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# Balloon Flight Background Measurement with Actively-Shielded Planar and Imaging CZT Detectors

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Hard X-ray and gamma-ray detectors for high energy astronomy made of Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CZT) are finally realizing the potential that they have shown for the past 6–7 years. It has long been known that CZT detectors offer far better energy resolution than scintillator detectors such as NaI and CsI, and that the use of pixel or strip electrode readouts allows far better spatial resolution. Response up to 600 keV is possible with moderate thicknesses (5 mm) due to the high stopping power of CZT, and no cryogenic cooling is required due to its wide band gap. Extensive laboratory work by our group at Harvard and many others has now begun to bring this promise to fruition. In the hard X-ray band ($`10`$ to several 100 keV) the first space-based astronomical instrument employing CZT, the Swift mission, is already under construction. EXIST, a wide-field, all-sky survey telescope operating between $`5`$ and 600 keV, is in the early planning stages, and the Hard X-ray Telescope of Constellation-X, a narrow-field instrument using focusing optics up to 40 keV, is under development. CZT is also being considered for the medium gamma-ray band (0.5–50 MeV) as the calorimeter material in advanced Compton telescopes.

A major contributor to the maturity of CZT detector technology has been an active campaign of balloon flight tests over the past five years, both by our group and by others. These experiments are necessary to test detector design, readout, and shielding methods under flight conditions, and to measure background levels in the space environment. The experiments have progressed from simple one-element detectors with passive shielding to single-element detectors with various combinations of active and passive shielding to complex multi-anode detectors, either strips or pixels, again using both passive and active shielding techniques. The general conclusions that may be drawn from this experience are that CZT detector technology is indeed compatible with the needs of balloon and space-flight systems, and that background levels can be made acceptable for sensitive astronomical observations. More specifically, active shielding has been shown to reduce background significantly over passive shielding alone. This suggests a substantial portion of the CZT background is generated by processes involving charged particles and/or prompt gamma reactions. It has been suggested that prompt (n,$`\gamma `$) reactions in CZT could be an important source of background due to the large neutron capture cross sections in Cd. Additionally, activation of Cd and Te by neutrons could produce isomeric states that decay radiatively on a timescale too long to be vetoed by active shields. However, flight results with a strip detector from Washington University, St. Louis and the University of California, San Diego (WUSTL/UCSD) saw no evidence of decay lines. In addition, the WUSTL/UCSD experiment found that a shield threshold of 10 MeV, too high to veto prompt gamma-rays, still reduced background to acceptable levels. Perhaps, then, only charged particle shields made out of plastic scintillator are necessary, instead of heavier gamma-ray shields such as CsI or BGO.

In this paper we present results from two CZT experiments conducted in September 2000: the first array of pixellated CZT detectors, read out by an ASIC, to be flown on a balloon, and a single-element background experiment flown simultaneously. Motivated by the requirements of the EXIST concept, our goals were to investigate techniques for assembling a large-area detector plane out of small elements, test various detector materials in the near-space environment, demonstrate an ASIC readout system in flight, and compare active shielding techniques using particle and photon shields for a wide field-of-view telescope.

## 2 Description of the CZT Experiments

The motivations for our two experiments and the detector designs have been described in detail previously. Here we repeat the main features, as shown schematically in Figure 1.

The first CZT experiment, dubbed “CZT1,” is a modification of the CZT/BGO detector flown by us in 1997. Its main purpose was to test the effectiveness of photon vs. particle-only shielding in a wide field of view (FOV) instrument. CZT1 consists of a single-element detector, 10 mm $`\times `$ 10 mm $`\times `$ 2 mm, supplied by eV Products and made from high-pressure Bridgman (HPB) material with planar gold contacts. The detector sits directly in front of a thick BGO crystal, 8.2 cm diameter $`\times `$ 6.5 cm thick, which acts as an active shield. The threshold of the BGO was alternated between $`50`$ keV and $`1`$ MeV to simulate photon and particle rejection, respectively. The CZT is surrounded by a graded Pb-Sb-Cu collimator (4.5 mm Pb, 1 mm Sn, 1 mm Cu) that provides a $`40^{}`$ FOV, appropriate to an all-sky survey telescope such as EXIST. This passive collimator is in turn surrounded by 0.5” thick NE-102 plastic scintillator, read out by miniature PMTs, to reject local gamma production. Only one readout channel was available in addition to the CZT channel, and so the signals from the BGO and the passive/plastic collimator were combined into a single veto.

The second experiment, “CZT2,” was intended to test technological requirements for the EXIST concept and to provide a particle-only shielding configuration to compare with CZT1. CZT2 consists of a tiled “array” of two flip-chip-mounted pixellated detectors, each 10 mm $`\times `$ 10 mm $`\times `$ 5 mm. One detector is made of HPB CZT provided by eV Products, and the other is horizontal Bridgman (HB) material produced by IMARAD Imaging Systems. Our work with IMARAD HB CZT has shown that is is more uniform than HPB material, and that simple gold contacts greatly reduce leakage current to levels similar to HPB values. Both detectors were fashioned with a 4 $`\times `$ 4 array of gold pixels on a 2.5 mm pitch plus a guard ring; the layout was such that the pitch is preserved across the two tiled detectors. The detectors are mounted side-by-side in a flip-chip fashion on a ceramic carrier board and read out by a self-triggering, 32-channel VA-TA ASIC supplied by IDE Corp. A passive/plastic collimator identical to that in CZT1 provides a $`40^{}`$ FOV. Unlike CZT1, however, CZT2 is shielded from the rear by a simple passive/plastic shield. A weak 241Am source placed just above the collimator supplied in-flight calibration at 60 keV.

## 3 Balloon Flight Results

Both the CZT1 and CZT2 experiments were launched on September 19, 2000 from Ft. Sumner, NM as part of a multi-experiment balloon payload that also included Harvard’s EXITE2 hard X-ray telescope and MSFC’s hard X-ray focusing optics experiment HERO. The flight was quite successful, achieving 24 hours at float altitudes between 115,000 ft and 128,000 ft. The CZT1 detector was intermittently noisy, possibly due to pickup in the plastic shield PMT preamps, and care was taken to extract periods of clean operation as judged by the total count rate. CZT2 performed well throughout the flight.

### 3.1 CZT1 Results

The September 2000 flight spectrum recorded by the CZT1 experiment is shown in Figure 2.

Plotted are both the total and “good,” or non-vetoed, events. Data are included from the entire flight, as no altitude-dependent variations within the range of float altitudes was found previously. Plotted separately are 5.8 hours of data with the BGO threshold set at $`50`$ keV (closed symbols) and 3.3 hours of data with the BGO threshold set at $`1`$ MeV (open symbols). Also shown for reference are the background levels recorded by the same detector as part of the CZT/BGO experiment flown in 1997.

It is immediately clear that the 2000 background is in very good agreement with the background recorded in 1997 except at energies below $`100`$ keV, where the larger aperture flux seen in the $`40^{}`$ FOV is apparent. In 1997 the CZT detector was completely covered by a graded Pb-Sn-Cu cup to approximate the grammage of a collimator. At 100 keV the measured good event level in the 2000 data, for a BGO threshold of 50 keV, is $`1\times 10^3`$ cts cm-2 s-1 keV-1. The BGO provides a factor of $`4.5`$ reduction at this energy, again showing that active shielding is essential. What is also noteworthy is that the background level at 100 keV increases by only $`18`$% when the BGO threshold is increased to 1 MeV. The increase is approximately constant at all energies. This confirms the previously-reported result that active photon shields may be replaced with lighter plastic charged particle shields with only a small penalty in background rate.

### 3.2 CZT2 Results

#### 3.2.1 In-flight Detector Performance

One of the primary goals for CZT2 was to demonstrate the in-flight performance of two pixellated CZT detectors read out by an ASIC. Although more than half of the channels of the IMARAD detector were unusable due to bad contacts after flip-chip mounting or noise from long lead lengths, a few of the IMARAD HB CZT pixels and all of the eV Products HPB CZT pixels functioned properly. (The functioning IMARAD pixels, unfortunately, happened to correspond to areas of the detector with poor material qualities.) The performance may be judged by the spectra recorded from the 241Am calibration source. An example from each detector is presented in Figure 3.

Both spectra were corrected for the effects of charge spreading by adding in charge from the nearest-neighbor pixel, as described previously. The improvement in the spectra is clear. The spectra were fit with a combination of a gaussian photopeak and exponential tail to determine energy resolution and photopeak efficiency, where the photopeak efficiency is defined as the ratio of photopeak counts to total counts within a range around the gaussian center from $`4\sigma `$ to $`+2.35\sigma `$. At left is an IMARAD pixel with an energy resolution (corrected spectrum) of 13.3% at 60 keV and a photopeak efficiency of 85%. At right is an eV Products pixel with an energy resolution of 9.4% and a photopeak efficiency of 92%. While the photopeak efficiencies are consistent with those measured on the ground, the energy resolutions are slightly worse; at 60 keV we measured 12.9% for the IMARAD pixel and 8.5% for the eV Products pixel in pre-flight calibrations. The degradation is small, however. We conclude that a pixellated detector with ASIC readout may be made to function properly under spaceflight conditions.

#### 3.2.2 Temperature Effects

A temperature sensor was included in the CZT2 experiment to monitor the sensitivity of the detector gain, offset, and noise to temperature. During the course of the flight the temperature inside the CZT2 pressure vessel varied between 10 C and 31 C. The CZT2 data were assembled into 30 minute segments, and the peak channel and width $`\sigma `$ of both the 241Am line and the offset pedestal peak were determined for an arbitrary channel for each segment. Scatter plots of these quantities revealed no correlation between the width $`\sigma `$ of the line or pedestal and the temperature. There is, however, a strong correlation with temperature for the peak channel of both the 241Am line and the pedestal. In Figure 4 we show scatter plots of the 241Am peak vs. temperature (left) and the difference between the 241Am peak and the pedestal peak vs. temperature (right).

