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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Studying the $`W`$-boson physics is an important way of testing the Standard Model (SM) and searching for “new physics”. It can be done in both the electron–positron and hadron colliders. In $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions, the main source of $`W`$ bosons is the process of $`W`$-pair production. This process was one of the most important subjects of the LEP2 experiments at CERN, run in the years 1996–2000, see e.g. Refs. . It also belongs to the main topics of a research programme of future linear colliders (LC), see e.g. Ref. . In this process one can measure precisely the $`W`$-boson mass and width as well as non-abelian triple and quartic gauge-boson couplings111Actually, for the quartic gauge-boson coupling an additional gauge boson, $`\gamma `$ or $`Z`$, is required.. In hadron colliders (proton–proton or proton–antiproton), the main source of $`W`$ bosons is the process of single-$`W`$ production. The most precise measurements of the $`W`$-boson mass and width in hadron colliders come from this process, see e.g. Ref. . It can also be used to extract parton distribution functions (PDFs) and to measure parton luminosities .

Among radiative corrections that affect the $`W`$-boson observables considerably is the photon radiation in leptonic $`W`$ decays. It distorts $`W`$-invariant-mass distributions reconstructed from $`W`$-decay products in $`e^+e^{}`$ experiments  or $`W`$-transverse-mass distributions obtained in hadron-collider experiments . These distortions are strongly acceptance-dependent, see e.g. Refs. . This radiation also affects lepton pseudorapidity distribution, which is the main tool for the PDFs and parton luminosities measurements in the hadron colliders. Therefore, precise theoretical predictions for the photon radiation in the leptonic $`W`$ decays is of great importance for both types of high-energy particle colliders. In order to be fully applicable in a realistic experimental situation, such predictions have to be provided in terms of a Monte Carlo event generator (MCEG).

The $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ electroweak (EW) radiative corrections in the on-shell $`W`$ decays were calculated analytically a long time ago by several authors . In the case of the $`W`$-pair production in the $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders, the calculations of the $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ EW corrections in a double-pole approximation (DPA) were done in Refs.  and . The latter were implemented in the MCEG RacoonWW . For single-$`W`$ production in hadronic collisions, the respective $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ EW corrections were calculated in Refs. . The MCEG for this process, including pure QED $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections, was provided long ago by Berends and Kleiss . A two-real-photon radiation cross section in $`W`$ decays was calculated in Ref. . On the other hand, the MC package PHOTOS  provides a universal tool for the generation of photon radiation in particle decays up to $`𝒪(\alpha ^2`$) in the leading-log (LL) approximation. It was used in the MCEG YFSWW  for the simulation of radiative $`W`$ decays for the $`W`$-pair production process in $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions.

To date, however, none of the existing MCEG for $`W`$-boson physics included multiphoton radiation in leptonic $`W`$ decays through exclusive QED exponentiation. Therefore, the influence of higher-order radiative corrections on the $`W`$-boson observables was difficult to assess222The calculation of Ref.  requires two visible photons in a detector.. In this paper, we provide the first calculation of the multiphoton radiation in leptonic $`W`$ decays in the framework of the Yennie–Frautschi–Suura exclusive exponentiation . This calculation is implemented in the MCEG for single-$`W`$ production in quark–antiquark collisions called WINHAC . It is a starting point for the full MC program for Drell–Yan-like single-$`W`$ production at the proton–antiproton (Tevatron) and proton–proton (LHC) colliders. The presented calculation as well as the respective MC algorithm can also be implemented in the MCEG for $`W`$-pair production in the $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions, such as YFSWW.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we provide spin amplitudes for the Born-level process and for the process with single-photon radiation in $`W`$ decays. In Section 3 we discuss the YFS exponentiation in leptonic $`W`$-boson decays. Numerical results are presented in Section 4. Section 5 summarizes the paper and gives some outlook. Finally, the appendices contain supplementary formulae.

## 2 Spin amplitudes

In the calculation of matrix elements for the process of single-$`W`$ production in hadronic collisions, we use the spin amplitude formalism of Ref. . In this approach, spinors are expressed in the Weyl basis, the vector-boson polarizations in the Cartesian basis, and the spin amplitudes are evaluated numerically for arbitrary four-momenta and masses of fermions and bosons. This evaluation amounts, in practice, to multiplying 2$`\times `$2 $`c`$-number matrices by 2-dimensional $`c`$-number vectors. We give below the general spin amplitudes for arbitrary fermions in the initial and in the final states, and apply them later on to the single-$`W`$ production in $`q\overline{q}`$ collisions with leptonic $`W`$ decays.

### 2.1 Born level

The Born-level Feynman diagram for single-$`W`$ production in fermion–antifermion collisions

$$f_1(p_1,\sigma _1)+\overline{f_2}(p_2,\sigma _2)W^\pm (Q,\lambda )$$
(1)
is depicted in Fig. 1, where $`(p_i,\sigma _i)`$ denotes the four-momentum and helicity ($`\sigma _i=\pm 1`$) of the corresponding fermion, while $`(Q,\lambda )`$ is the four-momentum and polarization of the $`W`$-boson ($`\lambda =1,2,3`$). The fermions $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ are members of $`SU(2)_L`$ doublets with opposite values of the weak-isospin third component and the pair $`f_1\overline{f_2}`$ is the $`SU(3)_c`$ singlet. The spin amplitudes for this process, in the convention of Ref. , read

$$_P^{(0)}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2;\lambda )=\frac{ieV_{f_1f_2}}{\sqrt{2}s_W}\omega _{\sigma _1}(p_1)\omega _{\sigma _2}(p_2)\sigma _2S(p_2,ϵ_W^{}(Q,\lambda ),p_1)_{\sigma _2,\sigma _1}^{},$$
(2)
where $`e`$ is the positron electric charge, $`V_{f_1f_2}`$ is the element of the weak-mixing matrix (the CKM matrix for quarks, the MNS matrix for leptons333In the following we neglect masses of neutrinos and therefore do not consider mixing in the lepton sector.), $`s_W=\mathrm{sin}\theta _W`$, with $`\theta _W`$ the weak-mixing (Weinberg) angle;

$$\omega _\pm (p)=\sqrt{p^0\pm |\stackrel{}{p}|};$$
(3)
$`ϵ_W(Q,\lambda )`$ is the $`W`$-boson polarization vector ($``$ denotes the $`c`$-number conjugation); and $`S(\mathrm{})`$ is the spinorial string function, given explicitly in Appendix A. The above spin amplitudes are identical for any colour singlet of the initial fermion pair $`f_1\overline{f_2}`$.

The spin amplitudes for the Born-level $`W`$-boson decay:

$$W^\pm (Q,\lambda )f_1(q_1,\tau _1)+\overline{f_2}(q_2,\tau _2),$$
(4)
shown diagrammatically in Fig. 2, are given by

$$_D^{(0)}(\lambda ;\tau _1,\tau _2)=\frac{ieCV_{f_1f_2}}{\sqrt{2}s_W}\omega _{\tau _1}(q_1)\omega _{\tau _2}(q_2)\tau _2S(q_1,ϵ_W(Q,\lambda ),q_2)_{\tau _1,\tau _2}^{},$$
(5)
where $`\tau _{1,2}`$ denote the helicities of the final-state fermions, and $`C`$ is the colour factor

$$C=\{\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{3}:\mathrm{for}\mathrm{quarks},\hfill \\ 1:\mathrm{for}\mathrm{leptons}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
The above spin amplitudes can be easily translated from the vector-boson Cartesian basis into the helicity basis, using the following transformations:

$`_{hel}(\lambda =\pm )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[(\lambda =1)i(\lambda =2)\right],`$ (7)
$`_{hel}(\lambda =0)`$ $`=(\lambda =3).`$
Then, the Born-level matrix element for the single-$`W`$ production and decay is given by the coherent sum of the above spin amplitudes over the $`W`$-boson polarizations multiplied by the Breit-Wigner function corresponding to the $`W`$ propagator:

$$^{(0)}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2;\tau _1,\tau _2)=\frac{1}{Q^2M_W^2+i\gamma _W(Q^2)}\underset{\lambda }{}_P^{(0)}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2;\lambda )_D^{(0)}(\lambda ;\tau _1,\tau _2),$$
(8)
where

$$\gamma _W(Q^2)=\{\begin{array}{c}M_W\mathrm{\Gamma }_W:\text{in the fixed-width scheme,}\hfill \\ Q^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W:\text{in the running-width scheme.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
It is known that the fixed-width and running-width schemes are connected by an appropriate rescaling of the line-shape parameters, here $`M_W`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W`$ .

### 2.2 $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections

The cross section for Drell–Yan-like $`W`$ production in hadronic collisions is dominated by the resonant single-$`W`$ process. Therefore, it can be described to a good accuracy with the help of the leading-pole approximation (LPA) . The non-LPA contributions are important only for specific high-$`W`$-invariant-mass observables (e.g. in “new physics” searches). In this paper we concentrate on the resonant $`W`$ production; the non-resonant contributions will be included later on. The $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ EW radiative corrections to the resonant single-$`W`$ production and decay can be divided in a gauge-invariant way into the initial-state corrections (ISR), initial–final interferences (non-factorizable corrections) and the final-state corrections (FSR), see e.g. Refs. . The leading ISR (mass-singular) QED corrections can be absorbed in the parton distribution functions, in a way similar to the leading QCD corrections . In general, the ISR corrections have a rather minor effect on the single-$`W`$ observables at hadron colliders . The non-factorizable corrections are negligible in resonant $`W`$-boson production . On the contrary, the FSR corrections affect various $`W`$ observables considerably . This paper is devoted to the FSR, and the other corrections will be considered in the future. More precisely, our aim here is to give a theoretical description of the QED part of the FSR corrections in the framework of the YFS exclusive exponentiation.

It is known that in processes involving the $`W`$-bosons, the electroweak corrections cannot be split in a gauge-invariant way into the pure-QED and pure-weak ones. However, one can extract some parts of photonic corrections that are gauge-independent, see e.g. Refs. . In this paper we follow the approach of Ref. , where only the infrared-singular and fermion-mass-logarithmic terms are extracted from the virtual $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ EW corrections and combined with the real-photon contributions. They form the so-called QED-like corrections. The rest of the virtual photonic corrections can be combined with the genuine weak-boson corrections to form the so-called weak-like corrections. Another solution, based on the YFS separation of the infrared (IR) QED terms, was presented in Ref. . It differs from the previous one by subleading (non-log) terms. It can also be easily implemented in our calculations. In this approach, however, the weak-like corrections are slightly larger numerically. Of course, when the whole $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ EW corrections are included these two approaches are equivalent. Since in this paper we deal with QED-like corrections only, we have chosen the solution of Ref. , which is closer to the full $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ calculation. This, however, may change in the future when also the weak-like corrections are included.

