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# Explaining Anomalous CDF 𝝁𝜸 Missing-𝑬_𝑻 Events With Supersymmetry

## I Introduction

CDF has recently presented results on the production of combinations involving at least one photon and one lepton ($`e`$ or $`\mu `$) in $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=1.8\mathrm{TeV}`$, using 86 pb-1 of Tevatron 1994-95 data CDF . In general the results were consistent with the Standard Model (SM), however 16 photon-lepton events with large $`\overline{)}E_T`$ were observed, with $`7.6\pm 0.7`$ expected. Moreover, 11 of these events involved muons (with 4.2 $`\pm `$ 0.5 expected) and only 5 electrons (with 3.4 $`\pm `$ 0.3 expected), suggestive of a lepton flavour violating asymmetry involving muons.

What can such a process be? A natural framework with explicit flavour violating couplings is provided by R-violating supersymmetry pheno , which contains operators with a complicated flavour structure in the superpotential

$$W_{RPV}=\frac{1}{2}\lambda _{ijk}L_iL_j\overline{E}_k+\lambda _{ijk}^{}L_iQ_j\overline{D}_k+\frac{1}{2}\lambda _{ijk}^{\prime \prime }\overline{U}_i\overline{D}_j\overline{D}_k+\mu _iL_iH_2$$
(1)
where $`L`$ $`(Q)`$ are the left-handed lepton (quark) superfields while $`\overline{E},\overline{D},`$ and $`\overline{U}`$ contain the corresponding right-handed fields, and $`i,j,k`$ generation indices. The second of the above terms is of particular interest, since it can lead to resonant slepton production in hadron-hadron collisions previous , via the diagram that appears below.

Such a resonance would lead to enhanced cross sections with a rich final state topology, which, as we are going to show, can explain the CDF anomaly. What would then be the structure of the associated operator? R-violating couplings have upper bounds coming from various flavour-violating processes constraints . Therefore, to get the requisite number of events to explain the observed anomaly, a sizable cross section is required which would then imply a process with valence quarks in the initial state. Since the events are seen in the muon channel, the operator can be specified to be $`L_2Q_1\overline{D}_1`$, which generates the couplings $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }u\overline{d}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }_\mu d\overline{d}`$ (and charge conjugates), along with other supersymmetrised copies involving squarks. This coupling, $`\lambda _{211}^{}`$, is constrained from $`R_\pi =\mathrm{\Gamma }(\pi e\nu )/(\pi \mu \nu )`$ bgh  to be $`<0.059\times \frac{m_{\stackrel{~}{d_R}}}{100\mathrm{GeV}}`$ constraints .

Upon production, sleptons (in our case, smuons or sneutrinos) can in general decay via a large variety of channels previous  if they are kinematically accessible. However, the crucial observation is that R-violating supersymmetry by itself may not account for the observed anomaly, because of the fact that the anomaly is observed in a channel where a photon is produced. However, if the gravitino (present in all models where supersymmetry is gauged) is the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) it is too long-lived to decay within the detector gaugmed . Thus, the gravitino, $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$, provides the missing energy signature since it is electrically neutral and interacts rather weakly with matter. If the neutralino, as is often the case, is dominantly photino, then the decay $`\chi _1^0\stackrel{~}{G}\gamma `$ can dominate comm . It is interesting to note that the $`ee\gamma \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ event recorded by CDF abe  can be explained by such a decay kane .

Since at the moment there is neither enhancement in the two-fermion final state, nor observation of chains of cascade decays, the most natural explanation is that the R-conserving decay mode of the smuon which produces the lightest neutralino dominates over the rest while subsequently $`\chi _1^0\stackrel{~}{G}\gamma `$. The competing R-parity violating decay modes of $`\chi _1^0\nu jj`$ and $`\chi _1^0\mu jj`$ leading to $`\mu jj\overline{)}E_T`$ or $`\mu \mu jj`$ final states become negligible (as is the case here) when $`\lambda _{211}^{}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{G}}`$ are both small enough. Smuon decay into two jets via the R-parity violating mode is essentially unobservable because of the huge 2 jet background. For example, for a resonance mass of 200 GeV, only a $`\sigma .B>1.3\times 10^4`$ pb is excluded at 95% C.L. cdfjets . This will not provide a restrictive bound upon our scenario.

It is worth stressing the clarity of the signatures, but also of future predictions in the case of a resonant process. Moreover, the presence of both slepton and sneutrino resonances are in principle to be expected, and we provide a prediction for $`\gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ events. The higher statistics in Run II of the Tevatron should allow verification our model.

The new aspect of the model we present here compared to previous studies of resonant slepton production at hadron colliders previous , is to marry the gravitino LSP scenario with R-parity violating supersymmetry. This marriage has been considered before in the context of dark matter contexts .

## II Model and Results

We use the ISASUSY part of the ISAJET7.58 package isajet  to generate the spectrum, branching ratios and decays of the sparticles. For an example of parameters, we choose (in the notation used by ref. isajet ) $`\lambda _{211}^{}=0.01`$, $`m_{3/2}=10^3`$ eV, $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =10`$, $`A_{t,\tau ,b}=0`$, and scan over the bino mass $`M_1`$ and the slepton mass $`m_{\stackrel{~}{l}}m_{\stackrel{~}{L}_{1,2}}=m_{\stackrel{~}{e}_{1,2}}`$ GeV. The values of $`\lambda _{211}^{}`$ and $`m_{3/2}`$ are dictated by the need to have the decays shown in Fig. 1 being dominant. However, there are ranges of values in the $`R`$-violating coupling and the gravitino mass where this decay chain is obtained. In fact, the acceptable ranges are an order of magnitude in $`\lambda _{211}^{}`$ and two orders of magnitude in $`m_{3/2}`$. $`\mu `$ together with other flavour diagonal soft supersymmetry breaking parameters are set to be so heavy that any superparticles except the first two generation sleptons, the lightest neutralino and the gravitino are too heavy to be produced or to contribute to cascade decays in Tevatron data. They therefore do not appear in this analysis. We have checked that this is true over a large volume of parameter space. We emphasise that this is a representative hyperplane in the supersymmetric parameter space and not a special choice.

We use HERWIG6.3 herwig  including parton showering (but not including isolation cuts) to calculate cross-sections for single slepton production. A $`\gamma `$-in-active-region cut requires that the photon not have rapidity $`|\eta |>1`$ or $`|\eta |<0.05`$. The region $`0.77<\eta <1.0,75^{}<\varphi <90^{}`$ is also excluded because it is not instrumented. Fiducial photon detection efficiency was set to be 81$`\%`$, whereas for the muons it is 66$`\%`$ for $`1.0>|\eta _\mu |>0.6`$ and 45$`\%`$ for $`|\eta |<0.6`$. $`\overline{)}E_T`$ and the $`E_T`$ of both the muon and photon were required to be greater than 25 GeV.

We calculate the difference in log likelihood between our model and the SM given by each kinematical variable that was presented in ref. CDF . This provides 95$`\%`$ C.L. limits upon $`M_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=m_{\stackrel{~}{l}}M_1`$. We show the viable regions for the energy distributions: $`E_T(\gamma ,\mu )`$, $`\overline{)}E_T`$, the mass $`m`$ and transverse mass $`M_T`$ distributions $`m_{\mu \gamma }`$, $`M_T(\mu \overline{)}E_T)`$, $`M_T(\overline{)}E_T\gamma )`$, $`M_T(\gamma \mu \overline{)}E_T)`$ and various transverse angular separations $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{ij}`$, where $`i,j=\mu ,\gamma ,\overline{)}E_T`$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$, defined as the distance in $`\eta \varphi `$ space between the muon and the photon, is also used. It is not possible to take correlations between these different kinematical variables into account because we do not possess the multi-dimensional data. Therefore we resort to examining each one in turn and see to what extent each region overlaps. Fig. 2 shows that all of the 95$`\%`$ confidence level regions overlap at $`M_190`$ GeV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=2540`$ GeV, indicating that our model is in good agreement with all of the observed kinematical properties of the events. The region at the bottom the plots is ruled out by LEP2 from neutralino pair production pdg .

The most discriminating kinematical variable is $`E_T(\mu )`$, which favors our model over the SM at the 3.3$`\sigma `$ level at the best fit point $`M_1=87`$ GeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=35`$ GeV. We refer to this point as “the best fit point” from now on, and examine its properties more closely.

We show the predicted distribution of lepton $`E_T`$ in Fig. 3 and compare it with the excess of the data over the SM background.

Important features of the sparticle spectrum are displayed in Table 1. We also show the range of sparticle masses corresponding to the acceptable fit range of parameter space. The acceptable fit range is defined as being compatible with at least all but one of the 95$`\%`$ C.L. regions in fig 2. The relevant branching ratios of the smuon are

$$BR(\stackrel{~}{\mu }_L\chi _1^0\mu )=0.984,BR(\stackrel{~}{\mu }_L\overline{u}d)=0.015,BR(\stackrel{~}{\mu }_L\stackrel{~}{\mu }\stackrel{~}{G})=0.001,$$
(2)
with a lifetime of $`1\times 10^{22}`$ sec, whereas for the lightest neutralino we have

$$BR(\chi _1^0\stackrel{~}{G}\gamma )=0.975,BR(\chi _1^0\stackrel{~}{G}e^{}e^+)=0.020,$$
(3)
with a lifetime of $`1\times 10^{18}`$ sec. At such small values of $`\lambda _{211}^{}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{G}}`$, R-parity violating decays of the lightest neutralino are negligible. In Table 2, we show the percentage of events making it through each of the cuts. The table shows that 11.4$`\%`$ of the smuons produced end up as detected $`\mu \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ events in CDF.

