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# On the first Sonine correction for granular gases

## Appendix A Calculation of the limit $`c_10`$ of the collision term

We define the loss term $`\stackrel{~}{I}_l`$ and gain term $`\stackrel{~}{I}_g`$ by

$`\stackrel{~}{I}_l`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{c_10}{lim}{\displaystyle _^d}𝑑𝐜_2{\displaystyle 𝑑\widehat{𝝈}\theta (\widehat{𝝈}\widehat{𝐜}_{12})(\widehat{𝝈}𝐜_{12})\stackrel{~}{f}(c_1)\stackrel{~}{f}(c_2)}`$ (18a)
$`\stackrel{~}{I}_g`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{c_10}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha ^2}}{\displaystyle _^d}𝑑𝐜_2{\displaystyle 𝑑\widehat{𝝈}\theta (\widehat{𝝈}\widehat{𝐜}_{12})(\widehat{𝝈}𝐜_{12})\stackrel{~}{f}(c_1^{})\stackrel{~}{f}(c_2^{})},`$ (18b)
so that $`lim_{c_10}\stackrel{~}{I}(\stackrel{~}{f},\stackrel{~}{f})=\stackrel{~}{I}_l+\stackrel{~}{I}_g`$.

Taking the limit $`c_10`$ of the loss term yields the exact result

$$\stackrel{~}{I}_l=\beta _1\stackrel{~}{f}(0)c_2,$$
(19)
where

$$\beta _1=_^d𝑑\widehat{𝝈}\theta (\widehat{𝝈}\widehat{𝐜}_2)(\widehat{𝝈}\widehat{𝐜}_2)=\frac{\pi ^{(d1)/2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left[(d+1)/2\right]},$$
(20)
with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the gamma function. Within the framework of the Sonine expansion (9), neglecting the coefficients $`a_i`$, $`i3`$, and making use of Trizac2

$$c_2=\left(1\frac{a_2}{8}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left[(d+1)/2\right]}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2)},$$
(21)
Eq. (19) becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{I}_l=\frac{S_d(0)}{2\sqrt{\pi }}\left[1+a_2\frac{d(d+2)}{8}\right]\left(1\frac{a_2}{8}\right),$$
(22)
where $`S_d=2\pi ^{d/2}/\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2)`$ is the surface of the $`d`$-dimensional sphere.

Defining $`\beta =(1+\alpha )/(2\alpha )>1`$, the precollisional rescaled velocities $`𝐜_i^{}`$ and postcollisional ones $`𝐜_i`$ are related by

$`𝐜_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`𝐜_1\beta (𝐜_{12}\widehat{𝝈})\widehat{𝝈},`$ (23a)
$`𝐜_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`𝐜_2+\beta (𝐜_{12}\widehat{𝝈})\widehat{𝝈}.`$ (23b)
The gain term (18b) thus becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{I}_g=\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}_^d𝑑𝐜_2𝑑\widehat{𝝈}\theta (\widehat{𝝈}\widehat{𝐜}_2)(\widehat{𝝈}𝐜_2)\stackrel{~}{f}\left[\beta (𝐜_2\widehat{𝝈})\widehat{𝝈}\right]\stackrel{~}{f}\left[𝐜_2\beta (𝐜_2\widehat{𝝈})\widehat{𝝈}\right],$$
(24)
where the function $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ is isotropic. Performing the integration over $`𝐜_2`$ before that over $`\widehat{𝝈}`$, we choose the $`x`$ Cartesian coordinate as corresponding to the $`\widehat{𝝈}`$ direction. The velocity $`𝐜_2`$ is thus written $`𝐜_2=c_x\widehat{𝐱}+𝐜_{}`$, with $`c_x=(𝐜_2\widehat{𝝈})`$ and $`𝐜_{}=𝐜_2c_x\widehat{𝐱}^{d1}`$. Eq. (24) becomes

$`\stackrel{~}{I}_g`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\widehat{𝝈}_^d𝑑𝐜_2\theta (c_x)c_x\stackrel{~}{f}(\beta c_x\widehat{𝝈})\stackrel{~}{f}(𝐜_2\beta c_x\widehat{𝝈})}`$ (25)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{S_d}{\alpha ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑c_xc_x{\displaystyle _{^{d1}}}𝑑𝐜_{}\stackrel{~}{f}(\beta c_x)\stackrel{~}{f}\left(\sqrt{c_{}^2+c_x^2(1\beta )^2}\right).`$ (26)
Eq. (26) is an exact relation within Boltzmann’s framework. Making use of the the Sonine expansion (9) where we retain only the first correction $`a_2`$, Eq. (26) becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{I}_g=\frac{S_d}{\alpha ^2\pi ^d}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑c_xc_x\mathrm{e}^{\left[\beta ^2+(1\beta ^2)\right]c_x^2}_{^{d1}}𝑑𝐜_{}\mathrm{e}^{c_{}^2}\left[1+a_2S_2(\beta ^2c_x^2)\right]\left\{1+a_2S_2\left[c_{}^2+c_x^2(1\beta )^2\right]\right\}.$$
(27)
With the definition of the second Sonine polynomial $`S_2(x)=x^2/2(d+2)x/2+d(d+2)/8`$, one sees that Eq. (27) may be expressed as a sum of products of the integrals

$`J_{}(n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{^{d1}}}𝑑𝐜_{}\mathrm{e}^{c_{}^2}c_{}^n,`$ (28a)
$`J_x(n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑c_x\mathrm{e}^{\left[\beta ^2+(1\beta ^2)\right]c_x^2}c_x^n,`$ (28b)
that may be computed using the general relation ($`a>0`$)

$$_^d𝑑𝐱|𝐱|^n\mathrm{e}^{a𝐱^2}=\frac{\pi ^{d/2}}{a^{(d+n)/2}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left[(d+n)/2\right]}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2)}.$$
(29)
Tedious but technically simple calculations thus lead to

$$\stackrel{~}{I}_g=\frac{S_d(0)}{2\sqrt{\pi }}\left[\frac{2}{1+\alpha ^2}+a_2D_1(\alpha ,d)+a_2^2D_2(\alpha ,d)\right],$$
(30)
where the final expressions $`D_1(\alpha ,d)`$ and $`D_2(\alpha ,d)`$ are too cumbersome to be given here. Finally, the limit $`c_10`$ of Eq. (7) is given by the sums of Eqs. (22) and (30).


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Electron induced one-nucleon emission reactions near the quasielastic peak are clearly dominated by one-body (OB) dynamics since such kinematics roughly corresponds to the virtual photon interacting directly with a bound nucleon . Under these conditions it has been possible to analyze a considerable amount of data for a variety of nuclei and to study many aspects of the reaction mechanism. Most of these studies have been based on the standard distorted-wave impulse approximation (DWIA), where the OB current matrix elements are computed using single-particle wave functions obtained as solutions of the Schrödinger equation with phenomenological potentials. Recently , efforts have been made to develop a fully relativistic description of the process in order to describe consistently the high momentum and energy transfer region . This constitutes the basis of the relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation (RDWIA).

Within the scheme of non-relativistic approaches, the role played by correlations beyond the mean field and their impact on the overlap functions and spectroscopic factors has been investigated in several works. Many-body calculations  including short-range correlations (SRC) of central type only, have shown a small effect over the quasi-hole overlap functions and, accordingly, over the $`(e,e^{}p)`$ cross section. In  the SRC were shown not to modify substantially the mean field $`(e,e^{}p)`$ results at high momentum and low excitation energy. In recent works a significant effort has been made to improve the analysis by including the tensor and spin-isospin channels  as well as long-range correlations . It is important to point out that the extraction of spectroscopic factors from the analysis of $`(e,e^{}p)`$ experiments is still not free from ambiguities. This would require an accurate knowledge of the reaction mechanism. In this sense, a RDWIA calculation, compared to DWIA, gives rise to a different quenching of the $`(e,e^{}p)`$ cross section, hence leading to different spectroscopic factors  (larger for RDWIA).

The two-body meson exchange currents (MEC) may also play a significant role in the description of electron scattering observables since they are connected to the nuclear correlations by the continuity equation. In fact the interplay between correlations and MEC in $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions is far from trivial; rigorously the concept of overlap function is not enough to describe the process in presence of two-body current operators, and therefore the effect of correlations in presence of MEC may be not simply parameterizable by a spectroscopic factor. This idea is supported by calculations of the inclusive transverse response for nuclear matter within the correlated basis function perturbation theory , that have shown a significant effect due to MEC, contrary to the much smaller effect usually found for uncorrelated calculations . Before a complete calculation of the exclusive response functions including MEC within a sophisticated correlated model of the reaction be attempted, it is necessary to calibrate different approaches to the calculation in uncorrelated models, as a first step beyond the DWIA.

Thus in this work we restrict our attention to the mean-field (uncorrelated) model and evaluate the role played by the MEC in quasielastic inclusive and exclusive electron scattering reactions. In the case of exclusive $`(e,e^{}p)`$ processes, a theoretical evaluation of MEC, including the usual pion-in-flight (P), contact (C) and Delta-Isobar ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$), has been presented in refs. . In  substantial differences were found with respect to the results of ref. , particularly for the interference $`TL`$ response. The analysis in , which treats final state interactions (FSI) through a real potential, was extended to higher momentum transfer in refs.  where some relativistic corrections were also included in the OB current operator. Instead the standard non-relativistic MEC operators  were used except for a modified “dynamical” $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-propagator that depends on the invariant energy $`\sqrt{s}`$ of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. More recently, the theoretical model of  has been refined in  modifying also the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-propagator in order to include the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-invariant mass. The use of a proper “dynamical” propagator in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-current has been discussed at length, concerning mainly the case of two-particle emission reactions . One of the central questions is how to determine $`\sqrt{s}`$ in a way that could be easily implemented in existing models for $`(e,e^{})`$ and $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions.

In general the appropriate choice of $`\sqrt{s}`$ will depend on the specific dynamical model for the reaction mechanism. Hence a proper description of the reaction dynamics through an adequate choice of the currents and kinematics is necessary. For high momentum transfer relativistic effects play a significant role and therefore relativity should enter in the description of kinematics and/or current matrix elements. Within a fully relativistic model, MEC effects in $`(e,e^{}p)`$ have been computed recently in , where only the contact (or “seagull”) current has been considered. Due to the complexity of the fully relativistic two-body currents, particularly the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ one, in this work we start by developing reasonable semi-relativistic expressions for all the two-body currents (P, C and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) that can be easily implemented in existing non-relativistic descriptions of the reaction mechanism. These semi-relativistic currents retain important aspects of relativity and hence they may be used to describe properly recent experiments performed at high momentum and energy transfers.

