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# 1 Magnetoresistance of a high-quality GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure at 40 mK of temperature under pressure near filling fraction 𝜈=2/5. Arrows indicate the sweep direction. Magnetic field scale has been normalized to the highest pressure shown here for the sake of comparison. Each pressure data point represents individual cool-down after adjustments in the pressure.

Quantum Hall Ferromagnetism in a Two-Dimensional Electron System

J. Eom1, H. Cho1, W. Kang1, K.L. Campman2, A.C. Gossard2, M. Bichler3, and W. Wegscheider3,4

1. James Franck Institute and Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, 2. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106, 3. Walter Schottky Institut, Technische Universität München, Am Coulombwall, D-85748 Garching, Germany, 4. University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Experiments on a nearly spin degenerate two-dimensional electron system reveals unusual hysteretic and relaxational transport in the fractional quantum Hall effect regime. The transition between the spin-polarized (with fill fraction $`\nu =1/3`$ ) and spin-unpolarized ( $`\nu =2/5`$ ) states is accompanied by a complicated series of hysteresis loops reminiscent of a classical ferromagnet. In correlation with the hysteresis, magnetoresistance can either grow or decay logarithmically in time with remarkable persistence and does not saturate. In contrast to the established models of relaxation, the relaxation rate exhibits an anomalous divergence as temperature is reduced. These results indicate the presence of novel two-dimensional ferromagnetism with a complicated magnetic domain dynamic.

The two-dimensional electron system (2DES) under low temperatures and high magnetic fields has become a test bed for studying quantum phase transitions in low dimensions (1-3). Unlike classical phase transitions that are driven largely by thermal fluctuations, the phase transitions found in the quantum Hall effect (QHE) regime represent a class of zero temperature phase transitions that are driven by strong electron-electron interaction. Under intense magnetic fields, quantization of the electronic motion into Landau levels quenches the kinetic energy and the interaction energy determines the thermodynamic properties of the underlying 2DES. At integral and certain fractional commensuration of the electron density and the applied magnetic flux, called filling fraction , gain in the interaction energy produces transitions to the quantum Hall states with Hall conductance $`\sigma _{xy}=e^2/h`$(1, 2). The collective, many-body nature of the QHE states is evident from the dissipationless longitudinal transport and the existence of energy gap in the excitation spectrum. The magnetotransport in the vicinity of a transition between two QHE phases is well described in terms of critical behavior normally associated with a second-order phase transition. The universal scaling exhibited by the QHE transitions and the existence of well-defined critical exponents provide compelling evidence indicative of a zero-temperature quantum phase transition (3-5).

In addition to the transitions between two different QHE states, the translationally invariant quantum Hall phases can exhibit novel forms of two-dimensional ferromagnetism (6). Driven by gain in the anisotropy energy over the Coulomb exchange energy, the ferromagnetic transitions in the multicomponent QHE systems are accompanied by spatial ordering of pseudospin degrees of freedom represented by discrete quantum numbers such as electronic spin, Landau level index, and electron layer quantum number. Analogous to the ferromagnetically ordered electronic spins in magnetic systems, resulting quantum Hall ferromagnets represent a new class of low-dimensional ferromagnets with remarkable properties (7, 8). The distinguishing features of quantum Hall ferromagnets include broken symmetry arising from spontaneous magnetic ordering, existence of Goldstone mode in the ordered state, and topological objects as its low-energy excitations (6).

The underlying symmetry of the quantum Hall ferromagnet is determined by the associated pseudospin of the QHE phase. In case of even integral QHE states in single-layer electron systems, the spin configuration of the associated Hall states becomes the pseudospin quantum number of the transformed state. Because the possible spin geometries are limited to a fully polarized state with all electron spins aligned parallel to the applied magnetic field and an unpolarized state with equal numbers of up and down spins, the resulting pseudospin degree of freedom possesses a bimodal, Ising symmetry. In double-layer 2DESs found in double quantum wells or a wide quantum well, the in-plane degree of freedom leads to a transition to a two-dimensional XY ferromagnet (9-11). In some QHE states, interplay of spin and the layer quantum numbers can produce a transition to an Ising ferromagnet in wide-well system (8, 12).

Our experiment was performed on a high-quality GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. Data was taken at pressures above 10 kbar where a large reduction in the magnitude of the electronic g factor favors formation of spin-unpolarized fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) states. The evolution of the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state with pressure indicates enhancement of spin fluctuations against their tendency to align parallel to the applied magnetic field. Under increasing pressure, the spin-unpolarized ground state competes against the spin-polarized state, leading to coexistence over a broad region of pressure. The transition to the pseudospin ferromagnetic state is distinguished by emergence of hysteretic transport and anomalous temporal relaxation of magnetoresistance. The observed correlation between hysteretic and relaxational evolution of magnetotransport points toward existence of intriguing domain dynamics in the pseudospin ferromagnet.

The density of the GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure used in the experiment was $`n`$ = 3.5 $`\times 10^{11}cm^2`$ with mobility of $`\mu =2.4\times 10^6cm^2/Vsec`$. A miniature beryllium-copper pressure cell was used to achieve high pressure. Samples were immersed inside a homogeneous hydrostatic medium that transmits uniform pressure to the sample. A small light-emitting diode was placed inside the pressure cell to illuminate the sample at low temperatures. A gradual reduction in the electronic density was found with increasing pressure.

The magnetoresistivity of a high-quality 2DES sample is shown (Fig. 1) in the hysteretic region found between 11 to 14 kbar of pressure. Although the FQHE states at $`\nu `$ = 2/3, 3/5, 1/2, and 1/3 are unchanged in this region of pressure, the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state demonstrates an intriguing evolution with increasing pressure. Between 11.2 and 13.5 kbar of pressure, the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state becomes progressively weaker at higher pressures and exhibits strong hysteresis between up and down magnetic field sweeps. A slight increase in the pressure to 13.8 kbar restores the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state. This type of reentrant behavior is also found in other FQHE states and provides a compelling evidence of spin transitions that alter the spin polarization of the associated FQHE states (13-17). Tilted field experiments show that the electronic spins are aligned completely parallel to the applied magnetic field for pressure below 13.5 kbar, whereas there are equal numbers of up and down electronic spins in the state for pressure above 13.5 kbar (18).

In the temperature dependence of the normalized hysteretic resistance obtained around $`\nu =2/5`$ for a 2DES under 13 kbar of pressure (Fig. 2), the series of hysteretic resistance was obtained by subtracting the up and down magnetoresistance sweeps and dividing it by the average magnetoresistance. The hysteresis profile was found to be weakly dependent on the sweep rate. The hysteresis is most pronounced at the lowest temperatures, and several crossings between up and down traces reveal a complicated hysteresis curve. The fine features in the hysteresis resistance disappear at temperatures above 200 mK, and no hysteresis is detected above 300 mK. The observed hysteretic behavior under pressure points toward presence of unusual ground state in the vicinity of the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state. This is further reinforced by presence of logarithmic time dependence of magnetoresistance.

An extended logarithmic time dependence is found over a range of fillings and temperatures for $`\nu =2/5`$ (Fig. 3). The time scans were initiated after sweeping from zero field and holding the magnetic field at $`\nu =2/5`$ . Typical time scans were performed over a 12- to 24-hour period, though scans lasting several days have been performed on some occasions. The logarithmic time dependence is robust and reproducible under repeated thermal and magnetic field cyclings. In all cases, the resistance at $`\nu =2/5`$ increases logarithmically in time and no saturation was ever detected. As the temperature is lowered, magnetoresistance relaxation becomes enhanced and a larger change in the overall magnetoresistance was obtained. Similarly pronounced relaxation behavior was found at different levels of excitation currents. To quantify the magnetoresistance relaxation, we defined an effective relaxation rate in terms of the derivative of magnetoresistance ($`R_{xx}`$) with respect to logarithm of time, d$`R_{xx}`$/d\[log(t)\]. The inset of Fig. 3 shows the effective relaxation rate d$`R_{xx}`$/d\[log(t)\] as a function of temperature T at $`\nu =2/5`$ . As the temperature is reduced, the relaxation rate is found to increase dramatically. Least square analysis shows that the relaxation rate diverges as $`1/T^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha `$= 1.3.

The temporal evolution of magnetoresistance at fillings around $`\nu =2/5`$ at a temperature of 69 mK (Fig. 4) reveals a strong magnetic field dependence of the relaxation behavior. In particular, the logarithmic relaxation of magnetoresistance is limited to fillings between $`\nu `$ = 3/7 and 1/3, and no time dependence is found outside these filling factors. For fillings between $`\nu `$ = 3/7 and 2/5, magnetoresistance relaxes toward a larger resistance, whereas for fillings between $`\nu =2/5`$ and 1/3, magnetoresistance decreases as a function of time. For both behaviors, no saturation in magnetoresistance was found.

