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# Chemical Equilibration and the Hadron-QGP Phase Transition

## 1 Introduction

Experiments with ultra-relativistic nuclei are performed to produce and study the quark-gluon plasma. This new state of matter is predicted to exist at high temperatures and/or high baryon densities. Numerical solutions of QCD using lattice techniques imply that the critical temperature (at zero baryon density) is about 170 MeV . Comprehensive surveys of the various experimental approaches on how to produce such matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions have been given recently . Here we focus exclusively on hadron production, its interpretation in terms of a thermal model, and the resulting consequences for the quark-hadron phase transition.

## 2 Thermal Model, Strangeness Enhancement and Equilibration

The statistical model used here is presented in detail in . Like its predecessors presented in  it is based on the use of a grand canonical ensemble to describe the partition function and hence the density of the particles of species $`i`$ in an equilibrated fireball:

$$n_i=\frac{g_i}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{p^2\mathrm{d}p}{e^{(E_i(p)\mu _i)/T}\pm 1}$$
(1)
with $`n_i`$ = particle density, $`g_i`$ = spin degeneracy, $`\mathrm{}`$ = c = 1, $`p`$ = momentum, $`E`$ = total energy and chemical potential $`\mu _i=\mu _BB_i+\mu _SS_i+\mu _{I_3}I_i^3`$. The quantities $`B_i`$, $`S_i`$ and $`I_i^3`$ are the baryon, strangeness and three-component of the isospin quantum numbers of the particle of species $`i`$. The temperature T and the baryochemical potential $`\mu _B`$ are the two independent parameters of the model, while the volume of the fireball V, the strangeness chemical potential $`\mu _S`$, and the isospin chemical potential $`\mu _{I_3}`$ are fixed by the three conservation laws for baryon number, strangeness, and charge. Interactions among hadrons are taken into account via an excluded volume correction. For details see .

The aim of this approach is to determine whether or not the observed hadron yields can be described in a model assuming complete chemical equilibration. Note that temperature and baryon chemical potential are fixed by the pion/baryon and the anti-nucleon/nucleon ratios, and hence no information about the yields of strange particles is used to determine the two parameters of the model. The production yields of strange hadrons are, however, significantly increased in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions compared to what is expected from a superposition of nucleon-nucleon collisions. This has been observed by several experiments both at the AGS and at the SPS . Nevertheless, all hadron yields including those for multi-strange baryons, where enhancement factors of more than 1 order of magnitude are observed, can be described consistently  if one assumes a fireball with temperature T=168 Mev and baryon chemical potential $`\mu _b`$ = 266 MeV. This is demonstrated in Fig. 1. On the other hand, the observed enhancement, especialy for multistrange hadrons, cannot currently be understood within any of the hadronic event generators

How chemical equilibration can be reached in a purely hadronic collision is not clear in view of the small production cross section for strange and especially multi-strange hadrons. In fact, system lifetimes of the order of 50 fm/c or more are needed for a hot hadronic system to reach full chemical equilibration . Such lifetimes are at variance with lifetime values established from interferometry analyses, where upper limits of about 10 fm/c are deduced .

Another very interesting observation is that the chemical potentials $`\mu _b`$ and temperatures T resulting from the thermal analyses of  place the systems at chemical freeze-out very close to where we currently believe is the phase boundary between plasma and hadrons. This is demonstrated in Fig. 2 111This is an updated version of the figure shown in . where also results from lower energy analyses are plotted. The freeze-out trajectory (solid curve through the data points) is just to guide the eye but follows closely the empirical curve of .

The closeness of the freeze-out parameters (T,$`\mu _b`$) to the phase boundary might be the clue to the apparent chemical equilibration in the hadronic phase: if the system prior to reaching freeze-out was in the partonic (plasma) phase, then strangeness production is determined by larger partonic cross sections as well as by hadronization. Slow cooking in the hadronic phase is then not needed to produce the observed large abundances of strange hadrons. Early simulations of strangeness production in the plasma and during hadronization support this interpretation at least qualitatively .

We would like to stress, however, that it cannot be just the non-perturbative hadronization mechanism which brings the hadron abundances into “apparent” chemical equilibrium, as has been argued recently . The hadronization of single quarks, as witnessed by a recent thermal analysis of hadron abundances following e+e- annihilation , leads to very drastically different distributions: as is known for many years now, hadrons with strangeness are significantly suppressed compared to purely thermal expectations. This leads in  to a strangeness suppression factor $`\gamma _s`$ = 0.67, implying that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ production is reduced by more than a factor of 3 compared to the full chemical equilibrium value reached in Pb-Pb collisions. The role of gluons is clearly important in the partonic state reached in heavy ion collisions.

Further strong support for a thermal interpretation of the observed hadron yields also arises from recent results on event-by-event fluctuations . The observed distributions for the mean transverse momentum and the kaon/pion ratio look indistinguishable from reference distributions obtained by event mixing, implying only tiny222At the 90 % confidence level, nonstatistical contributions of less than 1 % to the mean transverse momentum distributions and less than 5 % to the kaon/pion ratio are excluded. non-statistical components in these distributions. Since the kaon/pion ratio in the current interpretation is frozen at chemical equilibration, i.e. at the phase boundary, this result strengthens the argument for complete chemical equilibrium.

We note also that the current thermal interpretation works most convincingly for very central collisions. If the parameters T and $`\mu _b`$ are kept constant, all thermal yields should scale linearly with the volume and, hence, with the number of participants, implying that all particle ratios should be independent of collision centrality. This is indeed observed for the yields and ratios of multi-strange baryons in the range of participant numbers larger than 100 . For pions and kaons one observes, however, a small but significant increase of yields with the number of participants . Such an increase could imply a small decrease of $`\mu _b`$ with the number of participants. However, the observed anti-proton/proton ratios and yields of multi-strange baryons are not in support of such an interpretation. Further work is necessary to understand all finer aspects of hadron production.

## 3 Summary and Outlook

Hadron production results from central nucleus nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energies can be quantitatively understood by assuming that the fireball formed in the collision freezes out chemically very near to the phase boundary between quark-gluon plasma and hadron gas. This result cannot be explained within purely hadronic scenarios and lends strong support to the interpretation that the freeze-out state is reached via a system trajectory which crosses the phase boundary from the quark-gluon plasma side.

This interpretation leads directly to predictions for hadron production at RHIC  and LHC  which should be (at least for RHIC) testable soon.


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# Seeing Galaxies Through Thick and Thin: II. Direct Measures of Extinction in Spiral Disks Through Spectroscopy of Overlapping Galaxies

## 1  Introduction

Determining the opacity of spiral galaxy disks is essential to understanding how the dust content in disks can affect luminosity estimates, star formation rates, and the ability to see through these disks when observing distant objects such as QSOs. The inclination–surface-brightness test is one of the oldest methods (Holmberg 1958) used to determine whether spiral galaxies are largely transparent or opaque: opaque disks have surface brightnesses independent of inclination, while transparent disks are brightest when seen edge-on. A more refined version of this test used by Valentijn (1990) led to the claim that spiral galaxies are opaque. This result seems contrary to examples of objects seen through spiral disks and the fact that we are able to observe galaxies by looking beyond the Milky Way. Reassessments of Valentijn’s (1990) work by Burstein et al. (1995) and Huizinga (1994) have shown that sample selection effects can mask any relationship between inclination and surface brightness.

White & Keel (1992) initiated a campaign to determine $`directly`$ (rather than statistically) the opacity of spiral disks by imaging partially overlapping galaxies. The non-overlapping parts of the galaxies in such systems are used to estimate how much light from the background galaxies is absorbed in passing through the foreground galaxies (White & Keel 1992; Keel & White 1995; White, Keel & Conselice 1996, 1999). The success of this differential photometric technique is strongly dependent on the symmetry of each of the overlapping galaxies, since the errors in the deduced optical depths are dominated by systematic errors due to deviations from structural symmetry.

In our photometric analysis, the symmetry requirements for both background and foreground components of a pair limits the number of useful pairs from our observed sample (White, Keel & Conselice 1999). Taking spectra of the overlap regions allows the symmetry requirements for the foreground galaxy to be relaxed, since we can directly identify photon ownership, due to the velocity difference between the two galaxies. A Fourier cross-correlation of the spectra shows peaks at the velocities corresponding to the redshifts of each of the pair members. The relative Fourier amplitudes of the two peaks should be equivalent to the relative intensities of the foreground and background galaxies in the overlapping region. This velocity decomposition, combined with photometry of a symmetric background galaxy region, gives us an estimate of the foreground disk opacity. Here we present new opacity measurements using this technique for arm and interarm regions in six spiral galaxies. The relaxed symmetry requirements for the foreground galaxy allow us to analyze spirals which are not grand design.

## 2  Method Formalism

We first describe the differential photometric technique employed in our previous imaging studies, in order to contrast it with the present spectroscopic study. A partially overlapping pair of galaxies is illustrated in Figure 1. In the region of overlap, the surface brightness of the foreground galaxy is $`F`$ and the unattenuated surface brightness of the background galaxy is $`B`$. Light from the background galaxy is attenuated while passing through the foreground galaxy, so what is actually observed in the overlap region is $`F+Be^\tau `$, where $`\tau `$ is the optical depth in the foreground galaxy and the angle brackets are used to emphasize that the enclosed quantity is the basic observable. We use symmetric regions of both the foreground and background galaxies to $`estimate`$ $`F`$ and $`B`$ in the overlap region, since we cannot directly decompose them with imaging; the estimates of $`F`$ and $`B`$ are denoted $`F^{}`$ and $`B^{}`$. We then use purely differential photometry to derive an estimate of $`\tau `$, denoted $`\tau ^{}`$:

$$e^\tau ^{}=\frac{F+Be^\tau F^{}}{B^{}}.$$
(1)
That is, the estimate of the foreground light in the overlap region is first subtracted from the total light in the overlap region; the result is then divided by the estimate of unattenuated background light to derive an estimate of $`e^\tau `$.

In contrast, our spectroscopic technique is illustrated in Figure 2, where a slit is seen crossing the overlap region and intersecting both galactic centers. In this case, if the radial velocity difference between the two galaxies is large enough, the foreground light $`F`$ and the attenuated background light $`Be^\tau `$ $`can`$ be spectroscopically distinguished in the overlap region, in contrast to the purely photometric case above. In this case, all we need is an estimate $`B^{}`$ of the $`un`$attenuated background galaxy’s surface brightness $`B`$, derived from a symmetric region of the background galaxy. Our estimate of $`\tau `$ in the overlap region can then be deduced with a modified version of equation (1):

$$e^\tau ^{}=\frac{Be^\tau }{B^{}},$$
(2)
since $`F`$ and $`Be^\tau `$ are spectroscopically separable. We require only global symmetry in this case since $`B`$ and $`B^{}`$ may be averaged over substantial areas along the slit.

