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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Cosmic ray particles with energy in excess of $`10^{20}`$ eV have been detected during the last thirty years by several independent experiments, such as AGASA (Takeda et al. 1998; Takeda et al. 1999; Hayashida et al. 1994), Fly’s Eye (Bird et al. 1993, 1994, 1995), Haverah Park (Lawrence, Reid and Watson 1991), Yakutsk (Efimov 1991), Volcano Ranch (Linsley 1963) and more recently by the High Resolution Fly’s Eye experiment (Kieda et al. 1999). These events represent now more than ever a big challenge for our understanding of particle physics and astrophysics.

While hystorically the first reactions to the detection of these particles were related to the already difficult problem of accelerating particles to the highest observed energies, it became soon clear that the existence of cosmic rays having energy larger than $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV \[the so-called ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR)\] was more than that, and indeed represented a much more serious challenge to known Physics. Soon after the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), Zatsepin and Kuzmin (1966) and independently Greisen (1966) recognized that the propagation of a proton in the CMBR bath had to be limited to short distances due to photopion production. If the sources of UHECRs are distributed homogeneously in the sky, this immediately implies that the flux of UHECRs above $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV should be strongly suppressed. This is the so-called Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff. Similar arguments apply to nuclei.

This puzzling situation inspired on one side a proliferation of models of the generation of particles with sufficiently high energy, and on the other side it fueled interest in the study of the propagation of UHECRs \[see for instance Lee, Olinto and Sigl 1995; Lemoine, Sigl, Olinto and Schramm 1997 and Bhattacharjee and Sigl 2000, and references therein\] for different compositions and for realistic models for the distributions of the sources and for the intergalactic magnetic field, which still remains only contrained by upper limits, generally based on measurements of the Faraday rotation of light coming from distant quasars (Kronberg 1994; Blasi, Burles and Olinto 1998). These limits are at the level of $`10^9`$ Gauss, although larger values are allowed in large scale structures. The angular deflection of ultra high energy protons in such fields would be comparable with or smaller than the angular resolution of current experiments, so that in principle it should be possible to do astronomy using UHECRs as probes. Several efforts have been put into the search for candidate nearby sources in the direction of arrival of UHECRs, but with no result (see for instance Elbert and Sommers 1995).

Recent analysis of the distribution of arrival directions of UHECRs (Takeda et al. 1999; Uchihori et al. 2000), in search for a possible large scale anisotropy also gave negative results: with the present statistics, the observed distribution appears to be consistent with isotropy, but indications have been found of small scales anisotropies, at a few degrees level. If confirmed, this finding will hopefully provide hints about the sources of UHECRs.

The paper is structured as follows: in section 2 we give a short outline of the observational situation; in section 3 we present a critical view of the GZK cutoff, its meaning and its potential power in limiting wide classes of models. In section 4 we introduce the astrophysics and particle physics inspired models; in section 5 we discuss topological defects variants of TD models, while in section 6 we discuss the models of relic quasistable massive particles. We conclude in section 7.

## 2 Observations

The cosmic ray spectrum is measured from fractions of GeV to a (current) maximum energy of $`3\times 10^{20}`$ eV. The spectrum above a few GeV and up to $`10^{15}`$ eV (the knee) is measured to be a power law with slope $`2.7`$, while at higher energies and up to $`10^{19}`$ eV (the ankle) the spectrum has a different slope, of $`3.1`$. At energy larger than $`10^{19}`$ eV a flattening seems to be present.

There are currently 92 events above $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV, 47 of which have been detected by the AGASA experiment.

The information available on the composition of cosmic rays at the highest energies is quite poor. A study of the shower development was possible only for the Fly’s Eye event (Bird et al. 1995) and disfavors a photon primary (Halzen et al. 1995). A reliable analysis of the composition is however possible only on statistical basis, because of the large fluctuations between one shower and the other at fixed type of primary particle.

The Fly’s Eye collaboration reports of a predominantly heavy composition at $`3\times 10^{17}`$ eV, with a smooth transition to light composition at $`10^{19}`$ eV (see talk by Alessandro, these proceedings). This trend was not confirmed by AGASA (Hayashida et al. 1994; Yoshida and Dai 1998).

In (Takeda et al. 1999) the directions of arrival of the AGASA events above $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV were studied in detail: no appreciable departure from isotropy was found, with the exception of a few small scale anisotropies in the form of doublets and triplets of events within an angular scale comparable with the angular resolution of the experiments ($`2.5^o`$ for AGASA). This analysis was repeated in (Uchihori et al. 2000) for the whole sample of events above $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV, and a total of 12 doublets and 3 triplets were found within $`3^o`$ angular scales. The attempt to associate these multiplets with different types of astrophysical sources possibly clustered in the local supercluster did not give positive result (see Stanev, these proceedings).

## 3 The GZK cutoff: what is it telling us?

Although the existence of UHECRs is experimentally well established, it represents a big challenge from the theoretical point of view, because of a combination of puzzles related to the production and to the propagation of these particles. We will summarize the different parts of this puzzle in the following.

The first and most important part of the mystery is that the Universe should be dark at energies in excess of a few $`10^{19}`$ eV due to photopion production of UHECRs on the photons of the CMBR. This interaction has a typical pathlength $`l_{int}<50`$ Mpc (corresponding to a travel time of $`<10^8`$ years) at ultra high energies (see Stanev, these proceedings). If the sources of UHECRs are distributed nearly homogeneously in the universe, the photopion production results in an observed spectrum which has a pronounced cutoff that starts at $`3\times 10^{19}`$ eV. This is the so-called GZK cutoff (Greisen 1966; Zatsepin and Kuzmin 1966). It is worth spending a few more words on the meaning of the cutoff, since it is so crucial in defining the problem of UHECRs. Particles generated at distances closer than $`l_{int}`$ can reach the detector and be UHECR events. The pathlength $`l_{int}`$ becomes gradually larger at lower energies, so that particles with these energies can come from correspondingly larger distances. It is clear that the problem of UHECRs exists because, for a homogeneous distribution of sources there are not enough nearby sources to provide the observed fluxes. In Fig. 1 we show the results of AGASA observations at energies $`>10^{18.5}`$ eV and the theoretical prediction for a homogeneous distribution of sources and an injection spectrum $`E^2`$ (dashed line) and $`E^3`$ (dash-dotted line). Two comments are in order on this figure: 1) the predicted spectra may present a recovery above some energy, due to the flux contributed by the nearby sources; 2) the energy position of the cutoff increases for a locally overdense distribution of sources.

Only if the universe presents local overdensities by a factor $`>10`$ it is possible to reconcile the expected spectra with the observed spectra and fluxes (Berezinsky et al. 1990), provided suitable sources are found in the local universe. These overdensities are not observed (Blanton, Blasi and Olinto 2000).

At this point the second part of the mystery enters: upper limits on the intergalactic magnetic field based on the Faraday rotation measurements are at the level of $`10^910^{10}`$ Gauss (Kronberg 1994; Blasi et al. 1999), so that typical deflection angles of protons are forced to be within a few degrees. Searches for sources of UHECRs have been carried out, but no plausible candidate was found within $`3^o`$ of the direction of arrival of the events (Elbert and Sommers 1995). If the candidate particle is an iron nucleus then the deflection angles are likely to become larger and it becomes correspondingly harder to look for sources. However, if the deflection angle becomes too large, then the regime of propagation becomes closer to diffusive and this forces the distance to the source to be even smaller, making the situation more problematic. A possible exception to this is if the iron nuclei are accelerated locally in the Galaxy and deflected and isotropized in an extended halo. In this case no GZK cutoff is expected.

The problems mentioned above are all related to the propagation of UHECRs. However there is another problem, that hystorically was the first to be studied, and is related to the mechanism able to produce such particles. We dedicate the next section to this topic.

## 4 Astrophysics and Particle Physics Models

Astrophysical models for the production of UHECRs are generally based on an acceleration mechanism to be applied to a class of scenarios of astrophysical relevance. We do not discuss here any of the acceleration models, but we outline the general features and problems they encounter. An exhaustive discussion of most of the models which are currently under investigation can be found in (Olinto 2000) and some of them are discussed by Stanev (these proceedings). A very broad classification of these models is that between galactic and extragalactic ones. In general, galactic models require heavy composition, in order to emulate the isotropic distribution of arrival directions.

In most of the extragalactic models that have been proposed so far, the highest energies are reached only for the extreme values of the parameters involved \[see (Norman, Melrose and Achterberg 1995)\]. Strong constraints on astrophysical models come from the spectrum they generate (after accounting for propagation). In fact, as long as the acceleration models are associated with sources with a homogeneous distribution in the sky, the problem of UHECRs remains, independently on the maximum energy. The case of a single source accidentally present in the nearby universe (for instance in the local supercluster) was investigated by Berezinsky, Grigorieva and Dogiel 1990; Blasi and Olinto 1999; Sigl, Lemoine and Biermann 1999). Even with relatively strong fields of $`10^810^7`$ Gauss, the anisotropy is too large compared with observations (see however (Ahn et al. 1999) for an alternative model involving M87).

The difficulty in acceleration to the highest energies (Norman, Melrose and Achterberg 1995), the presence of the GZK cutoff in most of the cases and the lack of counterparts in the arrival directions fueled the interest in a new class of models that could avoid these problems. These are particle physics inspired models, in which UHECRs are generated as a result of the decay of very massive particles (from here the name of Top-Down models). The problem of reaching the maximum energies is, in these models, solved by construction.