The corrected cross-section of 0.091 pb corresponds to 7.8 events additional to the 4.2$`\pm 0.5`$ predicted by the SM for 86 pb-1 of luminosity, adequately fitting the excess of events quoted by CDF at Run I.

We now determine the rate of single sneutrino production at Run I. The process is: $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }\nu \chi _1^0`$ followed by $`\chi _1^0\stackrel{~}{G}\gamma `$. This would appear to mimic $`Z\gamma `$ production, where $`Z\nu \overline{\nu }`$. To compute the cross-section for this process, we use the cuts used by the D0 experiment in their $`\gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ analysis dzero . With their cuts, we predict a supersymmetric cross-section of $`0.054`$ pb for the $`\overline{)}E_T\gamma `$ process at the Run I energy, which corresponds to about 0.7 events for the 14 pb-1 data analyzed by the D0 experiment. The D0 experiment observed 4 events over a SM background of 1.8$`\pm `$0.2 events but with a much bigger background coming from cosmic ray sources which is estimated to be 5.8$`\pm `$1.0. As far as we are aware, the analysis has not yet been done with the full Run I Tevatron data but we would expect about 5.4 events for a 100 pb-1 data sample.

We perform the above analyses for Run II (at $`\sqrt{s}=2`$ TeV) for the best fit point in order to make predictions for observable supersymmetric cross sections:

$$\sigma (\gamma \mu \overline{)}E_T)=0.098\text{ pb},\sigma (\gamma \overline{)}E_T)=0.36\text{ pb},$$
(4)
which, ought to be observable with good statistics. Since the numbers for the cuts and the efficiencies at Run II are not available, we have simply used those that the CDF experiment used in their $`\mu \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ analysis at Run I. To that extent, these numbers are only indicative. For example, with an integrated luminosity of 2 fb-1, these cross-sections would correspond to 195 and 720 events, respectively. We predict 0.8 expected selectron pairs at Run I. Thus, the discrepancy with respect to the SM abe  from the observation of an $`ee\gamma \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ event in the Run I data is vastly ameliorated. R-parity conserving production processes such as these will be observable at Run II providing more independent checks upon our scenario. One expects an identical number of smuon pairs, leading to a $`\mu \mu \gamma \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ final-state. This final state has not yet been observed by CDF, but we note that combining the $`ee\gamma \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ and $`\mu \mu \gamma \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ channels, our model still vastly ameliorates the discrepancy with respect to the SM.

## III Conclusions

We have demonstrated that R-parity violating supersymmetry with a light gravitino can explain an anomalously high measured cross-section for the $`\mu \gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ channel. We have provided possible tests for this hypothesis, in the form of SUSY cross-sections for the $`\gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ channel, and predictions for the cross-sections of both channels at Run II of the Tevatron collider. The $`\gamma \overline{)}E_T`$ channel looks particularly promising because it will allow an independent check of our scenario.

Another interesting question to ask is whether the signal can also be obtained from a specific model of supersymmetry breaking consistent with all other data.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank K. Odagiri for focusing our attention on the $`E_T`$ distributions.


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# An optimal extraction of spatially blended spectra

## 1 Introduction

A common situation in observational astronomy is to seek accurate photometric or spectroscopic information about sources within crowded fields, i.e. where the nearest neighbours are blended with the sources of interest. This is a particularly common situation for X-ray binaries, most of which are faint Galactic plane objects. A solution to the photometric problem has long been available in various implementations of Stetson’s daophot program (Stetson Stetson:1987a (1987)). For crowded field spectroscopy, however, no widely available solution exists. A possible approach to the problem is described here and has much in common with daophot. This spectroscopic solution also seeks to be optimal, in the sense that it should yield the highest signal-to-noise spectra available from the data. It thus derives from optimal extraction methods developed for unblended spectra (Horne Horne:1986a (1986); Marsh Marsh:1989a (1989)). We developed the method initially in the context of an observation of the X-ray binary XTE~J2012+381 (Hynes et al. Hynes:1999a (1999)). It has also provided useful for another X-ray binary, V404~Cyg (Hynes et al. Hynes:2002a (2002)). We illustrate the application of the method to both these sources in Section 6.

Since developing the method, another approach has been presented by Buie & Grundy (Buie:2000a (2000)). This is also an optimal extraction, but differs in that no template source is used; instead the spatial profile is reconstructed iteratively from the blended sources. These authors also use a purely numerical profile, rather than the semi-analytic model we adopt. Their approach was developed for HST/NICMOS observations of a Pluto and Charon; hence these requirements were necessary. For ground-based observations of point sources in crowded fields, using a template source and a semi-analytic model profile should allow our method to be applied to poorer quality data. We should emphasise that the assumptions made here do only apply to point sources; this method cannot be used for sources with extended or resolved structure.

## 2 Preliminary Image Processing

Before applying the method, the images should have been debiased and flat-fielded using standard techniques. It is assumed hereafter that the image is oriented with the dispersion direction roughly horizontal and the slit is aligned with columns.

Sky subtraction should also have been performed and to ensure correct weighting across the profile, this should be done in a way which yields a image of the fitted sky background. Horne (Horne:1986a (1986)) discusses these issues and we essentially follow his methods. Our implementation fits a low-order polynomial to each column with Horne’s iterative cosmic ray rejection. Regions containing sources are masked out. We then retain both the subtracted image and an image containing the fitted sky.

It is also necessary to do wavelength calibration separately using normal procedures. The method employed for the spectra presented in Section 6 was to extract and wavelength calibrate a spectrum of the template source using normal iraf methods, and then assume the same wavelength–pixel correspondence for all the objects. This is acceptable for these data, since the spectra considered do have the image of the slit precisely aligned with the CCD columns, but in general a more rigorous procedure may be needed.

## 3 The Spatial Profile

### 3.1 The profile model

The first step in deblending spatial profiles is to define how the profile of a single point source should look. Several methods have been proposed for this for a single source. Horne (Horne:1986a (1986)) normalises the observed count rates for each column, then fits a low order polynomial to each row of the data. This has the advantage of making no a priori assumptions about the spatial profile, but is inappropriate for spectrum deblending because his spatial profile is only defined in pixel steps; it cannot easily be transferred to another source which samples the spatial profile differently. In principle, one could interpolate between pixels, but this is dangerous when the spatial profile is undersampled, as is often the case (even where the seeing is poor enough that the spatial profile would become oversampled, it is common to bin to reduce readout noise). Horne’s method is also only appropriate for spectra with small distortion, i.e. nearly parallel to CCD rows. Marsh (Marsh:1989a (1989)) describes an extension of this empirical approach which works even for very distorted spectra. His method also produces well sampled spatial profiles which can be transferred to another source on the slit, taking advantage of the fact that strong distortion of the spectrum will lead to different columns sampling the spatial profile differently. This could be used as the basis for a deblending algorithm. In some cases, however, the distortion is very slight so this method will not work either; even by combining columns, the spatial profile is not well sampled. This was the case for the two datasets discussed in Section 6, and so led us to develop a different method.

The alternative is simpler to visualise, since it involves fitting a analytical profile in the spatial direction rather than a polynomial in the dispersion direction. Analytic spatial profiles have been applied by Urry (Urry:1988a (1988)) to IUE data using a Gaussian profile. For ground based data a Gaussian model will often give a good fit to the seeing dominated cores of spatial profiles, but will usually underpredict the extended wings present due to instrumental imperfections. An effective refinement to this is to use a Voigt profile, a convolution of a Gaussian profile with a dispersion profile (e.g. Gray Gray:1992a (1992)):

$$P_i(u_i,a)_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{exp}(u_1^2)}{(u_iu_1)^2+a^2}du_1.$$
(1)
where $`P_i`$ is the profile value, $`u_i=x_i/w`$, $`x_i`$ is the pixel position, $`w`$ is the profile width parameter and $`a`$ is the Voigt damping parameter. This function provides the desired Gaussian cores, but also gives an independently variable extension in the wings, controlled by the Voigt damping parameter which ranges from 0 (a pure Gaussian profile) to 1 (a Lorentzian profile). It was found that a Voigt profile provided a very good fit to the spatial profiles considered in Section 6. The resulting systematic residuals to the fit are very small; a numerical correction method similar to that used by daophot can be used to refine the fit even more as described in the following subsection.

### 3.2 Fitting the profile

The first step in the fitting process is to perform an unconstrained fit to each column of the template data, with the centre, Gaussian width, Voigt damping parameter and profile scaling as free parameters. We have used a downhill simplex (amoeba) algorithm to obtain the best-fit parameters (e.g. Press et al. Press:1992a (1992)). No attempt is made to reject bad pixels or cosmic rays at this stage, as these will show up as anomalous parameter values. Of these parameter values, it is the profile centre, width and damping that define a normalised profile. All of these parameters can be expected to vary smoothly in wavelength, so after obtaining fitted values, a low order polynomial in wavelength is fitted to each parameter, rejecting anomalous values that may have been affected by cosmic rays. If the wavelength range is small then a zero-order fit (i.e. a constant) may suffice. If the data quality is not sufficient to constrain the fits to a single row of the image then several rows can be binned, since the wavelength dependence is likely to be slow, and the derived polynomial resampled back to the original resolution. These polynomial fits, together with the normalisation such that $`_iP_i=1`$ define the spatial profile as a function of wavelength.

