $`Q^2(0.12.0)`$ GeV2. Here we would like to emphasize that only the experiment can help in decision between the undercompensation and overcompensation scenarios which affect the anomalous properties of the production cross section and diffraction slope.

The energy dependence of the slope parameter $`B(V^{}(2S))`$ at different $`Q^2`$ is shown in Fig.6 and has its own peculiarities. Let us start with $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ at $`Q^2=0`$. Fig. 6 demonstrates (top boxes) steeper rise with energy of the diffraction slope at lower $`Q^2`$. There are several reasons for such a behaviour. First, the gBFKL dynamics predicts a steeper rise with energy of the positive contribution to the $`2S`$ amplitudes $`V^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$ and $`V^{}(2S)|\sigma (\xi ,r)B(\xi ,r)|\gamma ^{}`$ coming from small size dipoles $`r\text{ }<r_n`$ than the negative contribution coming from large size dipoles $`r\text{ }>r_n`$. Thus, the destructive interference of these two contributions is weaker at higher energy. Second, at $`Q^2=0`$, the denominator of Eq. (22) is in the undercompensation, whereas the numerator is in the overcompensation regime (numerator is in the undercompensation regime for $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ production) and the corresponding scanning radii for the numerator and denominator are different, $`r_B>r_S`$. Third, the energy dependence of the slope parameter is given by the effective Regge slope $`\alpha ^{}`$. Thus, the above destructive interference in numerator decreases drastically with $`W`$ the negative contribution from $`r\text{ }>r_n`$ until the exact node effect is reached, i.e. $`B(V_T^{}(2S))=0`$, and the undercompensation scenario also for the numerator of Eq. (22) starts to be realized at $`W20`$ GeV. However, closeness of the node position in the numerator of Eq. (22) leads to a small negative value of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ at $`W5`$ GeV and as a result it leads in a little bit steeper growth with energy of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ than the expected energy rise of the slope coming only from the effective Regge slope. For example, for $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ production we predict the rise of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$, by $`2.8`$ GeV-2, from $`W=10`$ to $`100`$ GeV. At $`Q^2\text{ }>1.0`$ GeV2, when both the numerator and denominator are in the undercompensation regime and the node effect becomes weak, the energy growth of $`B(V^{}(2S))`$ is connected mainly with the effective Regge slope and we predict approximately the same quantities and energy growth for $`B(V^{}(2S))`$ and $`B(V(1S))`$ (compare Fig. 4 and Fig. 6).

The successful separation of the longitudinally polarized $`V_L^{}(2S)`$ mesons at HERA offers an unique possibility to study an anomalous $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the diffraction slope connected with the overcompensation scenario of the denominator of Eq. (22). At $`Q^2=0`$, we have onset of the overcompensation scenario for both the numerator and denominator of Eq. (22). At moderate energy and $`Q^2`$ closed but smaller than $`Q_L^20.5`$ GeV2, the negative contribution coming from $`r\text{ }>r_n`$ still takes over in the denominator (the numerator is safely in the overcompensation regime due to $`r_B>r_S`$). Due to a steeper rise with energy of the positive contribution to the $`2S`$ production amplitude coming from small size dipoles $`r\text{ }<r_n`$ than the negative contribution coming from large size dipoles $`r\text{ }>r_n`$, we find an exact cancallation of these two contributions to the denominator and a maximum of the diffraction slope $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ at some intermediate energy followed by a rapid continuous transition from the positive to negative values, when the matrix element in denominator of Eq. (22) passes from the overcompensation to the undercompensation regime. Different node effect for the real and imaginary part of the production amplitude provides such a continuous transition. Then, at larger energies, the production amplitude is in the undercompensation regime, $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ is negative valued and starts to rise from the minimal negative value. This situation is depicted in Fig. 6 (middle boxes), where we predict with our model wave functions such a nonmonotonic energy behaviour of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ for both $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ production at $`Q^2\text{ }<0.71.0`$ GeV2. The position $`W_t`$ of maximum and the transition from the positive to negative values of the logitudinally polarized diffraction slope depends on $`Q^2`$. For example, at $`Q^20.7`$ GeV2, we find $`W_t7080`$ GeV. Then, the position of $`W_t`$ is shifted to smaller values of $`W`$ at larger $`Q^2\text{ }>0.7`$ GeV2 at can be measured at HERA.

At higher $`Q^2`$ and smaller scanning radii, the further pattern of the energy behaviour of $`B(V_L^{}(2S)`$ is an analogical to $`W`$ dependence of $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$. At still larger $`Q^2`$, after the exact node effect was reached also in the numerator of Eq. (22) at $`Q_L^2>Q_L^2`$, both the numerator and denominator are in the undercompensation regime. Consequently, the node effect also in the numerator starts to be weaker with $`Q^2`$ and the energy growth of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ is controlled practically by the effective Regge slope. As the result we predict again almost the same quantities and energy growth for $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ and $`B(V_L(1S))`$.

If the leptoproduction of the transversally and longitudinally polarized $`V_T^{}(2S)`$ and $`V_L^{}(2S)`$ mesons will be separated experimentally, there is a possibility of experimental determination of a concrete scenario in $`T`$ and $`L`$ polarized $`2S`$ production amplitude by a measurement of the corresponding diffraction slopes at $`t=0`$ and at $`Q^2=0`$, where the node effect is found to be the strongest. If at the same energy and $`Q^2=0`$ the slope parameter for $`V_T^{}(2S)`$ production will be smaller (it can be also negative valued) than the corresponding slope parameter for $`V_T(1S)`$ production, then the $`2S`$ production amplitude is in the undercompensation regime. In the opposite case, if $`B(V_T^{}(2S))>B(V_T(1S)`$, then the corresponding $`T`$ polarized $`2S`$ amplitude is in the overcompensation. The analogical conclusion concerns to $`L`$ polarized $`2S`$ production amplitude, where the values of $`Q^2`$ should be high enough to have the data with a reasonable statistics, however must not be very large in order to have a strong node effect. We propose the range of $`Q^20.52.0`$ GeV2 for a possible study of the overcompensation scenario at HERA. The further supplementary indication of the overcompensation scenario is assumed to be an existence of the maximum and/or minimum of the diffraction slope and subsequent a sudden rise of $`B(V^{}(2S))`$ at some nonzero value of $`Q^2`$.

