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# A very low temperature STM for the local spectroscopy of mesoscopic structures

## I Introduction

Mesoscopic effects in metallic structures are quantum interference phenomena based on electron phase coherence. This coherence persists over a length $`L_\phi `$ which increases with decreasing temperature and usually reaches about $`1\mu m`$ in clean metals below $`1K`$. In particular, much interest was recently devoted to the proximity effect occurring in hybrid mesoscopic structures made of a Superconductor (S) in clean contact with a Normal metal (N). So far, transport measurements have been the primary means of investigation of such mesoscopic structures. A promising alternative approach is the use of a very-low temperature scanning probe. For instance, a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) enables one to access the local density of states with atomic spatial resolution. With regards to the proximity effect, the local modification of the density of states has been measured at moderately low temperature ($`T>1K`$) by several groups in various kinds of samples.

Here, we present the design and operation of a very-low temperature STM operating at $`60mK`$ in a dilution refrigerator and featuring a large ($`6\mu m`$) scan range. Operating at such very low temperatures allows one to gain access to a wide range of phenomena and reduces the thermal smearing of the measured density of states. The combination of very-low temperature techniques with the constraints of scanning probe microscopy is indeed a demanding task. This explains the relatively small number of such studies. To our knowledge, the only spectroscopic measurement at a temperature below $`100mK`$ was reported in $`NbSe_2`$. A very-low temperature Atomic Force Microscope was operated at $`30mK`$ in a $`9T`$ magnetic field. Images of adsorbed $`He`$ atoms were obtained at $`90mK`$. Various STMs operating at $`300mK`$ have also been recently reported.

## II Cryogenics

We use a home-made upside-down dilution refrigerator called ”sionludi” with the cold plate placed upwards. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the whole setup. The cryostat is isolated from the building vibrations by spring isolators with a $`2Hz`$ resonant frequency. The connection to the pumps of the dilution circuit is made of flexible pipes and tubes passing through heavy concrete blocks. The base temperature with the measurement wiring installed is about $`60mK`$ in a cylindrical volume of diameter $`13cm`$ and height $`13cm`$.

The main advantages of our cryostat are its natural rigidity, the handy horizontal access and a very rapid cooling/heating cycling. The whole cryostat is enclosed in a single vacuum which is sealed with a room-temperature o-ring. There is no $`N_2`$ bath and therefore no $`N_2`$ boiling vibrations. The $`4K`$ stage is cooled by a $`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$ flow from a pressurized helium vessel. During cooling down to $`4K`$, a large flow of $`{}_{}{}^{3}He^4He`$ mixture thermalizes the dilution stage. Depending on the $`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$ flow, the cooling down to $`4K`$ lasts about 6 hours. The $`{}_{}{}^{3}He^4He`$ mixture is injected in the cryostat at a pressure between $`0.5`$ and $`2bar`$. After reaching $`4K`$, a fast cooling down to $`1.5K`$ of the dilution stage is ensured by a Joule-Thomson expansion of the mixture through a dedicated circuit. In the dilution regime, the limit temperature is reached within 4 hours with the STM installed. The cooling power is about $`10\mu W`$ at $`100mK`$.

The STM is enclosed in a hermetic calorimeter screwed on the mixing chamber. This calorimeter is sealed with an In seal inside a glove box. The controlled $`N_2He`$ dry atmosphere enables us to minimize surface contamination. Before cooling, the calorimeter is rinsed several times with pure $`He`$ gas while heating the sample for outgassing. The calorimeter is then closed with the help of a stainless steel valve with a $`He`$ pressure of about $`10^2mbar`$. At low temperature ($`T<20K`$), active carbon grains pump the residual $`He`$ atmosphere.

## III The STM

### A The STM head

The STM head is very rigid, $`500g`$ in weight and suspended with six springs. The resonant frequency of this isolation stage has been adjusted to $`10Hz`$ in order to avoid any resonance with the cryostat isolation stage. The tip is placed near both the inertial center of the suspended head and the symmetry center of the spring’s fixation points. This reduces the displacement of the tip with respect to the base. Residual oscillations of the head are damped by sliding friction.

The head is made of two concentric $`2.5cm`$ long piezo-electric PZT-5A tubes. The piezo tubes are glued with Stycast to Ti parts. Differential expansion stress during thermal cycles are then minimized since Ti and Stycast thermal expansion coefficients are close to that of PZT. The inner tube holds the tip : it is a XY scanner with a $`6\times 6\mu m^2`$ scan range at low temperature for a $`\pm \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}220}V`$ voltage sweep. Its inner electrode is used for the withdrawal of the tip during lateral displacements or coarse approach steps. The outer piezoelectric tube serves to regulate the sample-tip distance regulation and ensures the inertial displacement. It holds the two sapphire rods on which the sample inertial carrier slides.

### B The sample coarse approach

Our vertical inertial motor is directly inspired from the work of C. Renner et al.. The carrier is made of two brass parts clamped on the sapphire rods by a compressed spring. The sliding friction force is about $`40g`$ while the carrier weight is $`12g`$. Each part has three well-defined contact points on the rods. The pulse waveform is a double parabola, so that the acceleration is constant except at the crossover point (see Fig. 2 inset). The duration of one pulse is about $`240\mu s`$. A single pulse makes the carrier move $`50`$ to $`1400nm`$ at ambient temperature and $`10`$ to $`200nm`$ at $`T<4K`$. Both upwards and downwards displacement are possible.

We found that the step length remain reliable as long as the sapphire tubes remain free of adsorbed water. During cooling, the carrier is therefore kept at a temperature about $`40K`$ larger than the cryostat temperature. This is ensured by a strain gauge used as a heater and a Pt thermometer, both glued on the carrier. This procedure ensures a low cryosorption on the sapphire rods and on the sample surface. The heating is stopped at a cryostat temperature of $`60K`$.

An automatic coarse approach is performed during cooling from $`T=60K`$ to $`4K`$. As the sample is placed about 1 mm above the tip at ambient temperature, about 4000 steps are necessary to reach the tunnel contact. One step consists in withdrawing the tip with the inner tube, sending a pulse on the outer tube and slowly approaching the tip within 5 seconds. When a tunnel current is detected, the approach is stopped and the tip is withdrawn to a rest position. Usually no thermal drift is observed below $`20K`$.

### C Thermalization

The experimental challenge here is to ensure both an efficient thermalization and a good mechanical decoupling to vibrations for the microscope. Thermalization below $`1K`$ is ensured through copper braids connecting the base, the suspended head and the Ti parts glued on top of the two tubes. The sample carrier and the tip are also thermalized through their attached Cu measurement wires. A carbon resistor glued on the sample carrier is used for the measurement of the sample temperature below $`1K`$.

We have characterized the amount of heating due to both coarse approach and scanning. Starting from the STM base temperature ($`60mK`$), the sample temperature after a single coarse approach step reaches instantly about $`100mK`$. It afterwards drops down to $`60mK`$ in a few minutes. A continuous displacement with about ten steps by second heats the sample up to about $`1K`$ and the mixing chamber to $`350mK`$. This corresponds to an injected power of about $`250\mu W`$ and a dissipated energy of about $`25\mu J`$ per step. Image scanning also heats the system but can be minimized significantly at low scanning speed. For example, large field imaging ($`6\times 6\mu m^2`$) on a large corrugation of the order of $`300\AA `$ may heat the sample to about $`100mK`$ when the scanning speed is about $`500nm/s`$.

### D The STM electronics

Our electronics are home-made. Each incoming wires is filtered by radio-frequency filters at the cryostat entrance. Switchable very low frequency filters with a $`0.5Hz`$ cut-off are placed at the high-voltage amplifiers outputs. They are switched on during spectroscopies in order to increase stability of the tip-sample distance. The tip bias undergoes a $`\frac{1}{10}`$ reduction at $`60mK`$ so that the effect of extrinsic noise is reduced. The tunnel current preamplifier features a $`12kHz`$ bandwidth. It works at room temperature but the $`100M\mathrm{\Omega }`$ feedback resistance of the input op-amp is thermalized at $`4.2K`$. This reduces the contribution of its thermal noise to the total current noise. The measured total noise is $`4.5fA/\sqrt{Hz}`$ below $`300Hz`$ including the current noise from the op-amp of about $`1.5fA/\sqrt{Hz}`$. Above $`300Hz`$, the noise increases linearly with the frequency because the op-amp voltage noise biases the capacitance of the coaxial wire.

