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# Cosmic ray composition and energy spectrum above 1 TeV: direct and EAS measurements

## 1 Introduction

The energy spectrum of cosmic rays (CR) spans a very wide energy range, with particle fluxes steeply falling more than 30 orders of magnitude. Above the solar modulation region, the spectrum can be well described by a power law, which steepens around $`\mathrm{3\; 10}^{15}eV`$, a feature called the “knee”, discovered in 1958 ; it softens again at $`10^{19}eV`$, the “ankle”.
Explaining the knee feature would shed light on the CR origin and acceleration mechanism, depending on whether it is a signature of a change in the hadronic interactions at such energies or it reflects a feature of the cosmic ray spectrum, thus concerning mainly astrophysics.
Several arguments involving energetics, composition and secondary $`\gamma `$ ray production suggest that cosmic rays at least up to the knee region are confined in the Galaxy.
The most popular theory is that of diffusive shock acceleration in Supernova remnants (SNR), that is particle acceleration by SNRs expanding supersonically in the surrounding medium.
Supernova explosions can easily account for the energy stored in galactic cosmic rays; the spectrum emerging from the SNR is of the type $`E^{2.1}`$ up to a maximum energy near $`10^{14}`$ eV times the nuclear charge, after which it drops very rapidly. Folding the production spectrum with the effect of diffusion through the Galaxy, and taking a trapping time varying as $`E^{0.6}`$ (as found from the proportion of secondary to primary nuclei arriving to Earth), the resulting flux of CR in the Galaxy would be $`E^{2.7}`$, in close agreement with expectations. The maximum achievable energy is close to the knee one.
A direct evidence that the nucleonic component of CR is indeed produced in SNRs could be obtained by the observation of $`\gamma `$ rays: the accelerated cosmic rays can in fact interact with the local interstellar matter, in this way producing $`\gamma `$ rays by either hadronic or leptonic production.
Various experimental groups reported on TeV $`\gamma `$ emission from supernova remnants, like SN1006, RJX1713.7-3946, Cassiopea-A (see e.g.  and references therein). Unfortunately in all cases the emission can be attributed to electron progenitors and no positive evidence for hadroproduction of TeV $`\gamma `$’s has been found yet.
Further information can be obtained from the study of the distribution of CR arrival directions. A recent compilation of the anisotropy measurements can be found in ; while the amplitude and phase of anisotropy data below $`\mathrm{2\; 10}^{14}eV`$ are consistent and statistically accurate , the experimental results at higher energies are not compatible with expectations. This could mean that the diffusion model cannot be simply extrapolated to these energies .
Various models have been put forward trying to identify the sites and mechanisms of injection of cosmic rays at higher energies, at and above the knee. If the bend in energy spectrum is related to the maximum achievable energy in the accelerator, then CR at higher energies could be powered by a reacceleration by interstellar turbulence , or they could be produced by Supernovae exploding in denser media (their stellar wind cavity) ( and references therein). On the other hand, the knee could be attributed to propagation effects. In both cases, one would expect multiple bends due to the different elements bending at fixed rigidity; the composition would become heavier above the knee. An extra-galactic origin for CR above the knee has also been proposed , where the accelerator sites are found in Active Galactic Nuclei and the resulting composition is getting lighter above the knee.
A completely different point of view assigns the knee to a new dramatic process of hadronic interaction which takes over around the knee energy. However, even if it is true that in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ of interest we have no direct information about the hadronic interaction cross section for the secondary production relevant to the interpretation of measurements, no experimental data as far show a need for a different interaction mechanism.
From the experimental point of view, what is most important in order to test the models is to measure the cosmic ray composition and energy spectrum near the energy limit of the shock models; moreover, measurements of anisotropy and secondary to primary ratio at higher energy are of utmost importance.

## 2 Direct measurements

Direct measurements of the relative abundances of the cosmic ray nuclei and their distribution in energy are possible only at relatively low energy: they in fact require installation of instrumentation on balloons or space shuttles flying outside the atmosphere at very high altitude. The most recent results still come from two balloon experiments, JACEE and RUNJOB, as summarised in .
The proton and Helium spectra have been measured by JACEE up to about 800 TeV ; no break was found in the proton one, but above 80-90 TeV the experiment does not have enough statistics to either assess or reject its presence .
JACEE claim for a flatter He spectrum as compared to the proton one is in agreement with SOKOL result , but this is not confirmed by the results by RUNJOB . The JACEE group reported values are $`\gamma _p=(2.80\pm 0.04)`$ and $`\gamma _{He}=(2.68\pm 0.06)`$, while RUNJOB slopes are both $`2.80`$ with an uncertainty between $`10`$ and $`20\%`$ for both protons and Helium nuclei. It should however be mentioned that the significance of the difference between the slopes for p and He is at the level of only $`2\sigma `$; on the other hand, the results from RUNJOB are based only on the 1995 and 1996 data ($`30\%`$ protons and $`13\%`$ He respect to JACEE data). The experimental results on the p and He slopes are of particular importance as regards the models of non linear acceleration of cosmic rays, where the injection rate is an increasing function of the primary particle rigidity .
The single component spectra are shown in Fig.1 and in Fig.2. The experimental results agree for what regards the iron spectrum, while RUNJOB gives a factor of 2 lower spectra for the C-N-O and Ne-Si groups. Data are all consistent with an increase of the mean logarithm of the average primary mass $`<lnA>`$ with energy, as shown in Fig.3.

It is clear that more statistics is needed above $`100TeV`$, and various new projects are under development. ACCESS  is estimated to be launched on the International Space Station in 2006. Its primary goal will be the measure of energy spectrum and composition up to $`10^{15}eV`$, thus testing Supernova shock acceleration models; the charge range at high energy will be $`1Z28`$. Three different detectors are being built for this purpose: a charge identification module, to measures the abundances of all individual elements, a transition radiation detector, to identify and measure the energy of particles with $`Z2`$ up to $`100TeV/nucleon`$, a calorimeter to measure the particle energies and to identify electrons.
The ATIC  project, in its initial design for long duration balloon flights, is devoted to study the energy spectrum of Galactic proton and helium up to $`10^{14}eV`$, in order give information about the proton/helium ratio, the possible difference in their spectral slopes, the existence of a bend in the proton spectrum.
CREAM  plans to explore spectrum and composition up to $`10^{15}eV`$, exploiting ultra long duration balloon flights ($`100`$ days). With an exposure of $`300m^2srdays`$, this instrument will collect $`500`$ proton and helium nuclei above $`10^{14}eV`$, reaching $`30\%`$ statistical accuracy above $`10^{15}eV`$.
The new Ionization Neutron Calorimeter INCA  proposes to study the range 0.1-10 PeV using the well known techniques of ionization and neutron monitor to measure energy and a silicon particle charge detector to determine the charge and coordinates of the primaries.
Combining different detectors, the new projects will have a very powerful tool to overcome the individual technical limitations.

## 3 The energy spectrum

The experimental observables which are measured in order to extract information about the energy spectrum are the charged components of showers as measured by ground based detectors with scintillator counters, muon and hadron detectors, or the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light produced by shower particles as they propagate through the atmosphere.
The interpretation of these ground level observations in terms of primary particle characteristics is far from straightforward, being strongly dependent on models simulating the production and propagation of particles through the atmosphere. Models in turn depend on extrapolations applied to the data on high energy particle interactions studied at accelerators; the energy region of interest is in fact much higher than that studied at accelerators, the explored kinematic region is the forward one, the collisions among nuclei make the influence of nuclear effects not negligible.
The most recent results of EAS experiments concerning the primary energy spectrum of cosmic rays are described in the following.
The electron size spectra as measured by the EAS-TOP experiment  are shown in Fig.4. The knee is clearly visible, and the size corresponding to the knee shifts towards lower values at increasing atmospheric depth, as expected for a knee at given primary energy .

The shower size at the knee decreases with increasing atmospheric depth, with an attenuation length $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_k=(222\pm 3)gcm^2`$, in very good agreement with that found for the shower absorption in atmosphere; the integral intensities $`I_k(E_k)`$ are constant within $`20\%`$. The knee in electron size is quite sharp, showing that the change in slope occurs in a limited range of $`N_e`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }N_e/N_e25\%`$).

The muon size spectra have been measured in 4 different zenith angle intervals, as one can see in Fig.5, where the change of slope is visible at all atmospheric depths despite the large statistical fluctuations. The knee, around $`N_\mu ^k10^{4.65}`$, is independent on the number of detected muons, being in fact visible at any core distance . The integral fluxes in electron and muon size are compatible at all atmospheric depths, as expected for a feature occurring at fixed primary energy, also confirming the consistency of the whole procedure.
A further interesting result comes from the relation between the electron and muon size slopes, which can be written as $`N_\mu N_e^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha 0.75`$ in all angular bins: no sudden change in the secondary production when going through the knee region is seen, thus showing that, at least from this point of view, no new hadronic effects is needed to explain the knee .
A simulation of the shower production and development in atmosphere using the CORSIKA code  with the HDPM interaction model allows to find the relation between shower size and primary spectrum $`N_e(E_0,A)=\alpha (A_{eff})E_0^{\beta (A_{eff})}`$ The effective mass $`A_{eff}`$ is calculated from the extrapolation of the single nuclear spectra measured at low energies by direct measurements; above the knee, a rigidity dependent cutoff is used.
The final result is shown in Fig.6; the agreement with direct measurements at low energies and with other air shower experimental results at the highest ones is quite good. The systematic uncertainties in the energy spectrum are due to the primary composition and interaction model chosen in the calculation: the maximum difference in the determination of $`N_e`$ between different interaction models and HDPM is $`10\%`$; the all-particle flux obtained with “heavy” or “light” limit compositions differs by $`10\%`$ from the above calculated one.

The energy spectrum is determined by CASA-MIA using the muon $`N_\mu `$ and electron $`N_e^{}`$ size measurements . The $`N_e^{}`$ indicates in this case the sum of $`e^+,e^{},\gamma `$ at the ground. The sizes combination $`F=log_{10}(N_e^{}+\psi N_\mu )`$ was found to be log-linear in $`E_0`$ and, what is most important, independent on the primary mass.

