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# Full mechanical characterization of a cold damped mirror

## I Introduction

Thermal noise is a major limitation to many very sensitive optical measurements such as interferometric gravitational wave detection. The suspended mirrors of interferometric detectors have many degrees of freedom: pendulum modes of the suspension system (with resonance frequencies below the analysis band), violin modes of the suspension wires (with some resonances within the detection band), and mirrors’ internal acoustic modes (with resonance frequencies above the band). The thermal motion of each degree of freedom results from its excitation by a thermal random force, called the Langevin force. The fluctuation-dissipation theorem relates the spectrum of the Langevin force to the temperature and to the mechanical damping of the mode. Up to now, only passive methods such as the increase of mechanical quality factors or cryogenic methods to lower the temperature have been considered to lower the thermal noise and increase the sensitivity.

It has been recently proposed to use a feedback loop to reduce the thermal noise of a mirror in a high-finesse optical cavity . A Fabry-Perot cavity is actually a very sensitive displacement sensor  and a feedback mechanism can be used to control the brownian motion of a mirror, for example via the radiation pressure of an intensity-modulated laser beam . This approach allows to reduce the thermal noise both at the mechanical resonance frequencies of the mirror and at low frequency. At resonance, this cooling corresponds to a cold damping mechanism, the radiation pressure of the light applying a viscous force to the mirror without any additional thermal noise.

The purpose of this paper is to present a more detailed theoretical analysis of the experiment described in, focussing on the resonant case, and to present new experimental results on the mechanical response of the cold damped mirror and on the transient behavior of the system.

Section II is dedicated to a brief reminder of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and its consequences on the thermal noise spectrum. Section III presents a detailed theoretical analysis of the cold damping process used in section IV to lower the effective temperature of the fundamental acoustic mode of a mirror. In section V we take into account the background thermal noise due to the other acoustic modes of the mirror to explain the discrepancy between experimental results and the simple monomode theory of section III.

We present in section VI the full mechanical characterization of the cold damped mirror. We have studied the mechanical response of the mirror to an external force, when the cooling is applied. The results show that the mechanical susceptibility is changed in agreement with a cold damping mechanism: the additional radiation pressure corresponds to a viscous force and there is no additional noise associated with this force, except the electronic noise of the feedback loop.

Finally, we present the transient evolution of the thermal noise when the cold damping is switched on or off (section VII). The results show that the relaxation time towards the cooled regime can be much shorter than the relaxation time towards the thermal equilibrium. These transient characteristics may be used to perform a cyclic cooling of the thermal noise associated with the violin modes of the mirrors in a gravitational-wave interferometer.

## II Thermal noise and fluctuation-dissipation theorem

We present here some well known results on thermal noise and on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, which will give some physical insight to the efficiency of the feedback scheme used to lower the temperature.

Each degree of freedom is equivalent to a harmonic oscillator, whose thermal motion is the consequence of the $`\frac{1}{2}k_BT`$ thermal energy and appears as the mechanical response of the oscillator to a Langevin force $`F_T`$ describing the coupling to a thermal bath. In the framework of linear response theory , the resulting motion can be described by its Fourier transform $`\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ at frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ which is proportional to $`F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$,

$$\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(1)
where $`\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the mechanical susceptibility of the mode,

$$\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{1}{M\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2i\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\varphi \left(\mathrm{\Omega }\right)\right)},$$
(2)
with a mass $`M`$, a resonance frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, and a loss angle $`\varphi \left(\mathrm{\Omega }\right)`$. In the following, we consider only the case of a viscous damping, e.g.:

$$\varphi \left(\mathrm{\Omega }\right)=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2},$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the mechanical damping of the mode. It is well known that such a loss angle may not be appropriate to describe some degrees of freedom, such as internal acoustic modes of the mirrors: $`\varphi `$ is usually considered as independent of frequency over a large frequency range. However, as we are only interested in the spectral analysis of the motion at frequencies close to a mechanical resonance, for low loss oscillators ($`\varphi 1`$), both descriptions are equivalent. The former, leading to a simple physical interpretation, will be used throughout the paper.

The spectrum $`S_{F_T}`$ of the Langevin force is related by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem to the mechanical susceptibility,

$$S_{F_T}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{2k_BT}{\mathrm{\Omega }}Im\left(\frac{1}{\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}\right).$$
(4)
According to Eqs. (1) to (4), the noise spectrum $`S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ of the displacement $`\delta x`$ at temperature $`T`$ has a lorentzian shape,

$`S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ $`=`$ $`\left|\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right|^2S_{F_T}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Gamma }k_BT}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2\right)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2}}.`$ (6)
Performing the integration of (6) over frequency yields the thermal variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_T`$, which obeys the equipartition theorem,

$$\frac{1}{2}M\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2=\frac{1}{2}k_BT.$$
(7)
If we see the thermal motion as a response to the Langevin force $`F_T`$, it should be clear that increasing the damping would reduce the thermal variance. However the damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ cancels from that expression, because it appears both in the mechanical susceptibility and in the spectrum of the Langevin force. Decreasing the damping however concentrates the thermal noise around the mechanical resonance frequency, and therefore lowers both the low frequency and high frequency thermal noises, which is the reason for the ongoing works on low loss materials for the substrates of the mirrors and the suspension wires .

The total noise spectrum, taking into account all the mechanical modes, is the sum of such lorentzian components. Near one of the mechanical resonances, the thermal noise is mainly ruled by the resonant component, with a background noise related to all other modes and approximately flat in frequency.

## III Cold damping theory

The cooling mechanism is based on a measurement of the thermal noise of the mirror and on a feedback loop which applies a properly adjusted force on the mirror. We will see in section IV a practical implementation of such a mechanism. Let us only assume here that we are able to measure the position $`\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ of the mirror, and to apply a viscous feedback force $`F_{fb}`$, proportional to the speed $`i\mathrm{\Omega }\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ of the mirror,

$$F_{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=M\mathrm{\Gamma }g\times \left(i\mathrm{\Omega }\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right),$$
(8)
where $`g`$ is a dimensionless parameter related to the gain of the feedback loop. In this section we assume that the mirror can be described as a single harmonic oscillator. The resulting motion is given by

$$\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\left(F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+F_{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right),$$
(9)
where $`\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the mechanical susceptibility (2) with a loss angle of the form (3), and $`F_T`$ is the Langevin force whose spectrum is given by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (4). The motion can be written as

$$\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(10)
where $`\chi _{fb}`$ is an effective mechanical susceptibility given by

$$\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{1}{M\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2i(1+g)\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }\right)}.$$
(11)
The additional viscous force (8) has obviously increased the damping, but, unlike the case of passive damping, the Langevin force is not modified and still verifies the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (4): it is only related to the natural damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the oscillator. We will see shortly that this so called cold damping mechanism allows to reduce the effective temperature of the system.

Equations (10) and (11) show that the mirror now responds to the Langevin force with the effective mechanical susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$. As the spectrum of $`F_T`$ is flat against frequency, the thermal noise spectrum in presence of feedback $`S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ still has a lorentzian shape, of width $`(1+g)\mathrm{\Gamma }`$,

$$S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{2\mathrm{\Gamma }k_BT}{M}\frac{1}{\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2\right)^2+(1+g)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2}.$$
(12)
As the random force has not been increased, the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }x^2`$ of the motion is reduced. Performing the integration of (12) over the frequency yields

$$\frac{1}{2}M\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Delta }x^2=\frac{k_BT}{2(1+g)}.$$
(13)
The cold damped oscillator of damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and at thermodynamical temperature $`T`$ is therefore equivalent to an oscillator with an effective damping

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}=(1+g)\mathrm{\Gamma },$$
(14)
at an effective temperature

$$T_{fb}=T/(1+g).$$
(15)
This can also be deduced from the spectrum of the Langevin force which can be written as

$$S_{F_T}=2M\mathrm{\Gamma }k_BT=2M\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}k_BT_{fb},$$
(16)
where both $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}`$ and $`T_{fb}`$ have already been defined. The increase of the effective damping therefore decreases the effective temperature of the oscillator. The cold damped mirror is still at thermodynamical equilibrium but, unlike the case of passive damping, the temperature is reduced.

We can also define the amplitude noise reduction

$$R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\sqrt{\frac{S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}{S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}}=\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2i\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }}\right|.$$
(17)
Off resonance, $`R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ goes to unity: as the mechanical susceptibility gets real, the change of its imaginary part does not contribute anymore to a modification of the spectrum $`S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$. The amplitude noise reduction is maximum at resonance where it is equal to

$$R_T=R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]=1+g.$$
(18)
We have shown in this section that measuring the position of an oscillator allows the realization of a feedback loop to apply an additional viscous force to the oscillator without any additional thermal fluctuations. Such a cold damping scheme allows to set the oscillator at thermal equilibrium at a lower temperature. This is the case only for a single harmonic oscillator. We will see in section V that there is no longer a thermodynamical equilibrium when one takes into account all the acoustic modes.

## IV Observation of the cold damping

In this section, we present the experimental implementation of the feedback scheme presented in the previous section. The oscillator is the fundamental acoustic mode of a plano-convex resonator. We present the experimental results on the cooling at resonance, and the dependence of the effective damping and temperature with the gain of the feedback loop.