Puxley and James (1993) also exploited velocity separation of galaxy pairs in this context, using emission lines from HII regions. Our use of stellar $`absorption`$ lines offers important advantages. The background continuum is smoothly distributed across large regions. Thus, we are not subject to point to point variations in opacity and are not biased against high opacity regions.

The cross-correlation method as applied will use all absorption features in our wavelength range (3600-5200 Å) of the template and galaxy spectra. This has the advantage of using lines blended by galaxy velocity dispersions in addition to easily identifiable lines. When they are taken into account, those blended lines may contribute the most signal to the cross-correlation. The combined spectra of two galaxies in the overlap region is compared to our templates. The absorption features of the individual galaxies contribute to the correlation with differing strength due to their intensity levels. The brightest spectrum of the two will dominate and be most easily correlated, thereby producing the largest peak at its respective redshift.

## 3  Observations and Data Analysis

To explore how well Doppler separation of the light from the foreground and background galaxies would allow us to measure the extinction in overlapping pairs, we obtained optical spectra of 18 such pairs (see Table 1) using the 2.1m telescope and GoldCam spectrometer at Kitt Peak National Observatory in 1995 November. We concentrated on the line-rich spectral region from 3600-5200 Å, with the full spectral range falling on the $`3072\times 512`$-pixel useful region of the Ford CCD, set comfortably wider than this (3100-6800 Å) so that defocusing at the ends of each spectrum would not compromise our cross-correlation results. The slit width of 150$`\mu `$ (1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$9) gave a resolution of 4.1 Å (FWHM) with pixels subtending 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$78 by 1.25 Å. A slit length of 5$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$0 gave clear sky around the pairs to permit sky-subtraction for all members of the sample but NGC 4567/8. Most objects received total exposures of 120 minutes, intended to give usable count rates within at least the overlap region as a whole and, in several cases, for several independent bins within this region. Each object exposure was immediately followed by one of a HeNeAr comparison lamp, so that an individual wavelength solution could be generated for each observation. The rms deviation of comparison-line wavelengths about the adopted solution was typically 0.14 Å, so that the contribution of the calibration step to radial-velocity errors would be typically less than 10 km s-1. Vignetting along the slit was measured and removed through an observation of the twilight-sky zenith. The velocity zero point was confirmed through nightly observations of the IAU radial-velocity standard stars BD $`+28^{}`$ 3402 (F7 V, -36.6 km s-1), HD 213947 (K4 III, +16.7 km s-1), or HD 90861 (K2 III, +36.3 km s-1). We also observed M32 at the start of the run, as an additional cross-correlation reference.

Supporting $`B`$ and $`I`$ images for most of these pairs are available from the CTIO 1.5m, KPNO 2.1m, or Lowell 1.1m telescopes (as described by White, Keel, & Conselice 1998). For two systems in which the slit position did not cross the nuclei, we obtained an additional brief spectrum of the nuclei, to verify the systemic radial velocity of each galaxy.

Each sky-subtracted spectrum in our sample was cleaned using IRAF to get rid of cosmic rays and remove columns where sky lines did not subtract well. Removal of pixel columns at wavelengths greater than 6500 Å was done to remove poor data. Since the line-rich region contributing most of the cross-correlation power is below 5200 Å, no interesting information was lost. Averages were taken in the spatial direction across galaxy nuclei and turned into one dimensional spectra. The 1-D spectra were cross-correlated, using the IRAF task FXCOR, with the radial velocity standard spectra to get redshift estimates and determine which standards worked best for each galaxy. The spectra of M32 and HD213947 were determined to be the most useful references but BD $`+28^{}`$ 3402 was also used as a check on velocity estimates. After the galaxies with previously known redshifts were shown to agree with our estimates, heliocentric redshifts were obtained for the galaxies with unpublished radial velocities.

To analyze the area of combined spectra, the overlap region was located in angular distance from the galaxy nuclei along the position angle of the slit. Extracted spectra were usually the sum of four detector pixels (3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$1) along the slit, to increase the signal to noise. Whenever possible, adjacent regions overlapped each other by two pixels. These 1-D spectra were cross-correlated with the radial velocity standards and double peaked profiles were sought near the respective velocities of the pair members. When a correlation proved unsuccessful, the sizes of the 1-D spectra were reevaluated and summed over a smaller region until results were achieved or options were exhausted. Final region selections are shown in Figures 5 through 11.

If observed cross-correlation peaks were located at the expected redshifts, their relative amplitudes were compared. Averages of relative amplitudes from correlations with two different standards were calculated when possible. The relative amplitudes were taken as the fraction of foreground to background light. Association of the peaks with the position of galaxies was determined by matching velocities, since foreground and background contributions switched dominance as a function of distance from the respective nuclei. In one pair, NGC 7268, the foreground galaxy has a higher recession velocity than that of the background galaxy by $`400`$ km s-1. It is interesting to note that in our first clean photometric case, AM1316-241, the recession velocity of the foreground galaxy exceeded that of the background galaxy by an even greater amount, $`700`$ km s-1 (White & Keel 1992).

Once the fractional foreground contribution was determined, two methods were used to estimate the fluxes from symmetric areas of the background galaxy. First, when the slit encompassed the necessary symmetric background region, the galaxies’ spectra were averaged over all wavelengths to create an intensity profile of the pair. The intensities in the symmetric background regions in the slit were then estimated to produce opacity measures as described above. Second, we used images of the pairs to estimate the unabsorbed contribution of the background galaxy from symmetric, nonoverlapping regions. This method is a hybrid of our purely photometric and our purely spectroscopic techniques. When we use both methods, we refer to the purely spectroscopic technique as the spectral method and the hybrid as the spectrum/image method.

The velocity per pixel resolution of our spectra proved to be a limiting factor in obtaining double velocity peaks in the cross-correlations. Since most of the galaxies differed in velocity by less than $``$ 300 km s-1, the peak with lower correlation amplitude could be located within the span of the higher amplitude peak. A higher spectral dispersion would produce greater separation in the peaks. This blending was usually the reason why a candidate pair failed to yield opacity measures. In some cases the orientation of the galaxy disks produced an advantageous increase in velocity separation at the regions of interest which allowed measures to be made for NGC 1738/9 despite the pair’s relative velocity. Other failures were due to obtrusive emission lines in the desired region of the spectra or to low signal to noise. The role of signal to noise was investigated with synthetic composite spectra having varying S/N ratios. Decreasing the signal to noise in a spectra with two equal correlation amplitudes at a separation of 500 km s-1 made distinguishing peaks more difficult while the lowest ratios caused FXCOR to be unable to find any peaks at the proper locations.

Metallicity effects among the galaxy pair members were found to be unimportant since the depth of absorption lines is not as important as their placement with respect to the template spectrum. Our templates from the spectra HD213947, a K star, and M32 with a K star dominated spectrum show metallicity differences by way of line depths. Both of these templates were used in the cross-correlations and the very similar results were averaged and reported. An increased relative line depth would improve the correlation if it were large enough to stand out in a noise filled spectrum, so our signal to noise ratio is a larger concern to achieve results. The two galaxies of largest morphological difference in our useful sample are the members of the NGC 7268 pair. Using FXCOR to cross-correlate non-overlapping portions of this pair with one template reveals the same level of correlation for an SBbc and an S0, therefore metallicity effects are ignored. Since we also observe the non-overlapping portions of the galaxies within the spectroscopic slit, we are only sensitive to possible asymmetries in line strengths.

We used synthetic composite spectra to calibrate the mapping between ratios of Fourier amplitudes to foreground/background intensity ratios. We found that the mapping of this ratio from real space to Fourier space is dependent on the velocity resolution of the input spectra. Artificial spectra with different redshifts were created with MK1DSPEC and combined with known relative contributions of background and foreground light. The resulting cross-correlation amplitudes were then compared to the input intensity ratios. Artificial spectra were created with a velocity resolution comparable to that of our real data, which have 75 km s-1 pixel-1. The test Fourier amplitude ratios of the two peaks were found to be within 10% of the input intensity ratios, independent of the value of the ratio. Figure 4 plots the input continuum ratio against that inferred from FXCOR for the 75 km s-1 pixel-1 tests with various velocity space separations. Nearly all observed amplitude ratios are between 1 and 2, with only two regions greater than 3, so the expected errors from the Fourier measure should all fall near 5%. Similar tests were performed by shifting the spectrum of M32 to two different velocities and combining them into one spectrum. Those results show that correlation amplitude blending for separations of less than 500 km s-1 causes ratios to be less accurate as is also shown in Figure 4. With this analysis, pairs still fall within an acceptable 10% error. These effects are smaller than our measurement errors so we do not apply corrections.

## 4  Results

Individual galaxy pairs which gave useful opacity measurements are discussed below. The extinctions are reported in magnitudes, where the relation between magnitudes of extinction $`A`$ and optical depth $`\tau `$ is $`A`$=1.086$`\tau `$. Our measured values correspond roughly to $`A_B`$, since most of the strong absorption features giving cross-correlation signal lie in the $`B`$ band. Other pairs in our sample lack discernible double peaks in the collected spectral cross-correlations. Table 2 contains a summary of properties of the seven pairs with useful results followed by those galaxies which did not yield results; the redshifts listed are those calculated with FXCOR unless otherwise noted. All morphological types, $`R/R_{25}^B`$ values, and noted redshifts were obtained from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), the ESO-LV catalog (Lauberts & Valentijn 1989), or the RC3 (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991). Table 3 lists the face-on corrected extinctions, along with corresponding regions and averages. Negative extinction values in the table indicate the level of systematic error due to departures from symmetry in the associated background galaxies.

### 4.1  ESO 054642-2534.4

ESO 054642-2534.4 is comprised of two SBs in the cluster AM 0546-253 (see Figure 5) and is our most easily distinguished spectral pair, due their approximate velocity separation of 1300 km s-1. Results were obtained for four regions with a two pixel wide overlap, corresponding to 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$56 of shared width. These regions span nearly 2.5 kpc, using the galaxy redshift distance ($`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1). The four areas sweep across a background arm/ring and a foreground arm/ring. The spectral intensity profile method yields an average extinction of $`A_B0.25`$, ranging from 0.08 to 0.48; the $`B`$ image/spectrum method yields an average $`A_B0.11`$. Face-on corrected values are 0.17 and 0.07 for the two methods, respectively, after dividing by the axial ratio $`a/b=1.47`$. Interarm material in the foreground galaxy is revealed to have average extinctions of $`A_B=0.2`$ and 0.15 through inspection of three of the regions using the two methods defined above.