The line peaks are expressed in keV using the pre-flight energy calibration. It is clear that the calibration has changed in flight, and that this change is highly correlated with the temperature; the 241Am line moves between 54 keV and 58.5 keV within this temperature range. However, the difference between the line peak and the pedestal peak, though also correlated with temperature, changes far less, only by about 1 keV. (Note that according to our pre-flight energy calibrations, which made use of three different line energies, the pedestal peak is not located exactly at 0 keV.) This indicates that it is the offset, rather than the gain, that is most affected by the temperature. This means that, to first order, we may correct the energy of the in-flight spectra by a simple shift in energy offset. It does indicate, however, that some degree of temperature control or electronic offset correction should be developed for stable operation under flight conditions.

#### 3.2.3 Background Spectrum

In processing the CZT2 flight data it was immediately clear that the recorded background spectra were much flatter than expected, failing to fall off appreciably at high energy. This was true also of the IMARAD pixels that had been masked out due to their high noise: instead of just a low energy noise peak, as expected, the masked pixels also had recorded a flat spectrum extending to high energies. This was probably due to cosmic ray events producing multiple triggers in the ASIC, as we had no upper level discriminator implemented. To produce accurate background spectra we therefore averaged the masked pixels into a “masked background” spectrum and subtracted this from the spectra of the active pixels. The masked pixels were unfortunately all located on the IMARAD detector, so that it is not clear that this masked background is appropriate for the eV Products detector; the resulting spectra from the two detectors agree reasonably well up to their normalization, however (see below), so we do not believe this has had a big effect on our results. In order to compare these results with future data from the CZT3 detector, which will employ an ASIC which provides only the peak channel for each event (see separate paper in these proceedings), we have not added in charge from neighboring pixels in producing the CZT2 background spectra.

The September 2000 flight spectra recorded by the CZT2 experiment are shown in Figure 5.

Plotted are total and good (non-vetoed by the plastic shields) events for both the eV Products HPB detector and the IMARAD HB detector. A total of 4.9 hours of data is included, during which time the temperature increased from 10 C to 17 C. From Figure 4 we expect the offset to vary by less than 2 keV and the gain by less than 0.5 keV over this range. Due to the coarse binning used for the background continuum spectra we have not made these small corrections; rather, the individual spectra were simply shifted in energy by 4–5 keV so that the 241Am calibration lines were superimposed at 60 keV. The spectra represent the average of all pixels in each detector with similar response and material quality (10 pixels from the eV Products detector and 3 pixels from the IMARAD detector), as judged by the 241Am calibration line. Due to the slight line broadening in flight noted in Section 3.2.1 it was difficult to cleanly subtract the calibration line profile, recorded on the ground, from the flight background spectra. We have therefore excluded events between 42 keV and 67 keV from the spectra shown.

The CZT2 spectra presented in Figure 5 show that simple passive and plastic shielding can reduce background in CZT detectors to reasonable levels. The background recorded at 100 keV is $`4\times 10^3`$ cts cm-2 s-1 keV-1 for the eV Products detector and $`6\times 10^3`$ cts cm-2 s-1 keV-1 for the IMARAD detector. The spectra overall agree in shape and normalization to within a factor of $`2`$. The difference in normalization could well arise from using the IMARAD masked pixel background for the eV Products crystal. In both cases the plastic shield vetoes reduce the background by a factor of $``$ 2–2.5. Also notable is the lack of any detected background lines, which a pixellated detector should be able to resolve. This is in agreement with the findings of the WUSTL/UCSD experiment, which used crossed strips to achieve energy resolution similar to that of a pixel detector. These findings cast doubt on the importance of activation lines from neutron interactions as a source of CZT background, at least for lines below $`500`$ keV.

### 3.3 Comparison of CZT1 and CZT2 Results

In Figure 6 we compare the flight spectra recorded by CZT1 and CZT2, plotted as count rate per volume to account for the different detector thicknesses.

Both CZT2 detectors are plotted, as are CZT1 results for both BGO threshold settings. The agreement below 100 keV is quite good. At higher energies the CZT2 spectra are flatter, reaching up to a factor of $`4`$ higher than the CZT1 spectra. This is not surprising; clearly the large BGO crystal is more effective at shielding the small CZT1 detector than plastic, even at a threshold of 1 MeV. CZT2 also unavoidably had passive material in its field of view, which might contribute to the difference as well. However, the relatively modest increase in background for CZT2 with passive/plastic shielding only may be a small price to pay compared to the savings in space and mass achieved with thin, light plastic scintillator shields, especially for large, wide-angle, coded-mask survey telescopes. These results again support the findings of the WUSTL/UCSD experiment.

## 4 Detector Simulations and Predicted Background

We have attempted to reproduce the results of both CZT experiments using Monte Carlo simulations conducted with MGEANT, an improved user interface to the standard CERN Program Library simulation package GEANT. Mass models of both CZT1 and CZT2 were constructed and illuminated with parameterizations of the atmospheric gamma-ray spectrum, cosmic ray proton spectrum, and atmospheric neutron spectrum. These input spectra were assumed to be isotropic for simplicity, and are generally accepted to be accurate to about a factor of 2. The location and energy deposit of all interactions in the CZT and shields were recorded. The CZT energy deposits were then modified to take into account the response of the detectors. For CZT1, a planar detector, this was done simply according to the Hecht relation using charge transport values of $`\mu _e\tau _e=5\times 10^3`$ cm2 V-1 and $`\mu _h\tau _h=3\times 10^5`$cm2 V-1. For CZT2 the deposited charge was propagated according to the applied electric field and the induced signal calculated from the weighting potential; we used $`\mu _e\tau _e=3\times 10^3`$ cm2 V-1 and $`\mu _h\tau _h=10^6`$cm2 V-1. These $`\mu \tau `$ values were derived for each detector by matching simulated line spectra to recorded line spectra. The resulting spectra were convolved with the measured energy resolution of each detector.

The good event flight spectrum of CZT1 (with a BGO threshold of 50 keV) is compared to the MGEANT simulation in Figure 7.

In the simulation all proton-induced events were vetoed by the plastic and BGO and the neutron component was negligible (see below), so only the gamma-ray component is shown. Although the simulations agree with the data near 100 keV, it is clear that the overall shape is not well-reproduced. At high energies the simulations fail to reproduce the recorded counts by a factor of 2–3, much the same as in the 1997 flight. Given the large uncertainties in the input atmospheric gamma-ray spectrum, this is not too surprising. At low energies the predicted aperture flux, enhanced by the Hecht relation, is not observed, perhaps due to shielding by the gondola structure (which was not included in the simulation due to its size and complexity). The CZT1 instrument was bolted to the main EXITE2 elevation flange next to an electronics rack, both sizable pieces of aluminum, and it is possible that cosmic ray or neutron-induced background in this structure contribute to the higher-than-predicted count rate at high energies.

In Figure 8 we compare the measured CZT2 flight spectra to the MGEANT simulation.

We show separately the predicted background generated by atmospheric gamma-rays, both via aperture flux and shield leakage, and the background from cosmic ray proton interactions. The contributions from atmospheric neutrons were again negligible. We note that accurate simulations of neutron-generated background are notoriously difficult to perform, and that the standard MGEANT-GCALOR setup we used is probably too simplistic to be believable without very careful attention to the precise isotopic composition of the detectors and surrounding materials. The combined photon and proton simulated spectra agree with the data to within a factor of $`2`$, falling systematically shy of the mark at high energies as in CZT1. The CZT2 experiment was surrounded by extensive gondola and detector structures, and background generated in these could play a role in the flatter observed spectrum. We did take care to include two thick pieces of aluminum in the CZT2 field of view. We note that, although no lines are seen below 500 keV, higher-energy neutron activation lines cannot be excluded, and these would form a Compton continuum in the CZT which might account for the higher-than-predicted high energy background in both CZT1 and CZT2. Considering the uncertainty in the input spectra, however, we consider the general level of agreement between the data and simulations to be satisfactory.

## 5 Conclusions and Future Work

We have successfully flown two CZT detector experiments, dubbed CZT1 and CZT2, that have provided valuable information about detector technology, shielding, and background mechanisms. CZT2 was the first array of pixellated CZT detectors, read out by an ASIC, to be flown on a balloon, and our results have demonstrated that the basic technical procedures envisioned for the EXIST concept are sound. The CZT1 data, while again proving the necessity of active shielding, provide further evidence that this shielding need not be of the heavy, inorganic scintillator type, but may rather be lighter plastic shielding to veto charged particles. This argues against prompt neutron reactions being a major source of background in CZT. The CZT2 spectra revealed no gamma-ray lines below 500 keV from activated isotopes, and the basic agreement with the CZT1 data and with simulations shows again that a combination of passive and plastic shielding can provide reasonable background levels. Our work on advanced CZT detectors for astronomical applications will continue with the development of CZT3, employing a $`2\times 2`$ array of larger detectors with a more advanced contacting and readout scheme, as described separately in these proceedings.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the entire NSBF team for a successful balloon flight, J. Apple and K. Dietz for technical support in the field, and B. Sundal for help with the VA-DAQ system. This work was supported in part by NASA grants NAG5-5103 and NAG5-5209.


