text:
# On the peculiar X–ray properties of the bright nearby radio-quiet quasar PDS 456.

## 1 Introduction

The average 2–10 keV X–ray spectrum of low/medium-redshift quasars observed with EXOSAT (Comastri et al. 1992; Lawson et al. 1992), Ginga (Williams et al. 1992; Lawson & Turner 1997) and ASCA (Reeves et al. 1997; George et al. 2000) is well represented by a power law with a slope similar to that of lower luminosity Seyfert 1 galaxies ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 1.9–2.0, Nandra & Pounds 1994) and significant dispersion around the mean value $`\sigma `$ 0.2–0.3. The typical imprints of reprocessing gas (i.e. the reflection “hump” and the K$`\alpha `$ emission line), which characterize the spectra of Seyfert 1 galaxies (Nandra & Pounds 1994; Nandra et al. 1997) are however not present in high luminosity objects.
Indeed, only a small number of quasars have a spectrum more complex than a simple power law (plus, sometimes, a soft excess at low energies). This fact has been tentatively ascribed to different physical conditions of the accreting gas in the innermost regions surrounding high-luminosity quasars with respect to Seyfert galaxies. Iwasawa & Taniguchi (1993) suggested the existence (based on Ginga data) of an X–ray “Baldwin” effect, whereby the equivalent width of the iron K$`\alpha `$ line decreases with luminosity. Nandra et al. (1997, 1999) have recently confirmed and extended this result using ASCA data. Both the profile and strenght of the K$`\alpha `$ line change with luminosity. In particular, for luminosities of 1045-46 erg s-1, ionized iron lines have been detected in a few radio-quiet quasars (RQQs) (Nandra et al. 1996; Yamashita et al. 1997; George et al. 2000). At higher luminosities there is no evidence for any emission line at all (Nandra et al. 1999; Vignali et al. 1999). Unfortunately, high-luminosity quasars are usually found at relatively high-redshift and therefore are rather weak in X–rays, making the study of spectral features extremely difficult.
High luminosity quasars differs from Seyfert 1s also in the observed shape of the X–ray continuum. Recent studies have suggested that high-redshift RQQs (Vignali et al. 1999) have flatter X–ray spectral slopes than lower redshift objects (George et al. 2000). However, it is not clear whether the spectral flattening is a function of redshift, implying a flattening of the continuum towards high energies, or rather it depends on the luminosity, thus suggesting a different emission mechanism at high luminosities.
Luminous radio-quiet quasars in the local Universe are rare. In this regard, PDS 456 is an exception and could provide hints on the nature of some of the properties described above, which are of great relevance to the physics of AGNs. PDS 456 is a bright (B=14.7) nearby (z = 0.184, Torres et al. 1997) radio-quiet quasar (S$`_{1.4GHz}`$ = 22.7 mJy, Condon et al. 1998; radio-loudness RL = $``$0.7, Reeves et al. 2000) close to the Galactic plane (l = 10.39, b=11.16; NH $``$ 2 $`\times `$ 1021 cm-2, Dickey & Lockman 1990). The bolometric luminosity (L $``$ 1047 erg s-1; Reeves et al. 2000) makes PDS 456 more luminous than the nearby (z = 0.158) radio-loud quasar 3C 273, without being jet-dominated. The ASCA and RXTE quasi-simultaneous observations discussed by Reeves et al. (2000) reveal the presence of a deep edge–like feature at E $`>`$ 8 keV which is likely to be due to highly ionized iron atoms. The 2–10 keV flux doubled its intensity during a strong outburst which lasted for about 4 hours.

In order to further investigate the peculiar properties of this quasar we have carried out a medium–deep observation of PDS 456 with BeppoSAX. The results of the analysis are presented in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 2, compared with a re-analysis of the ASCA observation in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 3 and discussed in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 4. Throughout the paper a Friedmann cosmology with H0 = 50 km s-1 Mpc-1 and q0 = 0.0 is assumed.

## 2 BeppoSAX observation

### 2.1 Data reduction

The Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSAX (Boella et al. 1997a) carries four co-aligned Narrow-Field Instruments (hereafter NFI), two of which are gas scintillation proportional counters with imaging capabilities: the Low Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (LECS, 0.1–10 keV, Parmar et al. 1997) and the Medium Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (MECS, 1.5–10 keV, Boella et al. 1997b). The remaining two instruments are the High Pressure Gas Scintillation Proportional Counter (HPGSPC, 4–120 keV, Manzo et al. 1997) and the Phoswich Detector System (PDS, 13–200 keV, Frontera et al. 1997). The quasar was observed by BeppoSAX on 1998 August 19-20. Data presented in this paper were obtained only with the imaging spectrometers, as PDS 456 has not been detected in the other two instruments. Standard reduction techniques and screening criteria were applied in order to produce useful linearized and equalized event files. A total of 62.7 ks and 29.7 ks have been accumulated for MECS and LECS instruments, respectively. Spectra have been extracted from circular regions of radius 4$`\mathrm{}`$ and 6$`\mathrm{}`$ around the source centroid for the MECS and LECS, respectively. Background spectra have been extracted from both blank-sky event files and from source-free regions in the target field-of-view. No apparent difference between the two spectra have been revealed. The background contributes to about 10 % and 25 % to the MECS and LECS count rates, the total net counts being 6.35$`\pm 0.10`$ $`\times `$ 10-2 in the 1.5–10 keV band and 2.12$`\pm 0.09`$ $`\times `$ 10-2 in the 0.4–4 keV energy range, respectively.
The XSPEC (version 10, Arnaud 1996) program has been extensively used to perform spectral analysis. In this paper errors are quoted at 90 % confidence level for one interesting parameter ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$ = 2.71, Avni 1976), and energies are reported in the source rest frame. In all our models, for both neutral and ionized absorbers, we assume solar abundances as tabulated in Anders & Grevesse (1989).

### 2.2 BeppoSAX spectral results

PDS 456 lies fairly close to the Galactic plane (b $``$ 11). The Galactic H I column density derived by radio measurements is about 2–2.4 $`\times `$ 1021 cm-2 (Dickey & Lockman 1990; Stark et al. 1992). We have checked whether molecular hydrogen, traced by CO emission, is present towards the PDS 456 direction, with negative result (Lebrun & Huang 1984; Dame et al. 1987). Therefore a value of 3 $`\times `$ 1021 cm-2 (which is similar to the value found from the near-infrared observation of PDS 456 by Simpson et al. 1999) for the Galactic column density has been employed in all the spectral fits.
The combined BeppoSAX MECS and LECS spectra were first fitted with a single power law plus Galactic absorption. The complexity of the spectrum is evident from the quality of the fit ($`\chi ^2`$/dof = 253/105) and from the data-to-model ratio (Fig. 1). This shows systematic deviations over the entire LECS+MECS band. In particular, an excess of counts below $``$ 1 keV, as well as a strong deficit above 7–8 keV are clearly present, suggesting the presence of additional components at those energies. Furthermore, the monotonic rising of the model/counts ratio between $`1.5`$ and $``$ 5 keV suggests that additional absorption, exceeding the Galactic value, is required.

To cure the strong residuals at energies above 7 keV (see Fig. 1) we added an absorption edge to the power law model (model A in Table 1). The improvement in the fit is highly significant ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$/ $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$dof = 110/2). The best-fit energy of the edge is consistent at 90 % with that of the photoelectric K-edge of Fe xxiv–Fe xxvi. If this identification is correct, then the measured optical depth (see Table 1) implies that a high column density ($`>10^{24}`$ cm-2) of highly ionized matter is reprocessing the primary X–ray continuum of PDS 456 along our line of sight.

Though the fit is largely improved by the addition of the absorption edge, the $`\chi ^2`$ is still unacceptably high (143/103) and the residuals continue to show deviations at E $`<`$ 1 keV. Moreover, the spectral index is very flat ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 0.94$`\pm 0.07`$). An acceptable fit and a more reasonable value for the power law slope ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ 1.3) is obtained adding to model A two additional spectral components (model B): (a) an intrinsic neutral absorber obscuring the hard nuclear power law continuum, and (b) a soft power law, absorbed by the Galactic column density only. The best-fitting soft power law is very steep (though only poorly constrained: Table 1), indicating the presence of a luminous source of soft photons (L$`_{0.52keV}`$ $``$ 5.2 $`\times `$ 1044 erg s-1) in the nuclear environment of PDS 456. The column density of neutral gas absorbing the hard X–ray power law largely exceedes the Galactic value along the line of sight to PDS 456, suggesting a “type-2-like” orientation for this high luminosity radio-quiet quasar.

The phenomenological model B provides a good fit to the observed 0.4–10 keV spectrum (Fig. 2) and good constraints to the various spectral parameters (Table 1, Fig. 3 and Fig. 4). To test the uniqueness of this model and to investigate whether the observed soft excess of photons, compared to the absorbed nuclear power law, is indeed due to genuine emission and not instead to an artifact due to additional complexity in the geometrical or physical status of the matter covering our line of sight to PDS 456, a few different spectral models were tested. More specifically, the soft X–ray power law was eliminated and the full-covering neutral absorber was either replaced by a partial covering absorber, allowing a fraction of the nuclear radiation to escape unabsorbed, or by a mildly ionized absorber transparent at energies lower than $`0.7`$ keV. None of these models was able to provide good quality fits to our data. We also replaced the soft power law with thermal emission from a collisionally ionized plasma, and refitted the data. This did not modify the best-fit parameters of the remaining spectral components, nor improved further the quality of the fit, compared to model B. Moreover, a significant contribution to the soft X–rays from starburst emission is unlikely. Indeed, given a 60–100 $`\mu `$m luminosity of 6–10 $`\times `$ 1045 erg cm-2 s-1 (depending on the assumed IR spectral slope) and relation  in David et al. (1992), only about 5 % of the soft X–ray emission may be due to star-forming emission. We then conclude that PDS 456 shows genuine soft X–ray emission below $`1`$ keV. Such a component is likely to be related to the strong UV bump present in the multiwavelength energy distribution (Reeves et al. 2000).