Summarizing the magnetic field dependence of the relaxation rate d$`R_{xx}`$/d\[log(t)\] at 69 mK (Fig. 5A), a sign change in the relaxation rate occurs at a magnetic field slightly above that corresponds to $`\nu =2/5`$ . Most remarkably, the magnetic field dependence of the relaxation rate reveals a striking similarity to the hysteretic loop derived from magnetic field sweeps. Figure 5B illustrates the hysteresis in magnetoresistance obtained by subtraction of up-sweep from the down-sweep data. The correlation between the hysteresis and the logarithmic relaxation is highly suggestive of common origin for both hysteresis and the magnetoresistance relaxation. In particular, the temporal evolution of magnetoresistance is suggestive of an intriguing dynamics in the vicinity of the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state.

The theoretical studies of quantum Hall ferromagnetism have shown that certain quantum Hall states with two nearly degenerate pseudospin Landau levels are susceptible to ferromagnetic ordering (7, 8). In case of the=2/5 FQHE state, the coexistence region of the two degenerate–polarized and unpolarized–spin configurations under pressure can be mapped to an equivalent pseudospin ground state. Gain in the anisotropy energy leads to spontaneous symmetry breaking and a transition to a two-dimensional easy axis (Ising) ferromagnet ensues. Local potential fluctuations lead to nucleation of domains that are pinned by defects, leading to complicated domain geometry. The anomalous magnetotransport observed in the vicinity of the spin transition of the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state provides a compelling evidence of such a magnetic ordering in the FQHE regime.

Near $`\nu =2/5`$ , the magnetic field sweeps alter the energetics of the pseudospin interaction in the quantum Hall ferromagnet, causing modification of the Zeeman splitting between competing spin configurations. Consequently, it becomes necessary for individual pseudospin domains to grow, shrink, or coalesce in response to the changes in the local energetics. Irreversible changes in the local spin configurations occur as a result of complex domain dynamics. As the distribution of up and down pseudospin domains is altered, history-dependent hysteresis accompanies the magnetic field sweeps, in close analogy with conventional ferromagnets.

The temperature dependence of hysteresis (Fig. 2) largely illustrates the strength of the magnetic ordering at low temperatures. Due to the coupling between the electrical current and the pseudospin degree of freedom through enhanced scattering at the domain boundaries, the hysteretic loops largely mirror the temperature dependence of the order parameter in the quantum Hall ferromagnet. Coupled to the pseudospin magnetization, the hysteresis gradually weakens and disappears at high temperatures. The ground state below 300 mK may be best described as an ordered ferromagnet and at high temperatures, a pseudospin paramagnet. Measurement of thermodynamic quantities such as specific heat (19, 20) and magnetization (21) is expected to yield a similar behavior.

The logarithmic time dependence exhibited by magnetoresistance in the vicinity of $`\nu =2/5`$ is indicative of relaxation of magnetic domains in the quantum Hall ferromagnet. The correlation between the relaxation rate and the hysteresis likely arises from existence of energy-dependent interaction between the domains within the sample. Depending on the nature of interaction and magnitude of the potential barrier, relaxation between neighboring domains can occur at vastly different time scales (22, 23). The motion between two domains with identical magnetization involves crossing a region of opposite magnetization that acts as a potential energy barrier. The domain wall energy of such a barrier is proportional to , where t represents the anisotropy energy andis the exchange stiffness. Magnetic pressure exerted on the domain walls produces slippage and propagation of domains through the sample. Such a relaxation process may be generically described in terms of hopping between neighboring minima of potential wells that are driven via thermal activation at finite temperatures (24) and quantum tunneling near zero temperature (25-28).

In a large specimen possessing a distribution of various domain sizes and shapes, the collective response of the magnetic domains can span an extended time range due to availability of response at all time scales. In the vicinity of hard potentials in which two domains are separated by a large barrier, low probability of tunneling and thermal activation produce slow relaxation. In contrast, the tendency for relaxation is enhanced near soft potentials where domains can readily move and slide against each other. As a result, presence of a broad distribution of domain energies manifests in a logarithmic time dependence instead of exponential or power-law time dependence (22). Although disorder can modify the relaxation behavior, systems with strong residual interaction between neighboring domains exhibit slow, logarithmic relaxation (23).

Relaxation processes with time scale comparable to our system are found in spin glasses (29) and low-dimensional ferromagnets (30-32). Aspects of relaxation such as randomness of local spin configurations and broad distribution of relevant energy scales are common between these systems. However, a salient feature of our experiment is the relaxation of magnetoresistance instead of magnetization. This is accountable in terms of domain growth or shrinking (33). As the scattering at domain walls enhances the resistance, the fractional change in the overall magnetoresistance is proportional to the total length of the domain wall in the system. The relaxation toward a larger resistance between= 3/7 and 2/5 (Fig. 4) may be attributed to the overall growth of domain walls in the quantum Hall ferromagnet. On the other hand, the relaxation toward a smaller resistance between $`\nu =2/5`$ and 1/3 indicates overall reduction in the total length of domain walls. The domain growth or shrinking in quantum Hall ferromagnets is presumably governed by the Zeeman energy difference between neighboring pseudospin domains. Existence of domains in the sample is also supported by strong nonlinearity in the current-voltage characteristics of the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE (34).

One intriguing feature of the data is the temperature dependence of relaxation rate. The divergence of the observed relaxation rate with temperature cannot be easily reconciled within a simple model of thermally activated relaxation. In classical models of relaxations, thermally activated systems exhibit a relaxation rate proportional to temperature (24). In systems in which relaxations are driven by quantum tunneling, the relaxation rate becomes independent of temperature at low temperatures (25-28). Consequently, the divergence in the temperature dependence of the relaxation rate points to some unconventional relaxation process in the quantum Hall ferromagnet. Similar divergence in the relaxation rate at low temperature has been observed in some low-dimensional ferromagnets (30-32). Because there is no theoretical description of relaxation in a quantum Hall systems at this time, it remains unclear what type of relaxation processes dominate in a quantum Hall ferromagnet. Because disorder and Coulomb interaction play a nontrivial role in the QHE, the possibility of some relaxation process unique to quantum Hall ferromagnets cannot be ruled out at this time.

In particular, coupling to nuclear spins may be responsible for the origin of the slow relaxation in the vicinity of the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE. In GaAs, the lattice nuclei consist of S = 3/2 nuclear isotopes of 69Ga and 71Ga and 75As with which conduction electrons interact through hyperfine coupling. In general, the coupling between electronic and nuclear spins is extremely weak and the relaxations of nuclear spins occur at a negligibly slow rate. However, presence of low-energy spin excitations has been shown to enhance the coupling between the spins of electrons and nuclei in the quantum Hall regime. At= 1, presence of electron spin texture excitation known as Skyrmions (1, 6) leads to an enhanced nuclear spin diffusion and gives rise to a large heat capacity at low temperatures (19, 20). An earlier experiment also has shown that nuclear spin polarization can produce hysteresis and memory effects in the magnetotransport (35). Consequently, enhanced coupling to nuclear spins cannot be ruled out in our experiment. A possible route of coupling between nuclear and electronic spins is through existence of a Skyrmion-like excitation associated with the $`\nu =1/3`$ FQHE state. Because the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE state can be considered to be a daughter state of the $`\nu =1/3`$ state, Skyrmionic excitations from the $`\nu =1/3`$ FQHE state may be responsible for the coupling to the nuclear spin in the $`\nu =2/5`$ . Alternatively, the quasiparticles from the $`\nu =1/3`$ FQHE that nucleate the $`\nu =2/5`$ FQHE couple to the nuclear spins may be giving rise to the observed slow dynamics. Further experiments will be necessary to elucidate the coupling to nuclear spin in the FQHE regime.

In conclusion, we have observed transport and relaxational behavior associated with the ferromagnetic ordering in the FQHE regime of a 2DES. Our experiment demonstrates a previously unknown type of magnetic ordering of FQHE states and a slow, aging effect associated with multidomain structure. Further experiments should reveal additional properties of this many-body magnetism. In particular, we speculate on the nature of quantum Hall magnetism at micrometer or sub-micrometer lengthscales. Study of single domain dynamics in the quantum Hall ferromagnets should reveal time-dependent phenomena such as macroscopic quantum tunneling, switching, and telegraphic behaviors. Detection of such effects should lead to greater understanding of many-body magnetism and quantum mechanics at small lengthscales.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

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36. We thank A. MacDonald and G. Mazenko for useful discussions. The work at the University of Chicago was supported in part by the Material Research Science and Engineering Center Program of the National Science Foundation (grant no. DMR- 9808595) and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.