## IV First results

### A Images

Mesoscopic samples prepared by standard lithography often exhibit large corrugation of several hundreds of $`\AA `$. With such a large relief, we need sharp tips with a large aspect ratio. We use electrochemically-etched Pt/Ir tips because of their stiffness and low natural oxidation. Tips are prepared with the technique described by Lindahl et al., with the difference that we avoid bending the tip but instead immerse it in the liquid with a large angle. With this method, we obtain routinely a tip radius of about $`30nm`$.

Figure 3 shows two images taken at the temperature of $`60mK`$. Let us point out that the ratio of the image sizes is larger than 1000. We achieved atomic resolution on HOPG graphite at both room temperature and very low temperature ($`60mK`$). On mesoscopic samples, imaging on the scale of a few microns is performed very slowly in order to avoid tip crash and heating of the sample. A typical $`128\times 128`$ pixel image of $`5\times 5\mu m^2`$ is acquired in about half an hour. These images show that we are able to keep a clean sample surface, i.e., without noticeable contamination, during cooling. Heating the sample during cooling was found to be necessary in order to obtain such a surface quality.

### B Density of states measurements

In order to measure a local density of states, we acquire I-V characteristics of a fixed sample-tip tunnel junction. The tip feedback is first set to a large response time constant, the high-voltage low-pass filters are switched on and the feedback loop is opened. The bias voltage is then swept while the tunnel current is measured. This sweep lasts up to $`20s`$ without modification of the junction. We usually average over 10 to 40 I-V curves in order to reduce the noise. The experimental I-V characteristic is then numerically differentiated in order to obtain the differential conductance $`dI/dV(V)`$. The differential conductance coincides with the local density of states in the zero-temperature limit.

As a test experiment, we measured the density of states at the surface of plain superconducting layers. Figure 4 shows the experimental I-V characteristic and the deduced differential conductance $`dI/dV`$ at the surface of an Al layer. These data are representative of the quality of our spectroscopy measurements, although in this case the tip is presumably dug into the surface Al oxide. From our measurements, we can estimate a maximum vibration amplitude of about $`10^2\AA `$. The differential conductance $`dI/dV`$ clearly shows a superconducting gap. It is zero in the vicinity of the Fermi level ($`eV=0`$). We described this data using a BCS density of states convoluted by a thermal distribution function, without broadening by a finite quasiparticle lifetime. The value of the Al gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{Al}=210\mu eV`$ derived from the fit is in agreement with the expected value. The effective temperature derived from the fit is $`T_{eff}=210mK`$. As the sample temperature was in every case about $`60mK`$, the origin of this effective temperature increase is unclear at present. Nevertheless, our data show that we can identify the measured differential conductance with the local density of states if the desired resolution remains larger than $`2k_BT_{eff}=36\mu eV`$.

Figure 5 shows a preliminary experiment performed on a Normal metal-Superconductor junction. We fabricated the sample by successive in-situ evaporation of Nb and Au in a UHV chamber. Nb was evaporated first through a Si mask put in contact with the Si substrate. The mask was a $`5\mu m`$ thick Si membrane patterned by e-beam lithography. The mask was then mechanically removed and a uniform Au layer was deposited, without breaking vacuum. This ensures a high transparency of the Nb-Au interface. The Nb islands are about $`1.8\mu m`$ wide and their center to center distance is $`4.3\mu m`$. Only a few Nb islands are accessible within the STM scan range. As shown in the STM image, the Nb islands are rather rounded. This is due to the thickness of the mask and the imperfection of the contact between the mask and the substrate.

We measured the differential conductance at various locations while moving the tip away from the center of a Nb island. In order to reduce the hysteresis of the scanner below $`10nm`$, we had to use a scanning speed below $`10nm/s`$. In Fig. 5, we clearly see the spatial dependence of the density of states. The spectrum with the largest gap was taken near the center of the Nb island : it can be well described by a BCS density of states. The magnitude of the energy gap is reduced compared to the Nb value because of the influence of the Au layer. Away from the Nb island, the density of states has a triangular shape. It is the signature of the proximity effect. The characteristic decay length of the proximity effect appears to be about $`120nm`$. A detailed description of our results by the quasiclassical theory  is under way.

This work greatly beneficiated from the help of A. Benoit, H. Rodenas and K. Hasselbach in the design, fabrication and optimization of the ”sionludi” cryostat. We thank the CRTBT technical staff for their various contributions to the design and construction of the STM setup. We thank W. Belzig, A. Bezryadin, I. Maggio-Aprile, C. Renner, D. Rodichev, H. Takayanagi and Y. de Wilde for discussions. We acknowledge discussions within the ”Dynamics of superconducting nanocircuits” TMR network and support from DRET and Région Rhône-Alpes.


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# Passive scalar intermittency in low temperature helium flows

## Abstract

We report new measurements of turbulent mixing of temperature fluctuations in a low temperature helium gas experiment, spanning a range of microscale Reynolds number, $`R_\lambda `$, from 100 to 650. The exponents $`\xi _n`$ of the temperature structure functions $`|\theta (x+r)\theta (x)|^nr^{\xi _n}`$ are shown to saturate to $`\xi _{\mathrm{}}1.45\pm 0.1`$ for the highest orders, $`n10`$. This saturation is a signature of statistics dominated by front-like structures, the cliffs. Statistics of the cliff characteristics are performed, particularly their width are shown to scale as the Kolmogorov length scale.

The strong intermittency of a passive scalar field advected by a turbulent flow has recently received considerable attention . Two facets of this intermittency are the persistence of small scale anisotropy  and the anomalous scaling of the structure functions $`|\theta (x+r)\theta (x)|^n`$ . It is well established that the persistence of scalar gradient skewness arises from the ramp-and-cliff structures , i.e high scalar jumps separated by well mixed regions. The observed preferential alignment of cliffs with the large scale gradient  apparently prevents a universal description of the odd order statistics, reflecting the asymetry of scalar fluctuations. However, the genericity of cliffs in “scalar turbulence” raises the issue of their influence on high-order scaling of even moments, and of the possible universality of the suspected saturation of high order exponents . Laboratory experiments able to cover a wide range of Reynolds numbers in well controlled conditions appear to be crucial to address this point. We report in this Letter new measurements of turbulent mixing of a scalar field, namely temperature fluctuations, performed in a low temperature helium gas experiment. Such measurements of temperature fluctuations, as a passively advected scalar field, are performed for the first time in low temperature helium gas , opening new and encouraging perspectives in investigation of turbulent mixing in high Reynolds number flows.

The set-up we use is the same as the one described in Ref. , with an additional apparatus to induce temperature fluctuations. The flow takes place in a cylindrical vessel and is driven by two rotating disks, as sketched in Fig. 1. The disks, 20 cm in diameter and spaced 13.1 cm apart, are mounted with 6 radial blades. The cell is filled with helium gas, held at a controlled pressure. Temperature measurements are performed with a specially designed cold-wire thermometer in the thermal wake of a heated grid. The grid is made of a double nichrome wire net, stretched across a $`4.0\times 4.5`$ cm frame. The wire diameter is 250 $`\mu `$m, and the mesh size, $`M`$, is 2.0 mm.

