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# 1 Table of charges for the ancillary 𝑈(1)ₐ symmetry. It is defined to be a symmetry that can be made anomaly free without the need of adding any additional states charged under the SM. It can be parametrized by two rational constants []. Hypercharge, 𝐵-𝐿, and the 𝑈(1)_𝐽 symmetry of Ref. [] are all special cases of 𝑈(1)ₐ generated by the appropriate two parameter choice (𝑞,𝑟).

## Acknowledgements

BM is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract W-31-109-Eng-38. JDW is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.


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# 1 The allowed regions by the SNe Ia data (with 57 points) are shown in the Ωₘ₀-ℳ plane for Ωᵩ=0 cosmology (ℳ is usually termed as the ‘Hubble constant-free absolute luminosity’). The ellipses, in the order of increasing size, correspond to respectively 68%, 95% and 99% confidence levels.

Is the present expansion of the universe really accelerating?

*R G Vishwakarma*

Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA),

Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007, India

Email: vishwa@iucaa.ernet.in

## Abstract

The current observations are usually explained by an accelerating expansion of the present universe. However, with the present quality of the supernovae Ia data, the allowed parameter space is wide enough to accommodate the decelerating models as well. This is shown by considering a particular example of the dark energy equation-of-state $`w_\varphi p_\varphi /\rho _\varphi =1/3`$, which is equivalent to modifying the *geometrical curvature* index $`k`$ of the standard cosmology by shifting it to $`(k\alpha )`$ where $`\alpha `$ is a constant. The resulting decelerating model is consistent with the recent CMB observations made by WMAP, as well as, with the high redshift supernovae Ia data including SN 1997ff at $`z=1.755`$. It is also consistent with the newly discovered supernovae SN 2002dc at $`z=0.475`$ and SN 2002dd at $`z=0.95`$ which have a general tendency to improve the fit.

Key words: cosmology: theory, dark energy, CMB observations, SNe Ia observations.

1 INTRODUCTION

It is generally believed that the expansion of the present universe is accelerating, fuelled by some hypothetical source with negative pressure collectively known as *’dark energy’*. This belief is mainly motivated by the high redshift supernovae (SNe) Ia observations, which cannot be explained by the decelerating Einstein deSitter model which used to be the favoured model before these observations were made a few years ago. (It may, however, be noted that if one takes into account the absorption of light by the inter-galactic metallic dust which extinguishes radiation travelling over long distances, then the observed faintness of the extra-galactic SNe Ia can be explained successfully in the framework of the Einstein deSitter model. This issue will be discussed in a later section. In the rest of the discussion, we shall not include this effect.)

Although the best-fitting standard model to the SNe Ia data predicts an accelerating expansion, however, it should be noted that the low density open models, which predict a decelerating expansion, also fit the SNe Ia observations reasonably well. Unfortunately, these models are ruled out by the recent measurements of the angular power fluctuations of CMB including the first year observations made by WMAP.

In this paper we show, by considering a particular example, that both these observations (and many others too) can still be explained by a decelerating model of the universe in the mainstream cosmology.

The observed SNe Ia explosions look fainter than their luminosity in the Einstein-deSitter model. This observed faintness is explained by invoking a positive cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ following the fact that the luminosity distance of an object can be increased by incorporating a *‘matter’* with negative pressure in Einstein’s equations. However, a constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, is plagued with the so called the cosmological constant problem: Why don’t we see the large vacuum energy density $`\rho _\mathrm{v}\mathrm{\Lambda }/8\pi G=\rho _{\mathrm{Pl}}10^{76}`$ GeV4, expected from particle physics which is $``$$`10^{123}`$ times larger than the value required by the SNe observations? Or, why are the radiation energy density and the energy density in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }/8\pi G`$) set to an accuracy of better than one part in $`10^{123}`$ at the Planck time in order to ensure that the densities in matter and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ become comparable at precisely the present epoch? (Padmanabhan 2002; Peebles & Ratra 2003; Sahni & Starobinsky 2000). A phenomenological solution to understand the smallness of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is supplied by a dynamically decaying $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. A popular candidate is an evolving large-scale scalar field $`\varphi `$, commonly known as quintessence, which does not interact with matter ($`T_{\varphi ;j}^{ij}=0`$) and can produce negative pressure for a potential energy-dominated field (Peebles & Ratra 2003). This is equivalent to generalizing the equation of state of vacuum to

$$p_\varphi =w_\varphi \rho _\varphi .$$
(1)
Moreover, it is always possible to add a term like $`T_\varphi ^{ij}`$ on the right hand side of Einstein’s field equations independent of the geometry of the universe. The equation-of-state parameter $`w_\varphi `$ is, in general, some function of time and leads to a constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ for $`w_\varphi =1`$.

It would be worthwhile to mention here that there is another approach to understand the smallness of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ by invoking some phenomenological models of kinematical $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ which result either from some symmetry principle (Vishwakarma 2001a, 2001b), or from dimensional analysis (Vishwakarma 2000, 2002a; Carvalho, Lima & Waga 1992; Chen & Wu 1990) or just by assuming $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ as a function of the cosmic time $`t`$ or the scale factor $`S(t)`$ of the R-W metric (for a list of this type of models, see Overduin & Cooperstock 1998). Although the quintessence fields also behave like a dynamical $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{effective}}8\pi G\rho _\varphi `$), they are in general fundamentally different from the kinematical $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ models. In the former case, quintessence and matter fields are assumed to be conserved separately, whereas in the latter case, the conserved quantity is $`[T_{\mathrm{matter}}^{ij}+\{\mathrm{\Lambda }(t)/8\pi G\}g^{ij}]`$, which follows from the vanishing divergence of the Einstein tensor. This characteristic of the kinematical $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ models makes them consistent with Mach’s principle (Vishwakarma 2002b). However, in the following, we shall keep ourselves limited to the former case with a constant $`w_\varphi `$.

2 FIELD EQUATIONS AND DISTANCE MEASURES

In order to study the constraints on the parameters coming from the different observations, we shall describe the model briefly in the following. For the R-W metric, the Einstein field equations, taken together with conservation of the energy, yield

$$H^2(z)=H_0^2\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}(1+z)^4+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}(1+z)^{3(1+w_\varphi )}\mathrm{\Omega }_{k0}(1+z)^2\right],$$
(2)
$$q(z)=\frac{H_0^2}{H^2(z)}\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}}{2}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}(1+z)^4+\frac{(1+3w_\varphi )}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}(1+z)^{3(1+w_\varphi )}\right],$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ are, as usual, the different energy density components in units of the critical density $`\rho _\mathrm{c}3H^2/8\pi G`$:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}\frac{8\pi G}{3H^2}\rho _\mathrm{m},\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{r}\frac{8\pi G}{3H^2}\rho _\mathrm{r},\mathrm{\Omega }_\varphi \frac{8\pi G}{3H^2}\rho _\varphi ,\mathrm{\Omega }_k\frac{k}{S^2H^2}$$
(4)
and the subscript 0 denotes the value of the quantity at the present epoch. Equation (2) at $`z=0`$ implies that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=1+\mathrm{\Omega }_{k0}`$, by the use of which Equation (2) reduces to

$`H^2(z)`$ $`=`$ $`H_0^2[\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}(1+z)^4+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}(1+z)^{3(1+w_\varphi )}`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`(1\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0})(1+z)^2].`$
In a homogeneous and isotropic universe, the different distance measures of a light source of redshift $`z`$ located at a radial coordinate distance $`r_1`$ are given by the following.

The luminosity distance $`d_\mathrm{L}`$:

$$d_\mathrm{L}=(1+z)S_0r_1,$$
(6)
The angular diameter distance $`d_\mathrm{A}`$:

$$d_\mathrm{A}=\frac{S_0r_1}{(1+z)},$$
(7)
where $`r_1`$ is given by

$$r_1=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{1}{S_0}_0^z\frac{\mathrm{d}z^{}}{H(z^{})}\right),& \text{when}& k=1\hfill \\ \frac{1}{S_0}_0^z\frac{\mathrm{d}z^{}}{H(z^{})},& \text{when}& k=0\hfill \\ \mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{1}{S_0}_0^z\frac{\mathrm{d}z^{}}{H(z^{})}\right),& \text{when}& k=1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
The present value of the scale factor $`S_0`$, appearing in equations (6 \- 8) which measures the curvature of spacetime, can be calculated from equation (4) as

$$S_0=H_0^1\sqrt{\frac{k}{(\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}1)}}.$$
(9)
3 DEGENERACIES IN FRIEDMANN MODELS COMING FROM SNe Ia OBSERVATIONS

Let us start with the SNe Ia observations which directly measure the apparent magnitude $`m`$ and the redshift $`z`$ of the supernovae. The theoretically predicted (apparent) magnitude $`m(z)`$ of a light source at a given redshift $`z`$ is given in terms of its absolute luminosity $`M`$ and the luminosity distance $`d_\mathrm{L}`$ through the relation

$$m(z)=\mathrm{log}_{10}[𝒟_\mathrm{L}(z)]+,$$
(10)
where $`𝒟_\mathrm{L}H_0d_\mathrm{L}`$ is the dimensionless luminosity distance and $`M5\mathrm{log}_{10}H_0+`$ *constant* (the value of the *constant* depends on the chosen units in which $`d_\mathrm{L}`$ and $`H_0`$ are measured. For example, if $`d_\mathrm{L}`$ is measured in Mpc and $`H_0`$ in km s-1 Mpc-1, then this *constant* comes out as $``$25).