If the difference in brightness of the two sources is very large then it becomes crucial that the wing of the brighter source be very well fitted to avoid contamination of the fainter source. This can be achieved using a numerical correction to the (Voigt) model profile. The error involved in assuming a Voigt profile is usually only important in the extreme wings of the profile: the seeing-dominated core is typically well fitted by this model. We can therefore define a numerical correction factor (observed profile divided by model) at the sampled points and interpolate this to obtain a general correction function for any pixel sampling. Since this involves the extreme wings of the line, where signal-to-noise will be poor, such a correction typically cannot be defined meaningfully as a function of wavelength; instead only a single, averaged, wavelength independent correction can be determined. A symmetric profile is also assumed. These assumptions appear adequate for the spectra we have considered; hence the correction is simply a function of distance from the profile centre. Given higher quality data, an asymmetric, wavelength dependent function could readily be used, and this generalisation is straightforward.

Assuming that there are no changes in focus along the slit (or at least the restricted part of it which is used) and that the image scale (and hence the separation between stellar images) is independent of wavelength, the only additional information required to define the profiles of the blended sources is the separation of each from the template source. For spectra with minimal distortion, this is easy to obtain by performing an initial fit to the average of several rows of data, leaving the centres of the two blended profiles as free parameters. Distorted spectra would require that the distortion (known from the fits to the template profile) be removed by resampling the data for this initial fit only.

## 4 Spectral Extraction

Assuming that the fit to the spatial profile for the template source is satisfactory, the centre position and normalised profile as a function of wavelength are known, and the spectral extraction itself can be performed. This is simply a case of finding the scaling of each component, although complicated by the need to reject cosmic ray events. Horne (Horne:1986a (1986)) describes his method in terms of an optimally weighted sum of counts over an aperture containing all of the stellar light. He notes the equivalence between this weighted sum method and fitting a known profile to data of known variance, and it can be shown that his optimally weighted sum yields the solution of minimum $`\chi ^2`$. Using this equivalence we can generalise the method to blended spectra, by minimising the $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit with respect to the two profile scalings. This is straightforward and for the simple problem of scaling two profiles, the solution of minimum $`\chi ^2`$ can be calculated analytically; see Appendix A. This is done iteratively, to allow rejection of cosmic rays. Given that there are two components to be fitted, however, the combined profile is unknown, and so more care is needed in cosmic ray rejection than for a single source.

## 5 Cosmic Ray Rejection

One of the great strengths of optimal extraction algorithms is that the spatial profile is known. Cosmic rays or bad pixels, even when on top of the spectrum, will distort the spatial profile, and hence can be recognised and rejected. This means that instead of removing cosmic rays from the extracted one-dimensional spectra, and rejecting a whole pixel step in wavelength, they can be removed from the two-dimensional spectra, retaining the information in the uncontaminated pixels. While this process is easy to do by eye, it proves difficult to train a computer to recognise cosmic rays automatically, especially when multiple profiles are being fit. Given a first approximation to the profile, bad values can be rejected by an iterative sigma-clipping algorithm (Horne Horne:1986a (1986)). The strategies we have used to obtain the crucial first approximation are described here.

Beginning with the simplest case of recognising contamination of a single profile, we rely on the fact that the scaling of the profile can be estimated from a single pixel value; hence each pixel gives an independent estimate of the integrated flux. A contaminated pixel will then give an anomalous estimate. If this estimate is severely wrong, as is often the case with cosmic rays, then a straight average may be very much in error, leading to subsequent rejection of good data. A better method is to take the median of the single pixel estimates as the first estimate for the integrated flux. This then gives a first approximation to the fitted profile which forms the basis for subsequent refinement with iterative sigma-clipping.

Where two independently fitted profiles are involved more care is needed. The only case considered here is that one source is brighter than the other at all wavelengths in the spectrum (true for all data the method has so far been applied to.) For the brightest source, a profile region is selected from the midpoint between the two sources to an arbitrary cutoff on the other side. Within this region, the profile of the brighter source is expected to dominate, so the median ratio method described above for single sources can be applied. This gives an approximate flux scaling for the brighter stellar profile, which can then be subtracted. The median ratio method is then applied to the remaining profile of the fainter source to estimate a flux scaling for this. With an approximate scaling for both profiles, iterative sigma-clipping can be used to refine the list of rejected pixels.

Clearly if three or more blended sources are involved then the situation is more complex, and there are more possible permutations of relative brightness to consider. This makes it harder to treat generally and specific cases will need to be considered individually.

## 6 Examples

### 6.1 XTE J2012+381

XTE~J2012+381 presents an especially difficult challenge for spectroscopy. The X-ray source was originally identified with what appeared to be a normal F star. It was only upon closer examination of images of the field taken in good seeing that it became clear a second fainter star was present (Hynes et al. Hynes:1999a (1999)). This was heavily blended with the F star, but lay closer to the precise radio counterpart and now appears the most likely optical counterpart to the X-ray source. We obtained spectroscopy of these two stars with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on 1998 July 20, with the slit aligned to pass through both, as well as through a third unblended star. These data provided the original motivation for development of this method. A fuller description of the data is provided by Hynes et al. (Hynes:1999a (1999)). We focus here on aspects relevant to the deblending algorithm.

The severity of the blending can be clearly seen in Fig. 1. The suggested counterpart to the X-ray source is the fainter of the two blended stars. Clearly to successfully extract its spectrum requires a good fit to the wing of the brighter star. Fortunately, the signal-to-noise ratio of the two-dimensional image was quite good, so it was possible to apply the full model described above, i.e. a Voigt profile with a numerical correction to the wings. The latter significantly improved the fit and with this no significant discrepancy was seen between the model profile and the data. The fits to the Voigt profile parameters are shown in Fig. 2. Both the width and damping parameter are relatively well constrained as a function of wavelength.

The extracted spectra are shown in Fig. 3. There are a shortage of spectral features in both spectra, but the extraction does clearly distinguish the much redder spectrum of the proposed X-ray source and the contrast between H$`\alpha `$ absorption in the F star and possible weak emission in the X-ray source is dramatic. The reality of this emission is discussed by Hynes et al. (Hynes:1999a (1999)); suffice here to note that no obvious artifacts are present, but that these data are perhaps not the best test of the method. Fortunately our second target, V404~Cyg, does provide a better test, albeit in a less heavily blended situation.

### 6.2 V404 Cyg

Another X-ray binary for which this deblending method is appropriate is V404~Cyg, as this has a fainter companion star 1.5 arcsec away. There is no physical association between the two. Observations were obtained of V404~Cyg in quiescence using the WHT on 1999 July 6–8. These are described in more detail in Hynes et al. (Hynes:2002a (2002)). To summarise, the goal was to perform spectroscopy near H$`\alpha `$ with as high a time resolution as possible ( $`240`$ s) to examine spectral variability; hence we used a low spectral resolution to minimise readout noise and a wide slit to minimise slit losses. Figure 4 shows two examples of averaged (in wavelength) spatial cuts with respect to the centre of the template star. The images with the best and worst seeing from the night of July 7/8 were chosen. The fainter star is clearly blended with V404~Cyg even in the best image (seeing $`0.8`$ arcsec.)

The optimal deblending algorithm was applied with a simplification. Because the goal of this project was to obtain the highest time-resolution practical, the signal-to-noise ratio of individual frames was not high. Because of this, it was not possible to perform a wavelength dependent fit and so a single average profile (and a profile correction) were calculated. Given the limited wavelength coverage of these data this is an acceptable approximation.

Figure 5 shows the average extracted spectra of the two blended stars from July 7/8. The spectra appear to have been separated cleanly and there is no obvious crosstalk around H$`\alpha `$ between the double-peaked disc emission in V404~Cyg and the narrower (stellar) absorption line in the blended star. There is also a lot of structure in the spectrum of V404~Cyg (e.g. 6600–6900 Å) which is not present in the spectrum of the blended star which appears largely featureless. As V404~Cyg is brighter, the signal-to-noise ratio of its spectrum should be higher and hence these features must be real; they likely arise from the K0 IV companion star which dominates in quiescence. The blended star, in contrast, appears to be of earlier spectral type, probably F (Hynes et al. Hynes:2002a (2002)).111To the author’s knowledge, no spectrum of this star has previously been isolated..

Figure 6 shows continuum light curves from both stars for the night of July 7/8. Spectra were scaled relative to the template star to approximately remove variable slit loss and transparency effects. Clearly the light curve of the blended star shows little or no contamination from the large flare occurring at the beginning of the night in V404~Cyg, indicating again that there is no detectable cross-talk between the two spectra.

## 7 Conclusions

We have demonstrated an algorithm for extracting separate spectra of sources whose spatial profiles are blended in a long slit spectrum given an isolated template source with which to define the spatial profile. We implement this method using $`\chi ^2`$ fitting with rejection of cosmic rays, resulting in a generalisation of the optimal extraction method to the multi-object case. Finally we have demonstrated the application of the method to two X-ray binaries in crowded fields that require separation from nearby contaminating sources.

