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# Series solution to the laser-ion interaction in a Raman-type configuration

## I introduction

The preparation of ultracold ions as well as the production of nonclassical motional states of these ions plays a central role in ion trap experiments\[1-3\]. As the trapped ion system is in nearly perfect isolation, immune from the violation of the environment, and meanwhile the electric-dipole forbidden transition is usually introduced for avoiding the dissipation of the ion, the decoherence in the preparation and preservation of nonclassical states can be effectively suppressed. Consequently, the ion trap system is also being considered to be a promising tool for the quantum computing\[4-6\].

The various theoretical schemes for generating the nonclassical states of motion of the trapped ions and achieving quantum computing with trapped ions are based on the Jaynes-Cummings (JC) model, in which the ion is simplified to be of two levels, the trap’s potential is quantized as a harmonic oscillator, and the radiating lasers are supposed to be classical forms of standing or travelling waves. The general consideration is taken for the case of Lamb-Dicke limit (LDL) under the weak excitation regime (WER), which corresponds to the actual case in present ion trap experiments. The LDL means the ions moving within the region of the space much smaller than the effective wavelength of the laser wave, and the WER means the laser-ion interaction much smaller than the trap frequency. For this case, some techniques developed in the framework of cavity QED based on JC model can be immediately transcribed to the ion trap system by taking advantage of the analogy between the cavity QED and ion trap problem. In the case of motion of ions exceeding the LDL, we can use the technique proposed in Ref. for a treatment. In a word, under the rotating-wave approximation (RWA), the problem of trapped ions interacting with lasers is solvable. However, the strength of the coupling between the ions and lasers can be conveniently adjusted simply by changing the intensity of lasers. If the coupling strength is much larger than the trap frequency, called the strong excitation regime (SER), then the RWA is no longer applicable since the rapidly oscillating (i.e., counter-rotating) terms also make significant contribution in the interaction, which is much different from the case in Cavity QED. It has been reported that the SER is useful for preparing nonclassical motional states of a trapped ion and implementing quantum computing with trapped ions\[6,10-12\]. For example in Ref., Schrödinger cat states could be prepared readily in simple way in the SER. Based on that work, a proposal was made for motional state engineering and endoscopy in the SER. As the quantum state is sensitive to decoherence, the manipulation of trapped ions in the SER is of importance to the experimental implementation and measurement because of the great reduction of the operation time. Due to the same reason, a scheme for the hot-ion quantum computing also requires the condition of the SER. In contrast to the theoretical studies, the ion-laser interaction in the SER has not yet been reported experimentally since the high-laser intensity produces increased off-resonant excitation of carrier transitions which limits the final ground state occupation of the cooling process, and the strong laser also modifies the original electronic levels of the ions, making the problem somewhat complicated. In a numerical study of the strong Raman sideband excitation driving the vibrational ground state of the trapped ion, it is shown that the non-RWA interaction terms produce some limitations for two strong laser beams detuned by the vibrational frequency to be used as Raman motional displacement beams, whereas the interaction is useful for the preparation of the Schrödinger cat state.

Generally speaking, as the RWA is invalid, the ion trap problem in the SER can not be solved analytically with JC model. So some approximations have to be introduced in Refs. and the studies in Refs. are resorted to numerical calculations. In fact, as shown in Ref., even if the ions are governed in the WER, in which the RWA is valid, the deletion of the RWA can also present some interesting results much different from those under the RWA. In that work, some particular analytical solutions have been obtained in the absence of the RWA for large detuning cases, and Schrödinger cat states could be readily prepared. However, that work is too simple. We hope to investigate the Raman configuration which has been extensively applied in actual ion trap experiments, instead of the simple case in Ref.. We also hope to exclude the assumption related to both the WER and LDL. Therefore, in this contribution, we will try to undertake a more general and complete investigation on the trapped ion under the Raman process. Moreover, a comparison of our results with those under the RWA will be made. Besides, we will propose a scheme for preparing the Schrödinger cat state beyond the WER.

## II model and solution

We study the single ultracold ion radiated by lasers in Raman-$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-type configuration, as shown in Fig.1. The electronic structure is employed with two lower levels $`|e>`$ and $`|g>`$ coupled to a common upper state $`|r>`$, and the two lasers with frequencies $`\omega _1`$ and $`\omega _2`$ respectively are assumed to propagate along opposite directions. For a sufficiently large detuning to the level $`|r>`$, $`|r>`$ may be adiabatically eliminated, and what we have to treat is an effective two-level system, in which the lasers drive the electric-dipole forbidden transition $`|g>`$$`|e>`$. The dimensionless Hamiltonian of such a system in the frame rotating with the effective laser frequency $`\omega _l`$$`(=\omega _1\omega _2)`$ can be written as

$$H=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}\sigma _z+a^+a+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}(\sigma _+e^{i\eta \widehat{x}}+\sigma _{}e^{i\eta \widehat{x}})$$
(1)
where the detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(\omega _0\omega _l)/\nu `$ with $`\omega _0`$ being the optical resonance frequency, i.e., the transition frequency of two levels of the ion, and $`\nu `$ the frequency of the trap. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the dimensionless Rabi frequency and $`\eta `$ the effective Lamb-Dicke parameter given by $`\eta =\eta _1+\eta _2`$ with subscripts denoting the counterpropagating laser fields. $`\sigma _i`$ ($`i=\pm ,z`$) are Pauli operators, $`\widehat{x}=a^++a`$ is the dimensionless position operator of the ion with $`a^+`$ and $`a`$ being operators of creation and annihilation of the phonon field, respectively. The notations ’+’ and ’-’ in front of $`i\eta \widehat{x}`$ indicate the absorption of a photon from one beam followed by emission into the other beam and vice versa, respectively. $`\nu `$ is generally supposed to be much greater than the atomic decay rate, called the strong confinement limit, for neglecting the effect of the atomic decay. In general, one may expand $`e^{\pm i\eta \widehat{x}}`$ in Eq.(1) to the first-order terms of $`\eta \widehat{x}`$ and neglect other higher-order terms by supposing the ion governed under the WER ($`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$) and within the LDL ($`\eta 1`$). However, as we hope to treat the problem more exactly and generally, we first perform following unitary transformations on Eq.(1), that is