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# Superconductivity in pure and electron doped 𝑀𝑔𝐵₂: Transport properties and pressure effects

## A Introduction

The discovery of superconductivity at 40 K in $`MgB_2`$ by Nagamatsu et al.  has initiated a tremendous amount of experimental and theoretical work (for a review see Bueza et al.). $`MgB_2`$ appears to be electrically three dimensional and its grain boundaries have a far less detrimental effect on the superconducting current. The low magnetic anisotropy, the large coherence length, and the high critical current densities in magnetic fields (as compared e.g. to the cuprate superconductors) recommend this compound for device-related applications. The low costs of producing bulk ceramics, thin films, tapes, and wires further reveal the huge potential this compound may have in the near future. $`MgB_2`$ crystallizes in the hexagonal $`AlB_2`$ structure. The honeycomb-like boron layers are separated by the magnesium ions. In analogy to the graphite lattice $`MgB_2`$ may be considered as a completely intercalated graphite structure. Early band structure calculations have shown that Mg substantially donates charges into the boron layers and that the electronic bands at the Fermi energy derive mainly from the boron $`p`$-bands. Thereby, the Fermi surface displays sheets of hole-like as well as electron-like character. The electrical transport properties in the normal state are sufficiently well described by the Bloch-Grüneisen law of normal metals. The temperature dependence of the resistivity follows a power law with exponents between 2 and 3 indicating that the temperature dependent scattering process is the electron-phonon scattering. For a simple binary compound $`T_c`$ appears to be unusually large. Therefore, the mechanism of superconductivity has been a matter of discussion and different models have been proposed. Within the BCS model the high $`T_c`$ may be explained by the relatively large energy of the boron phonon modes due to the low mass of the boron ions and a strong electron-phonon interaction (strong coupling limit, coupling constant $`\lambda `$). The phonon-mediated mechanism is supported by a number of experimental results, notably the observed isotope effects, tunnelling measurements of the superconducting gap, and estimates of the electron-phonon coupling constant ($`\lambda 0.7\mathrm{}0.9`$) from specific heat and phonon density-of-states measurements. Calculations of the electronic and phononic structures  have shown that the bond stretching modes of the boron couple strongly to the $`p_{x,y}`$ electronic bands and the electron-phonon coupling parameter was estimated between 0.7 and 0.9, lending further support to the strong coupling BCS theory. In contrast to the BCS theory, Hirsch has proposed an alternative model where superconductivity in $`MgB_2`$ is driven by the pairing of dressed holes. In fact, indications for hole-type conduction in the normal state originally found in the positive thermoelectric power where confirmed by Hall effect measurements and analogies to high-$`T_c`$ cuprate superconductors have been discussed.  However, one of the main predictions of this model, an increase of $`T_c`$ with pressure, could not be confirmed by early high-pressure experiments. Soon after the discovery of superconductivity in pure $`MgB_2`$ attempts have been made to raise $`T_c`$ by substituting the elements Mg or B by ions of different size and/or valency (e.g. Al, Li, C, Cu, Be, Na, Zn, Mn, Si, Co, Ni, Fe). No increase of $`T_c`$ has been reported so far. However, substitutions are a tool to modify certain microscopic parameters such as lattice constants and carrier densities and may facilitate the understanding of the microscopic mechanisms in the normal and superconducting states. Based on the theory of normal metals we discuss the transport properties, especially the thermoelectric effect, of $`MgB_2`$ and $`Mg_{1x}Al_xB_2`$ (Section B). In Section C the influence of defects on $`T_c`$, lattice constants, and electronic transport is investigated. Pressure effects on the superconducting transition temperature are discussed in the final Section.

## B Thermoelectric Transport Properties of $`MgB_2`$ and $`Mg_{1x}Al_xB_2`$

Electrical transport measurements of $`MgB_2`$ have been reported in a large number of papers. The resistivity roughly follows a power law,

$$\rho (T)=\rho _0+AT^n$$
(1)
with an exponent $`n`$ between 2 and 3. Equation (1) actually can be derived from the generalized Bloch-Grüneisen law for temperatures well below the Debye temperature. The first term in (1), $`\rho _0`$, reflects the temperature independent scattering mechanisms (e.g. impurity or defect scattering) and the second term represents the contribution due to phonon scattering. Below about $`100K`$ the phonon term is already very small as compared to $`\rho _0`$ indicating that the material is close to the residual resistance limit. Resistivity data, however, are controversial because they are strongly affected by scattering at grain boundaries, defects, and impurities. A measure of these effects may be found in the residual resistance ratio, $`RRR=\rho (300K)/\rho _0`$, where $`\rho _0`$ in $`MgB_2`$ is well approximated by $`\rho (40K)`$. A small $`RRR`$ indicates a high density of defects and impurities. For $`MgB_2`$ the majority of the published data show $`RRR`$-values between 1 and 3, but larger values up to 25 have also been reported. The implications of a high defect concentration on structural, transport, and superconducting properties will be discussed in Section C. The Seebeck coefficient is far less affected by grain boundaries and impurities. Furthermore, it reflects the nature of the charge carriers at the Fermi surface more sensitively than the conductivity. The thermoelectric power, $`S(T)`$, of $`Mg_{1x}Al_xB_2`$ is shown in Fig. 1. The inset clearly shows the decrease of $`T_c`$ with Al-substitution in accordance with susceptibility as well as resistivity data. The most remarkable features of $`S(T)`$ are the positive sign over the whole temperature range and the linear temperature dependence from $`T_c`$ to about 160 $`K`$ ($`MgB_2`$). At higher temperatures $`S(T)`$ deviates from the straight line and tends to saturate at room temperature. The sign and the linear dependence $`ST`$ are interpreted as the diffusion thermopower of a hole-type normal metal. The hole character of the charge carriers in $`MgB_2`$ was also seen in the positive Hall number. Band structure calculations have shown that the Fermi surface consists of several hole as well as electron like sheets. At low temperatures ($`T<160K`$) the hole carriers obviously dominate the charge transport, but at higher $`T`$ electron-like states add a negative contribution to $`S(T)`$. This may explain the deviations from the linearity above 160 K. Neglecting higher order corrections the diffusion thermopower, $`S_d`$, is described by the Mott formula,

$$S_d=\frac{\pi ^2k^2T}{3e}\left[\frac{\mathrm{ln}\sigma (\epsilon )}{\epsilon }\right]_{E_F}$$
(2)
$`k`$ denotes Boltzmann’s constant, $`e`$ the charge of the carriers, $`E_F`$ the Fermi energy, and $`\sigma (\epsilon )`$ is a conductivity-like function for carriers of energy $`\epsilon `$. In the residual resistance region the logarithmic derivative is simply $`1/E_F`$,

$$S_d=\frac{\pi ^2k^2T}{3eE_F}$$
(3)
For hole carriers the Fermi energy, $`E_F`$, refers to the top of the conduction band. From equation 3 and the measured slope of $`S(T)`$ ($`dS/dT=0.042\mu V/K^2`$ for $`x=0`$) a rough estimate of $`E_F`$ can be obtained, $`E_F0.57eV`$. This value may be underestimated since we have not considered yet any additional contribution (e.g. phonon drag) to $`S(T)`$. The phonon drag effect results in a non-linear $`ST^3`$ at low temperatures, but this is not seen in the data of Fig. 1. For metals with high defect or impurity concentration it is expected that phonon drag is diminished due to the suppression of the phonon heat current. Furthermore, the accessible temperatures ($`T>40K`$) for the normal state thermoelectric power appear to be too high to reveal the true low temperature behaviour of $`S(T)`$. The extrapolation of the linear $`S(T)`$ to zero temperature yields a small negative value, a possible indication of a ”hidden” phonon drag contribution. Therefore, the slope of $`S(T)`$ and the estimated $`E_F`$ should be considered as an upper bound for the diffusion part and as a lower limit for the Fermi energy, respectively. Assuming that charge transport below $`160K`$ is mainly due to hole carriers in the $`\sigma `$ bands our estimate for $`E_F`$ is in fair agreement with the calculated difference between the Fermi energy and the top of the $`\sigma `$ bands, $`0.9eV`$ . It is more interesting to investigate the effects of electron doping (Al substitution) on $`S(T)`$ and $`T_c`$. According to the calculated band structure (within a rigid band model) the addition of electrons reduces the Fermi energy (for $`\sigma `$ holes) and the density of states $`N(E_F)`$. Suzuki et al. calculated a decrease of $`E_F`$ by $`17\%`$ for $`Mg_{0.9}Al_{0.1}B_2`$. From the data of Fig. 1 we estimate an increase of slope of $`S(T)`$ in the linear region from $`0.042\mu V/K^2`$ ($`x=0`$) to $`0.047\mu V/K^2`$ ($`x=0.05`$) and $`0.050\mu V/K^2`$ ($`x=0.1`$). The corresponding decrease of $`E_F`$ by $`16\%`$ ($`x=0.1`$) is in excellent agreement with the calculated value. The decrease of the superconducting transition temperature with Al substitution is explained as a density-of-states effect within the strong coupling BCS theory. $`T_c`$ is given by the McMillan formula,

$$T_c=\frac{\omega _{\mathrm{ln}}}{1.2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1.04\left(1+\lambda \right)}{\lambda \mu ^{}(1+0.62\lambda )}\right]$$
(4)
$`\omega _{\mathrm{ln}}`$ is the logarithmically averaged phonon frequency, $`\mu ^{}`$ the screened Coulomb potential and $`\lambda =N(E_F)I^2/M\omega ^2`$ is the electron-phonon coupling constant. $`I^2`$ and $`\omega ^2`$ are the average square of the electronic matrix element and the phonon frequency, respectively, and $`M`$ is the atomic mass. Band structure calculations have shown that $`E_F`$ of $`MgB_2`$ is right at an edge of rapidly decreasing density of states. The increase of the electron number (or decrease of the hole number) leads to a decrease of $`N(E_F)`$ and $`\lambda `$ and, according to (4), to the observed reduction of $`T_c`$.

## C The Influence of Defects on Electronic Transport and $`T_c`$

Electrical resistivity data for $`MgB_2`$ samples reported by various groups are qualitatively well described by (1). However, huge differences in the residual resistance ratio have been reported. Whereas the $`RRR`$ varies generally between 2 and 3 values as small as 1 and as large as 25 are possible. Low $`RRR`$ values are an indication of a large concentration of defects and impurities and, within the BCS theory, a decrease of $`T_c`$ is expected with the increase of defect density.