The energy and optical depth of the absorption edge in model B strongly suggest the presence of highly ionized gas absorbing and/or reflecting the primary radiation. To verify this hypothesys we then replaced the photoelectric edge in model B, with either an ionized reflector (parameterized by the model PEXRIV in XSPEC, Magdziarz & Zdziarski 1995: model C) or an ionized absorber (using the CLOUDY \- Ferland 1996 - based model described in Nicastro et al. 2000a, and adopting the Mathews & Ferland 1987 parameterization for the AGN continuum: model D), and refitted the data. In both cases we left the soft and the hard, reflected/absorbed, power law free to vary independently. Both parameterizations gave acceptable $`\chi ^2`$. The best-fit values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{soft}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{hard}`$ were consistent with each other between the two parameterizations. The hard reflected/absorbed continuum ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ 1.4–1.6) is still much flatter than the soft X–ray power law. Finally, the best-fit ionization parameters are consistent with each others, and their values correspond to a very high ionization state of the matter reflecting/absorbing the nuclear radiation, with iron mainly distributed among species XXI and XXVII. Both models provide then an acceptable description of our data. However, according to Matt, Fabian & Ross (1993), such a high ionized reflector should produce strong (EW $``$ 300–500 eV) fluorescence iron K$`\alpha `$ emission lines at 6.7–6.97 keV. These lines are not observed in our data, the 90 % upper limits on their equivalent width being of 120, 115 and 80 eV for neutral, He–like and H–like ionic species respectively. The corresponding 3$`\sigma `$ limits lie in the range 150–180 eV. We then conclude that, while statistically acceptable, the model including an ionized reflector is not fully consistent with the BeppoSAX data of PDS 456. K$`\alpha `$ emission from highly ionized iron is instead not expected to be strong in the case of an ionized absorber. The predicted strength of these lines depends on the fraction of solid angle covered by the absorber (as seen by the central source), and on the dynamics of the gas (see §4), but does not exceed few tens of eV for the strongest line, fully compatible with our data. A spectrum transmitted by a high column ($`N_{\mathrm{H}_{\mathrm{warm}}}`$ $``$ 4.5 $`\times `$ 1024 cm-2) of highly ionized matter would then self-consistently account for both the observed deep absorption FeXXIV-XXVI K edge and the absence of K$`\alpha `$ line emission from the same iron species (model D, Table 1).

The best-fit spectrum gives a 2–10 keV flux of about 5.7 $`\times `$ 10-12 erg s-1 cm-2, which corresponds to an intrinsic 2–10 keV luminosity of about 1.2 $`\times `$ 1045 erg s-1. At this flux level and given the relatively short exposure time, the source has not been detected at high energies by the PDS instrument (which spends about half of the time to monitor the background). In fact, a 3$`\sigma `$ detection would have been possible only for a power law harder that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $``$ 1.3 (Guainazzi & Matteuzzi 1997). The present upper limit provides therefore only a loose contraint on the high energy spectrum.

## 3 ASCA observation

### 3.1 Data reduction

PDS 456 was observed by the ASCA satellite (Tanaka et al. 1994) on 1998 March 7 during the AO6 phase. The focal plane instruments consist of two solid-state imaging spectrometers (SIS, Gendreau 1995) and two gas scintillation imaging spectrometers (GIS, Makishima et al. 1996), characterized by a good spectral resolution (about 2 % and $``$ 8 % at 5.9 keV, respectively) and broad-band ($``$ 0.6–10 keV) capabilities. The observations were performed in FAINT mode and then corrected for dark frame error and echo uncertainties as suggested by Otani & Dotani (1994). The data were screened with the version 1.4b of the XSELECT package with standard criteria. The final observing time is about 41 ks for both SIS and GIS detectors. Source counts were extracted from circles of 6$`\mathrm{}`$ radius for GIS and 3$`\mathrm{}`$.5 for SIS centered on the source, and background spectra were extracted from source-free regions from the same CCD chip for SIS and from the same field of view for GIS. The source count rates (after background-subtraction) are 6.90$`\pm 0.11`$ $`\times `$ 10-2 and 6.13$`\pm 0.11`$ $`\times `$ 10-2 counts per second for SIS and GIS, respectively.

### 3.2 ASCA spectral results

SIS and GIS data were fitted simultaneously allowing the relative normalizations to be free to vary, to account for residual discrepancies in the absolute flux calibration. The residuals of a single power law fit ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.48\pm 0.04`$, Fig. 5) are similar to those of BeppoSAX and fully consistent with the results reported by Reeves & Turner (2000) in their analysis of the same ASCA data. In particular, a soft excess and an edge appear prominently. No emission line has been detected. The 90 % upper limits for the neutral, He–like and H–like lines are in the 45–70 eV range while, the 3$`\sigma `$ upper limits are of the order of 100–130 eV.

The presence of an ionized edge is fully confirmed by ASCA data ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$dof = 47/2 with respect to a single power law model). The edge spectral parameters are consistent with the BeppoSAX observation but less constrained due to the lower ASCA effective area at E $`>`$ 7 keV. At low-energies, the spectrum clearly shows a soft component. The addition of a power law improves the fit.

Looking for consistency between the BeppoSAX and the ASCA data of PDS 456, we then fitted our chosen parameterization of the BeppoSAX data (model D) to the ASCA data. The edge is fully accounted for by this model. Both the ionization parameter and the warm absorbing column density are in agreement with BeppoSAX values. The ASCA data require a steeper spectral slope ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝐇`$ $``$ 1.6–2.0) and a moderately lower neutral column density, but consistent, within the errors, with the BeppoSAX results.

## 4 Discussion

ASCA and BeppoSAX observations of PDS 456 were taken about 5 months (observer frame) apart. The flux level of the source was lower during the ASCA observation (F$`_{210keV}`$ $``$ 3.6 $`\times `$ 10-12 erg cm-2 s-1) than during the BeppoSAX one (F$`_{210keV}`$ $``$ 5.7 $`\times `$ 10-12 erg cm-2 s-1). A 50 % flux variation over 3 days has been detected by RXTE during a quasi–simultaneous observation with ASCA. The RXTE range of fluxes encompass the ASCA and BeppoSAX measurements. In addition, a strong flare with a doubling time of about 17 ksec is present in the RXTE observation (Reeves et al. 2000). The underlying continuum of the ASCA/RXTE spectrum ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 2.3–2.4) is steeper than the slope obtained from the present analysis of BeppoSAX and ASCA data and from the independent analysis of the ASCA spectrum discussed in Reeves & Turner (2000). The origin of such a discrepancy is unclear. Intercalibration errors between RXTE and ASCA and/or a significant steepening of the continuum spectrum above 10 keV may provide a plausible explanation.

The presence of a prominent ionized iron K edge, with similar values for the best-fit energy and optical depth in RXTE and BeppoSAX data, represents the most striking observed feature in PDS 456 and unambiguosly points to a highly ionized nuclear environment in this quasar. The edge parameters are equally well reproduced by either reflection off or transmission through a highly ionized gas. In the first case the ionization status inferred from the edge energy would imply a strong ($``$ 300–500 eV; Matt et al. 1993) ionized (6.7–6.97 keV) iron line. If the edge originates in a high column density (NH a few 1024 cm-2) warm gas, no strong iron line is expected (see below). The BeppoSAX and ASCA upper limits on the line intensity derived from the present analysis would then favour a transmission model. On the other hand, the tentative detection of a broad iron line in the RXTE data ($`\sigma `$ 1 keV, EW $``$ 350 eV) would instead favour the reflection scenario (Reeves et al. 2000).

To further investigate the properties of the high column density, highly ionized absorber we have carried out more detailed calculations using the photoionization models described in Nicastro, Fiore and Matt (1999) and Nicastro et al. (2000a), which includes photoelectric and resonant absorption as well as gas emission. The best-fit value of the ionization parameter implies that the iron atoms are equally distributed among the 3 highest ionization states: Fe xxv ( $``$ 30 %), Fe xxvi ($``$ 40 %) and Fe xxvii (i.e. fully ionized, $``$ 30 %). In a spherical configuration, the net intensity of the corresponding emission lines depends (a) on the fraction of solid angle (as seen by the central source) covered by the absorber/emitter, and (b) the ratio between the outflowing ($`v_{out}`$) and the turbolence ($`v_{turb}`$) gas velocities. We then ran our models for different values of the covering factor between 0.1 and 1. To maximize the net contribute of line emission, compared to absorption, we used $`v_{out}`$/$`v_{turb}`$ = 5, which guarantees a peak-to-peak separation of absorption and emission lines by the same transition greater than 3 times the width of these features (Nicastro et al. 2000b). The rather uncertain knowledge of the dynamical status of the gas prevents us from a more detailed treatment. The results indicate that the total equivalent width of the line blend (including recombination, fluorescent and intercombination lines) never exceeds $``$100 eV, a value lower than the upper limits derived from ASCA and BeppoSAX data, leading further support to the transmission model. Finally, the 0.1-2 keV continuum-plus-line fluxes predicted by these models allowed us to estimate the maximum contribution of gas emission to the soft component measured in both the BeppoSAX and ASCA data to be not larger than $``$ 20 %.

## 5 Conclusions

The most important results obtained from the BeppoSAX observation of the luminous quasar PDS 456 can be summarized as follows:

* The BeppoSAX observation confirms the presence of a deep ionized K edge discovered by RXTE at $``$ 8.5–9 keV implying the presence of highly ionized gas around the central source.
* The absence of significant iron line emission in both the BeppoSAX and ASCA data favours a model where the hard X–ray continuum is absorbed by a high column density of highly ionized gas. Further spectral complexity is present at lower energies, requiring the presence of an additional cold (or weakly ionized) absorber.
* The high luminosity of PDS 456 ($`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ $``$ 1047 erg s-1) and the properties of the absorbing medium which partially hides the X–ray source make this object a good candidate to test the emission mechanisms and reprocessing in quasars.