$$H^I=V^+U^+HUV=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}\sigma _z+a^+a+g(a^++a)(\sigma _++\sigma _{})+ϵ(\sigma _++\sigma _{})+g^2$$
(2)
where $`U=\left(\begin{array}{cc}D(\beta )& D(\beta )\\ D^+(\beta )& D^+(\beta )\end{array}\right)`$ and $`V=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}e^{i\pi a^+a/2}`$ with $`D(\beta )=e^{i\eta (a^++a)/2}`$, $`g=\eta /2`$ and $`ϵ=\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$. Actually, the unitary transformation $`U`$ made above is identical to that in . But for coinciding with the standard form of non-RWA model, $`V`$ is performed. Comparing with the standard non-RWA JC model, there exist an additional driven term and an additional constant term in Eq.(2), and the optical resonance frequency is replaced by the Rabi frequency. In what follows, we will adopt the coherent state representation, by which the non-RWA JC models have been analytically treated. Thus Eq.(2) is rewritten as

$$H=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}\sigma _z+\alpha \frac{d}{d\alpha }+g(\alpha +\frac{d}{d\alpha })(\sigma _++\sigma _{})+ϵ(\sigma _++\sigma _{})+g^2$$
(3)
where $`\alpha `$ is a complex number, and $`\frac{d\alpha d\alpha ^{}}{2\pi i}\mathrm{exp}(|\alpha |^2)|\alpha ^{}><\alpha ^{}|=1`$ with the relation between the coherent state and Fock state

$$|n>=\frac{d\alpha d\alpha ^{}}{2\pi i}\mathrm{exp}(|\alpha |^2)|\alpha ^{}>\frac{1}{\sqrt{n!}}\alpha ^n.$$
(4)
Using the same idea as in Refs., we assume the eigenfunction of the Schrödinger equation of Eq.(3) to be the series form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\alpha )=\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Psi }_1(\alpha )\\ \mathrm{\Psi }_2(\alpha )\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}exp(z\alpha )_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}b_n\alpha ^n\\ exp(z\alpha )_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}c_n\alpha ^n\end{array}\right)$$

where $`z`$, $`b_n`$ and $`c_n`$ are constants determined later. Taking $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\alpha )`$ into the Schrödinger equation of Eq.(3) will yield two recurrence relations

$$b_{n+1}=\frac{1}{g(n+1)}[(E+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}ng^2)c_n+(gzϵ)b_ngb_{n1}+zc_{n1}],$$
(5)
$$c_{n+1}=\frac{1}{g(n+1)}[(E\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}ng^2)b_n+(gzϵ)c_ngc_{n1}+zb_{n1}]$$
(6)
where $`E`$ is the trial solution of the eigenenergy of Eq.(3). As the procedure of solution is similar to that in Ref., in what follows, we just list the results:

(1) $`b_n=c_n=0`$ for $`n2`$, we have two solutions. One is $`E_1=1+ϵ`$ with $`E_1`$ the eigenenergy of the system in this case, corresponding to $`z=g`$ and a restricted relation of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=2\sqrt{1+2ϵ4g^2}`$. The other is $`E_1^{^{}}=1ϵ`$, with $`z=g`$ and a restricted relation of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=2\sqrt{12ϵ4g^2}`$. The eigenfunctions for above two cases are respectively $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\alpha )=e^{g\alpha }\left(\begin{array}{c}b_0+b_1\alpha \\ c_0+b_1\alpha \end{array}\right)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{^{}}(\alpha )=e^{g\alpha }\left(\begin{array}{c}b_0^{^{}}+b_1^{^{}}\alpha \\ c_0^{^{}}b_1^{^{}}\alpha \end{array}\right)`$, where $`c_0=\frac{1\mathrm{\Omega }/2+2ϵ2g^2}{1+\mathrm{\Omega }/2+2ϵ2g^2}b_0`$, $`b_1=\frac{1}{g}[(1+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}g^2+ϵ)c_0+(g^2ϵ)b_0]`$, $`c_0^{^{}}=\frac{1\mathrm{\Omega }/22ϵ2g^2}{1+\mathrm{\Omega }/22ϵ2g^2}b_0^{^{}}`$, and $`b_1^{^{}}=\frac{1}{g}[(1ϵg^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2})c_0^{^{}}(g^2+ϵ)b_0^{^{}}]`$. $`b_0`$ and $`b_0^{^{}}`$ can be set to be 1 for normalisation.

