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# SU(3) Symmetry and Scissors Mode Vibrations in Nuclei

## 1 Introduction

In the long history of the shell model, Elliott was the first to point out the advantage of using a deformed (intrinsic) many-body basis and developed the $`SU(3)`$ Shell Model  for $`sd`$-shell nuclei. In this model, the classification of basis states and their projection onto good angular momentum can be carried out using group theory. It works nicely as long as the spin-orbit force is weak. In heavier nuclei, where the presence of a strong spin-orbit force is essential for the correct shell closures, the high-$`j`$ orbital in an $`N`$-shell is strongly pushed down by this interaction and intrudes into a lower $`N`$-shell. This results in a re-classification of basis states and the Elliott $`SU(3)`$ scheme is no longer valid for heavy nuclei.

However, in early work of Bhatt, Parikh and McGrory , it was shown that wave functions for yrast states of deformed nuclei in the $`1f`$-$`2p`$ shell that were obtained in shell model calculations within a severely truncated configuration space that cannot support microscopic $`SU(3)`$ symmetry of Elliott, have $`SU(3)`$-like structures when the wave function of a state with total angular momentum $`I`$ is expressed in terms of coupling of the collective neutron and proton angular momenta $`I_\nu `$ and $`I_\pi `$ within the truncated configuration space. On the basis of this analysis, they suggested that the rotational features of yrast states in heavy, deformed nuclei could be due to a similar manifestation of $`SU(3)`$ symmetry occurring at the macroscopic level, even if it is absent at the single particle level in the usual basis. Brink et al.  suggested an alternative derivation without the use of symmetry arguments as well as the assumption of the motion of a particle in a static deformed field. Instead they approached the problem by diagonalising a rotationally invariant Hamiltonian using basis states of good angular momentum at all stages, which leads to the standard ‘symmetrised’ wavefunctions.

In our recent letter , the connection between the numerically calculated states of heavy nuclear system and such macroscopic $`SU(3)`$ symmetry states has been explored. The work was based on an extended Projected Shell Model (PSM). Starting from a deformed potential, instead of employing only one BCS vacuum as in the original Projected Shell Model , we use independent BCS condensates for neutrons and protons to construct separate bases for neutron and proton collective rotational states by exact angular momentum projection. The active nucleons in the model space were permitted to occupy three full major shells, which is a space far larger than a conventional shell model can handle. These rotational states were then coupled by diagonalizing a residual pairing plus quadrupole interaction. Many new bands emerge that are not contained in the original PSM, and it was shown that these bands exhibit a nearly perfect $`SU(3)`$ spectrum, even though there is no explicit dynamical symmetry in such a model.

Our work  demonstrates a clear connection between a numerical microscopic method, which starts from certain set of intrinsic states, and an elegant group theoretical description of nuclear states. Thus the PSM may be viewed as a natural method to investigate the emergence of $`SU(3)`$ symmetry as a truly dynamical symmetry in heavy, deformed nuclear systems.

The present paper elaborates on our previous letter . The paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, we introduce the extended PSM with an emphasis on how to treat coupled rotations of neutron and proton systems. It is shown that this treatment generalizes the original PSM by allowing for relative motion between the neutron and proton systems. In Section 3, we give details of the calculation for an example, 168Er. A much richer spectrum is obtained after diagonalization than from the usual PSM. With the help of group theory, the states obtained from the diagonalization are shown to possess a strong $`SU(3)`$ symmetry. We further demonstrate that these states can be classified as rotational bands built on spin-$`1\mathrm{}`$ phonon excitations, and we suggest that these correspond to a geometrical scissors mode and its generalizations. These states are interpreted in Section 4. In Section 5, we buttress our conclusions by comparing the angular momentum distribution in our deformed basis states and the intrinsic states of the $`SU(3)`$ model, and by evaluating overlaps of our total wave functions with the $`SU(3)`$ ones. Then we calculate $`B(E2)`$ values from the PSM wave functions to further confirm the state classifications. Some comments about the emergent $`SU(3)`$ symmetry and about a possible relation to scissors mode vibrations are made in Section 6 and 7, respectively. The lowest excitation bands, the first 1+ and the first 2+ band, as well as the second 0+ band, are further discussed in Section 8. Finally, we summarize the paper in Section 9.

## 2 Extension of the Projected Shell Model

The shell model is the most fundamental way of describing many-nucleon systems fully quantum mechanically. However, using the shell model to study deformed heavy nuclei is a desirable but very difficult task because of large dimensionality and its related problems. Even with today’s computer power, the best standard shell model diagonalization can be done only in the full $`pf`$-shell space, as for example in the work of the Strasbourg–Madrid group , for which the dimension of the configuration space is well over one million. The PSM provides one possible solution for this difficulty. In this approach, one first truncates the configuration space with guidance from the deformed mean field by selecting only the BCS vacuum plus a few quasiparticle configurations in the Nilsson orbitals around the Fermi surface, performs angular momentum projection (and particle number projection if required) to obtain a set of laboratory-frame basis states, and finally diagonalizes a shell-model Hamiltonian in this space. Since the deformed mean field + BCS vacuum already incorporates strong particle-hole and particle-particle correlations, this truncation should be appropriate for the low-lying states dominated by quadrupole and pairing collectivity. Indeed, this approach has been very successful for ground band (g-band) properties and near-yrast quasiparticle excitations in high-spin physics for both normally deformed and superdeformed states .

However, in this formalism the basis vacuum is the usual BCS condensate of neutrons and protons in a fixed deformed potential (fixed shape in the geometric models). Without quasiparticle excitations, one obtains only the g-band after angular momentum projection. Thus, there is no room for studying any other collective excitations.

It is known that small perturbations of nuclear shapes and relative orientations around the equilibrium can give rise to physical states at low to moderate excitation energies. Classical examples of such motion include $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-vibrations , in which neutrons and protons undergo vibrations as a collective system. These small-amplitude motions are not built into the ground state for theories like Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov or BCS. One may obtain the $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-vibrations by building additional correlations into the ground state, as for example in the Random Phase Approximation (see, for example, Ref. ), or by enriching the intrinsic degrees of freedom in the deformed potential .

Another possible mode of collective motion results if we consider neutron and proton fields of the fixed deformation, but permit small oscillations in the relative orientations of these fields . This geometric picture may be related to the two-rotor model . Because of the strong restoring force  (with its physical origin in the neutron-proton interaction), this oscillation is confined to a small angle between the protons and neutrons (thus it is termed small-amplitude scissors motion). This vibration, and the $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-vibrations, can be classified using group theoretical methods; they belong to the lowest collective excitations of the ground state, as pointed out by Iachello .

As introduced in our previous letter , in order to study microscopically the relative motion between neutron and proton intrinsic states with a fixed deformation, we have extended the original PSM in the following manner: Instead of a single BCS vacuum, the angular momentum projection is now performed for separate neutron and proton deformed BCS vacua. Although the introduction of two separately projected BCS vacua seems to treat neutrons and protons as two independent systems, the equal deformation used in the Nilsson calculation of the basis already contains strong correlation between the two systems . Further proton-neutron correlations are introduced by explicitly diagonalizing the total Hamiltonian in the basis formed by the angular momentum projected neutron and proton states. This procedure gives the usual g-band corresponding to the coherently coupled BCS condensate of neutrons and protons, but also leads to a new set of states built on a more complex vacuum that incorporates fluctuations in the relative orientation of the neutron and proton fields of constant deformation.

The neutron and proton valence spaces employed in the present work are those of Ref. . Our single particle space contains three major shells ($`N`$ = 4, 5, and 6) for neutrons and ($`N`$ = 3, 4 and 5) for protons; this has been shown to be sufficient for a quantitative description of rare-earth g-bands and bands built on a few quasiparticle excitations . Separable forces of pairing plus quadrupole type  are used in our Hamiltonian. We note that a recent study by Dufour and Zuker  has shown explicitly that the residual part of the realistic force is strongly dominated by pairing and quadrupole interactions.

The Hamiltonian  can be expressed as $`\widehat{H}=\widehat{H}_\nu +\widehat{H}_\pi +\widehat{H}_{\nu \pi }`$, where $`H_\tau `$ $`(\tau =\nu ,\pi )`$ is the like-particle pairing plus quadrupole Hamiltonian, with inclusion of quadrupole-pairing,

$$\widehat{H}_\tau =\widehat{H}_\tau ^0\frac{\chi _{\tau \tau }}{2}\underset{\mu }{}\widehat{Q}_\tau ^\mu \widehat{Q}_\tau ^\mu G_\text{M}^\tau \widehat{P}_\tau ^{}\widehat{P}_\tau G_\text{Q}^\tau \underset{\mu }{}\widehat{P}_\tau ^\mu \widehat{P}_\tau ^\mu ,$$
(1)
and $`\widehat{H}_{\nu \pi }`$ is the n–p quadrupole–quadrupole residual interaction

$$\widehat{H}_{\nu \pi }=\chi _{\nu \pi }\underset{\mu }{}\widehat{Q}_\nu ^\mu \widehat{Q}_\pi ^\mu .$$
(2)
In Eq. (1), the four terms are, respectively, the spherical single-particle energy which contains a proper spin-orbit force , the quadrupole-quadrupole interaction, the monopole-pairing, and the quadrupole-pairing interaction. The interaction strengths $`\chi _{\tau \tau }`$ ($`\tau =\nu `$ or $`\pi `$) are related self-consistently to the deformation $`\epsilon `$ by

$$\chi _{\tau \tau }=\frac{\frac{2}{3}\epsilon (\mathrm{}\omega _\tau )^2}{\mathrm{}\omega _\nu \widehat{Q}_0_\nu +\mathrm{}\omega _\pi \widehat{Q}_0_\pi }.$$
(3)
Obviously, neutrons and protons are coupled by the self-consistency condition. Following Ref. , the strength $`\chi _{\nu \pi }`$ is assumed to be $`\chi _{\nu \pi }=(\chi _{\nu \nu }\chi _{\pi \pi })^{1/2}`$. Similar parameterizations were used in earlier work .

In this paper, we concentrate on collective motion only and do not consider quasiparticle excitations; however, we shall discuss possible physical implication of including quasiparticle states in a later section. Particle number projection is not included, so particle number is conserved only on average in the BCS calculation. It has been shown by a systematic calculation  that particle number projection does not alter the unprojected results very much for those well-deformed heavy nuclei. We do not expect that particle number projection will change conclusions of this paper with respect to the emergence of $`SU(3)`$ symmetry.