We consider the data on the redshift and magnitude of a sample of 54 SNe Ia as considered by Perlmutter et al (excluding 6 outliers from the full sample of 60 SNe) (Perlmutter et al 1999), together with SN 1997ff at $`z=1.755`$ ($`m^{\mathrm{eff}}=26.02\pm 0.34`$), the highest redshift supernova observed so far (Riess et al 2001; Narciso et al 2002). In addition to this old sample of 55 SNe, we also consider the two newly discovered supernovae SN 2002dc at $`z=0.475`$ ($`m^{\mathrm{eff}}=22.73\pm 0.23`$) and SN 2002dd at $`z=0.95`$ ($`m^{\mathrm{eff}}=24.68\pm 0.2`$), which have been discovered with the help of the recently installed *Advanced Camera for Surveys* on the *Hubble Space Telescope* (HST) (Blakeslee et al. 2003). In the following, we shall also keep an eye on how the addition of these SNe to the older sample affects the fit.

The $`\chi ^2`$ value is calculated from its usual definition

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{m_i^{\mathrm{eff}}m(z_i)}{\delta m_i^{\mathrm{eff}}}\right]^2,$$
(11)
where $`N`$ is the number of data points (SNe) considered, $`m_i^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ refers to the effective magnitude of the $`i`$th SN which has been corrected for the SN lightcurve width-luminosity relation, galactic extinction and K-correction. The dispersion $`\delta m_i^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is the uncertainty in $`m_i^{\mathrm{eff}}`$.

If one minimizes $`\chi ^2`$ in the standard cosmology ($`w_\varphi =1`$) by varying the free parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}`$ and $``$ (the contribution from the term containing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}`$ is negligible for this dataset and can be safely neglected), one finds that the best-fitting solution, from the older sample of 55 SNe, is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.67`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}=1.24`$ and $`=23.92`$ with $`\chi ^2=56.93`$ at 52 degrees of freedom (dof) ($`=`$ number of data points $`N`$ number of fitted parameters), i.e., $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=56.93/52=1.09`$, a good fit indeed. Addition of the new SNe to the older sample gives a similar best-fitting model: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.64`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}=1.20`$ and $`=23.92`$ with $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=57.78/54=1.07`$, showing a slight improvement in the fit.

A *‘rule of thumb’* for a *moderately* good fit is that $`\chi ^2`$ should be roughly equal to the number of dof. A more quantitative measure for the *goodness-of-fit* is given by the $`\chi ^2`$-*probability* which is very often met with in the literature and its compliment is usually known as the *significance level* (should not be confused with the confidence regions). If the fitted model provides a typical value of $`\chi ^2`$ as $`x`$ at $`n`$ dof, this probability is given by

$$Q(x,n)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(n/2)}_{x/2}^{\mathrm{}}e^uu^{n/21}du.$$
(12)
Roughly speaking, it measures the probability that *the model does describe the data and any discrepancies are mere fluctuations which could have arisen by chance*. To be more precise, $`Q(x,n)`$ gives the probability that a model which does fit the data at $`n`$ dof, would give a value of $`\chi ^2`$ as large or larger than $`x`$. If $`Q`$ is very small, the apparent discrepancies are unlikely to be chance fluctuations and the model is ruled out.

The probability $`Q`$ for the best-fitting standard model comes out as 29.7% (without including the new points) and 33.7% (with the new points), which represent good fits. These models represent accelerating expansion of the present universe according to equation (3), which suggests that $`q_0<0`$ if $`w_\varphi <1/3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}>\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}/(3w_\varphi 1)`$. Thus the best-fitting flat model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$) is also an accelerating one, which is obtained as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=1\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}=0.31`$ with $`\chi ^2`$/dof = 58.97/53 = 1.11 and $`Q=26.6`$%, from the older sample of 55 SNe. Addition of the new points improves the fit marginally by giving $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.32`$ with $`\chi ^2`$/dof = 59.67/55 = 1.08 and $`Q=31`$%, as the new best-fitting solution.

Let us now examine the status of the decelerating models, particularly, the models with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\varphi =0`$. An important model in this category is the canonical Einstein-deSitter model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}=0`$), which has a poor fit: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=93.01/54=1.72`$ with $`Q=0.08`$%, from the older sample of 55 points. Even the addition of the new points does not improve the fit significantly, giving $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=94.61/56=1.69`$ with $`Q=0.1`$% and the model is ruled out. However, the open models with low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ have reasonable fits. For example, the following decelerating models with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ (even without including the new points) provide:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.2`$: $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=66.74/54=1.24`$, $`Q=11.4`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.3`$: $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=68.78/54=1.27`$, $`Q=8.5`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.4`$: $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=71.31/54=1.32`$, $`Q=5.7`$%, etc.,

which have reasonable fits and by no means are rejectable. Addition of the new points improves the fits marginally, giving:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.2`$: $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=67.04/56=1.2`$, $`Q=14.8`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.3`$: $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=69.09/56=1.23`$, $`Q=11.2`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.4`$: $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=71.69/56=1.28`$, $`Q=7.7`$%, etc.

Open decelerating models with non-zero $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ ($`0<\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}<\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}/2`$) have even better fit. The best-fitting model with a vanishing $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is obtained as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0`$ with $`\chi ^2=64.6`$ at 54 dof ($`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=1.2`$) and $`Q=15.3`$%, from the older sample of 55 points. Addition of the new points to this sample improves the fit by giving $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`=65.15/56=1.16`$, $`Q=18.8`$%.

Figure 1 shows the allowed regions by the full data in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ plane at different confidence levels for a vanishing $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ cosmology. Thus the low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ open models with a vanishing $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are fully consistent with the current SNe Ia observations. This result is also consistent with the findings of Gott et al (2001) from their median statistics analysis that the open models with low density and vanishing $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are not inconsistent with the SNe Ia data. Additionally, a low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ is also consistent with the recent 2DF and Sloan surveys which give $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.23\pm 0.09`$ (Hawkins et al. 2002) and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}0.14_{0.06}^{+0.11}`$ (at $`2\sigma `$) (Dodelson et al. 2001). However, these models do not seem consistent with the first-year observations of the temperature angular power spectrum of the CMB, measured accurately by NASA’s explorer mission “Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe” (WMAP) (Bennett et al., 2003), or even with the earlier CMB observations (de Bernardis et al. 2000, 2002; Lee et al. 2001; Halverson et al. 2002; Siever et al. 2002). These observations, when fitted to the standard cosmology, appear to indicate that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}1`$.

4 THE PROPOSED MODEL

4.1 Motivation

We shall now consider a particular model of dark energy specified by the equation of state $`w_\varphi =1/3`$, which, as we shall show in the following, explains both the observations - SNe Ia, as well as, CMB - very well. The equation of state $`w_\varphi =1/3`$, for which $`\rho _\varphi `$ varies as $`1/S^2`$ (say, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\varphi =\alpha /S^2H^2`$), is interesting in its own right. For this case, the Hubble and the deceleration parameters reduce respectively to

$$H^2(z)=H_0^2\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}(1+z)^4+(1\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}})(1+z)^2\right],$$
(13)
$$q(z)=\frac{H_0^2}{H^2(z)}\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}}{2}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}(1+z)^4\right],$$
(14)
which describe a decelerating expansion. Interestingly in this case, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{matter}}`$ ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{r}`$) alone is sufficient to describe $`H(z)`$ completely, which gives the expansion dynamics of the universe. The additional knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$ decides the curvature through $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{k0}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}1`$. Expressions (13) and (14) are the same as the ones in the standard cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$, with only one exception: in the standard cosmology, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}=1+\mathrm{\Omega }_{k0}`$, whereas in the present model, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=1+\mathrm{\Omega }_{k0}`$. As mentioned earlier, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$ contributes to the curvature through $`S_0=H_0^1\sqrt{k/(\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}1)}`$ and hence to the different distance measures for $`k=\pm 1`$ cases (for $`k=0`$, distances do not depend on $`S_0`$). Although $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$ does not contribute to the expansion dynamics of the model (and neither to the distances for $`k=0`$ case), it helps $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ to assume even those values which are not allowed in the standard cosmology, and hence gives more leverage to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$. It is in fact this property of the model which is instrumental in explaining the CMB observations even for low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$, as we shall see in the following.

