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# Quantum Fluctuations of Light: A Modern Perspective on Wave/Particle Duality

## I Introduction

Our meeting celebrates one hundred years of the quantum. It was in October of 1900 that Planck stated his law for the spectrum of blackbody radiation for the first time publicly planck1 , and it was in December of that year that he presented a derivation of that law in a paper to the German Physical Society planck2  in which he states: “We consider, however—this is the most essential point of the whole calculation—$`E`$ to be composed of a very definite number of equal parts and use thereto the constant of nature $`h=6.55\times 10^{27}\text{erg sec}`$.” Planck introduced his “equal parts” so that he might apply Boltzmann’s statistical ideas to calculate an entropy. The ideas required that he make a finite enumeration of states and hence the discretization was necessitated by the statistical approach. The surprise for physics is that fitting the data required the discreteness to be kept while the more natural thing would be to take the size of the “parts” to zero at the end of the calculation.

The story of Planck’s discovery and what may or may not have been his attitude to the physical significance of the persisting discreteness is one to be told by others terhaar1 ; pais1 ; murdoch1 ; heilbron . Looking backwards with the knowledge of a physicist trained in the modern era, the essence of the blackbody calculation is remarkably simple and provides a dramatic illustration of the profound difference that can arise from summing things discretely instead of continuously—i.e., making an integration. Mathematically, the difference is almost trivial, but why the physical world prefers a sum over an integral still escapes our understanding. Going, then, to the heart of the matter, the solution to the blackbody problem may be developed from a calculation of the average energy of a harmonic oscillator of frequency $`\nu `$ in thermal equilibrium at temperature $`T`$. Taking a continuous energy variable $`y=E/h\nu `$ leads to the calculation

$$\frac{_0^{\mathrm{}}ye^{yx}𝑑y}{_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{yx}𝑑y}=\frac{(1/x)^{}}{1/x}=\frac{1}{x},$$
(1)
where we define

$$x\frac{h\nu }{kT},$$
(2)
and $`k`$ is Boltzmann’s constant ($`^{}`$ denotes differentiation with respect to $`x`$); the result is the one expected from the classical equipartition theorem. Taking a discrete energy variable, $`E_n=nh\nu `$, gives

$$\frac{_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}ne^{nx}}{_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}e^{nx}}=\frac{[1/(1e^x)]^{}}{1/(1e^x)}=\frac{1}{e^x1}.$$
(3)
There is agreement between the sum and the integral for $`x1`$, when the average energy is made up from very many of Planck’s “equal parts;” this is the domain of validity of the Rayleigh-Jeans formula. Outside this domain discreteness brings about Planck’s quantum correction.

The pure formality of the difference is striking. The blackbody problem hardly demands that we take the energy quantum $`h\nu `$ too seriously, whether the oscillator be considered to be a material oscillator or a mode of the radiation field debye . Indeed, summed over oscillators of all frequencies, the total energy is in effect continuous still. Considering the radiation oscillators, it has, in fact, only recently become possible to make a direct observation of discrete single-mode energies. Remarkably, measurement are made at microwave frequencies where the energy quantum is exceedingly small. The feat is accomplished using the strong dipole interaction between an atom excited to a Rydberg state and a mode of a superconducting microwave cavity cooled near absolute zero brune ; the system has become a paradigm for studies in cavity QED berman . In this talk I will discuss other results from the interesting field of cavity QED, but for a physical system where the material and radiation oscillators have optical frequencies.

So Eqs. (1) and (3) contrast the discrete with the continuous. Of course, concepts of both characters enter into classical physics: Newton’s mass point is discrete, the particle or atom is discrete, as are any “things” counted $`\mathrm{}`$ on the other hand the evolution over time unfolds continuously, the location of a particle lies in a continuum, Maxwell’s waves are continuous. The important point about classical thinking is that ideas on the two sides remain apart from one another, even if they have sometimes competed, as, for example, in the varied attempts to account for the nature of light. Quantum physics on the other hand, as it developed in the three decades after Planck’s discovery, found a need for an uncomfortable fusion of the discrete and the continuous. Arguments about particles or waves gave way to a recognized need for particles and waves. Thus, throughout the period of the old quantum theory, from Planck until Heisenberg heisenberg  and Schrödinger schroedinger , a genuine “wave/particle duality” steadily emerged. The full history is complex stuewer ; wheaton ; murdock2  and I will mention only some of the most often quoted highlights.

Einstein, in a series of celebrated papers, lay down the important markers on the particle side pais2 . Amongst other things, he brought Planck’s quantum into clear focus as a possible particle of light einstein1 , argued that discreteness was essential to Planck’s derivation of the radiation law einstein2 , and incorporated the quantum and its discreteness into a quantum dynamics which accounted for the exchange of energy between radiation and matter oscillators in a manner consistent with that law einstein3 . Adding to this, Bohr’s work connecting Planck’s ideas to fundamental atomic structure must be seen to support an argument on the particle side bohr1 . Yet Bohr, like most others, was opposed to Einstein’s tinkering with the conventional description of the free radiation field as a continuous wave.

The case on the side of the wave was easily made on the basis of interference phenomena. Nonetheless, over time it became clear that the particle idea could not simply be dismissed and it was suggested that the clue to a union lay, not in the nature of free radiation, but in the nature of the interaction of radiation with matter. Planck was among those to expressed this view planck3 : “I believe one should first try to move the whole difficulty of the quantum theory to the domain of the interaction of matter with radiation.” The suggestion was followed up most seriously in a bold work authored by Bohr, Kramers, and Slater (BKS) bohr2  and based on a proposal of Slater’s slater1 . The key element was not a part of Slater’s original proposal, however, which had waves—a “virtual radiation field”—guiding light particles slater2 . For BKS there were no light particles. The virtual waves comprised the entire radiation field, radiated continuously by virtual material oscillators. The response of the matter to the continuous radiation obeyed a quite different rule though; following Einstein’s ideas on stimulated emission and absorption einstein3 , the wave amplitude was to determine probabilities for discrete transitions (quantum jumps) between stationary states note1 . The aim was to retain both the continuity of Maxwell waves and the discreteness of quantized matter by confining each to its own domain.

There was a price to be paid for preserving the apartness, however. The BKS scheme was noncausal (stochastic) at a fundamental level and although energy and momentum were conserved on average, they would not be conserved by individual quantum events. Statistical energy conservation had been considered before; Einstein was one of those who had toyed with the idea pais3 . BKS cast the idea in a concrete form with predictions that would be tested within less than a year. Their proposal was not entirely misguided; we meet with a “virtual” radiation field—though mathematically more sophisticated—in modern field theory. The fatal weakness was that their scheme did not causally connect the downward jump of an emitting atom with the subsequent upward jump of a particular absorbing atom. Direct correlation between quantum events was therefore excluded, yet correlation was just what the X-ray experiments of Bothe and Geiger bothe  and Compton and Simon compton  observed.

Quantum optics took up the theme of correlations between quantum events in the 1970s, as lasers began to be used for investigating the properties of light. This talk reviews a little of what has grown from those beginnings. Only a small piece of the history is covered since the main story I want to tell is about a particular experiment in cavity QED foster1 . The experiment uncovers the tensions raised by wave/particle duality in a unique way, by detecting light as both particle and wave, correlating the measured wave property (radiation field amplitude) with the particle detection (photoelectric count). Thus, light is observed directly in both its character roles, something that has not been achieved in a single experiment before.

We will work up to the new results gradually. We begin with an updated statement of the BKS idea (Sect. II) which we use as a criterion to define what we mean when speaking of the nonclassicality of light. I will then say a few things about the cavity QED light source and what it is about cavity QED that makes its fluctuations of special interest (Sect. III). I first discuss the fluctuations in their separate particle and wave aspects: photon antibunching, seen if one correlates particle with particle (Sect. IV), is contrasted with quadrature squeezing which is seen if one correlates wave (amplitude) with wave (Sect. V). Individually, photon antibunching and quadrature squeezing each show light to be nonclassical by our criterion. Each may be explained however by modeling light as either purely particle or wave. Finally, I will describe the wave-particle correlations measured by Foster et al. foster1  (Sect. VI), where neither conception alone can explain what is observed.

## II A criterion for Nonclassicality

Although there are still a few contrary voices, the opinion amongst physicists generally is that light—electromagnetic radiation at optical frequencies—must be quantized, with the introduction of Einstein’s light particle, in order to account for the full range of observable optical phenomena. Einstein stated his view that something of the sort might be the case in the introduction to his 1905 paper, where he writes einstein1 : “One should, however, bear in mind that optical observations refer to time averages and not to instantaneous values and notwithstanding the complete experimental verification of the theory of diffraction, reflexion, refraction, dispersion, and so on, it is quite conceivable that a theory of light involving the use of continuous functions in space will lead to contradictions with experience, if it is applied to the phenomena of the creation and conversion of light.”