Further investigations with CHANDRA and XMM would be extremely helpful to assess the nature of the X–ray emission (both in the soft and in hard X–rays domain) and the ionization state of the absorbing matter. Moreover, X–ray spectroscopy of others bright, relatively nearby quasars would be very important to check whether PDS 456 is an exceptional object or the imprints of highly ionized high column density gas are common in luminous quasars. A better knowledge of the X–ray properties of bright AGN would also allow to probe the physics of accretion processes at high luminosities.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank all the people who, at all levels, have made possible the BeppoSAX mission. We also thank all the members of the ASCA team who operate the satellite and maintain the software and database. This work has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under contract with the National Aereonautics and Space Administration, of data obtained through the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Online Service, provided by the Goddard Space Flight Center and of the Simbad database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. The authors would like to thank the referee, S. Komossa, for her suggestions who improved the quality of the paper. Financial support from Italian Space Agency under the contract ARS–98–119 is ackowledged by C. V., A. C and G.G.C. P. This work was partly supported by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MURST) under grant Cofin98-02-32. F.N. Aknowledge the NASA grant NAG5-9216.


format: text

text:
# Strange quark matter: mapping QCD lattice results to finite baryon density by a quasi-particle model11footnote 1Supported by BMBF 06DR921 and GSI.

## 1 Introduction

The QCD lattice calculations of the equation of state (EoS) of deconfined matter have advanced to such a level that reliable results for the pure gluon plasma are available . For the two-flavor case an estimate of the continuum extrapolation is at disposal . The EoS of four light flavors  are not yet continuum extrapolated. The physically interesting case of two light flavors and a medium-heavy strange quark is still in progress . All of these ab initio calculations of the EoS of deconfined matter, however, are yet constrained to finite temperatures $`TT_c`$ (here $`T_c`$ is the deconfinement temperature) and vanishing baryo-chemical potential, $`\mu =0`$. While first attempts to calculate the EoS at $`\mu 0`$ are under way , the final results can probably be expected only in a few years. It is therefore a challenge to attempt an extrapolation of the QCD lattice results into the domain of finite baryo-chemical potential. Here we employ a quasi-particle model to accomplish this goal.

Quasi-particle models have proven powerful in describing properties of strongly correlated systems in condensed matter physics. Analogously, one should expect that also strongly interacting matter can be described effectively within quasi-particle models. Indeed, the investigations of $`\varphi `$-derivable self-consistent approximations , combined with hard thermal loop resummation , delivered recently compelling support of a quasi-particle description of deconfined matter. Starting from the QCD Lagrangian a chain of approximations is derived  which results in a quasi-particle model of deconfined matter agreeing with lattice results at $`T>2.5T_c`$. On the other hand, employing the hard thermal/dense loop resummation at finite baryo-chemical potential, further evidence for a quasi-particle description of cold deconfined matter is gained . What is still needed is an interpolating model, which reproduces the QCD lattice data down to $`T_c`$ and, at the same time, extrapolates to finite values of $`\mu `$ even up to $`T=0`$. We present here such a model and apply it to calculate static properties of cold, pure quark stars with strange quarks properly taken into account.

## 2 Quasi-particle model of deconfined matter

With increasing sophistication of QCD lattice calculations of the EoS also phenomenological quasi-particle models have been developed . Of central importance to our model  are the baryon density $`n`$ and the entropy density $`s`$ as quantities which are dominated by the quasi-particle structure of the interacting system.111 This is supported by the $`\varphi `$-derivable approach  where corrections to the quasi-particle picture arise only beyond the resummed leading-loop order contributions . Within the massless $`\phi ^4`$ theory the form of $`s`$ below is obtained by employing the Luttinger-Ward theorem  with a super-daisy resummed propagator and a double-ring $`\varphi `$ functional . Approximating the self-energies of the quarks ($`q`$), with a current mass $`m_{q0}`$, and the gluons ($`g`$) by the gauge-invariant asymptotic values of the 1-loop expressions

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_q^{}`$ $`=`$ $`2\omega _q(m_{q0}+\omega _q),\omega _q^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\left[T^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _q^2}{\pi ^2}}\right]g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2,`$ (1)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_g^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\left[\left(3+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}N_f\right)T^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\mu _q^2\right]g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2,`$ (2)
the densities are given by the standard formulae of ideal gases (labeled by the superscript ”id”) of quarks and gluons with effective masses $`m_i^2=m_{i0}^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_i^{}`$, $`i=(q,g)`$,

$`n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\left\{n_q^{\mathrm{id}}(T,\mu ;m_q[T,\mu ])n_{\overline{q}}^{\mathrm{id}}(T,\mu ;m_q[T,\mu ])\right\},`$ (3)
$`s`$ $`=`$ $`s_g^{\mathrm{id}}(T,\mu ;m_g[T,\mu ])+{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}s_q^{\mathrm{id}}(T,\mu ;m_q[T,\mu ]).`$ (4)
Beyond this resummation of the leading-order contributions, non-perturbative effects are described in the phenomenological quasi-particle model by the effective coupling $`g_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. The requirement $`g_{\mathrm{eff}}(T,\mu )g_{1\mathrm{loop}}`$ at large values of $`T`$ and/or $`\mu `$ ensures the smooth transition to the asymptotic regime.

The corresponding pressure $`p`$ and energy density $`e`$ are $`p=_ip_i^{\mathrm{id}}(T,\mu ;m_i[T,\mu ])B(T,\mu )`$ and $`e=_ie_i^{\mathrm{id}}(T,\mu ;m_i[T,\mu ])+B(T,\mu )`$. The quantity $`B(T,\mu )`$ is not an independent quantity but obtained by integrating $`(p^{\mathrm{id}}/m_i^2)`$ $`(\mathrm{\Pi }_i^{}/T)=(B/T)`$, $`(p^{\mathrm{id}}/m_i^2)(\mathrm{\Pi }_i^{}/\mu )=(B/\mu )`$ which come from the stationarity condition $`\delta p/\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_i=0`$ .

Let us mention two implications of the quasi-particle model. (i) According to the Feynman-Hellmann relation the chiral condensate is given by $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_q\mathrm{\Psi }_qp/m_{q0}0`$ for $`m_{q0}0`$, i.e. for vanishing current quark masses the chiral condensate vanishes in agreement with the chiral symmetry restoration at $`T>T_c`$. (ii) In the asymptotic region, $`T\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mu \mathrm{}`$, an expansion in the coupling yields $`p(T,\mu )=p_0(T,\mu )+p_2(T,\mu )+\mathrm{}`$ thus reproducing the perturbative results  in the orders of $`g^0`$ and $`g^2`$.

## 3 Tests of the model

For the effective coupling strength $`g_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ we chose a regularized parameterization of the 1-loop running coupling strength. The resulting comparison with the QCD lattice data is displayed in figure 1 for various flavor numbers $`N_f`$. Notice the almost perfect agreement with the data which ensures that the other thermodynamical quantities are also nicely reproduced (for details cf. ).

## 4 Extrapolation to $`\mu >0`$

Our model assumes the validity of the underlying quasi-particle structure at finite $`\mu `$. Some limitation of this assumption may arise from the recently debated supra-fluidity and color-flavor locking effects at small temperatures and asymptotically large chemical potentials . However, since many of the discussed effects , which also depend sensitively on the actual strange quark mass (as the phase diagram does already at $`\mu =0`$ ), are near the Fermi surface, the gross properties of the EoS might not be modified strongly.

Since the pressure $`p`$ is a potential it has to fulfill the Maxwell relation $`n/T=s/\mu `$, which results in a partial differential equation for the coupling of the form

$$a_T\frac{g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2}{T}+a_\mu \frac{g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2}{\mu }=b.$$
(5)
A solution for the 4-flavor lattice case  is displayed in the left panel of figure 2. The strong increase of $`g_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ towards smaller values of $`T`$ and $`\mu `$ can be considered as an indication of approaching the phase boundary. Despite of the fact that our model does not allow to make statements on the nature of the deconfinement transition, one can safely conclude that the region of smaller values of $`T`$ and $`\mu `$, not covered by the elliptic characteristics shown in the right panel of figure 2, may be related to confined matter. The order of magnitude of the baryo-chemical potential $`\mu _B=3\mu `$ for the innermost characteristics at $`T=0`$ is 1.4 GeV when choosing the scale $`T_c=160`$ MeV.

Thermodynamic state variables are available in tabular form in . At small $`T`$, the pressure in the small-$`\mu `$ region becomes negative giving a lower bound for the existence of conventional deconfined matter. The energy per baryon, however, at the point of vanishing pressure is quite large, typically in the order of 1.5 GeV for $`N_f=2,3,4`$. That means, even when including strangeness, no hint to stable strangelets arises from our model.

## 5 Pure quark stars with strangeness

To condense the properties of the predicted EoS in a few concise numbers let us consider pure quark stars with locally charge-neutral deconfined matter in $`\beta `$ equilibrium. The chemical potentials of u, d, s quarks and leptons ($`l`$) are related according to $`\mu _s=\mu _d=\mu _u+\mu _l\mu `$. Unfortunately, continuum extrapolated QCD lattice data for the 2 + 1 flavor case with physical quark masses are not yet at disposal at $`T0`$. Therefore, we first guess sets of EoS for the 2 + 1 flavor case at $`\mu =0`$ and then extrapolate them to finite $`\mu `$ at $`T=0`$. In doing so we are guided by the parameter range obtained in . Adding to the pressure the lepton contribution it turns out that the energy density - pressure relation obtained numerically can be approximated by $`e=4\stackrel{~}{B}+\stackrel{~}{\alpha }p`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }=3.1\mathrm{}4.5`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{1/4}200`$ MeV. Note that $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{1/4}`$ is not longer an ad hoc parameter in the spirit of the bag model but a parameter which will be fixed by improving the QCD lattice data for the 2 + 1 flavor case .

Integrating the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations for spherical stars in hydrodynamical equilibrium up to vanishing pressure at the surface one gets the masses and radii as displayed in figure 3. Since the estimated range of $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{1/4}`$ is $`>200`$ MeV, the strange quark stars have small masses ($`M1M_{}`$) and radii ($`R7`$ km).