### A Presentation of the oscillator and motion sensor

The oscillator used throughout the paper is the fundamental acoustic mode of a mirror coated on the plane side of a plano-convex resonator made of fused silica, whose thermal noise observation has been reported in. The mirror has a thickness (at the center) of $`1.5mm`$, a diameter of $`14mm`$, and a curvature radius of the convex side of $`100mm`$. With the value of sound velocity in silica, the value of the thickness yields a fundamental resonance a bit below $`2MHz.`$

The mirror has been coated at the Institut de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon and is used as the end mirror of a single-port high-finesse optical cavity (figure 1). The coupling mirror is a Newport high-finesse SuperMirror, held at $`1mm`$ of the rear mirror. The light entering the cavity is provided by a titane-sapphire laser working at $`810nm`$ and frequency locked to an optical resonance of the high-finesse cavity. The light beam is also intensity-stabilized and spatially filtered by a mode cleaner.

The phase of the field reflected by the cavity is very sensitive to changes in the cavity length. It is monitored by a homodyne detection. The signal is superimposed to the quantum phase noise of the reflected beam. With our parameters (finesse of the cavity $`\mathrm{37\hspace{0.33em}000}`$, wavelength of the light $`\lambda 810nm`$ and incident power $`P_{in}=100\mu W`$), the quantum limited sensitivity is on the order of $`2.7\times 10^{19}m/\sqrt{Hz}`$. The quantum noise is therefore negligible and the phase of the reflected field reproduces the brownian motion of the mirror.

Curve (a) of figure 2 shows the phase noise spectrum of the reflected field for frequencies around the fundamental resonance frequency of the mirror. The noise is calibrated in displacements of the mirror and reflects the brownian motion of the mirror which is peaked around the resonance frequency. This experimental result allows to deduce the mechanical resonance frequency of the fundamental acoustic mode of the resonator:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_M2\pi \times 1858.6kHz.$$
(19)
The mechanical susceptibility has a lorentzian shape with a width

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }2\pi \times 43Hz.$$
(20)
In other words, the mechanical quality factor $`Q=\mathrm{\Omega }_M/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ has a value of $`\mathrm{44\hspace{0.33em}000}`$ which seems to be limited by clamping losses. The effective mass of the mode is deduced from the equipartition theorem,

$$M230mg.$$
(21)
### B Implementation of the feedback loop

To apply a controlled force on the mirror, we use an auxiliary laser beam reflected from the back on the mirror (see figure 1). This beam is derived from the same laser source as the one used for motion sensing. The beam is intensity-modulated by an acousto-optic modulator so that a modulated radiation pressure is applied to the mirror:

$$F_{rad}\left(t\right)=2\mathrm{}kI\left(t\right),$$
(22)
where $`k=2\pi /\lambda `$ is the wave vector of the laser and $`I\left(t\right)`$ is the intensity modulation, expressed as the number of photons per second. $`F_{rad}`$ therefore appears as the momentum transferred to the mirror during the reflection of a single photon, multiplied by the number of reflections per second.

Driving the acousto-optic modulator with a monochromatic excitation then allows to characterize the dynamics of the mirror at that frequency. We scan the excitation frequency for $`50`$ values spanned around the resonance frequency in order to characterize the mechanical response of the mirror to an external force, as this has been done in. The mechanical response shown in curve (2c) displays a resonance centered on the same frequency as the thermal noise, and with the same width. Moreover, the observed thermal noise spectrum is in excellent agreement with the spectrum $`S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ deduced from this mechanical response and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (curve 2b) . This confirms that the observed thermal peak is related to the brownian motion of the fundamental acoustic mode of the plano-convex resonator at room temperature.

Note that the optical excitation is very efficient: with an approximately $`100mW`$ completely modulated auxiliary beam, one gets a displacement at resonance $`30dB`$ larger than the one associated with the thermal noise for a $`1Hz`$ resolution bandwidth of the spectrum analyzer.

This setup can be used to implement the feedback loop discussed in section III. Indeed, the signal $`\delta q_{out}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ given by the homodyne detection is proportional to the displacement of the mirror:

$$\delta q_{out}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=a[\mathrm{\Omega }]\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(23)
where the factor $`a\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ depends on the analysis frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ through the filtering by the cavity. In the following, we will focus on the thermal noise spectrum on a $`1kHz`$ band around the fundamental resonance frequency. This band is small compared to the bandwidth of the cavity (on the order of $`2MHz`$), so that $`a\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ can be considered constant. Moreover, this band is small compared to the mechanical resonance frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, so that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ can also be considered constant and the derivation necessary to obtain the force (8) from the displacement $`\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ can be practically obtained by a dephasing of the homodyne signal. The feedback loop is therefore simply made of an amplifier with adjustable gain and phase, in order to drive the acousto-optic modulator with a signal in quadrature with the displacement $`\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$.

The signal is also filtered by an electronic bandpass filter inserted in the loop in order to avoid the saturation of the feedback. Indeed, the homodyne signal also comprises resonances associated with higher order modes of the plano-convex resonator (at higher frequencies) and resonances of the input mirror (mainly at lower frequencies). Moreover, even for the fundamental acoustic mode considered here, the spectrum of the Langevin force is flat against frequency and may lead to the saturation of the loop.

As we are only interested in the spectrum around the mechanical resonance frequency, the filter is centered on this frequency. Its bandwidth is chosen large enough in order to limit its effect on the frequency band of $`1kHz`$ around the resonance, and small enough in order to efficiently filter the low-frequency and high-frequency tails of the resonance. The results presented here have been obtained with a $`10kHz`$ bandwidth, which fulfills both conditions. The influence of the filter can therefore be neglected in our theoretical model.

### C Noise reduction at resonance

Figure 3 presents the thermal noise spectra obtained without feedback, and with feedback for increasing values of the gain $`g`$ of the loop . The thermal noise at the mechanical resonance frequency is strongly reduced. Meanwhile, as predicted by our theoretical model, the width of the resonance is strongly increased. The effective temperature of the oscillator is related to the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }x^2`$ and thus to the area of the curve. The decrease of these areas thus corresponds to a cooling of the mirror. We will see in the following that large cooling factors can be obtained.

### D Dependance of the cooling with the gain

In order to check our theoretical model, it is instructive to study the efficiency of the cooling mechanism with respect to the gain $`g`$ of the feedback loop. To measure the feedback gain, we detect the intensity of the auxiliary beam after its reflection on the mirror. According to Eq. (8), the ratio between the modulation spectrum of the intensity at frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and the noise spectrum $`S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]`$ of the displacement $`\delta x`$ leads to the gain $`g`$, a multiplicative factor aside. Such a measurement takes into account any nonlinearity of the gain due to a possible saturation of the acousto-optic modulator.

Figure 4 shows the relative damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the amplitude noise reduction at resonance $`R_T`$ experimentally observed. These parameters are derived from the experimental spectra by lorentzian fits. As expected from Eqs. (14) and (18), both have a linear dependence with the gain. The straight line in figure 4 is in excellent agreement with experimental data, and allows to normalize the gain $`g`$, as this has been done in the figure. However, the cooling factor $`T/T_{fb}`$, derived from the area of the lorentzian fit, does not obey the linear dependence (15). The following section is dedicated to the explanation of this behavior.

## V Influence of the background thermal noise

The purpose of this section is to derive a more sophisticated theory of our experiment, in order to explain the nonlinear dependence of the effective temperature with the gain of the loop. This dependence is due to the background thermal noise associated with other acoustic modes of the mirror or with the input mirror of the cavity.

### A Dependence of the temperature with the gain

We can take this background noise into account in our theoretical model. Suppose we note $`\delta x_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ the associated Fourier component, and $`S_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ its noise spectrum. As there is no acoustic resonance around the frequency band of interest, $`S_b`$ is supposed to be frequency independent. The noise $`\delta x_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is uncorrelated to the Langevin force $`F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ of the fundamental mode, and the overall noise spectrum without feedback is the sum of the resonant and background components,

$$S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=S_x^{T(0)}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+S_b.$$
(24)
where $`S_x^{T(0)}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the noise spectrum of the fundamental mode (Eq. 6).

Moreover, as the feedback does not involve the input mirror, and as we have already seen that the efficiency of the loop strongly decreases off resonance, we can state that the background thermal noise is unaffected by the loop. We then have

$$\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\left(F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+F_{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right)+\delta x_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(25)
where $`\chi \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the mechanical susceptibility of the fundamental acoustic mode and the radiation pressure $`F_{fb}`$ is related to the overall displacement $`\delta x`$ by Eq. (8). The resulting motion is

$$\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2i\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}\mathrm{\Omega }}\delta x_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(26)
where $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the effective susceptibility of the fundamental mode given by Eq. (11). As $`\delta x_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ and $`F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ are uncorrelated, the noise spectrum takes the simple form:

$$S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=S_x^{fb(0)}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+\frac{1}{R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^2}S_b,$$
(27)
where $`S_x^{fb(0)}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the lorentzian spectrum obtained when neglecting the background noise (Eq. 12), and $`R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the amplitude noise reduction defined in Eq. (17). Combining Eqs. (17) and (27) leads to

$$S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}{R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^2}.$$
(28)
The feedback loop still decreases the noise spectrum by a factor $`R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^2`$. In other words, the effect of the feedback is unchanged since it is still described by the mechanical susceptibilities $`\chi `$ and $`\chi _{fb}`$ of the fundamental mode only, but the background noise in $`S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ leads to a background noise evenly modified in $`S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$. The noise spectrum (27) can also be written as

$$S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\left(1\epsilon _bg\left(2+g\right)\right)S_x^{fb(0)}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+S_b,$$
(29)
where $`\epsilon _b=S_b/S_x^{T(0)}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]`$ is the ratio between the background noise spectrum and the resonant component at frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ of the thermal noise $`S_x^T`$ without feedback (Eq. 24). The overall noise spectrum stays lorentzian, the area of the lorentzian component being smaller when taking $`\delta x_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ into account, with an unchanged background noise.