The intrinsic state $`|0`$ of an axially deformed nucleus is, in this approximation, taken to be the product of the Nilsson-BCS quasiparticle vacuum states $`|0_\nu `$ and $`|0_\pi `$

$$|0=|0_\nu |0_\pi .$$
(4)
The original PSM ground band with angular momentum $`|I`$ is obtained by angular momentum projection  onto the vacuum:

$$|I=\mathrm{}^I\widehat{P}^I|0,$$
(5)
where $`\widehat{P}^I`$ is the (one-dimensional) angular momentum projection operator

$$\widehat{P}^I=(I+\frac{1}{2})_0^\pi 𝑑\beta sin\beta d^I(\beta )\widehat{R}(\beta ),$$
(6)
with $`d^I(\beta )`$ the small $`d`$-function and $`\widehat{R}(\beta )`$ the one-dimensional rotational operator  and $`\mathrm{}^I`$ is the normalization constant,

$$\mathrm{}^I=0|\widehat{P}^I|0^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(7)
In the extended PSM, we first project out the neutron (proton) states $`|I_\nu `$ ($`|I_\pi `$) with angular momentum $`I_\nu `$ ($`I_\pi `$) from the intrinsic state $`|0_\nu `$ ($`|0_\pi `$). The projected states $`|I_\nu `$ and $`|I_\pi `$ are coupled to form the basis states $`|(I_\nu I_\pi )I`$ for different total angular momentum $`I`$. These basis states are used to construct the matrix of the total Hamiltonian of Eqs. (1) and (2),

$`(I_\nu I_\pi )I|`$ $`\widehat{H}`$ $`|(I_\nu ^{}I_\pi ^{})I`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`\left[I_\nu |\widehat{H}_\nu |I_\nu ^{}+I_\pi |\widehat{H}_\pi |I_\pi ^{}\right]\delta _{I_\nu I_\nu ^{}}\delta _{I_\pi I_\pi ^{}}`$
$``$ $`\chi _{\nu \pi }(I_\nu I_\pi )I|\widehat{Q}_\nu ^{}\widehat{Q}_\pi |(I_\nu ^{}I_\pi ^{})I.`$
The last term in Eq. (8) can be written explicitly as

$`(I_\nu `$ $``$ $`I_\pi )I|\widehat{Q}_\nu ^{}\widehat{Q}_\pi |(I_\nu ^{}I_\pi ^{})I`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`𝒲(I_\pi 2II_\nu ^{};I_\pi ^{}I_\nu )I_\nu \widehat{Q}_\nu I_\nu ^{}`$
$`\times `$ $`I_\pi \widehat{Q}_\pi I_\pi ^{}/\sqrt{(2I_\nu +1)(2I_\pi ^{}+1)},`$
where $`𝒲`$ is the 6-$`j`$ symbol.

The term $`I_\nu |\widehat{H}_\nu |I_\nu `$ ($`I_\pi |\widehat{H}_\pi |I_\pi `$) is the energy of the state $`|I_\nu `$ ($`|I_\pi `$) projected from the intrinsic state $`|0_\nu `$ ($`|0_\pi `$) with the neutron (proton) part of Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_\nu `$ ($`\widehat{H}_\pi `$) given by Eq. (1). The Hamiltonian matrix of Eq. (8) is diagonalized and the resulting PSM eigenstates $`|\alpha ,I_{\text{PSM}}`$ are expressed as a linear combination of the basis states $`|(I_\nu I_\pi )I`$:

$$|\alpha ,I_{\text{PSM}}=\underset{I_\nu I_\pi }{}f_{\text{PSM}}^\alpha (I_\nu I_\pi ;I)|(I_\nu I_\pi )I,$$
(10)
where $`\alpha `$ labels different eigenstates having the same angular momentum. We shall show in the following sections that the amplitudes $`f_{\text{PSM}}^\alpha (I_\nu I_\pi ;I)`$ carry information about $`SU(3)`$ symmetry emerging dynamically from the extended PSM.

## 3 An Example: The Spectrum of 168Er

Let us take as a typical example the rotational nucleus, 168Er. The deformed basis is constructed at deformation $`\epsilon _2=0.273`$ for this nucleus . The numerical values of the parameters in the Hamiltonian (Eqs. (1) and (2)) appropriate for this nucleus are (in MeV): $`\chi _{\nu \nu }=0.0206`$, $`\chi _{\pi \pi }=0.0160`$, $`\chi _{\nu \pi }=0.0182`$, $`G_M^\nu =0.1049`$, and $`G_M^\pi =0.1346`$. The ratio of the strength of the quadrupole-pairing interaction to that of the monopole-pairing interaction is 0.16. All these values are the same as those employed in the early paper of Hara and Iwasaki  and as those in the review article of Hara and Sun . The states $`|I_\nu `$ ($`|I_\pi `$) with angular momenta $`I_\nu =0,2,\mathrm{},32`$ ($`I_\pi =0,2,\mathrm{},16`$) were projected from the Nilsson-BCS vacuum state $`|0_\nu `$ ($`|0_\pi `$). We have omitted in this calculation the neutron states with $`I_\nu >32`$ and the proton states with $`I_\pi >16`$ because their probabilities in the intrinsic states are very small ($`<`$ 0.001).

The energy spectra $`E(I_\tau )=I_\tau |\widehat{H}_\tau |I_\tau `$ obtained from the projected states $`|I_\tau `$ are almost rotational ( $`E(I_\tau )=A_\tau I_\tau (I_\tau +1)`$ ), with the moment of inertia parameters $`A_\nu =`$ 0.019 MeV and $`A_\pi =`$ 0.048 MeV.

For each spin $`I`$, we diagonalize Eq. (8) in the basis $`|(I_\nu I_\pi )I`$. The resulting spectrum with energy up to 20 MeV and angular momenta up to 12$`\mathrm{}`$ is shown in Fig. 1. It shows strikingly regular structure.

The lowest band is the g-band, which is nearly identical to that of earlier PSM calculations  with the same Hamiltonian where no separation and re-coupling of neutron and proton components was considered. The calculated g-band in Fig. 1 reproduces the experimental g-band  very well, as we shall show later in Fig. 4. In addition to the g-band, many new excited bands emerge that are not found in the earlier PSM calculations. These bands exhibit a curvature similar to the g-band, suggesting that their moments of inertia are similar to the g-band.

## 4 Emergence of SU(3) Symmetry

The strikingly regular pattern shown in Fig. 1 can be understood as manifestation of a nearly perfect $`SU(3)`$ symmetry: all bands can be well classified as a spectrum with $`SU(3)`$ symmetry if the projected neutron and proton BCS vacuum states are considered to be two independent $`SU(3)`$ representations coupled through the $`Q_\nu `$-$`Q_\pi `$ interaction.

This may be demonstrated by considering a model Hamiltonian with $`SU(3)^\nu SU(3)^\pi SU(3)^{\nu +\pi }`$ dynamical symmetry expressed in the form (see Eq. (3.107) in Ref. ):

$$\widehat{H}=\chi _\nu ^{\text{eff}}\widehat{C}_{su3}^\nu +\chi _\pi ^{\text{eff}}\widehat{C}_{su3}^\pi \chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}\widehat{C}_{su3}^{\nu +\pi }+A\widehat{I}^2,$$
(11)
where $`\widehat{C}_{su3}^\tau `$ are the $`SU(3)^\tau `$ ($`\tau =\nu ,\pi `$) Casimir operators for neutrons, protons, and the n–p coupled symmetry $`SU(3)^{\nu +\pi }`$ ($`\tau =\nu +\pi `$). The eigenvalue of the lowest-order $`SU(3)`$ Casimir operator for a given representation $`(\lambda ,\mu )`$ is $`C(\lambda ,\mu )=\frac{1}{2}(\lambda ^2+\mu ^2+\lambda \mu +3\lambda +3\mu )`$. We assume that the two BCS vacua correspond to the $`SU(3)`$ symmetric representations $`(\lambda _\nu ,0)`$ and $`(\lambda _\pi ,0)`$, respectively, and that the permissible irreps $`(\lambda ,\mu )`$ of $`SU(3)^{\nu +\pi }`$ are given by the Littlewood rule, $`(\lambda ,\mu )=(\lambda _m2\mu ,\mu )`$, where $`\lambda _m=\lambda _\nu +\lambda _\pi `$ is the maximum value of $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu =0,1,2,\mathrm{},\lambda _\pi `$, if $`\lambda _\pi \lambda _\nu `$.

The eigenvalue spectrum $`E[(\lambda ,\mu )I]`$ of the Hamiltonian of (11) obtained from the states with angular momentum $`I`$ belonging to the coupled representation $`\{[\lambda _\nu ,0][\lambda _\pi ,0]\}(\lambda ,\mu )I`$ is

$`E[(\lambda ,\mu )I]E_{\text{g.s.}}`$ $`=`$ $`\chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}\left[C(\lambda _m,0)C(\lambda =\lambda _m2\mu ,\mu )\right]+AI(I+1)`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`\mu \mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{\mu 1}{\lambda _m}}\right]+AI(I+1),`$
with

$$\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}=\frac{3}{2}\lambda _m\chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}.$$
(13)
The second term in Eq. (12) gives a rotational band with a moment of inertia parameter $`A=\mathrm{}^2/2\mathrm{}`$. $`E_{\text{g.s.}}`$ is the ground state energy corresponding to the coupled $`SU(3)`$ representation $`[\lambda _m,0]`$

$$E_{\text{g.s.}}=\chi _\nu ^{\text{eff}}C(\lambda _\nu ,0)+\chi _\pi ^{\text{eff}}C(\lambda _\pi ,0)\chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}C(\lambda _m,0).$$
(14)
The parameter $`\lambda _m`$ fixes the $`SU(3)`$ representation $`[\lambda _m,0]`$ of the g-band. The parameter $`\mu `$ then fixes the representation $`[\lambda =\lambda _m2\mu ,\mu ]`$ of the excited bands through the Littlewood rule.

A more physical meaning of the parameter $`\mu `$ emerges from the first term of Eq. (12), which represents a vibration-like spectrum which tends to be harmonic for $`\lambda _m\mu `$. In this limit, $`\mu `$ can be interpreted as the number of phonons of this “vibration” and $`\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}`$ as the one-phonon excitation energy as $`\lambda _m\mathrm{}`$, with its value being, approximately, the energy of the first excited $`I=1^+`$ state relative to the ground state. The allowed angular momenta $`I`$ belonging to a representation $`[\lambda ,\mu ]`$ are determined from the usual $`SU(3)`$ subgroup reduction rules . For example, the representation $`(\lambda ,\mu )=(40,4)`$ can have a $`K=0`$ band with $`I=0,2,4,\mathrm{},44`$, a $`K=2`$ band with $`I=2,3,4,\mathrm{},43`$ and a $`K=4`$ band with $`I=4,5,6,\mathrm{},41`$ .