The method as presented here has some limitations:

1. A very simple method of wavelength calibration is used, i.e. assuming that the slit is exactly aligned with CCD columns. A more rigorous treatment would be able to use a two-dimensional wavelength solution when necessary.
2. The assumption of a Gaussian core to the profile may not be valid if the image size is determined by poor focus rather than seeing, or if the exposure time is short enough ($`1`$ s) that the seeing does not average to a Gaussian form.
3. At present the method is targeted at two blended profiles. A generalisation to three or more sources would not only require an extension of Appendix A, but development of a method for identifying cosmic rays superposed on such a complex profile.

An implementation of the method described using IDL routines operating on FITS images is available from the author.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author is supported by grant F/00-180/A from the Leverhulme Trust. The William Herschel Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. The author would like to thank the co-authors of Hynes et al. (Hynes:1999a (1999)) and Hynes et al. (Hynes:2002a (2002)) for their assistance with the observations and many other valuable contributions to these projects, and the referee, Marc Buie, for several helpful suggestions. This research has made use of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service.

## Appendix A Analytic $`\chi ^2`$ fitting of multiple profiles

For the simple case considered here, the spatial profile of blended sources is known a priori from a template source and it is assumed that the offsets of these blended sources relative to the template are known. The extraction then reduces to finding the flux scaling of each profile. The optimal solution is equivalent to minimising $`\chi ^2`$, with care to reject any cosmic rays on the profile.

Consider $`N`$ model profiles $`P_{ij}`$ ($`j=1\mathrm{}N`$) to be fitted to an observed profile $`D_i`$ (variance $`V_i`$), yielding $`N`$ scalings $`F_j`$. The badness of fit statistic is then:

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i}{}\frac{(D_i_jF_jP_{ij})^2}{V_i}$$
(2)
and the optimal solution requires $`\chi ^2/F_j=0`$ for all $`j`$. In general, these $`N`$ constraints will yield $`N`$ simultaneous equations with $`N`$ unknowns: $`F_1\mathrm{}F_N`$. This can be solved as a straightforward problem in linear algebra without requiring a numerical minimisation. Consider the two-profile case. For convenience write $`F_1f`$, $`F_2g`$, $`P_{i,1}p_i`$ and $`P_{i,2}q_i`$. Define the following statistics:

$$A=\underset{i}{}p_i^2/V_iB=\underset{i}{}q_i^2/V_iC=\underset{i}{}p_iq_i/V_i$$

$$D=\underset{i}{}p_iD_i/V_iE=\underset{i}{}q_iD_i/V_i.$$
(3)
The two simultaneous equations then take the form

$$AfD+Cg=0BgE+Cf=0$$
(4)
with solution

$$f=\frac{D/CE/B}{A/CC/B}g=\frac{E/CD/A}{B/CC/A}.$$
(5)
Formal errors can also be straightforwardly propagated from Eqn. 4 or 5:

$$\sigma _f^2=\underset{i}{}\left(\frac{f}{D_i}\right)^2V_i=\frac{B}{ABC^2}$$

$$\sigma _g^2=\underset{i}{}\left(\frac{g}{D_i}\right)^2V_i=\frac{A}{ABC^2}$$
(6)


text:
# Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors in the Low Carrier Density Regime

## I Introduction

Diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS) are comprised of an inert host semiconductor doped with both localized spins and carriers (electrons or holes) that are either itinerant, or localized on a much longer length scale. In that sense, they belong to the general family of correlated electron systems, which include a number of fascinating materials such as cuprates, manganites, heavy fermions and other Kondo lattice systems.

Electronic materials containing local moments have been studied for some time. What makes the DMS so fascinating is that they belong to a regime that has previously been neglected. While the name diluted magnetic semiconductors implies (correctly) that the system has only a small percentage of localized spins, they are at the opposite extreme of the dilute magnetic alloys such as Fe or Mn in Cu, the canonical systems involving itinerant fermion and localized spin degrees of freedom, which have been studied extensively. In the dilute magnetic metallic alloys, the low density of spins are a perturbation on the Fermi liquid representing the non-magnetic host metal, so depending on the concentration of the local moments, they may be studied in terms of dilute Kondo systems, or amorphous magnetic systems with a spin-spin coupling mediated by the Fermi sea of conduction electrons (RKKY coupling), which lead often to spin glass behavior.

By contrast, in the regime of interest, the carrier density in DMS is significantly lower than the (low) localized moment density, so the spins become an integral part of the description of the system and its magnetic phase, rather than a mere perturbation on a metallic Fermi sea. In that sense, the situation is even more extreme than e.g., in Kondo lattice and heavy Fermion materials, where the two species have comparable densities. This large, inverted, ratio of local moments to carriers is in fact similar to that in the high $`T_c`$ cuprates. However, unlike the cuprates, the density of local moments is low and incommensurate with the lattice, and the carriers and the spins are not in the same band. As a consequence of the low moment density, the exchange between local moments is not standard direct or superexchange, as in the cuprates, but is mediated by the carriers, even though their density is so small. Thus, the DMS are in rather different region of phase space of electronic materials with local moments, than other correlated electron systems.

Despite this difference, most models of diluted magnetic semiconductors start from the high carrier density limit, where the carriers may be modeled as free carriers moving in the conduction or valence band. This is understandable, since in the high density limit the carrier kinetic energy is the largest energy in the problem, and calculations may be done perturbatively starting from the non-interacting Fermi gas. However, most of the interesting behavior is seen at low carrier densities, where the system is insulating, or not too far from the metal-insulator transition. Consequently, we have concentrated in this work on the low density regime, starting from bound carriers, and moving on to carriers in an impurity band formed from the bound impurity states.

As we wish to cover the case of insulating behavior at arbitrary filling factor i.e., away from the half filled impurity band case (one carrier per site), disorder has to be included at the outset. In particular, we model the system with randomly distributed dopants, as in the experimental system, since it has been recognized that the random distribution is essential to understand the magnetic properties of conventional, non-magnetic doped semiconductors. Such models exhibit both insulating and metallic phases, and with the random distribution of impurity sites included, are in a position to reveal the effect of disorder in low carrier density systems. In the case of the predominantly antiferromagnetic couplings between hydrogenic centers in conventional doped semiconductors, the randomness is found to suppress magnetic order below measurable temperatures ( $``$ millikelvin ), and possibly to zero. In the case of DMS, where interactions lead to ferromagnetic ordering, in agreement with experimental findings, we find that randomness leads to unusual behavior in the magnetic response, and effects of randomness are expected in the transport behavior as well.

In this paper, we review the results of our approach to DMS based on both II-VI semiconductors (like CdTe or ZnSe), and on III-V semiconductors (such as GaAs or GaP), and compare the two families of DMS systems. The paper is organized as follows. In Section II we briefly review the properties of conventional (insulating) ferromagnets. The results presented serve as a reference with which to contrast the results obtained in the rest of the paper. Section III addresses the II-VI based DMS, while Section IV deals with III-V DMS. In each case, we introduce the Hamiltonians we use to model these systems. Results obtained within mean-field approximation and with Monte Carlo simulations are presented. The effect of positional disorder of the Mn dopants is studied, as are the similarities and differences between II-VI and III-V DMS. Finally, Section V summarizes our results and conclusions. It also includes a discussion of important issues such as robustness of models, relevance of disorder on spin scattering, and key experiments which could help provide a better understanding of these materials.

## II Conventional Ferromagnetic Systems

A typical model of a uniform ferromagnet consists of a collection of identical magnetic spins of magnitude $`S`$, placed on an ordered Bravais lattice. While the generic case may be anisotropic in spin space due to a variety of reasons (spin-orbit coupling, crystal fields etc.) we consider here the simplest isotropic case where the spin interactions are well described by a Heisenberg Hamiltonian

$$=\underset{ij}{}J_{ij}\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j\stackrel{}{H}\underset{i}{}g\mu _B\stackrel{}{S}_i.$$
(1)
Due to translational invariance, the exchange integral $`J_{ij}`$ depends only on the distance $`\stackrel{}{R}_i\stackrel{}{R}_j`$ between spins. In insulating materials, this dependence is due to overlap between the electronic orbitals involved in creating the spin S (through Hund’s rule), leading to an exponential decay of $`J_{ij}`$ with increasing distance. In typical magnetic atoms, these orbitals are of $`d`$ or $`f`$ type, and they are localized within $`12`$Åof the nucleus. As a result, it is customary to restrict the first sum in Eq. (1) to only nearest-neighbor spins. The external magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{H}=H\widehat{e}_z`$ breaks the rotational symmetry, leading to the appearance of a non-vanishing expectation value $`S_i^z`$ at each site. Translational invariance implies that $`S_i^z=S`$ is independent of the position $`\stackrel{}{R}_i`$ of the spin.