The major portion of the electroweak corrections can be taken into account by using the so-called $`G_\mu `$ scheme, i.e. parametrizing the cross section by the Fermi constant $`G_\mu `$ instead of the fine-structure constant $`\alpha `$, see e.g. Refs. . In our case, this amounts to the replacement

$$\alpha =\frac{e^2}{4\pi }\alpha _{G_\mu }=\frac{\sqrt{2}G_\mu M_W^2s_W^2}{\pi }$$
(10)
in the hard-process parts of the matrix elements.

#### 2.2.1 Virtual and real soft-photon corrections

The virtual QED-like correction to the leptonic $`W`$-boson decay, extracted from Ref. , reads

$$\delta _{\mathrm{QED}}^v(M,m_l)=\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left[2\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m_l}1\right)\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_\gamma }{M}+\mathrm{ln}^2\frac{M}{m_l}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m_l}\right],$$
(11)
where $`M`$ is the $`W`$ invariant mass (i.e. $`M^2=Q^2`$), $`m_l`$ is the charged-lepton mass and $`m_\gamma `$ a dummy photon mass (an IR regulator). After combining the virtual correction with the real-soft-photon contribution, one obtains the virtual$`+`$real-soft-photon correction (cf. e.g. Refs. ):

$$\delta _{\mathrm{QED}}^{v+s}(M,m_l)=\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left[2\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m_l}1\right)\mathrm{ln}\frac{2k_s}{M}+\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m_l}\frac{\pi ^2}{6}+1\right],$$
(12)
where $`k_s`$ is the soft-photon cut-off, i.e. the maximum energy of the soft real photon up to which its contribution has been integrated over. When the above correction is combined with the appropriate real-hard-photon contribution integrated over the remaining photon phase space, one obtains the total QED-like correction to the $`W`$-boson width

$$\delta _{\mathrm{QED}}^{tot}=\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left(\frac{77}{24}\frac{\pi ^2}{3}\right)1.89\times 10^4,$$
(13)
which does not contain mass-logarithmic terms, in accordance with the KLN-theorem , and is small numerically. The above formulae were obtained in the small-lepton-mass approximation, $`m_lM`$, which means that the terms $`𝒪(m_l^2/M^2)`$ were neglected.

#### 2.2.2 Real hard-photon radiation

Here we present the scattering amplitudes for single hard-photon radiation in leptonic $`W`$-boson decays using the spin-amplitude formalism of Ref.  and the notation introduced in the previous subsections. For the process

$$W^\pm (Q,\lambda )f_1(q_1,\tau _1)+\overline{f_2}(q_2,\tau _2)+\gamma (k,\kappa ),$$
(14)
given by the Feynman diagrams in Fig. 3, we obtain the $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ spin amplitudes

$`_D^{(1)}`$ $`(\lambda ;\tau _1,\tau _2,\kappa )={\displaystyle \frac{ie^2CV_{f_1f_2}}{\sqrt{2}s_W}}\omega _{\tau _1}(q_1)\omega _{\tau _2}(q_2)\tau _2`$ (15)
$`\times \{`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{Q_{f_1}q_1ϵ_\gamma ^{}}{kq_1}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_{f_2}q_2ϵ_\gamma ^{}}{kq_2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_WQϵ_\gamma ^{}}{kQ}}\right)S(q_1,ϵ_W(Q,\lambda ),q_2)_{\tau _1,\tau _2}^{}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{Q_{f_1}}{2kq_1}}S(q_1,ϵ_\gamma ^{}(k,\kappa ),k,ϵ_W(Q,\lambda ),q_2)_{\tau _1,\tau _2}^{}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{Q_{f_2}}{2kq_2}}S(q_1,ϵ_W(Q,\lambda ),k,ϵ_\gamma ^{}(k,\kappa ),q_2)_{\tau _1,\tau _2}^{}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{Q_Wkϵ_W}{2kQ}}S(q_1,ϵ_\gamma ^{}(k,\kappa ),q_2)_{\tau _1,\tau _2}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{Q_Wϵ_Wϵ_\gamma ^{}}{2kQ}}S(q_1,k,q_2)_{\tau _1,\tau _2}^{}\},`$
where $`ϵ_\gamma (k,\kappa )`$ is the $`\kappa `$th polarization vector of the photon with four-momentum $`k`$ (because the photon is massless, $`\kappa =1,2`$); $`Q_{f_1},Q_{f_2}`$ and $`Q_W`$ are the electric charges (in units of the positron charge) of the fermions $`f_1,f_2`$ and the $`W`$-boson, respectively; they satisfy the condition: $`Q_W=Q_{f_1}Q_{f_2}`$. The spinorial functions $`S(\mathrm{})`$ are given explicitly in Appendix A. The QED gauge invariance for these amplitudes means that

$$_D^{(1)}(ϵ_\gamma k)=0.$$
(16)
We have checked numerically that after the replacement $`ϵ_\gamma k`$ in Eq. (15), the values of the spin amplitudes are consistent with zero within the double-precision accuracy.

Then, the matrix element for single-$`W`$ production and radiative $`W`$ decay can be obtained through

$$^{(1)}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2;\tau _1,\tau _2,\kappa )=\frac{1}{Q^2M_W^2+i\gamma _W(Q^2)}\underset{\lambda }{}_P^{(0)}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2;\lambda )_D^{(1)}(\lambda ;\tau _1,\tau _2,\kappa ),$$
(17)
where the lowest-level spin amplitude $`_P^{(0)}`$ for the single-$`W`$ production is given in Eq. (2). This matrix element is a coherent convolution of non-radiative spin amplitudes for $`W`$ production and radiative spin amplitudes for $`W`$ decay. This means that it describes the photon radiation in the $`W`$-decay stage only.

As was noticed in Ref. , the matrix element for the single-photon radiation in the Drell–Yan-like $`W`$ production process can be, in the fixed-width scheme, split gauge-invariantly into the sum of matrix elements for radiative $`W`$ production convoluted with non-radiative $`W`$ decay and non-radiative $`W`$ production convoluted with radiative $`W`$ decay. This can be achieved by exploiting the partial fraction decomposition of a product of $`W`$-boson propagators arising when photon is emitted from an intermediate $`W`$-boson line . This simple decomposition, however, does not work in the running-width scheme. In this case we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^2M_W^2+i\gamma _W(Q^2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}M_W^2+i\gamma _W(Q_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})}}=`$ (18)
$`\left[\underset{\mathrm{production}}{\underset{}{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2kQ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}M_W^2+i\gamma _W(Q_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})}}}}\underset{\mathrm{decay}}{\underset{}{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^2M_W^2+i\gamma _W(Q^2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2kQ}}}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W}},`$
where $`Q`$ and $`Q^{}`$ are the $`W`$-boson four-momenta before and after the emission of the photon with four-momentum $`k`$: $`Q^{}=Qk`$. The two terms in the square brackets correspond to the radiative production and the radiative decay, respectively, but they are multiplied by the factor $`(1+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W)^1`$. So in the case of the running-width scheme, the partial fraction decomposition of the $`W`$-propagator works modulo this multiplicative factor. However, including the running $`W`$-boson width in the case of the photon radiation off the $`W`$-line leads to a violation of the QED Ward identity, see e.g. Refs. . As was shown in Ref. , in order to restore the respective Ward identity it is sufficient to include the light-fermion-loop corrections to the $`WW\gamma `$ vertex. In the small-fermion-mass approximation this amounts to multiplying the respective radiative amplitude by the factor

$$G_{\mathrm{FLS}}=1+i\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_W}{M_W}.$$
(19)
When we multiply our Eq. (18) by $`G_{\mathrm{FLS}}`$, the factor outside the square brackets on the r.h.s. drops out, and we obtain the decomposition of the corresponding amplitude into the radiative production and the radiative decay – exactly as in the fixed-width scheme. Therefore, our matrix element of Eq. (17) for single-$`W`$ production with radiative decays is valid also in the running-width scheme. Let us finally remark that although the compensating factor $`G_{\mathrm{FLS}}`$ was derived for the pure light-fermion-loop contribution to the $`W`$-boson width, the respective Ward identity is satisfied for any numerical value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W`$. So, in particular, one may use the radiatively corrected value of the $`W`$-width.

It should also be noted that in order to preserve a gauge-independent definition of the $`W`$-boson mass and width beyond the leading order, one should use, in both the fixed- and running-width schemes, the pole rather than on-shell $`W`$ mass and width, see e.g. Refs. .

## 3 The YFS exponentiation in leptonic $`W`$ decays

As was mentioned in the Introduction, the main purpose of this work is to provide a theoretical prediction for the multiphoton radiation in leptonic $`W`$-boson decays within the YFS exclusive exponentiation scheme. In this paper we consider the process of single-$`W`$ production in hadronic collisions at the parton level, i.e.

$$q_1(p_1)+\overline{q}_2(p_2)W^\pm (Q)l(q_l)+\nu (q_\nu )+\gamma (k_1)+\mathrm{}+\gamma (k_n),(n=0,1,\mathrm{}),$$
(20)
depicted diagrammatically in Fig. 4. Here we do not rely on the small-lepton-mass approximation, i.e. the formulae below are given for arbitrary final-state lepton masses.

The $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ QED YFS-exponentiated total cross section for this process reads

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{YFS}}^{tot}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d^3q_l}{q_l^0}\frac{d^3q_\nu }{q_\nu ^0}\rho _n^{(1)}(p_1,p_2,q_1,q_2,k_1,\mathrm{},k_n),$$
(21)
where

$`\rho _n^{(1)}=e^{Y(Q,q_l;k_s)}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n!}}`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k_i}{k_i^0}}\stackrel{~}{S}(Q,q_l,k_i)\theta (k_i^0k_s)\delta ^{(4)}\left(p_1+p_2q_lq_\nu {\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}k_i\right)`$ (22)
$`\times \left[\overline{\beta }_0^{(1)}(p_1,p_2,q_l,q_\nu )+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}(p_1,p_2,q_l,q_\nu ,k_i)}{\stackrel{~}{S}(Q,q_l,k_i)}}\right];`$
here,

$$\stackrel{~}{S}(Q,q_l,k)=\frac{\alpha }{4\pi ^2}\left(\frac{Q}{kQ}\frac{q_l}{kq_l}\right)^2$$
(23)
is the soft-photon radiation (eikonal) factor and

$$Y(Q,q_l;k_s)=2\alpha \left[\mathrm{}B(Q,q_l;m_\gamma )+\stackrel{~}{B}(Q,q_l;m_\gamma ,k_s)\right]$$
(24)
the YFS form factor, where $`B`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ are the virtual- and real-photon IR YFS functions, given explicitly in Appendix B for arbitrary four-momenta and masses of charged particles. These IR functions are regularized with the dummy photon mass $`m_\gamma `$, which cancels out in their sum. The real-photon function $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ depends also on the soft-photon energy cut-off $`k_sE_{CM}`$, which means that it was integrated analytically over the photons with energies $`E_\gamma k_s`$. The photons with energies $`E_\gamma >k_s`$ are generated exclusively with the help of Monte Carlo techniques. The soft cut-off $`k_s`$ is a dummy parameter, i.e. the resulting cross section does not depend on it, which can be checked both analytically (e.g. by differentiating Eq. (22) over $`k_s`$) and numerically (by evaluating the cross section for different values of $`k_s`$). One of the advantages of exponentiation is that $`k_s`$ can be put arbitrarily low without causing any part of the cross section to become negative – in contrast to fixed-order calculations. In Eq. (22), $`\overline{\beta }_0^{(1)}`$ and $`\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}`$ are the YFS non-IR functions, calculated perturbatively through $`𝒪(\alpha )`$. We present them below in the centre-of-mass (CM) frame of the incoming quarks, i.e. the rest frame of $`W`$, with the $`+z`$ axis pointing in the quark $`q_1`$ direction.