The thermometer is located 20 mesh sizes downstream from the grid, at a distance of 2.2 cm from the wall. It has been designed as the velocity probes described in Ref. . It consists in a thin carbon fiber, 7 $`\mu `$m in diameter, stretched across a 2 mm rigid frame. A metallic deposition of gold and silver of about 2000 Å thick covers the whole fiber, except for a 7 $`\mu `$m long central area. Temperature fluctuations are measured from resistance fluctuations, by the way of a constant current Wheatstone bridge. The tuning of the current has received considerable attention, in order to ensure an high enough signal, without suffering from velocity contamination. In practice, the optimal value of the current is chosen in order to maximize the flatness factor of the temperature derivative. Temperature resolution is estimated, from the high-frequency white noise level, to around 100 $`\mu `$K. The spatial resolution is limited by the probe size, which is at least twice smaller than the Kolmogorov scale in the present experiments. The frequency response is limited by the constant current amplifier to 10 kHz, a value comfortably high to resolve the highest frequency of the temperature fluctuations.

Since the same probe, with different electronic devices, is used as both thermometer and anemometer, we are able to perform temperature and velocity measurements at the same point in the same flow conditions. We have measured the various turbulence characteristics, such as the microscale Reynolds number $`R_\lambda `$ and the Kolmogorov scale $`\eta `$, for the same disks rotation rates and kinematic viscosity $`\nu `$, allowing us to characterize each temperature data set. We define here $`R_\lambda =u^{}\lambda /\nu `$ the Reynolds number based on the Taylor scale $`\lambda =u^{}(\nu /ϵ)^{1/2}`$, where $`u^{}`$ is the rms of the velocity fluctuations, $`ϵ`$ the mean dissipation rate and $`\eta =(\nu ^3/ϵ)^{1/4}`$.

The disks rotation can be set in two modes, co- and counter-rotating, hereafter denoted by COR and CTR. In the corotating mode, the two disks are rotating in the same direction at the same speed, so that the flow can be thought as a solid-like rotation. The fluctuation rate $`u^{}/U`$ is found to lie around 10 % in this case, a value close to the one obtained in a previous experiment in a similar set-up . In the counter-rotating mode, the turbulence intensity is much higher, but the speed ratio is tuned so that a strong mean advection remains at the height of the grid and the thermometer. This ensures a low enough fluctuation rate, between 13 and 25 %, allowing use of the Taylor hypothesis to convert temporal fluctuations into spatial ones. We have checked that the fluctuation rate is the same with and without the grid, meaning that the grid contribution to the turbulence can be considered as negligible. The only influence of the grid is injection of heated sheets in an already turbulent flow. Thus thermal turbulence originates in the mixing of these hot layers behind each wire, over a typical distance of $`MU/u^{}=`$1–2 cm downstream.

The grid temperature has to be high enough to induce thermal fluctuations giving rise to an acceptable signal to noise ratio of at least 50 dB. The noise level of 100 $`\mu `$K requires a rms signal of typically $`\theta ^{}=\theta ^2^{1/2}40`$ mK at the probe location, which is around 4 % of the grid overheat. Since we are working with a closed flow, the heat transfer from the cell to the cryostat has to be balanced by the power supplied to the grid, in order to ensure thermal stationarity. This constraint limits the maximum duration of an experiment (up to 5 hours of continuous run), and the range of velocity and fluid density; in practice, values of $`R_\lambda `$ in the range 100–300 in the corotating case, and 200–650 in the counter-rotating case, are obtained. Although much lower than the highest $`R_\lambda `$ achievable in our set-up (up to 5000 ), we hope that future noise improvement of the constant current amplifier will increase the upper bound well beyond 650.

The temperature signal is filtered, then sampled and recorded on a 16 bit acquisition board (ITC-18 from InstruTech), at a sampling rate between 1 and 10 kHz, a value at least twice the low-pass filter frequency. Special attention has been paid to the low noise level of the whole amplifying and sampling channel. In order to achieve correct convergence of higher-order statistics, the sample sizes are of the order of $`10^710^8`$ Kolmogorov time scales long. Table I summarizes the characteristics of the typical data sets used here.

In order to characterize the large scale of the temperature and velocity fluctuations, quantities of interest are the integral scales $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\theta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_u`$, defined from the autocorrelation functions of temperature $`\theta `$ and longitudinal velocity $`u`$. For our whole data set, we measure $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\theta =7.0\pm 1.5`$ mm and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_u=9.6\pm 1.0`$ mm, with no noticeable $`R_\lambda `$ dependence . This two values are rather close, indicating that kinetic energy and temperature variance are injected at the same large scale. The Prandtl number of the gas being close to unity, we are on the case where velocity and scalar fluctuations take place on the same range of scales.

The small scale intermittency of temperature fluctuations can be characterized through their distributions at different scales. Figure 2 shows the probability density functions (pdf) of temperature increments $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta (r)=\theta (x+r)\theta (x)`$ for 4 different separations $`r`$, ranging from $`r/\eta `$ = 104 (large scale), 600, 30 (typical inertial scales) down to 3 (close to the dissipative scale). Each distribution has been normalized by its standard deviation $`\sigma =\mathrm{\Delta }\theta (r)^2^{1/2}`$. These pdf are strongly not self-similar, reflecting strong intermittency effects. The width of the tails is remarkable, showing scalar jumps of amplitude up to 40 times the standard deviation at the smallest scale. We can note the slight asymmetry of the distributions, linked to the well known property of small scale persistence of anisotropy .

The evolution of these pdfs is characterized by the structure functions, defined as $`S_n(r)=|\theta (x+r)\theta (x)|^n`$, where angular brackets denote space (time) average. They are found to follow power law in terms of the scale $`r`$, namely $`S_n(r)r^{\xi _n}`$. The measured structure function exponents $`\xi _n`$, divided by $`\xi _2`$, are shown in Fig. 3, in the COR ($`R_\lambda =280`$) and CTR ($`R_\lambda =650`$) cases. The exponents are defined by plotting the compensated structure functions $`r^{\xi _n}S_n(r)`$ and tuning the value of the exponent to obtain a well defined plateau for inertial separations. This procedure allows to estimate the error bar for each order. Although the second order exponent presents some scatter (with a systematic increase from 0.45 to 0.65 with increasing $`R_\lambda `$), the normalization of the higher order exponents by $`\xi _2`$ provides an excellent collapse for the different $`R_\lambda `$. It is remarkable that, for comparable sample sizes, the highest available order is much lower at higher Reynolds number: the fluctuations becomes much more intermittent and the convergence becomes poorer. For $`R_\lambda =650`$ we have to restrict to $`n8`$, whereas $`n=12`$ can be achieved for $`R_\lambda =280`$. The two sets of exponents are consistent within error bars for $`n8`$, meaning that the large scale properties of the two flow configurations do not affect these inertial range statistics.

The values of $`\xi _n/\xi _2`$ are found to strongly depart from the linear law $`n/2`$, and the gap increases with the order, a usual signature of inertial range intermittency of the passive scalar. Furthermore, the exponents are found to increase extremely slowly with the order, strongly suggesting a saturation, for $`n`$ around 10, at a value

$$\xi _{\mathrm{}}=(2.3\pm 0.1)\xi _21.45\pm 0.1$$
(1)
(where $`\xi _2`$ is considered equal to 2/3). This observation only relies on the COR data set, but we have noted that no deviation appears between the COR and CTR data for $`n8`$. A saturation of the structure function exponents is a signature of statistics dominated by shock-like structures, the thermal cliffs. A consequence of this saturation is a constant ratio of the far tails of the pdfs for inertial range separations. The ratio of two pdfs, for separations $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$ well into the inertial range, is displayed in Fig. 4. For temperature increments $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\theta |>4\theta ^{}`$, this ratio tends towards a constant. It must be noted that the $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\theta |4\theta ^{}`$ parts of this distribution give the dominant contribution to the 8th order moment (see the vertical arrows), i.e they maximize the integrant $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\theta |^8p(\mathrm{\Delta }\theta )`$. This additional test confirms the observed saturation of high order exponents.