In this paper we discuss the one-particle emission sector, introducing a recently developed semi-relativistic (SR) approximation for the three MEC operators which, in conjunction with the SR form of the OB current derived in  (see  for a recent review on these expansions), makes it possible to evaluate quasielastic $`(e,e^{})`$ and $`(e,e^{}p)`$ observables. The SR-OB current was applied in inclusive $`(e,e^{})`$ , and for coincidence $`(e,e^{}p)`$  reactions. The SR expressions for the MEC operators were obtained in  in the case of the pionic and contact currents. In  a comparison between the SR-MEC predictions for the inclusive transverse response and the exact RFG results is presented.

One of the goals of this work is to derive a semi-relativistic expression for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-exchange current and compare its prediction for the inclusive transverse response function with the exact relativistic result obtained within the RFG model of ref. . This comparison, carried out in the inclusive channel (section 2), makes it possible to test the reliability of the different prescriptions of the “dynamical” $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-propagator to be used in exclusive $`(e,e^{}p)`$ processes (section 3). Once this is settled, the impact of the relativistic MEC over the exclusive response functions is evaluated for moderate to high momentum transfer. Finally, in section 4 we draw our conclusions.

## 2 Inclusive transverse response

The impact of meson exchange currents on inclusive electron scattering has been traditionally investigated in a non-relativistic framework and relativistic corrections have been implemented making use of a power expansion in the momenta of the nucleons and of the exchanged photon . In refs.  a semi-relativistic analysis of the MEC (P, S and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) currents, represented in fig. 1, has been performed in the context of the RFG with the aim of finding simple prescriptions for implementing relativistic effects into non-relativistic calculations. Within the RFG model, it is possible to perform a fully relativistic calculation of the inclusive response functions, using exact relativistic kinematics, currents and propagators. Hence the inclusive transverse response function of nuclear matter can be used to test the quality of the semi-relativistic MEC, to be applied in the next section to semi-inclusive processes.

In this section we focus on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current, represented by diagrams (d–g) of fig. 1, putting emphasis on the “dynamical” treatment of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator, an aspect of the problem which was neglected in the SR model of . Restricting our attention to the case of one-particle emission processes, the contribution of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current to the transverse nuclear response function is obtained as the interference between the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and the OB currents. In the Fermi gas model it reads

$`R_{\mathrm{\Delta }\text{-OB}}^T(q,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3Z}{8\pi k_F^3}}2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}{\displaystyle _{h<k_F}}d^3h\delta (E_𝐩E_𝐡\omega )𝒩_{\mathrm{𝐩𝐡}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[𝐣_T^{OB}(𝐩,𝐡)^{}𝐣_T^\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐩,𝐡)\right],`$
where $`𝐩=𝐡+𝐪`$ is the momentum of the ejected particle, $`𝐣_T`$ is the transverse (perpendicular to $`𝐪`$) component of $`𝐣`$ and $`k_F`$ is the Fermi momentum. In the RFG model $`E_𝐤=\sqrt{𝐤^2+m_N^2}`$, whereas in the non-relativistic (NR) Fermi gas, $`E_𝐤=m_N+ϵ_𝐤=m_N+𝐤^2/(2m_N)`$. Moreover, the factor $`𝒩_{\mathrm{𝐩𝐡}}`$, arising from the spinor normalization, is $`m_N^2/(E_𝐩E_𝐡)`$ for RFG and 1 in a NR model. Finally $`𝐣_T^a(𝐩,𝐡)`$ (which implicitly include spin and isospin indices) are the OB or $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ particle-hole currents .

The non relativistic two-body $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current used in this paper has been obtained from the relativistic one in the limit of small momenta by following the procedure sketched in ref. ; it can be written in momentum space as

$`𝐣_{nr}^\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐩_1^{},𝐩_2^{},𝐩_1,𝐩_2)`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{G_1}{2m_N}}{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}}{m_\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{f}{m_\pi }}\{G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P_1+Q)𝐪\times [𝐤_2\times 𝝈^{(1)}+2i𝐤_2][2\tau _3^{(2)}i[𝝉^{(1)}\times 𝝉^{(2)}]_z]`$
$`+G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P_1^{}Q)𝐪\times [𝐤_2\times 𝝈^{(1)}+2i𝐤_2][2\tau _3^{(2)}+i[𝝉^{(1)}\times 𝝉^{(2)}]_z]\}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐤_2𝝈^{(2)}}{𝐤_2^2+m_\pi ^2}}`$
$`+(12),`$
where $`P_i`$, $`P_i^{}`$ are the four-momenta of the initial and final nucleons defined in fig. 1, $`𝐤_i=𝐩_i^{}𝐩_i`$ is the momentum transferred to the $`i`$-th nucleon and $`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P)`$ is the non-relativistic (dynamical) $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator, which will be later discussed in detail. We use the following values for the coupling constants: $`G_1=4.2`$, $`f^2/4\pi =0.079`$, $`f_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}=2.24`$.

In  a more general relativistic current was considered, containing additional couplings $`G_2`$, $`G_3`$ and dependence on the so-called off-shell parameters $`z_1,z_2,z_3`$. Therein it was shown that the terms $`G_2`$ and $`G_3`$ have a weak impact on the transverse response for $`q`$ below 1 GeV and that this response displays a small dependence upon the off-shell parameters compared with its sensitivity to $`\sqrt{s}`$, which will be discussed at the end of this Section. Therefore in this work we use the Peccei lagrangian, which neglects $`G_2`$ and $`G_3`$ and corresponds to $`z_i=1/4`$.

The MEC ph matrix elements are obtained by summing over all the single-particle states occupied in the ground-state Slater determinant . In the case of nuclear matter only the exchange term, represented by the many-body diagrams of fig. 2, survives, due to spin and isospin symmetries. Moreover, it can be proved that the exchange $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ terms represented by diagrams (f) and (g) are also zero in nuclear matter. In the case of finite nuclei there exists however a contribution coming from the direct $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ term, which, although small, has been included in the calculations presented in next section.

Using eq. (2) the particle-hole matrix element of the non-relativistic $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current in nuclear matter results

$`𝐣_{nr}^\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐩,𝐡)`$ $`=`$ $`i\delta _{t_pt_h}\tau _h{\displaystyle \frac{4}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{G_1}{2m_N}}{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}}{m_\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{f}{m_\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\theta (k_Fk)}`$ (3)
$`\times \left\{G_\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤+𝐪)𝐁(𝐡𝐤)_{s_ps_h}+G_\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤𝐪)𝐁(𝐩𝐤)_{s_ps_h}\right\},`$
where $`\tau _h=1`$ if $`h`$ is a proton and $`1`$ if neutron, and we have defined the function

$$𝐁(𝐩𝐤)_{ss^{}}=\frac{[𝝈_{ss^{}}(𝐩𝐤)](𝐩𝐤)+(𝐩𝐤)^2𝝈_{ss^{}}}{(𝐩𝐤)^2+m_\pi ^2}.$$
(4)
If the $`𝐤`$-dependence of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-propagator is neglected, then the integral in eq. (3) can be solved analytically111Note that in this section we are not including $`\pi `$N form factors in order to obtain an analytical result for numerical convenience. In the next section they will be properly included. (see ref.  for its explicit form).

The relativistic expression for the currents can be found in  and yields results which differ significantly from the non-relativistic ones even if the momentum transfer is as low as 500 MeV/c. This difference is due in part to the relativistic kinematics (RK), which can be easily implemented in the NR model by the replacement $`\omega \omega (1+\omega /2m_N)`$ , with the exception of the electromagnetic form factors, that must be computed for the unshifted value of $`\omega `$. Moreover, the NR results can be brought closer to the relativistic ones if the SR form of the current operators

$$𝐣_{T,SR}^a(𝐩,𝐡)\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+\tau }}𝐣_{T,nr}^a(𝐩,𝐡)$$
(5)
is employed for $`a=`$OB,C,P,$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, with $`\tau =|Q^2|/4m_N^2`$.

Eq. (5) has been obtained (see refs.  for details) by a direct Pauli reduction, expanding in powers of $`𝐡/m_N`$ to first order the OB current  and to leading order the MEC of pionic and contact types . In this paper we use a similar ‘factorized’ expression for the SR $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-current that was already proposed in . The $`\tau `$-dependent factor in eq. (5) arises from the spinology and produces a reduction of the responses.

Let us now discuss the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator $`G^\mathrm{\Delta }`$, appearing in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current, eqs. (2,3). In a fully relativistic theory, $`G^\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is given by the Rarita-Schwinger tensor . The possible decay of the isobar into a $`N\pi `$ state is accounted for by the substitution of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mass $`m_\mathrm{\Delta }m_\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{i}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(P^2)`$ in the denominator of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator, where the function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(P^2)`$ is the width of the resonance (see ).

The non-relativistic version of this propagator is defined by the positive energy sector for spatial indices and small momenta

$$G_{ij}^\mathrm{\Delta }(P)\frac{\overline{)}P+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{P^2m_\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\left(\delta _{ij}+\frac{1}{3}\gamma _i\gamma _j\right)G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P)\left(\frac{2}{3}\delta _{ij}\frac{i}{3}ϵ_{ijk}\sigma _k\right).$$
(6)
Note that diagrams (d–g) of fig. 1 correspond to different momenta in the propagators, namely $`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P_1+Q)`$ and $`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P_1^{}Q)`$: these, referred to as $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-excitation ($`G_\mathrm{\Delta }^I`$) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-deexcitation ($`G_\mathrm{\Delta }^{II}`$) in , denote the propagator for a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ created after and before photo-absorption, respectively.

The static limit approximation to $`G^\mathrm{\Delta }`$ consists in taking

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{)}P+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{P^2m_\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_N\gamma _0+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{P^2m_\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_N+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{m_N^2m_\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_Nm_\mathrm{\Delta }}},`$ (7)
where we have used $`P^2m_N^2`$ for $`P=P_1+Q`$ or $`P=P_1^{}Q`$ and $`q`$, $`\omega `$ small, since $`P_1`$ and $`P_1^{}`$ are the four-momenta of the initial and final nucleons. In this case, the two propagators are equal, i.e., $`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P_1+Q)=G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P_1^{}Q)=(m_Nm_\mathrm{\Delta })^1`$ and can be factorized out in eq. (2), thus yielding the traditional form of the non-relativistic current .

The effects introduced by relativity can be appreciated in fig. 3. Here we show the inclusive transverse response of 40Ca for two values of the momentum transfer, $`q=0.5`$ GeV/c (top panel) and $`q=1`$ GeV/c (bottom panel). We use Fermi momentum $`k_F=237`$ MeV/c and the Galster parameterization of the nucleon form factors . For the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current we use the electric form factor of the proton. For the comparison with the non-relativistic result we use strong form factors $`F_{\pi NN}=F_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}=1`$. The fully relativistic calculation performed within the RFG model of ref.  (thick solid line) is compared with various non-relativistic approaches: the traditional non-relativistic model (NR), the NR model but including relativistic kinematics (denoted as RK), and the results corresponding to the semi-relativistic currents, using in addition relativistic kinematics (denoted as SR0). Apart from the RFG, where the Rarita-Schwinger propagator is used including the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ width, the other results have been evaluated employing the static limit approximation for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator, for which $`\sqrt{s}=m_N`$, and therefore $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }(s)=0`$, since $`s`$ is below the threshold, $`m_N+m_\pi `$. Note the crucial role played by the relativistic kinematics and, moreover, how the SR approach, compared to the RK case, improves the agreement with the RFG results.