We have synthesized a large number of polycrystalline $`MgB_2`$ samples with $`RRR`$ values between 2 and 8 (depending on the conditions of synthesis). The $`T_c`$ values as function of $`RRR`$ are shown in Fig. 2. Although the variance in $`T_c`$ is less than $`2K`$ there is a clear tendency of $`T_c`$ increasing with $`RRR`$ in accordance with similar data for A15 thin film superconductors. Extending the range of $`T_c`$ and $`RRR`$ by including available data on $`MgB_2`$ films and neutron irradiated bulk samples it was shown very recently that the Testardi correlation is fulfilled over a wider range of $`T_c`$ and $`RRR`$ values and an explanation was proposed in form of a defect-induced weak localization correction to the electron-phonon coupling constant. Further evidence for a high defect density should be found in structural parameters, e.g. an increase of the lattice constant due to defects was observed in the A15 compounds. It is also expected that the broader distribution of (local) lattice parameters due to the presence of defects causes a broadening of x- ray peaks. This effect can be extracted from x-ray spectra and is quantitatively characterized by the microstrain, $`ϵ`$. Fig. 3 shows both, the lattice parameters $`a`$, $`c`$ and $`ϵ`$ as a function of $`RRR`$ (a more detailed discussion is given in ref. 28). Whereas $`c`$ shows the expected increase with decreasing $`RRR`$ (i.e. increasing defect density) a similar clear tendency is missing in the lattice parameter $`a`$. Obviously, defects in $`MgB_2`$ mainly affect the inter-plane spacing. The microstrain is strongly increasing because of the larger (local) distortion of the lattice at the higher defect content (Fig. 3 B). The results of this Section show that the majority of the $`MgB_2`$ bulk samples and thin films (with low $`RRR`$) have a high defect concentration giving rise to the differences in $`T_c`$, $`RRR`$, and structural parameters reported by various groups in recent publications.

## D Pressure Effects on $`T_c`$: Current Understanding and Unsolved Problems

Soon after the discovery of superconductivity in $`MgB_2`$ there was the speculation that the application of pressure might enhance $`T_c`$ well above 40 $`K`$ similar to what has been found more than a decade ago in high $`T_c`$ cuprate superconductors. Unfortunately, the first pressure experiments clearly indicated a suppression of $`T_c`$ with hydrostatic pressure. This result was confirmed by a number of subsequent high-pressure investigations. Whereas all reports agree about the negative sign of $`dT_c/dp`$, the differences in the value are still a matter of discussion. $`T_c`$ decreases linearly with $`p`$ in the low-pressure range ($`p<2GPa`$) with a coefficient varying between $`1K/GPa`$ and $`2K/GPa`$. Experiments on $`MgB_2`$ in an extremely non-hydrostatic environment yield an even lower value ($`0.3`$ to $`0.8K/GPa`$) for the pressure coefficient of $`T_c`$. At higher pressure ($`p>10GPa`$) deviations from linearity become obvious. The order of magnitude and the sign of $`dT_c/dp`$ are well explained by the strong coupling BCS theory. Calculations of the pressure effect on the band structure and the electron-phonon coupling found reasonable agreement with the experimental data. Using equation (4) the pressure coefficient is calculated as

$$\frac{d\mathrm{ln}T_c}{dp}=\frac{d\mathrm{ln}(\omega _{\mathrm{ln}})}{dp}+\frac{1.04\lambda (1+0.38\mu ^{})}{\left[\lambda \left(10.62\mu ^{}\right)\mu ^{}\right]^2}\left\{\frac{d\mathrm{ln}N\left(E_F\right)}{dp}\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\omega ^2}{dp}\right\}$$
(5)
Thereby, any pressure dependence of $`\mu ^{}`$ and $`I^2`$ was neglected. With reasonable values for $`\mu ^{}0.1`$ and $`\lambda 0.7`$ Loa and Syassen found good agreement of the calculated $`dlnT_c/dp`$ with the available data. It is interesting to note that both terms in the wavy brackets of (5) give a negative contribution ($`N(E_F)`$ decreases and the average phonon frequency increases with pressure) but the change of $`\omega ^2`$ dominates the pressure effect.

There is an ongoing discussion about the very different values of $`dT_c/dp`$ reported so far. Tomita et al. speculated that the pressure coefficient might be sensitive to the pressure medium used in the experiments and to shear stress possibly introduced by less hydrostatic pressure conditions resulting in a larger absolute value (closer to $`2K/GPa`$) of $`dT_c/dp`$. Contrary to this assumption, the smallest values of $`\left|dT_c/dp\right|`$ have been obtained using the most non-hydrostatic media, steatite. It should be noted that all pressure media (except He below $`0.5GPa`$) freeze above $`T_c`$ of $`MgB_2`$. We have measured different $`MgB_2`$ samples at hydrostatic (He gas pressure) and quasi-hydrostatic (Fluorinert liquid) conditions and did not find a strong sensitivity of $`dT_c/dp`$ to the pressure medium. In particular, we found different pressure coefficients for different samples under the same hydrostatic pressure conditions. No change of $`dT_c/dp`$ was observed in our He gas pressure experiments in passing through the 0.5 GPa threshold above which the He freezes above $`T_c`$. However, our experiments clearly show a correlation of the pressure coefficient and the ambient pressure $`T_c`$ (Fig. 4). Samples with smaller $`T_c`$ tend to have a larger pressure coefficient. Additional data from literature are also included in Fig. 4 (open symbols) and support the correlation between $`T_c`$ and the pressure coefficient. Based on the discussion of the previous Section the lower $`T_c`$ reflects a higher degree of defects and distortions of the $`MgB_2`$ structure. Park et al.  suggested that the defects mainly cause a reduction of the electron-phonon coupling constant, $`\lambda `$, due to weak localization effects. One may raise the question if the same reduction of $`\lambda `$ can also explain the observed differences in the pressure coefficient. The maximum change of $`T_c`$ of about $`2K`$ corresponds to an increase of $`dT_c/dp`$ by a factor of 2 (from $`1K/GPa`$ to $`2K/GPa`$, Fig. 4). Using equation (4) with reasonable parameters, $`\lambda =0.7\mathrm{}1`$ and $`\mu ^{}=0.1\mathrm{}0.13`$, we estimate that $`\lambda `$ decreases by about $`2`$ to $`3.5\%`$ for a $`2K`$ drop of $`T_c`$. Using equation (5) and the estimated values for $`dln\omega /dp0.71\%/GPa`$ and $`dln\lambda /dp1.7\%/GPa`$ we calculate the change of $`dT_c/dp`$ if it is solely due to the decrease of $`\lambda `$. We find that the expected change of the pressure coefficient is negligibly small ($`<1\%`$) for the reasonable values of $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu ^{}`$ listed above. Therefore, the large differences of $`dT_c/dp`$ observed for different $`MgB_2`$ samples and the correlation with $`T_c`$ (Fig. 4) cannot be explained by the decrease of the ambient pressure $`\lambda `$ due to defect-induced weak localization effects. Other mechanisms have to be considered to understand the high-pressure data.

One possibility we may speculate about is an increase of defect concentration by pressure. This would give rise to an additional suppression of $`\lambda `$ and $`T_c`$ with pressure. The effect could be small for samples with higher $`T_c`$ (or lower initial defect density) but larger for ”poor” samples with a high defect concentration at ambient conditions. In fact, recent experiments have shown that application of high pressure may even irreversibly change the superconducting properties, particularly $`T_c`$. Careful structural characterization of $`MgB_2`$ at high pressure should give additional insight into the role of defects and how they are affected by external pressure.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by NSF Grant No. DMR-9804325, MRSEC/NSF Grant No. DMR- 9632667, the T. L. L. Temple Foundation, the John and Rebecca Moores Endowment, the State of Texas through the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston, and at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory by the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of Basic Sciences, Division of Material Sciences of the U. S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE- AC0376SF00098.


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# 1 The two dimensional tight-binding dispersion on a square lattice for (a) isotropic hopping, 𝑡_𝑎=𝑡_𝑏, (b) anisotropic hopping, 𝑡_𝑎>𝑡_𝑏.

. Yamada Conference LVI, the Fourth International Symposium on Crystalline Organic Metals, Superconductors and Ferromagnets
ISCOM 2001 - Abstract Number B20Tue

Magneto-optics of organic crystalline field effect transistors

A Ardavana,∗, SJ Blundella and J Singletona

a Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK

Tel; +44 1865 272364; Fax: +44 1865 272400; E-mail: arzhang.ardavan@physics.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

Organic molecular FETs provide an experimental framework for studying the band-filling dependent properties of two-dimensional metals. Here, we propose experiments to investigate the band-filling dependent cyclotron resonance, and the effect of van Hove singularities.

Keywords: Field-effect transistor, cyclotron resonance, van Hove singularity.

In recent work, the group of Schön, Kloc, Batlogg et al. have taken a new approach to creating organic molecular metals, by gating crystalline organic semiconductors in a field effect transistor (FET) geometry , and effectively “doping” the crystal by means of an electric field. The resulting metals differ from conventional organic molecular metals (where the “chemical doping” arises from charge transfer between the cation and anion ) in two important respects: The systems appear to be exactly two-dimensional (i.e. the gate induced charge is confined to the surface molecular layer) and the carrier density is controllable over a wide range by adjusting the gate voltage. In comparison to conventional FETs (e.g. Si-MOSFETs), the organic crystals have a rather large unit cell. This means that a particular induced carrier density corresponds to a substantially larger band-filling; the band-filling dependent properties of the metal can be investigated. This approach has been very fruitful, yielding, among other things, the integer and fractional quantum Hall effects in a pentacene FET, superconductivity at 52 K in C60, and a tetracene laser .

The single-particle dispersion in systems of this kind is well described by a tight-binding model approach . For a rectangular lattice with lattice constants $`a`$ and $`b`$ and transfer integrals $`t_a`$ and $`t_b`$ in the $`x`$\- and $`y`$-directions respectively, the dispersion is $`(𝐤)=2t_a\mathrm{cos}(k_xa)2t_b\mathrm{cos}(k_yb)`$ . This is shown in Figure 1 for a square lattice ($`a=b`$), for the isotropic case (a) $`t_a=t_b`$ and the anisotropic case (b) $`t_a>t_b`$. The solid lines are energy contours, representing the possible Fermi surfaces that can be induced by gating.

For the isotropic dispersion, the possible Fermi surfaces are all closed, changing from electron-pockets to hole-pockets as the band-filling is increased. In the anisotropic case, however, closed electron or hole pockets only exist when the Fermi energy is within $`4t_b`$ of the bottom or top of the band repectively. For intermediate values, the Fermi surface is open. For most real (lower symmetry) two-dimensional dispersions, the fact that the dispersion is periodic leads to the expectation that both open and closed Fermi surfaces can exist.