## 5 Conclusions

We study the diffractive photo- and electroproduction of ground state $`1S`$ and radially excited $`2S`$ vector mesons within the color dipole gBFKL dynamics with the main emphasis related to the diffraction slope. There are two main consequences of vector meson production coming from the gBFKL dynamics. First, the energy dependence of the $`1S`$ vector meson production is controlled by the energy dependence of the dipole cross section which is steeper for smaller dipole sizes. The energy dependence of the diffraction slope for $`V(1S)`$ production is given by the effective Regge slope with a small variation with energy. Second the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the $`1S`$ vector meson production is controlled by the shrinkage of the transverse size of the virtual photon and the small dipole size dependence of the color dipole cross section. The $`Q^2`$ behaviour of the diffraction slope is given by the simple geometrical properties, $`r^2`$, coming from the gBFKL phenomenology of the slope parameter. In the gBFKL dynamics, we expect a fast subasymptotic shrinkage of the diffraction cone from the CERN/FNAL to HERA energy due to intrusion of large distance effects. We have predicted a reach pattern of $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the diffraction slope for the $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi ^0`$ production and find a substantial rise (by $`2.32.4`$ GeV-2 for $`\rho ^0`$ production and by $`1.92.0`$ GeV-2 for $`\varphi ^0`$ production) from the fixed target, $`W1015`$ GeV, to the collider HERA, $`W100150`$ GeV, range of energy. The model predictions for the diffraction slope for the $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi ^0`$ production are in agreement with the data from the fixed target (CHIO, NMC) and collider HERA (H1, ZEUS) experiments. However, the relatively large error bars of the data preclude any definite statement about a shrinkage of the slope parameter with energy. The data show a trend to smaller values of the diffraction slope as $`Q^2`$ increases.

The second class of predictions is related to the diffraction slope for the production of $`2S`$ vector mesons. As a consequence of the strong node effect in electroproduction of $`2S`$ light vector mesons $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$, we present the strong case for the anomalous $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the diffraction slope at $`t=0`$. We find a nonmonotonic $`Q^2`$ dependence of the slope parameter which can be tested at HERA in the range of $`Q^2(010)`$ GeV2 measuring the virtual photoproduction of $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ mesons. For the production of longitudinally polarized $`2S`$ mesons, the production amplitude is in the overcompensation scenario and we find a very rapid transition of the slope parameter $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ from positive to negative values at $`Q^2=Q_L^20.52.0`$ GeV2 as a consequence of a reaching of the exact node effect by passing from the overcompensation to undercompensation scenario in $`2S`$ production amplitude. The position of this rapid transition, $`Q_L^2`$, is energy dependent and leads to nonmonotonic energy dependence of $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ at fixed $`Q^2`$.

At $`Q^2=0`$, when the node effect is strong, for undercompensation scenario we predict smaller $`B(V_T^{}(2S))`$ than $`B(V_T(1S))`$. However, for overcompensation scenario we predict larger $`B(V_L^{}(2S))`$ than $`B(V_L(1S))`$. This is a very crucial point of a possible experimental determination of a concrete scenario measuring (and the position of the node as well) the diffraction slope at $`t=0`$ for the production of $`V^{}(2S)`$ mesons in the photoproduction limit.

At larger $`Q^2`$ and/or shorter scanning radius, the node effect becomes weak and we predict for $`V^{}(2S)`$ mesons the standard monotonic $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the slope parameter like for $`V(1S)`$ mesons. One needs the higher accuracy data from the both fixed target and the collider HERA experiments for the exploratory study of $`Q^2`$ and energy dependence of the diffraction slope at $`t=0`$.

Figure captions:

* \- The color dipole model predictions for the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the diffraction slope for the production of $`\rho ^0`$ vs. the low-energy fixed target CHIO , NMC , E665  and high-energy ZEUS  and H1  data.
* \- The color dipole model predictions for the $`W`$ dependence of the diffraction slope for the production of $`\rho ^0`$ vs. the low-energy fixed target , and high-energy ZEUS  and H1  data The top solid curve is a prediction for the diffraction slope at $`Q^2=0`$. The lower dashed curve represents a prediction at $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2.
* \- The color dipole model predictions for the $`W`$ dependence of the diffraction slope for the real photoproduction of $`\varphi ^0`$ vs. the low-energy fixed target  and high-energy ZEUS data .
* \- The color dipole model predictions for the $`W`$ dependence of the diffraction slope $`B(t=0)`$ for production of transversely (T) (top boxes), longitudinally (L) (middle boxes) polarized and polarization-unseparated (T) + $`ϵ`$(L) (bottom boxes) $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi ^0`$ for $`ϵ=1`$ at different values of $`Q^2`$.
* \- The color dipole model predictions for the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the diffraction slope $`B(t=0)`$ for production of transversely (T) (top boxes), longitudinally (L) (middle boxes) polarized and polarization-unseparated (T) + $`ϵ`$(L) (bottom boxes) $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ for $`ϵ=1`$ at different values of the c.m.s. energy $`W`$.
* \- The color dipole model predictions for the $`W`$ dependence of the diffraction slope $`B(t=0)`$ for production of transversely (T) (top boxes), longitudinally (L) (middle boxes) polarized and polarization-unseparated (T) + $`ϵ`$(L) (bottom boxes) $`\rho ^{}(2S)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}(2S)`$ for $`ϵ=1`$ at different values of $`Q^2`$.


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# From the Neutrino to the Edge of the Universe

## 1 Introduction

In the recent years, there have been two significant findings which necessitate a closer look at the existing standard models of Particle Physics and Cosmology. The first is the Superkamiokande experiment which demonstrates a neutrino oscillation and therefore a non zero mass, whereas, strictly going by the standard model, the neutrino should have zero mass. The other finding based on distant supernovae observations is that the universe will continue to expand without deceleration and infact possibly accelerating in the process.
We will now demonstrate how a recent model of fractal, quantized space time arising from the underpinning of a quantum vaccuum or Zero Point Field, reconciles both the above facts, in addition to being in agreement with other experimental and observational data.