The PSM calculated spectrum shown in Fig. 1 can then be described by the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry spectrum of Eq. (12). The parameters $`\lambda _m`$, $`\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`A`$ of Eq. (12), which fit best the PSM spectrum of Fig. 1, are $`\lambda _m=48`$, $`\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}=2.9`$ MeV ($`\chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}=0.0403`$), and $`A=0.013`$ MeV. The $`SU(3)`$ band structure obtained with these parameters is shown in Fig. 1 as the dashed lines and reproduces remarkably well the PSM spectrum obtained from numerical projection and diagonalization. The fact that the parameter $`\lambda _m=48`$ fits the spectrum in Fig. 1 suggests that the g-band of PSM may be associated with the $`SU(3)`$ representation $`[\lambda _m,0]=[48,0]`$. All the states shown in Fig. 1 can be labeled by the $`SU(3)`$ irrep labels $`(\lambda ,\mu )`$ and the bandhead of each rotational band within the irrep is labeled by the $`SU(3)`$ quantum number $`K`$. Degeneracy at each spin may be deduced by counting one for each $`K`$ band, except only even spins are present for $`K=0`$ bands. We list the degeneracy of the $`(40,4)`$ representation as an example in Fig. 1. Not all PSM states can be seen clearly in the plot because of the high degeneracy, but there is a one-to-one correspondence between all predicted $`SU(3)`$ states and those observed in the PSM calculation.

One can see from Eq. (12) and the $`SU(3)`$ reduction rules that the whole spectrum of Fig. 1 can be viewed as a set of rotational bands built on different multi-phonon excitation states with a phonon energy $`\mathrm{}\omega =\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}\left[1\frac{\mu 1}{\lambda _m}\right]`$ and phonon spin $`1\mathrm{}`$. For example, a 3-phonon system could have two allowed states with energy $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ and total spin 1$`\mathrm{}`$ and 3$`\mathrm{}`$; a 4-phonon system could have three states with energy $`4\mathrm{}\omega `$ and total spin 0$`\mathrm{}`$, 2$`\mathrm{}`$, and 4$`\mathrm{}`$; and so on. This provides an alternative explanation of the degeneracy of the bands obtained by the PSM diagonalization. Comparing the $`SU(3)`$ and phonon classifications, one can see clearly that the $`SU(3)`$ quantum numbers $`\mu `$ and $`K`$ in Fig. 1 may be interpreted as the number of phonons and their allowed total spins, respectively.

As long as $`\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}`$ is held constant, the spectrum is sensitive to the effective $`SU(3)`$ quantum number $`\lambda _m`$ only through a small anharmonicity. For the present example, the phonon energy decreases smoothly from 2.9 MeV to 2.5 MeV as the phonon number increases from 1 to 7. If $`\lambda _m\mathrm{}`$, then $`\mathrm{}\omega \mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}`$ and the vibration becomes harmonic. Thus, the anharmonicity originates in the finite number of particles for the nuclear system.

## 5 Further Inspection on the Wave Functions

The remarkably quantitative agreement of all calculated excited states with the $`SU(3)`$ spectrum demonstrated above makes it essentially certain that an $`SU(3)`$ symmetry emerges from the purely numerical PSM calculation. To remove all doubt, we may study the wave functions. In this section, we shall do this in three steps: we first compare angular momentum components in the PSM and $`SU(3)`$ intrinsic states. Then, we directly calculate overlaps of the actual wave functions from the PSM calculation with $`SU(3)`$ wave functions. Finally, we compute $`B(E2)`$ values from PSM calculations that connect states in each band and compare with those of the $`SU(3)`$ model.

### 5.1 SU(3) Structure of the Intrinsic States

Let us start by recalling that an intrinsic state $`|0_\tau `$, $`(\tau =\nu ,\pi `$), is related to a projected state $`|I_\tau `$ by

$$|0_\tau =\underset{I_\tau }{}C_{I_\tau }|I_\tau .$$
(15)
In Eq. (15), $`C_I`$ is the norm matrix element in the PSM described in Eq. (2.33) of Ref.

$$|C_I|^2=0|\widehat{P}^I|0.$$
(16)
It gives the probability of finding angular momentum $`I`$ in the intrinsic state $`|0`$ (with $`_I|C_I|^2=1`$, a sum rule obtained in Eq. (A80) of Ref. ). In other words, the quantity $`|C_I|^2`$ describes the angular momentum distribution in the intrinsic state $`|0`$. For the present calculation, we projected the states with angular momenta $`I_\nu =0,2,\mathrm{},32`$ and $`I_\pi =0,2,\mathrm{},16`$ from the Nilsson-BCS intrinsic states $`|0_\tau `$ of 168Er. The probabilities $`|C_{I_\tau }|^2`$ for $`I_\nu >32`$ and $`I_\pi >16`$ were very small and hence such states were not included in the basis state $`|[I_\nu I_\pi ]I`$ used in the present PSM diagonalization. The values $`|C_{I_\tau }|^2`$ (for the nucleus 168Er) calculated for the first nine values $`I_\tau =0,2,\mathrm{},16`$ contained in the intrinsic state $`|0_\tau `$ are listed in Table 1. For comparison, the values $`|C_I|^2`$ for the state $`|I`$ in the total intrinsic vacuum state $`|0_\nu |0_\pi `$ are also presented in the same table.

In order to make a connection with the emergent $`SU(3)`$ symmetry at the intrinsic state level, we compare the probabilities $`C_{I_\tau }^2`$(PSM) of the PSM intrinsic states $`|0_\tau _{\text{PSM}}`$ with the corresponding probabilities $`C_{I_\tau }^2`$($`SU(3)`$) in the intrinsic states $`|0_\tau _{SU(3)}`$ belonging to axially symmetric $`SU(3)`$ representation $`[\lambda _\tau ,0]`$. The latter probabilities are given by Elliott’s $`a((\lambda ,0)I)`$ coefficients . Analytical formulas for the $`a((\lambda ,\mu )I)`$ are given in Table 2A of the Vergados’s paper . The effective $`SU(3)`$ representation $`[\lambda _\tau ,0]`$ for protons and neutrons is determined by equating the probabilities $`C_{I_\tau }^2`$(PSM) = $`C_{I_\tau }^2`$($`SU(3)`$) = $`a((\lambda _\tau ,0)I_\tau )`$ for a given $`I_\tau `$ (say $`I_\tau =0`$). For our present case of 168Er, the values of $`\lambda _\tau `$ obtained by this procedure are $`\lambda _\nu `$ 32 and $`\lambda _\pi `$ 16, to the nearest even integer.

The coefficients $`a((\lambda _\tau ,0)I)`$ are then calculated for all values of $`I_\tau =0,2,\mathrm{},\lambda _\tau `$, allowed by the effective $`\lambda _\tau `$. (We denote these values as $`a_I`$ in the following discussion.) The $`a_{I_\tau }`$ values are compared with the corresponding $`C_{I_\tau }`$ values of the PSM in Fig. 2. The excellent agreement between these values shows that the distribution of angular momenta of neutrons and protons in our Nilsson–BCS vacuum states are very similar to those in the intrinsic states of the $`SU(3)`$-representations $`[\lambda _\nu =32,0]`$ and $`[\lambda _\pi =16,0]`$.

The total Nilsson–BCS vacuum state $`|0_{\text{PSM}}=|0_\pi _{\text{PSM}}|0_\nu _{\text{PSM}}`$ should then have an effective $`SU(3)`$-representation $`[\lambda =\lambda _\pi +\lambda _\nu ,0]=[48,0]`$ and the probabilities $`C_I^2`$ of finding angular momentum $`I`$ in the total PSM intrinsic state should be similar to the probabilities $`a((\lambda =48,0)I)`$ corresponding to the $`SU(3)`$ intrinsic state of representation . The agreement between these two probabilities is also shown in Fig. 2.

These PSM effective $`SU(3)`$ representations for the Nilsson–BCS intrinsic states of neutrons and protons for 168Er in the three-shell valence space should be compared with the effective representations $`[\lambda _\nu ^{\text{eff}},\mu _\nu ^{\text{eff}}]=[40,0],[\lambda _\pi ^{\text{eff}},\mu _\pi ^{\text{eff}}]=[24,0]`$, and $`[\lambda ^{\text{eff}},\mu ^{\text{eff}}]=[64,0]`$ obtained by Kahane et al.  for just the Nilsson intrinsic state of 168Er in the $`\nu (82126)`$ and $`\pi (5082)`$ single major shell valence space. These representations are larger than the effective representations $`[\lambda _\nu =32,0]`$ and $`[\lambda _\pi =16,0]`$ mainly because Kahane et al. have included all the projected states with probabilities $`|C_I|^2<0.001`$, which have been omitted in the present PSM calculations. For comparison, we also note that in the one major shell valence space, the pseudo-$`SU(3)`$ representations for the normal parity nucleons in $`{}_{68}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{168}`$Er100 are  $`[\lambda _\nu ^{\text{pseudo}},\mu _\nu ^{\text{pseudo}}]=[20,4]`$, $`[\lambda _\pi ^{\text{pseudo}},\mu _\pi ^{\text{pseudo}}]=[10,4]`$, and $`[\lambda _n^{\text{pseudo}}=30,\mu _n^{\text{pseudo}}=8]`$. These representations are strongly triaxial but their effective axially symmetric representations would be $`[\lambda _\nu ^{\text{eff}}=24,0]`$, $`[\lambda _\pi ^{\text{eff}}=14,0]`$ and $`[\lambda ^{\text{eff}}=38,0]`$. In the FDSM , the $`SU(3)`$ representation for 10 neutrons in the normal parity states of the (82 – 126) shell is $`[\lambda _\nu ^{\text{FDSM}},\mu _\nu ^{\text{FDSM}}]=[10,0]`$. There are also 10 protons in normal parity states of the (50 – 82) shell, and they do not show an $`SU(3)`$, but an $`SO(6)`$ symmetry that corresponds to a $`\gamma `$-soft rotor. However, when the protons are strongly coupled to the neutrons, they will be synchronized with neutrons and stabilized at $`\gamma 0`$, so that the proton system behaves like an $`SU(3)`$ rotor. Therefore, an effective $`SU(3)`$ representation $`[\lambda _\pi ^{\text{FDSM}},\mu _\pi ^{\text{FDSM}}]=[10,0]`$ could be assigned to the protons. Quantitatively, the FDSM with one major shell can only fit to the first three bands in Fig. 1. Larger deviations are expected for the higher bands, although the qualitative band structure remains correct. If the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry which appears to emerge from the PSM calculation presented here is identified as the FDSM symmetry in the extended three-shell valence space with the effective neutron and proton numbers $`n_\nu ^{\text{eff}}=32`$ and $`n_\pi ^{\text{eff}}=16`$, then agreement with the PSM results is perfect, as shown in Fig. 1.