### 4.2  ESO 064906-3517.3

In ESO 064906-3517.3, an Sa-Sab pair, we found three regions which give double peaked cross-correlations (see Figure 6). These regions are four pixels (3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$1) wide and span an area including some foreground spiral arm. The foreground and background galaxies contribute comparable amounts of light in each region. Extinctions average to $`A_B=0.18`$ using the spectrum intensity profile method. These data imply a face-on value of $`A_B=0.11`$, assuming a simple cosine inclination dependence and the observed foreground galaxy axial ratio $`a/b=1.61`$. Face-on values for the regions identified as being in a foreground arm average to be $`A_B=0.15`$.

### 4.3  MCG -02-58-011

MCG -02-58-011 is comprised of an edge-on foreground SBc, oriented E-W, projected against a highly inclined blue late-type spiral, oriented N-S. Reddened knots are seen in the disk oriented E-W only in the overlap region; these knots are otherwise similar to those in the disk oriented N-S, which leads to the conclusion that the edge-on E-W SBc is in the foreground. We found six regions with discernible light contributions from both pair members (see Figure 7); these regions are four pixels wide and each shares two pixels. Unfortunately, these regions have no unobscured symmetric counterparts, so we cannot accurately estimate opacities. We can merely state that the foreground member is not completely opaque.

### 4.4  NGC 1738/9

NGC 1738/9 comprises an SBbc-Sbc pair for which our single spectroscopic slit position did not pass through background areas symmetric to our regions of interest (see Figure 8), due to geometric constraints. We were however able to estimate opacities despite the velocity separation being less than 100 km s-1. Cross-correlation of spectra from the overlap region proved to be easiest with the nuclear spectrum of NGC 1738. In combination with the $`B`$ image/spectrum method, three one pixel (0.2 kpc) wide regions reveal an average apparent $`A_B=0.76`$ for these arm regions. Dividing by the axial ratio of the foreground galaxy NGC 1739 ($`a/b=1.95`$) yields a face-on corrected value of $`A_B=0.39`$, which is in general agreement with our previous photometric analysis of this pair (White, Keel, & Conselice 1998).

### 4.5  NGC 3088

NGC 3088 consists of a nearly face-on foreground S0 projected against a background, nearly edge-on spiral galaxy. We found four useful regions that are four pixels (3$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$1) wide and share a width of two pixels with their neighbors (see Figure 9). Expected asymmetries in an edge-on spiral complicate measurements for this pair. Negative values indicate that some obscured regions behind the S0 have a greater brightness than geometrically symmetric regions in the background member. Although the negative values are unphysical, they are presented here and in Figures 12-14 for completeness. The S0 has average disk extinctions of $`A_B=0.15`$ using the spectrum method and $`A_B=0.30`$ using the spectrum/image method. Face-on-corrected values are 0.13 and -0.27, respectively, given an axial ratio of 1.12.

### 4.6  NGC 6365

The NGC 6365 pair consists of a nearly edge-on Sdm (NGC 6365B) projected against a SBcd galaxy (see Figure 10). We analyzed five regions, each one pixel wide, lying along NGC 6365B. The apparent extinctions derived from this spectrum method indicate that NGC 6365B is the foreground galaxy which agrees with the respective redshifts, however the decision is complicated by a region on NGC 6365B that appears diminished in brightness by a possible arm of the face-on member. In contrast there appears to be an arm of NGC6365A peeking from behind the edge-on member. The interpretation, that NGC 6365B is the foreground, is favored for meaningful extinctions. Because of spectral similarities, a cross-correlation with the NGC 1739 spectrum was most useful. The foreground galaxy has average face-on corrected interarm extinctions of $`A_B=0.15`$ and 0.17, for the spectrum and spectrum/image methods, respectively (and an axial ratio of $`a/b=3.70`$).

### 4.7  NGC 7268

The galaxy pair associated with NGC 7268 (see Figure 11) has a foreground SB ringed galaxy with a recession velocity 400 km s-1 greater than that of the background S0/E galaxy. Results were obtained for two regions, each 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$56 ($`1`$ kpc) wide and not sharing any pixels. The location of these areas with respect to galaxy features appears to be in the outer ring of the foreground barred galaxy. The average ring extinctions are $`A_B=0.53`$ (using the intensity profile method) and $`A_B=0.30`$ (using the $`B`$ image/spectrum method). The face-on corrected values are $`A_B=0.35`$ and $`A_B=0.21`$, given an axial ratio of $`a/b=1.50`$.

## 5  Summary and Discussion

We have used slit spectroscopy of overlapping pairs of galaxies to determine directly the extinction in foreground spiral disks. Our spectroscopic technique allows us to relax the symmetry requirements of our previous imaging studies. In agreement with our previous imaging results, we find that the extinction in interarm regions is typically $`0.1`$ mag in blue (corrected to face on), while spiral arms exhibit extinctions of $`0.3`$ mag. In this sample, rings exhibit the same level of extinction as spiral arms. These numbers are calculated as an average of both methods used in this paper. Face-on extinctions are estimated by dividing by axial ratios and therefore can be overestimates since realistic cases have finite thickness and clumped absorbers. The values obtained can be expected to have errors of at least 5% due to cross-correlation uncertainties but values will be most affected by unwanted asymmetry in the background light comparisons.

A plot of uncorrected extinctions as a function of axial ratio (Fig. 12), for data obtained in this paper and from White, Keel, & Conselice (1999), reveals a great deal of scatter amongst arm regions. This comparison reveals no inclination dependence in the apparent extinctions. The separation of arm and interarm values is clear. A similar comparison of face-on extinctions with galaxy type (Fig. 13) also reveals scattering of values for spiral arms and a more consistent measurement for the interarm regions. The individual internal structures of galaxies may play an important role in the scatter. In Figure 14, extinctions as a function of $`R/R_{25}^B`$ are plotted and show a suggestion of decreasing values with increasing radius for interarm regions while arm region extinctions show no dependence on radius. The outlying points at the lower left are from the S0 galaxy, NGC 3088 which has a possibly asymmetric edge-on galaxy in the background.

This spectral decomposition technique is a viable way of determining disk opacities. As discussed by White, Keel, & Conselice (1999), these results suggest that galaxy extinction is not the cause of the QSO “cutoff” and that intrinsic galactic luminosities are not as underestimated as they would be if spirals were completely opaque.

This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research has also made use of SKYVIEW. D.D. thanks Guy Purcell and Victor Andersen for helpful technical support. We thank Paul Eskridge for observing NGC 3088 and NGC 6365 with the 1.3 meter MDM.


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# Tail States in a Superconductor with Magnetic Impurities

## Abstract

A field theoretic approach is developed to investigate the profile and spectrum of sub-gap states in a superconductor subject to a weak magnetic impurity potential. Such states are found to be associated with inhomogeneous supersymmetry broken instanton configurations of the action.

While spectral properties of an $`s`$-wave superconductor are largely unaffected by weak non-magnetic impurities , the pair-breaking effect of magnetic impurities leads to the destruction of superconductivity. Remarkably, the suppression of the quasi-particle energy gap is more rapid than that of the superconducting order parameter, admitting the existence of a narrow ‘gapless’ superconducting phase . According to the conventional (mean-field) theory due to Abrikosov and Gor’kov (AG), a gap is maintained up to a critical concentration of magnetic impurities. Yet, being unprotected by the Anderson theorem, it is clear that the gap structure predicted by the mean-field theory is untenable and will be destroyed by rare configurations of the random impurity potential. Indeed, since the pioneering work of AG, several authors  have explored the nature of the ‘sub-gap’ states. The aim of this work is to investigate quantitatively the spectrum and profile of sub-gap states in weakly disordered superconductors.

In the earliest works , attention was focussed on the the influence of strong impurities. In the unitarity limit, it was shown that a single magnetic impurity leads to the local suppression of the order parameter and creates a bound sub-gap quasi-particle state. For a finite impurity concentration, these intra-gap states broaden into a band. This mechanism contrasts with the AG theory  for weak magnetic impurities which predicts a gradual suppression of the quasi-particle energy gap. Defining $`\zeta 1/\tau _s|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$, where $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$ represents the self-consistent order parameter, and $`\tau _s`$ denotes the Born scattering time due to magnetic impurities, one finds $`E_{\mathrm{gap}}(\tau _s)=|\mathrm{\Delta }|(1\zeta ^{2/3})^{3/2}`$, showing an onset of the gapless region when $`\zeta =1`$ (note $`\mathrm{}=1`$ throughout). However, even for weak disorder, optimal fluctuations of the random potential generate sub-gap states. Extending the arguments of Balatsky and Trugman , a fluctuation of the random potential which leads to an effective scattering rate $`1/\tau _s^{}`$ in excess of $`1/\tau _s`$ over a range in excess of the coherence length, $`\xi =(D/|\mathrm{\Delta }|)^{1/2}`$, induces quasi-particle states down to energies $`E_{\mathrm{gap}}(\tau _s^{})`$. These sub-gap states are localised, bound to the region or ‘droplet’ where the scattering rate is large, and coupled through the proximity effect to the rest of the environment.

The situation bares comparison with band tail states in semi-conductors. Here rare or optimal configurations of the random impurity potential generate bound states, known as Lifshitz tail states , which extend well below the band edge. However, the correspondence is, to some extent, superficial: band tail states in semi-conductors are typically associated with smoothly varying, nodeless wavefunctions. By contrast, the tail states below the superconducting gap involve the superposition of states around the Fermi level. As such, one expects these states to be rapidly oscillating on the scale of the Fermi wavelength, but modulated by an envelope which is localised on the scale of the coherence length. This difference is not incidental. Firstly, unlike the semi-conductor, one expects the spectrum of the tails states within the superconducting gap to be ‘universal’, independent of the nature of the weak impurity distribution, but dependent only on the scattering time $`\tau _s`$. Secondly, as we will see, one can not expect a straightforward extension of existing theories  of the Lifshitz tails to describe the profile of tail states in the superconductor.

The aim of this letter is two-fold: firstly we will propose a general field theoretic scheme which accommodates the AG theory as a mean-field, and whose fluctuations determine phase coherence effects in the gapless system. Secondly, we will relate the appearance of tail states to inhomogeneous supersymmetry breaking instanton configurations of the action.