While an exact solution for the Heisenberg Hamiltonian (1) is known only in one dimension, it has been found that the Weiss (mean-field) approximation provides a qualitatively good understanding of the properties of these systems. The mean-field factorization $`\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j+\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j=S\left(S_i^z+S_j^z\right)S^2`$ allows for a solution of the problem in terms of an effective magnetic field $`H(i)=H+JS/(g\mu _B)`$, where $`J=_{ji}J_{ij}`$. \[If only nearest-neighbor interactions are kept, $`J=zJ_{01}`$, where $`z`$ is the coordination number of the Bravais lattice and $`J_{01}`$ is the exchange integral for nearest-neighbor spins\]. In the absence of an external magnetic field, a non-vanishing solution for $`S`$ is found for $`TT_C=JS(S+1)/3k_\mathrm{B}`$. In other words, the system is ferromagnetically aligned below the critical temperature $`T_C`$, and the spontaneous magnetization $`M=g\mu _BS_i^z`$ increases rapidly (Fig. 1) with decreasing temperature and is already close to the saturation value $`M_0=g\mu _BS`$ below $`T<0.5T_C`$. Concurrently, the specific heat has a peaked structure around $`T_C`$ and drops rapidly to zero for $`T<0.5T_C`$ reflecting the fact that the only accessible degrees of freedom for low T are the long-wavelength (collective) spin-wave excitations which have a restricted phase space (see Fig. 2).

It is well-known that mean-field approximations overestimate the strength of the correlations, leading to rather high estimates for the Curie temperatures $`T_C`$. Detailed studies of these Hamiltonians with Monte-Carlo simulations, which properly account for the effects of thermal fluctuations, find quantitative changes of up to a factor of 2 in the value of $`T_C`$. However, as suggested in Fig. 2, the qualitative features of the magnetization, specific heat and susceptibility curves remain as in the Weiss mean-field treatment, in good agreement with experimental measurements.

## III Ferromagnetic systems: II-VI DMS

### A The model

The II-VI DMS are based on semiconductors AB, where A is a group-II element and B is a group-VI element (such as CdTe or ZnSe). In the II-VI DMS, some of the divalent sites (Cd/Zn) are substituted by a magnetic element, typically Mn. This fraction is denoted by $`x`$, so the DMS we consider is A1-xMnxB. Mn is also a group-II element, but in addition it has a half-filled $`3d`$ shell, with a total spin given by Hund’s rule: $`S=5/2`$. In the absence of other types of dopants, the system A1-xMnxB is an insulator which exhibits antiferromagnetic tendencies at low temperatures. This is seen, for instance, from measurements of the susceptibility which is found to depend on temperature as $`\chi (T)1/(T+T_N)`$, with a Neel temperature of a few kelvin.  The origin of this antiferromagnetic (AFM) tendency is the (expected) antiferromagnetic exchange between the Mn spins. However, for low doping concentrations $`x`$, the average distance between Mn spins is large and this AFM direct exchange is rather small.

When a low density of charged dopants, such as group-V Phosphorus (P) substituting for the group-VI element, is introduced in the system, each of them binds a hole (or electron) in a shallow hydrogenic $`1s`$ state $`\varphi (\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{exp}\left(r/a_B\right)`$, characterized by a Bohr radius $`a_B1020`$ Å. Exchange interactions arise between the spins of these charge carriers and the Mn spins, and are described by the Hamiltonian:

$$H=\underset{i,j}{}J(\stackrel{}{r}_i,\stackrel{}{R}_j)\stackrel{}{s}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j.$$
(2)
Here, $`\stackrel{}{S}_j`$ is the spin of the Mn at position $`\stackrel{}{R}_j`$ and $`\stackrel{}{s}_i`$ is the spin of the electron/hole centered at $`\stackrel{}{r}_i`$. The exchange interaction $`J(\stackrel{}{r}_i,\stackrel{}{R}_j)`$ is dependent on the overlap between the orbital $`\varphi (\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_i)`$ of the charge carrier and the orbitals $`\psi _d(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{R}_j)`$ of the $`3d`$ electrons responsible for the Mn spin. Since these $`3d`$ orbitals are localized on a scale of a few Å around the Mn nucleus, the exchange is proportional to the carrier charge density at the Mn site, i.e.

$$J(𝐫_i,𝐑_j)=J_0|\varphi (\stackrel{}{R}_j\stackrel{}{r}_i)|^2=J_0e^{2|𝐫_i𝐑_j|/a_B},$$
(3)
where $`J_0`$ characterizes the strength of the exchange. Typically, for electrons $`J_0<0`$, while for holes $`J_0>0`$. However, since in the following we treat the spins as classical variables, the sign is irrelevant. For specificity, in the rest of the paper we assume $`J_0>0`$ corresponding to holes as charge carriers.

The Hamiltonian (2) neglects the direct AFM interactions between the Mn spins. For low values of the fraction $`x`$, it can be simply accounted for in the following manner. For Mn spins which are very close to one another (such as nearest neighbors), the direct AFM exchange is the dominant (large) interaction, and leads to the formation of a singlet state. This singlet becomes inert as far as magnetic interactions are concerned. For Mn spins which are fairly far apart from other Mn spins, the dominant magnetic interaction is the exchange with the charge carrier spins. As a result, to first order the Hamiltonian (2) accounts for both types of interactions if we restrict the summation over the Mn spins to only those Mn spins which are not part of a spin-singlet. At low $`x`$, this includes a large majority of Mn spins. If the fraction $`x`$ of Mn becomes too large, both types of interactions will be of comparable size for all the Mn spins, and therefore this separation is no longer possible. In this case, the frustration imposed by the competing exchanges leads to the appearance of a spin-glass state, which has been observed experimentally for $`x0.2`$. In the following, we restrict ourselves to the low $`x`$ ($`x0.1`$) limit.

Simple thermodynamic considerations show that, qualitatively, at a temperature $`k_BT<J(r)`$ \[see Eq. (3)\], all Mn spins within distance $`r_T\left(a_B/2\right)\mathrm{ln}\left(J_0/k_BT\right)`$ of a dopant order their spins antiferromagnetically with respect to the dopant hole spin. As a result, a region with a large magnetization (from all the parallel polarized Mn spins) appears near the dopant. This is known as a Bound Magnetic Polaron (BMP),  whose radius $`r_T`$ (see above) increases logarithmically with decreasing temperature. As a result, one expects that long-range ferromagnetic order appears in the system for temperatures low enough that a continuous percolating network of BMPs is formed (as shown schematically in Fig. 3), provided that nearby BMPs prefer to orient ferromagnetically with respect to one another. At first sight, this seems to not be the case, since direct exchange between the charge carriers localized in hydrogenic orbitals has an antiferromagnetic sign. However, this antiferromagnetic coupling is overwhelmed by effectively ferromagnetic interactions between BMPs coming in part from Mn spins in between the polarons which favor ferromagnetic alignment of Mn spins and partly from the modification of the effective direct exchange as a result of the local field due to the polarized Mn.

These mechanisms favoring parallel orientation of the BMPs at low temperatures are rather weak, and as a result the Curie temperature below which long-range ferromagnetism is observed in these systems is very low, to our knowledge below 5 K for all II-VI DMS studied so far. Moreover, as the transition is of a percolation type, and the percolation fraction is $``$ 20% for three dimensions, this implies that just below $`T_C`$ about 80% of the Mn spins do not participate in the ferromagnetism. These are the Mn spins which are outside the percolated cluster, i.e. far from the charged dopants (see Fig. 3). They are very weakly interacting (essentially disordered) unless the temperature becomes so low that a nearby BMPs grows large enough to include them. This results in a very unusual FM phase, in which a substantial part of the spin entropy survives down to very low T.

### B  Monte Carlo simulations

We performed Monte Carlo simulations on the Hamiltonian (2), to study this unusual FM phase, treating both Mn and carrier spins as classical variables. This appears to be a reasonable approximation, since $`S=5/2`$ is a large spin and the Mn spins dominate the magnetic response. Simulations were carried out for zinc-blende lattices with lattice constant $`a=5`$ Å, for Mn concentration $`x=0.001`$, dopant density $`n_d=10^{18}`$ cm-3 and $`a_B=20`$ Å. The exchange $`J_0`$ defines the unit of energy. With these parameters, the Mn concentration $`n_{Mn}=4x/a^3`$ is 32 times the dopant concentration. Nevertheless, the magnetic coupling is mediated by the latter because of the large Bohr radius, as required for the polaron picture to hold.

The magnetization curves obtained have unusual, concave upward shapes (see Fig. 4, left panel), very unlike the typical magnetization curve of Fig. 1. For these parameters, the critical temperature $`T_C=0.014J_0`$ is found using finite size scaling.  We find that the magnetization reaches its saturation value only at exponentially small temperatures, reflecting the existence of the quasi-free Mn spins outside the percolated (magnetically ordered) region.

The specific heat of the classical Heisenberg model has the unphysical limit $`C_\mathrm{V}Nk_\mathrm{B}`$ as $`T0`$ (empty squares in Fig. 5). While this agrees with the equipartition theorem, it implies that quantum mechanics (with discrete energy levels) is needed to capture the correct limit $`C_\mathrm{V}0`$ as $`T0`$. One way to mimic the discretization, but avoid the complexities of the quantum Monte Carlo treatment, is to use a discrete (classical) vector model, in which each Mn spin can only be oriented along one of the six  directions. An efficient Monte Carlo method for this discrete model is described in Ref. . While the magnetization curves are very similar to the ones obtained in the continuous spin Heisenberg model (see Fig. 4), the specific heat results are very different (see Fig. 5). As expected, for the discrete model $`C_\mathrm{V}0`$ as $`T0`$. However, unlike in the case of a typical FM, the peak in $`C_\mathrm{V}`$ is not near $`T_C`$, but at temperatures well below $`T_C`$. This reflects the residual entropy of the free Mn spins outside the percolated region.

