text:
# Effects of C, Cu and Be Substitutions in Superconducting MgB2

## Abstract

Density functional calculations are used to investigate the effects of partial substitutional alloying of the B site in MgB2 with C and Be alone and combined with alloying of the Mg site with Cu. The effect of such substitutions on the electronic structure, electron phonon coupling and superconductivity are discussed. We find that Be substitution for B is unfavorable for superconductivity as it leads to a softer lattice and weaker electron-phonon couplings. Replacement of Mg by Cu leads to an increase in the stiffness and doping level at the same time, while the carrier concentration can be controlled by partial replacement of B by C. We estimate that with full replacement of Mg by Cu and fractional substitution of B by C, $`T_c`$ values of 50K may be attainable.

The discovery of superconductivity with critical temperature $`T_c`$ = 39 K in hexagonal MgB2 has led to considerable interest in this material, both for practical applications and from a more fundamental point of view.  In particular, although it is not the highest $`T_c`$ conventional (in the sense of $`s`$-wave with likely substantial electron-phonon coupling) superconductor,  its substantial $`T_c`$ combined with its chemistry and other properties may make it particularly useful.  A variety of experimental measurements, including B isotope effect,  neutron scattering phonon densities of states,  tunnelling,  transport,  and specific heat,  have been done. Taken together, they yield a consistent clear picture of MgB2 as a conventional electron-phonon $`s`$-wave superconductor. This is also consistent with most of the reported theoretical work.

The underlying electronic structure and bonding were discussed by Ripplinger  before the discovery of superconductivity. This was based on density functional calculations using the linearized augmented planewave (LAPW) method and provided results consistent with an early calculation by Armstrong and Perkins.  Subsequently, several authors have extended this work presenting the electronic structure in detail and discussing the origin of superconductivity.  The electronic structure is dominated by the chemical bonding of the hexagonal B sheets in MgB2. Although the nominal electron count is the same as in graphite (Mg has its nominal 2+ charge), unlike graphite, the top of the B derived bonding band structure contains holes related to fractional occupation of bands derived from B $`p`$ states directed perpendicular to the layers. As pointed out by An and Pickett,  the negative charge of the B layers and the corresponding positive charge of the Mg layers leads to a lowering of the $`p_z`$ bands relative to their position in graphite. Detailed calculations of the phonon spectra and electron phonon coupling have been reported. These show strong coupling between the hole ”doped” bonding bands and high frequency optical phonons associated with motions of the B atoms affecting the covalent bonds. Kong et al. reported detailed calculations of electron-phonon couplings over the whole Brillouin zone obtaining couplings consistent with the measured $`T_c`$ as well as the boron isotope effect, the specific heat enhancement, the reported gap values and transport data.

The picture that emerges is one where the high $`T_c`$ is due to strong electron phonon coupling associated with the hole doped metallic $`\sigma `$ bonding bands in the B sheets. This is due to the strong bonding of these sheets, which along with the light B mass is responsible for the high average frequency of the strongly coupled phonons, setting the temperature scale. However, there are also significant interactions with lower frequency modes and this may be needed to explain the upper critical field.  Though some interesting questions remain, e.g., regarding possible anharmonic effects for the lower frequency phonon modes,  the basic physics appears to be settled as regards the origin of superconductivity in MgB2. The crucial aspects seem to be: (1) band structure, particularly the presence of hole doped $`\sigma `$ bands at the Fermi level, $`E_F`$, (2) strong electron phonon coupling associated with the strong covalent bonding nature of these bands and (3) high phonon frequencies associated again with the strong covalent bonds and the light B mass.

The present work is to explore some possible substitutions and provide suggestions for experimental work aimed at finding related high temperature superconducting phases. Along these lines, Medvedeva et al. have investigated a number of possible substitutions of Mg by monovalent, divalent and trivalent ions.  They focussed on the band structure, and particularly the density of states (DOS) and presence or absense of the $`\sigma `$ band at $`E_F`$ They concluded that trivalent substitutions like Y, Al etc. are not favorable as they fill the hole doped (in MgB2) $`\sigma `$ bands, while certain monovalent substitutions for Mg may be favorable. This is consistent with the experimental observation that Al substitution destroys superconductivity.  They also mentioned the possibility of vacancies or substitutions on the B sheets, but concluded that these are all unfavorable.

Here we briefly reexamine the effect of Be substitution on the B planes, including band structure, lattice stiffness and electron-phonon calculations. Although Be substitution lowers the electron count, we find that it is so detrimental to the bonding that superconductivity is suppressed both due to a strong decrease in the lattice stiffness and a drop in the electron-phonon coupling. We then report calculations investigating the effect of a combined partial substitution of C for B and Cu for Mg. The rationale for this combination is that C-B bonds are expected to be very strong in this structure, and so this substitution may lead to a stiffening of the sheets relative to MgB2, while the replacement of Mg by Cu may be expected to first of all compensate for the extra charge provided by the substitution in the plane, and secondly, perhaps maintain the hole doping of the $`\sigma `$ bonding band, present in MgB2 but absent in graphite. The basis of this latter conjecture is that the crystal field in materials can arise both from strict ionic (Coulomb) effects, as seem to dominate in MgB2, and hybridization, which is important e.g. in transition metal oxides. The hope then was that such effects with monovalent Cu might be sufficient to keep the $`\sigma `$ band at the Fermi energy. As discussed below we find that both these effects do occur and that for modest C incorportation and Cu replacement of Mg superconductivity should be enhanced. Based on rigid muffin tin approximation (RMTA) calculations, we estimate that $`T_c`$ may be near 50K.

Our results were obtained in the local density approximation (LDA)  using the general potential LAPW method, including local orbitals,  and well converged basis sets and zone samplings. Band structures, lattice stiffnesses and electron phonon couplings were all determined at the calculated lattice parameters as determined by energy minimization. Commonly in LDA calculations, lattice constants are slightly underestimated. For MgB2 we get $`a`$=5.736 $`a_0`$ and $`c`$=6.522.$`a_0`$, as compared to the experimental values $`a`$ =5.826 $`a_0`$ and $`c`$=6.653 $`a_0`$. This is a 5% volume compression. As shown in Fig. 1 this has a very small effect on the band structure near the Fermi energy, $`E_F`$ with a small effect on $`N(E_F)`$. To proceed to the alloys and discuss superconductivity, we make three more significant approximations. First of all, we employ the virtual crystal approximation (VCA) to account for partial substitutions on the B sheets. A partial justification for this is provided by the strong covalency and corresponding large bandwidths, which may limit the amount of scattering due to potential disorder in the alloy (this is the same effect that allows alloys, like AlxGa1-xAs, to have high enough mobilities to be useful in semiconductor technology). We tested the VCA by comparing with ordered cells at the compositions MgBeB and CuBC and found some quantitative differences (discussed below), but the key features of the band shapes, velocities and the position of the $`\sigma `$ bonding band relative to $`E_F`$ were little changed. The second approximation we made was to characterize the lattice stiffness that combined with the mass gives average phonon frequencies by the calculated tensile stiffness of the B sheets, i.e. $`^2E/a^2`$. This number and the average mass of the atoms in the B sheets was used to scale the average frequencies as calculated by Kong et al.  Considering that the dominant phonons determining $`T_c`$ are the B modes, we think that this is a reasonable approximation. Finally, we use the RMTA to characterize the electron phonon coupling.

We used well converged DOS calculations based on first principles eigenvalues at over 2000 k points in the irreducible zone to get $`N(E_F)`$ and the corresponding angular momentum components. We used the self-consistent LAPW potentials at different concentrations to calculate the corresponding phase shifts and free scatterer DOS at $`E_F`$. Sphere radii of 1.5 $`a_0`$ were used for B, Be and C for the RMTA calculations. The above quantities were used in the Gaspari-Gyorffy formula to compute the Hopfield parameters, $`\eta `$, for each site. Negligible coupling is found on the Mg site, as expected, but not Cu, e.g. 0.78 eV/Å2 on Cu for CuB2. However, in Table I we give the values of $`\eta `$ for B only, since that is the dominant contribution controlling superconductivity and we do not include any Cu contribution in the calculation of $`\lambda `$ or $`T_c`$ (Cu will have little involvement in the high frequency phonons associated with the B sheets). For the electron-phonon coupling we used the usual expression $`\lambda =\eta /<M\omega ^2>`$. For the denominator we used the average frequency calculated by Kong et al.  for MgB2 and scaled it using the tensile stiffness of the B sheets for various concentrations, i.e. $`^2E/a^2`$. The RMTA is not generally as well justified in $`sp`$ metals as in transition metals and can considerably underestimate the deformation potentials when strong $`sp`$ covalent bonding is present as it is here. Further, the RMTA neglects some differences between different bands, which may be significant here. In any case, Kortus et al. did use it for MgB2 to characterize electron phonon couplings.  Comparing with the direct calculations of Kong et al. for MgB2 we find, not unexpectedly, that the values of $`\eta `$ we obtain with our non-overlapping B spheres are too small, roughly by a factor of three. Here we use the RMTA to elucidate trends, while acknowledging its limitations. So we adopt the heuristic of scaling the calculated values of $`\eta `$ by three in calculating $`\lambda `$ and $`T_c`$. Using the average phonon frequencies quoted by Kong et al. this heuristic closely reproduces their values of $`\lambda `$ and $`T_c`$ for MgB2. We used the McMillan equation to roughly estimate $`T_c`$, setting the Coulomb pseudopotential $`\mu ^{}`$=0.1. We emphasize here that we are not aiming at an accurate determination of the value of $`T_c`$ but exploring the trends upon substituting Mg by Cu and B by Be or C. Because of our use of the RMTA our values should be taken as indicating trends not as quantitative predictions of $`T_c`$.

The band structure for the starting compound, MgB2, (Fig. 1) is practically identical to those obtained previously,  showing $`\sigma `$ bonding states at $`E_F`$. Results for the structural and electronic properties relevant to superconductivity are given in Table I, while band structures are shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 for MgBexB2-x and CuB2-xCx, respectively. In the table the values of $`\eta `$ are the bare values as given by the RMTA, while the heuristically scaled values have been used for the values of $`\lambda `$ and $`T_c`$. An ordered band structure for CuBC is shown in Fig. 4. This shows some differences from the corresponding VCA calculation, most notably, near $`E_F`$, a splitting at the H point involving $`p_z`$ bands. However, the general structure of bands near $`E_F`$ and the position of the $`\sigma `$ band is quite similar.

Substitution of Be into the B sheets lowers the electron count, though as seen in the band structure, not in a rigid band way. The hole concentration in the $`\sigma `$ bonding band does increase, but the bonds are strongly weakened. This is reflected in the band widths and lattice stiffness. The result (Table I) is a rapid increase in the $`a`$ lattice parameter, softening of the lattice and a decrease in the electron phonon coupling. Thus Be substitution is detrimental to superconductivity and is not further discussed.