The observed trend towards a saturation of high order exponents motivates a detailed analysis of the cliffs. We have performed statistics of the cliff characteristics, defined as the strongest temperature gradients, singled out from time series of temperature fluctuations. We define the cliffs from a simple threshold on the temperature derivative,

$$|\theta /x|>s(\theta /x)^2^{1/2},$$
(2)
where $`s`$ is a non dimensional constant. Spatial derivatives are obtained from temporal ones using the Taylor hypothesis, and the gradients are estimated from finite difference over the smallest resolved separation. We define the cliff amplitude $`\delta \theta `$ as the difference between the two extrema surrounding the gradient satisfying (2), and the cliff width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ such that the temperature derivative takes values exceeding 90 % of its local maximum. Histograms of amplitudes and widths are shown in Fig. 5, for three values of the threshold $`s`$, at a Reynolds number $`R_\lambda =280`$.

We first note that both amplitude and width histograms can be well fitted by log-normal distributions (given by a parabola in log-log coordinates). The mean amplitude of the cliffs is of order $`\theta ^{}`$, and is found to increase with the threshold $`s`$. On the other hand, the cliff width remains constant for different thresholds. This means that the strength of the gradients depends mainly on the amplitude of the scalar jump, and not on its width.

A central issue concerning the cliffs is the Reynolds number dependence of their width. Figure 6 shows the mean cliff width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, divided by the Kolmogorov scale $`\eta `$, for $`R_\lambda `$ ranging from 100 to 650. This plot extends a preliminary study  performed only on the COR mode. We can see a well defined plateau,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=(13\pm 3)\eta .$$
(3)
The scatter is moderate, and probably reflects the difficulty to resolve properly the smallest scales. However, this plot confirms that the mean cliff width follows a $`R_\lambda ^{3/2}`$ scaling. This law holds for values of the threshold $`s`$ from 3 up to 40 in the case of the highest $`R_\lambda `$ (see Fig. 2). We can note that the data from the two configurations overlap on the central region $`R_\lambda =200300`$, suggesting that this small scale characteristics is not affected by the large scale properties of the flow.

To summarize, we have performed for the first time measurements of turbulent mixing of temperature, considered as a passive scalar field, in a low temperature helium experiment. The study of inertial range statistics of the temperature increments gives evidence of a saturation of the high order exponents, to a value $`\xi _{\mathrm{}}1.45\pm 0.1`$. This observation reveals that inertial range statistics are dominated by the cliffs, concentrating large scalar jumps over small distance . The cliff widths are shown to scale as the Kolmogorov length scale, in the whole range of observed $`R_\lambda `$ (100–650), suggesting that the strongest cliffs remain concentrated over the smallest scale of the flow (see also Ref. ). This observation may have important consequences for processes such as reactive mixing or combustion, where the reaction rate is enhanced where concentration gradients are strong. Further insight into the cliffs contribution to the saturation of the high order structure function exponents needs a detailed study of their morphology and spatial distribution. Preliminary results , based on the waiting time between cliffs from the temperature time series, strongly suggests self-similar clustering for inertial separations.

The authors thank B. Shraiman, V. Hakim, M. Vergassola, P. Castiglione and M.C. Jullien for fruitful discussions. This work has been supported by Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS, the Universities Paris 6 and Paris 7, and the European Commission’s TMR programme, Contract no. ERBFMRXCT980175 “Intermittency”.


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# Ionospheric effects of the solar flares of September 23, 1998 and July 29, 1999 as deduced from global GPS network data

## 1 Introduction

The enhancement of X-ray and ultraviolet radiation intensity that is observed during chromospheric flares on the Sun immediately causes an increase in electron density in the ionosphere. These density variations are different for different altitudes and are collectively called Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances (SID). SID observations provide a key means for ground-based detection of solar flares along with optical observations of flares and solar radio burst observations. Much research is devoted to SID studies, among them a number of thorough reviews and monographs .

Unlike effects in the optical and radio ranges, ionospheric effects of flares are of special interest as they constitute a response of ionospheric plasma to an impulsive ionization.

Quantitative study of SID has two major implications at present. SID data in the D-region that were obtained predominantly by recording amplitude and phase characteristics of signals from LF and VLF radio stations can be the source of information about the X-ray part of the flare spectrum, as well as providing a tool for investigating the principal chemical processes in this region.

SID data for the $`F`$-region acquired by different radio probing methods were used repeatedly to estimate time variations in the X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectral regions and in relative measurements of fluxes in different wavelength ranges ; ; . The main body of SID data for the Earth’s upper atmosphere was obtained in earlier detections of Sudden Frequency Deviations (SFD) of the $`F`$-region-reflected radio signal in the HF range ; .

SFD are caused by an almost time-coincident increase in E- and F-region electron densities at over 100 km altitudes covering an area with the size comparable to or exceding that of the region monitored by the system of HF radio paths. A limitation of this method is the uncertainty in the spatial and altitude localization of the UV flux effect, the inadequate number of paths, and the need to use special-purpose equipment.

Another highly informative technique is the incoherent scatter (IS) method, one of the most universal tools for ionosphere research. In , important information was obtained about the height distribution of the decrease in local electron density $`N_e`$ during the flares of May 21 and 23, 1967. A significant increase of $`N_e`$ (by as much as 200 %) was recorded in the E-region, which decreased gradually in the F-region with an up to 10-30 % increase of the height and remained distinguishable up to 300 km. $`N_e`$ starts to increase initially in the E-region, while at higher altitudes it is observed to be delayed, which is particularly conspicuous at the F-region heights.

The Millstone Hill IS facility recorded the flare of August 7, 1972 . The measurements were made in the range from 125 to 1200 km, i.e. to the altitudes exceeding greatly those of all preceding observations. The increase of $`N_e`$ amounted to 100 % at 125 km altitude and to 60 % at 200 km.

Implementing the IS method requires extremely sophisticated, expensive equipment. There are only a few IS facilities world-wide, which are concentrated mainly in America and Europe. These systems were designed for solving a broad gamut of scientific problems and do not provide round-the-clock observations of ionospheric effects from solar flares. An added difficulty involves inadequate time resolution. Currently it is common knowledge that the rise and fall time of the solar flare emission in the range 10-1030 $`\AA `$, which has effect on the ionospheric - and $`F`$-regions, is often shorter than 5-10 min, typical of the IS method’s time resolution. Since the relaxation time of electron density in the $`E`$\- and $`F1`$-regions is also less than 5-10 min, most incoherent scatter measurements lack adequate time resolution for studying ionospheric effects of flares.

The effect of solar flares on the ionospheric $`F`$-region is also manifested as a Sudden Increase of Total Electron Content (SITEC) which was measured previously using continuously operating VHF radio beacons on geostationary satellites ; .

In , a pioneering attempt was made to realize global observations of the outstanding flare of August 7, 1972 using 17 stations in North America, Europe, and Africa. The observations covered a territory whose boundaries were separated by $`70^{}`$ in latitude and by 10 hours in local time. For different stations, the value of $`dI`$ (TEC increase) varied from $`\mathrm{1.8\hspace{0.17em}10}^{16}`$ -2 to $`\mathrm{8.6\hspace{0.17em}10}^{16}`$ -2 , or $`1530\%`$ of a total electron content. These investigations revealed a latitudinal dependence of the amount of TEC increase. The low latitudes showed a larger increase of TEC compared with the high latitudes. Besides, the authors point out no correlation between the value of TEC increase and the solar zenith angle.

A limitation of the SITEC method is the integral character of results which reflect the electron density variation in the height range from 100 to 2000 km. If, however, it is taken into consideration that only a few current methods enable flare effects to be recorded in the ionospheric $`F`$-region, SITEC observations should be recognized as one of the most convenient tools for continuous observations of the $`F`$-region.

A serious limitation of methods based on analyzing VHF signals from geostationary satellites is their small and ever increasing (with the time) number and the nonuniform distribution in longitude. Hence it is impossible to make measurements in some geophysically interesting regions of the globe, especially in high latitudes.

Consequently, none of the above-mentioned existing methods can serve as an effective basis for the radio detection system to provide a continuous, global SID monitoring with adequate space-time resolution. Furthermore, the creation of these facilities requires developing special-purpose equipment, including powerful radio transmitters contaminating the radio environment.

