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# Relative space-time transformations in GRBs

## Abstract

The GRB 991216 and its relevant data acquired from the BATSE experiment and RXTE and Chandra satellites are used as a prototypical case to test the theory linking the origin of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) to the process of vacuum polarization occurring during the formation phase of a black hole endowed with electromagnetic structure (EMBH). The relative space-time transformation paradigm (RSTT paradigm) is presented. It relates the observed signals of GRBs to their past light cones, defining the events on the worldline of the source essential for the interpretation of the data. Since GRBs present regimes with unprecedently large Lorentz $`\gamma `$ factor, also sharply varying with time, particular attention is given to the constitutive equations relating the four time variables: the comoving time, the laboratory time, the arrival time at the detector, duly corrected by the cosmological effects. This paradigm is at the very foundation of any possible interpretation of the data of GRBs.

black holes, gamma ray bursts, supernovae

In recent years, a large variety of very accurate experimental data, ranging from $`\gamma `$ rays all the way to the radio band, has been obtained for the afterglows of GRBs, following their first discovery by the BeppoSAX satellite (see e.g. Costa, 2001, and references therein).

In the theoretical models of GRBs there are currently three topics under debate:
1) The “internal Shock Model”, introduced by Rees & Mészáros (1994), many aspects of which have been developed (Paczyński & Xu, 1994; Sari & Piran, 1997; Fenimore, 1999; Fenimore et al., 1999). The underlying assumption of this model is that all the variations of GRBs in the range $`\mathrm{\Delta }t1`$ ms up to the overall duration $`T`$ of the order of $`50`$ s are determined by the“inner engine”. The difficulties of explaining the long time scale bursts by a single explosive model has evolved into a class of models assuming an “inner engine” with a prolongued activity (see e.g. Piran, 2001, and references therein).
2) The “external shock model”, also introduced by Mészáros & Rees (1993), is less popular today. It relates the GRBs’ light curves and time variations to interactions of a single thin blast wave with clouds in the external medium. There is the distinct possibility, within this model, that “GRBs’ light curves are tomographic images of the density distribution of the medium surrounding the sources of GRBs” (Dermer & Mitman, 1999) (see also Dermer et al., 1999; Dermer, 2000, and references therein). In this case, the structure of the burst does not come directly from the “inner engine”.
3) In order to decrease the energy requirements of GRBs, the effect of beaming has been advocated (see e.g. Mao & Yi, 1994; Davies et al., 1994). The possibility of inferring its existence from changes in the power-law index of the afterglow is generally considered attractive (see e.g. Mészáros & Rees, 1997a; Rhoads, 1997; Mészáros et al., 1998; Panaitescu et al., 1998; Dermer & Chiang, 1999; Sari at al., 1999; Panaitescu & Mészáros, 1999; Rhoads, 1999; Halpern et al., 2000; Gou et al., 2001).

For the astrophysical nature of the system originating the GRB, a binary system of merging neutron stars has been proposed (see e.g. Eichler et al., 1989; Narayan et al., 1992; Mészáros & Rees, 1992a, b). Problems occur: a) in the general energetics which cannot exceed $`3\times 10^{52}`$ ergs, b) to explain the longer bursts (see Salmonson et al., 2001; Wilson et al., 1996), and c) in the observed location of the GRBs’ sources in star forming regions (see Bloom et al., 2000). Alternatively novel classes of astrophysical systems have been postulated, including black hole - white dwarf (Fryer et al., 1999) and black hole - neutron star binaries (Paczyński, 1991; Mészáros & Rees, 1997b), as well as Hypernovae (see Paczyński, 1998), failed supernovae or collapsars (see Woosley, 1993; MacFadyen & Woosley, 1999) and supranovae (see Vietri & Stella, 1998, 1999).

We take a somewhat intermediate approach by studying the GRB emitted by the process of vacuum polarization around a black hole endowed with electromagnetic structure: the EMBH model. Such a model has the advantage that all the basic intermediate theoretical background, starting from the process of gravitational collapse itself, have been developed. The model can therefore make precise predictions which can be compared with the observations.

We consider a GRB “prototypical” case, in order to create a new interpretative paradigm, to be then applied to the observations of other GRBs. Since some of the best data available, from BATSE (BATSE Rapid Burst Response, 1999), RXTE (Corbet & Smith, 2000) as well as the remarkable accuracy of the Chandra (Piro et al., 2000) satellite are available for the GRB 991216, we use it as the prototype. In addition: a) it is one of the strongest observed GRBs. b) it radiates mainly in X- and $`\gamma `$-rays and less than 3% is emitted in optical and radio band, and c) a precise value of the slope of the energy emission during the afterglow as a function of time, $`n=1.64`$ (Takeshima et al., 1999) and $`n=1.616\pm 0.067`$ (Halpern et al., 2000), has been obtained.

The EMBH model relates the origin of the energy of GRBs to the extractable electromagnetic energy of an EMBH (Christodoulou & Ruffini, 1971) via the vacuum polarization process occurring during the gravitational collapse leading to the formation of an EMBH (Damour & Ruffini, 1975). The first step in this theory is the definition of the dyadosphere (Ruffini, 1998; Preparata et al., 1998), an extended region outside the EMBH horizon formed of an optically thick plasma of electron-positron pairs and radiation whose energy $`E_{dya}`$ is related to the mass $`\mu =M/M_{\mathrm{}}`$ and electromagnetic parameter $`\xi =Q/\left(M\sqrt{G}\right)`$ of the EMBH by the relation:

$$E_{dya}=\frac{Q^2}{2r_+}\left(1\frac{r_+}{r_{ds}}\right)\left[1\left(\frac{r_+}{r_{ds}}\right)^2\right],$$
(1)
where $`r_+=1.47\times 10^5\mu (1+\sqrt{1\xi ^2})`$ is the horizon radius and $`r_{ds}=1.12\times 10^8\sqrt{\mu \xi }`$ is the dyadosphere radius and, as usual, $`M`$ and $`Q`$ are the mass-energy and charge of the EMBH and $`G`$ is the Newton constant of gravity.

The evolution of this pair-electromagnetic plasma leads to the formation of a sharp pulse (the PEM pulse) that very rapidly reaches a Lorentz gamma factor of $`10^2`$ and higher. The subsequent interaction of this pulse with the baryonic matter of the remnant, left over from the gravitational collapse of the protostar, and with the interstellar medium (ISM) leads to the different eras of the GRBs. It is useful to parametrize the baryonic mass $`M_B`$ of the remnant by introducing the dimensionless parameter $`B`$:

$$M_Bc^2=BE_{dya}.$$
(2)
The confrontation of the theoretical model with the observational data allows an estimate for the values of the EMBH parameters. It also allows us to probe the density of the baryonic material in the remnant, in the ISM as well as in the stellar distribution within a few parsecs of the EMBH (see Ruffini et al., 2001b, c).

The first step in this process is the establishment of the first set of constitutive equations relating:
a) The comoving time of the pulse ($`\tau `$): the evolution of the thermodynamical quantities (density, temperature) are computed using this time.
b) The laboratory time ($`t`$) defined by an inertial reference frame in which the EMBH is at rest.
c) The arrival time ($`t_a`$): the laboratory time at which light signals from the source reach a distant observer at rest in the laboratory frame. The zero of the arrival time has been chosen to coincide with the arrival of the light signals from the moment of formation of the EMBH
d) The arrival time at the detector ($`t_a^d`$): this is the arrival time taking into account the cosmological redshift of the GRB source. We have

$$t_a^d=t_a\left(1+z\right),$$
(3)
where $`z`$ is the cosmological redshift of the GRB source (Ruffini et al., 2001f; Bianco et al., 2001c). In the case of GRB 991216 we have $`z1.00`$.

The mutual relations of these four times with the radial coordinate in the laboratory frame is the subject of this letter. We first give emphasis to a basic feature of the arrival time determination. For signals emitted by a pulse moving with velocity $`v`$ in the laboratory frame, we have:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t_a=\left(t_0+\mathrm{\Delta }t+\frac{R_0r}{c}\right)\left(t_0+\frac{R_0}{c}\right)=\mathrm{\Delta }t\frac{r}{c},$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_a`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$) is the time interval in arrival (laboratory) time, $`R_0`$ is the distance of the observer from the EMBH, $`t_0`$ is the laboratory time corresponding to the gravitational collapse, and $`r`$ is the radius of the expanding pulse at the time $`t=t_0+\mathrm{\Delta }t`$.

For simplicity we abbreviate the interval notation $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_a`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$) by $`t_a`$ ($`t`$). Eq.(4) can then be rewritten as:

$$t_a=t\frac{r}{c}=t\frac{_0^tv\left(t^{}\right)𝑑t^{}+r_{ds}}{c},$$
(5)
where the dyadosphere radius $`r_{ds}`$ is the value of $`r\left(t=0\right)`$. We consider only the photons emitted along the line of sight, since the spreading due to the angular dependence and to the thickness of the pulse is negligible (see Bianco et al., 2001b, for details). The solution of Eq.(5) neglecting $`r_{\mathrm{ds}}`$:

$$t_a=t\frac{v_0}{c}t\frac{1}{2}\frac{a}{c}t^2\mathrm{},$$
(6)
is in general highly nonlinear.