### 5.2 SU(3) Symmetry in the Wave Functions

Next we shall verify that the structure of the PSM wave function $`|I_{\text{PSM}}`$ belonging to different bands obtained by diagonalization is similar to that of the $`SU(3)`$ wave function $`|(\lambda ,\mu ),I_{SU(3)}`$ belonging to the $`SU(3)`$ representation $`[\lambda ,\mu ]`$ obtained by coupling the $`[\lambda _\pi ,0]`$ and $`[\lambda _\nu ,0]`$. Here we consider only the g-band. The PSM wave functions for the g-band obtained by diagonalizing the Hamiltonian in the basis $`\{(I_\nu I_\pi )I\}`$ can be written as

$$|I_{\text{PSM}}=\underset{I_\nu ,I_\pi }{}f_{\text{PSM}}(I_\nu I_\pi ;I)|(I_\nu I_\pi )I,$$
(17)
and the total $`SU(3)`$ wave function for the g-band representation $`[\lambda ,0]`$ can be written as

$`|(\lambda ,\mu ),I_{SU(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}_I{\displaystyle \underset{I_\nu ,I_\pi }{}}a_{I_\nu }a_{I_\pi }I_\nu 0I_\pi 0|I0|[I_\nu I_\pi ]I`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{I_\nu ,I_\pi }{}}f_{SU(3)}(I_\nu I_\pi ;I)|(I_\nu I_\pi )I,`$
where $`\mathrm{}_I`$ is the normalization constant

$$|\mathrm{}_I|^2=\frac{1}{_{I_\nu ,I_\pi }(a_{I_\nu }a_{I_\pi }I_\nu 0I_\pi 0|I0)^2}.$$
(19)
The overlap of these two wave functions is

$`O_I`$ $`=`$ $`{}_{SU(3)}{}^{}(\lambda ,\mu ),I|I_{\text{PSM}}^{}`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{I_\nu ,I_\pi }{}}f_{SU(3)}(I_\nu I_\pi ;I)f_{\text{PSM}}(I_\nu I_\pi ;I).`$
Knowing the $`SU(3)`$ coefficients $`f_{SU(3)}`$ from $`a_{I_\nu }`$ and $`a_{I_\pi }`$, and the PSM coefficients $`f_{\text{PSM}}`$ from numerical diagonalization, we are able to compute their overlap. The calculated overlaps $`O_I`$ are listed in Table 2 111A similar calculation for the overlaps for the PSM wave functions $`|I_{PSM}`$ belonging to higher bands with the $`SU(3)`$ wave functions of the representations , , etc. requires calculation of $`SU(3)`$ Clebsch–Gordon coefficients. The proof should be straightforward and is not given here.. All the numbers are very close to 1, indicating a strong overlap of the PSM wave functions with the $`SU(3)`$ wave functions.

### 5.3 SU(3)-like Systematics of $`B(E2,II2)`$ values

The $`B(E2)`$ values are useful to determine the collectivity of a band. In the discussion of the last section, the numerically calculated PSM states were classified using group theoretical methods. We shall now verify this classification with $`B(E2)`$ calculations using PSM wave function, which will allow us to classify PSM states into collective bands. Since we have proved the similarity of the PSM wave functions to the $`SU(3)`$ ones, we expect to obtain similar $`B(E2)`$ values if we make a corresponding calculation using $`SU(3)`$ wave functions.

The $`B(E2)`$ transitions are calculated as

$$B(E2,I_iI_f)=\frac{|I_f𝒯^2I_i|^2}{2I_i+1},$$
(21)
where the operator $`𝒯^2=𝒯_\nu ^2+𝒯_\pi ^2`$ is related to the quadrupole operators by

$`𝒯_\nu ^2`$ $`=`$ $`e_\nu ^{\text{eff}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{5}{16\pi }}}Q_\nu ^2,`$
$`𝒯_\pi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`e_\pi ^{\text{eff}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{5}{16\pi }}}Q_\pi ^2.`$ (22)
In the calculations, we have used the usual effective charges $`e_\nu ^{\text{eff}}=0.5e`$ and $`e_\pi ^{\text{eff}}=1.5e`$. By employing the PSM wave functions of Eq. (17), the reduced matrix element appearing in Eq. (21) can be evaluated as

$`I_f𝒯^2I_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{I_f(I_{f,\nu },I_{f,\pi })}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{I_i(I_{i,\nu },I_{i,\pi })}{}}f_f(I_{f,\nu }I_{f,\pi };I_f)f_i(I_{i,\nu }I_{i,\pi };I_i)`$ (23)
$`(I_{f,\nu }I_{f,\pi })I_f𝒯_\nu ^2+𝒯_\pi ^2(I_{i,\nu }I_{i,\pi })I_i,`$
in which the matrix elements for a coupled system can be explicitly expressed as

$`[I_{f,\nu }I_{f,\pi }]I_f`$ $`𝒯_\nu ^2[I_{i,\nu }I_{i,\pi }]I_i=\sqrt{(2I_i+1)(2I_f+1)}`$
$`()^{I_{f,\nu }+I_{f,\pi }+I_i}𝒲(I_{i,\nu }I_{i,\pi }2I_f;I_iI_{f,\nu })I_{f,\nu }𝒯_\nu ^2I_{i,\nu }\delta _{I_{f,\pi }I_{i,\pi }},`$
$`[I_{f,\nu }I_{f,\pi }]I_f`$ $`𝒯_\pi ^2[I_{i,\nu }I_{i,\pi }]I_i=\sqrt{(2I_i+1)(2I_f+1)}`$ (24)
$`()^{I_{i,\nu }+I_{i,\pi }+I_f}𝒲(I_{i,\nu }I_{i,\pi }I_f2;I_iI_{f,\pi })I_{f,\pi }𝒯_\pi ^2I_{i,\pi }\delta _{I_{f,\nu }I_{i,\nu }}.`$
In the $`SU(3)`$ model, assuming the transition operator $`𝒯^2=\alpha P^2`$, where $`P^2`$ is the generator of the coupled $`SU(3)^{\nu +\pi }`$, the $`B(E2)`$ formula for the intra-band transition is

$$B(E2,I_iI_f)=\frac{2I_f+1}{2I_i+1}\alpha ^2\left|(\lambda \mu )KI_i,(11)2(\lambda \mu )KI_f\right|^2C(\lambda ,\mu ),$$
(25)
where $`(\lambda \mu )KI_i,(11)2(\lambda \mu )KI_f`$ is the $`SU(3)R(3)`$ Wigner coefficient, and $`\alpha `$ is a parameter of the effective transition operator in the $`SU(3)`$ model determined by fitting data. The inter-band transition rate is zero. In the symmetry limit, if the transition operator is not a generator of $`SU(3)^{\nu +\pi }`$ or there exists small symmetry breaking in the wavefunction, the inter-band transition rate would be expected to be small but not zero.

Generally, the shell-model $`E2`$ operator has different effective charges for neutrons and protons and as such is not a generator of the coupled $`SU(3)^{\nu +\pi }`$. We note, however, that Eq. (25) is still a good approximation for this more general $`E2`$ operator through the inclusion of a factor $`(e_\nu \lambda _\nu +e_\pi \lambda _\pi )/(\lambda _\nu +\lambda _\pi )`$ in the proportionality constant $`\alpha `$. Different neutron and proton effective charges (or gyromagnetic ratios for $`M1`$’s) will also give rise to inter-band transitions, which is an essential mechanism to obtain the strong $`M1`$’s from scissors states to ground band.

The $`B(E2)`$ values calculated by the PSM are shown in Fig. 3, in comparison with the $`SU(3)`$ results and the experimental data . For the g-band (labeled as the first $`0^+`$ band in the tables), good agreement is found for all states except for the transition $`6^+4^+`$. Besides the g-band, we have calculated the $`B(E2)`$’s for the first $`1^+`$ band, the second $`0^+`$ band, and the first $`2^+`$ band (see Fig. 1). The values displayed in Table 3 confirm strong collectivity in each of these intra-transition bands and is in good agreement with what found in the $`SU(3)`$ model. Linking $`B(E2)`$ values between any of two bands are also calculated, with the results displayed in Table 4. These inter-band $`B(E2)`$ values are typically two orders of magnitude smaller than the values for the intra-band transitions. From these calculations, the sets of nearly degenerate bands seen in the PSM calculations of Fig. 1 (for example, the second $`0^+`$ band and the first $`2^+`$ band) can be separated easily. All these results strongly support the conclusion that the structure of well deformed nuclei resulting from PSM calculations indeed possesses a very strong $`SU(3)`$ symmetry.

## 6 Comments on the Emergent SU(3) Symmetry

The connection between $`SU(3)`$ symmetry and nuclear rotation has a long history. It was first explored by Elliott in his classic 1958 papers  for $`sd`$-shell nuclei. This idea was later extended to heavy systems using the pseudo-$`SU(3)`$ model , which showed that it is possible to represent approximately the ground band of a deformed nucleus by one leading $`SU(3)`$ representation belonging only to the normal parity nucleons in a single major shell. However this model has difficulty in reproducing $`\beta `$-bands of heavy nuclei, and quantitative results generally do not appear in simple symmetry limits and therefore require numerical calculations. Later, the interacting boson model (IBM)  demonstrated that nuclear rotational motion including $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-bands can be described by an $`SU(3)`$ dynamical symmetry based on $`s`$-$`d`$ or $`s`$-$`d`$-$`g`$ bosons. The fermion dynamical symmetry model (FDSM), based on the $`S`$-$`D`$ fermion pairs of normal parity nucleons in a major shell, demonstrated analytically the equivalence between the particle–rotor model and the $`SU(3)`$ dynamical symmetry limit of the FDSM when particle number $`n\mathrm{}`$; if the Pauli effect is neglected (by assuming the shell pair-degeneracy $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{}`$) the FDSM reduces to the IBM (see Section 3 and 4 in Ref. ).

However, all the above-mentioned models are algebraic and the possibility for symmetries arises naturally in them. The extended PSM described here has not built an explicit $`SU(3)`$ symmetry into the problem, and no free parameters have been adjusted. Nevertheless, the spectra and wavefunctions obtained from the PSM calculations can again be well classified using the representation theory of the $`SU(3)`$ group. The $`SU(3)`$ symmetry just emerges naturally at the macroscopic level from a shell model diagonalization in the basis obtained by angular momentum projection from a deformed intrinsic state. This is a non-trivial result because our study is not confined in the g-band, but extended up to high spins and high excitations, and because the correspondence has been demonstrated not only at the spectral level, but in the wavefunctions and electromagnetic transition rates too. This strongly indicates that a well deformed nucleus is in fact a very good $`SU(3)`$ rotor.