Einstein identified specifically “the phenomena of the creation and conversion of light” as the point where contradictions might be found. Considering modern quantum optics experiments, it is indeed to the “conversion” or, more precisely, detection of the light that we look to define what is, or is not, a failure of the classical wave theory. Light is detected through the photoelectric effect where it is responsible, through some process of conversion, for the appearance of countable events—i.e, the production of photoelectric pulses. If the light is to be a continuous wave, it interfaces awkwardly with the discreteness of the countable events. The BKS attempt at an interface is nevertheless remarkably successful in accounting for the action of the light from most sources on a detector. It is therefore commonly adopted as a criterion, or test, for those phenomena that truly contradict classical ideas. It is adopted in the spirit of Bohr’s comment to Geiger after he had learnt of Geiger’s new X-ray results bohr3 : “I was completely prepared \[for the news\] that our proposed point of view on the independence of the quantum process in separated atoms should turn out to be incorrect. The whole thing was more an expression of an attempt to achieve as great as possible application of classical concepts, rather than a completed theory.”

Figure 1 illustrates the BKS interface as it is applied to the photoelectric detection of light. On the left, the light is describe by a continuous wave, specified at the position of the detector by an electric field, $`2A_t\mathrm{cos}(\omega _0t+\varphi _t)`$, whose amplitude $`A_t`$ and phase $`\varphi _t`$ are generally fluctuating quantities (random variables at each time $`t`$). We consider the fluctuations to be slow compare to the frequency $`\omega _0`$ of the carrier wave; thus, although the light has nonzero bandwidth it is still quasi-monochromatic. On the other side of the figure, the sequence of photoelectrons is discrete. Photoelectrons are produced at times $`t_1,t_2,\mathrm{}`$, with some number $`N_t`$ of them generated up to the time $`t`$. The difficulty is to interface the continuity on the left with the discreteness on the right. This is done by allowing the amplitude of the wave to determine the “instantaneous” rate at which the random photoelectric detection events occur. With a suitable choice of units for $`A_t`$, the probability per unit time for a bound electron to be released between $`t`$ and $`t+dt`$ is given by the local time average of the light intensity, $`A_t^2`$.

The issue now is whether or not this model can account for what one observes with real photoelectric detectors and light sources. Specifically, is it always possible to choose a continuous stochastic process $`(A_t,\varphi _t)`$ such that, in their statistical properties (correlations), the observed photoelectric detection sequences which constitute the experimental data can, in fact, be produced through the suggested rule? The short answer, as we would expect, is that it is not always possible to do so. On the other hand, for most light sources the BKS rule works just fine. It has actually been quite an experimental challenge to produce light for which the rule fails.

## III Light Sources and their Fluctuations

To start out we might ask how blackbody radiation fairs. By filtering a thermal source, such as a spectroscopic lamp, it is possible to produce quasi-monochromatic blackbody radiation. Consider then the fluctuations of such a light source. Let us calculate the variance of the quasimode energy as Einstein first did in 1909 einstein4 . The continuous variable approach of Eq. (1) makes the calculation appropriate to classical waves. Here we need the integration

$$\overline{y^2}=\frac{_0^{\mathrm{}}y^2e^{yx}𝑑y}{_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{yx}𝑑y}=\frac{(1/x)^{\prime \prime }}{1/x}=2\overline{y}^2,$$
(4)
where $`\overline{y}`$ is the average energy, $`1/x`$; we obtain

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }y^2}\overline{y^2}\overline{y}^2=\overline{y}^2.$$
(5)
Alternatively, in the discrete variable approach of Eq. (3) we make the summation

$$\overline{n^2}=\frac{_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}n^2e^{nx}}{_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}e^{nx}}=\frac{[1/(1e^x)]^{\prime \prime }}{1/(1e^x)}=2\overline{n}^2+\overline{n},$$
(6)
where $`\overline{n}=1/(e^x1)`$ is the average energy. In this case we arrive at

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }n^2}\overline{n^2}\overline{n}^2=\overline{n}^2+\overline{n}.$$
(7)
Equation (7) is the result obtained by Einstein and taken by him as evidence that the theory of light would eventually evolve into “a kind of fusion” of wave and particle ideas: light possess both a wave character, which gives the $`\overline{n}^2`$, and a particle character, which gives the $`\overline{n}`$ einstein4 ; murdoch3 ; pais4 .

It would appear, then, that the detection of blackbody radiation would be incorrectly described by the scheme of Fig. 1, since there the amplitude and energy of the light wave is continuously distributed, which should lead to Eq. (5), the incorrect result. This, however, is not the case at all; thermal light fluctuations do not meet our criterion for nonclassicality. In fact BKS made an attempt at the needed ‘fusion’. They did not eliminate particles to favor waves. They attempted only to keep the particles and waves separate. The separation recovers the two terms of Eq. (7) from two distinct (independent) levels of randomness. To see this we must identify the integer $`n`$, not with the free radiation field, but with the number of photoelectrons counted in a measurement of the field energy. The first term, the wave-like term in Eq. (7), is then recovered from the randomness of the field amplitude $`A_t`$, just as in Eq. (5), while the second particle-like term is recovered from the addition randomness of the photoelectron counting sequence introduced by the rule governing the production of photoelectrons. Even if $`A_t`$ fluctuates not at all the photoelectron number will still fluctuate. It will be Poisson distributed. The second term of Eq. (7) is recovered as the variance of the Poisson distribution (which equals its mean).

Laser light is a good approximation to the ideal, coherent Maxwell wave which produces only the Poisson fluctuations generated in the detection process. Of course, once one has a laser, one can make a whole range of fluctuating light sources by imposing noisy modulations of one sort or another. So long, however, as the fluctuations are imposed, and thus independent of the randomness introduced in generating the photoelectrons, nothing more regular than a Poisson photoelectron stream will be seen. Here, then, is the Achilles heel of the BKS approach; it permits only super-Poissonian photoelectron count fluctuations. Once again, the limitation involves a discounting of correlations at the level of single quantum events. To illustrate, imagine a light source in which the emitting atoms make their quantum jumps from higher to lower energy at perfectly regular intervals. In the particle view, the source sends out a regular stream of photons, which, supposing efficient detection, yields a regular, temporally correlated, photoelectron stream. Such a photoelectron stream is impossible in the BKS view; its observation would meet our criterion for nonclassicality.

Any experimental search for the disallowed correlations must begin with a method for engineering light’s fluctuations on the scale of Planck’s energy quantum. What one can do is begin with laser light and scatter it, through some material interaction, to produce light that fluctuates in an intrinsically quantum mechanical way. Coherent scattering is of no use, since it looks just like the laser light—neither is incoherent scattering in which the fluctuations simply arise from noisy modulations. The fluctuations must be caused by the “quantum jumpiness” in the matter; the experiment must be sensitive enough to see the effects of individual quantum events. This is rather a tall order, since if we have in mind scattering from a sample of atoms, say, the effect, on the fluctuations, of what any one atom is doing is generally very small. Happily, cavity QED comes to our aid.

The light source used in the experiment I wish to discuss is illustrated in Fig. 2. Basically, a beam of coherent light is passed through a dilute atomic beam—at right angles to minimize the Doppler effect. The light is resonant with a transition in the atoms, which make their “jumps” up and down while scattering some of the light, and hence add fluctuations to the transmitted beam. The incoherent part of this forwards scattering would be extremely small without the mirrors. They are essential; they form a resonator which enhances the fluctuations. We might understand the requirements for the resonator by observing that the goal (thinking of light particles) is to redistribute the photons in the incoming beam. The interaction of the atoms with a first photon must therefore change the probability for the transmission of the next. The strength of any such collusion between pairs of photons is set by Einstein’s induced emission rate in the presence of a single photon. This rate must be similar to the inverse residence time of a photon trapped between the mirrors. It follows that the resonator must be small so that the energy density of one photon is large, and the mirrors must be highly reflecting so that the residence time is long.

The experimental details go beyond the scope of this talk, but a few numbers might be of interest rempe1 ; foster2 . Typical resonator lengths are 100-500$`\mu `$m with 50,000 bounces of a photon between the mirrors before it escapes. The transverse width of the resonator mode is typically 30$`\mu `$m, which means the resonator confines a photon within a volume of order $`10^{13}`$m<sup>3</sup>; the electric field of that photon is approximately 10$`\mathrm{Vcm}^1`$. The duration of a fluctuation written onto the light beam may be estimated from the photon lifetime, $`(L/c)N_{\mathrm{bounce}}50`$ns, where $`L`$ is the resonator length and $`N_{\mathrm{bounce}}`$ is the number of mirror bounces. This is a long time compared with the speed of modern photoelectric detectors which makes it possible to observe the fluctuations directly in the time domain. We should note, also, that the fluctuations are extremely slow compared with the period of the carrier wave; a typical fluctuation will last more than $`10^7`$ optical cycles.