It should be emphasized that our model does not predict absolutely stable (strange) quark matter. Rather, at smaller values of $`\mu `$ and $`p>0`$ the transition to hadron matter is expected to happen. The static properties of the corresponding hybrid stars depend sensitively on the nature of the confinement transition and details of the hadronic EoS.

## 6 Summary

In summary we present a quasi-particle model for the EoS of purely deconfined matter, which describes the available QCD lattice calculations at $`\mu =0`$ and $`TT_c`$, and map this to finite values of the baryo-chemical potential including properly the strangeness degree of freedom. The model does not point to stable strangelets. The resulting cold, pure quark stars with strangeness are light and small.

At finite temperatures the strange quarks do not play any exceptional role: the self-energies mask nearly all of the finite-mass effect, even having used here $`m_{s0}=150`$ MeV, while recent lattice calculations point to smaller values . This is in agreement with QCD lattice calculations which display for $`p/p_0`$ almost the same values for the 2, 3 and 2 + 1 flavor cases . The gluon abundance near $`T_c`$ is strongly suppressed.

## References


text:
# Multiple current reversals in forced inhomogeneous ratchets

## Abstract

Transport properties of overdamped Brownian paricles in a rocked thermal ratchet with space dependent friction coefficient is studied. By tuning the parameters, the direction of current exhibit multiple reversals, both as a function of the thermal noise strength as well as the amplitude of rocking force. Current reversals also occur under deterministic conditions and exhibits intriguing structure. All these results arise due to mutual interplay between potential asymmetry, noise, driving frequency and inhomogeneous friction.

Fluctuation induced transport in ratchet systems has been an active field of research over the last decade. In these systems in the absence of any net microscopic forces, asymmetric potential can be used to induce a unidirectional particle flow when subjected to an external nonthermal fluctuations. These studies have been motivated in part by the attempt to understand the mechanism of movement of protein motors in biological systems . To this effect several physical models have been proposed under the name of rocking ratchets , flashing ratchets , diffusion ratchets , correlation ratchets , etc. In all these studies the potential is taken to be asymmetric in space. It has also been shown that one can obtain unidirectional current in the presence of spatially symmetric potentials. For these nonequilibrium systems external random force should be time asymmetric  or the presence of space dependent mobility is required . By suitably tuning the system parameters such as temperature, friction coefficient, mass, etc, one can even change the direction of the current. Indeed, the study of current reversal phenomena has given rise to a research activity on its own. The motivation being the possibility of new particle separation devices superior to existing methods such as electrophoretic method for particles of micrometer scale .

Bartussek et. al.  showed the occurrence of current reversal in rocked thermal ratchet with both amplitude of rocking force as well as the temperature of thermal bath. They attributed this current reversal to the “mutual interplay between noise and finite-frequency driving”. Multiple current reversals have also been shown in the deterministic limit of these ratchets when the inertial term is taken into account . However these multiple current reversals in inertial ratchets are not robust in the presence of noise. Beside rocking ratchets current reversals have also been observed in flashing ratchets . We in this work report that that multiple reversals can be achieved even in rocked overdamped ratchet in the presence of space dependent mobility, as a function of the noise strength and amplitude of the rocking force. More over these systems show current reversals when rocked adiabatically. In the deterministic overdamped case we get current reversal as a function of the amplitude of rocking force. Most of our results are attributed to the presence of space dependent mobility. We have studied the same system as due to Bartussek et al , except the presence of space dependent friction term. In earlier work the spatial asymmetry of the potential is responsible for unidirectional currents and their reversal as function of frequency. As mentioned previouly one can get unidirectional currents in the presence of symmetric potentials, but for this space dependent friction is required . In these systems transport direction is given by the phase shift between mobility and periodic potential. This phase shift induces spatial symmetry breaking as required for the directed motion. Appropriately choosing the phase shift leads to current reversal. We would like to emphasize that space dependent friction does not alter the equilibrium property of the system, however when the system is driven out of equilibrium not trivial dynamical effects arise due to space dependent friction . Naturally in our present system we expect additional effects arising due to combination of spatial asymmetry and position dependence of friction coefficient. It is to be noted that systems with space dependent friction are not uncommon. Brownian motion in confined geometries show space dependent friction . Particles diffusing close to surface have space dependent friction coefficient . It is believed that molecular motor proteins move close along the periodic structure of microtubules and will therefore experience a position dependent mobility . Frictional inhomogeneities are common in super lattice structures and Josephson junctions  also.

We consider an overdamped Brownian particle moving in a asymmetric potential V(x) with space dependent friction coefficient $`\eta `$(x) under the influence of external force field $`F`$(t) at temperature $`T`$. Throughout our analysis we take the ratchet potential V(x) = $`\frac{1}{2\pi }(\mathrm{sin}(2\pi x)+\frac{\mu }{4}\mathrm{sin}(4\pi x))`$. Here $`\mu `$ is the asymmetry parameter with values taken in the range $`0<\mu <1`$, friction coefficient $`\eta (x)=\eta _0(1\lambda \mathrm{sin}(2\pi x+\varphi ))`$, $`|\lambda |<1`$. $`\varphi `$ determines the relative phase shift between friction coefficient and potential . The forcing term is taken to be F(t) = A$`\mathrm{sin}(wt+\theta )`$, ($`w=\frac{2\pi }{\tau }`$, where $`\tau `$ is period of force) . Without any loss of generality $`\theta `$ is taken to be zero. The correct Langevin equation for this system in the overdamped limit is given by

$$\dot{x}=\frac{(V^{}(x)F(t))}{\eta (x)}k_BT\frac{\eta ^{}(x)}{(\eta (x))^2}+\sqrt{\frac{k_BT}{\eta (x)}}\xi (t),$$
(1)
where $`\xi (t)`$ is a zero mean thermal Gaussian noise with correlation $`<\xi (t)\xi (t^{})>=2\delta (tt^{})`$ The equation of motion is equivalently described by the Fokker Planck Equation ( FPE)

$$\frac{P(x,t)}{t}=\frac{}{x}\frac{1}{\eta (x)}[k_BT\frac{}{x}+(V^{}(x)F(t))]P(x,t).$$
(2)
where $`P(x,t)`$ is the probability density at position $`x`$ at time $`t`$. Equation (2), in the form of a continuity equation

$$\frac{P(x,t)}{t}=\frac{J(x,t)}{x},$$
(3)
where

$$J(x,t)=\frac{1}{\eta (x)}[(V^{}(x)F(t))+k_BT\frac{}{x}]P(x,t),$$
(4)
is the probability current. Since the potential and the driving force have spatial and temporal periodicity respectively, therefore $`J(x,t)=J(x+1,t+\tau )`$, . The average current $`j`$ in the system is given by

$$j=\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{\tau }_t^{t+\tau }𝑑t_0^1J(x,t)𝑑x.$$
(5)
It should be noted that for symmetric potential and $`\lambda =0`$, $`j=0`$. Rectification of current is possible if the potential is either asymmetric or $`\lambda 0`$ with $`\varphi 0,\pi `$ . $`j`$ is independent of the initial phase $`\theta `$ of the driving force.

We explore various parameter regimes of the problem extensively by solving the FPE, Eq. (2) numerically with finite difference method. Throughout we have set current $`j`$ and all other physical quantities such as $`T`$, $`A`$, $`w`$ in dimensionless form .

In the Fig. 1, the average current $`j`$ is plotted vs $`T`$ for various values of $`w`$. Here $`\lambda =0.1,\varphi =0.2\pi `$, $`A=0.5`$ and $`\mu =1`$. Unlike Bartussek et al. , where they show that current reversal is not possible under adiabatic conditions, however current reversal even in adiabatic condition can be obtained in the present case for some values of $`\varphi `$ . For moderately high frequency $`w=4.0`$ the current reverses its sign twice at $`T=0.1`$ and $`T=0.22`$ and asymptotically goes to zero for higher values of $`T`$ as shown in the figure. This phenomena of twice current reversal with temperature $`T`$ is the foremost feature of our system, previously unseen in any overdamped system. The inset shows the zero contour plot of the current $`j`$ versus $`T`$ and $`\varphi `$ for three values of $`w`$. Crossing this zero contour line implies current reversal. It can be seen that twice current reversal occurs only for a very narrow range of $`\varphi `$. For frequencies higher than certain critical frequency $`w_c(\varphi )`$ current flows in only one direction for all temperatures, i.e no current reversal occurs. The plot $`w_c`$ vs $`\varphi `$ is shown in Fig. 2. The adiabatic curve $`w<1`$ is not shown in the figure as it goes much beyond the scale of the graph. However it has a similar qualitative shape as for $`w=3.0`$ curve. As mentioned before, currents are due to the combined effect of phase shift $`\varphi `$ coming from space dependent friction and asymmetry parameter $`\mu `$. In the regime $`\varphi =0.2\pi `$ and $`A=0.5`$ and in the absence of asymmetry current flows in the negative direction for all values of $`T`$. The asymmetric case ( $`\mu =1.0`$) in the absence of space dependent friction give current in the positive direction only as a function of temperature. Separately in both these cases absolute value of current exhibits a maxima as a function of $`T`$, reminiscent of stochastic resonance phenomena. In a purely asymmetric case ($`\lambda =0`$) current vanishes rapidly when $`T`$ exceeds the temperature associated with the barrier height. Whereas, in the symmetric case due to space dependent friction absolute values of currents are significantly higher and decay slowly to zero in the large temperature regime. Naturally in the presence of both asymmetry and space dependent friction for the case under study the low temperature regime is dominated by the effect of asymmetry while the high temperature regime is dominated by space dependent friction. From this , one can qualitatively explain the current reversals from positive to negative side as a function of temperature even in the adiabatic limit. In the regime $`\varphi >\pi `$ current due to space dependent friction and potential asymmetry flows in same direction and hence no reversal is possible as a function of $`T`$. For frequencies higher than the interwell frequency $`w_0`$, the low temperature scenario changes. The direction of current in this regime is more of a interplay between potential asymmetry and $`w`$ than that of $`\lambda `$. Due to higher frequency the Brownian particles do not get enough time to cross the right barrier which is at a larger distance from the minima. Number of particles moving about the potential minima increases. This fact is amply reflected in Fig. 3, where the time averaged probability curve $`P_{av}(x)=\frac{1}{\tau }_0^\tau P(x,t)𝑑t`$ is plotted as function of $`x`$ for various values of $`w`$ with $`T=0.05`$. It is to be noted that the distribution is independent of $`\eta (x)`$. Figure 3 shows that the probability of finding the Brownian particles near the minima of the potential well increases with increasing frequency, consequently the probable number of particles near the potential barrier decreases. Since the distance from a potential minima to the basin of attraction of next minima is less from the steeper side than from the slanted side, hence in one period the particles get enough time to climb the potential barrier from the steeper side than from the slanted side, resulting in a negative current. On increasing the temperature , the particles get kicks of larger intensity and hence they easily cross the slanted barrier, resulting in a current reversal and positive current. On further increasing the temperature, the effect of $`\lambda `$ dominates as mentioned previously and as a result the current again flows in the negative direction, implying a second current reversal as shown in dotted curve of Fig 1. It is obvious from the above argument that for higher frequency the first reversal temperature will be higher as shown in the Fig. 4. The dotted line in the base of Fig. 4 shows the contour of zero current. But as mentioned previously, since the effect of $`\lambda `$ dominates for higher temperature, therefore the second reversal temperature decreases with increasing frequency. Beyond the critical frequency $`w_c`$ there is no reversal of current as shown in Fig.( 42). In the high frequency regime the effect of space dependent friction dominates the nature of current. We would like to emphasize here that in absence of asymmetry current reversals does not take place.

