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# Parity-Violating Electron Scattering: How Strange a Future 1footnote 11footnote 1 Talk given at PAVI02, workshop on parity violation in electron scattering, Mainz, Germany, June 2002.

## I Introduction

Parity-violating electron scattering (PVES) has become an established component of the nuclear physics research program at a variety of accelerators. Prior to the late 1990’s, the field was considered somewhat esoteric, with the completion of roughly one experiment per decade: the deep inelastic $`eD`$ experiment at SLAC in the 1970’sprescott ; the quasielastic beryllium experiment at Mainz in the 1980’sheil ; and the elastic carbon measurement culminating in a publication in 1990souder . In the last few years, the rate at which new results are being reported has accelerated dramatically compared that of the past 30 years, and in the next several years, we anticipate even more results from the SAMPLE Collaboration at MIT-Batessample1 , the Happexaniol , G0beck , PAVEXmichaels , and Q-Weakcarlini  Collaborations at Jefferson Lab, the A4 experiment at Mainzmaas , and the E158 experiment at SLAChughes . Looking further down the road, the prospective up-grade of CEBAF may open up additional possibilities for PVES studies beyond those currently on the books. Suffice it to say, PVES has come into its own as an important tool for the study of a broad range of questions in nuclear and particle physics, moving far beyond its earlier incarnation as an almost exotic area of physics (for a review, see Ref. musolf94 ).

At the end of the day, what physics do we hope to have accomplished with this tool, and what important questions do we hope the field will have answered? In this talk, I would like to give my view. At the same time, I will discuss some recent developments that have opened up new directions for study of both hadron structure and particle physics. Of course, this theorist’s perspective will be weighted in favor of new theory, but I want to emphasize that these theoretical developments would have only academic interest were it not for the substantial progress on the experimental side. In fact, one of the attractive features of the PVES community is the close interplay between theory and experiment. The proper interpretation of the very tiny asymmetries measured with PVES requires careful theoretical delineation of various contributions. Conversely, the judicious choice of target and kinematics, together with hard-nosed experimental study of the systematic effects that could generate “false” asymmetries, provide theorists with a clean and unambiguous probe of nucleon structure and the weak interaction. This kind of syngergy between theory and experiment is a hallmark of our field.

## II Strange quarks

The present burst of activity in the field has been motivated by a desire to probe the strange quark content of the nucleon. Understanding strange quarks is important from a number of perspectives:

Flavor decomposition of nucleon properties. How much do the different flavors of light quarks contribute to the low-energy properties of the nucleon? For many years, the standard lore was that up- and down-quark degrees of freedom were sufficient to account for the most familiar aspects of the nucleon, such as its mass, spin, and magnetic moment. Analyses of the $`\pi `$N $`\sigma `$-term suggested that light-quarks were not, in fact, the whole story, and that possibly 20-30% of $`m_N`$ came from $`s\overline{s}`$ pairsgasser . Later, polarized deep inelastic scattering (DIS) measurements implied that only 30% of the nucleon spin came from quark spin, with the remainder being supplied by quark orbital angular momentum and by gluonsfilippone . Part of the picture associated with the “spin-crisis” was that the fraction of nucleon spin coming from $`s\overline{s}`$ pairs was about 10%, and that these pairs were polarized opposite to the direction of the total spin. In the quark model framework, this idea is a complete mystery. As a result, one would like to know what other nucleon properties are substantially affected by strangeness. Hence, the current program of measurements aimed at the strange quark contributions to nucleon electromagnetic properties.

The PVES strange quark program offers one advantage over other flavor decomposition studies, namely, the theoretically clean character of interpretation. Obtaining the $`s\overline{s}`$ contribution to the nucleon mass requires extrapolation of $`\pi `$N scattering amplitudes into the unphysical regime using a combination of dispersion relations and chiral perturbation theory (ChPT). The value for the $`N|\overline{s}s|N`$ – relative to $`N|\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d|N`$ – has varied somewhat over the years, in part due to the ambiguities associated with this extrapolation.

The situation regarding the strange quark contribution to the nucleon spin, $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$, is even more ambiguous. The extraction of $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$ from polarized DIS measurements relies on the assumption of flavor SU(3) symmetry. The relevant matrix element is not measured directly in the experiments, and information on neutron $`\beta `$-decay and hyperon semileptonic decays must be incorporated into the analysis using SU(3) symmetry. For some time, people have worried about the uncertainties associated with SU(3)-breaking. Recently, my collaborators and I studied these effects in ChPT and found them to be potentially seriouszhu1 ; zhu2 . Specifically, one has

$`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }_p+\mathrm{\Gamma }_n\right]{\displaystyle \frac{5\sqrt{3}}{6}}g_A^8`$
$`=`$ $`0.14[0.12+0.25+0.10],`$
where the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_N`$ are the integrals of $`g_1^N(x)`$ taken from experiment and $`g_A^8`$ is the eighth component of the octet of axial current matrix elements. A value for the latter can only be obtained from experimentally measured axial current matrix elements by invoking SU(3) symmetry. The chiral expansion of this SU(3) relationship is shown in the square brackets in the second line of Eq. (II) (the first term is the experimental value for the sum of $`g_1^N`$ integrals). The first, second, and third terms represent the $`𝒪(p^0)`$, $`𝒪(p^2)`$, and $`𝒪(p^3)`$ contributions, respectively. It is a manifestly non-converging series. Based on the formula, we have no way of estimating the theoretical SU(3)-breaking uncertainty in $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$, nor can we really say what the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$ is.

The advantage of PVES is that the interpretation of the results in terms of strange quarks does not suffer from these kinds of ambiguities. Once we have sufficiently precise measurements of the proton and neutron electromagnetic and weak neutral current form factors, we know the relative contributions of $`u`$, $`d`$, and $`s`$-quarks to the nucleon vector current matrix elements. The relative importance of the strange quark contribution may be either large or small, but either way, the answer will be clear. We will know the flavor decomposition of the nucleon vector current matrix elements222Kaplan and Manohar showed some time ago that the contributions from heavier quarks scale as $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/M_Q)^4`$ and are, thus, negligiblekaplan ..

Sea quarks and the quark model. Why does the constituent quark model work so well in describing low-energy nucleon properties? In light of what we know about the presence of sea quarks and gluons in the nucleon, the success of the constituent quark description of the nucleon remains a puzzle. A variety of solutions have been proposed. It may be that sea quarks are simply “inert” when viewed over long-distance scales. A more interesting possibility is that the sea quarks are not inert but that their effects are hidden in the effective parameters of the quark model, such as the constituent quark mass and the “string tension” of the $`\overline{q}q`$ potential333I am indebted to Nathan Isgur for my understanding of this idea.. It may also be that nature is more devious than either of these other possibilities suggest and has conspired to conceal the effects of sea quark dynamics through a series of cancellations. The latter view seems to emerge from dispserion relation analyses of isoscalar electromagnetic and strange quark form factors, as I discuss below. In any case, the beauty of the PVES measurements is that they probe the $`s\overline{s}`$ sea over distance scales relevant to the quark model description. If either the effective quark model parameters or nature itself has hidden sea quark effects, the measurements will lift the veil of secrecy and allow us to see what the sea is up to at low-energies.

Z-Graphs vs. Loops. How do we relate the quark model description of the nucleon with one built out of hadronic degrees of freedom? In the latter framework, for example, the low-momentum, isovector electromagnetic properties of the nucleon involve a combination of the pion cloud and $`\rho `$-meson resonance. At the most naive level, one may think of the $`\rho `$-meson resonance as a “Z-graph” effect and the pion cloud as involving disconnected quark loops (see Fig. 1). In the $`t`$-channel, the $`\rho \gamma `$ coupling involves $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation, and in order to connect to a nucleon, it must also involve the negative frequency part of the constituent quark propagator (the Z-graph). In the same channel, the pion cloud contains a $`\pi \pi `$ intermediate state. At the quark level, the non-resonant part of this contribution involves the presence of two $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs. With only three constituent quarks in the nucleon, this effect looks like a disconnected quark loop – a sea quark effect. On the other hand, in the non-relativistic quark model (NRQM), neither Z-graphs or loops are present, and yet one can still reproduce the low-momentum isovector properties of the nucleon. How can this be?

The strange quark contributions to the vector current form factors necessarily involve disconnected quark loops, since there are no valence strange quarks in the constituent quark model nucleon wavefunction. In a hadronic langauge, these loops look, for example, like $`K\overline{K}`$ pairs. Dispersion relations also suggest that this kaon cloud is actually dominated by the $`\varphi `$ resonance – a Z-graph effect that would imply more sizeable strangeness form factors than one gets from loops only. If this picture is confirmed by experiment, then it will force us to think more carefully about how to relate the quark and hadronic descriptions of the nucleon.

Perturbation theory may not apply. The mass of the strange quark forces us into a theoretical no man’s land where we cannot easily apply our usual perturbative techniques for making predictions. The strange quark is not heavy enough to use heavy quark effective theory; since $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_s1`$, we have no small expansion parameter as we do for heavier quarks. At the same time, the strange quark may not be light enoughto make SU(3) chiral perturbation theory applicable; $`m_K/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi 1/2`$ – not a particularly small expansion parameter either. Thus, from the theoretical side, the study of strange quarks presents a particularly challenging situation.

Symmetry is impotent. Because the strange quark vector current contains a component that is a flavor SU(3) singlet, we cannot use SU(3) symmetry to relate the strangeness form factors to any other presently measured quantities. Specificallyito

$$\overline{s}\gamma _\mu s=J_\mu ^B2J_\mu ^{I=0},$$
(2)
where $`J_\mu ^B`$ is the baryon number, or SU(3) singlet current, and $`J_\mu ^{I=0}`$ is the isoscalar electromagnetic (EM) current. We know quite a bit about the latter, but the PVES measurements will, in fact, give us our first information on the form factors associated with $`J_\mu ^B`$. This means that, even if the SU(3) chiral expansion were well-behaved, there would appear counterterms or low-energy constants (LEC’s) that we cannot obtain from other experiments. Consequently, we cannot in general use ChPT to predict $`G_E^{(s)}`$ and $`G_M^{(s)}`$, the strangeness electric and magnetic form factors, respectively.