Now we may ask an important question: what is the nature of the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry that emerges from the PSM? There are many $`SU(3)`$ models. Mathematically, they are equivalent if their representations are the equivalent. Physically, the models differ in the microscopic basis on which the symmetry is built, and have different permissible $`SU(3)`$ irreps, and thus different band structures. The emergent $`SU(3)`$ symmetry we have found here is in principle consistent with any $`SU(3)`$ symmetry model that has allowed representations consistent with the observed states and band structure. We emphasize that this is a physical rather than mathematical criterion, for it is the physical input to an $`SU(3)`$ model that determines its allowed irreps. Therefore, to answer the question of which $`SU(3)`$ model is consistent with the symmetry of the well deformed rotor that we have explored in this paper, one should look at the entire band structure and not just the ground-state rotational band.

As we have already demonstrated, the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry that emerges from the PSM for 168Er corresponds to effective $`\{[\lambda _\nu =32,0][\lambda _\pi =16,0]\}(\lambda ,\mu )I`$ irreps for neutrons and protons, respectively. Among the $`SU(3)`$ models being employed in nuclear structure physics, the FDSM (or equivalently the IBM that results if Pauli effects are neglected in the FDSM) can naturally accommodate such a representation if the shell degeneracy $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is large enough . As can be easily checked, no other currently existing $`SU(3)`$ fermion model permits naturally such an $`SU(3)`$ representation. For example, the leading $`SU(3)`$ irreps for 168Er given by the pseudo-$`SU(3)`$ model  would be $`\{[\lambda _\nu ^{\text{pseudo}}=20,\mu _\nu ^{\text{pseudo}}=4][\lambda _\pi ^{\text{pseudo}}=10,\mu _\pi ^{\text{pseudo}}=4]\}(\lambda ,\mu )I`$, which will give a band structure very different from what we have seen in Fig. 1. Thus, we conclude that in a model such as the pseudo-$`SU(3)`$, the $`SU(3)`$ spectrum found in the numerical PSM calculation cannot be reproduced by any simple symmetry limit and could emerge (if at all) only from a large mixing of irreps through numerical diagonalization.

However, it should be noted that although we have demonstrated that the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry that emerges from the PSM is of FDSM-type (or the IBM-type if Pauli effects are omitted), this does not necessarily mean that the simplest single-major shell FDSM can accommodate such an $`SU(3)`$ symmetry microscopically. If we assume that the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry which emerges for 168Er in the present PSM calculation is the fermion dynamical $`SU(3)`$ symmetry of Ref.  based on $`S`$-$`D`$ fermion pairs, the $`SU(3)`$ quantum numbers $`\lambda _\nu `$ and $`\lambda _\pi `$ have a very simple interpretation. They are the effective number of neutrons and protons in the valence space, $`\lambda _\nu =n_\nu ^{\text{eff}}`$ and $`\lambda _\pi =n_\pi ^{\text{eff}}`$, which form the coherent $`S`$-$`D`$ pairs and are responsible for the collective rotation. In the simplest implementations of the FDSM, the model space is restricted to one major shell for protons and neutrons. The effective neutron (proton) number $`n_\nu ^{\text{eff}}`$ ($`n_\pi ^{\text{eff}}`$) is just the number of neutrons (protons) in the normal-parity levels of a single major shell, which is obviously too small to satisfy the requirement of $`n_\nu ^{\text{eff}}32`$ and $`n_\pi ^{\text{eff}}16`$ for the 168Er case. In order to accommodate the $`\{[\lambda _\nu =32,0][\lambda _\pi =16,0]\}(\lambda ,\mu )I`$ $`SU(3)`$ symmetry, the one-major shell FDSM has to be extended to a multi-major shell FDSM. Namely, the coherent $`S`$-$`D`$ pairs should be redefined in a multi-major shell space. This has already been discussed extensively in conjunction with the extension of the FDSM to the description of superdeformation, and much of that discussion applies to the present case.

One should note in this regard that there is a conceptual distinction between the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry that emerged from the PSM diagonalized in multiple shells and that which arises in the one-major shell FDSM. In the PSM calculations the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry arises from the explicit dynamical participation of both normal and abnormal-parity nucleons, while in the symmetry limit of the single one-major shell FDSM the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry itself arises entirely from the normal-parity nucleons and the abnormal parity orbital enters only implicitly through the Pauli effect and by renormalizing the $`SU(3)`$ parameters. Thus, the multi-major shell FDSM is also necessary to resolve this conceptual ambiguity. The reason that the one-major shell FDSM treats the contribution of the abnormal-parity component to the collective motion differently from normal parity orbitals is because in a single major shell there is only one abnormal parity level. It has been shown that a single-$`j`$ shell does not have enough quadrupole collectivity (the possibility to form a $`D`$ pair in the $`i_{\frac{13}{2}}`$ intruder level compared to that in the corresponding normal-parity levels is only $`\frac{6}{46}`$; see Ref. ). When the FDSM is extended to a three-shell valence space as in the PSM, the situation will be changed. A bunch of abnormal-parity levels, which are located just below the normal-parity levels, will open up. Abnormal-parity nucleons thus have enough collectivity to form coherent $`D`$ pairs and participate in collective motion. This idea has already been developed in the extension of the FDSM to superdeformation.

Although the basic theme of the present work is that the $`SU(3)`$ symmetry-like features emerge for deformed nuclei from a realistic Hamiltonian which has no such symmetry at a microscopic level, it is tempting to look for the microscopic basis underlying the emergent $`SU(3)`$ symmetry. The preceding arguments give us strong reason to speculate that this emergent $`SU(3)`$ symmetry is just a manifestation of the FDSM operating over a three-shell valence space.

## 7 Comments on the Scissors Mode Vibrations

A second important consequence of our study is that the rotational states that we have just described in terms of an $`SU(3)`$ symmetry can be regrouped and interpreted as phonon vibrations (even though no explicit vibrational information has been given to the calculation). A standard signature of ideal harmonic vibrational motion is the appearance of an equally spaced spectrum of energy levels with a characteristic degeneracy pattern. A similar connection between $`SU(3)`$ symmetry and vibration in rotating nuclei was pointed out by Wu et al. for $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-vibrations . In the present case, we have clearly shown that the band heads of the different $`SU(3)`$ representations $`[\lambda ,\mu ]`$ obtained by coupling the proton–neutron representations $`[\lambda _\pi ,0]`$ and $`[\lambda _\mu ,0]`$ tend to be equally spaced. We have also shown that the spectra of the states obtained by PSM diagonalization is dominated by nearly equally spaced bands (apart from a small anharmonicity). Therefore it is appropriate to call these “vibrational bands”. Physically the only vibrational mode allowed for protons and neutrons that retain their individual $`SU(3)`$ irreps $`[\lambda _\tau ,0]`$ (this algebraic restriction is related to a geometrical requirement of fixed deformation for both neutrons and protons) is the “scissors mode”. The scissors mode corresponds geometrically to an oscillation in the relative orientation angle of the quadrupole-deformed neutron and proton potentials.

Traditionally, collective vibrations appear as a consequence of small oscillations around the equilibrium in the deformed potential, as we know from the physics of $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$vibrations . Theories of the RPA type allow superposition of states displaced around the equilibrium, thus describing the physics of small oscillations, as required for $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$vibrations. However, the collective vibrations considered here originate from relative motion between proton and neutron systems at fixed deformation. As long as one does not decompose the neutron and proton degrees of freedom, the physics discussed in our work is not contained in such theories.

On the other hand, it is clear that the present results do not describe $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-spectra because the $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-vibrational modes do not belong to the present configuration space. This can be seen clearly with the aid of the preceding $`SU(3)`$ classification of the PSM states. The $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-vibrations (the quadrupole phonon or spin-2$`\mathrm{}`$ excitations), correspond to a coherent superposition of the $`[(\lambda _\nu 2\mu ,\mu )(\lambda _\pi ,0)]`$ and $`[(\lambda _\nu ,0)(\lambda _\pi 2\mu ,\mu )]`$ representations with $`\mu `$ equal to a non-zero even integer. In other words, either the neutron or the proton core (or both), must be excited. It is easy to show from Eq. (11) that the dominant $`SU(3)`$ representation for the lowest $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-bands is $`[(\lambda _\nu 4,2)(\lambda _\pi ,0)](\lambda 4,2)`$ if $`\lambda _\nu >\lambda _\pi `$. The $`\beta `$-band head energy is given by

$$E_{\beta 0}E_{\text{g.s.}}=3\lambda _\nu \chi _\nu ^{\text{eff}}+2\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}},\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}=\frac{3}{2}\lambda _m\chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}$$
(26)
Thus the $`\beta `$-vibrational band head energy is significantly lower than the energy $`E_{\text{2nd}0^+}=2\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}`$ of the lowest $`K=0^+`$ band of the scissors mode excitation shown in Fig. 1 which corresponds to the $`[(\lambda _\nu ,0)(\lambda _\pi ,0)](\lambda _m4,2)`$ representation. In fact, $`E_{\beta 0}`$ will be lower than even the energy $`E_{\text{1st}1^+}`$ of the band head of the first 1+ scissors mode $`E_{\text{1st}1^+}=\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{}}+2A`$, if the condition $`\chi _\nu ^{\text{eff}}>\frac{\lambda _m}{2\lambda _\nu }\chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}`$ is fulfilled. In the case of 168Er discussed here, this condition becomes $`\chi _\nu ^{\text{eff}}>0.75\chi _{\nu \pi }^{\text{eff}}`$.

This means that, unlike the scissors mode, the $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-vibrations do not correspond to relative motion between fixed neutron and proton fields, but to an internal collective excitation of neutrons or/and protons. This picture is consistent with the conventional shape vibration picture . Therefore, to obtain the classical $`\beta `$\- and $`\gamma `$-bands within the present framework one must build a richer set of correlations into the vacuum. In principle, this could be achieved by mixing a large set of multi-quasiparticle states, but in practice, the configuration space may be too large to handle if there is substantial collectivity in these modes. A more efficient way to introduce these states is to build those degrees of freedom into the intrinsic basis. Very recently, $`\gamma `$-band and multi-phonon $`\gamma `$-vibrational states in rare-earth nuclei have been obtained by Sun et al.  by using three-dimensional angular momentum projection on triaxially deformed potential .

## 8 The First 1+, 2+, and the Second 0+ Bands

Several lowest excited bands appearing in Fig. 1 warrant further discussion. In Fig. 4 we plot these bands, together with the g-band from the PSM calculations and from experiment . There are other observed low-lying collective states in this nucleus (for example, the 2+ $`\gamma `$-band starting at 0.821 MeV , which was extensively studied in the PSM framework in Ref. ). Discussion of these states is beyond the scope of the present paper, and therefore, we omit plotting them in Fig. 4.