Multiple current reversals can also be seen when the amplitude ( $`A`$) of the forcing term is varied in a suitable parameter regime of our system. In Fig. 5, the plot of $`j`$ versus $`A`$ is shown for different values of $`w`$, keeping $`\lambda `$, $`\varphi `$ and $`T`$ fixed at 0.1, $`0.88\pi `$ and $`0.05`$ respectively. For $`w=4.0`$ curve, we can see as many as four current reversals. For very large value of $`A`$, the current asymptotically goes to a constant value depending on the value of $`\varphi `$, as was previously shown for the adiabatic case . This value was shown to be $`\frac{\lambda }{2}\mathrm{sin}(\varphi )`$. This is special to the space dependent friction ratchet where the currents saturate to a finite value in the large $`A`$ limit. In the absence of space dependent friction it is to be noted that currents decay to zero in the same asymptotic regime. As the asymptotic value depends on the phase $`\varphi `$, so we can choose it appropriately to make the asymptotic current positive or negative. In the present case $`\varphi `$ is chosen such that the asymptotic current is negative which guarantees at least one current reversal irrespective of frequency. The oscillatory behavior in the $`jA`$ characteristics is the reminiscent of the deterministic dynamics  which will be discussed later. The inset in Fig. 5 shows the zero contour of $`j`$ versus $`\varphi `$ and $`A`$ for $`w=4.0`$. For $`\varphi >\pi `$ only two current reversals can be seen. For $`\pi >\varphi >\pi ϵ`$ (where $`ϵ`$ is a small number ) or $`0<\varphi <ϵ`$, four or more current reversals can occur. The value of $`ϵ`$ depends critically on $`T`$, large for small $`T`$ and vice-versa. It is also to be noted that we have even number of reversals for finite frequency driving. These oscillatory features along with their associated current reversals disappear in the high temperature regime as expected. Figure 6 is for $`w=0.25`$ and shows that current reversal is also possible in the deterministic regime of the overdamped system. This deterministic reversal of current cannot be attributed to the chaotic motion of the system like in an forced underdamped oscillator . It solely arises due the presence of space dependent friction. As shown in Ref.  here too the deterministic current shows quantization and phase locking behaviour. However all these complex features are not robust in the presence of noise as discussed in earlier literature.

In conclusion, we have studied the transport properties of overdamped Brownian particles moving in an asymmetric potential with space dependent friction coefficient and rocked by periodic force. We observe several novel and complex features arising due to the interplay between asymmetry and inhomogeneous friction. Currents in the low temperature regime is mostly influenced by the asymmetry of the potential. At higher temperatures it is controlled by the modulation parameter $`\lambda `$ of the friction coefficient. We find current reversal with temperature even when the forcing is adiabatic. In the presence of finite frequency, twice current reversals are seen. As function of amplitude of the forcing term we observe multiple current reversals. Current even reverses its sign in the adiabatic deterministic regime. All the above results can be understood in a qualitative manner. We expect that our analysis should be applicable for the motion of particle in porous media and for molecular motors where space dependent friction can arise due to the confinement of particles.

MCM acknowledges partial financial support and hospitality from the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. MCM and AMJ acknowledgepartial financial support from the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, DAE, India.


text:
# On the universality of string theory

## 1 Universality

String theory is often also named the “theory of everything” since it is supposed to explain all the fundamental forces and all the elementary particles of nature, including the gravitational force which - as we know from Einstein’s theory of general relativity - is intimately linked to the structure of space-time. But could it not be possible that the story goes on after string theory that we would discover e.g. additional new forces of nature which it does not explain? After all, even the early 20th century believed that electromagnetism and gravity are the only fundamental forces, the discovery of the weak and strong forces came only later since their presence is basically restricted to the level of elementary particles. This question is usually answered by refering to the Planck length. The weak and strong forces were discovered by investigating smaller distance scales than before but a quantum theory of gravity is supposed to provide a smallest length scale in the order of the Planck length and string theory is assumed to be valid down to this scale. Indeed, there are strong arguments that string theory involves such a minimum length, shorter length scales being physically non observable in the same sense as the Heisenberg uncertainty relation shows classical phase space coordinates to be non observable beyond a certain precision (There is a large body of work on this topic in string theory. In order to keep the list of references of this short letter restricted, we refer to \[Pol\] as a general reference for string theory and cite only individual research papers on very special topics not included there.). If we would have a theory which applies down to the Planck scale and if shorter length scales are physically unobservable, it seems that we would really have a final physical theory. A critic who is acquainted with string theory could try to find a loop hole in this argument by pointing out that string theorists themselves believe that the - yet to be discovered - fundamental formulation of the theory might not refer to space-time at all. So, maybe it is simply wrong to assume that gaining new knowledge will necessarily be linked to the necessity to increase space-time precision of measurements. Maybe a full fledged string theory would itself tell us how to pose the right questions ultimately leading beyond itself.

At this point, we should remember Bohr’s discussion of measurement in quantum mechanics which in its basic ideas is applicable to any physical theory, including string theory. The starting point of the argument is that it does not make any sense to try to discuss the question what “physics is really like”. We have to be content with investigating how physics which physicists can know about is like. But irrespective of how ingenious and inventive experimental physicists and high tech engineers will be in the future, any experiment will ultimately have to include some measuring device which - for the purpose of the experiment under consideration - can be supposed to work according to the laws of classical mechanics. The finger pointing to the value of some measured quantity on a scale has to work as a classical device. If you would observe it in e.g. funny quantum superpositions, you would simply not be able to communicate about the results of the experiments with a colleague or to give a conference report about these. So, ultimately higher precision of an experiment has to transform into higher precision of a classical measuring device but, simply because it is a classical device, higher precision means higher precision in the space-time coordinates (e.g. of the finger on the scale). Of course, we can use different scales . We can observe the same effect on a, in total, smaller or larger scale but this is simply a rescaling. It does not prevent from the conclusion that if there is a limit to the increase of space-time precision, there is a limit to the precision of any kind of experiment which human physicists can perform.

So, the conviction that string theory is universal, in the sense that it is not itself the limiting case of yet another more fundamental theory to be dicovered one day by experiments of some very high precision, does not derive from lack of fantasy to imagine e.g. some new exotic forces of nature but from some very fundamental limits.

Can we really gain universal knowledge, even in principle? Of course, in practice string theory will not provide you with the possibility to calculate your success in the stock markets in advance. Since it adheres to the laws of quantum mechanics, string theory has even intrinsic bounds on the knowledge one can gain from it. But accepting the limits of Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation and of practical calculations, the idea of having one day the final physical theory in our hands causes admiration and unease at the same time. And it is not the purely melancholic kind of unease (“the story is finally over, then”) which arises, here, but an unease which is fostered by one of the deepest insights the 20th century has provided us with.

Since Gödel presented his incompleteness theorems, we know that universality can require a price to pay. Hilbert’s program of building mathematics on formal axiomatics and proving that the used axiom systems are free of contradictions, then, would - if successful - also have given mathematics a final form. Indeed, in spite of Gödel’s results, mathematics has found a base in the 20th century in the form of axiomatic set theory which has proved to be universal so far in the sense that any presently known field of mathematics can - in principle (again, this is often not the most useful view in mathematical practice) - be boiled down to constructions in this theory. The price Gödel’s incompleteness theorems require us to pay for this is the never ending richness of models (in the sense of model theory of formal axiomatic systems) which axiomatic set theory has (and which - just by Gödel’s results - no formal axiomatic theory whatever can come to terms with). It is the feeling that the Gödel results tell us a lesson about universality which goes beyond their concrete form as a result about formal axiomatic theories which causes the deeper form of unease one experiences when talking about the final physical theory.

Comparing to Gödel’s results in formal mathematics, we expect that the final physical theory, the “theory of everything”, comes along with an inexhaustible plentitude of models (here, we use the term “inexhaustible” to stress that we do not simply mean infinitely many models but also that they can not be described in a single closed form). This expectation is not in contradiction to the limits on observations we discussed above. Our discussion of physical measurements above applies only to local properties. Strictly speaking, the conclusion we can draw from it is that for any given physical system (of limited volume) there is a final description upon which we can not improve any more by increasing the precision of measurements. The possibility that different local physical systems are described by different models of the “theory of everything” and that there is an inexhaustible plentitude of such models can not be excluded a priori. We will discuss this point in more detail at the end of the next section.