It is not really necessary to understand what takes place inside the resonator. We are interested in the results of measurements made on the output beam and whether or not they can be reproduced by our detection model (Fig. 1) and any fluctuating wave $`A_t\mathrm{cos}(\omega _0t+\varphi _t)`$. One feature of the data is particularly noticeable though: an oscillation at a frequency of around $`40`$MHz (see Figs. 4 and 9), which suggests that the fluctuations caused by the interaction with the atoms take the form of an amplitude modulation. The modulation is a fundamental piece of phenomenology from the world of cavity QED, referred to variously as a vacuum Rabi oscillation zhu ; bernadot , a normal-mode oscillation raizen1 , or a cavity polariton oscillation weisbuch ; stanley . The physics involved is rather simple. The electric field of the resonator mode excited by the incident light obeys the equation of a harmonic oscillator, of frequency $`\omega _0`$. To a good approximation the electric polarization induced in the atoms by that field is also described as a harmonic oscillator (Lorentz oscillator model), also with frequency $`\omega _0`$. The two oscillators couple through the interaction between the atoms and light; and coupled harmonic oscillators exchange energy coherently, back and forth, so long as the period of the exchange—determined by the inverse of the coupling strength—is shorter than the energy damping time. It is just this coherent energy exchange that is seen in the fluctuations. The small mode volume of the resonators used in cavity QED experiments ensures that the energy oscillation has a period shorter than the damping time—although there are still some $`10^7`$ optical cycles during any one period.

## IV Photon Antibunching: A Probe of Particle Fluctuations

Let us look first at a measurement that leads us towards the opinion that what is transmitted by the resonator is a stream of light particles. In Fig. 3, we return, with more details, to our criterion for nonclassicality. Here, in a somewhat arbitrary example, I have generated a realization of the photoelectric counts that might be produced for a particular wave $`A_t\mathrm{cos}(\omega _0t+\varphi _t)`$. It is of course unreasonable to use a realistic carrier frequency, and therefore the frequency in the picture is about a million times smaller—relative to the timescale of the fluctuations—than it would be in reality.

We see from the figure that there are correlations between what the wave is doing and the sequence of photoelectrons: when the wave amplitude is large the photoelectric counts come more quickly; when the wave amplitude is small there are gaps in the count sequence. There are also correlations, over time, within each of the time series. Thus, if at time $`t`$ the intensity $`A_t^2`$ is high, it is likely that $`A_{t+\tau }^2`$ is also high for small positive and negative delays $`\tau `$. Equivalently, if there is a photoelectron produced at time $`t`$ , there is a larger than average chance that another is produced nearby at a delayed time $`t+\tau `$. Quantitative statements about the correlations can be made by introducing the correlation function

$$g^{(2)}(\tau )\frac{\text{probability for a photoelectric detection at times }\text{t}\text{ and }\text{t}\text{+}\text{τ}}{(\text{probability for a photoelectric detection at time }\text{t})^2},$$
(8)
where we will assume we are talking about stationary fluctuations, which simply means that all probabilities and averages are independent of $`t`$; the correlation function depends only on the time difference $`\tau `$.

According to the BKS detection model, photoelectrons are produced as random events at rate $`A_t^2`$. The correlations in the photoelectron counting sequence are therefore connected to the fluctuations of the wave through the joint detection probability

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\text{probability for a photoelectric}\\ \text{detection at times }\text{t}\text{ and }\text{t}\text{+}\text{τ}\end{array}\}A_t^2A_{t+\tau }^2;$$
(9)
there can be no stronger connection between events than can be expressed through the correlations of the continuous variable $`A_t`$. It is rather easy to see that this feature imposes constraints on the function $`g^{(2)}(\tau )`$. Specifically, averaging over the random variables $`A_t`$ and $`A_{t+\tau }`$ one finds that the inequalities

$$g^{(2)}(0)10$$
(10)
and

$$|g^{(2)}(\tau )1||g^{(2)}(0)1|$$
(11)
must hold. Inequality (10), for example, restates a point we have already noted; namely, that the BKS idea leads, unavoidably, to a photoelectron counting sequence that is more irregular than a Poisson process. The inequality relies on nothing more than the fact that the variance of $`A_t^2`$ must be positive. Needless-to-say, to take over Einstein’s expression einstein1 , inequalities (10) and (11) “lead to contradictions with experience.” The data of Fig. 4, as an illustration, violate both.

In order to obtain the result shown in the figure, the photoelectric counts must be anticorrelated, in the sense that the appearance of a count at any particular time in the photoelectron count sequence makes it less, rather than more likely, that another will appear nearby. The phenomenon is called photon antibunching to contrast it with the photon bunching—positive correlation—seen with a source of blackbody radiation browntwiss . The simplest example of antibunched light is provided by the resonance fluorescence from a single atom carmichael1  and the first observations of the phenomenon were made on the fluorescence from a dilute atomic beam kimble . More recently, beautiful measurements have been made on individual atoms, or more precisely, electromagnetically trapped ions diedrich . The data of Fig. 4 were taken for a cavity QED source like the one illustrated in Fig. 2 foster2 . Such a source produces a weak beam of antibunched light rice ; rempe2 ; mielke .

Photon antibunching is nonclassical by our adopted criterion. It is incompatible with the demarcation enforced by BKS between continuous light waves and discrete photoelectric counts. It is quite compatible, on the other hand, with a particle constitution for light. Indeed, there is nothing particularly peculiar, in principle, about a sequence of photoelectric counts more regular than a Poisson process, and such a sequence could be generated causally by a regular stream of light particles.

## V Quadrature Squeezing: A Probe of <br>Wave Fluctuations

The only difficulty with the stream of light particles is that, looked at in another way, the same source of light does appear to be emitting a noisy wave. Whenever interference is involved, a wave nature for light seems unavoidable. There are, of course, numerous situations in which the interference of light is seen. We are all familiar, for example, with Young’s two-slit experiment. Considering wave aspects of the fluctuations of light calls for an interference experiment that is just a little bit more complex.

Balanced homodyne detection provides a method for directly measuring the amplitude of a light wave. The method is carried over from the microwave domain and was proposed in the 1980s yuen1  for detecting the fluctuations of what is known as quadrature squeezed light stoler ; lu ; yuen2 . The light that produced Fig. 4, which is antibunched when photoelectron counts are considered, is quadrature squeezed when its amplitude is measured. Like photon antibunching, quadrature squeezing contradicts the BKS model of photoelectric detection; according to our criterion it is also nonclassical. It, however, leads us away from the stream of light particles and towards the view that light is indeed a noisy wave; not, on the other hand, exactly the wave BKS had in mind.

I find it most helpful to understand quadrature squeezing in an operational way, so I will proceed in this direction, and hopefully move ahead in a series of easy steps. The basic idea in balanced homodyne detection is to interfere the signal wave, $`A_t\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi _t)`$, with a reference or local oscillator wave, $`A_{LO}\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi _{LO})`$, which ideally has a stable amplitude and phase. If the interference takes place at a 50/50 beam splitter as illustrated in Fig. 5 (the signal wave is injected where it says “no signal”), then there are in fact two output fields,

field 1 $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}[A_{LO}\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi _{LO})+A_t\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi _t)],`$ (12a)
field 2 $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}[A_{LO}\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi _{LO})A_t\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi _t)],`$ (12b)
which respectively display constructive and destructive interference. These fields are separately detected, and the rates at which photoelectrons are generated in the two detectors, once again adopting the detection model of Fig. 1, are
rate 1 $``$ $`\frac{1}{2}[A_{LO}^2+A_{LO}A_t\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _{LO}\varphi _t)],`$ (13a)
rate 2 $``$ $`\frac{1}{2}[A_{LO}^2A_{LO}A_t\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _{LO}\varphi _t)],`$ (13b)
where to obtain these expressions we square the fields, average over one carrier wave period, and drop the term $`A_t^2`$ under the assumption $`A_tA_{LO}`$. The average photocurrents from the detectors are proportional to the rates (13a) and (13b), and when the photocurrents are subtracted, the average difference current provides a measurement of the amplitude $`A_t`$ (consider the case $`\varphi _{LO}=\varphi _t`$). Thus, we have a device that measures the amplitude of a light wave and its operation depends explicitly on the capacity of waves to interfere.
We now turn to the issue of fluctuations. Imagine first that there is no signal injected. The two photocurrents are produced with equal photoelectron count rates, $`\frac{1}{2}A_{LO}^2`$. The average difference current is therfore zero. But according to the detection model of Fig. 1, individual detection events occur randomly, and independently at the two detectors; hence, the current fluctuates about zero. Since the counts are Poisson distributed, there is a

$$\text{“no signal” noise width}\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}A_{LO}^2+\frac{1}{2}A_{LO}^2}=A_{LO}.$$
(14)
This is an unavoidable background noise level and when a clean, noiseless signal is injected, to unbalance the detector, as illustrated in Fig. 6(a), the measurement of the signal amplitude is made against this background noise.

In the end, then, there is again a constraint, akin to inequalities (10) and (11), imposed by the detection model. To see what it is, consider finally the injection of a fluctuating signal. The signal adds a fluctuating offset, or unbalancing of the detector, which sweeps the “no signal” noise band backwards and forwards \[Fig. 6(b)\] to produce a larger overall noise width; for a fluctuating signal we must add the statistically independent

$$\text{signal noise width}\sqrt{A_{LO}^2\overline{A_t^2}}=A_{LO}\sqrt{\overline{A_t^2}}$$
(15)
to the “no signal” noise width, where $`\overline{A_t^2}`$ is the variance of the signal fluctuations. Thus, according to the BKS detection model, measuring the fluctuations of the light wave amplitude can never yield a noise width smaller than (14), the width that in more conventional language is called the shot noise level.