The spectra of the particles resulting from the decay are determined in principle by QCD, the channel of reactions being: $`Xq\overline{q}`$, where $`q`$ are quarks that hadronize, generating mainly pions and a small fraction of protons and neutrons. The spectra are generally very flat (roughly $`E^{3/2}`$, although the realistic calculations do not give power law spectra), which represents one of the peculiar features of TD models. At the production, most of the ultra-high energy particles are gamma rays, but propagation effects can change the ratio of gamma rays to protons. The gamma rays generated at distances larger than the absorption length produce a cascade at low energies (MeV-GeV) which represents a powerful tool to contrain TD models.

There are basically two ways of generating the very massive particles and make them decay at the present time: 1) trapping them inside topological defects; 2) making them quasi-stable (lifetime larger than the present age of the universe) in the early universe. We discuss these two possibilities separately in the next two sections.

## 5 Topological Defects

Topological defects are naturally formed at phase transitions and their existence has been proven by direct observations in several experiments on liquid crystals and ferromagnetic materials. Similar symmetry breakings at particle physics level are responsible for the formation of cosmic topological defects \[for a review see (Vilenkin and Shellard 1994)\].

The fact that topological defects can generate UHECRs was first proposed in the pioneering work of Hill, Schramm and Walker (1987). The general idea is that the stability of the defect can be locally broken by different types of proceses (see below): this results in the false vacuum, trapped within the defect, to fall into the real vacuum (outside universe), so that the gauge bosons of the field trapped in the defect acquire a mass $`m_X`$. At this point, the very massive and unstable particles rapidly decay producing high energy particles.

Several topological defects have been studied in the literature: ordinary strings (Bhattacharjee and Rana 1990), superconducting strings (Hill, Schramm and Walker 1987), bound states of magnetic monopoles (Hill 1983; Bhattacharjee and Sigl 1995), networks of monopoles and strings (Berezinsky, Martin and Vilenkin 1997), necklaces (Berezinsky and Vilenkin 1997) and vortons (Masperi and Silva 1998).

Only strings, necklaces and monopolonia will be considered here, while a more extended discussion can be found in more detailed reviews (Bhattacharjee and Sigl 2000; Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin 1998).

### 5.1 Ordinary strings

Strings can generate UHECRs if there are configurations in which microscopic or macroscopic portions of strings annihilate. In the contact regions the phase of the field trapped in the string becomes undetermined and the vacuum expectation value becomes non zero. If $`\eta m_X`$ is the symmetry breaking scale at which the string formed, it is easy to see that during intercommutation of strings or self-intersection, only one (or a few) X-particles are generated. It was shown (Shellard 1987; Gill and Kibble 1994) that self-intersection events provide a flux of UHECRs which is much smaller than required. The same conclusion holds for intercommutation between strings.

The efficiency of the process can be enhanced by multiple loop fragmentation: as a nonintersecting closed loop oscillates and radiates its energy away, the loop configuration gradually changes. After the loop has lost a substantial part of its energy, it becomes likely to self-intersect and fragment into smaller and smaller loops, until the typical size of a loop becomes comparable with the string width $`\eta `$. At this point the energy is radiated in the form of X-particles. Although the process of loop fragmentation is not well known, some analytical approximations (Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin 1998) show that appreciable UHECR fluxes imply utterly large gamma ray cascade fluxes. Battacharjee and Sigl (2000) argued however that there might be models of loop fragmentation in which this result is mitigated.

Another way of liberating X-particles is through cusp annihilation (Brandenberger 1987). Cusps can be produced along a string loop (Turok 1984) or due to kinks propagating in opposite directions on a long string (Mohazzab and Brandenberger 1993). Although during the cusp annihilation a macroscopic fraction of the string length can be transformed into X-particles, the corresponding UHECR flux is far too low (Bhattacharjee 1989;Gill and Kibble 1994).

The idea that long strings lose energy mainly through formation of closed loops was recently challenged by Vincent, Antunes and Hindmarsh (1998). Their simulations seem to show that the string can produce X-particles directly and that this process dominates over the generation of closed loops. This new picture was recently questioned by Moore and Shellard (1998).

Even if the results of Vincent et al. (1998) are correct however, they cannot solve the problem of UHECRs (Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin 1998): in fact the typical separation between two segments of a long string is comparable with the Hubble scale, so that UHECRs would be completely absorbed. If by accident a string is close to us (within a few tens Mpc) then the UHECR events would appear to come from a filamentary region of space, implying a large anisotropy which is not observed. Even if the UHECR particles do not reach us the gamma ray cascade due to absorption of UHE gamma rays produced at large distances imposes limits on the efficiency of direct production of X-particles by strings.

### 5.2 Monopolonia and monopole-strings networks

The role of monopolonia (bound states of monopoles and antimonopoles) for UHECRs was first pointed out by Hill (1983) and Schramm and Hill (1983). When the monopolonium is produced it is in a very excited state, and later decays to the ground state, where the typical distance between the monopole and the antimonopole is smaller than the size of the inner (quantum) stable orbit. At this point the monopole and the antimonopole annihilate and generate X-particles. This process was studied in detail by Bhattacharjee and Sigl (1995). However, recently Blanco-Pillado and Olum (1999) have found that plasma friction on the monopoles result in a short lifetime for the monopolonium, making it useless for UHECRs.

As an alternative, a similar system was proposed by Berezinsky, Martin and Vilenkin (1997), where the symmetry breakings $`GH\times U(1)H\times Z_N`$ ($`N3`$) results first in the formation of monopoles and then of strings connecting them and forming an infinite network. The shrinking of strings during their evolution causes the distance between monopoles to decrease. During this stage, monopoles accelerate and therefore radiate very high energy gluons, that generate hadrons through fragmentation. The fluxes of UHECRs that result from this process are negligible (Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin 1998).

### 5.3 Necklaces

An interesting special case of monopole-string networks is realized when the following chain of symmetry breakings occurs: $`GH\times U(1)H\times Z_2`$. In this case each monopole gets attached to two strings, to form a necklace (Berezinsky and Vilenkin 1997).

The critical parameter that defines the dynamics of this network is the ratio $`r=m/\mu d`$ where $`m`$ is the monopole mass and $`d`$ is the typical separation between monopoles (e.g. the length of a string segment). Berezinsky and Vilenkin (1997) proposed that there might be cases in which the system evolves toward a state where $`r1`$, although only numerical simulations can confirm this point. In this case, the distance between the monopoles decreases and in the end the monopoles annihilate, with the production of X-particles and their decay to UHECRs. The rate of generation of X-particles is easily found to be $`\dot{n}_Xr^2\mu /t^3m_X`$. The quantity $`r^2\mu `$ is upper limited by the cascade radiation, given by $`\omega _{cas}=\frac{1}{2}f_\pi r^2\mu =\frac{3}{4}f_\pi r^2\mu /t_0^2`$ ($`f_\pi 0.51`$). The typical distance from the Earth at which the monopole-antimonopole annihilations occur is comparable with the typical separation between necklaces, $`D\left(\frac{3f_\pi \mu }{4t_0^2\omega _{cas}}\right)^{1/4}>10(\mu /10^6GeV^2)^{1/4}`$ kpc.

Clearly, necklaces provide an example in which the typical separation between defects is smaller than the pathlength of gamma rays and protons at ultra-high energies. Hence necklaces behave like a homogeneous distribution of sources, so that the proton component has the usual GZK cutoff. This component dominates the UHECR flux up to $`10^{20}`$ eV, while at higher energies gamma rays take over. The fluxes obtained in (Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin 1998) are reported in Fig. 2, where the SUSY-QCD fragmentation functions (Berezinsky and Kachelriess 1998) were used. The dashed lines are for $`m_X=10^{14}`$ GeV, the dotted lines for $`m_X=10^{15}`$ GeV and the solid lines for $`m_X=10^{16}`$ GeV. The two curves for gamma rays refer to two different assumptions about the radio background at low frequencies (Protheroe and Biermann 1996).

## 6 Cosmological relic particles

Super heavy particles with very long lifetime can be produced in the early universe and generate UHECRs at present. The existence of particles satisfying these requirements was studied recently by Berezinsky, Kachelriess and Vilenkin (1997); Kuzmin and Rubakov (1997), Chung, Kolb and Riotto (1998) and Kuzmin and Tkachev (1998) and reviewed by Kuzmin and Tkachev (1998a). In order to keep the same symbolism used in previous sections, we will call these particles X-particles.

X-particles can be produced in the early universe through different mechanisms. The simplest of them is the gravitational production: particles are produced naturally in a time variable gravitational field or indeed in a generic time variable classical field. In the gravitational case no additional coupling is required (all particles interact gravitationally). If the time variable field is the inflaton field $`\varphi `$, a direct coupling of the X-particles to $`\varphi `$ is needed.

The gravitational production of particles was first proposed by Zeldovich and Starobinsky (1972). It does not require any additional assumption neither on the X-particles nor on cosmology. In particular inflation is not required a priori, and indeed it reduces the effect. It can be shown that at time t, gravitational production can only generate X-particles with mass $`m_XH(t)m_\varphi `$, where $`H(t)`$ is the Hubble constant and $`m_\varphi `$ is the inflaton mass. Chung, Kolb and Riotto (1998) and Kuzmin and Tkachev (1998) demostrated the impressive result that the fraction of the critical mass contributed by X-particles with $`m_X10^{13}`$ GeV produced gravitationally is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_X1`$, with no additional assumption! In other words, cold dark matter can naturally be explained in terms of X-particles in this range of masses.