Some warnings aiming at possible misunderstandings are in order, here. Since we required that the models of the final theory can not be described in a single closed form, we can not identify these with the usual initial conditions of a physical theory. Also, we can not identify the models with the different possibilities for Calabi-Yau compactification which arise in string theory. The full background independent formulation of string theory one hopes to discover should live on the full moduli space and therefore is not supposed to be parametrized by different Calabi-Yau manifolds. How should the different models arise, then? We will meet a natural candidate for the price one has to pay for the universality of the “theory of everything” in the next section.

## 2 Is string theory quantum computational?

Recent research has lead to the following two - partly conjectural - scenarios:

* The tangential structure of the moduli space (to be more precise, the so called extended moduli space) of string theory at a Calabi-Yau manifold $`W`$ is described by the total Hochschild complex of the sheaf of holomorphic functions on $`W`$ (\[Kon 1994\], \[Wit\]).
* The possible deformation quantizations of a smooth finite dimensional manifold $`M`$ constitute an infinite dimensional manifold $`𝒟M`$ and the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group acts transitively on $`𝒟M`$ (\[Kon 1999\]).

At first sight, the two points may appear as completely unrelated. But the second one is deeply tied to the Deligne conjecture (a proof of which is announced in \[Kon 1999\]) which states that the operad of chains of the little discs operad naturally acts on the total Hochschild complex of any associative algebra (and using a deep result of cohomology theory, the so called Cohomology Comparison Theorem of \[GeSch\], therefore also on the total Hochschild complex of any sheaf of associative algebras). Now, the automorphism group of the operad of chains of the little discs operad is - at least in considerations up to homotopy - the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group. The generality of the Deligne conjecture suggests, then, that the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group might also describe a fundamental symmetry of the (extended) mduli space of string theory. We present a more detailed discussion of these issues elsewhere and for our present purpose restrict to the remark that the idea that the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group could represent some fundamental symmetry of string theory gets further support from the fact that the Kontsevich formula for the deformation quantization of a finite dimensional Poisson manifold $`M`$ can be derived from a two dimensional conformal field theory with target space $`M`$ (see \[CF\], \[Kon 1997\]). The weights of the Feynman graphs of this two dimensional quantum field theory belong to a subalgebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ of the algebra $`P`$ of periods (the notation indicating that it is the algebra of periods of certain mixed Tate motives). Again, it is conjectured (\[Kon 1999\]) that - roughly speaking - the symmetries of $`P_{,Tate}`$ are described by the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group (much the same way as the symmetries of the algebraic numbers $`\overline{}`$ are described by the absolute Galois group $`Gal\left(\overline{}/\right)`$).

The reader who is not acquainted with part of the technical notions used above should at least keep in mind the following two points for the discussion in the rest of this section:

* There is an algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ over $``$ which is conjectured to determine the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group which in turn might be a fundamental symmetry of string theory.
* The elements of $`P_{,Tate}`$ appear (as the weights of Feynman graphs) in the deformation quantization of any finite dimensional Poisson manifold.

Let us speculatively suppose for the rest of this paper that the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group is a fundamental symmetry of string theory. We could then - in a still more optimistic vein - hope that - as in the case of other physical theories, e.g. general relativity - the symmetry is linked to a basic principle which largely determines the theory. Is there a candidate for a physical principle which determines the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$?

Let us try to give an answer by posing a seemingly quite different question: What is the physically natural choice for an algebra of numbers? Since a computer is a physical device, certainly all numbers which have a realization on a computer have to be considered as physical. The rationals $``$ can be realized on computers and since the operations of arithmetic have a realization, it is clear that the set of “physical numbers” has to be an algebra over $``$. For a classical Turing machine (the model of a universal computer), $``$ is already the maximal set of numbers we can obtain. Even a simple non rational algebraic number like $`\sqrt{2}`$ has no intrinsic realization on a Turing machine. Since we know that nature is not classical but quantum mechanical, we should actually not consider classical Turing machines but quantum computers. The rationals can, of course, be realized there, too, and at first sight it seems that this is the final answer, again. Concerning the question of principal computability, quantum computers are equivalent to classical Turing machines, they only differ from them with respect to computational complexity of problems (see \[Deu\]). But the Kontsevich quantization formula shows that there is a set of numbers \- which is precisely given by the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ \- which is intrinsically defined for any deformation quantization of a Poisson manifold (finite dimensional). So, if we assume a quantum computer to be described by deformation quantization of some classical model, for a quantum computer $`P_{,Tate}`$ should be the algebra of numbers which are physically defined (Of course, assuming that there is a model for quantum computation which can be described in terms of deformation quantization is a true - i.e. non trivial - assumption which we will make in the sequel. It is closely related to assuming that quantum computation can be described by a low dimensional quantum field theory, cf. the work of \[FLW\]). Why is there no contradiction to the results of \[Deu\], here? The answer is that in the quantum computer only the rationals can naturally be realized, as in the case of the classical Turing machine. The way the periods in $`P_{,Tate}`$ arise in the process of quantization - as weights of Feynman graphs - shows that they should be viewed as being linked to a kind of scattering theory done on the system under consideration. Scattering theory means testing the long time behaviour of a system under possible input data. So, we expect that the numbers in $`P_{,Tate}`$ become only observable as intrinsic numbers of a quantum computer when one tests the long term behaviour of the device with all possible kinds of input data. Then they should emerge from the statistics of these tests. Formulated in a down to earth way, one could say that the numbers in $`P_{,Tate}`$ should emerge as statistical coefficients from quantum software testing (there are no intrinsic coefficients of this kind in the classical case). In the language of formal logic these coefficients belong to the meta level (since they refer to testing the device from the outside) and not to the system itself. This is the reason why there is no contradiction to \[Deu\]. But testing a device is in every respect an allowed physical procedure, too. So, a quantum computer should give the much larger algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ as the algebra of physically realized numbers.

In conclusion, let us suggest the following physical principle for determining the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$:

1. All physical systems should be amenable to a real time simulation on a quantum computer and quantum computers should be described as physical systems by deformation quantization of classical Turing machines.
2. The observable quantities of the world should be those which can be determined by observation of quantum computers on quantum computers.

The first part of this principle is quite close to a quantum version of the Church-Turing hypothesis as discussed in \[Deu\]. The real time simulation of quantum systems on a quantum computer is possible for systems with a finite dimensional quantum state space (i.e. for spin systems). The Bekenstein bound on the entropy of systems of finite volume suggests that on a fundamental level local physics should always be describable by systems with finite dimensional quantum state spaces. There are indications that this is true for string theory (see \[Sus\]). We added the requirement that a quantum computer is described by deformation quantization of a classical Turing machine because this is, of course, decisive for our arguments.

Part (1) of the principle means that we can in our mind replace the whole world by a world consisting of quantum computers, only, without changing the physical properties. The assumption of part (2) is quite natural, then. It means that we should take this world of quantum computers at face value and should consider only what quantum computers can determine internally and externally (about each other) as physically observable.

Part (1) leads - as discussed above - to the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$. What is the effect of part (2)? We discussed the testing of quantum software as if done by a classical agent. Part (2) would require to do the testing by a quantum computer, too. But then the classical weights would have to be replaced by operators themselves and, in effect, we would expect an algebra of quantum periods and a $`q`$-deformation of the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group (instead of $`P_{,Tate}`$ and the classical Grothendieck-Teichmüller group) to arise as the fundamental symmetry objects. The (extended) moduli space of string theory, we discussed at the beginning of this section, is a space of classical backgrounds for string theory (this is like considering the Ricci flat metrics as backgrounds for perturbation expansions in general relativity). The full quantum theory will have to include non classical backgrounds, too. We are not going more deeply into this question, here, but it will be discussed in a forthcoming separate publication where we will give technical arguments why one should, indeed, expect the inclusion of non classical backgrounds to lead to quantum deformations of $`P_{,Tate}`$ and the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group.

But part (2) of the suggested principle has even more radical consequences. We can, in principle, imagine a quantum computer testing a quantum computer, at the same time being tested itself by yet another quantum computer, and even an iteration of this process. We would therefore have to deal with iterative deformation quantization of the mathematical structures resulting in each step. On the side of string theory this would mean that full quantized string theory would itself be only one step on a ladder of infinite quantization, an idea which has been uttered in the literature some years ago (\[Gre\]).

At this point we come back to the question of universality of string theory, discussed in the previous section. The above principle leads us to the conclusion that string theory is universal in the sense that the classical theory we have to start from is universal (represented on the mathematical side by the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ and the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group). On the other hand, there is the ladder of quantizations (on the mathematical side represented by iterated quantum deformations of classical mathematical structures). This ladder is comparable to the plentitude of models of a formal axiomatic theory since it means that there is a whole hierarchy of different “quantum realizations” of the universal classical theory. This seems to be the price one has to pay for universality (comparable to the price formal axiomatics has to pay as a consequence of Gödel’s incompleteness results).

###### Remark 1

One could try to find a loop hole in our arguments in the following way: When we argue that the observation of a quantum computer by a quantum computer could be observed by a third one and that this should start a ladder of quantizations, one could argue that one should actually describe the first two computers as a single quantum system observed by the third one. But this is only true if we neglect interactions or if interactions are described approximately in a way (like by a Coulomb law) which still allows for the application of the rules of simple quantum mechanics. We know that on a more fundamental level interactions have to be described by quantum field theories and then a ladder of quantizations arises (as we all know from second quantization). One should keep in mind that the “testing of quantum software” necessarily introduces a decisive interaction - without which the full algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ would not be observable - between the devices. A short but intriguing discussion how the introduction of interactions starts the ladder of quantizations can be found in the introductory chapter of the first volume of \[GSW\].

###### Remark 2

We mentioned an iterative application of $`q`$-deformation, above. For a concrete example - a quantum deformation of quantum groups - the reader may consult \[GS\].