(2) $`b_n=c_n=0`$ for $`n3`$, the two solutions are $`E_2=2\pm ϵ`$ corresponding to $`z=\pm g`$ and two independent restricted conditions, which can be solved from the following equation, respectively

$$\frac{2g^2(12g^2\pm 2ϵ)(2+\mathrm{\Omega }/22g^2\pm 2ϵ)+\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^2/4}{2g^2(12g^2\pm 2ϵ)(2\mathrm{\Omega }/22g^2\pm 2ϵ)\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^2/4}=$$

$$\frac{4g^2(2+3\mathrm{\Omega }/42g^2\pm 2ϵ)\mathrm{\Omega }(g^2ϵ)(3\pm 2ϵ+\mathrm{\Omega }2g^2)}{4g^2(23\mathrm{\Omega }/42g^2\pm 2ϵ)+\mathrm{\Omega }[(1+\mathrm{\Omega }/2)(2\mathrm{\Omega }/2)+2(g^2ϵ)^23(g^2ϵ)]}$$
(7)
The eigenfunctions at this moment in the unit of $`b_0=b_0^{^{}}=1`$ are, respectively,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\alpha )=e^{g\alpha }\left(\begin{array}{c}1+b_1\alpha +b_2\alpha ^2\\ c_0+c_1\alpha +b_2\alpha ^2\end{array}\right)$$

and

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^{^{}}(\alpha )=e^{g\alpha }\left(\begin{array}{c}1+b_1^{^{}}\alpha +b_2^{^{}}\alpha ^2\\ c_0^{^{}}+c_1^{^{}}\alpha b_2^{^{}}\alpha ^2\end{array}\right)$$

where $`c_0=\frac{(12g^2+2ϵ)(2\mathrm{\Omega }/22g^2+2ϵ)+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^2/42g^2}{(12g^2+2ϵ)(2+\mathrm{\Omega }/22g^2+2ϵ)\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^2/42g^2}`$, $`c_1=\frac{1}{g}[2+ϵg^2\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}+(g^2ϵ)c_0]`$, $`b_1=\frac{1}{g}[(2+ϵg^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2})c_0+g^2ϵ]`$, $`b_2=\frac{1}{2g^2}\{(g^2ϵ)(3\mathrm{\Omega }+2ϵ2g^2)+g^2+[(1+ϵg^2)^21\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{4}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}g^2(g^2ϵ)^2]c_0\}`$, $`c_0^{^{}}=\frac{2g^2(12g^22ϵ)(2\mathrm{\Omega }/22g^22ϵ)\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^2/4}{(12g^22ϵ)(2+\mathrm{\Omega }/22g^22ϵ)\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^2/42g^2}`$, $`c_1^{^{}}=\frac{1}{g}[2ϵg^2\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}(g^2+ϵ)c_0^{^{}}]`$, $`b_1^{^{}}=\frac{1}{g}[(2ϵg^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2})c_0^{^{}}g^2+ϵ]`$, and $`b_2^{^{}}=\frac{1}{2g^2}\{(g^2+ϵ)(3\mathrm{\Omega }2ϵ2g^2)+g^2+[(1ϵg^2)^21\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{4}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}g^2(g^2+ϵ)^2]c_0^{^{}}\}`$;

(3) when above technique is extended to the case of $`b_n=c_n=0`$ for $`nN+1`$, the series solution becomes very complicated. However the eigenenergy of the system is still of the simple form, that is, $`E_N=N\pm ϵ`$, corresponding to $`z=\pm g`$ and two independent sets of much complicated expressions of restricted conditions which we have to omit here, respectively.

## III discussion

As limitations for both the Rabi frequency and Lamb-Dicke parameter as well as the RWA are excluded in the present treatment, the results we obtained above are more exact and general than those depending on the RWA or the approximate expansion of small values of $`\eta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. However, as the problem involving the counter-rotating terms is non-integrable, the present solutions obtained by the termination of the series of the trial solution $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\alpha )`$ are some particular ones, along with some restricted conditions related to some parameters of the system. Nevertheless, with the present solutions, we can investigate some cases in a wide range of parameters, particularly for the case beyond the WER and LDL. It is also of interest to make a comparison of our results with those under the RWA. Let us first consider a special case with both $`\mathrm{\Omega }ϵ1`$ and $`\eta 0`$. In such a case, Eq.(3) is reduced to

$$H^s=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}\sigma _z+\alpha \frac{d}{d\alpha }+ϵ(\sigma _++\sigma _{}).$$

Repeating the above procedure of the series solution for the simplest case, i.e., $`b_n=c_n=0`$ for $`n2`$, we can find $`z=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^s=\left(\begin{array}{c}b_0+b_1\alpha \\ c_0+c_1\alpha \end{array}\right)`$ with $`c_0=\frac{E^s\mathrm{\Omega }/21}{ϵ}b_0`$, $`c_1=\frac{E^s\mathrm{\Omega }/21}{ϵ}b_1`$ and $`E^s=1\pm \sqrt{ϵ^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{4}}`$. We can easily find that the eigenenergy $`E^s`$ is in good agreement with the solution in a Fock state representation for $`n=1`$. However, to make a comparison for eigenfunctions with former solutions, we have to return to the original representation before Eq.(2). The eigenfunction in the original representation is

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^{os}=UV\mathrm{\Psi }^s\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ 1& 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }^s(\alpha )e^{i\pi a^+a/2}$$

$$=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{c}(b_0c_0)|0>i(b_1+c_1)|1>\\ (b_0+c_0)|0>i(b_1+c_1)|1>\end{array}\right)$$
(8)
where we have used the fact that $`e^{g\alpha }\alpha ^n`$ in a coherent state representation corresponds to the displaced Fock states $`|n,g>`$ by means of Eq.(4) and Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula. Therefore, in the case of $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$ but $`ϵ1`$, we have from Eq.(8) $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{os}\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right)`$ or $`\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right)`$, which means no transitions existing in the large detuning case. If we assume $`ϵ0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ being arbitrary positive real number, we have $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{os}\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 1\end{array}\right)`$, which corresponds to the carrier excitation. Both solutions above are also in good agreement with the solutions in a Fock state representation. However, from Eq.(8) we can know that, different from former solutions for the WER case, the probability amplitudes of up and down states of the ion are different and complicated in the case of the SER with large detunings. This is a new result which has not been obtained before by general approaches made in a Fock state or dressed state representation.