If and only if $`v`$ is constant and $`vc`$, Eq.(5) can be rewritten, neglecting $`r_{\mathrm{ds}}`$, as:

$$t_at\left(1\frac{v}{c}\right)=t\frac{\left(1\frac{v}{c}\right)\left(1+\frac{v}{c}\right)}{\left(1+\frac{v}{c}\right)}\frac{t}{2\gamma ^2}.$$
(7)
It is clear that the knowledge of $`t_a`$, which is indeed essential for any physical interpretation of GRB data, depends on a definite integral whose integration limits extend from the gravitational collapse to the time $`t`$ relevant for the observations, see Eq.(5). Such an integral is not generally expressible as a simple linear relation or even by any explicit analytic relation since we are dealing with processes with variable Lorentz gamma factors of unprecedented magnitude and time variability. Most studies have adopted an approximation of the kind given in Eq.(7) (see e.g. Fenimore et al., 1996). We instead use Eq.(5). The adoption of Eq.(7) misses a crucial feature of the GRB process and it leads to a subversion of the space-time relations in GRBs, with a wide range of consequences: all theoretical computations on the power-law indexes of the afterglow are affected. Specific illustrative examples, pointing out these differences, are shown in the next paragraphs (see Ruffini et al., 2001f, for details).

The book-keeping of the four different times and corresponding space variables must be done carefully in order to keep the correct causal relation in the time sequence of the events involved. This will have also important consequences in the supernovae-GRBs correlation (see Ruffini et al., 2001c)

The second set of constitutive equations are the full non-linear relativistic hydrodynamic equations of energy and momentum conservation, to be solved together with the rate equation for the $`e^\pm `$ plasma. The computations carried out semi-analytically in Rome have been validated by the full numerical computations performed using Wilson’s codes at Livermore (see Ruffini et al., 1999, 2000, 2001f).

We have integrated both sets of constitutive field equations given in Ruffini et al. (1999, 2000); Bianco et al. (2001a), for the source GRB 991216. Correspondingly, we have obtained the parameter values presented in Ruffini et al. (2001b): $`E_{dya}10^{53}`$ ergs and $`B=4\times 10^3`$. These values correspond to any of the following pairs of values for the EMBH mass and charge to mass ratio ($`\mu ,\xi `$) =(22.3, 0.1); (10.0,0.15); (5.5,0.2).

Crucial to any GRB data interpretation is the relation of the Lorentz gamma factor to the radial coordinate of the source in the laboratory frame and the corresponding values of the above four time parameters. In Fig. 1 the gamma factors for the different eras are given as a function of the radial coordinate of the source in the laboratory frame. Correspondingly we present in Fig. 2 the relation between the laboratory time and the detector arrival time for the source GRB 991216. The highly nonlinear behaviour is obvious, and the different results obtained from the use of Eqs.(6,7) are clearly visible. Details are given in Ruffini et al. (2001f).

In Tab. 1, for each successive “era” and for one very significant event, we give the initial-final values of the gamma Lorentz factor, the four time parameters mentioned above, as well as the radial coordinates in the laboratory frame.

We then have:

1) Era I. The pair-electromagnetic plasma, initially at $`\gamma =1`$, expands away from the EMBH horizon and from the dyadosphere as a pulse, the PEM pulse. In the comoving frame the thickness of the pulse increases during the expansion, but the Lorentz contraction in the laboratory frame exactly balances this expansion so that, in the laboratory frame, a constant thickness approximation can be adopted for the burst (Ruffini et al., 1999). The expansion of the PEM pulse occurs in a region of very low baryonic contamination with density $`\rho _B10^9g/cm^3`$ (Ruffini, 2001). The final Lorentz factor and space time parameters are given for point 2 in Tab. 1.

2) Era II. While the PEM pulse is still optically thick it reaches the remnants left over by the gravitational collapse of the progenitor star. The engulfment of this baryonic material induces by conservation of energy and momentum a drastic reduction in the $`\gamma `$-factor (Ruffini et al., 2000). The amount of baryonic matter in the remnant has been fixed by the determination of the parameter $`B`$ in the fitting of the afterglow data (see Ruffini et al., 2001b). Since these data contain important direct information on the progenitor star, we report in Tab. 2 some specific values of the parameters corresponding to selected values of the EMBH masses: they include the radius and thickness of the remnant as well as the density of baryonic matter. The results are largely independent of the thickness $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the remnants (Ruffini et al., 2000); they depend crucially only on the value $`B`$. The final Lorentz factor and space-time parameters are given for point 3 in Tab. 1.

3) Era III. A new pulse is formed composed of electron-positron pairs and baryons and electrons of the remnant material, a PEMB pulse. Since the opacity from Thomson scattering consequently increases, the process of self-acceleration of the burst continues to even larger values of the Lorentz gamma factor, which may reach values up to $`10^3`$$`10^4`$ in some sources (Ruffini et al., 2000). In the present case of GRB 991216, the maximum value reached is $`239.6`$. It is remarkable that the constant thickness approximation for the pulse is still valid (Ruffini et al., 1999, 2000). This era ends at point 4 as the condition of transparency is reached. At that point, what we define here as the proper gamma-ray-burst (P-GRB) is emitted (Ruffini et al., 1999, 2000; Bianco et al., 2001a). This definition is assumed in order to distinguish the overall GRB phenomena from the specific emission occurring as the moment of transparency is reached. The shape, the intensity and the duration of this P-GRB, also called in the literature the elementary spike (Bianco et al., 2001a), strongly depend on the baryonic matter content (Bianco et al., 2001b; Ruffini et al., 2001f). The final Lorentz factor and space-time parameters are given for point 4 in Tab. 1.

These first three eras have no counterparts in earlier models, since no detailed description of the early phases of GRB has been attempted.

4) Era IV. The accelerated baryonic matter expands still as a constant thickness pulse (ABM pulse) at ultra-relativistic velocities and engulfs baryons and electrons from the interstellar medium (ISM), which is assumed to have a constant number density $`n_{ism}`$ of 1 proton$`/cm^3`$. We have assumed that all internal energy made available by the relativistic conservation of energy and momentum is radiated away in the afterglow, mainly in $`\gamma `$ ($`90\%`$) and X-rays ($`10\%`$), and a few percent in the optical and radio emission (see Halpern et al., 2000). We have used the “fully radiative case” condition (see e.g. Piran, 1999), considering only the leading contribution of the head-on flux. We have neglected the spreading due to off-axis emission, considered e.g. in Fenimore et al. (1999) and have given physical reasons for neglecting such contributions (Ruffini et al., 2001f). At any specific time, the total flux, and consequently the bolometric luminosity of the afterglow, is fixed by the above requirements. The detailed spectral distribution depends on the dominant radiative process of the internal energy. A variety of such process have been considered in the literature and their results within the context of our model are given in Ruffini et al. (2001f). In Fig. 1 we show how, during this era, the Lorentz gamma factor first coasts to a constant value and then rapidly decreases, going from $`\gamma =239.6`$ to $`\gamma =2.7`$. Most important is that the point P where $`\gamma 160.2`$ corresponds to the peak of the afterglow (see Ruffini et al., 2001b). Beyond this point P the slope of the afterglow flux, as a function of arrival time, approaches the power law index $`n=1.6`$ in perfect agreement with the observations of RXTE and Chandra (see Ruffini et al., 2001b). The final Lorentz factor and space-time parameters are given for point 5 in Tab. 1. It is important to emphasize that this power law index results from the combination of three critical assumptions: a) the emission occurring in a “fully radiative” regime, b) the condition of spherical simmetry, and c) the constancy of the ISM density. Earlier results relevant to this treatment can be found in Sari (1997) and in Dermer et al. (1999) (see, for comparison and contrast, Ruffini et al., 2001f).

5) Era V. This is the transition to the relativistic and nonrelativistic regimes. This era is more complex. It contains two successive sub-eras, one with a power-law index of the energy emitted in the afterglow as a function of the detector arrival time $`n=1.36`$, corresponding to a still relativistic era ($`1.1\gamma 2.7`$), and a final one approaching the pure newtonian regime, with $`n=1.45`$ and $`\gamma <1.1`$. Comparison and contrast with existing slopes in the literature (see e.g. Vietri, 1997) are presented in Ruffini et al. (2001f). No data of GRB 991216 are available for checking the thoretical predictions of this last era.

In conclusion we see from Tab. 1 and Fig. 1 the remarkable and perfectly reasonable results that a motion of the pulse corresponding to a displacement of $`9.692\times 10^{13}`$ cm will correspond to an arrival time interval of $`1.360\times 10^1`$ sec, leading to what has been called apparent superluminal behavior. Similarly, on a larger scale, a displacement of the pulse by $`2.958\times 10^{17}`$ cm will correspond to an increment of $`2.439\times 10^5`$ sec in arrival time, leading again to apparently superluminal behavior.