The Cu substituted material is more interesting. In an ionic model, replacement of Mg by monovalent Cu should lower the electron count in the B sheets by one per formula unit. So perhaps a situation similar to that found with 50% Be substitution may be expected. This is not the case. The Cu is monovalent as in the ionic model. The five narrow Cu $`d`$ bands are in the valence region between -4 and -3 eV relative to $`E_F`$. Comparing the top panel of Figs. 1 and 3 and the structural information in Table I one sees that the bonding in the sheets is strengthened by the addition of Cu, even though the hole count in the $`\sigma `$ band is increased (note the relative positions of the band maxima on the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$$`A`$ line). Hybridization with Cu leads to quantitative changes in the band structure, affecting mostly the $`p_z`$ states, but there are also weak effects on the $`\sigma `$ bands near $`E_F`$, e.g. the reversed dispersion on the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$$`A`$ line presumably due to $`d`$$`p\pi `$ interactions. The net effects of Cu substitution – stiffened lattice, increased $`N(E_F)`$ and higher hole concentration – are favorable for superconductivity. Related to this, there is a recent unconfirmed report of an enhancement of $`T_c`$ with partial replacement of Mg by Cu.  Partial substitution of C for B in CuB2 has two effects – a stiffening of the lattice reflecting the strong bonding of C and B (favorable for $`T_c`$ and a reduction in the hole doping of the $`\sigma `$ band and in $`N(E_F)`$ (unfavorable for $`T_c`$). For low C concentrations, the first effect dominates, leading to an increase in the estimated $`T_c`$, but beyond 25% C substitution (here the van Hove from the $`\sigma `$ band at $`A`$ crosses $`E_F`$) the second dominates and $`T_c`$ falls.

In summary, band structure and RMTA calculations indicate that the $`T_c`$ of MgB2 can be increased, perhaps to 50K by substitution of Cu for Mg and low C substitutions, around 25%, in the B sheets. We emphasize that to our knowledge these are not known equilibrium phases. However, the strong binding of the sheets suggests synthesis may be possible, e.g. starting with MgB2 (n.b. Mg leaves the compound at high temperature).

This work was supported by ONR and the the ASC supercomputer center. We are grateful for discussions with I.I. Mazin, W.E. Pickett and K. Schwarz.


format: text

text:
# Quasiperiodic waves at the onset of zero Prandtl number convection with rotation

(12 April, 2001)

## Abstract

We show the possibility of quasiperiodic waves at the onset of thermal convection in a thin horizontal layer of slowly rotating zero-Prandtl number Boussinesq fluid confined between stress-free conducting boundaries. Two independent frequencies emerge due to an interaction between a stationary instability and a self-tuned wavy instability in presence of coriolis force, if Taylor number is raised above a critical value. Constructing a dynamical system for the hydrodynamical problem, the competition between the interacting instabilities is analyzed. The forward bifurcation from the conductive state is self-tuned.
PACS number(s):47.20.Ky, 47.27.Te

Thermal convection in Boussinesq fluids in the limit of vanishing Prandtl number $`P(=\nu /\kappa )`$ (-) is of interest for astrophysical problems ($`P10^8`$) as well as for liquid metals ($`P10^210^3`$). The theoretical study, in particular with stress-free boundary conditions, in the limit of large thermal diffusitivity $`\kappa `$ has been considered subtle for a long time because the linearly unstable two-dimensional (2D) rolls become exact nonlinear solution. The nonlinearity $`𝐯\theta `$ due to the advection of temperature fluctuation $`\theta `$ by the velocity field $`𝐯`$ might be negligible . The nonlinearity $`𝐯𝐯`$, due to the self interaction of velocity field, does not contribute to saturation for straight (2D) rolls. This led to the speculation that the zero $`P`$ limit might involve a singular limit problem similar to the one with infinite Reynold number in incompressible fluid dynamics. However, the recent three-dimensional (3D) direct numerical simulation (DNS) of zero-Prandtl number Boussinesq equations by Thual  showed the saturation instead of indefinite growth of the solution even with stress-free boundary conditions. He also compared the results of zero P equations with that of the full Oberbeck-Boussinesq equations in the asymptotic limit of vanishing P, and found complete agreement in two cases. The saturation of growing 2D rolls at the onset of convection occurs by generation of self-tuned 3D waves, the mechanism of which was explained in a simple model . The results of this model, in its validity range, agreed well with that of DNS just above the convective instability. The new nonlocal instability at the onset occurs purely due to nonlinear effects, while linear equations predict the stationary instability .

We present, in this article, a dynamical system constructed for thermal convection in zero Prandtl number Boussinesq fluid, confined between stress-free conducting flat boundaries, and subjected to a slow rotation about the vertical axis. We then investigate numerically the system to study the effect of coriolis force on the onset of convection. We show that the convection sets in as quasiperiodic waves at the onset of convective instability for Taylor number $`T`$ above a critical value $`T_c`$, although the principle of exchange of stability is valid according to the linear theory  for these Taylor numbers. The generation of two independent frequencies is the result of an interaction between a stationary instability and a self-tuned wavy perturbations in presence of coriolis force. This an example of a new self-tuned forward bifurcation. For the values of Taylor number below $`T_c`$, the convection sets in as self-tuned wavy instability as is the case in absence of rotation. However, the model shows a possibility transition from one wavy instability to another through a narrow window of period-doubling instability.

We consider a thin layer of a Boussinesq fluid of infinite horizontal extension subjected to a uniform adverse temperature gradient $`\beta `$ across the fluid layer, and a rigid body rotation with an angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ about the vertical axis. The fluid is assumed to have uniform values of the kinematic viscosity $`\nu `$ and the thermal difusitivity $`\kappa `$. The basic state is the conductive state with no fluid motion in the rotating frame of reference. The convective flow, in the limit of zero-Prandtl number, is then described by the following system of dimesionless hydrodynamic equations,

$`_t(^2v_3)`$ $`=`$ $`^4v_3+R_H^2\theta \sqrt{T}_z\omega _3`$ (1)
$``$ $`\widehat{e}_3\times \left[(\omega )𝐯(𝐯)\omega \right],`$
$`_t\omega _3`$ $`=`$ $`^2\omega _3+\sqrt{T}_zv_3`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`\left[(\omega )v_3(𝐯)\omega _3\right],`$
$`^2\theta `$ $`=`$ $`v_3,`$ (3)
where $`𝐯(x,y,z,t)(v_1,v_2,v_3)`$ is the velocity field, $`\theta (x,y,z,t)`$ the deviation in temperature field from steady conduction profile, $`\omega (\omega _1,\omega _2,\omega _3)=\times 𝐯`$ the vorticity field of the fluid. In the above, length scales are made dimensionless by the thickness $`d`$ of the fluid layer, time by the viscous time scale $`\frac{d^2}{\nu }`$, and the temperature field by $`(\beta d)\frac{\nu }{\kappa }`$. Rayleigh number $`R=\frac{\alpha g\beta d^4}{\nu \kappa }`$ and Taylor number $`T=\frac{4d^4\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{\nu ^2}`$ are the two dimensionless external parameters. The unit vector $`\widehat{e}_3`$ is directed vertically upward. We impose periodic boundary conditions in horizontal plane. This introduces two fundamental wave numbers $`k`$ along x-axis and $`q`$ along y-axis. The stress-free boundary conditions imply $`_zv_1`$ $`=`$ $`_zv_2`$ $`=`$ $`v_3`$ $`=0`$ at $`z=0,1`$. Thermally conducting horizontal boundaries mean $`\theta =0`$ at $`z=0,1`$.

The hydrodynamical equations (1-3) are the same as those derived by Chandrasekhar . We have nondimesionlized them and considered the case of zero $`P`$. We have also eleminited the pressure term from Navier-Stokes equations by taking curl twice and using the incompressibility condition ($`𝐯=0`$). The conclusions derived from the linearized version of the equations remain unchanged even in the present case. Following the arguments of Chandrasekhar , one arrives at the conclusion that the principle of exchange of stability is valid even in the limit discussed here. The critical value of Rayleigh number now reads $`R_c(T)=\frac{\pi ^4}{x}\left[(1+x)^3+\frac{T}{\pi ^4}\right]`$ and critical wave number $`k_c(T)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi \sqrt{(l_1+l_2\frac{1}{2})}`$ now depend on Taylor number $`T`$ . In the above, $`l_{1,2}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\frac{1}{4}\left\{\frac{1}{2}+\frac{T}{\pi ^4}\pm \sqrt{\left(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{T}{\pi ^4}\right)\frac{1}{4}}\right\}\right]^{\frac{1}{3}}`$ and $`x=k_c^2/\pi ^2`$. In absence of rotation $`k_c^0k_c(T=0)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi /\sqrt{2}`$ and $`R_c^0R_c(T=0)`$ $`=`$ $`27\pi ^4/4`$.

The 2D rolls are not exact solutions of nonlinear hydrodynamic system with rotation as is the case in zero-Prandtl number convection in absence of rotation. Nevertheless, the growing 2D rolls are not saturated just above the onset of convective instability. The saturation occurs only because of nonlinear interaction of 2D rolls with 3D wavy perturbations. To understand the nonlinear behavior close to the convective instability, we construct a consistent minimal-mode model using Galerkin technique . We expand the vertical velocity $`v_3`$ and the vertical vorticity $`\omega _3`$ in Fourier series compatible with the stress-free boundary conditions and conducting thermal boundary conditions. As the DNS, in absence of rotation, showed standing patterns  instead of traveling patterns, we expect similar behavior at least for small rotation rates. Therefore, we expand the fields with real Fourier coefficients. This lead to the following expansion for the vertical velocity and the vertical vorticity in a minimum-mode model.

$`v_3(x,y,z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`W_{101}(t)\mathrm{cos}k_cx\mathrm{sin}\pi z`$ (4)
$`+`$ $`W_{111}(t)\mathrm{cos}k_cx\mathrm{cos}qy\mathrm{sin}\pi z`$
$`+`$ $`W_{\overline{1}\overline{1}1}(t)\mathrm{sin}k_cx\mathrm{sin}qy\mathrm{sin}\pi z`$
$`+`$ $`W_{012}(t)\mathrm{cos}qy\mathrm{sin}2\pi z+\mathrm{}`$
$`\omega _3(x,y,z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\zeta _{101}(t)\mathrm{cos}k_cx\mathrm{cos}\pi z`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`\zeta _{010}(t)\mathrm{cos}qy+\zeta _{\overline{1}\overline{1}0}(t)\mathrm{sin}k_cx\mathrm{sin}qy`$
$`+`$ $`\zeta _{111}(t)\mathrm{cos}k_cx\mathrm{cos}qy\mathrm{cos}\pi z`$
$`+`$ $`\zeta _{012}(t)\mathrm{cos}qy\mathrm{cos}2\pi z+\zeta _{200}(t)\mathrm{cos}2k_cx`$
$`+`$ $`\zeta _{210}(t)\mathrm{cos}2k_cx\mathrm{cos}qy`$
$`+`$ $`\zeta _{\overline{2}\overline{1}0}(t)\mathrm{sin}2k_cx\mathrm{sin}qy+\mathrm{}`$
The mode selection is quite systematic. As rotation couples the vertical velocity and the vertical vorticity linearly, we have selected the mode $`\zeta _{101}`$. The mode $`\zeta _{010}`$ is essential to saturate zero Prandtl number convection via wavy instability. All other modes appear through the nonlinear interaction of these vorticity modes with the critical velocity mode $`W_{101}`$. As the vorticity field is very crucial for saturation in the limit of vanishing Prandtl number, all relevant second harmonics are retained for vertical vorticity. All relevant harmonics of the vertical velocity field, consistent with the selection of the vertical vorticity, are also retained. Other higher order modes may be required as Rayleigh number is raised further. As we are interested to capture essential nonlinear interaction between competing instabilities just above the onset of convection, these modes are essential. The solenoidal character of the velocity and the vorticity fields yield horizontal components of the velocity and the vorticity fields. The thermal fluctuation $`\theta `$ is captured from Eq. 3. Projecting the hydrodynamic equations (1 \- 3) on above modes, we arrive at a twelve-dimensional dynamical system .

