text:
# The MACHO Project Hubble Space Telescope Follow-Up: Preliminary Results on The Location of the Large Magellanic Cloud Microlensing Source Stars

## 1 Introduction

The crucial observable in microlensing, the event duration, admits degeneracy in the three fundamental microlensing parameters: the mass, distance and velocity of the lens. This makes it difficult to distinguish between the two principal geometric arrangements which may explain Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) microlensing: a) MW-lensing, in which the lensed object is part of the Milky Way (MW) and b) self-lensing, in which the lensed object is part of the LMC. In self-lensing, the lens may belong to the disk+bar, halo or “shroud” of the LMC, while the source star may come from any of these components or some sort of background population to the LMC.

Most efforts to distinguish between MW-lensing and self-lensing event distributions focus on modeling the LMC self-lensing contribution to the optical depth and comparing this to the observed optical depth. Early works by Sahu (1994) and Wu (1994) considered the traditional LMC self-lensing geometry in which both the source and lens are in the disk+bar of the LMC. Both works suggested that disk+bar self-lensing could account for a substantial fraction of the observed optical depth. This claim has since been disputed by several other groups (Gould, 1995; Alcock et al., 1997, 2000a) who show that when considering only disk stars the rate of LMC self-lensing is far too low to account for the observed rate. Gyuk, Dalal, & Griest (2000) show that allowing for contributions to the lens and source populations from the LMC bar does not substantially increase the LMC self-lensing optical depth. Alves & Nelson (2000) find a low LMC self-lensing optical depth for a flared LMC disk. Gyuk, Dalal, & Griest (2000) also show that much of the disagreement in models of the disk+bar self-lensing optical depth results from disagreement about the fundamental parameters of the LMC, such as the total disk mass and inclination angle. Within their region of allowed parameters Gyuk, Dalal, & Griest (2000) also make a strong case that disk+bar self-lensing makes a small contribution to the observed optical depth, at most $``$20%.

However, self-lensing becomes a much more plausible hypothesis if one allows for lenses in an LMC stellar halo population. The principal problem surrounding an LMC stellar halo contribution is that no tracers of old populations in the LMC have ever revealed a population with high enough velocity dispersions to suggest a virialized spheroidal component (Olszewski, Suntzeff & Mateo, 1996).

Recently however, a new possibility has arisen from the results of Weinberg (2000) who claims that LMC microlensing may be caused by a non-virialized stellar halo or “shroud”. This term was introduced by Evans & Kerins (2000) and is meant to imply an LMC population which is like a halo in that it is spacially not part of the LMC disk, but unlike a halo in that it is non-virialized and thus may have a relatively low velocity dispersion. Such a population is suggested by the simulations of Weinberg (2000) who finds that the LMC’s dynamical interaction with the MW may torque the LMC disk in such a way that the LMC disk is thickened and a spheroid component is populated without isotropizing the stellar orbits and thereby leaving disklike kinematics intact. Statistically marginal evidence for such a kinematically distinct population is found observationally in a study of carbon star velocities by Graff et al. (2000).

However, observational work on RR Lyrae by Kinman et al. (1991), which does not rely on the specific kinematics of the spheroidi, limits the total mass of any type of halo (virialized or non-virialized) to perhaps 5% of the mass of the LMC, too small to contribute more than $``$5% of the observed optical depth. A more recent revisiting of this argument by Alves (2000) finds room to increase this optical depth contribution to at most 20%, still only a small fraction of the total.

In order for an LMC shroud to account for the total optical depth it must have a mass comparable to that of the LMC disk+bar (Gyuk, Dalal, & Griest, 2000). Even if we accept the existence of such a massive shroud, the microlensing implications are somewhat in dispute. Weinberg (2000) finds an LMC self-lensing optical depth comparable to the observed optical depth. However, this estimate is reduced by a factor of three by Gyuk, Dalal, & Griest (2000) who repeat the Weinberg (2000) microlensing analysis using lower values for the disk total mass and inclination angle and a proper weighting over all observed MACHO fields.

Yet another self-lensing geometry was introduced by Zhao (1999) who suggests that the observed events are due to “background” self-lensing in which the source stars are located in some background population, displaced at some distance behind the LMC. A veritable plethora of lenses for this population is then supplied by the disk+bar of the LMC. A background population has the advantage of being nearly impossible to confirm or reject observationally, as there are nearly no limits on its size or content (provided of course, it is small enough to “hide” behind the LMC).

A final possibility is “foreground” self-lensing. This is not self-lensing in the classical sense as in this case the lenses are not drawn from the LMC itself, but rather from some kinematically distinct foreground population, such as an intervening dwarf galaxy. Zaritsky & Lin (1997) claim a detection of a population of stars from such an entity. However, Beaulieu & Sackett (1998) claim that this “population” is a morphological feature of the LMC red clump, while others show that such a population consistent with other observational constraints could not produce a substantial microlensing signal (Gould, 1998; Bennett, 1998).

In this work we attempt to determine whether the MACHO source stars belong to the average population of the LMC or to a background population displaced at some distance behind the LMC disk. The determination of source star location is based on the suggestion of Zhao (1999), Zhao (2000), and Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta (2000) who point out that source stars from a background population should be preferentially fainter and redder than the average population of the LMC due to the extinction of the LMC disk and their displacement along the line of sight. Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta (2000) present a model for this background population with an additional mean reddening relative to the average population of the LMC $`<E(BV)>=0.13`$ mag and a displacement from the LMC of $`7.5`$ kpc resulting in an increase of distance modulus of $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\mu >0.3`$ mag.

The location of the source stars has implications for the location of the lenses and thus for the nature of LMC microlensing. If all the source stars are in the background population, then the great majority of the lenses are found in the LMC disk+bar and LMC microlensing is dominated by background self-lensing. Conversely, if all the source stars are in the LMC, then microlensing may be due to MW-lensing, disk+bar self-lensing or foreground self-lensing. However, since the contribution from disk+bar self-lensing has been shown to be small and the evidence for a foreground intervening population is unconvincing, a result which places all source stars in the LMC would suggest that LMC microlensing is dominated by MW-lensing. If, however, we find a more equal division of source stars between the LMC and the background population then this implies either some mixture of MW-lensing and disk+bar self-lensing, or a more symmetric self-lensing geometry such as the LMC shroud discussed above.

We first investigate two models: the first putting all source stars in the LMC (Model 1), and the second putting all source stars in a background population (Model 2). We compare a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) CMD of MACHO microlensing source stars to efficiency weighted CMDs of the average population of the LMC and the Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta (2000) background population. In §2 we construct a CMD of the average LMC population by combining the CMDs of eight HST Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) fields centered on past MACHO microlensing events in the outer LMC bar. In §3 we describe the identification of the microlensing source stars in these fields by difference image analysis (DIA). In §4 we construct the background population CMD by shifting the HST CMD by the appropriate amount of extinction and distance modulus. We then describe the convolution of the average and background HST CMDs with the MACHO efficiency for detecting a microlensing event in a source star of given magnitude. In §5 we determine the likelihoods that the microlensing source stars were drawn from the average population of the LMC (Model 1) and from a population of background source stars (Model 2) by using Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) tests to compare our observed and model distributions. Finally, in §6 we generalize our analysis and consider intermediate models with varying distance moduli and fractions of source stars in the background and LMC. We conclude and discuss the implications for the location of the lenses in §7.

## 2 HST Observations

Observations were made with the WFPC2 on HST between May 1997 and October 1999 through the F555W ($`V`$) and F814W ($`I`$) filters. The Planetary Camera (PC) was centered on the location of past MACHO microlensing events. The microlensing events, positions, and exposure times are listed in Table 1.

Multiple exposures of a field were combined using a sigma-clipping algorithm to remove deviant pixels, usually cosmic rays. The PC has a pixel size of $`0.046^{\prime \prime }`$ which easily resolves the great majority of stars in our frames. Most stars are also resolved in the Wide Field (WF) fields which have a pixel size of $`0.1^{\prime \prime }`$. Instrumental magnitudes were calculated from aperture photometry using DAOPHOT II (Stetson, 1987, 1991) with a radius of $`0.25^{\prime \prime }`$ and centroids derived from point-spread function (PSF) fitting photometry. Aperture corrections to $`0.5^{\prime \prime }`$ were performed individually for each frame. We correct for the WFPC2 charge transfer effect using the equations from Instrument Science Report WFPC2 97-08. We also make the minimal corrections for contaminants which adhere to the cold CCD window according to the WFPC2 Instrument Handbook. We transform our instrumental magnitudes to Landolt $`V`$ and $`I`$ using the calibrations from Holtzman et al. (1995).

We create a composite LMC CMD by combining the PC and WF photometry for all of our fields except the field of LMC-1. In the case of LMC-1 the $`V`$ and $`I`$ observations were taken at different roll angles and there is little area of overlap except in the PC frame. We therefore include the PC field from LMC-1 but not the WF fields. The composite HST CMD is shown in Figure 1.

## 3 Source Star Identification through Difference Image Analysis

A ground-based MACHO image has a pixel size of $`0.6^{\prime \prime }`$ and a seeing of at least $`1.5^{\prime \prime }`$. Thus, in a typically crowded region of the outer LMC bar, a MACHO seeing disk will contain $``$11 stars of $`V24`$. This means that faint “stars” in ground-based MACHO photometry are usually not single stars at all, but rather blended composite objects made up of several fainter stars. Henceforth, we distinguish between these two words carefully, using object to denote a collection of stars blended into one seeing disk, and star to denote a single star, resolved in an HST image or through DIA. The characteristics of the MACHO object that was lensed tell us little about the actual lensed star. However, with the microlensing object centroid from the MACHO images we can hope to identify the microlensing source star in the corresponding HST frame.

A direct coordinate transformation from the MACHO frame to the HST frame often places the baseline MACHO object centroid in the middle of a cluster of faint HST stars with no single star clearly identified. To resolve this ambiguity we have used DIA. This technique is described in detail in Tomaney & Crotts (1996), but we review the main points here. DIA is an image subtraction technique designed to provide accurate photometry and centroids of variable stars in crowded fields. The basic idea is to subtract from each program image a high signal-to-noise reference image, leaving a differenced image containing only the variable components. Applied to microlensing, we subtract baseline images from images taken at the peak of the microlensing light curve, leaving a differenced image containing only the flux from the microlensing source star and not the rest of the object. We also find a centroid shift between the baseline image and the differenced image towards the single star that was microlensed. If the centroid from the differenced image is transformed to the HST frame we find that it usually clearly identifies the HST microlensed source star. This process is illustrated in Figures 2 and 3.

This technique allows us to unambiguously identify 7 of 8 microlensed source stars. In the case of LMC-9 the DIA centroid lands perfectly between two stars; fortunately these two stars are virtually identical sub-giants and the choice between the two has no effect on our results. In Table 2 we present the $`V`$ magnitudes and $`(VI)`$ colors of our source stars from the HST data. The errors presented here are the formal photon counting errors returned by DAOPHOT II. We estimate that all WFPC2 magnitudes have an additional $`0.020.03`$ mag uncertainty due to aperture corrections. In the case of LMC-9 we tabulate both possibilities and use LMC-9a in the remainder of this work.