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# 1.26 𝜇m intersubband transitions in In0.3Ga0.7As/AlAs quantum wells

11footnotetext: Current address: Departamento de Física de materiales, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain22footnotetext: E-mail: vp@sns.it33footnotetext: Present address: Institut für Halbleitertechnologie, Universität Hannover, D-30167, Hannover, Germany44footnotetext: Also with Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Modena, I-41100 Modena, Italy55footnotetext: Also with Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trieste, I-34127 Trieste, Italy

## Abstract

We observed room-temperature intersubband transitions at 1.26 microns in n-doped type-II In0.3Ga0.7As/AlAs strained quantum wells. An improved tight-binding model was used to optimize the structure parameters in order to obtain the shortest wavelength intersubband transition ever achieved in a semiconductor system. The corresponding transitions occur between the first confined electronic levels of the well following mid-infrared optical pumping of electrons from the barrier X-valley into the well ground state.

Intersubband optical transitions (ISTs) between quantized electronic levels in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs) are at the basis of the realization of novel mid-infrared semiconductor detectors  and lasers. In recent years much attention was given to the implementation of systems exhibiting ISTs with shorter wavelengths extending to the near infrared. In fact, thanks to the ultrafast carrier-relaxation processes characteristic of intersubband scattering such high-energy ISTs can find many important applications for high-speed device operation at short wavelengths  and for ultrafast all-optical modulation schemes  that would require similar wavelengths for both interband and intersubband transitions. The achievement of short-wavelength intersubband transitions is basically connected to the choice of suitable material combinations yielding adequately large conduction-band offsets. In particular, systems composed by narrow InxGa1-xAs/AlAs strained QWs were extensively studied  and yielded wavelengths as short as 1.59$`\mu `$ and 1.55$`\mu `$, thanks to the large InxGa1-xAs/AlAs conduction-band offset and large tunability of the IST energies. Picosecond intersubband relaxation in this material system for the case of ISTs at around 1.8$`\mu `$m was also recently demonstrated. The use of InGaAs/AlAsSb compounds has shortened these wavelengths down to 1.45$`\mu `$ which represents the highest-energy IST reported so far. Additionally, GaN/AlGaN narrow QWs have been studied very recently and displayed intersubband transition at 1.77$`\mu `$m. This latter material combination may offer important avenues for the achievement of very short-wavelength ISTs.

In our recent work we demonstrated that n-doped InxGa1-xAs/AlAs heterostructures allow a large tunability of IST energies and can yield intersubband wavelengths well below 1.5$`\mu `$m. We also showed, however, that quantum-size effects associated with well thickness and indium mole fraction values can induce a type I$``$type II transition as the QW width is decreased. This happens when the quantum-confined $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ conduction-band minimum localized in the InxGa1-xAs well is pushed above the bulk AlAs X conduction-band minimum, leading to an indirect band-gap configuration. In this case, at equilibrium, electrons populate the X valley in the barrier. Intersubband absorption thus occurs in the mid-infrared and is associated with indirect electronic transitions from the X (barrier) to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (well) states. Observation of short-wavelength direct intersubband transitions below 1.5 $`\mu `$m is hindered by the lack of electrons in the lowest $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-like subband of the QW.

In this letter we shall focus on n-doped type-II InxGa1-xAs/AlAs multiple QW structures with narrow well widths (few monolayers) and we shall demonstrate that it is possible to photo-activate the very short-wavelength direct intersubband absorption associated to confined $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ states in the QWs by photo-pumping electrons out of the barrier X levels and into the lowest $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-like state of the wells. The approach used here allowed us to circumvent limitations associated with the type-II character of these ultrathin QWs. As a result, we obtained room-temperature IST at 1.26 microns (0.98 eV) in a 5-monolayer(ML)-thick In0.3Ga0.7As/AlAs multiple-QW structure (1 ML $``$ 3 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$). This observation sets the new record for the shortest-wavelength IST achieved in a semiconductor system.

In order to identify the optimal InxGa1-xAs/AlAs configuration for short-wavelength ISTs with large dipole moment, band-structure calculations were performed within the tight-banding (TB) approximation using a 40-band empirical $`sp^3d^5s^{}`$ nearest-neighbor model that includes spin-orbit coupling. The usefulness of the present TB model was recently demonstrated in the calculation of the optical properties of several III-V semiconductor quantum wells and superlattices  including the InGaAs/AlAs heterostructure system here of interest.

Figure 1 (left panel) shows the calculated squared dipole matrix element $`E_P`$ (in eV) of the predominant IST between the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-like conduction-band states, named c1 and c2, as a function of alloy composition and well thickness ($`E_P=\frac{2}{m_o}c1P_zc2^2`$, where $`m_o`$ is the free electron mass). The corresponding intersubband transition energies are displayed in the right panel of Fig. 1. These calculations suggest that useful, very short-wavelength intersubband transitions can indeed be achieved in this material system with ultrathin QWs. In particular, samples with well width of 5 MLs emerge as most promising candidates for short-wavelength intersubband absorption. In fact, 4-ML-wide QWs that present even larger IST energies do not yield an efficient localization of the c2 $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-like state in the InGaAs QW region, which reflects in the low intersubband dipole moments reported in Fig. 1 (left panel). Setting the QW thickness at 5 ML, however, demands much care in the choice of the alloy composition. At large In content (x $`>`$ 0.6), these structures exceed the critical thickness as calculated following Matthews and Blakeslee’s mechanical-equilibrium model. From our calculations, the best In concentration value for the realization of short-wavelength IST is estimated at around x = 0.3. It must be noted that this well width (5ML) and In concentration lead to a type-II configuration and intersubband absorption in the mid-infrared as pointed out above. We shall demonstrate, however, that photoinduced occupation of the confined $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-like subband of the QW enables the observation of the c1-c2 intersubband absorption.

The sample used in this study was grown by molecular beam epitaxy on a GaAs(001) substrate and consists of a 0.5 $`\mu `$m GaAs buffer layer followed by 30 In0.3Ga0.7As QWs 5-ML wide, grown at 540oC with a 30 s growth interruption at each interface, separated by 108-$`\mathrm{\AA }`$-thick (36ML) AlAs barriers. Wells were Si doped to 1.4$`\times `$1019cm-3. The growth was concluded with a 10-nm-thick GaAs cap layer. Well and barrier thickness were verified by transmission electron microscopy. The sample was fabricated in a multipass waveguide geometry with 45 polished mirror facets and placed in a Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer (FTIR) for the mid-infrared absorption measurements.

Figure 2 shows the room-temperature mid-infrared absorption of the sample. The spectrum was acquired with z-polarized incident light (perpendicular to the QW plane) and normalized with respect to the in-plane polarized transmission signal. The absorption peak is centered at 98 meV ($``$ 12 $`\mu `$m) and corresponds to the X-$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ indirect transition. This transition is induced by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-X intervalley mixing and is negligible for in-plane polarization owing to the reduced overlap between the envelope functions of the two states (see inset of Fig. 2). It must be noted that this selection rule is peculiar to our system; in short-period type II superlattices, for instance, where the X state is quantum-confined and therefore the wavefunction overlap is larger, the X-$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ intersubband transition is basically polarization insensitive.

The energy-level diagram of the heterostructure as derived within our TB approximation is shown in the inset of Fig. 3. The c1-c2 intersubband transition is calculated at 0.94 eV ($``$1.3 $`\mu `$m).

In order to observe the short wavelength c1-c2 IST we used the radiation from a CO2 laser to pump electrons out of the X level to the c1 $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-like ground state in the well. During the experiment the sample was illuminated on the same spot (a few millimeters wide) with both the CO2 laser and a halogen lamp for the transmission measurements. The CO2 laser radiation was tuned at 110 meV (within the X-$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ absorption peak shown in Fig. 2) and focused on the sample surface with an intensity of $``$ 20 W/cm2. This high power density was motivated by the low oscillator strength of the indirect intersubband transition (f=0.001 compared with f$``$3.3 for the c1-c2 transition). The transmission signal was then dispersed by a 32-cm-long monochromator and detected by a Ge detector and conventional lock-in techniques.