It may be noted that although the topological defects, like cosmic strings and textures, also have an equation of state $`\rho +3p=0`$ (i.e., their density falls off as $`1/S^2`$), however, the converse of this is not true and a dark energy with $`w_\varphi =1/3`$ need not necessarily be represented by cosmic strings. Moreover, this ‘pseudo-source’ term does not explicitly contribute to the expansion dynamics (and hence to the deceleration or to the expansion age) of the model but essentially to the curvature, as we have mentioned earlier. One can obtain the same cosmology by removing this term and simultaneously modifying the curvature index $`k`$ by ($`k\alpha `$) (Vishwakarma & Singh 2002). It would, therefore, be more appropriate to consider it as a shift in the *geometrical curvature* of the standard cosmology and not as a source term. This term also appears in the context of brane cosmology by adding a surface term of brane curvature scalar in the action (Vishwakarma & Singh 2003; Singh, Vishwakarma & Dadhich 2002).

4.2 CMB Observations

The temperature fluctuations $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ in the angular power spectra of the CMB correspond to oscillations in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ \- $`\mathrm{}`$ (Legendre multipole) space. The peaks of these oscillations can be explained in terms of the angle $`\theta _\mathrm{A}`$ subtended by the sound horizon at the last scattering epoch when CMB photons decoupled from baryons at $`z_{\mathrm{dec}}=1100`$ (Hu & Dodelson 2002). The power spectrum of CMB can be characterized by the positions of the peaks and ratios of the peak amplitudes. It has long been recognized that the locations and amplitudes of the peaks in the region $`90<\mathrm{}<900`$ (where the anisotropies are related to causal processes occurring in the photon-baryon plasma until recombination) are very sensitive to the variations in the parameters of the model and hence serve as a sensitive probe to constrain the cosmological parameters and discriminate among various models (Hu et al. 2001; Doran & Lilley 2001, 2002). In fact, for $`\mathrm{}>40`$, the ratios of the peak amplitudes are insensitive to the intrinsic amplitude of the CMB spectrum. This renders the positions of the peaks, particularly the position of the first peak, as a powerful probe of the parameters of the model. The first-year observations of WMAP have measured the position of the first peak very accurately at $`\mathrm{}=220.1\pm 0.8`$ (1 $`\sigma `$) (Page et al. 2003), which we shall use in our fit.

The angle $`\theta _\mathrm{A}`$, which is given by the ratio of sound horizon to the distance (*angular diameter distance*) of the last scattering surface, sets the acoustic scale $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{A}`$ through

$$\mathrm{}_\mathrm{A}=\frac{\pi }{\theta _\mathrm{A}}=\frac{\pi S_0r_1(z_{\mathrm{dec}})}{_{z_{\mathrm{dec}}}^{\mathrm{}}c_\mathrm{s}(z)dz/H(z)},$$
(15)
where the speed of sound $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ in the plasma is given by $`c_\mathrm{s}=1/\sqrt{3(1+R)}`$ and $`R3\rho _\mathrm{b}/4\rho _\gamma =3\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}/[4\mathrm{\Omega }_{\gamma 0}(1+z)]`$ corresponds to the ratio of baryon density to photon density. The location of $`i`$-th peak in the angular power spectrum is given by

$$\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_\mathrm{i}}=\mathrm{}_\mathrm{A}(i\delta _i),$$
(16)
where the phase shift $`\delta _i`$, caused by the plasma driving effect, is determined predominantly by the pre-recombination physics (Hu et al. 2001) and can be approximated by

$$\delta _i=a_i\left\{\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}(1+z_{\mathrm{dec}})}{0.3\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}}\right\}^{0.1},$$
(17)
where $`a_i`$ is respectively 0.267, 0.24 and 0.35 for $`\mathrm{peak}_1`$, $`\mathrm{peak}_2`$ and $`\mathrm{peak}_3`$. Let us recall that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{r0}}`$ gets contributions from photons (CMB) as well as from neutrinos, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{r}=\mathrm{\Omega }_\gamma +\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu `$. The present photon contribution to the radiation can be estimated from the CMB temperature $`T_0=2.728`$K. This gives $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\gamma 0}2.48h^2\times 10^5`$, where $`h`$ is the present value of the Hubble parameter in units of 100 km s-1 Mpc-1. The neutrino contribution follows from the assumption of 3 neutrino species, a standard thermal history and a negligible mass compared to its temperature (Hu & Dodelson 2002) leading to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu 0}1.7h^2\times 10^5`$.

Equations (15)-(17), suplimented by (8) and (9), are now fully capable to compute the locations of the peaks for given values of the free parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}`$ and $`h`$. We notice that a sufficiently big range of these parameters produce the $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_\mathrm{i}}`$ values in the observed range. For example, by fixing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}=0.05`$ and $`h=0.65`$, the following choices of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$ yield:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.6`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=222.5`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=536.7`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=808.2`$;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.65`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=225.0`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=545.1`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=820.9`$;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.2`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.72`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.0`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=540.7`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=814.3`$,

which are in reasonable agreement111 One can have even better fit by adjusting the parameters finely. For example, one can have $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.61`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=219.8`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=530.2`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=798.4`$; $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.666`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.3`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=533.6`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=803.5`$; with the same $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}`$ and $`h`$. with $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.1\pm 0.8`$ and $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=546\pm 10`$ measured by WMAP. These measurements are also consistent with other observations; for example, the BOOMERANG project (de Bernardis et al., 2002) measured the first three peaks in the ranges:

$`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}:200223`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}:509561`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}:820857`$ at 68% confidence level; and

$`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}:183223`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}:445578`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}:750879`$ at 95% confidence level, which are also in agreement with many other observations like, MAXIMA, DASI, CBI, etc., at least on the location of the first peak (Lee et al. 2001; Halverson et al. 2002; Sievers et al. 2002).

In Figure 2, we have shown the allowed region in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$ plane which produces the first peak $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.1\pm 0.8`$ (68% confidence level). The marginalization over the other parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}`$ and $`h`$ is achived by taking projection of the full 4-dimensional region on the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$ plane (Press et al 1986).

It may be noted that the WMAP results obtained by Spergel et al.(2003)- that only $`w_\varphi <0.78`$ can be accommodated within 95% confidence regions - comes from a lot of assumptions, some of which are not consistent with many observations. For example, there are several observations which also measure smaller values of $`H_0`$, apart from the higher values (see section 4.4). However, this degeneracy has not been taken into account and they consider only that HST observation which gives $`H_0=0.72\pm 3`$(stat)$`\pm 7`$(systematic) km s-1 Mpc-1 (Friedman et al. 2001) close to their best fit value. Note that there is also another HST Key Project which gives $`H_0=64_6^{+8}`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 (Saurabh et al. 1999). Sandage and his collaborators find a value even as low as $`H_0=58\pm 6`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 from an analysis of SNe Ia distances (Parodi et al. 2000). In Figure 2, we have instead considered all those possible combinations of the parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}[01]`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}[01.5]`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}[00.1]`$ and $`h[0.50.8`$, which produce $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.1\pm 0.8`$. This amounts to a range of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}h^2`$ as $`[00.06]`$ which safely contains the range $`0.01\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}h^20.04`$ which one essentially requires to explain the observed abundances of helium, deuterium and lithium (Narlikar & Padmanabhan 2001). It should also be noted that the most favoured values like $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}0.25`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}h^20.02`$ (or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}0.05`$) are compatible with a moderate $`h0.65`$ in this model, as we have shown in our examples.

4.3 SNe Ia Observations

For the SNe Ia data in the present model, $`\chi ^2`$ decreases for lower values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ and gives the minimum $`\chi ^2`$ for negative $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$. For example, for the flat model, the minimum value of $`\chi ^2`$ is obtained as $`62.93`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.31`$ at 53 dof (from the older sample of 55 SNe) and $`63.47`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.30`$ at 55 dof (with the addition of the new points), which are though not physical. A ‘physically viable’ best-fitting solution, in this case, can be regarded as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0`$, which gives $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=64.56/53=1.22`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.14`$ and $`=24.03`$ with $`Q=13.3`$%, from the older sample, which represents a reasonably good fit, though not as good as the best fit in the standard cosmology with a constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Moreover, the addition of the new points to this sample improves the fit, giving $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=65.02/55=1.18`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.23`$ and $`=24.04`$ with $`Q=16.7`$%, as the new best-fitting solution.