Our identification of LMC-5 revealed it to be the rather rare case of a somewhat blended HST star. Although there are two stars evident, at an aperture of $`0.25^{\prime \prime }`$ the flux of one star was contaminated by that of its neighbor. Therefore, in this case, we perform PSF fitting photometry using PSFs kindly provided by Peter Stetson. The errors presented in Table 2 for LMC-5 are those returned by the profile fitting routine ALLSTAR. The DIA centroid falls 2 pixels closer to the centroid of star one than star two, clearly preferring star one as the source star. Furthermore, as predicted by Alcock et al. (1997) and Gould, Bahcall, & Flynn (1997), star two is a rather red object which is very faint in the V band. Fits to the MACHO lightcurve presented in Alcock et al. (2000a) suggest lensed flux fractions in the V and R bands of 1.00 and 0.46 respectively, confirming the DIA choice of the much bluer star as the lensed source star.

Since this work specifically addresses the background lensing geometry, we also discuss here the (remote) possibility that our HST images of the source stars are actually completely blended objects consisting of a faint background source star and a brighter LMC lens. Such a configuration would seriously skew our CMD distribution of source stars as we would instead be presenting photometry of the lenses. We begin by noting that the MACHO efficiency for detection of a microlensing event in a star has fallen to zero at $`V22.5`$ (see Figure 4 and explanation below). This means that a “faint” background source star must have $`V_S<22.5`$ in order to produce a detectable event. The the lens in this scenario is assumed to have $`V_L<V_S`$. We estimate that we would not recognize a blended object of two stars with $`V<22.5`$ as such if the centroids coincided to within 1.5 pixels. In our most crowded PC field we find $``$1000 stars with $`V<22.5`$ spread over an area of 720 X 720 pixels. In simulations, we draw 1000 stars with $`V<22.5`$ weighted according to our luminosity function and spread randomly over 720X720 pixels. For each star we then check to see if it is found within 1.5 pixel of a brighter star. We find that on average, there will be 5 stars of $`V<22.5`$ which are blended with a brighter star. Therefore, for our most crowded field, the chance that our source star is an unrecognized blend of a faint source star and a brighter lens is about 5 in a thousand. In a more typically crowded field, this falls to around 1 chance in 1000. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that any of our 8 HST source stars are blended objects composed of a faint source star and a bright lens.

## 4 Creation of the model source star populations

If the microlensing events are due to MW lenses, then one would expect the distribution of observed microlensing source stars to be randomly drawn from the average population of the LMC corrected only for the MACHO detection efficiency for stars of a given magnitude (Model 1). We assume that the population of the LMC is well represented by our composite HST CMD to $`V24`$. If the microlensing events are background self-lensing events we expect the source stars to be drawn from a background population which suffers from the internal extinction of the LMC (Model 2). To represent such a background population we shift the composite HST CMD according to the amounts suggested by Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta (2000), $`<E(BV)>=0.13`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu =0.3`$. Since, Holtzman et al. (1995) calibrate instrumental WFPC2 magnitudes to the Landolt system, we use the appropriate Landolt system extinction coefficients of Table 6 in Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998) to translate these estimates to our filters. The total shifts, taking into account both reddening and distance modulus, are

$$\mathrm{\Delta }V=A_V+\mathrm{\Delta }\mu =0.73,\mathrm{\Delta }(VI)=E(VI)=0.18(Model2)$$

Thus far we have constructed two CMDs representing the distribution of all possible source stars down to $`V24`$. However, not all possible microlensing events are detected in the MACHO images. To create a CMD representing a population of source stars which produce detectable microlensing events we must convolve the HST CMD with the MACHO detection efficiency. The MACHO efficiency pipeline is extensively described in Alcock et al. (2000a) and Alcock et al. (2000b) and the detection efficiency as a function of stellar magnitude, $`V_{\mathrm{star}}`$, and Einstein ring crossing time has been calculated. We average this function over the event durations of the candidate microlensing events derived using detection criterion A from Alcock et al. (2000a) and present the MACHO detection efficiency as a function of $`V_{\mathrm{star}}`$ in Figure 4. We convolve this function with our HST CMDs to produce the final Model 1 and 2 distributions of source stars. In Figure 5, we show our model source star populations with the observed microlensing source stars of Table 2 overplotted as large red stars.

This procedure admits several assumptions. First, we assume that our eight HST fields collectively well represent the stellar population of the LMC disk. This assumption has two parts, the first being that an observation at a random line of sight in the LMC bar is dominated by stars in the LMC disk and the second that the stellar population across the LMC is fairly constant. The first part holds so long as the surface density of the background population is much smaller than that of the LMC itself. If this were not the case, this population would have been directly detected. The second part has been confirmed by many LMC population studies including Alcock et al. (2000b), Olsen (1999), and Geha et al. (1998), as well as our own comparison of individual CMDs and luminosity functions. Second, we assume that the underlying stellar content of the background population is identical to that of the LMC.

## 5 The Location of the Source Stars

We now attempt to determine whether the CMD of microlensed source stars is consistent with the average population of the LMC (Model 1) or whether it is more consistent with a background population (Model 2) by performing a two-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test.

In the familiar one dimensional case, a KS test of two samples with number of points $`N_1`$ and $`N_2`$ returns a distance statistic $`D`$, defined to be the maximum distance between the cumulative probability functions at any ordinate. Associated with $`D`$ is a corresponding probability $`P(D)`$ that if two random samples of size $`N_1`$ and $`N_2`$ are drawn from the same distribution a worse value of $`D`$ will result. This is equivalent to saying that we can exclude the hypothesis that the two samples are drawn from the same distribution at a confidence level of $`1.0P(D)`$. If $`N_2N_1`$ then this is also equivalent to excluding at a $`1.0P(D)`$ confidence level the hypothesis that sample 1 is drawn from sample 2.

The concept of a cumulative distribution is not defined in more than one dimension. However, it has been shown that a good substitute in two dimensions is the integrated probability in each of four right-angled quadrants surrounding a given point (Fasano & Franceschini, 1987; Peacock, 1983). Leaving aside the exact algolrithmic definition (Press et al., 1992) a two-dimensional KS test yields a distance statistic $`D`$ and a corresponding $`P(D)`$ with the same interpretation as in the one dimensional case.

We use the two-dimensional KS test to test hypothesis that the CMD of observed MACHO microlensing events is drawn from the same population as each of the model source star distributions. We find distance statistics $`D_1=0.394\pm 0.005`$ and $`D_2=0.473\pm 0.009`$, for Models 1 and 2 respectively. Each of these distance statistics has a corresponding probability, $`P(D)`$, that if we draw an 8 star samples from the model population a larger value than $`D`$ will result. As explained above, this is equivalent to excluding this model population as the actual parent of our observed microlensing source stars at a confidence level of $`1.0P(D)`$. These probabilities are $`P_1=0.319\pm 0.027`$ and $`P_2=0.103\pm 0.023`$. The error quoted for each of these quantities is the scatter about the mean value in 50 simulations for each model. Because the creation of the efficiency convolved CMD is a weighted random draw from the HST CMD, the model population created in each simulation differs slightly. This in turn leads to small differences in the KS statistics.

These results tell us that these 8 MACHO events are insufficient to reliably distinguish the MW and self lensing hypothesis. The best we can do is to exclude Model 2 at the statistically marginal 90% confidence level.

## 6 Intermediate Models

Thus far we have considered the possibilities that the observed MACHO source stars are either all LMC stars or all background stars at a mean distance of $`7.5`$ kpc behind the LMC. However, as discussed in Zhao (1999), Zhao (2000) and Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta (2000) there is substantial middle ground. In a complete analysis, we may treat both the fraction of source stars drawn from the background population and the distance to the background population as adjustable parameters. While the size, location and content of the LMC has been well constrained by observations, the existence, size and location of a background population is constrained only by the fact that it must be small enough to have evaded direct detection. The distance to the background population from Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta (2000) is very loosely derived by the requirement that the background population be at least transiently gravitationally bound to the LMC. However, the reddening of a background population is a much more physically constrained number since a population behind the LMC should certainly suffer from the mean internal extinction of the LMC, a number which has been well determined in a number of studies including Oestricher & Schmidt-Kaler (1996) and Harris, Zaritsky & Thompson (1997). Therefore, all our background population models have the same reddening $`<E(BV)>=0.13`$, as inferred from the mean extinction of the LMC from Harris, Zaritsky & Thompson (1997) corrected for Galactic foreground extinction.

We define $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$ to be the fraction of the source stars drawn from the LMC disk+bar population, leaving a fraction $`1.0s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$ source stars drawn from the background population, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu `$ to be the excess distance modulus of the background population. We consider values $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu =0.0,0.30,0.45`$ and for each value of the distance modulus we consider the full range of $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$ from 0.0 to 1.0. For example, a model with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu =0.45`$ and $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=0.5`$ contains a mixture of source stars in which half the source stars are drawn from the population of the LMC disk, and half the source stars are drawn from a background population displaced from the LMC by $`11`$kpc and reddened by $`<E(BV)>=0.13`$. All models with $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=0.0`$ contain only source stars drawn from a specified background population, and all models with $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=1.0`$ are identical, containing only stars drawn from the LMC disk.

We present the results in Figure 6, showing the KS test probabilities as a function of $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$ for each of our values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu `$. Again, the error bars reflect the scatter about the mean for fifty simultations of each model. We note that since all models with $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=1.0`$ contain only source stars drawn from the LMC disk, all curves for different $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu `$ must converge at $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=1.0`$. Furthermore, we learn from Figure 6 that the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu `$ makes little difference even at $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=0.0`$. So long as the background population is behind the LMC and therefore reddened by $`<E(BV)>=0.13`$ its exact displacement is of little import. In all cases a smaller value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu `$ flattens the curves somewhat. This is expected as a smaller value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu `$ implies overall less difference between the two extreme models at $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=0.0`$ and $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=1.0`$. The two dimensional KS test of the CMD displays a shallow maximum at $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}0.8`$.

## 7 Discussion

We have compared two models for LMC microlensing: source stars drawn from the average population of the LMC and source stars drawn from a population behind the LMC. By comparing the CMD of observed microlensing source stars to a CMD representing all detectable microlensing events for each of these models we find by two-dimensional KS tests that the data suggest that it is more likely that all the source stars are in the LMC than that all the source stars are in the background. However, we can only exlude the possibility that all the source stars are in the background at a statistically marginal 90% confidence level.

We also consider a number of intermediate models in which we vary the distance modulus of the background population as well as the fraction of stars drawn from average and background populations. In these models we find that for all displacements the most highest probability occurs for a fraction $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}0.8`$ LMC source stars and $`s_{\mathrm{BKG}}=1.0s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=0.2`$ background source stars. We also find that the value of the distance modulus has very little effect on our results at all values of $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$.

Our results are completely consistent with the interpretation that MACHO microlensing events are dominated by MW-lensing. In the MW-lensing geometry, the source stars reside in the LMC and the lenses are in the halo or disk of the MW. The MW-lensing interpretation for microlensing requires that $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}1.0`$, consistent with our result. We note that both disk+bar self-lensing and foreground self-lensing also place all their source stars in the LMC. However, these contributions to the number of events have been shown to be small and we neglect their contribution here. We also note that the contribution from the known stellar populations of the MW is expected to be small ($``$1 events of the 13-event cut A sample of Alcock et al. (2000a) but not entirely negligible. A lens population in the MW is likely to be dominated by MACHOs in the MW halo and not faint stars in the MW disk or spheroid.