From the above results we are ready to express the relative space-time transformation (RSTT) paradigm: the necessary condition in order to interpret the GRB data, given in terms of the arrival time at the detector, is the knowledge of the entire worldline of the source from the gravitational collapse. In order to meet this condition, given a proper theoretical description and the correct constitutive equations, it is sufficient to know the energy of the dyadosphere and the mass of the remnant of the progenitor star (see Ruffini et al., 2001b). The application of this RSTT paradigm will have important consequences for the interpretation of the burst structure (IBS), leading to a new paradigm (see Ruffini et al., 2001b), as well as for the GRB-supernova correlation (Ruffini et al., 2001c).

We thank three anonymous referees for their remarks, which have improved the presentation of this letter.


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# Thermal Transport Measurements of Individual Multiwalled Nanotubes

## Abstract

The thermal conductivity and thermoelectric power of a single carbon nanotube were measured using a microfabricated suspended device. The observed thermal conductivity is more than 3000 W/K m at room temperature, which is two orders of magnitude higher than the estimation from previous experiments that used macroscopic mat samples. The temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity of nanotubes exhibits a peak at 320 K due to the onset of Umklapp phonon scattering. The measured thermoelectric power shows linear temperature dependence with a value of 80 $`\mu `$V/K at room temperature.

The thermal properties of carbon nanotubes are of fundamental interest and also play a critical role in controlling the performance and stability of nanotube devices . Unlike electrical and mechanical properties, which have been studied at a single nanotube level , the thermal properties of carbon nanotubes have not been measured at a mesoscopic scale. The specific heat, thermal conductivity and thermoelectric power (TEP) of millimeter-sized mats of carbon nanotubes have been measured by several groups . Although these studies have yielded a qualitative understanding of the thermal properties of these materials, there are significant disadvantages to these ’bulk’ measurements for understanding intrinsic thermal properties of a single nanotube. One problem is that these measurements yield an ensemble average over the different tubes in a sample. More importantly, in thermal transport measurements such as thermal conductivity and TEP, it is difficult to extract absolute values for these quantities due to the presence of numerous tube-tube junctions. These junctions are in fact the dominant barriers to thermal transport in a mat of nanotubes.

In this letter, we present the results of mesoscopic thermal transport measurements of individual carbon nanotubes. We have developed a microfabricated suspended device hybridized with multiwalled nanotubes (MWNTs) to probe thermal transport free from a substrate contact. The observed thermal conductivity of MWNT is two orders of magnitude higher than the value found in previous ’bulk’ measurements and is comparable to the theoretical expectations.

Suspended structures were fabricated on a silicon nitride/silicon oxide/silicon multilayer by electron beam and photo lithography followed by metalizations and etching processes, which are described elsewhere in detail . Fig.1(a) shows a representative device including two 10 $`\mu `$m $`\times `$ 10 $`\mu `$m adjacent silicon nitride membrane (0.5 $`\mu `$m thick) islands suspended with 200 $`\mu `$m long silicon nitride beams. On each island, a Pt thin film resistor, fabricated by electron beam lithography, serves as a heater to increase the temperature of the suspended island. These resistors are electrically connected to contact pads by the metal lines on the suspending legs. Since the resistance of the Pt resistor changes with temperature (Fig.1(b)), they also serve as a thermometer to measure the temperature of each island .

Once the suspended devices were fabricated, carbon nanotubes were placed on the device and bridged the two suspended islands. Mechanical manipulation similar to that used for the fabrication of nanotube scanning probe microscopy tips  was used to place MWNTs on the desired part of the device. This approach routinely produces a nanotube device that can be used to measure the thermal conductivity and TEP of the bridging nanotube segment. Shown in Fig.2 (upper inset) is an example of such a device. A small MWNT bundle forms a thermal path between two suspended islands that are otherwise thermally isolated to each other. A bias voltage applied to one of the resistors, $`R_h`$, creates Joule heat and increases the temperature, $`T_h`$, of the heater island from the thermal bath temperature $`T_0`$. Under steady state, there is a heat transfer to the other island through the nanotubes, and thus the temperature, $`T_s`$, of the resistor $`R_s`$ also rises. Using a simple heat transfer model (lower inset to Fig.2), the thermal conductance of the connecting nanotubes, $`K_t`$, and the suspending legs, $`K_d`$, can readily estimated from: $`T_h=T_0+\frac{K_d+K_t}{K_d(K_d+2K_t)}P`$ and $`T_s=T_0+\frac{K_t}{K_d(K_d+2K_t)}P`$, where $`P`$ is the Joule power applied to the resistor $`R_h`$. Fig.2 shows the temperature changes of each of the suspended islands connected by the nanotubes as a function $`P`$. From the slopes of $`R_s`$ and $`R_h`$ versus $`P`$, the thermal conductance of the bridging nanotubes at the temperature $`T_0`$ can be computed using above equations.

We now turn to the experimental results of thermal conductance measurement of a single MWNT. Fig.3 displays measured thermal conductance of a single MWNT with a diameter 14 nm and the length of the bridging segment 2.5 $`\mu `$m. The thermal conductance was measured in a temperature range 8-370 K . It increases by several orders of magnitude as the temperature is raised, reaching a maximum of approximately 1.6$`\times `$10-7 W/K near room temperature before decreasing again at higher temperatures.

The measured thermal conductance includes the thermal conductance of the junction between the MWNT and the suspended islands in addition to the intrinsic thermal conductance of the MWNT itself. From our separate study of scanning thermal microscopy on a self heated MWNT , we have estimated the thermal conductance of the junction at room temperature; the heat flow rate from a unit length of the tube to metal electrode at a given unit junction temperature difference was found to be $``$ 0.5 W/m K. Considering the contact length of the MWNT to the electrodes on the islands is $``$$`\mu `$m, the junction thermal conductance is $``$ 5$`\times `$10-7 W/K at room temperature. Since the total measured thermal conductance is 1.6$`\times `$10-7 W/K, this suggests that the intrinsic thermal conductance of the tube is the major part of measured thermal conductance.

To estimate thermal conductivity from this measured thermal conductance, we have to consider the geometric factors of the MWNT and the anisotropic nature of thermal conductivity. The outer walls of the MWNT that make good thermal contacts to a thermal bath have more contribution in thermal transport than the inner walls, and the ratio of axial to radial thermal conductivity may influence the conversion of thermal conductance to thermal conductivity. In the following, however, we simply estimate the thermal conductivity neglecting the junction thermal conductance and assuming a solid isotropic material to correct geometric factors. This simplification implies that the thermal conductivity reported in this letter is a lower bound of the intrinsic axial thermal conductivity of a MWNT. Further study to analyze the contribution of individual layers of MWNTs  in the thermal transport should elucidate this important issue in future.

Shown in inset to Fig.3 is the temperature dependent thermal conductivity, $`\kappa (T)`$. This result shows remarkable differences from the previous ’bulk’ measurements as described below. First, the room temperature value of $`\kappa (T)`$ is over 3000 W/m K , whereas the previous ’bulk’ measurement on a MWNT mat using the 3w method estimates only 20 W/m K . Note that our observed value is also an order of magnitude higher than that of aligned SWNT sample (250 W/m K)  but comparable to the recent theoretical expectation, 6000 W/m K . This large difference between single-tube and ’bulk’ measurements suggests that numerous highly resistive thermal junctions between the tubes largely dominate the thermal transport in mat samples. Second, $`\kappa (T)`$ shows interesting temperature dependent behavior that was absent in ’bulk’ measurement. At low temperatures, 8 K$`<T<`$50 K, $`\kappa (T)`$ increases following a power law with an exponent 2.50. In the intermediate temperature range (50 K$`<T<150`$ K), $`\kappa (T)`$ increases almost quadratically in $`T`$ (i.e., $`\kappa (T)T^2`$). Above this temperature range, $`\kappa (T)`$ deviates from quadratic temperature dependence and has a peak at 320 K. Beyond this peak, $`\kappa (T)`$ decreases rapidly.

We now seek to understand the physics behind the observed behavior of the thermal conductivity. In a simple model , the phonon thermal conductivity can be written as: $`\kappa =_pC_pv_pl_p`$, where $`C_p`$, $`v_p`$, and $`l_p`$ is the specific heat capacity, phonon group velocity, and the mean free path of phonon mode $`p`$. The phonon mean free path consists of two contributions: $`l^1=l_{st}^1+l_{um}^1`$ where $`l_{st}`$ and $`l_{um}`$ are static and Umklapp scattering length, respectively. At low temperatures, the Umklapp scattering freezes out, $`l=l_{st}`$, and thus $`\kappa (T)`$ simply follows the temperature dependence of $`C_p`$’s. For MWNTs, below the Debye temperature of interlayer phonon mode, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{}`$, $`\kappa (T)`$ has slight three dimensional nature, and $`\kappa (T)T^{2.5}`$ as observed in graphite single crystals . As $`T>\mathrm{\Theta }_{}`$, the interlayer phonon modes are fully occupied, and $`\kappa (T)T^2`$, indicative of the two dimensional nature of thermal conduction in a MWNT . From this cross over behavior of $`\kappa (T)`$, we estimate $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{}=50`$ K. This value is comparable to the value obtained by a measurement of specific heat of MWNT .