In the semiclassical picture, a magnetic field applied perpendicular to the two-dimensional metal causes the charge carriers at the Fermi surface to orbit the Fermi surface under the influence of the Lorentz force . The components of the carriers’ real-space velocity (given by the $`k`$-space gradient of the dispersion, $`𝐯=\mathrm{}^1_k`$) oscillate at the cyclotron frequency, and this time dependence determines the frequency-dependent conductivity, $`\sigma (\omega )`$, as described by Chambers’ formulation of the Boltzmann transport equation . Each harmonic component of the time evolution of the real-space velocity, with frequency $`\omega _n`$, generates a cyclotron resonance in $`\sigma (\omega )`$ when $`\omega =\omega _n`$.

Figure 2 shows the time evolution of the components of the real-space velocity of a carrier in the dispersion shown in Figure 1(a), for two values of the band-filling. Figure 2(a) shows the case for which the Fermi energy is close to the bottom of the band. The dispersion is close to parabolic and the real-space velocity evolves sinusoidally with time, leading to a single cyclotron resonance. Figure 2(b) shows the case for which the band is almost half-full. The magnitude of the Fermi velocity varies substantially around the Fermi surface. Consequently the time evolution of the real-space velocity components is no longer sinusoidal, containing rich odd-harmonic content . This leads to the presence of harmonics of the fundamental cyclotron resonance at frequencies $`\omega =n\omega _c`$, with $`n`$ odd . Note that the cyclotron period is substantially increased over case (a).

Figure 3 shows the dependence of the cyclotron period on band-filling for the cases (a) $`t_a=t_b`$ and (b) $`t_a>t_b`$.

In each case the cyclotron period is strongly dependent on the band-filling. When $`t_at_b`$, open orbit cylotron resonance (Fermi surface traversal resonance)  is possible over a range of band-filling (the period is shown in grey in Figure 3(b)). The period diverges when the Fermi energy coincides with energies for which $`_k0`$ (van Hove singularities ). This divergence arises because for these values of the Fermi energy, there exist points on the Fermi surface for which the magnitude of the Fermi velocity, and hence the Lorentz force, vanish.

In a quantum mechanical picture, $`𝐤`$, which labels the crystal eigenstates, is in general no longer a good quantum number in the presence of a magnetic field. The new eigenstates, Landau levels, are delocalized in $`k`$-space. However, the semiclassical picture suggests that the $`k`$-states close to a van Hove singularity remain stationary even when a magnetic field is applied. The state of the two-dimensional system in magnetic field therefore appears to change qualitatively when the Fermi energy coincides with a van Hove singularity, and the consequent effect on the macroscopic properties remains to be experimentally tested. To our knowledge, organic crystalline FETs provide the only experimental system in which this condition can be approached controllably.


text:
# Detection of negative superhumps in a LMXRB – an end to the long debate on the nature of V1405 Aql (X1916-053)

## 1. Introduction

Permanent superhump systems show superhumps (quasi-periodicities shifted by a few percent from their orbital periods) in their optical light curves. The phenomenon is observed during their normal brightness state, unlike in SU UMa systems. Permanent superhumps can either be a few percent longer than the orbital periods and are then called ‘$`\mathrm{𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞}`$ $`\mathrm{𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐬}`$’, or shorter than the orbital periods – ‘$`\mathrm{𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞}`$ $`\mathrm{𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐬}`$’. The positive superhump is explained as the beat between the binary motion and the precession of an accretion disc in the apsidal plane. Similarly, the negative superhump is understood as the beat between the orbital period and the nodal precession of the disc (Patterson 1999).

Permanent superhumps have been observed in about 20 cataclysmic variables. Superhumps have been seen in a few LMXRBs in outburst (e.g. O’Donoghue & Charles 1996), however, there have not been any confirmed detection of permanent superhumps in a LMXRB.

White & Swank (1982) and Walter et al. (1982) independently found 3001-s periodic dips in the X-ray light curve of the LMXRB V1405 Aql. Schmidtke (1988) and Grindlay et al. (1988) reported a detection of an optical periodicity at 3028 s. The difference between the X-ray and optical periods was confirmed by further extensive observations of V1405 Aql.

Two basic models have been offered so far for the periodicities found in V1405 Aql. According to the first model (Grindlay et al. 1988), the longer 3028-s period is the binary inner orbital period, while the shorter 3001-s period is the beat period between the binary period and the $``$4-d orbital period of a third companion. The second model (White 1989) suggests that the 3001-s period is the binary period and that the 3028-s period is a positive superhump. The debate on the nature on V1405 Aql has still been continued (Chou, Grindlay, & Bloser 2001; Homer et al. 2001; Haswell et al. 2001). Here we argue that the second model is correct, and present evidence for a third period that we identify as the negative superhump. For more details see Retter, Chou & Bedding (2001).

## 2. Observations and Analysis

We have re-analysed existing RXTE data that were presented by Chou et al. (2001). In Fig. 1a the power spectrum of 10 successive runs in 1996 May is presented. In addition to the two known periods (3001 and 3028 s, marked as f1 and f2) and their 1-d aliases, there is a third peak (f3) together with its 1-d alias pattern. After fitting and subtracting the two known frequencies, the third, which corresponds to the periodicity 2979.3$`\pm `$1.1 s, becomes the strongest peak in the residual power spectrum (Fig. 1b). To test the possibility that a combination of the window function and the two known periods is responsible for the third periodicity, we planted sinusoids of the two known periods in the data (plus noise). The result (Fig. 1c) did not show any other significant peak in the power spectrum. We also rejected manually the points corresponding to the dips from the light curve. The new period was still present in the corresponding power spectrum (Fig. 1d). Finally, we divided the data into two parts (first and last five runs), and the new periodicity appeared in both.

## 3. Discussion

The 2979-s period is shorter than the 3001-s period by about 0.7%. Assuming that the 3001-s period is the orbital period and that the 3028-s period is a positive superhump, the new period is naturally explained as a negative superhump. Patterson (1999) proposed that the negative superhump deficit is about half the positive superhump excess. The corresponding ratio in V1405 Aql (0.8) is somewhat larger than this. In Fig. 2 we show this ratio for all systems known to have both positive and negative superhumps, and we see a clear trend as a function of orbital period. Our result for V1405 Aql fits this trend very well.

Our suggestion that the 2979-s period is a negative superhump implies a nodal precession of $``$4.8 d. Indeed Chou et al. (2001) found that the phase jitter of the X-ray dips in the 1996 May data is modulated with a period of 4.86 d. Homer et al. (2001) reached a similar conclusion from a different dataset and found a period of 4.74$`\pm `$0.05 d. Therefore, the superhump model can explain this periodicity as well. The classification of V1405 Aql as a permanent superhump system is thus firmly established, and our result puts an end to the 13-year debate on the nature of this intriguing system.

## References

Chou, Y., Grindlay, J.E., & Bloser, P.F. 2001, ApJ, 549, 1135

Grindlay, J.E., Bailyn, C.D., Cohn, H., Lugger, P.M., Thorstensen, J.R., Wegner G. 1988, ApJ, 334, L25

Haswell, C.A., King, A.R., Murray, J.R., Charles, P.A. 2001, MNRAS, 321, 475

Homer, L., Charles, P.A., Hakala, P., Muhli, P., Shih, I-C., Smale, A.P., Ramsay, G. 2001, MNRAS, 322, 827

O’Donoghue, D., & Charles, P.A. 1996, MNRAS, 282, 191

Patterson, J. 1999, in ”Disk Instabilities in Close Binary Systems”, eds. Mineshige, S., Wheeler, C., Universal Academy Press, 61

Retter, A., Chou, Y., Bedding, T., 2001, MNRAS, submitted

Schmidtke, P.C. 1988, AJ, 95, 1528

Walter, F.M., Bowyer, S., Mason, K.O., Clarke, J.T., Henry, J.P., Halpern, J., Grindlay, J.E. 1982, ApJ, 253, L67

White, N.E. 1989, A&A Rev., 1, 85

White, N.E. & Swank, J.H. 1982, ApJ, 253, L61


text:
# Quantum Computation with Coherent States, Linear Interactions and Superposed Resources.

## Abstract

We show that quantum computation circuits using coherent states as the logical qubits can be constructed from very simple linear networks, conditional measurements and coherent superposition resource states.

Quantum optics has proved a fertile field for experimental tests of quantum information science, from experimental verification of Bell inequality violations  to quantum teleportation . However, quantum optics was not thought to provide a practical path to efficient and scalable quantum computation, and most current efforts to achieve this have focussed on solid state implementations. This orthodoxy was challenged recently when Knill et al. showed that, given single photon sources and single photon detectors, linear optics alone would suffice to implement efficient quantum computation. While this result is surprising, the complexity of the optical networks required is daunting.

In this letter we propose an efficient scheme which is elegant in its simplicity. By encoding the quantum information in multi-photon coherent states, rather than single photon states, simple optical manipulations acquire unexpected power. The required resource, which may be produced non-deterministically, is a superposition of the vacuum and a coherent state. Given this, the scheme is deterministic and requires only simple linear optics and photon counting. Qubit readout uses homodyne detection which can be highly efficient.

The idea of encoding quantum information on continuous variables of multi-photon fields has emerged recently  and a number of schemes have been proposed for realizing quantum computation in this way . One drawback of these proposals is that “hard”, non-linear interactions are required “in-line” of the computation. These would be very difficult to implement in practice. In contrast this proposal requires only “easy’, linear in-line interactions. The hard interactions are only required for “off-line” production of resource states. A related proposal is that of Gottesman et al  in which superpositions of squeezed states are used to encode the qubits. There the hard interactions are only used for the initial state preparation. However, quadratic, squeezing type interactions, are required in-line along with linear interactions.