We now investigate the solutions of the dynamical system by performing numerical integration of the model using standard fourth order Runge-Kutta as well as Bulirsh-Stoer schemes. By choosing a value for $`T`$, we set $`k_c(T)`$. We then choose a value for $`q`$. We have tried with different values of the wavenumber $`q`$ of the perturbations and got qualitatively similar results except when the ratio $`q/k_c`$ is close to unity. We present here all the results for the case $`q/k_c(T)=0.4`$. Initial values for all the twelve modes are chosen randomly, and integration is done for a fixed value of Rayleigh number $`R`$. We then repeat the process by increasing the value of $`R`$ in small steps. We have also tried various initial conditions. The results of all the numerical integrations remain the same for the same values of all the relevant parameters. In absence of rotation ($`T=0`$), only six modes are excited. This model then reproduces the results of the model  of zero P convection without rotation. In presence of rotation all twelve modes are excited as it should in a consistent model.

Figure 1 gives the stability boundaries of various possible solutions, in the parameter space $`RT`$, computed from the model dynamical system. The lowest line in this figure shows linear dependence  of $`R_c`$, the critical Rayleigh number, on Taylor number $`T`$ for the onset of stationary convection in zero Prandtl number Boussinesq fluid. The onset of overstability for the case of vanishing P for the Taylor numbers considered here is much above, and is not shown in the figure.

As Rayleigh number is raised above its critical value $`R_c(T)`$ for various values of Taylor number below $`T=6.0`$, conduction state becomes unstable via stationary bifurcation. However, 2D rolls with broken mirror symmetry  does not saturate until wavy perturbations interact with them. This saturates the growing rolls at finite amplitude even at the onset. The wavy perturbations are automatically generated when the amplitude of the 2D roll mode becomes large enough. The self-tuned waves consume the energy of 2D rolls and stop the unbounded growth of latter. This is precisely what happens when there is no rotation and 2D rolls have mirror symmetry.

The three rows of Fig. 2 show projections of the phase diagram, starting from left, in $`\zeta _{101}W_{101}`$, $`\zeta _{010}W_{101}`$, and $`W_{111}W_{101}`$ planes for various Rayleigh numbers (increasing downward) for fixed value of $`T`$ and $`q`$.

As Rayleigh number is increased slowly, the solution changes from one wavy solution to another through a thin regime showing period doubling solutions (see the middle row of Fig. 2). The first wavy solution $`SW1`$ has 2D mode $`W_{101}`$ with non-zero mean as in the absence of rotation in zero P convection , while the second wavy solution $`SW2`$ has 2D mode with zero mean. As Rayleigh number is increased, the exchange of energy from 2D modes to waves increases. The larger amplitude variation of vorticity modes is at the cost of energy of 2D rolls. This is well known feature in the case of oscillatory instability.

As $`T`$ is raised further, the rotation facilitates easily the exchange of more energy from the 2D roll mode $`W_{1010}`$ to the vertical vorticity mode $`\zeta _{101}`$ through linear coupling. We observe an interesting behavior for $`T>6`$ (see Fig. 1). The conduction state becomes unstable via stationary instability  but the final state just above onset is quasiperiodic waves . Figure 3 shows the variation of various modes with time. The amplitudes of all the modes begin modulating at the same frequency. However, the ratio of the frequency of wavy motion and that of amplitude modulation not an integer. The Fourier transform of these modes shows two independent frequencies. The frequency of amplitude modulation is much smaller compared to that for wavy motion. The sharp decrease of the amplitudes of higher order modes confirms the fast convergence of the expansion. The model, therefore, represents accurately the scenario close to the instability onset. Figure 4 shows the projections of phase space trajectories in various planes. It clearly describes the quasiperiodicity of the convective flow. The trajectories are confined in twelve dimensional torous in the phase space. The quasiperiodic behavior originates due to the nonlinear interaction among the 2D velocity mode $`W_{101}`$, the 2D vorticity mode $`\zeta _{101}`$ excited by rotation, and the wavy vorticity mode $`\zeta _{010}`$. Figure 5 reveals some interesting details of the time dependence of of convective patterns. The complex textures of the quasiperiodic patterns are shown over a period of wavy motion, which is much faster than the amplitude modulation. The halves of a period of wavy motion are quite asymmetric. The textures of the pattern at different times are never the same due to quasiperiodicity.

We have presented in this work a simple dynamical system, which describes the phenomenon of thermal convection in rotating Boussinesq fluid of zero Prandtl number very close to the onset. For Taylor number above a critical value $`T_c`$, quasiperiodic waves are observed at the instability onset. For very values of Taylor number below $`T_c`$, the coriolis force causes one wavy instability to another through period doubling instability. We have shown that convection might be possible as quasiperiodic waves, even if the principle of exchange of stability is valid according to linearized hydrodynamical system. The saturation to quasi-periodic convectie state is self-tuned purely due to the nonlinear effects. This is an example of new self-tuned bifurcation scenario from the conduction state to unsteady convective state. The model presented would also be useful to study an interesting possibility of transition from a state of rest to quasi-periodic chaos  at the primary instability.

Acknowledgements: This work was sponsored by DST, Govt. of India under its project “Pattern-forming instability and interface waves”.

Figure Caption

Fig. 1: Stability boundaries in the parameter space $`RT`$ just above the onset of convection. The conduction state is stable below the lowest straight line, which shows critical value $`R_c`$ of Rayleigh number as a function of Taylor number $`T`$ ($`q/K_c=0.4`$). The region marked $`QP`$ shows quasiperiodic waves. The regions denoted by $`SW1`$ and $`SW2`$ show two regimes of wavy solutions separated by a thin region where period-doubling is observed.

Fig. 2: Phase portrait for various values of Rayleigh number $`R`$ ($`T=2.0`$ and $`q/k_c=0.4`$). The top row, starting from left, shows the plots of modes $`\zeta _{101}`$, $`\zeta _{010}`$, and $`W_{111}`$ with respect to $`W_{101}`$ for $`R=663.0`$. The middle and the bottom rows show the same plots for $`R=664.95`$ and $`R=668`$ respectively. The top and the bottom rows two different wavy regimes $`SW1`$ and $`SW2`$ respectively, while the middle row represents period doubling corresponding to the narrow regime between $`SW1`$ and $`SW2`$ in Figure 1.

Fig. 3: Time variation of all the modes for $`T=10.0`$, $`q/k_c=0.4`$, and $`R=678.0`$ long after all transients are died out . The critical Rayleigh number $`R_c(T=10)=677.0768`$. Starting from left, the top row shows variation of $`W_{101}`$, $`W_{\overline{1}\overline{1}1}`$, $`W_{111}`$, and $`W_{012}`$ with time. The middle row shows variation of $`\zeta _{101}`$, $`\zeta _{010}`$, $`\zeta _{111}`$, $`\zeta _{200}`$, and the bottom row shows variation of $`\zeta _{012}`$, $`\zeta _{210}`$, $`\zeta _{\overline{2}\overline{1}0}`$, and $`\zeta _{\overline{1}\overline{1}0}`$.

Fig. 4: Phase space portraits showing quasiperiodic motion for $`T=10.0`$, $`q/k_c=0.4`$, and $`R=677.08`$. Starting clockwise from the left top, they show the projections of of the phase space in $`W_{101}W_{\overline{1}\overline{1}1}`$, $`\zeta _{101}W_{101}`$, $`\zeta _{\overline{2}\overline{1}0}W_{101}`$, and $`W_{012}W_{101}`$ planes. Some modes like $`\zeta _{\overline{2}\overline{1}0}`$ and $`W_{012}`$ have faster time period (i.e., period of wavy oscillation) double that of $`W_{101}`$.

Fig. 5: Contour plots ($`T=7.0`$, $`q/k_c=0.4`$, $`R=671.30`$) at $`z=0.25`$. Various textures of the pattern is shown over a period of faster time scale $`t_0`$ at the equal time interval of $`t_0/8`$. The sequence of time evolution of the pattern-texture is shown from left to right in each row starting from the top row.


text:
# Gravitational field of a rotating gravitational dyon

## Abstract

We have obtained the most general solution of the Einstein vacuum equation for the axially symmetric stationary metric in which both the Hamilton-Jacobi equation for particle motion and the Klein - Gordon equation are separable. It can be interpreted to describe the gravitational field of a rotating dyon, a particle endowed with both gravoelectric (mass) and gravomagnetic (NUT parameter) charge. Further, there also exists a duality relation between the two charges and the radial and the polar angle coordinates which keeps the solution invariant. The solution can however be transformed into the known Kerr - NUT solution indicating its uniqueness under the separability of equations of motion.

PACS numbers: 04.20.-q,04.70.Bw.

It is well-known that the Kerr solution is the unique two parameter solution of the Einstein vacuum equation for asymptotically flat axially symmetric stationary spacetime admitting regular smooth horizon. The two parameters represent mass and angular momentum of a rotating black hole. This is by far the most interesting black hole solution of the Einstein equation with important applications in high energy astrophysics. The vacuum black hole could thus be specified by only two parameters. This fact is expressed in the relativistic literature by the famous statement that black hole has no hair.

It is however worth enquiring, what happens if we drop asymptotic flatness? There do exist black hole spacetimes which are not asymptotically flat. There are examples of the NUT and the Kerr - NUT solutions , black holes sitting in uniform magnetic field  and in cosmological models , and the black holes in the de Sitter universe. That is, dropping of the asymptotic flatness condition is not entirely unphysical and unknown. It is therefore a pertinent question to seek the most general solution without the assumption of asymptotic flatness. Among the examples cited above, the NUT and the Kerr - NUT are the only vacuum solutions. The NUT solution does indeed present a rather unfamiliar situation. It can be interpreted as describing the field of a gravomagnetic monopole charge . It is however an interesting and novel solution.

The vacuum solutions are always interesting and more so the axially symmetric ones. A stationary vacuum spacetime is expected to be asymptotically flat representing a localized source. In spherical symmetry, there cannot exist asymptotically non-flat vacuum solution . On the other hand, axial symmetry however does not prohibit their existence. Do there exist such solutions other than the Kerr - NUT solution ? We shall in fact obtain the most general solution in a particular framework which is motivated by the solvability of basic physics equations. Our physical motivation is that the Hamilton - Jacobi (HJ) equation for particle motion and the Klein - Gordon (KG) equation must be separable in the variables of the metric which we seek as a solution of the Einstein equation. We would hence like to impose on the metric a priori the constraint of separability \[7,8-10\]. We then find the most general solution which can be transformed into the Kerr - NUT solution . That means it is unique under the assumption of separability of the equations of motion.