The width of the resonance is still equal to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}=\left(1+g\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and the overall amplitude noise reduction is unchanged and equal to $`R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ as we have experimentally observed in figure 4.

The effective temperature $`T_{fb}`$ of the fundamental acoustic mode, related to the area of the resonant component of the spectrum by the equipartition theorem, can be computed using Eq. (29):

$$\frac{T}{T_{fb}}=\frac{1+g}{1\epsilon _bg(2+g)}.$$
(30)
The background thermal noise ($`\epsilon _b>0`$) thus decreases the effective temperature.

One can experimentally obtain the ratio $`\epsilon _b`$ using the lorentzian fit of the thermal noise spectrum observed without feedback (figure 2a). The experimental value is $`\epsilon _b1/150.`$ The solid curve in figure 4 is a fit of the experimental points using Eq. (30). The optimum value is $`\epsilon _b1/110`$, close to the expected value. The theoretical curve is in excellent agreement with the experimental points: taking the background thermal noise into account thus allows to explain the dependence of the effective temperature with the gain of the feedback loop.

The effective temperature $`T_{fb}`$ defined previously holds for the resonant mode, but as the background is unchanged by the feedback loop, one can say that all the other acoustic modes stay at room temperature $`T`$. The mirror is thus no longer in a thermodynamical equilibrium. For sufficient large gains ($`g10`$ in our experiment), the feedback loop can dig a hole in the background noise, leading to a negative effective temperature for the resonant mode. Figure 5 shows the thermal noise spectrum experimentally observed for $`g40`$. This figure also shows that very significant noise reduction can be obtained: the noise power is reduced at resonance by a factor larger than $`1000`$.

### B Background noise and thermal equilibrium

We have discussed in the previous section how the background thermal noise alters the cooling mechanism. We have used a phenomenological model, where the background thermal noise is described as an additional noise $`\delta x_b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ which is unaffected by the feedback loop. If we neglect the contribution of the coupling mirror to the background noise, it is possible to derive the same result more formally.

One can show that the motion of the mirror as seen by the intracavity light can be described by an effective mechanical susceptibility which takes into account all the acoustic modes and their spatial overlap with the laser beams :

$$\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\underset{n}{}\chi _n\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]u_n,v_0^2,$$
(31)
where $`\chi _n\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the mechanical susceptibility of the acoustic mode $`n`$ with spatial deformation $`u_n\left(𝐫\right)`$ along the axis of the cavity at every point $`𝐫`$ of the surface, $`v_0\left(𝐫\right)`$ is the spatial profile of the intensity for the intracavity field and for the cooling beam (we assume that both beams have the same profile). $`f,g`$ here stands for the spatial overlap between two two-dimensional functions,

$$f,g=_Sf(𝐫)g(𝐫)d^2𝐫.$$
(32)
The thermal motion is then described by an effective Langevin force, which is a sum of the Langevin forces associated with each acoustic mode. One can show  that this Langevin force obeys the fluctuation-dissipation theorem with respect to $`\chi _{eff}`$, and the thermal noise spectrum is therefore given by

$$S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\left|\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right|^2S_{F_T}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{2k_BT}{\mathrm{\Omega }}Im\left(\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right).$$
(33)
Around any resonance of the mirror, most of the dynamics is ruled by the resonant mode, and $`\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ mostly displays the resonant behavior of this mode.

We can now compute the motion of the mirror with the feedback. The motion is as previously

$$\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(34)
where $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is the mechanical susceptibility of the cold damped mirror,

$$\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{1}{1/\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]iM\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }g}.$$
(35)
Using Eqs. (33) and (34), the displacement noise spectrum takes the form:

$`S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ $`=`$ $`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}{\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}}\right|^2S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ (36)
$`=`$ $`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{1/\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]}{1/\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]iM\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }g}}\right|^2S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right].`$ (37)
As a first approximation, one can replace the effective susceptibility $`\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ around the fundamental resonance of the mirror by its resonant component, and find the thermal noise spectrum in presence of feedback:

$$S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{1}{R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^2}S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(38)
where $`R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ has already been defined (see Eq. 17). As previously, we find that the overall thermal noise spectrum is reduced by a factor $`R\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^2`$. The corrections involved by the off resonance terms in $`\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ are negligible for our experimental conditions: the existence of all other acoustic modes leads to the presence of a background thermal noise in the noise spectra $`S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ and $`S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$, but the dynamics of the cooling mechanism is mainly described by the resonant component of $`\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right].`$

This model also allows to show that the mirror is no longer in thermodynamical equilibrium in presence of feedback. Indeed, this would require to be able to define an effective temperature $`T_{fb}`$ obeying the fluctuation-dissipation theorem at every frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$:

$$S_{F_T}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{2k_BT_{fb}}{\mathrm{\Omega }}Im\left(1/\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right).$$
(39)
Using Eqs. (35) and (39), one can show that this requires:

$$T_{fb}=T/\left[1\frac{M\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }g}{Im\left(1/\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right)}\right].$$
(40)
This condition can be fulfilled only if $`Im\left(1/\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right)`$ depends linearly of the frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. This is the case if $`\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ describes the mechanical response of a single harmonic viscously-damped oscillator, but it is no longer the case for a mechanical resonator with many acoustic modes.

## VI Mechanical response of the cold damped mirror

The experimental results presented in section IV have shown that it is possible to reduce the observed thermal noise at resonance by a factor $`(1+g)`$ with the feedback loop. However the observed quantity is the dephasing of the reflected field, which drives the feedback loop. This error signal goes to zero as the gain of the loop is increased. In other words, the fact that the thermal noise is reduced does not prove that the feedback corresponds to a cold damping mechanism. To check if the residual brownian motion of the mirror is given by Eqs. (10) and (11) (or Eqs. 34 and 35 in presence of a background thermal noise), we can determine the cold damped mechanical susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ by measuring the mechanical response of the mirror to an external force. This, combined with the observation of the brownian motion, allows to check that the Langevin force $`F_T`$ is not altered by the feedback loop, and that the residual brownian motion is given by Eq. (10).

### A Response to an external force

The motion of the mirror under the combined influence of the Langevin thermal force $`F_T`$, the cold damping force $`F_{fb}`$, and the external force $`F_{ext}`$ used to measure its mechanical susceptibility is

$`\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ $`=`$ $`\chi _{eff}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\left(F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+iM\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }g\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+F_{ext}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right)`$ (41)
$`=`$ $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\left(F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+F_{ext}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right),`$ (42)
where the effective mechanical susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ has been defined in Eq. (35). In presence of feedback, the mirror responds the same way to the Langevin force and to an external force. Checking the mechanical response, one must observe a widening and an amplitude decrease as the gain $`g`$ of the loop is increased.

### B Experimental results

The cold damped mechanical susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is measured by the same technique already used in . We use a second auxiliary beam, which is intensity-modulated by an independent acousto-optic modulator controlled by a high-frequency oscillator. The two auxiliary beams are mixed by a polarizing beamsplitter before their reflexion on the mirror. The intensity of the second beam is $`50mW`$, corresponding to a $`30dB`$ displacement at resonance with respect to the thermal noise level. It is lower than the one of the cooling beam ($`500mW`$, $`50dB`$) in order not to alter the cooling mechanism.

For each value of the gain $`g`$ of the loop, we measure the thermal noise spectrum, which is used to calibrate $`g`$. We then proceed to a characterization of the response of the mirror to the external force in presence of feedback. The response is measured for $`50`$ values of the modulation frequency of the second auxiliary beam, spanned around the mechanical resonance. Figure 6 represents the modulation power measured for different values of the gain of the loop. Note the similarity between this figure and figure 3.

Each of the curves of figures 3 and 6 can be compared to a lorentzian fit, taking into account the presence of a background thermal noise. One gets the relative width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T`$ of the thermal resonance, the relative width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_M`$ of the modulation resonance, the amplitude thermal noise reduction $`R_T`$ at resonance (defined in Eq. 18), and the amplitude modulation reduction $`R_M`$ at resonance obtained from the ratio between curves (b) and (a) of figure 6. Figure 7 represents the dependence of these parameters as a function of the gain of the loop ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T`$ is not displayed for $`g>10`$ because the width of the noise spectrum $`S_x^{fb}`$ is then too large to be accurately measured with a $`1kHz`$ acquisition bandwidth).

For $`g30`$, the experimental points are well aligned on a unity slope straight line. This confirms that the parameters obey the expected linear dependence. The susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ perfectly describes the mechanical behavior of the cold damped mirror. Moreover, the thermal noise spectrum, characterized by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T`$ and $`R_T`$, still obeys the fluctuation-dissipation theorem with the mechanical susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$. As stated in our theoretical model, the Langevin force $`F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is not altered by the cooling mechanism.

