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# Detection of a Schrödinger’s Cat State in an rf-SQUID

## Abstract

We present experimental evidence for a coherent superposition of macroscopically distinct flux states in an rf-SQUID. When the external flux $`\mathrm{\Phi }_x`$ applied to the SQUID is near 1/2 of a flux quantum $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, the SQUID has two nearly degenerate configurations: the zero- and one-fluxoid states, corresponding to a few microamperes of current flowing clockwise or counterclockwise, respectively. The system is modeled as a particle in a double-well potential where each well represents a distinct fluxoid state (0 or 1) and the barrier between the wells can be controlled in situ. For low damping and a sufficiently high barrier, the system has a set of quantized energy levels localized in each well. The relative energies of these levels can be varied with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_x`$. External microwaves are used to pump the system from the well-localized ground state of one well into one of a pair of excited states nearer the top of the barrier. We spectroscopically map out the energy of these levels in the neighborhood of their degeneracy point by varying $`\mathrm{\Phi }_x`$ as well as the barrier height. We find a splitting between the two states at this point, when both states are below the classical energy barrier, indicating that the system attains a coherent superposition of flux basis states that are macroscopically distinct in that their mean fluxes differ by more than 1/4 $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ and their currents differ by several microamperes.

In 1935, Schrödinger attempted to demonstrate the limitations of quantum mechanics through a thought experiment in which a cat is put in a quantum superposition of alive and dead states. The idea remained an academic curiosity until the early 1980s when Leggett and co-workers proposed that under suitable conditions a macroscopic object with many microscopic degrees of freedom could behave quantum mechanically provided that it was sufficiently decoupled from its environment. While much progress has been made in demonstrating the macroscopic quantum behaviour of various systems such as superconductors,  nanoscale magnets, laser-cooled trapped ions, photons in a microwave cavity and C60 molecules, heretofore there has been no experimental demonstration of a quantum superposition of truly macroscopically distinct states. Here we present the first experimental evidence that a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) can be put into a superposition of two magnetic-flux states, one corresponding to a few microamperes of current flowing clockwise, the other corresponding to the same amount of current flowing counterclockwise.

The basic rf-SQUID is a superconducting loop of inductance L broken by a Josephson tunnel junction with capacitance C and critical current Ic. Classically, when an external magnetic flux $`\mathrm{\Phi }_x`$ is applied to the SQUID, a superconducting (dissipationless) current will flow around the loop to screen out the external flux. When the external flux reaches a certain critical value (i.e. when the screening current reaches Ic), a flux quantum $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ will enter the loop and the SQUID will again be in a stable state. Quantum-mechanically, however, flux can tunnel into or out of the SQUID before this critical value is reached. The dynamics (both classical and quantum) of the SQUID are analogous to that of a particle of mass C moving in a double-well potential given by

$$U=U_0\left[\frac{1}{2}(\phi \phi _x)^2+\beta _L\mathrm{cos}(\phi )\right],$$
(1)
where $`\phi `$ and $`\phi _x`$ are the flux through the SQUID loop and the external flux, respectively, in units of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0/2\pi `$ and measured with respect to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0/2`$ ; $`U_0\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2/4\pi ^2L`$ and $`\beta _L2\pi LI_c/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ characterize the energy barrier between flux states. This potential is shown in Figure 1a, where the left well corresponds to zero $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ in the SQUID and the right well one $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ . The system has energy levels localized in each well. When the external flux is exactly $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0/2`$ ($`\phi _x=0`$), the potential is symmetric. Any additional external flux tilts the potential, as shown in the figure. At various values of external flux, levels in opposite wells will align, giving rise to resonant tunnelling between flux states in the SQUID.  However, until now, there has been no evidence that the tunnelling process was coherent, that is, that the SQUID could be put into a superposition of the two flux states.

Such a superposition would manifest itself in an anticrossing, as illustrated in Figure 1b, where the energy level diagram of two levels of different flux states (labelled $`|0`$ and $`|1`$) is shown in the neighbourhood in which they would become degenerate without coherent interaction (dashed lines). Coherent tunnelling lifts the degeneracy (solid lines) so that at the degeneracy point the energy eigenstates are close to $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1)`$ and $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0|1)`$ , the symmetric and antisymmetric superpositions.