The Kerr solution is the unique solution for a rotating particle which has gravoelectric charge (mass). What happens when the particle has gravomagnetic charge (NUT parameter), the rotating analogue of the NUT solution? Since the NUT solution is asymptotically non flat, its rotating analogue would also have to be so. That means we should seek the general solution of the vacuum Einstein equation by dropping the requirement of asymptotic flatness so as to let the particle have both gravo-(electric and magnetic) charge, a gravitational dyon. It turns out that the Kerr-NUT solution is the general solution for a dyon particle with both charge.

One of us had developed a method  of implementing the constraint of separability on the axially symmetric metric. Since the spacetime is stationary and axially symmetric, it would admit two familiar Killing vectors, and the metric could in general be written as,

$$ds^2=Bdt^2Ad\phi ^2+2Cdtd\phi D\left(\frac{dr^2}{U^2}+\frac{d\lambda ^2}{V^2}\right)$$
(1)
where $`A,B,C,D`$ are functions of $`r`$ and $`\lambda `$, and $`U=U(r),V=V(\lambda )`$.

Now we demand that HJ equation should be separable in $`r`$ and $`\lambda `$, and also, as in the case of Newman - Penrose fromalism, the coordinate surfaces corresponding to these two coordinates should contain null geodesics. This will lead to the requirement that the quantities, $`AD/\rho ^2,BD/\rho ^2,CD/\rho ^2,D`$ are all functions of the type $`X(r)+Y(\theta )`$, where $`\rho ^2=AB+C^2`$ is the ($`t\phi `$) block determinant (for details, see ). Further, separability of KG equation will require $`\rho ^2=UV`$, which will also ensure the existence of horizon as a coordinate surface given by $`U=0`$. With all this taken into account, We can then following  write the metric in the form ,

$$ds^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }(dt+\alpha d\phi )^2(\mathrm{\Lambda })^1\left[(U^2a^2V^2)\left(\frac{dr^2}{U^2}+\frac{d\lambda ^2}{V^2}\right)+U^2V^2d\phi ^2\right]$$
(2)
where

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{U^2a^2V^2}{Fa^2G}},`$ (3)
$`\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`a{\displaystyle \frac{(FU^2)V^2(GV^2)U^2}{U^2a^2V^2}},`$ (4)
$`F`$ $`=`$ $`r^2+a^2,G=1\lambda ^2`$ (5)
and $`U=U(r),V=V(\lambda )`$. Here $`\lambda `$ is an angle coordinate and $`a`$ is a constant having dimension of length. We shall refer this as the separable metric, and we shall find the most general solution of the Einstein vacuum equation for it.

There are only two unspecified functions; one of the radial coordinate, $`(r)=FU^2`$ and the other of the angular coordinate, $`\mathrm{\Theta }(\lambda )=GV^2`$. Now the most general vacuum solution is given by

$$FU^2=2Mr+(1k)a^2,\mathrm{\Theta }GV^2=2N\lambda +1k$$
(6)
where $`M`$ is a constant of dimension of length while $`N`$ and $`k`$ are dimensionless constants. For the separable metric (2), the Ricci curvature has only five non zero components, and they readily yield the most general solution as given above . The most remarkable feature of this general solution is that it remains invariant under the duality transformation, $`MiaN,ria\lambda `$. Under this duality, $`Fa^2G,U^2a^2V^2,\mathrm{\Theta }`$, clearly exhibiting the symmetry of the spacetime metric.

We define the coordinate $`\theta `$ by integrating for the angle variable $`\lambda `$ in the metric (2) and obtain

$$\lambda =N+\sqrt{k+N^2}\mathrm{cos}\theta ,V^2=(k+N^2)\mathrm{sin}^2\theta .$$
(7)
In the Boyer - Lindquist coordinates, the metric (1) would read as,

$$ds^2=\frac{U^2}{\rho ^2}(dtaGd\phi )^2\frac{V^2}{\rho ^2}(Fd\phi adt)^2\frac{\rho ^2}{U^2}dr^2\rho ^2d\theta ^2$$
(8)
where $`\rho ^2=Fa^2G`$. Note that when $`\mathrm{\Theta }=0`$, which would imply $`N=0,k=1`$, the solution reduces to the familiar Kerr solution with $`M`$ and $`a`$ having the usual meaning. On the other hand, when $`=0`$ which implies $`M=0,k=1`$, it is again a non trivial vacuum solution which could be considered as dual to the the Kerr solution . When $`a=0`$, it reduces to the Schwarzschild solution with the deficit angle;i.e. $`\sqrt{k+N^2}\phi `$ in place of $`\phi `$. The angle deficit is the characteristic of the topological defect, cosmic string which causes a conical singularity .

When both $``$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ vanish, it is the flat Minkowski spacetime. These are the two potential functions for the axially symmetric vacuum spacetimes, which are respectively anchored on gravoelectric ($`M`$) and gravomagnetic ($`l=aN`$) charges. The Kerr solution has gravoelectric charge while its dual has gravo-magnetic charge . It is thus the duality of gravoelectric and gravomagnetic charges and fields, and the general solution is as shown above invariant under it.

Further of the new dimensionless parameters $`k,N`$, it turns out that $`k`$ is removable while $`N`$ contributes to the Riemann curvature components only in presence of the parameter $`a`$, else it could only produce deficit angle. That means it has physical meaning only in conjection with the parameter $`a`$. This suggests that it should be possible to define new dimensionfull parameter, $`l=aN`$, which would turn out to be the NUT parameter. When we do that, the solution gets transformed to the Kerr - NUT solution .

Write $`k=(b^2l^2)/a^2,N=l/a,a^2=d^2+b^2+l^2`$, $`\phi =(a/b)\overline{\phi },t=\overline{t}+(d^2/b)\phi `$ and $`\overline{\alpha }=(a\alpha +d^2)/b`$, and then a straightforward calculation (on dropping overhead bars and finally replacing $`b`$ by $`a`$) takes the metric (2) to the eqn. (8) form,

$$ds^2=\frac{U^2}{\rho ^2}\left(dtPd\phi \right)^2\frac{\rho ^2}{U^2}dr^2\frac{Q}{\rho ^2}\left((\rho ^2+aP)d\phi adt\right)^2\rho ^2d\theta ^2$$
(9)
where

$$FU^2=2Mr+l^2,PaQ=2l\mathrm{cos}\theta ,Q=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta .$$
(10)
This is the Kerr - NUT solution  where $`l`$ is the NUT parameter representing the gravomagnetic monopole charge . Thus the general solution we have found is actually the Kerr - NUT solution which is asymptotically non-flat. It is therefore the unique axially symmetric stationary vacuum solution for the separable metric in the form (2) or (8). It also contains the Kerr solution which is unique when the metric is asymptotically flat and admits regular event horizon. The present solution admits regular horizon but is not asymptotically flat. It is thus the non asymptotically flat generalization of the Kerr solution which is characterized by the separability of HJ and KG equations.

We have thus obtained the most general vacuum solution for separable axially symmetric stationary spacetime. It describes the field of a rotating gravitational dyon, a particle having both electric and magnetic gravitational charge. On further demand of asymptotic flatness, the magnetic charge gets switched off and it reduces to the familiar Kerr solution having only the electric charge, mass. It is interesting to note that asymptotic non flatness is therefore the characteristic property of the grovomagnetic charge, the NUT parameter $`l`$. Further note that the existence of regular horizon is implied by separability of KG equation, while separability of HJ equation does not imply asymptotic flatness, and thereby leaving room open for a more general (than the Kerr) solution, which can also accommodate gravomagnetic charge. It turns out to be the known Kerr - NUT solution.

We have reduced the parameters from four to three (and in particular $`a,k,N`$ to $`b,l`$, and then $`b`$ is written as $`a`$), now all of them are dimensionfull. That means all the three parameters, $`a,k,N`$ were not independent. However, the transformation to the Kerr - NUT form requires both $`a`$ and $`b`$ to be non-zero. When $`a=0`$, the original metric reduces to the Schwarzschild solution with deficit angle while in the Kerr - NUT form it reduces to the NUT solution which would go to the Schwarzschild when $`l=0`$.

In the Kerr - NUT form, when $`PaQ=0`$, it reduces to the Kerr solution while $`FU^2=0`$ gives the dual to the Kerr solution. In the Kerr solution, the primary charge is gravoelectric denoted by $`M`$, while in the dual solution it is gravomagnetic denoted by the NUT parameter $`l`$. It is the rotation parameter $`a`$ which is responsible for gravomagnetic in the former and gravoelectric effects in the latter. These two solutions are therefore truly dual where their primary charge is interchanged .

The electric charge could be easily included by replacing $`2Mr`$ in the general solution (6) by $`2Mrq^2`$, where $`q`$ is the electric charge on the black hole. We have then verified that the scalar curvature $`R`$ vanishes and the stresses could be generated from the electromagnetic field of a rotating electric charge. When $`a=0`$, it would reduce to the Reissner - Nordstr$`\ddot{o}`$m solution. We have thus a four parameter family of electrovac black hole spacetime which is the non asymptotically flat or NUT generalization of the Kerr - Newman black hole. This is the most general electrovac black hole solution . The Vaidya generalization of a black hole solution, in which there is a radial null radiation flux, could be accomplished by transforming the black hole metric into the Eddington coordinates, and then taking $`M`$ as a function of the retarded time. The same procedure could be implemented for the metric (9) as well to get its radiating generalization . The stresses conform to the Vaidya null fluid asymptotically.

We have shown that, like the Kerr solution, the Kerr-NUT solution is also unique for the separability of HJ and KG equations. In other words, we have identified the conditions for uniqueness of the Kerr - NUT solution. The NUT family is the gravomagnetic analogue of the familiar gravoelectric Kerr family, and the two are dual of each-other. The uniqueness of the Kerr - NUT family is therefore very pertinent and important because it describes the field of a gravitational dyon. The most remarkable feature of the general solution is the duality symmetry of the spacetime metric (2-5) which exhibits the duality relation between the mass and the NUT parameters. This is a very interesting and important feature which is being exhibited for the first time. The rotation parameter, $`a`$, plays the key facilitative role in the duality transformation. In its absence, Schwarzschild and NUT solutions exhibit no such duality. That means the NUT parameter by itself cannot be dual to gravoelectric charge, mass. It acquires that character only when it is rotating. It would be interesting to study physical properties of the dual Kerr spacetime, and in particular quantum fields and the effects they might give rise to.

As the Kerr solution is unique for a rotating black hole, the Kerr - NUT solution is thus unique for a rotating dyon black hole endowed with both electric and magnetic gravitational charge.