### C Influence of the electronic noise of the loop

However, for sufficient large gains, the measured thermal noise reduction $`R_T`$ is lower than expected with our theoretical model. This is due to the electronic noise of the feedback loop. We can take this noise into account in our model. Suppose we note $`\delta x_e\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ the electronic noise of the loop. The cold damping force then takes the form

$$F_{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=iM\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }g\left(\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+\delta x_e\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right),$$
(43)
and the resulting motion is

$$\delta x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\left(F_T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+iM\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }g\delta x_e\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+F_{ext}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right).$$
(44)
The response to an external force $`F_{ext}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ is not altered by the electronic noise, and it is still described by the effective susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$. However, the observed noise without any external force does depend on the electronic noise $`\delta x_e\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$. As the electronic noise is uncorrelated to the Langevin force, and flat in frequency on the frequency band of interest, the thermal noise spectrum appears as the sum of the thermal noise $`S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ in presence of feedback (see Eq. 38) and the electronic noise spectrum $`S_e`$ injected by the feedback loop,

$$S_x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=S_x^{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+\left|M\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }g\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right|^2S_e.$$
(45)
The thermal noise spectrum therefore still has a lorentzian shape of width $`(1+g)\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, as it is proportional to $`\left|\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\right|^2,`$ but its amplitude does depend on the electronic noise. The thermal noise at the mechanical resonance frequency is

$$S_x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]=\frac{S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]}{(1+g)^2}+\left(\frac{g}{1+g}\right)^2S_e.$$
(46)
The influence of the electronic noise therefore increases with the gain $`g`$ of the loop. The amplitude noise reduction at resonance is now

$$R_T=\frac{1+g}{\sqrt{1+g^2S_e/S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]}}.$$
(47)
The electronic noise can be experimentally measured from the characteristics of the amplifier used in the loop, and one gets $`S_e/S_x^T\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]=\mathrm{2.2\hspace{0.33em}10}^4`$. The solid curve in figure 7 shows the expected dependence of $`R_T`$ with the gain, without any adjustable parameter. It is in excellent agreement with experimental data.

## VII Transient regime

We have focussed up to now on the steady-state of the cold damped mirror. Some questions however arise. What is the timescale of the transition from the natural regime (at thermodynamical temperature $`T=300K`$) to the cold damped regime (at effective temperature $`T_{fb}`$)? And when the cooling mechanism is switched off? It is well known that the quality factor $`Q`$ (and therefore the damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) can be measured through the decay time of a mechanical excitation abruptly switched off. Is it still true for the cold damped regime? In this section, we present the measurements of the timescale needed for the mirror to reach its equilibrium state, first when the cooling is applied or switched off abruptly, and then in the case of a mechanical excitation, both for the open-loop and the cold damped cases.

### A Transition to and from a damped regime

Suppose we apply sharply the cooling mechanism at $`t=0`$. For $`t>0`$, the equation of motion is

$$M\left[\ddot{x}+\mathrm{\Gamma }\dot{x}+\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2x\right]=F_TM\mathrm{\Gamma }g\dot{x},$$
(48)
where $`F_T(t)`$ is the temporal evolution of the Langevin force. The last term of Eq. (48) represents the cold damping force. One has to solve this equation with initial conditions related to the previous thermodynamical equilibrium at temperature $`T`$. The effect of the cooling mechanism can be monitored on the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)`$, which is directly related to the effective temperature by the equipartition theorem. We show in Appendix A that the time evolution of the variance is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2}{1+g}\left(1+ge^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}t}\right),$$
(49)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2`$ is the thermal variance without feedback. The temperature therefore decreases to its new equilibrium value $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2/\left(1+g\right)`$ with a time constant $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}^1`$. In other words, the mirror evolves towards its damped regime with a mechanical response corresponding to its effective susceptibility $`\chi _{fb}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ in presence of feedback.

In the opposite case, when the cooling is abruptly switched off, the variance obeys (see Appendix A):

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)=\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2\left(1\frac{g}{1+g}e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t}\right).$$
(50)
The variance goes back to its thermal equilibrium value $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2`$ with a time constant $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ which is now related to the mechanical damping without feedback. The transient evolution to the cooled regime is then faster by a factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}/\mathrm{\Gamma }=1+g`$ than the relaxation towards the thermal equilibrium.

To observe these transient regimes, the evolution of the variance is monitored with the spectrum analyzer, centered on the resonance frequency in the zero-span mode. A fast electronic switch is inserted in the loop in order to switch alternatively the loop on and off. We have checked that the transition time of the switch is negligible as compared to the mechanical time-scales.

The resolution bandwidth of the analyzer must be large enough in order to reduce the temporal filtering caused by the spectrum analyzer, but not too large compared to the width of the mechanical resonance, so that the background noise does not contribute too much to the observed signal. With a bandwidth of $`1kHz`$, both conditions are fulfilled, the time constant of the analyzer being on the order of $`0.2ms`$.

Figure 8 shows the evolution of the variance. When the cooling is applied, the variance decreases with a time constant $`\tau _{on}0.5ms`$, and when it is switched off, the variance relaxes towards its equilibrium value with a time constant $`\tau _{off}2.6ms`$. The experimental data are well fitted by Eqs. (49) and (50), with time constants in reasonable agreement with the expected value: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2\pi \times 43Hz`$ leads to a theoretical value $`\tau _{off}3.7ms`$. The gain of the loop is here $`g=5.2`$, so that the ratio $`\tau _{off}/\tau _{on}=5.2`$ is also in reasonable agreement with its expected value of $`1+g=6.2`$.

### B Decay time for a mechanical excitation

This paragraph is dedicated to a direct measurement of the damping of the resonance, through a measurement of the decay time after a mechanical excitation, both with and without feedback. When a monochromatic force $`F_{ext}=F_0\mathrm{cos}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_Mt\right)`$ is abruptly applied to the mirror at $`t=0`$, we show in Appendix B that the displacement spectrum (without feedback) becomes

$$S_x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]=\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M}\right)^2\left(1e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\right)^2,$$
(51)
when the thermal noise is neglected as compared to the effect of the modulation. If the monochromatic excitation is switched off at $`t=0`$, then the displacement spectrum is (see Appendix B):

$$S_x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]=\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M}\right)^2e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t}.$$
(52)
In presence of feedback, we have already seen that the cold damped mirror is equivalent to a mirror of intrinsic damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}`$ at temperature $`T_{fb}.`$As the thermal noise is neglected, we get similar expressions for $`S_x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]`$ in presence of feedback, replacing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}`$.

Figure 9 shows the observed spectra when the excitation is alternatively switched on and off, without feedback. The modulation power is measured as previously by the spectrum analyzer in zero-span mode with a resolution bandwidth of $`1kHz`$. The mechanical excitation is applied by the second auxiliary beam intensity-modulated at frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ (see section VI B) and switched on and off by the fast electronic switch. The experimental data are well fitted by Eqs. (51) and (52), with a time constant of $`2.8ms`$, in excellent agreement with the one found in the previous paragraph.

Figure 10 shows the same spectra for a cold damped mirror, with a gain $`g=5.2`$. The two time constants deduced from the fits with Eqs. (51) and (52) are $`0.5ms`$ and $`0.6ms`$, both of the same order of magnitude with the one found in the previous paragraph in the study of the relaxation towards the damped regime.

We have therefore shown that the relaxation times of the cold damping mechanism are the ones related to the mechanical response to an external force, with or without feedback.

## VIII Conclusion

We have demonstrated that it is possible to actively reduce the thermal noise of a mirror with a feedback loop. The cold damping mechanism described in this paper has allowed us to obtain large noise reductions around the resonance frequency of the fundamental acoustic mode of the mirror, up to $`30dB`$. A simple theoretical model, taking into account both the background thermal noise of the other acoustic modes of the mirror and the electronic noise of the loop, allows to explain quantitatively the experimental results. We have also studied the mechanical response of the cold damped mirror, and the transient regime of the cold damping.

We have in particular studied the mechanical response of the cooled mirror to an external force, and we have shown that the cooling mechanism indeed corresponds to a cold damping, where a viscous force is applied on the mirror without any additional thermal noise but the electronic noise of the feedback loop.

We have also studied the transient regime of the cold damping mechanism. We have related the relaxation times when the cooling is switched on or off to the mechanical decay times in response to an external force. Our results show that the cooled regime is much faster to establish than the thermal equilibrium once the feedback is switched off.

The cold damping might be used to perform a cyclic cooling of thermal peaks associated with mechanical resonances of the mirror. One can indeed cool a mechanical resonance during short periods of time, leaving the system unaffected during much longer periods. One then gets a non stationary thermal noise since it is quickly reduced during the beginning of the cycle and slowly increases the rest of the time. If the period of the cycle is properly chosen as compared to the relaxation time of the resonance, the noise will stay well below its thermal equilibrium value. Furthermore, the duration of the cooling phase can be very short if the gain of the feedback is large enough: the system is therefore free most of the time.

Such a cyclic cooling may be used to detect signals corresponding to single bursts of duration smaller than the period of the cycles. For example, one can envision to cool the violin modes in a gravitational-wave interferometer which have sharp resonances within the detection band. Quality factors of these modes are very large so that the period of the cyclic cooling can be made much longer that the expected duration of gravitational waves. For a large feedback gain, the most probable situation is then to detect a gravitational wave when the cooling is switched off. The gravitational wave still has the same effect on the interferometer, whereas the thermal noise is reduced: one then gets a gain in the signal to noise ratio.

## Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Yassine Hadjar for his work on a previous stage of this experiment, Jean-Marie Mackowski for the optical coating of the mechanical resonator, and Jean-Michel Courty and Serge Reynaud for stimulating discussions.