As $`T`$ increases further, the strong phonon-phonon Umklapp scattering becomes more effective as higher energy phonons are thermally populated. Once $`l_{st}>l_{um}`$, $`\kappa (T)`$ decreases as $`T`$ increase due to rapidly decreasing $`l_{um}`$. At the peak value of $`\kappa (T)`$, where $`l_{st}l_{um}`$ ($`T=320`$ K), we can estimate the $`T`$-independent $`l_{st}500`$ nm for the MWNT. Note that this value is an order of magnitude higher than previous estimations from ’bulk’ measurements  and is comparable to the length of the measured MWNT (2.5 $`\mu `$m). Thus below room temperature where the phonon-phonon Umklapp scattering is minimal, phonons have only a few scattering events between the thermal reservoirs, and the phonon transport is ’nearly’ ballistic. This remarkable behavior was not seen in the bulk experiments, possibly due to additional extrinsic phonon scattering mechanisms such as tube-tube interactions.

In addition to the probing the thermal conductivity, the same suspended device can be used to measure the thermoelectric power of the nanotube. The two independent electrodes that contact the ends of MWNTs on each suspended island serve to measure the electrical potential difference across the tube when joule heating in $`R_h`$ creates a temperature gradient across the tube. Shown in the inset to Fig.4 is the relation of the thermoelectric voltage of the suspended MWNT to the joule heating in $`R_h`$. Since the temperature difference can be computed from an independent measurement of $`R_h`$ and $`R_s`$, the TEP of the single MWNT is obtained from the slope of this curve. The observed temperature dependent TEP of MWNTs (Fig.4) shows a linear $`T`$ dependence, with room temperature value 80 $`\mu `$V/K. The linear $`T`$ dependence is expected from a theory for metallic and doped semiconducting nanotubes , and the positive sign indicates hole-like major carrier . It is worth noting that this observed TEP is markedly different from the previous ’bulk’ measurement that exhibited somewhat smaller TEP and deviations from a linear $`T`$ dependence . Again, we believe that the numerous unknown tube-tube junctions in the ’mat’ sample may produce these differences, and that a mesoscopic measurement of a single tube is necessary to properly probe the intrinsic TEP of nanotubes.

In conclusion, we have presented, for the first time, mesoscopic thermal transport measurements of carbon nanotubes. The observed thermal conductivity of a MWNT is more than 3000 W/m K at room temperature and the phonon mean free path is $``$ 500nm. The temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity shows a peak at 320 K due to the onset of Umklapp phonon scattering. The thermoelectric power shows an expected linear $`T`$ dependence, which was absent previous bulk measurements. The experimental techniques reported here should be readily applicable to other nanoscale materials to study their thermal properties.

The authors wish to thank J. Hone, D. Li, S. Jhi, Y.-K. Kwon, and D. Tomanek for helpful discussions. We also thank A. Rinzler and R.E. Smalley for supplying the nanotube materials. LS and AM would like to acknowledge the support of the DOE (Basic Energy Sciences, Engineering Division). PK and PLM were supported by DOE (Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences Division, the sp2 Materials Initiative).


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# Galactic Mergers with Supermassive Black Holes

## 1. Introduction

Bright elliptical galaxies and bulges of spiral galaxies tend to be less dense than faint galaxies. The luminosity density in the central regions of these galaxies rises approximately as a power law at the smallest observable radii, $`\rho r^\gamma `$. Faint galaxies ($`M_V>20`$) have $`1.5<\gamma <2.5`$ while bright galaxies have $`0<\gamma <1.5`$ (Ferrarese et al. 1994; Gebhardt et al. 1996). There are some interesting questions relating to these observed facts: (1) How did the cusps form? (2) How are the weak cusps in bright galaxies maintained in spite of mergers with dense low-luminosity galaxies? If the small galaxy survived such a merger with its central regions intact, this would create a new high-density core in the center of the big galaxy and destroy the observed correlation between $`M_V`$ and $`\gamma `$. Strong cusps form naturally in stellar systems where the black hole grows on time scales long compared with the crossing time (Peebles 1972; Quinlan et al. 1995). Milosavljević & Merritt (2001) presented simulations where the initial galaxies have steep central density cusps (like those in low-luminosity galaxies) and central black holes. The central density cusp in the final remnant had a slope $`\rho r^1`$ after the binary black hole had ejected a mass of order its own mass from the pre-existing nucleus. This result can explain how shallow cusps form. In this work, we describe a set of merger simulations that address the question of how a shallow cusp can survive the accretion of a small dense galaxy. Our work extends that of Merritt & Cruz (2001; hereafter Paper I) who first presented merger simulations of galaxies containing central black holes and density cusps.

## 2. Method

Initial galaxies were generated from Dehnen’s (1993) law,

$$\rho (r)=\frac{(3\gamma )M}{4\pi a^3}\left(\frac{r}{a}\right)^\gamma \left(1+\frac{r}{a}\right)^{\gamma 4}$$
(1)
which has a power-law central density dependence, $`\rho r^\gamma `$. Our primary (massive) galaxies had $`\gamma =1`$, characteristic of the shallow cusps in bright galaxies, and our secondary (dwarf) galaxies had $`\gamma =2`$, characteristic of the steep cusps of dwarf galaxies. Subscripts 1 and 2 will henceforth refer to the primary and secondary galaxies respectively. Initial particle velocities were assigned from an isotropic distribution function that accounts for the central point mass representing the black hole (Tremaine et al. 1994). Each black hole was assigned a mass 2$`\times 10^3`$ times that of the parent galaxy. This is consistent with the best estimated value of $`0.0012`$ for the mean ratio of black hole mass to luminous galaxy mass in the local universe (Merritt & Ferrarese 2001).

The mass $`M_1`$ and length scale $`a`$ of the primary galaxy were set to unity. We chose $`M_1/M_2=3`$; this mass ratio complements the more extreme ratio of $`M_1/M_2=10`$ adopted in Paper I. As in that paper, the ratio of the galaxies’ scale lengths was fixed using scaling relations drawn from observations of real galaxies. In particular, for $`\gamma _1=1`$ and $`\gamma _2=2`$, we took $`r_{e,2}/r_{e,1}=(M_2/M_1)^{3/5}`$. The primary galaxy had $`N_1=5\times 10^5`$ equal-mass particles. For the secondary galaxy we took $`N_2=(M_2/M_1)N_1=1.66\times 10^5`$ so that all particles had the same mass. We set the initial orbital parameters for the mergers such that the separation between the galaxy centers was $`3`$ times the half-mass radius of the primary galaxy. The initial orbital velocities were assigned in units of the angular momentum of a circular orbit at the defined separation, $`\kappa L/L_{cir}`$, with $`\kappa `$=$`\{0,0.2,0.5,0.8\}`$.

The evolution was followed using the tree code GADGET (Springel et al. 2000), a parallel algorithm with continuously-variable time steps for each particle. The merger simulations were continued until $``$ 1 dynamical time of the primary galaxy after formation of the hard black-hole binary, slightly longer than in the simulations of Paper I. Integrations were carried out using the HPC10000 supercomputer at the Rutgers Center for Advanced Information Processing and the Cray T3E at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. All simulations used 16 processors.

## 3. Results & Discussion

Final density profiles for the merger remnants are shown in Figure 1, computed from the particle positions using the MAPEL package (Merritt 1994). We also plot final density profiles from the $`10:1`$ mergers of Paper I; because those simulations were extended for slightly longer times here, the central densities have dropped slightly compared to the values shown in Paper I due to continued ejection of stars by the black-hole binary.

The central density slopes for all of our simulations are lower at the final time step than the initial slope of the giant galaxy. We find $`0.5<\gamma <1`$ for the $`3:1`$ mergers and $`\gamma <1`$ for the $`10:1`$ mergers. In projection, all of the remnants exhibit “cores,” regions of nearly constant surface brightness near the center; the cores are especially noticeable in the $`3:1`$ remnants. This is similar to the situation in real elliptical galaxies, where nonparametric deprojection of the luminosity profiles of the “core” galaxies reveals shallow power-law cusps in the space density (Merritt & Fridman 1995). The very mild inflections seen in the projected density profiles of Figure 1 are also consistent with observed profiles.

Based on these simulations, and on the $`1:1`$ merger simulations of Milosavljević & Merritt (2001), we propose the following two rules that relate initial and final density profiles at the centers of merging galaxies. 1. Mergers between galaxies containing power-law density cusps produce remnants with power-law cusps. 2. The final density profile is always shallower near the center than the initial profile of the more massive galaxy. The first “law” appears to be true even in mergers without black holes (Figure 1c,f; Barnes 1999), while the second “law” only holds if the massive galaxy contains a supermassive black hole. Central densities might be driven even lower by the continued ejection of stars by a binary supermassive black hole (Milosavljević & Merritt 2001). These “laws,” if they can be shown to hold generally for mergers between galaxies with supermassive black holes, could explain how the observed relation between $`M_V`$ and $`\gamma `$ is preserved in the face of mergers.