Acknowledgment: We wish to thank Parampreet Singh for his help in verifying the solution at various stages of its evolution. ZYT wishes to thank ICTP, Trieste for a travel grant under the BIPTUN program and IUCAA for warm hospitality. This result was first presented by one of us (ND)in the Workshop on Super String Theory, April, 23 - May, 12, 2001, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.


text:
# Spontaneous stripe order at certain even-denominator fractions in the lowest Landau level

## Abstract

An understanding of the physics of half or quarter filled lowest Landau level has been achieved in terms of a Fermi sea of composite fermions, but the nature of the state at other even-denominator fractions has remained unclear. We investigate in this work Landau level fillings of the form $`\nu =(2n+1)/(4n+4)`$, which correspond to composite fermion fillings $`\nu ^{}=n+1/2`$. By considering various plausible candidate states, we rule out the composite-fermion Fermi sea and paired composite-fermion state at these filling factors, and predict that the system phase separates into stripes of $`n`$ and $`n+1`$ filled Landau levels of composite fermions.

The Coulomb interaction between electrons in two dimensions confined to the lowest Landau level expresses itself most strongly through the binding of an even number of quantum mechanical vortices on each electron and thereby creating particles known as composite fermions . The residual interaction between composite fermions is weak and unimportant under many situations, in the sense that it does not alter the nature of the state in a qualitative manner. For example, at the odd-denominator fractions $`\nu =n/(2pn\pm 1)`$, which correspond to integral fillings $`\nu ^{}=n`$ of composite fermions carrying $`2p`$ vortices, the inter-composite fermion (CF) interaction can often be neglected due to the presence of the effective cyclotron gap. The model of free composite fermions is thus adequate for understanding the basic phenomenology of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE). In recent years, focus has shifted to the more subtle physics arising from the weak inter-CF interaction. It has been shown that it destabilizes delicate FQHE states in higher Landau levels and at small filling factors in the lowest Landau levels, causes a pairing instability of the CF Fermi sea in the second Landau level  (LL), enters in the spin physics of composite fermions , and also affects various response functions .

The state at $`\nu =1/2p`$, obtained in the $`n\mathrm{}`$ limit of the $`\nu =n/(2pn\pm 1)`$ sequence, is well described as a Fermi sea of composite fermions carrying $`2p`$ vortices , called 2pCFs. However, our understanding of other even denominator fractions is less satisfactory. This issue has gained renewed urgency in view of recent experiments at ultra low temperatures where some new structure has started to appear between the $`\nu =n/(2pn\pm 1)`$ fractions . We will consider in this work even denominator fractions of the form $`\nu =(2n+1)/(4n+4)`$, which correspond to composite fermion filling factors $`\nu ^{}=n+1/2`$, according to the relation $`\nu =\nu ^{}/(2\nu ^{}+1)`$. At these filling factors, the topmost CF-Landau level is only partially occupied, and it is crucial to incorporate the inter-CF interaction, without which the ground state would have an enormous degeneracy. We ask what finer structure the weak interaction produces. It will be assumed that the spin is frozen, as appropriate for sufficiently high magnetic fields. Our conclusions will also apply to $`\nu =(2n+3)/(4n+4)`$ due to particle hole symmetry in the lowest LL.

Several interesting states have been discovered at electron filling factors $`\nu =n+1/2`$, which will serve as the paradigms for the discussion below. In the lowest Landau level ($`\nu =1/2`$) electrons transform into composite fermions which condense into a 2CF Fermi sea . In the second LL ($`\nu =2+1/2`$) electrons turn into composite fermions, which are believed to form Cooper pairs . In yet higher Landau levels, electrons do not capture vortices but instead exhibit a stripe phase .

Which state actually occurs depends on the interaction matrix elements, and it is therefore important to have a good model for the inter-CF interaction, $`V^{CF}(r)`$. We proceed as follows. In order to treat the state at $`\nu ^{}=n+1/2`$, we start with the state with $`\nu ^{}=n`$ filled Landau levels of composite fermions and add two additional composite fermions in the lowest empty CF Landau level. Following the standard procedure for writing the wave functions for composite fermions , the wave function for this state is given by $`𝒫_{LLL}\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{++m}`$, where where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ is the wave function of one filled LL, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{++m}`$ is the wave function of the electron state in which $`n`$ LLs are fully occupied and the $`(n+1)`$st LL contains two electrons in a relative angular momentum $`m`$ state, and $`𝒫_{LLL}`$ is the lowest LL projection operator. The explicit form for the general wave functions of this kind is given in the literature ; the calculation of energy requires evaluation of multi-dimensional integrals which is accomplished by the Monte Carlo method. (The spherical geometry  is used in our calculations.) This provides the pseudopotentials  $`V_m^{CF}`$, which completely specify the interaction between two composite fermions in the $`(n+1)`$st CF-LL. Similar studies have been done previously , except that here $`V_m^{CF}`$ are evaluated for fairly large systems, believed to give a good approximation for the thermodynamic limit. We then construct a real space interaction between composite fermions; for convenience, we map the problem of composite fermions in any arbitrary CF-LL into a problem of fermions in the lowest LL. There is no unique prescription for this, because many real space interactions produce the same pseudopotentials, but we find it convenient to use a potential of the form:

$$V^{CF}(r)=\left(\underset{j}{}c_jr^{2j}e^{r^2}+\frac{(2n+1)^{5/2}}{r}\right)\left[\frac{e^2}{ϵl_0}\right]$$
(1)
The last term gives the Coulomb interaction between two particles of appropriate fractional charge. The distance $`r`$ is measured in units of the effective magnetic length $`\mathrm{}`$, but the energies are measured in units of $`e^2/ϵl_0`$ where $`l_0`$ is the magnetic length at the actual electron filling factor $`\nu `$ and $`ϵ`$ is the dielectric constant of the background material. We fix the first few parameters $`c_j`$ by requiring that $`V^{CF}(r)`$ produce the first 5 to 6 odd pseudopotentials exactly. A comparison between $`V_m^{CF}`$ and the pseudopotentials of $`V^{CF}(r)`$ (Fig. 1) shows that $`V^{CF}(r)`$ is a good approximation for all distances. We have thus mapped the problem of $`N`$ composite fermions in the $`(n+1)`$st LL into that of $`N`$ fermions at an effective filling in the lowest LL interacting with an effective potential. Only the composite fermions in the topmost half filled CF-LLs will be considered explicitly; the completely occupied CF-LLs appear only through their role in determining the inter-CF interaction. We note that the interaction between composite fermions is remarkedly different from that between electrons in the corresponding higher LLs. In the second CF-LL, it is most strongly repulsive in the $`m=3`$ channel, and in higher CF-LLs, the interaction is actually attractive, with the lowest energy obtained in the $`m=1`$ channel.

Our conclusions below will be subject to two assumptions. (i) We assume that mixing with higher CF-LLs can be neglected, i.e., the inter-CF interaction is weak compared to the effective CF-cyclotron energy. There is evidence that this is an excellent approximation: the states containing several composite fermions are accurately described without considering mixing between CF-LLs . (ii) We further assume that the interaction energy of many composite fermions in the $`(n+1)`$st CF-LL is well approximated by a sum of two-body terms. An examination of configurations containing three composite fermions in the second CF-LL indicates that this is a good approximation .

The first state that we consider is the Fermi sea, in which the 2CFs capture two additional vortices to become 4CFs, which then form a Fermi sea. (The composite fermions in the lower, fully occupied CF-LLs remain 2CFs; this state thus contains an admixture of two different flavors of composite fermions.) The wave function of the Fermi sea is

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{FS}=𝒫_{LLL}\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{}}$$
(2)
The thermodynamic limit for the energy of the 4CF sea is obtained by an extrapolation of finite system results, as shown in Fig. (2). Since we are interested in comparing energies obtained by different methods, it is important to carefully define the total energy; we will consistently take the same form for the electron-electron, electron-background, and background-background interactions in all our calculations. All energies are quoted relative to the energy of an uncorrelated uniform state, explained below.

We do not expect the ground state to be the 4CF sea because the stability of the Fermi sea requires a strong short range repulsion, which is not the case with composite fermions in higher CF-LLs . In fact, in the third and higher CF-LLs, the interaction between the composite fermions is attractive, which might suggest pairing of composite fermions. The paired state of composite fermions is represented by the Pfaffian wave function

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{Pf}=\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2\mathrm{Pf}[M]`$ (3)
where $`\mathrm{Pf}[M]`$ is the Pfaffian of the $`N\times N`$ antisymmetric matrix $`M`$ with components $`M_{ij}=(u_iv_jv_iu_j)^1`$, where $`u_j\mathrm{cos}(\theta _j/2)\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi _j/2)`$ and $`v_j\mathrm{sin}(\theta _j/2)\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi _j/2)`$. $`\mathrm{Pf}[M]`$ is a real space BCS wave function, so $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{Pf}`$ describes a paired state of composite fermions. Again, since our base particle is a 2CF, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{Pf}`$ contains pairing of 4CFs. The energy of this state, given in Fig. (2), beats the Fermi sea at $`\nu =3/8`$ and $`7/16`$, raising the intriguing possibility of a FQHE, induced by pairing, at certain even denominator fractions in the lowest Landau level.

However, it is important to study the stability of any candidate FQHE state to quantum fluctuations . We consider the density-wave excitation of the Pfaffian wave function in the single mode approximation , described by the wave function $`𝒫_{LLL}\rho _k\mathrm{\Psi }_{Pf}`$, where $`\rho _k`$ is the density operator at wave vector $`k`$. We calculate the energy of this excitation following Ref. , with the help of the pair correlation function of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{Pf}`$ . The excitation energy is shown in Fig. (3) as a function of the wave vector, and indicates that the paired state is unstable.

These results rule out the 4CF Fermi sea as well as 4CF pairing at the filling factors considered here. We have also carried out  exact diagonalization at the flux values corresponding to the Fermi sea and the Pfaffian wave function in the spherical geometry, and found that the ground state does not have orbital angular momentum $`L=0`$, i.e., is not a uniform density state. The fact that the instability occurs at non-zero wave vectors in Fig. (3) also hints that the true ground state may not be a translationally invariant liquid.

Besides pairing, another possible consequence of an attractive interaction is phase separation. Due to the long range Coulomb interaction, the phase separation is likely to manifest itself here through the formation of stripes. We calculate the Hartree-Fock energy of the stripe state of 2CFs following the method of Koulakov et al.. The interaction Hamiltonian is given by

$$\widehat{V}=\frac{(2\pi )^3}{2L_xL_y}\underset{𝐪}{}\stackrel{~}{V}^{CF}(𝐪)\rho (𝐪)\rho (𝐪)$$
(4)
where $`\rho (𝐪)`$ is the density operator and $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{CF}(𝐪)`$ is the Fourier transform of $`V^{CF}(r)`$. Subsequent to a Hartree-Fock decomposition, the expectation value of the interaction energy can be written as

$$<\widehat{V}>=\frac{(2\pi )^3}{2L_xL_y}\underset{𝐪}{}\stackrel{~}{U}_{HF}(q)\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐪)\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐪)$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐪)\frac{1}{2\pi }_ke^{ikq_x\mathrm{}^2}<a_{k_+}^{}a_k_{}>`$, $`\stackrel{~}{U}_{HF}(q)=\stackrel{~}{U}(q)\mathrm{}^2U(q\mathrm{}^2)`$, $`\stackrel{~}{U}(q)V^{CF}(q)e^{\frac{1}{2}q^2\mathrm{}^2}`$, and $`k_\pm =kq_y/2`$. The $`𝐪=0`$ term, which corresponds to the uniform (uncorrelated) state, is treated separately: the direct part is canceled by the background, and the exchange part is taken as the reference energy, given by

$$E_0=N\overline{\nu }\frac{U(0)}{2}$$
(6)
where $`\overline{\nu }=1/2`$. The contribution coming from nonzero values of $`𝐪`$ is called the coherence energy, $`E_{coh}`$.