When discussing physical measurements in the previous section, we remarked already that the different models - i.e. the different levels of quantization - of the “theory of everything” can only be realized in terms of different local physical systems. Observing a higher level of quantization means that we have to have the possibility to observe a tower of ever smaller (quantum) effects on a system. Let us recall once again that the limit to this we found in the previous section does apply only to every single system. It does not exclude the possibility that we can observe a level of quantization which is non observable for one system by going to another one. A system which allows for the observation of a larger part of the hierarchy of quantizations has to be capable to provide more information. Since this information can not be gained - as we have seen in the previous section - by increasing the accuracy of position measurements, there is only one possibility to provide this information: The system has to be more complex. We therefore conclude that if the hierarchy of quantizations is observable it has to correspond to a hierarchy of complexity. The different models of the universal theory should correspond to different levels of complexity of physical systems.

The above principle and the work of \[Gre\] suggest - if one asks for the observability of the ladder of quantizations - the following view on string theory: The universality of the classical theory seems to reflect the fact that it is a theory of all the fundamental forces and particles (and thus the constituents of all kinds of matter), i.e. a “theory of everything”. But it does not seem to be a reductionist theory in the strict sense since there seems to be a hierarchy of complexity corresponding to different levels of quantization. For each level of complexity there would be a limit on the information we can obtain from the system, i.e. we could observe the level of quantization up to an $`n`$-th one but the $`k`$-th level for $`kn`$ would be physically unobservable. One suspects that on the level of elementary particle physics it is just the usual quantization of a physical theory which is observable with all the rest of the ladder being non observable.

###### Remark 3

We can not circumvent the levels of complexity by arguing that the system just consists of elementary constituents. It is not a priori clear that we can completely break apart the system in this way. In a theory involving a ladder of quantizations there is no a priori rule which tells us that we have to apply the same level of quantization to the composed system as to the constituents. We expect that when a system becomes complex enough to do an amount of “quantum software testing” which makes the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ observable to it, the critical point for the next level of complexity (or quantization) is reached.

Concluding this section, we mention once again that interactions (the “quantum software testing”) are inextricably linked to each passage to the next higher level of quantization. In a theory following the suggested principle, a “cat”, belonging to a level of complexity which is at least one step higher than the one of elementary particles and atoms, could therefore never become a “Schrödinger’s cat” by an experiment triggered by radioactive decay (following the rules of quantum mechanics, it is not decisive for the “cat” actually to do “quantum software testing” on atoms but what matters is only the possibility that it is, by information capacity, able to do it).

## 3 Conclusion

We have seen that there are strong arguments that string theory should have the property of being the final physical theory but there may be a price for this universality to pay in the form of a ladder of quantizations (corresponding to a hierarchy of complexity). A possible fundamental symmetry of string theory and the ladder of quantizations may both be consequences of an underlying principle with a natural quantum computational formulation. A paper dealing with some of the more technical aspects, mentioned only shortly, here, will appear separately.

If the picture presented in this paper has anything to do with the true nature of string theory, string theory would be both, an end and a beginning. Since the days of antiquity human scientists and philosophers have asked questions about space, time, and the ultimate constituents of matter. String theory would be the final word about this, the end of a long journey of investigation. But at the same time, it would be a new beginning, the starting point of a physics asking questions about a quantum hierarchy of complexity and about properties of quantum computation.

We have formulated our suggested principle in the language of quantum computers because with quantum mechanics having become one of the standard parts of modern mathematical physics, this should be an especially intelligible form. But beyond the questions discussed in this article, the work of Kontsevich (in \[Kon 1997\], \[Kon 1999\]) could - in an optimistic vein, once again - turn out to be the starting point for a new understanding of quantization, itself. The decisive question is if the universal infinite dimensional manifold $`𝒟M`$ of deformation quantizations of a finite dimensional manifold $`M`$, as discussed in \[Kon 1999\], can be determined by knowing that it is a principal homogenous space of the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group plus some natural principles. Put into different words: The question is if the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group (and therefore - under the assumption of a conjecture of \[Kon 1999\] \- the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$) does - modulo some natural principles - already determine what deformation quantization is. If the answer to this question would be in the affirmative, this would mean that quantization itself would be largely determined by two simple yet deep principles. In the rest of this appendix we will explain this idea in more detail, assuming speculatively, again, that the answer to the above questions is indeed in the affirmative (i.e. the important step remaining would be to determine the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$, again).

We state the first of the two principles as:

Principle 1:

The physically relevant information of a state space of a physical theory is fully contained in a suitable algebra of real valued functions (observables) on state space and the deformation theory of this algebra.

The first part of this principle - physically relevant information is contained in the algebra of observables on state space - is definitely true for all the well established theories in physics. The second part - the inclusion of the deformation theory of the algebra - can, of course, be justified on abstract grounds: Why should a highly idealized mathematical structure - like some algebra - be exactly applicable to physics? One would expect that algebras which are in some sense close to the original one should also be of relevance, then. But this means precisely the consideration of deformation theory of algebras. In string theory we indeed consider the moduli space of two dimensional conformal quantum field theories as the space of physically allowed classical backgrounds of the theory. So, this principle is just a destilation of the structural core we anyway accept for physical theories.

Let us come to the second principle, now:

Principle 2

The physically fundamental description of a Turing machine should have an inherent definition for any numerical quantity which is of physical relevance and can be explicitly defined (be it in arithmetic or geometric terms).

Remember that the concept of a Turing machine, though a purely mathematical concept on first sight, has a physical ingredient. In its classical form the concept implicitly assumes that the machine is working according to the rules of classical mechanics (as was pointed out by Deutsch in \[Deu\]). But - as we know definitely to be true nowdays from the existence of quantum computers (though still very small in terms of bits, they exist) - this, indeed, need not be the case and there are different, physically more fundamental, concepts of a Turing machine than the classical one. Principle 2 assumes that on a fundamental level everything is accessible to (the corresponding notion of) digital computers, there are no phenomena which are fundamentally of an “analog” nature (to stress it once again, the principle does in no way imply that this should hold for classical Turing machines).

We can immediately see that a classical Turing machine does not satisfy Principle 2 because only the rational numbers $``$ are inherently defined quantities for a classical Turing machine. But as the Pythagoreans observed already, there are other numbers like $`\sqrt{2}`$ which can equally well be explicitly defined (e.g. as representing the diagonal in a square of unit length). It is not important that by the atomistic nature of matter no true diagonals of true squares can be built. In all the physical theories known so far such geometric constructs still appear on a more abstract level (e.g. in the setting of state space). E.g. $`\sqrt{2}`$ can also be defined via normalization of an equal probability superposition of two quantum states. So, we do not escape these quantities by refering to atomism.

All algebraic numbers $`\overline{}`$ have an explicit definition (either one refers to the corresponding algebraic equation or to a geometrical construction) but still this is not sufficient. Volumes of explicitly defined geometrical figures are also quantities we should include. Since - by the foregoing considerations - we should consider a geometrical figure to be explicitly defined if its boundaries can be defined in algebraic terms, this means that we should include integrals over algebraic functions on algebraic domains. But if one puts this into precise mathematical terms it means that periods should have an inherent definition in fundamental computing devices.

We should remember at this point that we have to apply Principle 1, too. Assuming the validity of the partly conjectural scenario of \[Kon 1999\] (which includes especially the Deligne conjecture), it seems that only the periods belonging to the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ are linked to the deformation theory of associative algebras. So, both principles taken together do indeed suggest the algebra $`P_{,Tate}`$ as the algebra of numbers which a physically fundamental Turing machine should have an inherent definition of.

We are done then in suggesting a way how to define a quantum computer from first principles without presupposing quantum mechanics from the start. We could use this definition of a “fundamental Turing machine” now to go back and reformulate the principle suggested above for string theory by replacing the notion of a quantum computer by that of a “fundamental Turing machine” (if one wants to have an equivalent formulation of this principle which does not presuppose any conventional knowledge of quantization).

What does such an approach to quantization mean? It means that one tries to understand quantization itself as being largely determined by a computability requirement. We try to pass from simply observing the fact that nature is intelligible (“the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences” which nowdays can be refined to the statement of an unreasonable effectiveness of computer simulation) to turning this observation into a fundamental physical principle. Only detailed future investigations of the mathematical structures arising can lead to a judgement if such an approach has a chance to lead to correct physics.


text:
# Dynamical localization and signatures of classical phase space

## I Introduction

Existence of dynamical localization in a system is considered as signature of quantum chaology . Rapid developments in atom optics  have made this subject a testing ground for the dynamical localization and hence for quantum chaology. Atomic dynamics in periodically driven systems, such as, an hydrogen atom in micro-wave field  an atom in modulated standing wave field , and the motion of an ion in Paul trap in presence of standing wave, have manifested the phenomenon of dynamical localization. Latest work on the dynamics of an atom in Fermi accelerator  has established the presence of dynamical localization in the system. In addition, this work has brought into light a new generic phenomenon of dynamical revivals of quantum chaology . In this paper we study Fermi accelerator in atom optics domain and explain the role of classical chaology in the development of quantum dynamical localization.

## II Atomic Fermi Accelerator

At the end of the first half of twentieth century, Enrico Fermi coined the idea that the origin and acceleration of cosmic rays is due to intragalactic giant moving magnetic fields . Latter, Pustilnikov proved that a particle bouncing on an oscillating surface in gravitational field may get unbounded acceleration depending upon its initial location in phase space . Based on this idea we have suggested Fermi accelerator for atoms in atom optics domain and have studied accelerating modes .

We may understand the atomic Fermi accelerator as: Consider a cloud of cesium atoms initially cold and stored in a magneto-optical trap. On switching off the trap, the atoms move along the $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$-direction under the influence of gravitational field and bounce off an atomic mirror . The latter result from the total internal reflection of a laser beam incident on a glass prism. The incident laser beam passes through an acusto-optic modulator which provides a phase modulation to the evanescent field on the surface of glass prism . This model provides experimental realization of Fermi accelerator in the atom optics domain .