The first 1+ band corresponds to a 1-phonon excitation with the excitation energy relative to the ground state depending on the interaction strengths used in the calculation. The good agreement of the calculated g-band with data (and similar results for many other calculations in this mass region ) suggests that the strengths we use here are realistic. These excitations are due to an $`SU(3)`$ coupling $`(n_\nu ,0)(n_\pi ,0)`$ in which both neutron and proton intrinsic systems remain in the ground states; thus they are related physically to relative motion between neutrons and protons. We conclude that this may be the 1+ scissors mode band previously suggested in other models . Our obtained bandhead of this 1+ band is at an excitation of about 3 MeV, reasonably within the energy range of experimental observations for scissors mode .

The present results indicate that the PSM provides a microscopic framework in which collective modes that may be closely identified with those proposed in earlier geometrical and algebraic descriptions emerge as the lowest excitations. Furthermore, it is already well established that the PSM describes structures built on quasiparticle excitation very well . Therefore, the extension of the present calculations to a larger basis including 2 and possibly 4 quasiparticle excitations of the n–p coupled vacuum will provide a microscopic formalism in which collective and quasiparticle degrees of freedom enter on an equal footing. Such calculations are possible and are presently being explored. We may expect that the long-debated question of whether the observed $`1^+`$ states are collective or two-quasiparticle in nature may then be resolved through such quantitative calculations of this sort.

The other excited bands are generalizations of the scissors mode corresponding to multi-phonon excitations. In Fig. 4, the next two bands at 6.5 MeV excitation energy are nearly degenerate 2-phonon states, corresponding to the coupling of two 1$`\mathrm{}`$-phonons to total spins 0$`\mathrm{}`$ and 2$`\mathrm{}`$. These are theoretically predicted multi-phonon excitations of the scissors mode, and have not to our knowledge been seen experimentally. Although the level density is expected to be high at that excitation energy and symmetry breaking will fractionate the strength, these predicted states might be detectable in the new generation of modern detectors.

## 9 Summary

We have found many new collective states in a shell model diagonalization based on separately projected neutron and proton Nilsson + BCS vacuum states. We have shown that these states exhibit an almost perfect $`SU(3)`$ symmetry, both in their spectra and their wavefunctions. We have shown also that these states can be classified systematically in a phonon spectrum with weak anharmonicity. Among these states, the lowest 1+ band at about 3 MeV corresponds to the scissors mode predicted in a classical geometrical picture. The PSM is a shell model diagonalization without explicit $`SU(3)`$ symmetries. However, the quantitative agreement with an $`SU(3)`$ model provides an algebraic fermion classification scheme for the states obtained from the PSM diagonalization, and suggests that the projected BCS vacuum for a well-deformed system is very close to the $`SU(3)`$ dynamical symmetry limit of an $`S`$-$`D`$ pair fermion system. This in turn implies a good boson algebraic symmetry if Pauli effects may be ignored. Finally, we have proposed that the extension of the present calculations to include quasiparticle excitations provides a quantitative framework to determine whether “scissors mode” 1+ states are more properly viewed as collective excitations or as quasiparticle states.

The present paper deals only with even-even nuclear system. However, our preliminary results  have shown that similar conclusions can also be drawn for odd- and odd-odd nuclei.

Y.S. thanks Professor Gui-Lu Long of Department of Physics of Tsinghua University for warm hospitality, where the final version of this paper was completed. K.H.B. thanks Dr. S. Raman of Oak Ridge National Laboratory for partial support.


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# Analytic Theory of fractal growth patterns in 2 dimensions

Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA) is a model of fractal growth that was introduced in 1981 by Witten and Sander . It had since attained a paradigmatic status due to its simplicity and its underlying role for a variety of pattern forming processes including dielectric breakdown , viscous fingering, electro-chemical deposition , dendritic and snowflake growth , chemical dissolution , geological phenomena  and certain biological phenomena such as bacterial growth  and viscous fingering through gastric mucin . The algorithm begins with fixing one particle at the center of coordinates in $`d`$-dimensions, and follows the creation of a cluster by releasing random walkers from infinity, allowing them to walk around until they hit any particle belonging to the cluster. The fundamental difficulty of such growth processes is that their mathematical description calls for solving equations with boundary conditions on a complex, evolving interface. Despite tremendous efforts this and related difficulties defied all attempts to develop analytic theory of DLA. In fact, even the numerical estimates  of the fractal dimension $`D`$ of DLA turned out to converge extremely slowly with the number of particles $`n`$ of the cluster, leading even to speculations  that asymptotically the clusters were plane filling (i.e. $`D=2`$). In this Letter we offer a theory for fractal growth patterns in 2-d, including DLA as a particular case. In this theory the fractal dimension of the asymptotic cluster manifests itself as a renormalization exponent observable already at very early growth stages. Using early stage dynamics we compute $`1.6896<D<1.7135`$, and explain why traditional numerical estimates converged so slowly. The present theory is equally applicable to other fractal growth processes in 2-dimensions, and we discuss similar computations for such growth models as well.

For continuous time processes in 2-dimensions the above mentioned difficulty was efficiently dealt with in the past  by considering the conformal map from the exterior of the unit circle in the complex plane to the exterior of the (simply connected) growing pattern. In this way the “interface” in the mathematical plane remains forever simple, and the complexity of the evolving interface is delegated to the dynamics of the conformal map. For discrete particle growth such a language was developed recently , showing that a large variety of fractal clusters in two dimensions can be grown by iterating conformal maps. In this Letter we employ this language to show that the fractal dimension of the asymptotically large clusters has a surprising and useful role as a renormalization exponent in a rescaling theory of these clusters in their early growth phases. This finding allows us to compute the fractal dimension to desired accuracy.

Once a fractal object is well developed, it is extremely difficult to find a conformal map from a smooth region to its boundary, simply because the conformal map is terribly singular on the tips of a fractal shape. The derivative of the inverse map is the growth probability for a random walker to hit the interface (known as the “harmonic measure”) which has been shown to be a multifractal measure  characterized by infinitely many exponents . Accordingly, in the present approach one grows the cluster by iteratively constructing the conformal map starting from a smooth initial interface. Consider $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)`$ which conformally maps the exterior of the unit circle $`e^{i\theta }`$ in the mathematical $`w`$–plane onto the complement of the (simply-connected) cluster of $`n`$ particles in the physical $`z`$–plane . The unit circle is mapped to the boundary of the cluster. The map $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)`$ is made from compositions of elementary maps $`\varphi _{\lambda ,\theta }`$,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)=\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n1)}(\varphi _{\lambda _n,\theta _n}(w)),$$
(1)
where the elementary map $`\varphi _{\lambda ,\theta }`$ transforms the unit circle to a circle with a “bump” of linear size $`\sqrt{\lambda }`$ around the point $`w=e^{i\theta }`$. An example of a good elementary map $`\varphi _{\lambda ,\theta }`$ was proposed in , endowed with a parameter $`a`$ in the range $`0<a<1`$, determining the shape of the bump. We employ $`a=2/3`$ which is consistent with semicircular bumps. Accordingly the map $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)`$ adds on a new bump to the image of the unit circle under $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n1)}(w)`$. The bumps in the $`z`$-plane simulate the accreted particles in the physical space formulation of the growth process. Since we want to have fixed size bumps in the physical space, say of fixed area $`\lambda _0`$, we choose in the $`n`$th step

$$\lambda _n=\frac{\lambda _0}{|\mathrm{\Phi }_{}^{(n1)}{}_{}{}^{}(e^{i\theta _n})|^2}.$$
(2)
The recursive dynamics can be represented as iterations of the map $`\varphi _{\lambda _n,\theta _n}(w)`$,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)=\varphi _{\lambda _1,\theta _1}\varphi _{\lambda _2,\theta _2}\mathrm{}\varphi _{\lambda _n,\theta _n}(\omega ).$$
(3)
The difference between various growth models will manifest itself in the different itineraries $`\{\theta _1\mathrm{}\theta _n\}`$. To grow a DLA we have to choose random positions $`\theta _n`$. This way we accrete fixed size bumps in the physical plane according to the harmonic measure (which is transformed into a uniform measure by the analytic inverse of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}`$). The DLA cluster is fully determined by the stochastic itinerary $`\{\theta _k\}_{k=1}^n`$. In Fig. 1 we present a typical DLA cluster grown by this method to size $`n=`$100 000.

Other fractal clusters can be obtained by choosing a non-random itinerary . A beautiful family of growth patterns is obtained from quasi-periodic itineraries,

$$\theta _{k+1}=\theta _k+2\pi W,$$
(4)
where $`W`$ is a quadratic irrational number. An example is shown in Fig. 2, in which $`W`$ is the golden mean $`(\sqrt{5}+1)/2`$. In  it was argued that itineraries obtained from (4) using for $`W`$ other values of quadratic irrationals lead to clusters of different appearance but the same dimension, which was estimated numerically to be $`D=1.86\pm 0.03`$. In the same paper other deterministic itineraries (not obtained from circle maps) where shown to lead to clusters with different dimensions. One (trivial) example that is nevertheless useful for our consideration below is the itinerary $`\theta _k=0`$ for all $`k`$. Such an itinerary grows a 1 dimensional wire of width $`\sqrt{\lambda _0}`$.

The great advantage of the availability of a conformal map is that it affords us analytic power that is not obtainable otherwise. To understand this consider the Laurent expansion of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)`$ :

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)=F_1^{(n)}w+F_0^{(n)}+F_1^{(n)}w^1+F_2^{(n)}w^2+\mathrm{}$$
(5)
The recursion equations for the Laurent coefficients of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}(w)`$ can be obtained analytically, and in particular one shows that

$$F_1^{(n)}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}[1+\lambda _k]^a.$$
(6)
The first Laurent coefficient $`F_1^{(n)}`$ has a distinguished role in determining the fractal dimension of the cluster, being identical to the Laplace radius which is the radius of a charged disk having the same field far away as the charged cluster . Moreover, defining $`R_n`$ as the minimal radius of all circles in $`z`$ that contain the $`n`$-cluster, one can prove that

$$R_n4F_1^{(n)}.$$
(7)
Accordingly one expects that for sufficiently large clusters (to be made precise below)

$$F_1^{(n)}n^{1/D}\sqrt{\lambda _0},n\mathrm{},$$
(8)
as $`\sqrt{\lambda _0}`$ remains the only length scale in the problem when the radius of the cluster is much larger than the radius of the initial smooth interface (which we take as the unit circle in this discussion, $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}(\omega )=\omega )`$).