The stripe phase with period $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ corresponds to the choice:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(x,y)=\frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}^2}\underset{q}{}\frac{2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{q\mathrm{\Lambda }\overline{\nu }}{2})}{\mathrm{\Lambda }q}e^{iqx}$$
(7)
where $`q=\frac{2j\pi }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$, with $`j=\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$. This gives

$$E_{coh}=\frac{1}{2\overline{\nu }\mathrm{}^2}\underset{q}{}\stackrel{~}{U}_{HF}(q)\left(\frac{2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{q\mathrm{\Lambda }\overline{\nu }}{2})}{\mathrm{\Lambda }q}\right)^2$$
(8)
We compute it as a function of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The lowest energy, shown in Fig. (2), is obtained at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/l_0=`$ 10, 28, and 34 for $`\nu =3/8`$, 5/12, and 7/16. The period is rather large compared to that for the electron stripes in higher LLs (for which $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/l_0`$ is of order unity), which is not surprising because (i) the period of the stripes is controlled by the effective magnetic length, and (ii) the difference between the densities of the FQHE states on either side is quite small. The stripe phase has lower energy than both the Fermi-sea and paired states.

For completeness, we have also considered the Wigner crystal of “bubbles” , with each bubble containing in general several electrons. For a honeycomb lattice with lattice constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$, the radius of a bubble is $`R=\sqrt{\frac{\sqrt{3}\overline{\nu }}{2\pi }}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ and

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)=\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^2}\underset{𝐪}{}\frac{R}{\mathrm{}^2q}J_1(qR)e^{i𝐪𝐫}$$
(9)
where $`𝐪=m_1𝐞_\mathrm{𝟏}+m_2𝐞_\mathrm{𝟐}`$ with $`𝐞_\mathrm{𝟏}=\frac{4\pi }{\sqrt{3}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b}\widehat{y}`$, $`𝐞_\mathrm{𝟐}=\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b}\widehat{x}\frac{2\pi }{\sqrt{3}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b}\widehat{y}`$, and $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ being integers. The coherence energy for the bubble phase is

$$E_{coh}=\frac{4\pi }{\sqrt{3}\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^2}\underset{𝐪}{}\stackrel{~}{U}_{HF}(q)\left(\frac{R}{A\mathrm{}^2q}J_1(qR)\right)^2$$
(10)
The lowest energy, shown in Fig. (2), is determined by considering bubbles with various occupancies, and has higher energy than the stripe phase at all of the filling factors considered here.

In the above, the filling factor $`\nu ^{}=n+1/2`$ is viewed as half filling of CF particles on top of $`n`$ filled CF-LLs. We have also considered the complementary approach in which it is modeled as half filling of CF holes on the background of $`n+1`$ filled CF-LLs. The stripe phase again has the lowest energy, which gives us further confidence in the robustness of our result.

The electron stripes in higher electronic Landau levels have revealed themselves through an anisotropic transport at temperatures below $``$ 50 mK . The conditions for the observation of CF stripes are more stringent. Estimates of the critical temperature from the Hartree Fock theory are not quantitatively reliable, but noting that the effective interaction between composite fermions at $`\nu ^{}=n+1/2`$ is roughly an order of magnitude smaller than for electrons at $`\nu =n+1/2`$, as measured by the pseudopotentials, we expect the critical temperature to also be similarly reduced. Also, the much larger period suggests the need for a high degree of density homogeneity.

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants DMR-9986806 and DGE 9987589.


text:
# Do mirror planets exist in our solar system?

## Abstract

Mirror matter is predicted to exist if parity is an unbroken symmetry of nature. Currently, there is a large amount of evidence that mirror matter actually exists coming from astrophysics and particle physics. One of the most fascinating (but speculative) possibilities is that there is a significant abundance of mirror matter within our solar system. If the mirror matter condensed to form a large body of planatary or stellar mass then there could be interesting observable effects. Indeed studies of long period comets suggest the existence of a solar companion which has escaped direct detection and is therefore a candidate for a mirror body. Nemesis, hypothetical “death star” companion of the Sun, proposed to explain biological mass extinctions, may potentially be a mirror star. We examine the prospects for detecting these objects if they do indeed exist and are made of mirror matter.

dark matter  stars: individual (Nemesis)

One of the most interesting candidates for dark matter coming from particle physics is “mirror matter”. Mirror matter is predicted to exist if parity is a symmetry of Nature (Lee and Yang 1956, Kobzarev et al. 1966, Pavšič 1974, Foot et al. 1991). The idea is that for each ordinary particle, such as the photon, electron, proton and neutron, there is a corresponding mirror particle, of exactly the same mass as the ordinary particle. The fundamental interactions of the mirror particles precisely mirrors those of the ordinary particles. For example, the mirror proton interacts with the mirror photon in precisely the same way in which an ordinary proton interacts with an ordinary photon. The mirror particles are not produced in laboratory experiments just because they couple very weakly to the ordinary particles. In the modern language of gauge theories, the mirror particles are all singlets under the standard $`GSU(3)SU(2)_LU(1)_Y`$ gauge interactions. Instead the mirror particles interact with a set of mirror gauge particles, so that the gauge symmetry of the theory is doubled, i.e. $`GG`$ (the ordinary particles are, of course, singlets under the mirror gauge symmetry) (Foot et al. 1991). Parity is conserved because the mirror particles experience $`V+A`$ mirror weak interactions and the ordinary particles experience the usual $`VA`$ weak interactions. Ordinary and mirror particles interact with each other predominately by gravity only.

While mirror matter has always been extremely well motivated theoretically, it is only in relatively recent times that the experimental and observational evidence for it has accumulated to the point where an impressive case for its existence can be made (for a review of the current status of mirror matter, see Foot 2001b). First, it provides a natural candidate for dark matter. Mirror matter is naturally dark and stable and appears to have the necessary properties to explain the dark matter inferred to exist in the Universe (Blinnikov and Khlopov 1982, 1983, Kolb et al. 1985, Khlopov et al. 1991, Hodges 1993, Matsas et al. 1998, Bell and Volkas 1999, Berezinsky and Vilenkin 2000, Berezhiani et al. 2000). On galactic scales, there is evidence from a recent weak microlensing study (Erben et al. 2000, Gray et al. 2001) for large clumps of invisible matter which might be a mirror galaxy (or galaxy cluster) (Foot 2001b). Within galaxies such as our own Milky way, mirror matter may be the dominant component of the halo, thereby explaining the MACHO observations (Silagadze 1997, Blinnikov 1998, Foot 1999, Mohapatra and Teplitz 1999) 111The conventional red, brown or white dwarf interpretation of these MACHO events have real problems (see e.g. Freese et al. 1999). It is also possible that the MACHO events are due to lens in the LMC (and not actually in the halo of our galaxy), however this interpretation also is problematic (see for example, Gyuk et al. 1999).. On small scales (such as solar system scale) systems containing ordinary and mirror matter could exist but it is likely that they should be quite unequally mixed (e.g. 99% ordinary matter and 1% mirror matter). This is because ordinary and mirror matter are naturally segregated on small scales as they don’t have common dissipative interactions (Blinnikov and Khlopov 1982, 1983, Kolb et al. 1985, Khlopov et al. 1991). In fact, the strange properties of some of the extrasolar planets may be explained more naturally if they are mirror planets (Foot 1999b, 2001a). Furthermore, recent Hubble Space Telescope star count results show the deficit of local luminous matter (Blinnikov 1999, 2000; However there is some controversy with Hipparcos satellite data, see Holmberg and Flynn 1998), expected if the population of the mirror stars in the galactic disk is numerous enough (Blinnikov and Khlopov 1982, 1983).

On quite a different tack, there is evidence for mirror matter coming from the solar and atmospheric neutrino anomalies (Foot et al. 1992, Foot 1994, Foot and Volkas 1995. For a review of the neutrino physics anomalies, see e.g. Langacker 1999). Ordinary and mirror neutrinos are maximally mixed with each other if neutrinos have mass (Foot et al. 1992, Foot 1994, Foot and Volkas 1995). The maximal $`\nu _e\nu _e^{}`$ (the  denote the mirror particle) oscillations predict an approximate $`50\%`$ $`\nu _e`$ flux reduction thereby explaining the solar neutrino experiments while the maximal $`\nu _\mu \nu _\mu ^{}`$ oscillations predict the up-down neutrino asymmetry observed in Super-Kamiokande (Fukuda et al. 1998a, 1998b) (see e.g. Foot et al. 1998, Foot 2000, Fornengo et al. 2000 for a fit of maximal $`\nu _\mu \nu _\mu ^{}`$ oscillations to the data). The idea is also compatible with the LSND experiment (Foot et al. 1992, Foot 1994, Foot and Volkas 1995). Interestingly, maximal ordinary - mirror neutrino oscillations do not pose any problems for big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and can even fit the inferred primordial abundances better than the standard model (Foot and Volkas 1997, 2000).

Finally there are several other interesting effects of mirror matter which have been discussed such as photon - mirror photon kinetic mixing (Holdom 1986, Glashow 1986, Carlson and Glashow 1987, Collie and Foot 1998), Higgs \- mirror Higgs mixing (Foot et al. 1991, H. Lew, unpublished) and possible ordinary - mirror particle interactions (Silagadze 1999) expected in currently popular models of large extra dimensions (Akama 1982, Rubakov and Shaposhnikov 1983, Arkani-Hamed et al. 1998). It should also be noted that there are variants of the mirror matter idea where the mirror symmetry is assumed to be spontaneously broken (Barr et al. 1991, Akhmedov et al. 1992, Foot and Lew 1994, Berezhiani and Mohapatra 1995, Berezhiani et al. 1996, Berezhiani 1996, Mohapatra and Sciama 1998, Lindebaum et al. 2000).

Given the possibility that many nearby stars have “hot jupiters”, which may really be “cool mirror planets”, it is possible that there are also mirror stars/planets/comets etc gravitationally bound to our sun. Of course, any very nearby large planet would have been detected via its gravitational influence. A more distant companion is a priori a fascinating possibility. In fact there is some evidence for the existence of such objects from biological mass extinctions and recent studies of long period comets as we now discuss.