This work was supported by NSF grant AST 00-71099, NASA grants NAG5-6037 and NAG5-9046, by a fellowship from the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia de Mexico, and by grant no. MCA00N010N from NCSA.

## References

Barnes, J. E. 1999, in IAU Symp. 186, Galaxy Interactions at Low and High Redshift, ed. J. E. Barnes & D. B. Sanders (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 137

Dehnen, W. 1993, MNRAS, 265, 250

Ferrarese, L., van den Bosch, F. C., Ford, H. C., Jaffe, W. & O’Connell, R. W. 1994, AJ, 108, 1598

Gebhardt, K. et al. 1996, AJ, 112, 105

Merritt, D. 1994, http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/$``$merritt/mapel\_1.html

Merritt, D. & Ferrarese, L. 2001, MNRAS, 320, L30

Merritt, D. & Cruz, F. 2001, ApJ, 551, L41 (Paper I)

Merritt, D. & Fridman, T. 1995, in Fresh Views of Elliptical Galaxies, A.S.P. Conf. Ser. Vol. 86 (ed. A. Buzzoni, A. Renzini & A. Serrano) 22.

Milosavljević, M., & Merritt, D. 2001, astro–ph/0103350

Peebles, P. J.. E. 1972, Gen. Rel. Grav., 3, 63

Quinlan, G. D., Hernquist, L. & Sirgudsson, S. 1995, Apj, 440, 554

Springle, V., Yoshida, W. & White, S. D. M. 2000, astro-ph/0003162

Tremaine, S. et al. 1994, AJ, 107, 634


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# Fluctuation probes of quark deconfinement

Fluctuations in the multiplicities and momentum distributions of particles emitted in relativistic heavy-ion collisions have been widely considered as probes of thermalization and the statistical nature of particle production in such reactions . The characteristic behavior of temperature and pion multiplicity fluctuations in the final state has been proposed as a tool for the measurement of the specific heat  and, specifically, for the detection of a critical point in the nuclear matter phase diagram .

Two recent papers  drew attention to a different type of fluctuations, which is sensitive to the microscopic structure of the dense matter. If the expansion is too fast for local fluctuations to follow the mean thermodynamic evolution of the system, it makes sense to consider fluctuations of locally conserved quantities that show a distinctly different behavior in a hadron gas (HG) and a quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Characteristic features of the plasma phase may then survive in the finally observed fluctuations. In this spirit we here focus on fluctuations of the net baryon number and net electric charge as probes of the transition from hadronic matter to a deconfined QGP. We consider matter which is meson-dominated, which renders our arguments applicable to SPS energies and above.

In a hadron gas nearly two thirds of the hadrons (for $`\mu T`$ mostly pions, where $`\mu `$ and $`T`$ are baryonic chemical potential and temperature, respectively) carry electric charge $`\pm 1`$. In the deconfined QGP phase the charged quarks and antiquarks make up only about half the degrees of freedom, with charges of only $`\pm \frac{1}{3}`$ or $`\pm \frac{2}{3}`$. Consequently, the fluctuation of one charged particle in or out of the considered subvolume produces a larger mean square fluctuation of the net electric charge if the system is in the HG phase. For baryon number fluctuations the situation is less obvious because in the HG baryon charge is now only carried by the heavy and less abundant baryons and antibaryons. Still, all of them carry unit baryon charge $`\pm 1`$, while the quarks and antiquarks in the QGP only have baryon number $`\pm \frac{1}{3}`$. It turns out that, as $`\mu /T0`$, the fluctuations are again larger in the HG, albeit by a smaller margin than for charge fluctuations. At SPS energies and below the difference between the two phases increases since the stopped net baryons contribute to the fluctuations, and more so in the HG than in the QGP phase.

The value of a conserved quantum number of an isolated system does not fluctuate at all. However, if we consider a small part of the system, which is large enough to neglect quantum fluctuations, but small enough that the entire system can be treated as a heat bath, the statistical uncertainty of the value of the observable in the subsystem can be calculated. This is the scenario considered here.

We first discuss fluctuations of the net baryon number. In the dilute HG phase, we can apply the Boltzmann approximation. The net baryon number is $`N_b=N_b^+N_b^{}`$, where $`N_b^\pm `$ denotes the number of baryons $`(+)`$ and antibaryons $`()`$, respectively. Then the net baryon number fluctuations in the hadronic gas are given by

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }N_b)_{\mathrm{HG}}^2=2N_b(T)\mathrm{cosh}(\mu /T).$$
(1)
The late expansion of the fireball being nearly isentropic, the ratio of baryon number fluctuations to entropy $`S`$, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N_b)^2/S`$, provides a useful measure for the early fluctuations. For a transient quark phase the baryon fluctuations are given by

$$\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }N_b)^2}{S}|_{\mathrm{QGP}}=\frac{5}{37\pi ^2}\left(1+\frac{22}{111}\left(\frac{\mu }{\pi T}\right)^2+\mathrm{}\right),$$
(2)
assuming an ideal gas of massless quarks and gluons with two massless flavors. The entropy can be estimated from the final hadron multiplicity . For high collision energies ($`\mu /T\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$), the ratio (2) approaches a constant; even for SPS energies, the $`\mu `$-dependent correction is at most 5%. The many resonance contributions make it difficult to write down an analytic expression for $`S_{\mathrm{HG}}/V`$, but it is clear from (1) that the $`\mu `$-dependence of the corresponding ratio in the HG phase is stronger than for the QGP phase. This translates into a stronger beam energy dependence of (2) near midrapidity.

The results for net charge fluctuations are similar. All stable charged hadrons have unit electric charge; again using the Boltzmann approximation we find $`(\mathrm{\Delta }Q)_{\mathrm{HG}}^2=N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$, where $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ is the total number of charged particles emitted from the subvolume. The ratio $`(\mathrm{\Delta }Q)^2/S`$ for the QGP is a factor $`\frac{5}{2}`$ larger than the corresponding ratio (2) for baryon number fluctuations, due to the larger electric charge of the $`u`$ quarks, but shows the same weak $`\mu `$-dependence. The main difference to baryon number fluctuations arises in the HG phase: Since at SPS and higher energies $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ is dominated by pions and meson resonances, its $`\mu `$-dependence is now also weak. In contrast to baryon number fluctuations, charge fluctuations thus show a weak beam energy dependence in either phase, and only their absolute values differ.

Numerical values for the ratios $`(\mathrm{\Delta }Q)^2/S`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N_b)^2/S`$ at SPS energies and above were derived in  and are shown in Fig. 1. The fluctuations in the QGP are typically a factor 2 below those in the HG, with a somewhat smaller reduction for baryon number than for charge fluctuations.

These estimates, including our corrections for resonance decays, refer to ideal gases in equilibrium. Future work should address interaction effects on the thermal fluctuations in HG and QGP  and treat resonance decays kinetically. We also point out potentially important non-equilibrium aspects: The fluctuation/entropy ratios in the QGP will be even lower (facilitating the discrimination against HG) if initially the QGP is strongly gluon dominated  and thus may lie below the equilibrium value (1) if the QGP hadronizes before the concentrations of the (baryon) charge carriers $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}`$ saturate .

We now discuss whether the difference between the two phases is really observable. Even if a QGP is temporarily created in a heavy-ion collision, all hadrons are emitted after re-hadronization. Thus, it is natural to ask whether the fluctuations will not always reflect the hadronic nature of the emitting environment. It is essential to our argument that fluctuations of conserved quantum numbers can only be changed by particle transport (diffusion) and, due to the rapid expansion of the reaction zone, are likely to be frozen at an early stage. For our estimate we assume for simplicity that the fireball expands mostly longitudinally, with a boost invariant (Bjorken) flow profile. Strong longitudinal flow exists in collisions at the SPS , and the Bjorken picture is widely expected to hold for collisions at RHIC and LHC.

We here give a qualitative argument for the survival of a baryon number fluctuation within a rapidity interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ . At RHIC energies, the reaction zone takes about 9 fm/$`c`$ to cool from the hadronization temperature to the hadronic freeze-out point, and during this time this rapidity interval expands from a length of 5 fm to 14 fm . We consider the diffusion of net baryon number in and out of this rapidity interval by hadronic rescattering processes after QGP hadronization. Baryons have an average thermal longitudinal velocity component $`\overline{v}_z=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.325}`$ at the hadronization temperature $`T\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}170}`$ MeV. Without rescattering, a baryon which at the point of hadronization is at the center of this interval can travel on average only about 3 fm in the beam direction before freeze-out. Hence it will not reach the edge of the rapidity interval. Rescattering in the hot hadronic matter inhibits baryon number diffusion, and a fluctuation will even survive in a smaller rapidity interval . We conclude that the short time between hadronization and final freeze-out precludes the readjustment of net baryon number fluctuations in rapidity bins $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta 1`$. A similar calculation applies to net charge fluctuations.