Clearly, the study of these form factors will lead to new insights into nucleon structure, and PVES provides us with a theoretically clean probe of this physics. The theoretical challenge is to translate the results of PVES measurements into a clear understanding of sea quark dynamics at distance scales for which traditional methods of treating nucleon structure run into trouble.

### II.1 Nonperturbative methods: recent developments and open questions

Generally speaking, theorists have taken one of three approaches to the study of $`G_E^{(s)}`$ and $`G_M^{(s)}`$: hadron models, dispersion relations, and lattice QCD. Of these, the latter two represent first principles methods at the hadronic and microscopic levels, respectively. Models have their place, but they necessarily involve assumptions and approximations that are not always clearly identified or controlled. For this reason, we have witnessed a substantial number of model predictions for $`G_E^{(s)}`$ and $`G_M^{(s)}`$ and a correspondingly wide range of values. Should experiment agree with any subset of these calculations, it will be hard to gauge the significance of this agreement. For this reason, my bias favors the first principles treatments, even if they cannot yet be implemented in a completely successful way.

Although – as I emphasized above – ChPT cannot provide predictions for $`G_E^{(s)}`$ and $`G_M^{(s)}`$, it nevertheless provides a convenient framework in which to discuss the physics coming out of other non-perturbative methods. For concreteness, I will focus on $`G_M^{(s)}`$ at small $`q^2`$. In this kinematic domain, one has an expansion

$$G_M^{(s)}(q^2)=\mu _s+\frac{1}{6}<r_s^2>_Mq^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(3)
The strangeness magnetic moment $`\mu _s`$ is given byito ; meissner ; hammer1

$$\mu _s=\left(\frac{2M_N}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi }\right)b_s+\mathrm{}$$
(4)
where $`b_s`$ is an a priori unknown low-energy constant that governs the lowest order \[$`𝒪(p^2)`$\] contribution and the $`+\mathrm{}`$ denote higher order contributions arising from loops and subleading operators. As noted earlier, one cannot use existing measurements to predict $`\mu _s`$ because $`b_s`$ contains an SU(3) singlet component.

In contrast, the lowest order \[$`𝒪(p^3)`$\] contribution to the magnetic radius arises entirely from chiral loopsmeissner ; hammer1 :

$$<r_s^2>_M=\frac{\pi M_N}{3m_K\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi ^2}\left(5D^26DF+9F^2\right)+\mathrm{}$$
(5)
where $`D`$ and $`F`$ are the usual SU(3) reduced matrix elements and the $`+\mathrm{}`$ denote higher order contributions. Since $`D`$ and $`F`$ are known from other experiments, to $`𝒪(p^3)`$ we have a parameter-free prediction for the strange magnetic radius. This result has been used to extrapolate the SAMPLE determination of $`G_M^{(s)}`$ at $`Q^2=q^2=0.1`$ (GeV$`/c)^2`$ to the photon point in order to obtain results for $`\mu _s`$sample1 .

Given the size of the expansion parameter $`m_K/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi `$, however, one might worry about the possible importance of higher-order contributions. To that end, the $`𝒪(p^4)`$ contributions to $`<r_s^2>_M`$ were recently computed in Ref. hammer1 . The loop effects arising at this order nearly cancel those appearing at $`𝒪(p^3)`$, and one also encounters a new LEC. The resulting expression is

$$<r_s^2>_M=[0.04+0.3b_s^r]\mathrm{fm}^2,$$
(6)
where the first term in the square brackets gives the loop contribution and $`b_s^r`$ is the $`𝒪(p^4)`$ magnetic radius LEC. On general grounds, one would expect the magnitude of $`b_s^r`$ to be of order unity with undetermined sign. In principle, then, its contribution could be an order of magnitude more important than the loop contribution. Until we are able to determine its value, we really do not know the either the magnitude or the sign of the slope of $`G_M^{(s)}`$ at the origin. As a result, the determination of $`G_M^{(s)}`$ at a single kinematic point is not sufficient to determine $`\mu _s`$.

This new development has a couple of implications. First, in order to learn how much the strange quarks contribution to the nucleon magnetic moment, we will require an experimental determination of the $`q^2`$-dependence of $`G_M^{(s)}`$ at low-$`q^2`$. Accomplishing this determination will require completion of the the backward angle, low-$`q^2`$ program as envisioned for the G0 experiment. Second, it means that understanding the non-perturbative dynamics of the strange sea – as parameterized by $`b_s`$ and $`b_s^r`$ – will be key to achieving a theoretical understanding of the strange magnetism.

The strangeness electric form factor has a similar chiral expansion. Since the nucleon has no net strangeness, the leading $`q^2`$-dependence is governed by the strangeness electric radius, $`<r_s^2>_E`$. In ChPT, this term arises at $`𝒪(p^3)`$, and both loops and an electric radius LEC – $`c_s^r`$ – appear at this orderito :

$$r_s^2_E[0.15+0.17c_s^r]\mathrm{fm}^2.$$
(7)
As in the case of the strangeness magnetic moment and radius, we require input from non-perturbative methods in order to obtain predictions for $`<r_s^2>_E`$.

Lattice QCD. In principle, lattice QCD computations provide a means of obtaining values for the constants $`b_s`$, $`b_s^r`$, and $`c_s^r`$. The two most recent lattice computations provide conflicting results for these constants. Both computations were carried out in the quenched approximation, so that $`s\overline{s}`$ pairs appear only via the operator insertion. Even under this quenched approximation, computation of such “disconnected loop” contributions is difficult. For connected insertions, wherein the operator is inserted on a line originating from the hadronic source, one must compute quark propagators from a fixed point in spacetime to all possible points on the lattice. In contrast, disconnected insertions require computation of quark propagators from all points on the lattice to all other points on the lattice. Carrying out such a computation is inordinately expensive. To get around this barrier, one employs “noise” methods, in which one computes quark propagators from a random selection of initial points to a random set of final spacetime pointsnoise . For a sufficiently large number of noise vectors, operator matrix elements computed using these quark propagators will approach the value one would obtain by computing propagators $`S(x,x^{})`$ for all $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$.

The two recent lattice computations adopted different philosophies for treating the noise method. The Kentucky-Adelaide group employed a relatively small number of gauge field configurations but a large number of noise vectorsliu1 . They obtained statistically signficant signals for $`G_E^{(s)}`$ and $`G_M^{(s)}`$ at a variety of $`q^2`$ values, and from these results, one may infer values for the strangeness LEC’s. In contrast, the computation of Ref. lewis  used on the order of 1000 gauge field configurations but a relatively small number of noises. In this calculation, no significant signal was observed for the strangeness vector current matrix elements, but a non-zero value for the scalar density $`N|\overline{s}s|N`$ was obtained. Resolution of this disagreement will require signficant future work, and the two groups are pursuing new, refined calculations of the strangeness form factors. Until a consensus emerges, it is difficult to draw any strong conclusions from lattice computations. For purposes of illustration, however, I will use the results from Ref. liu1  below.

Achieving firm lattice QCD predictions for $`N|\overline{s}\gamma _\mu s|N`$ will ultimately require resolution of a number of issues. Clearly, one would like to have in hand an unquenched calculation. In addition, one would like to use sufficiently small values for the light quark masses that one can extrapolate to the physical values using ChPT. In this respect, use of chiral fermions – either domain wall or overlap – is likely to be critical. Recent work by the Kentucky group suggests that one must use very light quarks in order for the chiral extrapolation to be accurate, and in this respect, overlap fermions may provide some advantageliu2 .

Dispersion Relations. Athough the use of dispersion relations is not a microscopic method, it nevertheless provides a first principles approach to computing form factors in a hadronic basis. The inputs required include the analyticity properties of form factors, causality, unitarity, and experimental scattering amplitudes. To be concrete, the dispersion relation for the strangeness magnetic and electric radii is

$$<r_s^2>_{M,E}=\frac{6}{\pi }_{9m_\pi ^2}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{Im}G_{M,E}^{(s)}(t)}{t^2}𝑑t.$$
(8)
The spectral function $`\mathrm{Im}G_{M,E}^{(s)}(t)`$ can be related to experimental scattering amplitudes by drawing upon some basic ideas in field theory. Symbolically, one has

$$\mathrm{Im}G_{M,E}^{(s)}(t)𝒫_{M,E}\underset{n}{}<N\overline{N}|n><n|\overline{s}\gamma _\mu s|0>,$$
(9)
where $`𝒫_{M,E}`$ are magnetic and electric projection operators and the states $`|n`$ are all states carrying the quantum numbers of $`\overline{s}\gamma _\mu s`$. The lighest such state is the $`3\pi `$ state. Although pions themselves have no valence strange quarks, three pions can resonate into an $`\omega `$ and, by virtue of $`\omega `$-$`\varphi `$ mixing, can give non-zero contributions to the strangeness vector current matrix elements. We have no indication that the $`5\pi `$ and $`7\pi `$ states resonate into an $`\overline{s}s`$ vector meson, so they are usually omitted from the analysis444This approximation could entail introduction of some error, and it should be scrutinized further..

In order of mass, the next state – and the most intuitive contributor – is the $`K^+K^{}`$ state. The ChPT expressions for loop contributions to $`\mu _s`$ and $`<r_s^2>_{M,E}`$ are derived by computing the $`K^+K^{}`$ contribution at one-loop order. However, the work of Ref. hammer2  implies that the one-loop approximation is physically unrealistic. In order to satisfy the requirement of S-matrix unitarity, one must sum up kaon rescattering corrections to all orders. After doing so, one finds that the kaon cloud contribution to the spectral functions is dominated by the $`\varphi (1020)`$ resonance. Moreover, the presence of this resonance signficantly enhances the kaon cloud contribution to the form factors.