Over the past 15 years or so there has been speculation that there is a companion star to the sun, called “Nemesis” (Whitmire and Jackson 1984, Davis et al. 1984). The motivation for Nemesis was based on studies suggesting that biological mass extinctions displayed some periodicity (on a time scale of about 26 million years) which required an extraterrestrial cause (Raup and Sepkoski 1984). It was also argued that the ages of craters displayed a similar periodicity (Rampino and Stothers 1984, Alvarez and Muller 1984). The idea is that Nemesis would have a moderately eccentric orbit with an orbital period of 26 million years, which would periodically disturb the Oort cloud and cause comets to enter into the inner solar system and trigger the mass extinctions. Subsequent searches for Nemesis failed to find it (Perlmutter 1986) and also some studies suggested that its orbit was likely to be unstable (see e. g. Clube and Napier 1984). However if the orbit is near the galactic plane, the current Nemesis’s lifetime can be as big as $`10^9`$ years (Hut 1984, Torbett and Smoluchowski 1984, Vandervoort and Sather 1993). This lifetime is not long enough for Nemesis to have been in such a large orbit at the formation of the solar system, about $`5\times 10^9`$ years ago. However at the formation of the solar system, at which time Nemesis was also presumably formed, the orbit may have been much tighter, expanding to the present orbit as a consequence of tidal perturbations from passing stars and molecular clouds (Hut 1984). It has been argued that the perturbations by gigantic molecular clouds may be the most serious threat for stability of Nemesis (Clube and Napier 1984), but it has also been argued that the very diffuse nature of these massive clouds greatly reduces the possible effect (Morris and Muller 1986).

Recently, new much more direct evidence for planetary or stellar companions to the sun has also emerged. Two groups (Murray 1999, Matese et al. 1999) have studied the orbits of long period comets. They find that there is a statistically significant excess of aphelion distances of long-period comets aligned on a great circle (for comets in the 30k-50k A.U. range). The approach of the two groups was quite different, with the Murray 1999 taking a subsample of the most accurately observed long period comets while Matese et al. 1999 used a larger sample, but included less well observed comets. Apparently, the two groups find somewhat different great circles, which can mean several things. It might mean that there are two companions, or only one companion (if one of the groups is mistaken) or no such companion (if they both screwed up). For example, the study of Murray 1999 finds that the data suggests the existence of a large planet or star with orbital period of around 6 million years (which implies a distance from the sun of about 32000 A.U. for a circular orbit). The analysis suggests that the orbital plane of the companion planet/star was inclined at roughly $`35^o`$ to the galactic plane with a retrograde orbit. Interestingly, both of these characteristics, the relatively low inclination to the galactic plane and the retrograde orbit were already identified as necessary conditions for the stability of such orbit (Hut 1984, Torbett and Smoluchowski 1984, Vandervoort and Sather 1993). Thus, it seems to be possible that the hypothetical planet/star identified in Murray 1999 was an original member of the solar system. Clearly, further data should clarify whether such companions really exist.

If companion stars/planets do exist, then it is possible that they are light enough to be below the hydrogen burning threshold and may have escaped detection. However, another possibility is that the companion objects may be made of mirror matter (the possibility that Nemesis exists and is made of mirror matter was earlier discussed in Silagadze 2001 222 The possibility that the protosolar nebula could contain “shadow” matter and its evolution could lead to the formation of some mirror solar objects, like Nemesis, was also mentioned in Kolb et al. 1985. But this idea was not further developed in Kolb et al. 1985 and even taken seriously, because it was thought that big bang nucleosynthesis data excludes the “shadow world” with completely symmetric microphysics.). This will give a simple explanation for why their orbital plane is inclined with respect to the ecliptic (naturally, tidal perturbations may have modified their orbits somewhat over time too). Indeed, because ordinary and mirror matter couple together mainly by gravity, it is natural for the ordinary and mirror parts of nebula (from which the solar system was made) to have different initial conditions, like angular momentum. If the galaxy contains a significant amounts of mirror matter, such mixed protosolar nebula can be formed, for example, during inter-penetration of ordinary and mirror giant molecular clouds (Khlopov et al. 1991).

Of course it is certainly true that if there is a mirror matter companion within our solar system then its existence will be challenging to establish. Nevertheless it is important to keep in mind that this possibility, which might be true, is in principle a testable hypothesis!

First of all let us mention some indirect checks. If the Sun-Nemesis constitute a mixed binary system there will be other similar star systems around. We have already mentioned strange properties of some recently observed extrasolar planets and their interpretation as mirror planets orbiting ordinary stars (Foot 1999, 2001a). One can imagine a reversed situation: an ordinary planet orbiting mirror star. Remarkably eighteen “isolated planetary mass objects” were actually discovered (Zapatero Osorio et al. 2000, Lucas and Roche 2000; See also Tamura et al. 1998) in $`\sigma `$ Orionis star cluster. Instead of being really isolated, which will challenge conventional theories of planet formation, these objects could be ordinary Jovian type planets orbiting invisible mirror stars (Foot et al. 2000a). This idea can be tested by searching for a periodic Doppler shift of absorption lines in the planet emanation spectra (Foot et al. 2000a), or/and by Planetary Microlensing technique (Mao and Paczyński 1991; For recent review see Sackett 1999).

Photon-mirror photon mixing can effect the orthopositronium lifetime (Glashow 1986) and lead to an interesting resolution of the orthopositronium lifetime puzzle (Foot and Gninenko 2000). If the mixing parameter has indeed the magnitude required for the mirror world interpretation of the orthopositronium anomaly (and this will be experimentally tested in future vacuum cavity experiments), a new window will be opened in mirror matter searches in the solar system. As mirror meteoroids would effectively interact with Earth’s atmosphere in this case, releasing most of their kinetic energy in the atmosphere and possibly ending in atmospheric explosion (Foot 2001b, Foot and Gninenko 2000). In such “Tunguska-like” events neither meteoroid fragments nor any significant crater would be found. Also, any ordinary matter accreted onto the mirror companion can potentially become hot due to the coupling of mirror matter to ordinary matter via the photon -mirror photon mixing. This may make the mirror companion potentially observable (and may be appear to have the characteristics of a strange type of white dwarf, especially if the companion object is of stellar weight) (Foot et al. 2000b).

Another means of investigating the Nemesis hypothesis is provided by exploration of cratering rates of the nearby celestial bodies such as the Moon and the Mars. It was argued (Muller 1993) that the age distribution of craters on the Moon can be studied by using lunar spherulus. A pilot study had been already performed (Culler et al. 2000) using 155 spherulus from the lunar soil delivered by Appolo-14 mission. The results are promising. From 3 Gyr ago until about 0.4 Gyr ago the inferred cratering rate gradually decreases. This is consistent with expectation that the density of potential impactors (asteroids and comets) should decrease as time goes by, because Jupiter slowly eliminates them by deflecting them into the Sun or ejecting them out of the solar system. At 0.4 Gyr, however, the rate suddenly increases by a factor of $`3.7\pm 1.2`$ and returns to the level it had 3 Gyr earlier. This fact has “a ready explanation” (Culler et al. 2000) in the framework of the Nemesis hypothesis. One can imagine that just about 0.4 Gyr ago the Nemesis was perturbed into a more eccentric orbit by a passing star, thus becoming able to approach the Oort cloud closely at every subsequent perihelions and trigger comet showers.

The median age uncertainty, achieved thus far in the lunar spherule project, is about 150 Myr not sufficient to resolve a 26 Myr periodicity – the main prediction of the Nemesis hypothesis. But future similar studies will hopefully reach the necessary precision. If the 26 Myr periodicity in cratering rates is unambiguously established but the Nemesis nevertheless is not found in future parallax surveys of the stars as dim as 10th magnitude (the Hipparcos satellite surveyed only about 1/4 of the known candidates (Culler et al. 2000)), the mirror option will get strong support.

Even if mirror solar companions exist and are invisible, then their existence could still be confirmed! Even completely dark compact gravitating objects reveal themselves through the gravitational lensing effect they produce on background stars (Paczyński 1997, Roulet and Mollerach 1997). It is expected that Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), planned to be launched in 2005, will allow a determination of the mass, the distance, and the proper motion of virtually any MACHO capable of inducing a microlensing event (Miralda-Escudé 1996, Paczyński 1998). For putative microlensing event due to Nemesis the angular Einstein ring radius would be (Paczyński 1998)

$$\phi _E90\mathrm{mas}\sqrt{\frac{M_N}{M_{}}}\sqrt{\frac{1\mathrm{pc}}{D_N}},$$

where $`M_N`$ is the Nemesis mass and $`D_N`$ the distance to it. Thus it will be resolved by SIM which is expected to have angular resolution of about 10 mas. Therefore if such a microlensing event is really detected, it will give a very detailed information about Nemesis. The only problem is that because the present position of the Nemesis is unknown we are forced to relay merely on a chance to discover the event or perform a full sky dedicated search for it.

Whether or not mirror matter exists will become clearer as time goes by. In the mean time, it is fun to think about the implications of fascinating possibilities such as mirror planets in our solar system. In addition to the (admittedly very speculative) evidence for faint solar companions provided by observations discussed above, it is also possible that some other much closer and smaller mirror planet can also exist. Over time, if its orbit is eccentric enough, such planet can approach to various “normal” solar planets and cause observed oddities in the solar system, like Pluto’s orbit. We can also speculate that the formation of the Moon was a result of tidal fission of the Earth caused by a close encounter with a mirror planet.

But speculations apart, the hypothesis that there are some mirror objects in the solar system is in principle testable hypothesis, because these mirror objects can lead to observable effects due to their gravitational interactions and they may also observably radiate if they contain enough ordinary matter.

Acknowledgement

R.F. is an Australian Research Fellow. We also thank J. B. Murray and J. Matese for correspondence.


text:
# New Method of Extracting non-Gaussian Signals in the CMB

## Abstract

Searching for and charactering the non-Gaussianity (NG) of a given field has been a vital task in many fields of science, because we expect the consequences of different physical processes to carry different statistical properties. Here we propose a new general method of extracting non-Gaussian features in a given field, and then use simulated cosmic microwave background (CMB) as an example to demonstrate its power. In particular, we show its capability of detecting cosmic strings.

With the cosmological principle as the basic premise, two currently competing theories for the origin of structure in the universe are inflation Guth  and topological defects VilShe ; Wu1 . Although the recent CMB observations seem to have favored the former maxiboom , the latter can still coexist with it. In particular, the observational verification of defects will have certain impact to the grand unified theory, since they are an inevitable consequence of the spontaneous symmetry-breaking phase transition in the early universe. In addition to the conventional study of the power spectra of cosmological perturbations, another way to distinguish these models is via the search for intrinsic NG—while the standard inflationary models predict Gaussianity, theories like isocurvature inflation Pee  and topological defects LSS-NG  generate NG. Here we shall propose a new method of extracting the NG from a given field nmoens , and then apply it to the CMB, which is arguably the cleanest cosmic signals HuSugSil .