The advent and evolution of a Global Positioning System, GPS, and also the creation on its basis of widely branched networks of GPS stations (at least 600 sites at the end of 1999, the data from which are placed on the INTERNET) opened up a new era in remote ionospheric sensing. In the very near future this network will be extended by integrating with the Russian navigation system, GLONASS . Furthermore, there exist also powerful regional networks such as the Geographical Survey Institute network in Japan  consisting of up to 1000 receivers. High-precision measurements of the group and phase delay along the line-of-sight (LOS) between the receiver on the ground and transmitters on the GPS system satellites covering the reception zone are made using two-frequency multichannel receivers of the GPS system at almost any point of the globe and at any time simultaneously at two coherently coupled frequencies $`f_1=1575.42`$ MHz and $`f_2=1227.60`$ MHz.

The sensitivity of phase measurements in the GPS system is sufficient for detecting irregularities with an amplitude of up to $`10^3`$$`10^4`$ of the diurnal TEC variation. This makes it possible to formulate the problem of detecting ionospheric disturbances from different sources of artificial and natural origins. Recently some authors embarked actively on the development of detection tools for the ionospheric response of powerful earthquakes , rocket launches , and industrial surface explosions ; . Subsequetly, the GPS data began to be used in the context of the spaced-receiver method using three GPS stations to determine the parameters of the full wave vector of traveling ionospheric disturbances under quiet and disturbed geomagnetic conditions ; .

The objective of this paper is to develop a method of global detection of the ionospheric effect from solar flares (GLOBDET) using the international GPS network. This method would improve substantially the sensitivity and space-time resolution of analysis when compared with the above-mentioned radio probing methods. General information about the flares being analyzed here and a description of the experimental geometry are given in Section 2. The processing technique for the data from the GPS network and results of an analysis of the ionospheric effect from the solar flares of September 23, 1998 and July 29, 1999 are outlined in Section 3. Section 4 discusses the results obtained. A modeling of the physical processes involving flare effects on the ionosphere using GPS data and, moreover, the development of methods for solving their inverse problem of reconstructing emission characteristics using GPS data will be subject of future research.

## 2  Experimental geometry, and general data on the solar flares of September 23, 1998 and July 29, 1999

For studying the ionospheric response to the ionizing emission from solar flares, we chose relatively powerful (according to an X-ray classification) flares whose time profile was characterized by intense short-duration impulses of hard X-ray emission. The two flares selected appear in Table 1. The table also provides information about the characteristics of the CGRO- and YOHKOH-borne X-ray detectors, the data from which are compared with the ionospheric response to these flares in this paper.

Fig. 1 presents the geometry of a global GPS array used in this paper to analyze the effects of flare 23 September 1998 (102 stations – a.) and 29 July 1999 (105 station–b.). Heavy dots correspond to the location of the GPS stations. The coordinates of the stations are not given here for reasons of space. The upper scales indicate the local time, LT, corresponding to 07:00 UT, a maximum increase in X-ray emission intensity of the flare 23 September 1998 and 19:30 UT for 29 July 1999 (see Section 3)).

As is evident from Fig.1, the set of stations which we chose out of the global GPS network available to us, covers rather densely North America and Europe, but provides much worse coverage of the Asian part of the territory used in the analysis. The number of GPS stations in the Pacific and Atlantic regions is even fewer. However, coverage of the territory with partial beams to the satellite for the limitation on elevations $`\theta >10^{}`$ , which we have selected, is substantially wider. Dots in Fig. 1c mark the coordinates of subinospheric points for the height of the $`F2`$–layer maximum $`h_{max}=300`$ km for all visible satellites at 29 July 1999, 19:30 UT for each GPS station. A total number of beams (and subionospheric points) used in this paper to analyze the July 29, 1999 flare is 622.

Such coverage of the terrestrial surface makes it possible to solve the problem of detecting time-coincident events with spatial resolution (coherent accumulation) two orders of magnitude higher, as a minimum, than could be achieved in SFD detection on oblique HF paths. For simultaneous events in the western hemisphere, the correspoding today’s number of stations and beams can be as many as 400 and 2000–3000, respectively.

Figs. 2b and 3b show the time dependencies of flare emission. Time profiles of soft X-ray emission were acquired by the GOES-10 satellite, the data from which are available on the SPIDER network (marked by the symbol o). Dashes in Figs. 2b and 3b represent values for the low-energy 1-8$`\AA `$ channel. The time profile of the signal in the 0.5-4$`\AA `$ channel was alike. A comparative analysis of these series is made in Section 6.

The study was based on events, for which flare emission data with a time resolution of about one second were available. The September 23, 1998 flare was recorded by X-ray telescope HXT on the YOHKOH satellite (Fig. 3b). Operating in the flare mode, the HXT telescope provides observations in four energy channels (14-23 keV, 23-33 keV, 33-53 keV, and 53-93 keV) with a resolution of 0.5 s. The second event was observed by the BATSE spectrometer on the CGRO satellite which is capable of recording solar X-ray emission with different temporal and spectral resolutions. This study utilized DISCLA data written in four channels (25-50 keV, 50-100 keV, 100-300 keV, and over 300 keV) at 1.024-second intervals.

The events are both characterized by a low level of geomagnetic disturbance (from -10 to -20 nT), which simplified greatly the SID detection problem.

## 3 Processing of the data from the GPS network, and results derived from analyzing the ionospheric effect from the solar flares of September 23, 1998 and July 29, 1999

Following is a brief outline of the global monitoring (detection) technique for solar flares (GLOBDET) as developed by one of the authors (Afraimovich E. L.) on the basis of processing the data from a worldwide network of two-frequency multichannel receivers of the GPS-GLONASS navigation systems.

A physical groundwork for the method is formed by the effect of fast change in electron density in the Earth’s ionosphere at the time of a flare simultaneously on the entire sunlit surface. Essentially, the method implies using appropriate filtering and a coherent processing of TEC variations in the ionosphere simultaneously for the entire set of ”visible” (during a given time interval) GPS satellites (as many as 5-10 satellites) at all global GPS network stations used in the analysis. In detecting solar flares, the ionospheric response is virtually simultaneous for all stations on the dayside of the globe within the time resolution range of the GPS receivers (from 30 s to 0.1 s). Therefore, a coherent processing of TEC variations implies in this case a simple addition of single TEC variations.

The detection sensitivity is determined by the ability to detect typical signals of the ionospheric response to a solar flare (leading edge duration, period, form, length) at the level of TEC background fluctuations. Ionospheric irregularities are characterized by a power spectrum, so that background fluctuations will always be distinguished in the frequency range of interest. However, background fluctuations are not correlated in the case of beams to the satellite spaced by an amount exceeding the typical irregularity size.

With a typical length of X-ray bursts and EUV emission of solar flares of about 5-10 min, the corresponding ionization irregularity size does normally not exceed 30-50 km; hence the condition of a statistical independence of TEC fluctuations at spaced beams is almost always satisfied. Therefore, coherent summation of responses to a flare on a set of beams spaced thoughout the dayside of the globe permits the solar flare effect to be detected even when the response amplitude on partial beams is markedly smaller than the noise level (background fluctuations). The proposed procedure of coherent accumulation is essentially equivalent to the operation of coincidence schemes which are extensively used in X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes.

If the SID response and background fluctuations, respectively, are considered to be the signal and noise, then as a consequence of a statistical independence of background fluctuations the signal/noise ratio when detecting the flare effect is increased through a coherent processing by at least a factor of $`\sqrt{N}`$, where $`N`$ is the number of LOS.

It should be noted that because of the relatively low satellite orbit inclinations, the GPS network (and to a lesser degree GLONASS) provides poor coverage of the Earth’s surface near the poles. However, TEC measurements in the polar regions are ineffective with respect to the detection of the ionospheric response to a solar flare because the amplitude of background fluctuations in this case is much higher when compared with the mid-latitude ionosphere. This is partiocularly true of geomagnetic disturbance periods. For the same reason, equatorial stations should also be excluded from a coherent processing.