The function $`\overline{\beta }_0^{(1)}`$ is given by

$$\overline{\beta }_0^{(1)}(p_1,p_2,q_l,q_\nu )=\overline{\beta }_0^{(0)}(p_1,p_2,q_l,q_\nu )\left[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\delta ^{(1)}(Q,q_l,q_\nu )\right],$$
(25)
where $`\overline{\beta }_0^{(0)}`$ is related to the Born-level cross section through

$$\frac{1}{2}\overline{\beta }_0^{(0)}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda (1,m_l/M,m_\nu /M)}}\frac{d\sigma _0}{d\mathrm{\Omega }_l}=\frac{1}{16s(2\pi )^2}\frac{1}{12}\left|^{(0)}\right|^2,$$
(26)
with $`s=(q_1+q_2)^2=Q^2`$ and $`\lambda (x,y,z)=x^2+y^2+z^22xy2xz2yz`$. The factor $`\frac{1}{12}=\frac{1}{4}\frac{1}{3}`$ corresponds to averaging over the initial-state quark spins and colours (the colour contents has been extracted explicitly), and the sum $``$ runs over all the initial- and final-state spin indices. In Eq. (25), the correction

$$\delta ^{(1)}(Q,q_l,q_\nu )=\delta _{\mathrm{EW}}^v(Q,q_l,q_\nu ;m_\gamma )2\alpha \mathrm{}B(Q,q_l;m_\gamma )$$
(27)
is the 1st order non-IR correction to the $`\overline{\beta }_0`$ function, where $`\delta _{\mathrm{EW}}^v`$ is the $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ EW virtual correction. Since in this paper we limit ourselves to the QED-like corrections, from Eqs. (11) and (59) we have

$$\delta _{\mathrm{QED}}^{(1)}(Q,q_l)=\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m_l}+\frac{1}{2}\right).$$
(28)
Although Eqs. (11) and (59) were obtained in the small-lepton-mass approximation, $`m_lM`$, we have checked that the above formula remains true for arbitrary lepton mass $`m_l<M`$ (of course, under the assumption that $`\delta _{\mathrm{QED}}^v`$ contains only the IR- and mass-singular terms).

The function $`\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}`$ is the YFS non-IR function corresponding to the single-real-hard photon radiation. It is related to differential cross sections through

$$\frac{1}{2}\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}(p_1,p_2,q_l,q_\nu ,k)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }(k)}}\frac{d\sigma _1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }_lk^0dk^0d\mathrm{\Omega }_k}\stackrel{~}{S}(Q,q_l,k)\frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda }}\frac{d\sigma _0}{d\mathrm{\Omega }_l},$$
(29)
where

$$\frac{d\sigma _1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }_lk^0dk^0d\mathrm{\Omega }_k}=\frac{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }(k)}}{32s(2\pi )^5}\frac{1}{12}\left|^{(1)}\right|^2,$$
(30)
with

$$\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }(k)}=\frac{2|\stackrel{}{q}_l|^2}{|\stackrel{}{q}_l|(Mk^0)+q_l^0|\stackrel{}{k}|\mathrm{cos}\theta _{lk}}$$
(31)
the phase-space factor (coming from the phase-space integration eliminating the energy-momentum conservation $`\delta ^{(4)}`$-function for single-photon radiation), where $`\theta _{lk}=\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{q}_l,\stackrel{}{k})`$; in the soft-photon limit $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(k0)\lambda `$. The sum $``$ in Eq. (30) again runs over the initial- and final-state spin indices, this time inluding also those of the radiative photon. Thus, we finally have

$$\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}(p_1,p_2,q_l,q_\nu ,k)=\frac{1}{16s(2\pi )^5}\frac{1}{12}\left|^{(1)}\right|^2\stackrel{~}{S}(Q,q_l,k)\overline{\beta }_0^{(0)}(p_1,p_2,q_l,q_\nu ).$$
(32)
There are several advantages in using the matrix elements of Section 2. Firstly, the respective spin amplitudes are derived without the assumption of the energy-momentum conservation. Therefore, they can be used directly in evaluations of the above YFS $`\overline{\beta }`$-functions over the multiphoton phase space, without the need to resort to any “reduction procedure”, which reduces the multiphoton phase space to the $`0`$-photon phase space for $`\overline{\beta }_0`$ and the $`1`$-photon phase space for $`\overline{\beta }_1`$, see e.g. . Secondly, since the spin amplitudes are obtained for massive fermions, there is no need to use any phase-space slicing or subtraction methods in order to separate mass singularities . Using spin amplitudes instead of explicit analytical formulae for the squared matrix elements may also be useful for some dedicated studies, such as investigation of various $`W`$-polarization contributions, “new physics” searches (spin amplitudes can be easily modified to include some “new physics” components), etc. And, which is important in practice, the numerical evaluation of the matrix elements based on the above spin amplitudes is fast in terms of CPU time.

In computing the matrix element $`\left|^{(1)}\right|^2`$ we observed a loss of numerical precision $``$ $`𝒪(0.1\%`$) when the angle between the radiative photon and the electron (positron), $`\theta _{e\gamma }`$, was $``$ $`𝒪(10^6`$). It turned out that most of this precision loss was coming from huge numerical cancellations between the terms in the universal eikonal factor of Eq. (15) (the factor in front of the first $`S`$-function). We improved this by correcting the above matrix element according to

$$\left|^{(1)}\right|^2\left|^{(1)}\right|^2+\delta _{coll},$$
(33)
where

$$\delta _{coll}=\left[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}16}\pi ^3\stackrel{~}{S}(Q,q_l,k)e^2\underset{\kappa }{}\left|\frac{q_lϵ_\gamma ^{}(\kappa )}{kq_l}\frac{Qϵ_\gamma ^{}(\kappa )}{kQ}\right|^2\right]\left|^{(0)}\right|^2.$$
(34)
Algebraically, the two terms in the square brackets are identical. Numerically, however, they can differ for ultra-collinear photon radiation, owing to huge cancellations in the second term leading to a loss of numerical precision. Therefore, this correction effectively replaces the numerically unstable part of the matrix element $`\left|^{(1)}\right|^2`$ corresponding to the second term in Eq. (34) with the numerically safe one corresponding to the first term, obtained directly from the particles four-momenta. We have checked that the above modification is sufficient for the numerical precision of $`𝒪(10^4`$) for $`\theta _{e\gamma }10^6`$ and of $`𝒪(10^8`$) for the total cross section. By looking at Eq. (32) one can notice that the part of the matrix element $`\left|^{(1)}\right|^2`$ that is proportional to the soft-photon factor $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$ exactly cancels in the calculation of the $`\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}`$ function. We could, therefore, perform this cancellation algebraically and thus avoid the above numerical problems. We, however, keep this term in $`\left|^{(1)}\right|^2`$ because apart from the YFS exponentiation we want to have in our program also the non-exponentiated, fixed-order $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ calculation. Since it is now calculated in the same way as the second term in Eq. (32), it exactly cancels numerically in the evaluation of the $`\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}`$ function.

This completes our description of the cross section for process (20) with the $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ QED YFS exponentiation. In order to compute this cross section and generate events, we have developed an appropriate MC algorithm, which will be described in detail elsewhere . We will complete this paper by presenting some results of numerical tests of the corresponding MC program, called WINHAC.

## 4 Numerical results

We performed several numerical tests of the MC event generator WINHAC, which implements the calculations presented above. Here we discuss some of the results. We considered the following process:

$$d+\overline{u}W^{}l+\overline{\nu _l},$$
(35)
where $`l=e,\mu ,\tau `$. We have checked that the results remain unchanged when we switch to the corresponding process of $`W^+`$ production and decay. Our MC calculations were done using the $`G_\mu `$ scheme and the fixed-width scheme. All the results below, unless stated otherwise, have been obtained for the following input parameters:

$`m_d=3\times 10^3\mathrm{GeV},m_u=6\times 10^3,V_{ud}=1,m_{\nu _l}=0,`$ (36)
$`m_e=0.511\times 10^3\mathrm{GeV},m_\mu =0.10565836\mathrm{GeV},m_\tau =1.77703\mathrm{GeV},`$
$`M_W=80.423\mathrm{GeV},M_Z=91.1882\mathrm{GeV}`$
$`s_W^2=1{\displaystyle \frac{M_W^2}{M_Z^2}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_W={\displaystyle \frac{3G_\mu M_W^3}{2\sqrt{2}\pi }}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _s}{3\pi }}\right),`$
$`\alpha =137.03599976,G_\mu =1.16639\times 10^5\mathrm{GeV}^2,\alpha _s=0.1185,`$
$`E_{CM}=\sqrt{s}=M_W.`$
### 4.1 General tests

We have performed several numerical tests of the MC event generator WINHAC aimed at checking the correctness of the implemented matrix elements as well as the corresponding MC algorithm.

In order to cross-check the matrix elements presented here, we implemented in our MC program the matrix elements of Ref. , which in the following we shall call B&K. These latter matrix elements were obtained in the small-lepton-mass approximation $`m_lM_W`$; their precision therefore is of $`𝒪(m_l^2/M_W^2`$), which for electrons gives $`𝒪(10^{10}`$). Since our spin amplitudes are obtained for massive fermions, we performed the comparisons of these matrix elements for electronic $`W`$-boson decays. We did this by taking the difference between the corresponding MC weights on an event-by-event basis and calculating the average of this difference over the whole MC sample. For both the Born-level and $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ matrix elements, we reached an agreement at the level of $`10^8`$.