An interesting picture of form factor dynamics then emerges. To illustrate, consider the isoscalar and strangeness magnetic moments. In the case of $`\mu ^{I=0}`$, the $`3\pi `$ and $`K^+K^{}`$ contributes have nearly equal magnitude but opposite sign, and the resulting cancellation leads to the very small value for the isoscalar moment. For $`\mu _s`$, in contrast, the $`3\pi `$ contribution gets suppressed by the $`\omega `$-$`\varphi `$ mixing angle ($`ϵ0.05`$), while the kaon cloud contribution gets enhanced roughly by the inverse of the strange quark’s electric charge, or $`3`$. The resulting value for $`\mu _s`$ is roughly $`0.3`$ – sizeable enough to be seen by experiment. In short, nature conspires to hide the effects of resonating $`s\overline{s}`$ pairs in $`\mu ^{I=0}`$ through a cancellation against resonating light quark pairs. Far from being inert, the $`s\overline{s}`$ sea is quite active, though hidden from view in purely electromagnetic (EM) processes. Measuring the strangeness form factors directly should allow one to uncover the conspiracy.

There is one possible loop hole in this picture. So far, we have only been able to include states up through the $`K^+K^{}`$ state in a rigorous way. The limitation is the absence of strong interaction scattering data involving higher-mass states. If the isovector EM form factors are any guide, then the low-mass states ought to suffice to describe the leading strangeness moments. Indeed, the non-resonant $`\pi \pi `$ continuum and $`\rho `$-meson resonance give nearly all of the low-$`q^2`$ behavior of the isovector form factors. For the strangeness form factors, however, there is no guarantee that inclusion of the low-mass region is enough. Considerations of the large $`q^2`$-behavior of these form factors along with simple quark counting arguments suggests that higher-mass states (e.g., $`KK\pi `$, etc.) may be required. Unfortunately, our ability to carry out a dispersion theory treatment of the higher-mass region is presently limited by the dearth of data.

On the other hand, one could ultimately intepret the results of the $`G_E^{(s)}`$ and $`G_M^{(s)}`$ measurements in terms of the relative importance of this higher-mass region. If, for example, the value of $`\mu _s`$ differs substantially from $`0.3`$ as suggested by the SAMPLE results, then there would have to be important higher-mass effects in order to overcome the fairly sizeable low-mass contribution. Moreover, these higher-mass effects would have to be relatively strong for the strangeness current but relatively small for the isoscalar EM current. Such a situation would suggest that nature is an even more devious conspirator than we might otherwise think.

Hadronic models. While I cannot review the full breadth of hadron model predictions for $`G_{M,E}^{(s)}`$, a few comments are warranted. From the standpoint of the dispersion theory treatment described above, many hadronic models are based on the idea of kaon cloud dominance. Intuitively, this idea is appealing. It says the strange sea gets polarized because the nucleon fluctuates into a kaon-hyperon pair. Many calculations – including some I carried out in the past – relied on one-loop computations to estimate this effect. The dispersion relation analysis, however, implies that the picture is physically unrealistic. Inclusion of rescattering effects, encoded by the LEC’s $`b_s`$, $`b_s^r`$, etc., is essential. Moreover, $`s\overline{s}`$ pair creation likely plays a more important role than the spatial separation of an $`s`$ and $`\overline{s}`$. Finally, one may encounter cancellations between various contributions. In this respect, the quark model calculation of Geiger and Isgur is suggestivegeiger . In that work, a sum over a tower of two hadron intermediate states was considered, with the quark model providing the relevant couplings. As one proceeds up the tower, strong cancellations occur between various contributions, leading to small strangeness form factors in the end. By necessity, however, the calculation was carried out to one-loop level only. Whether this pattern of cancellations would persist after rescattering and resonance effects were included is hard to guess.

Some Numbers. While the task of computing strange quark form factors has a long way to go, it is nonetheless useful to discuss some of the numbers coming from the calculations. In Table I, I give some of the lattice QCD and dispersion relation values for the LEC’s $`b_s`$, $`b_s^r`$, and $`c_s^r`$. These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. As noted above, the two most recent lattice QCD computations differ substantially, with one seeing no signal for the strange vector current form factors. The $`G_M^{(s)}`$ results of the Kentucky-Adelaide calculation were fit to a dipole form form, and from that a value for $`b_s^r`$ was obtained. There is no reason to believe the dipole form is correct, as an insufficient number of low-$`q^2`$ values were computed to constrain the behavior of the form factor in this region. At the same time, the dispersion theory values result from only the low-mass part of the spectral function, and significant higher-mass contributions are not ruled out.

With these caveats in mind, it is interesting to note that the results of the Kentucky-Adelaide lattice calculation of $`\mu _s`$ are consistent with the low-mass dispersion relation value, but rather substantial disagreement occurs for the magnetic and electric radii. Even the signs of the two calculations of $`<r_s^2>_{M,E}`$ differ. Clearly, there is room for improvement in the theory. On the experimental side, completion of the entire program of PVES strange quark measurements is the only way to ensure that defensible theoretical progress is made.

## III New Wrinkles: Hadron Structure

While the current program of PVES measurements is far from complete, some intriguing puzzles have emerged from the results already reported, particularly in relation to electroweak radiative corrections. Theoretically, the challenge is to properly sort out the interplay between electroweak radiative corrections and strong interactions. In this context, a new idea for a future measurement of PV pion photoproduction on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance has emerged recently – a measurement which may shed new light on an old problem in hadronic weak interactions.

### III.1 Electroweak radiative corrections

It is now well known that the importance of electroweak radiative corrections to the axial vector form factor are enhanced relative to the naively expected $`𝒪(\alpha /\pi )`$ scale. This enhancement occurs because (a) the tree-level coupling is suppressed by the small vector coupling of the electron to the $`Z^0`$, $`g_V^e=1+4\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W0.1`$, and (b) the corrections themselves contain large logarithms. These logarithms only appear in amplitudes involving $`\gamma `$-exchange – so they do not affect neutrino probes of the axial vector hadronic current. The large $`\gamma `$-exchange contributions can also be affected by parity-violating quark-quark interactions, which induce a parity-violating $`\gamma NN`$ coupling. People sometimes refer to this coupling as the nucleon anapole moment coupling. The anapole moment per se is not a physical observable, since its value depends on the choice of electroweak gauge parameter, $`\xi `$. Moreover, anapole moment effects can never be distinguished from other electroweak radiative corrections in any experiment. However, we might still use the “anapole moment” to refer to the $`\xi `$-independent contribution of the weak quark-quark interaction to the leading PV $`\gamma NN`$ coupling (for a discussion see Ref. musolf1 ).

It has been known for some time that because the anapole moment (AM) effects involve hadronic weak interactions, their magnitude is uncertainmusolf2 . Thus, the theoretical prediction for $`G_A^e`$ – the axial vector form factor measured in PVES – has a fairly sizeable error bar. Were one to try and determine $`G_M^{(s)}`$ from PV $`ep`$ scattering alone, the theoretical $`G_A^e`$ uncertainty would add to the error bar for $`G_M^{(s)}`$. Hence, the SAMPLE collaboration has measured both the PV elastic $`ep`$ and PV quasielastic $`eD`$ asymmetries, which depend on different linear combinations of the two form factors in question and allow an experimental separation of $`G_A^e(I=1)`$ from $`G_M^{(s)}`$. The theoretical uncertainty associated with $`G_A^e(I=0)`$ has been estimated to be considerably smaller than for the isovector component, so the isoscalar contribution will be neglected in this discussion555Of course, the estimate of uncertainty for $`G_A^e(I=0)`$ could be too small, a possibility that should be investigated..

The published SAMPLE resultssample1  indicate that the radiative corrections to $`G_A^e(I=1)`$ are, indeed, large and have the same sign as given by the calculations of Refs. musolf2 ; zhu3 . However, the magnitude may be considerably larger than predicted. If this result is confirmed by future measurements, such as the lower-$`Q^2`$ SAMPLE deuterium experiment or G0, one would like to understand what is behind the enhancement. Several ideas have been mentioned:

Nuclear PV Effects. In the extraction of $`G_A^e(I=1)`$ from the deuterium asymmetry, possible contributions to the PV $`\gamma `$-nucleus coupling from PV $`NN`$ interactions have not previously been taken into account. In contrast to PV effects in elastic scattering, those entering inelastic scattering can give rise to a $`q^2`$-independent contribution to the asymmetry:

$`A_{LR}(\mathrm{elastic})`$ $`=`$ $`A_1q^2+\mathrm{}`$ (10)
$`A_{LR}(\mathrm{inelastic})`$ $`A_0+A_1q^2+\mathrm{}.`$ (11)
The $`A_1q^2+\mathrm{}`$ terms arise from the $`Z^0`$-exchange amplitude and contain the usual electroweak form factors. The $`A_0`$ term in $`A_{LR}(\mathrm{inelastic})`$ is generated by $`\gamma `$-exchange, where the $`\gamma `$ couples to the nucleus through a PV transverse electric dipole matrix element. The presence of this term follows directly from an extension of Siegert’s theoremfriar , which implies that for elastic scattering, all transverse electric dipole matrix elements are proportional to $`q^2`$, while those entering inelastic transitions need not vanish at the photon point. In the case of $`A_0`$, PV nucleon-nucleon interactions are responsible for the effect. People (myself included) have speculated that for sufficiently small $`|q^2|`$, the $`A_0`$ term may become quite important relative to the $`A_1q^2`$ term that contains $`G_A^e`$, and that the larger-than-expected radiative corrections to $`G_A^e`$ may actually be a result of neglecting the $`A_0`$ contribution.

To address this question, two groups recently computed the $`q^2`$-independent contribution generated by nuclear PV paris ; liu3 . The results of the two calculations are consistent with each other and indicate that the effect of nuclear PV is far too small to modify the value of $`G_A^e`$ extracted from the asymmetry. Generally speaking, one hasliu2

$$\left|\frac{A_0}{A_1q^2}\right|10^4\frac{m_N^2}{|q^2|}.$$
(12)
At $`|q^2|=0.1`$ (GeV$`/c)^2`$, the ratio is about $`10^3`$. Thus, if the radiative corrections are truly enhanced, then some other mechanism would have to be the culprit.