For a more general comparison, we should first present the solutions under the RWA. As referred to in Sec.I, Eq.(1) can be treated to be a nonlinear JC model with the approach proposed in Ref. under the RWA. However, to make the comparison more easy and clear, we start our RWA treatment from Eq.(2). By performing a unitary transformation $`\mathrm{exp}[i(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}\sigma _z+\frac{a^+a}{2^M})t]`$ on Eq.(2) with $`M=1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$, we can obtain

$$H_M=(12^M)a^+a+g(a^+\sigma _{}+a\sigma _+)+g^2$$
(9)
corresponding to the resonance conditions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=2^M`$ under the RWA, and the eigenenergy in a Fock state representation is of the form

$$E_M^\pm =(12^M)(n+\frac{1}{2})+\frac{\eta ^2}{4}\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\eta ^2(n+1)+(12^M)^2}$$
(10)
with $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$. Meanwhile, performing a unitary transformation of $`\mathrm{exp}[i(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2K}\sigma _z+\frac{a^+a}{2})t]`$ on Eq.(2) with $`K=1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$, under the RWA resonance conditions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=K`$, we have

$$H_K=\frac{K1}{2K}\mathrm{\Omega }\sigma _z+g(a^+\sigma _{}+a\sigma _+)+g^2$$
(11)
whose eigenenergy in a Fock state representation is of the form

$$E_K^\pm =\frac{\eta ^2}{4}\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\eta ^2(n+1)+(K1)^2}$$
(12)
with $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$.

As shown in the last section, although our method can in principle present all series solutions, we merely present the specific forms of the non-RWA solution for two simplest cases. Here we will use those two cases for a comparison with Eqs.(10) and (12). For the case (1), we find that the two solutions for $`E=1\pm ϵ`$, along with two different restricted relations respectively, actually correspond to the same expression

$$E=\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\eta ^2+\frac{1}{8}\mathrm{\Omega }^2.$$
(13)
However, for the case (2), the situation is somewhat complicated. The direct algebra shown in Appendix presents us four solutions of E for this case, whereas the specific calculation shows that the solutions of Eqs.(A3) and (A4) are actually identical.

In Figs.2 and 3, the solutions under the RWA are compared with those for the non-RWA treatment in the case of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=`$0.5 and 3.0. We can find that, in the case of small values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\eta `$, some of the solutions under the RWA can approach those without the RWA. It is physically reasonable because the RWA is only valid for the WER and LDL. However, although the solutions without the RWA are exact, only a few of these solutions can be obtained for a certain termination of the series solution. We can not obtain all the particular solutions of the system unless we make the termination of the series solution for almost infinite times up to the case with infinite series terms. In contrast, the RWA treatment can present general solutions, like Eqs.(10) and (12). Nevertheless, as it merely retains some resonance terms in the Hamiltonian, a specific solution under the RWA only corresponds to a specific value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Moreover, the figures tell us that, only when the value of $`\eta `$ is not taken to be larger than 0.1, can we consider that the solutions under the RWA and without the RWA are in good agreement in the case of the WER. The RWA description is obviously inaccurate for the case beyond the LDL although $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is less than 1.0 in this case. When the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is larger, the difference between the RWA case and non-RWA one becomes great, as shown in Figs.3. It is difficult to find any correspondence for the two cases. However, there are some crossing points between the RWA solutions and non-RWA ones. It means at certain values of $`\eta `$, the solutions for eigenenergies in these two cases can be the same. In physics, it can be considered that the non-RWA solutions are some isolated ones, merely corresponding to those of up internal levels of the ion. One may not expect to obtain the general eigenenergies with our non-RWA treatment. However, the demonstration of above series solutions means the existence of the finite dimensional invariant subspace of some operators. Particularly from the simple forms of the eigenenergies, one may expect that the quantum KAM theorem should be applicable for the SER problem.

Before ending our discussion of the usefulness of non-RWA solutions, it is also of interest to present a practical example of preparing the nonclassical motional states of the ion with our solutions. As referred to in Sec.I, there is a considerable interest in investigating the SER, particularly for rapidly preparing nonclassical motional states of the ion. In fact, with the results in the present paper, one can also generate some particular nonclassical states through suitable adjustment of the Rabi frequencies and proper measurements. For example, consider the simplest case, i.e., the case (1) in Sec II. For the case of the resonance ($`ϵ=0`$), we have $`E_1=E_1^{^{}}`$ with the same $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and double degenerate eigenfunctions $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\alpha )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{^{}}(\alpha )`$. Transforming our results into the Schrödinger representation will yield the states $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t)=\mathrm{exp}(iE_1t+i\omega _l\sigma _zt/2)UV\mathrm{\Psi }(\alpha )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{^{}}(t)=\mathrm{exp}(iE_1t+i\omega _l\sigma _zt/2)UV\mathrm{\Psi }^{^{}}(\alpha )`$, respectively. In the case of the LDL($`g1`$), the Rabi frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ would be $`2\sqrt{14g^2}2`$. So we have $`c_0\frac{g^2}{g^21}b_0`$, $`b_1\frac{g}{g^21}b_0`$, $`c_0^{^{}}\frac{g^2}{g^21}b_0^{^{}}`$ and $`b_1^{^{}}\frac{g}{g^21}b_0^{^{}}`$. By controlling the evolution time $`t=4\pi /\omega _l`$, and measuring the excited state of the ion, we can obtain a displaced even coherent state, a kind of Schrödinger-cat states

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^M\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}D(\beta )(|i\frac{\eta }{2}>+|i\frac{\eta }{2}>)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|i\eta >+|0>)$$
(14)
where the relation between the coherent state and Fock state has been used. As the Rabi frequency approaches 2, such a preparation is obviously outside the WER.