Then, we performed several tests to check the MC algorithm of the program WINHAC. An important test of the algorithm for MC integration and event generation according to Eq. (21) is to reproduce fixed-order calculations. The strict Born-level cross section can be obtained from Eq. (21) by truncating the perturbation series in $`\alpha `$ at the lowest-order term, which amounts to

$$\sigma _0^{tot}=\frac{d^3q_l}{q_l^0}\frac{d^3q_\nu }{q_\nu ^0}\rho _0^{(0)}e^Y.$$
(37)
Within the multiphoton MC algorithm, this means calculating an appropriate weight if the photon number $`n=0`$ and setting it to zero if $`n>0`$. The Born-level total cross section can be easily calculated analytically. In the small-fermion-mass approximation and in the fixed-width scheme it reads

$$\sigma _0^{tot}=\frac{\alpha _{G_\mu }^2\pi |V_{q_1q_2}|^2}{36s_W^4}\frac{s}{(sM_W^2)^2+M_W^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_W^2}.$$
(38)
In Table 1 we compare the results for the total Born cross section for $`e`$, $`\mu `$ and $`\tau `$ in the final state, calculated with the MC program WINHAC with those obtained from the analytical formula of Eq. (38). We see a very good agreement between these two calculations for $`e`$ and $`\mu `$. For $`\tau `$ they differ by $`0.1\%`$, which can be explained by the $`\tau `$-mass effects (they are not negligible as in the case of $`e`$ and $`\mu `$).

In a similar way, the first-order cross section can be obtained from Eq. (21) by truncating the perturbative series at $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ beyond the Born level, i.e.

$`\sigma _1^{tot}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{d^3q_l}{q_l^0}\frac{d^3q_\nu }{q_\nu ^0}\delta ^{(4)}(p_1+p_2q_lq_\nu )\overline{\beta }_0^{(0)}\left[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\delta _{\mathrm{QED}}^{(1)}+Y\right]}`$ (39)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q_l}{q_l^0}\frac{d^3q_\nu }{q_\nu ^0}\frac{d^3k}{k^0}\delta ^{(4)}(p_1+p_2q_lq_\nu k)\left[\overline{\beta }_1^{(1)}+\stackrel{~}{S}\overline{\beta }_0^{(0)}\right]\theta (k^0k_s)},`$
where the first term on the r.h.s. corresponds to the Born plus virtual and real-soft-photon contribution, and the second term to the real-hard-photon contribution. In practice, this means that the first term is evaluated within the multiphoton algorithm only for $`n=0`$, the second only for $`n=1`$, otherwise the appropriate MC weights are set to zero.

In Table 2 we show the results from the program WINHAC for the pure $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ QED-like correction to the total cross section. As can be seen, the results for $`e`$ and $`\mu `$ are in good agreement with the numerical value of total QED-like correction to the $`W`$-boson width as given in Eq. (13). For $`\tau `$ we observe the difference of $`1.5\times 10^4`$, which again can be explained by the $`\tau `$-mass effects.

In Table 3 we compare the results for the $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ hard-photon correction as a function of the lower photon-energy cut-off $`k_0`$, i.e.

$$\delta _1^h(k_0)=\frac{1}{\sigma _1^{tot}}_{k_0}𝑑E_\gamma \frac{d\sigma _1}{E_\gamma }\times 100\%,$$
(40)
for the centre-of-mass energy $`E_{CM}=90`$GeV, obtained from the program WINHAC and from the B&K MC program . The results of these two programs agree very well within the statistical errors.

As the above fixed-order results from WINHAC have been obtained in the framework of the YFS-type multiphoton algorithm, they make us strongly confident in the correctness of the corresponding MC algorithm.

In Table 4 we give the results for the total cross section at the fixed $`𝒪(\alpha )`$-level and including the YFS exponentiation as given in Eq. (21). The YFS-exponentiation corrections beyond $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ are $`10^4`$, i.e. of the expected size of higher-order corrections.

### 4.2 Distributions

Here we presents the results from WINHAC for some distributions at the Born level, with $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ QED-like corrections and including the YFS exponentiation. These results are given for two kinds of event selection: BARE – where the corresponding observables are obtained from bare-lepton four-momenta and no cuts are applied, and CALO – where the photon four-momenta are combined with the charged-lepton four-momenta if the opening angle between their directions $`\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{q}_l,\stackrel{}{k})5^{}`$; such photons are discarded. No extra cuts are applied. The BARE acceptance is closer to experimental event selections for muons, while the CALO is closer to the ones for electrons. We, however, use them for both types of final states.

In Fig. 5 we present the distributions of the electron and muon energy for the fixed $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections and for the YFS exponentiation. The upper plots show the absolute distributions for the BARE and CALO acceptances, respectively, while the lower plots show the relative differences between these two calculations, also for the BARE and CALO acceptances. At the Born level, the charged-lepton energy is fixed at $`E_l\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{s}`$; therefore, the energy tails for $`E_l<\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{s}`$ in the above plots are the result of the real-photon radiation in $`W`$-boson decay. The YFS-exponentiation corrections beyond the fixed $`𝒪(\alpha )`$-level are large for the BARE acceptance: up to $`15\%`$ for electrons and up to $`8\%`$ for muons – they differ for these two decay channels. For the CALO acceptance these corrections are smaller, up to $`4\%`$, and they are almost identical for electrons and muons. This is because in this case the large corrections due to lepton-mass-log terms have been excluded by the photon–lepton recombination. As can be seen, the largest (negative) corrections are in the first radiative bin (i.e. the second highest one in the upper plots) and they change sign for low lepton energies.

In Fig. 6 we show the distributions of the hardest photon energy for the electron and muon $`W`$-decay channels. The notation is similar to that in Fig. 5. Again, for the BARE acceptance the YFS-exponentiation corrections beyond the fixed $`𝒪(\alpha )`$-level are large and different for these two channels: up to $`15\%`$ for electrons and up to $`7\%`$ for muons. For CALO they are smaller, $`4\%`$, and similar in the two channels. The corrections are largest for soft photons and decrease with the photon energy.

Finally, in Fig. 7 we show the distributions of the cosine of the hardest photon polar angle with respect to the incoming quark direction; the notation is as in Fig. 6. For the BARE acceptance the YFS-exponentiation corrections beyond the fixed $`𝒪(\alpha )`$-level are large and almost constant: $`28\%`$ for electrons and $`14\%`$ for muons. For CALO they are smaller, $`6`$$`7\%`$, and similar in the electron and muon channels.

As can be seen from Figs. 57, the YFS exponentiation affects sizeably radiative events. All the above distributions have been obtained for the parton-level $`W`$-boson production at fixed CMS energy. In the actual proton–(anti)proton collisions the parton–parton CMS energy can change, which leads to an enhancement of the FSR corrections, in particular those due to the YFS exponentiation. This will be investigated elsewhere .

## 5 Summary and outlook

In this paper we have presented the calculations of the YFS QED exponentiation in leptonic $`W`$-boson decays. We have provided the fully massive spin amplitudes for the single $`W`$-boson production and decay, including the single-real-photon radiation in $`W`$ decays. We have obtained the numerically stable representations of the YFS form factor for the charged-particle decay. All this has been applied to the process of Drell–Yan-like $`W`$-boson production in hadronic collisions and implemented, at the parton level, in the Monte Carlo event generator WINHAC 1.0. For this purpose, an efficient multiphoton MC algorithm has been developed. The above spin amplitudes have been cross-checked with the independent analytical representations of the appropriate matrix elements  and they have been found to be in very good numerical agreement. We have also performed several numerical tests of the implemented MC algorithm. The results of these tests make us confident in the correctness of this MC algorithm.

Numerically, the YFS-exponentiation corrections beyond the fixed $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ calculations are at the level of $`10^4`$ for the total cross section, which is the result of the KLN-theorem. However, for some distributions they can amount to between a few and over $`20`$ per cent. These corrections can be significantly reduced when a calorimetric-like recombination of radiative photons and charged leptons is applied. Such a treatment is experimentally natural for the electrons in the final state, but less obvious for the muons.

Here we presented the calculations for the QED-like corrections in the leptonic $`W`$-boson decays and for the parton-level $`W`$-production process only. We are planning to extend this, in the future, to the full proton–(anti)proton collisions and to include other $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ electroweak corrections. The next step would be the inclusion of the NLO QCD effects as well as soft-gluon resummation corrections. We are also going to perform further tests of the program WINHAC at the $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ and beyond, particularly comparisons with independent calculations for various observables. Last, but not least, the full documentation of the MC program WINHAC  is in preparation (to be submitted to Computer Physics Communications). There, the details of the corresponding MC algorithm will be given.

In this paper, we applied the QED YFS exponentiation in leptonic $`W`$-boson decays to the single-$`W`$ production process at hadron colliders. However, it can also be used to describe the photon radiation in $`W`$ decays in the processes of $`W`$-pair production at both hadron and electron–positron colliders. In particular, it can be rather easily implemented in our MC event generator YFSWW  for $`W^+W^{}`$ production in $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions, which will be necessary for the future linear colliders .

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank D. Bardin and B.F.L. Ward for useful discussions. We acknowledge the kind support of the CERN TH and EP Divisions.

## Appendix A Spinorial string functions

Here we provide explicit formulae for the spinorial string functions introduced in Section 2. The general such function in the two-component Weyl-spinor basis reads

$$S(p_i,a_1,\mathrm{},a_n,p_j)_{\sigma _i\sigma _j}^\alpha =\chi _{\sigma _i}^{}(p_i)[a_1,\mathrm{},a_n]^\alpha \chi _{\sigma _j}(p_j),$$
(41)
where

$$\chi _+(p)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2|\stackrel{}{p}|(|\stackrel{}{p}|+p^3)}}\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{|\stackrel{}{p}|+p^3}{p^1+ip^2}\right],\chi _{}(p)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2|\stackrel{}{p}|(|\stackrel{}{p}|+p^3)}}\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{p^1+ip^2}{|\stackrel{}{p}|+p^3}\right]$$
(42)
are the two-component Pauli spinors corresponding to an external fermion with four-momentum $`p=(p^0,\stackrel{}{p})=(p^0,p^1,p^2,p^3)`$; for $`p^3=|\stackrel{}{p}|`$ we choose

$$\chi _+(p)=\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{0}{1}\right],\chi _{}(p)=\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}\hspace{0.25em}\hspace{0.25em}0}}\right].$$
(43)
The internal part of the above string function

$$[a_1,\mathrm{},a_n]^\alpha =(\text{/}a_1)_\alpha (\text{/}a_2)_\alpha \mathrm{}(\text{/}a_n)_{(1)^{n+1}\alpha }$$
(44)
is the product of 2$`\times `$2 $`c`$-number matrices, where

$$(\text{/}a)_\pm =\left[\begin{array}{cc}a^0a^3& (a^1ia^2)\\ (a^1ia^2)& a^0\pm a^3\end{array}\right]$$
(45)
with $`a=(a^0,a^1,a^2,a^3)`$ the four-vector in the Minkowski space.