To keep our discussion simple, we will take the quenched distribution of magnetic impurities to be ‘classical’ and non-interacting throughout. For practical purposes, this entails the consideration of structures where both the Kondo temperature  and, more significantly, the RKKY induced spin glass temperature  is smaller than the relevant energy scales of the superconductor. The remaining energy scales are arranged in the quasi-classical and dirty limits: $`ϵ_F1/\tau (|\mathrm{\Delta }|,1/\tau _s)`$ where $`1/\tau `$ represents the scattering rate associated with non-magnetic impurities. The random system we consider is specified by the Gor’kov Hamiltonian

$$\widehat{H}=\left(\frac{\widehat{𝐩}^2}{2m}ϵ_F+V(𝐫)\right)\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}+|\mathrm{\Delta }|\sigma _2^{\mathrm{ph}}+J𝐒\sigma ^{\mathrm{sp}}$$
(1)
where Pauli matrices $`\{\sigma _i^{\mathrm{ph}}\}`$ and $`\{\sigma _i^{\mathrm{sp}}\}`$ operate on particle/hole and spin indices respectively. Here $`𝐒(𝐫)`$ and $`V(𝐫)`$ represent Gaussian $`\delta `$-correlated magnetic and non-magnetic impurity potentials with zero mean and variance $`JS_\alpha (𝐫)JS_\beta (𝐫^{})_S=(6\pi \nu \tau _s)^1\delta ^d(𝐫𝐫^{})\delta _{\alpha \beta }`$ and $`V(𝐫)V(𝐫^{})_V=(2\pi \nu \tau )^1\delta ^d(𝐫𝐫^{})`$ respectively, and $`\nu `$ represents the average density of states (DoS).

Phase coherence properties of the Hamiltonian (1) rely on its invariance under symmetry transformations. The magnetic impurity potential breaks both time-reversal and spin rotation symmetry leaving only charge conjugation symmetry,

$$\widehat{H}=\sigma _2^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma _2^{\mathrm{sp}}\widehat{H}^T\sigma _2^{\mathrm{sp}}\sigma _2^{\mathrm{ph}}.$$
(2)
When applied to the corresponding Gor’kov Green function, $`\widehat{G}_+(ϵ)=\sigma _2^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma _2^{\mathrm{sp}}\widehat{G}_{}^T(ϵ)\sigma _2^{\mathrm{sp}}\sigma _2^{\mathrm{ph}}`$, the same transformation converts an advanced function into a retarded function implying single-particle interference effects as $`ϵ0`$ . To investigate their influence on spectral (and transport) properties of the microscopic Hamiltonian it is convenient to cast the problem in the form of a functional field integral. Following a standard route , the Gor’kov Green function can obtained from the generating function

$`𝒵[0]={\displaystyle D(\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }},\mathrm{\Psi })\mathrm{exp}\left[i𝑑𝐫\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(\widehat{H}ϵ\sigma _3^{\mathrm{cc}})\mathrm{\Psi }\right]},`$
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ represent $`16`$-component superfields with indices referencing the particle/hole (ph), spin (sp), charge-conjugation (cc), and boson/fermion (bf) spaces, and the Pauli matrices $`\{\sigma _i^{\mathrm{cc}}\}`$ act in the cc space. The elements of the superfields $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ are not independent and exhibit the symmetry relation $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\sigma _2^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma _2^{\mathrm{sp}}\gamma \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}^T`$ with $`\gamma =\mathrm{diag}(i\sigma _2^{\mathrm{cc}},\sigma _1^{\mathrm{cc}})_{\mathrm{bf}}`$.

As with normal disordered conductors , when subject to an ensemble average over the random impurity distribution, the functional integral over the $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ fields can be traded for an integral involving matrix fields $`Q`$ weighted by a non-linear $`\sigma `$-model action. Physically, the fields $`Q`$, which vary slowly on the scale of the mean-free path $`\mathrm{}`$, describe the soft modes of density relaxation. When perturbed by the superconducting order parameter, the extension of the field integral approach is straightforward . Taking into account the magnetic impurity potential, the local single-particle DoS can be expressed as $`\nu (𝐫;ϵ)_{V,S}=\nu \mathrm{tr}(\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma _3^{\mathrm{cc}}Q(𝐫))_Q/16`$, where $`\mathrm{}_Q=_{Q^2=𝟙}DQ(\mathrm{})e^{S[Q]}`$ with

$$S[Q]=\frac{\pi \nu }{8}𝑑𝐫\mathrm{str}\left[D(Q)^24\left(iϵ\sigma _3^{\mathrm{cc}}\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}|\mathrm{\Delta }|\sigma _1^{\mathrm{ph}}\right)Q\frac{1}{3\tau _s}(\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma ^{\mathrm{sp}}Q)^2\right].$$
(3)
Here $`D=v_F^2\tau /d`$ represents the classical diffusion constant associated with the non-magnetic impurities. The supermatrix fields are subject to the auxiliary symmetry condition: $`Q=\sigma _1^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma _2^{\mathrm{sp}}\gamma Q^T\gamma ^1\sigma _2^{\mathrm{sp}}\sigma _1^{\mathrm{ph}}`$. Although the soft mode action is stabilised by the large parameter $`ϵ_F\tau 1`$, the majority of field fluctuations of the action are rendered massive: both the order parameter and the magnetic impurity potential lower the symmetry of the low-energy theory. To assimilate the effect of these terms, and to establish contact with the AG theory, it is necessary to explore the saddle-point equation.

Varying the action with respect to fluctuations of $`Q`$, subject to the non-linear constraint, one obtains the saddle-point or mean-field equation,

$`D\left(QQ\right)+[Q,iϵ\sigma _3^{\mathrm{cc}}\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}|\mathrm{\Delta }|\sigma _1^{\mathrm{ph}}]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6\tau _s}}[Q,\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma ^{\mathrm{sp}}Q\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}\sigma ^{\mathrm{sp}}]=0.`$
With the ansatz: $`Q_{\mathrm{mf}}=\sigma _3^{\mathrm{cc}}\sigma _3^{\mathrm{ph}}\mathrm{cosh}\widehat{\theta }+i\sigma _1^{\mathrm{ph}}\mathrm{sinh}\widehat{\theta }`$, where $`\widehat{\theta }=\mathrm{diag}(\theta _1,i\theta )_{\mathrm{bf}}`$, the saddle-point equation decouples into boson and fermion sectors and takes the form

$`_{𝐫/\xi }^2\widehat{\theta }+2i\left(\mathrm{cosh}\widehat{\theta }{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{|\mathrm{\Delta }|}}\mathrm{sinh}\widehat{\theta }\right)\zeta \mathrm{sinh}(2\widehat{\theta })=0,`$ (4)
a result reminiscent of the Usadel equation of quasi-classical superconductivity . This is no coincidence: when subject to an inhomogeneous order parameter, the same effective action (3) describes the proximity effect in a hybrid normal/superconducting compound . In the present context, when combined with the self-consistent equation for the order parameter , the homogeneous form of Eq. (4) coincides with the mean-field equations obtained by AG .

The AG solution is not unique: for $`ϵ0`$, the saddle-point equation admits an entire manifold of homogeneous solutions parameterised by the transformations $`Q=TQ_{\mathrm{mf}}T^1`$ where $`T=𝟙_{\mathrm{ph}}𝟙_{\mathrm{sp}}𝕥`$ and $`t=\gamma (t^1)^T\gamma ^1`$: soft fluctuations of the fields, which are controlled by a non-linear $`\sigma `$-model defined on the manifold $`T\mathrm{OSp}(2|2)/\mathrm{GL}(1|1)`$ (symmetry class D in the classification of Ref. ), control the low-energy, long-range properties of the gapless system giving rise to unusual localisation and spectral properties. (For a comprehensive discussion of the physics of the gapless phase, we refer to Refs. .)

This completes the formal description of the bulk superconducting phase. The mean-field solution of the AG equation defines the global phase structure of the bulk states. Soft fluctuations around the AG mean-field describe phase coherence effects due to quantum interference. However, within the present scheme it is not yet clear how to accommodate sub-gap states in the gapped phase of the AG theory. To identify such states, it is necessary to return to the saddle-point equation (4) and seek spatially inhomogeneous solutions. We will see that such configurations necessarily break supersymmetry.

To keep our discussion simple, let us focus on a quasi one-dimensional geometry. The generalisation to higher dimensions follows straightforwardly. To stay firmly within the diffusive regime, we require the system size $`L`$ to be much smaller than the localisation length of the normal system $`\xi _{\mathrm{loc}.}\nu L_\mathrm{w}D`$, where $`L_\mathrm{w}`$ denotes the cross-section. Furthermore, we focus on the interval near to the gapless region (i.e. $`\zeta 1`$), where self-consistency of the order parameter can be safely neglected. To define the inhomogeneous field configurations it is convenient to deal not with the saddle-point equation (4) itself, but its first integral, $`(_{x/\xi }\widehat{\theta })^2+V(\widehat{\theta })=\mathrm{const}.`$, where

$`V(\widehat{\theta })4i\left(\mathrm{sinh}\widehat{\theta }{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{|\mathrm{\Delta }|}}\mathrm{cosh}\widehat{\theta }\right)\zeta \mathrm{cosh}(2\widehat{\theta }),`$
represents the effective complex ‘potential’. Let us denote by $`\theta _{\mathrm{ag}}`$ the values of $`\theta _1`$ and $`i\theta `$ at the conventional AG saddle-point. From the mean-field DoS, $`\nu (ϵ)=\nu \mathrm{Re}\mathrm{cosh}\theta _{\mathrm{ag}}`$, it is evident that for $`ϵ<E_{\mathrm{gap}}`$, $`\mathrm{Im}\theta _{\mathrm{ag}}=\pi /2`$. The corresponding value of $`\mathrm{Re}\theta _{\mathrm{ag}}`$ depends sensitively on the energy, with $`\mathrm{Re}\theta _{\mathrm{ag}}=0`$ for $`ϵ=0`$. Taking into account the condition that the solution should coincide with $`\theta _{\mathrm{ag}}`$ at infinity, one can identify a “bounce” solution parameterised by $`\theta _1=i\pi /2+\varphi `$, with $`\varphi `$ real, involving the *real* potential $`V_\mathrm{r}(\varphi )V(i\pi /2+\varphi )`$ with endpoint $`\varphi ^{}`$ such that $`V_\mathrm{r}(\varphi ^{})=V_\mathrm{r}(\varphi _{\mathrm{ag}})`$.