Zhao (1999), Zhao (2000) and Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta (2000) propose a model for LMC microlensing in which all the source stars are drawn from some background population to the LMC. Such a model suggests that LMC microlensing is dominated by background self-lensing and that $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}0.0`$. We find this arrangement to be the model excluded at the highest confidence; however, we cannot rule it out with any great statistical weight.

Recently, Weinberg (2000) and Evans & Kerins (2000) have suggested a model of LMC microlensing in which all microlensing events are due to a non-virialized shroud of stars which surrounds the LMC. In shroud self-lensing there are four event geometries: a) background shroud source and disk lens, b) disk source and foreground shroud lens, c) disk source and disk lens and d) background shroud source and foreground shroud lens. We might naively expect the former two types dominate the number of expected events and so if we were to ignore the contribution from the latter two types we would conclude that shroud lensing would imply $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}0.5`$. However, in order to produce the entire observed optical depth, the shroud must be so massive that it is no longer self-consistent to ignore the latter terms. Calculations performed in the formalism of Gyuk, Dalal, & Griest (2000) suggest instead that events with a background shroud source and a foreground shroud lens become an important contributor and reduce the expected fraction of source stars in the LMC to $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}0.30.4`$. Our results are not inconsistent with such a model, however we note that there is a profound lack of observational evidence for such a stellar shroud.

Furthermore, if we assume that a substantial LMC stellar halo or shroud is not a realistic possibility, then we may directly relate the fraction of source stars in the LMC, $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$, to the fraction of microlensing events which are MW-lensing, $`f_{\mathrm{MW}}`$ in the following way. All events in which the source stars are located in the background are, by definition, background lensing events. Therefore, $`s_{\mathrm{BKG}}=f_{\mathrm{BKG}}`$, where $`f_{\mathrm{BKG}}`$ indicates the fraction of observed events which are background lensing. The total fraction of lensing events due to halo-lensing $`f_{\mathrm{MW}}`$, LMC self-lensing, $`f_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$, and background self-lensing, $`f_{\mathrm{BKG}}`$, must be equal to unity.

$$f_{\mathrm{MW}}+f_{\mathrm{LMC}}+f_{\mathrm{BKG}}=1.0$$
(1)
This may be rearranged to read

$$f_{\mathrm{MW}}=1.0f_{\mathrm{BKG}}f_{\mathrm{LMC}}=s_{\mathrm{LMC}}f_{\mathrm{LMC}}$$
(2)
Equation (2) is strictly true even if we allow for LMC shroud lensing. However, if we ignore the possibility of LMC self-lensing by a non-virialized stellar shroud, then all models with reasonable parameters for the LMC find that $`f_{\mathrm{LMC}}0.2`$. Therefore, if $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}1`$, we may make the approximation

$$f_{\mathrm{MW}}s_{\mathrm{LMC}}$$
(3)
Therefore we estimate, with low statistical significance due to the small sample size of our sample, that a fraction $`f_{\mathrm{MW}}0.8`$ of observed microlensing events are halo-lensing. We emphasize once again that this conclusion ignores the possibility of a non-virialized LMC shroud.

At present, the strength of this analysis is severely limited by the number of microlensing events for which we have corresponding HST data. A fortuitous distribution in the CMD of all 13 criterion A events presented in Alcock et al. (2000a) may allow us to definitively exclude a model in which all the source stars are drawn from the background population. It is difficult to estimate how many events are needed to definitely determine $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$ as the number depends on the true value of $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$ as well the degree of accuracy one wishes to achieve. However, when we perform Monte Carlo simulations where we draw a sample of N events from the distribution with $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=0.0`$ and compare it with the 2-D KS test to the distribution with $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}=1.0`$ we find that for $`N2025`$, $`P<0.01`$ for at least 99% of our simulations. This implies that if the true value of $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}`$ is near either extreme ($`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}0`$ or $`s_{\mathrm{LMC}}1`$) then a CMD of 20-25 events virtually guarantees that we will be able to exclude a model at the other extreme at the 99% confidence level. Even more events are necessary to exclude intermediate models with various fractions of LMC and background stars. Ongoing microlensing search projects (EROS, OGLE II) may supply a sufficient sample of events in the next few years. The technique outlined in this paper should prove a powerful method for locating the lenses with these future datasets.

Support for this publication was provided by NASA through proposal numbers GO-5901 and GO-7306 and from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Work performed at LLNL is supported by the DOE under contract W7405-ENG-48. Work performed by the Center for Particle Astrophysics personnel is supported in part by the Office of Science and Technology Centers of NSF under cooperative agreement AST-8809616. DM is also supported by Fondecyt 1990440. CWS thanks the Packard Foundation for the generous support. WJS is supported by a PPARC Advanced Fellowship. CAN is supported in part by a NPSC Graduate Fellowship. TV and KG were supported in part by the DOE under grand DEF0390-ER 40546. TV was supported in part by an IGPP grant.


format: text

text:
# Transverse and in-plane modification of superconductivity and electronic structure in the quasi-two dimensional organic conductor 𝜅–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2 by uniaxial stress

## 1 Introduction

The quasi-two-dimensional organic superconductor families, $`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2X (X = Cu(NCS)2, Cu\[N(CN)2\]Br, Cu\[N(CN)2\]Cl), have been widely studied both experimentally and theoretically . Depending on the species of the anion (X) and the pressure, these compounds can exhibit ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, insulating, or superconducting ground states. These ”kappa-phase” materials have been the subject of considerable recent attention due to reports of evidence for d-wave superconductivity, ,, as well as reports to the contrary . Fig. 1 shows the molecular stacking and the Fermi surface of $`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2, which is the subject of this report. This material is a superconductor with a transition temperature $`T_c`$ = 10.4 K. Theoretically, the anisotropic triangular lattice Hubbard model has been used to treat the kappa-phase ground states. In the triangular lattice model, each BEDT-TTF dimer is treated as a single lattice point in the triangular lattice with four nearest neighbors with transfer integral $`t_2`$ and two next nearest neighbors with transfer integral $`t_1`$ (See Fig. 1a). Hence the system is modeled as a triangular arrangement with one electron on each vertex site. For favorable ratios of $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$, unconventional pairing (superconductivity) may arise from antiferromagnetic fluctuations, with the interaction modeled by the on-site Coulomb repulsion $`U`$. The consensus of these models is that the most likely superconducting order parameter symmetry is d-wave. Further more, Kondo and Moriya have predicted a maximum in $`T_c`$ for particlular values of $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$ (see Discussion section).

The motivation for the present work has been, therefore, to apply in-plane uniaxial stress in order to modify $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$, and to monitor corresponding changes in the transition temperature, and other physical properties in a $`\kappa `$-phase superconductor with high magnetic fields. The most important results are:

1) the very weak dependence of $`T_c`$ and $`B_{c2}`$ on in-plane stress, which in some cases actually increase;

2) the stress-dependent nature of the resistive anomaly in the magnetoresistance which has been ascribed to unconventional superconductivity;

3) through the observation of the Shubnikov de Haas oscillations, we describe changes in the Fermi surface with stress, and indirectly, changes in the lattice constants.

For completeness, in Tables I and II we present a summary of previous and present results which treat $`T_c`$ and corresponding changes in the Fermi surface topology of $`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2 salt under hydrostatic pressure, tensile stress, thermal expansion, and uniaxial stress.

## 2 Experiment

$`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2 single crystals were grown by conventional electrochemical crystallization. Typical dimensions of the samples were (for $`a\times b\times c`$) $`0.1\times 0.6\times 0.9`$ mm3 with the $`b`$-$`c`$ plane corresponding to the most conducting plane. Uniaxial stress was applied by using the epoxy encapsulation method . Polarized infrared (IR) reflectance in the range of 650 $``$ 3500 cm-1 was employed to determine the $`b`$\- and $`c`$-axis orientations . Samples were cut into two or three pieces to use for the three orientations, $`a`$-, $`b`$-, or $`c`$-axis, and electrical contacts were made with 12.5 $`\mu `$m gold wires attached with silver paste. A conventional 4-terminal AC technique was used with a frequency of $``$ 17 Hz, and an ac current of 10 $`\mu `$A was applied along the least conducting axis ($`a`$-axis). The magnetic field was applied along the a-axis, perpendicular to the conducting b-c plane. For magnetoresistance measurements where stress in the b-c plane was studied, a novel device was used to transmit stress along the in-plane direction with the applied magnetic field perpendicular to the direction of stress . In all cases, stress was applied in situ, at low temperatures, in increasing increments.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Uniaxial stress dependence of $`T_c`$

Fig. 2 shows the change of the superconducting transition $`T_c`$ of $`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2 for uniaxial stress along the in-plane, c-axis direction. The value of $`T_c`$ obtained from the ambient pressure (no epoxy) measurements is almost identical to that of the samples with epoxy (at zero pressure) , but some of the samples showed a wider transition width and/or finite residual resistance below $`T_c`$. In this work we define $`T_c`$ from the maximum in the resistance-temperature derivative ($`dR/dT`$) in the range of the transition, as shown in the inset of Fig. 2. Hence over the range of 8 kbar, $`T_c`$ decreases only by about 20%, but the normal state resistance decreases by a factor of six.

A summary of the uniaxial stress experiments along the $`a`$-, $`b`$\- $`c`$-, and $`c`$ \- axes is shown for 1 bar, 2.5 kbar, and 5 kbar in Fig. 3. Also shown is the case where stress was applied along an arbitrary $`bc`$ in-plane direction. The changes in $`T_c`$ for all four experiments are shown in Fig. 4, and values of $`T_c/P_{a,b,c}`$ from the present work are given in Table 1, which, by inspection, shows that the changes in $`T_c`$ are substantially less (and/or non-monotonic) for in-plane stress, when compared with either $`a`$-axis stress or hydrostatic pressure.

### 3.2 Uniaxial stress dependence of the magnetoresistance at 0.5 K

#### 3.2.1 Magnetoresistance for a-axis stress

Further differences between inter-plane and in-plane stress on the superconducting properties can be seen with magnetic field. In Fig. 5 we present the magnetoresistance (MR)for $`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2 at 0.5 K for stress applied along the a-axis. (Similar measurements for $`a`$-axis stress, which is along the inter-plane direction, have been previously reported , but have been re-measured in this work for completeness). The data, which are offset for clarity, show several distinct trends with increasing stress: the quantum oscillation spectrum changes, the critical field $`B_{c2}`$ decreases, and the normal state resistance also decreases. The Fourier spectrum for a-axis stress is shown in Fig. 6a. The fundamental orbit $`\alpha `$ and its harmonic $`2\alpha `$ rapidly attenuate with stress, but the magnetic breakdown orbit $`\beta `$ and its combination frequencies $`\beta `$ $`\pm `$ $`\alpha `$ present a more complicated stress dependence (see Fig. 1b). At 2 kbar and above, the magnetic breakdown orbit $`\beta `$ is dominant, and $`\alpha `$ only appears in the $`\beta +\alpha `$ spectrum. In Fig. 6 b and 6c we show the a-axis stress dependence of the Fourier spectrum. The main result of Fig. 6 is that the $`\beta `$ orbit, which is proportional to the area of the first Brillouin zone (and inversely proportional to the in-plane unit cell), decreases with increasing a-axis stress. That the fundamental $`\alpha `$ increases has been previously discussed by Campos et al.. Although it is not possible to predict in detail, it is clear that the symmetry of the Fermi surface, and therefore the underlying unit cell, has been changed in some non-trivial manner. In Fig. 7 we show the decrease in the critical field with a-axis stress, as determined from the maximum in the derivative dR/dB (see inset of Fig. 7).