If the X-particles are directly coupled to the inflaton field, they can be effectively generated during preheating (Kofman, Linde and Starobinsky 1994; Felder, Kofman and Linde 1998). Alternative mechanisms for the production of X-particles are based on non-equilibrium thermal generation during the preheating stage (Berezinsky, Kachelriess and Vilenkin 1997).

As mentioned in the beginning of this section, in order for X-particles to be useful dark matter candidates and generate UHECRs they need to be long lived. The gravitational coupling by itself induces a lifetime much shorter than the age of the universe for the range of masses which we are interested in. Therefore, in order to have long lifetimes, additional symmetries must be postulated: for instance discrete gauge symmetries can protect X-particles from decay, while being very weakly broken, perhaps by instanton effects (Kuzmin and Rubakov 1998). These effects can allow decay times larger than the age of the universe, as shown by Hamaguchi, Nomura and Yanagida (1998).

The slow decay of X-particles produces UHECRs. The interesting feature of this model is that X-particles cluster in the galactic halo, as cold dark matter (Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin 1998). \[If monopolonia survived they would also cluster in the halo\]. Hence UHECRs are expected to be produced locally, with no absorption, and as a consequence the observed spectra are nearly identical to the emission spectra, and therefore gamma rays dominate. The very flat spectra and the gamma ray composition are two of the signatures. The calculations of the expected fluxes have been performed by Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin (1998), Birkel and Sarkar (1998) and Blasi (1999). In figure 3 we report the results found in (Blasi 1999). The two solid lines are obtained for SUSY-QCD fragmentation functions and the dashed lines are for the QCD fragmentation function in the MLLA approximation, with $`m_X=10^{14}`$ GeV (solid lines) and $`m_X=10^{13}`$ GeV (thin lines).

The strongest signature of the model is a slight anisotropy due to the asymmetric position of the sun in the Galaxy (Dubovsky and Tinyakov 1998; Berezinsky, Blasi and Vilenkin 1998). More recently a detailed evaluation of the amplitude and phase of the first harmonic has been carried out by Berezinsky and Mikhailov (1999) and Medina Tanco and Watson (1999). The two papers agree that the present data is consistent with the anisotropy expected in the model of X-particles in the halo. In fact, as discussed in section 2, observations at present do not suggest any appreciable deviation from isotropy, with the exception of a few degree scale anisotropies showing up in the form of doublets and triplets of events within an angular scale comparable to the resolution of the experiments. Uchihori et al. (2000) investigated the total of 92 events above $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV collected by Volcano Ranch, Haverah Park, Yakutsk and Akeno and found 12 doublets and 3 triplets within $`3^o`$.

In TD models the presence of these multiplets of events is usually not well accomodated because of the homogeneous distribution of the topological defects or of the superheavy particles. However, it was shown by Blasi and Sheth (2000) that in the latter the presence of the multiplets is actually naturally explained, taking into account the dark matter distribution in the galactic halo.

The spatial distribution of cold dark matter has been studied in detail in N-body simulations (Ghigna et al. 1999; Moore et al. 1999; Tormen, Diaferio and Syer 1998) and a few elements seem to be well established: 1) the density of dark matter has a behaviour $`r^\gamma `$ with $`\gamma 11.5`$ in the central part of galaxies; 2) at large radii the radial profile is $`r^3`$; 3) in addition to the smooth component, simulations show very clearly the existence of a clumped component. Berezinsky (2000) suggested that the multiplets might be correlated with the clumps of dark matter. Blasi and Sheth (2000) carried out a numerical simulation of the arrival directions of UHECR events from a realistic distribution of dark matter in the halo (including the clumps) and derived the probabilities to detect the observed numbers of doublets and triplets (or more). They adopted a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW: Navarro, Frenk and White 1996) smooth distribution of dark matter and used the results of the N-body simulations for the small scale structure, assuming each clump being represented by an isothermal sphere. The numbers of doublets and triplets found by generating a large number of halo configurations and the corresponding pattern of arrival directions of UHECRs are comparable with the observed ones and in excess of the number expected from an isotropic distribution of arrival directions. Surprisingly, the main reason for the increase in the predicted number of doublets and triplets with respect to isotropy is that the smooth component has an NFW profile. The effect of the clumps, apart from increasing slightly the numbers of multiplets, is to enhance the probability of having more than the average number of doublets and triplets. This result can be understood by accounting for the shape of the dark matter profile, increasing toward the central part of the galaxy. Predictions for future full sky experiments were proposed.

## 7 Conclusions

The problem of the existence of UHECRs is all but solved. Astrophysical models are being narrowed down by several constraints: most of the extragalactic sources would suffer a GZK cutoff, since the large overdensities needed locally to avoid it do not seem to be present. Moreover it is difficult to reach the highest energies (Norman, Melrose and Achterberg 1995). Galactic accelerators usually require an iron dominated composition in order to account for the isotropy of arrival directions. Further studies are needed to quantify the expected and observed anisotropies in these models, since the magnetic field strength and extension in the halo are poorly known.

Top-Down models naturally provide the highest energies, and at least some of them can describe quite well the observed sprectal shape above $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV. As positive examples we considered in some detail the cases of necklaces and relic super massive particles in the halo of the Galaxy. In the former model, the composition of UHECRs should be dominated by protons up to $`10^{20}`$ eV, and by photons at higher energies. In the latter, UHECRs are gamma rays and a peculiar pattern of large and small scale anisotropies should be visible in future observations. In all Top-Down models there is at least an appreciable fraction of UHECRs in the form of gamma rays.

Experiments like HiRes (Corbato’ et al. 1992), currently operating, the Auger project (Cronin 1992), the proposed Telescope Array (Teshima et al. 1992) and the OWL-Airwatch satellite (Streitmatter 1997) will nail down the answers to the dark points. An unambiguous determination of the composition will be fundamental: heavy composition would rule out all Top-Down models and open a window of opportunity for galactic scenarios. A Gamma ray dominated composition would instead be a smoking gun for Top-Down models. The measurement of the anisotropy on different scales will also be a crucial step: galactic models all predict some degree of anisotropy toward the galactic disk or center. A peculiar pattern of anisotropy is also predicted by super heavy particles clustered as dark matter in the galactic halo.

Aknowledgments This work was supported by the DOE and the NASA grant NAG 5-7092 at Fermilab.

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# Supermassive Black Holes in Disk Galaxies

## 1. Introduction

A major payoff period for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is under way, as the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) starts to produce black hole detections routinely and in large numbers. Eight new BH detections are available from Nuker team work (Gebhardt et nuk. 2000b), and improved observations or new detections are available for 6 more (Verdoes Kleijn et al. 2000; Bower et al. 2000; Green et al. 2000; Kaiser et al. 2000; Nelson et al. 2000). The total number of BHs available for demographic studies is now at least 34. This is enough for a quantum improvement in our ability to ask astrophysical questions.

STIS is well designed for black hole searches based on stellar or ionized gas dynamics. In addition, maser disks have provided BH detections in three galaxies, including the spectacular case of NGC 4258 (Miyoshi et al. 1995). What dynamical searches securely detect are central dark objects with masses $`M_{}`$ $``$ 106 – 109.5 $`M_{}`$. The arguments that these dark masses are BHs and not dark clusters of (e. g.) brown dwarf stars, white dwarf stars, neutron stars, or stellar-mass black holes are indirect. However, in NGC 4258 and in our Galaxy, the maximum possible radius that a dark cluster can have is so small that astrophysical constraints (collision times for brown dwarfs and evaporation times for stellar remnants) rule out the above BH alternatives (Maoz 1998). This result increases our confidence that the other central dark objects also are BHs.

With STIS, the BH search has become feasible for most nearby galaxies that have unobscured centers and reasonably old stellar populations. The search is not easy; e. g., searching for a 106-$`M_{}`$ BH is still difficult at the distance of the Virgo cluster and impossible much beyond. But well chosen samples provide reliable detections or upper limits on $`M_{}`$ that are suitable to address a variety of astrophysical questions. Many observing programs of this sort are currently under way and are, as of mid-2000, just beginning to yield results.

My oral paper reviewed four particularly good BH cases, NGC 4258 (the maser galaxy), NGC 4374 (which contains an ionized gas disk with a very clean BH signature – Bower et al. 1998), NGC 3115 (whose nucleus, with an observed dispersion of 600 $`\pm `$ 37 km s-1, would be unbound without a dominant dark object – Kormendy et nuk. 1996), and our Galaxy. The latter is now the strongest BH case, based on measurements of stellar proper motions in a star cluster within $`0`$.′′$`5`$ = 0.02 pc of Sgr A\* (Eckart & Genzel 1997; Genzel et al. 1997, 2000; Ghez et al. 1998). The fastest-moving star has a total proper motion of $`1600\pm 200`$ km s-1. Genzel and Ghez – and we, as spectators – can look forward to observing the Galactic center rotate once in our lifetimes! Already preliminary accelerations have been measured (Ghez et al. 2000). One reason why this is important is that the three available acceleration vectors do in fact intersect near Sgr A\*.