Now integration over the angles $`\widehat{\theta }`$ is constrained to certain contours . Is the bounce solution accessible to both? As usual, the contour of integration over the boson-boson field $`\theta _1`$ includes the entire real axis, while for the fermion-fermion field $`i\theta `$ runs along the imaginary axis from $`0`$ to $`i\pi `$. With a smooth deformation of the integration contours, the AG saddle-point is accessible to both the angles $`\widehat{\theta }`$ . By contrast, the bounce solution and the AG solution can be reached simultaneously by a smooth deformation of the integration contour only for the boson-boson field $`\theta _1`$ (see Fig. 1). The bounce is associated with a spontaneous breaking of supersymmetry at the level of the saddle point.

Having identified the saddle-point field configuration, we now turn to the role of fluctuations. Here we sketch the important aspects of the expansion, referring to Ref.  for a detailed analysis. Field fluctuations can be separated into “radial” and “angular” contributions. The former involve fluctuations of the diagonal elements $`\widehat{\theta }`$, while the latter describe rotations including those Grassmann transformations which mix the bf sector. Both classes of fluctuations play a crucial role.

As usual, associated with radial fluctuations around the bounce, there exists a zero mode and a negative energy mode due to translational invariance of the solution. The latter, which necessitates a $`\pi /2`$ rotation of the corresponding integration contour to follow the line of steepest descent (c.f. Ref. ), has two effects: firstly it ensures that the non-perturbative contributions to the local DoS are non-vanishing, and secondly, that they are positive. Turning to the angular fluctuations, the spontaneous breaking of supersymmetry is accompanied by the appearance of a Grassmann zero mode separated by a gap from higher excitations. The zero mode ensures that the supersymmetry breaking saddle-point respects the normalisation condition $`𝒵[0]_{V,S}=1`$, and that the local DoS is non-vanishing only in the vicinity of the bounce.

Taking into account Gaussian fluctuations and zero modes, one obtains the non-perturbative, one instanton contribution to the sub-gap DoS:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\nu (ϵ)_{V,S}}{\nu }}(i|K|){\displaystyle 𝑑xi(\mathrm{sinh}\varphi (x)\mathrm{sinh}\varphi _{\mathrm{ag}})|\phi _0(x)|^2}`$ (5)
$`\times \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{LS_\varphi }{\xi }}}\mathrm{exp}\left[4\pi \nu L_\mathrm{w}\sqrt{D|\mathrm{\Delta }|}S_\varphi \right],`$ (6)
where $`S_\varphi _{\varphi _{\mathrm{ag}}}^\varphi ^{}𝑑\varphi \sqrt{V_\mathrm{r}(\varphi _{\mathrm{ag}})V_\mathrm{r}(\varphi )}`$. Here, the factor $`\sqrt{LS_\varphi /\xi }`$ represents the Jacobian associated with the introduction of the collective coordinate , $`i|K|`$ is the overall factor from the non-zero modes, and $`\phi _0(x)`$ represents the normalised eigenfunction associated with the Grassmann zero mode . Fig. 2 shows the action $`S_\varphi `$ for a typical value of $`\zeta `$. These results show that, for arbitrarily small but finite impurity concentrations, the DoS remains finite even at $`ϵ=0`$. For energies $`ϵ`$ just below $`E_{\mathrm{gap}}`$, an analytical solution can be obtained for the bounce in arbitrary dimension. Generally, one finds the exponent $`4\pi g(\xi /L)^{d2}S_\varphi `$ where

$`S_\varphi =a_d\zeta ^{2/3}(1\zeta ^{2/3})^{(2+d)/8}\left({\displaystyle \frac{E_{\mathrm{gap}}ϵ}{|\mathrm{\Delta }|}}\right)^{(6d)/4}.`$ (7)
Here $`g=\nu DL^{d2}`$ denotes the bare conductance, and $`a_d`$ is a numerical constant ($`a_1=8{}_{}{}^{4}\sqrt{24}/5`$). Furthermore, the optimal solution extends over a length scale $`\xi ((E_{\mathrm{gap}}ϵ)/|\mathrm{\Delta }|)^{1/4}`$, set by the coherence length (as expected), and diverges as $`ϵE_{\mathrm{gap}}`$ (c.f. Ref. ).

To conclude, let us make some remarks. Firstly, the procedure outlined above has a number of close relatives in the literature. As well as the investigation of tail states in semi-conductors , a supersymmetric field theory was developed by Affleck  (see also Refs. ) to investigate tail states in the lowest Landau level. There it was shown that tail states correspond to supersymmetry broken configurations of the $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$-field action (c.f. Ref. ). It is also interesting to compare the present scheme with the study of ‘anomalously localised states’  (see also, Ref. ). There one finds that long-time current relaxation in a disordered wire is also associated with spontaneous breaking of supersymmetry. Finally, we note that the Lifshitz argument has been applied on the level of the Usadel equation in the study of gap fluctuations due to inhomogeneities of the BCS interaction .

Although we have focussed on the question of tail states in the superconducting gap, the general scheme is more widely applicable. For example, in the present system, the transition to bulk superconductivity will be preempted by the nucleation of superconducting islands or droplets within the metallic/insulating phase (c.f. Ref. ). Similarly, the Stoner transition to a bulk itinerant ferromagnet in a disordered system will be mediated by the formation of a droplet phase in which islands become ferromagnetic . In both cases, we expect these ‘droplet phases’ to be associated with inhomogeneous (replica) symmetry broken saddle-point field configurations of the corresponding low-energy action.

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Alexander Altland, Alexander Balatsky, Alex Kamenev, and Mike Stone for valuable discussions. We are also deeply indebted to Dima Khmel’nitskii for bringing this general subject to our attention, and to John Chalker for crucial discussions, particularly those made at an early stage of this work. One of us (AL) would like to acknowledge the financial support of Trinity College.


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# Untitled Document

TIFR/TH/00-37

Basic Constituents of the Visible and Invisible Matter — A Microscopic View of the Universe

D.P. Roy

Department of Theoretical Physics

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai - 400 005, India

Abstract

One of the greatest achievements of twentieth century physics is the discovery of a very close link between the microcosm and the macrocosm. This follows from the two basic principles of quantum mechanics and relativity, the uncertainty principle and the mass energy equivalence, along with the standard big bang model of cosmology. As we probe deeper into the microcosm we encounter states of higher mass and energy, which were associated with the early history of the universe. Thus discovery of the atomic nucleus followed by the nuclear particles, quarks & gluons and finally the $`W`$ & $`Z`$ bosons have recreated in the laboratory the forms of matter that abounded in the very early universe. This has helped us to trace back the history of the universe to within a few picoseconds of its creation. Finally the discovery of the Higgs and supersymmetric particles will help to solve the mystry of the invisible matter, which abound throughout the universe today, as relics of that early history.

Introduction

Our concept of the basic constituents of matter has undergone two revolutionary changes during the twentieth century. The first was the Rutherford scattering experiment of 1911, bombarding Alpha particles on the Gold atom. While most of them passed through straight, occasionally a few were deflected at very large angles. This was like shooting bullets at a hay stack and finding that occasionally one would be deflected at a large angle and hit a bystander or in Rutherford’s own words “deflected back and hit you on the head”! This would mean that there is a hard compact object hiding in the hay stack. Likewise the Rutherford scattering experiment showed the atom to consist of a hard compact nucleus, serrounded by a cloud of electrons. The nucleus was found later to be made up of protons and neutrons.

The second was the electron-proton scattering experiment of 1968 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre, which was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1990. This was essentially a repeat of the Rutherford scattering type experiment, but at a much higher energy. The result was also similar as illustrated below. It was again clear from the pattern of large angle scattering that the proton is itself made up of three compact objects called quarks.

Fig. 1. The SLAC electron-proton scattering experiment, revealing the quark structure of the proton.

We now know from many such experiments that the nuclear particles (proton, neutron and mesons) are all made up of quarks – i.e. they are all quark atoms.

The main difference between the two experiments comes from the fact that, while the dimension of the atom is typically $`1A^{}=10^{10}`$ m that of the proton is about $`1`$ fm (fermi or femtometer) $`=10^{15}\mathrm{m}`$. It follows from the famous Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E\mathrm{\Delta }x>\mathrm{}c0.2\mathrm{GeV}.\mathrm{fm},$$
(1)
that the smaller the distance you want to probe the higher must be the beam energy. Thus probing inside the proton $`(x1\mathrm{fm})`$ requires a beam energy $`E1\mathrm{GeV}(10^9\mathrm{eV})`$, which is the energy acquired by the electron on passing through a billion (Gega) volts. It is this multi-GeV acceleration technology that accounts for the half a century gap between the two experiments.

It is customary in quantum physics to use the so called natural units, where one sets both the Plank’s constant $`\mathrm{}`$ and the velocity of light $`c`$ equal to unity. Thus the mass of particle is same as its rest mass energy $`(mc^2)`$. The GeV is commonly used as the basic unit of mass, energy and momentum. The proton mass is nearly 1 GeV.

The Standard Model:

As per our present understanding the basic constituents of matter are a dozen of spin-1/2 particles (in units of $`\mathrm{}`$) called fermions, along with their antiparticles. These are the three pairs of leptons (electron, muon, tau and their associated neutrinos) and three pairs of quarks (up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top) as shown below. The masses of the heaviest members are shown paranthetically in GeV units.

Basic Constituents of Matter

|  | $`\nu _e`$ | $`\nu _\mu `$ | $`\nu _\tau `$ | 0 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| leptons |  |  |  |  |
|  | $`e`$ | $`\mu `$ | $`\tau (2)`$ | -1 |
|  | $`u`$ | $`c`$ | $`t(175)`$ | $`2/3`$ |
| quark |  |  |  |  |
|  | $`d`$ | $`s`$ | $`b(5)`$ | $`1/3`$ |

The members of each pair differ by 1 unit of electric charge as shown in the last column – i.e. charge 0 and -1 for the neutrinos and charged leptons and 2/3 and -1/3 for the upper and lower quarks. This is relevant for their weak interaction. Apart from this electric charge the quarks also possess a new kind of charge called colour charge. This is relevant for their strong interaction, which binds them together inside the nuclear particles.

There are four basic interactions among these particles – strong, electromagnetic, weak and gravitational. Apart from gravitation, which is too weak to have any perceptible effect, the other three are all gauge interactions. They are all mediated by spin 1 (vector) particles called gauge bosons, whose interactions are completely specified by the corresponding gauge groups.