#### 3.2.2 Magnetoresistance for b-axis stress

We selected the $`b`$-axis configuration for high field studies with in-plane stress since a change of lattice constant in this direction would allow $`t_1`$ to increase with respect to $`t_2`$, i.e. make the triangular lattice model more ”equilateral”. Also, the $`b`$-axis strain showed the least decrease in $`T_c`$ of the three principal axes (Fig. 4). The MR data for b-axis stress are shown in Fig. 8 at 0.5 K. Unlike the a-axis results in Figs. 5-7 , the b-axis have a different Fourier SdH spectrum dependence on stress, and the critical field $`B_{c2}`$ appears to increase with stress. In Fig. 9a the Fourier spectrum shows that the magnetic breakdown $`\beta `$ orbit amplitude more rapidly attenuates with stress than does the $`\alpha `$ orbit amplitude. Also, the changes in frequency are very small. To see them clearly, we show a single SdH period in Fig. 9b, where a particular Landau level is observed to move to lower fields with stress. This corresponds to a decrease in the $`\alpha `$ orbit frequency, as shown in Fig. 9c. In Fig. 10 we show the behavior of the critical field $`B_{c2}`$ as defined from dR/dB (see inset of Fig. 10). The fact that $`B_{c2}`$ increases is the most dramatic effect of the in-plane stress in the magnetoresistance.

### 3.3 Uniaxial stress dependence of the magnetoresistance anomaly

At higher temperatures, the critical field signature becomes complicated by a magnetoresistance anomaly (defined as $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ in Fig. 11) which appears in this materials, and which disappears for in-plane magnetic field . The higher temperature behavior of this anomaly, which is a peak in the MR just above $`B_{c2}`$, is shown for both stress directions in Fig. 11. For the a-axis case, with increasing stress, the peak rapidly attenuates, and $`B_{c2}`$ decreases. For increasing b-axis stress, the peak decreases, but $`B_{c2}`$ increases, as it did at 0.5 K (see Fig. 10) for the highest stress values. In Fig. 12 we show the full temperature and stress dependence of the anomaly from our measurements as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$/RN, where RN is defined as the normal state resistance extrapolated from fields higher than $`B_{c2}`$ (see Fig. 11b).

### 3.4 Analysis of normal state properties

Further information may be obtained from the normal state properties. From the temperature dependence of the SdH oscillation amplitudes the effective masses m\* = mSdH/m0 of the carriers in the various orbits may be obtained, either from the wave forms directly, or from the amplitudes of the Fourier spectrum. A summary of our findings is shown in Fig. 13 for the high magnetic field data. For the a-axis data, the SdH effect could not be observed above 2.5 kbar , although there is some evidence that m\* is decreasing for the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ orbits. Campos et al. also found that for a-axis stress, the SdH effect vanished at low values (of order 2 kbar), along with $`T_c`$ and $`B_{c2}`$. In the case of the b-axis , we could follow the SdH effect for the $`\alpha `$ orbit over the entire range of stress. Within the uncertainties of the determination, there is very little change in m\*. In Figure 14 we present the stress dependent normal state resistance change for $`a`$, $`b`$, and $`caxis`$ stress. The apparent difference in functional dependence between inter-plane and in-plane stress is represented by the two different fits (solid lines), as discussed in the next section.

## 4  Discussion

### 4.1 Uniaxial stress effects on crystallographic and electronic structure

In order to gauge the effects of uniaxial stress on the crystallographic structure, we consider the a-axis stress dependence of the $`\beta `$ orbit, as shown in Fig. 6 and Table 2. The frequency of the $`F_\beta `$ orbit is directly related to the total area of the first Brillouin zone, $`A_{BZ}=2\pi /b2\pi /c`$. For small changes, $`\mathrm{\Delta }F_\beta /F_\beta `$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{BZ}/A_{BZ}`$ $``$ -$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$(bc)/bc. Hence the stress dependence of $`\beta `$ is directly related to the in-plane lattice parameters. We may therefore estimate an approximate linear compressibility by considering the constant volume deformation of a system with isotropic elasticity. For a cubic lattice of side $`a`$, the fractional reduction in lattice constant (per kbar) along one axis is $`ϵ=\delta a/a`$ ($`kbar^1`$). This will produce an expansion (i.e. Poisson effect) of $`ϵ/2`$ in the orthogonal directions. Hence, using the cubic lattice-isotropic compressibility approximation, $`\mathrm{\Delta }F_\beta /F_\beta `$ $``$ $`2\delta a/a`$, and from Table 2, $`ϵ`$ = - 0.0035/kbar for the a-axis compressibility of $`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2.

From simple “Golden rule” arguments, the conductivity due to any single direction in the tight binding limit should increase as $`t^2`$. Hence, for an approximately linear response of $`t`$ to uniaxial stress along the a-axis, the a-axis conductivity change would be $`\sigma \sigma _0(12ϵP_a)`$. The resistivity will therefore decrease inversely as $`R(p)/R(0)=(12ϵP_a)^1`$ with pressure. For the cases where both the $`a`$-axis resistivity and stress are involved, this relation seems to represent the data, with the caveat that the in-plane changes in conductivity have been neglected. In reference to Fig. 14, we find for the two $`a`$-axis cases studied, that $`ϵ`$ = $`0.17\pm 0.1`$/kbar. The larger, fitted valued of $`ϵ`$ (compared with the estimate above) from the normal state resistance may reflect a stronger dependence of $`t`$ on $`ϵ`$ than the linear approximation used in the argument above. In contrast, the in-plane stress yields a very different pressure dependence for the $`a`$-axis conductivity. Here, the decrease of the normal state resistance can be fitted empirically by $`R(p)/R(0)=1(p/p_c)^2`$, where $`p_c`$ is $`10.7\pm 0.1`$ kbar. This strongly suggests that the effects of b-axis in-plane stress on the transverse conductivity involve competing effects.

We next turn to stress induced changes in the Fermi surface properties, which may be obtained by considering the SdH oscillations. Returning to Fig. 6, we see two different frequencies, $`F_\alpha 670T`$ and $`F_\beta 4200T`$. A summary of changes in $`F_\alpha `$ and $`F_\beta `$ for both uniaxial and hydrostatic pressure is given in Table 2. In reference to Fig. 1b, $`F_\alpha `$ arises from the closed orbit and $`F_\beta `$ is a magnetic breakdown orbit which involves both the closed and open orbit Fermi surface sections. The amplitude of $`F_\beta `$ depends on the proximity of the closed and open orbit Fermi surface sections, since a magnetic breakdown gap is involved in the orbit. For the case of a-axis stress in Fig. 6, the shift of relative amplitude from the $`\alpha `$ to $`\beta `$ Fourier spectrum may indicate the closing of the magnetic breakdown gap. Although the $`\beta `$ orbit decreases as expected for the expansion of the real space b-c plane with a-axis stress, the $`\alpha `$ oribit increases significantly. A model for the sliding of the (BEDT-TTF) molecules has been proposed to explain this effect. In contrast, changes in the electronic structure for b-axis stress are very much reduced. Changes in $`F_\alpha `$ and $`F_\beta `$ are very small, and the $`\alpha `$ orbit is always dominant - hence the magnetic breakdown gap remains large. Since, for a reduction of the b-axis lattice constant, the c-axis lattice constant should increase by the Poisson argument, this may explain why $`F_\beta `$ does not change significantly. Although small, the b-axis change in $`F_\alpha `$ is opposite that for a-axis stress, and this indicates that stress in the two directions produce fundamental differences in the changes of electronic structure.

A treatment of the temperature dependence of the SdH amplitudes in terms of the Lifshitz-Kosevich analysis yields information about the effective mass m\* (= m/me), which can be enhanced by many body effects (electrons and phonons). We have summarized our analysis of m\* for a-axis and b-axis stress in Fig. 13., where the effective masses of the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ orbits ($`m_\alpha `$ and $`m_\beta `$)are shown as a function of stress. $`m_\alpha `$ appears to be nearly stress-independent for both axes, while $`m_\beta `$ begins to decrease for $`P>`$ 2 kbar.

### 4.2 Uniaxial stress effects on superconductivity

In this final section we review the effects of uniaxial stress on the superconducting state in relation to the observed changes in the electronic structure, and comment on our results in the context of recent theoretical work. One of the original motivating factors in this work was to use in-plane stress to change the ratio of $`t_1`$/$`t_2`$ as shown in Fig. 1a. Following arguments similar to those of the last section (for a cube of constant volume and isotropic elasticity), the application of stress along the b-axis will produce changes in $`t_1`$/$`t_2`$ of order (1 -$`ϵP_b`$)/(1 +$`ϵP_b`$/4), or for 10 kbar, about +4%. (We note however, that since changes in $`t`$ are approximated as linear in $`ϵ`$, the relative change in $`t_1`$/$`t_2`$ may be significantly larger, as the fit of $`ϵ`$ in Fig. 14 indicates.) For a-axis stress, a simple Poisson-like uniform expansion of the in-plane lattice should not, to first order, cause the ratio $`t_1`$/$`t_2`$ to change.

For comparison, Kondo and Moriya have used a two band Hubbard model with spin fluctuations to compute the dependence of of $`T_c`$ on $`U/t_2`$ and $`t_1/t_2`$. Referring to Fig. 2 of Ref. ), these parameters are: $`t_10.07eV`$; $`t_20.0875eV`$; and $`U0.75eV`$. They predicted, using a d-wave symmetry for the order parameter, that for fixed $`t_1/t_2`$ in the range 0.4 to 0.8, $`T_c/t_2`$ versus $`U/t_2`$ would show a maximum change of between +50% and +10%for intermediate values of ($`U/t_2`$)\* in the range 4 to 10. Vojta and Dagotto also have considered the triangular lattice problem and find a tendency for d-wave paring for $`t_1/t_20.8`$. Clearly, we cannot determine from our in-plane results accurate experimental changes in $`t_1/t_2`$ and $`U/t_2`$, primarily due to the large uncertainties in our estimates of $`ϵ`$. Nevertheless our in-plane data suggest that $`T_c`$, as well as the critical field $`B_{c2}`$, follow a significantly different dependence on in-plane stress, when compared either with inter-plane stress, or with hydrostatic pressure.