In reality smaller noise can be seen, and is seen, for squeezed light. The first successful experiment was performed in the mid-1980s slusher  and squeezing for a cavity QED source like the one that produced the antibunched data of Fig. 4 was observed soon thereafter raizen2 . In general, the noise level is measured as a function of frequency. It is therefore characterized fully by a spectrum of squeezing. Figure 9(c) shows an example for a cavity QED source. The squeezing occurs around the frequency of the oscillation seen in Fig. 4.

Quadrature squeezing, like photon antibunching, reveals that a beam of light may exhibit smaller fluctuations—more regularity—than is permitted by the random events that make the interface between light waves and photoelectrons in Fig. 1. In the case of photon antibunching, we may imagine that the regular photoelectrons are seen because the light already, before interaction, possesses the discrete property revealed in the photoelectron counting data—i.e., the light beam is itself a stream of particles. With quadrature squeezing a similar tactic might be followed; the fluctuation properties of the photocurrent might be transferred, ahead of any interaction with the detector, to the beam of light. The one difficulty here, though, is that the injection of no light also generates photocurrent noise, which is the situation depicted in Fig. 5. The way around this obstacle is to say that a fluctuating wave is present—call it the vacuum fluctuations—even in absolute darkness, and that it is the interference of this “noisy darkness” with the local oscillator that is responsible for the “no signal” noise width. A smaller noise level can then be seen if one can deamplify the “noisy darkness” (vacuum fluctuations); the cavity QED system of Fig. 2 is a device that brings about deamplification.

I should stress that when one accounts for quadrature squeezing in this way, the vacuum fluctuations need not be encumbered by any abstractions of modern quantum field theory. The vacuum of radiation is literally filled with noisy waves, precisely in the way proponents of stochastic electrodynamics assert it to be marshall1 ; marshall2 .

## VI Wave-Particle Correlations

What we have seen so far amounts to a fairly traditional view on wave/particle duality, although the players, photon antibunching and quadrature squeezing, are possibly unfamiliar; photon antibunching sits comfortably on the particle side, while quadrature squeezing, because of the role of interference, speaks for light as a wave. The recent experiment by Foster et al. foster1  brings the duality into focus in a more perplexing way by putting both players into action at once. That is not to say that it demonstrates a contradiction, of the sort that would be met if, in a double-slit experiment, one could record the choice, slit 1 or slit 2, for the path of every particle, yet still observe an interference pattern on the screen. Nevertheless, data of the discrete, particle-type, and continuous wave-type are taken simultaneously, so that light is seen in the experiment to act as particle and wave. The experiment underscores the subtlety involved in the coexistence of waves and particles under Bohr’s complementarity, the illusive contextuality of quantum mechanical explanations. Specifically, the apparently satisfying explanations given for photon antibunching and quadrature squeezing—passing whatever properties are seen in the data over to the light—appear, in this wider context, to be something of a deception.

The experimental apparatus is sketched in Fig. 7. At the top of the figure there is a cavity QED system which acts as the source of fluctuating light. The emitted light is divided between two detectors, one labeled PARTICLE which records discrete photoelectric counts, and the other labeled WAVE is a balanced homodyne detector. If all of the light were sent to just one detector, the apparatus could be used to measure either photon antibunching or quadrature squeezing. In fact, the detectors are running simultaneously. A count at the particle detector triggers the recording of the photocurrent at the wave detector output—a little before and a little after the time of the count—and many of these records are averaged to produce what appears on the oscilloscope. What might we expect to see from this conditional measurement of the wave amplitude? The experiment records the fluctuation of the amplitude of the wave that accompanies the arrival of a photon at the particle detector. How will the wave and particle properties be correlated?

In Fig. 9 I attempt to show what would be expected on the basis of the BKS detection model. A fluctuation from the light source is injected into the correlator at the lower left; I give it the sort of amplitude modulation evident in Fig. 4. The input wave is split, and passed on, at half size, to the two detectors. Now the triggering sets the time origin for the amplitude envelope function measured by the wave detector. The question, then, is, at what point in time is the particle detector most likely to fire $`\mathrm{}`$ the answer: when the fluctuation in the amplitude of the wave reaches its maximum. Strangely, the reality is exactly the opposite, as is seen from the data shown in Fig. 9(b). Figure 9(a) shows the corresponding particle-particle correlation function, $`g^{(2)}(\tau )`$, which in this case satisfies the inequalities (10) and (10). In Fig. 9(c) we see the spectrum of squeezing, which might have been measured directly, but was in fact deduced from the correlation function plotted in Fig. 9(b).

There are stronger signatures of nonclassicality to be observed than this conversion of an expected maximum to a minimum. These may be stated quantitatively, as violations of inequalities like those of Eqs. (10) and (11) carmichael2 . The most interesting says that the function plotted in Fig. 9(b) is constrained under the BKS detection model by an absolute upper bound, $`h_\theta ^{}(\tau )2`$. The bound is not violated in the figure, but is predicted to be violated in a more sensitive experiment by a factor of 10 or even 100. Considering the minimum itself, though; how is it to be understood; and what does it have to say about the interplay of waves and particles?

Of course a calculation within the modern mathematical framework for treating quantized fields predicts the minimum at $`\tau =0`$. Merely calculating gives little physical insight though; for insight we turn to something more qualitative. First, I should expand a bit on what is shown in Fig. 9. Over an ensemble of triggered measurements, the phase of the modulated envelope function will vary from shot to shot. Two extreme cases are shown in Fig. 10. In both, according to the detection model of Fig. 1, triggering off a maximum of the envelope places a maximum of the measured field amplitude at $`\tau =0`$—the absolute locations of the maxima in the incoming fluctuations do not matter, only the correlation between locations in the two waves emerging from the beam splitter. The unexpected minimum of Fig. 9(b) may now be obtained, rather simply, by viewing the cases shown, not as two possible outcomes realized on distinct occasions—one or the other on any occasion—but as two possibilities that occur simultaneously, and yet retain their distinctness. The words “retain their distinctness” are essential. We are not to add together the waves shown bracketed in Fig. 11 as one would add classical waves. Each of these waves also has a discrete attribute, indicating an individuality with respect to its counterpart, as a whole, distinct, “one-particle wave”—the two pieces being assembled, the bracketed object is a “two-particle wave.” In modern language we would call it a two-photon wavepacket.

To explain the data we now assert, that at the beam splitter, the discreteness, or wholeness, comes into play, and one one-particle wave goes in either direction. We may then continue with the idea that the particle detector is most likely to fire when the intensity of the wave it sees is a maximum. With the now built in anticorrelation of modulation phases, whichever one-particle wave goes to the particle detector, the amplitude recorded by the wave detector is at a minimum at the triggering time. The two possibilities are shown in Fig. 11. There is of course a possibility that both one-particle waves go to the same detector; occurences like this cannot, however, upset the correlation recorded by the data.

Thus, if we are to account for the correlations observed with the apparatus of Fig. 7, neither the particle stream that explained photon antibunching, nor the noisy wave that explained quadrature squeezing will do. We need a composite notion like the “two-particle wave” in order to embrace both pieces of the correlation, both the discrete triggering event and the continuously measured amplitude.

## VII A Concluding Comment

The main topics of my talk can be revisited in a short summary. We have seen how the BKS idea embodied in the photoelectric detection model of Fig. 1 is unable to account for certain correlations exhibited by the fluctuations of light. In these cases, an understanding of the correlations must relax the strict separation of particle and wave concepts carried over by BKS from classical theory. Substituting lasers for the blackbody sources studied by Planck, many experiments in recent years have observed such nonclassical correlations. The experiment of Foster et al. foster1  is notable, in particular, because if its simultaneous measurement, and correlation, of the conflicting particle and wave aspects of light.

In a way, all of this serves only as an introduction to a second, more interesting, story. Looking to the quantum mechanics that eventually emerged over the years after Planck, surely, now, we can give an unproblematic account of what light really is? Unfortunately, in fact, we cannot, because we move here into new territory, where we have to admit that although we have a formalism with which to calculate what we see, it is not at all unbroblematic to put forward an ontology on which that formalism can rest. After BKS, Bohr’s thinking moved on to his ideas about complementarity bohr4 ; bohr5 . Einstein never accepted these views, and on occasion dismissed them rather harshly einstein5 : “The Heisenberg-Bohr soothing philosophy—or religion?—is so finely chiseled that it provides a soft pillow for believers $`\mathrm{}`$ This religion does dammed little for me.” Thus, the second story, the enunciation of exactly where quantum mechanics has led us, is an interesting one, but certainly also a difficult one to tell. All I can really do at the conclusion of this talk, is indicate how the scheme of Fig. 1 is changed to give a unified, quantum mechanical description of the incoming light from which the correct correlations can be extracted, whatever measurement is made.