Stephanov and Shuryak recently derived a diffusive transport equation describing the evolution of fluctuations of conserved quantum numbers during the hydrodynamic expansion of a dense fireball . Within this general framework they argued that quasi-elastic particle reactions through resonances such as $`\pi \pi \rho \pi \pi `$ and $`\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }\pi N`$ lead to substantial rapidity shifts for the involved particles (in particular the pions) and thus dominate net baryon and electric charge diffusion in the hadronic phase. However, with realistic estimates for the number of such reactions between hadronization and freeze-out, even the more fragile charge fluctuation signal should still survive hadronic rescattering in rapidity windows $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta >3`$ . The average rapidity shift for a nucleon is a factor four smaller than for pions, such that the critical rapidity window size for the survival of net baryon number fluctuations is less than unity, in agreement with our estimate .

Due to local charge and baryon number conservation, the rapid longitudinal expansion of the reaction zone may even freeze the fluctuations established during the initial particle production process , before reaching the equilibrium level corresponding to a thermalized QGP (even if average thermodynamic quantities reach their thermal values). A detailed study of initial state fluctuations would thus be desirable.

In conclusion, we have argued that the difference in magnitude of local fluctuations of the net baryon number and net electric charge between confined and deconfined hadronic matter is partially frozen at an early stage in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. These fluctuations may thus be useful probes of the temporary formation of a deconfined state in such collisions. The event-by-event fluctuations of the two suggested observables for collisions with a fixed value of the transverse energy $`dE_\mathrm{T}/dy`$ or of the energy measured in a zero-degree calorimeter would be appropriate observables that could test our predictions.


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# References

Recently, there has been increasingly sophisticated use of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) to elucidate Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-type state entanglements. In general, these experiments take the following form . When down-conversion occurs, conservation of momentum requires that the signal-idler pairs propagate in strongly correlated directions that are in some sense “opposite” . The pairs are emitted from two possible activations regions ($`A`$ and $`B`$) in a suitable crystal. The signal photons are subjected to a double slit, in which the slits correspond to $`A`$ and $`B`$. This process produces double-slit interference if and only if it is subjected to coincidence counting with an $`A+B`$ idler beam, a phenomenon often called quantum erasure. In an elegant example , there are two $`A+B`$ idler beams with different phase factors, producing two double-slit coincidence patterns whose peaks and troughs are perfectly out of phase, and therefore sum to a perfectly non-double-slit pattern. In order that experiments of this type should support the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, it is essential that the sum total pattern not display double-slit interference.

Srikanth  has proposed a variant of this type of experiment in which the double-slit observer may observe interference without coincidence counting, a prospect which threatens the standard interpretation. It is our intention to boil this type of experiment down to a few essentials and see whether this threat really exists.

At the core of the experiment is the necessary condition for resolution of a double-slit pattern,

$$\frac{w}{d}<\frac{\lambda }{s},$$
(1)
where

$`w`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{width}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{the}\mathrm{source},`$
$`d`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{distance}\mathrm{from}\mathrm{the}\mathrm{source}\mathrm{to}\mathrm{the}\mathrm{slits},\mathrm{and}`$
$`s`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{slit}\mathrm{separation}.`$
For strongly correlated photon pairs, we expect that pair detection varies as

$$\sqrt{2\pi }\frac{\varphi }{\varphi _0}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\varphi }{\varphi _0}\right)^2\right],$$
(2)
where $`\varphi `$ is the angular deviation from perfect opposition, and $`\varphi _0`$ is the one-dimensional standard deviation. It is clear that the experiment harbors a potentially interesting result only if double-slit interference can be shown to occur when

$$\frac{s}{d}>\varphi _0.$$
(3)
So, from (1) and (3),

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{w}}`$ $`>`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{s}{d}}>\varphi _0`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{\varphi _0}}`$ $`>`$ $`w.`$ (4)
Using condition (4) and various SPDC results , we shall construct an experiment in which

$`\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`702\mathrm{nm},\mathrm{and}`$
$`\varphi _0`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{mrad}.`$
If we set $`\frac{s}{d}=6\varphi _0=12`$ mrad to achieve separation between slits $`A`$ and $`B`$, Equation 4 is replaced by

$$w<\frac{\lambda }{6\varphi _0}=(83.3)\lambda ,$$
(5)
We then set $`w=25\lambda `$ to make the interference pattern easily resolvable. Then if we set $`d=600`$ mm, we have

$`w`$ $`=`$ $`1.75\times 10^2\mathrm{mm},\mathrm{and}`$
$`s`$ $`=`$ $`7.2\mathrm{mm},`$
and the experiment is summarized by Figure 1. Note that because of the small value of $`\frac{s}{d}`$, we have for the sake of clarity used different scales for the horizontal and vertical axes.

The distances $`A^{}A^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`B^{}B^{\prime \prime }`$ are 1.46 mm each, so we define $`xA^{}C=B^{}D=\frac{1}{2}A^{}A^{\prime \prime }=`$ 0.73 mm. 0.73 mm is close to the usual value for the extent of the activation area (and therefore the coherence length). We therefore choose to work with a crystal (or perhaps just with an activation area) that is 0.73 mm thick. We see from Figure 1 that $`\frac{3}{5}`$ of the points that have access to the slits have access to both slits (the shaded area). Therefore, the naive conclusion is that $`\frac{3}{4}`$ of the counts beyond the slits are double-slit counts. The total pattern without coincidence counting should be predominantly a double-slit pattern.

We complete the experiment by placing detectors $`\overline{A}`$ and $`\overline{B}`$ “opposite” slits $`A`$ and $`B`$, at a distance $`d^{}d`$, so that $`\frac{w}{d^{}}`$ is negligible. The detectors have radius $`2\varphi _0`$.

It is then difficult to escape the conclusion that coincidence counting with either $`\overline{A}`$ or $`\overline{B}`$ alone will include a significant double-slit component. Note that a time delay for the idlers can be inserted, so that the double-slit counts are registered before $`\overline{A}`$ and $`\overline{B}`$ are activated.

The one loophole that could avoid this conclusion and still maintain the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics would be if the photon wave functions are composed primarily of waves that appear to radiate from points in zones $`A`$ and $`B`$ that are outside (the activation area of) the crystal.

Note that

$$K_{pe}\frac{x}{\lambda }=1.04\times 10^3$$
(6)
is a measure of the system’s potential entanglement, while

$$K_{ae}\frac{\pi /2}{\varphi _0}=0.79\times 10^3$$
(7)
is a measurement of the actual entanglement. We have designed the experiment so that

$$0.5<\frac{K_{ae}}{K_{pe}}<1.$$
(8)
We can determine more generally the conditions for observing the desired effect. We define three parameters $`f`$, $`g`$, and $`h`$ be replacing three inequalities with equations.

$$K_{pe}>K_{ae},$$

for degree of entanglement, becomes

$$K_{pe}=fK_{ae};$$

$$\frac{s}{d}>\varphi _0,$$

for discriminating A from B, becomes

$$\frac{s}{d}=4g\varphi _0;$$

and

$$\frac{\lambda }{s}>\frac{w}{d},$$

for double-slit pattern resolution, becomes

$$\frac{\lambda }{s}=2h\frac{w}{d}.$$

We then find that

$$\varphi _0=\frac{1}{32\pi (fg^2h)}$$
(9)
and

$$w=\frac{\lambda }{8gh\varphi _0}.$$
(10)
It appears that the threshold for observing the effect is about $`f1`$, $`g1`$, $`h1`$ with

$`\varphi _0`$ $`=`$ $`10\mathrm{mrad},\mathrm{and}`$
$`w`$ $`=`$ $`(12.5)\lambda ,`$
so even in the threshold case, diffraction by the aperture is not a critically limiting factor. Current SPDC results allow us to propose a configuration in which

$`fg^2h`$ $``$ $`5`$
$`hg^2`$ $`=`$ $`3.75,`$
with $`\varphi _0=2`$ mrad. If we fix $`f`$ then $`g^2h=\frac{1}{132\varphi _0}`$. $`g^2h`$ is a visibility parameter for the effect, which improves if the value of $`\varphi _0`$ decreases.

We conclude that the experiment is technically viable and consistent, and that an interesting result is expected, provided that the stated loophole does not apply.


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# Optical absorption for parallel cylinder arrays

## I Introduction

The optical properties of ordered cylinder arrays has become a subject of much recent interest mainly because of their potential use as photonic crystals.  Theoretical research once done for spherical particles  has lately been applied to cylinders . It is well known that in the long wavelength limit the optical properties of a dilute composite of microscopic spherical particles are well described by mean field theories such as Claussius-Mosotti or Maxwell-Garnett. These theories are essentially based on a dipolar approximation assuming that the particles are sufficiently far appart so that it is possible to neglect contributions from higher order multipoles. As particles become closer, however, this approach is no longer valid. Several models have been presented to overcome this difficulty, among wich the theory of normal modes has been shown to be particularly convenient since it makes possible to expand the response of the system in terms of optical resonance terms, where dielectric properties appear separate from geometrical factors.  The simplest system exhibiting the effects of interactions is a pair of identical particles very close to each other. A pair of particles of the same material and form but different size is the simplest non-symmetric system of interacting particles .