In Fig.7 this relation is shown as found from a simulation of primary protons or iron; the model used was the QGSJET one. The systematic differences in energy assignment for different primary mass A are less than $`5\%`$. The average absolute energy reconstruction errors go from $`25\%`$ at $`10^{14}eV`$ to $`16\%`$ at $`10^{15}eV`$.
The parameter $`\psi `$, which defines the relative weight of muons and electrons in the showers, is strongly dependent on the model used for hadronic interactions, but the change in energy assignment due to this effect is claimed to be $`10\%`$. The mass insensitivity allows to determine the energy free of systematic effects (on the contrary, for example, if in some region the energy spectrum changes, $`N_e`$ vs E also changes).
The energy spectrum thus derived is shown in Fig.8; the knee is located at the same primary energy for any atmospheric depths, as expected.

KASCADE  measures all the three charged components of extensive air showers: electrons, muons and hadrons.
The knee is clearly visible in all components; for electrons and muons, the higher statistics allows to study the size at different atmospheric depths, thus finding that the size at the knee decreases at increasing atmospheric depth .
The primary energy spectrum can be extracted from the measured size spectra depending on the knowledge of the mass composition as obtained from the observables under investigation and on the relation between size and energy resulting from simulation.
The energy spectrum shown in Fig.9 was found by a combined $`\chi ^2`$ minimisation to fit both the $`N_e`$ and the $`N_\mu `$ truncated muon size spectra simultaneously (the truncated muon number is that found by fitting the muon lateral distribution within a limited range of 40-200 m) . The evaluated size spectra are in fact the convolution of the energy spectrum and a kernel function describing the probability of a given primary to produce a shower with a certain size and which includes the parametrisations of shower fluctuations for both proton and iron primaries according to Monte Carlo. The knee is found at about 4 PeV.

In Fig.10, the energy spectrum as derived from hadronic data is also shown. The knee is again very clear, and the expectations from pure beams of protons or iron primaries are shown for comparison. Furthermore, KASCADE data show evidence of the knee also in the energy sum of hadrons in the calorimeter .
From muon density measurements in the multi-wire proportional chambers below the central detector , a subdivision of the data in “light” and “heavy” samples (according to the parameter $`LogN_\mu /LogN_e`$ as described in Sect.4) shows that the knee is strongly dominated by the light component, within a $`30\%`$ uncertainty due to Monte Carlo statistics.
The broader lateral distribution of the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light, due to the smaller absorption of photons in atmosphere, and the high photon number density, that means a better signal-to-noise ratio even for smaller arrays, are the main advantages in using $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov detectors as compared to charge particle counting arrays. The most recent results from apparata based on the detection of $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light from Extensive Air Showers come from BLANCA  and DICE , both operating at the same site and sharing some equipment with CASA.
The first one consists of 144 angle-integrating $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light detectors located in the CASA scintillator array, which provides the trigger and gives core position and shower direction. The $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov lateral distribution function is measured and fitted through the expression $`C(r)=C_{120}e^{sr}`$ in the inner part of the distribution ($`r120m`$). The intensity at a critical radial distance of 120 m, entirely determined by density and scale height of the atmosphere, is proportional to the primary energy and the dependence on the primary mass is fully included in the slope $`s`$ of the distribution, which is in fact a function of the depth of maximum development $`X_{max}`$.
DICE consists of 2 imaging telescopes of 2m diameter. What is measured is the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light size $`N_\gamma `$, by summing the total amount of light at each phototube and the depth of maximum development of the shower $`X_{max}`$ by fitting the shape of the light image in each telescope, with a procedure that is essentially geometrical and not depending on simulations, except for calculations to determine the angular distribution of light around the axis. The core position and shower direction are given by the CASA scintillator array.
The primary energy is estimated through a fit including geometry, $`N_\gamma `$ and $`X_{max}`$ and takes therefore into account the dependence of the lateral distribution and intensity of the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light, at fixed primary energy, on the primary mass.
The resulting energy spectra from BLANCA and DICE are shown in Fig.11 (QGSJET model) and Fig.12 in comparison with other experimental results. The knee feature is evident in the BLANCA energy spectrum at $`3PeV`$; a $`10\%`$ shift in the energy scale, which is however less than the instrumental uncertainty, is found by changing the interaction model chosen to interpret the data. The absolute calibration error results in a $`18\%`$ systematic error on the energy assignment. According to DICE data, the knee is found around 3 PeV; the systematic uncertainty in the absolute flux is $`30\%`$, due to the intrinsic error in the energy scale of $`15\%`$.

The $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov lateral distribution has also been measured by HEGRA with its AIROBICC detectors . Again, the scintillator array provides the core position and arrival direction of the showers. The total primary energy can be reconstructed by the electromagnetic one, if one assumes a primary composition; however, a determination of the primary energy in a mass independent way can be obtained following the approach of Lindner , at the expenses of the energy resolution, which is worse than that found by the mass-dependent method and of a stronger dependence of the result on the fluctuations of $`X_{max}`$. The knee is found at about 3 PeV.
In Fig.13, the all-particle primary energy spectrum as obtained with the various experiments here described is shown. A summary of the up-to-date situation is given in Table 1. The differences among the quoted knee energies are mainly due to the assumed composition, which in turn depends on the observables used as will be discussed below, but the existence of the knee is clearly established between 2 and 5 PeV.

## 4 Composition

The cosmic ray primary composition measurements around the knee are crucial for the understanding of the mechanisms of acceleration and the source problem.
The experimental observables we are dealing with are: a) the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov lateral distribution or the image of the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light emitted by the shower in atmosphere; they allow to determine the depth of shower maximum $`X_{max}`$, which is a logarithmically increasing function of the primary energy. At fixed $`E_0`$, heavier primaries are expected to interact earlier, thus giving a smaller value of $`X_{max}`$ (higher in atmosphere). b) the muon and electron sizes of the showers. For a given primary energy, EAS induced by heavy primaries develop earlier in atmosphere and less energy is released in the electromagnetic component, thus producing a smaller $`N_e`$ at ground level, as compared to proton showers; on the other hand, muons are produced more copiously in EAS by heavy primaries, because of the higher number of low energy pions.
The EAS-TOP group studied the composition by analysing the behaviour of $`\overline{N_\mu }`$ as measured in vertical direction in narrow bins of $`N_e`$, corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Delta }N_e/N_e=12\%`$. The result is shown in Fig.14: data are compared with the results of a full simulation including the detector response, where the 1 TeV composition with equal slopes for all components was used, in this way assigning constant composition with energy.

The EAS-TOP data clearly suggest a growth of the mean A with energy, that is a heavier composition above the knee. A change of $`\mathrm{\Delta }Log(N_e)=0.5`$ results in a $`\mathrm{\Delta }A/A0.4`$ .
The “K Nearest Neighbour” test was used by CASA-MIA to study the composition . Using the electron and muon densities at different distances from the core and the slope of the electron lateral distribution, samples of event for each different primary mass are generated by Monte Carlo. An experimental event is assigned to the “light primary” or “heavy primary” class by looking at the K nearest neighbours (KNN) in the plane of the used variables: the event will belong to the light primary group if e.g.more than $`50\%`$ of its KNN are light primaries. Due to fluctuations, which tend to superimpose classes, only broad classes of “p-like” and “Fe-like” events can be used. The proton resemblance, defined as the average fraction of K nearest neighbours which are protons, is shown in Fig.15 for K=5, normalised such that a pure proton composition would lay along the top of the plot and a pure iron along the bottom border.

The trend towards a heavier composition above the knee is evident; a change in the hadronic interaction model used in the simulation does not change the result. Classifying the events according to their probability of being light or heavy primaries and plotting the energy spectrum for the two classes separately, CASA-MIA data suggest that the knee be due to the light mass group; the spectra are consistent with the idea of cutoffs proportional to the particle rigidities.
The composition problem has been attacked by KASCADE people in a variety of ways, using different observables and analysis methods.
The most sensitive dependence on primary mass was identified in the ratio $`logN_\mu ^{tr}/logN_e`$, which is found to be Gaussian distributed at fixed A . The experimental ratio is fitted by a superposition of simulated distributions (one for each primary mass group), directly obtaining the fraction of each mass group, as shown in Fig.16 for two energy bins. The composition is dominated by the light component up to about 4 PeV, getting heavier above the knee; the analysis also proves that the composition cannot be described by a single component. The $`<lnA>`$ so obtained is shown in Fig.18.

A number of hadronic observables has also been used, such as the lateral hadron distribution, the hadron energy spectrum, the maximum hadron energy etc. in order to investigate the composition. As one can see in the world survey given in Fig.18, the hadronic data alone give a heavier composition as compared to other data.
An interesting approach was used in , where a multivariate analysis using all the measured components of the EAS is performed. The result shows a tendency to a lighter composition approaching the knee, followed by an increase in the average mass above it.
A comparison among the results by KASCADE shows that the absolute scale strongly depends on the observables which are used. It is clear that the balance of energy among the different components of EAS in the simulation does not reproduce the real situation; tests of the high energy interaction models are been performed .
In experiments like BLANCA, Spase-VULCAN , CACTI , Hegra-AIROBICC, $`X_{max}`$ is measured from the slope of the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov lateral distribution, which is an almost linear function of the depth of shower maximum. This function is rather independent on the models chosen for the description of hadronic interactions, while any interpretation of the experimental results in terms of primary composition is not.
In the case of DICE, the imaging technique allows to measure $`X_{max}`$ in a rather direct way, by fitting the shape of the shower $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov image in each of the 2 telescopes, knowing the arrival direction and the core position of the shower.
A survey of the results is shown in Fig.17, up to the Fly’s Eye energies (where air fluorescence is measured); the “direct” point shows the $`X_{max}`$ that would be expected on the basis of balloon direct measurements .