### C Effect of disorder

In II-VI DMS there are two sources of positional disorder: disorder in the positions of the Mn spins and disorder in the position of the charged dopants. In the limit when there are many Mn ions per dopant, the Mn spin disorder is not expected to have a significant effect on the magnetization curves, or the critical temperature. The reason is that at the very low temperatures where percolation appears, the radius of each BMP is significantly larger than $`a_B`$, favoring interactions with a large number of Mn spins. Disorder in the Mn positions will lead to some fluctuations in the average number of Mn spins found in each BMP, but this should have a relatively small effect.

On the other hand, disorder in the position of the charged carriers (centers of the BMPs) has a large effect on the critical temperatures. As seen from Fig. 3, disorder in the positions of the BMPs facilitates the appearance of a large percolated cluster for smaller BMPs sizes (larger temperatures), since only a subset of the BMPs must percolate in order for ferromagnetic order to appear in the system. On the other hand, the ordered BMP lattice only percolates when each and every BMP is included. This obviously happens when a larger fraction of the space is filled by BMPs, i.e. at a lower temperature. However, we emphasize again that even for the ordered BMP lattice, a significant volume containing a large fraction of the Mn spins is still outside the percolated volume (in the interstitial spaces) and therefore the phenomenology related to the existence of weakly-interacting spins down to exponentially low temperatures is still valid.

We have verified, using Monte Carlo simulations, that the critical temperature of a system in which the charge carriers are placed in an ordered superlattice is lower than that of a sample with random positions of the charge carriers, when all other parameters are identical. For the case investigated, the relative increase of $`T_C`$ with disorder was $`50\%`$. However, this relative increase is expected to depend on the various parameters of the problem.

## IV Ferromagnetic systems coupled to fermions: III-V DMS

### A Introduction

When Mn is doped in a III-V semiconductor, such as GaAs, the major difference with respect to the II-VI DMS is that the Mn atom provides both the $`S=5/2`$ spin and the dopant charge carrier (a hole, since divalent Mn substitutes for trivalent Ga). While this implies nominally equal concentrations of holes and Mn spins, experimentally it is found that the hole concentration is only $`p=1030\%`$ of the Mn concentration. The compensation process(es) responsible for the removal of such a large fraction ($`7090\%`$) of the holes from the carrier band are not fully understood, but it is believed that an important role is played by As antisite defects. Such defects are created when group-V As substitutes for group-III Ga, and removes two holes introduced by Mn impurities, thus effectively decreasing the hole concentration. Compensation is responsible not only for the substantial decrease of the hole concentration, but also leads to the appearance of charged compensation centers (e.g. As2+ for As antisites). The Coulomb potential created by these charged compensation centers may also play a role in the physics of these systems, as we discuss in the following.

As in the (II,Mn)VI systems, the main magnetic interaction in the (III,Mn)V DMS is the exchange between the Mn spins and the hole spins, which is known to be antiferromagnetic. Assuming, again, very sharply peaked Mn $`3d`$ orbitals, this exchange is proportional to the probability of finding the charge carrier at the Mn site. This probability is extracted from the wave-functions of the orbitals occupied by the hole charge carriers. The appropriate framework to describe the hole states depends on their concentration. At low hole concentrations, screening processes are ineffective. The unscreened Coulomb potentials of the Mn dopants are responsible for the splitting of hydrogen-like impurity levels from the top of the valence band, and the holes occupy these impurity states. In the limit of high hole concentrations when the carrier kinetic energy is the largest energy in the problem, the Coulomb potential of the Mn dopants effectively gets reduced because of screening. As a result, the holes occupy a Fermi sea at the top of the valence band. Qualitatively, it is apparent that the two situations could lead to quite different physics. Holes occupying Bloch states in the valence band are found with equal probability anywhere inside the host semiconductor, and therefore one expects the system to be rather homogeneous. On the other hand, holes occupying impurity states are found with high probability near the Mn sites. As a result, we expect a rather inhomogeneous distribution of the holes in the host semiconductor, and the positional disorder of the Mn dopants may play an important role, since it defines the length-scale for these inhomogeneities.

Ga1-xMnxAs has a Metal-Insulator Transition for $`x0.03`$ and shows re-entrant insulating behavior for $`x>0.07`$. In the insulating regimes, the low-temperature conductivity is consistent with Mott long-range variable hopping,  suggesting the existence of impurity-like levels. Even for the most metallic sample ($`x=0.053`$) the screening length ($`l10`$ Å) as evaluated from the Thomas-Fermi theory is of comparable size, not much smaller than the Bohr radius of the impurity level ($`a_B8`$ Å).

### B The model

Motivated by these observations, we have attempted to understand the low $`x`$ regime within a model based on the existence of impurity hydrogen-like orbitals at each Mn site. While this is similar to our approach to the II-VI DMS systems, one difference is that since the number of holes is smaller than the number of Mn, there must be a mechanism to allow the holes to “choose” the Mn dopants near which to stay. Such a mechanism is naturally provided by hopping processes facilitated by the overlap between impurity wave-functions centered at different Mn sites. Therefore, the Hamiltonian describing such a system is of the form

$$=\underset{i,j}{}t_{ij}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }+\underset{i}{}\left[u(i)c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{i\sigma }+Un_in_i\right]$$

$$+\underset{i,j}{}J_{ij}\stackrel{}{S}(i)\stackrel{}{s}_j+\underset{i,j}{}K_{ij}\stackrel{}{S}(i)\stackrel{}{S}(j)$$

$$g\mu _BH\underset{i}{}\frac{\sigma }{2}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{i\sigma }\stackrel{~}{g}\mu _BH\underset{i}{}S^z(i).$$
(4)
Here, $`i`$ indexes different Mn positions $`𝐑_i`$, and $`c_{i\sigma }^{}`$ is the creation operator for a hole with spin $`\sigma `$ in the impurity level centered at $`𝐑_i`$, while $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ is the spin of the corresponding Mn dopant.

The first line in Eq. (4) is the Hamiltonian of the charge carriers. The first term describes hopping of holes between impurity levels. For simplicity, we assume again 1$`s`$ impurity states with $`\varphi (\stackrel{}{r})=\mathrm{exp}\left(r/a_B\right)`$. In fact, the hole impurity wave-function is more complicated, due to the band-structure of the valence band from which it splits (for details, see Ref. ). For the hopping integral we use the simple parameterization $`t_{ij}=2(1+r/a_\mathrm{B})\mathrm{exp}(r/a_\mathrm{B})`$ Ry, where $`r=|𝐑_i𝐑_j|`$, appropriate for hopping between two isolated 1$`s`$ impurities which are not too close to one another.  For Mn doped into GaAs, the Bohr radius is $`a_B=7.8`$ Å and the binding energy which defines the Rydberg is 1 Ry =110 meV.  We have investigated other parameterizations for the hopping matrix $`t(r)`$ elsewhere, and found that while they lead to quantitative changes, qualitatively the results are similar.

The second term describes an on-site potential $`u(i)`$ due to the Coulomb potential of the other Mn impurities, as well as other nearby charged compensation centers. An on-site Coulomb repulsion $`U`$ of the Hubbard type may be added to describe the electron-electron repulsion between electrons occupying the same impurity orbitals. For isolated 1s impurities, $`U1`$ Ry. However, depending on the effectiveness of screening, the electron-electron interactions may be longer-range. A fully self-consistent treatment of this problem should involve a proper description of the screening processes, and would allow a detailed computation of the strength of the hopping matrix, the on-site Coulomb potential and the electron-electron interactions. However, since the full self-consistent description is extremely difficult to achieve, especially as details about compensation processes are still not clarified, we use the simplified assumptions described above. We believe that they should provide a good qualitative description of the properties of these compounds, and with proper fitting of various energy and length scales may even lead to a quantitative description.

The second line of Hamiltonian (4) describes the AFM exchange between the Mn spin $`\stackrel{}{S}_j`$ and the hole spin $`\stackrel{}{s}_i=\frac{1}{2}c_{i\alpha }^{}\stackrel{}{\sigma }_{\alpha \beta }c_{i\beta }`$ \[$`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ are the Pauli spin matrices\]. As in II-VI DMS, the AFM exchange is proportional to the probability of finding the hole trapped at $`\stackrel{}{R}_i`$ near the Mn spin at $`\stackrel{}{R}_j`$, so $`J_{ij}=J\mathrm{exp}\left(2|\stackrel{}{R}_i\stackrel{}{R}_j|/a_B\right)`$. Based on calculations of the isolated Mn impurity in GaAs, we estimate the exchange coupling between a hole and the trapping Mn ($`\stackrel{}{R}_i=\stackrel{}{R}_j`$) to be $`J=15`$ meV.

The second term describes the direct Mn-Mn exchange in the semiconductor host, which is expected to be short range, and consequently not important at low $`x`$ when Mn are a few sites away from each other. We have therefore omitted this term (i.e. set $`K_{ij}=0`$); however, for higher concentrations this may be important. Finally, the third line in Hamiltonian (4) describes the interaction with an external magnetic field.