The allowed region by the data is sufficiently large, as shown in Figure 2, and low density models, which are also consistent with the WMAP observation, are easily accommodated within the 95% confidence region (Note that the plotted allowed region by WMAP is only at 1$`\sigma `$ level. At higher levels, the region will be wider). For example, the following models represent reasonable fit.

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.6`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=71.93/54=1.33`$ with $`Q=5.2`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25=1\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=71.36/54=1.32`$ with $`Q=5.7`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.65`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=70.76/54=1.31`$ with $`Q=`$6.3%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.2`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.7`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=69.63/54=1.29`$ with $`Q=7.5`$%, etc., which are obtained from the older sample of 55 SNe. Addition of the new points improves the fits, giving:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.6`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=72.44/56=1.29`$ with $`Q=6.9`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25=1\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=71.87/56=1.28`$ with $`Q=7.5`$%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.65`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=71.22/56=1.27`$ with $`Q=`$8.3%;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.2`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.7`$: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=70.06/56=1.25`$ with $`Q=9.8`$%, etc.

One can go up to even as high as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}0.4`$ at 99% confidence level.

4.4 Age of the Universe

The parameters $`H_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ set the age of the universe in this model. Remember that there is still quite large uncertainty in the present value of $`H_0`$. Sandage and his collaborators find $`H_0=58\pm 6`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 from an analysis of SNe Ia distances (Parodi et al. 2000). This is also consistent with the value obtained from an analysis of clusters using Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect which gives $`H_0=60\pm 10`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 (Birkinshaw 1999). An HST Key Project supplies $`H_0=64_6^{+8}`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 (Saurabh et al. 1999). Some experiments also measure higher $`H_0`$, for example, another HST Key Project, which uses Cepheids to calibrate several different secondary distance indicators, finds $`H_0=72\pm 3`$(stat)$`\pm 7`$(systematic) km s-1 Mpc-1 (Friedman et al. 2001). Also by using the fluctuations in the surface brightness of galaxies as distance measure, it has been found that $`H_0=74\pm 4`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 (Blakeslee et al. 1999). Thus it appears that $`H_0`$ lies somewhere in the range (50 $``$ 78) km s-1 Mpc-1. An average value of $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 from this range, constrains $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ of the model by $`0<\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}0.34`$ to give the age of the universe $`t_012`$ Gyr, so that the age of the oldest objects detected so far, e.g., the globular clusters of age $`t_{\mathrm{GC}}=12.5\pm 1.2`$ Gyr (Cayrel et al. 2001; Gnedin et al. 2001), can be explained. The presently favoured value $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$$`0.25`$ easily accommodates in this range. It is interesting to note that the average value of $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 we have preferred, is in good agreement with $`H_0=67\pm 2`$(stat)$`\pm 5`$(systematic) km s-1 Mpc-1 obtained recently by Gott et al (2001) from an analysis based on the median statistics.

5 EXTINCTION BY METALLIC DUST

In this section, we shall discuss the absorption of light by metallic dust ejected from the SNe explosions $``$ an issue which is generally avoided while discussing $`m`$-$`z`$ relation for SNe Ia. Although a number of observers believe this to be not a significant effect (see, for example, Riess et al (2001)), however, taking this effect into consideration does improve the fit to the data, as we shall see in the following.

It is well known that the metallic vapours are ejected from the SNe explosions which are subsequently pushed out of the galaxy through pressure of shock waves (Hoyle & Wickramasinghe, 1988; Narlikar et al, 1997). Experiments show that metallic vapours on cooling, condense into elongated whiskers of $``$$`0.51`$ mm length and $``$$`10^6`$ cm cross-sectional radius (Hoyle et al, 2000). Indeed this type of dust extinguishes radiation travelling over long distances (Aguire, 1999; Vishwakarma, 2002a). The density of the dust can be estimated along the lines of Hoyle et al (2000). If the metallic whisker production is taken as 0.1 $`M_{}`$ per SN and if the SN production rate is taken as 1 per 30 years per galaxy, the total production per galaxy (of spatial density $``$ 1 per $`10^{75}`$ cm3) in $`10^{10}`$ years is $`2/3\times 10^{41}`$ g. The expected whisker density, hence, becomes $`2/3\times 10^{41}\times 10^{75}10^{34}`$ g cm-3. We shall later see that this value is in striking agreement with the best-fitting value coming from the SNe Ia data.

In an isotropic and homogeneous universe, the contribution to the effective magnitude arising from the absorption of light by the intervening whisker-like dust, is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m(z)=_0^{l(z)}\kappa \rho _gdl=\kappa \rho _{g0}_0^z(1+z^{})^2\frac{\mathrm{d}z^{}}{H(z^{})},$$
(18)
where $`\kappa `$ is the mass absorption coefficient, which is effectively constant over a wide range of wavelengths and is of the order $`10^5`$ cm2 g-1 (Wickramasinghe & Wallis, 1996), $`\rho _gS^3`$ is the whisker grain density and $`l(z)`$ is the proper distance traversed by light through the inter-galactic medium emitted at the epoch of redshift $`z`$. The net magnitude is then given by

$$m^{\mathrm{net}}(z)=m(z)+\mathrm{\Delta }m(z),$$
(19)
where the first term on the r.h.s. corresponds to the usual magnitude from the cosmological evolution given by equation (10).

We note that taking account of this effect improves the fit to the SNe Ia data considerably. For example, the model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.65`$ now gives $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=65.25/53=1.23`$ for $`=24.03`$ and $`\rho _{g0}=2.02\times 10^{34}`$ g cm-3 with $`Q=12.1`$%, from the older sample of 55 points. The addition of the new points improves the fit further by giving $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=65.75/55=1.20`$ for $`=24.03`$ and $`\rho _{g0}=1.89\times 10^{34}`$ g cm-3 with $`Q=15.2`$%. Even the Einstein-deSitter model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0`$) gives an acceptable fit: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=68.40/53=1.29`$ for $`=24.04`$ and $`\rho _{g0}=4.95\times 10^{34}`$ g cm-3 with $`Q=7.6`$% (from the 55 points-data) and $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=68.97/55=1.25`$ for $`=24.04`$ and $`\rho _{g0}=4.75\times 10^{34}`$ g cm-3 with $`Q=9.8`$% (by adding the new points). Interestingly, this model (Einstein-deSitter) is also consistent with the CMB observations: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}=0.05`$ and $`h=0.65`$ yield $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=202.9`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=476.8`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=717.6`$. One can improve the fit by increasing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}`$ and/or decreasing $`h`$: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}=0.1`$ and $`h=0.55`$ yield $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.4`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=521.4`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=784.9`$. Also a better fit can be obtained in open models. For example, the model $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.87`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0`$ with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}=0.05`$ and $`h=0.65`$ yields $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.1`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=518.8`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=780.9`$. This model also has an acceptable fit to the SNe Ia data: $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=67.89/53=1.28`$ for $`=24.04`$ and $`\rho _{g0}=4.34\times 10^{34}`$ g cm-3 with $`Q=8.2`$% (from the 55 points-data) and $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=68.45/55=1.24`$ for $`=24.04`$ and $`\rho _{g0}=4.15\times 10^{34}`$ g cm-3 with $`Q=10.5`$% (by adding the new points). However, these models suffer from the age problem if $`h`$ is not sufficiently low. For example, $`h`$ should be $`54`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=1`$ with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0`$. Additionally, there is much evidence for low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$, as reviewed by Peebles & Ratra (2003).

6 CONCLUSION

There seems to be an impression in the community that the current observations, particularly the high redshift SNe Ia observations and the measurements of the angular power fluctuations of the CMB, can be explained only in the framework of an accelerating universe. This, however, does not seem correct. The allowed parameter space by the datasets is wide enough to accommodate decelerating models also. We have shown that both these observations can also be explained in a decelerating low density-model with a dark energy equation-of-state $`w_\varphi =1/3`$ and the preferred curvature of the spatial section is slightly negative. For this equation of state, the resulting ‘dark energy’ does not contribute to the expansion dynamics of the model (described by the Hubble parameter) and contributes to the curvature only.