BLANCA data suggest a composition getting lighter near the knee and turning to a heavier one after the knee energy. Data from DICE require a composition becoming progressively lighter with increasing energy.
DICE and CASA-MIA groups studied the composition problem also by means of a combination of measured parameters . Two estimates of the mass have been derived, one using the $`X_{max}`$ as determined by DICE and the other with $`N_\mu `$ and $`N_e`$ by CASA-MIA, for each detected shower. The combined use of different measurements allows first of all a study of the systematics biasing the composition results; moreover, the requirement of consistency among various measurements allows to limit the range of the parameters used in the models. This analysis suggests a primary composition becoming lighter at and above the knee, not excluding however a constant composition around the knee energy.
A survey of the previously described results on primary composition in terms of $`<lnA>`$ is shown in Fig.18.

## 5 Conclusion

The cosmic ray energy spectrum and composition are studied with a variety of experimental techniques detecting different air shower components in the energy region above 1 TeV.
Below the knee, no new data are available and the conclusions reached by JACEE and RUNJOB experiments still hold; however new projects, planned to fly on balloons or on the Space Station, are in progress. They will surely extend the explorable energy region and the available statistics on single nuclei.
The energy spectrum has been studied in detail both by charged particles and $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light ground arrays and some firm conclusions were reached: all data agree on the existence of the knee in the primary energy spectrum of cosmic rays at an energy $`34PeV`$. The bend has been seen in all shower components, thus supporting an astrophysical interpretation of the knee as opposite to that of a change in the hadronic interaction picture at these energies. All results agree to attribute the knee to the medium-light mass primaries.
Progress has been made as regards the mass composition. Almost all the ground array results show an increase in the primary mean logarithmic mass above the knee, even if the absolute scale can be quite different. There are however contradicting results coming from experiments relying on the $`\stackrel{˘}{C}`$erenkov light detection from Air Showers; the differences in the measure of $`X_{max}`$ are however quite big.
It is very important to study in detail the systematics which could bias the results; the combined use of different observables and the comparison among various data sets can help in this task. The different sensitivity to composition of the various used observables, the methods employed to determine the primary energy and the problems found in the models used in the simulations could explain the spread in the results which is apparent in Fig.18.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my friends G.Navarra, B.Alessandro and A.Chiavassa for the interesting and useful discussions which were the basis of this paper. Sincere thanks also to all my Brazilian friends, for their warm hospitality during my stay in Campinas.


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# Interlayer Exchange Coupling Mediated by Valence Band Electrons

## I Introduction

Interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) was discovered in late 80-ties in Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers gruen . Since then it has been observed in a variety of multilayer structures composed of alternating magnetic and nonmagnetic layers. These studies concentrated on the coupling between ferromagnetic, metallic layers, although separated by both metallic and insulating spacers. Thus, the ferromagnetic character of the magnetic layers and the fact that in these structures the Fermi level was situated in the region of high density of electronic states inhered to the theoretical models, which were designed to explain the origins of the IEC phenomena (see bruno  and the references therein). Surprisingly enough, the IEC was also discovered in all-semiconductor superlattices (SLs). Moreover, the semiconductor SLs in which it was first observed were the MnTe/CdTe gieb1 , MnTe/ZnTe rhyne  and EuTe/PbTe gieb2 , all with antiferromagnetic layers. Recently, such coupling was also identified in semiconductor multilayer structures with ferromagnetic EuS, kepa ; ha  and Ga(Mn)As layers akiba . While the IEC in the trilayer Ga(Mn)As/Ga(Al)As/Ga(Mn)As with the high concentration of free carriers, akiba , can be, at least qualitatively, explained in terms of the models tailored for metallic systems, the other semiconductor structures exhibiting IEC call for a different approach.

Several attempts to explain IEC in all-semiconductor structures have already been reported in the literature. Two models, in which the interlayer coupling is mediated by carriers localized on shallow impurities in the spacer region, were proposed for II-VI SLs,shevch ; rusin . These models do not apply to IV-VI structures, with the PbTe and PbS spacers, since in lead chalcogenides localized shallow impurity states were never detected heinrich . For these SLs, mechanisms of interlayer spin-spin interactions mediated by valence-band electrons were suggested. The calculations of the difference between total electronic energies obtained for two different (B1 and B2 in Fig. 1) spin configurations of the SL, performed within a frame of a very simple 1D tight-binding model, put first in evidence the significant role of the valence band electrons in IEC in all-semiconductor magnetic/nonmagnetic layer structures blin . This role was further demonstrated for EuTe/PbTe/EuTe trilayers by Wilczyński and Świrkowicz in swir , where a 3D tight binding model, still oversimplifying the band structure, was used. A different approach to the magnetic interlayer interactions mediated by valence electrons have been chosen by Dugaev et al, dugaev . These authors studied the Blombergen-Rowland mechanism within the effective mass approximation and obtained a ferromagnetic coupling between two magnetic impurities situated at the opposite interfaces of a narrow-gap IV-VI semiconductor spacer. As the experimentally observed IEC in EuS/PbS SLs is antiferromagnetic, kepa ; ha , this means that the Blombergen-Rowland interactions are not dominating IEC in these SLs. Still, because of the low concentration of free carriers and the absence of shallow impurity states in PbS, the IEC in these SLs is most likely mediated by valence electrons. In this situation, the total energy calculations, which do not focus on a particular interaction mechanism but account globally for the spin-dependent structure of valence bands, seem to constitute the most appropriate approach. The calculations of this type, reported in blin  and swir , were clearly oversimplified and performed for a different spin structure than that of EuS/PbS (001) SL.

In this paper we present the results of refined 3D total energy calculations, which take into account the crystal and the band structures of the SLs’ component materials. The tight-binding model with its assumptions and the results for three different spin structures, corresponding to all experimentally studied IV-VI semiconductor magnetic/nonmagnetic SLs, are presented in Section III. In Section II the magnetic and band structures of the constituent materials are described and the SL geometry is specified. The comparison with experimental data and the conclusions are presented in the last Section.

## II Constituent materials and the superlattices geometry

All the components of the EuX/PbX SLs, where X=Te or S, crystallize in the rock-salt structure. Bulk PbS and PbTe are narrow gap nonmagnetic semiconductors with very similar band structures. They both have a direct energy gap between the p-anion valence band and the p-cation conduction band at the point L of the BZ wei . It is well known that in both these lead chalcogenides the spin-orbit terms are important for the detailed description of the energy bands in the vicinity of the L point,lin . One notices, however, that the spin-orbit corrections affect predominantly the conduction bands originating from the states of the heavy Pb atoms.

Bulk EuS is a classical Heisenberg ferromagnet with the Curie temperature 16.6 K wachter . Bulk EuTe exhibits type II AFM structure with the Néel temperature 9.6 K wachter . In EuTe the spins of Eu ions are ferromagnetically ordered in (111)-type planes, which in turn are coupled antiferromagnetically to one another. All the Eu chalcogenides are semi-insulating, large gap semiconductors. The results of the nonrelativistic APW calculations of the EuS spin-polarized band structure cho  show the narrow f($``$) bands situated in the energy gap between the valence band, formed essentially of anion p states, and the conduction band, built mostly of cation d states. The valence band maximum is situated at the center of the Brillouin zone (BZ) and the conduction band minimum at the point X. The spin splitting of the valence band results predominantly from the spin dependent mixing of p anion and f cation states, whereas that of the conduction band is mostly due to f-d and s-d on-site direct exchange. Much less is known about the EuTe band structure. The optical experiments performed at T=300 K indicate guntherod , that in the paramagnetic phase of EuTe the f-d gap is somewhat larger than in EuS, in agreement with the general trends visible in the experimental data wachter  and the results of APW calculations for other europium chalcogenides cho . These trends seem not to be followed in the recent jaya  calculations of EuTe band structure, focused predominantly on the conduction bands.

Two types of EuS/PbS SLs were experimentally studied, one grown on KCl substrate along  and the other on BaF2 along the  crystallographic axis. The measurements show that in both cases the ferromagnetically ordered Eu spins within each magnetic layer lie in the planes perpendicular to the growth axis stachow . In the (001) structures each atomic monolayer consists of both anions and cations, with the monolayers $`a/2`$ apart, where $`a`$ is the cubic lattice constant. The schematic view of two such monolayers is presented in Fig. 2. The distances between the cation and its four in-plane nearest neighbors (anions) and four in-plane next nearest neighbors (cations) are also shown in the figure. The spin structure of the magnetic (001) SL, which corresponds to the observed antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling is shown schematically in Fig. 1, A2.

In the case of (111) EuS/PbS SLs IEC has not been yet observed. These SLs have the same crystallographic structure as the experimentally studied EuTe/PbTe SLs grown along the  axis. With this growth direction, the subsequent (111) atomic monolayers are built either of anions or of cations, in alternation. The distance between cation and anion monolayers is $`a\sqrt{3}/6`$. A schematic view of three successive cation layers is presented in Fig. 3 \- the analogous anion sublattice is shifted by $`a\sqrt{3}/2`$ along the  direction and is not shown in the figure for the clarity reasons.

In EuTe/PbTe SLs the neutronographic measurements show that the AFM Type II structure is preserved in each EuTe layer, but the FM spin sheets form exclusively on the (111) planes parallel to the layers. This is in contrast to bulk EuTe, where there are four symmetry-equivalent Type II AFM arrangements in which the ferromagnetic spin sheets form on the {111}, {$`\overline{1}`$11}, {$`1\overline{1}`$1}, or {$`11\overline{1}`$} plane families. Moreover, for the nonmagnetic spacers thin enough, the satellites observed in neutronographic spectra clearly indicate the existence of some long range order proving that the spins in consecutive magnetic layers are not randomly oriented, but tend to align along the same direction in a correlated way gieb2 . Although for the antiferromagnetic layers the notions of AFM and FM IEC are not applicable, two types of co-linear correlated spin orientations in successive layers are still possible: identical (in-phase) and reversed (out-of-phase), as shown in Fig. 1B. Both types of IEC were observed in the experiment.

All the (EuX)m/(PbX)n SLs (where m and n denote the number of EuX and PbX layers, respectively) have relatively small lattice mismatch. This mismatch, as well as the strains resulting from it, will be ignored in the following, though the strains were shown to affect the magnetic properties of the EuX layers, and their transition temperatures to the paramagnetic state,stachow ; goncha .