## IV conclusion

As $`e^{g\alpha }\alpha ^n`$ corresponds to the displaced Fock states $`|n,g>`$, the eigenfunctions of the system we obtained are infinite superposition of displaced Fock states. Therefore, it is understandable that we can not obtain similar analytical results by general Fock state expansion. The obvious advantage of our approach is the possibility to obtain some relations between parameters of the system corresponding to certain nonclassical states by truncating the series expansion step by step. So as long as we can reach these conditions experimentally, the different nonclassical states predicted by our theory would be obtained.

In summary, the Raman interaction between a trapped ultracold ion and two travelling wave lasers has been treated analytically in an interaction representation, without consideration of the RWA and the limitation for both the LDL and WER. Although the coherent state expansion technique was used previously for treating a similar problem, and the solutions we presented here are some isolated ones under certain conditions related to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\eta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the present investigation is more general and exact so that we can study the ion trap problem in a wide range of parameters and compare our results with other approximate works or numerical solutions in this respect as we did in the present paper and for the cavity-atom problem. More importantly, the Raman process has been widely used for the laser-cooling in current ion trap experiments, and the work outside the WER is attracting much interest of experimentalists. One possible way to experimentally realizing the SER is that the ion is first cooled within the LDL and under the WER, and then the trap frequency is decreased by opening the trap adiabatically so that the ratio of the Rabi frequency to the trap frequency is increased to a large number. Therefore, we believe that the difficulties in realizing the SER will soon be overcome, and our work would be helpful for any possible future exploration of the quantum properties of the ion-trap system outside the WER.

The author sincerely thanks M.A.Kornberg for his carefully reading the manuscript. The work is partly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China.

## V appendix

For obtaining a more specific expression of the eigenenergy for the case (2) in Sec.II, we can suppose $`X=ϵg^2`$ for the case of $`z=g`$ and $`Y=ϵ+g^2`$ for $`z=g`$. Direct algebra on Eq.(7) can present us following two second-order differential equations

$$AX^2+BX+C=0(A1)$$

and

$$AY^2BY+C=0(A2)$$

with $`A=8(1g^2)`$, $`B=(3+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2})(2+\mathrm{\Omega })(2\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2})3(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{4}+2g^2)28g^2(3+\mathrm{\Omega })(2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{4}2g^2)`$ and $`C=[(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{4}+2g^2)(1+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2})(2\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2})+20g^26g^2(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{4}+2g^2)]`$. So we can obtain the eigenenergies

$$E_1^\pm =2+g^2+\frac{B\pm \sqrt{B^24AC}}{2A}(A3)$$

for the case of $`z=g`$ and

$$E_2^\pm =2+g^2\frac{B\pm \sqrt{B^24AC}}{2A}(A4)$$

for the case of $`z=g`$.

Captions of the figures

Fig.1 Level scheme of the internal structure of the trapped ultracold ion, where $`|g>|e>`$ is dipole forbidden.

Fig.2 Variation of E with respect to $`\eta `$ in the case of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.5`$, where solid curves from the bottom to top are RWA solutions of Eq.(10), corresponding to $`n=`$0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, respectively, dot-dashed curve is the solution of Eq(13) and dashed curves are from Eq.(A3) or Eq.(A4) (because the solutions of Eqs.(A3) and (A4) are identical). (a) demonstrates $`E^+`$, and (b) is for $`E^{}`$.

Fig.3 Variation of E with respect to $`\eta `$ in the case of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=3.0`$, where solid curves from the bottom to top are RWA solutions of Eq.(12) for the case of $`E^+`$, corresponding to $`n=`$0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, respectively, the dot-dashed curve is the solution of Eq(13) and dashed curves are from Eq.(A3) for cases of $`E^\pm `$ respectively.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

LEP was the large electron positron collider at CERN. This accelerator ran from 1989 to 2000 producing $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=91208`$ GeV in the four detectors around the ring. Each of the detectors was used to measure the parameters of the Z boson precisely and that of other standard model parameters. The large number of Z decays and other measurements allow accurate tests of the standard model and constrain new physics processes that would cause deviations from the standard model predictions.

Searches for new particles were performed by direct searches and indirectly using the precision measurements. A brief overview of a few of these searches is presented here.

## 2 The LEP experiments

The 4 LEP experiments, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, use different technologies based around the same basic detector design, as described in . They all rely on precise vertexing with silicon detectors around the beam pipe, tracking charged particles within a solenoidal magnetic field and measuring energy deposited in the electro-magnetic and hadronic calorimeters and around the outside of the calorimeters dedicated muon detectors.

## 3 Extra Dimensions

One possible solution to the problem of quantising gravity is to add additional dimensions to the 3+1 space-time dimensions assumed in the standard model . These extra dimensions are finite in size and so will have quantised energy states within them. Gravitons, the particle that mediates the gravitational force, propagates in these compactified extra dimensions. This can solve the hierarchy problem, which is the very large scale difference between the Plank scale ($`M_{Pl}𝒪(10^{1819})`$ GeV) and the electro-weak scale ($`M_{EW}𝒪(10^{23})`$ GeV). In a space with $`D=\delta +4`$ dimensions the Planck mass, $`M_D`$, will be modified by the extra-dimensions. If the extra dimensions are of size $`R`$

$$G_N^1=8\pi R^\delta M_D^{2+\delta },$$
(1)
where $`G_N`$ is the Newtonian gravitational constant.