Figure 3 shows the photo-activated intersubband absorption at room temperature. The peak is centered at 0.98 eV, $``$ 1.26 $`\mu `$m, in good agreement with the TB calculation results (see Fig. 1) and has a full width at half maximum of 60 meV which is largely due to well-width and alloy fluctuations. Data plotted were obtained by careful normalization to the transmission background signals obtained without concurrent CO2 excitation. In order to rule out the influence of local heating effects on the observed near-infrared absorption peak we checked the impact of a different normalization procedure. To this end, we acquired transmission data by using as normalization background signal the transmitted intensity under concurrent laser irradiation at 135 meV with an intensity of $``$ 20 W/cm2. (The excitation frequency lays out of the absorption peak shown in Fig. 2.) The same absorption peak was observed, confirming unambiguously that photo-pumping across the mid-infrared X-$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ transition is the dominant mechanism that yields electrons in the well. We also found that the c1-c2 absorption peak increased with excitation power further highlighting the photoassisted nature of the observed signal.

In conclusion, we have reported the experimental observation of room-temperature intersubband transition at 1.26 microns in type-II In0.3Ga0.7As/AlAs quantum wells. For this experiment, electrons were photo-pumped from the X valley located in the AlAs barrier to the lowest confined $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-like state in the well by means of CO2 laser irradiation. Further engineering of InGaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures that will take advantage of quantum confinement of X-valley levels in the barrier will open the way to the exploitation of very short wavelength IST in optoelectronic devices even without the need for MIR-photoexcitation.

This work was supported in part by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) within the CNR-Scuola Normale Superiore framework agreement and by MURST. Two of the authors (CPG and BHM) acknowledge financial support from the European Commission under the ERASMUS and TMR programs, respectively. One of the authors (ADN) acknowledges IFAM-CNR for financial support. We thank A. Parisini and P.G. Merli for the transmission electron microscopy analysis.


text:
# A New Approach to Mass Measurements of UHECR: Horizontal Air Showers

## Introduction

Inclined showers were observed in the 1960’s by a number of experiments Tokyo ; Kiel ; Durham ; Andrews  and it was immediately realized that they were different from the ordinary vertical showers and they had to be due to penetrating particles. At high zenith angles the slant atmospheric depth to ground level is enough to absorb the early part of the shower that follows from the standard cascading interactions, both of electromagnetic and hadronic type. Only penetrating particles such as muons and neutrinos can traverse the atmosphere at high zeniths to reach the ground or to induce secondary showers deep in the atmosphere and close to an air shower detector.

The idea that it may be possible to detect high energy neutrinos produced both in the atmosphere or away from the earth was put forward by Markov in 1960 markov . Horizontal Air Showers (HAS) were at the end of the decade suggested as a possible means berezinskii  but it was soon realized that the inclined showers that had been detected were more likely due to secondary interactions of the high energy muons that were produced in ordinary cosmic ray showers at the top layers of the atmosphere. Indeed inclined shower rates in the shower size range between $`10^2`$ and $`10^5`$ particles have been shown to be consistent with atmospheric muon bremsstrahlung Kiraly ; tokiobremss ; hsvum , which is the dominant mechanism for HAS.

From the early days of air shower measurements until now inclined showers have been present in many experiments Antonov  and have given a great deal of information. The Haverah Park array detected very inclined showers of the highest energies which were interpreted as muons from ”ordinary” cosmic rays (presumably protons or nuclei) Hillas . In the 1980’s it became apparent that one of the interests of HAS was the identification of the prompt muon component in the atmospheric muon spectrum, an issue that is not yet settled and bounds on muon-poor HAS were established nagano86 . The non-observation of horizontal or upcoming air showers by the fluorescence technique gave a limit to the diffuse high energy neutrino flux baltrusaitis .

Later on in the 1990’s the prospects for high neutrino detection became a reality with a number of projects under planning or construction and intense theoretical activity resulted in various neutrino production mechanisms being proposed and flux predictions estimated nureview . Bounds on HAS played a significant role constraining diffuse neutrino flux predictions from three different mechanisms: For the pioneering calculation of the diffuse neutrino flux expected from proton acceleration in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) by Stecker et al. stecker91 . For ”top-down” scenarios which have been discussed at length by other speakers in this conference, namely the annihilation of a class of topological defects, superconducting cosmic strings Bhattacharjee . Lastly for ”neutrino messenger” models in which the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) are locally produced by an extragalactic flux of high energy neutrinos that interacts with massive relic neutrinos clustering around our galactic halo, which have also been discussed at this conference Weiler ; Fargion . The muon-poor HAS bound from AKENO nagano86  has been used to constrain both proton acceleration in AGN hznubound  and the annihilation of superconducting cosmic strings BlancoPRL  and the Fly’s Eye bound baltrusaitis  has been used to constrain neutrino messenger models BlancoPRD .

Although air shower arrays played an important role in neutrino astronomy, the limits on diffuse neutrino fluxes suggested that at least in the 10 TeV to 10 PeV band these detectors were more likely to play a role in establishing the prompt muon component than in actually detecting high energy neutrinoshsvum . The atmospheric muon spectrum however decreases rapidly as the muon energy rises and as a result HAS induced by muon bremsstrahlung become a small background for neutrino detection in the upper energy region of the spectrum. Detectors aiming at the EeV range of the cosmic ray spectrum and above can thus place important constraints on the UHE end of the not yet established neutrino spectrum. (Incidentally this is the case for the two ambitious projects to detect Fluorescence and Čerenkov light from satellites presented in this conference klypve ; euso .) It was shown that the Pierre Auger detector Auger , also discussed by other speakers at this conference, has a large effective volume to neutrino detection for zenith angles above $`60^{}`$ venice ; Capelle . This capability, which nicely connects the UHECR observation to the UHE neutrino searches, was clearly dependent on the ability to separate those hypothetical neutrino induced showers at high zeniths from a background of inclined showers induced by protons, nuclei or photons.

The many difficulties involved in both detecting and analysing inclined showers with particle arrays have prevented their systematic use in the past. At detection level shower arrays using scintillator detectors were usually placed in the horizontal plane making them less efficient for horizontal incidence. Moreover the typical array, also lying in a horizontal plane, presents a much reduced sampling area for near horizontal incidence. At the analysis level, when these showers are produced by nucleons or photons, the geomagnetic distortions of the particle density profiles prevent the use of conventional approach to the study of Extensive Air Showers (EAS) such as using the standard measurements of particle density at a fixed distance to shower axis (such as $`\rho (600)`$). Data analysis requires comparisons of measurements and expected particle density profiles. The brute force simulation of these shower profiles would demand very lengthy runs and much storage space which would make the data analysis extremely cumbersome. This approach was possibly too complicated to be justified when the first HAS were being recorded, particularly as shower models were quite primitive.

Understanding the cosmic ray background to neutrino detection by large air shower arrays was the original motivation of the study that is described in this article. The approach of using existing data from the Haverah Park array was proposed as a possible way to perform this study which had the clear advantage that new ideas about HAS could be immediately tested with real data. Haverah Park data had other specific advantages. The water Čerenkov detectors involved were rather deep and large which makes them more suitable for detecting horizontal events than scintillators. The signal deposited in them by charged particles is proportional to their tracklength so that muons that typically traverse the whole tank produce larger signals than photons or electrons. Muons constitute the dominant part at ground level of a photon, proton or nucleus induced shower at high zenith angles so again water Čerenkov tanks are at an advantage when detecting inclined showers. Lastly the Haverah Park array can be considered as a kind of prototype of the Auger observatory now under construction in Argentina. The proposal led to the Leeds-Santiago collaboration which has recently published the first analysis of inclined showers for zeniths above $`60^{}`$ induced by cosmic rays at energies above $`10^{19}`$ eV avePRL .

The ability to analyse inclined showers above $`60^{}`$ induced by nucleons or photons essentially doubles the acceptance of any Air Shower array and opens a part of the sky that was previously inaccessible to the detector, besides establishing the background for neutrino detection. It was a pleasant surprise to find that on top of these obvious advantages these showers really provide a new tool for UHECR interpretation because they are probing muons of significantly higher energies than vertical showers. This tool has been shown to be very sensitive to composition when combined with vertical shower measurements and relevant conclusions have already been obtained from the analysis of the HAS observed at Haverah Park.