To discuss the spin coupling between the magnetic layers one has to consider a SL magnetic elementary cell containing at least two such layers. In SLs grown along  crystallographic direction the situation is simple, as the stacking sequence is ABAB-type. Such stacking does not enlarge the size of the magnetic elementary cell, whatever $`m+n`$ value. In contrast, the stacking sequence ABCABC-type (compare Fig. 3) for both anions and cations, in SLs grown along  axis does enlarge the elementary cell when $`m+n`$ is not a multiple of 3. Thus, to limit the size of elementary cells, we consider only the (111) SLs with $`(n+m)/3=integer`$. In the case of (001) SLs the primitive lattice vectors, which define our elementary cells are: $`𝐚_\mathrm{𝟏}=a/2[1,1,0]`$; $`𝐚_\mathrm{𝟐}=a/2[1,1,0]`$; $`𝐚_\mathrm{𝟑}=a[0,0,m+n]`$. For (111) SLs, when the z-axis is chosen along the growth direction, we have $`𝐚_\mathrm{𝟏}=a/4[\sqrt{2},\sqrt{6},0]`$;$`𝐚_\mathrm{𝟐}=a/4[\sqrt{2},\sqrt{6},0]`$; $`𝐚_\mathrm{𝟑}=(2a/\sqrt{3})[0,0,m+n]`$ (the plane views of these cells are sketched in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3). For both types of SL, our magnetic elementary cells contain, therefore, $`2(m+n)`$ anions, $`2m`$ magnetic cations and $`2n`$ nonmagnetic cations.

In order to determine IEC in the above structures we compare the total valence-electron energies in two magnetic SLs: with the in-phase and out-of-phase spin ordering. For the n and m values typical for the experimentally studied SLs the elementary cells contain several tens of atoms. In view of this complexity, we decide to use the simplest calculation scheme still leading to fairly realistic band structure, namely, an empirical tight-binding method. Even though the one-electron methods are not designed for the total-energy calculations, the small spin-dependent changes in the total energy should be described adequately within this approach.

## III Tight-binding model

To construct the empirical tight-binding Hamiltonian matrix one has to select the set of atomic orbitals for every type of involved ions and to specify the range of the ion-ion interactions. This selection is always a compromise between the best description of the band structure and the minimization of the Hamiltonian matrix dimensions and of the number of parameters used. In the following we assume that the proper description of SL band structure is reached, when the Hamiltonian reproduces in the $`n=0`$ and $`m=0`$ limits the known band structures of the bulk constituent magnetic and nonmagnetic materials, respectively. This criterion determines in principle the selection of the ionic orbitals and gives the values of the parameters, all but those characterizing the interaction between magnetic and nonmagnetic cations.

To calculate the band structure of the lead chalcogenides (PbS and PbTe) we took into account s and p orbitals for both anions and cations, which lead to 8x8 Hamiltonian matrix. We allowed for the s–s, s–p and p–p anion-cation nearest-neighbor (NN) interactions and the anion–anion and cation–cation p–p next-nearest neighbor (NNN) interactions. It turned out that the band structure can be reproduced much better when we include also, by second–order perturbation, the interactions of p-orbitals with the three NN d-orbitals belonging to the $`F_2`$ representation. The values of the parameters describing all these interactions and the values of the on-site orbital energies were determined by a $`\chi ^2`$ minimization procedure, in which the band structure was fitted to the energies in the high symmetry points of the BZ, taken from lin  and wei . The obtained energy bands for PbS and PbTe along the symmetry axes of the BZ, are presented in Fig. 4.

In the other limit, for europium chalcogenides (EuS and EuTe), to describe the cations we take explicitly the one s- and five d-orbitals, whereas the anions are described as before by s- and p-orbitals. The NN interaction involving the anion p-orbitals and cation s- and d-orbitals as well as the NNN cation-cation d–d and anion-anion p–p interaction were included in the 10x10 Hamiltonian. The s-anion–s-cation, s-anion–d-cation interactions, turned out to be less important and were neglected. Instead, we included, again by second order perturbation, the hybridization of anion p($``$)-orbitals with the cation f$`()`$-orbitals - this was necessary for reproducing the spin splittings of the valence bands in the ferromagnetic EuS (we neglected the hybridization with the energetically distant f$`()`$ band). To reproduce the spin splittings in the EuS conduction bands the on-site exchange constants $`J_s`$ and $`J_d`$ had to be introduced. The band structure of EuS, presented in Fig. 5 was obtained with the parameters fitted to the results of the APW spin–polarized calculations reported in cho . The presented in Fig. 5 band structure of EuTe was obtained with the parameter values extrapolated from the values for EuS and EuSe by exploiting the chemical trends in europium chalcogenides. The elementary cell of the antiferromagnetic EuTe has a twice larger volume and completely different shape than the one of the ferromagnetic EuS – to facilitate the comparison with EuS, we present the band structure of EuTe in the paramagnetic phase.

In the above, the number of independent fitting parameters was partially reduced according to the Harrison relations harrison , e.g., instead of two NNN interatomic matrix elements $`pp\sigma `$ and $`pp\pi `$, we used $`pp\sigma =4pp\pi `$. It has to be also noted, that in all calculations we neglected the spin–orbit terms, known to be important in lead chalcogenides. These terms would increase the number of model parameters and double the matrix dimensions and would, therefore, pose a problem in the case of the SLs. Fortunately, we are mainly interested in valence bands, for which the spin–orbit is much less important than for the conduction bands. In the magnetic elementary cell of the (EuX)m/(PbX)n SL there are $`4(m+n)`$ nonequivalent ions. Seven orbitals (s,p,d) have to be taken into account for each anion and each nonmagnetic cation and thirteen (s,d, and f) for each magnetic cation. In principle, the SL tight-binding Hamiltonian is therefore a $`(40m+28n)`$x$`(40m+28n)`$ matrix, which has to be completed by the nonmagnetic cation–magnetic cation interactions. The constants describing these interaction can not be inferred from the $`m=0`$ and $`n=0`$ limits, they were estimated from Harrison’s formula for interatomic matrix elements. The matrix was then perturbationally reduced to the $`(20m+16n)`$x$`(20m+16n)`$ matrix. To determine the small difference between the large total energies of the valence electrons in the two, in-phase and out-of-phase, spin configurations, we did not calculate these energies separately. Instead, the difference between the two energies of the valence electrons was calculated at a given k-point, after the numerical diagonalization of the two corresponding Hamiltonian matrices and summation of the occupied states’ energies. The results, obtained for a mesh of k-points (16000 points in the case of the tetragonal BZ of the (100) SLs, and 17280 in the case of the hexagonal BZ of the (111) SLs), were then used in the triple Simpson procedure for integrating over the entire BZ. The calculations were performed for (EuS)m/(PbS)n SLs grown in both  and  directions and for (EuTe)m/(PbTe)n SLs grown along the  axis.

We denote by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ the absolute value of the energy difference between the in-phase and out-of-phase spin configuration per unit surface of the layer. $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ can be regarded as a measure of the strength of the interlayer spin coupling in the SLs – for ferromagnetic structures it can be expressed in terms of the constant $`J_1`$ parkin , commonly used to characterize the IEC in metallic magnetic/nonmagnetic trilayers by the relation: $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=4|J_1|`$ (here the factor 4, instead of 2, accounts for the fact, that in SL each magnetic layer is coupled to two neighboring layers).

The sign of the calculated energy difference determines the spin configuration in consecutive magnetic layers. In the ferromagnetic, EuS-based, SLs the out-of-phase spin configuration in consecutive magnetic layers is energetically preferred, so that IEC in these structures has an ANTIFERROMAGNETIC character, in agreement with the experiment. For the antiferromagnetic, EuTe-based SLs the situation is more complicated: for odd number $`m`$ of spin planes in the magnetic layer the out-of-phase configuration has the lower energy, whereas for even $`m`$ it is the in-phase configuration, which is energetically favored. Thus, one can notice that in all studied SLs the valence electron mediated IEC prefers the spin configuration with the opposite directions of spins at the two interfaces bordering the spacer.

Many various $`m`$ and $`n`$ values were selected to study the range of the interlayer coupling and the IEC dependence on the thickness of the magnetic layer. It turned out, that in all SLs for fixed spacer thickness $`n`$ the strength of IEC is almost independent on the magnetic layer thickness $`m`$. This seems to prove that in the considered here SLs, composed of two semiconductors with very different energy gaps, the valence electron mediated IEC is essentially a surface effect.

The dependence of the strength of the interlayer coupling on the spacer thickness $`n`$ for all three studied types of SLs is presented in Fig. 6. We recall that for the  growth direction, we calculated IEC only for $`(n+m)/3=integer`$, so that for these SLs in the figure the points for different $`n`$ values do not correspond to the same $`m`$. As can be seen in Fig. 6, the strength of the coupling in all three cases decreases with the spacer thickness approximately exponentially. The strongest and the least rapidly decreasing IEC was obtained in the case of the FM EuS/PbS (001) SLs. The comparison of the results obtained with the same set of model parameters for the two different types of EuS/PbS SLs, (i.e., the grown along  and  axis) indicates that the valence electron mediated IEC depends strongly on the lattice geometry. For example, for the PbS spacer $`n=2`$ the obtained coupling between EuS (111) magnetic layers is about five times weaker than that between EuS (001) layers. Moreover, in the (111) SLs the strength of the coupling decreases more quickly with $`n`$. The small regular deviations from the smooth dependence of $`J_1`$ vs. $`n`$, which can be best seen for every second $`n`$ in the (001) case, but also for every third $`n`$ in the (111) results, reflect the periodic effects of stacking.

The IEC calculated for the AFM EuTe/PbTe (111) SL turned out to be stronger than that for FM EuS/PbS (111) SL (see Fig. 6). The difference in the band parameters by itself does not explain this result – the calculations performed for AFM and FM (111) SLs with identical sets of band parameters have shown that the coupling between the AFM layers is approximately two times stronger. This indicates that the valence electron mediated IEC is not a purely surface effect. In view of the present results for IEC in antiferromagnetic EuTe/PbTe SLs, we note that the simple 1D model in blin  overestimated the strength of IEC for large spacer thicknesses – now the decrease of IEC with $`n`$ is much more rapid; the character of the interlayer coupling was however described properly.