As can be seen, the spinorial function $`S`$ can be easily evaluated numerically for arbitrary $`n`$. One can just compute a product of internal 2$`\times `$2 matrices $`(\text{/}a_i)_\alpha `$, and then multiply the resulting matrix by the external 2-dimensional $`c`$-number vectors $`\chi `$. However, the numerical evaluation is more efficient if, instead of matrix-by-matrix multiplication, one performs matrix-by-vector multiplication. In our computation of the function $`S`$, we start from multiplying the left-hand-side vector $`\chi ^{}`$ by the matrix $`(\text{/}a_1)_\alpha `$, and continue by multiplying the resulting vectors by the consecutive matrices $`(\text{/}a_i)_\alpha `$ until we reach the last matrix, $`(\text{/}a_n)_\alpha `$. The computation is completed by performing the scalar product of the final vector of the above multiplication with the right-hand-side vector $`\chi `$.

Three polarization vectors of a massive vector-boson with four-momentum $`k=(k^0,\stackrel{}{k})=(k^0,k^1,k^2,k^3)`$ and the mass $`m`$ are, in the Cartesian basis, given by

$`ϵ^\mu (k,\lambda =1)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{|\stackrel{}{k}|k_T}}(0,k^1k^3,k^2k^3,k_T^2),`$ (46)
$`ϵ^\mu (k,\lambda =2)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{k_T}}(0,k^2,k^1,0),`$
$`ϵ^\mu (k,\lambda =3)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k^0}{m|\stackrel{}{k}|}}({\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{k}|^2}{k^0}},k^1,k^2,k^3),`$
where $`k_T=\sqrt{(k^1)^2+(k^2)^2}`$ is the transverse momentum. For massless vector bosons, such as photons, $`ϵ^\mu (\lambda =3)=0`$, i.e. there are only two non-zero polarizations $`ϵ^\mu (\lambda =1)`$ and $`ϵ^\mu (\lambda =2)`$. Helicity eigenstates can be obtained from the above polarization vectors through

$`ϵ_{hel}(k,\lambda =\pm )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[ϵ(k,\lambda =1)iϵ(k,\lambda =2)\right],`$ (47)
$`ϵ_{hel}(k,\lambda =0)`$ $`=ϵ(k,\lambda =3).`$
## Appendix B The YFS IR functions

In Ref.  we provided the general formulae for the YFS IR functions $`\mathrm{}B`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ for a pair of charged particles of arbitrary masses and four-momenta. This representation works very well for particle production or scattering processes; however, it becomes numerically unstable for charged-particle decays. Therefore, for the process

$$W^\pm (Q)l^\pm (q)+\stackrel{()}{\nu _l}(q^{}),$$
(48)
we have to obtain different representations for these functions. A specific feature of the above process is that a QED-radiation dipole is stretched between a decaying particle ($`W`$) and a decay product ($`l`$). For such a dipole, a four-momentum transfer between its constituents is non-negative:

$$t=(Qq)^20,$$
(49)
in contrast to scattering processes. In such a case, the corresponding IR integrals have to be calculated in a slightly different way than was done in Ref.  for $`t<0`$. Special care is also needed for the limiting case $`t=0`$, which occurs for the two-body $`W`$-boson leptonic decay when the neutrino mass is neglected. For the sake of numerical stability, it has to be treated separately.

The YFS virtual- and real-photon IR functions for a pair of charged particles with the four-momenta $`(Q,q)`$ are defined as follows

$`B(Q,q;m_\gamma )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{i}{8\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{k^2m_\gamma ^2+i\epsilon }\left(\frac{2qk}{k^22kq+i\epsilon }\frac{2Qk}{k^22kQ+i\epsilon }\right)^2},`$ (50)
$`\stackrel{~}{B}(Q,q;m_\gamma ,k_s)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _{k^0<k_s}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{k^0}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q}{kq}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q}{kQ}}\right)^2,`$ (51)
where $`m_\gamma `$ is a dummy photon mass used to regularize the IR-divergent integrals ($`m_\gamma k_s`$), while $`k_s`$ is the soft-photon cut-off, up to which the integration over the real-photon four-momenta is carried over analytically ($`k_sQ^0`$). The explicit analytical formulae for these functions are presented below.

### B.1 The virtual-photon IR function

The virtual-photon IR function reads as follows:

$`t=(Qq)^2>0`$:

$$2\alpha \mathrm{}B(Q,q;m_\gamma )=\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left\{\left[\nu A(Q,q)1\right]\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_\gamma ^2}{Mm}+\frac{1}{2}A_1(Q,q)\nu A_3(Q,q)\right\},$$
(52)
with

$`A(Q,q)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda }}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda +\nu }{Mm}},`$ (53)
$`A_1(Q,q)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{M^2m^2}{t}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M}{m}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda ^2}{t}}A(Q,q)2,`$ (54)
$`A_3(Q,q)`$ $`=A(Q,q)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda }{Mm}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda }}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda +\nu }{M^2}}+2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \nu +M^2}{t}})\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda +\nu }{M^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda +\nu }{m^2}}2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda +\nu m^2}{m^2}}\right)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda +\nu }{m^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}\eta \mathrm{ln}(1+\eta ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}\zeta \mathrm{ln}(1+\zeta )+\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2(\eta )\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2(\zeta )],`$ (55)
where

$`\nu =Qq,\lambda =\sqrt{(\nu Mm)(\nu +Mm)},Q^2=M^2,q^2=m^2,M>m,`$ (56)
$`t=M^2+m^22\nu ,Mm\nu <{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(M^2+m^2\right),`$
$`\eta ={\displaystyle \frac{m^2t}{2\lambda (2\lambda +\nu m^2)}},\zeta ={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda +\nu }{m^2}}\eta ,`$
and

$$\mathrm{Li}_2(y)=_0^y\frac{dx}{x}\mathrm{ln}(1x),|\mathrm{arg}(1y)|<\pi ,$$
(57)
is the Spence dilogarithm function.

$`t=(Qq)^2=0`$:

$$2\alpha \mathrm{}B(Q,q;m_\gamma )=\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left\{\left(\frac{M^2+m^2}{M^2m^2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m}1\right)\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_\gamma ^2}{Mm}+\frac{1}{2}\right)\right\}.$$
(58)
In the limit $`mM`$ we get

$$2\alpha \mathrm{}B(Q,q;m_\gamma )\underset{mM}{=}\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left\{2\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m}1\right)\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_\gamma }{M}+\mathrm{ln}^2\frac{M}{m}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m}\frac{1}{2}\right\}.$$
(59)
### B.2 The real-photon IR function

For the real-photon IR function we obtain

$`t=(Qq)^2>0`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{B}(Q,q;m_\gamma ,k_s)={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\{`$ $`\left[\nu A(Q,q)1\right]\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{4k_s^2}{m_\gamma ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{M^2}{2}}A_4(Q,Q){\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2}}A_4(q,q)`$ (60)
$`\nu A_4(Q,q)\},`$
with

$`A_4(p,p)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{p^2\beta }}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1\beta }{1+\beta }},\beta ={\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{p}|}{p^0}},`$ (61)
$`A_4(Q,q)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\kappa }}\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{V^2}{t}}\right|{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{1}{}}}(1)^{n+1}\left[X(z_i;y_1,y_4,y_2,y_3)+R(z_i)\right]\right\},`$ (62)
where

$`R(z)=Y_{14}(z)+Y_{21}(z)+Y_{32}(z)Y_{34}(z)`$ (63)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}X(z;y_1,y_2,y_3,y_4)X(z;y_2,y_3,y_1,y_4),`$
$`Y_{ij}(z)=2Z_{ij}(z)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}^2\left|{\displaystyle \frac{zy_i}{zy_j}}\right|,`$
$`Z_{ij}(z)=\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{y_jy_i}{zy_i}}\right),`$
$`X(z;a,b,c,d)=\mathrm{ln}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{(za)(zb)}{(zc)(zd)}}\right|,`$
and

$`z_0={\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{q}|}{T}},z_1={\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{Q}|}{T}}1;`$ (64)
$`y_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2T}}\left[T+\mathrm{\Omega }{\displaystyle \frac{\omega \delta +\kappa }{t}}V\right],y_2=y_1{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa V}{tT}},`$
$`y_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2T}}\left[T\mathrm{\Omega }+{\displaystyle \frac{\omega \delta +\kappa }{V}}\right],y_4=y_3+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{TV}};`$
$`\kappa =\sqrt{(\omega ^2t)(\delta ^2t)},\delta =Mm,\omega =M+m,`$
$`T=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2t},V=\mathrm{\Delta }+T,\mathrm{\Delta }=Q^0q^0,\mathrm{\Omega }=Q^0+q^0,`$
while $`\nu `$ and $`A(Q,q)`$ are as given in the previous subsection. We have checked that this analytical representation is numerically stable for $`t10^{10}\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, when computed in any Lorentz frame, which is neither $`W`$ nor $`l`$ rest frame. In these frames we need an explicit analytical formula for $`A_4(p,p)`$ in the limit $`\beta 0`$. It reads

$$A_4(p,p)\underset{p=(m,\stackrel{}{0})}{=}\frac{2}{m^2}.$$
(65)
In the $`W`$ rest frame, i.e. for $`Q=(M,\stackrel{}{0})`$, the function $`A_4(Q,q)`$ can be simplified to get

$`A_4(Q,q)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2M\overline{q}}}[`$ $`\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{ME+\overline{q}}{ME\overline{q}}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{E+\overline{q}}{M}}2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{2\overline{q}(ME+\overline{q})}{Mm}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{E+\overline{q}}{M}}`$ (66)
$`+`$ $`2\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{E\overline{q}}{M}}\right)2\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{E+\overline{q}}{M}}\right)`$
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{ME\overline{q}}{2\overline{q}}}\right)\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{ME+\overline{q}}{2\overline{q}}}\right)`$
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M(E+\overline{q})m^2}{2M\overline{q}}}\right)\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M(E\overline{q})m^2}{2M\overline{q}}}\right)],`$
where $`E=q^0,\overline{q}=|\stackrel{}{q}|`$.