## Appendix A

In this appendix, we study the relaxation of the thermal variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }x^2\left(t\right)`$ between two equilibrium states. In the case where the cooling is applied at $`t=0`$, one has to solve equation (48) with initial conditions corresponding to the thermal equilibrium at temperature $`T`$. The Laplace transform of (48) takes the form

$$\left[p^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}p+\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\right]x\left[p\right]=\frac{F_T\left[p\right]}{M}+\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+p\right)x\left(0\right)+\dot{x}\left(0\right),$$
(53)
where $`x\left[p\right]`$ and $`F_T\left[p\right]`$ are respectively the Laplace transforms of the displacement $`x\left(t\right)`$ and of the Langevin force $`F_T\left(t\right)`$. $`x\left(0\right)`$ and $`\dot{x}\left(0\right)`$ are the initial conditions of the oscillator. This leads to

$$x\left[p\right]=\chi _{fb}\left[p\right]\left(F_T\left[p\right]+M\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+p\right)x\left(0\right)+M\dot{x}\left(0\right)\right),$$
(54)
where $`\chi _{fb}\left[p\right]`$ is the Laplace transform of the effective susceptibility,

$$\chi _{fb}\left[p\right]=\frac{1}{M\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2+p^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}p\right]}.$$
(55)
$`x\left(t\right)`$ can be obtained from Eq. (54) by inverse Laplace transform. It appears as the sum of the response $`x_F\left(t\right)`$ to the Langevin force (first term in Eq. 54) and the transient evolution $`x_0\left(t\right)`$ from the initial conditions $`\{x\left(0\right),\dot{x}\left(0\right)\}`$:

$$x\left(t\right)=x_F\left(t\right)+x_0\left(t\right),$$
(56)
with

$`x_F\left(t\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^t}\chi _{fb}\left(t\tau \right)F\left(\tau \right)𝑑\tau ,`$ (58)
$`x_0\left(t\right)`$ $`=`$ $`M\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }x\left(0\right)+\dot{x}\left(0\right)\right)\chi _{fb}\left(t\right)+Mx\left(0\right)\dot{\chi }_{fb}\left(t\right),`$ (59)
where the temporal evolution of $`\chi _{fb}\left(t\right)`$ is obtained by inverse Laplace transform of (55):

$$\chi _{fb}\left(t\right)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_Mt\right)}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}t\right].$$
(60)
As $`F_T\left(t>0\right)`$ and the initial conditions are uncorrelated, the variances of $`x_F`$ and $`x_0`$ must be summed,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x^2\left(t\right)=\mathrm{\Delta }x_F^2\left(t\right)+\mathrm{\Delta }x_0^2\left(t\right).$$
(61)
The Langevin force corresponds to a white noise, therefore its correlation function is

$$\overline{F_T\left(t\right)F_T\left(t^{}\right)}=2M\mathrm{\Gamma }k_BT\delta \left(tt^{}\right),$$
(62)
and the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_F^2\left(t\right)`$ is equal to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x_F^2\left(t\right)=2M\mathrm{\Gamma }k_BT_0^t\left[\chi _{fb}\left(\tau \right)\right]^2𝑑\tau .$$
(63)
In the limit of a large quality factor of the resonance ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$), this leads to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x_F^2\left(t\right)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2}{1+g}\left(1e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}t}\right),$$
(64)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2=k_BT/M\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2`$ is the variance at room temperature.

At $`t=0`$, the mirror is in thermodynamical equilibrium at temperature $`T`$, thus we get $`\mathrm{\Delta }x^2\left(0\right)=\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\dot{x}^2\left(0\right)=\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2`$ and $`\overline{x\left(0\right)\dot{x}\left(0\right)}=0.`$Combined with the expression of $`x_0\left(t\right)`$ (Eq. 59), this leads to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x_0^2\left(t\right)=\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}t}.$$
(65)
The variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }x^2\left(t\right)`$ is finally equal to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x^2\left(t\right)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2}{1+g}\left(1+ge^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{fb}t}\right).$$
(66)
One can derive in a similar way the result when the cooling is switched off at time $`t=0`$, by taking $`g=0`$ in Eq. (48) and initial conditions corresponding to the cooled regime. One gets

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x^2\left(t\right)=\mathrm{\Delta }x_T^2\left(1\frac{g}{1+g}e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t}\right).$$
(67)
## Appendix B

This appendix is dedicated to the study of the transient response of the mirror when an external force is switched on or off. Suppose we apply at $`t=0`$ an external force $`F_{ext}`$ to the mirror, without feedback. The displacement $`x(t)`$ then obeys

$$M\left[\ddot{x}+\mathrm{\Gamma }\dot{x}+\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2x\right]=F_{ext}+F_T.$$
(68)
If the response to the external force is much larger than the thermal noise, we can neglect the Langevin force and the initial conditions, which are related to the brownian motion of the mirror. One then gets

$$x\left(t\right)=_0^t\chi \left(t\tau \right)F_{ext}\left(\tau \right)𝑑\tau ,$$
(69)
where $`\chi \left(t\tau \right)`$ is the same as in Eq. (60), except for the damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. For a monochromatic force $`F_{ext}\left(t\right)=F_0\mathrm{cos}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_Mt+\varphi \right)`$, one gets

$$x\left(t\right)=\frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{sin}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_Mt+\varphi \right)\left[1e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\right].$$
(70)
As $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, we have a slow increase of the amplitude of a monochromatic spectrum. In that limit, one can compute the temporal evolution of the displacement spectrum at resonance,

$$S_x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]=\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)^2\left[1e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\right]^2.$$
(71)
In the case where the monochromatic excitation is switched off at $`t=0`$, one has to take into account the initial conditions which correspond to the forced regime of the oscillator. The Laplace transform of the displacement obeys

$$\left[p^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }p+\mathrm{\Omega }_M^2\right]x\left[p\right]=\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+p\right)x\left(0\right)+\dot{x}\left(0\right),$$
(72)
where:

$`x\left(0\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\mathrm{sin}\left(\varphi \right),`$ (74)
$`\dot{x}\left(0\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\mathrm{cos}\left(\varphi \right).`$ (75)
Using the results of Appendix A, one finds

$`x\left(t\right)`$ $`=`$ $`M\dot{x}\left(0\right)\chi \left(t\right)+Mx\left(0\right)\dot{\chi }\left(t\right)`$ (76)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\mathrm{sin}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_Mt+\varphi \right)e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2},`$ (77)
and the corresponding displacement spectrum is

$$S_x\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M\right]=\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{F_0}{M\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)^2e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t}.$$
(78)


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# Carbon Star Survey of Local Group Dwarf Galaxies. II. Pegasus, DDO 210 and Tucana

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Albert et al. (2000, Paper I) have shown the need of an homogeneous set of C stars data for nearby galaxies if one intends to compare carbon star statistics of Local Group galaxies. A flaw of previously published surveys is the very limited area surveyed in each galaxy, thus requiring ill defined extrapolation to assess the global numbers of C or M stars. For example, Cook, Aaronson & Norris (1986) surveyed only two $`1.5^{}\times 2.5^{}`$ areas in NGC 6822 and IC 1613, representing a few percents of the total area of each galaxy. $`320\times 512`$ pixels CCDs used in the 1980’s yielded few C star candidates in external galaxies. For this reason the published statistics are somewhat uncertain. Pritchet et al. (1987) estimated the C/M ratio of NGC 55 from 12 C stars and 9 M stars for which two were assumed to be foreground dwarfs. Exception to this rule do fortunately exist. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies such as Fornax, Leo I or Phoenix have been entirely surveyed.

Furthermore, different authors have adopted different color limit for the selection of M stars, see Table 1 of Groenewegen (1999). Thus the published C/M ratios are based on statistics for stars later than M0, M3 or M5 making the comparison between galaxies rather difficult. Having the homogeneous survey as a goal, we are then pursuing a systematic survey of Local Group dwarf galaxies to acquire uniform data. This second paper deals with two dwarf irregular galaxies and one dwarf spheroidal galaxy. Table 1 presents the currently known parameters for each galaxy. The size of galaxies is normally based on their bright population. Faint halo of nearby galaxies have been found to extend much farther than their Holmberg radius, see for example the case of DDO 187 investigated by Aparicio, Tikhonov & Karachentsev (2000) and IC 1613 (Paper I).

Pegasus (DDO 216) is among the faint dwarf irregular galaxies of the Local Group. Even though it was discovered in the 1950’s, it was not recognized as a nearby galaxy and possibly a member of the Local Group until Fisher & Tully (1975) detected its HI and measured its radial velocity. Pegasus’ distance has however been somewhat ill defined since its recognition as a possible Local Group member. The first CCD investigation of Pegasus, done by Hoessel & Mould (1982) sets the galaxy well outside the Local Group, at a distance of 1.7 Mpc. A few years later, Hoessel et al. (1990) confirmed this distance using a few newly identified Cepheids. Pegasus’ distance was cut by a factor two by Aparicio (1994) who based his findings on the apparent I magnitude of the tip of the red giant branch. The distance of Pegasus was further reduced by Gallagher et al. (1998) who concluded that Pegasus is metal poor and suffers an unusually large amount of extinction (for an object at b = $`43^{}`$) estimated to be AV = 0.47. As we can see however in Table 1, the adopted distance has little effect on the calculated absolute magnitude of Pegasus. We shall see that the number of C stars in Pegasus is a strong function of its adopted color excess because our criterion is based on the (R–I) color of the candidates. Hoessel & Mould (1982) have identified 21 stars in Pegasus with (B–V) $`>`$ 2.0. They concluded that these stars, with a $`<I>`$ = 21.32, must be carbon stars.