The output of a single mode, stabilised laser can be described by a coherent state, $`|\alpha `$ where $`\alpha `$ is a complex number which determines the average field amplitude. Coherent states are defined by unitary transformation of the vacuum , $`|\alpha =D(\alpha )|0`$, where $`D(\alpha )`$ is the displacement operator. Let us consider an encoding of logical qubits in coherent states with “binary pulse code modulation”,

$`|0_L`$ $`=`$ $`|0`$ (1)
$`|1_L`$ $`=`$ $`|\alpha `$ (2)
where we take $`\alpha `$ to be real. The advantage of using such states is that detection is relatively easy, requiring only efficient homodyne detection.

These qubits are not exactly orthogonal, but the approximation of orthogonality is good for $`\alpha `$ even moderately large,

$$\alpha |0=e^{\alpha ^2/2}$$
(3)
We will assume for most of this paper that $`\alpha >>1`$.

In single photon optics two qubit gates, in which the state of one photon controls the state of the other, represent a formidable challenge. Surprisingly, for our coherent state encoding, a non-trivial two qubit gate can be implemented using only a single beamsplitter. Consider the beamsplitter interaction given by the unitary transformation

$$U_{BS}=\mathrm{exp}[i\theta (ab^{}+a^{}b)]$$
(4)
where $`a`$ and $`b`$ are the annihilation operators corresponding to two coherent state qubits $`|\gamma _a`$ and $`|\beta _b`$, with $`\gamma `$ and $`\beta `$ taking values of $`\alpha `$ or $`0`$. It is well known that the output state produced by such an interaction is

$`U_{BS}|\gamma _a|\beta _b=|\mathrm{cos}\theta \gamma +i\mathrm{sin}\theta \beta _a|\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta +i\mathrm{sin}\theta \gamma _b`$ (5)
where $`\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$ ($`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$) is the reflectivity (transmissivity) of the beamsplitter. Now consider the overlap between the output and input states. Using the relationship  $`\tau |\alpha =\mathrm{exp}[1/2(|\tau |^2+|\alpha |^2)+\tau ^{}\alpha ]`$ we find

$`\gamma |_a\beta |_b|\mathrm{cos}\theta \gamma +i\mathrm{sin}\theta \beta _a|\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta +i\mathrm{sin}\theta \gamma _b=\mathrm{exp}[(\gamma ^2+\beta ^2)(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )+2i\mathrm{sin}\theta \gamma \beta ]`$ (6)
Now suppose that $`\theta `$ is sufficiently small such that $`\theta ^2\alpha ^2<<1`$ but that $`\alpha `$ is sufficiently large that $`\theta \alpha ^2`$ is of order one. Physically this corresponds to an almost perfectly reflecting beamsplitter. Eq. 6 then approximately becomes

$`\gamma |_a\beta |_b|\mathrm{cos}\theta \gamma +i\mathrm{sin}\theta \beta _a|\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta +i\mathrm{sin}\theta \gamma _b\mathrm{exp}[2i\theta \gamma \beta ]`$ (7)
Eq.7 shows that the only difference between the input and output states of the beamsplitter is a phase shift proportional to the amplitudes of the input qubits, that is:

$`U_{BS}|\gamma _a|\beta _b`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{exp}[2i\theta \gamma \beta ]|\gamma _a|\beta _b`$ (8)
If conditions are such that Eq.8 is a good approximation and we further require that $`\theta \alpha ^2=\pi /2`$ then this transformation produces a controlled sign shift gate. That is if either or both of the qubits are in the logical zero state ($`\gamma =0`$ and/or $`\beta =0`$) the transformation produces no effect on the state. However if both modes are initially in the logical one state (i.e $`\gamma =\beta =\alpha `$) then a sign change is produced. Such a gate is a non-trivial two qubit gate.

For universal computation we require, in addition to the two qubit gate above, the ability to do arbitrary rotations that are diagonal in the computational basis, bit-flip operations, plus the Hadamard gate . The Hadamard gate cannot be implemented unitarily with linear optics. However, we will show shortly that, provided the necessary quantum resource is possessed, it can be implemented using only linear optics and conditional measurements.

First let us consider some single qubit transformations that can be achieved with just linear optics. A bit flip gate flips the state of the system from a logical zero to a logical one, or vice versa and is equivalent to the pauli $`\sigma _xX`$ matrix, in the computational basis. The bit flip transformation operator, $`X`$, is equivalent to a displacement of $`\alpha `$ followed by a $`\pi `$ phase shift of the coherent amplitude:

$$X=U(\pi )D(\alpha )$$
(9)
where $`U(\pi )=exp[i\pi a^{}a]`$ is physically just a half-wavelength delay, whilst a displacement can be implemented by mixing a very strong coherent field with the qubit on a highly reflective beamsplitter .

The phase rotation gate produces a rotation that is diagonal in the computational basis, $`R_\varphi (\mu |0_L+\nu |1_L)=\mu |0_L+e^{i\varphi }\nu |1_L`$. It can be implemented, to a good approximation, by imposing a small phase shift on the qubit. Using arguments similar to those leading to Eq.8 we find

$`U(ϵ)|\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`e^{iϵa^{}a}|\alpha `$ (10)
$``$ $`e^{iϵ\alpha ^2}|\alpha =R_\varphi |\alpha `$ (11)
with $`\varphi =ϵ\alpha ^2`$. We have assumed $`ϵ`$ scales as $`1/\alpha ^2`$.

In addition to these gates, we require a Hadamard gate in order to achieve an arbitrary qubit rotation. The Hadamard gate, $``$, induces the following transformations on the logical states:

$`|0_L`$ $`=`$ $`|0_L+|1_L=|0+|\alpha `$ (12)
$`|1_L`$ $`=`$ $`|0_L|1_L=|0|\alpha `$ (13)
The outputs are a superposition of two widely separated coherent states, commonly known as “cat” states. Such states are highly non classical and for unitary generation require a Kerr nonlinearity for which the Hamiltonian is proportional to $`(a^{}a)^2`$. Such interactions are typically very weak and do not have sufficient strength to produce the required superposition states. However we are not restricted to unitary transformations. A number of schemes have been suggested which can produce parity cat states non-deterministically  and some experimental progress has been made in their production . In all these schemes it is necessary to distinguish between a photon (or phonon) number of $`n`$ and $`n\pm 1`$. If cat states could be used as a resource to deterministically implement the Hadamard gate then these types of schemes would be sufficient for our purposes. We will now show this is true.

A Hadamard gate can be implemented using the two qubit BS gate discussed in the previous section with one of the inputs being the arbitrary state we wish to transform and the second input being a known cat state. One of the outputs of the gate is measured in the “cat basis” (see below) and, depending on the result, a bit flip operation may be required. This is a specific example of quantum gate implementation via measurement. A general discussion of such techniques can be found in Reference .

A possible arrangement is shown in Fig.1. Suppose the state we wish to transform, in the arbitrary state $`\mu |0+\nu |\alpha `$, is inserted into port 1 of the BS gate whilst a resource cat state $`1/\sqrt{2}(|0+|\alpha )`$ is inserted into port 2. The output state of the gate is

$$\frac{\mu }{\sqrt{2}}(|0_1|0_2+|0_1|\alpha _2)+\frac{\nu }{\sqrt{2}}(|\alpha _1|0_2|\alpha _1|\alpha _2)$$
(14)
Now suppose we make a measurement on output port 1 which returns a dichotomic result telling us whether we have the same cat state as we inserted or the (near) orthogonal state $`1/\sqrt{2}(|0|\alpha )`$. If the result is the same cat state then the state of output port 2 is projected into

$$\frac{1}{2}(\mu +\nu )|0+\frac{1}{2}(\mu \nu )|\alpha $$
(15)
This is the required Hadamard transformation. On the other hand if the opposite cat is measured at the output as was inserted then the projected output state is

$$\frac{1}{2}(\mu \nu )|0+\frac{1}{2}(\mu +\nu )|\alpha $$
(16)
But the state of Eq.16 only differs from that of Eq.15 by a bit flip operation. Thus the final step of the gate is to implement (if necessary) a bit flip on the output port.

A cat basis measurement can be implemented in the following way. First we displace by $`\alpha /2`$. This transforms our “0”, “$`\alpha `$” superposition into “$`\alpha /2`$”, “$`\alpha /2`$” superposition:

$$D(\alpha /2)1/\sqrt{2}(|0\pm |\alpha )=1/\sqrt{2}(|\alpha /2\pm |\alpha /2)$$
(17)
These new states are parity eigenstates. Thus if photon number is measured then an even result indicates detection of the state $`1/\sqrt{2}(|\alpha /2+|\alpha /2)`$ and therefore $`1/\sqrt{2}(|0+|\alpha )`$ whilst similarly an odd result indicates detection of $`1/\sqrt{2}(|0|\alpha )`$ as can be confirmed by direct calculation. The cats could also be distinguished by homodyne detection looking at the imaginary quadrature . This latter technique would give inconclusive results some of the time but may be useful for initial experimental demonstrations.

The control not gate (CNOT) is ubiquitous in quantum processing tasks. It is also the simplest two-qubit gate whose operation can easily be experimentally verified in the computational basis. A CNOT gate will flip the state of one of the input qubits, the “target”, only if the other qubit, the “control”, is in the logical one state. If the control is in the logical zero state the target is unchanged. A CNOT gate can be implemented as shown in Fig.2 by first applying a Hadamard gate to the target state followed by the BS gate applied to the control and target. Finally another Hadamard gate is applied to the target. For arbitrary control and target input qubits we find:

$$_tU_{BS}_t(\mu |0+\nu |\alpha )_c(\gamma |0+\tau |\alpha )_t=\mu \gamma |0|0+\mu \tau |0|\alpha +\nu \tau |\alpha |0+\nu \gamma |\alpha |\alpha $$
(18)
which displays CNOT logic. The result of Eq.18 assumes $`\alpha >>1`$. To evaluate just how large $`\alpha `$ needs to be we use the exact expression for the BS gate, as given in Eq.5, to calculate the output state of the CNOT. We assume ideal bit flip operations and cat state preparation. Our figure of merit is the average fidelity between the exact output and the ideal output, as given by Eq.18.