The SQUID used in the experiments is made up of two Nb/AlOx/Nb tunnel junctions in parallel, as shown in Fig. 1c; this essentially acts as a tuneable junction in which Ic can be adjusted with an applied flux $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{xdc}`$ . Thus, with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_x`$ we control the tilt $`\epsilon `$ of the potential in Figure 1a, while with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{xdc}`$ we control $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ , the height of the energy barrier at $`\epsilon `$ =0. The flux state of our sample is measured by a separate dc-SQUID magnetometer inductively coupled to the sample. The sample is encased by a PdAu shield that screens it from unwanted radiation; a coaxial cable entering the shield allows the application of controlled external microwaves. The set up is carefully filtered and shielded, as described elsewhere, and cooled to 40 mK in a dilution refrigerator.

In our experiments, we probe the anticrossing of two excited levels in the potential by using microwaves to produce photon-assisted tunnelling. Figure 1a depicts this process for the case where the levels $`|0`$ and $`|1`$ are each localized in opposite wells. The system is initially placed in the lowest state in the left well (labelled $`|i`$) with the barrier high enough such that the tunnelling rate is small. Microwave radiation is then applied. When the energy difference between the initial state and an excited state matches the radiation frequency, the system has an appreciable probability of making a transition to the right well, which can be detected by the magnetometer. Figure 2 shows schematically the photon-assisted process when the excited levels have an anticrossing. Here the energy of the relevant levels is plotted as a function of tilt $`\epsilon `$. The dashed line represents level $`|i`$ shifted upward by the energy of the microwaves. At values of $`\epsilon `$ for which this line intersects one of the excited levels (indicated by the arrows), the system can absorb a photon and make an interwell transition. When the barrier is reduced, the excited levels move to lower energy (dotted lines in the figure) relative to $`|i`$ and photon absorption occurs at different values of $`\epsilon `$. For a fixed frequency, we can map out the anticrossing by progressively reducing the barrier and thus moving the levels through the dashed photon line.

We use pulsed microwaves to excite the upper levels. Before each pulse, the system is prepared in state $`|i`$ and the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ and $`\epsilon `$ are set. Millisecond pulses of 96-GHz microwave radiation at a fixed power are applied and the probability of making a transition is measured. The experiment is repeated for various values of $`\epsilon `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ . Data from these measurements is shown in Figure 3, where the probability of making a photon-assisted interwell transition is plotted as function of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_x`$ . Each curve for a given $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ is shifted vertically for clarity. Two sets of peaks are clearly seen. As $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ is decreased, these peaks move closer together and then move apart again. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ = 9.117 K (red curve), one peak is clearly higher than the other. Here the right peak roughly corresponds to level $`|0`$, which is localized is the same well as $`|i`$. The matrix element for photon absorption is larger for the $`|i|0`$ transition than for the $`|i|1`$ transition, resulting in the asymmetry between the peaks. When $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ is decreased to 8.956 K (green curve), the peaks move closer together and the asymmetry disappears. The two peaks now approximately correspond to the coherent superpositions of the $`|0`$ and $`|i`$ states; that is, $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1)`$ and $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0|1)`$ . As the barrier is decreased further (8.797 K - violet curve), the peaks move apart again and the asymmetry reappears, now with the left peak being larger. The two levels have thus passed through the anticrossing, changing roles without actually intersecting. The inset of the figure shows the positions of the peaks in the main figure (as well as others peaks) in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }U_0`$ \- $`\mathrm{\Phi }_x`$ plane. Two anticrossings are clearly seen. The red lines are the results of a calculation and the violet line represents the position of the classical energy barrier relative to state $`|i`$. The position of this line relative to the data indicates that both anticrossings correspond to levels that are below the barrier and thus represent the superposition of macroscopically distinct states with mean fluxes differing by about $`\frac{1}{4}`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ .

The peak positions in Figure 3 can also be used to calculate the level energies. For one of the anticrossings, Figure 4 shows the energy of the levels relative to the mean energy of $`|0`$ and $`|1`$ as a function of $`\epsilon `$. The similarity of the data to Figure 1b is now manifest. The figure also shows the results of a calculation of the energy levels. At the middle of the anticrossing, the two levels are separated by ~0.1 K in energy and the upper level is ~0.15 K below the top of the classical energy barrier. There are three parameters used for the calculations presented in Figures 3 and 4: L, L/C and $`\beta _L`$, all of which can be independently determined from measurements of classical phenomena or incoherent resonant tunnelling in the absence of radiation. From independent measurements, we find L = 240$`\pm `$15 pH, L/C = 2300$`\pm `$10 $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ and $`\beta _L`$ = 2.33$`\pm `$0.01. The values used in the calculation that yielded the best agreement with the data are L = 238 pH, L/C = 2300 $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ and $`\beta _L`$ = 2.35, all in good agreement with the independently determined values.