DDO 210, sometimes called the Aquarius system, is a faint dwarf irregular galaxy which kept its original name from the catalog of dwarf galaxies published by van den Bergh (1959). Its membership to the Local Group was deduced from its radial velocity obtained from HI observations by Lo, Sargent & Young (1993) but only recently a reliable distance was determined by Lee et al. (1999).

Tucana is one of the newly identified members of the ever increasing Local Group family. Listed in the Southern Galaxy Catalog (Corwin et al. 1985), this galaxy was overlooked until Lavery (1990) re-discovered it. Saviane et al. (1996) estimated its distance to be 870 kpc. Tucana is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy of type dE5, according to Lavery and Mighell (1992).

## 2 OBSERVATIONS

The observations presented in this paper were obtained at the CTIO 1.5 m telescope with a 2048$`\times `$2048 Tek CCD during a five night run in August 1999. The telescope was employed at the f/13.5 focus, yielding a pixel size of $`0.24^{\prime \prime }`$ and a field of view of $`8.2^{}\times 8.2^{}`$. This field is deemed suitable for the small galaxies under investigation. It further allows to evaluate the foreground contamination. To photometrically identify C stars, we employed the technique used in Paper I and described by Brewer et al. (1995). Standard Kron-Cousins R and I filters are used along with CN and TiO interference filters respectively centered at 810 nm and 770 nm. Both filters have a width of 30 nm.

Sky flats were obtained each night through each filters. Calibration to the standard R, I system was done using Landolt’s (1992) equatorial standards observed during the course of the night. Several equatorial fields were observed along with the T Phe field located at declination of $`46^{}`$. Extinction coefficients and transformation equations were obtained by multilinear regressions. The technique used is similar to the one detailed by Grondin et al. (1990). Once the color term of the magnitude transformation ($`\beta _i`$) and the slope of the color transformation ($`\beta _{ri}`$) were determined for each night, we combined the standards for the five nights to determine one set of coefficients. This set, presented in Table 2, is used to transform all the data. The number of standard stars used in each solution is given in the first column of Table 2.

We have also investigated the possible need of an atmospheric extinction coefficient for the (CN–TiO) color index. During the course of our run, we observed continuously, during nearly six hours, one of our program galaxy Sgr DIG. The CN and TiO observations were analyzed in the same way than the data presented in this paper. The slopes of the instrumental magnitudes versus airmasses for CN and TiO are both identical and equal to $`0.39\pm 0.05`$. We thus conclude that there is no need to take into account the atmospheric extinction for the index (CN–TiO).

After the standard prereduction of trimming, bias subtraction, and sky flat-fielding, the photometric reductions were done by fitting model point-spread functions (PSFs) using DAOPHOT/ALLSTAR/ALLFRAME series of programs (Stetson 1987, 1994) in the following way: we combine, using MONTAGE2, all the images of the target irrespective of the filter to produce a deep image devoid of cosmic rays. ALLSTAR was then used on this deep image to derive a list of stellar images and produce a second image where the stars, found in the first pass, are removed. This subtracted image is also processed through ALLSTAR to find faint stars missed in the first pass. The second list of stars is added to the first one. The final list is then used for the analysis of the individual frames using ALLFRAME. This program fits model PSFs to stellar objects in all the frames simultaneously.

The exposure times were selected to provide a S/N = 20 for stars whose magnitude is one magnitude fainter than the expected median magnitude of the C stars. We set, from previous experience, the length of the CN and TiO exposures at least three times the I exposures. The journal of the observations presented here, is given in Table 3. In the I wave band, C stars are among the brightest stars in dwarf galaxies. Thus, we do not need to explore several magnitudes below the red giant tip to observe them all. For this reason, we can survey Local Group galaxies with a medium size telescope.

### 2.1 Comparison with published photometry

Aparicio & Gallart (1995) have published VRI photometry of Pegasus. The file of photometry was kindly provided by Dr. Aparicio. We are thus in position to compare our magnitudes and colors (BD) with theirs (AG). We were able to match some 1200 stars common to both studies. We compute the following differences.

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_i=I_{BD}I_{AG}=0.018\pm 0.002$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{ri}=(RI)_{BD}(RI)_{AG}=0.043\pm 0.002$$

The color difference is reduced to –0.007 if one compares only stars with (R–I) $`>`$ 0.7. Our magnitudes are thus in excellent agreement with those of Aparicio & Gallart but our overall colors may show a slight color effect relative to their colors. . The Pegasus photometry of Hoessel & Mould (1982) is not in the same photometric system than ours, the magnitude comparison would be quite laborious. It is also nearly impossible to identify the stars from their published small scale photograph.

A similar test can also be done with the short table published by Lee et al. (1999). They, however, do not quote uncertainties for their magnitudes. Comparison of I magnitude of 26 stars, common to both investigations, yields $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ = –0.02. A list of Tucana photometry was also published by Saviane et al. (1996). Similarly to the DDO 210 data, no uncertainties are quoted. Furthermore most of their I magnitudes are quite faint and not suitable to be compared with our data. We find, from the comparison of 57 stars, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ = –0.05. These three comparisons give us confidence in our magnitudes and colors.

## 3 RESULTS

### 3.1 Color excess and extinction in our photometric system

Since we used Kron-Cousins R and I filters, it is necessary to transform published extinctions and color excesses into that system. The relation E(R–I) = 0.82E(B–V) established by Schmidt (1976) holds for the Johnson’s R and I filters. However, from Fernie’s (1983) relationship between the Kron-Cousins (KC) (R–I) and the Johnson (R–I) for red stars, one sees that the E(R–I) color excess in both systems are nearly identical. We then take Schmidt’s relation to calculate the reddening and adopt the relationship between the extinction A$`_{I_{KC}}`$ and the color excess from Dean et al. (1978): A$`_{I_{KC}}`$ = 2.4E(R–I).

The interstellar extinction has very little effect on the (CN – TiO) color index because the two wavelengths are near each other. We calculate that E(CN – TiO) corresponds to 4% of the E(B–V), thus quite negligible for the galaxies under study. For extreme cases, such as IC 10 which has nearly one magnitude of reddening, one would have to take into account the (CN – TiO) reddening.

### 3.2 Selection of C and M stars

We adopt, for the distinction between C and M stars, the same criteria employed in Paper I. The identification of C and M stars is based on the location of the stars in the color-color diagram. The two zones are drawn following the criteria of Paper I. The R–I = 0.90 blue limit follows Brewer et al. (1995) original definition. It applies however to a reddening free color-color diagram. The (CN–TiO) index is not expected to vary continuously from M giants to C stars. Carbon suddenly have bands not seen in M stars. The intermediate S stars, with weak CN and TiO bands, are very rare. They will have a (CN–TiO) even more negative than the M stars. Furthermore, C stars are not expected to define a narrow region in the color-color diagram (Cook & Aaronson 1989). This explains why a larger scatter is observed for C stars than for M stars.

The color-color diagram of Pegasus is shown in Figure 1. Here we plot only stars for which $`\sigma _{RI}<0.1`$. This essentially corresponds to stars brighter than I $``$ 21.25 and with $`\sigma _{CNTiO}<0.16`$. Relaxing this condition would increase the number of fainter C star candidates but we believe that the reality of their nature would be questionable.

Our observations reveal that there are some forty C stars in Pegasus, three C stars in DDO 210 and none in Tucana. The color-color diagrams obtained for DDO 210 and Tucana are presented respectively in Figure 2 and Figure 3. The controversy relative to the extinction toward Pegasus compels us to take into account the possibility that its extinction could be unusually hight. We discuss this alternative in the next section. The 40 C star candidates in Pegasus, with (R–I) $`>`$ 0.92 are listed in Table 4. The J2000 equatorial coordinates were established using ESO’s Skycat facility and the IRAF tasks CCMAP and CCTRAN. I magnitudes and colors, along with their uncertainties, are presented. Note that this set of C stars is selected by assuming that E(R–I) = 0.02. If the color excess is larger, then one would have to move the blue limit of (R–I) to a redder value. Similar data are presented for the three C stars found in DDO 210 in Table 5.

## 4 DISCUSSION

### 4.1 The evaluation of foreground M stars

The galaxies selected for our CTIO observations are intentionally small for the CCD field. We can then use the distribution of M stars in the periphery to evaluate the foreground contribution to the total number of M stars. The worst case for this evaluation is Pegasus because its C star distribution occupies about 70% of the CCD field. C and M stars of the Pegasus field are plotted on Figure 4. The galaxy extends diagonally across the field. We select the two corner areas, defined by the dotted lines, as representative of the foreground M star population. The number of M stars, to be compared with the number of C stars, is given in Table 6 where N$`_{M_{fg}}`$ refers to the number of foreground stars to be deleted from the total number of M stars, thus yielding a true C/M ratio. For DDO 210, which is aligned E – W, the foreground M stars are evaluated from strips north and south of the galaxy. The magnitude distribution of M stars in the Pegasus field is compared to the distribution of the foreground M stars in the upper panel of Figure 5. Essentially, all M stars brighter than $`I19.6`$ are foreground stars. The lower panel of Figure 5 reveals that there is no M stars in Pegasus redder than R–I = 1.6, corresponding to spectral type M5 (Thé et al. 1984). The same limit was found in IC 1613 (Paper I).