A second area of comparison with theory involves the magnetic breakdown gap. Schmalian has used a two band Hubbard model with spin fluctuations to predict d-wave superconductivity for the $`\kappa `$-phase materials for the Fermi surface described in Fig. 1. A key feature of this theory is the inter-band coupling, which is influenced by the magnetic breakdown gap region (”hot spots” in the terminology of Ref. ). Experimentally, we see that for $`aaxis`$ stress this magnetic breakdown gap appears to be closing, and correspondingly, the supeconducting transition and critical field decrease. Following Fig. 3 of Ref. , if the gaps closed, then the additional nodes along the diagonals of the d-wave gap symmetry would disappear, but this would not destroy the d-wave state. Conversely, for $`baxis`$ stress we note that the magnetic breakdown gap does not close, the superconducting transition is only a weak function of stress, and the critical field actually increases.

A third point concerns the resistive anomaly which occurs in the critical field behavior at temperatures of larger than 25 % of $`T_c`$, as shown in Figs. 11 and 12. This anomaly seems to be a common feature of low dimensional, layered superconductors, including high-$`T_c`$ cuprates and non-Cu based organic superconductor . The effect is quite anisotropic, and is found to be most significant when the current and the field are applied perpendicular to the conducting plane. The reduction of $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ with stress can be quantitatively described by plotting $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$/$`R_N`$ versus stress as shown in Fig. 12, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ is the difference of resistance at $`B`$ = $`B_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`R_N`$ is the normal state resistance obtained from the extrapolation from $`B`$ $``$ $`B_{c2}`$ (See Fig. 11). $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R_N`$ is largest at higher temperatures, and decreases with stress for fixed temperature. This extra resistance has been attributed to various mechanisms. One involves the presence of magnetic impurities , but since the impurity concentration would not change with stress, the present work is inconsistent with a magnetic impurity effect. There are several other models which treat this effect in terms of interplaner coupling effects. One involves the inter-layer resistance due to Josephson junction coupling. A second model is that of Maki and co-workers. Here the anomaly is treated as a superconducting fluctuation mechanism, with the conclusion that the interplane magnetoresistance can only arise from d-wave symmetry. Finally, Kartsovnik and co-workers conclude that the interlayer transport in the superconducting state is mediated by superconducing-normal-superconducting Josephson tunneling. Both models support the highly ansiotropic nature of the anomaly in tilted fields. Since $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ is most sensitive to the $`aaxis`$ interplaner stress, interplaner coupling effects may indeed be the origin of this effect.

Finally, we note dependence of the effective masses on uniaxial stress shown in Fig. 13. If we assume the change of $`T_c`$ follows the weak-coupling BCS scheme, $`T_c`$ is a strong function of effective mass $`m^{}`$. This trend does appear to some extent in the a-axis data, with both $`m^{}`$ (over the small range measured) and $`T_c`$ decreasing. For the b-axis data, the weak dependence of $`m^{}`$ and $`T_c`$ on stress appears to be mutually consistent.

## 5 Conclusions

In summary, we have employed both inter-planar (transverse) and in-plane uniaxial stress to physically change parameters associated with the triangular lattice model for superconductivity in the quasi-two dimensional metal $`\kappa `$–(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(SCN)2. Our main results show that the superconductivity associated with inter-planar stress is rapidly reduced, as is observed in the critical temperature, the critical field, and also in the resistive anomaly associated with the critical field. The normal state resistance follows a simple model for the increase of inter-planar band-width with stress. For in-plane stress, a more direct modification of the parameters of the triangular lattice model is possible. Indeed, for in-plane stress, the critical temperature is a considerably weaker function of stress, and may even increase slightly over a small range. Also, the critical field is observed to increase significantly, and the resistive anomaly associated with the critical field is not a strong function of in-plane stress. Here the normal state resistance is a more complicated function of in-plane stress. We have used the SdH effect to monitor stress-induced changes in the unit cell and electronic structure. The most dramatic changes occur for the a-axis case where the fundamental closed orbit area increases by 10%, and the inter-band magnetic breakdown gap essentially disappears. In contrast, the in-plane stress does not significantly change the SdH parameters associated with the Fermi surface, except that the fundamental closed orbit decreases with b-axis stress. Also, the magnetic breakdown gap remains open.

We find provocative, but inconclusive comparisons with contemporary theories for d-wave superconductivity in this ”kappa phase” material. Over the the range of parameters investigated, there is no single aspect of the electronic structure to which the superconductivity is highly sensitive, but we emphasize that the in-plane modification of the lattice parameters has the most unusual effects on the superconducting state. Application of strictly uniaxial stress via methods now employed by several groups  , coupled by higher values of stress, perhaps to 20 kbar, should allow the ratio $`t_1`$/$`t_2`$ to change enough to more fully test the predictions of the triangular lattice Hubbard models.

Acknowledgements This work was supported in part by NSF-DMR95-10427 and DMR99-71474. The work was carried out at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, supported by a contractual agreement between the State of Florida and the NSF through NSF-DMR-95-27035.


text:
# Resonant formation of 𝑑𝜇𝑡 molecules in deuterium: an atomic beam measurement of muon catalyzed 𝑑𝑡 fusion

## Abstract

Resonant formation of $`d\mu t`$ molecules in collisions of muonic tritium ($`\mu t`$) on D2 was investigated using a beam of $`\mu t`$ atoms, demonstrating a new direct approach in muon catalyzed fusion studies. Strong epithermal resonances in $`d\mu t`$ formation were directly revealed for the first time. From the time-of-flight analysis of $`2036\pm 116`$ $`dt`$ fusion events, a formation rate consistent with $`0.73\pm (0.16)_{meas}\pm (0.09)_{model}`$ times the theoretical prediction was obtained. For the largest peak at a resonance energy of $`0.423\pm 0.037`$ eV, this corresponds to a rate of $`(7.1\pm 1.8)\times 10^9`$ s-1, more than an order of magnitude larger than those at low energies.

Reactions of muonic hydrogen atoms and molecules present a sensitive testing ground for few-body theories involving strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions. Among such reactions, muon catalyzed fusion ($`\mu `$CF) in a deuterium–tritium mixture has attracted particular interest, where one muon can catalyze more than 100 nuclear fusions between deuteron and triton ($`d+t\alpha +n`$. A key step in high-yield $`\mu `$CF is resonant formation  of the $`d\mu t`$ molecule

$$\mu t+D_2[(d\mu t)_{11}dee]_{K\nu },$$
(1)
where the collision energy, and the energy released upon formation of $`d\mu t`$ in the loosely bound state ($`Jv=11`$), are absorbed in the ro-vibrational ($`K\nu `$) excitation of the molecular complex $`[(d\mu t)dee]`$, a hydrogen-like molecule with $`(d\mu t)^+`$ playing the role of one of the nuclei. Because of its limiting rate $`\lambda _{d\mu t}`$, the process has been considered one of the major bottlenecks in achieving high efficiency in $`\mu `$CF. However, theoretical calculations  predict strongly enhanced resonances for reaction (1) at $`\mu t`$ kinetic energies of order 1 eV (epithermal resonances or ER), yet the experimental information is scarce thus far. It is the purpose of this letter to report a direct confirmation of the predicted ER and a determination of their energies, enabled for the first time with the atomic beam approach .

In conventional $`\mu `$CF experiments with homogeneous mixtures of hydrogen isotopes , the extraction of $`\lambda _{d\mu t}`$ and its energy dependence relies on a kinetic model describing a complex chain of reactions, which includes processes that are not well understood, and assumptions that have been recently challenged (see Ref. ). The collision energy for reaction (1) in the equilibrium states is given by the target thermal energy, but difficulties in tritium handling have so far prevented realization of high temperature targets capable of thermally accessing ER. Although transient phenomenagave first evidence  and subsequent insight  into the epithermal effects in conventional targets, where a small fraction of $`d\mu t`$ formation may occur before the thermalization, no quantitative measurement of $`\lambda _{d\mu t}`$ for ER or its energy $`E_{res}`$ has been obtained due primarily to unknown $`\mu t`$ initial conditions.

The atomic beam method described here provides direct access to ER because of the available $`\mu t`$ beam energy (0.1–10 eV). A single $`d\mu t`$ formation can be studied, on an event-by-event basis, isolated in time and space from other processes. With the $`\mu t`$ time of flight (TOF) between the separated layers providing a measure of the collision energy, $`E_{res}`$ can be determined in a direct manner. Furthermore, manipulation of heterogeneous multi-layers allows us to study and control, individually, important processes such as $`\mu `$ transfer, $`\mu t`$ emission, and moderation.

The experiment was performed at the M20B channel at TRIUMF. Details of the measurement and analysis may be found in Ref. . The apparatus  is illustrated in Fig. 1. Target layers (Fig. 2(a)) were prepared by rapidly freezing a hydrogen isotope or mixture onto the gold foils, held at 3.5 K in an ultra-high vacuum of order 10-9 torr or better. The layer thickness and uniformity were characterized off-line via energy loss of $`\alpha `$ particles , and the effective thickness was then derived using a separate measurement  of the muon beam profile (about 30 mm diameter).

A beam of $`5\times 10^3\mu ^{}\mathrm{s}^1`$ of momentum $`p`$=27 MeV/$`c`$ and momentum spread $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/p`$=5.5% (FWHM), defined by a 250 $`\mu `$m scintillator of diameter 48 mm (T1), entered the target vacuum. It was degraded mainly by a 51 $`\mu `$m gold foil upstream (US) from a TOF region. A fraction $`S_F`$ of the $`\mu `$ stopped in a tritium-doped hydrogen layer (an emission layer) of 3.43$`\pm `$0.18 mg$``$cm-2 frozen to the US foil; most of these initially formed $`\mu p`$. The transfer $`\mu p\mu t`$ took place in a time of typically 100 ns , creating $`\mu t`$ with recoil energy of 45 eV due to the reduced mass difference. Because of the Ramsauer-Townsend effect in $`\mu t+p`$ scattering, $`\mu t`$ atoms are emitted with energies near 10 eV into an adjacent layer . A D2 moderation layer (96.0$`\pm `$5.0 $`\mu `$g$``$cm-2) efficiently reduced the $`\mu t`$ beam energy to $``$1 eV via elastic scattering in order to better match ER energies. The $`\mu t`$, after a flight time of a few $`\mu `$s, reached the D2 reaction layer downstream (DS) from the TOF region (17.9$`\pm `$0.5 mm from the US layers) and formed $`[(d\mu t)dee]`$ from which fusion can occur to produce $`\alpha `$ and $`n`$. The time between the $`\mu `$ entrance signal and the detection of a fusion $`\alpha `$ (which we call fusion time) is dominated by $`\mu t`$ TOF and provides information on molecular formation energy, as long as the energy loss ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mu t}`$) of $`\mu t`$, due to elastic scattering before the formation in the DS D2, is small. A thin DS layer of 21.2$`\pm `$1.4 $`\mu `$g$``$cm-2 was chosen to minimize $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mu t}`$ so as not to obscure the time-energy correlation. The detailed theoretical description of our method is given in Ref. .