The changed picture appears in Fig. 12 carmichael3 ; carmichael4 ; carmichael5 . I must point out two things. In change number one, although, on the right, the photoelectrons are still conceived as a classical data record, the light on the left is accounted for in abstract form. It is no longer a wave of assigned quantitative value. It is represented by an operator, $`\widehat{E}`$, which is defined, not by a value but by the actions it might take; the value of the wave emerges only when the operator acts—upon a second mathematical object, the state vector $`|\psi _{\mathrm{REC}}^t`$. There is of course some mathematics that gives the explicit forms of $`\widehat{E}`$ and $`|\psi _{\mathrm{REC}}^t`$. For an appreciation of the scheme, however, the mathematics is only a distraction.

Change number two, and an essential thing missing from the BKS proposal, is the label on the state vector, REC. Through this label, the state of the incoming light is allowed to depend on the history of the data record—the detection events that have already taken place. At the time of each event, $`\widehat{E}`$ acts on $`|\psi _{\mathrm{REC}}^t`$ to annihilate a light particle, and in so doing updates the state of the incoming light to be consistent with the record of photoelectric counts. In this way, correlations at the level of the individual quantum events are taken into accounted. The communication through the label REC is what, today, quantum physicists call back action, or in other words the reduction of the state vector (or, less appealing, “collapse of the wavefunction”), applied here to the individual detection events. Without state reduction the Schrödinger equation entangles the two sides of Fig. 12. It offers a nonlocal description in terms of a global state vector. State reduction disentangles the state of the light from the realized photoelectrons, and the correlations we have called nonclassical are indirect evidence of this disentanglement.

Entanglement, nonlocality, state reduction, these are all words to remind us of the problematic issue of ontology. Other speakers will talk about them more directly shimony ; omnes ; wootters . It is difficult to say what will come from the attention these words are receiving one hundred years after Planck. Shall we come to understand better, perhaps through a refinement of our faculties of perception following from the amazing advances experimentation has made over these years. It might be appropriate to take the final thoughts on the subject from Max Planck planck4 :

$`\mathrm{}`$“There is no doubt whatsoever that the stage at which theoretical physics has now arrived is beyond the average human faculties, even beyond the faculties of the great discoverers themselves. What, however, you must remember is that even if we progressed rapidly in the development of our powers of perception we could not finally unravel nature’s mystery. We could see the operation of causation, perhaps, in the finer activities of the atoms, just as on the old basis of the causal formulation in classical mechanics we could perceive and make material images of all that was observed as occurring in nature.

Where the discrepancy comes in to-day is not between nature and the principle of causality, but rather between the picture which we have made of nature and the realities in nature itself.”


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# Quantum Effects in the Mechanical Properties of Suspended Nanomechanical Systems

## Abstract

We explore the quantum aspects of an elastic bar supported at both ends and subject to compression. If strain rather than stress is held fixed, the system remains stable beyond the buckling instability, supporting two potential minima. The classical equilibrium transverse displacement is analogous to a Ginsburg-Landau order parameter, with strain playing the role of temperature. We calculate the quantum fluctuations about the classical value as a function of strain. Excitation energies and quantum fluctuation amplitudes are compared for silicon beams and carbon nanotubes.

The continuing drive towards semiconductor device miniaturization and integration has resulted in fabrication and micromachining technologies that are capable of producing artificial structures with features approaching the ten nanometer length scale. To go beyond this scale, naturally occurring and chemically organized structures are receiving much attention. The availability of these top-down and bottom-up nanofabrication capabilities has initiated the new area of nanomechanics Roukes ; Craighead ; Park ; Erbe ; Cleland1  in which ultra small mechanical systems are used to explore both fundamental and applied phenomena. Recently, two reports have appeared on two-state nanomechanical systems. In one Rueckes , crossed carbon nanotubes were suspended between supports and the suspended element was electrostatically flexed between two states. In the second Cleland2 , it was proposed to use an electrostatically flexed cantilever to explore the possibility of tunneling in a nanomechanical system.

In this Letter we discuss quantum effects in a two-state mechanical system that has a tunable, symmetric potential function. This mechanical system has analogies to the superconducting interference device in which the first observation of a coherent superposition of macroscopically distinct states was recently reported Lukens . Specifically, we consider a suspended elastic bar under longitudinal compression. The compression is used to adjust the potential energy for transverse displacements from the harmonic to the double-well regime, as shown in Fig. 1, with strain playing a role analogous to temperature in a Ginzburg-Landau system.

As the compressional strain is increased to the buckling instability Euler , the frequency of the fundamental vibrational mode drops continuously to zero. By controlling the separation between the ends of the bar, i.e. fixing the strain, the system remains stable beyond the instability and develops a double well potential for the transverse motion. Since both the well depth and asymmetry are tunable, a variety of quantum phenomena may be explored, including zero-point fluctuations, tunneling, and coherent superpositions of macroscopically distinct states. In the latter two cases, the system may provide a mechanical realization (at least in theory) of models studied in Refs. Caldeira  and Leggett , respectively. We have applied the model to suspended silicon beams and carbon nanotubes, and show that in both cases the quantum fluctuations in position approach 0.1 Å; an order of magnitude greater than the relaxed values. We argue that compressing a carbon nanotube at low temperature may cause a crossover between the quantum and thermal fluctuation regimes. Further, we suggest that tunneling in this mechanical system may be difficult to achieve because it will require precise regulation of the applied strain.

As a starting point, we consider the normal modes and associated quantum properties of an elastic rectangular bar of length $`l`$, width $`w`$ and thickness $`d`$ satisfying ($`l>>w>d`$), supported at both ends without strain. We suppose that $`d`$ is smaller than $`w`$ so that transverse displacements $`y(x,t)`$ only occur in the “$`d`$” direction. The equation of motion for small displacements is LL

$$\mu \ddot{y}+\kappa ^2y^{(4)}=0,$$
(1)
where $`\mu =m/l`$ is the mass per unit length and $``$ is the linear modulus (energy per unit length) of the bar. $``$ is related to the elastic modulus $`𝒬`$ of the material by $`=𝒬wd`$. The bending moment $`\kappa `$ is given by $`\kappa ^2=d^2/12`$ for a bar of rectangular cross section.

The normal modes of the bar, $`y(x,t)=y_n(x)\mathrm{exp}(\pm i\omega _nt)`$, have the general spatial dependences

$`y_n(x)=`$ $`a_n\mathrm{cos}k_nx+b_n\mathrm{cosh}k_nx,`$ $`n=1,3,5,\mathrm{}`$ (2)
$`y_n(x)=`$ $`a_n\mathrm{sin}k_nx+b_n\mathrm{sinh}k_nx,`$ $`n=2,4,6,\mathrm{}`$ (3)
with $`a_n/b_n`$ and wavenumbers $`k_n`$ fixed by the boundary conditions. The boundary conditions for hinged endpoints, $`y(\pm l/2)=0=y^{\prime \prime }(\pm l/2)`$, lead to normal modes with $`b_n=0`$, $`k_n=n\pi /l`$, and (angular) frequencies

$$\omega _n=\sqrt{\frac{𝒬}{\rho }}\kappa k_n^2=\sqrt{\frac{𝒬}{\rho }}\kappa (\frac{n\pi }{l})^2,(\text{hinged b.c.}).$$
(4)
Clamped endpoints have boundary conditions $`y(\pm l/2)=0=y^{}(\pm l/2)`$; both $`a_n`$ and $`b_n`$ are nonzero, and the normal mode frequencies are given to good approximation by replacing $`n`$ with ($`n+\frac{1}{2}`$) in Eq. (4). Because of their simplicity, we shall refer to hinged boundary conditions when specific results are quoted.

The mean square displacement of the bar (both zero-point and thermal) is an incoherent superposition of contributions from each normal mode. At the center, only even-parity modes contribute, so that

$$(y(0))^2=\underset{oddn}{}\frac{\mathrm{}}{2m^{}\omega _n}[1+2f(\mathrm{}\omega _n/kT)],$$
(5)
where $`f(x)=1/(e^x1)`$ is the thermal excitation number of the $`n`$-th mode. For hinged boundary conditions, $`m^{}=m/2`$ exactly, whereas in the clamped case $`m^{}`$ is slightly smaller and weakly mode dependent. In either case the fundamental mode is responsible for more than half the total mean square displacement.