In this written version of my paper, I concentrate on results provided by the new BH detections.

## 2. The $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ and $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ Correlations

Two fundamental correlations have emerged from BH detections. Figure 1 (left) shows the correlation between BH mass and the luminosity of the “bulge” part of the host galaxy (Kormendy 1993a, Kormendy & Richstone 1995; Magorrian et nuk. 1998) brought up to date with new detections. A least-squares fit gives

$$M_{}=0.93\times 10^8M_{}\left(\frac{L_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}}{10^{10}L_B}\right)^{1.11}.$$
(1)
Since $`M/LL^{0.2}`$, Equation (1) implies that BH mass is, within errors, proportional to bulge mass: $`M_{}M_{\mathrm{bulge}}^{0.93}`$.

Figure 1 (right) shows a newly discovered correlation between BH mass and the luminosity-weighted velocity dispersion $`\sigma _e`$ within the effective radius $`r_e`$ (Gebhardt et nuk. 2000a; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000). The line is a fit to the data assuming that errors in $`\sigma _e`$ are zero and that errors in $`\mathrm{log}`$$`M_{}`$ are the same for each galaxy. A least-squares fit to the subset of galaxies with most reliable $`M_{}`$ measurements (see Gebhardt et nuk. 2000a) gives

$$M_{}=1.2\times 10^8M_{}\left(\frac{\sigma _e}{\text{200 km s}\text{-1}}\right)^{3.75}.$$
(2)
Figure 1. (left) Correlation of BH mass with the absolute magnitude of the bulge component of the host galaxy. (right) Correlation of BH mass with the luminosity-weighted mean velocity dispersion inside the effective radius of the bulge. In both panels, filled circles indicate $`M_{}`$ measurements based on stellar dynamics, squares are based on ionized gas dynamics, and triangles are based on maser disk dynamics. All three techniques are consistent with the same correlations. However, note that BH mass error bars are derived within the assumptions of the models used, so the true errors are underestimated for $`M_{}`$ values based on two-integral models. This is particularly relevant for the most discrepant galaxy at left, NGC 4486B.

The scatter in the $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ correlation is large: the RMS dispersion is a factor of 2.8 and the total range of BH masses is about two orders of magnitude at a given $`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$. There are also two exceptions with unusually high BH masses. The most extreme case, NGC 4486B (Kormendy et nuk. 1997; Green et al. 2000), is still based on two-integral models. Its BH mass may decrease when three-integral models are constructed. Despite the scatter, the 34 detections imply a robust correlation. Many authors have wondered whether the apparent $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ correlation is real or only the upper envelope of a distribution that extends to smaller $`M_{}`$. The latter possibility is now unlikely: ongoing searches find BHs in essentially every bulge observed, and the error bars in $`M_{}`$ are small. Put another way, almost all BHs represented in Figure 1 would have been detected even they if were significantly farther away.

In contrast, the scatter in the $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ correlation is small, and the galaxies that were discrepant above are not discrepant here. Gebhardt et nuk. (2000a) show that the scatter is essentially consistent with measurement errors for galaxies with the most reliable $`M_{}`$ measurements. Therefore the $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ correlation is more fundamental than the $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ correlation. What does this mean? What does it tell us about galaxy formation and BH growth?

Both correlations imply a close connection between BH growth and galaxy formation. They suggest that the BH mass is determined in part by the amount of fuel that is available; this is connected with the total mass of the bulge.

But when was the mass accreted? There are three generic possibilities. (1) BHs could have grown to essentially their present masses before galaxies formed and then regulated the amount of galaxy that grew around them (e. g., Silk & Rees 1998). (2) Seed BHs that formed early or that were already present at the start of galaxy formation could have grown to their present masses as part of the galaxy formation process. This would mean that the major merger and dissipative collapse events that made a bulge or elliptical galaxy were the same events that made quasars shine (e. g., Sanders et al. 1988a, b). (3) The majority of BH mass may have been accreted after galaxy formation from ambient gas in the bulge.

Figure 1 provides the first of two arguments (the other is in § 4) in favor of (2), that BHs and galaxies form together. Exceptions to the $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ correlation satisfy the $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ correlation. This means that, whenever a BH is unusually high in mass for a given luminosity, it is also high in $`\sigma _e`$ for that luminosity. That is, it is high in the Faber-Jackson (1976) $`\sigma (L)`$ correlation. One possible reason might be that the mass-to-light ratio of the stars is unusually high; this proves not to be the main effect. The main effect is illustrated in Figure 2. Ellipticals that have unusually high dispersions for their luminosities are unusually compact: they have unusually high surface brightnesses and small effective radii for their luminosities. Similarly, unusually cold galaxies are unusually fluffy: they have low effective surface brightnesses and large effective radii. Therefore, when a galaxy is observed to be hotter than average, we conclude that it underwent more dissipation than average and shrunk inside its dark halo to a smaller size and higher density than average. We will say that it “collapsed” more than average. If BHs are unusually massive whenever galaxies are unusually collapsed, then this strongly suggests that BH masses were determined by the collapse process.

Consider the alternative: Could unusually massive BHs cause a galaxy to be unusually collapsed. This seems unlikely, because more massive BHs would power more luminous quasars. Their radiation pressure would tend to push on the protogalactic gas and make it collapse less, not more, than average.

The $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ and $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ correlations contain almost the same information. After all, the mass of the bulge involves $`\sigma _e^2`$ and (small) corrections for velocity anisotropy. But the $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ correlation contains something new: it contains information about how much the bulge collapsed when it formed. BH mass correlates better with this new information about the galaxy formation process than it does with the amount of raw material involved. Put another way, $`M_{\mathrm{bulge}}\sigma _e^2r_e/G`$; it is the presence of $`r_e`$ that makes a galaxy an exception to the $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ correlation when it is not an exception to the $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ correlation. All this emphasizes the close connection between BH masses and the bulge formation process.

Figure 2. Correlations with absolute magnitude of velocity dispersion (upper panel), effective surface brightness (middle panel) and effective radius (lower panel) for elliptical galaxies from the Seven Samurai papers. Galaxies with unusually high or low velocity dispersions for their luminosities are identified in the top panel and followed in the other panels.

## 3. The $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{total}}`$ Correlation: BHs Do Not Know About Disks

It is important to note that BH mass does not correlate with disks in the same way that it does with bulges. Figure 3 shows the correlations of BH mass with the absolute magnitude of the bulge (left) and with the total absolute magnitude of the galaxy (right). Figure 3 (right) shows that disk galaxies with small bulge-to-total luminosity ratios destroy the reasonably good correlation seen in Figure 3 (left). In addition, Figure 3 (right) shows four galaxies that have strong BH mass limits but no bulges. They further emphasize the conclusion that disks do not contain BHs with nearly the same mass fraction as do bulges. In particular, in the bulgeless galaxy M 33, the upper limit on a BH mass from STIS spectroscopy is $`M_{}`$ $`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_<}{^{}}`$ 2000 $`M_{}`$. If M 33 contained a BH with the median mass fraction observed for bulges, then we would expect that $`M_{}3\times 10^7`$ $`M_{}`$.

Figure 3 tells us that BH masses do not “know about” galaxy disks. Rather, they correlate with the high-density bulge-like component in galaxies.

The above results do not preclude BHs in pure disk galaxies as long as they are small enough. Filippenko & Ho (2000) emphasize that some pure disks are Seyfert galaxies. They probably contain BHs. The extreme example is NGC 4395, the lowest-luminosity Seyfert known. NGC 4395 is included in Figure 3. However, if its BH were radiating at the Eddington rate, then its mass would be only $`M_{}100`$ $`M_{}`$ (Filippenko & Ho 2000). This is consistent with the dynamical mass limit. So disks can contain BHs, but their masses are much smaller in relation to their disk luminosities than are bulge BHs in relation to bulge luminosities. It is possible that the small BHs in disks are similar to the seed BHs that once must have existed in protobulges, too, before they grew monstrous during the AGN and galaxy formation era.

Figure 3. (left) $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ correlation from Figure 1. (right) Plot of $`M_{}`$ against the total absolute magnitude of the host galaxy. Blue points denote elliptical galaxies, red points denote bulges of disk galaxies, and green crosses denote galaxies that do not contain either a bulge or a pseudobulge (§ 4). Spiral galaxy limits: M 33 (Scd) is from Gebhardt et al. (2000b); IC 342 (Scd) is from Böker et al. (1999), and NGC 4395 (Sm) is from Filippenko & Ho (2000).

## 4. The $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ Correlation. II. Bulges Versus Pseudobulges

So far, I have discussed elliptical galaxies and the bulges of disk galaxies as if they were equivalent. In terms of BH content, they are indistinguishable: they are consistent with the same $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ and $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ correlations. But a variety of observational and theoretical results show that there are two different kinds of high-density central components in disk galaxies. Both have steep surface brightness profiles. But, while classical bulges in (mostly) early-type galaxies are like little ellipticals living in the middle of a disk, the “pseudobulges” of (mostly) late-type galaxies are physically unrelated to ellipticals.