The GPS technology provides the means of estimating TEC variations on the basis of phase measurements of TEC $`I`$ in each of the spaced two-frequency GPS receivers using the formula ; :

$$I=\frac{1}{40.308}\frac{f_1^2f_2^2}{f_1^2f_2^2}[(L_1\lambda _1L_2\lambda _2)+const+nL]$$
(1)
where $`L_1\lambda _1`$ and $`L_2\lambda _2`$ are phase path increments of the radio signal, caused by the phase delay in the ionosphere (m); $`L_1`$, $`L_2`$ is the number of full phase rotations, and $`\lambda _1`$, and $`\lambda _2`$, are the wavelengths (m) for the frequencies $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$, respectively; $`const`$ is some unknown initial phase path (m); and $`nL`$ is the error in determination of the phase path (m).

Phase measurements in the GPS system are made with a high degree of accuracy where the error in TEC determination for 30-second averaging intervals does not exceed $`10^{14}`$ -2, although the initial value of TEC does remain unknown . This permits ionization irregularitues and wave processes in the ionosphere to be detected over a wide range of amplitudes (as large as $`10^4`$ of the diurnal variation of TEC) and periods (from several days to 5 min). The TEC unit, $`TECU`$, which is equal to $`10^{16}`$ -2 and is commonly accepted in the literature, will be used throughout the text.

The solar flare of July 29, 1999 was used to illustrate the performance of the proposed method. Primary data include series of ”oblique” values of TEC $`I(t)`$, as well as the corresponding series of elevations $`\theta (t)`$ and azimuths $`\alpha (t)`$ along LOS to the satellite calculated using our developed CONVTEC program which converts the GPS system standard RINEX-files on the INTERNET . The determination of SID characteristics involves selecting continuous series of $`I(t)`$ measurements of at least a one-hour interval in length, which includes the time of the flare. Series of elevations $`\theta (t)`$ and azimuths $`\alpha (t)`$ of the beam to the satellite are used to determine the coordinates of subionospheric points. In the case under consideration, all results were obtained for elevations $`\theta (t)`$ larger than $`10^{}`$.

Fig. 4a presents typical time dependencies of an ”oblique” TEC $`I(t)`$ for the PRN03 satellite at the CME1 station on July 29, 1999 (thick line) and for PRN21 at the CEDA station (thin line). It is apparent from Fig. 4a that in the presence of slow TEC variations, the SID-induced short-lasting sudden increase in TEC is clearly distinguished in the form of a ”step” as large as 0.4 $`TECU`$.

For the same series, similar lines in panel b. show variations of the time derivative of TEC $`dI(t)/dt`$ with the linear trend removed and with a smoothing with the 5-min time window. The TEC time derivative is invoked because it reflects electron density variations which are proportional to the X-ray or EUV flux .

The $`dI(t)/dt`$ variations for different beams are well correlated over the time interval from 19:30 to 19:39 UT. This is distinguished in a more instructive way if series of the time derivative $`dI(t)/dt`$ for all visible satellites from 105 GPS stations are plotted on the same time scale (panel d). Time-coincident (for all beams) $`dI(t)/dt`$ variations are clearly seen; for the remaining time spans of the time interval 19:00–20:00, UT variations of $`dI(t)/dt`$ for different sites and satellites are not correlated and occupy the entire amplitude-time range.

The coherent summation of $`dI(t)/dt_i`$ realizations was made by the formula

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }dI(t)/dt=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}dI(t)/dt_isin(\theta _i)$$
(2)
where $`\theta _i`$ is LOS elevation, $`i`$ \- number of LOS; $`i=`$ 1, 2, … $`N`$.

Multiplication by $`sin(\theta _i)`$ was used to convert ”oblique” TEC variations to an ”equivalent” vertical value in order to normalize the response amplitude.

The normalized to $`N`$ result of a coherent summation (2) for all beams and GPS stations located mainly on the dayside is presented in panel c. A comparison of the resulting coherent sum (2) with the time dependence $`dI(t)/dt`$ for individual beams presented in panels b. and d. confirms the effect of a substantial increase of the signal/noise ratio caused by a coherent processing.

It is interesting to compare, for the same time interval, the data on individual beams and results from a coherent summation for the dayside and nightside. Fig. 4e presents typical time dependencies of an ”oblique” TEC $`I(t)`$ for the PRN27 satellite at the IRKT station (thick line) and for PRN27 at the BOGO station (thin line). Using the $`I(t)`$ data it is impossible to identify any SID-induced short-lasting sudden increase in TEC. This is also true for the time derivatives $`dI(t)/dt`$ plotted in panels f. and h. As a result, the r.m.s. of the coherent sum (2) in panel g. for the nightside is of the same order of magnitude as that of background fluctuations outside the SID response interval on the dayside, which is an order of magnitude (as a minimum) smaller than the SID response amplitude (Fig. 4c).

Consider the data processing procedure for the solar flare of September 23, 1998. Fig. 5 presents the time dependencies of TEC $`I(t)`$ on the dayside – a. and $`dI(t)`$ variations with the linear trend removed and smoothing with the 5-min time window for stations IRKT (PRN01) – b; $`dI(t)`$ variations for all visible satellites from 102 GPS stations plotted on the same time scale – d. One can clearly see simultaneous (for all GPS beams) $`dI(t)`$ variations; for the remaining time spans of the interval 6:30-08:00 UT selected, $`dI(t)`$ variations for different sites and satellites are not correlated and occupy the entire amplitude-time range.

It should be noted that in this case the ratio of the amplitude of the ionospheric response of the flare to the phase fluctuation amplitude is substantially worse than that for the flare of July 29, 1999. A preliminary coherent accumulation of $`dI(t)_i`$-series with a subsequent differentiation, rather than differentiation of single realizations of $`dI(t)_i`$ with subsequent addition of the time derivatives seems more reasonable. The coherent summation of $`dI(t)_i`$ realizations was made for this event by the formula

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }dI(t)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}dI(t)_isin(\theta _i)$$
(3)
The (normalized to $`N`$) result of the coherent summation of series (3) for all beams and GPS stations located predominantly on the dayside is presented in panel c. Again, a comparison of the resulting coherent sum (3) with the time dependence of $`dI(t)`$ for the individual beams shown in panels b. and d. confirms the enhancement effect of the signal/noise ratio beause of a coherent processing.

A similar result is also obtained by comparing (for the same time interval) the data from individual LOS and coherent summation results for the dayside and nightside. Fig. 5c presents typical time dependencies of an ”oblique” TEC $`I(t)`$ for the PRN14 satellite at station MAS1. The SID-induced short-lasting sydden increasze of TEC was not possible to identify from the $`I(t)`$ data. This applies also for the $`dI(t)`$-variations with the trend removed, which are plotted in panels f. and h. As a result, the standard deviation (SD) of the coherent sum (3) in panel g. for the nightside is found to be of the same order o magnitude as the backgrund fluctuation SD outside the SID response range on the dayside, which is an order of magnitude, as a minimum, less than the SID response amplitude (Fig. 5c).

## 4 Discussion

A comparative analysis is made of the TEC data and X-ray emission time series acquired by satelites. In carrying out a comparative analysis of the TEC and X-ray emission to flares, it is necessary to eliminate the TEC trend which is not associated with flare emission. In this case the above procedure of determining the trend that is removed by a smoothing over a 5-min interval, which is significantly shorter than the flare emission duration, is incorrect. In Figs. 2 and 3, the trend to be removed was therefore defined as a polynomial of degree 3, approximating the time dependence of TEC on the intervals 19:00 and 20:00 UT, and 6:00-8:00 UT, respectively. The approximation procedure neglected the TEC values during the flares (19:30-19:48 UT, and 6:40-7:24 UT).

First we consider a simpler flare of July 29, 1999, with the X-ray emission time profile like a single impulse (dashed curve $`F_{HXT}`$ in Fig. 2b). The flare is clearly seen on the time profile of TEC $`I(t)`$ (Fig. 2a). As is apparent from Fig. 2b, the response $`I_{ex}(t)`$ represents an impulse with a fast growth and a relatively slow decline. The time variation of soft X-ray emission, obtained from the GOES data at insufficiently large time intervals (marked by the symbol o in Fig. 2b) does not contradict the behavior of the curve $`I_{ex}(t)`$.