Two series of data, with emission layer tritium concentrations $`c_t=0.1\%`$ (Run 1) and $`c_t=0.2\%`$ (Run 2), were analyzed separately. Deuterium concentrations in H2 were typically less than 2 ppm. Run 1 had a 1.77$`\pm `$0.12 mg$``$cm-2 H2 substrate beneath the D2 DS reaction layer, while for Run 2 the D2 reaction layer was deposited directly on the DS gold foil. The data were normalized to the corrected number of incident muons, $`N_\mu `$, which takes into account the data acquisition dead time ($``$20%) and pile-up of incident muons in the 10 $`\mu s`$ gate ($``$5%). The signal and background in the Si detectors for Run 1 are shown in Fig. 2(b) with a delayed time cut selecting DS events, giving a S/B ratio of about 2:1. The background, mainly due to $`\mu `$ decay and capture related processes (few fusion events from the US D2 moderator pass the delayed time cut because there is no TOF delay), can be accurately determined with the beam method from runs without the DS reaction layer, in which only DS fusion is turned off while other processes are not affected. Potential background from protons from $`\mu `$-induced $`dd`$ fusion, arising for example from a recycled $`\mu `$ following $`dt`$ fusion, were estimated to give a $`2.4\pm 0.9`$% correction in DS fusion by looking at $`\alpha `$$`p`$ correlations in the Si detectors, using the much larger data sample from fusion in the US moderation layer. A small contamination ($`5`$ ppm) of nitrogen in the target layer was estimated to reduce the fusion yield by about 2%. Any further residual effects (e.g., due to inaccuracy in the $`N_\mu `$ scaler, or time zero shifts) were carefully investigated and were conservatively reflected in the final errors. With totals for $`N_\mu `$ of $`6.02\times 10^8`$ and $`2.82\times 10^8`$ for the data and background runs, respectively, we have observed $`2036\pm 116`$ DS fusion events, for Runs 1 and 2 combined.

An absolute measurement of the fusion yield required determination of several factors including stopping fraction $`S_F`$, Si detector solid angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{Si}`$, and energy and time cut acceptances, $`ϵ_E`$ and $`ϵ_T`$. Our value of $`S_F=0.299\pm 0.015`$ was based on fits of the decay electron time spectra recorded by electron and neutron counters (in the charged mode), where $`\mu `$ stopped in H2 exhibited a characteristic $``$2 $`\mu `$s lifetime. The absolute efficiency of the counters was determined from the detection of delayed electrons following the observation of fusion . $`S_F`$ then could be derived model-independently from the absolute amplitude at time zero of the 2 $`\mu `$s decay electron component, normalized to $`N_\mu `$. An independent and consistent estimate of $`S_F`$ was obtained from a GEANT  beam and decay simulation, which reproduced our measured range curve .

The energy cut efficiency and possible existence of tails in the $`\alpha `$ energy distribution in the Si spectrum (Fig. 2(b)) were investigated by changing the cut width, as well as by simulating the energy loss of $`\alpha `$ particles in the DS D2 layer , giving $`ϵ_E=0.978\pm 0.064`$ for the applied cut of $`3.1<E_\alpha <3.7`$ MeV. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{Si}`$ was determined to be $`2\times (2.46\pm 0.10)`$% from similar calculations, in which the spatial distribution of fusion events was constrained by electron imaging of muon decay. Effects of possible beam shifts  as well as small geometrical inaccuracy are reflected in the errors. After combining all the factors, including a small time cut correction, the absolute normalization was determined to the relative precisions of 9.5% and 7.7% for Runs 1 and 2, which together with statistical uncertainties gave the DS fusion yield per stopped $`\mu `$ of $`(5.04\pm 0.50)\times 10^4/\mu `$ and $`(4.27\pm 0.54)\times 10^4/\mu `$ for Runs 1 and 2, respectively.

The results were used to test theoretical predictions as follows. The formation rate $`\lambda _{d\mu t}^{th}`$ from Ref. , corrected for the Doppler broadening due to the target molecule motion at 3 K (without many-body effects), was used as a standard input, with low energy rates further modified to reflect possible sub-threshold effects . The experimental TOF fusion distributions were fitted with a series of Monte Carlo (MC) simulated spectra for which the input $`\lambda _{d\mu t}`$ and $`E_{res}`$ were varied as $`\lambda _{d\mu t}=𝒮_\lambda \lambda _{d\mu t}^{th}`$ and $`E_{res}=𝒮_EE_{res}^{th}`$. The measured absolute normalization and its estimated uncertainty were used to constrain the fit. The best values for $`𝒮_\lambda `$ and $`𝒮_E`$, which were taken to be energy- and rate-independent, respectively, were extracted from the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution. The fusion probability $`W_f`$ from Ref.  was kept fixed during the fit. A detailed simulation code was developed for the analysis . Input cross sections for muonic processes were based on theoretical values in Refs. , but our multi-layered target allowed independent tests of important reactions including $`\mu p\mu t`$ transfer and $`p\mu p`$ formation , and $`\mu t+p`$ and $`\mu t+d`$ collisions . In addition, independent simulation codes  were used to check the consistency of some of the key processes. We stress the importance of explicitly treating the resonant scattering in the calculations; it can be shown  that the use of the renormalized effective rate $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{d\mu t}W_f\lambda _{d\mu t}`$ as in Ref.  would result in the overestimate of the fusion yield by as much as a factor of two, a fact which resolves an earlier discrepancy reported in Ref. . The effect of the energy distribution of resonantly scattered $`\mu t`$ was investigated within the kinematically possible range. Solid state effects in thermalization and formation , which are important mostly at lowest energies, were not explicitly included in the simulations, but their influence at ER energies is expected to be small. The effects were estimated by appropriately modifying the cross sections. Table I summarizes our evaluation of systematic uncertainties in the MC modelling.

Figure 3 shows a comparison of the calculated MC spectrum with the data for Run 1. Also plotted are the simulated contributions from the time–energy correlated events (i.e. with small $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mu t}`$), exhibiting more clearly the resonance structures due to different $`\nu `$ states. From the fits, we obtained $`𝒮_\lambda =0.88\pm 0.11`$ (Run 1) and $`0.55\pm 0.12`$ (Run 2) with $`\chi ^2/\mathrm{dof}`$ ($`\mathrm{dof}=50`$) of 0.96 and 1.27 respectively, and $`𝒮_E=0.928\pm 0.040`$ (Run 1) and $`0.994\pm 0.087`$ (Run 2) with similar fit quality. The fit uncertainties reflect both statistical and normalization errors. An apparent deviation at the 2$`\sigma `$ level in $`S_\lambda `$ between Runs 1 and 2 may indicate some unaccounted-for systematic uncertainties (due possibly to slightly different experimental conditions as described above), hence the measurement error was increased accordingly so that two data set give $`\chi ^2`$ of 1 . When the known MC modelling error (Table I) is included, the combined final result is $`𝒮_\lambda =0.73\pm (0.16)_{meas}\pm (0.09)_{model}`$. As for the resonance energy measurements, the weighted average of two runs gave $`𝒮_E=0.940\pm (0.036)_{meas}\pm (0.080)_{model}`$, where the modelling error is mainly due to uncertainties in the $`\mu t+d`$ elastic scattering process and the $`\mu t`$ TOF drift distance.

These scaling results correspond, in the theory , to a peak formation rate for the main resonance ($`\nu `$=3) of $`(7.1\pm 1.8)\times 10^9`$ s-1 at $`E_{res}=0.423\pm 0.037`$ eV for $`\mu t^{F=1}`$, and $`(6.5\pm 1.6)\times 10^9`$ s-1 at $`0.508\pm 0.047`$ eV for $`\mu t^{F=0}`$, where $`F`$ refers to the $`\mu t`$ hyperfine state (the rates are normalized to liquid hydrogen density, $`4.25\times 10^{22}`$ cm-3). The obtained rates are more than an order of magnitude larger than those at low energies , experimentally demonstrating the prospect for high cycling $`\mu `$CF in a high temperature target of several thousand degrees.

Our TOF sensitivity for the energy dependence allows us to clearly reject, for example, a constant $`\lambda _{d\mu t}`$, establishing the existence of resonant structure in epithermal $`d\mu t`$ formation. If one assumes the energy level spectrum of the $`[(d\mu t)dee]`$ molecule, our results for $`E_{res}`$ imply sensitivity to the binding energy of the $`(d\mu t)_{11}`$ state with an accuracy of the order of the vacuum polarization corrections.

We have recently collected data for resonant $`d\mu t`$ formation in $`\mu t+\mathrm{HD}`$ collisions, for which the predicted resonances are even stronger . The results of that measurement will be reported in a future publication .

We wish to thank C. Ballard, J. L. Douglas, K. W. Hoyle, R. Jacot-Guillarmod, and N. P. Kherani for their valuable help. The support of TRIUMF and its staff is gratefully acknowledged. M.C.F. would like to thank D. F. Measday for many helpful comments. This work was supported in part by NSERC (Canada), DOE and NSF (USA), and NATO Linkage Grant LG 930162.


text:
# Contents

## 1 Introduction

Recently there has been a lot of interest in the old idea  that spacetime has more than four dimensions . The most attractive scenario along these lines is, perhaps, the so-called “Randall Sundrum (RS) brane world” . Within this framework the background metric is not flat along the extra coordinate; rather it is a slice of Anti-de Sitter ($`AdS`$) space. Of course, in this setup, everything is confined to live on the brane except for gravity itself, without conflict with observations. Generalizations of the RS model including embeddings into supergravity or string theory , as well as a number of interesting phenomenological issues , have sparked a flurry of activity and several groups have begun to search for possible experimental signatures of these kinds of models . In addition, since the isometry group of the bulk continuum coincides with the conformal group of the brane, the Maldacena conjecture could be exploited . Roughly speaking, the $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondence may be able to set uniquely the boundary conditions for the fields on the edge. (We will briefly touch upon this issue in the next section).

On a different track, the picture of a brane world evolving in a larger spacetime gives an interesting new perspective on early universe cosmology . In particular, attention has been devoted to the question of the quantum creation of the world. A series of rather recent papers advance the idea that a brane bubble can nucleate spontaneously together with its $`AdS`$ bulk . However, it is not clear yet whether this system could evolve towards a configuration of thermal equilibrium consistent with experimental data . In this paper we elaborate on this question. In section 2 we start by considering the very early stages of the brane world (i.e. at temperatures $`T10^{27}K`$). Assuming a general equation of state for the matter on the brane, we are able to constrain the evolution of the system by using standard procedures of shell stability against radial perturbations . Strictly speaking, we show that tuning the speed of sound to the standard range, while (almost) consistent with a de Sitter world, may lead to unusual regimes for $`AdS`$ domain walls. Bounds from the Weyl anomaly induced by the $`CFT`$ that lives on the brane are also discussed. Afterwards, in section 3 we turn to much later ages of the brane world (at temperatures $`T60K`$). We study possible constraints from the energy conditions. In particular, we find that the matter threading the brane world is not consistent with the strong energy condition unless the present value of the Hubble constant is $`H_030`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 (recent measurements find $`H_0=67\pm 10`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 ). We close in section 4 with a brief discussion.