Next we study the effect of including a “dynamical” $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator within the SR model. This can be done by using different approximations for the propagators, $`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(K+Q)`$ and $`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(KQ)`$, appearing in the non-relativistic current, eq. (3), under the requirement that the new “dynamical” propagator be independent of $`𝐤`$: only in this case it can be easily introduced into non-relativistic calculations.

The results for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-OB transverse response computed within the SR model, and using different prescriptions for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator, are displayed in fig. 4. As in the previous figure and for comparison, we present the fully relativistic results (RFG) and the SR approach using the static limit for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator (SR0). In all the cases, relativistic kinematics is assumed. The various approaches considered to describe the “dynamical” $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator are below listed and discussed in some detail.

* The propagator is written, as suggested in refs. , as

$$G_\mathrm{\Delta }(P)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{s}m_\mathrm{\Delta }+\frac{i}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }(s)},$$
(8)
where $`s=P^2`$ and $`\sqrt{s}`$ is the available energy in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ rest system. The approximate values of $`s`$ are obtained by neglecting the momentum $`k`$ and kinetic energy $`ϵ_𝐤`$ compared with $`q`$ and the nucleon mass $`m_N`$, i.e.,

$`s^I`$ $``$ $`(K+Q)^2=(E_𝐤+\omega )^2(𝐤+𝐪)^2(m_N+\omega )^2q^2`$ (9)
$`s^{II}`$ $``$ $`(KQ)^2(m_N\omega )^2q^2.`$ (10)
As we observe in fig. 4, this prescription (denoted as SR1) produces a hardening of the response function, that is more pronounced for high $`q`$, and under-estimates the exact result at the peak.
* This second prescription is obtained, as suggested in refs. , by using the static approximation in the de-excitation diagram, fig. 2e, i.e., $`s^{II}m_N^2`$, and a dynamical propagator in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ excitation diagram, fig. 2d. In this case we use the same value $`s^I`$ as in eq. (9). As shown in fig. 4, this prescription (labelled as SR2) still produces a hardening of the response, but now the response function is larger than the relativistic one. We note also that the SR2 curve crosses the static SR0 result precisely at the position of the quasielastic peak (QEP). In fact, this is determined by $`(m_N+\omega )^2q^2=m_N^2`$, hence eq. (9) gives the static result, $`\sqrt{s^I}=m_N`$.
* From eq. (6) we may write

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{)}P+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{P^2m_\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{E\gamma _0𝐪𝜸+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{\sqrt{s}+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{s}m_\mathrm{\Delta }}}`$ (11)
for $`P=K+Q`$. The result given by eq. (8) is re-obtained when the first term in the right hand side of eq. (11) is close to one. Note that for $`q`$ large, $`\sqrt{s}`$ can be significantly different from $`E`$, while one cannot neglect the term $`𝐪𝜸`$. This would give an additional spin-dependent term and the propagator would get tangled. Instead, a possible way to proceed is by taking partially into account the $`q`$-dependence in the numerator in the way:

$`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(K+Q)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_N+\omega +q+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{\sqrt{s^I}+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{s^I}m_\mathrm{\Delta }}}`$ (12)
$`G_\mathrm{\Delta }(KQ)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_N+\omega q+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}{\sqrt{s^{II}}+m_\mathrm{\Delta }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{s^{II}}m_\mathrm{\Delta }}},`$ (13)
where $`s^{I,II}`$ are given in eqs. (9,10). This procedure allows us to write down an approximate diagonal expression for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator, and the corresponding results are denoted in fig. 4 as SR3. The reduction of the response function is shown not to be as large as in the SR1 case.

Summarizing, from fig. 4 we may conclude that none of the above approximations proposed for the dynamical $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator is entirely satisfactory. In fact we observe that the best result, compared with the fully relativistic RFG one, corresponds to the static limit approximation.

To complete this discussion, we note that the role of the width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in the SR models of fig. 4 is irrelevant since the approximate values taken for $`\sqrt{s}`$ are far below the pole for these kinematics. In fact, for the prescription SR1 we have from eq. (9):

$$\omega =\sqrt{s^I+q^2}m_N.$$
(14)
This means that for $`q=1`$ GeV/c and $`\sqrt{s^I}=m_\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we get $`\omega 649`$ MeV, which is well above the allowed region of the QEP, while the threshold, $`\sqrt{s^I}=m_N+m_\pi `$, is reached for $`\omega 531`$ MeV, below which the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ width is zero. Hence only the small tail of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ close to the threshold is being considered in this region of energy.

Actually in the relativistic model things are totally different because the pole is reached inside the allowed energy region. Indeed the delicate energy balance in the denominator makes the value of the inner momentum $`𝐤`$ to play a role. Instead of (14) a better approximation to the exact relation is represented by

$$\omega =\sqrt{s^I+(𝐪+𝐤)^2}m_N.$$
(15)
In this case the pole is first reached at

$$\omega =\sqrt{m_\mathrm{\Delta }^2+(qk_F)^2}m_N,$$
(16)
which gives $`\omega 511`$ MeV, close to the peak for $`q=1`$ GeV/c.

Thus we have considered two new prescriptions, denoted as SR4 and SR5. To help the reader they are shown in a separate figure (fig. 5), where they are again compared with the fully relativistic calculation (RFG) and the static limit approach (SR0). These new prescriptions are based on the value assigned to $`\sqrt{s}`$, such that the position of the pole be closer to the relativistic case. More precisely:

* One considers $`\sqrt{s^I}=\sqrt{s_{NN}}m_N`$, being $`s_{NN}`$ the invariant energy of the two outgoing nucleons, suggested in  for two-nucleon knock-out, and apparently applied also to one-nucleon emission in . The meaning of $`s_{NN}`$ for this case is doubtful, since there is only one particle in the final state. However, from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-excitation diagram, fig. 2d, we see that $`𝐤,𝐡`$ are two entering momenta and $`𝐩,𝐤`$ the two exiting ones. Hence the prescription SR4 in fig. 5 is based on the approximation:

$$s_{NN}(P+K)^2=(E_𝐡+E_𝐤+\omega )^2(𝐡+𝐤+𝐪)^2(2m_N+\omega )^2q^2.$$
(17)
In this case the pole for $`q=1`$ GeV/c is reached at $`\omega 513`$ MeV, inside the QE region. However, from the results in fig. 5, this prescription appears to be less satisfactory than the previous ones.
* Finally, the prescription SR5 is obtained by exploiting eq. (16) that gives the right position at which the pole is first reached and defining

$`s^I`$ $`=`$ $`(m_N+\omega )^2(qk_F)^2`$ (18)
$`s^{II}`$ $`=`$ $`(m_N\omega )^2(qk_F)^2.`$ (19)
The results show that for $`q=1`$ GeV/c the pole is reached at the right position close to the peak of the response. The change of sign of the response is a consequence of the change of sign of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator when one crosses the pole.

From fig. 5 we observe that it is not possible to recover the exact relativistic result by using a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator independent of $`𝐤`$, even if it reaches the pole (in absence, of course, of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ width) inside the allowed region. In fact the present singularity can only be smoothed, even in the presence of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ width, after an integration over $`𝐤`$ is performed, as in the relativistic model.

In general we conclude that, if a dynamical propagator has to be used, like in the semi-relativistic approaches discussed here, a smoothed form not hitting the pole is needed in order not to deviate too much from the exact result for the response function. Among the prescriptions analyzed in this section, the static form of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator produces, in spite of its simplicity, the best agreement with the RFG results in the case of one-particle knockout sector, once relativistic kinematics and semi-relativistic corrections of the currents are used. Therefore, a procedure to “dynamize” the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator as the ones presented here, and its use within the context of a non-relativistic or semi-relativistic distorted wave analysis of quasielastic $`(e,e^{})`$ and $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions appears not to give better results than the static approximation. Obviously, this conclusion does not affect the validity of the approximations discussed in  for the two-particle emission channel, where the kinematical conditions are completely different.

In the next section we apply the present semi-relativistic model of MEC to the exclusive $`(e,e^{}p)`$ response functions of nuclei.

## 3 Exclusive $`(e,e^{}p)`$ observables

In this section we compute the quasielastic $`(e,e^{}p)`$ response functions for intermediate to high momentum transfer values within the context of the SR approach introduced in the previous section. As shown in the case of quasielastic inclusive $`(e,e^{})`$ responses , accounting for relativistic effects requires at least to treat properly the kinematics and relativistic factors in the currents. Referring to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current, we make use of the static limit approach for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator, as this gives rise to the best agreement with the fully-relativistic calculation in the inclusive channel, as shown in the previous Section. As a complete relativistic analysis of all the MEC (P, C and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) currents in $`(e,e^{}p)`$ processes is still lacking, the use of “dynamized” $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagators within existing NR or SR descriptions of the reaction mechanism does not appear to be well founded and, moreover, these may lead to large discrepancies with the exact calculation.

The general formalism for $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions has been presented in detail in refs.  and we refer to them for specifics on the kinematics. Assuming plane waves for the incoming and outgoing electron (treated in the extreme relativistic limit) and parity conservation, the exclusive cross section can be written in the form

$$\frac{d^5\sigma }{dϵ^{}d\mathrm{\Omega }_e^{}d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^{}}=K\sigma _M\left(v_LW^L+v_TW^T+v_{TL}W^{TL}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ^{}+v_{TT}W^{TT}\mathrm{cos}2\varphi ^{}\right),$$
(20)
where $`ϵ^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_e^{}`$ are the energy and solid angle corresponding to the scattered electron and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p^{}=(\theta ^{},\varphi ^{})`$ is the solid angle for the ejected proton with four-momentum $`P^\mu =(E^{},𝐩^{})`$. In eq. (20) $`K=2p^{}m_N/(2\pi \mathrm{})^3`$ and $`\sigma _M`$ is the Mott cross section. Finally, $`v_\alpha `$ are the electron kinematical factors given in refs. . The labels $`L`$ and $`T`$ refer to the longitudinal and transverse projections of the current matrix elements with respect to the virtual photon direction, respectively.