## IV Comparison with the experimental data

### IV.1 Ferromagnetic EuS/PbS superlattices

The IEC was observed in ferromagnetic EuS/PbS (001) SLs by magnetic ha  and neutron diffraction and reflectivity kepa  methods. For the samples with the thin enough spacers, i.e., 4.5$`\AA `$ (1.5 monolayers, probably a mixture of $`n=2`$ and $`n=1`$) and 10$`\AA `$ (ca $`n=3`$), the antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling was observed in the magnetic moment measurements; the magnetic methods did not reveal any IEC in the samples with larger spacer thicknesses. In the neutronographic experiments the AFM IEC was confirmed in the above two samples, but it was also observed in the sample with 23$`\AA `$ PbS layers. Further measurements in the external magnetic fields, parallel to the layers, allowed to estimate the experimental strength of the coupling constant $`J_1`$, from the magnetic field $`B`$ erasing the AFM neutron reflectivity peak kepa2 . This was possible for the two samples with the thinner spacers, but not for the sample with the thicker spacer. For the latter, the field-induced changes in the neutronographic spectra were irreversible, what suggests that in this case the IEC was weaker than the magnetic anisotropies. The estimated experimental values of $`J_1`$ are: 0.063, 0.031 and 0.019 (in mJ/m2), for n=1, 2 and 3, respectively, kepa2 . The corresponding theoretical values obtained from our model are: 0.77, 0.33, 0.18 mJ/m2. Thus, one can conclude, that the model of valence electron mediated IEC describes properly the sign and the rate of the decrease of the coupling with the spacer thickness, but overestimates the strength of the coupling. The fact that the theoretical results obtained for crystallographicaly perfect SLs lead to exchange constants order of magnitude larger than those observed for the real multilayer structures, is probably due to the interface diffusion, which in the case of metallic structures was shown to reduce significantly the strength of the IEC bruno .

### IV.2 Antiferromagnetic EuTe/PbTe superlattices

Unfortunately, for the AFM type of SLs there are no experiments, which provide direct information about the strength of the coupling. The evidences of the existence of the coupling between the AFM EuTe layers come from the satellite structure of the neutron diffraction spectra, seen in a variety of EuTe/PbTe SLs consisting of several hundreds of periods,gieb2 ; icps . The detailed analysis of the shapes of the satellite lines in the neutronographic spectra indicates that in these SLs the EuTe layers are not entirely coupled, but only partially correlated, the less the thicker are the PbTe spacer layers of the SL icps . Under the strong assumption that the structures are morphologically perfect, with the same $`m`$ and $`n`$ values throughout the entire SL, this degree of correlation can be quantitatively determined. Under the same assumption, the analysis of the satellites positions allows to distinguish which spin configuration, the in-phase or out-of-phase, is dominating.

The observed spectra for the SLs with nominally even $`m`$ and even $`n`$ reveal the preference for the in-phase spin configurations, whereas those for the SLs with odd $`m`$ and even $`n`$ exhibit the preference for the out-of-phase configuration, both in agreement with the predictions of the present model. For the case of even $`m`$ and odd $`n`$ there are no available data. Finally, for the samples with $`m`$ and $`n`$ both odd, the neutron diffraction spectra seem to indicate that the in-phase configuration is preferred, contrary to the theoretical predictions. However, the in-phase spin configuration for SLs with odd number of spin planes in each antiferromagnetic layer should exhibit ferrimagnetic properties, i.e., lead to a significant net magnetic moment of ferrimagnetic domains. No such magnetic moments were detected in these samples holl . These somewhat confusing results seem to indicate that both chemical and magnetic structures of the studied SLs are not perfect enough. New technological and experimental efforts to observe the IEC in EuTe/PbTe SLs with smaller number of SL periods, i.e., in SLs with better controlled $`m`$ and $`n`$ values, are undertaken.

In conclusion, we have shown, within a 3D tight binding model, that the valence electron mediated interlayer exchange coupling explains the AFM coupling between the FM layers observed in EuS/PbS (001) SLs with narrow PbS spacers. The strength of the calculated coupling depends strongly on the lattice geometry and decreases approximately exponentially with the spacer thickness $`n`$. For a given type of SL it is almost independent on the number $`m`$ of the spin planes within each magnetic layer. These features distinguish the considered mechanism from another mechanism of AFM coupling between the FM layers, namely the dipolar coupling possible in multilayer structures with tiny magnetic domains borchers .

The valence electron mediated interlayer coupling is, up to now, the only effective mechanism capable to explain the origin of the interlayer correlations observed in the antiferromagnetic EuTe/PbTe SLs with no localized impurity states. The current, not complete understanding of the experimental data for AFM SLs, does not allow, however, to draw definite conclusions about the comparison between the details of the experimental and theoretical results.

Acknowledgments:

This work was partially supported by the Polish Scientific Committee KBN, grant No. 2 P03B 007 16.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Gravitational deflection of massless particles close to a massive object has been extendedly studied in the case of photons and can be detected either through multiple images or by signal enhancement .

Here due to the extreme difficulty to detect neutrinos and the comparatively poor angular resolution of ”neutrino telescopes”, the only thing we can hope for is a signal intensification.

While stars are notorously bad lenses for photons, we will show that the situation can be very different for neutrinos: as they can cross even a stellar core, a real focusing of a neutrino beam can be achieved.

## 2 Neutrino deflection

In ref., we have computed the deflection for a neutrino beam crossing an astrophysical object, as a function of the impact parameter $`b`$.

We simply give here the net deflection for a gaussian distribution cut at the object’s radius $`R`$ ($`r_0`$ is the gaussian width, $`M`$ the object’s mass):

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{4M}{b}\hfill & \mathrm{if}bR\hfill \\ \frac{4M}{b}\left(1\sqrt{1\frac{b^2}{R^2}}\right)+\frac{4M}{b}\frac{r_0/Re^{R^2/r_0^2}\sqrt{\pi }/2}{r_0/Re^{R^2/r_0^2}\sqrt{\pi }/2\mathrm{erf}\left(R/r_0\right)1}\hfill & \\ \times \left[\sqrt{1\frac{b^2}{R^2}}\mathrm{erf}\left(R/r_0\right)e^{b^2/r_0^2}\mathrm{erf}\left(\sqrt{1\frac{b^2}{R^2}}\frac{R}{r_0}\right)\right]\hfill & \mathrm{if}b<R\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
A ”good lens” requires that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ increases with $`b`$. This is more easily discussed in terms of the effective focal length, $`f(b)`$.

Quite obviously, a perfect lens would correspond to a constant focal length, whatever the distance from the center of the object. We give in Fig. 1 the (normalized) focal lengths $`f(b)`$ for various density profiles, namely a constant density (typical for a planetary object), a gaussian distribution (which is an easily tractable approximation of a stellar density profile), a Lorentzian repartition (evocative of a galactic halo).

## 3 Neutrino absorption

While neutrinos are able to travel across the massive object, we have to consider their interactions with the matter inside; these will indeed reduce the neutrino flux and thus the efficiency of the signal amplification gained through lensing. At the energies of interest for cosmic neutrinos ($`E110`$ GeV), we have deep inelastic scattering of individual nucleons. Charged currents will cause the conversion of neutrinos into charged leptons, which will later be absorbed or decay, while neutral interactions will deflect them by angles in general large compared to the lensing effect. In both cases, the interacting neutrinos will be lost for lensing amplification.

Calling $`\sigma `$ the interaction cross-section (which depends on the neutrino energy) and $`N(x)`$ the number density of scatterers along the neutrino path, the neutrino flux attenuation after passing through a layer of matter of depth $`x`$ is thus given by

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(x,E_\nu )=\mathrm{\Phi }_0e^{\sigma (E_\nu )_0^xN(x^{})𝑑x^{}}.$$
(2)
Here we deal with objects having a spherical symmetry, so it is easier to express Eq. (2) in terms of the radial variable $`r=\sqrt{x^2+b^2}`$, $`b`$ being the impact parameter of the neutrino with respect to the center of the object. We then get

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(b,E_\nu )=\mathrm{\Phi }_0e^{2\sigma (E_\nu )_b^RN(r)\frac{rdr}{\sqrt{r^2b^2}}},$$
(3)
where $`R`$ is the radius of the object. To solve this equation, we need to collect information on the relevant cross sections, the possible mass density profiles and the composition of the object (that is, how to relate mass density to number density). For the cross sections, we refer the reader to Ref. .

We will suppose that the star is made upof 25% of Helium and 75% of Hydrogen in number; we then get the following relations between number and mass densities:

$`N_{He}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`0.142\mathrm{mol}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho (r)}{1\mathrm{g}\mathrm{r}}}\right)`$ (4)
$`N_H(r)`$ $`=`$ $`0.427\mathrm{mol}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho (r)}{1\mathrm{g}\mathrm{r}}}\right)`$ (5)
that we used in our numerical calculations. We plot in Fig. 2 the results for neutrinos (a similar figure is obtained for antineutrinos).

Neutrinos passing through a galaxy may interact either with its visible matter or with the surrounding halo of massive relic neutrinos. These last interactions become significant only for incoming neutrinos at ultra high energies (of the order of $`10^{19}`$ eV)  and we may neglect them in our present frame of work.

Concerning the visible part of the Galaxy, a rough estimate gives an average density of stars of 1 pc<sup>-3</sup>, which corresponds to a negligible probability for the neutrino to encounter a star during its passage through the galaxy, even in the worst case if it traverses the whole disk and the bulge.

We thus conclude that the passage of neutrinos through the galaxy won’t decrease their flux, and hence do not affect the lensing effect.

We skip here the intricate but rather straightforward geometrical details, and jump to:

## 4 Applications

### 4.1 The Sun

We consider the Sun as a first example. Neutrinos passing outside the Sun don’t focus close enough to Earth to be of use; in fact for them to focus on Earth, we would need

$`b_030.000\mathrm{km}5\%R_{},`$ (6)
which is clearly well inside the Sun, so the OUT solution does not provide any sizeable effect.