## 2 Neutrino Mass

According to a recent model, elementary particles, typically leptons, can be treated as, what may be called Quantum Mechanical Black Holes (QMBH), which share certain features of Black Holes and also certain Quantum Mechanical characteristics. Essentially they are bounded by the Compton wavelength within which non local or negative energy phenomena occur, these manifesting themselves as the Zitterbewegung of the electron. These Quantum Mechanical Black Holes are created out of the background Zero Point Field and this leads to a consistent cosmology, wherein using $`N`$, the number of particles in the universe as the only large scale parameter, one could deduce from the theory, Hubble’s law, the Hubble’s constant, the radius, mass, and age of the universe and features like the hitherto inexplicable relation between the pion mass and the Hubble constant. The model also predicts an ever expanding universe, as recent observations do confirm.
Within this framework, it was pointed out that the neutrino would be a massless and charge less version of the electron and it was deduced that it would be lefthanded, because one would everywhere encounter the psuedo spinorial (”negative energy”) components of the Dirac spinor, by virtue of the fact that its Compton wavelength is infinite (in practise very large). Based on these considerations we will now argue that the neutrino would exhibit an anomalous Bosonic behaviour which could provide a clue to the neutrino mass.
As detailed in  the Fermionic behaviour is due to the non local or Zitterbewegung effects within the Compton wavelength effectively showing up as the well known negative energy components of the Dirac spinor which dominate within while positive energy components predominate outside leading to a doubly connected space or equivalently the spinorial or Fermionic behaviour. In the absence of the Compton wavelength boundary, that is when we encounter only positive energy or only negative energy solutions, the particle would not exhibit the double valued spinorial or Fermionic behaviour: It would have an anomalous anyonic behaviour.
Indeed, the three dimensionality of space arises from the spinorial behaviour outside the Compton wavelength. At the Compton wavelength, this disappears and we should encounter lower dimensions. As is well known the low dimensional Dirac equation has like the neutrino, only two components corresponding to only one sign of the energy, displays handedness and has no invariant mass. The neutrino shows up as a fractal entity.
Ofcourse the above model strictly speaking is for the case of an isolated non interacting particle. As neutrinos interact through the weak or gravitational forces, both of which are weak, the conclusion would still be approximately valid particularly for neutrinos which are not in bound states.
We will now justify the above conclusion from other standpoints: Let us first examine why Fermi-Dirac statistics is required in the Quantum Field Theoretic treatment of a Fermion satisfying the Dirac equation. The Dirac spinor has four components and there are four independent solutions corresponding to positive and negative energies and spin up and down. It is well known that  in general the wave function expansion of the Fermion should include solutions of both signs of energy:

$`\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t)=N{\displaystyle }d^3p{\displaystyle \underset{\pm s}{}}[b(p,s)u(p,s)exp(ıp^\mu x_\mu /\mathrm{})`$
$`+d^{}(p,s)v(p,s)exp(+ıp^\mu x_\mu /\mathrm{})`$ (1)
where $`N`$ is a normalization constant for ensuring unit probability.
In Quantum Field Theory, the coefficients become creation and annihilation operators while $`bb^+`$ and $`dd^+`$ become the particle number operators with eigen values $`1`$ or $`0`$ only. The Hamiltonian is now given by:

$$H=\underset{\pm s}{}d^3pE_p[b^+(p,s)b(p,s)d(p,s)d^+(p,s)]$$
(2)
As can be seen from (2), the Hamiltonian is not positive definite and it is this circumstance which necessitates the Fermi-Dirac statistics. In the absence of Fermi-Dirac statistics, the negative energy states are not saturated in the Hole Theory sense so that the ground state would have arbitrarily large negative energy, which is unacceptable. However Fermi-Dirac statistics and the anti commutators implied by it prevent this from happening.
From the above, it follows that as only one sign of energy is encountered for the $`v`$, we need not take recourse to Fermi-Dirac statistics.
We will now show from an alternative view point also that for the neutrino, the positive and negative solutions are delinked so that we do not need the negative solutions in (1) or (2) and there is no need to invoke Fermi-Dirac statistics.
The neutrino is described by the two component Weyl equation:

$$ı\mathrm{}\frac{\psi }{t}=ı\mathrm{}c\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}\psi (x)$$
(3)
It is well known that this is equivalent to a massless Dirac particle satisfying the following condition:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_5\psi =\psi $$

We now observe that in the case of a massive Dirac particle, if we work only with positive solutions for example, the current or expectation value of the velocity operator $`c\stackrel{}{\alpha }`$ is given by (ref.),

$$J^+=<c\alpha >=<\frac{c^2\stackrel{}{p}}{E}>+=<v_{gp}>+$$
(4)
in an obvious notation.
(4) leads to a contradiction: On the one hand the eigen values of $`c\stackrel{}{\alpha }`$ are $`\pm c.`$ On the other hand we require, $`<v_{gp}><1`$.
To put it simply, working only with positive solutions, the Dirac particle should have the velocity $`c`$ and so zero mass. This contradiction is solved by including the negative solutions also in the description of the particle. This infact is the starting point for (1) above.
In the case of mass less neutrinos however, there is no contradiction because they do indeed move with the velocity of light. So we need not consider the negative energy solutions and need work only with the positive solutions. There is another way to see this. Firstly, as in the case of massive Dirac particles, let us consider the packet (1) with both positive and negative solutions for the neutrino. Taking the $`z`$ axis along the $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ direction for simplicity, the acceptable positive and negative Dirac spinors subject to the above stated condition are

$$u=\left(\begin{array}{c}1\hfill \\ 0\hfill \\ 1\hfill \\ 0\hfill \end{array}\right)v=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\hfill \\ 1\hfill \\ 0\hfill \\ 1\hfill \end{array}\right)$$

The expression for the current is now given by,

$`J^z={\displaystyle }d^3p\{{\displaystyle \underset{\pm s}{}}[|b(p,s)|^2+|d(p,s)|^2]{\displaystyle \frac{p^zc^2}{E}}`$
$`+ı{\displaystyle \underset{\pm s\pm s^{}}{}}b^{}(p,s^{})d^{}(p,s)\overline{u}(p,s^{})\sigma ^{30}v(p,s)`$
$`ı{\displaystyle \underset{\pm s\pm s^{}}{}}b(p,s^{})d(p,s)\overline{v}(p,s^{})\sigma ^{30}u(p,s)\}`$ (5)
Using the expressions for $`u`$ and $`v`$ it can easily be seen that in (5) the cross (or Zitterbewegung) term disappears.
Thus the positive and negative solutions stand delinked in contrast to the case of massive particles, and we need work only with positive solutions (or only with negative solutions) in (1).
Finally this can also be seen in yet another way. As is known (ref.), we can apply a Foldy-Wothuysen transformation to the mass less Dirac equation to eliminate the ”odd” operators which mix the components of the spinors representing the positive and negative solutions.
The result is the Hamiltonian,

$$H^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}pc$$
(6)
Infact in (6) the positive and negative solutions stand delinked. In the case of massive particles however, we would have obtained instead,