## Azimuthal Symmetry in Air Showers

The standard way to analyse EAS assumes circular symmetry for the average particle densities at ground level. There is little doubt that this is an accurate symmetry for vertical showers in the atmosphere in the absence of geomagnetic effects. Indeed the symmetry principle lies behind the standard method for estimating the primary energy of an air shower through the relation between primary energy and the particle density at a given distance to shower axis, usually 600 m ($`\rho (600)`$) which was demonstrated to be fairly independent of shower fluctuations and composition hillasrho . Even the existence of such a parameter obviously relies on an implicit assumption about circular symmetry.

However it was recently pointed out that deviations from symmetry exist and that they become important for correctly estimating the primary energy of events particularly for zeniths above $`50^{}`$ Antonov98 ; Ivanov . The circular symmetry is broken by the magnetic field and for inclined showers also by the density gradient in the atmosphere. Clearly particles having transverse (to the shower axis) momenta $`p_{}`$ pointing upwards will develop showers in a thinner density atmosphere than those with $`p_{}`$ pointing downwards. Neither of these effects is however very important at low zenith angles. The gradient induced asymmetry is expected to be small at all angles in the plane perpendicular to shower axis. The lateral spread of a shower, of order the Molière radius (10 g cm-2), corresponds to very small differences in matter depth travelled by particles in the upper and lower sides of the shower plane when compared to the total travelled depth.

Inclined showers are different from vertical showers in that the hadronic and electromagnetic parts of the shower have been completely developed and absorbed before reaching the ground. There is however a penetrating component of the shower mostly muons and neutrinos from pion decays that reaches the ground. As a result the muons in the front are produced rather high in the atmosphere, at sites which are physically rather distant from the observation plane at ground level. The approach chosen for the study of inclined showers consists of eliminating the effect of the Earth’s magnetic field. The study of showers in the absence of the earth’s magnetic field maintains the circular symmetry and hence has enormous advantages for the study of the relations between the particle densities at ground and all cosmic ray relevant variables such as primary energy, zenith angle, composition and extrapolations of the relevant interactions. If the effects of the magnetic field can be implemented a posteriori that is once the lateral structure of the shower is known, the process of calculating particle densities at ground level would become a great deal simpler. This has enormous advantages at the levels of event simulation, of understanding the physical origin of the inclined shower features and of fitting experimental results to theory.

## Muon Showers

Consider a shower muon of an inclined shower produced high in the atmosphere at a distance $`d`$ to ground level and reaching ground level at a distance $`r`$ to shower axis in a plane transverse to the shower axis as schematically shown in Fig. 1. This muon has an energy $`E`$ sufficiently high to reach ground level and let us assume that it has a transverse momentum $`p_{}`$ that is small compared to $`E`$. In the absence of magnetic fields the muon travels to ground in a straight line. If we assume that the start of the muon track is right on the shower axis then clearly $`r`$ is related to $`d`$, $`p_{}`$ and to $`p`$ (or $`E`$) through:

$$r=\frac{p_{}}{p}d\frac{cp_{}}{E}d.$$
(1)
For inclined showers both $`p_{}`$ and $`d`$ in Eq. 1 have distributions. It is not difficult to conclude that the $`d`$ distribution is narrow compared to the value of $`d`$. The majority of the muons are produced in a relatively narrow depth interval corresponding to the shower maximum for the parents (mostly pions that have average energy $`25\%`$ larger than $`E`$). This range is of order a few radiation lengths, say 200 g cm-2 while the distance $`d`$ is controlled by the atmospheric slant depth from the production site to the ground which is over 3800 (10,000) g cm-2 for showers with zenith angles above $`75^{}`$ ($`85^{}`$). The $`p_{}`$ distributions on the other hand has an average of order 200 MeV/c. The value of $`d`$ sets the scale of the problem because it controls the matter depth from the production site to the ground and thus determines the minimum energy that a muon needs to reach the ground before losing its energy. Clearly as the zenith angle rises both $`d`$ and the average muon energy must also rise. The average values and the standard deviations of $`d`$ are shown in Table 1 together with the average muon energy at production and the average number of muons at ground level for different zeniths.

If one takes $`d`$ and $`p_{}`$ to be fixed Eq. 1 implies that the energy spectrum and the lateral distribution of the muons are dependent. If either function is known the other can be deduced from it. The approximation of fixing $`d`$ and $`p_{}`$, crude as it seems, can be used to reproduce the lateral distribution in a wide range of distances to the shower axis from the energy spectrum of the muons. One needs to fix the distance $`d`$ to the average values obtained in simulations and $`p_{}`$ to a value $`200`$ MeV/c.

Eq. 1 with fixed $`p_{}`$ and $`d`$ also implies a particularly important anticorrelation between muon energy and distance to shower axis in the transverse plane. This anticorrelation shows up in the simulations of inclined showers very clearly as illustrated by the plot of the average muon energy as a function of $`r`$ shown in Fig. 2. The error bars in the graph indicate the standard deviations of the muon energy distributions.

Deviations of the muon tracks by the Earth’s magnetic field ($`\stackrel{}{B}`$) can be easily implemented by assuming that the muons are bent in a helix type trajectory which can be approximated by the arc of a circle. For small deviations only the projection of $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ onto the transverse plane, $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$, matters. As a result it can be easily shown that the deviation of the muon in the transverse plane, $`\delta x`$, is at right angles to $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ and given by:

$$\delta x=R\left[1\sqrt{1\left(\frac{d}{R}\right)^2}\right]\frac{d^2}{2R}=\frac{eB_{}d}{2p},$$
(2)
where $`e`$ is the electron charge and $`p`$ is the muon momentum and we have expanded brackets to first order. For $`\delta x`$ less than 2 km we expect it to be valid at the $`5\%`$ level at zenith $`60^{}`$ because the typical production distance $`<d>`$ is 16 km. At higher zenith the approximation is excellent.

When we combine the above relation with Eq. 1 we obtain the following expression:

$$\delta x=\frac{e|B_{}|d^2}{2p}=\frac{0.15|B_{}|d}{p_{}}\overline{r}=\alpha \overline{r},$$
(3)
where in the last equation $`B_{}`$ is to be expressed in Tesla, $`d`$ in m and $`p_{}`$ in GeV. This expression is telling us that all positive (negative) muons that, in the absence of a magnetic field, would fall in a circle of radius $`\overline{r}`$ around shower axis, are translated a distance $`\delta x`$ to the right (left) of the $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ direction. The dimensionless parameter $`\alpha `$ measures the relative effect of the translation. When $`\alpha <<1`$ the magnetic effects are very small. However when $`\alpha >1`$ the magnetic translation exceeds the deviation the muons have due to their $`p_{}`$. In this case shadow regions with no muons are expected in the muon density profiles. For an approximate $`p_{}200`$ MeV/c and $`B_{}=40\mu `$T this happens when $`d`$ exceeds a distance of order 30 km, that is for zeniths above $`70^{}`$. These shadow regions in the transverse plane are indeed an outstanding feature of the ground density profiles at high zeniths.

It turns out that a very accurate description of the ground density profiles can be obtained using these simple ideas, provided one allows for an energy distribution of the muons at a fixed distance to shower axis, which has an average given by Eq. 1. Simulations have shown that a log normal distribution is adequate, or equivalently that $`ϵ=log_{10}E`$ is assumed to be distributed with a gaussian of width $`0.4`$. The values of other inputs needed for calculating densities at each zenith angle such as the effective distance travelled by muons $`d`$, their lateral distribution function, and the average muon energy as a function of distance to shower axis are taken from simulations without magnetic field using AIRES AIRES . It is a straightforward calculation to convert the radial distribution functions in the absence of a magnetic field to density patterns when the field is turned on, using the first equality in Eq. 3 and the corresponding coordinate transformation. Details of this method and extensive checks are given in Ref.HSmodel .

The particle densities in the transverse plane only need to be converted to the ground plane. It is remarkable that the relevant component of the magnetic field is its projection onto the transverse plane, $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$. This projection in principle depends on the azimuthal direction of the shower and can be very different depending on the local orientation of the magnetic field vector, or equivalently on the array site location. Besides the magnitude of the magnetic field it is in fact the vertically upward component that is responsible for many of these quantitative differences between sites. The direction of $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ in the transverse plane changes as the azimuthal angle of the incident shower is changed. Depending on the site under consideration the changes in magnitude and direction of $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ as the incident azimuthal angle is varied can be very important. As an example this is illustrated in Fig. 3 where the magnitude of $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ is plotted as a function of azimuth for two different site locations, that of Haverah Park and that of Pampa Amarilla where the southern hemisphere Auger observatory is being constructed, more details can be found in HSmodel .