Recently, a model to study arbitrary cylinder arrays made of the same material has been constructed and applied in detail to a pair of identical cylinders.  The response of periodic arrays of identical parallel cylinders including proximity effects is also easily treated within that formalism. The method follows a normal modes description appropriate to the long-wavelength limit first proposed by Bergmann , and makes use of a basis of cylindrical harmonics solutions to Laplace’s equation. Modes are characterized by depolarization factors and strengths, defined in such a way that an isolated cylinder exhibits a depolarization factor $`\frac{1}{2}`$ and unit strength. We here follow a similar procedure to study a pair of non-touching parallel cylinders of the same material but different radii, for different polarizations of the external field. We show that a difference in radii does not alter the property that depolarization factors are symmetric about $`\frac{1}{2}`$, although in contrast with the equal radii case, mixing of transverse and longitudinal modes occurs. This property is no longer valid when the dielectric function of the cylinders is different. We find that all normal modes are active for an external field perpendicular to the cylinders axis, whether parallel or perpendicular to the plane containing the axis. Modes inactive for identical cylinders have very small strengths when their radii are not very different. Strengths of modes with depolarization factors smaller than $`\frac{1}{2}`$ are exchanged with those of depolarization modes bigger than $`\frac{1}{2}`$, when the direction of the electric field changes from parallel to perpendicular.

In Sec. II we get the multipolar moments and the absorption cross section for a pair of unequal cylinders. In Sec. III we present and discuss our numerical results. Finally in Sec. IV we summarize our conclusions.

## II Theory

We consider a set of N parallel, infinite, uncharged cylinders of dielectric function $`\epsilon _1`$ placed in a homogeneous medium of dielectric function $`\epsilon _2`$, excited by an external electric field whose wavelength is much longer than the cylinder radii or separation between cylinders. The charge distribution they acquire may be described in terms of individual multipole moments $`q_{mj}`$ obeying the equations,

$$q_{mj}=\alpha _{mj}(V_m+\underset{m^{}j^{}}{}A_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}q_{m^{}j^{}}),$$
(1)
Here $`m`$ is a positive or negative integer labeling the angular momentum component along the cylinder axes, $`j=1,2,\mathrm{},N`$ is a particle index, $`\alpha _{mj}=|m|a_j^{2|m|}(\epsilon _1\epsilon _2)/(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2)`$ are the multipolar polarizabilities of cylinder cylinder $`j`$ of radius $`a_j`$, and $`V_m`$ are the coefficients in the expansion of the external potential in terms of cylindrical harmonics. The coupling coefficients are given by,

$$A_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}=\{\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & \text{if }mm^{}>0\\ \frac{()^m^{}\left(\left|m\right|+\left|m^{}\right|1\right)!}{\left|m\right|!\left|m^{}\right|!}\frac{e^{i\left(m^{}m\right)\theta _{jj^{}}}}{\rho _{jj^{}}^{\left|m\right|+\left|m^{}\right|}}\hfill & \text{if }mm^{}<0\text{,}\end{array}$$
(2)
where $`(\rho _{jj^{}},\theta _{jj^{}})=\stackrel{}{\rho _j^{}}\stackrel{}{\rho _j}`$ are polar coordinates in the x-y plane giving the relative position of cylinder $`j^{}`$ with respect to cylinder $`j`$.

As discussed in reference , if the cylinders are of the same material one can separate in Eq. (1) terms depending on the material susceptibility $`\chi `$ from those involving the geometry of the array. We intend to follow here the same procedure and write Eq. (1) as

$$\underset{\mu ^{}}{}(\chi ^1\delta _{\mu \mu ^{}}+H_\mu ^\mu ^{})x_\mu ^{}=f_\mu ,$$
(3)
where $`\mu `$ represents the pair of indices $`(m,j)`$, and

$`H_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi (\delta _{mm^{}}\delta _{jj^{}}+|mm^{}|^{1/2}a_j^{|m|}a_j^{}^{|m^{}|}A_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}})`$ (4)
$`f_{mj}`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi |m|^{1/2}a_j^{|m|}V_{mj}`$ (5)
$`x_{mj}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q_{mj}}{|m|^{1/2}a_j^{|m|}}}`$ (6)
Note the important feature that matrix $`H`$ depends on geometry only and its eigenvalues $`\{4\pi n_\mu \}`$ define the depolarization factors $`\{n_\mu \}`$ of the array. For later convenience we write $`𝐇=2\pi (𝐈+𝐁)`$, with $`𝐈`$ the unit matrix and $`B_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}=|mm^{}|^{1/2}a_j^{|m|}a_j^{}^{|m^{}|}A_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$, so that the depolarization factors $`\{n_\mu \}`$ and eigenvalues $`\{\lambda _\mu \}`$ of $`𝐁`$ satisfy the relation,

$$n_\mu =\frac{1}{2}(1+\lambda _\mu ).$$
(7)
Because of the property $`B_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}=0`$ if $`mm^{}>0`$ (see Eq. (2)), we write rows and columns of matrix $`𝐁`$ with indexes $`m`$ and $`m^{}`$ following the sequence $`1,2,\mathrm{},1,2,\mathrm{}`$, resulting in matrix $`𝐁`$ written in terms of a new real matrix $`𝐛`$ of half its dimension, as

$$𝐁=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{𝟎}& 𝐛\\ 𝐛& \mathrm{𝟎}\end{array}\right].$$
(8)
From now on we use index $`m`$ and $`m^{}`$ as positive integers, and write the elements of matrix $`𝐛`$ as follows,

$$b_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}=()^m^{}\sqrt{mm^{}}\frac{(m+m^{}1)!}{m!m^{}!}\frac{a_j^ma_j^{}^m^{}e^{i(m+m^{})\theta _{jj^{}}}}{\rho _{jj^{}}^{m+m^{}}}$$
(9)
It can be shown that the eigenvalues of matrix $`𝐁`$ come in pairs with opposite sign $`\lambda _\mu =\pm \mathrm{}_\mu `$, where $`\mathrm{}_\mu `$ are the eigenvalues of $`𝐛`$ (see the appendix A). As follows from Eq. (7) the depolarization factors are then symmetric about the value $`1/2`$. The components of vector $`x_\mu `$ can de written in terms of the eigenvalues of matrix $`𝐛`$ and elements of matrix $`𝐮`$ that diagonalizes $`𝐛`$ through

$$𝐮^1\mathrm{𝐛𝐮}=\mathrm{}.$$
(10)
In the case of a uniform electric field $`E_0`$ parallel to the plane containing the cylinder axes and perpendicular to the latter (parallel field geometry), $`x_{mj}=x_{mj}`$. Vector $`𝐱_+=x_{mj}`$ is then given by

$$𝐱_+=(𝐮𝐬^1𝐮^1)𝐟^+,$$
(11)
where

$`s_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{mm^{}}\delta _{jj^{}}(\chi ^1+2\pi (1+\mathrm{}_{mj})),`$ (12)
$`f_{mj}^+`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{m1}\pi a_jE_0.`$ (13)
In the case of an electric field perpendicular to the plane containing the cylinder axes (perpendicular field geometry), $`x_{mj}=x_{mj}`$. Vector $`𝐱_{}=x_{mj}`$ is then given by,

$$𝐱_{}=(𝐮𝐫^1𝐮^1)𝐟^{},$$
(14)
where now

$`r_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{mm^{}}\delta _{jj^{}}(\chi ^1+2\pi (1\mathrm{}_{mj})),`$ (15)
$`f_{mj}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{m1}i\pi a_jE_0.`$ (16)
For a pair of unequal parallel cylinders with radii $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$, and axis at a distance $`R`$ we define dimensionless parameters $`\beta =a_2/a_1`$ and $`\delta =R/a_1`$. Because of the properties $`b_{mj}^{m^{}j}=0`$ and $`b_{m2}^{m^{}1}=(\beta )^{mm^{}}b_{m1}^{m^{}2}`$, we write rows (columns) of matrix $`𝐛`$ with particle index $`j`$ ($`j^{}`$) in the sequence $`1,2`$ resulting in matrix $`𝐛`$ written in terms of a smaller array $`𝐠`$ as follows,

$$𝐛=\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& 𝐠\\ \overline{𝐠}& 0\end{array}\right]$$
(17)
where $`\overline{𝐠}`$ is the transpose of $`𝐠`$, and the elements of matrix $`𝐠`$ are given by

$$g_m^m^{}=()^m^{}\sqrt{mm^{}}\frac{(m+m^{}1)!}{m!m^{}!}\frac{\beta ^m^{}}{\delta ^{m+m^{}}}.$$
(18)
Results for a pair of cylinders with an external field in the parallel or perpendicular configuration can be written in terms of a single normal modes expansion as

$$x_{\pm mj}=\underset{m^{}j^{}}{}\frac{C_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}f_\pm }{\chi ^1+4\pi n_{\pm m^{}j^{}}}.$$
(19)
In this expression the upper (lower) sign corresponds to the parallel (perpendicular) configuration, with $`(m^{},j^{})`$ labelling the excitation modes of the pair as a coupled system. It gives just half of the multipoles; the others are obtained from the corresponding symmetry property as given in the paragraph preceding Eqs. (11) and (14). We have defined the depolarization factors of modes,

$$n_{\pm m^{}j^{}}=\frac{1}{2}(1\pm \mathrm{}_{m^{}j^{}}),$$
(20)
and coefficients corresponding to strength of modes,

$$C_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}=u_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}(u_{1,1}^{m^{}j^{}}+\beta u_{1,2}^{m^{}j^{}}).$$
(21)
We have also defined