The hadronic content of the problem enters via the response functions $`W^\alpha `$, which are obtained by taking the appropriate components of the hadronic tensor

$$W^{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{K}\underset{m_sM_\alpha }{}𝐩^{}m_s,\mathrm{\Phi }_\alpha ^{(A1)}|\widehat{J}^\mu (Q)|\mathrm{\Phi }_0^{(A)}^{}𝐩^{}m_s,\mathrm{\Phi }_\alpha ^{(A1)}|\widehat{J}^\nu (Q)|\mathrm{\Phi }_0^{(A)},$$
(21)
where a sum over undetected final polarization states is performed. In eq. (21), $`\widehat{J}^\mu (Q)`$ is the nuclear current operator and we assume the initial state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_0^A`$ to correspond to a spin-zero nuclear target in its ground state with energy $`E_0^{(A)}`$. The final state $`|𝐩^{}m_s,\mathrm{\Phi }_\alpha ^{(A1)}`$ is assumed to behave asymptotically as a knockout nucleon with momentum $`𝐩^{}`$ and spin quantum number $`m_s`$ and a residual nucleus left in a bound state, i.e., $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_\alpha ^{(A1)}=|J_\alpha ,M_\alpha `$, with energy $`E_\alpha ^{(A1)}`$.

In the present distorted wave analysis of $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions, the outgoing nucleon state is described by a wave function solution of the Schrödinger equation with an optical potential $`V_{opt}`$ fitted to elastic nucleon-nucleus scattering data. The matrix elements of the hadronic tensor are computed by performing a multipole expansion of both the distorted nucleon wave and the current operators in terms of the usual Coulomb $`C_J`$, electric $`E_J`$ and magnetic $`M_J`$ multipoles (see refs.  for details on the model, and  for explicit expressions of the multipole matrix elements of the currents).

The electromagnetic form factors used in the contact and pionic MEC are given in Ref. , while for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ we use the same as the electromagnetic proton form factor. In this section we include monopole form factors in the MEC $`F_{\pi NN}(K)=F_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}(K)=(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2m_\pi ^2)/(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2K^2)`$ with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1300`$ MeV. For low $`q`$ these form factors are small , but for high values of $`q`$ (close to 1 GeV, as here) they can reduce the MEC contribution of about 25%.

Note that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-current contributions can also be sensitive to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-nucleus potential in the medium (see Ref. ). Indeed in-medium modifications of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\pi `$ propagators have been studied in inclusive $`(e,e^{})`$ scattering in the region of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ peak and for pion electro-production , but not, to our knowledge, for the MEC in the QEP. A rough estimate of these effects can be performed by adding a constant $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-nucleus optical potential $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }=3040i`$ MeV  in the denominator of the static $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator: since $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ turns out to affect our results very little, we have accordingly neglected it.

To illustrate the role of the relativistic corrections we display in fig. 6 the four unpolarized exclusive response functions for proton knock-out from the $`1p_{1/2}`$-shell in 16O leading to the residual nucleus 15N. The kinematics selected corresponds to $`(q,\omega )`$-constant kinematics (sometimes also referred to as quasi-perpendicular kinematics) and the values $`q=460`$ MeV/c and $`q=995`$ MeV/c have been chosen. In each case the value selected of the transferred energy $`\omega `$ almost corresponds to the quasi-elastic peak value, i.e., $`\omega =100`$ MeV and $`439`$ MeV, respectively. FSI are taken into account for $`q=460`$ MeV/c through the optical potential of Comfort and Karp , which is appropriate for proton kinetic energies below 183 MeV. In the case of $`q=995`$ MeV/c, as the proton kinetic energy is of the order of $`430`$ MeV, we use instead a Schr̈odinger-equivalent form of the relativistic global optical potential of ref. . Thus the non-relativistic wave functions correspond to the upper components of the relativistic ones, containing the Darwin term. Results obtained within this approach were compared with a fully relativistic calculation in the impulse approximation , i.e., without including the effects of MEC.

In each panel of fig. 6 we compare the results corresponding to the traditional non-relativistic model with non-relativistic kinematics (denoted by NR), including relativistic kinematics (RK), and finally, the semi-relativistic approach discussed in the previous section (SR). All the calculations include MEC. From these results it emerges that, particularly for high $`q`$, the relativistic kinematics plays a crucial role in describing properly the form of the momentum distribution. Note that the allowable missing momentum values are determined by the relation $`|p^{}q|pp^{}+q`$, with $`p^{}`$ fixed by energy conservation. Assuming non-relativistic kinematics the value of $`p^{}`$ is given by

$$p^{}=\sqrt{2m_N(ϵ_𝐡+\omega )},$$
(22)
while for relativistic kinematics it results

$$p^{}=\sqrt{(m_N+ϵ_𝐡+\omega )^2m_N^2}=\sqrt{2m_N(ϵ_𝐡+\omega )\left(1+\frac{ϵ_𝐡+\omega }{2m_N}\right)}.$$
(23)
In eqs. (22,23), the energy $`ϵ_𝐡`$ represents the (negative) energy of the bound nucleon. Hence in the case of RK we solve the Schrödinger equation with equivalent energy $`(ϵ_𝐡+\omega )\left(1+\frac{ϵ_𝐡+\omega }{2m_N}\right)`$ for the ejected proton instead of the NR energy $`ϵ_𝐡+\omega `$.

Once relativistic kinematics is selected, the use of SR currents produces an enhancement of the $`L`$ and $`TL`$ responses and a reduction of the $`T`$ and $`TT`$ ones, whose magnitude increases with $`q`$. These effects are connected with the factors $`\frac{\kappa }{\sqrt{\tau }}>1`$ and $`\frac{\sqrt{\tau }}{\kappa }\frac{1}{1+\tau }`$ that enter in the SR expressions of the longitudinal and transverse currents, respectively . It is important to point out the particularly large relativistic enhancement observed for the interference $`TL`$ response. This is connected to the spin-orbit term  contained in the SR charge density but neglected within the NR approach. As shown in , the interference between the spin-orbit term and the magnetization current gives rise to a contribution in $`W^{TL}`$ which is of the same order of magnitude as the interference between the charge density and convection current. Thus the presence of the spin-orbit term in the density is essential to describe properly the response $`W^{TL}`$, even for moderate $`q`$-values.

Analogous results hold for a proton knockout from the $`p_{3/2}`$-shell in 16O: the role of relativity in each response is similar to the one observed for the $`p_{1/2}`$ case and, again, the most sensitive response to relativistic effects is $`W^{TL}`$. However, the relativistic enhancement for the $`p_{3/2}`$-orbit is somewhat smaller than the one presented for $`p_{1/2}`$, particularly for large $`q`$.

The separate contributions of the MEC is presented in figs. 7 and 8 for $`p_{1/2}`$ and $`p_{3/2}`$-shells, respectively. Kinematics is as in the previous figure and we do not show results for the pure longitudinal response as it is not affected by MEC within the present approaches. We compare the OB responses (dotted line) with the results obtained when including the contact (C) current (dashed line), the contact and pion-in-flight (C+P) currents (dot-dashed line), and the contact, pionic and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (C+P+$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) currents (solid line). Let us analyze each response separately. In the case of $`W^T`$, the contact current produces an increase which is partially cancelled by the tiny reduction introduced by the pionic current. Note that the role of the C and P currents is negligible for large $`q`$. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current gives rise to an additional reduction whose relative magnitude is rather similar for both shells. The total effect of C+P+$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ MEC is a reduction of the T response which is slightly more important for high $`q`$.

Although a great caution should be taken in extending the conclusions drawn from the analysis of exclusive reactions to inclusive ones or viceversa, it is illustrative to discuss the results relative to quasielastic $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions in connection with the quasielastic $`(e,e^{})`$ ones. Note that, apart from the potentials usually considered in both types of reactions, the inclusive responses are calculated by integrating the exclusive ones over the ejected nucleon variables, and summing over all occupied hole states, i.e., including also the contribution given by the $`1s_{1/2}`$ shell. In refs.  we evaluated the role of MEC for the inclusive $`T`$ response in a relativistic Fermi gas model. The contact (C) contribution was found to be larger than the pion-in-flight term (P), a dominance increasing with $`q`$. The total (C+P) contribution presents an oscillatory behaviour with respect to the transferred energy $`\omega `$, having a node close to the QEP value, particularly for high $`q`$. For $`q=1`$ GeV/c, this node is reached for $`\omega 435`$ MeV, which is very close to the value $`\omega =439`$ MeV selected in the $`(e,e^{}p)`$ calculations (right hand panels in figs. 7 and 8). On the contrary, in the case $`q=500`$ MeV/c, the contribution of the C+P currents in the inclusive $`T`$ response presents a node for $`\omega 150`$ MeV and is positive and non-negligible for the value $`\omega =100`$ MeV selected here in the case of $`(e,e^{}p)`$ process. A similar discussion can be also applied to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ results. In ref.  (see also previous section) the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ contribution to the inclusive $`T`$ response has been shown to be always negative up to $`q2`$ GeV/c and larger than the one provided by the C and P currents together. Hence the general trend of the MEC contribution to the inclusive channel agrees with the effects shown for the exclusive responses (figs. 7 and 8).

Finally, comparing the results in figs. 7 and 8 we conclude that the effects of MEC for the exclusive $`T`$-response are similar for both $`p_{1/2}`$ and $`p_{3/2}`$ shells. A different behaviour is found in the results of ref.  where the role of MEC, for $`q=460`$ MeV/, is shown to be larger in the case of the $`p_{3/2}`$ shell. In addition, the role introduced by the pionic current (P) in  is said to be negligible, whereas in our case its contribution, though a little bit smaller than the contact term, is clearly visible. Our results are also in disagreement with the calculation of  performed for $`q=1`$ GeV, where the total MEC effect is found to be small for the $`p_{1/2}`$ and large for the $`p_{3/2}`$ in the $`T`$ response. This discrepancy is linked to the FW method used to implement relativity in  which is not expected to be applicable for $`q=1`$ GeV .

Next we focus on the interference $`TL`$ response. From figs. 7 and 8 we observe that for $`q=460`$ MeV/c the MEC effect is larger in the case of the $`p_{1/2}`$-shell. The main contribution comes from the contact current, which produces an enhancement in $`W^{TL}`$ of the order of $`20\%`$ for $`p_{1/2}`$ and $`15\%`$ for $`p_{3/2}`$, while the role of the pion-in-flight is smaller, reducing the response, and in particular, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ gives rise to an almost negligible contribution (slightly positive for $`p_{1/2}`$ and negative for $`p_{3/2}`$). These results disagree with the findings of ref. , where the effect of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in $`W^{TL}`$ is substantially large and negative for the $`p_{1/2}`$-shell, so that it cancels out the contact term, yielding a negligible global MEC contribution. On the contrary, in the same reference the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ contribution for the $`p_{3/2}`$-orbit is found to be large and positive, hence the net effect of MEC is an important enhancement in the $`TL`$ response. As in the case of the pure $`T`$ response, the pionic contribution found in  is negligible, which again is not in accord with our results.