$$H^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\sqrt{(}p^2c^2+m_0c^4)$$
(7)
and as is well known, it is the square root operator on the right which gives rise to the ”odd” operators, the negative solutions and the Dirac spinors. Infact this is the problem of linearizing the relativistic Hamiltonian and is the starting point for the Dirac equation.
Thus in the case of mass less Dirac particles, we need work only with solutions of one sign in (1) and (2). The equation (2) now becomes,

$$H=\underset{\pm s}{}d^3pE_p[b^+(p,s)b(p,s)]$$
(8)
As can be seen from (8) there is no need to invoke Fermi-Dirac statistics now. The occupation number $`bb^+`$ can now be arbitrary because the question of a ground state with arbitrarily large energy of opposite sign does not arise. That is, the neutrinos obey anomalous statistics.
In a rough way, this could have been anticipated. This is because the Hamiltonian for a mass less particle, be it a Boson or a Fermion, is given by

$$H=pc$$

Substitution of the usual operators for $`H`$ and $`p`$ yields an equation in which the wave function $`\psi `$ is a scalar corresponding to a Bosonic particle.
According to the spin-statistics connection, microscopic causality is incompatible with quantization of Bosonic fields using anti-commutators andr Fermi fields using commutators. But it can be shown that this does not apply when the mass of the Fermion vanishes.
In the case of Fermionic fields, the contradiction with microscopic causality arises because the symmetric propogator, the Lorentz invariant function,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_1(xx^{})\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^33\omega _k}[e^{ık.(xx^{})}+e^{ık.(xx^{})}]$$

does not vanish for space like intervals $`(xx^{})^2<0,`$ where the vacuum expectation value of the commutator is given by the spectral representation,

$$S_1(xx^{})ı<0|[\psi _\alpha (x),\psi _\beta (x^{})]|0>=𝑑M^2[ı\rho _1(M^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_x+\rho _2(M^2)]_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Delta }_1(xx^{})$$

Outside the light cone, $`r>|t|,`$ where $`r|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|`$ and $`t|x_0x_0^{}|,\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ is given by,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_1(x^{}x)=\frac{1}{2\pi ^2r}\frac{}{r}K_0(m\sqrt{r^2t^2}),$$

where the modified Bessel function of the second kind, $`K_0`$ is given by,

$$K_0(mx)=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{cos(xy)}{\sqrt{m^2+y^2}}𝑑y=\frac{1}{2}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{cos(xy)}{\sqrt{m^2+y^2}}𝑑y$$

(cf.). In our case, $`x\sqrt{r^2t^2}`$, and we have,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_1(xx^{})=const\frac{1}{x}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{ysinxy}{\sqrt{m^2+y^2}}𝑑y$$

As we are considering massless neutrinos, going to the limit as $`m0`$, we get, $`|Lt_{m0}\mathrm{\Delta }_1(xx^{})|=|(const.).Lt_{m0}\frac{1}{x}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}sinxydy|<\frac{0(1)}{x}`$. That is, as the Compton wavelength for the neutrino is infinite (or very large), so is $`|x|`$ and we have $`|\mathrm{\Delta }_1|<<1`$. So the invariant $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ function nearly vanishes everywhere except on the light cone $`x=0`$, which is exactly what is required. So, the spin-statistics theorem or microscopic causality is not violated for the mass less neutrinos when commutators are used.
The fact that the ideally, massless, spin half neutrino obeys anomalous statistics could have interesting implications. For, given an equilibrium collection of neutrinos, we should have if we use the Bose-Einstein statistics.

$$PV=\frac{1}{3}U,$$
(9)
instead of the usual

$$PV=\frac{2}{3}U,$$
(10)
where $`P,V`$ and $`U`$ denote the pressure, volume and energy of the collection. We also have, $`PV\alpha NkT,N`$ and $`T`$ denoting the number of particles and temperature respectively.
On the other hand for a fixed temperature and number of neutrinos, comparison of (9) and (10) shows that the effective energy $`U^{}`$ of the neutrinos would be twice the expected energy $`U`$. That is in effect the neutrino acquires a rest mass $`m`$. It can easily be shown from the above that,

$$\frac{mc^2}{k}\sqrt{3}T$$
(11)
That is for cold background neutrinos $`m`$ is about a thousandth of an $`ev`$ at the present background temperature of about $`2^{}K`$:

$$10^9m_em10^8m_e$$
(12)
This can be confirmed, alternatively, as follows. As pointed out by Hayakawa, the balance of the gravitational force and the Fermi energy of these cold background neutrinos, gives,

$$\frac{GNm^2}{R}=\frac{N^{2/3}\mathrm{}^2}{mR^2},$$
(13)
where $`N`$ is the number of neutrinos.
Further as in the Kerr-Newman Black Hole formulation equating (13) with the energy of the neutrino, $`mc^2`$ we immediately deduce

$$m10^8m_e$$

which agrees with (11) and (12). It also follows that $`N10^{90}`$, which is correct. Moreover equating this energy of the quantum mechanical black hole to $`kT`$, we get (cf.also (11))

$$T1^{}K,$$

which is the correct cosmic background temperature.
Alternatively, using (11) and (12) we get from (13), a background radiation of a few millimeters wavelength, as required.
So we obtain not only the correct mass and the number of the neutrinos, but also the correct cosmic background temperature, at one stroke.
Indeed the above mass of the neutrino was predicted earlier.

## 3 Cosmology

The above model of quantized space time ties up with the model of fluctuational cosmology discussed in several papers.
We observe that the ZPF leads to divergences in QFT if no large frequency cut off is arbitrarily prescribed, e.g. the Compton wavelength. We argue that it is these fluctuations within the Compton wavelength and in time intervals $`\mathrm{}/mc^2`$, which create the particles. Thus choosing the pion as a typical particle, we get,

$$(\text{Energy}\text{density}\text{of}\text{ZPF})Xl^3=mc^2$$
(14)
Using the fact there are $`N10^{80}`$ such particles in the Universe, we get,

$$Nm=M$$
(15)
where $`M`$ is the mass of the universe.
We equate the gravitational potential energy of the pion in a three dimensional isotropic sphere of pions of radius $`R`$, the radius of the universe, with the rest energy of the pion, to get,

$$R=\frac{GM}{c^2}$$
(16)
where $`M`$ can be obtained from (15).
We now use the fact that the fluctuation in the particle number is of the order $`\sqrt{N}`$, while a typical time interval for the fluctuations is $`\mathrm{}/mc^2`$ as seen above. This leads to the relation

$$T=\frac{\mathrm{}}{mc^2}\sqrt{N}$$
(17)
where $`T`$ is the age of the universe, and

$$\frac{dR}{dt}HR$$
(18)
Strictly speaking the above equations are order of magnitude relations. So from (18), a further differenciation leads to the conclusion that a cosmological constant cannot be ruled out such that