$`f_+`$ $`=`$ $`f_{1,1}^+`$ (22)
$`f_{}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{1,1}^{}.`$ (23)
We find that coefficients $`C_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ satisfy the sum rules

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}j^{}}{}}C_{m1}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{m1}`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}j^{}}{}}C_{m2}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`\beta \delta _{m1}.`$ (25)
It can be shown that, as with the original matrix $`𝐁`$, eigenvalues $`\{\mathrm{}_{mj}\}`$ of matrix $`𝐛`$ come also in pairs with opposite sign; therefore the sets of depolarization factors $`\{n_{+mj}\}`$ and $`\{n_{mj}\}`$ are identical (see the appendix). A given depolarization factor exhibits a different strength depending on the direction of the external field. As seen in the normal modes expansion given by Eq. (19) the same strength coefficients $`C_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ appear for depolarization factor $`n_{+m^{}j^{}}`$ in the parallel field response and for $`n_{m^{}j^{}}`$ in the perpendicular field response. Then, strenghts corresponding to depolarization factors symmetric around value $`1/2`$ are exchanged between responses corresponding to fields parallel or perpendicular.

The magnitude of the electric dipole moment for the pair can be written as

$$p_\pm =\pi a_1^2\underset{m^{}j^{}}{}\frac{C_{11}^{m^{}j^{}}+\beta C_{12}^{m^{}j^{}}}{\chi ^1+4\pi n_{\pm m^{}j^{}}}E_0,$$
(26)
where $`p_+`$ ($`p_{}`$) corresponds to a parallel (perpendicular) field. The absorption cross section is proportional to the imaginary part of the factor accompanying $`E_0`$ in the previous expression, a quantity we identify as the complex effective polarizability of the pair. Thus we arrive at a normal modes decomposition for the absorption cross section of two parallel cylinders,

$$\sigma _\pm \text{Imaginary}\{\underset{m^{}j^{}}{}\frac{C_{11}^{m^{}j^{}}+\beta C_{12}^{m^{}j^{}}}{\chi ^1+4\pi n_{\pm m^{}j^{}}}\}$$
(27)
where $`\sigma _+`$ ($`\sigma _{}`$) corresponds to a parallel (perpendicular) field. Notice that, as follows from Eq. (21), the numerator in the previous sum can be written as

$$(u_{1,1}^{m^{}j^{}}+\beta u_{1,2}^{m^{}j^{}})^2,$$
(28)
and is always positive definite. According to the sum rules given by Eqs. (24) and (25), the sum of the numerators in expansions (26) and (27) is $`1+\beta ^2`$, a feature we use in calculating the normalized strength of modes.

## III Numerical Results

We have solved numerically the eigenvalue equation for matrix b for the case of a pair of parallel cylinders of radii $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$, and have calculated the depolarization factors $`n_{m^{}j^{}}`$ and strength coefficients $`C_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ according to Eqs. (20) and (21). We have studied in detail the normal modes expansion for the dipole moment of the pair as given by Eq. (26). Our most important finding is that when the radii are not equal, modes with depolarization factors above and below the value $`\frac{1}{2}`$ mix for all orientations of the external field. This is known not to happen when cylinders are equal.

In obtaining numerical results we use the dimensionless parameters $`\sigma =R/(a_1+a_2)`$, that measures the center to center distance, $`\beta =a_2/a_1`$, measuring how disimilar the radii are, and $`\mu =(Ra_1a_2)/a_1`$, measuring the border to border distance. In Fig. 1 we plot modes for very close cylinders ($`\sigma =1.10`$) with one radius three times bigger than the other ($`\beta =3`$). Modes are for the parallel configuration, while those for the perpendicular case are obtained by mirror reflection about depolarization factor $`\frac{1}{2}`$. Note that the placement of modes are symmetric about this central value so that, as far as position is concerned, they are indistinguishable in both configurations. The figure shows the modes with largest amplitude, while weaker modes accumulate around $`n=\frac{1}{2}`$. The sum of amplitudes is 10, as required by the sum rule mentioned after Eq. (28). Labels, included in order to match with labelling in Fig. 2, are arbitrary.

Figure 2 shows depolarization factors (a) and normalized strengths (b) in terms of the parameter $`\beta `$, at fixed $`\sigma =1.1`$. The sum over all strengths is unity, having been normalized by the factor $`1+\beta ^2`$. Thus the results at $`\beta =3`$ correspond to amplitudes shown in Fig. 1 with the normalization factor 10. In changing $`\beta `$ we keep constant the parameter $`\sigma `$ by changing the center to center distance $`R`$ accordingly. Note that modes with essentially zero strength at $`\beta =1`$ become important when increasing this ratio. Labels are arbitrary and are used just to relate the data in different figures.

Results shown in Fig. 3 were obtained by changing $`\beta `$ and the center to center separation $`R`$, but keeping constant the border to border distance at the fixed value $`\mu =0.4`$. In this case we note that the depolarization factors move appart with increasing $`\beta `$, while at constant $`\sigma `$ (Fig. 2 (a)) they get closer. This is because the relation between the edge to edge and center to center parameters is $`\mu =(\sigma 1)(1+\beta )`$, indicating that as $`\beta `$ goes to infinity, so does $`\mu `$ if $`\sigma `$ is kept constant. Thus all modes should converge to the isolated cylinder value $`n=1/2`$ in this case, while if $`\mu `$ is kept constant, the modes converge to those of a cylinder in front of a plane at the same distance.

## IV Conclusions

In summary, we have shown that the absorption cross section of a pair of parallel cylinders of the same material but different radii contains modes whose depolarization factors are symmetrically distributed around $`\frac{1}{2}`$ with amplitudes depending on the direction of the external field. When the field changes from the parallel to the perpendicular configuration, amplitudes corresponding to symmetric depolarization factors about the central value $`1/2`$ are exchanged.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by the Fondo Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (Chile) under grant 1990425, Cátedra Presidencial en Ciencias (F.C.), the Dirección de Investigación of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María and the Dirección de Investigación of the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

## A

We consider the eigenvalue equation for operator $`𝐓`$,

$$\mathrm{𝐓𝐱}=\lambda 𝐱,$$
(A1)
in a basis of dimension $`2M`$. Here $`𝐓`$ has the form,

$$𝐓=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{𝟎}& 𝐀\\ 𝐁& \mathrm{𝟎}\end{array}\right].$$
(A2)
where A, B each has dimension $`M`$. In writing the eigenvectors $`𝐱`$ in terms of two smaller vectors $`w`$ and $`v`$ of dimension $`M`$ the eigenvalue equation is cast into the form,

$$\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& 𝐀\\ 𝐁& 0\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}w\\ v\end{array}\right]=\lambda \left[\begin{array}{c}w\\ v\end{array}\right]$$
(A3)
or

$`𝐀v`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda w`$ (A4)
$`𝐁w`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda v.`$ (A5)
From there we get the separate eigenvalue problems,

$`(\mathrm{𝐀𝐁})w`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2w`$ (A6)
$`(\mathrm{𝐁𝐀})v`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2v,`$ (A7)
both having the same eigenvalues $`\lambda ^2`$. In solving for the corresponding eigenvectors and writing them as columns we get matrices $`𝐰`$ and $`𝐯`$ that diagonalize matrices $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐁}`$ and $`\mathrm{𝐁𝐀}`$. They can be used to form a matrix $`𝐔`$ as,

$$𝐔=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝐰& 𝐰\\ 𝐯& 𝐯\end{array}\right],$$
(A8)
which diagonalizes matrix $`𝐓`$ according to the relation

$$𝐔^\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{𝐓𝐔}=𝚲,$$
(A9)
with matrix $`𝚲`$ given by

$$𝚲=\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝝀& \hfill 0\\ 0& \hfill \mathbf{}𝝀\end{array}\right].$$
(A10)
Here $`𝝀`$ ($`\mathbf{}𝝀`$) is a diagonal matrix formed by the positive (negative) square root of the eigenvalues of matrices $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐁}`$ or $`\mathrm{𝐁𝐀}`$. Therefore the eigenvalues of matrix $`𝐓`$ come in pairs with opposite sign. In the case of a pair of cylinders, we find the previous feature two times. It first happens because coupling coefficients $`A_{mj}^{m^{}j^{}}`$ are zero if $`m`$ and $`m^{}`$ have the same sign, and then occurs also because they are zero for $`j=j^{}`$. The dimensionality $`(4M)X(4M)`$ of the original eigenvalue problem is seen to be reduced to $`MXM`$ dimensions.