In closing, we would like to stress two related points regarding these results. The first is that at the anticrossing both levels are below the top of the classical energy barrier. This fact is essential for the system to be in a superposition of macroscopically distinct states since the levels can only be associated with one well (one flux state) if they are below the top of the barrier. The second point concerns the meaning of “macroscopic”. The SQUID exhibits macroscopic quantum behaviour in two senses: 1) The quantum dynamics of the SQUID is determined by the flux through the loop, a collective coordinate representing the motion of ~109 Cooper pairs acting in tandem. Since the experimental temperature is 1000 times smaller than the superconducting energy gap, almost all microscopic degrees of freedom are frozen out and only the collective flux coordinate retains any dynamical relevance. 2) The two classical states that we find to be superposed are macroscopically distinct. We calculate that for the anticrossings measured, the states $`|0`$ and $`|1`$ differ in flux by more than $`\frac{1}{4}`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ and differ in current by 2-3 microamperes. Given the SQUID’s geometry, this corresponds to a local magnetic moment of ~1010 $`\mu _B`$, a truly macroscopic moment.

We thank D. Averin and S. Han for many useful conversations, J. Männik for technical assistance and M. P. Sarachik for the loan of some equipment. This work was supported by the US Army Research Office and the US National Science Foundation.

Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.R.F. (e-mail: jonathan.friedman@sunysb.edu)


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# The Compton Microscope: Using the Energy Dependence of QPO Amplitudes to Probe Their Origin in Accretion Disks

## 1. Introduction

Quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) have been seen in the power spectra of X-ray binaries since work with the EXOSAT and Ginga satellites (van der Klis 1995). With the launch of the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite in 1995, advances in instrumentation have allowed observers to measure QPOs at such high frequencies that their origin has been associated with the inner regions of the accretion disks which are expected to exist in binary systems. Evidence on the exact location of the QPO generation, however, remains unclear. Observed properties of the QPOs, such as centroid frequency, width, amplitude, phase lag, and coherence, have been investigated for insight into the physical processes which produce these oscillations. Another characteristic of QPOs, the energy dependence of their fractional root-mean-square (rms) amplitude, remains as a relatively unexplored tool to diagnose their origin. In this Letter we report the development of a tool which utilizes the observed energy dependence of the QPO amplitude to locate the accretion disk region in which the modulation may occur.

Analyses of QPO mechanisms must be commensurate with a model for the overall energy spectrum of the source. In particular, a frequent component of X-ray binary spectra is a high-energy power-law, usually interpreted to arise from unsaturated inverse Comptonization by hot electrons. These electrons are typically associated with a high-temperature atmosphere or corona for which the geometry, production, and physical properties are uncertain (Dove, Wilms, & Begelman 1997, and references therein). Here we demonstrate a method for localizing the QPO emission site using the observed energy dependence of the QPO amplitude and the observed source energy spectrum. We assume a particular form of a Comptonizing atmosphere which adequately fits the observed source spectrum. Ideally one would like to constrain the atmosphere’s true structure by employing additional observed properties of the QPO, but this is beyond the scope of this Letter.

## 2. Comptonizing Model

To demonstrate the qualitative effects of a Comptonizing atmosphere on the energy dependence of QPO fractional amplitudes we consider a simple model of an accretion disk enshrouded by a steady-state, locally plane-parallel corona. The corona consists of thermalized, nonrelativistic hot electrons which are optically thin to absorption and have no bulk motion. In addition, properties of the atmosphere, such as the electron temperature $`T_\mathrm{e}`$, may vary slowly in the radial direction along the surface of the accretion disk. Photons originate in the cold accretion disk, which has temperature profile $`T_\mathrm{d}(r)`$, and scatter through the slab atmosphere before escaping the cloud or re-entering the disk to be absorbed. Here we do not consider the effects of strong gravity on photon paths.