These observations lead now to the central development of this Letter, and to the most important result. Consider a renormalization process in which we fix the initial smooth interface, but change $`\lambda _0`$, and then rescale $`n`$ such as to get the “same” cluster. Of course we need to specify what do we mean by the “same” cluster, and a natural requirement is that the electrostatic field on coarse scales (i.e. far from the cluster) will remain invariant. In other words, we should require the invariance of the Laplace radius $`F_1^{(n)}`$ (and possibly of additional low order Laurent coefficients) under renormalization. Clearly, for a given itinerary $`\{\theta _k\}_{k=1}^n`$, $`F_1^{(n)}`$ is a function of $`n`$ and $`\lambda _0`$ only. Accordingly, considering Eq.(8), we note that such a renormalization process can reach a fixed point if and only if $`F_1^{(n)}(\lambda _0)`$ attains a nontrivial fixed point function $`F_1^{}`$ of the single “scaling” variable $`x=\sqrt{\lambda _0}n^{1/D}`$. Obviously in the asymptotic limit $`x1`$ $`F_1^{(n)}(\lambda _0)`$ must converge to $`F_1^{}`$ which is linear in $`x`$ in this regime. The main new findings of this Letter are that $`F_1^{}`$ exists as a nonlinear function of $`x`$, and that $`F_1^{(n)}(\lambda _0)`$ converges (within every universality class) to its fixed point function $`F_1^{}`$ already for $`x1`$.

In principle one can demonstrate the convergence to $`F_1^{}`$ analytically. This is easy to do in the case of the degenerate itinerary growing a wire. In this case we can demonstrate convergence after the addition of 2-3 bumps, even in the limit $`\lambda _00`$, see Fig. 3 . For $`x0`$ $`F_1^{}(x)1x^2`$ in this case.

For other nontrivial itineraries it becomes increasingly cumbersome to demonstrate the convergence by hand. With the assistance of the machine we can demonstrate the convergence in all the other cases. In Fig. 4 we present $`F_1^{(n)}(\lambda _0)1`$ as a function of $`x`$ for a typical DLA itinerary and for values of $`\lambda _0`$ ranging between $`10^8`$ to $`10^3`$. We note that for $`\lambda _00`$ the convergence to the fixed point function is obtained infinitesimally close to the initial circle for which $`F_1^{(n=0)}=1`$. In fact, data collapse (with $`D`$ chosen right) for this itinerary, as well as for all other nontrivial itineraries, is obtained for $`nn_c`$ where $`n_c2\pi /\sqrt{\lambda _0}`$. This is the number of bumps required to obtain one-layer coverage of the original circular interface. Obviously $`n_c^{1/D}\sqrt{\lambda _0}0`$ for $`\lambda _00`$, demonstrating the convergence to $`F_1^{}`$ for $`x1`$. In Fig.5 we exhibit the convergence for the Golden Mean itinerary. Note that the fixed point functions are different, and they both differ from the wire case. The main point of this analysis is that convergence to $`F_1^{}`$ can be obtained for $`x`$ arbitrarily small by going to the limit $`\lambda _00`$.

The existence of a fixed point function translates immediately to a calculational scheme. Consider a given itinerary $`\{\theta _k\}_{k=1}^N`$ of one of the above classes, and calculate $`F_1^{(n)}(\lambda _0)`$ for $`N>n>n_c(\lambda _0)`$. Rescale now $`\lambda _0\lambda _0/s`$, and calculate $`F_1^{(n^{})}(\lambda _0/s)`$ for $`N>n^{}>n_c(\lambda _0/s)`$. We can compute $`D`$ from finding the value $`n^{}`$ which preserves the Laplace radius under rescaling of $`\lambda _0`$ by $`s`$:

$$\left(\frac{n^{}}{n}\right)^{1/D}=\sqrt{s}.$$
(9)
Since $`F_1^{}`$ is monotonic (as is immediately seen from Eq.(6)), there is only one solution to this equation,

$$D=\frac{2[\mathrm{log}n^{}\mathrm{log}n]}{\mathrm{log}s}.$$
(10)
As a first example consider the wire case. Computing $`F_1^{(10)}(10^6)`$ we find that for $`\lambda _0=10^5`$ the same value of $`F_1^{(n)}`$ is obtained for $`n`$ between 3 and 4. Eq.(10) with $`s=10`$ then predicts $`0.796<D<1.045`$. Repeating for $`F_1^{(100)}(10^6)`$ we find the same value of $`F_1^{(n)}(10^5)`$ for $`n`$ between 31 and 32. From Eq.(10) $`0.9897<D<1.0173`$. We stress that this precision is obtained when $`F_1^{(n)}1`$ is still 0.0133! Lastly, using $`F_1^{(500)}(10^6)=1.18254`$ we compute $`0.9951<D<1.0006`$, and any desired accuracy can be achieved by increasing $`n`$. The reader should note that the fractal dimension of the asymptotic cluster ($`D=1`$ in this case) can be extracted from growth events infinitesimally close to the initial unit circle by decreasing $`\lambda _0`$ (even without increasing $`n`$ in this specific case). Secondly we consider the deterministic itinerary (4) with Golden Mean winding number. Using values of $`F_1^{(n)}(10^6)`$ and $`F_1^{(n)}(10^5)`$ between 1.10 and 1.20 we can bound the dimension of the cluster to $`1.8305<D<1.8380`$. Note that in this case we need to have at least one layer covering which is obtained only when $`n_c2\pi /\sqrt{\lambda _0}`$. Finally, we consider DLA. Here the itineraries are stochastic and one c ould imagine that only under extensive ensemble averaging one would obtain tight bounds on $`D`$. In fact we find that using values of $`F_1^{(n)}(10^8)`$ and $`F_1^{(n)}(2\times 10^8)`$ between 1.002 and 1.01 we can bound $`D`$ as tightly as $`1.6896<D<1.7135`$. Note that to achieve this accuracy we did not need to go to high values of $`F_1^{(n)}`$, but rather used small values of $`\lambda _0`$ to reach convergence very early. This demonstrates again the unexpected fact that the asymptotic dimension appears as a renormalization exponent right after one or a few layers of particles cover the circle, and very much before $`F_1^{(n)}n^{1/D}`$.

At this point we need to address a few questions:

(i) Why classical numerical estimates  of the fractal dimension of DLA converge so slowly?

In standard numerical experiments the radius of gyration of the grown cluster was plotted in log-log coordinates against the number of particles, with $`D`$ estimated from the slope. Examining our fixed point functions $`F_1^{}`$ (see Figs.3-5) we note the slow crossover to linear behaviour, which is not fully achieved even for extremely high values of $`n`$. In this respect we understand from Eq.(7) that a reliable estimate of $`D`$ from radius of gyration calculation requires inhuman effort, as was indeed experienced by workers in the field . In the present formulation the appearance of the asymptotic $`D`$ as a renormalization exponent already at early stages of the growth allows a convergent calculation.

(ii) Is a typical DLA cluster self-averaging?

It was demonstrated in  that an ensemble of DLA clusters exhibits statistics of $`F_1^{(n)}`$ with standard deviation that shrinks to zero when $`n\mathrm{}`$. Nevertheless in  it was argued that there may remain residual fluctuations of the dimension $`D`$ as extracted from (8). The numerics presented above is not sufficient to resolve this question, but additional highly accurate numerics in the limit $`\lambda _00,n\mathrm{}`$ should do.

(iii) Is the problem co-dimension 1?

The multi-scaling properties of the harmonic measure have left the impression that computing the fractal dimension of DLA will require a simultaneous control of the host of exponents characterizing the measure. For example the scaling relation $`D_3=D/2`$ (with $`D_3`$ beeing a generalized dimension in the Hentschel-Procaccia sense ) that was derived first by Halsey  strengthened this impression. The approach presented here indicates that an appropriate fixed point structure can be obtained with only one relevant exponent, i.e. $`1/D`$, and this exponent appears in the dynamics much before the measure becomes multiscaling.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work has been supported in part by the European Commission under the TMR program and the Naftali and Anna Backenroth-Bronicki Fund for Research in Chaos and Complexity.


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# Anomalous Proximity Effect in Underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x Josephson Junctions

## Abstract

Josephson junctions were photogenerated in underdoped thin films of the YBa2Cu3O6+x family using a near-field scanning optical microscope. The observation of the Josephson effect for separations as large as 100 nm between two wires indicates the existence of an anomalously large proximity effect and show that the underdoped insulating material in the gap of the junction is readily perturbed into the superconducting state. The critical current of the junctions was found to be consistent with the conventional Josephson relationship. This result constrains the applicability of SO(5) theory to explain the phase diagram of high critical temperature superconductors.

Despite being among the most intensely studied condensed-matter systems, high temperature superconductors (HTS) have resisted a microscopic understanding. They are strongly anisotropic highly correlated electronic systems, showing anomalous characteristics in both the superconducting and non-superconducting phases. In particular, the nature of the transition between the low carrier concentration insulating antiferromagnetic (AF) phase and the high carrier concentration metallic and superconducting (SC) phase is not known and it is believed to be key to uncovering the superconducting mechanism in these materials. The quest to gain a better understanding of these issues is reflected in extensive experimental and theoretical work. Recently an elegant theory, based on SO(5) group symmetry, proposed a basic framework to explain the HTS phase diagram. A five component superspin was introduced with two of its components associated with the order parameter in a d-wave SC state and the other three identified with the order parameter of the AF phase. In this theory, the quantum phase transition between the AF and SC phases corresponds to a change in the orientation of the superspin in this five-dimensional space. A different approach for describing the rich phase diagram of the HTS materials postulates superconducting pairing at a temperature $`T^{}`$ well above the superconducting critical temperature $`T_c`$. The low stiffness of the superconducting order parameter, due to their large penetration length, leads to fluctuations in the phase of the order parameter between $`T^{}`$ and $`T_c`$. It is not until phase coherence is achieved at $`T_c`$ that superconductivity is established in the material. The overall behavior of the superconductor between $`T^{}`$ and $`T_c`$ resembles that of a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in conventional two-dimensional superconductors.

The electronic nature of the underdoped system near the superconducting state is significantly different than the normal state found in conventional superconductors. Consequently, the experimental manifestation of superconductivity may also be expected to differ. Within the framework of the SO(5) theory, Demler et al. have predicted that the current-phase relationship in the coupling between two HTS separated by a thin AF layer (a SAS junction) is modified from the Josephson relation $`I_J=I_osin\varphi `$, with $`\varphi `$ the superconducting phase difference across the junction. If the thickness of the junction $`d<d_c=\pi \xi _A`$ the AF material becomes a superconductor for $`\varphi <\varphi _c`$ and “conventional” Josephson effect occurs only for $`\varphi >\varphi _c`$, where $`\xi _A`$ represents a new superconducting correlation length in the AF phase and $`\varphi _c\pi \sqrt{1(\frac{d}{d_c})^2}`$.