## 2 The Early Brane World

### 2.1 The Very Early Brane World

According to the Hartle–Hawking “no boundary” proposal, the quantum state of the universe is given by an Euclidean path integral over compact metrics . This picture can be adapted to the RS scenario by surgical grafting two Euclidean balls of $`AdS_5`$ . The evolution of the brane after creation is given by the analytical continuation of $`S^5`$ to real time, i.e., a de Sitter hyperboloid embedded in Lorentzian $`AdS_5`$ space. This brane world created from “nothing” is completely analogous to the four–dimensional de Sitter instanton, except that here the inside of the wall is filled with $`AdS`$ bulk. Following  one can use the $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondence to explain the behavior of the inflating instanton. In particular, $`CFT`$s generally exhibit a conformal anomaly when coupled to gravity . In the above setup, this anomaly is the “carrier” of the effective cosmological constant on the brane.

Formally, the above scenario can be generalized to $`d`$-dimensional de Sitter spaces which bound $`d+1`$ dimensional $`AdS`$ spaces. The $`CFT`$, however, is not straightforward to obtain. The classical action describing the above setup is given by,

$$S=\frac{L_p^{(3d)}}{16\pi }_\mathrm{\Omega }d^{d+1}x\sqrt{g}\left(R+\frac{d(d1)}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)+\frac{L_p^{(3d)}}{8\pi }_\mathrm{\Omega }d^dx\sqrt{\gamma }𝔎+T_\mathrm{\Omega }d^dx\sqrt{\gamma },$$
(1)
where $`𝔎`$ stands for the trace of the extrinsic curvature of the boundary, $`\gamma `$ is the induced metric on the brane, and $`T`$ is the brane tension.333In our convention, the extrinsic curvature is defined as $`𝔎_{\mathrm{\Xi }\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}=1/2(_\mathrm{\Xi }\widehat{n}_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}+_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\widehat{n}_\mathrm{\Xi })`$, where $`\widehat{n}^\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is the outward pointing normal vector to the boundary $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Capital Greek subscripts run from 0 to $`d`$ and refer to the entire (d+1) dimensional spacetime, capital Latin subscripts run from 0 to $`(d1)`$ and will be used to refer to the brane sub-spacetime, lower Latin subscripts run from 1 to $`d1`$ and refer to constant $`t`$ slices on the brane. Throughout the paper we adopt geometrodynamic units so that $`G1`$, $`c1`$ and $`\mathrm{}L_p^2M_p^2`$, where $`L_p`$ and $`M_p`$ are the Planck length and Planck mass, respectively. (The following discussion will mostly refer to $`d=4`$, but most of the equations will be written for arbitrary $`d`$). The first term is the usual Einstein-Hilbert (EH) action with a negative cosmological constant ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1/\mathrm{}^2`$). The second term is the Gibbons-Hawking (GH) boundary term, necessary for a well-defined variational problem . The third term corresponds to a constant “vacuum energy”, i.e. a cosmological term on the boundary.

Before proceeding further, we note that the following coordinate transformations:

$$\frac{d\alpha }{d\varphi }=\mathrm{}\mathrm{tanh}(\eta /\mathrm{})\mathrm{sin}\chi \mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{sin}\theta ,\frac{dy}{d\eta }=\left(1+\frac{y^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)^{1/2},$$
(2)
give a diffeomorphism between the Euclidean $`AdS_5`$-metrics

$$ds^2=d\eta ^2+\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{sinh}^2(\eta /\mathrm{}^2)[d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\chi d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2],$$
(3)
and

$$ds^2=\left(1+\frac{y^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)d\alpha ^2+\left(1+\frac{y^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)^1dy^2+y^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2.$$
(4)
Here $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2=d\beta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\beta (d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)`$ is the volume element of the three-sphere (see Fig. 1). Thus, one can glue two of these balls along the four sphere boundaries, and then analytically continue to Lorentzian signature to obtain a four-dimensional de Sitter brane embedded in Lorentzian $`AdS_5`$ space. For simplicity we referred the above formulae to Euclidean $`AdS_5`$ balls, but it can be trivially generalized to $`AdS_{d+1}`$.

With this in mind, we consider a brane that bounds two regions of Lorentzian $`AdS`$ spaces, which are conveniently described in the static chart as

$$ds^2=\left(k+\frac{y^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)dt^2+\left(k+\frac{y^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)^1dy^2+y^2d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2,$$
(5)
where $`d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2`$ is the corresponding metric on a $`(d1)`$ dimensional space of constant curvature with metric $`\overline{g}_{mn}`$, and Ricci tensor $`\overline{R}_{mn}=k(d2)\overline{g}_{mn}`$ with $`k\{1,0,1\}`$ corresponding respectively to hyperbolic, flat and spherical geometry. The case of particular interest here is the case $`k=1`$, for which the conformal anomaly of the $`CFT`$ increases the effective tension of the domain wall, yielding an everlasting inflationary universe . Henceforth, $`k`$ shall merely be carried along as an arbitrary constant that details alternative symmetries for the brane. It should be noticed, that when the scale factor is large enough the spherical universe would be practically indistinguishable from a spatially flat universe ($`k=0`$).

Applying the thin-shell formalism  the field equation reads,

$$Tg_{_{\mathrm{\Xi }\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}}\delta _A^^\mathrm{\Xi }\delta _B^^\mathrm{{\rm Y}}=\frac{L_p^{3d}}{4\pi }[𝔎_{AB}\mathrm{tr}(𝔎)g_{_{\mathrm{\Xi }\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}}\delta _A^^\mathrm{\Xi }\delta _B^^\mathrm{{\rm Y}}].$$
(6)
The above equation implies that the case $`k=1`$ corresponds to an inflating universe which is forever expanding (a comprehensive analysis of a domain wall that inflates, either moving through the bulk or with the bulk inflating too, was first discussed by Chamblin–Reall ).

### 2.2 Matter–driven Expansion

Inflation will only be useful if it comes to an end. In the spirit of  we will assume that the world is created with the matter fields in their ground state, and when it starts falling under the action of the higher dimensional space the matter fields become excited. If this is the case, the subsequent expansion results from matter on the brane. We take the energy momentum tensor to be

$$\stackrel{~}{T}_{AB}=T_c\gamma _{AB}+\stackrel{~}{\rho }u_Au_B+\stackrel{~}{p}(\gamma _{AB}+u_Au_B),$$
(7)
corresponding to matter with energy density $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }`$ and pressure $`\stackrel{~}{p}`$. Here, $`u_A`$ stands for the velocity of a piece of stress-energy in the co–moving system ($`u_Au^A=1`$), tuning the vacuum energy to be $`T_c=(d1)/(4\pi \mathrm{}L_p^{d3})`$. From now on, to simplify notation, we denote by $`\stackrel{~}{T}_0^0\rho (A)`$, $`\stackrel{~}{T}_m^mp(A)`$.

The system can be decomposed into falling shells (which do not interact with each other or with the environment that generates the metric), with trajectories described by the scale factor $`A(\tau )`$. In other words, while the brane-world is sweeping through the $`(d+1)`$ dimensional bulk, the change in the internal energy is compensated by the work done by the internal forces,

$$\frac{d}{d\tau }\rho 𝒮+p\frac{d}{d\tau }𝒮=0,$$
(8)
where,

$$𝒮=\frac{4\pi A^2}{(d1)L_p^{3d}}.$$
(9)
It is straightforward, using Eq. (6) and definitions above, to check that

$$\rho =\frac{L_p^{(3d)}}{4\pi }\frac{(d1)}{A}\left(k+\frac{A^2}{\mathrm{}^2}+\dot{A}^2\right)^{1/2},$$
(10)
and

$$p=\frac{L_p^{(3d)}}{4\pi }\left\{\frac{(d2)}{A}\left(k+\frac{A^2}{\mathrm{}^2}+\dot{A}^2\right)^{1/2}+\frac{\ddot{A}+A/\mathrm{}^2}{\sqrt{k+\dot{A}^2+A^2/\mathrm{}^2}}\right\},$$
(11)
satisfy the required energy conservation (dots denote derivatives with respect to $`\tau `$). It should also be noted that the jump in the second fundamental form selects the positive value of the square-root. The previous equations may be recast as

$$\dot{A}^2=kA^2\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}^2}\frac{16\pi ^2\rho ^2}{(d1)^2L_p^{2(3d)}}\right);$$
(12)
$$\dot{\rho }=(d1)(\rho +p)\frac{\dot{A}}{A}.$$
(13)
Now, we choose a particular equation of state, in the form $`p=p(\rho )`$, so as to integrate the conservation equation (13)

$$\mathrm{ln}(A)=\frac{1}{(d1)}\frac{d\rho }{\rho +p(\rho )}.$$
(14)
This relationship may be formally inverted to obtain $`\rho `$ as a function of the brane “radius”, $`\rho =\rho (A)`$. In these terms, Eq. (12) becomes

$$\dot{A}^2=V(A);V(A)=k+A^2\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}^2}\frac{16\pi ^2\rho ^2}{(d1)^2L_p^{2(3d)}}\right).$$
(15)
This single dynamical equation completely determines the expansion of the brane.

It is important to stress that when the matter fields become excited the Hubble rate $`\dot{A}/A`$ has an extremum, so it is possible to expand the dynamical equation around this particular “radius” denoted by $`A_0`$. Generically we would have

$$V(A)=V(A_0)+V^{}(A_0)(AA_0)+\frac{1}{2}V^{\prime \prime }(A_0)(AA_0)^2+𝒪((AA_0)^3),$$
(16)
where a prime denotes derivative with respect to $`A`$. To compute the various derivatives, we rewrite the conservation equation as

$$[\rho (A)A]^{}=[(d2)\rho +(d1)p].$$
(17)
Differentiating once more we obtain

$$[\rho (A)A]^{\prime \prime }=\frac{(d1)(\rho +p)}{A}[(d2)+(d1)v_s^2],$$
(18)
where

$$v_s^2(\rho )\frac{p}{\rho }|_\rho $$
(19)
is the speed of sound on the brane. It is easily seen that that the first derivative of the potential

$$V^{}(A)=\frac{2A}{\mathrm{}^2}+\frac{32\pi ^2\rho A[(d2)\rho +(d1)p]}{(d1)^2L_p^{2(3d)}}$$
(20)
vanishes if

$$\rho _0=\frac{L_p^{(3d)}}{4\pi }\frac{(d1)}{A_0}\left(k+\frac{A_0^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)^{1/2},$$
(21)
and

$$p_0=\frac{L_p^{(3d)}}{4\pi }\left\{\frac{(d2)}{A_0}\left(k+\frac{A_0^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)^{1/2}+\frac{A_0/\mathrm{}^2}{\sqrt{k+A_0^2/\mathrm{}^2}}\right\}.$$
(22)
Furthermore,

$$V^{\prime \prime }(A)=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}^2}\frac{32\pi ^2\{[(d2)\rho +(d1)p]^2+(d1)\rho (\rho +p)[(d2)+(d1)v_s^2]\}}{(d1)^2L_p^{2(3d)}}$$
(23)
becomes

$$V^{\prime \prime }(A_0)=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}^2}\frac{2A_0^2/\mathrm{}^4}{k+A_0^2/\mathrm{}^2}\frac{2k}{A_0^2}[(d2)+(d1)v_{s_0}^2].$$
(24)
The square of the expansion velocity is, at this order of approximation,

$$\dot{A}^2=\frac{1}{2}V^{\prime \prime }(A_0)(AA_0)^2+𝒪((AA_0)^3).$$
(25)
Thus, the equation of motion for the brane requires $`V^{\prime \prime }(A_0)0`$. This condition can be re-written in terms of the variable $`xA_0^2/\mathrm{}^2`$ as, (here for $`k=1,+1`$)

$$\frac{k[x(k+x)(d2)]}{(d1)}k(k+x)v_s^2.$$
(26)
If we now restrict the speed of sound to lie in the standard range: $`v_s(0,1]`$, a glance at Eq. (26) shows that if $`k=1`$, then

$$(3d)x>(2d).$$
(27)
For $`d=2`$ this implies that $`x`$ should be positive, while for $`d=3`$ the inequality is trivially satisfied. For $`d>3`$ we get the following bound $`1<x(d2)/(d3)`$ – in $`AdS_5`$ this is the statement that $`1<A_0^2/\mathrm{}^22`$. Note that we have assumed throughout that $`x>1`$. Indeed, from Eq. (5) we see that if $`x<1`$ the brane is localized in time and not in the bulk. It is noticeable that for $`k=1`$ the brane has an effective cosmological constant which is less than zero; if $`\dot{A}_0`$ is a maximum, the system is not able to thermalize to a final state with no cosmological constant on the brane. Hence, there is no consistent solution minimizing the value of $`\dot{A}_0`$. On the other hand, if $`k=1`$ (de Sitter instanton) there is no constraint on $`x`$ (in this case, Eq. (26) just implies that $`x`$ is positive), and the brane could develop a well–behaved cosmology. Finally, for the case $`k=0`$, there is no bound from the above considerations since this is a static case.