The rise front of hard X-ray emission $`F_{HXT}`$ is steeper when compared with the response of TEC $`I_{ex}(t)`$ , and the time of a maximum is 1.5 min ahead of the TEC fluctuation maximum. These difference are natural if account is taken of the finite relaxation time of electron density disturbances caused by flare emission. This factor can be taken into account by convoluting the source function $`F_{HXT}`$ with the relaxation function:

$$F_{conv}(t)=\underset{0}{\overset{t}{}}F_{\mathrm{𝖧𝖷𝖳}}(t^{})\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{tt^{}}{\tau }\right)\right]𝑑t^{}$$
(4)
As is evident from Fig. 2c, the growth profile of TEC $`I_{ex}(t)`$ is similar to that of the convolution $`F_{conv}`$ when $`\tau =`$ 65 s. The convolution was accomplished with the X-ray signal of the 25-50 keV (0.25-0.5 A) energy channel. At the decay phase, the curves $`F_{conv}`$ and $`I_{ex}(t)`$ are moving apart, which can be associated with the contribution to the ionospheric ionization from softer emission whose time profile is similar to the GOES flux profile.

Short-duration disturbances on TEC dependencies, which are associated with the ionization by flare emission, are more pronounced on the time derivatives $`dI(t)/dt`$. Fig. 2d compares the result of summation (2) of the series of the derivatives $`\mathrm{\Sigma }dI(t)/dt`$ for all visible satellites from GPS stations located on the dayside, with the derivative $`d/dt(F_{conv})`$ presented in Fig. 2c. It can be seen that the growth stage of the coherent sum $`\mathrm{\Sigma }dI(t)/dt`$ for the entire sunlit side of the Earth is described adequately by the function $`d/dt(F_{conv})`$. Note that the accuracy of estimating the duration $`\tau `$ determined from the coincidence of peaks of the time derivatives is determined by time resolution of TEC measurements (30 s in the case under consideration).

The flare of September 23, 1998 was of a longer duration, and, despite a somewhat higher intensity, its response was relatively small on TEC time dependencies for separate paths (Fig. 3a). Nevertheless, by subtracting the polynomial of degree 3, it was possible to identify the TEC response $`I_{ex}(t)`$ (Fig. 3b). In this event, the time dependence of soft X-ray emission is much different from the temporal behavior of the response $`I_{ex}(t)`$ which grows faster than does the GOES signal (marked by the symbol o), attains a maximum 9 min earlier, and decreaes much more rapidly.

The signal of hard X-ray emission $`F_{HXT}`$ (dashed line) shows a number of peaks leading the TEC fluctuations $`I_{ex}(t)`$. The convolution with the hard X-ray emission signal $`F_{conv}`$ agrees satisfactorily with the response $`I_{ex}(t)`$, with $`\tau =`$ 100 s. The curves in Fig. 2c are most similar for the M1 (22-35 keV) channel of the HXT/YOHKOH X-ray telescope. The estimated $`\tau =`$ 100 s is confirmed by comparing the combined time derivative of TEC $`\mathrm{\Sigma }dI(t)/dt`$ , with the derivative $`d/dt(F_{conv})`$.

A comparison of the time profiles of the TEC response and hard X-ray emission shows that corresponding electron density disturbances are recorded with confidence by a global GPS network. For hard X-ray emission, the highest correlation is attained for photon energies of about 30 keV, with relation times $`\tau `$ in the range 65-100 s. These estimates are in reasonably good agreement with results obtained previously when analyzing the SID effect , .

Unfortunately, the lack of data on UV emission of the flares under investigation, the most probable ionizing factor at ionospheric heights above 100 km, gives no way of making absolute estimates of the TEC increment and comparing them with measured values. It is pointed out in  that although UV emission is essentially responsible for SID in the F-region, TEC variations are also correlated quite well with X-ray flares. This is also confirmed by simultaneous measurements of X-ray and EUV flare emission characteristics by the Solar Maximum Mission satellite .

## 5 Conclusions

In this paper we have analyzed the ionospheric response to powerful solar flares of September 23, 1998 and July 29, 1999. The analysis is based on implementing our new technology of a global detector of ionospheric effects from solar flares using the data from the international network of two-frequency multichannel receivers of the navigation GPS system (GLOBDET) which improves substantially the sensitivity and space-time resolution of observations over existing radio probing methods.

It was found that fluctuations of TEC and its time derivative obtained by removing the linear trend of TEC with a time window of about 5 min are coherent for all stations and beams to GPS satellites on the dayside of the Earth, regardless of the station’s location, local time and elevation of the beam to the satellite. The time profile of TEC responses is similar to the time behavior of hard X-ray emission variations during flares in the energy range 25-35 keV if we introduce the relation time of an electron density disturbance in the ionosphere of a duration of 50-100 s. No such effect was detected on the nightside of the Earth.

The GLOBDET technology, suggested in this paper, can be used to detect small solar flares; the body of data processed is the only limitation in this case. The high sensitivity of GLOBDET permits us to propose the problem of detecting, in the flare X-ray and EUV ranges, emissions of nonsolar origins which are the result of supernova explosions.

For powerful solar flares like the one examined in this report, it is not necessary to invoke a coherent summation, and the SID response can be investigated for each beam. This opens the way to a detailed study of the SID dependence on a great variety of parameters (latitude, longitude, solar zenith angle, spectral characteristics of the emission flux, etc.). With current increasing solar activity, such studies become highly challenging. In adidtion to solving traditional problems of estimating parameters of ionization processes in the ionosphere and problems of reconstructing emission parameters , the data obtained through the use of GLOBDET can be used to estimate the spatial inhomogeneity of emission fluxes at scales of the Earth’s radius.

## Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to V. V.Grechnev, E. A. Kosogorov, O. S. Lesuta and K. S. Palamartchouk for preparing the input data. Thanks are also due V. G. Mikhalkovsky for his assistance in preparing the English version of the -manuscript. This work was done with support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grants 97-02-96060 and 99-05-64753), GNTP ’Astronomy’ as well as RF Minvuz Grant 1999; supervisor B.O. Vugmeister.


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# Untitled Document

Resolving the black hole information paradox\*

Samir D. Mathur

Department of Physics

The Ohio State University

Columbus, OH 43210, USA

mathur@mps.ohio-state.edu

The recent progress in string theory strongly suggests that formation and evaporation of black holes is a unitary process. This fact makes it imperative that we find a flaw in the semiclassical reasoning that implies a loss of information. We propose a new criterion that limits the domain of classical gravity: the hypersurfaces of a foliation cannot be stretched too much. This conjectured criterion may have important consequences for the early Universe.

\*This essay received an “honorable mention” in the Annual Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation for the year 2000.

It is intriguing that black holes behave as if they had an entropy proportional to the area of their horizon , and the discovery of Hawking that black holes radiate thermally accorded beautifully with the requirements of thermodynamics . But the calculation of this radiation raised a sharp paradox. The emerging particles have little information about the matter that made the hole; worse they are in an entangled state with their antiparticles that fall into the hole and decrease its mass. If the hole evaporates away then an initial pure state evolves to a mixed state, leading Hawking to postulate that in the presence of gravity we must generalize quantum mechanics so that systems are described not by wavefunctions but by density matrices.

The recent progress in string theory, however, suggests very strongly that black holes behave just like any other composite particle in quantum mechanics: their entropy can be attributed to the degeneracy of their internal states, and Hawking emission is a unitary process where the de-excitation of an internal state leads to emission of a quantum. In particular the entropy of extremal  and near extermal  black holes have been reproduced exactly from a count of microstates. The spin dependence and radiation rate of the low energy Hawking radiation is exactly reproduced from the dynamics of these microstates , and in a certain near extremal limit one finds that greybody factors are reproduced as well .