In order to fit the model to the data, we have considered the most recent observations. For example, for the SNe data, we have considered the older sample of 55 SNe of type Ia (54 SNe used by Perlmutter et al $`+`$ SN 1997ff at $`z=1.755`$) together with the two newly discovered supernovae SN 2002dc at $`z=0.475`$ and SN 2002dd at $`z=0.95`$. Addition of these new points to the older sample improves the fit to, more or less, all the models. For CMB, we have considered the first-year observations of WMAP which have measured the position of the first peak very accurately.

It may be noted that the case $`w_\varphi =1/3`$ is not special in any sense to the datasets and slightly more decelerating or slightly less decelerating models are also consistent with both the observations. In order to verify this, we change $`w_\varphi `$ slightly from $`w_\varphi =1/3`$ (in both directions) to, say, $`w_\varphi =0.3`$ and $`w_\varphi =0.35`$ and check the status of the resulting models. The result is the following.

$`w_\varphi =0.3`$:

A test model, for example, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=0.25`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}=0.65`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{b0}}=0.05`$ and $`h=0.65`$ yields $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=220.2`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=533.4`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=803.2`$. The SNe Ia data, for the same model, give $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=72.10/54=1.34`$ with $`Q=5.0`$%, from the older sample of 55 points and $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=72.60/56=1.30`$ with $`Q=6.7`$%, by adding the new points to this sample.

$`w_\varphi =0.35`$:

The same test model, in this case, yields $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_1}=227.3`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_2}=550.5`$, $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}_3}=829.1`$. The SNe Ia data, for this case, give $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=70.12/54=1.3`$ with $`Q=6.9`$% , from the older sample of 55 points and $`\chi ^2/`$dof $`=72.57/56=1.26`$ with $`Q=9.1`$%, by adding the new points to this sample. These fits are acceptable and comparable to their respective values for $`w_\varphi =1/3`$ mentioned in sections 4.2 and 4.3.

We also note that if we take into account the extinction of SNe light by the inter-galactic metallic dust, then the observed dimming of the high redshift SNe Ia can also be explained by the models without any dark energy, such as, the Einstein-deSitter model. These models are also consistent with CMB observations. In fact, there is a degeneracy in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}`$ plane along a line $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\varphi 0}1`$ and a wide range of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}`$ is consistent with the WMAP observation.

Interestingly, another alternative explanation of the observed faintness of SNe Ia at large distances can be given in terms of a quantum mechanical oscillation between the photon field and a hypothetical axion field in the presence of extra-galactic magnetic fields. To satisfy other cosmological constraints, one then simply needs some form of uniform dark energy with $`w_\varphi 1/3`$ and the universe would be decelerating (Csaki et al. 2002).

We conclude that it is premature to claim, on the basis of the existing data, that the present expansion of the universe is accelerating (or decelerating). Only more accurate SNe Ia data with $`z`$ significantly $`>1`$ can remove this ambiguity, as $`q`$ is sensitive significantly to the SNe Ia data only. Whereas the CMB observations are consistent with both - accelerating as well as decelerating models, as mentioned above. This endeavour may be accomplished by the proposed SuperNova Acceleration Probe (SNAP) experiment which aims to give accurate luminosity distances of type Ia SNe up to $`z1.7`$.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author thanks DAE for his Homi Bhabha postdoctoral fellowship and T. Padmanabhan for useful comments and discussions.

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text:
# Anisotropic Caging of Interstitial Vortices in Superconductors with a Square Array of Rectangular Antidots

## I Introduction

Type-II superconductors (SC’s) with nano-engineered pinning arrays are good model systems to study the fundamentals of vortex pinning, since, within the limits of the lithographic process used for their fabrication, they offer the ability to tailor the pinning potential at will.

In SC’s with a periodic pinning array (PPA), the vortices form regular geometrical patterns, commensurate with the pinning array, at the integer $`H_n`$ and fractional $`H_{p/q}`$ matching fieldshebard77ieee ; baert95prl . This strongly reduces the vortex mobility and consequently increases the critical current $`I_c`$. These commensurability effects have been intensively studied for square or triangular arrays of antidotshebard77ieee ; baert95prl ; rosseel96prb ; vvm96prb  or magnetic dotsOtani93jmagnmagnmater ; morgan:98prl ; mvb:00prl . The four-fold symmetry in the pinning properties, which is induced by a square PPA, can be broken by using rectangular antidots. When no interstitial vortices are present, the critical current $`I_c(H)`$ is higher in these systems when the current is applied parallel to the long side of the antidots, than when it is applied along their short side, due to a pronounced anisotropy in the vortex-vortex interaction vanlook02prb .

The size of the antidots determines the saturation number $`n_s`$ that indicates the maximum flux $`n\varphi _0`$ that can still be trapped by the antidot. When the number $`n`$ of flux quanta applied per antidot crosses over from $`n<n_s`$ to $`n>n_s`$, the pinning potential of the antidots changes from attractive to repulsive.

In the present work, we have made a film with an array of antidots with $`n_s=1`$. This implies that interstitial vortices, caged by the resultant repulsion of the saturated antidots, appear when the magnetic field exceeds the first matching field. This situation is very different from previous workvanlook02prb  on rectangular antidots, where no interstitial vortices were present. We investigate the anisotropy of the vortex-vortex interaction between interstitial vortices, and of the caging potential, felt by the interstitial vortices and provided by the repulsive potential of the saturated antidots.

## II Experimental details

We patterned a SC Pb film in a $`5\times 5`$ mm2 cross-shaped geometry (see Fig. 1(a)) to allow electrical transport measurements in two perpendicular current directions. The central part of the cross consists of two 300 $`\mu `$m wide strips containing the square array of rectangular antidots (see dark gray area in Fig. 1(a)). In both strips, the long side of the antidots points in the $`y`$-direction. This pattern was prepared by electron-beam lithography in a polymethyl metacrylate/methyl metacrylate (PMMA/MMA) resist bilayer covering the SiO2 substrate. A Ge(10 Å)/Pb(500 Å)/Ge(200 Å) film was then electron-beam evaporated onto this mask while keeping the substrate at 77 K. A liftoff process in warm acetone finalized the preparation.

Figure 1(c) shows an atomic force microscopy (AFM) topograph of a $`6\times 6\mu `$m2 area of the square antidot lattice with a period of 1.5 $`\mu `$m. The antidots have a rectangular shape $`(0.5\times 0.65\mu `$m2) with rounded corners. As shown in the schematic representation of a unit cell of the array in Fig. 1(b), the superconducting paths between the antidots are 0.85 $`\mu `$m and 1 $`\mu `$m wide, for the $`x`$\- and $`y`$-direction, respectively.

The transport measurements were performed in a 4He cryostat with the magnetic field applied perpendicular to the film surface. The superconducting critical temperature was found to be $`T_c`$ = 7.225 K. To determine the coherence length $`\xi (0)`$, we measured the linear $`T_c(H)`$ phase boundary of a reference film, evaporated under identical conditions, without any in-plane nanostructuring. From the $`T_c(H)`$ slope, andtinkhambook

$$\mu _0H_{c2}=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}{2\pi \xi (T)^2}=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}{2\pi \xi (0)^2}\left(1\frac{T}{T_c}\right),$$
(1)
we find $`\xi (0)`$ = 37 nm. Using the dirty limit ($`\mathrm{}<\xi _0`$) expression $`\xi (0)=0.865\sqrt{\xi _0\mathrm{}}`$ and the BCS coherence length for Pb, $`\xi _0`$= 83 nmdgabook , we determined the elastic mean free path $`\mathrm{}=22`$ nm. We then derive the penetration depth $`\lambda (0)=47`$ nm from the dirty limit expression $`\lambda (0)=0.66\lambda _L\sqrt{\xi _0/\mathrm{}}`$, using $`\lambda _L`$=37 nm as the London penetration depthdgabook . The presence of antidots in a superconducting film increases the penetration depthwahl:95physicac , $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)=\frac{\lambda (0)}{\sqrt{12S_a/S_t}}=56\mathrm{nm}`$, where $`S_a`$ is the area occupied by the antidots and $`S_t`$ is the total area of the film. The Ginzburg-Landau (GL) parameter $`\kappa =\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)/\xi (0)`$ is therefore $`\kappa 1.5>1/\sqrt{2}0.707`$. We conclude that the film with the array of rectangular antidots is a type-II superconductor.