Longitudinal compression of the bar moves the frequencies downward, with a corresponding increase in the zero-point motion. Compressive or tensile strain contributes the “elastic” potential energy $`V_e=(/2l_o)(l_tl_o)^2`$, where $`l_t=𝑑x\sqrt{1+(y^{})^2}l+\frac{1}{2}𝑑x(y^{})^2`$ is the total (dynamic) length of the bar, $`l`$ is the endpoint separation, and $`l_o`$ is the unstressed equilibrium length. We subtract the static contribution $`(/2l_o)(ll_o)^2`$ since it contributes nothing to the dynamics, and add the “bending”contribution $`V_b𝑑x(y^{\prime \prime })^2`$ to get

$$V[y(x)]=\frac{1}{2}𝑑x\left(\kappa ^2(y^{\prime \prime })^2+\epsilon (y^{})^2\right)+\frac{}{8l_o}\left(𝑑x(y^{})^2\right)^2,$$
(6)
where $`\epsilon (ll_o)/l_o`$ is the strain, positive if tensile and negative if compressive. From the Lagrangian, $`L[y(x,t)]=(\mu /2)𝑑x(\dot{y})^2V[y(x)]`$, we find the equation of motion,

$$\mu \ddot{y}+\kappa ^2y^{(4)}\epsilon y^{\prime \prime }\frac{1}{2}\left(𝑑x^{}[y^{}(x^{})]^2\right)y^{\prime \prime }=0,$$
(7)
which generalizes Eq. (1). The third term represents the tension induced by externally-imposed stretching, and the anharmonic fourth term is the enhancement of tension due to dynamic stretching; this term arises from the geometry of the system.

In the harmonic regime where where the fourth term can be neglected, the normal mode frequencies under hinged boundary conditions are given by

$$\stackrel{~}{\omega }_n^2=\omega _n^2\left(1+\epsilon \left(\frac{l}{n\pi \kappa }\right)^2\right),$$
(8)
where $`\omega _n`$ are the relaxed ($`l=l_o`$) frequencies of Eq. (4). The zero-point fluctuations are given by Eq. (5) with $`\omega _n`$ replaced by $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }_n`$. Of course, the harmonic approximation breaks down for the fundamental mode as we approach its critical strain,

$$\epsilon _c\frac{l_cl_o}{l_o}=\left(\frac{\pi \kappa }{l}\right)^2.$$
(9)
At critical strain, the effective potential for the fundamental mode is purely quartic (see Fig. 1) whereas the higher modes remain harmonic in leading order, with the first harmonic frequency being reduced by about 13% from its uncompressed value.

To go beyond the harmonic approximation and calculate the excitation energies and quantum fluctuations of the fundamental mode, we consider the Hamiltonian

$$H=\frac{1}{2\mu }𝑑x\mathrm{\Pi }^2+V[y(x)],$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }(x,t)=\delta L/\delta \dot{y}(x,t)=\mu \dot{y}(x,t)`$ is the canonical momentum. In the subcritical compression regime, a normal mode expansion of $`H`$ leads to a phonon description with interactions arising from the anharmonic term. These interactions occur physically because phonons stretch the bar. Even the zero-point motion has a stretching effect, but this can be absorbed in the length parameter $`l`$. Thus, at temperatures below the first harmonic threshhold, $`kT<\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{\omega }_2`$, the anharmonic effect on the fundamental is its own self-interaction. So the effective Hamiltonian for the fundamental mode, obtained by taking the ground state expectation value in all higher modes, is a quartic function of the “fundamental displacement” $`Y`$, the Fourier component of the fundamental mode Fourier . The quantum states and associated energy spectrum of fundamental vibrational states are then given by the Schrödinger equation,

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}\frac{^2}{Y^2}+\frac{\alpha }{2}Y^2+\frac{\beta }{4}Y^4\right)\mathrm{\Psi }(Y)=E\mathrm{\Psi }(Y)$$
(11)
where $`E_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m(Y)`$ are the energy eigenvalues and eigenfunctions, and $`i\mathrm{}/Y=P`$ is the momentum operator canonically conjugate to $`Y`$.

The potential energy has the form of a Ginzburg-Landau free energy GL , with strain playing the role of temperature:

$$\alpha =m^{}\stackrel{~}{\omega }_1^2=m^{}\omega _1^2\left(\frac{\epsilon _c\epsilon }{\epsilon _c}\right).$$
(12)
The displacement $`Y`$ is analogous to the order parameter, in that its classical equilibrium value vanishes below critical strain but takes a nonzero value $`Y\pm Y_{min}=\pm \sqrt{|\alpha |/\beta }`$ above it, breaking the reflection symmetry of the Hamiltonian. Of course the quantum mechanical ground state has $`Y=0`$, but sufficiently far into the double-well regime, this ground state is a superposition of macroscopically distinct states. Thus, monitoring the position of the bar on a time scale less than the tunneling time would yield results clustered about just one of the potential minima, $`Y_{min}`$ or $`Y_{min}`$, not both. With this in mind, we plot the ground and first excited state energies in Fig. 2, and in Fig. 3 the ground state quantum fluctuations $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y`$, as functions of the strain near its critical value. These are plotted in dimensionless energy and length units, $`E/E_c`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y/\mathrm{\Delta }Y_c`$, where $`E_c`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y_c`$ are the ground state values at critical strain,

$$E_c=0.42\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m^{}}\right)^{2/3}\beta ^{1/3}\text{and}\mathrm{\Delta }Y_c=0.68\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m^{}\beta }\right)^{1/6},$$
(13)
and $`\gamma `$ is the departure from critical strain,

$$\gamma =\frac{\epsilon _c\epsilon }{\epsilon _c}\left(\frac{1.6\kappa }{\mathrm{\Delta }Y_c}\right)^2,$$
(14)
scaled so that $`\gamma =1`$ when the barrier height $`V_o=\alpha ^2/4\beta `$ is equal to $`E_1`$.

In defining $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y`$, care should be taken to account for the onset of a nonzero mean displacement as one moves into the double well regime. In the subcritical and near-critical regimes, the usual definition $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y^2=Y^2Y^2`$ surely applies, where brackets indicate ground state expectation values and $`Y=0`$. However, the comments above suggest that deeper in the double well regime, a more sensible practical definition is $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y^2=min(Y\pm Y_{min})^2`$, the $`rms`$ departure from the nearest potential minimum. Fig. 3 shows that quantum fluctuations defined in this way become much less than the well separation at fairly modest (negative) values of $`\gamma `$. In the region $`\gamma 1`$, the latter definition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y^2`$ loses its physical meaning and larger fluctuations may be expected, as suggested by the dot-dash line on Fig. 3 which is only a guide to the eye.

A useful perspective is provided by comparing the exact quantum fluctuations with those given by the harmonic approximation. Indeed, making this approximation in the double well regime requires that one of the wells is ignored while fluctuations are defined about the minimum of the other, which clearly will become invalid as $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y`$ approaches $`Y_{min}`$ in the near-critical regime. As shown in Fig. 3, this approximation predicts that the fluctuation $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y`$ diverges as $`|\epsilon \epsilon _c|^{1/4}`$. It is nonetheless a very good approximation outside a small region around the critical point (roughly $`6<\gamma <3`$), where the divergence is prevented by the quartic term in the potential energy.

To address the magnitude of quantum fluctuations in real systems, Table 1 lists the first excitation energies $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=E_2E_1`$ and ground state (quantum) fluctuations $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y`$ Fourier  for rectangular silicon bars and cylindrical multiwalled carbon nanotubes. Numbers are given for two cases - the critical and the relaxed (uncompressed) states. The remaining Schrödinger equation parameters are calculated using hinged boundary conditions, with the results

$$m^{}=m/2\text{and}\text{ }\beta =m^{}(\omega _1/2\kappa )^2.$$
(15)
The larger tubes have dimensions typical of the multiwalled tubes whose vibrational properties were studied by Treacy et al. Treacy . The smaller tube is probably the smallest that would support buckling and retain its elastic integrity Lourie . Nanotube frequencies were found using Eq. (4) with $`\kappa ^2=(d_2^2+d_1^2)/16`$, where $`d_1`$ and $`d_2`$ are inner and outer diameters. In the critical and double well regimes, because of cylindrical symmetry, the nanotube states will be described by a Mexican hat potential rather than a double well. In this case, Eq. (11) still applies, with $`Y`$ replaced by a two-component vector. In order to make a comparison to silicon bars, the nanotube entries in Table 1 refer to a single Cartesian component of $`Y`$. Fig. 3 refers specifically to one-dimensional transverse motion; the Mexican hat potential would have its main effect in the negative $`\gamma `$ regime where the first excitation energy $`E_2E_1`$ would fall less rapidly because the excitations are rotational rather than tunneling in character.

For all systems shown, the zero-point fluctuations predicted in the relaxed states are enhanced by nearly an order of magnitude by applying critical compression. On the other hand, the excitation energies are all reduced by about two orders of magnitude, so that thermal fluctuations can swamp the quantum contributions. On the other hand, the large differences between the relaxed and compressed energy scales suggests that the relaxed systems could be supercooled by compression toward their critical points. For example, the smaller carbon nanotube could be prepared initially very close to its ground state by cooling to 500 mK. Critical compression without heat transfer would then cool the tube to a few mK, at the same time enhancing its zero-point motion by a factor of about 6 (see Table 1). Subsequent equilibration to 500 mK would then bring the tube to a “classical” equilibrium state with thermal fluctuation $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y_t0.25`$ Å thermal , a further factor of 5 enhancement.