The new method aims to nothing but removing the ‘Gaussian’ components: the mean and the power. Using an $`n`$-dimensional field $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱)`$ as an example, the method first Fourier transforms $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱)`$ to yield $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(𝐤)`$. Then the power spectrum can be estimated as $`C_k=|\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(𝐤)|^2_k/V^n`$, where $`V^n`$ is the $`n`$-dimensional volume of the field and $`k|𝐤|`$. Next we define and calculate ($`𝐤\text{ with }C_k0`$)

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_P(𝐤)=\left[\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(𝐤)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\mathrm{𝟎})\delta (𝐤)\right]C_k^{1/2}P_k^{1/2},$$
(1)
where $`\delta (𝐤)`$ is a Dirac Delta and $`P_k`$ is a given function of $`k`$. Finally, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_P(𝐤)`$ is transformed back to the real space $`\mathrm{\Delta }_P(𝐱)`$. Now the field $`\mathrm{\Delta }_P`$ has a mean $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ equal to zero and a power spectrum renormalized to $`P_k`$. For the simplest case $`P_k=1`$, the field $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is ‘whitened’ in the Fourier space, and we shall use the superscript ‘W’ to denote such whitened fields. In the real space, this means $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{W}D+\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$, where $``$ denotes a convolution, and $`D𝑑k^nC_k^{1/2}e^{i𝐤𝐱}`$. Thus $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is now decomposed into two parts: the ‘Gaussian components’, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ and $`D`$, which carry the information in the mean and the power spectrum, and the ‘NG component’, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{W}`$, which possesses all the remaining information. Therefore, if $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a Gaussian field, then all samples in $`\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{W}`$ should appear uncorrelated as pure white noise. Otherwise $`\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{W}`$ would contain all the non-Gaussian features nmoens . We note that the above treatment can be easily converted to the conventional multipole transform for the CMB, although we shall continue to use the Fourier convention, which is appropriate for small CMB fields. In this case, we have $`\mathrm{}k`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{}}C_k`$. We also notice that the above new method is equivalent to the matrix manipulation $`𝐝_P=𝐏^{1/2}𝐂^{1/2}𝐝`$, where $`𝐝\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and $`𝐏`$ and $`𝐂`$ are the two-point correlation matrices specified by $`P_k`$ (with $`P_0=0`$) and $`C_k`$ respectively. This is similar but different from the Wiener filtering.

We now test this formalism using simulations. Figure 1 shows six simulated CMB components: (a)–(d) (where (d) contains 5 diffuse points) are non-Gaussian, while (e) and (f) are Gaussian. They are then linearly summed to yield $`\mathrm{\Delta }=_i\mathrm{\Delta }_{(i)}`$, with RMS ratios ((a)–(f)) $`1:1:10:500:1000:0.2`$ (Figure 2 left). We then apply our method to obtain the extracted NG signal $`\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{W}`$ (Figure 2 right).

In a second test, we simulate a CMB field of $`(2^{})^2`$ (Figure 3(c)): $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{s}=\left[\mathrm{\Delta }W_\mathrm{p}\right]W_\mathrm{o}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{noi}},`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ (Gaussian background) $`+\mathrm{\Delta }_{𝒮\mathrm{ISW}}`$ (string-induced CMBWu2001 ; Figure 3(b)) $`+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{pnt}}`$ (point source; Figure 3(a)) with RMS ratios $`5:1:2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{noi}}`$ is a 5% noise, and $`W_i`$ with $`i=`$ ‘p’ and ‘o’ denote the primary and observing beams respectively. The whitened field $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{s}^\mathrm{W}`$ is shown in Figure 3 (d).

With even more tests, the main observation remains the same: in a field $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{G})}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{NG})}`$, regardless how stronger the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{G})}`$ is, the NG features of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{NG})}`$ can always show up in the whitened field $`\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{W}`$ as long as $`C_{k(\mathrm{NG})}`$ dominates $`C_{k(\mathrm{G})}`$ within a certain range of $`k`$. In fact, this can be analytically proved nmoens . In addition, the NG features of uncorrelated NG components do not mix up in the extracted NG field $`\mathrm{\Delta }^\mathrm{W}`$, even if some of them dominate the others in power.

Finally we notice that according to equation (1), in principle we can design a ‘window function’ $`P_k`$ to keep the power only on scales where the NG components of a field dominate. However, in general we do not know what these scales are and thus taking $`P_k=1`$ is optimal. This may even enable us to find the NG signals of unknown physical processes. We acknowledge the support from NSF KDI Grant (9872979) and NASA LTSA Grant (NAG5-6552).


text:
# Is there elliptic flow without transverse flow?

## 1 Bjorken Brick

The intensity of particles emitted from a steady thermal source depends on the size of the source facing the direction of emitted particles. If the shape of such a source is not azimuthally symmetric, the particle yield is anisotropic too. Thus it is easy to parametrize a source with an essentially arbitrary value of the elliptic flow coefficient $`v_2`$, but the transverse momentum dependence of the differential $`v_2(p_t)`$ is much less trivial.

To gain insight what kind of elliptic flow might result from surface effects only, we constructed a simple parametrization of the source. Let us assume that the longitudinal expansion of the source is boost invariant, but that the source does not expand transversally at all. To simplify the calculation we take the source to be rectangular in transverse plane and to have a constant temperature $`T`$. Particle emission now takes place on the surfaces of the system during its lifetime (from thermalization time $`\tau _0`$ until time $`t`$) and from its entire volume at final breakup at time $`t`$ (see Figs. 2 and 2). Unlike in , where the source was parametrized using a Gaussian profile, our source contains emission also through surfaces which normal vectors are spacelike. If these surfaces are opaque, this allows us to obtain finite $`v_2`$ even if transverse flow is absent.

We calculate particle distributions using a modified Cooper-Frye procedure :

$$E\frac{dN}{d^3p}=𝑑\sigma _\mu p^\mu f(pu,T)\mathrm{\Theta }(d\sigma _\mu p^\mu ),$$
(1)
where the $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$-function is needed to remove negative contributions to particle number. For the freeze-out surface described above, the integral can be calculated analytically. Using the Boltzmann approximation and the customary definition of the coefficient $`v_2`$, we get

$$v_2(p_t)=\frac{(t^2\tau _0^2)p_tK_0\left(\frac{m_t}{T}\right)(l_yl_x)}{3\left(\pi tm_tK_1\left(\frac{m_t}{T}\right)l_xl_y+(t^2\tau _0^2)p_tK_0\left(\frac{m_t}{T}\right)(l_y+l_x)\right)}.$$
(2)
Differential elliptic flow is now essentially controlled by three parameters: the ratio of the system size in $`x`$\- and $`y`$-directions $`l_x/l_y`$, the ratio of lifetime to spatial dimension $`t/l_y`$ and temperature $`T`$. The effect of thermalization time $`\tau _0`$ can be compensated by changing the lifetime and therefore we prefer to keep it fixed to value $`\tau _0=0.6`$ fm/$`c`$ inspired by our hydrodynamical calculations .

In Fig. 3 a) the differential elliptic flow of pions obtained from this model using four different parameter sets is shown. The solid line corresponds to a case where parameter values are motivated by the values from hydrodynamical simulations of semi-central collisions ($`l_x/l_y=0.58`$, $`t/l_y=1.35`$, $`T=140`$ MeV). The qualitative behaviour of $`v_2`$ is surprisingly similar to that seen in the Low Density Limit approximation  where the anisotropy is estimated by calculating a first order correction to the free streaming distribution. At low values of transverse momenta, $`v_2`$ increases rapidly but saturates already around $`p_t=200`$ – 300 MeV/$`c`$. As demonstrated by the dashed line obtained using $`l_x/l_y=0.5`$ and $`t/l_y=1`$, a change in the ratios scales the saturation value of $`v_2`$, but does not affect the value of $`p_t`$ where saturation takes place.

The only variable which affects the slope of $`v_2(p_t)`$ is the temperature of the system as shown by the dotted line ($`T=500`$ MeV). The effect is weak and even outrageous values of parameters ($`l_x/l_y=1/15`$, T=75 GeV, dashed-dotted line) fail to reproduce the data. Therefore we may conclude that the present data cannot be described without the presence of strong transverse flow at RHIC.

The generalization of the Bjorken brick to allow transverse flow is straightforward although the resulting expression for $`v_2(p_t)`$ is much more complicated than Eq. (2). In addition to the parameters mentioned earlier, we have the flow velocities in $`x`$\- and $`y`$-direction $`v_x`$ and $`v_y`$. This generalized parametrization allows us to check which one contributes more to the observed anisotropy: anisotropic flow field or source shape. Figure 3 b) shows our fits to the data assuming that both source shape and velocity field are anisotropic (solid line, $`v_x=0.6`$, $`v_y=0.57`$, $`l_x/l_y=0.93`$), only the velocity field is anisotropic (dashed line, $`v_x=0.6`$, $`v_y=0.57`$, $`l_x/l_y=1`$) or only source shape is anisotropic (dotted line, $`v_x=v_y=0.7`$, $`l_x/l_y=0.73`$). Due to the crudeness of the model the differences between these fits are not meaningful, but the data allows all three different possibilities. However, an isotropic velocity field from a deformed source depicts very interesting behaviour of saturating $`v_2`$ around $`p_t=1.5`$ – 2 GeV/$`c`$, in the same region where data do. Whether this is anything but a coincidence and whether it is possible to produce this kind of behaviour using a dynamical model remains to be seen.

## 2 Hydrodynamic calculations

We have used a boost invariant hydrodynamical model  to describe the time evolution of the collision system at RHIC . In our approach the initial conditions of the hydrodynamical evolution were fixed by scaling the initial densities used to reproduce SPS data  until the final particle multiplicity measured by PHOBOS collaboration  was reached. In the most central collisions this leads to maximum energy densities of $`ϵ=22.3`$ – 23 GeV/fm3 and temperatures of $`T=270`$ – 330 MeV, depending on the equation of state (EoS).

In Figs. 5 and 5 we show our results for minimum bias collisions obtained using two different EoSs — one with a phase transition to QGP (EoS Q) and one without (EoS H). The agreement between the charged particle data and hydrodynamic calculation is excellent up to $`p_t1.5`$ GeV/$`c`$ where the measured elliptic flow begins to show signs of saturation to some value whereas the hydrodynamic result keeps increasing. The pion data show similar agreement independent of the EoS while at first glance the proton $`v_2(p_t)`$ data seem to favour the existence of a phase transition. However, as shown in , proton elliptic flow is sensitive to freeze-out temperature and details of initial distributions, contrary to the elliptic flow of pions and charged particles. Therefore no conclusions about the EoS can be drawn without further constraints on the model. The data also show a strong mass dependence of $`v_2(p_t)`$ which is typical to hydrodynamical models: the heavier the particle, the smaller $`v_2`$ at small values of $`p_t`$.

As a function of centrality (see ) our fit to data is less successful. As can be expected, we can reproduce the data in central and semi-central collisions, but we overestimate elliptic flow in peripheral collisions, due to the loss of a sufficient degree of thermalization.

The observed elliptic flow depends on the amount of rescatterings during the expansion. Hydrodynamics assumes zero mean free path, or equivalently, infinitely strong rescattering. It therefore provides practical upper limits for the anisotropy of particle distribution. That the experimental data reach these limiting values for elliptic flow and also reflect the mass dependence typical for a hydrodynamic system points towards early thermalization and a subsequent hydrodynamic evolution in central and semi-central collisions at RHIC.