In an $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ collider at electro-weak scales a signature of this process is the production a photon with a graviton, $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}G\gamma `$. The graviton can not be detected and the visible decay is a single photon and missing energy and momentum. In the ALEPH data there was no excess seen in the single photon distribution over the expected SM backgrounds, see Figure 1. The largest possible size extra dimension is a function of the number of assumed extra dimensions. Assuming 2 extra dimensions, which gives the least stringent size limit, they must be smaller than 0.29 mm at $`95\%`$ confidence which is equivalent to a lower bound of 1.28 TeV on $`M_D`$, see reference  for the complete analysis.

Another signature is the modification of the 2 fermion production processes through a virtual graviton, $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}G^{}\overline{f}f`$. Comparisons of the standard model distributions and those with corrections for the extra dimensions can be made with the data. The largest effect will be seen in Bhabha scattering:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{cos}\theta }=A(s,t)+\frac{\lambda }{M_s^4}B(s,t)+\frac{\lambda ^2}{M_s^8}C(s,t),$$
(2)
where $`s`$ is the square of the centre-of-mass energy, $`t=\frac{1}{2}s(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$ with $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ the electron scattering angle. $`A`$ is the SM term, $`B`$ is the interference term and $`C`$ is the graviton exchange term. $`M_s`$ is a mass scale related to $`M_D`$ and $`\lambda `$ is a parameter that depends on the theory. Using OPAL data and fitting for ee, $`\mu \mu `$, $`\tau \tau `$, $`\gamma \gamma `$ and ZZ distributions a measurement of $`\lambda /M_s^4=0.31\pm 0.39\text{TeV}^4`$ was made, see reference  for the complete analysis.

## 4 Gauge mediated SUSY breaking

Minimal supersymmetry models (MSSM) assume that supersymmetry is broken in the gravitational sector at high scale ($`>>1`$ TeV). If supersymmetry is broken by gauge forces (GMSB) then the gravitino will be a light particle, $`M_{\stackrel{~}{G}}<1\text{eV}/c^2`$, and the lightest supersymmetric particle. Decays of the next to lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) to the gravitino are possible and may have a significant life time ($`c\tau >10`$ cm). NLSP signatures in three lifetime ranges are shown in Table 1.

### 4.1 Two photons and missing energy

The search for excess two acoplanar photons and missing energy constrains the neutralino pair production cross-section in the case of rapid decay to gravitinos and photons. Using the LEP combined data a limit on the production cross-section for neutralino pairs can be set. Figure 2 for an example data and background comparison and corresponding limits, see reference  for a discussion of the complete analyses.

### 4.2 Heavy stable charged particles

Heavy particles decaying with a distance of greater than 10 m will be seen as tracks with very high specific ionisation along their path and will pass through the muon chamber when leaving the detectors. In DELPHI the additional information given by the Čerenkov detectors is an additional discriminant. These particles can be the signature of several types of new physics including stable lepton species, see section 5, NLSP states in GMSB or MSSM states with small R-parity violating couplings. Figure 3 shows the DELPHI data and Monte Carlo prediction for several stable charged particle masses for $`dE/dx`$ and Čerenkov angles, for a full analysis see . This data allows the setting of a cross-section limit as a function of the mass of the proposed particle, for stable smuons or staus the limit corresponds to 97.4(97.1) GeV for left(right) handed sleptons . For selections production the t-channel processes depend on the masses of the neutralinos and so a general limit can not be set.

### 4.3 Track kink searches

If a particle has a decay length of the order of the size detector it will be characterised by decays in the bulk of the detector, characterised by a kink in the track. Backgrounds to these topologies are usually caused by nuclear interactions, where a track elastically collides with a nucleus, and cosmic rays in which particles, predominantly muons, arriving out of time with a beam crossing are reconstructed in the wrong positions. These searched when combined with the long and short lifetime searches can completely cover the parameter space with a slepton NLSP. The limits set by the OPAL data is that for all lifetimes cross-sections of larger than 0.1 pb are excluded for each of the three slepton flavours, see Reference  for a complete discussion of the analysis.

## 5 Exotic Leptons

Exotic leptons can be of several types depending on the extension to the standard model assumed. They can be classified according to their $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ quantum numbers . Three possible cases are

* a fourth family of standard model leptons is assumed,
* which are vector particles and occur in left and right handed Iso-spin doublets,
* which have opposite chiral properties to the SM leptons.

Using the data collected by the L3 experiment with the assumptions that the charged current mode dominates, which is valid for the kinematically accessible regions, and a short ($`<`$ 1 cm) lifetime or long lifetime the limits set are listed in Table 2. Reference  has a complete discussion of the analysis and limits set.

## 6 Technicolor

Technicolor  is an alternative to the Higgs mechanism for electro-weak symmetry breaking. A new charge which is similar to the colour charge in QCD is proposed. This would be carried by a set of new particles called technifermions. It is the breaking of the chiral symmetry associated to these which gives masses to the Standard Model bosons. The simplest models are ruled out by precision electro-weak measurements  and so more complex models that avoid these limits are proposed. One way is to require that the coupling parameter changes more slowly with scale that that of QCD, rather than a running parameter it is described as a walking one. The most basic technicolor model used to set exclusions in LEP searches is the straw man model , in this model the lightest technicolor vector mesons could be seen at LEP.