Figs. 7 and 8 clearly show that the importance of the MEC on the $`TL`$ response decreases as $`q`$ goes to higher values. Whereas the contact current enhances the $`TL`$ response by the same magnitude for the two $`p`$-shells, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ term is negligible for the $`p_{1/2}`$ and tends to cancel the contact contribution for $`p_{3/2}`$. For both shells, the pionic current does not alter $`W^{TL}`$.

As far as $`W^{TT}`$ is concerned, note that this response is much smaller, its contribution being of order $`(k_F/m_N)^2`$ (see ref. ); hence terms of second order in $`p/m_N`$, usually neglected in the expansion of the current operators, may provide a crucial role in this response. However, since $`W^{TT}`$ is also particularly sensitive to the details of the model, it can be used as a test to compare different theoretical models. Note that this response is opposite in sign for $`p_{1/2}`$ and $`p_{3/2}`$. Concerning the role of MEC, it is found to be of the same relative order of magnitude as in the other responses, except for the pionic current which has an important effect in this case.

As a further application of our model we present in fig. 9 the $`TL`$ asymmetry ($`A_{TL}`$) for $`p_{1/2}`$ (top panels) and $`p_{3/2}`$ (bottom panels). The kinematics has been selected to correspond to the experimental data . $`A_{TL}`$ is obtained from the difference of cross sections measured at $`\varphi ^{}=0^o`$ and $`\varphi ^{}=180^o`$ divided by the sum, hence this observable is particularly interesting because it does not depend on the spectroscopic factors. A detailed study on the $`TL`$ asymmetry has been carried out in refs.  within the relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation (RDWIA), namely a fully relativistic calculation without including MEC. In particular, a comparison between $`A_{TL}`$ evaluated in RDWIA and using the SR approach for the one-body current and neglecting MEC, was presented in . There it was proved the large contribution given by the spin-orbit correction to the charge density, and, more importantly, the crucial role played by the dynamical enhancement of the lower components of bound Dirac spinors in the description of interference $`TL`$ observables (see also refs. ). Recent data on polarization observables nicely agree with RDWIA analysis .

However, a direct calculation of the role of MEC in $`A_{TL}`$ within a relativistic approach has never been performed, as far as we know. Thus, in fig. 9 we show the results obtained within the impulse approximation, i.e., without MEC (dotted line), and the contributions introduced by the various two-body currents: C (dashed line), C+P (dot-dashed line) and total MEC, namely C+P+$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (solid line). In order to investigate also the dependence of our results on the FSI, in fig. 9 we show two sets of calculations for each $`p`$ shell: including the spin-orbit part of the optical potential $`V_{ls}`$  (left panels) and without it (right panels). For comparison we also present the experimental data . From inspection of fig. 9 we conclude that the effect of MEC is very small for low missing momentum values and it starts to be important for $`p300`$ MeV/c. Note however that in this region the dynamical enhancement of lower components, obviously not considered within the present SR approach, starts also to play a crucial role and hence it should be considered before a detailed comparison with data can be accomplished. Note also the large discrepancy between the SR calculation and the data for low $`p`$ in the case of $`p_{1/2}`$ with the full potential. This issue was already present in , where the RDWIA calculation differs from the SR one comparing better with data . This problem within the SR approach appears to be connected with the spin-orbit term introduced by the equivalent Schrödinger form of the optical potential, as can be seen in the right panels of fig. 9, that do not include $`V_{ls}`$ in the FSI. Our results also show that the MEC effects for high missing momenta strongly depend upon the FSI, since they are substantially reduced when only the central part of the optical potential is included (right panels).

Summarizing, from theoretical results in fig. 9 and ref. , and their comparison to experimental data , we may conclude the following: i) a fully relativistic calculation within the impulse approximation (RDWIA), i.e., including the effects introduced by the dynamical enhancement of the lower components in the Dirac spinors, appears to be essential to reproduce the data; ii) the effects introduced by MEC for high missing momentum values seem to be also very important, and highly dependent on the FSI. Hence an appropriate relativistic analysis of these two-body currents may be also essential in order to improve the description of the experimental data at high missing momentum.

## 4 Conclusions

In this paper we have presented a semi-relativistic model of inclusive and exclusive electron scattering from nuclei in the one-nucleon emission channel, including one- and two-body currents. These currents differ from the usual non-relativistic ones by multiplicative $`(q,\omega )`$-depending factors obtained by an expansion in powers of the missing momentum. An essential ingredient of the SR consists in using, in addition to the SR currents, relativistic kinematics to relate the energy and momentum of the ejected nucleon.

This model has been already tested in quasielastic inclusive $`(e,e^{})`$ processes in refs. . In this paper we have first focussed on the new SR-$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ current and compared its contribution to the inclusive transverse response with a fully relativistic calculation in RFG for moderate and high $`q`$-values. This has allowed us to test the reliability of different prescriptions introduced to account for “dynamical” aspects of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator. We have found that the best agreement with the fully relativistic calculation corresponds to the static limit approximation. Thus, we conclude that the use of any of these “dynamized” $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagators within the one-particle emission channel is not justified and, moreover, it may produce very large discrepancies with the exact result.

Next we have implemented the SR currents into a DWIA model of the quasielastic $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reaction, computing the separate response functions and the $`TL`$ asymmetry, using the static limit for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ propagator. After analyzing the role of the different relativistic corrections embedded in our calculation and its dependence upon the momentum transfer, we have studied the effect of MEC on the different observables. In particular, we have compared the results for proton knock-out from the $`p_{1/2}`$ and $`p_{3/2}`$ shells in 16O, choosing quasi-perpendicular kinematics, typical of the experiments. In the case of the $`T`$ response, MEC effects are shown to be equally important for the two shells, giving rise to a net reduction of the response. For $`W^{TL}`$, the role of MEC is to enhance the response, an effect that is substantially larger for the $`p_{1/2}`$ shell, and reduces considerably for high $`q`$-values. In general, we get sizable differences with previous calculations in the literature .

Finally, our model applied to the $`A_{TL}`$ asymmetry shows that this observable is very sensitive to the MEC and to FSI in the region of high missing momentum. Since it has been proved in  that the interference $`TL`$ observables, particularly $`A_{TL}`$, are also crucially affected by other relativistic ingredients, such as the dynamical enhancement of lower components, not included in this work, it would be very interesting to evaluate MEC effects within the scheme of the fully relativistic calculation of refs. , and contrast their predictions with the ones obtained with the present SR model.

## Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by funds provided by DGI (Spain) and FEDER funds, under Contracts Nos BFM2002-03218, BFM2002-03315 and FPA2002-04181-C04-04 and by the Junta de Andalucía and by the INFN-CICYT exchange. M.B.B. acknowledges financial support from MEC (Spain) for a sabbatical stay at University of Sevilla (ref. SAB2001-0025).


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The quasielastic reaction $`\overline{\nu }_epe^+n`$ (inverse beta decay) is of special relevance for studies of $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ at sub-GeV energies . Indeed, (1) its cross section is relatively large111It is interesting to recall that the first authors who computed it  concluded: ‘This meant that one obviously would never be able to see a neutrino.’, $`G_\mathrm{F}^2E_\nu ^2`$; (2) it can be accurately computed; (3) it has a low threshold $`E_\nu >1.806\text{MeV}m_e+m_nm_p`$; (4) the measurable $`e^+`$ energy is strongly correlated with the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ energy; (5) materials rich in free protons are cheap (e.g. water, hydrocarbon) and this permits to build large detectors; (6) in scintillators, it is possible to tag both the $`e^+`$ and the neutron, reducing the backgrounds. These features are not shared by other reactions, e.g. (1), (4) and (6) do not hold for $`\nu e\nu e`$ (since $`m_em_p`$); $`\overline{\nu }_e{}_{}{}^{16}\mathrm{O}e^+{}_{}{}^{16}\mathrm{N}`$ has high threshold $`E_\nu >11.4\text{MeV}`$ and it is theoretically much less clean.

The cross sections for quasielastic neutrino and antineutrino scattering on neutron or proton have been calculated long ago for applications at high energy $`E_\nu `$ GeV (e.g. accelerators). The reference formulæ for these applications are eqs. (3.18) and (3.22) in the review of Llewellyn-Smith , routinely used, for instance, in analyses of atmospheric neutrinos. Vogel and Beacom  remarked that effects suppressed by $`(m_nm_p)/E_\nu `$ have been neglected in eq. (3.22), which is a bad approximation at low energy $`E_\nu `$ MeV (e.g. $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ generated by nuclear reactors or supernovæ). These authors proposed theirs eqs. (12) and (13) which, neglecting effects suppressed by powers of $`E_\nu /m_p`$, provide a simple and precise description of neutrino/nucleon scattering at low energy. In this paper, we derive a unique formula valid at low, intermediate and high energies, without assuming $`m_nm_pE_\nu `$ nor $`E_\nu m_p`$. We will compare our cross section with other approximations of common use, and discuss the range of energies where they are reliable. Our findings are relevant in particular for (1) detection of supernova $`\overline{\nu }_e`$, that can have an energy between few MeV up to about $`60`$ MeV; (2) transport of $`e^\pm `$, $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ inside the collapsing star, where the effective temperatures are higher and neutrino energies can reach 200 MeV.

The cross-section is computed in section 2 and discussed in section 3.