Box Graphs. One of the more sizeable contributions to the axial vector radiative corrections arises from the $`Z`$-$`\gamma `$ box diagrams (Fig. 2a). The size of this amplitude is

$$_{\gamma Z\mathrm{Box}}=V_e\times \left[a_0A_N^{I=0}+a_1A_N^{I=1}\right]\frac{G_F}{2\sqrt{2}}\frac{\alpha }{4\pi }\left[\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_Z}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}+C_{\gamma Z}^A(\mathrm{\Lambda })\right],$$
(13)
where $`V_e^\mu =\overline{e}\gamma ^\mu e`$, $`A_{N\mu }^{I=1}=\overline{N}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\tau _3N`$, and $`A_{N\mu }^{I=0}=\overline{N}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5N`$. The constants $`a_i`$ are given by $`a_0\frac{1}{6}(3FD)(920\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W)`$ and $`a_1=\frac{1}{2}(D+F)(14\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W)`$. Note also the presence of the large logarithm. Here, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is a low-momentum cut-off, usually taken to be about one GeV, corresponding to the transition between the perturbative and non-perturbative domains. The constant $`C_{\gamma Z}^A(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ encodes all the physics of the loop integral associated with momenta $`k<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. This physics includes hadronic form factors at the hadronic vertices as well as the full tower of hadronic intermediate states in the hadron propagator. To date, no one has attempted to carry out a systematic treatment of all of these effects. Only the nucleon intermediate state – along with the relevant form factors – has been included in model computationsmarciano1 ; musolf2 . One might wonder then, whether inclusion of other states, such as the uncorrelated $`\pi N`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`N^{}`$, etc, might lead to an enhancement of this contribution. The problem is an open one and remains to be tackled.

I like to emphasize that understanding this particular contribution could have implications for the interpretation for other precision electroweak measurements. For example, in neutron $`\beta `$-decay, the $`W\gamma `$ box graph produces a similar structure to that of Eq. (13). In this case, the $`A(\mathrm{lepton})\times V(N)`$ amplitude is used to extract the value of $`V_{ud}`$ and test the unitarity of the CKM matrix. A value for the constant $`C_{\gamma W}^V(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ has been estimated, but as in the case of $`C_{\gamma Z}^A(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, contributions from the full hadronic Green’s function have not been included. Were $`C_{\gamma Z}^A(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ large enough to give the enhanced radiative corrections suggested by SAMPLE, and were $`C_{\gamma W}^V(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ to have a similar magnitude, one would need to change the value of $`V_{ud}`$ substantially and engender serious problems with CKM unitarity. Although such a scenario seems unlikely, one might nevertheless gain new insights into the theoretical uncertainty associated with $`C_{\gamma W}^V(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ through a study of $`C_{\gamma W}^A(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$.

¿From a somewhat different perspective, the SAMPLE Collaboration has also measured the parity-conserving asymmetry associated with transversely polarized electronssample2 . This asymmetry arises from the $`2\gamma `$-exchange box graph, which is also sensitive to the low-energy part of the nucleon Green’s function. The experimental result for the asymmetry does not agree with theoretical predictions. Achieving a better understanding of the $`Z\gamma `$ box graph may shed new light on this problem, and vice versa.

$`Z\gamma `$ Mixing. The largest contribution to the axial vector radiative corrections comes from the $`Z\gamma `$ mixing tensor, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\gamma Z}`$ (Fig. 2b). The light quark contribution to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\gamma Z}`$ cannot be computed in perturbation theory, since the quarks have non-perturbative strong interactions. Traditionally, this problem is solved by relating the light quark component of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\gamma Z}`$ to $`\sigma (e^+e^{}\mathrm{hadrons})`$ using a dispersion relation and SU(3) arguments. For purely leptonic scattering, this approach ought to suffice. For $`eq`$ scattering, however, one might worry about strong interactions between the quarks in $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\gamma Z}`$ and quarks in the proton. To some extent, these interactions have already been taken into account in anapole moment computations, but the matching of the two calculations onto each other remains to be worked out carefully. Again, it seems unlikely that some new effect might emerge when this matching has been achieved, but one should think about it nonetheless.

### III.2 PV $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ Electro- and Photoproduction: QCD Symmetries and Weak Interactions

The G0 Collaboration plans a study of the $`q^2`$-dependence of the axial vector $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ transition form factor, $`G_A^{e\mathrm{\Delta }}`$. As in the case of $`G_A^e`$, the transition axial vector form factor will be modified by electroweak radiative corrections. The same issues which apply to $`G_A^e`$ will also apply to $`G_A^{e\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ (for a detailed analysis, see Ref. zhu4 ). In principle, these corrections could contain some $`q^2`$-dependence not associated with the “primordial” form factor (as one might more directly measure with neutrino scattering). A more serious issue, however, arises because one is studying an inelastic process. For the same reasons as discussed above, the PV $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ asymmetry will receive a $`q^2`$-independent term as a consequence of Siegert’s theorem. In this case, the relevant $`E1`$ matrix element is parameterized by an LEC called $`d_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. At $`q^2=0`$ one haszhu5

$$A_{LR}^{N\mathrm{\Delta }}(q^2=0)=2\frac{d_\mathrm{\Delta }}{C_3^V}\frac{m_N}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi },$$
(14)
where $`C_3^V`$ is the leading vector current transition form factor. The presence of this term in the PVES asymmetry could complicate the determination of the $`q^2`$-dependence of $`G_A^{e\mathrm{\Delta }}`$, so it would be desirable to know it in some other way. In principle, a study of PV photoproduction could allow one to measure $`d_\mathrm{\Delta }`$, as discussed by Jeff Martin elsewhere in these proceedings.

A determination of $`d_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ would also be interesting from another standpoint – namely, an old problem in nonleptonic weak interactions. In the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ sector, one has considerable knowledge of hyperon decays. The mesonic decays depend on both S- and P-wave amplitudes. To date, it has not been possible to obtain a successful, simultaneous description of both amplitudes in ChPT. Another problem appears with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ radiative decays: $`BB^{}\gamma `$. Here, one measures PV asymmetries $`\alpha _{BB^{}}`$ associated with the direction of the photon relative to the spin of the initially polarized hyperon. These asymmetries arise from the interference of an E1 and an M1 amplitude. In the limit of exact SU(3) flavor symmetry, the octet of baryons is degenerate and the E1 amplitude vanishes – a result known as Hara’s theoremhara . In the real world, SU(3) symmetry is broken by the $`m_s`$ vs. $`m_u+m_d`$ mass difference. Thus, one would expect the asymmetries to have a size $`\alpha _{BB^{}}m_s/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi 0.15`$. The experimentally measured $`\alpha _{BB^{}}`$ are factors of four to five larger than this naive expectation. Based on general symmetry considerations, one has no way of explaining what is responsible for these enhancements.

It would appear, then, that the application of QCD-based symmetries, such as chiral symmetry and SU(3) symmetry, to the theoretical analysis of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ non-leptonic weak interactions fails. One would like to know if this failure is a consequence of having strange quarks involved in the decay processes, or if it is a signature of a more fundamental feature of the interplay of strong and weak interactions.

To that end, a study of $`d_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ could provide new insight. The transition induced by the $`d_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ operator is the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=0`$ analog of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ E1 amplitudes governing the $`\alpha _{BB^{}}`$. If the enhancements of the latter are not due to strange quarks but a more general feature of nonleptonic weak interactions, then one ought to observe an enhanced asymmetry for PV $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ photoproduction, which involves no strange quarks. On the other hand, if strangeness is the key to the breakdown of symmetry considerations, then the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=0`$ asymmetry ought to have its natural size.

Recently, Holstein and Borasoy have developed a model that allows us to make this idea quantitativeholstein1 . The idea is that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ hyperon decays are affected by mixing of excited baryons into the ground states due to the hadronic weak interaction . In order to resolve the S-wave/P-wave problem, the mixing matrix elements $`W_{BB^{}}(\mathrm{\Delta }S=1)`$ must have a characteristic size larger than one might have naively expected. After determining what the $`W_{BB^{}}(\mathrm{\Delta }S=1)`$ must be to fix the S-wave/P-wave inconstency, Holstein and Borasoy used them to predict the $`\alpha _{BB^{}}`$ via resonance-mixing processes. Interestingly, the asymmetries are significantly enhanced by this mechanism, thereby helping to close the gap between the naive symmetry expectation and the experimental results.

In principle, the same kind of weak interaction mixing could occur in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=0`$ sector (see Fig. 3). If the mixing matrix elements $`W_{BB^{}}(\mathrm{\Delta }S=0)`$ have the same characteristic size as for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ case, then one would expect $`d_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ to be significantly enhanced – by factors of 25 or more – compared to one’s naive expectation. We already know from studies of PV $`pp`$ scattering that PV $`NNM`$ amplitudes ($`M`$ is a meson) are of the same size as the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ $`BB^{}\pi `$ amplitudes, so it is not unreasonable to expect the $`W_{BB^{}}`$ to have the same scale in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ sectors. In this case, $`A_{LR}^{N\mathrm{\Delta }}(q^2=0)`$ would be rather large – on the order of ppm – and one could measure it with a reasonable amount of beam time. On the other hand, if one looked for an asymmetry of this size and didn’t see it, one might raise doubts about the Holstein/Borasoy proposal and, more generally, conclude that the problem with symmetry truly does hinge on having a strange quark involved.

## IV New Wrinkles: The Standard Model and Beyond

The first few PVES measurements were intended to test the Standard Model (SM). Since then, the SM has been so well-tested in a variety of ways that we can, with a high degree of confidence, use the weak $`eq`$ interaction as a well-understood probe of hadron and nuclear structure. The recent advances in this field – both experimental and theoretical – have now afforded us an opportunity to come full circle and again study fundamental aspects of the weak interaction.