$`t=(Qq)^2=0`$:

For $`t=0`$ the functions $`A(Q,q),A_4(Q,Q),A_4(q,q)`$ can remain the same as for $`t>0`$, but we need a new, numerically stable, representation for the function $`A_4(Q,q)`$. It can be cast in the form

$$A_4(Q,q)=\frac{1}{\mu ^2}\left[\mathrm{ln}\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\mu ^2}\mathrm{ln}\left|\frac{\xi _2\xi _3}{\xi _1}\right|+U(z_1)U(z_0)\right],$$
(67)
where

$`U(z)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}^2\left|{\displaystyle \frac{(zy_1)(zy_2)}{zy_3}}\right|+\mathrm{ln}|zy_1|\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|zy_1|}{(zy_2)^2}}`$ (68)
$`+2\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{y_2y_1}{zy_1}}\right)+2\mathrm{}\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{y_3y_2}{zy_2}}\right);`$
$`\xi _i={\displaystyle \frac{z_0y_i}{z_1y_i}},z_0={\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{q}|}{\mathrm{\Delta }}},z_1={\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{Q}|}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}1;`$
$`y_1={\displaystyle \frac{q^0}{\mathrm{\Delta }}},y_2=y_1{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}},y_3=y_1+{\displaystyle \frac{2m^2}{\mu ^2}};`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }=Q^0q^0,\mu ^2=M^2m^2.`$
In the $`W`$ rest frame we get

$$A_4(Q,q)\underset{Q=(M,\stackrel{}{0})}{=}\frac{2}{M^2m^2}\left[\mathrm{ln}^2\frac{M}{m}+\mathrm{Li}_2\left(\frac{M^2m^2}{M^2}\right)\right].$$
(69)
Then, in the small-lepton-mass limit, $`mM`$, we obtain a simple expression for the function $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ in the $`W`$ rest frame:

$$2\alpha \stackrel{~}{B}(Q,q;m_\gamma ,k_s)\underset{mM}{=}\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left\{2\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m}1\right)\mathrm{ln}\frac{2k_s}{m_\gamma }\mathrm{ln}^2\frac{M}{m}+\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m}+1\frac{\pi ^2}{6}\right\}.$$
(70)
After combining this with the virtual-photon function of Eq. (59), we obtain a simple expression for the YFS form factor in the $`W`$ rest frame:

$$Y(Q,q;k_s)\underset{mM}{=}\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\left\{2\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m}1\right)\mathrm{ln}\frac{2k_s}{M}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{M}{m}\frac{1}{2}\frac{\pi ^2}{6}\right\}.$$
(71)
As can be seen see explicitly, it is free of the IR singularity as well as of the Sudakov double-logarithms.


format: text

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# A microscopic estimate of the nuclear matter compressibility and symmetry energy in relativistic mean-field models

## I Introduction

Basic properties of nuclear ground states, excitation energies of giant monopole resonances, the structure of neutron stars, the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions and of supernovae explosions, depend on the nuclear matter compressibility. The nuclear matter compression modulus $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ is defined as

$$K_{\mathrm{nm}}=k_f^2\frac{d^2E/A}{dk_f^2}|{}_{k_{f_0}}{}^{},$$
(1)
where $`E/A`$ is the binding energy per nucleon, $`k_f`$ is the Fermi momentum, and $`k_{f_0}`$ is the equilibrium Fermi momentum. The value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ cannot be measured directly. In principle it can be extracted from the experimental energies of isoscalar monopole vibrations (giant monopole resonances GMR) in nuclei. Semi-empirical macroscopic leptodermous expansions, as well as microscopic calculations, have been employed in the analysis of available data on isoscalar GMR. Although macroscopic expansions, analogous to the liquid drop mass formula, in principle provide ”model independent” estimates of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$, in reality they do not constrain its value to better than 50%.

A more reliable approach to the determination of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ is based on microscopic calculations of GMR excitation energies. Self-consistent mean-field calculations of nuclear ground state properties are performed by using effective interactions with different values of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$. Interactions that differ in their prediction of the nuclear matter compressibility, but otherwise reproduce experimental data on ground-state properties reasonably well, are then used to calculate GMR in the random phase approximation or the time-dependent framework. A fully self-consistent calculation of both ground-state properties and GMR excitation energies restricts the range of possible values for $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$. The correct value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ should then be given by that interaction which reproduces the excitation energies of GMR in finite nuclei. It has been pointed out, however, that, since $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ determines bulk properties of nuclei and, on the other hand, the GMR excitation energies depend also on the surface compressibility, the determination of the nuclear matter compressibility relies more on a good measurement and microscopic calculations of GMR in a single heavy nucleus such as 208Pb, rather than on the systematics over the whole periodic table BBD.95a ; Bla.80 . It has also been emphasized that the determination of a static quantity, $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$, from dynamical properties, i.e. from GMR energies, is potentially ambiguous. Various dynamical effects, as for instance the coupling of single particle and collective degrees of freedom, could modify, though not much, the deduced value of the nuclear matter compression modulus. On the other hand, it has been shown that $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ cannot be extracted from static properties, i.e. masses and charge distributions, alone Far.97 .

In this work we address a different source of ambiguity, which has become apparent only recently. Modern non-relativistic Hartree-Fock plus random phase approximation (RPA) calculations, using both Skyrme and Gogny effective interactions, indicate that the value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ should be in the range 210-220 MeV BBD.95a ; Bla.80 . In Ref. Far.97  it has been shown that even generalized Skyrme forces, with both density- and momentum-dependent terms, can only reproduce the measured breathing mode energies for values of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ in the interval $`215\pm 15`$ MeV. A comparison of the most recent data on the $`E0`$ strength distributions in 90Zr, 116Sn, 114Sm and 208Pb, with microscopic calculations based on Gogny effective interactions by Blaizot et alBBD.95a , has put the value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ at $`231\pm 5`$ MeV YCL.99 . In relativistic mean-field (RMF) models on the other hand, results of both time-dependent and RPA calculations suggest that empirical GMR energies are best reproduced by an effective force with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}250270`$ MeV Vre.97 ; Vre.99 ; VWR.00 ; MGW.01 . Twenty percent, of course, represents a rather large difference. The origin of this discrepancy is at present not understood.

It appears, however, that not all results of the relativistic models are in agreement either. By using the same type of non-linear RMF Lagrangians with scalar self-interactions as in Refs. Vre.97 ; Vre.99 ; VWR.00 ; MGW.01 , in a series of recent papers Pie.62 ; Pie.64 ; Pie.66  Piekarewicz has performed fully consistent relativistic RPA calculations of nuclear compressional modes. Basically the results can be summarized as follows. (1) The best description of both compressional modes – isoscalar monopole and dipole – is obtained by using a “soft” effective interaction with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=224`$ MeV. (2) Effective interactions with compression moduli well above $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}200`$ MeV are not consistent with experimental data. (3) The compression modulus determined from the empirical excitation energies of the GMR depends on the nuclear matter symmetry energy, i.e. models with a lower symmetry energy at saturation density reproduce the GMR in 208Pb by using a lower value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$. (4) The variance between the values of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ determined from non-relativistic and relativistic mean-field plus RPA calculations of GMR excitation energies can be attributed in part to the differences in the nuclear matter symmetry energy predicted by non-relativistic and relativistic models. In particular, in Ref. Pie.66  it has been pointed out that, when the symmetry energy of the RMF models is softened to simulate the symmetry energy of Skyrme interactions, a lower value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$, consistent with the ones used in non-relativistic models, is required to reproduce the energy of the GMR in 208Pb.

Our own results strongly disagree with most of the conclusions of Refs. Pie.62 ; Pie.64 ; Pie.66 . In addition to the results obtained in the RMF+RPA framework based on non-linear Lagrangians with scalar self-interactions Vre.97 ; Vre.99 ; VWR.00 ; MGW.01 , in Ref. NVR.02  we have carried out calculations of the isoscalar monopole, isovector dipole and isoscalar quadrupole response of 208Pb, in the fully self-consistent relativistic RPA framework based on effective interactions with a phenomenological density dependence adjusted to nuclear matter and ground-state properties of spherical nuclei. The analysis of the isoscalar monopole response with density dependent coupling constants has shown that only interactions with the nuclear matter compression modulus in the range $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}260270`$ MeV, reproduce the experimental excitation energy of the GMR in 208Pb. In addition, the comparison with the experimental excitation energy of the isovector dipole resonance has constrained the volume asymmetry to the interval 34 MeV $`a_4`$ 36 MeV.

Even though we cannot explain the difference between the nuclear matter compressibility predicted by non-relativistic and relativistic mean-field plus RPA calculations, at least we can clarify the apparent inconsistency of the results obtained in the relativistic framework. The purpose of this work is twofold. By using the RMF+RPA based on effective interactions with density-dependent meson-nucleon couplings, we will show: (1) contrary to the claims made in Ref. Pie.66 , our knowledge of the symmetry energy at low density is not that poor, and the volume asymmetry cannot be lowered to the range of values $`a_430`$ MeV, for which relativistic models with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}230`$ MeV would reproduce the excitation energy of the GMR in 208Pb and, (2) relativistic mean-field effective interactions adjusted to reproduce ground-state properties of spherical nuclei (binding energies, charge radii, differences between neutron and proton radii), cannot reproduce the excitation energies of GMR if $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}250`$ MeV. Therefore, we will reinforce our result that $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=250`$ MeV is the lower bound for the nuclear matter compression modulus in nuclear structure models based on the relativistic mean-field approximation.

## II Effective interactions with density-dependent meson-nucleon couplings and the relativistic RPA

The relativistic random phase approximation (RRPA) will be used to calculate the isoscalar monopole and isovector dipole strength distributions in 208Pb. The RRPA represents the small amplitude limit of the time-dependent relativistic mean-field theory. A self-consistent calculations ensures that the same correlations which define the ground-state properties, also determine the behavior of small deviations from the equilibrium. The same effective Lagrangian generates the Dirac-Hartree single-particle spectrum and the residual particle-hole interaction. In Ref. Daw.90  it has been shown that an RRPA calculation, consistent with the mean-field model in the $`nosea`$ approximation, necessitates configuration spaces that include both particle-hole pairs and pairs formed from occupied states and negative-energy states. The contributions from configurations built from occupied positive-energy states and negative-energy states are essential for current conservation and the decoupling of the spurious state. In addition, configurations which include negative-energy states give an important contribution to the collectivity of excited states. In two recent studies MGW.01 ; Rin.01  we have shown that a fully consistent inclusion of the Dirac sea of negative energy states in the RRPA is crucial for a quantitative comparison with the experimental excitation energies of isoscalar giant resonances.