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }0(H^2)$$
(19)
(19) explains the smallness of the cosmological constant or the so called cosmological problem.
To proceed it can be shown that the above equations lead to

$$G=\frac{\beta }{T}G_0(1\frac{t}{t_0})$$
(20)
where $`t_0`$ is the age of the universe and $`T`$ is the time that has elapsed in the present epoch. It can be shown that (20) can explain the precession of the perihelion of Mercury.
We could also explain the correct gravitational bending of light. Infact in Newtonian theory also we obtain the bending of light, though the amount is half that predicted by General Relativity. In the Newtonian theory we can obtain the bending from the well known orbital equations,

$$\frac{1}{r}=\frac{GM}{L^2}(1+ecos\mathrm{\Theta })$$
(21)
where $`M`$ is the mass of the central object, $`L`$ is the angular momentum per unit mass, which in our case is $`bc`$, $`b`$ being the impact parameter or minimum approach distance of light to the object, and $`e`$ the eccentricity of the trajectory is given by

$$e^2=1+\frac{c^2L^2}{G^2M^2}$$
(22)
For the deflection of light $`\alpha `$, if we substitute $`r=\pm \mathrm{}`$, and then use (22) we get

$$\alpha =\frac{2GM}{bc^2}$$
(23)
This is half the General Relativistic value.
We also note that the effect of time variation on $`r`$ is given by (cf.ref.)

$$r=r_0(1\frac{t}{t_0})$$
(24)
Using (24) the well known equation for the trajectory is given by (Cf.,,)

$$u\mathrm{"}+u=\frac{GM}{L^2}+u\frac{t}{t_0}+0\left(\frac{t}{t_0}\right)^2$$
(25)
where $`u=\frac{1}{r}`$ and primes denote differenciation with respect to $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$.
The first term on the right hand side represents the Newtonian contribution while the remaining terms are the contributions due to (24). The solution of (25) is given by

$$u=\frac{GM}{L^2}\left[1+ecos\left\{\left(1\frac{t}{2t_0}\right)\mathrm{\Theta }+\omega \right\}\right]$$
(26)
where $`\omega `$ is a constant of integration. Corresponding to $`\mathrm{}<r<\mathrm{}`$ in the Newtonian case we have in the present case, $`t_0<t<t_0`$, where $`t_0`$ is large and infinite for practical purposes. Accordingly the analogue of the reception of light for the observer, viz., $`r=+\mathrm{}`$ in the Newtonian case is obtained by taking $`t=t_0`$ in (26) which gives

$$u=\frac{GM}{L^2}+ecos\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{2}+\omega \right)$$
(27)
Comparison of (27) with the Newtonian solution obtained by neglecting terms $`t/t_0`$ in equations (24),(25) and (26) shows that the Newtonian $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is replaced by $`\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{2}`$, whence the deflection obtained by equating the left side of (27) to zero, is

$$cos\mathrm{\Theta }\left(1\frac{t}{2t_0}\right)=\frac{1}{e}$$
(28)
where $`e`$ is given by (22). The value of the deflection from (28) is twice the Newtonian deflection given by (23). That is the deflection $`\alpha `$ is now given not by (23) but by the correct formula,

$$\alpha =\frac{4GM}{bc^2},$$

We now come to the problem of galactic rotational curves (cf.ref.). We would expect, on the basis of straightforward dynamics that the rotational velocities at the edges of galaxies would fall off according to

$$v^2\frac{GM}{r}$$
(29)
However it is found that the velocities tend to a constant value,

$$v300km/sec$$
(30)
This has lead to the postulation of dark matter. We observe that from (24) it can be easily deduced that

$$a(\ddot{r}_o\ddot{r})\frac{1}{t_o}(t\ddot{r_o}+2\dot{r}_o)2\frac{r_o}{t_o^2}$$
(31)
as we are considering infinitesimal intervals $`t`$ and nearly circular orbits. Equation (31) shows (Cf.ref also) that there is an anomalous inward acceleration, as if there is an extra attractive force, or an additional central mass.
So,

$$\frac{GMm}{r^2}+\frac{2mr}{t_o^2}\frac{mv^2}{r}$$
(32)
From (32) it follows that

$$v\left(\frac{2r^2}{t_o^2}+\frac{GM}{r}\right)^{1/2}$$
(33)
From (33) it is easily seen that at distances within the edge of a typical galaxy, that is $`r<10^{23}cms`$ the equation (29) holds but as we reach the edge and beyond, that is for $`r10^{24}cms`$ we have $`v10^7cms`$ per second, in agreement with (30).
Thus the time variation of G given in equation (20) explains observation without invoking dark matter.
Interestingly a background Zero Point Field of the type discussed above, is associated with a cosmological constant in General Relativity. We can reconcile this latter view with the above considerations. For this we observe that the variation in $`G`$, is small so that over a small period of time the General Relativistic equations hold approximately. Thus we have

$$\ddot{R}(t)=4\pi \rho (t)GR(t)/3+\mathrm{\Lambda }R(t)/3$$
(34)
In (34) we use equation (20), to get on using the above considerations

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{G\rho }{\sqrt{N}}$$
(35)
On the other hand the Zero Point Field leads to a cosmological constant (Cf.ref.)

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }G<\rho _{vac}>$$
(36)
In the above fluctuational cosmological picture, as $`\sqrt{N}`$ particles are created we get

$$\rho \sqrt{N}\rho _{vac}$$
(37)
(35) and (36) can be seen to be identical upon using (37).
This ofcourse should not be surprising, because in both cases we have effectively a cosmological constant which is a manifestation of vaccuum energy.