The two channels used to search for technicolor decays are

$$\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\rho _T^0/\omega _T^0\pi _T^+\pi _T^{}b\overline{q}\overline{b}q^{}$$
(3)
$$\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\rho _T^0/\omega _T^0\pi _T^0\gamma b\overline{b}\gamma $$
(4)
which are resonant production processes. The cross-section is much greater if $`M(\rho _T^0/\omega _T^0)\sqrt{s}`$, although there is some sensitivity at other centre-of-mass energies through radiative events and by producing virtual techinparticles. Cross-section limits on the processes listed above are shown in Figure 4 . Limits are set using both OPAL and DELPHI data on possible parameters of the see references  for a complete discussion of the analysis and limits.

## 7 Conclusions

The data taken from 1989–2000 by the four LEP experiments have been analysised and many searches for physics beyond the standard model have been performed. So far there has been no evidence for any such process. This is only a partial survey of the large number of direct and indirect searches performed by the LEP collaborations.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We wish to express our gratitude to the CERN accelerator divisions for the excellent performance of the LEP machine. We acknowledge with appreciation the efforts of the engineers, technicians and support staff who have participated in the construction and maintenance of these experiments.


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# 1 What Good are Mg II Systems?

## 1 What Good are Mg II Systems?

The strong, resonant Mg II $`\lambda \lambda 2796,2803`$ doublet provides a sensitive tracer of gas in the universe, sampling environments over five decades of neutral hydrogen. Mg II allows the cosmological tracking of damped Ly $`\alpha `$ absorbers (DLAs, $`N(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I})>10^{20.3}`$ cm-3), Lyman limit systems (LLS, $`N(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I})>10^{17.3}`$ cm-3), and so–called sub–Lyman limit systems (sub–LLS, $`N(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I})<10^{16.8}`$ cm-3). Mg II also traces the presence of early–epoch star formation, since magnesium is a product of Type II supernovae (SNe), enriching surrounding absorbing gas clouds on time scale of a few Myr.

Often, Fe II and C IV transitions are present in Mg II “selected” systems; their strengths relative to Mg II and each other vary. The presence of iron in some systems suggests more advanced star formation processes, such as Type Ia SNe that enrich their surroundings on time scales of a few Gyr. Strong C IV in some systems suggests density structure in the clouds, since Fe II and C IV cannot simultaneously survive photoionization by the similar radiation fields \[see Churchill, et al. (1999) and Rigby, Charlton, & Churchill (2001)\].

## 2 Observational Properties

The population of Mg II absorbers so–called “weak systems” are isolated in redshift, have rest–frame equivalent widths less than 0.3 Å, and exhibit single clouds with line widths unresolved at HIRES/Keck resolution ($`\mathrm{\Delta }v=6`$ km/s). In Figure 1, we present examples of three single–cloud weak systems (SCWS) and one weak Mg II system with an additional very weak cloud on the blue wing ($`z=1.229`$). The data been converted to rest–frame wavelengths.

For $`W>0.02`$ Å, the equivalent width distribution follows a power law according to $`n(W)=CW^1`$. The redshift path density outnumbers that of Lyman–limit systems by a factor of three; that is, statistically 65% of all Mg II systems are optically thin in neutral hydrogen (Churchill et al. 1999). This has been verified observationally by measuring the lack of a Lyman limit break in many weak systems (Churchill et al. 2000).

## 3 Inferred Properties

Details of the results presented here are given in Rigby, Charlton, & Churchill (2001). In that work, we found two classes of SCWS: those that are Fe–rich and those that are Fe–poor (see Figure 2), demarcated by $`\mathrm{log}N(\mathrm{Fe}\mathrm{II})/N(\mathrm{Mg}\mathrm{II})=0.3`$. We summarize our results as follows:

* The metallicities are greater than $`0.1Z_{}`$.
* The Fe–rich systems have a low ionization parameter ($`\mathrm{log}U=\mathrm{log}n_\gamma /n_\mathrm{H}`$) of $`4.5`$, high density of $`\mathrm{log}n_\mathrm{H}1`$ cm-3 (assuming $`[\alpha /\mathrm{Fe}]=0`$), and small cloud sizes of $`d=10`$ pc.
* The Fe–poor clouds are less constrained and have $`4<\mathrm{log}U2`$ and $`3.5<\mathrm{log}n_\mathrm{H}<1.5`$ cm-3 (where can be in range $`[\alpha /\mathrm{Fe}]=0`$ to $`+0.5`$), and sizes in the range of $`10<d<\mathrm{few}\mathrm{kpc}`$.
* Seven of the 15 systems require multiple ionization phases, due to C IV and/or Lyman $`\alpha `$ absorption strengths.