A measure of the distortion of a photon spectrum by Compton scattering through a nonrelativistic thermal distribution of electrons is given by the Compton $`y`$ parameter,

$$y=\frac{4kT_\mathrm{e}}{m_\mathrm{e}c^2}\mathrm{max}(\tau _\mathrm{e},\tau _\mathrm{e}^2),$$
(1)
where $`m_\mathrm{e}c^2`$ is the electron rest energy and $`\tau _\mathrm{e}`$ is the optical depth of the cloud. If we restrict our cloud parameters such that $`y(r)1`$, then the spectral profile of the observed photon energy $`E`$ is described in the range $`kT_\mathrm{d}EkT_\mathrm{e}`$ by unsaturated Comptonization of a soft photon input (Rybicki & Lightman 1979). The emergent photon flux density in this regime is given by a power-law dependence,

$$dN/dEE^\alpha ,$$
(2)
where

$$\alpha =\frac{1}{2}+\left(\frac{9}{4}+\frac{4}{y}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}2y^{\frac{1}{2}}\frac{1}{2}+𝒪(y^{\frac{1}{2}}),$$
(3)
and $`N`$ has units of photons cm-2 s-1.

If we choose the radial gradient of the electron temperature such that $`y`$ decreases with $`r`$, then it follows from equations (1)–(3) that $`\alpha (r_1)<\alpha (r_2)`$ if $`r_1<r_2`$. That is, simply, photons which originate near the inner edge of the accretion disk are more strongly Comptonized than photons which originate in the outer regions of the disk. If we apply the above to a QPO which originates generally inside the radius at which the maximum (unmodulated) luminosity per unit radius is emitted from the disk, the QPO fractional amplitude can be an increasing function of energy. More particularly, the QPO amplitude may continue to increase over a domain which includes energies that are too high to be traditionally associated with “thermal” processes from the relatively cold disk.

## 3. Monte-Carlo Simulations

One approach to quantitatively assess the above approach is to conduct Monte Carlo simulations which numerically propagate accretion disk photons through a Comptonizing corona. In our simulations we adopt the standard semi-relativistic thin disk model of Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) with the modified Newtonian potential (Nowak & Wagoner 1991)

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=(GM/r)[13(GM/rc^2)+12(GM/rc^2)^2],$$
(4)
where $`M`$ is the mass of the central black hole. With this choice of potential the disk temperature is given by (Nowak 1992)

$`T_\mathrm{d}(r)=10.286T_\mathrm{m}r^{\frac{3}{4}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{8}{r}}+{\displaystyle \frac{60}{r^2}}\right)^{\frac{1}{4}}\left(1\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{6}{r6+36/r}}}\right)^{\frac{1}{4}},`$ (5)
where the radial coordinate is now in units of $`GM/c^2`$ and the maximum temperature $`T_\mathrm{m}`$ of the disk is reached at the radius $`r=9.795`$. The electron temperature of the atmosphere is taken to be

$$T_\mathrm{e}(r)=T_0(r/r_\mathrm{i})^1,$$
(6)
where $`r_\mathrm{i}`$ is the inner radius of the disk and $`T_0`$ is a constant. We assume the accretion disk extends down to the innermost stable circular orbit $`r_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ such that $`r_\mathrm{i}=r_{\mathrm{ms}}=6`$ for our assumed slowly rotating black hole. To completely specify a model spectrum (minus an overall normalization), we must choose $`T_\mathrm{m},T_0,`$ and the optical depth $`\tau `$ of the electron cloud. Finally, an additional parameter $`r_\mathrm{c}`$ depicts the outer radius of the electron cloud, which is not constrained to cover the entire disk.

The simulation code for the slab model is based on the “particle escape weighting” algorithm presented by Pozdnyakov, Sobol, & Sunyaev (1983). A brief description of the central driver of the code has been given by Nowak et al. (1999). Photons are created with a disk-blackbody energy distribution and undergo repeated Compton scattering until escape from the atmosphere or absorption into the disk. The initial angular distribution of the photons is chosen for a scattering-dominated atmosphere (Chandrasekhar 1960). We employ the relativistic scattering formulae as well as the differential Klein-Nishina cross section to compute the scattering angle at each collision. In addition, the electrons are taken to have a relativistic Maxwellian distribution at the local temperature of the atmosphere.

To simplify the simulations the slab atmosphere is divided into approximately 600 bins (corresponding to radial annuli in the accretion disk), each of which is given constant disk and electron temperatures equal to the respective local temperatures at the center of the annulus. An equal number of photons enter each bin at the base of the atmosphere and scatter within a uniform temperature cloud. The escaped photons in each bin are appropriately weighted by a factor $`T_\mathrm{d}^3r\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ and summed to create the final energy spectrum of the model. A similar integration over a finite radial range calculates the spectrum of the localized disk region which is hypothesized to produce the QPO photons. The ratio of the spectrum of the modulated photons to the total disk spectrum is then proportional to the fractional rms amplitude of the QPO as a function of energy.