## III Results

In Fig. 2, we show the critical current versus field curves $`I_c(H)`$, normalized to the value at zero field, $`I_{co}I_c(H=0)`$, at two temperatures ($`T/T_c`$ = 0.989 in (a) and 0.992 in (b)). We have used a voltage criterion of $`V_{crit}=100\mu `$V. The absolute values of the critical current density at zero field measured at $`T/T_c=0.992`$ is of the order of $`410^8\frac{\mathrm{A}}{\mathrm{m}^2}`$ in both directions. The field axis is given in units of the first matching field $`H_1`$, the field at which the density of $`\varphi _0`$-vortices equals the density of antidots: $`\mu _0H_1=\mathrm{\Phi }_0/d^2=9.2\text{Oe}`$, with $`d=1.5\mu `$m the period of the antidot lattice and $`\varphi _0=\frac{h}{2e}`$ the superconducting flux quantum. For comparison, we have depicted in Fig. 2(c) the $`I_c(H)`$ curves at $`T/T_c=0.992`$ for a superconducting film with a square array (period 1.5 $`\mu `$m) of rectangular antidots with a larger size ($`0.6\times 1.15\mu `$m2vanlook02prb .

Due to the presence of the antidot latticehebard77ieee ; baert95prl , both the $`I_{cx}(H)`$ and $`I_{cy}(H)`$ data show pronounced maxima at the integer matching fields $`H_1`$, $`H_2=2H_1`$, and $`H_3=3H_1`$. Moreover, as it is most clearly seen in the curve measured with a horizontal current (open symbols in Fig. 2(a-b)), we find a sharp drop in critical current after $`H_1`$, indicating the presence of mobile interstitial vortices for $`H>H_1`$vvm96prb . This means that the antidots can trap at most one flux quantum, in agreement with the calculated saturation number mkrtchyan:72jetp  $`n_s(T)=\frac{a}{2\xi (T)}=0.451`$ for the temperatures under consideration, where we have used for $`a`$ the average of the two sides of the rectangular antidot.

Let us first focus on the critical current behaviour in the field range where no interstitial vortices are present, $`HH_1`$. For these fields, the critical current $`I_{cy}(H)`$ (filled symbols in Fig. 2) is considerably enhanced compared to $`I_{cx}(H)`$ (open symbols) except exactly at the first matching field, where an identical value for $`I_c(H_1)`$ is found for both current directions. Another striking feature is that rational matching peaks, although clearly present for $`I𝐱`$ (e.g. at $`H/H_1=1/4`$ and $`1/2`$), are almost completely suppressed when $`I𝐲`$. These findings are fully consistent with previous experiments vanlook02prb  on films with rectangular antidots where the field range, where no interstitial vortices were present, extended up to $`H_2`$ ($`n_s=2`$)(see Fig. 2(c)).

At higher magnetic fields $`H>H_1`$, i.e. when interstitial vortices appear in the superconductor with $`n_s=1`$, the critical current $`I_{cy}(H)`$ (filled symbols in Fig. 2(a-b)) is significantly larger than $`I_{cx}(H)`$ (open symbols) for every magnetic field, even at the integer matching fields $`H_2`$ and $`H_3`$. In the film with $`n_s=2`$ (Fig. 2(c)), interstitial vortices are not present at $`H_2`$. Therefore, the critical current at the second matching field is isotropic, i.e. $`I_{cx}(H_2)=I_{cy}(H_2)`$. Rational matching peaks are again only found for $`I𝐱`$, namely at $`H/H_1=1.5`$ (open symbols in Fig. 2(a-b)), whereas no rational matching is found for $`I𝐲`$.

## IV Discussion

The observed differences in critical current $`I_c(H)`$ along the two current directions - horizontal and vertical - are due to an anisotropy of the vortex mobility in the sample along the two in-plane directions ($`x`$ and $`y`$). For a certain Lorentz force, this mobility depends on the pinning force experienced by the vortex, and on the vortex-vortex interaction force between neighbouring vortices. Interestingly, since the sample in the present work has $`n_s=1`$, the critical current probes the mobility of two kinds of vortices, depending on the magnetic field regime, i.e. of the vortices pinned at the antidots and of the interstitial vortices caged in between the saturated antidots. Indeed, at fields below the first matching field $`H_1`$, the critical current $`I_c(H)`$ yields information about the pinning force provided by the rectangular antidots and about the vortex-vortex interaction between vortices pinned at the antidots. At magnetic fields above $`H_1`$, the critical current is governed by the mobile interstitial vortices. Therefore, it provides information about the caging force produced by the saturated antidots and about the vortex-vortex interaction between two interstitial vortices.

Let us discuss first the regime $`HH_1`$, where no interstitial vortices are present:

The value of $`I_c(H_1)`$ is a measure of the single site pinning force of the individual antidots. Indeed, at the first matching field, the vortex-vortex interactions in the highly symmetric vortex lattice (see Fig. 3(a)) cancel out and depinning of the vortices occurs simultaneously once the Lorentz force exceeds the pinning force provided by the antidots. Since the value of the critical current at the first matching field is identical in the $`x`$\- and the $`y`$-direction, i.e. $`I_{cx}(H_1)=I_{cy}(H_1)`$ (Fig. 2), we conclude that the pinning force exerted by the rectangular antidot on a single pinned $`\varphi _0`$-vortex is isotropic along the two symmetry-axes of the rectangular antidot. Apparently, the aspect ratio of the rectangular antidots should be much higher in order to produce an anisotropic pinning forcebuzdin98physicac ; vanlook02prb . Keeping one side of the antidots fixed (semi-axis $`b=0.25\mu `$m), and taking into account that the coherence length at the considered temperatures is $`\xi (T)0.4\mu `$m, one would have to construct antidots with an aspect ratio of $`8`$, i.e. with a long semi-axis $`a2\mu `$m, in order to observe any anisotropy in the pinning force provided by the antidot buzdin98physicac . The aspect ratio, required to obtain an anisotropic pinning force, is therefore at least a factor of 6 higher than the we have used (see Fig. 1(b)).

The appearance of rational matching features is evidence of a strong vortex-vortex interaction in the direction of the Lorentz force. Since the $`I_{cx}(H)`$ curve (Lorentz force in the $`y`$-direction) shows rational matching and the $`I_{cy}(H)`$ curve does not, we conclude that the vortex-vortex interaction between vortices pinned at the antidots is stronger in the $`y`$\- than in the $`x`$-direction.

In the field regime $`H>H_1`$, interstitial vortices are present in our $`n_s=1`$ sample. Exactly at the second matching field $`H_2`$, a highly symmetric vortex configuration is formed, as is schematically shown in Fig. 3(b). Half of the vortices are strongly pinned at the antidots, the other half is caged in between the saturated antidots. The two vortex species form interpenetrating square lattices. When a current is applied along the $`x`$\- or $`y`$-direction, the interstitial vortices will move first, since they are only weakly pinned harada96science ; rosseel96prb ; reichhardt97prl . Therefore, the critical current at $`H_2`$ is a measure of the caging force provided by the saturated antidots and acting on the interstitial vortices.

Since $`I_{cy}(H_2)>I_{cx}(H_2)`$ (Fig. 2(a-b)), the Lorentz force needed to depin the interstitial vortices is larger in the $`x`$\- than in the $`y`$-direction, and we conclude that the caging force, resulting from the repulsion of the saturated antidots, is anisotropic, i.e. stronger in the $`x`$\- than in the $`y`$-direction.

Moreover, we only find rational matching features in the $`I_{cx}(H)`$ curves in the field regime $`H>H_1`$. This indicates that the vortex-vortex interaction between two caged interstitial vortices is also anisotropic, i.e. stronger in the $`y`$-direction than in the $`x`$-direction.

Summarizing our observations, we have found that the vortex-vortex interaction between vortices pinned at the antidots, as well as between interstitial vortices, is anisotropic, i.e. the interaction is stronger parallel to the long side of the rectangular antidots ($`y`$-direction). The pinning force, experienced by a caged interstitial vortex and provided by the surrounding saturated antidots is anisotropic, i.e. stronger along the short side of the antidots ($`x`$-direction). Interestingly, the pinning force provided by the rectangular antidots themselves is isotropic.

Most of these features (except for the last, for which we refer to Ref. vanlook02prb ) can be understood from the geometry of the antidot array. The superconducting strands between the rectangular antidots, where the screening currents of the vortices have to flow, are thinner between the adjacent antidots in the $`y`$-direction than in the $`x`$-direction (see Fig. 3(a)). Therefore, we expect a stronger vortex-vortex interaction in the $`y`$-direction between vortices pinned at the antidots. Moreover, when interstitial vortices are present, it is clear from the schematic presentation of the vortex lattice in Fig. 3(b), that the circulating currents of the interstitial vortices are shielded more in the $`x`$-direction, which leads to a weaker vortex-vortex interaction between interstitial vortices in the $`x`$-direction. Finally, the anisotropic caging force can be understood if one considers that the rectangular shape of the antidots forces the circulating currents of the vortices trapped inside the antidots to adopt elongated streamlines, rather than circular ones. Since the antidots are placed in a square array, the currents will overlap more in the $`y`$-direction (Fig. 3). The caging potential barrier will therefore be higher in the $`x`$-direction, i.e. it will be more difficult for an interstitial vortex to pass in between saturated antidots in the $`x`$\- than in the $`y`$-direction.