The results are shown in Fig.3. In Fig.3(a) the average fidelity is plotted as a function of $`\alpha `$. Fidelities of $`0.9`$ and above require $`\alpha >10`$. Such signal sizes, although commonplace in the computational basis would be challenging to produce and control in the superposition basis and the required technology is probably some years away. On the other hand in Fig.3(b) a renormalised average fidelity is plotted. This is obtained by normalising the fidelity of getting the correct output state against the sum of the fidelities for all the possible output states in the computational subensemble. If there was no movement of states out of this subensemble one would expect the two plots to be identical. The fact that the renormalised fidelities remain high for much lower values of $`\alpha `$ shows that qubit leakage is the major reason for the decreasing fidelities at moderate levels of $`\alpha `$ in Fig.3(a). This in turn suggests that experimental demonstrations, albeit with low efficiency, may be possible for $`\alpha `$’s as small as $`3`$.

The major sources of error in our scheme are expected to be, in order of increasing significance: (i) errors due to non orthogonal code states, (ii) errors due to failure of the two qubit gate condition ($`\theta ^2\alpha ^2<<1`$), (iii) erroneous identification of the input cat resource, (iv) photon loss, and (v) errors due to random optical phase shifts. The first source of error becomes negligible for $`\alpha >3`$ (see Eq.3). Figure 3(a) shows that the second source of errors is small for $`\alpha >20`$. The third source is equivalent to a small rotation error in the code space; the fourth source causes a collapse to the one logical state, while the final source is a phase error. It can be shown  that good quantum error correction codes are available to correct these errors and further that error correction can be implemented in a fault tolerant fashion.

In this letter we have presented a quantum computation scheme based on encoding qubits as vacuum and coherent states, and their superposition. The optical networks required are simple and compatible with current optical communication networks. As well as the long term goal of quantum computation, applications in quantum communication protocols seem likely. Although the coherent amplitudes needed for scalable computation are quite large our results indicate that experimental demonstrations with modest amplitudes should be possible.

Acknowledgements. GJM acknowledges the support of the Institute for Quantum Information, California Institute of Technology where this work was initiated. WJM acknowledges funding in part by the European project EQUIP(IST-1999-11053). The Australian Research Council Special Research Centre for Quantum Computer Technology supported this work.


text:
# Energy radiation of moving cracks

## I Introduction

The dynamics of cracks in brittle materials are being extensively studied, and a wealth of instabilities and patterns have been observed as a function of control parameters such as the applied strain, or thermal gradients. The theoretical analysis of moving cracks was initiated long ago, with the study of exact solutions for cracks moving at constant velocity. These studies have been extended to a variety of different situations. Alternatively, analytical approximations to the leading instabilities of a moving tip have been proposed.

The simplest discrete model which captures the main features of cracks in brittle materials is a a lattice with central forces (springs) between nearest neighbors, whose bonds lose the restoring force above a given threshold (for extensions see also). This model, or simplifications of it which leave out the vectorial nature of the strain field, has been extensively used in modelling moving cracks, although models which deal with the microscopic structure of the system are also being considered. Alternatively, various continuum models, which describe the fractured zone in terms of additional fields, have been proposed.

Discrete and continuum models of cracks differ in a variety of features. It is known that the discrete models used so far cannot describe a fracture zone at scales other than the size of the lattice cell in the calculations, although, even for a canonical material such as PMMA, the fracture zone has a dimension much larger than the size of its molecular building blocks.

Another important difference between discrete and continuum models is the existence of radiation from the tip of the moving crack, due to the existence of periodic modulations in the velocity in the presence of an underlying lattice. In this sense, a lattice model for cracks is the simplest example where radiation due to the scattering of elastic waves by deviations from perfect homogeneity can be studied. These processes have been observed in experiments, and it has been argued that they are responsabible for some of the crack instabilities.

In the present work, we study the energy radiated by a crack moving at constant velocity in a discrete lattice. We use a generalization of the scheme discussed in. The general method used is explained next. Section III presents the main features of the results. The physical implications of the results is discussed in section IV.

The problem of sound emission by moving cracks has been addressed, within a different scheme, by. Insofar as the two approaches can be compared, the results are compatible. Finally, radiation of moving cracks along the edge of the crack can be important in understanding the roughness of the crack surface. We will focus on the radiation along the crack surface, and into the bulk of the sample. Experiments and simulations suggest that this type of radiation can play a role in the observed instabilities of the crack tip.

## II The method

We study discrete models of elastic lattices in two dimensional stripes, as discussed in. The underlying lattice is hexagonal, with nearest neighbor forces. Bonds break when their elongation exceed a given threshold, $`u_{th}`$, and under a constant strain at the edges, which, scaled to the width of the stripe, we write as $`u_0`$. We study models with and without dissipation in the dynamics of the nodes. Results depend on the ratio $`u_{th}/u_0`$ (see section III for further details).

### A Energy considerations

In the absence of dissipation, the total kinetic plus elastic energy must be conserved. In a continuum model, in the absence of radiation, energy conservation leads to a global and to a local constraint, for cracks moving at constant speed, $`v`$:

i) In the absence of radiation, the region well behind the crack tip has relaxed to equilibrium, while the region ahead of it is under the applied strain. The relaxed region grows at the expense of the region under strain, at constant rate $`u_0^2vW`$ where $`W`$ is the width of the stripe. Energy is transferred to the crack at this rate. As the energy stored in the crack grows at rate $`u_{th}^2v`$, the crack can only propagate (without radiation) for a fixed value of $`u_{th}/u_0`$. Note that continuum solutions for radiationless cracks moving at constant speed do not specify a parameter equivalent to $`u_{th}`$, so that they do not conflict with energy conservation.

ii) The only position at which elastic energy is used to increase the size of the crack is the crack tip. Thus, at the crack tip the flux of elastic energy should be equal to the energy invested in enlarging the crack. In continuum models, this local constraint leads to an equation of the type:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=A(v)G$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the crack energy per unit length ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }u_{th}`$ in our lattice model), $`G`$ is proportional to the stress intensity factor at the crack tip ($`Gu_0^2`$), and $`A(v)`$ is a universal function which goes from 1 at $`v=0`$ to 0 at $`v=v_R`$ where $`v_R`$ is the Rayleigh speed.

In lattice models, the energy arguments have to be modified because of the presence of radiation of elastic waves. If we assume that the difference between continuum and lattice models is small, we can use the perturbative scheme discussed in. The crack tip velocity undergoes oscillations at frequency $`\omega =v/a`$, where $`a`$ is the lattice constant, and amplitude $`f`$. In order to estimate the energy radiated from the tip, we have to extend the perturbative expansion to second order. We will not attempt here to calculate this expansion rigorously. However, from the knowledge of the leading term, we can infer that the radiation due to a perturbation of frequency $`\omega `$ should go as $`B\omega ^2`$, where $`B`$ is a positive constant. The global constraint i) implies that $`f^2(v/l)^21k(u_{th}/u_0)^2`$, where $`l`$ is the crack length and $`k`$ is a constant. The radiation also has to be taken into account when balancing the energy absorbed at the crack tip, ii) above. The corrections to eq. (1) lead to a condition of the type:

$$\frac{v}{v_R}=𝒜\left[\frac{\left(\frac{u_{th}}{u_0}\right)^2}{c+c^{}\left(1k\left(\frac{u_{th}}{u_0}\right)^2\right)}\right]$$
(2)
where $`c`$ and $`c^{}`$ are constants, and $`𝒜`$ is proportional to the inverse of the function $`A`$ defined in eq.(1), the magnitude in brackets being its argument. Thus, the existence of radiation in discrete models allows for the existence of a continuum of solutions $`v(u_0/u_{th})`$ for a given range of $`u_0/u_{th}`$. Note that the existence of solutions which do not violate energy conservation does not imply that these solutions are stable. Full dynamical simulations of lattice models suggest that inertial cracks (without dissipation) accelerate until they reach speeds comparable to those predicted by the Yoffe criterion, and then bifurcate.

### B Energy flux: continuum elasticity

In the following, we will reformulate the concepts discussed in in order to make them more amenable for extensions to lattice models, dicussed in the next subsection.

We describe an elastic medium in terms of the energy:

$``$ $`=`$ $`_{kin}+_{elastic}`$ (3)
$`_{kin}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^Dr\frac{\rho }{2}\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{𝐮}(\stackrel{}{𝐫})}{t}\right)^2}`$ (4)
$`_{elastic}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^Dr\frac{\lambda }{2}\left(\underset{i}{}u_{ii}\right)^2}+\mu {\displaystyle d^Dr\underset{ij}{}u_{ij}^2}`$ (5)
where $`D`$ is the spatial dimension, $`\rho `$ is the mass density, $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$ are Lamé coefficients, $`\stackrel{}{𝐮}(\stackrel{}{𝐫})`$ denotes the displacements at position $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}`$, and the $`u_{ij}`$’s define the strain tensor:

$$u_{ij}(\stackrel{}{𝐫})=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{u_i}{r_j}+\frac{u_j}{r_i}\right)$$
(6)
The equations of motion satisfied by $`\stackrel{}{𝐮}(\stackrel{}{𝐫})`$ can be written as:

$$\rho \frac{^2u_i}{t^2}=\underset{j}{}\frac{}{r_j}\sigma _{ji}$$
(7)
where $`\sigma _{ji}=_{elastic}/u_{ij}`$ is the stress tensor.