We note that we do not include reflection off of the cold disk in these exploratory calculations. Rather, we assume that the absorbed photons will be thermalized by the disk and re-emitted with a blackbody distribution at the local disk temperature. That is, we treat the disk as a perfect blackbody. Photon number is not conserved in this process, but the total energy flux deposited into the disk is assumed to be re-emitted locally. Since this re-emitted distribution is the same as our initial input distribution, we can renormalize the escaped photon energy flux to include the total energy flux lost to absorption in the disk. We apply this rescaling of the escaped flux at each annular radius before we add the photons to compute the total energy spectrum for the model.

## 4. Application to GRS 1915+105

Three known black hole candidates (BHCs) are each observed to display a high-frequency QPO (Morgan, Remillard, & Greiner 1997; Remillard et al. 1999a,b); two of these, a 67 Hz feature in GRS 1915+105 and a 300 Hz feature in GRO J1655-40, seem to remain stable in frequency despite appreciable changes in the source luminosity. The origin of these QPOs has been suggested to invoke effects of general relativity in the inner accretion disk since several time scales there can be associated with fast QPO at X-ray energies. Proposals for the QPO origins include: hot blobs at the innermost stable orbit (Morgan et al. 1997), frame-dragging effects (Merloni et al. 1999; Cui, Zhang, & Chen 1998; Markovic & Lamb 1998), inertial-acoustic instabilities (Milson & Taam 1997; Honma, Matsumoto, & Kato 1992), and diskoseismic oscillations (Nowak et al. 1997; Perez et al. 1997). To our knowledge the consistency of these models with the energy dependence of the QPO fractional amplitude has never been illustrated quantitatively.

To demonstrate the application of our tool we fit our numerically simulated energy spectra to data from RXTE observations of GRS 1915+105 taken during early 1996 when the 67 Hz QPO was particularly strong (1996 May 05; Morgan et al. 1997). In our analysis we limited the energy range of the Standard-2 PCA data from 2.5 to 25 keV and imposed a 1% systematic error over the entire energy range (Wilms et al. 1999). Spectral fitting was done using a grid of our four-parameter Monte Carlo spectra as an additive table model in XSPEC, version 10.00 (Arnaud 1996). The attenuation of radiation by the interstellar medium was taken into account using a second multiplicative model which employs the cross-sections of Bałucińska-Church & McCammon (1992).

The Monte Carlo model spectrum which best fits the data is shown in Figure 4 with residuals plotted as the ratio of the data to the model. For comparison we also present the residuals of the best-fit spectrum from the phenomenological model of an absorbed disk-blackbody plus an additional blackbody component. Fit parameters for both models are listed in Table 1.

We note that the residuals for both models indicate a probable iron line near 6.4 keV. An ad hoc addition of such a component

slightly improves the residuals from 5–10 keV ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=0.39`$) but does not significantly change the fit parameters for either model. Since the line is unimportant for both the overall flux and the resulting QPO energy dependence, we did not include it in our further modeling.

Using the best-fit parameters for the Monte Carlo model, we calculated the ratios of the modulated photon spectra to the total disk spectrum for three hypothesized regions of the 67 Hz QPO production. The resulting energy dependences of the QPO fractional amplitude are compared to the measurement of Morgan et al. (1997) in Figure 6. Each of the curves in Figure 6 has been normalized by a multiplicative factor to best describe the observational data. (This normalization factor corresponds to the fraction of photons emitted from the disk region which are modulated by the QPO mechanism.) Two of the curves are an acceptable fit to the data: one depicting QPO photons emitted from 6–7 $`GM/c^2`$ and one emitted from 7.5–8.5 $`GM/c^2`$. The third example, depicting a QPO produced in an outer disk region from 11–12 $`GM/c^2`$, does not reproduce the observation.

## 5. Analytic Approximation

Wagoner & Silbergleit (1999) have developed an analytical formalism which considers Compton scattering in the slab model above for an assumed angular distribution of the photons (which is valid for the diffusion approximation and the two-stream approximation). Using the local approximation that gradients normal to the disk surface are dominant, they solve the Boltzmann equation governing the evolution of the radiation field under collisions (i.e., scattering events in the atmosphere). They invoke the Kompaneets approximation that the change in the photon energy in each scattering event is much less than $`kT_\mathrm{e}`$ and neglect all other photon processes (such as bremsstrahlung). Finally, they neglect stimulated scattering; that is, the photon occupation number is assumed to be small.