## 4 Comments

It must be mentioned that the value of the neutrino mass as deduced in equation (12) rules out the neutrino as a candidate for dark mass, so that there is no contradiction with the observed ever continuing expansion of the universe. It must also be mentioned that the value of the cosmological constant from vacuum energy as deduced by Zeldovich (Cf.ref.) was adhoc and unclear. The effective cosmological constant which we have deduced, however, is consistent.
Interestingly, by reversing the steps in Section 3 we can conclude that a small cosmological constant would imply a variable $`G`$.
It may be mentioned that what was called the ether and later the quantum vacuum has been the concept that has survived the whole of the twentieth Century, through the works of Physicists like Dirac, Vigier, Nelson, Prigogine, and more recently through the works of Rueda and co-workers, the author and even string theoriests like Wilzeck.
We also remark that the considerations of Section 2 (Cf. equations (1) and (2)), show that a Fermion while spread out is localized to within the Compton wavelength. On the other hand the neutrino can be considered to be a truly point particle–the double connectivity of the space, the divide between the region within the Compton wavelength of ”negative energy” solutions, and the region without disappears. The neutrino is the divide between Fermions and Bosons.
Finally, it may be mentioned that such a space time cut off is at the heart of a fractal picture of space time, studied by Nottale, Ord, El Naschie, the author and others (Cf.ref. and references therein).


text:
# Multiplicity dependence of correlation functions in 𝑝̄𝑝 reactions at √𝐬=𝟔𝟑𝟎 GeV

## 1 Introduction

Recently, there has been much discussion regarding the possibility that Bose-Einstein correlations and other interconnection effects between decay products of different strings could affect the measurement of the $`W`$ mass . Since measurements are hampered by low statistics and experimental difficulties , the question arises whether and where effects of the superposition of several strings can be tested independently. Within the Dual Parton Model  for hadron-hadron reactions, the charged-particle multiplicity N is expected to rise with the number of strings. The decrease in the observed correlation strength $`\lambda `$ of the Bose-Einstein effect as function of multiplicity  may be explained in terms of products of different strings, where each string symmetrizes separately . To test this idea further, it is desirable to investigate quantitatively the multiplicity dependence of like-sign particle correlations.

Improvements in experimental analysis techniques  and larger data samples make it possible to repeat and extend Bose-Einstein analyses with an advanced strategy.  In this Letter, we investigate correlation functions of particle pairs with like-sign ($`\mathrm{}s`$) and opposite-sign ($`os`$) charges at different total charged-particle multiplicities with the same model-independent strategy and good statistics. The bias introduced by selecting events of a given overall multiplicity is eliminated with the use of “internal cumulants” .

## 2 Data sample and normalized density correlation functions

The data sample consists of 1,200,000 non-single-diffractive $`\overline{p}p`$ reactions at $`\sqrt{s}=630`$ GeV measured by the UA1 central detector . Only vertex-associated charged tracks with transverse momentum $`p_T0.15`$ GeV/c, $`|\eta |3`$, good measurement quality and fitted length $``$ 30cm have been used. To avoid acceptance problems, we restrict the azimuthal angle to $`45^0|\varphi |135^0`$ (“good azimuth”). Since, however, the multiplicity for the entire azimuthal range is the physically relevant quantity, we select events according to their uncorrected all-azimuth charged-particle multiplicity $`N`$. The corrected multiplicity density is then estimated as twice $`n`$, the charged-particle multiplicity in good azimuth: $`(dN_c/d\eta )2(dn/d\eta )`$.

All quantities measured are defined in the notation of correlation integrals ,

$$r_2(Q)=\frac{\rho _2(Q)}{\rho _1\rho _1(Q)}=\frac{_\mathrm{\Omega }d^3𝐩_1d^3𝐩_2\rho _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)\delta \left[Qq(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)\right]}{_\mathrm{\Omega }d^3𝐩_1d^3𝐩_2\rho _1(𝐩_1)\rho _1(𝐩_2)\delta \left[Qq(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)\right]},$$
(1)
with $`𝐩_i`$ the three-momenta, $`p_i`$ the corresponding four-momenta, and $`q\sqrt{(p_1p_2)^2}`$. As usual, $`\rho _i`$ denotes the joint particle density of order $`i`$ which in integrated form is the appropriate factorial moment. The integration region $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is identical with our experimental cuts as specified above and specifically refers to the good-azimuth region. All particles have been assumed to be pions.

In $`\overline{p}p`$ reactions and in full phase space, the number of positive and negative particles are equal, as are the corresponding one-and two-particle densities $`\rho _1`$, $`\rho _2`$. Given the charged particle density $`\rho _1(𝐩)=\rho _1^+(𝐩)+\rho _1^{}(𝐩)`$, we hence assume that $`\rho _1^+(𝐩)=\rho _1^{}(𝐩)=\frac{1}{2}\rho _1(𝐩)`$ and therefore also $`\rho _1^+\rho _1^+(Q)=\frac{1}{4}\rho _1\rho _1(Q)`$ etc. The like-sign and opposite-sign normalised two-particle densities become, respectively,

$`r_2^\mathrm{}s(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^\mathrm{}s(Q)}{\rho _1\rho _1^\mathrm{}s(Q)}}={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^{++}(Q)}{\rho _1^+\rho _1^+(Q)}}={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^{}(Q)}{\rho _1^{}\rho _1^{}(Q)}}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^{++}(Q)+\rho _2^{}(Q)}{\frac{1}{2}\rho _1\rho _1(Q)}},`$
$`r_2^{os}(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^{os}(Q)}{\rho _1\rho _1^{os}(Q)}}={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^+(Q)}{\rho _1^+\rho _1^{}(Q)}}={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^+(Q)}{\rho _1^{}\rho _1^+(Q)}}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _2^+(Q)+\rho _2^+(Q)}{\frac{1}{2}\rho _1\rho _1(Q)}}.`$
Fig. 1 shows the normalized density correlation functions $`r_2`$ for pairs of like-sign ($`\mathrm{}s`$) charge and for opposite-sign ($`os`$) charge separately. Restricting the total uncorrected charged-particle multiplicity $`N`$ in $`|\eta |3`$ to the windows $`5N9`$ (Fig. 1a) and $`28N35`$ (Fig. 1b), one obtains for the corrected particle density in the central rapidity region $`dN_c/d\eta =1.22\pm 0.09`$ and $`dN_c/d\eta =5.32\pm 0.17`$ respectively. Both the like-sign and opposite-sign correlation densities show a strong dependence on multiplicity.111 The usual Bose-Einstein analysis assumes that $`r_2^\mathrm{}s`$ tends to a constant for large $`Q`$, ie. $`r_{2\mathrm{BE}}^\mathrm{}s(Q1)`$ = constant. It should be clear from Figure 1 that no such constancy exists for limited-multiplicity windows.