### 2.3 Constraints from the Weyl Anomaly

Now we will concentrate on the case of $`d=4`$ and $`k=+1`$. With this in mind, Eq. (12) can be re-written as

$$\dot{A}^2=1\frac{A^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\left(1\frac{T_{eff}^2}{T_c^2}\right),$$
(28)
where $`T_{eff}=T_c+\stackrel{~}{\rho }`$. It should be stressed that an extra term, proportional to $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2`$, appears in the r.h.s. of Eq. (28) when comparing to the standard Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology (a fact already known) . To match the known observations of the expanding universe, the latter has to play a negligible role at least back to the time of electron-positron annihilation and primordial nucleosynthesis. At this stage we should point out that when dealing with compactified extra dimensions, one has to stabilize the value of the radion-field (which determines the size of the extra dimension) at the beginning of nucleosynthesis so as not to get into conflict with observations . Throughout this paper, however, the radion is set to the minimum of its potential. Some constraints on the equation of state for cosmology with compactified extra dimensions were recently considered in .

All in all, one expects that the universe evolves in a similar fashion even in the presence of branes at temperatures lower than $`T10^{12}K`$ (more on this below). Nevertheless, there could be a significant departure from the usual scenario at very high energy scales – i.e. at the beginning of the universe – since the expansion rate could be dominated by $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2`$. To find the possible values of $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }`$ (at very high energy scales) we recall that the Weyl anomaly sets the effective tension of the brane to be

$$T_{eff}=\frac{3\left(1+A_0^2/\mathrm{}^2\right)}{4\pi L_pA_0}.$$
(29)
The ratio between the energy density of the matter fields and the vacuum energy at the minimum classical radius of the brane equals

$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{\rho }(A_0)}{T_c}=\frac{\mathrm{}}{A_0}\left(1+A_0^2/\mathrm{}^2\right)^{1/2}1.$$
(30)
Expanding the square–root with the assumption $`A_0\mathrm{}`$ we see that444Note that if one abandon the idea that the solution come with some string inspired mechanism the $`AdS`$ radius is not constrained to be of order of Planck length.

$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{\rho }(A_0)}{T_c}\frac{\mathrm{}}{A_0}1.$$
(31)
This shows that the $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2`$-term dominates the early expansion of the brane world. On the other hand, one can immediately show that the Weyl anomaly does not set any constraint on the ratio $`A_0/\mathrm{}`$.

## 3 Present Epoch

### 3.1 Energy Conditions on the Brane

The energy conditions, encoded in the evolution of the expansion scalar governed by Raychaudhuri’s equation , are designed to side-step, as much as possible, the need to pin down a particular equation of state. They provide simple and robust bounds on the behavior of various linear combinations of the components of the stress-energy tensor. The refinement of the energy conditions paralleled the development of powerful mathematical theorems, such us singularity theorems (guaranteeing, under certain circumstances, gravitational collapse), the proof of the zeroth law of black hole thermodynamics (the constancy of the surface gravity over the event horizon), limits on the extents to which light cones can “tip over” in strong gravitational fields (superluminal censorship), the cosmic censorship conjecture (singularities cannot be unshielded, they always remain hidden by event horizons), etc. . In particular, the classical singularity theorem relevant to proving the existence of the big-bang singularity relies on the strong energy condition (SEC). It is somewhat disturbing to realize that current observations seem to indicate that the SEC is violated – though weakly – somewhere between the epoch of galaxy formation and the present time, in an epoch where the cosmological temperature never exceeds 60 Kelvin . It is therefore worthwhile to test whether the brane world cosmology relaxes or increases the bounds on the violation of the energy conditions. In this section we shall generalize the analysis by Visser on Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) cosmologies .

Let us start by setting some basic nomenclature. The weak energy condition (WEC) is the assertion that for any timelike vector $`\xi ^A`$, $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{AB}\xi ^A\xi ^B0`$. The null energy condition (NEC) is satisfied if and only if, $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{AB}\zeta ^A\zeta ^B0`$ for any null vector $`\zeta ^A`$. The strong energy condition (SEC) holds if and only if $`(\stackrel{~}{T}_{AB}\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{T}\gamma _{AB})0`$. Finally, the dominant energy condition (DEC) basically says that the locally measured energy density is always positive, and that the energy flux is timelike or null, that is $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{AB}\xi ^A\xi ^B0`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{AB}\xi ^A`$ is not spacelike (for an introduction to this subject, see ). These conditions can be rephrased in terms of the energy density and the principal pressures as follows,

* WEC: $`\rho >0`$, and $`j`$, $`\rho +p_j0`$
* NEC: $`j`$, $`\rho +p_j0`$
* SEC: $`j`$, $`\rho +p_j0`$ and $`\rho +_jp_j0`$
* DEC: $`\rho 0`$, and $`j`$, $`p_j[\rho ,\rho ]`$.

where $`j=1,\mathrm{},d1`$. With these expressions in hand, one can easily verify the equivalence between FRW and braneworld cosmology with respect to WEC, NEC and DEC. One can also check that these energy conditions are not in conflict with the present data.555It should be noted, that the energy conditions as defined above refer to the brane world and not to the entire spacetime. The extension of these definitions to the whole spacetime leads to NEC violation in compactified RS scenarios . In the next section we will consider the SEC.

### 3.2 What is the Brane World Made of?

The most direct observational evidence for the expansion of the universe comes from the redshift of spectral lines of distance galaxies. When we look into the sky and see some object, the look-back time $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$ to that object is defined as the modulus of the difference between $`\tau _0`$ (the age of the universe now) and $`\tau `$ the age of the universe when the light that we are receiving was emitted. If we know the velocity of expansion of the universe $`\dot{A}`$, by putting a lower bound on $`\dot{A}`$ we deduce an upper bound on look-back time. We warn the reader not to confuse $`\tau _0`$ with the birth-time. Throughout this section we use the subscript zero to indicate present epoch. Unfortunately both usages are standard.

In particular, from Eqs. (10) and (11) one can trivially check that the SEC is satisfied if and only if

$$(d3)[k+\dot{A}^2]+(d2)\frac{A^2}{\mathrm{}^2}+\ddot{A}A0,$$
(32)
and

$$[k+\dot{A}^2]+\ddot{A}A0.$$
(33)
Note that the condition (32) depends on $`d`$, and for $`AdS_3`$, SEC could be satisfied even with $`\ddot{A}>0`$. Furthermore, contrary to the standard FRW case, SEC shows a $`k`$ dependence on brane-world cosmology. We now look for violations of the SEC in our brane cosmology and for that we concentrate on the condition in Eq. (32). We consider a four–dimensional flat brane ($`k=0`$), which according to current experiments is the most likely to describe the world at the present epoch . We further restrict the problem to $`A^2\mathrm{}^2`$.666Note that to satisfy SEC $`\ddot{A}`$ becomes more negative while increasing $`A`$ with respect to $`\mathrm{}`$. Let us define the function $`f(A)\dot{A}A`$. Using Eq. (32), it is easily seen that

$$A<A_0,f(A)f(A_0).$$
(34)
To set some bounds on the cosmological evolution it is convenient to refer the above formulae to the redshift factor $`z`$. For a photon emitted at $`\tau _e`$, $`z`$ is defined as

$$z\frac{A(\tau _0)}{A(\tau _e)}1.$$
(35)
Then after integrating Eq. (34) we see that for a flat brane $`(k=0)`$ the SEC gives the following bound on the Hubble constant:

$$H_0\frac{2z+z^2}{2\stackrel{~}{\tau }(z)(1+z)^2}.$$
(36)
Without belaboring the subject, it has been known for some time now  that the age of the oldest stars is $`16\pm 2`$ Gyr. The best guess for the redshift at formation of these candles is $`z_f15`$. Using these values in Eq. (36) yields $`H_030`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. Even pulling $`z_f`$ into $`z_f=7`$ or $`z_f=20`$ gives lidicous bounds, see Fig. 2. Therefore, brane-world cosmology cannot be compatible with stellar evolution and the SEC. It is easily seen from Eq. (32) that for $`k=1,+1`$ the acceleration $`\ddot{A}`$ has to be more negative and hence that the bounds on $`H_0`$ are even more stringent than for the case discussed above.

## 4 Final Remarks

The fate of the universe is still uncertain . Moreover, the possible existence of extra dimensions further complicate the picture. In this article, we traced a possible evolution of the brane world from the very early beginning to the formation of galaxies a few billions years later, without enforcing any particular equation of state. On the one hand, we discussed high energy scales, related to the early universe. We see that if the speed of sound is taken to lie in the standard range, a de Sitter brane world could develop a consistent cosmological scenario, whereas a similar bound may lead to unusual regimes for $`AdS`$ domain walls. This constraint does not depend on the choice of equation of state. In addition, we find that if $`k=1`$ the Weyl anomaly increases the effective tension on the brane in such a way that the matter density $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2`$ plays a paramount role in the early universe cosmology. On the other hand, we have shown that reasonable values of the Hubble parameter imply that the strong energy condition must be violated sometime between the epoch of galaxy formation and present. Consequently, fixing the age of the universe does not just imply tuning an equation of state. To overwhelm the gravitational effects of the normal matter, we will inescapably need large quantities of matter that violates the strong energy condition, or so–called abnormal matter. Faced with this fact, it would perhaps be interesting to analyze whether any frozen brane-bulk interaction could improve the situation. The difficulty with this possibility will be maintaining some rather peculiar physics engendered by strong energy condition violations.

### Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Carlos Nuñez and Lisa Randall for useful discussions. The work of LA was supported by CONICET and that of KO by the Danish Natural Science Research Council.