The second requisite for a successful application of the RRPA in the description of dynamical properties of nuclei is the use of effective Lagrangians with non-linear meson self-interactions, or Lagrangians characterized by density-dependent meson-nucleon vertex functions. Even though several RRPA implementations have been available for almost twenty years, techniques which enable the inclusion of non-linear meson interaction terms in the RRPA have been developed only recently MGT.97 ; VWR.00 ; Pie.62 . In Ref. NVR.02  the RRPA matrix equations have been derived for an effective Lagrangian with density-dependent meson-nucleon couplings.

Already in Ref. Vre.97  we used Lagrangians with non-linear meson self-interactions in time-dependent RMF calculations of monopole oscillations of spherical nuclei. The energies of the GMR were determined from the Fourier power spectra of the time-dependent isoscalar monopole moments $`<r^2>(t)`$. It has been shown that the GMR in heavy nuclei, as well as the empirical excitation energy curve $`E_x80A^{1/3}`$ MeV, are best reproduced by an effective force with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}250270`$ MeV. This result has been confirmed by the RRPA calculation of Ref. MGW.01 . In particular, the best results have been obtained with the NL3 effective interaction LKR.97  ($`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=272`$ MeV). Many calculations of ground-state properties and excited states, performed by different groups, have shown that NL3 is the best non-linear relativistic effective interaction so far, both for nuclei at and away from the line of $`\beta `$-stability. On the other hand, by using the same type of effective Lagrangians with non-linear isoscalar-scalar interaction terms, in the recent RRPA analysis of nuclear compressional modes of Refs. Pie.62 ; Pie.64  it has been suggested that models of nuclear structure having $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ well above $`200`$ MeV are likely to be in conflict with experiment.

Even though models with isoscalar-scalar meson self-interactions have been used in most applications of RMF to nuclear structure in the last fifteen years, they present well known limitations. In the isovector channel, for instance, these interactions are characterized by large values of the symmetry energy at saturation – 37.9 MeV for NL3 – as compared with the empirical value $`a_4=30\pm 4`$ MeV. This is because the isovector channel of these effective forces is parameterized by a single constant: the $`\rho `$-meson nucleon coupling $`g_\rho `$. With a single parameter in the isovector channel, it is not possible to reproduce simultaneously the empirical value of $`a_4`$ and the masses of $`NZ`$ nuclei. On the other hand, extensions of the RMF model that include additional interaction terms in the isoscalar and/or the isovector channels were not very successful, at least in nuclear structure applications. The reason is that the empirical data set of bulk and single-particle properties of finite nuclei can only constrain six or seven parameters in the general expansion of an effective Lagrangian FS.00 . Adding more interaction terms does not improve the description of finite nuclei. Rather, their coupling parameters and even their forms cannot be accurately determined.

Models based on an effective hadron field theory with medium dependent meson-nucleon vertices FLW.95 ; TW.99 ; HKL.01  present a very successful alternative to the use of nonlinear self-interactions. Such an approach retains the basic structure of the relativistic mean-field framework, but could be more directly related to the underlying microscopic description of nuclear interactions. In Ref. NVFR.02  we have extended the relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) model PVL.97  to include density dependent meson-nucleon couplings. The effective Lagrangian is characterized by a phenomenological density dependence of the $`\sigma `$, $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ meson-nucleon vertex functions, adjusted to properties of nuclear matter and finite nuclei. It has been shown that, in comparison with standard RMF effective interactions with nonlinear meson-exchange terms, the density-dependent meson-nucleon couplings significantly improve the description of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter, and of ground-state properties of $`NZ`$ nuclei.

The RRPA with density-dependent meson-nucleon couplings has been derived in Ref. NVR.02 . Just as in the static case the single-nucleon Dirac equation includes the additional rearrangement self-energies that result from the variation of the vertex functionals with respect to the nucleon field operators, the explicit density dependence of the meson-nucleon couplings introduces rearrangement terms in the residual two-body interaction. Their contribution is essential for a quantitative description of excited states. By constructing families of interactions with some given characteristic (compressibility, symmetry energy, effective mass), it has been shown how the comparison of the RRPA results on multipole giant resonances with experimental data, can be used to constrain the parameters that characterize the isoscalar and isovector channel of the density-dependent effective interactions. In particular, the GMR in 208Pb requires the compression modulus to be in the range $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}260270`$ MeV, and the isovector GDR in 208Pb is only reproduced with the volume asymmetry in the interval 34 MeV $`a_4`$ 36 MeV. We have not, however, analyzed the influence of the symmetry energy on the range of allowed values of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$. We have also not tried to correlate the RRPA results for the isovector GDR with data on neutron radii, although it has been shown in Ref. NVFR.02  that RHB calculations with the density-dependent effective interaction DD-ME1 ($`a_4=33.1`$ MeV) reproduce the available data on differences between neutron and proton radii for 208Pb and several Sn isotopes.

## III Nuclear matter compressibility and symmetry energy

By performing fully consistent RMF plus RRPA calculations of nuclear ground-state properties and excitation energies of giant resonances, in this section we will try to correlate the nuclear matter symmetry energy and the nuclear matter compression modulus of relativistic mean-field effective interactions.

In Ref. Pie.66  Piekarewicz has used the standard RMF effective interactions with isoscalar-scalar meson self-interactions, and with compression moduli in the range $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}200300`$ MeV, to compute the distribution of isoscalar monopole strength in 208Pb. The main result of his analysis is that, when the symmetry energy is artificially softened, in an attempt to simulate the symmetry energy of Skyrme interactions, a lower value for the compression modulus is obtained, consistent with the predictions of non-relativistic Hartree-Fock plus RPA calculations.

As we have already emphasized in the previous section, the RMF models with isoscalar-scalar meson self-interactions are characterized by large values of the symmetry energy at saturation volume asymmetry. When adjusting such an effective interaction to properties of nuclear matter and bulk ground-state properties of finite nuclei (binding energy, charge radius) it would be clearly desirable to bring down the value of $`a_4`$ to its empirical value $`a_4=30\pm 4`$ MeV. This, however, is not feasible. The simple reason is that, if $`a_4`$ is brought below $`3637`$ MeV by simply reducing the single coupling constant $`g_\rho `$ in the isovector channel, then it is no longer possible to reproduce the relative positions of the neutron and proton Fermi levels in finite nuclei, i.e. the calculated masses of $`NZ`$ nuclei display large deviations from the experimental values. The binding energies are only reproduced if a density dependence is included in the $`\rho `$-meson coupling, or a non-linear $`\rho `$-meson self-interaction is included in the model. If the interaction, however, is adjusted to a single nucleus, as it was done in Ref. Pie.66  for 208Pb, then even the standard RMF interactions contain enough parameters to obtain almost any combination of symmetry energy and nuclear matter compressibility.

In the present analysis we have used effective interactions with density-dependent meson-nucleon vertex functions. For the density dependence of the meson-nucleon couplings we adopt the functionals used in Refs.TW.99 ; HKL.01 ; NVFR.02 . The coupling of the $`\sigma `$-meson and $`\omega `$-meson to the nucleon field reads

$$g_i(\rho )=g_i(\rho _{\mathrm{sat}})f_i(x)\mathrm{for}i=\sigma ,\omega ,$$
(2)
where

$$f_i(x)=a_i\frac{1+b_i(x+d_i)^2}{1+c_i(x+d_i)^2}$$
(3)
is a function of $`x=\rho /\rho _{\mathrm{sat}}`$, and $`\rho _{\mathrm{sat}}`$ denotes the baryon density at saturation in symmetric nuclear matter. The eight real parameters in (3) are not independent. The five constraints $`f_i(1)=1`$, $`f_\sigma ^{\prime \prime }(1)=f_\omega ^{\prime \prime }(1)`$, and $`f_i^{\prime \prime }(0)=0`$, reduce the number of independent parameters to three. Three additional parameters in the isoscalar channel are: $`g_\sigma (\rho _{\mathrm{sat}})`$, $`g_\omega (\rho _{\mathrm{sat}})`$, and $`m_\sigma `$ \- the mass of the phenomenological sigma-meson. For the $`\rho `$-meson coupling the functional form of the density dependence is suggested by Dirac-Brueckner calculations of asymmetric nuclear matter JL.98

$$g_\rho (\rho )=g_\rho (\rho _{\mathrm{sat}})\mathrm{exp}\left[a_\rho (x1)\right].$$
(4)
The isovector channel is parameterized by $`g_\rho (\rho _{\mathrm{sat}})`$ and $`a_\rho `$. Usually the free values are used for the masses of the $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ mesons: $`m_\omega =783`$ MeV and $`m_\rho =763`$ MeV. In principle one could also consider the density dependence of the meson masses. However, since the effective meson-nucleon coupling in nuclear matter is determined by the ratio $`g/m`$, the choice of a phenomenological density dependence of the couplings makes an explicit density dependence of the masses redundant.

Obviously, the framework of density-dependent interactions is more general than the standard RMF models, and it encloses models with non-linear meson self-interactions in the isoscalar-scalar, isoscalar-vector, and isovector-vector channels. The eight independent parameters, seven coupling parameters and the mass of the $`\sigma `$-meson, are adjusted to reproduce the properties of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter, binding energies and charge radii of spherical nuclei. For the open-shell nuclei pairing correlations are treated in the BCS approximation with empirical pairing gaps (five-point formula).

In order to investigate possible correlations between the nuclear matter symmetry energy and the compression modulus, we have constructed three families of interactions, with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 230, 250, and 270 MeV, respectively. For each value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ we have adjusted five interactions with $`a_4=`$ 30, 32, 34, 36 and 38 MeV, respectively. These interactions have been fitted to properties of nuclear matter (the binding energy $`E/A=16`$ MeV (5%), the saturation density $`\rho _{\mathrm{sat}}=0.153`$ fm-3 (5%), the compression modulus $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ (0.1%), and the volume asymmetry $`a_4`$ (0.1%)), and to the binding energies (0.1%) and charge radii (0.2%) of ten spherical nuclei: 16O, 40Ca, 90Zr, 112,116,124,132Sn, and 204,208,214Pb, as well as to the differences between neutron and proton radii (10%) for the nuclei 116Sn, 124Sn and 208Pb. The values in parentheses correspond to the error bars used in the fitting procedure. Note that, in order to fix an interaction with particular values of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ and $`a_4`$, a very small error bar of only 0.1% is used for these two quantities. For each family of interactions with a given $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ and for each $`a_4`$, in Fig. 1 we plot the differences, expressed as a percentage, between the calculated and experimental binding energies AW.95 . The corresponding deviations of charge radii are shown in Fig. 2. The results are rather good. Most deviations of the binding energies are $``$ 0.2%, and the differences between the calculated and experimental charge radii CHARGE  are $``$ 0.3%, except for 40Ca. It should be emphasized that, by using the standard RMF models with only isoscalar-scalar meson self-interactions, it is simply not possible to construct a set of interactions with this span of values of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ and $`a_4`$ and the same quality of deviations of masses and charge radii from experimental values.