Under these approximations the authors obtain an analytical expression for the photon energy flux (per unit energy, perpendicular to the disk surface) at any optical depth in the atmosphere. The solution involves only integrals over the input flux, which is a specified function of energy and may be a slowly varying function of $`r`$. For an input flux which is radially dependent, the emergent flux may be summed over radii if the physical thickness of the atmosphere is much less than the scale of radial gradients of the disk or cloud properties (a restriction which we note applies to our Monte Carlo model, as well).

Wagoner & Silbergleit apply their formalism to thin accretion disk atmospheres. Employing this application, we can compute the energy spectrum of QPO photons relative to the total energy spectrum of the disk and compare with the Monte Carlo application above. The parameters of the analytical model are the same as in our numerical work, namely $`T_\mathrm{m},T_0,\tau ,`$ and $`r_\mathrm{c}`$. (We note that the formalism allows a more general application in which the inner radius of the disk exceeds $`r_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ and in which the radial dependence of the electron temperature is arbitrary. The optical depth $`\tau `$ of the atmosphere may also be a slowly-varying function of $`r`$.) To complete the model one must specify the boundary condition at the top of the atmosphere ($`\tau =0`$); the outer boundary condition was taken from standard scattering atmospheres (Chandrasekhar 1960).

The analytic approximation was employed within a proof-of-principle calculation to investigate the sensitivity of this tool. Over a range of parameters involving lower optical depths and higher cloud temperatures than the above fit to the 1996 May 05 observation of GRS 1915+105 , we compared our Monte Carlo results to the analytical predictions. The common results were in good agreement. In particular, we obtained similar sensitivity to the location of the injected modulated photons.

## 6. Summary

We have demonstrated a tool to locate the origin of QPO photons in accretion disk systems; the method uses the observed energy spectrum and the observed energy dependence

of the QPO fractional amplitude to constrain the disk location in which the photon modulation may occur. Applying this technique to the BHC GRS 1915+105 , we show that the functional energy dependence of the QPO amplitude constrains the origin of the QPO to be between the inner disk edge and just outside the maximum in the radial epicyclic frequency at 8 $`GM/c^2`$. This location is consistent with the models described in §4. From experience with our Monte Carlo and analytic models we can also suggest that observations of GRS 1915+105 which require hotter clouds to model comparatively harder spectra (e.g. 1996 June 12 from Morgan et al. 1997) may more precisely constrain the location of the QPO production.

The natural development of this tool will incorporate other geometries, as well as different temperature and density structures, to model the Comptonizing atmosphere. In addition, one must relax the assumption of a slowly-rotating central black hole. Although here we model the energy spectrum of GRS 1915+105 adequately with our simple choice of coronal construction, we do not fully constrain the structure of the atmosphere using relevant observations such as timing or coherence. The latter data should be used in conjunction with energy spectra to reveal the true nature of the electron clouds which might produce the high-energy photons seen in many BHC. The tool discussed in this Letter could then be a powerful indicator of the origin of QPOs in accretion disk systems.

The authors would like to acknowledge innumerable useful conversations with Mallory Roberts. We also thank Keith Arnaud for his assistance with the XSPEC table model file format. This work was supported by NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program grant NGT 5-50044 to D.E.L., NASA grant NAG 5-3102 to R.V.W., and grant number Sta 173/22 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to J.W. R.V.W. and J.W. also thank the Aspen Center for Physics for support during a 1999 summer workshop. This research has made use of data obtained through the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Online Service, provided by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.


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# Equivalent frames in Brans-Dicke theory

## Abstract

We discuss the physical equivalence between the Einstein and Jordan frames in Brans-Dicke theory. The inequivalence of conformal transformed theories is clarified with the help of an old equivalence theorem of Chrisholm’s.

preprint: UTEXAS-HEP-00-5

Brans-Dicke theory is a natural generalization of Einstein theory. In Brans-Dicke theory, the effective gravitational constant $`G_{eff}=\varphi ^2`$, varies as the Brans-Dicke field $`\varphi `$ evolves. The evolution of the scalar field slows down the expansion rate of the universe during inflation, and allows nucleation of bubbles to end the inflationary era. There are two conformally related frames, the Einstein frame and the Jordan frame, in Brans-Dicke theory. In the literature, people do not agree with each other about the equivalence of the two frames. Some people think that the two frames are physically equivalent and some people do not think that they are physically equivalent. For example, some people considered the inflationary models in Einstein frame in order to solve equations easily, but they analyzed their final results in Jordan frame because most people insist that the Jordan frame is the physical frame to keep the equivalence principle. In fact, the equivalence principle can be kept in Einstein frame if we use Einstein frame as the physical frame. A dilaton field appears in Kaluza-Klein reduction and string theory also. In string theory, we have the conformally related string frame and Einstein frame. As we all know, the string frame is equivalent to the Einstein frame. How could that the string frame is equivalent to the Einstein frame and the Jordan frame is not equivalent to the Einstein frame? In this letter, we will use the equivalence theorem to address this problem. In general, we can ask if the physics remains the same under an arbitrary change of field variables. Let us first look at the equivalence theorem .