Given the large number of terms in the Hamiltonian, it is useful to try to understand the effect of each. To begin with, we neglect the random on-site potential ($`u(i)=0`$), the electron-electron interaction ($`U=0`$), the direct Mn-Mn AFM interactions ($`K_{ij}=0`$) and turn off the external magnetic field ($`H=0`$) (we will discuss the effects of these various terms later on). As a result, the Hamiltonian contains only its two main terms ($`t_{ij}`$ and $`J_{ij}`$), describing the dynamics of the charge carriers and the AFM interaction between the Mn spins and the charge carrier spins.

### C Similarities and differences between II-VI and III-V DMS

We investigated the Hamiltonian (4) using both the mean-field approximation (MFA) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Typical magnetization curves obtained with MC methods for a Mn concentration $`x=0.01`$ and hole concentrations $`p=10`$ and $`30\%`$ are shown in Fig. 6. The corresponding curves obtained using the mean-field approximation for the similar parameters are shown in Fig. 7. While there are substantial quantitative differences between the two, these are easily understandable. The long tail of the MC curves at high $`T`$ are due to finite sizes of the samples studied; these disappear as the sample size is increased. On the other hand, the critical temperature ($`T_C`$) predicted by MFT are significantly higher than those obtained by MC simulations (as would be expected). Part of the difference in $`T_C`$ between the two methods is actually due to the fact that the Mn spins in the MC simulations are taken to be classical variables, and quantum operators in the MFA. If we use classical Mn spins in MFA, we find $`T_C`$ reduced by a factor of $`2`$. The remaining reduction is presumably due to the usual neglect of fluctuations in MFA, which is properly captured in MC simulations.

The striking feature, common to both results, is that the magnetization curves have unusual shapes - linear or concave upward. This is qualitatively similar to those found for the II-VI DMS (Fig. 4), and what has been seen in experiments, but very different from the convex upward $`M(T)`$ of conventional ferromagnets (Fig. 1). Again, as in the II-VI, the magnetization does not reach its saturation value until very low temperatures. Concurrently, the specific heat curves also exhibit a peak at temperatures much lower than the critical temperature, reflecting the entropy of the disordered spins present in the system down to these low temperatures.

By looking at the magnetization profile around the $`T_C`$, long-range ferromagnetism in the disordered sample of III-V DMS is seen to appear when a percolated cluster of polarized Mn spins is formed. However, unlike in the spin-only model based on isolated hydrogenic centers used for II-VI DMS in the previous section, the holes are delocalized within this cluster for the parameters appropriate for the III-V based DMS. Since the holes can more effectively minimize their kinetic energy when maintaining the direction of their spin during hopping, this delocalization of the holes within the percolated cluster provides a very effective mechanism for alignment of all Mn spins within the cluster in the same direction. This kinetic-induced alignment mechanism is much more effective than mechanisms of alignment of nearby BMPs in insulating II-VI DMS, suggesting higher critical temperatures in this case. Other reasons for enhancement of critical temperatures in III-V DMS include the peaking of the impurity wavefunctions at the Mn sites in this case where Mn is also the dopant, and the ability of carriers in the compensated case to choose states with wave-functions peaked in the regions with higher-than-average Mn concentrations - the higher probability of finding the holes in these regions leads to enhanced effective interactions with the Mn spins. When all these factors are included, we find indeed that the striking differences in critical temperatures, by two orders of magnitude, in the two systems can be comfortably explained, at least within MFA.

### D Effect of disorder

Within the mean-field approximation, positional disorder in the Mn spins for III-V DMS leads to a significant increase of the critical temperature. Mn are the charged dopants in this case, so the situation again appears to be similar to that in II-VI DMS. Typical magnetization curves obtained using MFA are shown in Fig. 8, for a doping $`x=0.0093`$ and $`p=10\%`$. In order of increasing $`T_C`$, the four curves correspond to increasing disorder in the positions of the Mn impurities. We start with a fully ordered, simple cubic superlattice of Mn impurities inside the host semiconductor (for this concentration, the superlattice lattice constant is equal to three lattice constants of the underlying Ga FCC sublattice). The corresponding average spins of the Mn and charge carriers are shown by dashed lines in Fig. 8. Then, we introduce positional disorder of the Mn ions on the underlying Ga FCC sublattice in varying amounts - (i) low-disorder where Mn spins are randomly place on any of the nearest-neighbor sites of the original superlattice sites; (ii) moderate disorder - where the Mn spins are allowed to occupy any sites on the Ga sublattice, as long as the distance between any two Mn is larger than two lattice constants; and (iii) completely random positions of the Mn spins on the Ga FCC sublattice of the host semiconductor.

In a fully ordered III-V DMS, below $`T_C`$ each Mn spin is equally polarized, since translational invariance implies that the holes are equally distributed among the various Mn sites and therefore create the same effective magnetic field for each Mn spin. \[ In this respect the ordered lattice for III-V is different from the situation encountered for the ordered superlattice of charged dopants in the II-VI DMS. In the II-VI, below $`T_C`$ the Mn spins inside the BMPs are strongly polarized, while the Mn spins outside the BMPs are practically unpolarized \]. The reason why $`T_C`$ is larger in a disordered III-V DMS than an ordered one, is that the hole wave-functions are pulled-in the regions with higher-than-average Mn concentrations, where they can more effectively minimize their total energy. The increased probability of finding the holes in this smaller volume occupied by the cluster leads to effectively larger couplings $`J_{eff}`$ of the Mn spins in the cluster, and therefore increased critical temperatures. In other words, in the disordered III-V DMS the holes only need to polarize a smaller fraction of the Mn spins in the system and get polarized in their own term. In an ordered Mn sample, the holes polarize equally all the Mn spins in the system, and this can only happen at rather low temperatures, given the small number of holes as compared with the number of Mn spins. While MFA shows a strong dependence of $`T_C`$ on disorder, this is likely to be modified once fluctuation effects left out in MFA are included, as in a MC simulation.

The unusual shape of the magnetization curves is a consequence of the relatively small number of charge carriers as compared to the number of Mn spins. In a disordered system, we can identify two types of Mn spins: strongly-interacting Mn spins from the percolated cluster, which polarize at high temperatures and lead to the ferromagnetic transition at $`T_C`$, and weakly-interacting Mn spins from the regions outside the percolated cluster. Since these outside regions have low hole density in our model, the effective coupling of their Mn spins (which is proportional to the probability of finding holes nearby) is rather small, Consequently, these spins do not polarize unless the temperature is comparable in size to their effective coupling. We have used this picture to obtain a simplified but fairly accurate description of the magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the DMS based on a two-component model. We start from a histogram of the effective couplings $`J_{eff}`$ of all the Mn spins, obtained by averaging over many realizations of disorder. Such a histogram of $`J_{eff}/J`$ obtained using Monte Carlo simulations for $`x=0.01`$ and $`p=10\%`$ is shown in Fig. 9. As can be seen, it is a very wide distribution, from very large $`J_{eff}J`$ for strongly interacting Mn spins, to extremely small $`J_{eff}/J10^3`$ values for weakly interacting Mn spins. Histograms obtained within the mean-field approximation have very similar shapes, except that their width is even larger.

For such wide distributions, at any given temperature $`k_BT`$, we divide the spins into weakly/strongly-interacting categories, depending of whether their effective coupling $`J_{eff}`$ is smaller/larger than $`\gamma k_BT`$. Then, we replace the complex distribution of couplings shown in Fig. 9 by two $`\delta `$-functions representing the two spin components. The values of the nominal couplings $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ of the weakly/strongly-interacting spin components are simply the average of all the couplings of weakly/strongly interacting spins. The constant $`\gamma `$ is found from a fit of, for instance, the magnetization curve provided by this simplified model. Other thermodynamic quantities, such as susceptibility and specific heat are then shown to be quite well described by this simple model. In contrast, we have verified that replacing all the couplings by a single coupling corresponding to the average over the entire distribution leads to curves very different than the ones obtained with the original distribution. We believe this simplified model could provide a simple tool for interpretation of experimental curves. So far, most attempts have been to try to fit the magnetization curves (for instance) with only one coupling. While this may recapture part of the curve near and below $`T_C`$,  it turns out that it only accounts for a rather small percentage of the total number of Mn spins expected to be in the system. This suggests that a second component is missing. In fact, fits in terms of two components, one ferromagnetic and one paramagnetic, have already been performed in order to explain the shapes of the measured $`M(H,T)`$ curves.

In a conventional ferromagnet, an external magnetic field will lead to a fast increase of the magnetization from its value in the absence of the field, to the saturation value $`M_0=Ng\mu _BS`$, where $`N`$ is the concentration of spins $`S`$ in the system. A hysteresis curve associated with the existence of ferromagnetism below $`T_C`$ is also observed. In III-V DMS samples, the hysteresis curves are clearly observed as well. However, even at rather large fields $`H`$, $`M(H)`$ does not saturate, but continues to increase with increasing magnetic field. This feature has been attributed to a “paramagnetic” component, and it obviously corresponds to the weakly-interacting component of nearly-free spins of our simplified two-component model. In fact, we have generated $`M(H,T)`$ curves within the mean-field approximation, and these features are clearly present (see Fig. 10), in qualitative agreement with measurements.