The time derivative of the total energy $`E_\mathrm{\Omega }`$ within a region $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{E_\mathrm{\Omega }}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}d^Dr\left[_{kin}+_{elastic}\right]`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}d^Dr\left[\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{𝐮}}{t}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2\stackrel{}{𝐮}}{t^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{u_{ij}}{t}}\sigma _{ij}\right]`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}d^Dr{\displaystyle \frac{}{r_j}}\left(\sigma _{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{u_i}{t}}\right)`$ (10)
so that the vector $`\stackrel{}{𝐏}(\stackrel{}{𝐫})`$ with components $`P_j=_i\sigma _{ij}u_i/t`$ plays the same role as the Poynting vector in electrodynamics. The energy flux through an element of area $`d\stackrel{}{𝐒}`$ is given by $`\stackrel{}{𝐏}d\stackrel{}{𝐒}`$. Note, however, that, unlike in electromagnetism, the equations of elasticity have not Lorentz invariance (there are two sound velocities), and it is not possible to define a four vector combining $`\stackrel{}{𝐏}`$ and the energy density. The energy transferred to the outside of this region remains defined as the flux of the vector $`\stackrel{}{𝐏}`$ through the surface bounding $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. In the presence of dissipation, we still use $`\stackrel{}{𝐏}`$ as defined in Eq. (10) in the understanding that what viscosity does is to trigger the partial absorbtion of the radiated enegy whithout changing the direction in which it is emitted. The vector $`\stackrel{}{𝐏}`$ will be our starting point in the study of the energy flux of a moving crack.

### C Energy flux: lattice model

We will compute numerically the radiation of energy in a discrete model, defined as a hexagonal two dimensional lattice with nearest neighbor forces. The energy is given by the sum of a kinetic term, associated to the velocities of the nodes, and an elastic term, due to the deformation of the bonds. The variation of the elastic energy of a given bond with time can be written as:

$$\frac{E_{ij}}{t}=k\left[\left(\stackrel{}{𝐮}_i\stackrel{}{𝐮}_j\right)\stackrel{}{𝐧}_{ij}\right]\frac{\left[\left(\stackrel{}{𝐮}_i\stackrel{}{𝐮}_j\right)\stackrel{}{𝐧}_{ij}\right]}{t}$$
(11)
where $`k`$ is the force constant, and $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}_{ij}`$ is a unit vector in the direction of the bond. We distribute this energy among the two nodes connected by the bond, so that we can write the total elastic energy within a given region as a sum of the contributions of the nodes within that region. The variation in the kinetic energy at node $`i`$ is:

$$\frac{K_i}{t}=k\underset{j}{}\frac{(\stackrel{}{𝐮}_i\stackrel{}{𝐧}_{ij})}{t}\left[\left(\stackrel{}{𝐮}_i\stackrel{}{𝐮}_j\right)\stackrel{}{𝐧}_{ij}\right]$$
(12)
The variation of the total energy within a given region is calculated by summing over all bonds within that region. The kinetic and elastic contributions for all bonds outside the edge of the region cancel. We are left with surface terms only, as in the continuum model described earlier. The surface contributions can be written as a sum of terms associated to the bonds which connect a node within the region under study and a node outside. Thus, a surface which includes a given node and has a given orientation leads to an energy flux across it which can be calculated from a weighted sum of the positions and velocities of the bonds which connect that node to its neighbors. As we can associate to each surface orientation an energy flux, we can define the lattice Poynting vector, in analogy to the analysis done for the continuum model. We will use this discrete Poynting vector in the discussion of the energy dissipation of a moving crack below.

## III Results

The discrete equations of motion in a two dimensional lattice of a given size are integrated numerically as discussed in detail elsewhere . The lattice is maintained under constant load at the edges. In order to obtain cracks moving at constant velocities, a notch is induced at one side, which is gradually enlarged, along a straight line, until the stress buildup leads to the spontaneous propagation of the crack. The crack position, as function of time, is shown in Figure 1, for two different applied strains. The calculations show that the crack propagates freely at a constant velocity in the steady state. Our method for the calculation of the properties of cracks moving at constant speeds should lead to the same results as other techniques.

Instabilities are avoided by allowing only the bonds directly ahead of the crack to break. In other words, we force the crack to propagate straightly (with no branching). The simulations are performed in systems of $`400\times 120`$ lattice sites, where we have checked that finite size effects on the steady state velocity are less than 1 percent.

### A Crack velocity

Figure 2 shows the steady state velocity $`v`$ as a function of the applied strain $`u_0`$, for two different values of the viscosity ($`\eta =0`$ and $`\eta =0.8`$ in our units). The crack velocity increases monotonically with $`u_0`$ and asymptotically tends to its limiting value $`c_R=0.571`$, the Rayleigh velocity in units where the force constant $`k=1`$ and the mass per site $`m=1`$ . Due to lattice trapping, there is a minimum allowed $`u_0`$ whose value is roughly independent of $`\eta `$ , which in turn leads to a minimum crack speed which depends strongly on $`\eta `$. The arrow marks the instability that would occur if the crack were not constrained to move on a straight line.

### B Elastic energy and hoop stress

Figure 3 shows snapshots of the density of elastic energy and the hoop stress at a given time $`t_0`$, for a steady inertial crack ($`\eta =0`$) moving at a velocity below the branching threshold (the applied strain is $`u_0=0.02`$, cf. figure 2).

The density of elastic energy (Fig.3, upper panel) has a sharp peak at the crack tip. In the near region (a few lattice spacings away from the tip), we see that the distribution of elastic energy is very anisotropic: it is sizeable in the direction perpendicular to the crack motion, where it decays smoothly with the distance, and all along the crack, where it has an oscillating behavior. This behavior is reminiscent of the Rayleigh waves which propagate on the crack surface (see section III C below). At larger distances (of the order of the linear dimensions of the system), the elastic energy is smoother and has a broad maximum ahead of the tip, around a given angle of the order of $`\theta \pi /3`$ from the crack direction. We cannot be conclusive about this maximum being intrinsic in nature, or rather being related to the symmetry of the underlying triangular lattice (see  for a more detailed discussion of this point).

The hoop stress (Fig. 3, lower panel) shows a very similar behavior, with strong oscillations all along the crack, and maxima perpendicular to the crack motion, the maximum shifting from $`\theta \pi /2`$ to $`\theta \pi /3`$ with increasing distance from the tip.

Figure 4 is the same as Fig. 3, but for a crack moving at a velocity well above the branching threshold (the applied strain is $`u_0=0.08`$). We notice that the distribution of elastic energy and hoop stress has changed qualitatively: the bulk features in the direction perpendicular to the crack motion now dominate over the oscillating part along the crack. The latter decay more rapidly and eventually disappear far behind the tip.

The elastic energy and hoop stress corresponding to a dissipative crack ($`\eta =0.8`$, $`u_0=0.08`$) are shown in fig. 5. Although the overall characteristics are similar to the inertial case, with maxima at the tip and in the direction transverse to the crack, the distribution of stresses is much smoother. Moreover, the oscillations associated with Rayleigh waves along the crack are washed out by viscosity, being replaced by a single broad maximum behind the tip.

### C Radiation

The above results can be better understood by analyzing the Poynting vector field, which represents the flux of energy being radiated at a given point in the system. As was stated in the introduction, emission of sound waves is expected since the crack tip moves in a discrete medium, therefore acting as a source of radiation at a frequency $`\omega =v/a`$, the ratio of the crack speed to the lattice spacing. Moreover, one expects a net flux of energy in the direction opposite to the crack motion, corresponding to the elastic energy released from the region ahead of the tip, which allows the crack to move.

As can be seen in the first panel of figure 6, at such moderate crack speeds most of the energy is radiated in the form of Rayleigh waves propagating backwards along the crack, with a wavelength comparable with (but not equal to) the lattice spacing $`a`$. Despite the fact that $`\eta =0`$, such waves are seen to decay at long distances behind the tip (they decay into bulk waves, the oscillating bonds on the crack surface acting themselves as sources of radiation). In addition, there is also a weaker emission of bulk waves from the tip, responsible for the observed maximum in the direction perpendicular to the crack motion.

At high crack speeds, on the other hand (cf. center panel in fig. 6), it is the bulk radiation which dominates the emission pattern. Moreover, shadow images of the near-field appear behind the tip (the strongest one being at around $`x=161`$).

In the case of viscous cracks (lower panel in figure 6), the emission pattern is entirely dominated by bulk waves, and Rayleigh oscillations disappear in agreement with the reults of fig. 5.

In order to analyze the behavior of Rayleigh waves along inertial cracks, we plot in figure 7 the component of the Poynting vector $`P_x`$ parallel to the crack direction, at the surface of the crack, for different values of the applied strain. The data are normalized to the difference in mechanical energy of a line far ahead from the crack, and a line far behind (this energy, which scales as $`u_0^2vW`$, is transferred to the crack in the fracture process). The figure clearly shows that the wavelength of surface waves as well as their decay rate increase with the crack velocity.

## IV Conclusions

We have analyzed the nature and influence of radiation in the propagation of cracks in discrete systems. For the lattice and force models that we have studied, we find:

i) Cracks in lattice models radiate energy, even when the average velocity is constant and they move along a straight line. This can be understood by assuming that the crack tip undergoes oscillations at frequencies $`nv/a`$, where $`v`$ is the velocity of the crack and $`a`$ is the lattice constant.

ii) Radiation allows for the existence of a continuum of solutions of moving cracks at constant velocity. The balance of static elastic and crack energy is compensated by the radiation from the crack tip.

iii) At low velocities, most of the radiation is in Rayleigh waves along the surface of the crack. At velocities comparable to the Rayleigh velocity, a significant fraction of the radiated energy is in bulk waves with a more isotropic distribution.

iv) Viscosity allows for a faster exchange of the elastic energy stored ahead of the crack tip into other forms of energy. This can help to explain the increased stability of straight cracks in the presence of viscosity.

Among the questions which remain unsolved is the relation of the radiation to the instabilities of the crack tip. Our results suggest that inertial cracks accelerate along a straight line, until they attain speeds compatible with Yoffe’s criterion. On the other hand, the radiation of the crack tip becomes more isotropic at high velocities. It is unclear whether the continuum approach suffices to understand the instability observed in dynamical simulations of discrete models, or if the radiation from the tip of the crack plays a role in the instability. Note that the calculated instability occurs at higher velocities than the instabilities observed experimentally.

## V Acknowledgements

We are thankful to R. Ball, P. Español, M. Marder, T. Martín, A. Parisi, M. A. Rubio and I. Zúñiga for helpful discussions. Financial support from grants PB96-0875 and PB96-0085 (MEC, Spain), and FMRXCT980183 (European Union).