In other words, due to the application of the array of rectangular antidots, the amount of superconducting material per unit length is smaller for the $`y`$-direction than for the $`x`$-direction. Consequently, shielding of the magnetic field is poorest in the $`y`$-direction, leading to a larger effective penetration depth $`\lambda `$ in this direction. Vortices therefore have a stronger vortex-vortex interaction in the $`y`$\- than in the $`x`$-direction.

It is interesting to compare these results with molecular dynamics simulations on a similar system, a rectangular array of isotropic pinning sites that can trap at most one vortexreichhardt1100losalamos . In this system, a different spacing in the $`x`$\- and $`y`$-direction of the pinning sites induces both the anisotropy in vortex-vortex interaction between pinned vortices and in the vortex-vortex interaction between vortices caged at interstitial positions between the saturated pinning sites. The calculated critical current versus field curves for a driving force in the two directions show exactly the same features as found in our $`I_c(H)`$ measurements.

## V Conclusion

We have investigated vortex pinning in a film with a square array of rectangular antidots, focussing on the behaviour of the interstitial vortices in this anisotropic environment. Since the antidots we have used have a saturation number $`n_s=1`$, i.e. they can trap at most one flux quantum, interstitial vortices appear when the magnetic field exceeds the first matching field $`H_1`$. Although the aspect ratio of the antidots is very small, the caging force, provided by the saturated antidots and felt by the interstitial vortices, is stronger along the short side of the antidots. Moreover, we find a weaker vortex-vortex interaction between interstitial vortices in this direction. This leads to an overall higher critical current $`I_c(H)`$ with no rational matching features when it is measured parallel to the long side of the antidots. This observation may be important for practical applications of films with a periodic pinning array, since it solves the problem of a reduced critical current density between the matching peaks in $`I_c(H)`$ at integer $`H_n`$ and fractional $`H_{p/q}`$, thus leading to a substantial overall current enhancement due to the presence of the rectangular antidots.

## Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the ESF ”Vortex” Program, the K.U.Leuven Onderzoeksraad, the Belgian Interuniversity Attraction Poles (IUAP), the Flemish GOA and FWO Programs. We wish to thank M. J. Van Bael and Y. Bruynseraede for helpful discussions.


text:
# Adiabatic potentials and spectra of heavy hybrid mesons

(Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics,
117218, B.Cheremushkinskaya 25, Moscow, Russia)

## Abstract

Using the QCD string approach the adiabatic potentials and spectra of $`b\overline{b}`$-hybrid mesons are calculated. The results are compared to lattice studies.

1. An assumption about existence of the hybrid mesons consisting of valence quark and antiquark and valence gluon was made for the first time by Okun and Vainshtein  just afterwards the QCD appeared. Last decade was a time of intensive studies of hybrid mesons both in experimental and in theoretical frameworks.

In this report we study the system of static quark and antiquark and dynamical gluon joined to the formers by the infinitely thin string of background gluon field in analytic QCD string approach ,  based on the background perturbation theory . In other words, we study spectrum of the vibrations of the confining string, or spectrum of the adiabatic potentials. We will pay our attention to the small and intermediate quark-antiquark separations, which are directly related to the spectrum of heavy hybrid mesons. Using the adiabatic potentials, we will calculate spectra of $`b\overline{b}`$-hybrid mesons.

2. In the framework of the background perturbation theory we start from the propagator of the valence gluon in the background field $`B`$ ,

$$G_{\mu \nu }=(D^2(B)\delta _{\mu \nu }+2igF_{\mu \nu }(B))^1,$$
(1)
where $`D(B)`$ is the covariant derivative depending on the field $`B`$; $`F_{\mu \nu }(B)`$ is the background field strength tensor, which is related to the spin effects and will be considered below. In the formalism of the Fock-Feynman-Shwinger representation the Green function of the hybrid meson with the static quark and antiquark reduces to the form (see  and references therein)

$$G_h(\overline{X},X)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑s(𝒟z_g)_{x_gy_g}\mathrm{exp}(K)𝒲_h_B,$$
(2)
where $`𝒲_h`$ is the Wilson loop of the hybrid meson, consisting of the trajectories $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_Q`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{Q}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_g`$ of valence quark, antiquark and gluon (see Fig. 1), and $`K`$ is the kinetic energy of the gluon.

In what follows we will use the area law for the Wilson loop, which is confirmed by the lattice QCD, see e.g. . The area law for hybrid mesons takes the form

$$𝒲_h_B=\frac{N_c^21}{2}\mathrm{exp}(\sigma (S_1+S_2)),$$
(3)
where $`S_1(S_2)`$ is an area of the minimal surface bounded by the trajectores of valence quark (antiquark) and gluon. We parametrise the minimal surfaces introducing parameters $`0\tau T`$ and $`0\beta _{1,2}1`$. It is also convenient to introduce einbein fields $`\mu (\tau ),\nu _{1,2}(\tau ,\beta )`$ and write the Green function of the hybrid meson in the form

$$G_h(\overline{X},X)=(𝒟^3z_g)_{x_gy_g}𝒟\mu 𝒟\nu _1𝒟\nu _2\mathrm{exp}\left(_0^T𝑑\tau L\right),$$
(4)
which defines the following string Hamiltonian ,

$$H=𝐩\dot{𝐫}L=H_0+\frac{\mu }{2}+_0^1𝑑\beta _1\frac{\sigma ^2r_1^2}{2\nu _1}+_0^1𝑑\beta _2\frac{\sigma ^2r_2^2}{2\nu _2}+_0^1𝑑\beta _1\frac{\nu _1}{2}+_0^1𝑑\beta _2\frac{\nu _2}{2},$$
(5)
where

$$H_0=\frac{p^2}{2(\mu +J_1+J_2)}+\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Delta }(\mu +J_1+J_2)}\times $$

$$\times \left\{\frac{(𝐩𝐫_1)^2}{r_1^2}J_1(\mu +J_1)+\frac{(𝐩𝐫_2)^2}{r_2^2}J_2(\mu +J_2)+\frac{2J_1J_2}{r_1^2r_2^2}(𝐫_1𝐫_2)(𝐩𝐫_1)(𝐩𝐫_2)\right\},$$
(6)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }=(\mu +J_1)(\mu +J_2)J_1J_2\frac{(𝐫_1𝐫_2)^2}{r_1^2r_2^2},J_i=_0^1𝑑\beta _i\beta _i^2\nu _i(\beta _i),i=1,2,$$

$`𝐫`$ and $`𝐩`$ are the coordinate and momentum of the valence gluon, $`𝐫_{1,2}=𝐫\pm 𝐑/2`$, where $`\pm 𝐑/2`$ are locations of the static quark and antiquark. Einbein fields are to be excluded from the Hamiltonian by the conditions

$$\frac{H}{\mu }=0,\frac{\delta H}{\delta \nu _i(\beta _i)}=0.$$
(7)
One can show that einbein $`\mu `$ plays the role of the constituent mass of the gluon, $`\nu _i(\beta )`$ the energy density of the background field along the string, and $`J_i`$ the inertia of the string.

3. Proceed now to the calculations of the spectrum of the string Hamiltonian at small and intermediate quark-antiquark separations, $`R\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}1`$ fm. In this region the inertia of the string $`J_i`$ is much smaller than the constituent mass of the gluon, $`J_i\mu `$. Neglecting $`J_i`$ and calculating extremum over $`\mu `$ in the initial Hamiltonian, we arrive at the Hamiltonian of the potential model,

$$H=\sqrt{𝐩^2}+\sigma r_1+\sigma r_2.$$
(8)
However, it is more convenient to calculate the eigenvalues $`E(\mu )`$ of the Hamiltonian keeping the einbein $`\mu `$, and then minimize them with respect to the einbein,

$$\frac{E(\mu )}{\mu }=0.$$
(9)
This procedure is of common use in the QCD string approach, and, for the ordinary mesons, is justified with the accuracy better than 5% (see e.g. ).