## Characterization of inclined showers

The approach described in the previous two sections has allowed a lot of progress in analysing existing data on HAS. Technically it allows the separation of azimuthal effects from other effects that are more interesting from the physics point of view. Systematic studies have been made of the changes in the transverse density patterns as the primary energy, zenith angle and composition of the cosmic ray is changed and the results are also very enlightening.

The effect of zenith angle has already been discussed. As the zenith angle rises the distance travelled by the muons $`d`$ and their energy $`E`$ rises. This makes inclined showers rather different from the vertical ones and, since $`d`$ changes by over a factor 10 between $`60^{}`$ and $`90^{}`$, it also implies that $`85^{}`$ showers are very different from $`70^{}`$ showers. As the zenith angle is increased the muons that are sampled at the ground have increasingly higher energies, and thus relate to earlier stages in shower development. Inclined showers are probing the shower core and the Earth’s magnetic field is acting as an spectrometer for these high energy muons.

Once the zenith angle is fixed there is little that changes from shower to shower and the effect is spectacular for showers of a given composition once the interaction model is fixed. As the energy of the primary proton changes, to an excellent approximation, the muon lateral distribution in the absence of a magnetic field has a universal shape. As a result it can be described by a single parameter, the normalization or equivalently the total number of muons in the shower. This effect is illustrated in Fig. 4 showing the lateral muon distribution for different zenith angles and a range of energies spanning the interval $`10^{16}10^{19}`$ eV. The situation is analogous for the two hadronic models used, QGSJET qgsjet  and SIBYLL sibyll .

The result is not surprising after all. The scaling in showers has been known for a very long time and reflects the fact that the distributions are governed by the low energy physics that affects the majority of the shower particles. Besides the total number of particles, the main difference in showers of different energy is the position of shower maximum. It is well known that shower maximum only varies logarithmically with shower energy and this is a relatively small change when compared to the distance $`d`$ travelled by the muons in HAS. Once the muons are produced they are not very much affected until they reach ground level and as a result only the total number of muons produced matters to a very good approximation. This is in contrast to vertical showers where arrays are also measuring the electromagnetic contribution that, after reaching shower maximum becomes exponentially attenuated with depth and thus the densities observed at ground level are very sensitive to the position of shower maximum.

For showers initiated by a heavy nucleus the situation is analogous and moreover the resulting lateral distribution is also extremely similar to that of protons. The explanation is the same since, besides the normalization, the main difference between the muons in proton and heavy ion showers is again the depth of maximum.

For each zenith angle we thus characterize the shower by the total number of muons. The total number of muons in proton showers is shown in Fig. 5 as a function of primary energy for the SIBYLL hadronic model. The results can be easily parameterized by a function of the following type:

$$N=N_\mu E^\beta $$
(4)
where $`\beta `$ is a constant for a given model and mass composition as shown in Table 2.

In the case of photons the lateral distributions are also quite independent of primary energy with the exception of showers affected by the LPM effect. But the LPM effect is a density effect and is thus less important for horizontal than for vertical showers. Moreover the interactions of high energy photons with the Earth’s magnetic field effectively imply that a high energy photon can be consider as a bunch of lower energy photons that are less likely to be affected by the LPM effect. The density profiles of the muons produced by photon primaries are similar to those produced by protons but the agreement is not as good as between protons and heavy nuclei because the dominant shower interactions are different. Photon showers are slightly narrower. To a relatively good approximation however the muon lateral distribution of photon showers can be assumed to be like that of protons with $`\beta =1.2`$ and with $`N_\mu (10^{19}\mathrm{eV})=5.710^5`$. Although the rise of the number of muons with energy is more rapid for photon primaries than for proton, at $`10^{19}`$ eV photons are still 9 times poorer in muons than protons.

## Interpretation of HAS data

The ability to generate muon density profiles makes it possible to make rate simulations for a given array geometry and in particular that of Haverah Park with which nearly 10,000 events were recorded with zenith angles above $`60^{}`$ between 1974 and 1987. The Haverah Park detector was a 12 km2 air shower array using 1.2 m deep water Čerenkov tanks in Northern England and which has been described elsewhere haverah . For the study to be described the recorded data for zenith angle above $`60^{}`$ were reanalyzed for arrival direction for the described analysis using all the time information available for the tanks. This gave an improvement in angular accuracy.

The process of making this simulation is however rather elaborate because the signals in the detectors have to be carefully calculated. It is clear that signals in water Čerenkov tanks from muons close to the horizontal directions are rather different from vertical incidence. The shower muons are more energetic than in vertical showers and thus more likely to produce interactions in the tank which complicate the signal distributions. These corrections to the signal are discussed in detail in Ref. rate  where it is shown that the corrections due to delta rays, direct light going into the phototubes, the electromagnetic component due to muon decay and muon interaction processes in the tank (mostly pair production and bremsstrahlung) are of great importance and increase the rate by a factor between 3 and 4 with respect to a calculation using only the signal due to the muon tracks. The use of signal distributions becomes essential and these were calculated with WTANK Wtank , a program based on GEANT.

The measured trigger rate as a function of zenith angle is well reproduced in magnitude and azimuth when these corrections are carefully taken into account. The rate simulation can be made assuming different composition and/or different hadronic models and the results compared to the data. While protons slightly underestimate the rate, heavy nuclei overestimate it, so clearly a mixture of the two can reproduce the data for any of the two hadronic interaction models considered rate .

The fact that smooth average muon density profiles can be obtained with the described prescription allows the possibility of making fits to the data in an attempt to evaluate the energy and impact parameter of individual showers once a given composition is assumed. For zeniths below $`70^{}`$ a remnant electromagnetic contribution from the showering process is considered, which is concentrated near the shower core. The fitting process is complex because the Haverah Park array at large zenith angles only samples a small band in the transverse plane of the shower and uncertainties in arrival directions as well as correlations between fitted parameters have to be taken into account. To improve the fits additional information from an infilled portion of the array infill  that was running simultaneously part of the time was included when available.

The correlation between arrival direction and energy demands an iterative process in which the arrival directions are corrected once the core position is determined. This refitting procedure for the arrival directions takes into consideration both the curvature corrections and the distribution of the arrival time of the first muon in terms of the signal received in the tanks. Once the first density fit is performed with the arrival directions obtained with a time fit to a plane front, the sequence of a time fit with curvature corrections and a density fit with the new arrival directions is repeated three times. Two examples of the results of such fits compared to the average density contours are shown in Fig. 6.

Once the data have been analysed a number of quality cuts are performed to eliminate badly reconstructed events. A cut has been taken selecting showers with shower core at a distance less than 2 km from the array center to make sure that the event is well contained within the array. A second cut has been made on the density fit rejecting those events that have a $`\chi ^2`$ probability below $`1\%`$. Lastly a cut has been made to reject events that have a large error in the energy determination which is defined to be the sum in quadrature of the error from the fit and the error due to the uncertainty in the arrival direction. This error is required to be below $`50\%`$: this automatically eliminates all showers with zenith angles above $`80^{}`$. After these cuts are performed 2, 7 and 46 events are reconstructed with proton equivalent energies above $`10^{20}`$eV, $`410^{19}`$eV and $`10^{19}`$eV, respectively.

The procedure is applied to the data and to simulation using the cosmic ray spectrum of reference WatsonNagano . The simulated data goes through an identical fitting procedure and the resulting rate is compared to measurement. The agreement between the integral rate above $`10^{19}`$ eV measured and that obtained with simulation is striking when the QGSJET model is used. Sibyll leads to a slight underestimate of the observed rate.

In the context of this conference what is of more importance is the new possibility that HAS open for studying composition at the highest energies. The universality of the muon lateral distribution function is very powerful and once the equivalent proton energy is determined for all events, the corresponding energies under the assumption that the primaries are iron nuclei (photons) can be obtained by multiplying the proton energy by a factor which is $`0.7`$ (6) for $`10^{19}`$ eV and which varies slowly with equivalent proton energy. As a result when a photon primary spectrum is assumed the simulated rate seriously underestimates the observed data by a factor between 10 and 20. A fairly robust bound on the photon composition at ultra high energies can be established assuming a two component proton-photon scenario. The photon component of the integral spectrum above $`10^{19}`$eV (4 $`10^{19}`$ eV) must be less than $`41\%`$ ($`65\%`$) at the $`95\%`$ confidence level. Details of the analysis are presented in avePRL  and will be expanded elsewhere. A similar analysis can be made for a two component scenario with protons and iron nuclei. When the QGSJET model is used a similar limit restricting the iron component to less than $`54\%`$ above $`10^{19}`$ eV can be similarly established. In this case the iron only assumption leads to an overestimate of the rate. The limit obtained is however less robust in the sense that it is fairly sensitive changes in the interaction model and/or assumptions about the incident cosmic ray flux avePRL .