We consider thus neutrinos crossing the Sun, using as announced a Gaussian density profile for the matter distribution. As seen from Fig. 1, the plot of the focal lenght never crosses the line $`f=D_{LO}=1`$ a.u. which would allow for focusing on an earth-bound telescope. The smallest value is at about 22 a.u., which means Uranians can perform wonderful neutrino lensing experiments using the Sun as lens, see also . For them, any source would be amplified in turn as the Sun sweeps in front of it! It is easy to check that Jupiter cannot replace the Sun as a useful lens for us, as its mass is about $`10^3M_{}`$.

Even if we are not at the focal point, there is yet some amplification due to the improved convergence of the beam. It provides

$`A=\left({\displaystyle \frac{f}{\left|fD_{LO}\right|}}\right)^2.`$ (7)
The effect is significant if $`D_{LO}f`$, say $`D_{LO}[0.3f;3f]`$, to have a magnification higher than 2. Beyond $`3f`$, this last effect is negligible.

### 4.2 Stars

For distant sources, since the closest star is yet at about 1.3 pc, it is easy to check (see above) that only neutrinos passing outside the star could be focused on Earth. The case is similar to photons, namely the lens only focuses neutrinos passing through a thin ring whose radius is fixed by the distance of the star. We have verified that for expected neutrino sources the enhancement is insufficient to help in detection.

### 4.3 Binary Systems

For binary systems , if a compact source orbits close (ideally at the focal distance) from a large star, the neutrino flux passing through this star can be focused into a tight parallel beam (in a classical lighthouse picture).

Clearly, the result $`f_{disk}/D_{LO}1`$ is achievable. This situation is really promising, providing the source is small enough compared to the lens, so that the magnification is significant. Binary stars will however seldom meet all the conditions; more exotic systems, with a compact and intense neutrino source, are needed.

### 4.4 Galaxies

In Ref. , we have studied the lensing of both compact and galactic sources by a galaxy. We conclude that in the former case, too few events can be observed, while the second situation might be promising.

## 5 Conclusions

With an approach based on general relativity equations we have studied with some generality neutrino lensing through different models of astrophysical objects. The main difference with photons rests in the possibility for medium energy neutrinos to cross even the stars (despite a cut-off above a few 100 GeV in that case). This has the important result that the quality of the lens is greatly improved, as in that case we get a nearly constant focal length in the central region of the star. This would have been very promising, had the focal length of the center of the Sun happened to coincide with the radius of the Earth orbit; unfortunately this is far from being the case, and the focusing occurs closer to Uranus. For what concerns the Lorentzian case, we notice that the result we obtained is significantly different from the one usually quoted for photons passing through an isothermal potential.

We have considered other astrophysical objects than simple stars, and various geometrical configurations, in order to identify the cases most favourable for lensing. We have taken into account the finite size of the source and of the detector and shown how they can influence the lensing characteristics.

The case of a binary system seems to be quite promising, provided small and energetic sources exist; and galaxy lenses could also provide sizeable enhancements of the signal.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by I. I. S. N. Belgium and by the Communauté Française de Belgique (Direction de la Recherche Scientifique programme ARC). D. Monderen benefits from a F. R. I. A. grant.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Two of the greatest achievements of physics in the last century were Einstein’s general theory of relativity and quantum theory. Each of these theories has been extremely well tested and has been very successful. However, they are mutually incompatible. Thus our basic understanding of nature is not only incomplete – but inconsistent. One clearly needs a new theory, quantum gravity, which incorporates the principles of both of these theories and reduces to them in appropriate limits.

At first sight, the problem of constructing a quantum theory of gravity sounds easy since there are no experimental constraints! The task is simply to find any theory which unifies general relativity and quantum theory. However, on second thought, the problem sounds extremely difficult. General relativity teaches us that gravity is just a manifestation of the curvature of space and time. So quantum gravity must involve the quantization of space and time, something we have no previous experience with.

Surprisingly, even though there are no experimental constraints, this is a constraint on quantum gravity which was found in the early 1970’s by studying black holes. Motivated by the close analogy between the laws of black hole mechanics and ordinary thermodynamics, Bekenstein proposed that black holes have an entropy proportional to their horizon area $`A`$ . Then Hawking showed that if matter is treated quantum mechanically (but gravity remains classical), black holes emit thermal radiation with a temperature $`T=\mathrm{}\kappa /2\pi `$ where $`\kappa `$ is the surface gravity of the black hole . This confirmed Bekenstein’s ideas and fixed the coefficient:

$$S_{bh}=\frac{A}{4G\mathrm{}}$$
(1)
This is an enormous entropy – much larger than the entropy in the matter that collapsed to form the black hole. In a more fundamental statistical description, the entropy should be a measure of the log of the number of accessible states. So a constraint on any candidate quantum theory of gravity is to show that the number of quantum states associated with a black hole is indeed $`e^{S_{bh}}`$. We will see that there has been considerable progress in satisfying this constraint recently.

Over the years, there has been much discussion of possible consequences of quantum gravity. Let me comment on a few of the most popular:

$``$ Quantum gravity will smooth out spacetime singularities

This is false as stated. Quantum gravity cannot smooth out all singularities. Some timelike singularities must remain, such as the one in the $`M<0`$ Schwarzschild solution. This can be seen from the following simple argument . Since quantum gravity must reduce to general relativity for weak fields (and large number of quanta), there must be solutions which look like $`M<0`$ Schwarzschild at large radii, for any $`M`$. At small radii, the curvature becomes strong and the solution may be significantly modified. But if it is not singular in some sense, it would represent a state in the theory with negative total energy. Since the energy is unbounded from below, there would be no stable vacuum state.

$``$ Quantum gravity will allow the topology of space to change

This is almost certainly true. There are semi-classical calculations of pair creation of magnetically charged black holes in a background magnetic field . One can reliably calculate this rate for black holes with size much larger than the Planck scale. It is extremely small, but it does change the topology of space from $`R^3`$ to $`R^3`$ with an $`S^2\times S^1`$ wormhole attached. This is because the black holes are created with their horizons identified. It is interesting to note that if one compares the rate of black hole pair creation to the rate of magnetic monopole creation, one sees an enhancement in the black hole case of $`e^{S_{bh}}`$ in line with the expectation that there are $`e^{S_{bh}}`$ different species of black holes . We will see further evidence for topology change shortly.

$``$ Black hole evaporation will violate quantum mechanics: pure states will evolve to mixed states

Since black holes can be formed from matter in a pure state and the radiation emitted is thermal (in the semiclassical approximation) it was thought that black hole evaporation would cause pure states to evolve into mixed states. There is recent evidence (discussed below) that this is false. In a more exact treatment there are likely to be correlations between the radiation emitted at early time and later time which ensure that the evolution is unitary.

$``$ Space and time will not be fundamental, but derived properties.

This is likely to be true, but the key question is, what replaces them?

Over the past fifteen years, there has been significant progress in two different approaches to quantum gravity: string theory and quantum geometry. String theory attempts to provide a unified theory of all forces and particles as well as a quantum theory of gravity. Quantum geometry attempts to quantize general relativity (by itself) in a background independent, non-perturbative way. It is well known that the usual perturbative approach to quantizing general relativity fails since the theory is not renormalizable. But quantum general relativity may still exist nonperturbatively. Due to lack of time, I will not attempt to describe these approaches in detail. (The details keep changing anyway.) Instead, I will try to summarize the current status of each approach and some of the results that have been achieved so far.

Note on references: The list of references is necessarily incomplete and somewhat subjective. I have tried to include at least some of the key papers describing recent developments in each approach.

## 2 String theory

String theory111A good general reference for string theory including many of the results discussed in this section is . starts with the idea that all elementary particles are not pointlike, but excitations of a one dimensional string. If one quantizes a free relativistic string in flat spacetime one finds a infinite tower of modes of increasing mass. There is a massless spin two mode which is identified with a linearized graviton. Next, one postulates a simple splitting and joining interaction between strings and finds, remarkably, that this reproduces the perturbative expansion of general relativity. One then adds fermionic degrees of freedom to the string so the theory is supersymmetric. This makes the theory better behaved and calculations easier to control. The consistent quantization of a string turns out to impose a constraint on the spacetime dimension. In most cases, one needs ten spacetime dimensions. Contact with observations obviously requires that six of these dimensions are unobservable. The simplest possibility is the old Kaluza-Klein idea that these six dimensions are wrapped up in a small compact manifold222Other possibilities are also being explored .. The natural size of this compact manifold is the string length, a new dimensionful parameter in the theory set by the string tension. The string length, $`\mathrm{}_s`$, is related to the Planck length, $`\mathrm{}_p`$, by a power of the (dimensionless) string coupling $`g`$. In ten dimensions, $`\mathrm{}_p=g^{1/4}\mathrm{}_s`$.

Since the string represents fluctuations about the background spacetime it is propagating in, the above description is strictly perturbative. String theory has now progressed far beyond this perturbative beginning. The current status of string theory is roughly the following.

1. Classical theory is well understood. The classical equations resemble general relativity with an infinite series of correction terms involving higher powers and derivatives of the curvature. Since the correction terms become important only when the curvature is of order the string scale, any solution to general relativity with curvature smaller than $`\mathrm{}_s^2`$ is an approximate classical solution to string theory. To obtain exact solutions, it is useful to note that the classical field equations arise from the vanishing of the conformal anomaly in a certain two dimensional field theory. Several classes of exact solutions are known (often using special properties to ensure that the higher order correction terms vanish). One class, based on supersymmetry, includes compact Ricci flat six manifolds known as Calabi-Yau spaces which can be used to compactify spacetime down to four dimensions. Other classes include exact plane waves and group manifolds.
2. Quantum perturbation theory is well understood and well behaved. In particular, it is finite order by order in the loop expansion. Thus string theory provides a perturbatively finite quantum theory of gravity. However, the perturbation theory does not determine the quantum theory uniquely. Nonperturbative effects are important. This is evident in the fact that the loop expansion does not converge.
3. Some nonperturbative properties are known. These are mostly through clever use of supersymmetry, which guarantees that certain properties which are valid at weak coupling must continue to hold at strong coupling. In particular, extended objects (called branes) play an important role in the theory. At the perturbative level, there are five different string theories in ten dimensions which differ in the amount of supersymmetry and fundamental gauge groups they contain. There is convincing evidence that the strong coupling limit of one theory is equivalent to the weak coupling limit of another theory. These are known as duality symmetries. In fact, it is now believed that all of these theories can be obtained from a single eleven dimensional theory333This is often called M-theory, but I will continue to refer to this approach as string theory..
4. There exists a complete nonperturbative formulation of the theory for certain boundary conditions. This will be discussed further below.