Finally, we comment on the possibility of observing tunneling in nanomechanical systems such as those considered here. We can roughly estimate the number of bound states with energy below the top of the barrier; it is of the order of the barrier height $`V_o`$ divided by the level spacing $`\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{\omega }_1`$. From Eqs. 4, 12 and 15 we find

$$N\left(\frac{\kappa }{\mathrm{\Delta }Y_o}\right)^2\left(\frac{\epsilon _c\epsilon }{\epsilon _c}\right)^{3/2}.$$
(16)
Taking the smaller bar, if we go to twice the critical compression, $`\epsilon =2\epsilon _c`$, then $`N3\times 10^6`$. In order to tune the potential to hold about 10 bound states in each well, one would have to apply strain with extreme delicacy, $`\epsilon \epsilon _c10^4\epsilon _c`$. Controlling the strain to this precision for sufficient time to identify tunneling, as distinct from thermal or other noise, will be difficult. Thus, while the observation of tunneling will likely be very challenging, the prospect of exploring tunable quantum fluctuations in this system, and the connection to Ginzburg-Landau theory, are intriguing.


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# The Variability of T Tau, RY Tau and RW Aur from 1899 to 1952

## 1 Introduction

Joy (1945) identified T Tauri stars as a distinct class of variable stars and Ambartsumian (1947; 1949) first suggested that they represent solar-like stars in the early stages of formation. They have since that time become understood as such and have been studied vigorously (e.g. Menard & Bertout 1999 and references therein).

The prototype and one of the brightest members of the class, T Tau, was discovered in the mid 1800’s to vary significantly in visual magnitude. However, T Tau is a complicated system and is not a typical member of the T Tauri class. Three optical nebulosities are associated with it. Hind’s variable nebula (NGC 1555) and a small nebulosity (NGC 1554) lie $``$ 45′′ and $``$ 4 to the west, respectively (Herbig 1950). The third, Burnham’s nebula, extends $``$ 5′′ from the star at a P.A. = 152 (Burnham 1890). Multi-wavelength observations reveal complex distributions of gas and dust associated with the remnant protostellar envelope, molecular outflows (van Langevelde et al. 1994; Momose et al. 1996; Schuster et al. 1997), arcs and filaments of material traced by molecular hydrogen (Herbst et al. 1996; Herbst, Robberto & Beckwith 1997) and two Herbig-Haro jets (Böhm & Solf 1994; Solf & Böhm 1999).

T Tau is a young triple system; it consists of T Tau, a K0 star at a V mag $``$ 10 (Herbig & Bell 1988), and an infrared companion (IRC), 0.′′7 to the south (Dyck, Simon & Zuckerman 1982), which is itself a binary with a projected separation of 0.′′05 (Koresko 2000). We monitored the near infrared flux of the system and found that the optically visible star does not vary significantly in magnitude in the K (2.2 $`\mu `$m) and L (3.8 $`\mu `$m) photometric bands (Beck et al. 2001; Beck 2001). The IRC binary does vary in near infrared flux on timescales as short as a week. However, the IRC has never been detected at wavelengths shortward of 1.2 $`\mu `$m to a limiting V-band magnitude of 19.6 (Stapelfeldt et al. 1998), and therefore does not contribute to the optical variability of the system.

Lozinskii (1949) compiled the historical light curve of T Tau from nearly 2000 observations spanning the interval 1858 to 1941. A translation of Lozinskii’s paper is available online at http://www.ess.sunysb.edu/2001aj/beck01.html. From 1858 to $``$ 1915, T Tau dimmed and brightened randomly in visible light, between 10 and 14 mag in the visible. After 1915, T Tau appeared mostly bright at $``$ 10 mag. Lozinskii’s light curve represents a smoothed 10-day average, and the sources of the individual measurements are unreferenced. We were therefore interested to use the independent data of the photographic plates available in the Harvard College Observatory archives in order to determine the light curve of T Tau to confirm its large light variations at the begining of the 20th century. Since the classical T Tauri stars RY Tau and RW Aur appear on the same plates as T Tau, we took advantage of the opportunity to measure their light curves as well.

## 2 Data

We estimated the brightness of T Tau, RY Tau and RW Aur by inspection of over 150 archival AC and AM series photographic plates of the Harvard College Observatory archive. These patrol plates were obtained using a telescope equipped with a 1.5-inch aperture Cooke lens and provided data with a plate scale of 600′′/mm spanning the time interval 1899 to 1952. We supplemented the T Tau data with more than 125 measurements from the plates in the RH and RB series, which were obtained using 3-inch aperture Ross lens at a scale of 390′′/mm and covered the period 1928 to 1952.

The spectral response of the photographic plates was essentially blue, so we estimated the magnitude of T Tau, RY Tau and RW Aur by comparison with the B magnitudes of nearby stars. The estimated magnitudes of our targets are therefore B magnitudes in this relative sense. We first obtained the B-band magnitudes for three dozen stars within 1 of T Tau using the SIMBAD database and USNO catalog (Monet et al. 1996). By identifiying these reference stars on plates spanning several decades we eliminated the obvious variables among them and determined the limiting sensitivities of the AC/AM and RH/RB plates to be 12-13.5 mag and 14-15 mag, respectively. We estimated the magnitude of T Tau, RY Tau and RW Aur with reference to 16 stars with B magnitudes ranging from 9.6 to 13.8 in increments of 0.2 to 0.3 magnitudes. The internal precision of the estimated magnitudes of the targets is $``$$`\pm `$0.3 mag and is determined by the magnitude spacing of the calibrators and the accuracy of their individual B-band magnitudes. Figures 1 through 3 present the derived light curves for T Tau, RY Tau and RW Aur. A table of the data used to generate these light curves is available online at the webpage referenced in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 1. Inspection of Digitized Sky Survey images revealed that the target stars are the brightest objects within a 3 radius, hence we attribute the observed light fluctuations solely to them.

## 3 Results

The light curve presented in Figure 1 is similar to that determined by Lozinskii (1949) in that the magnitude of T Tau dimmed and brightened randomly in the early part of the 20th century from B $``$ 11 to fainter than the detection limit on timescales as short as a month. To demonstrate the time scale of the observed light variations, Figure 4 presents 15 measurements of the magnitude of T Tau during 1902. From 10 January to 10 February 1902 T Tau brightened from 13 mag to $``$11 mag, and six measurements in October-November 1902 show that it varied by $``$1 mag on time scales of less than two weeks. A Lomb Normalized Periodogram analysis (Press et al. 1994) of the light curve between 1899 and 1917 shows no significant periodicity on time scales of less than $``$ 5 years. From the late 1910’s to 1952, T Tau stabilized at a B magnitude of $``$ 11 and, aside from brief dimming events of 1.5 magnitudes in 1925 and 0.8 magnitudes in 1931, did not vary further at a statistically significant level. Additional data on the variability of T Tau, obtained from the online database of Herbst et al. (1994, hereafter H94) and the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO; Mattei 2000), shows that between 1937 and the present it has not varied by more than $``$ $`\pm `$0.5 magnitudes from its average. Observations of the optical variability of T Tau taken during a single week reveal that it presently does not vary by more than $``$ 0.1 V-band magnitudes on this time scale (Ismailov 1997). The “flickering” of 2-3 magnitudes observed in T Tau in the early years of 20th century was real and ceased abruptly in $``$ 1917.

The light curve of RY Tau (Figure 2) is characterized by two time scales. It varies by 2-3 magnitudes over approximately a decade and by $``$ 1 magnitude on time scales of less than a year. This type of variability has continued to the present (H94; Holtzman, Herbst & Booth 1986; Petrov et al. 1998). RW Aur varied by 2-3 magnitudes on timescales as short as a month throughout the 1899-1952 interval (Figure 3). H94 report similar variability; apparently this behavior has continued for at least a century. Although the amplitudes and time scales of the light fluctuations of RW Aur and T Tau before 1917 are similar, we argue in $`\mathrm{\S }`$4 that their variability is probably caused by different mechanisms.

## 4 Discussion

Parenago (1954) described a classification which is useful to categorize the light curves of T Tauri stars (see also Herbig 1962):

Class I - The star is more often bright than dim; its brightness is most frequently found in the brighter half of the observed magnitude range.

Class II - The fluctuations are generally close to the middle of the observed range in magnitude.

Class III - The star is more often dim than bright; its brightness is most frequently found in the fainter half of the observed magnitude range.

Class IV - The stellar brightness is observed at all levels of its magnitude range; it is not more likely to be found in a bright, faint or average state.

Based on this scheme, T Tau was a Class IV variable from 1899 to 1917, and a Class I from 1917 to the present. RY Tau and RW Aur are Class IV variables during the interval we have sampled, although breaking the RY Tau data into sections, as in Figure 2, suggests that its variability may be migrating from one class to another on decade-long time scales.

Parenago’s classification is useful because it draws attention to the fact that the character of T Tau’s variability changed significantly and abruptly. It does not, however, provide interpretation of the causes of the variability. In their study of the light and color variability of $``$ 80 T Tauri stars, H94 argued that the variability of most T Tauris is produced by one, or a combination, of three distinct mechanisms:

Type I - Rotational modulation by cool star spots. This type of variability is periodic.

Type II - Variable accretion rate or the rotation modulation of accretion hot spots. This type of variability can be periodic or random.