## 2 Cross section

We write explicit expressions for inverse beta decay (IBD), namely quasielastic scattering of electron antineutrino on proton:

$$\overline{\nu }_e(p_\nu )+p(p_p)e^+(p_e)+n(p_n)\text{ IBD reaction.}$$
(1)
We indicate how to obtain the corresponding expressions for other antineutrinos $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$, and for quasielastic neutrino/neutron scattering. Let us define

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=m_nm_p1.293\text{ MeV},M=(m_p+m_n)/2938.9\text{ MeV}.$$
(2)
The differential cross section at tree level in the weak interactions, averaged (summed) over initial (final) polarizations is:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dt}=\frac{G_\mathrm{F}^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _\mathrm{C}}{2\pi (sm_p^2)^2}|^2|$$
(3)
where $`G_\mathrm{F}=1.1663710^5/\text{GeV}^2`$ is the Fermi coupling extracted from $`\mu `$-decay, $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _\mathrm{C}=0.9746\pm 0.0008`$  is the cosine of the Cabibbo angle and $``$ has the well-known current-current structure:

$$=\overline{v}_{\nu _e}\gamma ^a(1\gamma _5)v_e\overline{u}_n\left(f_1\gamma _a+g_1\gamma _a\gamma _5+if_2\sigma _{ab}\frac{q^b}{2M}+g_2\frac{q_a}{M}\gamma _5\right)u_p$$
(4)
where $`q=p_\nu p_e=p_np_p`$. A straightforward calculation yields222We give some details of the computation. The polynomial structure in $`su`$ can be easily understood: if we express the leptonic tensor $`L^{ab}`$ in terms of $`p_{\mathrm{}}=p_\nu +p_e`$ and $`q`$, and the hadronic one $`H^{ab}`$ in terms of $`p_h=p_p+p_n`$ and $`q`$, it is sufficient to note that $`p_{\mathrm{}}p_h=su`$ (while $`q^2=t`$, $`qp_{\mathrm{}}=m_e^2`$ and $`qp_h=m_n^2m_p^2=2M\mathrm{\Delta }`$). The dependence on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of $`|^2|`$ can be understood by deepening the same argument, namely: (1) one decomposes the leptonic tensor $`L^{ab}`$ in 4 parts: $`p_{\mathrm{}}^ap_{\mathrm{}}^b`$, $`q^aq^bq^2g^{ab}`$, $`m_e^2g^{ab}`$, $`ϵ^{abcd}p_\mathrm{}cq_d`$; (2) then, one considers the general Lorentz-invariant decomposition of the hadronic tensor $`H(p_h,q)`$ (6 parts); (3) finally, one checks explicitly the 24 contractions, and verifies that $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ appears only in the combinations $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ and $`m_e^2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. :

$$|^2|=A(t)(su)B(t)+(su)^2C(t)$$
(5)
where $`s=(p_\nu +p_p)^2`$, $`t=(p_\nu p_e)^2`$, $`u=(p_\nu p_n)^2`$ are the usual Mandelstam variables and

$$\begin{array}{c}16A=(tm_e^2)\begin{array}{c}[4|f_1^2|(4M^2+t+m_e^2)+4|g_1^2|(4M^2+t+m_e^2)+|f_2^2|(t^2/M^2+4t+4m_e^2)+\hfill \\ +4m_e^2t|g_2^2|/M^2+8\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}[f_1^{}f_2](2t+m_e^2)+16m_e^2\mathrm{Re}[g_1^{}g_2]]\hfill \end{array}\hfill \\ \mathrm{\Delta }^2\begin{array}{c}[(4|f_1^2|+t|f_2^2|/M^2)(4M^2+tm_e^2)+4|g_1^2|(4M^2t+m_e^2)+4m_e^2|g_2^2|(tm_e^2)/M^2+\hfill \\ +8\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}[f_1^{}f_2](2tm_e^2)+16m_e^2\mathrm{Re}[g_1^{}g_2]]32m_e^2M\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{Re}[g_1^{}(f_1+f_2)]\hfill \end{array}\hfill \\ 16B=16t\mathrm{Re}[g_1^{}(f_1+f_2)]+4m_e^2\mathrm{\Delta }\left(|f_2^2|+\mathrm{Re}[f_1^{}f_2+2g_1^{}g_2]\right)/M\hfill \\ 16C=4(|f_1^2|+|g_1^2|)t|f_2^2|/M^2.\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
In the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ eq. (6) reduces to eq. (3.22) of Llewellyn-Smith.

Since strong interactions are invariant under $`T`$ and $`C`$, the adimensional form factors $`f_i,g_i`$ are real functions of the transferred 4-momentum $`t=q^2<0`$. As discussed in section 3.2 they can be approximated with

$$\{f_1,f_2\}=\frac{\{1(1+\xi )t/4M^2,\xi \}}{(1t/4M^2)(1t/M_V^2)^2},g_1=\frac{g_1(0)}{(1t/M_A^2)^2},g_2=\frac{2M^2g_1}{m_\pi ^2t}$$
(7)
where $`g_1(0)=1.270\pm 0.003`$ , $`M_V^2=0.71`$ GeV2, $`M_A^21`$ GeV2. Finally $`\xi =\kappa _p\kappa _n=3.706`$ is the difference between the proton and neutron anomalous magnetic moments in units of the nuclear magneton ($`\kappa _p=1.792`$, $`\kappa _n=1.913`$).

The analogous expressions for $`\nu _en`$ scattering are obtained by exchanging $`p_\nu p_e`$, and $`m_pm_n`$ in the flux factor. Therefore, $`|^2|`$ keeps the same expression with $`suus`$; in view of its explicit form, this amounts to just replace $`BB`$ in eq. (5). The expressions for $`\nu _\mu `$ or $`\nu _\tau `$ scatterings are obtained by replacing $`m_e`$ with $`m_\mu `$ or $`m_\tau `$.

Our final expression is somewhat involved but allows to numerically compute any desired integrated cross-section. It is also useful to present some simple analytic approximation that is valid at low energies (say, at supernova and reactor energies or below). In fact, the $`\nu _e`$, $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ cross sections simplify, when expanding $`|^2|`$ in powers of the parameter:

$$\epsilon =E_\nu /m_p$$
(8)
When we prescribe that $`E_e,\mathrm{\Delta },m_e\epsilon `$, we get

$$sm_p^2\epsilon ,su\epsilon ,t\epsilon ^2.$$

The flux factor in the denominator of $`d\sigma /dt`$ gives a $`1/ϵ^2`$, and the amplitude $`|^2|`$ starts at order $`\epsilon ^2`$. The leading order (LO) approximation in $`\epsilon `$ is obtained by retaining only

$$\begin{array}{c}AM^2(f_1^2g_1^2)(tm_e^2)M^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2(f_1^2+g_1^2)\hfill \\ B0\hfill \\ C(f_1^2+g_1^2)/4\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
Since $`B0`$ at LO $`\nu _en`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_ep`$ scatterings are described by the same $`^2`$.

A simple approximation which is accurate enough to describe the detection of supernova neutrinos events via IBD is obtained using the expression of $`^2`$ accurate up to NLO in $`\epsilon `$, given by

$$\begin{array}{c}AM^2(f_1^2g_1^2)(tm_e^2)M^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2(f_1^2+g_1^2)2m_e^2M\mathrm{\Delta }g_1(f_1+f_2)\hfill \\ Btg_1(f_1+f_2)\hfill \\ C(f_1^2+g_1^2)/4\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
The $`t`$ dependence of the form factors contributes at next order (NNLO): at NLO the form factors are approximated with constants.

### 2.1 Total cross section, $`d\sigma /dE_e`$ and event numbers

The cross section expressed in terms of the neutrino and electron energy in the rest frame of the proton, $`E_\nu `$ and $`E_e`$, is particularly useful. Inserting

$$sm_p^2=2m_pE_\nu ,su=2m_p(E_\nu +E_e)m_e^2,t=m_n^2m_p^22m_p(E_\nu E_e)$$

it is given by

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dE_e}(E_\nu ,E_e)=2m_p\frac{d\sigma }{dt}\text{ if }E_\nu E_{\mathrm{thr}}\frac{(m_n+m_e)^2m_p^2}{2m_p}$$
(11)
The allowed values of $`E_e`$, $`E_1E_eE_2`$, correspond to the possible scattering angles $`\theta ^{\mathrm{CM}}`$ in the center of mass (CM) frame:

$$E_{1,2}=E_\nu \delta \frac{1}{m_p}E_\nu ^{\mathrm{CM}}(E_e^{\mathrm{CM}}\pm p_e^{\mathrm{CM}}),\text{ with }\delta \frac{m_n^2m_p^2m_e^2}{2m_p}$$
(12)
where the energy and momenta in the CM have the standard expressions:

$$E_\nu ^{\mathrm{CM}}=\frac{sm_p^2}{2\sqrt{s}},E_e^{\mathrm{CM}}=\frac{sm_n^2+m_e^2}{2\sqrt{s}},p_e^{\mathrm{CM}}=\frac{\sqrt{[s(m_nm_e)^2][s(m_n+m_e)^2]}}{2\sqrt{s}}$$
(13)
For the neutrino reaction, one has just to replace $`m_nm_p`$ in all formulæ above except in $`|^2|`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ remains positive, with the proviso to set $`E_{\mathrm{thr}}=0`$ for $`\nu _e`$ (it would come negative). The total cross section is plotted in figure 1a and tabulated in table 1. We have included also two corrections:

1. the radiative corrections to the cross section , well approximated as

$$d\sigma (E_\nu ,E_e)d\sigma (E_\nu ,E_e)\left[1+\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left(6.00+\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{log}\frac{m_p}{2E_e}+1.2(\frac{m_e}{E_e})^{1.5}\right)\right]$$
(14)
where $`\alpha `$ is the fine-structure constant.

This one-loop correction is valid at $`E_\nu m_p`$, when the final state positron (electron) is the only radiator, and in the hypothesis that all the energy $`E_e`$ in electrons and bremsstrahlung photons is detected. In general the differential cross section is given by a more complicated expression which depends on detection threshold for photons. The total cross section is still given by eq. (14), if all final state electrons are detected .

High-energy electroweak corrections are automatically included in the values of $`g_1(0)`$ and $`G_\mathrm{F}`$ extracted from low-energy experiments.
2. We multiply $`\sigma (\nu _enpe)`$ by the Sommerfeld factor that accounts for final-state interactions:

$$F(E_e)=\frac{\eta }{1\mathrm{exp}(\eta )},\text{ with }\eta =\frac{2\pi \alpha }{\sqrt{1m_e^2/E_e^2}}$$
(15)

Both the radiative corrections and final state interactions amount to a $`2`$% correction, which can be important for high statistic data samples.

The formulæ given above can be adapted to the case when the nucleon is not at rest (e.g. inside a supernova). Similarly, one can include Fermi blocking-factors in final state to account for degenerate electrons sea in the supernova.

It is straightforward to compute the average values $`x=x𝑑\sigma /𝑑\sigma `$ of interesting kinematical quantities $`x`$, like $`x=E_e,E_e^2E_e^2,\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, etc. We plot in figure 2 and tabulate in table 1 the average cosine of the scattering angle of the charged lepton. Detecting supernova neutrinos via the IBD reaction, one could try to track their source by measuring the direction of positrons, that are copiously produced  (more discussion below). Another important quantity is the average lepton energy, which can be approximated (at better than 1% below $`100`$ MeV) by

$$E_e(E_1+E_2)/2=E_\nu \delta E_\nu ^{\mathrm{CM}}E_e^{\mathrm{CM}}/m_p$$
(16)
This is a much better approximation than the usual formula $`E_e=E_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }`$; it permits to relate $`E_e`$ with $`E_\nu `$ incorporating a large part of the effect due to the recoil of the nucleon.