Up until five years ago, the status of string theory was essentially just the first two points above. Point three has an interesting consequence. Since string theory includes gravity and strong coupling implies strong gravitational fields, one might have expected the strong coupling limit of string theory to have large fluctuations of space and time, i.e., spacetime foam. But this does not seem to be the case. It appears that the strong coupling limit of the theory can be described in terms of a weakly coupled theory in new variables. There is no evidence for spacetime foam.

Now I turn to discuss some results in string theory.

A) Singularities: The first thing to note is that the definition of a singularity is different in string theory than in general relativity, even classically. In general relativity, we usually define a singularity in terms of geodesic incompleteness which is based on the motion of test particles. In string theory, we must use test strings. So a spacetime is considered singular if test strings are not well behaved444Strictly speaking, one should also require that the other extended objects in the theory –branes – have well behaved propagation.. It turns out that some spacetimes which are singular in general relativity are completely nonsingular in string theory. A simple example is the quotient of Euclidean space by a discrete subgroup of the rotation group. The resulting space, called an orbifold, has a conical singularity at the origin. Even though this leads to geodesic incompleteness in general relativity, it is completely harmless in string theory. This is essentially because strings are extended objects.

The orbifold has a very mild singularity, but even curvature singularities can be harmless in string theory. As mentioned above, string theory has exact solutions which are the product of four dimensional Minkowski space, and a compact Calabi-Yau space. A given Calabi-Yau manifold usually admits a whole family of Ricci flat metrics. So one can construct a solution in which the four large dimensions stay approximately flat and the geometry of the Calabi-Yau manifold changes slowly from one Ricci flat metric to another. In this process the Calabi-Yau space can develop a curvature singularity. In many cases, this can be viewed as arising from a topologically nontrivial $`S^2`$ or $`S^3`$ being shrunk down to zero area. It has been shown that when this happens, string theory remains completely well defined. The evolution continues through the geometrical singularity to a nonsingular Calabi-Yau space on the other side .

The reason this happens is roughly the following. There are extra degrees of freedom in the theory associated with branes wrapped around topologically nontrivial surfaces. As long as the area of the surface is nonzero, these degrees of freedom are massive, and it is consistent to ignore them. However when the surface shrinks to zero volume these degrees of freedom become massless, and one must include them in the analysis. When this is done, the theory is nonsingular.

The above singularities are all in the extra spatial dimensions. However other singularities which involve time in a crucial way have also been shown to be harmless. Putting many branes on top of each other produces a gravitational field which often has a curvature singularity at the location of the brane. It has been shown that one can understand physical processes near this singularity in terms of excitations of the branes.

Despite all this progress, we still do not yet have an understanding of the most important types of singularities: those arising from gravitational collapse or cosmology.

B) Topology change: It has been shown unambiguously that the topology of space can change in string theory. In fact, when one evolves through a singular Calabi-Yau space as described above, the topology of the manifold changes . A simpler example of topology change is the following. Consider one direction in space compactified to a circle. If one identifies points under a shift $`\theta \theta +\pi `$, one obtains a circle of half the radius. If one identifies points under a reflection about a diameter, one obtains a line segment. It turns out that for a circle whose radius is the string scale, one can show these two $`Z_2`$ actions are equivalent in string theory555Usually, compactifying on a circle produces a $`U(1)`$ gauge field. At this special radius, there is an enhanced $`SU(2)`$ symmetry and these two $`Z_2`$ actions are conjugate subgroups.. There is no way for strings to distinguish them. So one can start with one direction compactified on a large circle, slowly shrink it down to the string scale, replace it with a line segment, and then slowly expand the line segment. As far as strings are concerned, the evolution is completely nonsingular.

C) Black hole entropy: By far the most important result is that it has been shown that string theory can satisfy the black hole constraint mentioned earlier. For a large class of extreme and near extreme charged black holes, one can count the number of quantum string states at weak coupling with the same mass and charge as the black hole. The answer turns out to agree exactly with the prediction made by Bekenstein and Hawking . It is important to note that it is not just one number being reproduced. One can consider black holes with several different types of charges and angular momentum. String theory correctly reproduces the entropy as a function of all of these parameters.

The calculations are quite remarkable since one starts at weak coupling where gravitational effects are turned off and spacetime is flat. One considers configurations of branes and strings with appropriate charges and counts the number of states with a given energy. One then increases the string coupling. The gravitational field of the branes and strings becomes stronger and they eventually form a black hole. One compares the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the resulting black hole and finds complete agreement with the log of the number of states computed in flat spacetime. It is possible to do this calculation exactly only for extremal and near extremal black holes. For more general black holes, one can show that the log of the number of string states is proportional to the area , but the coefficient is difficult to calculate.

In some cases, one can calculate the spectrum of Hawking radiation in string theory and show that it agrees with the semiclassical calculation. This is remarkable since the spectrum is not exactly thermal, but has grey body factors arising from spacetime curvature outside the horizon. These are correctly reproduced in string theory, even though the string calculation is done in flat space. The calculations look completely different, but the results agree.

D) Nonperturbative formulation: By studying these black hole results more closely, people were led to a new and more complete formulation of the theory.

AdS/CFT Conjecture (Maldacena ): String theory on spacetimes which asymptotically approach the product of anti de Sitter (AdS) and a compact space, is completely described by a conformal field theory (CFT) “living on the boundary at infinity”.

In particular, string theory with $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ boundary conditions is described by a four dimensional supersymmetric $`SU(N)`$ gauge theory. Since the gauge theory is defined nonperturbatively, this is a nonperturbative and (mostly) background independent formulation of string theory. A background spacetime metric only enters in the boundary conditions at infinity.

At first sight this conjecture seems unbelievable. How could an ordinary field theory describe all of string theory? I don’t have time to describe the impressive body of evidence in favor of this correspondence which has accumulated over the past few years. In the past three years, more than a thousand papers have been written on various aspects of this conjecture. A good review is .

This conjecture provides a “holographic” description of quantum gravity in that the fundamental degrees of freedom live on a lower dimensional space. The idea that quantum gravity might be holographic was first suggested by ’t Hooft  and Susskind  motivated by the fact that black hole entropy is proportional to its horizon area. It also confirms earlier indications that string theory has fewer fundamental degrees of freedom than it appears in perturbation theory. This conjecture provides an answer to the longstanding question raised in the introduction: If space and time are not fundamental, what replaces them? Here the answer is that there is an auxiliary spacetime metric which is fixed by the boundary conditions at infinity. The CFT uses this metric, but the physical spacetime metric is a derived quantity. The dictionary relating spacetime concepts in the bulk and field theory concepts on the boundary is very incomplete, and still being developed.

This conjecture has an interesting consequence. Consider the formation and evaporation of a small black hole in a spacetime which is asymptotically $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. By the AdS/CFT correspondence, this process is described by ordinary unitary evolution in the CFT. So black hole evaporation does not violate quantum mechanics. This is the basis for my earlier comment that the belief that black hole evaporation is not unitary is probably false.

## 3 Quantum Geometry

Quantum geometry666For a general review of this approach, see . begins by rewriting (four dimensional) general relativity in first order form in terms of a tetrad and connection. But instead of the usual Lorentz connection, one uses a self dual connection. One then casts the theory into canonical form. There are the usual Hamiltonian and momentum constraints associated with diffeomorphism invariance, and a new Gauss’ law constraint associated with gauge transformations. Following a standard procedure for quantizing a system with constraints, one attempts to quantize the theory by requiring that the constraint operators annihilate the physical states. The theory is analogous to an SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with an unusual Hamiltonian. However, an important difference with ordinary Yang-Mills theory is that there is no background spacetime metric. One must quantize the theory in a diffeomorphism invariant way. It turns out that there is a natural diffeomorphism invariant measure on the space of connections777More precisely, there is a diffeomorphism invariant measure on the space of generalized connections mod gauge transformations. A generalized connection is a map from line segments (edges) to the group. which can be used to define an inner product. It is sometimes convenient to work in a loop representation in which states are functionals of loops. The relation to the connection representation is roughly $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }[\gamma ]=DAW_\gamma [A]\psi [A]`$ where $`\gamma `$ is a loop and $`W_\gamma [A]=TrP\mathrm{exp}_\gamma A`$ is the Wilson loop.

The current status of the quantum geometry approach is roughly the following:

1. There is a detailed and well defined theory of quantum geometry with a Hilbert space of states, and operators describing geometrical quantities such as areas, volumes, etc. This can be viewed as the kinematical Hilbert space for the gravitational field. (The Hamiltonian constraint has not yet been imposed.) It turns out that the fundamental excitations of the geometry are one dimensional, created by gravitational analogues of Wilson loops. An orthonormal basis for this space is given by spin networks, which are, roughly, graphs whose edges are labeled with representations of $`SU(2)`$.
2. Progress has been made in understanding the dynamics, i.e., the Hamiltonian constraint. (This is much more difficult than the other constraints since it is quadratic in momenta and needs to be regulated.) For example, a rigorously defined and finite Hamiltonian operator has been constructed and states have been found which are annihilated by this operator . This defines a consistent generally covariant four dimensional quantum field theory, but it may not reduce to general relativity in the classical limit  . Also there has been progress in a path integral approach, in which the spin networks are generalized to “spin foams” which are two dimensional surfaces glued together along edges .
3. There has been recent progress in constructing kinematical semi-classical states . These are quantum states which approximate classical spacetimes with minimum uncertainty. They are important for gaining a physical interpretation of quantum states, and are needed as a first step to studying scattering in this approach.
4. Although supersymmetry does not seem to be necessary in this approach, there has been progress in extending this approach to supergravity .

Let me now describe some of the results in the quantum geometry approach.