Of course, there is little doubt that the SM is a successful model describing weak interactions far below the Planck scale. However, there exist many conceptual reasons for believing that the SM must be embedded in a larger theory. The quest to discover this “new” Standard Model is at the forefront of both particle physics and nuclear physics. Unravelling the nature of the neutrino is clearly direction in which nuclear and particle physicists are pursuing this goal. Future collider experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and the Linear Collider will seek direct evidence for new physics. A third, and no less interesting, avenue is to carry out highly precise measurements of electroweak observables. Some such observables – such as the permanent electric dipole moments of the electron, neutron, and neutral atoms – are so small in the SM that the measurement of a nonzero effect would provide smoking gun evidence for new physics. Others, such as the PV asymmetries of interest here, have non-zero values in the SM, so one must attempt to probe for tiny deviations from the SM predictions. The presence or absence of such deviations – when taken in conjuction with other precision measurements – can provide important clues about the structure of the new SM.

To illustrate, recall how fits to precision electroweak observables predicted a range for the mass of the top quark prior to its discovery at the Tevatron. The subsequent discovery of a top quark with mass lying in this range provided beautiful confirmation of the SM at the level of quantum corrections. The same kind of synergy between indirect searches in precision electroweak measurements and direct collider searches will undoubtedly provide new insights about whatever lies beyond the SM.

¿From this standpoint, the quantity of interest to PVES is $`Q_W^f`$, the weak charge of a fermion or system of fermions. At tree level in the SM, it is the coupling of the $`Z`$-boson to the fermion $`f`$. It also governs the strength of the effective $`A(e)\times V(f)`$ interaction at $`Q^2=0`$:

$$_{PV}^{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{G_F}{2\sqrt{2}}Q_W^f\overline{e}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5e\overline{f}\gamma _\mu f,$$
(15)
where, at tree-level in the SM, one has

$$Q_W^f=2I_3^f4Q_f\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W.$$
(16)
For both the electron and the proton, the magnitude of the weak charge is suppressed: $`Q_W^p=Q_W^e0.1`$. Because of this suppression, $`Q_W^{p,e}`$ are rather transparent to new physics. As we have heard elsewhere in this conference, the goals of the PV Möller experiment at SLAC and the PV $`ep`$ experiment at Jefferson Lab are to measure these two weak charges with some hope of finding evidence for new physics.

We have also heard that even within the SM, these two measurements are quite interesting. The value of the effective weak mixing angle appearing in Eq. (16) actually depends on the scale at which one is carrying out the measurement. The SM predicts this scale-dependence. The SM prediction at the Z-pole has been confirmed with high precision, but there exist few precise determinations of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W(q^2)`$ below the $`Z^0`$-pole. The cesium atomic PV experiment carried out by the Boulder groupwieman  probed the weak mixing angle – via the cesium nucleus weak charge ($`Q_W^{\mathrm{Cs}}`$) – at a very low scale. Although early indications suggested a substantial deviation from the SM, recent developments in atomic theory now imply the cesium atomic PV result is consistent with the SM. Since the extraction of $`Q_W^{\mathrm{Cs}}`$ from the measured PV transition rate depends on atomic structure calculations, there has always been some question about the theoretical uncertainty associated with this extraction. In the past couple of years, atomic theorists have computed several sub-one percent corrections – such as the Breit interaction correctionderevianko , Uehling potentialjohnson , and nucleus-enhanced QED radiative correctionsflambaum ; sushkov . As of this writing, there appears to be an emerging consensus that all of the important corrections have been properly taken into account and that the value of $`Q_W^{\mathrm{Cs}}`$ should be stable at the level of the experimental precision (about 0.4%).

A value for $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W(q^2)`$ at somewhat higher scales has been obtained by the NuTeV Collaboration using deep inelastic neutrino-nucleus scatteringnutev . The result indicates a roughly 3$`\sigma `$ deviation from the value predicted in the SM. As in the case of cesium APV, however, there exists some debate about the theoretical uncertainties associated with this extraction. It has been argued, for example, that small changes in parton distribution functions due to nuclear shadowing and isospin-breaking could substantially change the SM prediction for the neutrino scattering cross sections and reduce the significance of the NuTeV anomalymiller . The Collaboration has responded to this suggestion with a vigorous rebuttalzeller . When the dust finally settles, one will have either learned something about parton distributions in nuclei or have striking evidence for new physics.

In the context of these other measurements, the SLAC and JLab measurements offer several advantages. First, they are being undertaken at values of $`q^2`$ lying between the cesium atomic PV and NuTeV scales. Second, they are both being performed at roughly the same scale: $`Q^20.03`$ (GeV$`/c)^2`$. Third, they are theoretically clean, so their intepretation will not be subject to the kinds of controversies that have affected cesium atomic PV and the NuTeV result. This point is particularly important, so I will spend some time on it below. Finally, the two measurements are complementary. One is purely leptonic, while the other is semileptonic. As I will also discuss, a comparsion of the two measurements can provide an interesting “diagnostic” tool for probing new physics.

### IV.1 Theoretical Interpretability

In principle, the PV Möller experiment, being purely leptonic, is the theoretically cleanest observable. There is some theoretical uncertainty in the SM prediction arising from the presence of light quark loops in $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\gamma Z}`$666The issue raise earlier about interactions between these quarks and target quarks is less severe here. At $`q^2=0`$, these effects are constrained by current conservation.. This uncertainty is common to both $`Q_W^e`$ and $`Q_W^p`$. Traditionally, the light quark contribution to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\gamma Z}`$ is obtained by relating it to $`\sigma (e^+e^{}\mathrm{hadrons})`$ via a dispersion relation. In order to do so, one must also invoke SU(3) flavor arguments. The uncertainty associated with this procedure was estimated some time ago by Marciano and Sirlinmarciano1 , and it falls below the expected experimental precision for both weak charge measurements.

A second source of theoretical uncertainty arises from the extraction of $`Q_W^{e,p}`$ from the measured asymmetries. In the case of the Möller experiment, one must be able to reliably subtract out contributions from the elastic and inelastic $`ep`$ asymmetries. Although the number of $`ep`$ events is small when compared with the number of Möller events, the inelastic $`ep`$ asymmetries can be relatively large. The basic problem is that we do not know in detail what the inelastic asymmetries are. One strategy for circumventing it is to measure the total asymmetry in a kinematic region where the inelastic $`ep`$ asymmetry is dominant, and then extrapolate to the kinematics of the Möller measurement. To the extent that various components of the inelastic asymmetry evolve with the relevant kinematic variables in a well understood way, this strategy should reduce the corresponding $`ep`$ uncertainty to an acceptable level.

In the case of $`Q_W^p`$, the design of the detector should eliminate any sizeable contribution from inelastic events. However, the elastic $`ep`$ asymmetry itself receives hadronic contributions in the guise of nucleon form factors. The associated uncertainty can also be reduced to an acceptable level by drawing on other measurements. Specifically, the asymmetry has the form

$$A_{LR}^{ep}=\frac{G_FQ^2}{4\sqrt{2}\pi \alpha }\left[Q_W^p+F^p(Q^2,\theta )\right],$$
(17)
where $`F^p(Q^2,\theta )`$ is a function of nucleon form factors, both electromagnetic and strange. At forward angles and low-$`Q^2`$, $`F^pQ^2`$, yielding an overall $`Q^4`$ contribution to the asymmetry. In contrast the $`Q_W^p`$ term goes as $`Q^2`$. The strategy, then, is to use the existing program of PV measurements to constrain the $`Q^2`$-dependence of $`F^p`$ and extrapolate to very low-$`Q^2`$ where the Q-Weak measurement will be performed and where the $`Q_W^p`$ term gives the dominant contribution to the asymmetry. This strategy can be implemented in a rigorous way by using ChPT to express all the form factors in $`F^p`$ in terms of their known quark-mass dependence plus LEC’s. The existing program of experiments, plus the world data set for the electromagnetic form factors, will determine the LEC’s with sufficient precision to make the uncertainty in the low-$`Q^2`$ asymmetry sufficiently small. No additional theoretical input on nucleon structure will be needed.

Potentially more problematic considerations arise in arriving at the SM prediction for $`Q_W^p`$ itself. In particular, the two boson-exchange box graphs depend on hadronic physics via the nucleon Green’s function in the box. Fortunately, we are able to constrain the theoretical uncertainty associated with these effects to be acceptably small.

The largest box graph contribution involves the exchange of two $`W`$-bosons. The total correction is about 26% of the tree-level value, largely due to the absence of the $`14\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W`$ factor from the $`_{WW}`$, the WW box amplitude. The latter is dominated by intermediate states of momentum $`kM_W`$, so the QCD corrections are perturbative. The latter can be computed using a combination of current algebra and the operator product expansion. The result is erler

$$_{WW}=A(e)\times V(p)\frac{G_F}{2\sqrt{2}}\frac{\widehat{\alpha }}{4\pi \widehat{s}^2}\left[2+5\left(1\frac{\alpha _s(M_W)}{\pi }\right)\right],$$
(18)
where $`\widehat{\alpha }`$ is the fine structure constant evaluated at a scale $`\mu =M_W`$ in the $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme and $`\widehat{s}^2`$ is the corresponding definition of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W`$. Inclusion of the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ contributions generate a $`0.7\%`$ correction to $`Q_W^p`$, and higher-order corrections in $`\alpha _s`$ will be at roughly an order of magnitude less important. Note that the QCD corrections involve no large logarithms, since the currents involved are conserved (or partially conserved). A similar correction applies to the ZZ box graphs, but the effect in this case is much smaller – roughly $`0.1\%`$ in $`Q_W^p`$.