If we accept these suggestions from string theory, then we solve the information problem: the information in the matter thrown into the hole is recovered in the radiation that emerges, and there is no need for a modification of quantum mechanics. But it does not solve the information paradox: as with any paradox, we are presented with an explicit argument (in this case the semiclassical calculation of Hawking) and are then challenged to point out which step in the argument is fallacious. The string theory results require extrapolations from weak coupling (invoking the invariances guaranteed by supersymmetry), and thus do not give an explicit picture of information recovery. The AdS/CFT duality  does not do any better, since it is well formulated only for ‘global AdS’ which has no horizons; in any event the dual gravity theory is understood only as perturbative strings and thus offers no hint of how infalling information will be redirected out.

The paradox can be formulated as follows. One can foliate the black hole spacetime such that (a) all slices (spacelike hypersurfaces) are intrinsically smooth (b) the embedding of these hypersurfaces in the spacetime is smooth (c) all slices capture the matter that fell in to make the hole; the late time slices also capture the Hawking radiation near spatial infinity and their corresponding antiparticles inside the horizon.1 We also assume that the slicing of spacetime is stable, in the sense that a small change in the intrinsic geometry of the slice does not lead to a large change in the state of the matter on the slice. Slicings that were not stable were investigated in , but it was argued in  that consideration of unstable slices did not affect the information question.

Since we cannot have ‘quantum xeroxing’ we must have somehow ‘bleached’ the information from the initial matter as seen on this final surface, and transferred its information to the radiation that appears on this same surface near infinity. But we cannot simply postulate a new nonlocal mechanism of information transfer: since the entire evolution appears to be within the domain of semiclassical physics, how do we ensure that we still recover ‘normal physics’ in the absence of black holes, where such information transfer is not observed to occur? What we need therefore is a criterion for when this nonlocal information transport will be triggered: the criterion must cover the black hole evaporation process but not ordinary everyday evolution.2 The idea that nonlocal effects take place in in the context of black holes is not itself new (see for example ), but what we seek here is a way to bypass the Hawking argument for information loss while preserving our experience of low energy physics.

We propose that a fourth criterion (d) needs to be added to the above three, to define a domain where semiclassical intuition should be valid. Consider a ‘sandwich’ of spacetime formed by an initial spacelike slice, a final spacelike slice, and the spacetime in between. We postulate that a slice in spacetime needs to be specified not only by its intrinsic and extrinsic geometries, but also by a density of degrees of freedom, defined over the slice. We require that the count of these degrees of freedom is conserved. If the evolution through the ‘sandwich’ causes the slice to ‘stretch’, then the final slice will have a lower density of degrees of freedom. We then require that usual semiclassical physics holds as long as we do not load any region of a slice with more bits of data than there are degrees of freedom available in that region. If on the other hand we do try to overload a region on a slice with more data than there are bits, then degrees of freedom must be recruited from outside the region, and nonlocal information transport is possible.

It turns out that in the process of Hawking radiation whenever we try to choose a foliation that satisfies criteria (a), (b), (c) above, then we are forced to loss of classicality through criterion (d); thus Hawking’s semiclassical derivation (which used classical geometry and quantum matter) need not hold after a brief initial period of evolution that we will estimate. But this outcome would appear to create trouble with the other crucial issue with the paradox: based on the equivalence principle, we expect that an infalling observer should see nothing special as he enters the black hole horizon and moves towards the singularity. If we have a nonclassical spacetime inside the hole, will the observer not feel his motion to be nonclassical inside the hole?

The resolution of this problem which we propose is the following. An infalling quantum must have an energy greater than the temperature of the hole, in order that it be described by a classical path. But in this case its energy would bring into the hole a sufficient number of additional degrees of freedom, so that the particle can ‘ride’ over the spacetime formed by these degrees of freedom, for the duration required to describe its motion from the horizon to the vicinity of the singularity. This picture is suggested by the explicit solution of 1+1 dimensional string theory, where excitations are mapped to distortions of the fermi surface of a free fermion liquid. Even though an ingoing pulse may ‘spill over’ and form a black hole, further incoming quanta are formed out of their own collection of fermions, and (seen in a certain description) travel without distortion .

If the foliation violates the criteria (a)-(c) then one is not forced to a paradox: some part of the slices would have strong curvature and new physics can be claimed to occur and cause nonlocal information transport. What we note here is that if we do satisfy (a)-(c) in foliating the black hole geometry, then we will necessarily find that late time slices are highly ‘stretched’ compared to the initial slices, even though the evolution from any one slice to a neighboring one exhibits no unusual features. Rather than prove this rigorously we sketch in the figure a foliation3 This foliation is essentially similar to one used for example in   satisfying (a)-(c). The figure is not a Penrose diagram; it is just a plot of the $`r,t`$ coordinates of the Schwarzschild metric

$$ds^2=(1\frac{2M}{r})dt^2+(1\frac{2M}{r})^1dr^2+r^2(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)$$

We draw two spacelike slices, ABCD and a later one ABB’C’D’. The slices are constant $`t`$ near infinity, and go over to constant $`r`$ inside the hole (where constant $`r`$ is spacelike). We label the slices by $`t`$, and let $`t_2t_1M`$.

Assuming that the degrees of freedom follow the normal to the slice in the embedding manifold, we see that the degrees in CD move to C’D’, while those in the part AB stay frozen. But those in BC must stretch to cover BB’ as well as B’C’. Thus the density in B’C’ will be lower than in BC by some factor $`\alpha <1`$. As we continue the evolution, we find that there is a progressive dilution of the degrees of freedom in regions like B’C’, which turn out to have a density $`e^{\alpha t/M}`$. The geometry will cease to be classical when

$$S_{BH}e^{\alpha \frac{t}{M}}<f$$

Here $`S_{BH}=A/(4\pi G)`$ estimates the degrees of freedom present on the initial slice in the balck hole region, and $`f`$ is the number of matter fields that are radiated (the negative energy antiparticles need $`f`$ bits for each interval of length $`M`$ on the slice). Thus by our new criterion the foliation will cease to be classical at quite an early time $`tM\mathrm{log}M`$ (for $`f1`$), and so after this time there is no contradiction with semiclassical physics if we allow the Hawking quanta to carry the information of the initial matter, nonlocally transported across nonclassical regions like B’C’. Of course if there is no such ‘overstretching’ of slices in an evolution, we will continue to have ‘normal’ physics, and the paradox is thus resolved.

Now consider an infalling quantum, with energy $`\delta E>>T_H`$. The increase in the black hole entropy upon absorbing this energy is

$$\delta S\frac{dS}{dE}\delta E\frac{1}{T_H}\delta E>>1$$

Thus the number of states after absorbing the quantum $`e^{S+\delta S}`$ is much higher than the number of states $`e^S`$ that went to make up the hole. These new states can describe a classical spacetime for the duration where the infalling quantum falls through a distance $`M`$ in the hole, after which they will also be redistributed in the ever stretching slices required by the nature of the foliation. Thus there is no contradiction between the fact that the foliation becomes nonclassical, and the requirement that an infalling object experience classical motion through the horizon.

The essence of a physical postulate is of course that it must be applied to all physical systems. In particular if we consider an expanding Universe then, given our postulate, we must start with some given density of degrees of freedom on an initial slice, and see this density drop as the expansion proceeds. Thus we should not be able to ‘load’ as much matter on a unit volume of space today as we could in the past when this density was higher. If the expansion proceeds to a point where there are less degrees of freedom than that required to describe the matter content, then nonlocal information transport would be allowed, with important consequences for the question of homogeneity beyond the Hubble scale. Further, if we trust the Bekenstein relation $`S=A/(4\pi G)`$ as giving some measure of degrees of freedom in any region , then a lower density of these degrees would correspond to a higher value of the $`G`$; we would find a time varying Newton’s constant with corresponding changes in the geometry of the initial singularity. Clearly, it is imperative that we extract the lessons of the black hole information paradox so that we may understand the structure of spacetime in diverse situations!

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