This difference in the current-phase relationship of a SAS junction leads to different behavior of Josephson junctions, as investigated by den Hertog and co-workers. In particular, they predicted that the critical current of the junctions $`I_c(H)`$ would show a linear decrease with an applied magnetic field around $`H=0`$; i. e., a cusp in the $`I_c(H)`$ dependence, instead of the quadratic low field behavior found in conventional junctions. We are not aware of an analogous prediction within the framework of the fluctuating-phase model.

Both the fluctuating-phase approach and the SO(5) theory share the possibility of a large proximity effect when the material separating the HTS wires is the insulating HTS precursor. These considerations suggest that Josephson junctions may be made by separating HTS with a relatively thick layer of the precursor material.

We exploit the capability of locally photodoping an insulating RBa2Cu3O6+x material (with R a rare earth), to induce superconducting wires separated by a non-superconducting region. The flexibility provided by our near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) allows us to vary the gap between the $`w150`$ nm wide superconducting wires.

The samples under consideration are c-axis oriented thin films. One is a 180 nm thick GdBa2Cu3O6+x film grown on (100) MgO substrates by dc-magnetron sputtering. The other sample is a 120 nm thick YBa2Cu3O6+x (YBCO) film deposited on a SrTiO3 substrate by laser ablation. The as-grown films show good physical properties with linear temperature dependence of the dc resistivity. Their critical temperatures, determined by ac-susceptibility, were $`T_c=89.4`$ K and $`89.2`$ K, respectively. To place the samples in the insulating side of the Metal-Insulator transition (MI), their oxygen content was adjusted to $`x0.4`$. After reduction, the resistivity of the samples at 4 K was found to be $`\rho 6`$ m$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$cm. The results obtained in both samples are very similar and we will concentrate on the data obtained in the YBCO film.

The film was mounted on the insert of a continuous-flow He cryostat and photodoped with an Al-coated 60 nm aperture NSOM probe. Light from either a 3 mW He-Ne or a 1 mW, $`\lambda `$ = 1.55 $`\mu `$m, InGaAsP laser was coupled into the inputs of a 50/50 2 $`\times `$ 2 optical fiber coupler. One of the outputs of the coupler was connected to the NSOM probe, while the other was used to monitor the laser stability. Photogeneration was accomplished by illuminating with the 1.96 eV light from the He-Ne laser, which is close to the maximum of the photodoping efficiency. The photoinduced changes in the sample were detected by imaging the reflectance variations at $`\lambda `$ = 1.55 $`\mu `$m with the InGaAsP laser. The reflected light was collected in the far field with conventional optics. The InGaAsP laser was chosen because $`\lambda `$ = 1.55 $`\mu `$m radiation provides the maximum change in reflectivity when crossing the MI transition and it does not induce any further photogeneration. Photon fluxes per unit time were estimated to be $`Q_{exc}8.6\times 10^{20}`$ photons/(cm2 s) and $`Q_{ref}3.2\times 10^{20}`$ photons/(cm2s) for photoexcitation and reflectivity measurements, respectively. All the measurements involving the NSOM were performed at room temperature. When necessary to prevent the superconducting wires from decaying by e-h recombination, the NSOM head was removed, the cryostat closed and pumped to 10-6 Torr and the sample cooled to 200 K in less than 15 min. It is well documented that below 250 K the photoinduced state is metastable.

Typical NSOM reflectance scans are shown in Fig. 1. The wires were defined and the scans obtained as described in Ref. . Fig. 1 shows that the reflectance and $`T_c`$ of the wires increase with the duration of the photogeneration. These results are explained by the photoinduced local increase of free holes in the CuO planes of YBCO.

Josephson junctions were defined by photogenerating a wire and leaving an unilluminated gap along its length, as described in Ref. . A typical example of these junctions is illustrated in Fig. 2a. We determine the gap $`d`$ between the superconducting wires from the reflectance data shown in Fig. 1. We define $`d`$ as the range where the reflectance is lower than that corresponding to the wire in Fig. 1b, which has a $`T_c`$ 4 K. From this definition of $`d`$ the part of the junction between points b of Fig. 2b is insulating in character. The separation between these points is $`90`$ nm. Because of the finite resolution of the NSOM this procedure gives a lower limit of the thickness of the barrier between the wires. After defining an identical junction and cooling the system to 4 K, $`IV`$ characteristics were obtained, as shown in the inset of Fig. 2a. The zero dissipation region shows the existence of Josephson effect between the two wires. The rounding of the I-V curves is understood in terms of thermal fluctuations in the Josephson junction.

The observation of the Josephson effect for a separation between superconducting wires much greater than the coherence length in the superconducting state ($`\xi _o1`$ nm) is one of the main results of this paper. This “colossal” proximity effect is inexplicable even if it is assumed that the material in the gap is metallic. In this case, the coherence length for the metal in the clean limit is $`\zeta \frac{\mathrm{}v_f}{2\pi k_BT}`$, where $`v_f`$ is its Fermi velocity. For reasonable values of $`v_F`$, $`\zeta `$ turns out to be the same order of magnitude as $`\xi _o`$. From these considerations we conclude that conventional proximity effect cannot explain our results and that the insulating material in the junctions exhibits an anomalously large proximity effect. Further evidence that a superconducting state is induced in the gap material is provided by the value of the critical current of the junction. For the $`d=45`$ nm junction, $`I_c=2.6\mu `$A, very close to the measured value of $`I_c=11.5\mu `$A for the wire of Fig. 1a.

As can be seen in the inset of Fig. 2b, $`I_cR_N`$ ($`R_N=\frac{dV}{dI}|_{I=7\mu \mathrm{A}}`$ is the shunt resistance of the junction) is nearly independent of $`d`$ for $`d<110`$ nm. This fact has implications for both SO(5) theory and the fluctuating-phase models: When the existence of free vortices is used to explain the lack of phase coherence in the gap material, $`I_cR_N\mathrm{exp}(d/2\zeta _g)`$ is expected, where $`\zeta _g\xi _o\mathrm{exp}(T_\mathrm{\Theta }/T)`$ is the correlation length for phase fluctuations, and $`T_\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the phase stiffness expressed in temperature units. From the observed weak $`d`$ dependence of $`I_cR_N`$ when $`d\stackrel{<}{}`$ 100 nm, it follows that $`\zeta _g90`$ nm and $`T_\mathrm{\Theta }\stackrel{>}{}30`$ K. As the separation between wires increases, however, a collapse in the phase coherence is observed and no Josephson effect is observed. In the SO(5) theory $`I_c\mathrm{exp}(d/\xi _A)`$ implying that the correlation length satisfies $`\xi _Ad`$. It is possible to have strong $`d`$ dependence in both $`I_c`$ and $`R_N`$, that cancel each other, as in the case in a tunnel Josephson junction in conventional superconductors. This possibility is ruled out, however, by the measured temperature dependence of the resistance of the non-superconducting material. $`R_N`$ is temperature independent if the Josephson effect is observed. Once the separation between the wires is large enough that the Josephson effect is absent, an insulating-like response is observed for the unphotodoped material. The difference found in the temperature dependence of the non-superconducting material for different junctions is attributable to their difference in length, as shown in Fig. 3. The minor deviations between the data sets might be associated with the specific geometric details of the path followed by the transport current in each case, together with the definition of $`d`$.

The observed behavior of these Josephson junctions may be expected if the gap material is thermodynamically very close to the superconducting state and the presence of the superconducting leads quenches the superconducting phase fluctuations in the gap material. The induction of superconductivity in the non-superconducting material is a feature of both the SO(5) theory and the fluctuating phase models. More generally, as discussed in Ref. , the only ingredient necessary to obtain such a large correlation length is the close proximity to a second order quantum phase transition.

One observation of this experiment appears to be in contradiction with the SO(5) theory. Since the observed behavior of $`I_cR_N`$ implies that $`\xi _Ad`$ our experiments correspond to the case analyzed in Ref. , if the material between the superconducting wires is in the AF phase. In this scenario, $`I_c(H)`$ should show a cusp for $`H0`$. The cusp is expected even for situations where the critical current is not uniform along the width of the junction, as expected for junctions made by our technique. The results obtained for small magnetic fields are shown in Fig. 4. The figure shows that for $`H0`$, $`I_c(H)\propto ̸|H|`$, but is better described by a quadratic dependence. Also shown in the figure is the calculated $`I_c(H)`$ using the model from Ref. . The experimental value of $`H=135`$ Oe for the first flux-quantum trapped in the junction, obtained from the Fraunhoffer-like dependence of $`I_c(H)`$, was used in the calculation. As shown in the figure, the agreement between the experimental data and the calculation is reasonable only if $`dd_c`$, in clear contradiction with the $`\xi _Ad`$ conclusion obtained from Fig. 2b.

The effects observed in the junctions are independent of the sequence in which the magnetic field is applied. The same results are observed if the sample is cooled through the superconducting transition in zero magnetic field, and then the field is brought up to the desired value (zero-field cooled experiment); or if the sample is cooled in the desired field (field-cooled experiment). Although the lower critical field in these underdoped HTS materials is expected to be very small, no difference is found since $`w<\lambda _p500`$ nm, where $`\lambda _p`$ is the penetration length in the superconductor. In this condition size effects are very important and it is energetically unfavorable to induce vortices in the superconducting wires.

The results described in this report show that the local combination of superconducting and insulating materials, obtained by photodoping insulating YBCO with a NSOM probe, provides an ideal opportunity to examine the validity of the different models of high critical temperature superconductors. The observation of the Josephson effect for separations $`d`$ 100 nm cannot be explained by the conventional proximity effect. We conclude that the material between the superconducting wires, although insulating, must be very close to a superconducting phase transition since superconductivity with a large phase coherence length can be induced in it. We have also been able to restrict the margin of applicability of the SO(5) theory to explain the phase diagram of HTS. In view of the observed results and with the available models, only the existence of an AF and SC phases separated by a quantum disordered phase remains compatible with the theory. Although our results seem to be in qualitative agreement with fluctuating-phase models, more theoretical work is required to obtain the characteristics of the Josephson effect within this picture.

We would like to thank C. Lobb, M. P. A. Fisher, and D. Prober for useful discussions. We are also indebted to A. J. Millis, S. A. Kivelson, and E. Demler for a critical reading of the manuscript. This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation’s MRSEC program through the University of Maryland/NSF grant DMR-963252. Work at the Centro Atómico Bariloche and Instituto Balseiro was suported by grant ANPCYT PICT97-03-00061-01117 and grants by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (CONICET), Fundación Antorchas, and Fundación Balseiro of Argentina. J. G. and E. O. are members of CONICET, Argentina.