In contrast, the $`\gamma Z`$ box graphs receive contributions from both low- and high-momentum scales. This sensitivity to the different scales is reflected in the presence of a large logarithm in the amplitude:

$$_{\gamma Z}=A(e)\times V(p)\frac{G_F}{2\sqrt{2}}\frac{5\widehat{\alpha }}{2\pi }(14\widehat{s}^2)\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{M_Z^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\right)+C_{\gamma Z}^V(\mathrm{\Lambda })\right],$$
(19)
where I have omitted contributions suppressed by powers of $`p_e/M_Z`$. As in Eq. (13), $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is a scale associated with the transition from the non-perturbative to the perturbative region and is on the order of 1 GeV. At present, we cannot reliably compute contributions to the loop integral arising from momenta below this scale. Instead, we parameterize their effects by the constant $`C_{\gamma Z}^V(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. Fortunately, the effect of this unknown term is suppressed by the overall $`14\widehat{s}^2`$ prefactor, so we can live with a fairly large uncertainty in $`C_{\gamma Z}`$ without affecting the interpretation of $`Q_W^p`$. The presence of this prefactor is, itself, something of a fortunate accident. It arises from the sum of the box and crossed-box graphs. The spacetime structure of this sum dictates that the $`A(e)\times V(p)`$ amplitude arises from the antisymmetric product of the electron electromagnetic current and the vector part of the electron weak neutral current. The latter contains the $`14\widehat{s}^2`$ vector coupling of the electron to the $`Z^0`$, thereby producing the suppression factor in $`_{\gamma Z}`$.

To estimate the uncertainty associated with $`C_{\gamma Z}^V`$ we can follow a philosophy adopted by Sirlin in his classic analysis of neutron $`\beta `$-decaysirlin . In that case, a similar unknown constant arises from the $`\gamma W`$ box graph. The size and uncertainty of $`C_{\gamma W}^V`$ is constrained because the vector part of the decay amplitude is used to determine $`V_{ud}`$777This amplitude is actually known most precisely from superallowed Fermi nuclear $`\beta `$-decay, though new experiments using ultracold neutrons should provide competitive determinations.. In order for $`V_{ud}`$ to be consistent with the unitarity of the CKM matrix, the uncertainty from $`C_{\gamma W}^V`$ cannot be larger than about $`\pm 2`$. The hadronic dynamics responsible for $`C_{\gamma W}^V`$ and $`C_{\gamma Z}^V`$ are similar, so one would expect the uncertainty in the two to be comparable. The corresponding uncertainty in $`Q_W^p`$ is about $`\pm 1.5\%`$. A siginficantly larger uncertainty in $`C_{\gamma W}^V`$ and $`C_{\gamma Z}^V`$ would imply unacceptably large deviations from CKM unitarity. Of course, one should pursue computations of these quantities from first principles – possibly using lattice QCD. However, the fortuitous presence of the $`14\widehat{s}^2`$ suppression factor has given us a sizeable zone of theoretical safety.

One other hadronic effect which one might worry about for $`Q_W^p`$ is the impact of isospin admixtures into the proton wavefunction. On general grounds, one would expect isospin-breaking effects to be of $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ and, therefore, a source of concern. At $`Q^2=0`$, however, a diagonal version of the Ademollo-Gatto theoremademollo  implies that isospin-breaking effects in the matrix element of the hadronic vector current vanish identicallyerler . They only turn on for non-zero $`q^2`$. In this case, they will be effectively contained in the measured form factor term $`F^p`$ and constrained – along with all other $`q^2`$-dependent effects – by experiment.

### IV.2 New Physics

Given the theoretical interpretability of the two weak charge measurements, one can credibly view them as probes physics beyond the SM. I have been thinking quite a bit about supersymmetry (SUSY) recently, so I will focus my discussion on this brand of new physics. SUSY remains one of the most strongly-motivated extensions of the Standard Model for a number of reasons: it gives a solution to the “hierarchy problem” in particle physics (essentially, the question as to why the electroweak scale is stable); it generates unification of the electroweak and strong couplings close to the Planck scale; it gives a natural candidate for cold dark matter (the neutralino, $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^0`$); and it contains new sources of CP violation that could help us account for the observed predominance of matter over anti-matter (the baryon asymmetry of the universe). Of course, since no one has yet seen any of the “superpartners” of SM particles, they must be heavier than the particles in the SM. Consequently, SUSY must be a broken symmetry. The breaking cannot be too large, however; otherwise, the hierarchy problem re-emerges.

Future collider experiments at the LHC and LC will go looking for the heavy superpartners. One might also ask about observing their effects indirectly. For example, superpartners can contribute to precision electroweak observables through radiative corrections. Perhaps, the most well-known example of such effects are superpartner loop contributions to the muon anomalous magnetic moment. On general grounds, one expects the size of SUSY radiative corrections to go as $`\alpha /\pi (M/\stackrel{~}{M})^2`$, where $`M`$ is a SM mass and $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ is a superpartner mass. For the muon $`g2`$, one has $`M=m_\mu `$. Taking $`\stackrel{~}{M}100`$ GeV, one gets an effect of the order of $`10^9`$ – roughly the size of the current experimental error bar. The possible significant deviation of $`(g2)_\mu `$ from the SM prediction would be consistent with SUSY loop contributions containing superpartners of mass of a few hundred GeV. For this reason, the particle physics community has become quite excited by new results for the muon anomaly888There remains some controversy over the theoretical uncertainty in the SM prediction associated with hadronic contributions. I will not discuss this controversy here..

For weak interaction processes, such as $`\beta `$-decay and PVES, one has $`M=M_W`$. Consequently, the magnitude of SUSY loop effects, relative to the SM prediction, is generically of order $`10^3`$. However, since $`Q_W^{e,p}`$ are suppressed in the SM, one actually needs a precision of order a few percent – rather than a few tenths of a percent – to be sensitive to SUSY radiative corrections. For this reason, it is interesting to study the effect of these radiative corrections on the weak charges. To that end, we need to modify our formula for $`Q_W^f`$ as follows:

$$Q_W^f=\rho _{PV}\left(2I_3^f4Q_f\kappa _{PV}\widehat{s}^2\right)+\lambda _f.$$
(20)
Here, $`\rho _{PV}`$ and $`\kappa _{PV}`$ are universal, in that they do not depend on the species of fermion being probed with PVES. The quantity $`\lambda _f`$, in contrast, is species-dependent. At tree-level, one has $`\rho _{PV}=1=\kappa _{PV}`$ and $`\lambda _f=0`$. Inclusion of loops lead to deviations from these values. In particular, one can think of $`\delta \kappa _{PV}`$ as the change in the apparent weak mixing angle due to loop effects. The effects of new physics on $`\kappa _{PV}`$ arise in two ways: first, one has a change in the prediction for $`\widehat{s}^2`$ due to its defintion in terms of other more precisely known quantities ($`\alpha `$, $`G_\mu `$, and $`M_Z`$). This definition gets modified by new physics. Second, $`\delta \kappa _{PV}`$ receives contributions directly from the PV $`ef`$ amplitudes.

In order to analyze the corrections $`\delta \rho _{PV}^{\mathrm{susy}}`$, $`\delta \kappa _{PV}^{\mathrm{susy}}`$, and $`\lambda _f^{\mathrm{susy}}`$ one needs to compute a large number of loop graphs. Moreover, one has to take into account the effects of SUSY-breaking. In general, this task is non-trivial. In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), SUSY-breaking is governed by 105 parameters. To simplify the problem – and to build a real theory – people have invented models of SUSY-breaking, such as supergravity, which reduce the number of independent parameters to a handful. Whether or not these model assumptions are entirely consistent with electroweak data is not entirely clear. We recently completed an analysis of charged current observables and found that the superpartner spectrum implied by SUSY-breaking models may not be consistent with the precision datakurylov . For this reason, it is desirable to carry out a model-independent analysis of SUSY radiative corrections, thereby avoiding the simplifying assumptions of SUSY-breaking models.

My collaborators and I have completed such a model-independent analysis of SUSY radiative corrections to $`Q_W^{e,p}`$ in the MSSMshufang . We found that the effects on the two weak charges are highly correlated, and that the relative sign of the correction in both cases is positive over nearly all of the available SUSY-breaking parameter space. This correlation – shown in Fig. 4 – arises because the dominant effect occurs via $`\delta \kappa _{PV}^{\mathrm{susy}}`$, with some scatter due to the effects of $`\delta \rho _{PV}^{\mathrm{susy}}`$ and $`\lambda _f^{\mathrm{susy}}`$. Moreover, the potential size of the SUSY radiative corrections could be as large as the projected experimental error bars. What this means is that if both experiments come in consistent with the SM, then one could not say much about the SUSY-breaking parameters. However, deviations from the SM of the order of $`2\sigma `$ or more would – depending on the relative sign of the effect – start to either favor or exclude parts the parameter space. The situation is helped somewhat by the correlation between the two weak charges in SUSY. The two measurements together really act like one determination of $`\delta \kappa _{PV}^{\mathrm{susy}}`$ with better statistics than obtained with either alone. Nevertheless, it would be advantageous –looking further down the road – to pursue even more precise measurements of the weak charges.

The effects of SUSY can also arise at tree-level if one allows for the violation of lepton number (L) and/or baryon number (B). If B-L is conserved, then the MSSM has another symmetry called “R parity”. Conservation of R parity is not automatic; it has to be imposed by hand. There are some phenomenological constraints. The absence of proton decay highly constrains the possibility of B-violating interactions. However, the constraints on L-violating sources of R-parity violation (RPV) are much less severe. The existence of any such interactions would, however, sound the death knell for SUSY dark matter, since the lightest superpartner (presumably the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^0`$) would no longer be stable. Thus, one would like to know from experiment whether or not the MSSM respects R parity.

To that end, a comparison of $`Q_W^e`$ and $`Q_W^p`$ measurements could be quite interesting. In Fig. 4, I show the possible deviations of these quantities from the SM values due to RPV effects. The interior of the truncated ellipse is the region allowed by other precision measurements at 95% confidence. Note that for most of this region, the relative sign of the deviation in $`Q_W^e`$ and $`Q_W^p`$ is negative – in contrast to the situation for SUSY loops. In fact, there is nearly no overlap between the regions in this plane associated with the different effects. Thus, a comparison of these two measurements could, in principle, serve as a “diagnostic” for SUSY with our without R parity.