Besides the nonperturbative string part considered above, the hybrid Hamiltonian should contain the perturbative one $`V_c`$, which is dominated by the one-gluon exchange,

$$V_c=\frac{3\alpha _s}{2r_1}\frac{3\alpha _s}{2r_2}+\frac{\alpha _s}{6R}.$$
(10)
Therefore, the Hamiltonian with the string inertia neglected takes the form

$$H=\frac{\mu }{2}+\frac{p^2}{2\mu }+\sigma r_1+\sigma r_2+V_c.$$
(11)
Despite its nonrelativistic appearance, this Hamiltonian is essentially relativistic due to condition (9).

The Hamiltonian of the string correction of the order of $`J/\mu `$ derived from (5), (6) has transparent form,

$$H^{\mathrm{string}}=\frac{\sigma }{6\mu ^2}\left(\frac{1}{r_1}L_1^2+\frac{1}{r_2}L_2^2\right),$$
(12)
where $`𝐋_i=𝐫_i\times 𝐩`$.

Spin interaction in ordinary mesons with heavy quarks of mass $`m`$ have been expressed through the number of universal uknown potentials of order $`1/m^2`$ using the Wilson loop in . In the framework of QCD string approach these potentials were calculated using the method of field correlators, see  and references therein. The role of the mass $`m`$ is performed in the approach by the einbein $`\mu `$, and the results therefore are applicable to both light and heavy quarks.

Spin interaction of the valence gluon with the quark and antiquark in hybrid mesons is generated by the strength tensor term in propagator (1), which can be rewritten as $`F_{ik}=i(𝐒𝐁)_{ik}`$, where the spin operator $`𝐒`$ acts onto the gluon wave function $`𝚿`$ according to $`\left(S_i𝚿\right)_j=iϵ_{ijk}\mathrm{\Psi }_k`$. Performing calculations similar to ones of , we derive the following relations in Eichten-Feinberg notations,

$$V_1^{(\mathrm{p})}=0,V_2^{(\mathrm{p})}=ϵ^{(\mathrm{p})},\text{ where }ϵ^{(\mathrm{p})}=\frac{3\alpha _s}{2r_i},i=1,2,$$
(13)
and

$$V_1^{(\mathrm{np})}=ϵ^{(\mathrm{np})},V_2^{(\mathrm{np})}=0,\text{ where }ϵ^{(\mathrm{np})}=\sigma r_i.$$
(14)
One can verify that the Gromes relation $`ϵ+V_1V_2=0`$ is justified for both perturbative and nonperturbative potentials. The corresponding Hamiltonian consists of the following perturbative and nonperturbative parts ,

$$H^{\mathrm{LS}(\mathrm{p})}=\frac{3\alpha _s}{4\mu ^2}\left(\frac{𝐋_1𝐒}{r_1^3}+\frac{𝐋_2𝐒}{r_2^3}\right),$$
(15)
$$H^{\mathrm{LS}(\mathrm{np})}=\frac{\sigma }{2\mu ^2}\left(\frac{𝐋_1𝐒}{r_1}+\frac{𝐋_2𝐒}{r_2}\right).$$
(16)
We calculate the energy levels of the initial Hamiltonian (11) variationally, using the Gaussian wave functions of the gluon,

$$\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{jl\mathrm{\Lambda }}(𝐫)=\varphi _l(r)\underset{\mu _1\mu _2}{}C_{l\mu _1l\mu _2}^{j\mathrm{\Lambda }}Y_{l\mu _1}\left(\frac{𝐫}{r}\right)\stackrel{}{\chi }_{1\mu _2},$$
(17)
$$\varphi _l(r)\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta ^2r^2/2\right).$$

The corrections (12)-(16) amount to the decrease of the total energy about 70-150 MeV depending on the level.

In Fig. 2 the resulting adiabatic potential energy levels are shown in comparison with the lattice results . Quantum numbers of the levels in the diatomic molecule notations are given in Table 1. The potentials are normalized to the ground $`Q\overline{Q}`$-level shown in the right bottom corner of Fig. 2(a). We can see overall correspondence with the lattice. The curves tend to form three multiplets with different values of the gluon angular momentum. This is a confirmation that the angular moment of the gluon is a good quantum number. When $`R`$ goes to zero, the potentials increase rapidly due to the Coulomb repulsion of quark and antiquark in octet state of color $`SU(3)`$. Note the wrong bend of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_g`$ lattice level in Fig. 2(b) and absence of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_g`$ lattice level in Fig. 2(c), which clearly means that these two $`\mathrm{\Pi }_g`$ levels are not properly resolved on the lattice. The order of levels in our approach correspond to the lattice one, with the exception of Fig. 2(c). Different separations between the levels of Fig. 2(a) in our and lattice approaches is presumably related to the influence of the Coulomb gluon-quark and gluon-antiquark interaction on the gluon wave function. Variational calculations using the Coulomb-modified wave functions are needed to verify this assumption, which will be performed in future publications.

Lowest level with the quantum numbers $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^{},\mathrm{\Pi }_g`$ is absent on the lattice and therefore not shown in Fig. 2. Comparative analysis of adiabatic potentials of other approaches can be found in .

4. Let us calculate spectra of masses of the heavy hybrid mesons in Born-Oppenheimer approximation assuming that the motion of the valence quark and antiquark is slow compared to the motion of the valence gluon and using the adiabatic potentials. In this case an essential region is the one near the minimum of the potential, where the adiabatic potential can be replaced by the oscillatory one. Therefore the problem reduces to the calculation of the spectrum of three-dimentional oscillator.

We tune the values of parameters $`\alpha _s=0.225`$, $`\sigma =0.18`$ GeV2, $`m_b=4.56`$ GeV to reproduce the experimental value of the ground state of $`b\overline{b}`$-meson, $`M_{\mathrm{exp}}^{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1S)}=9.4`$ GeV, from the Cornell potential,

$$V^{b\overline{b}}=2m_b\frac{4}{3}\frac{\alpha _s}{R}+\sigma R.$$
(18)
Then we calculate the masses of $`b\overline{b}`$ hybrid mesons through the equation

$$M^{b\overline{b}g}=2m_b+E^{\mathrm{osc}},$$
(19)
where $`E^{\mathrm{osc}}`$ is the energy of $`b`$-quarks in the adiabatic potential, approximated in the vicinity of its minimum by the oscillatory one.

The lowest exotic hybrid states have quantum numbers $`J^{PC}=1^+`$ and may be of two different kinds, the gluon-excited (GE) one, with the gluon angular momentum $`l=1`$ and quark-antiquark relative angular moment $`l_{Q\overline{Q}}=0`$, and quark-excited (QE) one, with $`l=0`$ and $`l_{Q\overline{Q}}=1`$. Their masses are given in Table 2. One can calculate the energy of the gluon excitation using the mass of the GE-state from the Table,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }M=M_{(GE)}^{b\overline{b}g}M^{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1S)}=1.43\text{ GeV}.$$
(20)
One can see that $`\mathrm{\Delta }Mm_b`$ so that the adiabatic approximation for $`b\overline{b}`$-hybrid mesons is justified. The mass of $`c`$-quark is close to the energy of gluon excitation, so that adiabatic approximation for $`c\overline{c}`$-hybrid mesons is invalid.

The mass of the lowest exotic state of $`b\overline{b}`$-hybrid meson was calculated on the lattice , as well as in the QCD string approach in the work . The results are shown in the Table 3. In lattice QCD lowest quark-excited state is absent, as it was already noted above. One can see from the Tables 2, 3 that the mass of the gluon-excited state computed in the adiabatic approximation is almost the same as ours. Note that in both cases quenched approximation was used. One can guess that a proper account of the see quarks will not change the result significantly.

The results of the work  were obtained using the Hamiltonian (11) and the method of einbein field. The main difference between this and ours results is due to the large constant subtracted in . The adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer approximation was not used in  and string- and spin-corrections to Hamiltonian were not considered.

One can find recent comparison of existing calculations of lowest exotic hybrid meson masses in other models in . Note that ITEP sum rules and flux-tube model predict lowest exotic $`b\overline{b}`$ hybrid mass with large error bars, which include both our numbers, and bag model seems to underestimate the mass. Recent calculations of GE-mode in quark-gluon model  are in good agreement with both lattice and our results. The mass of QE-mode in  is less than GE-one, unlike ours, see Table 2. This discrepency is presumably due to poor accuracy of our variational procedure for lowest adiabatic level.

In conclusion, we have shown that the QCD string approach allows to calculate the adiabatic potentials and masses of heavy hybrid mesons in a good agreement with lattice QCD. Our further tasks are use of more elaborated variational procedure for the calculation of the lowest adiabatic levels, as well as accurate calculations of hybrid spectra, wave functions and decays both within and beyond the adiabatic approximation.

This work has been supported by RFBR grants 00-02-17836, 00-15-96786, and INTAS 00-00110.