### 4.2 The number of C stars and the MV of the parent galaxy

The number of C stars in a galaxy appears to be function of its mass and also of its metal abundance. Such relationships have been presented recently by Groenewegen (1999). We present, in the top panel of Figure 6, what we believe to be the most reliable log(Nc) vs MV relationship. Only galaxies which have been fully surveyed are presented, this condition excludes the Magellanic Clouds. Dwarf spheroidals with blue C stars are excluded: only Fornax (104 C stars) and Leo I (16 C stars) remain. According to this relation, galaxies brighter than MV = $`15`$ are expected to contain several hundred C stars. Excluding the Magellanic Clouds, at least half dozen Local Group dwarfs are as bright as this magnitude. It will eventually be interesting to compare the number of C stars in galaxies of the same absolute magnitude but of different metallicity. NGC 147 and NGC 185, two companions of M31, offer this possibility.

### 4.3 C stars and the extinction toward Pegasus

It would be useful if the observed photometric properties of the C stars in Pegasus could shed some light on the exact value of the extinction along its line of sight. We present, in Table 6, a summary of the photometric properties of C stars in the program galaxies and the calculated C/M ratios. Two entries for Pegasus corresponding to the two currently assumed color excesses are presented. If the color excess of Pegasus is E(R–I) = 0.12, corresponding to E(B–V) = 0.15, we have to select its C and M stars among stars with (R–I) $`>`$ 1.02. This shift reduces both the number of C stars and the number of M stars, thus modifying slightly the C/M ratio.

According to Gallagher et al. (1998) Pegasus does not only suffer a substantial amount of extinction but is also metal poorer that previously believed. The median color of C stars is known to be a function of the \[Fe/H\] of the parent galaxy. From the data of Table 6, we can then investigate how the $`<(RI)_{}>`$ for the two alternatives fits other galaxies. The relevant data, taken from Paper I and this paper, are displayed in the lower panel of Figure 6. Pegasus is represented by the two open squares. One sees that both the high color excess with low metallicity and the low color excess with larger metallicity fit the relation. If the reddening of Pegasus is high, its number of C stars would be 30, such number would still fit the relation between numbers and absolute magnitudes displayed in the upper panel of Figure 6. The AGB models of Groenewegen & de Jong (1993) show that the mean bolometric magnitudes of C stars in the Galaxy and in the LMC are essentially identical, thus possibly independent of the abundance. Current data, on hand, suggest that the median absolute I magnitude of C stars is fairly constant from galaxy to galaxy and is $`M_I4.6`$. Our data from Table 6 along with those assembled in Table 1 lead, for Pegasus, to median magnitudes of –4.4, for the low reddening, and –4.2 for the high reddening. The high reddening yields marginally too faint C stars, if the universality of $`<M_I>`$ is indeed valid.

Clues, as to the precise extinction toward Pegasus, must then come from independent sources and not from C stars. Krienke & Hodge (1998, 2000) have investigated colors of background galaxies seen in the field of Pegasus. They found that background galaxies suffer little reddening when their colors are compared to mean colors of galaxies as compiled by Buta et al. (1994, 1995). This finding suggests that the color excess of Pegasus is normal for its galactic latitude. It is indeed low and Pegasus does have some 40 C stars. The color-magnitude diagrams of Pegasus and the DDO 210 fields are displayed in Figure 7. Stars with $`\sigma _{RI}<0.3`$ are plotted. We see that we have acquired the first two magnitudes of the giant branch. The C stars nicely fit on the extended giant branch. One notices that DDO 210 is at a lower galactic latitude than Pegasus because of the obvious ridge seen at R–I = 0.4.

### 4.4 DDO 210

C02, one of the three C stars of DDO 210, is located 3.2 arcmin from the center of the galaxy. At the distance of DDO 210, this corresponds to nearly 1 kpc from center of DDO 210. It is however along its major axis and well within the region where the old population of DDO 210 is found (Lee et al. 1999). The three stars of DDO 210 are fairly bright when compared to the ones of Pegasus. Could these three stars actually represent the brightest members of an unobserved large population? At least two facts suggest otherwise. First, if we reasonably relax our acceptance criterion, such as allowing stars with larger color errors to be accepted as C stars, we obviously can increase the number of carbon star candidates in DDO 210. The added candidates however are distributed all over the CCD fields and are much fainter than the three listed in Table 5. They do not represent a slightly fainter population in DDO 210. Second, the number of C stars in dwarf galaxies is roughly a function of their mass or absolute magnitude, as we have shown in Fig. 6. DDO 210 is among the faintest dwarf galaxies and it is therefore expected to have few C stars, possibly 4 C stars according to Fig. 6. Thus the C stars in DDO 210 may be unusually bright. Furthermore, DDO 210 must have very few M giants. Our foreground estimate of M stars is identical with the total number of M stars seen in the field. According to the Groenewegen & de Jong (1993) synthetic AGB models, the bulk of M stars is over one magnitude fainter than the C stars, thus a few undetected fainter ones might be present.

## 5 CONCLUSION

The identification of C stars in a dwarf galaxy points to the presence of an intermediate age population. We have here presented observations of three low mass galaxies. Their numbers of C stars are rather low and preclude further detailed analysis at the present time. Data for Pegasus and DDO 210 indicate that C stars are certainly not restricted to the core of these galaxies but extend into their halo. C stars in IC 1613 extend further out than its observed HI (Paper I). The HI maps of DDO 210 and Pegasus produced by Lo et al. (1993) show also that the neutral hydrogen is more concentrated than the C stars. C stars could then be more useful than HI to investigate the kinematics of the periphery of disk galaxies such as M31, NGC 55 or WLM. The universality of the median I magnitude of C stars appears, following the DDO 210 observations, to be far from certain. One would definitively need to confirm this with a galaxy with several dozen C stars. Several luminous Local Group dwarf galaxies need to be surveyed for C stars.

This project is supported financially, in part, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (S. D.).


text:
# Hole dynamics in noble metals

\[

## Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of hole dynamics in noble metals (Cu and Au), by means of first-principles many-body calculations. While holes in a free-electron gas are known to live shorter than electrons with the same excitation energy, our results indicate that $`d`$-holes in noble metals exhibit longer inelastic lifetimes than excited $`sp`$-electrons, in agreement with experiment. The density of states available for $`d`$-hole decay is larger than that for the decay of excited electrons; however, the small overlap between $`d`$\- and $`sp`$-states below the Fermi level increases the $`d`$-hole lifetime. The impact of $`d`$-hole dynamics on electron-hole correlation effects, which are of relevance in the analysis of time-resolved two-photon photoemission experiments, is also addressed.

\]

Detailed and quantitative understanding of hot-electron and photo-hole dynamics is the prerequisite for any tailoring of technological processes in solid-state physics and surface chemistry, which are governed by charge transfer and electronic excitations. In particular, the quasiparicle lifetime, i.e., the time a quasiparticle propagates without loosing its phase memory, represents a basic quantity in the analysis of these processes. Experimentally, angle-resolved photoemission (PE) spectroscopy provides direct information on hole lifetimes. A new path for the study of both electron and hole (and spin) dynamics in the time domain was opened by the advent of the time-resolved two-photon photoemission (TR-TPPE) technique. In these ”pump-probe” experiments, the emitted photoelectron is measured both with energy and momentum resolution; electron and hole lifetimes are then measured at well-defined $`𝐤`$-space points, by combining the band mapping capabilities of photoemission with the time resolution of nonlinear optical spectroscopy.

The theoretical framework to investigate the quasiparticle lifetime has been based for many years on the free-electron gas (FEG) model of Fermi liquids, characterized by the electron-density parameter $`r_s`$. In this simple model and for either electrons or holes with energy $`E`$ very near the Fermi level ($`EE_F`$), the inelastic lifetime is found to be, in the high-density limit ($`r_s<<1`$), $`\tau (E)=263r_s^{5/2}(EE_F)^2\mathrm{fs}`$, where $`E`$ and $`E_F`$ are expressed in $`\mathrm{eV}`$. Several other free-electron calculations of electron-electron scattering rates have also been carried out, for electron/hole energies that deviate from the Fermi level, within the random-phase approximation (RPA) and with inclusion of exchange and correlation effects. Nevertheless, detailed TR-TPPE experiments have reported large deviations of measured hot-electron lifetimes from those predicted within the FEG model. Moreover, while holes ($`E<E_F`$) in a FEG are known to live shorter than their electron counterparts ($`E>E_F`$) \[for the same excitation energy, the momentum of the hole is smaller than the electron momentum, thus yielding a larger number of available transitions\], recent TR-2PPE measurements have demonstrated clearly that the $`d`$-hole lifetime at the top of the Cu $`d`$-bands is considerably slower than that of excited electrons with the same excitation energy. Subsequently, recent PE measurements have arrived at the same conclusion for all three noble metals Cu, Ag, and Au. First-principles calculations of electron lifetimes in a variety of metals have been carried out only very recently, by using the GW approximation of many-body theory. These calculations show that band-structure effects play a key role in the quasiparticle-decay mechanism. Furthermore, hot-electron lifetimes are found to strongly depend on the momentum of the quasiparticle, especially in the case of metals with a band structure having van Hove-like singularities in the vicinity of the Fermi level.