In fact, the diagnostic potential of these two experiments is even greater if one considers other models of new physics. For example, E6 grand unified theories allow for the possibility of a relatively low mass, extra neutral gauge boson999The E6 models are actually a very broad class of models, though they do not encompass all possibilities for a “low-mass” $`Z^{}`$.. In these models, the effect of a $`Z^{}`$ on $`Q_W^e`$ and $`Q_W^e`$ would also be correlated (having the same relative sign). However, a sizeable shift in these weak charges would also imply a sizeable deviation of the cesium weak charge from the SM prediction. Since $`Q_W^{\mathrm{Cs}}`$ currently agrees with the SM, this scenario appears to be disfavored. In contrast, the effects of SUSY loops on $`Q_W^{\mathrm{Cs}}`$ is tiny – below the current experimental plus theoretical error – due to cancellations between up- and down-quark contributions. Thus, one could still have sizeable loop-induced shifts in $`Q_W^{e,p}`$ without being inconsistent with cesium atomic PV. Similarly, the allowed RPV region shown in Fig. 4 already incorporates the constraints from the $`Q_W^{\mathrm{Cs}}`$ determination.

## V Conclusions

I am convinced that PVES will remain a highly interesting field for some time to come. In addition to providing a definitive answer to the question about strangeness, PVES has also opened up possibilities for studying other aspects of hadronic and nuclear structure101010In the interest of time, I have not discussed the important measurement of the neutron distribution in lead michaels .. These studies rely on our present understanding of the weak neutral current interaction in order to probe novel aspects of low-energy QCD. At the same time, the success of this program has opened the way for new experiments to study the weak interaction itself. Looking further into the future, one might anticipate new PV deep inelastic scattering experiments after the CEBAF upgrade that may offer new glimpses of higher-twist physics, or even a more precise measurement of the Möller asymmetry111111I am indebted to Paul Souder, Paul Reimer, and Dave Mack for a discussion of these possibilities.. Suffice it to say, however, that completion of the current program of PVES measurements is essential to the long-term success of the field.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the organizers of this workshop and the support staff for their hospitality during my stay in Mainz. I also thank A. Kurylov for assistance in preparing this manuscript. This work was supported in part under U.S. Department of Energy contracts \# DE-FG03-02ER41215 and by the National Science Foundation under award PHY00-71856.


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# Some properties of the equation of fast diffusion and its multidimensional exact solutions

## 1 Invariance of the equation of fast diffusion

Let invariance be understood as nonvariability of the form of this equation under the effect of any transformation.

Defenition. Harmonic functions $`\xi (x,y)`$ and $`\eta (x,y)`$ are called conjugate in the simple connected domain $`D`$ if the function $`F(z)=\xi (x,y)+i\eta (x,y)`$ is some analytical function of the argument $`z=x+iy`$ in the domain $`D`$.

Conjugate harmonic functions are related by Cauchy-Riemann equations

$$\frac{\xi }{x}=\frac{\eta }{y},\frac{\xi }{y}=\frac{\eta }{x},$$

define one another everywhere in $`D`$ with the to an additive constant and, consequently, possess the following properties

$$(\xi ,\eta )=0,|\xi |^2=|\eta |^2.$$
$`(2)`$
The harmonic polynomials

$$\xi (x,y)=\left(x^2+y^2\right)^{\frac{n}{2}}\mathrm{cos}(n\phi ),\eta (x,y)=\left(x^2+y^2\right)^{\frac{n}{2}}\mathrm{sin}(n\phi ),$$

where

$$\phi =\mathrm{arccos}\left(\frac{x}{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}\right),\mathrm{or}\phi =\mathrm{arcsin}\left(\frac{y}{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}\right),nN,$$

are the simplest examples of the conjugate harmonic functions.

Lemma 1. If the function $`\eta (x,y)`$ is harmonic then the function $`\mathrm{ln}\left|\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right|`$ is also harmonic.

Proof. For the purpose of comfort let us introduce the denotation $`\psi (x,y)=\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2.`$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}\psi =\left[\psi \left(\psi _{xx}+\psi _{yy}\right)\left(\psi _x^2+\psi _y^2\right)\right]\psi ^2.$$
$`(3)`$
By consecutive computing necessary partial derivatives, we obtain

$$\psi _{xx}+\psi _{yy}=2\left(\eta _{xx}^2+\eta _{yy}^2\right)+4\eta _{xy}^2+2\eta _x\left(\eta _{xx}+\eta _{yy}\right)_x+2\eta _y\left(\eta _{xx}+\eta _{yy}\right)_y,$$

$$\psi _x^2+\psi _y^2=8\eta _x\eta _y\eta _{xy}\left(\eta _{xx}+\eta _{yy}\right)+4\eta _x^2\left(\eta _{xx}^2+\eta _{xy}^2\right)+4\eta _y^2\left(\eta _{yy}^2+\eta _{xy}^2\right).$$

Since due to the harmonic character of $`\eta _{xx}=\eta _{yy},`$ the latter relations will, respectively, assume the following form:

$$\psi _{xx}+\psi _{yy}=4\left(\eta _{xx}^2+\eta _{xy}^2\right),$$

$$\psi _x^2+\psi _y^2=4\left(\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right)\left(\eta _{xx}^2+\eta _{xy}^2\right).$$

Hence, expression (3) turns identically zero. $`\mathrm{}`$

Now let us formulate one of the main results of the work.

Theorem 1. If $`\xi =\xi (x,y),\eta =\eta (x,y)`$ are conjugate harmonic functions then the equation of fast diffusion (1) is invariant with respect to the transformation

$$u(x,y,t)=\rho (x,y)v(\xi ,\eta ,t),$$
$`(4)`$
where $`\rho (x,y)=|\eta |^2,`$ i.e. under the effect of (4) it transforms into itself

$$v_t=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\xi \eta }\mathrm{ln}v.$$
$`(5)`$
Proof. After substitution of relation (4) into eq. (1) and simple computations, on account of the properties of conjugate harmonic functions (2), we obtain

$$\rho v_t=\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}\mathrm{ln}\rho +\rho \mathrm{\Delta }_{\xi \eta }\mathrm{ln}v.$$

Hence, due to Lemma 1, relation (5) immediately follows. $`\mathrm{}`$

Therefore, expression (4) is a form of autotransformation for the equation of fast diffusion (1) and, consequently, it is the formula of branching solutions.

Example 1.  Consider a exact solution of eq. (5) of the form

$$v(\xi ,\eta ,t)=2\frac{\text{th}(t)}{\xi ^2+\eta ^2\text{th}^2(t)}.$$

By applying transformation (4) with arbitrarily chosen harmonic functions to this solution let us construct a few new exact nonautomodel explicit solutions of eq. (1), which are anisotropic with respect to spatial variables

$$u(x,y,t)=2\frac{\left(\text{cth}^2(x)+\text{tg}^2(y)\right)\text{th}(t)}{1+\text{cth}^2(x)\text{tg}^2(y)\text{th}^2(t)},$$

$$u(x,y,t)=2\frac{\left(\text{tg}^2(x)+\text{th}^2(y)\right)\text{th}(t)}{1+\text{tg}^2(x)\text{th}^2(y)\text{th}^2(t)},$$

$$u(x,y,t)=18\frac{\left(\text{tg}^2\left(x^33xy^2\right)+\text{th}^2\left(3x^2yy^3\right)\right)\left(x^2+y^2\right)^2\text{th}(t)}{1+\text{tg}^2\left(x^33xy^2\right)\text{th}^2\left(3x^2yy^3\right)\text{th}^2(t)},$$

$$u(x,y,t)=18\frac{\left(\text{tg}^2\left(\mathrm{exp}(3x)a(y)\right)+\text{th}^2\left(\mathrm{exp}(3x)b(y)\right)\right)\mathrm{exp}(x)\text{th}(t)}{1+\text{tg}^2\left(\mathrm{exp}(3x)a(y)\right)\text{th}^2\left(\mathrm{exp}(3x)b(y)\right)\text{th}^2(t)},$$

where the following denotations are used

$$a(y)=\mathrm{cos}^3(y)3\mathrm{cos}(y)\mathrm{sin}^2(y),b(y)=3\mathrm{cos}^2(y)\mathrm{sin}(y)\mathrm{sin}^3(y).$$

The solutions obtained are significant in virtue of the fact that for $`t+\mathrm{}`$ they are stabilized in the form of steady-state solutions.

A result similar to that of Theorem 1 can be extended onto some class of systems of quasilinear parabolic equations. Hence, the following theorem is valid.

Theorem 2. Let $`\xi =\xi (x,y),\eta =\eta (x,y)`$ are conjugate harmonic functions, and $`f_i(u_1,u_2,\mathrm{},u_m),i=1,2,\mathrm{},n,mn,`$ are homogeneous, the degree of homogeneity being one, i.e.

$$f_i(\lambda u_1,\lambda u_2,\mathrm{},\lambda u_m)=\lambda f_i(u_1,u_2,\mathrm{},u_m).$$
$`(6)`$
The n the system of $`n`$ equations

$$\frac{u_i}{t}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}\mathrm{ln}u_i+f_i(u_1,u_2,\mathrm{},u_m)$$
$`(7)`$
is invariant with respect to the transformations

$$u_i(x,y,t)=\rho (x,y)v_i(\xi ,\eta ,t),$$
$`(8)`$
where $`\rho =|\eta |^2,`$ i.e. it transforms into itself

$$\frac{v_i}{t}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\xi \eta }\mathrm{ln}v_i+f_i(v_1,v_2,\mathrm{},v_m).$$
$`(9)`$
Proof. By substituting functions (8) into eqs. (7) and taking account of the conditions of homogeneity (6), we obtain the system

$$\rho \frac{v_i}{t}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}\left(\mathrm{ln}\rho +\mathrm{ln}v_i\right)+\rho f_i(v_1,v_2,\mathrm{},v_m),$$
$`(10)`$
furthermore, when using the properties of the conjugate harmonic functions (2), it can readily be shown that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}\mathrm{ln}v_i=\rho \mathrm{\Delta }_{\xi \eta }\mathrm{ln}v_i.$$

Therefore, from (10), due to Lemma 1, it is possible to obtain the system of equations (9). $`\mathrm{}`$

## 2 Reduction of the equation of fast diffusion to its one-dimensional (with respect to the spatial variable) analog

Theorem 3. Let $`\eta (x,y)`$ be an arbitrary harmonic function, which is different from the constant one. Then with the aid of the transformation

$$u(x,y,t)=\left(\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right)v(\eta ,t),$$
$`(11)`$
the equation of fast diffusion (1) can be reduced to its one dimensional (with respect to the spatial variable $`\eta `$) analog

$$\frac{v}{t}=\frac{^2\mathrm{ln}v}{\eta ^2}.$$
$`(12)`$
Proof. After substituting expression (11) into eq. (1), we obtain the equality

$$\psi (x,y)\frac{v}{t}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}\left(\mathrm{ln}\psi (x,y)+\mathrm{ln}v\right),$$
$`(13)`$
furthermore, it can easily be shown that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}\mathrm{ln}v=\psi (x,y)\frac{^2\mathrm{ln}v}{\eta ^2},$$

where $`\psi (x,y)=\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2.`$ Therefore, from equality (13), due to Lemma 1, we obtain eq. (12). $`\mathrm{}`$

Consequently, by integrating eq. (12) and using formula (11), it is possible to construct a class of exact solutions of fast diffusion equations (1), which depend on an arbitrary harmonic function.