Pseudobulges are reviewed in Kormendy (1993b) and in Combes (2000). Observational evidence for disklike dynamics includes (i) velocity dispersions $`\sigma `$ that are smaller than those predicted by the Faber-Jackson (1976) $`\sigma `$$`M_B`$ correlation, (ii) rapid rotation $`V`$ that implies $`V/\sigma `$ values well above the “oblate line” describing rotationally flattened, isotropic spheroids in the $`V/\sigma `$ – ellipticity diagram, and (iii) spiral structure that dominates the pseudobulge part of the galaxy. These observations and $`n`$-body simulations imply that high-density central disks can form out of disk gas that is transported toward the center by bars and oval distortions. These heat themselves, for example, by the scattering of stars off of bars (Pfenniger & Norman 1990). Kormendy (1993b) concludes that most early-type galaxies contain traditional bulges, that later-type galaxies tend to contain pseudobulges, and that only pseudobulges are seen in Sc – Sm galaxies.

Andredakis & Sanders (1994), Andredakis, Peletier, & Balcells (1995), and Courteau, de Jong, & Broeils (1996) show that the “bulges” of many late-type galaxies have nearly exponential surface brightness profiles. It is likely that exponential profiles are a signature of pseudobulges, especially since blue colors imply that they are younger than classical bulges (Balcells & Peletier 1994).

HST observations strengthen the evidence for pseudobulges. Carollo et al. (1997, 1998a, b) find that many bulges have disky properties, including young stellar populations, spiral structure, central bars, and exponential brightness profiles. It seems safe to say that no-one who saw these would suggest that they are mini-ellipticals living in the middle of a disk. Rather, a morphologist who saw these structures would assign late – even Im – Hubble types. To be sure, Peletier et al. (2000) find that bulges of early-type galaxies generally have red colors: they are old. True bulges that are similar to elliptical galaxies do exist; M 31 and NGC 4594 contain examples. But the lesson from the Carollo papers is that pseudobulges are more important than we expected. Like Kormendy (1993b) and Courteau et al. (1996), Carollo and collaborators argue that these are not real bulges but instead are formed via gas inflow in disks.

So there is growing evidence that the “bulges” whose luminosities I used in the $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ correlation diagrams are two different kinds of objects. Classical bulges are thought to form like small ellipticals, via a dissipative collapse, possibly triggered by a merger. Pseudobulges are thought to form by secular evolution of the disk. Material flows inward in both cases. Potentially, both formation processes may include BH feeding. One way to explore this is to ask whether bulges and pseudobulges have the same BH content.

Figure 4. The $`M_{}`$$`M_{B,\mathrm{bulge}}`$ (left) and $`M_{}`$$`\sigma _e`$ (right) correlations for elliptical galaxies (blue symbols), traditional bulges (red) and pseudobulges (green).

This question is addressed in Figure 4. It is plausible that pseudobulges have low luminosities, because they are made from disks. But for their low luminosities, they have normal BH masses. The indentification of pseudobulges is still somewhat uncertain, and there are not many in the sample. Therefore the above result needs to be checked. However, it is consistent with the hypothesis that (pseudo)bulge formation and BH feeding are closely connected. Present data do not show any dependence of $`M_{}`$ on the details of whether BH feeding happens rapidly during a collapse or slowly via secular evolution of the disk.

If disks contain only small BHs while the pseudobulges that form from disks contain standard BHs with 0.2 % of the pseudobulge mass, then I conclude that the BHs must have grown to their present masses during pseudobulge formation. This is the second argument that BHs and (pseudo)bulges grew together.

The smallest BHs provide an argument that most BH growth did not happen after bulge formation. Some pseudobulges are still forming now; there is little time after bulge formation. Also, these objects do not contain fuel in the form of x-ray gas. And galaxies like M 32 contain little gas of any sort for late accretion.

## 5. Conclusion

Galaxy formation is notoriously complicated; any conclusions that we reach now are less secure than the observational results discussed in §§ 2 – 4. However: Observations increasingly suggest that the major events that form a bulge and the major growth phases of its BH – when it shone as an AGN – were the same events. The likely formation process is a series of dissipative mergers that fuel both starbursts and AGN activity (Sanders et al. 1988a, b).

### Acknowledgments.

It is a pleasure to thank my Nuker collaborators and especially Karl Gebhardt and Douglas Richstone for helpful discussions and for permission to use our BH detection results before publication. I am also most grateful to Gary Bower, Richard Green, Mary Beth Kaiser, and Charles Nelson for communicating STIS team BH detections before publication.

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# Quasi-Particle density of states of disordered 𝑑-wave superconductors

\[

## Abstract

We present a numerical study of the quasi-particle density of states (DoS) of two-dimensional $`d`$-wave superconductors in the presence of smooth disorder. We find power law scaling of the DoS with an exponent depending on the strength of the disorder and the superconducting order parameter in quantitative agreement with the theory of Nersesyan et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 2628 (1994)). For strong disorder a transition to a constant DoS occurs. Our results are in contrast to the case of short-ranged disorder.

\]

In recent years, motivated by its relevance to the physics of the cuprates, $`d`$-wave superconductivity has become a subject of intensive research. The key feature distinguishing $`d`$-wave superconductors from their $`s`$-wave relatives is the existence of four zero energy ’nodes’ on the Fermi surface, in the vicinity of which low energy quasi-particle excitations exist. This fermion system—four species of relativistic quasi-particles, subject to weak static disorder—has vital influence on low energy transport and thermodynamic properties and, therefore, must be a central element of any comprehensive theory of the $`d`$-wave superconductor.

Irritatingly, it has proven excruciatingly difficult to reach consensus on even basic characteristics of these states. The extent of disagreement is most clearly displayed in the debate on the energy dependent mean quasi-particle density of states (DoS), $`\rho (E)`$: On the one hand, application of self-consistent approximation schemes or non-perturbative approaches specific to certain realizations of the disorder, has led to the prediction of a finite or even diverging quasi-particle DoS at zero energy. In contrast, field theory approaches to the problem categorically predict $`\rho (E)=0`$, as in the non-disordered Dirac system. Yet, even these theories within themselves come to varying conclusions as to the energy dependence of the DoS for $`E0`$.

Recently it has become clear that much of this controversy roots in the fact that, unlike with more conventional disordered fermion systems, the standard paradigm of ’insensitivity of global observables to microscopic details of the disorder’ is apparently violated in the $`d`$-wave system. Broadly speaking, two different categories of disorder have to be distinguished: (i) hard scattering off $`s`$-wave impurities, mixing the formerly isolated four low energy quasi-particle sectors, and (ii) soft scattering which predominantly leads to randomisation within these sectors. Which of these categories is more relevant to the physics of the cuprates is not straightforward to decide (see, however, our comments below), and both have been investigated theoretically. As for (i), there is now overwhelming evidence that, apart from the case of asymptotically strong impurities (impurities at the ’unitary limit’), the DoS vanishes as $`E0`$. Away from zero energy a variety of different DoS profiles, depending on the realization of the disorder distribution, exist.

The subject of this Letter is a numerical study of the complementary case, (ii). What makes this regime special, and why is it necessary to discriminate between (i) and (ii) at all? The distinguishing feature of the soft scattering regime is that the four low energy sectors are decoupled. The absence of inter-node coupling has profound and qualitative influence on the low energy properties of the system. Indeed, it is the nodal coupling criterion, and not so much the specifics of a short range correlated disorder distribution, that holds responsible for much of the discrepancy between the field theory approaches to the problem.

Before turning to our numerical analysis of the quasi-particle spectrum for soft scattering, let us briefly summarize some key features of the system: Each node accommodates a system of Dirac fermions subject to a random vector potential which describes the stochastic low momentum transfer scattering. For low energies and finite size systems – the ’zero-dimensional’ limit – the properties of the system become fully universal and can be described in terms of a suitably constructed random matrix theory (RMT) (a). Due to the non-standard symmetries of random gauge Dirac fermions (symmetries of class $`A`$III in the terminology of Ref. ) this theory differs profoundly from standard Wigner-Dyson RMT. The opposite extreme, thermodynamically extended systems is widely accessible to analytical approaches, too. Specifically, for the $`d`$-wave problem Nersesyan, Tsvelik and Wenger (NTW)  have shown that the DoS scales as (b)

$$\rho (E)|E|^\alpha ,\alpha =\frac{1g}{1+g},g=\frac{W^2}{16\pi \mathrm{\Delta }t},$$
(1)
where $`W`$ is the strength of the disorder, and $`t`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are the tight binding coupling strength and order parameter of the superconductor, respectively. It has been argued that at $`g=1`$, i.e. at the zero of the exponent in (1), a transition to a qualitatively different phase takes place. On the strong disorder side of this transition, $`g>1`$, the DoS is expected to be energy independent, $`\rho (E)=\mathrm{const}.`$ (c). Further, (d), any amount of hard scattering coupling the low energy nodes represents a marginally relevant perturbation driving the system towards the coupled regimes (i) mentioned above.

For completeness we mention that all these features find their common origin in the fact that the low energy physics of isolated nodes is described by a Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) model on a group manifold that depends on the treatment of the disorder (replica or supersymmetry). In NTW’s analysis of this connection it has erroneously been assumed that the WZW action globally describes the low-energy quasi-particle system, independent of the form factor of the scattering. In fact, however, the WZW model is readily destabilized by inter-node scattering which is one way of explaining the aforementioned qualitative differences between cases (i) and (ii). For a detailed account of the WZW-formulation, and its destruction, we refer to Ref..