Basic Interactions

| Interaction | Strong | EM | Weak |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Carrier | $`g`$ | $`\gamma `$ | $`W^\pm \&Z^0`$ |
| Gauge Group | $`SU(3)`$ | $`\underset{}{U(1)SU(2)}`$ | |

The strong interaction between quarks is mediated by the exchange of a massless vector boson called gluon. This is analogous to the photon, which mediates the electromagnetic interaction between charged particles (quarks or charged leptons). The gluon coupling is proportional to the colour charge just like the photon coupling is proportional to the electric charge. The constant of proportionality for the strong interaction is denoted by $`\alpha _s`$ in analogy with the fine structure constant $`\alpha `$ in the EM case, as shown in equations (2) and (3) below. And the theory of strong interaction is called quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in analogy with the quantum electrodynamics (QED). The major difference of QCD with respect to the QED arises from the nonabelian nature of its gauge group, $`SU(3)`$. This essentially means that unlike the electric charge the colour charge can take three possible directions in an abstract space. These are rather whimsically labelled red, blue and yelow as illustrated below. Of course the cancellation of the colour charges of quarks ensure that the nuclear particles composed of them are colour neutral just like the atoms are electrically neutral.

Fig. 2. The quark structure of proton, neutron, $`\pi `$ and $`K`$ mesons along with their colour charges (the bar denotes antiparticles and the subscripts denote colour charge).

A dramatic consequence of the nonabelian nature of the QCD is that the gluons themselves carry colour charge and hence have self-interaction unlike the photons, which have no electric charge and hence no self-interaction. Because of the gluon self-interaction the colour lines of forces between the quarks are squeezed into a tube as illustrated below.

Fig. 3. The squeezed (1-dimentional) lines of force between colour charges contrasted with the isotropic (3-dimentional) lines of force between electric charges.

Consequently the number of colour lines of force intercepted and the resulting force is constant, i.e. the potential increases linearly with distance

$$V_S=\alpha _sr.$$
(2)
Thus the quarks are perpetually confined inside the nuclear particles as it would cost an infinite ammount of energy to split them apart. In contrast the isotropic distribution of the electric lines of force implies that the number intercepted and hence the resulting force decreases like $`1/r^2`$, i.e. the potential

$$V_E=\frac{\alpha }{r}.$$
(3)
Finally the weak interaction is mediated by massive vector particles, the charged $`W^\pm `$ and the neutral $`Z^0`$ bosons, which couple to all the quarks and leptons. The former couples to each pair of quarks and leptons listed above with a universal coupling strength $`\alpha _W`$, since they all belong to the doublet representation of $`SU(2)`$ (i.e. carry the same gauge charge). Because of the mass of the exchanged particle $`M_W`$ the weak interaction is restricted to a short range of $`1/M_W`$, i.e.

$$V_W=\frac{\alpha _W}{r}e^{rM_W}.$$
(4)
One can understand this easily from the uncertainty principle (1), since the exchange of a massive $`W`$ boson implies a tansient energy nonconservation $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=M_Wc^2`$, corresponding to a range $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=\mathrm{}/M_Wc`$.

The weak and the electromagnetic interactions have been successfully unified into a $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ gauge theory. This is the famous electroweak theory of Glashow, Salam and Weinberg for which they were awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize. This theory predicts the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ boson masses from the relative rates of the weak and the electromagnetic interactions, i.e.

$$M_W=80\mathrm{GeV}\mathrm{and}M_Z=91\mathrm{GeV}.$$
(5)
Discovery of the Fundamental Particles

As mentioned earlier, the up and down quarks are the constituents of proton and neutron. Together with the electron they constitute all the visible matter of the universe. The heavier quarks and charged leptons all decay into the lighter ones via weak interaction analogous to the nuclear Beta decay. So they are not freely occurring in nature. But they can be produced in laboratory or cosmic ray experiments. The muon and the strange quark were discovered in cosmic ray experiments in the late forties, the latter in the form of $`K`$ meson. Next to come were the neutrinos. Although practically massless and stable the neutrinos are hard to detect because they interact only weakly with matter. The $`\nu _e`$ was discovered in atomic reactor experiment in 1956, for which Reines got the Nobel Prize in 1995. The $`\nu _\mu `$ was discovered in the Brookhaven proton synchrotron in 1962, for which Lederman and Steinberger got the Nobel Prize in 1988. The first cosmic ray observation of neutrino came in 1965, when the $`\nu _\mu `$ was detected in the Kolar Gold Field experiment.

The rest of the particles have all been discovered during the last 25 years, thanks to the advent of the electron-positron and the antiproton-proton colliders. First came the windfall of the seventies with a quick succession of discoveries mainly at the $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders: charm quark (1974), Tau lepton (1975), bottom quark (1977) and the gluon (1979). This was followed by the discovery of $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons (1983) and finally the top quark (1995) at the $`\overline{p}p`$ colliders. Richter and Ting got the Nobel prize for the discovery of charm quark, while Martin Pearl got it for the Tau Lepton and Carlo Rubbia for the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons.

Fig. 4. Production of charm quark, tau lepton, bottom quark and gluon at the $`e^+e^{}`$ collider (upper line) and $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons at the $`\overline{p}p`$ collider (lower line).

Fig. 4 illustrates the pair production of charm and bottom quarks as well as the tau lepton at the electron-positron collider. The typical lifetime of these particles is of the order of a picosecond ($`10^{12}`$ sec.), corresponding to a range of a few hundred microns (fraction of a milli meter) at relativistic energies. Thanks to the high resolution silicon detectors available now, one can identify these particles before they decay. On the other hand the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons, being very heavy, decay practically at the instant of their creation. Nontheless they can be recognised by the unmistakable imprints they leave behind in their decay products. The same is true about top quark production (not shown).

Thus we have seen all the basic constituents of matter and the carriers of their interactions by now. But the story is not yet complete because of the mass problem – i.e. how to give mass to the weak gauge bosons (and also matter fermions) without breaking the gauge symmetry of the Lagrangian.

Mass Problem (Higgs Boson):

It is a remarkable property of gauge theory that the interaction dynamics is completely determined by the symmetry of the Lagrangian under the gauge transformation – i.e. rotation in some abstract space defined by the gauge group. This is similar to the rotational symmetry of the Lagrangian in ordinary space, leading to the conservation of angular momentum, except that in this case you assume the rotation angles to vary from point to point (i.e. be localised). Then it predicts not only the conservation of gauge charges but also the presence of massless vector particles (gauge bosons) along with their couplings to the matter fermions. But the mass term of the gauge bosons (as well as those of the matter fermions) can be easily seen to break the gauge symmetry of the Lagrangian. On the other hand the scalar (spin-0) particle masses are symmetric under gauge transformation. This can be exploited to give mass to the weak gauge bosons as well as the matter fermions through the back door – i.e. they acquire mass by absorbing scalar particles (like a snake acquiring mass by swallowing a frog).

This is the famous Higgs mechanism. One assumes a scalar particle of negative mass square, i.e. imaginary mass. This leads to a spontaneous symmetry breaking – i.e. the ground state of energy is not symmetric under gauge transformation unlike the Lagrangian. As a result the gauge bosons, $`W`$ and $`Z`$, can acquire mass. Besides the physical scalar particle acquires a real mass, comparable to $`W`$ and $`Z`$ masses. This is the so called Higgs boson, whose detection will confirm this mechanism of generating particle masses. It may be noted here that one can have a consistent gauge theory of electroweak interaction in the presence of spontaneous symmetry breaking, since the Lagrangian retains the gauge symmetry. This was demonstrated by t’Hooft and Veltman in the early seventies, for which they got the Nobel prize last year.

There are many examples of spontaneous symmetry breaking in physics, the most familiar one being that of magnetism. At high temperature the electron spins of a Ferromagnet are randomly oriented. But as we cool it below a critical temperature the electron spins get alligned with one another because that corresponds to a lower state of energy (ground state). Thus while the Lagrangian posseses a rotational symmetry, this is not shared by the ground state. The same thing happens in the Higgs mechanism, except that the rotation is to be done in an abstract space instead of the ordinary space.

The Standard Model of Cosmology:

A phase transition similar to the Ferromagnetic one had taken place soon after the big bang, when the universe was only a few picoseconds ($`10^{12}`$ sec.) old. It was an extremely hot and dense fire ball, with an ambient temperature of about 100 GeV. Now the effective mass of a particle depends on the property of the medium. And as the universe cooled down below a critical temperature the effective squared mass of the scalar particle became negative, resulting in a spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry. At this stage the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons acquired mass along with the quarks and the leptons. The age of the universe varied inversely as the square of its temperature. By the time the universe was about a microsecond ($`10^6`$ sec.) old, the ambient temperature had dropped to about 1 GeV and all the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons had decayed along with the heavy quarks and leptons into the light ones. At this stage a second (QCD) phase transition took place, which confined the light quarks ($`u`$ and $`d`$) into protons and neutrons. It may be noted here that the ongoing heavy ion collision experiments are trying to recreate such a QCD phase transition in the laboratory; and there are already some early indications of success.

By the time the universe was a few minutes ($`10^2`$ sec.) old the temperature had dropped to a few MeV, which is the typical binding energy of nuclei. At this stage Helium and other light nuclei were formed. After about one lakh $`(10^5)`$ years the temperature dropped down to the atomic binding energy level of a few electron volts. At this stage the electrons combined with the nuclei to form neutral atoms. Thus the matter decoupled from radiation and the universe became transparent. After this the matter particles experienced the gravitational attraction resulting finally in the formation of galaxies and stars. The present age of the universe is about 15 billion years and the ambient temperature about 3 K (1 eV = 12000 K).

Hierarchy Problem (Supersymmetry):

But this is not the end of the story because of the so called hierarchy problem – i.e. how to control the Higgs boson mass in the mass range of $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons (around a hundred GeV)? This is because the scalar particle mass has a quadratically divergent quantum correction unlike the fermion and gauge boson masses, since it is not protected by any symmetry. Thanks to the uncertainty principle, the vacuum in quantum mechanics is not empty, but it can contain an unlimited amount of energy and matter. And the quantum correction represents the effect of this medium on the mass of a particle. Being a divergent effect it would push up the scalar particle mass to infinity (or a very high cutoff scale of the theory). So the question is how to keep it down in the desired mass range of $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons?