## 3 Cumulants for fixed multiplicity and multiplicity ranges

While the multiplicity dependence of $`r_2`$ is of much interest, a quantitative analysis must both remove combinatorial background by calculating the cumulants and also correct for the bias introduced by working at fixed multiplicity. This bias arises because at fixed total multiplicity $`N`$, standard second-order factorial cumulants, defined by

$$\kappa _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)=\rho _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)\rho _1(𝐩_1|N)\rho _1(𝐩_1|N),$$
(2)
are nonzero even when particles are completely uncorrelated; for example, for purely uncorrelated multinomially-distributed events, $`\kappa _2^{\mathrm{mult}}(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)=(1/N)\rho _1(𝐩_1|N)\rho _1(𝐩_2|N)0.`$ Because these correlations result solely from the restriction of the sample to a fixed multiplicity, they are termed “external” and should be removed. The “internal cumulants” of Ref.

$`\kappa _2^I(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)`$ $``$ $`\kappa _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)\kappa _2^{\mathrm{mult}}(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`\rho _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N){\displaystyle \frac{N(N1)}{N^2}}\rho _1(𝐩_1|N)\rho _1(𝐩_2|N)`$
correct this bias exactly: they are zero whenever the $`N`$ particles behave multinomially.

The following arguments lead to a unique choice of normalization $`\rho _2^{\mathrm{norm}}`$. The correctly normalized internal cumulants $`K_2^I(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)=\kappa _2^I(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)/\rho _2^{\mathrm{norm}}`$ should be independent of multiplicity $`N`$ whenever $`\rho _1(𝐩|N)`$ and $`\rho _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)`$ depend on $`N`$ only globally i.e. have the same shapes (in terms of the momenta) for different $`N`$. Such “shape constancy”,

$`\rho _1(𝐩|N^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N^{}}{N}}\rho _1(𝐩|N),`$ (4)
$`\rho _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N^{}(N^{}1)}{N(N1)}}\rho _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N),`$ (5)
coupled to the requirement that

$$K_2^I(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N^{})=K_2^I(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N),$$
(6)
fixes the appropriate normalisation to be

$$\rho _2^{\mathrm{norm}}(N)=\frac{N(N1)}{N^2}\rho _1(𝐩_1|N)\rho _1(𝐩_2|N),$$
(7)
the quantity to which $`\rho _2`$ defaults when $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$ become statistically independent. The correctly normalized internal cumulant at fixed multiplicity consequently reads

$$K_2^I(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)=\frac{N^2}{N(N1)}\frac{\rho _2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2|N)}{\rho _1(𝐩_1|N)\rho _1(𝐩_2|N)}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}.$$
(8)
Extending these arguments to multiplicity ranges $`N[A,B]`$, specifying them for different charge combinations and adopting the correlation integral Eq. (1), we arrive at our measurement prescription for the normalized internal cumulants for $`\mathrm{}s`$ and $`os`$ pairs,

$`\overline{K_2}^{I\mathrm{}s}(Q|AB)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{n}_\mathrm{}s^2}{\overline{n(n1)}_\mathrm{}s}}r_2^\mathrm{}s(Q|AB)\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1},`$ (9)
$`\overline{K_2}^{Ios}(Q|AB)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{n}_+\overline{n}_{}}{\overline{n_+n}_{}}}r_2^{os}(Q|AB)\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1},`$ (10)
where $`\overline{n}_\mathrm{}s(=\overline{n}_+=\overline{n}_{})`$ , $`\overline{n_+n}_{}`$ and $`\overline{n(n1)}_\mathrm{}s`$ are the mean numbers of positive or negative particles, $`os`$ pairs and $`++`$ (or $``$) pairs respectively in the whole interval $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and in the multiplicity range $`[A,B]`$. Eqs. (9) and (10) are obtained  by assuming shape constancy for all averaging procedures222The renormalization factors in front of $`r_2`$ were used in Ref  and elsewhere. Here, they are derived from Eqs. (4), (5) and the requirement (6)..

Since all quantities shown here and below are to be understood as mean values in multiplicity ranges, we henceforth (and in Fig. 1) omit the bar on the symbols. Fig. 2 shows both like- and opposite-sign internal cumulants for two selections of $`dN_c/d\eta `$. Three features are apparent:

* The importance of changing from $`r_2`$ to $`K_2^I`$ lies in the fact that the latter demarcate clearly the “line of no correlation” which, due to the fixed-multiplicity conditioning, is not equal to unity for $`r_2`$ in Fig. 1a.
* Internal cumulants integrate to zero over the entire phase space; hence the positive part of $`K_2^I`$ at small $`Q`$ is compensated by a negative part at larger $`Q`$. Physically, this means that particles like to cluster, so that there is a surfeit of pairs at small $`Q`$ and a dearth of pairs at large $`Q`$ compared to the uncorrelated case.
* The dependencies of the like- and opposite-sign cumulants on multiplicity are rather similar in that both decrease markedly with $`dN_c/d\eta `$. This is discussed more fully below.

## 4 Multiplicity dependence of normalized cumulants

The behaviour of $`K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}`$ and $`K_2^{Ios}`$ as a function of $`dN_c/d\eta `$ suggests that both could have approximately the same functional dependence $`C(dN_c/d\eta )`$ on multiplicity density. Under this hypothesis, where both depend on $`dN_c/d\eta `$ with the same functional form333 For simplicity we write $`N_c`$ instead of $`dN_c/d\eta `$ here and below.,

$`K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}(Q|N_c)`$ $`=`$ $`Y^\mathrm{}s(Q)C(N_c,Q),`$ (11)
$`K_2^{Ios}(Q|N_c)`$ $`=`$ $`Y^{os}(Q)C(N_c,Q),`$
the quotient of the cumulants should be independent of multiplicity,

$$\frac{K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}(Q|N_c)}{K_2^{Ios}(Q|N_c)}=\frac{Y^\mathrm{}s(Q)}{Y^{os}(Q)}=\left(\text{constant in }N_c\right).$$
(12)
Figure 3a shows that (12) holds approximately. (In the region where both cumulants are near zero, no meaningful quotients can be formed.)