Below we will put the phenomenology (a-d) to a numerical test. Before turning to a more detailed description of our analysis, let us summarize the main results. We find that the large scale structure of the energy dependent DoS can be characterized in terms of three different regimes: For low energies $`E`$ above the chemical potential (owing to the Dirac structure of the problem, the DoS is symmetric $`\rho (E)=\rho (E)`$) the DoS profile is dominated by finite size effects. At $`E=0`$ the DoS vanishes in a way which (for strong enough disorder) is described by RMT. The extent of the low energy regime shrinks with increasing system size. For larger energies, it is succeeded by a regime of power law scaling. Varying the two basic parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }/t`$ and $`W/t`$ characterizing the model, we find agreement with eq. (1). For disorder strength in excess of $`g=1`$, the DoS assumes a constant value, in accord with the prediction of Ref. . The scaling regime ends at energies of the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ where a non-universal high energy regime, not considered in this Letter, begins. Upon lowering the correlation length of the disorder, the scaling behaviour observed in the center portions of the band is rapidly destructed.

We consider the lattice quasi-particle Hamiltonian

$$H=\underset{ij;\sigma }{}(t_{ij}\mu \delta _{ij})c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }^{}+\underset{ij}{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}c_i^{}c_j^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(2)
with the hopping matrix elements $`t_{ij}`$, chemical potential $`\mu `$, and order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$. The sums run over points of a two-dimensional square lattice with spacing $`a`$ and the operators $`c_{i\sigma }^{}`$ create a spin-1/2 particle of spin $`\sigma `$ at site $`i`$. In the following, we take only into account on-site potentials and nearest-neighbor hopping, $`t_{ij}=ϵ_i\delta _{ij}+t\delta _{i,j\pm e_k}`$, where $`e_k`$ is the unit vector in $`k`$-direction. For convenience we set $`\mu =0`$ (the half-filled band.) The order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}=\mathrm{\Delta }(\delta _{i,j\pm e_x}\delta _{i,j\pm e_y})`$ has $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-symmetry. In the following we will only consider disorder in the on-site potentials $`ϵ_i`$ and not determine the order parameter self-consistently. (As pointed out in , a self-consistent determination of the order parameter may be necessary to quantitatively compare with experimental data.) Finite correlations in the disorder potential are introduced through

$$ϵ_i=\frac{W}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}\underset{j}{}f_j\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{|𝐫_i𝐫_j|^2}{\xi ^2}\right),$$
(3)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }=_j\mathrm{exp}(2|𝐫_j|^2/\xi ^2)`$, where the $`f_j`$ are independent random variables, uniformly distributed in the interval $`[1/2,1/2]`$, and $`W`$ is a measure of the strength of the disorder. Taking $`\xi =2a`$ the coupling of the four Dirac nodes is much weaker than the coupling of states in the vicinity of a single node (by a factor of $`\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ^2)`$).

In the following, we take the lattice constant $`a`$ and the hopping amplitude $`t`$ as the measures of length and energy, respectively. The linear dimensions of the system vary between 15 and 45 and the spectrum is averaged over 64 points in the first Brioullin zone. We diagonalize the Hamiltonian (2) for 16 to 56 disorder realizations and calculate the DoS $`\rho (E)=L^2_i\delta _\mathrm{\Gamma }(EE_i)`$, where $`\delta _\mathrm{\Gamma }(E)`$ is a normalized Gaussian of width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. A finite $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ smoothes the DoS, but also washes out narrow features.

Fig. 1 shows the DoS for various values of disorder. The three regimes mentioned earlier are the low-energy region where the bump develops, the intermediate regime up to the approximate crossing point near $`E=1`$, and the high-energy regime beyond. We will first discuss the most interesting intermediate regime before turning our attention to low energies.

In order to compare our data to the results of NTW, we fit the data to power laws $`\rho (E)E^\alpha `$ in a interval $`[E_{\mathrm{min}},E_{\mathrm{max}}]`$. $`E_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is choosen such as to exclude the first maximum. From the inset in Fig. 2 it is clear that this feature as well as the fluctuations are finite-size effects that appear to vanish in the large system limit. The upper limit $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is a high energy cut-off of the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ beyond which the NTW theory no longer applies. At the systems sizes considered in this work, the ratio $`E_{\text{max}}/E_{\text{min}}`$ is about 5. This is a rather narrow range to establish a power law. Nevertheless, we feel that our procedure is justified in the present case, as it is not just a single power law with a single exponent that we are dealing with. Instead, eq. (1) predicts that there is a whole family of power laws with the exponents depending in a unique way on the parameters $`W`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. It is the agreement of this whole functional dependence that gives us confidence in the validity of our analysis even when the establishment of every single power law might be questionable.

Figure 3 shows the exponents $`\alpha `$ extracted from the fitted curves in Fig. 2 together with the result of eq. (1) of . A good agreement is apparent up to a disorder strength of $`W7`$ where the NTW exponent changes sign. Numerically, we do not find a divergent DoS at stronger disorder but rather a finite value ($`\alpha =0`$) as predicted by Gurarie .

To further test eq. (1) we fix the disorder strength $`W=3`$ and vary the order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Figure 4 shows the DoS for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ between 0.1 and 1.0 as a function of $`E/\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This rescaling takes care of the fact that the mean level spacing of the clean system is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The anisotropy dependence of the fitted exponents is shown in Fig. 5. Again, reasonably good agreement with eq. (1) is found for $`\mathrm{\Delta }>0.2`$ while a constant and not a diverging DoS is found at $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.1`$.

The inset of Fig. 1 shows that the DoS does indeed vanish at $`E=0`$. At weak disorder ($`W4`$) we see a remnant of the clean spectrum. Here the disorder is too weak to couple neighboring states in momentum space. At $`W5`$ this coupling exceeds the level separation and the universal RMT behaviour for systems of class $`A`$III, with a DoS ’microgap’ linear in energy, develops.

To conclude the central part of our analysis, we have presented a numerical study of the quasi-particle spectrum in $`d`$-wave superconductors with soft scattering. In the regime of moderate disorder strength, we obtain scaling of the DoS that agrees quantitatively with the analytical results of NTW. For strong disorder, the analysis confirms the recent prediction of an energetically constant background DoS.

In a way our analysis is complementary to recent studies of hard scattering systems and we are left with the question which of these alternatives is more relevant to the physics of ’real’ cuprates. It is probably difficult to give a universally applicable answer to this question. On the face of it, disorder in high $`T_c`$ superconductors is due to small metallic donors, e.g. Zn-impurities, in favour of the hard variant, (i). (Concrete evidence for the presence of hard scattering in Zn-doped systems is provided by the experimental observation of so-called mid-gap resonances \[i.e. resonances due to bound states forming in the immediate vicinity of a strong local impurity\]). On the other hand, the very existence of a $`d`$-wave phase, stabilized through a mechanism unknown at present, would not be compatible with too strong an amount of—pairbreaking—hard scattering, i.e. the renormalized effective potential seen by the quasi-particle states may well carry characteristics of type (ii) and be predominantly soft (see Refs. for a more elaborate discussion of this point.) Equally important, the net features of the quasi-particle system are not only determined by the fixed microscopic structure of the disorder background but also depend on temperature and observation energy. E.g. consider a system with a certain residual amount of hard scattering superimposed on a predominantly soft background. For quasi-particle energies in excess of the the inter-node scattering rate, the coupling between the nodes is inessential and the characteristics of the soft system will prevail. Lowering the energies, a crossover towards the hard system takes place.

Although the picture above suggests, that ’real life’ systems will typically display complex crossover behaviour, recent progress in purely theoretical understanding of disorder in $`d`$-wave superconductors has been tremendous. It seems to be clear now, that much of the controversy that developed around the profile of the quasi-particle DoS is related to non-congruent modellings of the disorder. Indeed, the majority of theoretical approaches to the problem sits comfortably with one of the disorder realizations investigated numerically in this work or in complementary papers. (There is one prominent exception to that rule, viz. Refs. where a finite DoS for continuously distributed disorder was predicted. To our understanding the discrepancy is explained by the peculiar lattice implementation underlying these papers (see Ref. for a more elaborate discussion of this point) which implies that no superconductor is modelled.) Broadly speaking, there seem to be three categories of disorder that have to be distinguished: binary alloy type scatterer at the unitary limit, large momentum transfer scatterers of non-unitary type and soft disorder. In spite of the relative—as compared to normal metals—complexity of this classification, the categories within themselves still display a large amount of universality.

Acknowledgement: We than B.D. Simons for discussions and M. Janssen for reading the manuscript.


text:
# 1 Bounds on LLI and CPT violation can be obtained by comparing the frequencies of clocks as they rotate with respect to the fixed stars. The standard model extension described in [] admits Lorentz-violating couplings of noble gas nuclei and hydrogen atoms to expectation values of tensor fields. (Some of these couplings also violate CPT.) Each of the tensor fields may have an independent magnitude and orientation in space, to be limited by experiment. The background arrows in this figure illustrate one such field.

x

NEW CLOCK COMPARISON TESTS OF LORENTZ SYMMETRY
submitted to *Proceedings of the 1999 Coral Gables Conference*

Ronald L. Walsworth and David F. Phillips

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Cambridge, MA 02138

U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

Lorentz symmetry is a fundamental feature of modern descriptions of nature. Lorentz transformations include both spatial rotations and boosts. Therefore, experimental investigations of rotation symmetry provide important tests of the framework of the standard model of particle physics and single-metric theories of gravity .