During the electron-pump process induced by the first ultrashort laser in TR-TPPE experiments, a hole is created in the Fermi sea. This hole can be filled with an electron from below the Fermi level, via Auger decay, higher-order excitations, or electron-phonon interactions. The understanding of the hole decay is fundamental for the description of the ulterior dynamics of the excited electron (probed by the second laser). Furthermore, the dynamics of the hole is interesting by itself, as it is a fingerprint of differences between electron and hole wave functions. These differences yield distinct behaviours of electron and hole lifetimes, which depend on both the energy and the momentum of the quasiparticle.

In the present letter, we address the first stage of a TR-2PPE experiment by investigating the hole-quasiparticle dynamics, and report first-principles many-body calculations of the decay rate of $`d`$-like holes in Cu and Au. Details of the formalism we use for the evaluation of decay rates are described in Ref.. The basic equation for the damping rate of a hole in the state $`\varphi _{n,𝐤}(𝐫)`$ with energy $`\epsilon _{n,𝐤}<E_F`$ is (we use atomic units throughout, i.e., $`e^2=\mathrm{}=m_e=1`$)

$$\tau _{n,𝐤}^1=2𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐫^{}\varphi _{n,𝐤}^{}(𝐫)\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝐫,𝐫^{};\epsilon _{n,𝐤})\varphi _{n,𝐤}(𝐫^{}),$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝐫,𝐫^{};\epsilon _{n,𝐤})`$ represents the quasiparticle self-energy, which we compute within the GW approximation of many-body theory. For the evaluation of both the initial state of Eq. (1) and all wave functions entering the quasiparticle self-energy, we first expand the one-electron Bloch states in a plane-wave basis (PW), and then solve self-consistently the Kohn-Sham equation of density-functional theory (DFT). Though all-electron schemes, such as the full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave (LAPW) method, are expected to be better suited for the description of $`d`$-bands, the PW pseudopotential approach has already been succesfully incorporated in the description of the dynamical response of copper. Both PW and LAPW calculations produce almost identical results, showing the correct overall band structure. Nevertheless, they both predict the entire $`d`$-band manifold to be $`0.5\mathrm{eV}`$ higher than shown by photoemission experiments.

The quasiparticle decay rate in periodic crystals depends on both the wave vector $`𝐤`$ and the band index $`n`$ of the initial Bloch state. Nevertheless, we also define $`\tau ^1(E)`$, as the average of $`\tau ^1(𝐤,n)`$ over all wave vectors and bands lying with the same energy $`E`$ in the irreducible wedge of the BZ. Our full band-structure calculations of the average lifetime $`\tau (E)`$ of holes ($`E<E_F`$) in Cu and Au are presented by open circles in Figs. 1a and 1b, respectively. For comparison, full band-structure calculations of the average lifetime of electrons ($`E>E_F`$) are exhibited by solid circles, and FEG calculations \[with $`r_s=2.67`$ for Cu and $`r_s=3.01`$ for Au\] are represented by solid ($`E>E_F`$) and dotted ($`E<E_F`$) lines. These results indicate that holes in noble metals exhibit considerably longer lifetimes than electrons with the same excitation energy, which is in agreement with accurate TR-2PPE and PE measurements of $`d`$-hole lifetimes reported in Refs. and , respectively. Moreover, at energies near the top of the $`d`$-bands the hole lifetime strongly deviates from the $`\tau (E)(EE_F)^2`$ quadratic dependence predicted within the FEG model, as first pointed out by Petek et al.

Both electrons and holes exhibit lifetimes that are well over those predicted within the FEG model of the solid, due to a major contribution from occupied $`d`$ states participating in the screening of electron-electron interactions, and differences between electron and hole lifetimes stem from the intrinsic properties of Bloch states above and below the Fermi level. Whereas Bloch states above the Fermi level have mainly $`sp`$-like character, states just below the Fermi level have a small but significant $`d`$-component, which increases when the $`d`$-band threshold is reached. This difference accounts for the larger hole lifetime for energies very near the Fermi level, as shown in Fig. 1. At the top of the $`d`$-bands \[$`1.5`$ and $`1.7\mathrm{eV}`$ below the Fermi level in Cu and Au, respectively\], the low overlap between $`d`$\- and $`sp`$-states below the Fermi level yields a dramatic increase in the hole lifetime, especially in the case of Cu, which cannot be explained with use of the FEG model. As the hole energy decreases ($`|EE_F|`$ increases), both the increased phase space for the hole to decay and the larger overlap for hole-hole scattering within the $`d`$-bands lead to a rapid decrease of the hole lifetime.

This physical scenario for the hole dynamics in noble metals is drawn in Fig. 2, where the ratio between hole and electron lifetimes in Cu (solid circles) and Au (open circles) is plotted as a function of the hole/electron energy with respect to the Fermi level. Though calculated lifetimes of both electrons and holes in Au are much longer than in Cu, due to a larger participation of occupied $`d`$ states in the dynamical screening of the former, different ratios between hole and electron lifetimes are only observed at energies near the top of the $`d`$ bands. As $`5d`$-bands in Au are more free-electron-like than $`3d`$-bands in Cu, the larger overlap between $`d`$ and $`sp`$-states below the Fermi level in Au yields an increase in the hole lifetime at $`|EE_F|1.7\mathrm{eV}`$ in this material that is not as dramatic as in the case of Cu. This different behaviour of hole lifetimes in Cu and Au emphasizes the crucial role that the overlap of the $`d`$-hole with unoccupied $`sp`$\- and $`d`$-hole states play in the hole decay mechanism. As $`|EE_F|`$ increases, the ratio between hole and electron lifetimes resembles that predicted by the FEG model of the solid, which is plotted in the inset of Fig. 2 for $`r_s=2.67`$.

$`d`$-bands in the noble metals open in the vicinity of the high-symmetry $`X`$-point. Hence, we have calculated lifetimes of holes with the wave vector along the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }X`$ direction in Cu. At the top of the $`d`$-bands, at the $`X_5`$ point with $`EE_F=1.5\mathrm{eV}`$ and the $`X_2`$ point with $`EE_F=1.7`$, we obtain $`d`$-hole lifetimes of $`99`$ and $`90\mathrm{fs}`$, respectively, much larger than lifetimes of electrons with the same energy, showing the role that the low overlap of $`d`$-holes with unoccupied $`sp`$-hole states play in the determination of the hole lifetime. Though these calculated values of $`d`$-hole lifetimes cannot be directly compared with experiment, since the measured $`d`$-band threshold in Cu is located at $`2\mathrm{eV}`$ below the Fermi level, our calculations are in agreement with the experimental observation that the narrowest linewidths correspond to the top of the $`d`$-bands. In the case of holes with the wave vector along the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }L`$ direction in Cu, the hump of Fig. 1a at $`EE_F1.5\mathrm{eV}`$ is absent and the calculated lifetimes decrease with a quadratic \[$`\tau (EE_F)^2`$\] energy scaling. Instead, the hump of Fig. 1a is mainly originated in the contribution to the average lifetime from $`𝐤`$ vectors along the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }X`$ direction, where the opening of the $`d`$-bands occurs, thereby showing a distinct behaviour of hole lifetimes along various symmetry directions.

As $`d`$-holes in noble metals are found to live longer than $`sp`$-electrons with the same excitation energy, the majority of electrons excited by the first probe pulse in a TR-2PPE experiment feels the field created by the existing hole, thereby altering the electron dynamics. Hence, the TR-2PPE hot-electron lifetime measurements include, in a complex way, contributions from the joint electron-hole (exciton) dynamics. In the case of semiconductors, this excitonic renormalization is known to strongly modify the single-particle optical absorption profile, so it certainly needs to be included in electronic-screening calculations. In principle, excitonic normalization does not play such an important role in the case of metals, because of the large dynamical screening in these materials. However, there is a femtosecond time scale for the building up of the screening. During this ultrashort time, the electron-hole interaction is not fully screened and might modify the lifetime of the excited electron, as measured by the second probe pulse. Hence, there is still much to be done to understand the time-dependent building up of the screening in real metals, as well as the many-body electron and hole correlation effects in the quasiparticle dynamics.

In summary, we have presented a detailed theoretical investigation of inelastic lifetimes of holes in Cu and Au. We have reached the important conclusion that $`d`$-holes in these materials exhibit longer lifetimes than $`sp`$-electrons with the same excitation energy, in agreement with experiment. While a major contribution from occupied $`d`$-states participating in the screening of electron-electron interactions yields both electron and hole lifetimes that are much longer than those of electrons and holes in a FEG, the small overlap between $`d`$\- and $`sp`$-states below the Fermi level is responsible for the lifetime of $`d`$-holes being longer than that of $`sp`$-electrons, especially at the top of the $`d`$-band. As the $`d`$-hole energy decreases ($`|EE_F|`$ increases), both the increased density of states available for the hole-decay mechanism and the larger overlap for hole-hole scattering within the $`d`$-bands yield a rapid decrease of the hole lifetime. Although our full band-structure calculations predict longer lifetimes than measured in the experiment, they are in agreement with the experimental observation that the narrowest linewidths correspond to the top of the $`d`$-bands. Also, our results highlight new effects related to the electron-hole interaction occurring during the time delay between the two laser pulses in TR-2PPE spectroscopy, which may be of great importance in the interpretation of these experiments. The present results are general, they can be applied to the study of other $`d`$-metals, and can also be extended to the investigation of spin dynamics.

We acknowledge partial support by the University of the Basque Country, the Basque Hezkuntza, Unibertsitate eta Ikerketa Saila, and the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Cultura.