Example 2.  Let $`\eta (x,y)`$ be a 4th degree harmonic polynomial, i.e. $`\eta (x,y)=x^46x^2y^2+y^4`$, or $`\eta (x,y)=4\left(x^3yxy^3\right).`$ Hence $`\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2=16\left(x^2+y^2\right)^3.`$ In this case, the transformation

$$u(x,y,t)=16\left(x^2+y^2\right)^3v(\eta ,t),$$

gives an anisotropic (with respect to spatial variables $`x`$ and $`y`$) solution of eq. (1), furthermore, the function $`v(\eta ,t)`$ can be determined from the relation (12). Since with the aid of the substitution $`v=w^1`$ eq. (12) can be reduced to the equation with quadratic nonlinearities

$$w_t=ww_{\eta \eta }\left(w_\eta \right)^2,$$

it is possible, in addition, to construct some exact solutions of eq. (12) on the basis of the approach described in .

$$v(\eta ,t)=\frac{1}{\lambda }\frac{\sqrt{k_1^2+k_2^2}\text{sh}(\lambda t)}{k_1\mathrm{cos}(\eta )+k_2\mathrm{sin}(\eta )+\sqrt{k_1^2+k_2^2}\text{ch}(\lambda t)},$$

$$v(\eta ,t)=\frac{1}{\lambda }\frac{\sqrt{k_1^2+k_2^2}\mathrm{cos}(\lambda t)}{k_1\mathrm{cos}(\eta )+k_2\mathrm{sin}(\eta )\sqrt{k_1^2+k_2^2}\mathrm{sin}(\lambda t)},$$

$$v(\eta ,t)=\frac{1}{\lambda }\frac{\sqrt{k_1^2k_2^2}\mathrm{cos}(\lambda t)}{k_1\text{ch}(\eta )+k_2\text{sh}(\eta )+\sqrt{k_1^2k_2^2}\mathrm{sin}(\lambda t)},$$

$$v(\eta ,t)=\frac{1}{\lambda }\frac{\sqrt{k_1^2k_2^2}\text{sh}(\lambda t)}{k_1\text{ch}(\eta )+k_2\text{sh}(\eta )\sqrt{k_1^2k_2^2}\text{ch}(\lambda t)}.$$

Here $`\lambda 0,k_1>k_2`$ are arbitrary numerical parameters.

Remark.  The proof of an analog of Theorem 3 for the system of quasilinear parabolic equations (7) has been described in the author’s paper .

It is known rather well \[9, .84\] that the Laplace equation in the 2D coordinate space is invariant with respect to the conformal transformation of independent variables

$$\frac{x}{q_2}=\frac{y}{q_1},\frac{x}{q_1}=\frac{y}{q_2},$$
$`(14)`$
furthermore, $`{\displaystyle \frac{x}{q_1}},{\displaystyle \frac{y}{q_2}}`$ do not simultaneously turn zero. The system of parabolic coordinates

$$x=q_2^2q_1^2,y=2q_1q_2.$$

is an example of such transformation. Now, let us apply the transformation (14) to eq. (1) under scrutiny. The latter may be rewritten as follows:

$$u_t=f(q_1,q_2)\mathrm{\Delta }_{q_1q_2}\mathrm{ln}u,u=u(q_1,q_2,t).$$
$`(15)`$
Here the denotation $`f(q_1,q_2)=x_{q_1}^2+x_{q_2}^2`$ is used. Since due to (14) the function $`x=x(q_1,q_2)`$ is harmonic, Lemma 1 implies that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{q_1q_2}\mathrm{ln}f(q_1,q_2)=0.$$
$`(16)`$
Consequently, the following theorem is valid.

Theorem 4. If relation (16) holds then with the aid of the transformation

$$u(q_1,q_2,t)=\frac{1}{f(q_1,q_2)}\left[f_{q_1}^2+f_{q_2}^2\right]v(\eta ,t),\eta =\mathrm{ln}f(q_1,q_2),$$
$`(17)`$
the nonhomogeneous equation of fast diffusion (15) can be reduced to the homogenous and one-dimensional (with respect to the spatial variable $`\eta `$) equation (12).

The proof of this theorem is similar to that of Theorem 3. To the end of proving it is necessary to put $`\eta (q_1,q_2)=\mathrm{ln}f(q_1,q_2)`$ in (11) written in terms of variables $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$.

Example 3.  The equation of nonlinear diffusion

$$u_t=\mathrm{exp}(x^2y^2)\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}u$$

$$\text{or}w_t=\mathrm{exp}(x^2y^2w)\mathrm{\Delta }w,$$

where $`w(x,y,t)=\mathrm{ln}v(x,y,t)`$, has the following exact solution, which is asymmetric with respect to the spatial variables

$$u(x,y,t)=4(x^2+y^2)\mathrm{exp}(x^2y^2)v(\eta ,t),\eta =x^2y^2.$$

Furthermore, the function $`v(\eta ,t)`$ satisfies eq. (12), some exact solutions of which have been given in Example 2.

## 3 Exact solutions of Liouville equation in the 2D coordinate space

It can easily be shown that principal results of the sections 1 and 2 can be directly generalized onto the equation of fast diffusion with a linear source (sink)

$$u_t=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}u\lambda u,$$
$`(18)`$
where $`\lambda \mathrm{}\{0\}.`$ Since formulas (4), (11), (17) are obviously independent of time, Theorems 1, 3 and 4 remain valid for the steady-state (elliptical) eq. (18)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}u=\lambda u,$$

which by the substitution $`u=\mathrm{exp}(\lambda w)`$ may be reduced to the well-known Liouville equation:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }w=\mathrm{exp}(\lambda w).$$
$`(19)`$
So, Theorem 1 and Lemma 1 together imply the following

Proposition 1. The Liouville equation (19) is invariant with respect to the transformation

$$w(x,y)=v(\xi ,\eta )+\frac{1}{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}|\rho (x,y)|,$$
$`(20)`$
where $`\rho =|\eta |^2,`$ and $`\xi (x,y),\eta (x,y)`$ are conjugate harmonic functions.

By applying transformation (11) to eq. (19) it is possible to obtain an ordinary differential equation (ODE), which can be easily integrated, and make sure that the following proposition is valid.

Proposition 2. The Liouville equation (19) in the 2D coordinate space has exact solutions of the form

$$w(x,y)=\frac{1}{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\left|\frac{2A^2}{\lambda }\left(\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right)\text{sec}^2(A\eta )\right|,$$

$$w(x,y)=\frac{1}{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\left|\frac{2A^2}{\lambda }\left(\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right)\text{sech}^2(A\eta )\right|,$$

where $`\eta (x,y)`$ is an arbitrary harmonic function, which is different from the constant one, $`A,\lambda \mathrm{}\{0\}.`$

Similarly, from Theorem 4 it follows that for a steady-state nonhomogeneous equation (15) having a linear adjunct the following proposition is valid.

Proposition 3. The nonhomogeneous Liouville equation

$$\mathrm{\Delta }w=\eta (x,y)\mathrm{exp}(\lambda w),$$
$`(21)`$
where $`\eta (x,y)`$ is an arbitrary harmonic function different from the constant one, has the exact solution

$$w(x,y)=\frac{1}{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\left|\frac{3}{\lambda }\frac{\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2}{\eta ^3}\right|.$$

Note that exact solutions of the nonhomogeneous Liouville equation (21), when $`\eta (x,y)`$ is a holomorphic function of special form, can be found in .

As a case of generalization of the results obtained in this section onto some different systems of equations consider the steady-state mathematical model of charge transfer, which implies Poisson interactions, known from the theory of semiconductors.

Example 4.  The elliptical system of equations of the form

$$\mathrm{\Delta }u=\mathrm{exp}(u)+A||^2,\mathrm{\Delta }v=\mathrm{exp}(v)B||^2,$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{exp}(v)\mathrm{exp}(u),$$
$`(22)`$
has a exact solution of the form

$$u(x,y)=f(\eta )+\mathrm{ln}\left|\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right|,v(x,y)=\psi (\eta )+\mathrm{ln}\left|\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right|,(x,y)=\phi (\eta ),$$

where $`\eta (x,y)`$ is an arbitrary harmonic function, which is different from the constant one; $`A,B\mathrm{}\{0\}.`$ Furthermore, the functions $`f,\psi ,\phi `$ can be defined from the system of ODE

$$f^{\prime \prime }=\mathrm{exp}(f)+A\phi ^^2,\psi ^{\prime \prime }=\mathrm{exp}(\psi )B\phi ^^2,\phi ^{\prime \prime }=\mathrm{exp}(\psi )\mathrm{exp}(f).$$

In the case when $`A=B,`$ system (22) assumes a particular exact solution $`u(x,y)=v(x,y)=f(\eta )+\mathrm{ln}\left|\eta _x^2+\eta _y^2\right|,(x,y)=\eta (x,y),`$ furthermore, the function $`f(\eta )`$ satisfies the linear 2nd order ODE

$$f^{\prime \prime }=f+A.$$

## Acknowledgement

This work was supported by an INTAS grant (No. 2000-15).