Theorem: Let the Lagrangian be known in terms of a set of field variables $`\varphi `$, $`L[\varphi ]`$. If one expresses the field variables $`\varphi `$ as nonlinear but local functions of another set of field variables $`\phi `$ (one may think of $`\varphi `$ as a scalar field for simplicity),

$$\varphi =f[\phi ],f[0]=0,f^{}[\phi ]0,$$
(1)
one can write down the Lagrangian as $`L[\varphi ]=L[f(\phi )]=L_t[\phi ]`$. The on-mass shell S matrices calculated with $`L[\varphi ]`$ and $`L_t[\phi ]`$ are identical (in making the comparison it may be necessary to introduce appropriate wave-function renormalizations). In other words, both the fields $`\varphi `$ and $`\phi `$ can be used to describe the same physics.

The important point about the theorem is that we must keep the origin in the field space unchanged when we change the field variables so that we can have the same free field Lagrangian and we do not change the physical quantities, like the mass of the field. In gauge field theories, we give mass to the gauge fields when we shift the Higgs fields by some constants. In the above theorem, when we use the Lagrangian $`L_t[\phi ]`$, we also need to introduce the Jacobian (the so called Lee-Yang term ) due to the change of field variables. The contribution of the Jacobian is necessary to cancel out the most divergent term due to the derivative couplings. The Jacobian is also necessary for an invariant measure in the field space . However, it is not really too important because we set $`\delta ^4(0)=0`$ when we use the dimensional regularization scheme.

Now let us look at several examples. In string theory, the Einstein frame is related with the string frame by $`g_{\mu \nu }^E=e^{4\varphi /(D2)}g_{\mu \nu }^{str}`$ and the dilaton field $`\varphi `$ is kept invariant. From the equivalence theorem, we know that the string frame is physically equivalent to the Einstein frame.

Suppose we have a free massless scalar field theory,

$$L=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \phi ^\mu \phi .$$
(2)
Take $`\phi =\varphi +\lambda \varphi ^3`$, then the free massless scalar field theory (2) becomes

$$L=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi 3\lambda \varphi ^2_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi \frac{9}{2}\lambda ^2\varphi ^4_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi .$$
(3)
Now we get a massless scalar field theory with derivative self-interactions. Since the coupling constant has mass dimension $`2`$, the theory in terms of $`\varphi `$ is not power-counting renormalizable. However, this nonrenormalizability is fictitious. We compute the tree diagram for the four point and six point Green’s function on shell, the results are zero. The one loop contribution to the $`\varphi \varphi `$ scattering is also zero (the result is proportional to $`\delta ^4(0)`$ which is zero by dimensional regularization). These results are expected because the theory described by (3) is in fact a free theory described by (2).

If we take $`\phi =m_1e^{\varphi /m_1}`$ instead, we get

$`L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{2\varphi /m_1}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi `$ (4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{2\varphi }{m_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2\varphi ^2}{m_1^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4\varphi ^3}{3m_1^3}}+\mathrm{}\right]_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi .`$ (5)
Again we get a massless scalar field theory with derivative self-interactions. It is not difficult to check that the tree and one-loop diagrams give zero also. Although the exponential transformation does not satisfy the condition of the equivalence theorem, the two fields $`\phi `$ and $`\varphi `$ describe the same physics for this simple case. This may be understood from the fact that the free field Lagrangians are the same. If we introduce self-interactions, then it is obvious that the exponential transformation introduces mass that changes the free field Lagrangian. Therefore, the exponential transformed theory is not physically equivalent to the original theory in general.