Type III - Random variations of light which are likely produced by variable obscuration along the line of sight to the star (Herbst & Shevchenko 1999, Bertout 2000)

Photometric and spectroscopic monitoring studies show that the optical variability of RY Tau is likely caused by variable obscuration (Holtzman, Herbst & Booth 1986; Petrov et al. 1998), thus it is best described as a Type III variable. H94 argued that T Tau is the only star in their sample that shows characteristics of all three variability mechanisms. Herbst et al. (1986) discovered rotational modulation of T Tau’s light with a period of 2.8 days. The amplitude of the rotational modulation is small, $``$ 0.02 mag, so it seems very unlikely that this modulatation could account for the 2-3 magnitude fluctuations in the early 1900’s.

The results of Herbst et al. (1982) and Basri & Bathala (1990) show that the light fluctuations of RW Aur correlate with H$`\alpha `$ and veiling emission. The variability of RW Aur is therefore best classified as Type II (H94). Although the amplitude and timescale of the light variations of T Tau in the early years of the 20th century are similar to those of RW Aur, it is improbable that variable accretion was responsible for T Tau’s variability. It is very difficult to imagine how the accretion rate, after varying significantly enough to produce light fluctuations of 2-3 magnitudes, could stabilize in a high state with a sufficiently constant amplitude to produce light variations of less 0.5 magnitudes around B $``$ 11.

The most likely explanation for the observed variability of T Tau prior to 1917 is variable extinction along the line of sight to the star. T Tau is now obscured by Av $``$ 1 (Cohen & Kuhi 1979), but clumpy material with 2-3 magnitudes of extinction moving through the line of sight to the star could explain the observed dimmings. The eventual clearing of this material would result in a more or less constant light output. Hogerheijde et al (1997) and Akeson et al. (1998) detect a circumstellar disk around T Tau by its emission at mm wavelengths and conclude that it is observed nearly face-on. Variations in extinction toward T Tau are therefore not likely to be caused by material in its own disk, unless it is strongly warped.

Weintraub et al. (1989) found evidence for Keplerian rotation in material surrounding T Tau, and Momose et al. (1996), Schuster et al. (1997), and Weintraub et al. (1999) detected complex distributions of material associated with the T Tau system. Two Herbig-Haro flows are associated with T Tau; HH 155 originates from the optically visible star, and HH 355 from the IRC (Böhm & Solf 1994; Herbst, Robberto & Beckwith 1997; Solf & Böhm 1999). Hence, it is conceivable that material associated with the envelope or outflows in the T Tau system could have caused the observed extinction variability of T Tau. The “flickering” and abrupt clearing of the obscuring material implies significant density inhomogeneities on spatial scales of a few stellar radii. It is reasonable to speculate that the possible variation in extinction presently observed toward the T Tau IRC (Beck, Prato & Simon 2001) is caused by a similar distribution of material responsible for the optical variability of T Tau in the early 1900’s.

In a region as complex as that of T Tau, it seems impossible to identify now the material that would have produced $``$3 magnitudes of extinction a century ago. A reasonable scenario for the variable obscuration must also explain the abrupt cessation and apparent non-repeatability of the variability. It is worth noting that the components of the T Tau triple system were likely positioned differently a century ago. Roddier et al. (2000) and Ghez et al. (1995) monitored the orbital motion of the T Tau North-South system from 1989 to 1999 and found that the position angle of T Tau S has changed by $``$6 with respect to T Tau N, but that it has not varied significantly in angular separation ($`<`$ 0.′′03). Hence, the period of the T Tau N-S system, at a 100 AU separation, is likely on the order of $``$500-700 years. The variability may have been the result of the different geometry of obscuring material associated with the disks or outflows of the system components. Like T Tau’s historic variability, we speculate that other puzzling aspects of T Tauri behavior, such as the discovery of the IRC to UY Aur when it was bright in the visible (Joy & van Biesbroeck 1944), may have extrinsic rather than intrinsic causes. A more complete understanding of the orbital motion and orientation of the disks and outflows of these systems will enable tests of this idea.

We thank G. Herbig for conversations that led to this study and for valuable advice in its course. We also thank M. Hazen and A. Doane for their assistance and hostpitality during our use of the Harvard College Observatory plate archives, W. Herbst for providing the database of T Tauri star variability, W. Sherry for his assistance locating potential calibration stars, S. Wolk for his advice regarding periodogram analysis techniques, D. Beznosko for help with the translation of Lozinskii’s article, and the referee for a helpful report. We have used, and acknowledge with thanks, data from the AAVSO International Database, based on observations submitted to the AAVSO by variable star observers worldwide. This work also made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS. Strasbourg, France, and the Digitized Sky Surveys which were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government Grant NAG W-2166. Our work was supported in part by NSF Grant 98-19694.


text:
# Age Estimation of Extragalactic Globular Cluster Systems Using H𝛽 Index

## 1. Introduction

For distant stellar populations, one relies upon the integrated colors or spectra to investigate their ages and metallicities since individual stars are not resolved. Here, we specifically focus on the H$`\beta `$ index, which is widely used as an age indicator. Most of the previous works (e.g., Worthey 1994), however, have been done on the basis that stars near the main-sequence turnoff (MSTO) region are the most dominant sources for the integrated strength of H$`\beta `$. Consequently, without meticulous consideration for stars beyond the red giant branch, they claimed that the strength of H$`\beta `$ depends on the location of the MSTO, which in turn depends on the age at a given metallicity. Several investigators, however, have cast some doubt upon the sensitivity of the H$`\beta `$ index given the presence of other warm stars, especially blue horizontal-branch (HB) stars (see, e.g., Burstein et al. 1984; Jorgensen 1997).

On the observational side, it was barely possible to obtain low signal-to-noise (S/N) spectra of globular clusters in systems outside the Local Group (e.g., Mould et al. 1990). These spectra have been useful only for kinematic information. With the advent of 10 m-class telescopes, however, Kissler-Patig et al. (1998) and Cohen, Blakeslee, & Ryzhov (1998) have successfully obtained relatively high S/N spectra that provide reliable line index calibration for globular clusters in NGC 1399 and M87, the central giant elliptical galaxies in Fornax and Virgo clusters.

## 2. Population Models with Horizontal-Branch Stars

For our population models, the Yale Isochrones (Demarque et al. 1996), rescaled for $`\alpha `$-element enhancement (Salaris, Chieffi, & Straniero 1993), and the HB evolutionary tracks by Yi, Demarque, & Kim (1997) have been used. The Salpeter (1955) initial mass function is adopted for the relative number of stars along the isochrones. For the conversion from theoretical quantities to observable quantities, we have taken the most recently compiled stellar library of Lejeune, Cuisinier, & Buser (1998) in order to cover the largest possible ranges in stellar parameters such as metallicity, temperature, and gravity. The detailed calculation method of spectral index is presented in Lee, Yoon, & Lee (2000).

In Figure 1a, the variations of H$`\beta `$ strength as a function of metallicity (Mg2) are plotted at given ages. Here, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t = 0 Gyr corresponds the recently favored mean age of Galactic globular clusters ($``$ 12 Gyr) in the light of new distance scale as suggested by HIPPARCOS (e.g., Chaboyer et al. 1998). Note that, unlike the models without HB stars ($`dashed`$ $`lines`$), distinct “wavy” features appear in our models with HB stars ($`solid`$ $`lines`$). It is found that the strength of H$`\beta `$ does not simply decrease with either increasing age or increasing metallicity once HB stars are included in the models. Now it is evident that the blue HB stars around ($`B`$ $``$ $`V`$)o $``$ 0 are the key contributors for the strength of H$`\beta `$. The differences in H$`\beta `$ strengths between the models with and without HB stars are as much as 0.75 Å at the peak. In addition, it should be noted that the peak of the H$`\beta `$ enhancement moves to higher metallicity as age gets older.

## 3. Comparison with Observations

Having confirmed that the detailed modeling of HB is crucial in the use of H$`\beta `$ index as an age indicator, Figure 1b compares our results with observations of globular cluster systems in the Milky Way Galaxy and in NGC 1399. It is important to note here that all of these observations were carried out at the Keck telescope with the identical instrumental configuration, the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (LRIS, Oke, de Zeeuw, & Nemec 1995). Despite the still large observational uncertainties, it is inferred from Figure 1b that the NGC 1399 globular cluster system is perhaps systematically couple of billion years older, in the mean, than the Galactic counterpart.

It is of considerable interest, in this respect, to find that a similar age difference is inferred from the “metal-poor HB solution” of the UV upturn phenomenon of local giant elliptical galaxies (Park & Lee 1997; Yi et al. 1999). If our age estimation is confirmed to be correct, this would indicate that the star formation in denser environments has proceeded much more rapidly and efficiently, so that the initial epoch of star formation in more massive (and denser) systems occurred several billion years earlier than that of the Milky Way (see also Lee 1992).

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### Acknowledgments.

Hyun-chul Lee would like to thank the organizers, especially Ted, of this fantastic conference for their hospitality and for providing financial support.