It is straightforward to include cuts or efficiencies: e.g., if the positrons are detected only in the window $`E_lE_eE_h`$ we define

$$\sigma (E_\nu )=_{E_1}^{E_2}𝑑E_e\frac{d\sigma }{dE_e}(E_\nu ,E_e)\vartheta (E_eE_l)\vartheta (E_hE_e)$$
(17)
where $`\vartheta (x)`$ is the step function, equal to 0 (1) for $`x<0`$ ($`x>0`$). The total number of events in the detector and the distribution in positron energy are given by

$$N_{e^+}=N_p𝑑E_\nu \frac{d\mathrm{\Phi }}{dE_\nu }\sigma (E_\nu )\frac{dN_{e^+}}{dE_e}=N_p𝑑E_\nu \frac{d\mathrm{\Phi }}{dE_\nu }\frac{d\sigma }{dE_e}$$
(18)
where $`N_p`$ is the number of target protons and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux. We do not have a simple formula for the exact limits of integration in $`dE_\nu `$. A simple recipe is to integrate numerically in the larger range

$$E_e+\delta E_\nu \frac{E_e+\delta }{12(E_e+\delta )/m_p}$$
(19)
obtained replacing $`p_e^{\mathrm{CM}}`$ and $`E_e^{\mathrm{CM}}`$ with $`E_\nu ^{\mathrm{CM}}`$ in eq. (12), enforcing the correct kinematical range by means of $`\vartheta `$-functions; the upper limit has to be replaced with infinity when the denominator becomes negative.

### 2.2 Angular distribution

The cross section differential in the angle $`\theta `$ between the neutrino and the positron is obtained from $`d\sigma /dt`$ after including the Jacobian coming from $`t=m_e^22E_\nu (E_ep_e\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{cos}\theta }(E_\nu ,\mathrm{cos}\theta )=\frac{p_e\epsilon }{1+\epsilon (1\frac{E_e}{p_e}\mathrm{cos}\theta )}\frac{d\sigma }{dE_e},$$
(20)
where $`\epsilon =E_\nu /m_p`$. In eq. (20), $`E_e`$ and $`p_e`$ are functions of $`E_\nu `$ and $`\theta `$:

$$E_e=\frac{(E_\nu \delta )(1+\epsilon )+\epsilon \mathrm{cos}\theta \sqrt{(E_\nu \delta )^2m_e^2\kappa }}{\kappa },p_e=\sqrt{E_e^2m_e^2}$$
(21)
with $`\kappa =(1+\epsilon )^2(\epsilon \mathrm{cos}\theta )^2`$. A lepton of low energy cannot be emitted in all directions $`\theta =0÷\pi `$, since it is “dragged” by the motion of the CM.333The region of “CM-dragging” is defined by the condition that the CM velocity $`\beta `$ is larger than $`\beta _e^{\mathrm{CM}}`$. In this region, the function $`\theta ^{\mathrm{CM}}(\theta )`$ — or $`\theta ^{\mathrm{CM}}(t)`$ or $`\theta ^{\mathrm{CM}}(E_e)`$ — is not single-valued: there are two values of $`\theta ^{\mathrm{CM}}`$ that lead to the same $`\theta `$. This is evident from the relation $`\mathrm{tan}\theta =\mathrm{sin}\theta ^{\mathrm{CM}}/[\gamma (\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{\mathrm{CM}}+\beta /\beta _e^{\mathrm{CM}})]`$ where $`\gamma =1/\sqrt{1\beta ^2}`$. The region of ’dragging’ is visible in the leftmost part of figure 2: it is where the curve “$`\overline{\nu }_e`$ on proton” rises suddenly. Exactly at the threshold, the positron is emitted only at $`\theta =0`$, so that $`\mathrm{cos}\theta 1`$. The $`\tau `$, being heavier than the proton, is always emitted in the forward cone. For $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ or $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ a non trivial allowed range of $`\theta `$ is obtained only in a very small region energy range just above the threshold $`E_{\mathrm{thr}}`$ (given in eq. (11)):

$$E_{\mathrm{thr}}E_\nu E_{\mathrm{thr}}^{}=E_{\mathrm{thr}}+m_e\frac{[m_n(m_pm_e)]^2}{2m_p(m_pm_e)}$$
(22)
For the muon (electron), $`E_{\mathrm{thr}}^{}E_{\mathrm{thr}}=0.8\mathrm{MeV}`$ (1 eV). Above $`E_{\mathrm{thr}}^{}`$ all scattering angles are allowed. Therefore, we can conveniently simplify $`\overline{\nu }_e`$, $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$, scatterings by replacing $`E_{\mathrm{thr}}`$ with $`E_{\mathrm{thr}}^{}`$ and considering the full range $`\theta =0÷\pi `$. This is a very good approximation.

## 3 Discussion and applications

How important is to use an accurate cross section, or in other words, what is the error that we introduce when we use an approximate cross section, instead of the correct one? The answer, of course, depends on the process we are considering. Here we compare our cross section with other ones that can be found in the literature, evaluate its uncertainty, and finally discuss the specific application for supernova $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ signal.

Here we mention some other possible applications of these results. A precise cross section can be used in an accurate description of neutrino transport in a collapsing supernova (see e.g.  for some recent calculations). We recall that neutrino heating (or more generally, the coupling of neutrinos with the deepest layers of the mantle) takes place at energies $`E_\nu `$ of several tenths of MeV, and it is regulated by the cross sections that we are discussing. Furthermore, electron neutrinos with energies in the range $`50150`$ MeV are particularly important for the dynamics of neutrino emission: they are around the Fermi surface of the degenerate neutrino distribution, and determine the neutrino flux from the inner core.

A precise cross section should also be used to interpret searches for $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ or $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ low energy neutrinos from the sun (see e.g. ), from gamma-ray-burst or other presently unknown cosmic sources ; or also, in studies of $`\nu _\mu `$ or $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ interactions just above the threshold of $`\mu `$ production (e.g., for large sample of data in terrestrial experiments).

The LSND and Karmen experiments  used a $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ flux with a continous spectrum up to $`52.8\text{MeV}`$, mainly produced by $`\mu ^+`$ decay at rest, looking for $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ appearance using the $`\overline{\nu }_epe^+n`$ reaction. The experimental result is controversial. If such a signal exists, a precise computation of the $`\overline{\nu }_ep`$ cross-section would be necessary to interpret a more precise future experiment.

### 3.1 Comparison with various simple approximations

Table 2 shows the percentage difference

$$\delta \sigma =100\times (1\sigma ^{}/\sigma )$$
(23)
between our cross section $`\sigma `$ and various approximations $`\sigma ^{}`$, evaluated at the same input parameters (percentages below 0.1% have been set to zero). The first row shows the neutrino energies at which the comparison is made. In the upper panel we consider the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ reaction; in the lower panel the $`\nu _e`$ reaction.

1. The naïve low-energy approximation (see e.g. )

$$\sigma 9.52\times 10^{44}\frac{p_eE_e}{\text{MeV}^2}\text{cm}^2,E_e=E_\nu \pm \mathrm{\Delta }\text{ for }\overline{\nu }_e\text{ and }\nu _e,$$
(24)
obtained by normalizing the leading-order result to the neutron lifetime, overestimates $`\sigma (\overline{\nu }_ep)`$ especially at high energy. It is not recommended for analyses of supernova neutrinos, nor for precise studies of reactor $`\overline{\nu }_e`$. The naïve $`\sigma (\nu _en)`$, instead, agrees well with the exact cross section.
2. A simple approximation which agrees with our full result within few per-mille for $`E_\nu <\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}300}\text{MeV}`$ is

$$\sigma (\overline{\nu }_ep)10^{43}\text{cm}^2p_eE_eE_\nu ^{0.07056+0.02018\mathrm{ln}E_\nu 0.001953\mathrm{ln}^3E_\nu },E_e=E_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }$$
(25)
where all energies are expressed in MeV.
3. The low-energy approximation of Vogel and Beacom  (which include first order corrections in $`\epsilon =E_\nu /m_p`$, given only for antineutrinos) is very accurate at low energies ($`E_\nu <\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}60}`$ MeV), however underestimates the number of supernova IBD neutrino events at highest energies by $`10`$%. Higher order terms in $`\epsilon `$ happen to be dominant already at $`E_\nu >\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}135}\text{MeV}`$, where the expansion breaks down giving a negative cross-section .
4. The NLO low-energy approximation, defined by eq. (10), can be used from low energies up to the energies relevant for supernova $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ detection. (We expand the squared amplitude in $`\epsilon `$ but, unlike Vogel and Beacom we treat kinematics exactly, so that some higher order terms are included in our NLO cross section).
5. The high-energy approximation of Horowitz , obtained from the Llewellyn-Smith formulæ setting $`m_e=0`$, was not tailored to be used below $`10`$ MeV, and it is not precise in the region relevant for supernova neutrino detection; however, it is presumably adequate to describe supernova neutrino transport.
6. The Llewellyn-Smith high-energy approximation, improved adding $`m_nm_p`$ in $`s,t,u`$, but not in $``$ is very accurate at all energies relevant for supernova neutrinos, failing only at the lowest energies. As proved in section 2, this is a consequence of the absence in $`|^2|`$ of corrections of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }/m_p`$.
7. Finally, approximation 6. can be improved by including also the dominant low-energy effects in the amplitude $``$, as discussed in section IIB of . With respect to our full result, this amounts to neglect $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`m_e`$ in $`A,B,C`$, eq. (6), and reinsert part of them modifying $`AA4M^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2C`$. This approximation agrees with our full result within few per mille.

### 3.2 Overall uncertainty

We now discuss how accurate our full expressions for the cross sections are. All input quantities have been precisely measured, except the $`t`$-dependence of the form factors of eq. (7). As shown in section 2, it affects the cross sections only at NNLO in $`E_\nu /m_p`$. In practice, taking the form factors as constants overestimates the total $`\overline{\nu }_ep`$ and $`\nu _en`$ cross sections by about $`1\%(E_\nu /40\text{MeV})^2`$. At low energy this is an excellent approximation, and the dominant uncertainty is due to $`\theta _\mathrm{C}`$ and $`g_1(0)`$. The values we adopted are extracted from different sources. The Cabibbo angle $`\theta _\mathrm{C}`$ is extracted independently from $`V_{us}`$ (measured from $`K_\mathrm{}3`$ decays) and from $`V_{ud}`$ (measured from nuclear decays dominated by vectorial matrix elements, and from neutron decay). Since the two determinations agree only within $`2.2\sigma `$ and theoretical errors play an important rôle, the total error has been conservatively increased .

The axial coupling $`g_1(0)`$ is measured from neutron decay444Its uncertainty is fully correlated with the uncertainty on the $`\theta _\mathrm{C}`$ determination from neutron decay, since neutron decay measures the same combination of $`g_1(0)`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{C}`$ that enters in IBD.. Different experimental determinations do not fully agree, therefore we conservatively increased the error. Newer measurements, performed with a higher neutron polarization than older ones, are consistent and agree on $`g_1(0)/f_1(0)=1.272\pm 0.002`$ when older determinations are discarded — a value slightly different from the one quoted in section 2. Isospin-breaking corrections to $`f_1(0)=1`$ are negligible .