That the scalar mass is not protected by any symmetry was of course used above to give mass to gauge bosons and fermions via Higgs mechanism. The hierarchy problem encountered now is the flip side of the same coin. The most attractive solution is to invoke a protecting symmetry – i.e. the supersymmetry (SUSY), which is a symmetry between fermions and bosons. As per SUSY all the fermions of the Standard Models have bosonic Superpartners and vice versa. They are listed below along with their spins $`S`$, where the Superpartners are indicated by tilde. The presence of the Superpartners ensure cancellation of the divergent quantum corrections.

| quarks & leptons | $`S`$ | Gauge bosons | $`S`$ | Higgs | $`S`$ | $`R`$-parity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`q,\mathrm{}`$ | 1/2 | $`\gamma ,g,W,Z`$ | 1 | $`h`$ | 0 | +1 |
| $`\stackrel{~}{q},\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}`$ | 0 | $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma },\stackrel{~}{g},\stackrel{~}{W},\stackrel{~}{Z}`$ | 1/2 | $`\stackrel{~}{h}`$ | 1/2 | -1 |

The standard particles are distinguished from the supersymmetric ones by a multiplicative quantum number called $`R`$-parity, which is $`+1`$ for the former and $`1`$ for the latter. Thus the supersymmetric particles have to be produced in pair and the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) has to be stable for $`R`$-parity conservation. In most SUSY models the LSP is the photino $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }`$, or in general mixture of $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{Z}`$, with a mass of again about a hundred GeV. Thus it interacts only weakly with matter and hence hard to detect like the neutrino. Indeed the LSP is the leading candidate for constituting the invisible or dark matter of the universe, which will be the last topic of this article.

The Invisible (Dark) Matter:

There is a large number of indirect evidences suggesting that the bulk of the matter of the universe is invisible or dark – i.e. it has gravitational but no electromagnetic interaction! The strongest evidence comes from the rotational velocity of the isolated stars or hydrogen cloud on the outskirts of galaxies. One can predict this velocity by balancing the centrifugal acceleration with the gravitational one,

$$\frac{v_{rot}^2}{r}=\frac{G_NM(r)}{r^2},\mathrm{i}.\mathrm{e}.v_{rot}=\sqrt{\frac{G_NM(r)}{r}},$$
(6)
where $`r`$ is the distance of the tracer star from the galactic centre and $`M(r)`$ is the galactic mass enclosed within this distance. Fig. 5 shows the rotation curve for a nearby dwarf spiral galaxy M33, superimposed on the optical image. If there were no galactic matter outside the visible disk the rotation velocity curve would have gone down like $`1/\sqrt{r}`$. Instead it continues to rise towards a constant value, way beyond the visible disk, suggesting that there is a lot of invisible matter in and around the galaxy. Similar rotation curves have been observed for about a thousand galaxies, including our own. And they suggest the mass of the invisible matter to be a over an order of magnitude larger than the mass of visible matter.

Fig. 5. observed rotation curve of the nearby dwarf spiral galaxy M33, superimposed on its optical image (adopted from E. Corbelli and P. Salucci, astro-ph/9909252, 1999).

The invisible mass could of course come from nonluminous bodies like small stars or Jupitor, which are more aptly described as dark rather than invisible matter. But such objects act as gravitational lense, which distort the image of distant stars lying behind them by gravitational bending of light. And it is clear from these gravitational lensing experiments that such massive compact objects can not be a major source of the invisible matter. The contribution from gas is also very small. In principle the neutrinos could constitute the invisible matter; but their masses are too small to account for the required density of invisible matter. The leading candidate for this is the lightest supersymmetric particles (LSP), which are weakly interacting like the neutrino but carry a mass of about a hundred GeV. These particles were in thermal equillibrium with $`W`$, $`Z`$ and Higgs bosons along with the quarks and leptons when the universe had a temperature of about a hundred GeV. But as the temperature dropped by about an order of magnitude, the density of LSP came down to a level, where their annihilation rate could not keep up with the expansion rate of the universe. The latter took them away from one another before they could mutually annihilate. Thus the total mass of the LSPs at this (freeze out) temperature has remained the same ever since. Indeed this scenario predicts the right size of the invisible matter density we observe today.

Presumably these invisible particles played a pioneering role in galaxy formation. Being neutral particles they would have experienced gravitational attraction long before the formation of neutral atoms, when the ordinary matter started experiencing this attraction. Thus it is quite plausible that the local concentrations of invisible matter had already formed by the time of formation of the neutral atoms, to which the latter were gravitationally attracted to form the galaxies. Indeed such a scenario of structure formation is supported by strong observational evidence.

Thus the invisible matter is a very important component of the universe. There are multiprong experimental efforts for detection of these invisible particles. Extremely high precission detectors are being set up in deep underground experiments to record their interaction with ordinary matter by measuring the recoil energy of the target nuclei. A square kilometer size neutrino telescope is being setup in the polar ice cap of Antartica to look for the high energy neutrinos coming from the pair annihilation of these invisible particles, a large concentration of which is gravitationally trapped at the solar core. Most importantly a large proton-proton collider of 27 km circumfurence is being built by an international collaboration near Geneva to produce these particles in the laboratory by recreating the extremely high temperature and energy density, that existed after a nanosecond of the big bang. Assuming these invisible particles to be the LSP one can be reasonably confident of producing them at this collider along with the Higgs boson. Thus one hopes to finally solve the mystry of the invisible matter of the universe as well as to understand how the visible matter acquires mass.


text:
# Coulomb blockade of tunnelling through compressible rings formed around an antidot: an explanation for ℎ/2𝑒 Aharonov-Bohm oscillations

## Abstract

We consider single-electron tunnelling through antidot states using a Coulomb-blockade model, and give an explanation for $`h/2e`$ Aharonov-Bohm oscillations, which are observed experimentally when the two spins of the lowest Landau level form bound states. We show that the edge channels may contain compressible regions, and using simple electrostatics, that the resonance through the outer spin states should occur twice per $`h/e`$ period. An antidot may be a powerful tool for investigating quantum Hall edge states in general, and the interplay of spin and charging effects that occurs in quantum dots.

An antidot is usually considered as simply a smooth potential hill in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). In the quantum Hall regime, electrons skip around its edge (in edge states), giving rise to single-particle (SP) states with discrete energies. When the antidot is in the centre of a constriction, the conductance through the constriction oscillates as a function of perpendicular magnetic field $`B`$. This has been interpreted as being due to periodic resonances through the SP energy levels. However, we shall show that such an interpretation is too simplistic. It is useful to compare the antidot with a closed semiconductor dot, in which Coulomb blockade (CB) dominates the energy spectrum. The spectrum is modified by confinement and interaction energies , and is further complicated at high $`B`$ when edge states form in the dot. Compressible and incompressible regions (CRs and IRs, respectively)  have been invoked to explain CB results in a dot , and calculated for the boundaries of a 2DEG . In CRs, the self-consistent potential is flat because of the screening of the external electric field, and the highest occupied Landau level (LL) is pinned at the Fermi energy $`E_\mathrm{F}`$. Nowadays, this has become a standard model when 2DEG edges are treated in a magnetic field. However, it has always been assumed that such CRs should not exist around an antidot .

The Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect quantises the area of orbits around an antidot so that each encloses an integer number of $`h/e`$ units of magnetic flux. Because the potential is sloping, the energies of the states become discrete. A small increase in $`B`$ shifts each SP state inwards to keep the enclosed flux constant, sweeping each through $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ in turn with a period $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=h/eS`$, where $`S`$ is the area of the orbit at $`E_\mathrm{F}`$. When $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ aligns with an SP state, electrons can tunnel resonantly between nearby leads via the antidot (ignoring interactions). The resonance gives a peak or dip in the conductance $`G`$ through the constrictions depending on the direction of tunnelling . In this simple non-interacting picture, there cannot be CRs because there would then be multiple SP states at $`E_\mathrm{F}`$, and so $`G`$ would not oscillate since the antidot would always be on resonance. However, this picture fails to explain certain phenomena that have been observed, such as double-frequency ($`h/2e`$) AB oscillations . As $`B`$ increases, conductance peaks/dips often split into pairs. This has naturally been interpreted as spin-splitting of AB resonances, as it only happens when at least two spin-split LLs form closed states around an antidot. As $`B`$ increases further, the splitting of resonances saturates when the separation becomes exactly half the $`h/e`$ period, showing $`h/2e`$ periodicity. The amplitudes of each oscillation in a pair also become equal, although the different tunnelling distance for each spin should result in different amplitudes. It has been suggested that this should be the result of the charging of antidot states . However, it was an unresolved issue whether charging should really occur in such a system .

Recently, we reported that an antidot shows net charge oscillations as a function of $`B`$, and tunnelling through the bound states is Coulomb blockaded . However, even if the charging energy $`E_\mathrm{C}`$ is taken into account, the non-zero Zeeman splitting and the SP energy spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ prevent the oscillations of two spins from becoming exactly out of phase, unless $`E_\mathrm{C}`$ greatly exceeds the other energies. In our previous experiments, it was estimated that $`E_\mathrm{C}`$ saturates at around 150 $`\mu `$eV at high $`B`$, which is only an order of magnitude larger than $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ there .

In this paper, we explain the $`h/2e`$ oscillations with a CB model. Firstly, experimental evidence is presented to show that the resonances involve states of only one spin. Then, a self-consistent potential with CRs and IRs is considered for the system, and antidot charging is explained in terms of simple electrostatics. It is found that the screening in each CR causes a resonance through the outer spin states with $`h/2e`$ periodicity. Imperfect screening at lower $`B`$ may lead to a pairing of resonances through the outer spin states.

The details of the antidot device and experiment are presented elsewhere . Figure 1 presents the antidot conductance $`G_{\mathrm{ad}}`$ measured in the $`h/2e`$ oscillation regime (top curves) by gradually squeezing the constrictions (by increasing the side-gate voltages negatively) whilst keeping the symmetry, for a constant antidot voltage (the curves are offset vertically). In the top curve around 2.8 T, the filling factor in each constriction was $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=2`$, while in the lowest curve, $`\nu _\mathrm{c}<1`$ ($`G_{\mathrm{ad}}=\nu _\mathrm{c}e^2/h`$). As the constrictions become narrower, the $`h/2e`$ oscillations vanish and $`G_{\mathrm{ad}}`$ shows the $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=1`$ plateau, then eventually $`h/e`$ oscillations appear. The latter are obviously due to resonant reflection through states of the lower spin, say spin up ($``$) (see bottom diagram at right). If the resonance through these inner states contributes to the $`h/2e`$ oscillations, there is no apparent reason why it stops between the $`h/2e`$ and $`h/e`$ oscillations where the conductance shows the $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=1`$ plateau. Thus, we conclude that also in the $`h/2e`$ regime, there should be no resonance through the inner states, so all the resonances must be through the outer states \[spin down ($``$)\]. At this stage, the inner states must be too far from the current-carrying edges for electrons to tunnel. Similar behaviour has also been observed for $`B`$ as low as 1.7 T, where irregular $`h/2e`$ oscillations are present.