Having shown that like- and unlike-sign internal cumulants behave approximately in the same way as functions of $`dN_c/d\eta `$, we now look for an appropriate functional form for this dependence. A first hypothesis is that $`K_2^I`$ depends inversely on $`N_c`$,

$$K_2^{Ia}(Q|N_c)=Y^a(Q)C(N_c,Q)=Y^a(Q)N_c^1a=\mathrm{}s,os.$$
(13)
This can be motivated theoretically by

* Resonances: If the unnormalized cumulants $`\kappa _2^{Ios}`$ and $`\kappa _2^{I\mathrm{}s}`$ were wholly the result of resonance decays and if the number of resonances were proportional to the multiplicity $`N_c`$, then $`\kappa _2^IN_c`$. Assuming shape constancy $`\rho _1(𝐩|N_c)N_c\rho _1(𝐩)`$ gives $`\rho _1\rho _1N_c^2`$, and hence after normalization, the resonance-inspired guess is

$$K_2^I=\frac{\kappa _2^{I\mathrm{res}}}{\rho _1\rho _1}\frac{1}{N_c}.$$
* Independent superposition in momentum space of $`\nu `$ equal strings would also lead to $`K_2^I=\nu \kappa _2^{I\mathrm{string}}/(\rho _1\rho _1)(1/\nu )(1/N_c)`$. Deviations can occur if the strings are unequal or if there is no strong proportionality between $`\nu `$ and $`N_c`$.

Eq. (13) implies that $`K_2^{Ia}(Q|N_1)/K_2^{Ia}(Q|N_2)=(N_2/N_1)=`$ (constant in $`Q`$) for two multiplicities $`N_1`$ and $`N_2`$ for the same $`a`$ ($`=\mathrm{}s`$ or $`os`$). In Fig. 3b, we show the quotient of cumulants for two multiplicities. Surprisingly, we find not one but two regions of approximate constancy in $`Q`$, one for small $`Q\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.4}`$ GeV, one for large $`Q\stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}`$ GeV, where only the latter corresponds to the value $`(N_2/N_1)`$ expected from (13), shown as the dotted line. At small $`Q`$, one must clearly look for other functional forms for $`C(N_c,Q)`$. Some phenomenological guesses are as follows.

* In the Quantum Statistical approach of Bose-Einstein correlations , no multiplicity dependence is expected with our renormalization of $`r_2`$ in Eq. (9) .
* A mixture of processes a) and c) could result in a dependence

$$K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}(Q|N_c)a(Q)+\frac{b(Q)}{N_c}.$$
(14)
However, no comparable picture is available for the unlike-sign case.

In order to test the above ideas, we plot the cumulants against $`(dN_c/d\eta )^1`$ as follows. To avoid local statistical fluctuations, the normalized cumulants $`K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}(Q)`$ and $`K_2^{Ios}(Q)`$ are fitted with suitable functions in restricted $`Q`$-ranges for each $`dN_c/d\eta `$ (not shown). The best-fit values at small $`Q`$ (0.1 GeV/c) and at large $`Q`$ (7 GeV/c) are plotted in Figs. 4a and 4b respectively. The $`K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}(Q)`$ have also been fitted to an exponential parametrization for $`Q<1`$ GeV/c ,

$$K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}(Q)=a+\lambda e^{RQ},$$
(15)
since the reported increase  of the radius R in case of $`\mathrm{}s`$ (Bose-Einstein) functions could cause part of the decrease with $`dN_c/d\eta `$. The $`\lambda `$ values obtained are thus corrected for effects of varying radii, but still indicate a pronounced multiplicity dependence (crosses in Fig. 4a) similar to the model-independent cumulants (filled circles)444 The values of $`R`$ from the fit to Eq. (15) increase by about 30% over the range of $`dN_c/d\eta `$ considered. A stronger dependence of $`R`$ on multiplicity and strongly decreasing $`\lambda `$ values have been observed when fitting Gaussian functions  and extending the fit range to 2 GeV/c. This indicates the dependence of the results on the choice of fit functions and regions. Here, we are emphasizing the region of small $`Q`$ where Gaussian fits fail completely . . Fig. 4 shows that, as in Fig. 3b, the $`(1/N_c)`$-dependence is satisfied only for large but not for small $`Q`$. The $`a+b/N_c`$ dependence in Fig. 4a (solid line) provides a possible, but hardly unique, explanation.

The important region around $`Q1`$ GeV, where the phase space contributes maximally  is unfortunately difficult to investigate, because there the $`K_2^{Ios}`$ are decreasing rapidly with increasing $`Q`$ while the $`K_2^{I\mathrm{}s}`$ are already small (Fig. 2). A $`1/N_c`$-dependence (due to resonances such as $`\rho ^0`$) in this dominant region around 1 GeV/c could presumably cause the large-$`Q`$ region to follow suit via missing pairs.

## 5 Summary

The multiplicity dependence of like-sign and opposite-sign two-body correlation functions have been studied with the same model-independent strategy. The bias introduced by selecting events of a given overall multiplicity is eliminated by measuring internal cumulants. We observe that

* the like-sign and opposite-sign cumulants have very similar multiplicity dependence,
* there exist two regions, one at small $`Q`$, where the multiplicity dependence of both is weaker than $`1/N_c`$, and one at large $`Q(\stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}`$ GeV/c), where the cumulants are negative and follow roughly an $`1/N_c`$ law,
* a third region arround $`Q`$ = 1 GeV/c shows small and rapidly changing cumulants.

The decrease of $`\mathrm{}s`$ functions at small $`Q`$ with increasing multiplicity favours an interpretation in terms of a suppression of Bose-Einstein correlations between products of different strings. In the Dual Parton Model approach , multiparton collisions corresponding to multipomeron exchange are expected to contribute to the inelastic cross section. The observed energy dependence of multiplicity distributions supports this view . Up to 2-3 pomeron exchanges might occur at our highest multiplicities. This could explain quantitatively the corresponding suppression of $`\mathrm{}s`$ (Bose-Einstein) functions in Fig. 4a. But this interpretation is not unique. Adopting e.g. the “core-halo picture” , one could explain the observations by assuming that long-lived resonances (such as the $`\omega `$ and $`\eta `$) are produced more frequently at larger $`N_c`$ thereby increase the relative strength of the halo  and hence do not contribute to Bose-Einstein correlations. Resonance decays (Regge terms) should arguably also contribute to $`\mathrm{}s`$-functions . One could therefore try to explain alternatively the decrease of $`\mathrm{}s`$ functions with $`N_c`$ by a mixture of Bose-Einstein correlations (assumed to be constant in $`N_c`$) with resonance production.

All this leaves unexplained, however, the similar behaviour of $`os`$ and $`\mathrm{}s`$ functions. Theoretical work  is challenged by the above experimental results. Together with the results of other reactions, they represent a new piece of information  in the colourful puzzle of multiparticle production.

## Acknowledgements

We thank B. Andersson, A. Białas and W. Kittel for useful discussions, and gratefully acknowledge the technical support of G. Walzel. HCE thanks the Institute for High Energy Physics in Vienna for kind hospitality. This work was funded in part by the South African National Research Foundation.