However if we start from a free scalar field of mass $`m`$,

$$L=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \phi ^\mu \phi \frac{1}{2}m^2\phi ^2.$$
(6)
Take $`\phi =m_1e^{\varphi /m_1}`$, then Eq. (6) becomes

$`L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{2\varphi /m_1}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m^2m_1^2e^{2\varphi /m_1}`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi m^2\varphi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m^2m_1^2m^2m_1\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{2m^2}{3m_1}}\varphi ^3{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_1}}\varphi _\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi `$ (9)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{3m_1^2}}\varphi ^4{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_1^2}}\varphi ^2_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi +\mathrm{}.`$
Now we have a scalar field of mass $`\sqrt{2}m`$ with self interaction. The physical spectrum is changed. It is easy to verify that the tree diagram for the four point Green’s function is not zero on shell.

Now we are ready to discuss the Brans-Dicke theory. The Jordan Brans-Dicke Lagrangian is given by

$$_{BD}=\frac{\sqrt{\gamma }}{16\pi }\left[\varphi \stackrel{~}{R}+\omega \gamma ^{\mu \nu }\frac{_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi }{\varphi }\right]_m(\psi ,\gamma _{\mu \nu }).$$
(10)
If we expand the metric $`\gamma _{\mu \nu }`$ around the flat metric $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$, $`\stackrel{~}{h}_{\mu \nu }=\gamma _{\mu \nu }\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ does not represent the spin-2 massless graviton. Instead, it is $`\rho _{\mu \nu }=\stackrel{~}{h}_{\mu \nu }+a\sigma \eta _{\mu \nu }`$ that represents the spin-2 massless graviton. The Lagrangian (10) is conformal invariant under the conformal transformations,

$$g_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma _{\mu \nu },\mathrm{\Omega }=\varphi ^\alpha ,(\alpha \frac{1}{2}),\sigma =\varphi ^{12\alpha }.$$

For the case $`\alpha =1/2`$, we make the following transformations

$$g_{\mu \nu }=e^{a\sigma }\gamma _{\mu \nu },$$
(12)
$$\varphi =\frac{8\pi }{\kappa ^2}e^{a\sigma },$$
(13)
where $`\kappa ^2=8\pi G,a=\beta \kappa ,\beta ^2=\frac{2}{2\omega +3}`$. After the conformal transformations (12) and (13), we get the Einstein Brans-Dicke Lagrangian

$$=\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{2\kappa ^2}R\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \sigma _\nu \sigma \right]_m(\psi ,e^{a\sigma }g_{\mu \nu }).$$
(14)
Note that the Brans-Dicke Lagrangian is not invariant under the transformations (12) and (13). In this frame, $`h_{\mu \nu }=g_{\mu \nu }\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ represents the spin-2 massless graviton. That’s the reason why we think the Einstein frame is the physical frame. The kinetic term of the $`\varphi `$ field in Eq. (10) can be rewritten as the familiar form $`\gamma ^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi `$ if we let $`\varphi =\phi ^2`$. As discussed in the examples, the transformations (12) and (13) give two physically inequivalent theories if the scalar field $`\varphi `$ has potential term. For the case discussed here (Eq. (10) and Eq. (14)), the equivalence theorem tells us that the Einstein frame is equivalent to the Jordan frame because the free field Lagrangians are the same. In other words, if we have the same in states $`|\gamma _{in}`$ and $`|g_{in}`$ and out states $`\gamma _{out}|`$ and $`g_{out}|`$, then the cross section calculated in the Jordan frame using the Lagrangian (10) is the same as that calculated in the Einstein frame using the Lagrangian (14). However, the meaning of the equivalence between the Jordan frame and the Einstein frame in the literature is not what we stated here. For example, cosmological models in the Jordan frame are different from those in the Einstein frame. The reason is very simple. If we use the same physical parameters, like the Hubble constant at the present, in both the Jordan frame and the Einstein frame, then the in and out states are not the same in the two frames. In , there are some explicit examples to show the difference between the two frames.

The equivalence theorem can tell us if two theories written in terms of different field variables are equivalent. If two theories written in terms of different field variables are not physically equivalent, the theorem can not tell us which theory should be thought as the physical one. If we consider the interactions between gravity and matter fields, then the physical condition, namely the Einstein equivalence principle, rules out the conformal transformations (12). If we impose a minimal coupling between the gravity and matter in the original theory, then we lose the minimal coupling after the conformal transformations. In other words, we can have covariant conservation law $`^\nu T_{\mu \nu }`$ in the original theory, but we do not have the covariant conservation law in the transformed theory.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author would like to thank Professor Yuval Ne’eman and Bryce DeWitt for fruitful discussions.


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# Gradient descent learning in and out of equilibrium

## References