In order to avoid spontaneous emission we consider a large detuning between the laser light field and the atomic transition frequency. In presence of rotating wave approximation and dipole approximation the center-of-mass motion of the atom in ground state follows from the Hamiltonian

$$\stackrel{~}{H}\frac{p^2}{2m}+mg\stackrel{~}{z}+\frac{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}}{4}e^{2k\stackrel{~}{z}+ϵ\mathrm{sin}\omega t}$$
(1)
Here, $`\stackrel{~}{p}`$ is the momentum of the atom of mass $`m`$ along the $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$-axis, $`g`$ denotes the gravitational acceleration, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}`$ is the effective Rabi frequency. The time dependent term expresses the spatial modulation of amplitude $`ϵ`$ and frequency $`\omega `$.

We introduce the dimensionless position and momentum coordinates $`z\stackrel{~}{z}\omega ^2/g`$ and $`p\stackrel{~}{p}\omega /(mg)`$ and time $`t\omega \stackrel{~}{t}`$. Using these dimensionless coordinates we may express the Hamiltonian as

$$H\frac{p^2}{2}+z+V_0e^{\kappa (z\lambda \mathrm{sin}t)},$$
(2)
where, we express the dimensionless intensity $`V_0\mathrm{}\omega ^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}/(4mg^2)`$, steepness $`\kappa 2kg/\omega ^2`$ and the modulation amplitude $`\lambda \omega ^2ϵ/(2kg)`$ of the evanescent wave. The commutation relation $`[z,p]=[\stackrel{~}{z},\stackrel{~}{p}]\omega ^3/(mg^2)=i\mathrm{}\omega ^3/(mg^2)`$ provides us the dimensionless Planck’s constant $`k^{}\mathrm{}\omega ^3/(mg^2)`$.

The quantum dynamics of atom in Fermi accelerator  manifests dynamical localization in a certain localization window on modulation amplitude, $`0.24<\lambda <\sqrt{k^{}}/2`$ . The lower limit is obtained by Chirikov mapping and describes the onset of classical diffusion . The upper limit of the localization window describes the phase transition of the quasi-energy spectrum of the Floquet operator from a point spectrum to a continuum spectrum. Above this limit quantum diffusion sets in and destroys quantum localization. The conditions of classical and quantum diffusion, together, define the localization window.

## III Dynamical localization verses the classical phase space

In order to understand the effect of initial conditions on localization it is essential to understand how the classical phase space contributes towards the phenomenon of localization. We find that phase space structure of the system has direct effect on quantum evolution. In order to study quantum dynamics within the localization regime, we propagate an initial atomic wavepacket $`\psi (z)`$, expressed as

$$\psi (z)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\sqrt{2\pi }\mathrm{\Delta }z}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{(zz_0)^2}{2\mathrm{\Delta }z^2}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(i\frac{p_0z}{k^{}}\right),$$
(3)
at $`t=0`$, and propagate it in the atomic Fermi accelerator. Here, $`z_0`$ describes the average position, and $`p_0`$ denotes the average momentum of the wave packet. The widths of the wavepacket in position space and in momentum space are chosen such that they satisfy the minimum uncertainty condition.

We investigate the effect of classical resonances on dynamical localization in Fermi accelerator by propagating an atomic wavepacket from an initial height $`z_0=20`$, with initial momentum $`p_0=0`$. We select $`k^{}=1`$ which provides localization window on modulation strength, $`\lambda `$, as $`0.24<\lambda <0.5`$. The initial widths of the wave packet are $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.5`$ in position space, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }p=1`$ in momentum space, corresponding to the minimum uncertainty parameters. We propagate the atomic wavepacket for a modulation amplitude of $`\lambda =0.4`$ which lies well within the localization window. We note the probability distribution of the wavepacket in the atomic Fermi accelerator after evolution $`t=1000`$, both in position space and in momentum space. We observe the classical phase space by means of Poincare’ surface of section for the modulation strength $`\lambda =0.4`$, as shown in Fig. 1.

So far as modulation strength is small, that is, $`\lambda <\lambda _l=0.24`$, we have isolated resonances in classical phase space. In this domain, quantum dynamics mimics the classical dynamics and we do not find dynamical localization. The phenomenon of localization occurs after the overlap of resonances has occurred in the classical phase space, that is, above $`\lambda _l`$ and persists until the quantum diffusion starts in the system .

Within the localization window we calculate the quantum mechanical position and momentum distributions of the atomic wavepacket. We compare our result with the classical phase space observed as Poincare’ surface of section. We place the atomic wavepacket close to the second resonance. Therefore, we find that maximum probability density is localized there. Hence, a plateau structure occurs in the probability distribution both in position space and in momentum space which is at the second resonance of the phase space. Our numerical results show that the size of the plateau is equal to the size of the resonance. The tail of the initial Gaussian wavepacket falls exponentially into the phase space, therefore, it also occupies the other resonances but with the difference of orders of magnitude. The location of the first resonance is the closest to the second one, as we find from Poincare’ section of the Fermi accelerator in Fig. 1. As a result a significant part of initially propagated atomic wavepacket lies in this region, and seems to be contributing to the plateau structure of second resonance. We observe that the next plateau corresponding to third primary resonance is approximately four orders of magnitude smaller, and the next to it corresponding to the forth resonance of phase space is further eight order of magnitude smaller. This helps us to infer that the atomic probability densities in position space and in momentum space localized into the regions of islands and the atomic wavepacket spreads over the stable island, making a plateau structure. Outside the stable islands the probability densities fall linearly into the stochastic sea.

Fishman et. al.  have suggested that the eigen functions decay as $`\mathrm{exp}((n\overline{n})/\mathrm{})`$ away from the mean level $`\overline{n}`$, in the momentum space. Therefore, we expect that the overall drop of probability distribution in momentum space is linear. In momentum space, our numerical experiment display the overall linear drop of probability distribution, whereas, in position space the probability distribution displays an overall drop according to square root law .

Hence within localization window the atomic wavepacket displays three interesting features: (i) plateau structures in regions corresponding to stable islands of phase space; (ii) linear decay in regions corresponding to stochastic sea; (iii) overall decay following square root law in position space and following linear behavior in momentum space. This overall decay may be different for different systems.

We may understand this effect by relating the underlying energy spectrum of quantum dynamical system with the classical phase space. We  have tested that corresponding to a classical resonances there exist a local discrete spectrum, whereas, in the stochastic region we find quasi continuum. For the reason we observe that the probability distribution occupying local discrete spectrum of a resonance undergoes constructive interference and displays plateau structure, whereas the probability distribution occupying the quasi continuum spectrum undergoes destructive interferences and therefore falls linearly in phase space.

## IV Dynamical Localization and changing Panck’s constant

How the change in the effective Planck’s constant effects the dynamical localization? In order to answer the question we propagate the atomic wavepacket in the Fermi accelerator considering the Planck’s constant $`k^{}=4`$ and compare it with $`k^{}=1`$ case. We keep all the parameters the same as earlier. Following the previous procedure we note the probability distributions after an evolution time $`t=1000`$ and display it in Fig. 2.

We note that the size of the initial minimum uncertainty wavepacket is larger due to the larger value of $`k^{}`$. Therefore, amount of the initial probability density falling into the stable islands becomes larger, as compared with the $`k^{}=1`$ case, increasing the height of the plateaus.. Moreover, for larger $`k^{}`$ the exponential tail of initial Gaussian wavepacket covers more resonances leading to more plateau structures in the localization arm. The size of the plateau corresponds to the size of resonances which are independent of the value of Planck’s constant. As a result we conjecture that the size of the plateau remains the same for two different values of the Planck’s constants.

Hence, for the larger value of the Planck’s constant, we find that: (i) the size of the plateau in probability distributions is the same as it was for $`k^{}=1`$; (ii) heights of the plateaus are higher; (iii) more plateau structures are appearing.

Comparison between classical and quantum position distributions show that the plateau structures also appear in the classical cases. However, their height is larger than the corresponding quantum cases. In order to compare classical and quantum position distributions we propagate a classical ensemble. We note the classical distribution (solid thick line) in the Fermi accelerator after an evolution time $`t=1000`$ and compare with the corresponding quantum mechanical distributions for $`k^{}=1`$ (solid thin line) and for $`k^{}=4`$ (dashed line).

The classical distributions in momentum space and in position space are entirely different from their quantum counterparts. The classical dynamics of the ensemble in Fermi accelerator model supports an overall quadratic distribution in momentum space supporting diffusive dynamics and linear distribution in position space . Since the classical position and momentum distributions are the marginal integrations of phase space, we find that plateaus exist even in classical distributions. We find that the location and the size of the plateaus are the same in both classical and quantum cases, however, their heights differ. As compared to the corresponding classical counterparts, in the quantum mechanical case the heights of the plateaus is reduced, which may occur as a result of the dynamical tunneling of the probability to the other plateaus.

## V Experimental Parameters

The reflection of atoms onto an evanescent wave mirror has been observed in many laboratory experiments . In this section we connect our choice of parameters with the currently accessible technology and show that the effects we have predicted in this paper can be observed in a real experiment. We consider cesium atoms of mass $`m=2.21\times 10^{25}`$kg bouncing on the evanescent wave field with the decay length $`k^1=0.455\mu `$m and the effective Rabi frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}=2\pi \times 5.9`$ kHz. These parameters in presence of a modulation frequency of $`\omega =2\pi \times 1.477`$ kHz, lead to $`k^{}=4`$, $`\kappa =0.5`$ and $`V_0=4`$. By choosing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}=2\pi \times 14.9`$ kHz, $`k^1=1.148\mu `$m and $`\omega =2\pi \times 0.93`$ kHz we get $`k^{}=1`$, keeping $`\kappa =0.5`$ and $`V_0=4`$ which are the values used in our calculations.

## VI Acknowledgment

We thank G. Alber, I. Bialynicki-Birula, M. Fortunato, M. El. Ghafar, R. Grimm, B. Mirbach, M. G. Raizen, V. Savichev, W. P. Schleich, F. Steiner and A. Zeiler for many fruitful discussions.