## Conclusions

I have summarized recent progress in understanding density patterns of Extensive Air Showers at high zenith angles performed by the Leeds-Santiago collaboration and which is described in detail in references avePRL ; HSmodel ; rate .

I have reviewed a scheme for understanding the complex muon density patterns that develop at ground level because of the geomagnetic effects on the muon component of these showers. The scheme can be used as an effective parameterization of the average density profiles at ground level and simplifies the task of performing simulations to be compared with data.

The ideas have been successfully tested with the Haverah Park data and the measured rate is consistent with simulations. The recorded individual density patterns can be fitted to average values obtained in this scheme and the energy of the cosmic rays extracted for a given composition. The analysis of inclined air shower data from Haverah Park Array for energies above $`10^{19}`$ eV has been shown to be consistent with a proton composition using the QGSJET model for hadronic interactions. As a result of this study the photon component of the UHECR spectrum at energies above $`10^{19}`$eV must be less than $`41\%`$ with a $`95\%`$ confidence level.

The detection of large HAS provides a new tool for the study of high energy cosmic ray which has been shown to be very sensitive to primary composition in the EeV range and above. The cosmic ray spectrum is measured by the detection of vertical showers in a composition independent fashion. For high zeniths particle arrays detect mostly intermediate energy muons at ground level and the measured rate becomes particularly sensitive to photon composition on the basis of the reduced muon content of photon induced showers. The analysis of such inclined showers can effectively double the aperture of any given extensive air shower detector array at these energies and particularly for the Auger Observatories now in costruction. The prospects for establishing photon composition at EeV energies and above by such arrays are significantly enhanced using this method.

Acknowledgements: I thank A.A. Watson and R.A. Vázquez for suggestions after reading this manuscript. This work was supported in part by CICYT (AEN99-0589-C02-02) and by Xunta de Galicia (PGIDT00PXI20615PR).


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# Untitled Document

THE FORMATION OF LIFE

Robert L. Kurucz

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

November 7, 2000

THE FORMATION OF LIFE

Robert L. Kurucz

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138

ABSTRACT

The formation of life is an automatic stage in the consolidation of rocky or “terrestrial” planets. The organic (=carbonaceous) matter, light elements, gases, and water must “float” toward the surface and the heavier metals must sink toward the center. Random processes in the molecular soup that fills microfractures in unmelted crust eventually produce self-replicating microtubules. In an appendix I suggest that some primordial crust remains because there is not enough consolidation energy to melt the whole planet. Energy is lost when iron planetesimals first partially melt and then coalesce to form the molten iron planetary core. Stony planetesimals accrete onto the surface of an already consolidated core.

LIFE

Planetesimals coalesce into a planet and consolidate into a smoothly varying solid body with a hot interior. The organic (=carbonaceous) matter, light elements, gases, and water must “float” toward the surface and the heavier metals must sink toward the center. There is still original crust, and perhaps cooled igneous crust from lava flows that is brittle and full of fractures, microfractures, and voids down to the level where the internal temperature softens the rock and closes microfractures, say ten kilometers.

The whole ten-kilometer surface layer of this crust fills with organic sepia-colored soup charged with gases. The crust acts as a high pressure reaction vessel. The microfractures are lined with crystals. There a thousand different wild crystals of elements, alloys, minerals, etc. that can provide catalytic scaffolding on which to build molecular films. There are millions of organic molecules that have large representations in the soup. All the possible combinations of interactions between the thousand kinds of crystal surfaces and the million kinds of organic molecules are automatically tried by the soup. Longish molecules that are hydrophilic on one end and hydrophobic on the other and have a “diameter” that is a multiple of the crystal spacing can form a monolayer with the molecules aligned side by side with the hydrophylic ends weakly bonding to the crystal surface and with the hydrophobic ends quasi-replicating the crystal surface as in Figure 1. If the crystal structure is not rectilinear, the structure of the film is not rectilinear. The edges where the film is growing can be stepped or ragged.

All the possible combinations of interactions between the new monolayer surfaces and the million kinds of organic molecules are automatically tried by the soup. Some molecules work and attach to the hydrophobic ends and to each other. They produce a bilayer that is stable and whose surface quasi-replicates the crystal.

The microfractures are not a quiet environment. There are accidents, earthquakes, impacts, sudden flows of soup, etc that dislodge the bilayers from the crystal faces. Free in the soup, the bilayers curl with the hydrophobic face on the outside. If opposite edges are straight, the edges can curl together and bind into microtubules. They become bilayer cylinders with hydrophilic outer surfaces and hydrophobic interior surfaces. Soup flows through and over the microtubules. Some of the microtubules are made with combinations of molecular layers that are self-catalyzing and self-propagating. The bilayer edges continue to bind more molecules to both layers at both ends of the cylinder. The microtubules grow longer and longer. Eventually they mechanically break and each piece becomes a growing microtubule. Each microtubule created this way from a crystal template is a new self-replicating life form. The crust of the planet fills with microtubules. There are thousands of different kinds, each in a range of diameters that were accidentally determined. Life is automatically produced thousands of times.

In Figure 1, the g molecule descenders all point the same way. If the original bilayer was made from chiral molecules, the microtubule descendents will all have the same chirality.

Each microtubule is a “catalytic converter” because the inside and the outside are a quasi-replicas of a crystal. From the soup, on their inner and outer surfaces, they form dimers, trimers, polymers, polymers of dimers, etc. The microtubules can hold two molecules stationary while they interact with each other. They can “crack” or disassemble large molecules by holding one end so the rest can be attacked by the soup. The microtubules can make molecules and polymers that do not release but are bound to the wall. An elastic polymer would allow the microtubule to move in response to stimuli. If an end hit something hot the polymer would contract and squirt soup out the end in a jet. Or peristalsis would be possible to pump the soup through the tube to increase reaction rates. The microtubules can bind to each other.

There are, say, 1012 generations in the first billion years. Since the original microtubules were made by random processes, they many not be optimal. At the growing ends of the microtubules, a molecular substitution can be made if some other molecules will bind into that space. The random processes also test all possible isotopomeric substitutions. The new molecule can be a “dud” that truncates growth in that position. The microtubule grows narrower. If it happens a few times the whole end of the microtubule becomes closed. The new substitute molecules may bind more strongly or less, faster or slower, strengthen or weaken the backbone. Changes that make the microtubule more fit will be adopted. If the change makes a whole row grow faster, it can stick out of the end of the microtubule as a microrod. Eventually the rod breaks off the microtubule leaving a free-floating microrod. Microrods have the same replicating and catalyzing capablity as the microtubules. The microrods spread throughout the crust. Microrods can act as carriers that hold small molecules in position for other reactions.

The microtubules also make substitution errors in building polymers that sometimes are an improvement.

All of this is independent of conditions on the surface of the crust.

Once there is cold fractured lava on the surface of the planet and the soup has soaked through it, the primordial crust is no longer needed.

Life becomes more and more complex and may eventually spread from the interior of the crust to the surface as well.

APPENDIX: IRON CORES

There must be some sort of galactic or protostellar magnetic field in a protoplanetary disk. When iron condensates form they are magnetized by the field. The iron particles attract each other and form larger and larger agglomerations that eventually collapse under their own weight and heat themselves. As the agglomerations grow the iron melts in the densest regions.

Meteorites are pieces of asteroids. Asteroids are planetesimals that failed to form a planet because there were not enough of them. Some meteorites are solid iron, some are stony with iron, and some are stony. Some of the stony meteorites are carbonaceous chondrites that have organic inclusions that have never been baked. The asteroids must have the same properties as the meteorites. Therefore molten iron can be formed in a body the size of an asteroid. Planetesimals rotate. If they have a molten iron core they generate a magnetic field. They attract other planetesimals that have iron. They attract iron condensates from the disk. They tend to form a planetary core before the stony planetesimals are agglommerated. The heating from the energy of consolidation mostly takes place before the planet is formed so that much of it can radiate away and not be trapped in the planet. Thus the planet does not heat internally as much as has been thought in the past. Heating from radioactive decay is not affected and continues to be important. The total heating is not strong enough to melt the whole stony surface of the planet. The crust has much organic (= carbonaceous) material.


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# Noise Effects on the Complex Patterns of Abnormal Heartbeats

## Abstract

Patients at high risk for sudden death often exhibit complex heart rhythms in which abnormal heartbeats are interspersed with normal heartbeats. We analyze such a complex rhythm in a single patient over a 12-hour period and show that the rhythm can be described by a theoretical model consisting of two interacting oscillators with stochastic elements. By varying the magnitude of the noise, we show that for an intermediate level of noise, the model gives best agreement with key statistical features of the dynamics.