In particular, the minimal SU(3)$`\times `$SU(2)$`\times `$U(1) standard model successfully describes particle phenomenology, but is believed to be the low energy limit of a more fundamental theory that incorporates gravity. While the fundamental theory should remain invariant under Lorentz transformations, spontaneous symmetry-breaking could result at the level of the standard model in violations of local Lorentz invariance (LLI) and CPT (symmetry under simultaneous application of Charge conjugation, Parity inversion, and Time reversal) .

Clock comparisons provide sensitive tests of rotation invariance and hence Lorentz symmetry by bounding the frequency variation of a given clock as its orientation changes, e.g., with respect to the fixed stars . In practice, the most precise limits are obtained by comparing the frequencies of two co-located clocks as they rotate with the Earth (see Fig. 1). Atomic clocks are typically used, involving the electromagnetic signals emitted or absorbed on hyperfine or Zeeman transitions.

We report preliminary results from two new atomic clock tests of LLI and CPT:

1. Using a two-species 129Xe/3He Zeeman maser  we have placed a limit on CPT and LLI violation of the neutron of nearly $`10^{31}`$ GeV, improving by about a factor of three on the bound set by the most sensitive past clock comparison . With further data-taking, we expect another factor of two improvement in sensitivity.
2. We have also employed atomic hydrogen masers to set an improved clean limit on LLI/CPT violation of the proton, at the level of nearly $`10^{27}`$ GeV.

MOTIVATION

Our atomic clock comparisons are motivated by a standard model extension developed by Kostelecký and others . This theoretical framework accommodates possible spontaneous violation of local Lorentz invariance (LLI) and CPT symmetry, which may occur in a fundamental theory combining the standard model with gravity. For example, this might occur in string theory . The standard model extension is quite general: it emerges as the low-energy limit of any underlying theory that generates the standard model and contains spontaneous Lorentz symmetry violation . The extension retains the usual gauge structure and power-counting renormalizability of the standard model. It also has many other desirable properties, including energy-momentum conservation, observer Lorentz covariance, conventional quantization, and hermiticity. Microcausality and energy positivity are expected.

This well-motivated theoretical framework suggests that small, low-energy signals of LLI and CPT violation may be detectable in high-precision experiments. The dimensionless suppression factor for such effects would likely be the ratio of the low-energy scale to the Planck scale, perhaps combined with dimensionless coupling constants . A key feature of the standard model extension of Kostelecký *et al.* is that it is at the level of the known elementary particles, and thus enables quantitative comparison of a wide array of tests of Lorentz symmetry. In recent work the standard model extension has been used to quantify bounds on LLI and CPT violation from measurements of neutral meson oscillations ; tests of QED in Penning traps ; photon birefringence in the vacuum ; baryogenesis ; hydrogen and antihydrogen spectroscopy ; experiments with muons ; a spin-polarized torsion pendulum ; observations with cosmic rays ; and atomic clock comparisons . Recent experimental work motivated by this standard model extension includes Penning trap tests by Gabrielse *et al.* on the antiproton and H- , and by Dehmelt *et al.* on the electron and positron , which place improved limits on CPT and LLI violation in these systems. Also, a re-analysis by Adelberger, Gundlach, Heckel, and co-workers of existing data from the “Eöt-Wash II” spin-polarized torsion pendulum  sets the most stringent bound to date on CPT and LLI violation of the electron: approximately $`10^{29}`$ GeV .

129Xe/3He MASER TEST OF CPT AND LORENTZ SYMMETRY

The design and operation of the two-species 129Xe/3He maser has been discussed in recent publications . (See the schematic in Fig. 2.) Two dense, co-habitating ensembles of 3He and 129Xe atoms perform continuous and simultaneous maser oscillations on their respective nuclear spin 1/2 Zeeman transitions at approximately 4.9 kHz for 3He and 1.7 kHz for 129Xe in a static magnetic field of 1.5 gauss. This two-species maser operation can be maintained indefinitely. The population inversion for both maser ensembles is created by spin exchange collisions between the noble gas atoms and optically-pumped Rb vapor . The 129Xe/3He maser has two chambers, one acting as the spin exchange “pump bulb” and the other serving as the “maser bulb”. This two chamber configuration permits the combination of physical conditions necessary for a high flux of spin-polarized noble gas atoms into the maser bulb, while also maintaining 3He and 129Xe maser oscillations with good frequency stability: 100 nHz stability is typical for measurement intervals of $`1`$ hour . (A single-bulb 129Xe/3He maser does not provide good frequency stability because of the large Fermi contact shift of the 129Xe Zeeman frequency caused by 129Xe-Rb collisions .) Either of the noble gas species can serve as a precision magnetometer to stabilize the system’s static magnetic field, while the other species is employed as a sensitive probe for LLI- and CPT-violating interactions or other subtle physical influences. (For example, we are also using the 129Xe/3He maser to search for a permanent electric dipole moment of 129Xe as a test of time reversal symmetry; hence the electric field plates in Fig. 2.)

We search for a signature of Lorentz violation by monitoring the relative phases and Zeeman frequencies of the co-located 3He and 129Xe masers as the laboratory reference frame rotates with respect to the fixed stars. We operate the system with the quantization axis directed east-west in the earth’s reference frame, the 3He maser free-running, and the 129Xe maser phase-locked to a signal derived from a hydrogen maser in order to stabilize the magnetic field. To leading order, the standard model extension of Kostelecký *et al.* predicts that the Lorentz-violating frequency shifts for the 3He and 129Xe maser are the same size and sign . Hence the possible Lorentz-violating effect would have the form:

$$\delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑧}}=\delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑒}}\left[\gamma _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑒}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{𝑋𝑒}}1\right]^1,$$
(1)
where $`\delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑧}}`$ is the frequency shift induced in the noble gas Zeeman transitions by the Lorentz-violating interaction, $`\delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑒}}`$ is the observed limit to a frequency shift in the free-running 3He maser with the period of a sidereal day ($`23.93`$ hours), and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑒}}/\gamma _{\mathrm{𝑋𝑒}}2.75`$ is the ratio of gyromagnetic ratios for 3He and 129Xe.

We acquired data for this experiment over a period of 30 days in April, 1999 and 24 days in September, 1999. (We are currently taking additional data.) We reversed the main magnetic field of the apparatus every $`4`$ days to help distinguish possible Lorentz-violating effects from diurnal systematic variations. In addition, we carefully assessed the effectiveness of the 129Xe co-magnetometer, and found that it provides excellent isolation from possible diurnally-varying ambient magnetic fields, which would not average away with field reversals. Furthermore, the relative phase between the solar and sidereal day evolved almost $`5\pi /6`$ radians between April and September; hence diurnal systematic effects from any source would be reduced by averaging the results from the two existing measurement sets.

We analyzed each day’s data in the April and September measurement sets and determined the amplitude and phase of any sidereal-day-period variation in the free-running 3He maser frequency. (See Fig. 3 for an example of one day’s data.) We employed a linear least squares method to fit the free-running maser phase vs. time using a minimal model including: a constant (phase offset); a linear term (Larmor precession); and cosine and sine terms with sidereal day period. For each day’s data, we included terms corresponding to quadratic and maser amplitude-induced phase drift if they significantly improved the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ . As a final check, we added a *faux* Lorentz-violating effect of known phase and amplitude to the raw data and performed the analysis as before. We considered our data reduction for a given sidereal day to be successful if the synthetic physics was recovered and there was no significant change in the covariance matrix generated by the fitting routine.

Using the April and September measurement sets, we found no statistically significant sidereal variation of the free-running 3He maser frequency. At the one-sigma confidence level, we determined a bound of approximately 80 nHz on $`\delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑧}}`$, the magnitude of a possible LLI- and CPT-violating effect. Kostelecký and Lane report that the nuclear Zeeman transitions of 129Xe and 3He are primarily sensitive to Lorentz-violating couplings of the neutron, assuming the correctness of the Schmidt model of the nuclei . Thus our search for a sidereal-period frequency shift of the free-running 3He maser ($`\delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑒}}`$) provides a bound to the following parameters characterizing the magnitude of LLI/CPT violations in the standard model extension:

$`\left|3.5\stackrel{~}{b}_J^n+0.012\stackrel{~}{d}_J^n+0.012\stackrel{~}{g}_{D,J}^n\right|2\pi \delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑒},J}`$ $`({}_{}{}^{129}\mathrm{Xe}/{}_{}{}^{3}\text{He maser})`$ (2)
Here $`J=X,Y`$ denotes spatial indices in a non-rotating frame, with $`X`$ and $`Y`$ oriented in a plane perpendicular to the Earth’s rotation axis and we have taken $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$. The parameters $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^n`$, $`\stackrel{~}{d}_J^n`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{D,J}^n`$ describe the strength of Lorentz-violating couplings of the neutron to possible background tensor fields. $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^n`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{D,J}^n`$ correspond to couplings that violate both CPT and LLI, while $`\stackrel{~}{d}_J^n`$ corresponds to a coupling that violates LLI but not CPT. All three of these parameters are different linear combinations of fundamental parameters in the underlying relativistic Lagrangian of the standard model extension .