### E Effect of other interactions

We have investigated in detail the effect of the on-site disorder term $`u(i)`$ and of the on-site Coulomb repulsion $`U`$ elsewhere. The on-site disorder is due to the Coulomb potential created by the charge impurities responsible for compensation (such as As++ antisites). We have considered two extreme possibilities. In the first case, we assume that these potentials are completely un-correlated, and model them by choosing random values for $`u(i)`$ within an interval $`[W,W]`$. The estimate $`W`$ 1 Ry is obtained following standard considerations for doped semiconductors. In the second case, we attempt a simple modeling of the effect of As antisites. We choose random positions for these As defects on the Ga sublattice and identify their two nearest neighbor Mn sites. Each such As impurity has an effective charge $`+2e`$, and therefore will contribute an on-site Coulomb potential $`+2e^2/ϵr`$ at a Mn impurity site which is at a distance $`r`$ from it. However, since the Mn ions also have effective ionic charge $`e`$, the As potential is screened (partially compensated) by the potential of the Mn impurities nearby it. Therefore, we assume that each As antisite only contributes to the on-site potential $`u(i)`$ of its two nearest Mn neighbors, with the contribution to the other Mn sites being screened out by the contribution of these two nearest Mn sites. The presence of the charged impurities responsible for compensation increases the amount of disorder (inhomogeneity) in the system, since the holes will avoid the regions were these defects are located. Thus, one might assume that $`u(i)0`$ will lead to a further increase of $`T_C`$. However, in fact we find a decrease of $`T_C`$ for these models of compensation, especially for the second model. This is a consequence of the fact that due to the presence of nearby As antisites, holes now avoid some Mn sites that would otherwise be part of dense clusters. Thus, the system effectively moves towards the more homogeneous regime, with lower $`T_C`$. An opposite effect is provided by the on-site electron-electron Coulomb repulsion, the presence of which was found to lead to an increase of $`T_C`$, since it aids in the splitting of the up and down spin bands, favoring spin polarization at higher temperatures.

A quantitative determination of the effects of these types of interactions will have to wait until more details are known about the compensation processes. A theory that properly and self-consistently describes the screening processes is also necessary.

## V Concluding Remarks

In this paper, we have discussed the behavior of a model of DMS in the low density regime, based on a simple tight-binding hydrogenic model of the impurity band. Such a model takes into account, at the very outset, the inherent disorder present in the experimental system, namely the random position of the dopants. Other models start from an electron gas exhibiting the translational symmetry of the host lattice and ignore the disorder of the alloy system. While the latter may be the appropriate starting point for the high carrier density regime, it does not allow for a metal-insulator transition, and consequently misses the unusual transport and magnetic behavior associated even with metallic systems in the vicinity of such a transition. In contrast, our model starts from the low density insulating side, and at least for conventional doped semiconductors, has been found to be applicable to densities up to a factor of 3 above the metal-insulator transition.

For the case of II-VI DMS, we have restricted ourselves to low densities corresponding to the insulating phase, for the case of a half-filled band i.e., no compensation. In this limit, a spin-only description of the bound carriers is appropriate. \[We note, however, that such a spin only description has been very successful for the low temperature thermodynamic and magnetic properties in conventional doped semiconductors, both uncompensated and compensated, for densities up to the metal-insulator transition and even somewhat into the metallic phase provided an itinerant Fermi-liquid like second component is added to the description of these highly disordered systems\]. For III-V DMS, where large compensation is found to be experimentally present, presumably due to antisite defects, we have adopted a full fermionic description of the carriers. Such a model allows for both an insulating and a metallic phase. However, as explained in the body of the paper, the model we have studied is simplified, and neglects several terms in the full many-body Hamiltonian describing these complicated materials.

Despite the rather different model descriptions (spin vs. fermion) for the two cases, as well as methods of solution (Monte Carlo vs. Mean Field Approach), we find a remarkable similarity in the qualitative predictions concerning the magnetic and thermodynamic properties. Most striking are the unusual magnetization curves $`M(T)`$, with linear to concave upwards shape over much of the ferromagnetic region, in striking contrast to conventional uniform ferromagnets. This appears to be a combined result of low carrier density and strong disorder. As a consequence, the ferromagnetic transition has percolation like characteristics, with only a small fraction of the material carrying the bulk of the ferromagnetism around $`T_C`$. The remaining portion of the material orders gradually as the temperature is lowered, and unlike in most conventional ferromagnets, saturation magnetization is not reached until well below $`T_C`$. Such an inhomogeneous magnetization results in unusual susceptibility and specific heat in the low temperature ordered phase, and would imply substantial inhomogeneities in the local field at Mn sites, which could be probed, e.g., by NMR measurements. Unusual hysteresis curves in $`M(H)`$ below $`T_C`$ are also implied, with saturation occurring well beyond where the loops close. We have checked for the case of the III-V DMS that within a simple impurity band description, these effects are robust. However, as the carrier density is increased (by reducing the compensation, or raising the Mn concentration), the anomalous shape of $`M(T)`$ becomes less prominent: $`M(T)`$ assumes the convex upward shape of conventional uniform ferromagnets, and the ensuing unusual properties discussed above gradually fade away.

In contrast to the qualitative shape of the magnetization curves and the ensuing thermodynamic and magnetic behavior, the actual transition temperatures of the two systems are known to be rather different ( from a few degrees kelvin for the II-VI DMS, to several hundreds for the III-V DMS ). Certainly one reason for this difference is the increased weight of the hole wave-function at the cation (II/III) site where the Mn spin resides in the III-V semiconductors relative to the II-VI semiconductors, as may be seen from a tight-binding description of valence bands of zinc-blende structure semiconductors. However, an additional reason within an impurity band description of carriers, is that in III-V DMS the Mn sites are centers of the impurity wave-functions, while for II-VI DMS, the carrier impurity sites are distinct from the Mn. Consequently, the Mn sites see a lower amplitude of the carrier wave-function, and thus a lower effective exchange coupling in the II-VI. This peaking of the impurity wave-function at the Mn site in the III-V based DMS, leads to a further enhancement of their $`T_C`$ vis-a-vis the II-VI based DMS.

For both the II-VI and the III-V DMS, we find that $`T_C`$ is enhanced by disorder. This can be understood by recognizing that in a heavily disordered system, nature is able to create global ordering by finding the tortuous percolative pathway necessary when the average coordination number is much below that of any uniform lattice. In III-V, the large compensation adds an additional degree of freedom to the carriers, in the choice of amplitudes on different sites, which again leads to wide variation in the effective fields at different sites, and implies a percolative aspect to the magnetic ordering transition. In mean field, we find the enhancement of $`T_C`$ to be quite large; however, preliminary Monte Carlo results suggest lower effects of disorder on $`T_C`$ than given by the mean-field approach.

Disorder effects on the electronic wave-functions will lead to significant transport anomalies, especially near the metal insulator transition, as has been seen experimentally. It will also likely affect the nature and amount of magnetic scattering of carriers injected into the system. While the naive expectation is that disorder should increase spin-flip scattering, it may be significantly reduced for carriers near the Fermi level. This is because we find that these states have large amplitudes along the percolating backbone of the system, where the Mn moments are magnetized well above the average global magnetization. In this regime, many standard models devised for translationally invariant systems (e.g., relationship of anomalous Hall effect to bulk magnetization) may not be applicable, and such interpretations should be used with care.

One other approximation inherent in our work is the assumption that electron and hole doping give rise to Hamiltonians that are qualitatively similar, though quantitatively different (holes have angular momentum 3/2, while electrons have spin 1/2). This is what is found for free holes: although the more complicated anisotropic wave-functions for holes leads to quantitative differences, qualitatively the results are similar, in that both systems lead to ferromagnetic ordering. Recently, however, since the Spintronics 2001 conference, it has been proposed that spin-orbit coupling can lead to effective spin-spin couplings that are anisotropic in spin space, and the positional disorder effectively leads to random anisotropy. This could lead to frustration effects not present in our model, and if true, would need to be put in for hole doped systems to achieve full understanding of magnetic ordering and carrier transport in DMS systems.

Finally, we discuss the applicability of our results to actual III-V DMS in the regime of large $`T_C`$. While our model is based on the insulating, low density limit, how many of its features persist into the metallic phase at higher densities and temperatures, is dependent on the nature of the filled electronic states at temperatures $`T_C`$ and below. In the model we have studied, the host valence bend is completely neglected, and its inclusion is not expected to lead to qualitative changes, because it lies several hundred meV above the Fermi level. However, this is a consequence of an impurity band with a density of states that is characteristic of a bandwidth of order hundred meV also. Should the impurity band become much broader in the actual system due to effects we have left out, it will likely merge into the host valence band, and the states will be strongly mixed. Nevertheless, the occupied states for small filling (low Mn density and large compensation) would have significant effects of disorder. This, in turn, implies that the anomalous behavior exhibited by our model would be present, but with lower magnitude than shown by our calculations. The clearest signature of these would likely come from local probes, which would be able to determine the distribution of local fields, and hence local density of states at various sites. Such input into phenomenological models should provide a fruitful avenue for a more in-depth study of the fascinating world of real Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors, which offer both a significant promise in terms of their applications in spintronics, and a challenge in terms of their fundamental understanding.

## Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NSF DMR-9809483. R.N.B. acknowledges the hospitality of the Aspen Center of Physics during their Spins in Nanostructures workshop, when this presentation for the Spintronics 2001 conference was organized. M.B. was supported in part by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.