Individuals with frequent abnormal heartbeats (Fig. 1) may be at high risk for sudden cardiac death . Such abnormal heart rhythms often have a random appearance. Attempts have been made to analyze these rhythms by inspecting short data strips  and matching them beat by beat to various models . Other approaches  characterize statistical properties in longer records of up to several hours. However, the mechanisms underlying these abnormal rhythms and their changes over long periods of time remain elusive. Here we show that a theoretical model consisting of two coupled oscillators  describes the observed patterns of abnormal heartbeats in one clinical case provided we introduce noise to the periods of the oscillators. This approach may generalize to the analysis of the underlying mechanism of a large number of records with complex patterns of abnormal heartbeats.

We consider a continuous 12-hour segment of the ambulatory electrocardiographic record of an individual with heart failure and frequent abnormal heartbeats (Fig. 1). The normal sinus heartbeats, S-beats, arise from activity in the sinus node, the normal pacemaker of the heart. The time intervals between the normal beats appear to be periodic in this short tracing, but they do fluctuate during the 12-hour period. The abnormal ventricular beats, V-beats, arise in the lower chambers of the heart, the ventricles. Although the timing between the V-beats appears to be irregular, the histogram of the interventricular time intervals, the time intervals between consecutive V-beats, consists of equidistant peaks implying that the interventricular time intervals are multiples of a fixed number (Fig. 1). This result is consistent with the possibility that the heart rhythm arises from a competition between two oscillators: the normal sinus oscillator, and an abnormal ventricular oscillator with periods $`T_S`$ and $`T_V`$, respectively. Such rhythms are called parasystolic.

After each S-beat or V-beat, there is a time period, called the refractory time $`\theta `$, during which all other heartbeats are blocked. Thus, all V-beats must occur at least a time $`\theta `$ after an S-beat. Because in our case $`\theta /T_S1/2`$, such a V-beat will block the following S-beat.

To describe the parasystole mechanism we introduce the phase $`\varphi _i`$ of the $`i`$th ventricular beat in the sinus cycle, i.e., the time interval between the $`i`$th ventricular beat and the previous sinus beat normalized by $`T_S`$. Successive values of $`\varphi _i`$ are determined by iterating the difference equation:

$$\varphi _{i+1}=(\varphi _i+T_V/T_S)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},$$
(1)
where a ventricular beat is expressed if $`\varphi _{i+1}>\theta /T_S`$. For a fixed irrational ratio $`T_V/T_S`$ (incommensurate periods), the phase of the V-oscillator with respect to the S-oscillator will, for sufficiently long times, be equally distributed in the interval . Interestingly, the sequence of the number of intervening S-beats between consecutive V-beats, called the NIB sequence, consists of only three different values (NIB-triplet). The values in these NIB-triplets change with $`T_V/T_S`$ and $`\theta /T_S`$ . Examples are shown in Fig. 2a.

The uniform distribution of the phases of the V-beats allows us to derive the fraction of V-beats. Call $`n_V`$, the number of V-beats observed on the electrocardiogram in a time interval $`T`$, and $`N`$ the total number of S-beats and V-beats during the same time interval. The total number of observed and blocked V-beats in $`T`$ is $`T/T_V`$ and the total number of observed beats is $`N=T/T_S`$. The fraction of observed V-beats, i.e. those which occur outside of the refractory period is $`(T_S\theta )/T_S`$. It follows that $`n_V=(T_S\theta )/T_S\times T/T_V`$, and consequently

$$n_V/N=(T_S\theta )/T_V.$$
(2)
Perturbation of the timing of the V-beats by Gaussian noise does not affect this distribution, because the uniform distribution of the phases of the V-beats remains unchanged.

To illustrate the properties of the unperturbed model, we iterate Eq. (1) using typical parameter values for the patient under consideration. Histograms showing the NIB values for three sets of parameters are shown in Fig. 3a.

We now compare the results of Eq. (1) with the clinical data. Since the value of $`T_S`$ fluctuates during the record, we combine the data from different times of the day during which $`T_S`$ falls in a fixed 10 ms range. Fig. 3b shows the histograms of NIB values for three different values of $`T_S`$. For $`T_S`$=0.61 s ($`T_V/T_S<3`$) and $`T_S`$=0.51 s ($`T_V/T_S>3`$), we find the same NIB-triplets as in the deterministic model (Fig. 3a). However, additional peaks in the data (Fig. 3b) contradict the “rule” of only three NIB-values in the purely deterministic model. Furthermore, for $`T_S=0.55`$ s ($`T_V/T_S3`$), fewer beats with NIB=2 are present in the data, and new NIB-values appear largely corresponding to the sequence $`5,8,11\mathrm{}=3n1`$, where $`n2`$ is an integer.

There are also significant discrepancies between the predicted fraction of V-beats from Eq. (2) and the observed values. Fig. 4a shows that, for $`T_V/T_S3`$, the model of Eq. (1) predicts many more V-beats than are found.

We propose that the pattern of V-beats in the data may be understood by assuming that the timings of the V-beats are not strictly periodic as in Eq. (1), but that they are described by a stochastic difference equation

$$\varphi _{i+1}=\left(\varphi _i+\frac{T_V}{T_S}+\frac{f(\varphi _i,T_S,T_V)}{T_S}+\frac{\eta }{T_S}\right)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},$$
(3)
where $`\eta `$ is a Gaussian random variable distributed around 0, and $`f(\varphi _i,T_S,T_V)`$ gives the change of $`T_V`$ due to the coupling of the S-beats to the V-beats. Each of the 2 or 3 S-beats that may appear between consecutive (expressed or blocked) V-beats iteratively changes the position of the next V-beat depending on the timing of the S-beats as shown in Fig. 4b. These changes add up to $`f(\varphi _i,T_S,T_V)`$.

In order to reproduce Fig. 4a we have chosen a coupling that leads, for $`T_V/T_S3`$, to a fixed point in Eq. (3), such that the V-beats always fall in the refractory period of the S-beat and thus are always blocked. However, the noise term leads to a dispersion of the phases of the V-oscillator such that some of the V-beats are expressed. Thus, both the coupling and the stochastic term interact to generate the dynamics. The effects of the coupling and the noise for $`T_V/T_S3`$ are represented schematically in Fig. 2b. Fig. 3c shows how the distributions of the NIB-values change when both coupling and noise are included in the simulation. The model now reproduces quantitatively the data. For $`T_S0.55`$ s ($`T_V/T_S3`$) the number of the V-beats is reduced by the coupling, and the NIB-sequence $`2,5,8,\mathrm{}`$ is generated by the noise. As a consequence of the random noise moving the V-beats randomly in and out of the refractory time, the blocking mechanism gives rise to a discrete Poisson process leading to an approximately exponential fall-off of the peak heights of the occurrences of the NIB values 2,5,8. Finally, the model gives an accurate estimate of the fraction of V-beats as a function of $`T_S`$ shown in Fig. 4a.

In order to estimate the magnitude of the noise, we calculate the cross-correlation between the numbers of occurrences of each NIB value in the model and the clinical data. Fig. 5 shows the correlation as a function of the standard deviation $`\sigma `$ of the noise. The correlation function has a maximum at $`\sigma 0.07`$ s. This value of $`\sigma `$ also best reproduces the broadness of the peaks in the distribution of the interventricular time intervals (Fig. 1). Further, the model reproduces the asymmetrical form of

the peaks in the histogram (inset of Fig. 1). In the simulation, the coupling splits the peaks into two subpeaks giving them an asymmetrical appearance (not shown).

In this work we analyzed the patterns of abnormal heartbeats in a 12 hour record from a single patient and proposed that the dynamics results from a combination of deterministic and stochastic mechanisms. Quantitative comparison between predictions of the model and the clinical data shows best agreement for an optimal level of noise in the model.

Our approach is in contrast to standard approaches in which crude measures, such as the average numbers of abnormal heart beats per unit time, are used for clinical assessment. We believe that distinctive dynamics are associated with different mechanisms, and hence different therapeutic strategies. Thus, the detailed program of analysis applied to one clinical record in this Letter is essential to better classify cardiac arrhythmias based on the underlying mechanisms and resulting dynamics.

We thank R. Goldsmith for providing the data, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), NIH/NCRR (P41RR13622), NASA, and the Mathers Charitable Foundation for support.