A) Discreteness: The geometric operators describing areas and volumes have a purely discrete spectrum. For example, the area of a small surface crossing an edge of a spin network is directly related to the $`SU(2)`$ representation on the edge. The area of a large surface is just the sum of the contributions from each edge of the spin network it crosses. Since all geometric operators have a discrete spectrum, geometry is really quantized. The usual continuum picture is only a coarse grained approximation. This is another answer to the question of what replaces our usual notions of space and time, if they are not fundamental.

B) Black hole entropy: One can reproduce the entropy of all nonrotating black holes (including Schwarzschild) by counting quantum states . The answer agrees with the Bekenstein-Hawking prediction up to a single undetermined dimensionless constant, called the Immirzi parameter. This parameter arises since there are inequivalent ways of quantizing the classical phase space . If you fix this parameter to give the right answer for Schwarzschild, one automatically gets the right answer for all charged black holes. This is different from the situation in string theory, in which current calculations only gives the entropy of a general black hole up to an undetermined factor of order one which is not simply related to a parameter in the theory.

One might wonder how one can count physical states of the black hole if one does not yet have complete control over the Hamiltonian constraint. The answer is the following. If one starts with the Einstein action in appropriate variables defined outside a stationary black hole, one can show that one needs to add a surface term at the horizon which is essentially a $`U(1)`$ Chern-Simons action (recall that we are in $`3+1`$ dimensions). Physically, this Chern-Simons action describes fluctuations of the horizon geometry. The Hilbert space consists of states in the bulk and states on the horizon, coupled in a well defined way. What one actually counts are states of the boundary Chern-Simons theory, on a sphere with certain punctures. The horizon area is kept fixed and corresponds to a sum of contributions associated with each puncture. One then assumes that each of these boundary states can be connected to a bulk state satisfying the Hamiltonian constraint.

C) Area eigenvalues are consistent with Hawking radiation: In this framework, Hawking radiation can be thought of as analogous to atomic transitions: the area drops to a lower eigenstate, and one emits a quanta of energy. But to reproduce an approximately thermal spectrum at low frequency, it is important that the area eigenvalues are not evenly spaced . This can easily be seen as follows. Suppose the area eigenvalues were $`A_nn`$ in Planck units. Even though the Planck length is so small, this would lead to observable effects. Since $`AM^2`$, $`\delta AM\delta M`$. So $`\delta M1/M=\omega _0`$. Thus black hole radiation could only consist of particles with energy $`\omega _0,2\omega _0,3\omega _0`$, etc. But the Hawking temperature of the black hole is of order $`\omega _0`$, so this should be the peak of the thermal spectrum. Fortunately, one finds that the level spacing between area eigenvalues goes to zero very rapidly, $`A_nA_{n1}e^{\sqrt{A}_n}`$, which is consistent with a thermal spectrum even at low frequency.

The quantum geometry approach has recently made contact with another approach to quantizing general relativity, based on the close analogy with topological field theory. The basic idea in the following. Consider a theory in $`D`$ dimensions of a gauge field $`A_\mu ^a`$ with gauge group $`G`$ and $`D2`$ form taking values in the (dual of the) adjoint representation of $`G`$, $`B_{\mu \mathrm{}\nu a}`$. The action is simply $`S_{BF}=FB`$ where $`F`$ is the usual field strength of $`A`$. This is a topological field theory, which is independent of a spacetime metric. It is known in the literature as BF theory . This theory can be quantized by path integral or canonical methods. For $`D=3`$ and $`G=SO(2,1)`$, this action is precisely $`2+1`$ general relativity, where $`B`$ is interpreted as a triad of orthonormal vectors. Even in higher dimensions, general relativity is equivalent to $`S_{BF}`$ plus a constraint. This can be seen by writing the Einstein action in first order form

$$S=R^{ab}e^c\mathrm{}e^dϵ_{abc\mathrm{}d}$$
(2)
where $`R^{ab}`$ is the curvature two form of an $`SO(D1,1)`$ connection and $`e^a`$ is a set of $`D`$ orthonormal vectors. This is clearly equivalent to $`S_{BF}`$ with gauge group $`G=SO(D1,1)`$ and $`B`$ constrained to take the form of the wedge product of vectors. In any dimension, this constraint can be written as a quadratic condition on $`B`$ . So general relativity is equivalent to a topological field with a simple quadratic constraint!

Returning to four dimensions, a functional integral approach to quantization has been developed starting with a simplicial decomposition of the four manifold $`M`$. The two form $`B`$ is defined on the faces, and the connection is defined on the edges of a dual triangulation, in which each i-simplex is replaced by a (4-i)-simplex. Evaluating the functional integral involves summing over group representations, and the constraint on $`B`$ can be simply implemented by restricting the group representations one must sum over . The dual triangulation involves two dimensional faces joined at edges, and one can show that this leads to the same description as the “spin foam” model mentioned earlier . The spin foam model was originally obtained in a completely different way, by extending the spin networks of the canonical theory to a four dimensional framework. A topological theory can be completely described by a single triangulation, but general relativity requires a sum over triangulations. A field theory formulation has been found in which the Feynman diagrams are in one-to-one correspondence with the spin foams . So summing over Feynman diagrams naturally sums over spin foams, which is like summing over four geometries. This is analogous to the matrix theory description of two dimensional gravity. Although much of the work in this direction has been restricted to Euclidean general relativity (where the group is compact), there has been recent work in extending this to Lorentzian general relativity.

## 4 Comparisons

From the mid 1980’s to the mid 1990’s, a key difference between string theory and quantum geometry was that string theory was inherently perturbative and quantum geometry was not. (Indeed, the latter was often called “nonperturbative quantum gravity” to distinguish it from string theory.) As I have tried to emphasize, this is no longer the case. There is now a complete nonperturbative formulation of string theory (at least for certain boundary conditions).

Both string theory and quantum geometry have given strong evidence that they satisfy the black hole constraint: They can reproduce the entropy of black holes by counting quantum states. But they do so in very different ways. Quantum geometry is directly counting fluctuations of the event horizon, while string theory extrapolates the black hole to weak coupling and counts states of strings (and branes) in flat spacetime. At the moment, the string calculations give exact results (including the factor of $`1/4`$) only for extreme and near extreme charged black holes. Rotation can be included. In contrast, the quantum geometry calculations apply to all nonrotating black holes, even those which are far from extremality. They do not recover the factor $`1/4`$ uniquely, but it can be reproduced by fixing the one free parameter in the theory. In this approach, one counts horizon states and assumes that they can be extended to states satisfying the Hamiltonian constraint.

The main advantage of the quantum geometry approach is that it is directly facing the challenge of quantizing space and time. String theory has not yet done this. Initially it avoided the issue by focusing on perturbation theory. More recently, it has side-stepped the issue by using duality to relate strong coupling to weak coupling, or using holography to remove spacetime altogether. We do not yet have a good understanding of how to recover spacetime from its holographic description.

The main disadvantage of quantum geometry is that it is still trying to deal with the Hamiltonian constraint. This has always been the main difficulty of canonical quantization of general relativity, and despite enormous progress, it has not yet been resolved.

The main advantage of string theory is that it is much more ambitious. It attempts to provide not just a quantum theory of gravity but also a unified theory of all particles and forces. String theory has also achieved more, including the results on singularities and topology change mentioned earlier, and more detailed calculations of Hawking radiation.

The main disadvantage of string theory is that one has to accept a lot of extra structure: extra dimensions, supersymmetry, extra particles. At first sight it does not seem very economical. But nature may in fact include all of these features, and it is only experimental limitations which have kept them hidden. Furthermore, we have seen evidence that string theory has fewer degrees of freedom than it appears, so it may be more economical than it looks.

## 5 Looking ahead

In the next few years, I expect to see progress in both approaches. But in the long run, things depend on the following key question:

Does quantum general relativity exist as a consistent theory?

If so, the quantum geometry approach will probably succeed and construct it. If not, it will fail. But even in this case, ideas from quantum geometry are likely to be useful in string theory e.g. to recover spacetime from its holographic description. If quantum general relativity exists and is (in a suitable sense) unique, then quantum geometry must be included in string theory since string theory includes general relativity.

How could quantum geometry be combined with string theory? There are already several similarities between the two approaches. For example, one dimensional objects play a key role in both. In string theory, this is the starting point: all elementary particles are excitations of a one dimensional string. In quantum geometry, one finds (at the end of a lengthy analysis) that fundamental excitations of the geometry are one dimensional. Given the AdS/CFT conjecture, there are further similarities arising from the fact that gauge theories play an important role in both approaches. String theory with $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ boundary conditions is completely described by a four dimensional $`SU(N)`$ gauge theory. In the quantum geometry approach, four dimensional general relativity is described by something resembling an $`SU(2)`$ gauge theory. Could the fact that $`SU(2)`$ is contained in $`SU(N)`$ be related to the fact that string theory describes many more fields than just four dimensional general relativity? Furthermore, in the quantum geometry approach, Wilson loops are the basic operators creating fundamental one dimensional excitations of the geometry. In string theory, Wilson loops in the boundary gauge theory describe strings in the bulk spacetime.

Of course, at the moment there are also crucial differences between these approaches. The gauge theory in string theory is a standard Yang-Mills theory with its usual Hamiltonian and a fixed spacetime metric. In quantum geometry, there is a Hamiltonian constraint, spatial diffeomorphism constraints and no background metric. Another key difference is that one of the main predictions of the quantum geometry approach is that all areas are discrete. But in string theory we have seen that one can wrap extended objects around compact surfaces in the extra dimensions to produce new states. The mass of these states is directly proportional to the area of the surface. Supersymmetry requires that one can change this area continuously. So it appears that area is not quantized in this case. The future will tell whether, at a deeper level, these differences are superficial or fundamental.

Of course the goal of both approaches is to answer basic questions such as what was physics like at the big bang. Given the recent progress, one may be hopeful that answers will be available soon into the next millennium.

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank A. Ashtekar, T. Banks, K. Krasnov, D. Marolf, J. Maldacena, J. Polchinski, C. Rovelli, and A. Strominger for improving my understanding of the topics discussed here. This work was supported in part by NSF Grant PHY-0070895.