It is clear from Eqn. (2) that the 129Xe/3He clock comparison is primarily sensitive to LLI/CPT violations associated with the neutron parameter $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^n`$. Similarly, the most precise previous search for LLI/CPT violations of the neutron, the 199Hg/133Cs experiment of Lamoreaux, Hunter *et al.* , also had principal sensitivity to $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^n`$ at the following level :

$`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\stackrel{~}{b}_J^n+\left\{\text{small terms}\right\}\right|2\pi \delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑔},J}`$ $`({}_{}{}^{199}\mathrm{Hg}/{}_{}{}^{133}\mathrm{Cs}).`$ (3)
In this case, the experimental limit, $`\delta \nu _{\mathrm{𝐻𝑔},J}`$, was a bound of 55 nHz (one-sigma) on a sidereal-period variation of the 199Hg nuclear Zeeman frequency, with the 133Cs electronic Zeeman frequency serving as a co-magnetometer.

Therefore, in the context of the standard model extension of Kostelecký and co-workers , our 129Xe/3He maser measurement improves the constraint on $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^n`$ to nearly $`10^{31}`$ GeV, or about three times better than the 199Hg/133Cs clock comparison . Note that the ratio of this limit to the neutron mass ($`10^{31}\mathrm{GeV}/m_n10^{31}`$) compares favorably to the dimensionless suppression factor $`m_n/M_{\mathrm{𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑘}}10^{19}`$ that might be expected to govern spontaneous symmetry breaking of LLI and CPT originating at the Planck scale. We expect a factor of two improvement in the sensitivity to LLI/CPT-violation with the completion of 129Xe/3He maser data taking in spring, 2000. We also expect more than an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity using a new device currently under development in our laboratory: the 21Ne/3He Zeeman maser.

HYDROGEN MASER TEST OF CPT AND LORENTZ SYMMETRY

The hydrogen maser is an established tool in precision tests of fundamental physics . Hydrogen masers operate on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_F=0`$ hyperfine transition in the ground state of atomic hydrogen . Hydrogen molecules are dissociated into atoms in an RF discharge, and the atoms are state selected via a hexapole magnet (Fig. 4). The high field seeking states, ($`F=1`$, $`m_F=+1,0`$) are focused into a Teflon coated cell which resides in a microwave cavity resonant with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }F=1`$ transition at 1420 MHz. The $`F=1`$, $`m_F=0`$ atoms are stimulated to make a transition to the $`F=0`$ state by the field of the cavity. A static magnetic field of $`1`$ milligauss is applied to maintain the quantization axis of the H atoms.

The hydrogen transitions most sensitive to potential CPT and LLI violations are the $`F=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_F=\pm 1`$ Zeeman transitions. In the $`0.6`$ mG static field applied for these measurements, the Zeeman frequency is $`\nu _Z850`$ Hz. We utilize a double resonance technique to measure this frequency with a precision of $`1`$ mHz . We apply a weak magnetic field perpendicular to the static field and oscillating at a frequency close to the Zeeman transition. This audio-frequency driving field couples the three sublevels of the $`F=1`$ manifold of the H atoms. Provided a population difference exists between the $`m_F=\pm 1`$ states, the energy of the $`m_F=0`$ state is altered by this coupling, thus shifting the measured maser frequency in a carefully analyzed manner  described by a dispersive shape (Fig. 5(a)). Importantly, the maser frequency is unchanged when the driving field is exactly equal to the Zeeman frequency. Therefore, we determine the Zeeman frequency by measuring the driving field frequency at which the maser frequency in the presence of the driving field is equal to the unperturbed maser frequency.

The $`F=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_F=\pm 1`$ Zeeman frequency is directly proportional to the static magnetic field, in the small-field limit. Four layers of high permeability ($`\mu `$-metal) magnetic shields surround the maser (Fig. 4), screening external field fluctuations by a factor of $`\mathrm{32\hspace{0.17em}000}`$. Nevertheless, external magnetic field fluctuations cause remnant variations in the observed Zeeman frequency. As low frequency magnetic noise in the neighborhood of this experiment is much larger during the day than late at night, the measured Zeeman frequency could be preferentially shifted by this noise (at levels up to $`0.5`$ Hz) with a 24 hour periodicity which is difficult to distinguish from a true sidereal signal in our relatively short data sample. Therefore, we employ an active stabilization system to cancel such magnetic field fluctuations (Fig. 4). A fluxgate magnetometer placed as close to the maser cavity as possible controls large (8 ft. dia.) Helmholtz coils surrounding the maser via a feedback loop to maintain a constant ambient field. This feedback loop reduces the fluctuations at the sidereal frequency to below the equivalent of 1 $`\mu `$Hz on the Zeeman frequency at the location of the magnetometer.

The Zeeman frequency of a hydrogen maser was measured for 11 days in November, 1999. During this period, the maser remained in a closed, temperature controlled room to reduce potential systematics from thermal drifts which might be expected to have 24 hour periodicities. The feedback system also maintained a constant ambient magnetic field. Each Zeeman measurement took approximately 20 minutes to acquire and was subsequently fit to extract a Zeeman frequency (Fig. 5(a)). Also monitored were maser amplitude, residual magnetic field fluctuation, ambient temperature, and current through the solenoidal coil which determines the Zeeman frequency (Fig. 4).

The data for all 11 days (Fig. 5(b)) were then fit to extract the sidereal-period sinusoidal variation of the Zeeman frequency. In addition to the sinusoid, piecewise linear terms (whose slopes were allowed to vary independently for each day) were used to model the slow remnant drift of the Zeeman frequency (roughly 250 mHz over 11 days). A one sigma limit was established for a sidereal-period variation of the hydrogen $`F=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_F=\pm 1`$ Zeeman frequency: $`\delta \nu _Z^H0.7`$ mHz. Expressed in terms of energy, this is a shift in the Zeeman splitting of less than $`310^{27}`$ GeV.

The hydrogen atom is directly sensitive to LLI and CPT violations of the proton and the electron. Following the notation of reference , one finds that a limit on a sidereal-period modulation of the Zeeman frequency ($`\delta \nu _Z^H`$) provides a bound to the following parameters characterizing the magnitude of LLI/CPT violations in the standard model extension of Kostelecký and co-workers:

$$\left|b_3^e+b_3^pd_{30}^em_ed_{30}^pm_pH_{12}^eH_{12}^p\right|2\pi \delta \nu _Z^H$$
(4)
for the low static magnetic fields at which we operate. (Again, we have taken $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$.) The terms $`b^e`$ and $`b^p`$ describe the strength of background tensor field couplings that violate CPT and LLI while the $`H`$ and $`d`$ terms describe couplings that violate LLI but not CPT . The subscript 3 in Eqn. (4) indicates the direction along the quantization axis of the apparatus, which is vertical in the lab frame but rotates with respect to the fixed stars with the period of the sidereal day.

As in refs. , we can re-express the time varying change in the hydrogen Zeeman frequency in terms of parameters expressed in a non-rotating frame as

$$2\pi \delta \nu _{Z,J}^H=\left(\stackrel{~}{b}_J^p+\stackrel{~}{b}_J^e\right)\mathrm{sin}\chi .$$
(5)
where $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^w=b_j^wd_{j0}^wm_w\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{JKL}H_{KL}^w`$, $`J=X,Y`$ refers to non-rotating spatial indices in the plane perpendicular to the rotation vector of the earth, $`w`$ refers to either the proton or electron parameters, and $`\chi =42^{}`$ is the latitude of the experiment.

As noted above, a re-analysis by Adelberger, Gundlach, Heckel, and co-workers of existing data from the “Eöt-Wash II” spin-polarized torsion pendulum  sets the most stringent bound to date on CPT and LLI violation of the electron: $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^e10^{29}`$ GeV . Therefore, in the context of the standard model extension of Kostelecký and co-workers  the H maser measurement to date constrains LLI and CPT violations of the proton parameter $`\stackrel{~}{b}_J^p410^{27}`$ GeV at the one sigma level. This preliminary limit is comparable to that derived from the 199Hg/133Cs experiment of Lamoreaux, Hunter *et al.*  but in a much cleaner system (the hydrogen atom nucleus, a proton, as opposed to the 199Hg and 133Cs nuclei). The experiment is in progress with more data taking expected in early spring, 2000. Further studies of systematics will be performed including reversal of the quantization axis as well as a change in the magnitude of the applied field.

CONCLUSIONS

Precision comparisons of atomic clocks provide sensitive tests of Lorentz and CPT symmetries, thereby probing extensions to the standard model  in which these symmetries can be spontaneously broken. Measurements using the two-species 129Xe/3He Zeeman maser constrain violations of CPT and Lorentz symmetry of the neutron at nearly the $`10^{31}`$ GeV level. Measurements with atomic hydrogen masers provide clean tests of CPT and Lorentz symmetry violation of the proton at nearly the $`10^{27}`$ GeV level. Improvements in both experiments are being pursued.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Richard Stoner, David Bear, Marc Humphrey, Edward Mattison, and Robert Vessot are collaborators on the research described in this report. We gratefully acknowledge the encouragement and active support of these projects by Alan Kostelecký, and technical assistance by Marc Rosenberry and Timothy Chupp. Development of the 129Xe/3He Zeeman maser was supported by a NIST Precision Measurement Grant. Support for the Lorentz violation tests was provided by NASA grant NAG8-1434, ONR grant N00014-99-1-0501, and the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Studies Program.

REFERENCES