In order to understand the mechanism of the $`h/2e`$ oscillations, it is necessary to treat the electrostatics of the antidot edge in detail. In the conventional non-interacting picture, the antidot potential increases smoothly towards the centre, and the SP states are filled up to $`E_\mathrm{F}`$. The carrier density as a function of the distance from the antidot centre is therefore step-like: an abrupt change occurs where a LL crosses $`E_\mathrm{F}`$. Thus the width of the change should be of order the magnetic length $`l_B=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/eB}`$. Such a carrier distribution is unfavourable electrostatically, especially at large $`B`$, where the deviation is large. In bulk edges, CRs form, causing flat plateaux in the self-consistent potential. As mentioned earlier, in antidot systems, it has always been considered that the potential cannot be completely flat at $`E_\mathrm{F}`$. However, if there is CB, so that single-electron tunnelling into and out of the antidot edge only occurs when the net charge can jump between $`\pm e/2`$, then a conductance oscillation will still be possible , just as in a metallic dot where the SP energy is negligible.

Let us consider the case in which only one LL encircles the antidot. The self-consistent LL would be as shown in Fig. 2(a). Here, unlike in bulk edges, electrons in the compressible states are trapped around the antidot and surrounded by the $`\nu =1`$ IR, which contains one electron per state, and so the total number of electrons in the CR must be an integer (assuming no hybridisation with the CR on the other side of the IR). The IR acts as a potential barrier, through which an electron must tunnel from a lead to reach the antidot edge. As $`B`$ increases, all the antidot states move towards the centre. The electrons in the CR are forced to occupy a smaller area, pushed by the surrounding IR. This results in a shift of the electrons from the initial distribution, leading to a build-up of negative charge. Because of the compressibility and the ring shape, the net charge $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ appears only at the outer edge of the CR as shown in the figure. This is similar to the fact that a net charge on a metal sphere or cylinder appears only on the outer surface.

$`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ cannot relax until it reaches $`e/2`$, when a single electron can escape from the CR making $`\mathrm{\Delta }q=+e/2`$. This is the origin of the CB of tunnelling through the antidot states. This phenomenon very much resembles CB in a metallic dot. Because many partially occupied states are at $`E_\mathrm{F}`$, the SP energy is not important. One should note that after the resonance, the number of electrons in the CR remains the same despite one escaping, because another electron is supplied to its outer edge from the surrounding IR by shifting the CR back to its position just after the previous resonance. The period of the oscillation should be determined by the area enclosed by the outer edge of the CR.

We now consider what happens when two spins form antidot states. As shown in Fig. 2(b), this results in the formation of two compressible rings separated by the narrow $`\nu =1`$ IR, if the spin-splitting is sufficient. These will act rather like the parallel plates of a capacitor. Here, the rings are treated as infinite, concentric cylinders because the IR should be narrower than the thickness of the 2DEG ($`100200`$ Å). The net charge of the inner spin state $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}`$ will induce an image charge $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}`$ at the inner edge of the outer CR, as shown, to keep the potential flat in the outer CR. Thus, another net charge which is the sum of the net charges in the two CRs, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q=\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}+\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}`$, appears at the outer edge of the outer CR (Gauss’ theorem). Here, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}`$ is the net charge in the spin $``$ CR, which includes the contribution from fully occupied spin $``$ states there due to a slight increase in LL degeneracy \[its dependence on $`B`$ is shown as dashed lines in the middle panel, Fig. 2(c)\]. As $`B`$ increases, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}`$ performs saw-tooth oscillations as for the case of a single CR, regardless of the outer spin states \[top panel, Fig. 2(c)\]. As a result, the net charge $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ in the outer edge of the spin $``$ CR changes as shown by solid lines in the middle panel. Its capacitive energy $`U(\mathrm{\Delta }q)^2`$ is plotted in the bottom panel, each number indicating a particular occupation pattern, shifted by one state from the previous pattern. When the inner spin state is on resonance and one electron escapes, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ becomes more positive by $`e`$, and so the outer CR must acquire one electron to keep $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ below $`+e/2`$. This is effectively a spin-flip process leading to an oscillation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ accompanied by two resonances per $`h/e`$ period as shown by the bold lines. Here, the $`h/e`$ period is determined by the outer edge of the outer CR. This is our explanation for the pure $`h/2e`$ oscillations. Because the resonances are all via the outer CR, the amplitudes should be the same.

The new model can be extended to lower $`B`$, where conductance oscillations show complicated features. Figure 3(c) presents irregular $`h/2e`$ AB oscillations observed between the $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=2`$ and 1 plateaux at moderate $`B`$. These were originally interpreted as alternate back-scattering resonances of two spins, from the presence of apparent pairs of dips. However, this cannot explain why the conductance oscillations of the inner spin vanish when the conductance goes down to the $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=1`$ plateau. In our new model the resonant reflection (RR) process through the outer spin states should give $`h/2e`$ oscillations \[solid line, Fig. 3(a), generated from a series of differentiated Fermi functions\]. Also, there should be resonant transmission (RT) due to inter-LL scattering from the next LL (which is not transmitted) via the inner LL \[vertical lines in Fig. 4(b)\]. RT through the outer spin states will just offset the RR, but that through the inner spin states will have period $`h/e`$ \[dotted line, Fig. 3(a)\]. This can be seen as peaks coming off the $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=1`$ plateau at the high $`B`$ end of the experimental data. The period of the RT should not be exactly twice that of the resonance through the inner spin because of the difference in radii. Adjusting the period difference and the phase, and adding the two curves, we obtain Fig. 3(b), with a striking resemblance to the experimental data. For the best fit, the periodicity was increased linearly across the range by 7% and 5% for the inner and outer spin states, respectively.

Despite the good agreement, the curves are qualitatively different in some respects. The large peaks are mainly due to RT through the inner CR, and are sharp in the calculation, whereas they are rounded near the $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=2`$ plateau in the experimental data. Also, it is not obvious why the resonances die out as the conductance reaches the plateau. This is the case at whatever field the plateau is reached. This may be explained if tunnelling into the inner CR is prevented when the outer CR is completely isolated (even at the constrictions), i.e. $`\nu _\mathrm{c}=2`$. This might be due to dynamic screening as the electron tunnels past that CR. The dips at the low $`B`$ end seem to be paired, which could be as a result of only partial screening: if the outer CR cannot perfectly screen the charging of the inner CR, the exact $`h/2e`$ periodicity is broken as shown in Fig. 2(d) for 50% screening ($`\mathrm{\Delta }q=0.5\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}+\mathrm{\Delta }q_{}`$). There are still two resonances per $`h/e`$ period, but they are paired. This requires the relative phase of the charge oscillations of the inner and outer states to be such that a spin-flip occurs between the pairs, otherwise, there will be only one resonance in the period.

As $`B`$ decreases, the spin-split CRs should merge, and it is not clear when our model will break down. Even when the CRs have merged, the spin $``$ states will be incompressible in the outer part of the CR. Any excess charge with this spin will therefore accumulate further in, whereas any charging of the spin $``$ states will occur at the outer edge. Thus the outer spin $``$ states may still partially screen the charging of the spin $``$ states. At low $`B`$, the non-interacting picture describes the antidot behaviour well . Figure 4(c) presents the measured antidot conductance at various dot-gate voltages, with $`\nu _\mathrm{c}`$ decreasing from 2. The left peak becomes a dip as intra-LL scattering, across the constrictions, takes over from inter-LL scattering, which occurs at the edges facing the bulk . The right peak behaves similarly, when the constrictions are narrower. The pairs of peaks/dips were previously interpreted as spin-split resonances, i.e. alternate resonances through inner and outer spin states . This requires that the tunnelling distances for two adjacent back-scattering resonances be different. In our model, paired resonances through the outer CR per $`h/e`$ period can readily be explained by imperfect screening. However, the origin of the different amplitudes for the two resonances is more subtle. The spatial positions of the antidot states are slightly different for the first and second resonances (defined so that a spin-flip occurs in between) as shown schematically in Fig. 4(a). The difference in positions is $`\delta =\mathrm{\Delta }r\mathrm{\Delta }B_\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{\Delta }B`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is the radius difference between neighbouring states and $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_\mathrm{s}`$ is the spacing between the resonances in $`B`$. Because $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ decreases as $`1/B`$, $`\delta `$ becomes negligible at large $`B`$, giving rise to pure $`h/2e`$ oscillations. Also, since the actual antidot potential is steeper at the edges facing the bulk 2DEG than in the constrictions \[see Fig. 4(b)\], the inter-LL scattering may hardly be affected. In contrast, for the back-scattering process, the amplitude at the first resonance will be larger than at the second one. Note that the original explanation  requires a very similar difference in tunnelling distance.

Although it may be possible to describe the curves in our model, it is unclear whether CRs should really exist at such low $`B`$. There may be a gradual transition from a non-interacting picture to the new picture, as $`B`$ increases. If CRs do exist, it may be necessary to reconsider the analysis of the excitation spectra (around 1.4 T) in our previous paper , or else, the CRs may not yet have formed at that field. It may be too simplistic to consider tunnelling into individual SP states – the details of the many-body states ought to be considered. Also, the potential shown here is just schematic – since the charge that forms on either side of an IR around the antidot is usually much less than $`e/2`$, antidot charging up to $`\pm e/2`$ will cause the potential to vary strongly within each period.

In summary, we have proposed a mechanism of antidot charging which gives rise to the pure $`h/2e`$ AB oscillations which we have observed experimentally. When both spin states of the lowest Landau level encircle the antidot, they form two concentric compressible regions. Screening in those regions, and Coulomb blockade, then force the resonances through the outer compressible region to occur twice per $`h/e`$ cycle. Irregular $`h/2e`$ oscillations observed at lower fields can also be explained using the same picture. Our results and interpretation in this paper show that the period and lineshapes of the AB oscillations seen in transport provide detailed information about the various spin states and the Coulomb interaction between them. An antidot may therefore be a powerful tool for investigating edge states in the quantum Hall regime, and the interplay of spin-polarisation and charging effects. Such information cannot be obtained reliably in quantum dots, but, since there should be many similarities between the effects in dots and antidots, it may, for example, be possible to investigate the physics of maximum density droplets , or of the spin textures seen in dots . The period-doubling of AB oscillations observed in quantum dots  may be explained by our model. Even in extended edges, the way in which one edge state screens its neighbour may determine how current flows there.

This work was funded by the U. K. EPSRC. We thank C. H. W. Barnes, C. W. J. Beenakker, I. Larkin and J. R. Yates for useful discussions. M. K. acknowledges financial support from the Cambridge Overseas Trust.

Present address: School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Australia.