For the three sets of interactions with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 230, 250, and 270 MeV, in Fig. 3 we display the corresponding nuclear matter symmetry energy curves for each choice of the volume asymmetry $`a_4`$. The symmetry energy can be parameterized

$$S_2(\rho )=a_4+\frac{p_0}{\rho _{\mathrm{sat}}^2}(\rho \rho _{\mathrm{sat}})+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }K_0}{18\rho _{\mathrm{sat}}^2}(\rho \rho _{\mathrm{sat}})^2+\mathrm{}$$
(5)
The parameter $`p_0`$ defines the linear density dependence of the symmetry energy, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_0`$ is the correction to the incompressibility.

In finite nuclei, among other quantities, the symmetry energy directly determines the differences between the neutron and the proton radii. In a recent study of neutron radii in non-relativistic and covariant mean-field models Fur.01 , the linear correlation between the neutron skin and the symmetry energy has been analyzed. In particular, the analysis has shown that there is a very strong linear correlation between the neutron skin thickness in 208Pb and the individual parameters that determine the symmetry energy $`S_2(\rho )`$: $`a_4`$, $`p_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_0`$. The empirical value of $`r_nr_p`$ in 208Pb ($`0.20\pm 0.04`$ fm from proton scattering data SH.94 , and $`0.19\pm 0.09`$ fm from the alpha scattering excitation of the isovector giant dipole resonance Kra.94 ) places the following constraints on the values of the parameters of the symmetry energy: $`a_43034`$ MeV, 2 Mev/fm$`{}_{}{}^{3}p_0`$ 4 Mev/fm3, and $`200`$ MeV $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_050`$ MeV.

For the three sets of interactions with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 230, 250, and 270 MeV, in the two lower panels of Fig. 4 we plot the coefficients $`p_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_0`$ as functions of the volume asymmetry $`a_4`$. As we have shown in Ref. NVR.02 , in order to reproduce the bulk properties of spherical nuclei, larger values of $`a_4`$ necessitate an increase of $`p_0`$. It is important to note that only in the interval 32 MeV $`a_4`$ 36 MeV, both $`p_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_0`$ are found within the bounds determined by the value of $`r_nr_p`$ in 208Pb. The increase of $`p_0`$ with $`a_4`$ implies a transition from a parabolic to an almost linear density dependence of $`S_2`$ in the density region $`\rho 0.2`$ fm-3 (see Fig. 3). This means, in particular, that the increase of the asymmetry energy at saturation point will produce an effective decrease of $`S_2`$ below $`\rho 0.1`$ fm-3. In Refs. Rei.99 ; NVR.02  it has been shown that, as a result of the increase of $`p_0`$ with $`a_4`$, the excitation energy of the isovector GDR decreases with increasing $`S_2(\rho _{\mathrm{sat}})a_4`$, because this increase implies a decrease of $`S_2`$ at low densities characteristic for surface modes. This effect is illustrated in the upper panel of Fig. 4, where we plot the calculated excitation energies of the isovector GDR in 208Pb as functions of $`a_4`$, for each set of interactions with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 230, 250, and 270 MeV. The calculated centroids of the Lorentzian folded strength distributions are shown in comparison with the experimental value of $`13.3\pm 0.1`$ Rit.93 . The RRPA excitation energies of the isovector GDR decrease linearly with $`a_4`$, and the experimental value favors, for all three families of interactions, the interval 34 MeV $`a_4`$ 36 MeV for the volume asymmetry.

The results of fully consistent RRPA calculations of the isoscalar monopole response in 208Pb are shown in the upper panel of Fig. 5, where we plot the excitation energies of the GMR for the three families of interactions with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 230, 250, and 270 MeV, respectively, as functions of the volume asymmetry $`a_4`$. The shaded area denotes the experimental value: $`E=14.17\pm 0.28`$ MeV YCL.99 . For each interaction, in the lower panel we plot the corresponding result for the difference of the neutron and proton radius in 208Pb, in comparison with, at present, the best experimental value: $`0.20\pm 0.04`$ fm from proton scattering data SH.94 . The calculated radii practically do not depend on the compressibility but, of course, display a strong linear dependence on the volume asymmetry $`a_4`$. The comparison with the experimental estimate limits the possible values of the symmetry energy at saturation to 32 MeV $`a_4`$ 36. This interval for $`a_4`$ is somewhat wider than the range deduced from the isovector GDR but, nevertheless, both quantities exclude values $`a_4`$ 30 MeV and $`a_4`$ 38 MeV. Coming back to the GMR (upper panel of Fig. 5), we notice that only the set of interactions with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 270 MeV reproduces the experimental excitation energy of the GMR for all values of the volume asymmetry $`a_4`$. With $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 250 MeV, only for the two lowest values of $`a_4`$ the RRPA results for the GMR excitation energy are found within the bounds of the experimental value. $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 250 MeV is obviously the lower limit, if not even too low, for the nuclear matter compression modulus of the relativistic mean-field effective interactions. This result is completely in accordance with our previous results obtained with relativistic effective forces with non-linear meson self-interactions Vre.97 ; MGW.01 , and with density-dependent interactions NVR.02 . The calculation absolutely excludes the set of interactions with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 230 MeV, for any value of $`a_4`$. The calculated energies are simply too low compared with the experimental value.

Finally, in Fig. 6 we plot, for all three families of interactions, the calculated differences between neutron and proton radii of Sn isotopes, as functions of the mass number, in comparison with available experimental data Kra.99 . Similar to the result obtained for 208Pb, the calculated values practically do not depend on the nuclear matter compressibility. While all the interactions reproduce the isotopic trend of the experimental data, and we also notice that the error bars are rather large, nevertheless the comparison excludes values $`a_4`$ 30 MeV and $`a_4`$ 38 MeV.

## IV Summary and conclusions

In this work we have clarified the apparent inconsistency of the values of the nuclear matter compression modulus deduced from relativistic RPA calculations of the giant monopole resonance (GMR) in 208Pb. By using standard RMF effective Lagrangians with non-linear isoscalar scalar meson self-interactions, in a number of studies (time-dependent RMF, relativistic RPA) we have shown that the experimental data on GMR in heavy nuclei, as well as the empirical excitation energy curve $`E_x80A^{1/3}`$ MeV, are best reproduced by an effective force with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}250270`$ MeV Vre.97 ; Vre.99 ; VWR.00 ; MGW.01 . The best results have been obtained with the well known effective interaction NL3 LKR.97  ($`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=272`$ MeV). On the other hand, by using the same type of effective Lagrangians in the fully consistent relativistic RPA calculations of the isoscalar monopole response, Piekarewicz has concluded that RMF models with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ well above $`200`$ MeV will be in conflict with experiment Pie.62 ; Pie.64 , and that the discrepancy between the nuclear matter compressibility determined from non-relativistic and relativistic mean-field plus RPA calculations of GMR excitation energies can be attributed in part to the differences in the nuclear matter symmetry energy predicted by non-relativistic and relativistic models Pie.66 .

It is well known, however, that the standard RMF Lagrangians, with meson self-interactions only in the isoscalar channel, are characterized by large values of the symmetry energy at saturation (volume asymmetry) $`a_4`$. In fact, if the effective interaction in the isovector channel is parameterized by the single $`\rho `$-meson nucleon coupling constant, it is not possible to simultaneously reduce the value of $`a_4`$ below $`3637`$ MeV, and still reproduce the experimental binding energies of $`NZ`$ nuclei. In this framework it is simply not possible to construct effective interactions with the volume asymmetry in the range of empirical values $`a_4=30\pm 4`$ MeV.

In the present analysis we have used effective interactions with density-dependent meson-nucleon couplings. RMF models based on an effective hadron field theory with medium dependent meson-nucleon vertices FLW.95 , provide a much better description of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter, and of ground-state properties of $`NZ`$ nuclei TW.99 ; HKL.01 ; NVFR.02 . In order to investigate possible correlations between the volume asymmetry and the nuclear matter compression modulus, we have constructed three sets of effective interactions with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 230, 250, and 270 MeV, and for each value of $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}`$ we have adjusted five interactions with $`a_4=`$ 30, 32, 34, 36 and 38 MeV, respectively. The interactions have been fitted to reproduce the nuclear matter saturation properties, as well as the ground states of ten spherical nuclei.

By employing the fully consistent RMF plus RRPA framework with density-dependent effective interactions, we have computed the isoscalar monopole and the isovector dipole response of 208Pb, as well as the differences between the neutron and proton radii for 208Pb and several Sn isotopes. The comparison of the calculated excitation energies with the experimental data on the GMR and isovector GDR in 208Pb has shown that: (i) only for $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 270 MeV the RRPA calculation reproduces the experimental excitation energy of the GMR for all values of the volume asymmetry $`a_4`$, (ii) $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=`$ 250 MeV represents the lower limit for the nuclear matter compression modulus of the relativistic mean-field effective interactions, (iii) the isovector GDR constrains the volume asymmetry to the interval 34 MeV $`a_4`$ 36 MeV. In comparison with the available experimental data, the calculated differences between neutron and proton radii indicate that the volume asymmetry should be in the range 32 MeV $`a_4`$ 36 MeV, and reinforce our conclusion that $`a_4`$ cannot be lowered to a range of values for which relativistic models with $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}230`$ MeV would reproduce the excitation energy of the GMR in 208Pb. The disagreement between the nuclear matter compression moduli predicted by non-relativistic and relativistic mean-field plus RPA calculations, cannot be explained by the differences in the volume asymmetry of the non-relativistic and relativistic mean-field models.

The present analysis has confirmed our earlier results that the nuclear matter compression modulus of structure models based on the relativistic mean-field approximation should be restricted to the interval $`K_{\mathrm{nm}}250270`$ MeV, or even slightly higher.

In addition, we have also shown that, for the relativistic mean-field models, the isovector GDR and the available data on differences between neutron and proton radii limit the range of the nuclear matter symmetry energy at saturation to 32 MeV $`a_4`$ 36 MeV. It appears that the GDR favors the high end of this interval, but we stress the fact that in the present analysis we have not taken into account the influence of the effective mass on the calculated excitation energy of the GDR. This is, however, an effect which really goes beyond the mean-field approximation. Rather, more accurate data on neutron radii in heavy nuclei would provide very useful information of the isovector channel of the effective RMF interactions. On the other hand, as it has been shown in Ref. BBD.95a , there is no correlation between the effective mass and the excitation energy of the GMR. The choice of the effective mass, therefore, cannot influence the nuclear matter compressibility extracted from the GMR.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work has been supported in part by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung under the project 06 TM 979 and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.