In conclusion, at low energy $`\sigma (\overline{\nu }_ep)`$ has an overall $`0.4\%`$ uncertainty, which is adequate for present experiments. The ratio between the measured and the no-oscillation reactor $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux is $`1.01\pm 2.8\%\text{(stat)}\pm 2.7\%\text{(syst)}`$ at CHOOZ . The KamLAND collaboration presently has a $`6\%`$ systematic error on their reactor $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ data , and aims at reaching the 4% level in future. Concerning supernova $`\overline{\nu }_e`$, experiments should collect few hundreds to several thousand of events, depending on when and where the next galactic supernova explosion will occur .

We finally discuss the uncertainty introduced by the $`t`$ dependence of the form factors, which for the largest supernova $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ or $`\nu _e`$ energies is not fully negligible. The SU(2) isospin symmetry (broken only by small quark masses and by electromagnetism) allows to relate the vector form factors $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ to measured $`eN`$ cross sections, and conservation of the vector current predicts $`f_1(0)=1`$. The first terms in the expansion in $`t`$

$$f_1(t)1+2.5t/\text{GeV}^2,f_2(t)\xi [1+3.4t/\text{GeV}^2]$$

are known with about $`1\%`$ accuracy . The phenomenological parametrization in eq. (7), partially suggested by theoretical considerations, reproduces reasonably well the experimental data. Employing slightly more accurate parametrizations for the vector form factors $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ (e.g. ) would not improve the accuracy of our results due to the larger uncertainty on the axial form factors $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$.

The axial form factor $`g_2`$ (written in eq. (7) in terms of $`g_1`$, as suggested partial conservation of the axial current) has a negligible impact on $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ scattering at intermediate energies. Thus, the main uncertainty comes from $`g_1`$. Vector meson dominance would suggest $`g_1=g_1(0)/(1t/M_{A_1}^2)`$ where $`M_{A_1}=(1.23\pm 0.04)\text{GeV}`$ is the mass of the pseudo-vector that, mixing with the $`W`$ boson, should give the dominant effect. The parametrization of $`g_1`$ adopted in eq. (7) is obtained by squaring $`(1t/M_A^2)`$ and leaving $`M_A`$ as a free parameter because this provides a better fit of data. Lattice simulations do not contradict this hypothesis within the present theoretical errors, that are however still large . Assuming that the parametrization is correct, one obtains

1. $`M_A=(1.069\pm 0.016)\text{GeV}`$  from $`\pi `$ electroproduction on nucleons ($`\gamma ^{}N\pi N^{}`$). The presence of $`\pi `$ makes this probe experimentally precise but theoretically uncertain, as we are interested in $`n|\mathrm{}|p`$, not in $`\pi n|\mathrm{}|p`$.
2. $`M_A=(1.026\pm 0.021)\text{GeV}`$  from global fits of $`\nu N`$ scattering data. Most of the data are not taken at $`|t|\text{GeV}^2`$, where the parametrization of $`g_1`$ is certainly justified.
3. $`\mu `$ capture on $`p`$ could provide a clean and direct probe of $`g_2`$ at $`t=0.88m_\mu ^2`$. The present experimental data  hint to a value about $`50\%`$ larger than the one we assume555Such an increase of $`g_2`$ has some impact on $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ scattering, and would decrease $`\sigma (\overline{\nu }_\mu p)`$ by $`3.8\%\times (150\text{MeV}/E_\nu )^3`$., but their interpretation is under debate . New data should clarify the issue .

The above discussion shows why it is difficult to assess the uncertainty on $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$. Optimistically assuming that 1. or 2. is right, it is negligible. On the other side, a pessimistic estimate can be obtained by using $`M_{A_1}`$ in place of $`M_A`$: the total $`\overline{\nu }_ep`$ cross section increases by $`0.4\%(E_\nu /50\text{MeV})^2`$ for $`E_\nu <\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}200}\text{MeV}`$. The shift remains relatively small because, as shown in section 2, the $`t`$-dependence of the form factors affects $`\overline{\nu }_ep`$ only at NNLO in $`E_\nu /m_p`$.

### 3.3 Search for relic supernova neutrinos

Here we discuss the application of our cross section to the search for neutrino radiation from past core-collapse supernovæ. We focus on the energy range $`E_e>20`$ MeV which is particularly suited for this type of search, since it contains a large part of the expected signal and it is largely free from background (for an experimental proof, see ). We assume that the energy distribution of supernova $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ in the detectors is described by the following differential flux (see e.g. ):

$$\frac{d\mathrm{\Phi }}{dE_\nu }=\frac{E_{\mathrm{tot}}}{4\pi D^2}\left[\frac{f_e}{T_e^2}\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _{12}n\left(\frac{E_\nu }{T_e}\right)+\frac{f_{\mu ,\tau }}{T_{\mu ,\tau }^2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{12}n\left(\frac{E_\nu }{T_{\mu ,\tau }}\right)\right]$$
(26)
where 1) $`\theta _{12}34^{}`$ describes ‘solar’ oscillations in supernova mantle; 2) $`n(x)=120x^2/7\pi ^4[1+e^x]`$ is the Fermi-Dirac occupation factor; 3) $`f_e1/5`$ and $`f_{\mu ,\tau }1/7`$ are the energy shares in $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ and in $`\overline{\nu }_{\mu ,\tau }`$; 4) $`T_e\text{few MeV}`$ is the temperature of $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ (before oscillations) and 5) $`T_{\mu ,\tau }`$ is the temperature of $`\overline{\nu }_{\mu ,\tau }`$, that we assume to be $`T_{\mu ,\tau }1.3\times T_e`$; 6) $`E_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ is the total energy released in neutrinos, $`D`$ the distance of the supernova. We neglect various effects that would not change our conclusions, like ‘pinching’ of the spectrum (i.e. non-thermal effects), eventual oscillations in the Earth, existence of other detection reactions (we focus on detectors with a large fraction of free protons like water Čerenkov or scintillators), precise definition of the search window (which depends on the background level), detector efficiencies, other oscillations eventually induced by a non-vanishing $`\theta _{13}`$, etc.

We compare the expected number of events $`N_{e^+}`$ in the energy range $`E_e=[20,40]`$ MeV using (a) the cross section of eq. (17) and (b) the naïve (and much used) cross section in eq. (24). The latter leads to an overestimate:

$$100\times \left(1\frac{N_{e^+}(\mathrm{b})}{N_{e^+}(\mathrm{a})}\right)25\%+2.4\%\times x,\text{where}x=\frac{T_e4.5\text{MeV}}{\text{MeV}}.$$
(27)
The Super-Kamiokande collaboration presently gives the dominant bound on the relic $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux, constrained to be less than $`1.2\overline{\nu }_e/\text{cm}^2\text{s}`$ at $`90\%`$ CL for $`E_\nu >19.3\text{MeV}`$  — slightly above the flux expected by cosmological models . Since this bound has been obtained assuming the naïve $`\overline{\nu }_ep`$ cross section, eq. (27) suggests that it could be weakened by $`20\%`$ (a reanalysis of the data with a precise cross section would allow to be more precise). Similar considerations apply to certain calculations of the expected event number from next galactic supernova (e.g. ref. ) and to estimates of the total energy $`E_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ from SN1987A neutrino data (e.g. ref. ), although the low energy cuts are typically smaller than 20 MeV and therefore the inaccuracy is less severe.

### 3.4 Low energy atmospheric neutrinos as a background

Low energy atmospheric neutrinos constitute a background for searches of relic supernova neutrinos. At Super-Kamiokande , this background is mostly due to muons produced below the Čerenkov threshold in water ($`E_\mu <160`$ MeV), whose decay produces a positron. Assuming that at low energy the $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ flux scales as $`1/E_\nu `$ , the cross section with $`m_p=m_n=M`$ overestimates the background only by 1.5%. This is smaller than what suggested by a simple minded estimate, performed looking at the total cross section without taking into account that the condition that the muon is produced below the Čerenkov threshold does depend on $`\mathrm{\Delta }=m_nm_p`$. Similar considerations apply to the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ atmospheric neutrino background: e.g., the use of the Llewellyn-Smith cross section for $`E_e=[50,80]`$ MeV introduces a 2.4% overestimate.

### 3.5 Distributions of positrons from supernova neutrinos

Now we compute the energy and scattering-angle distribution of positrons generated by supernova $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ and detected via the IBD cross section, that we compute according to the formulæ of sections 2.1 and 2.2. Again, we assume the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux of eq. (26), where we set $`T_e=4.5`$ MeV. The result is shown in fig. 2. The average cosine of the scattering angle asymmetry is approximatively given by

$$\mathrm{cos}\theta =0.024+0.013x$$
(28)
($`x`$ as in eq. (27)) which means that the scattering is slightly forward. The forward/backward asymmetry is not particularly large, but could be observed in a large sample of neutrinos from a galactic core-collapse supernova using wisely designed selection criteria (such as an energy dependent angular analysis). For example, it is sufficient to increase the lower cut on the positron energy to increase the asymmetry considerably

$$\mathrm{cos}\theta =\{\begin{array}{cc}0.028\hfill & \text{for }E_e>10\text{MeV}\hfill \\ 0.055\hfill & \text{for }E_e>20\text{MeV}\hfill \\ 0.102\hfill & \text{for }E_e>30\text{MeV}\hfill \end{array}\text{(}T_e=4.5\text{ MeV)}.$$
(29)
as more precisely illustrated in fig. 2b. A lower cut on $`E_e`$ increases $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ for two different reasons: because the IBD reaction is forward peaked at higher energy, and because forward positrons are more energetic. (In the Super-Kamiokande detector a lower cut $`E_e>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\text{MeV}`$ must anyhow be imposed in order to cut low energy backgrounds). Two remarks are in order: 1) An accurate description of the direction of IBD events is also important to separate other classes of events, as those due to reactions with Oxygen nuclei in water Čerenkov detectors. 2) An accurate description of the spectrum is particularly important when trying to extract information from the high energy tail of the distribution, about e.g. oscillations in the Earth, or non-thermal corrections to the energy spectrum.

Of course, not only $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ but also the number of events $`N_{e^+}`$ depends on the temperature. Assuming unit efficiency above $`E_e=8`$ MeV and using eq. (18), we find that varying $`T_e`$ around the reference temperature, the number of events varies approximately as $`1+0.24x0.02x^2`$: $`N_{e^+}`$ increases (decreases) by $`23\%`$ ($`26\%`$) for $`T_e=(4.5\pm 1)\text{MeV}`$.

## Acknowledgments

We thank G. Battistoni, V. Berezinsky, S. Capitani, A. Ianni, G. Isidori, H.T. Janka, A. Kurylov, M.Malek, D. Nicolò, E. Oset, O. Palamara and K. Sato for clarifying discussions and J.F. Beacom and W. Fulgione for the initial encouragement.