## 4 Astronomical Implications

Because weak systems are optically thin to neutral hydrogen, we know that their maximum allowed $`\mathrm{log}N(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I})`$ is 16.8 cm-2. If we enforce the clouds to have no greater than solar metallicity, then the cloud column densities cannot be much less than $`\mathrm{log}N(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I})=15.8`$ cm-2. Allowing for the uncertainty in the slope of the neutral hydrogen column density distribution over this range of column densities (Weymann et al. 1998), we find that somewhere between 25–100% of the $`z1`$ Lyman $`\alpha `$ forest is significantly metal enriched (greater than 0.1 $`Z_{}`$; also see Churchill & Le Brun 1998).

$$\frac{n_{ws}}{n_{gal}}=\mathrm{few}\times 10^6h^2\mathrm{Mpc}^3.$$
(1)
If we consider the sub–set of systems which are Fe–rich, we find an astronishing result about the spatial number densities, $`n`$. Based upon their redshift number densities, $`dN/dz`$, we find

$$n=10^7\left(\frac{1\mathrm{p}\mathrm{c}}{R}\right)^2h\mathrm{Mpc}^3,$$
(2)
where $`R`$ is the cloud size. The Fe–rich systems have very low ionization conditions (or the Fe II would not survive, see Figure 3). This means that $`N(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I})0.01N(\mathrm{H})`$ and that the clouds have relatively high densities, $`n_\mathrm{H}0.1`$ cm-3. The cloud size scales as $`R=N(\mathrm{H})/n_\mathrm{H}`$. For low–ionization, sub–Lyman limit systems, we have $`R10`$ pc. Thus, from Equation 1, we find $`n10^5h\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$. Galaxies have $`n0.04h^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$. We infer that the ratio of Fe–rich weak systems to galaxies is

Because of the strong presence of iron and high metallicities, the objects hosting the observed absorption very likely experienced advanced stages of star formation (i.e. $`1`$ Gyr with contributions from Type Ia SNe). Are we tracking the elusive, old Population III star clusters, or the theoretically predicted dark mini-halos?


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# Semitopological Q-Rings*footnote **footnote *Contributed to the 4th Workshop ”What Comes Beyond The Standard Model”, Bled, Slovenia, July 17-27 2001 in honor of Holger Beck Nielsen’s 60th Birthday.

## Abstract

Semitopological Vortices (Q-Rings) are identified to be classical soliton configurations whose stability is attributed to both topological and nontopological charges. We discuss some recent work on the simplest possible realization of such a configuration in a scalar field theory with an unbroken $`U(1)`$ global symmetry. We show that Q-Rings correspond to local minima of the energy, exhibit numerical solutions of their field configurations and derive virial theorems demonstrating their stability.

As we celebrate the 60th birthday of Holger Bech Nielsen we can without doubt assess his contributions to the development of the theory of strings and vortices to bear the strongest possible impact. Indeed his early work on the development of multiparticle dual models was soon after followed by the introduction of the string picture in the study of strong interaction physics . At the time it improved tremedously our physical understanding of dual models. The string concept, of course, was bound to become much more useful in the unification of particle interactions with gravity. Aside from Holger’s contribution to the development of the ”string idea” he much later provided the first covariant formulation of a vortex in a theory with spontaneously broken abelian gauge symmetry . The stability of such a gauged vortex is due the presence of a topological charge. The cosmic role of such topological defects in the phase transitions of the early universe has been important. It is in the spirit of this line work of Holger’s that we will present a novel class of vortex like configurations that share some of the properties of topological solitons as well as those that are non-topological in character.Hence their identification as semitopological. The work was done in collaboration with E.G.Floratos,S.Komineas and L.Perivolaropoulos

Non-topological solitons (Q balls) are localized time dependent field configurations with a rotating internal phase and their stability is due to the conservation of a Noether charge $`Q`$. They have been studied extensively in the literature in one, two and three dimensions. In three dimensions, the only localized, stable configurations of this type have been assumed to be of spherical symmetry hence the name Q balls. The generalization of two dimensional (planar) Q balls to three dimensional Q strings leads to loops which are unstable due to tension. Closed strings of this type are naturally produced during the collisions of spherical Q balls and have been seen to be unstable towards collapse due to their tension.

There is a simple mechanism however that can stabilize these closed loops. It is based on the introduction of an additional phase on the scalar field that twists by $`2\pi N`$ as the length of the loop is scanned. This phase introduces additional pressure terms in the energy that can balance the tension and lead to a stabilized configuration, the Q ring. This type of pressure is analogous to the pressure of the superconducting string loops (also called ‘springs’). In fact it will be shown that Q rings carry both Noether charge and Noether current and in that sense they are also superconducting. However they also differ in many ways from superconducting strings. Q rings do not carry two topological invariants like superconducting strings but only one: the winding $`N`$ of the phase along the Q ring. Their metastability is due not only to the topological twist conservation but also due to the conservation of the Noether charge as in the case of ordinary Q balls. Due to this combination of topological with non-topological invariants Q rings may be viewed as semitopological defects. In what follows we demonstrate the existence and metastability of Q rings in the context of a simple model. We use the term ’metastability’ instead of ‘stability’ because finite size fluctuations can lead to violation of cylindrical symmetry and decay of a Q ring to a Q ball as demonstrated by our numerical simulations.

Consider a complex scalar field whose dynamics is determined by the Lagrangian

$$=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^{}^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }U(|\mathrm{\Phi }|)$$
(1)
The model has a global $`U(1)`$ symmetry and the associated conserved Noether current is

$$J_\mu =Im(\mathrm{\Phi }^{}_\mu \mathrm{\Phi })$$
(2)
with conserved Noether charge $`Q=d^3xJ_0`$. Provided that the potential of (1) satisfies certain conditions  the model accepts stable Q ball solutions which are described by the ansatz $`\mathrm{\Phi }=f(r)e^{i\omega t}`$. The energy density of this Q ball configuration is localized and spherically symmetric. The stability is due to the conserved charge $`Q`$.

In addition to the $`Q`$ ball there are other similar stable configurations with cylindrical or planar symmetry but infinite, not localized energy in three dimensions. For example an infinite stable Q string that extends along the z axis is described by the ansatz

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=f(\rho )e^{i\omega t}$$
(3)
where $`\rho `$ is the azimouthal radius. This configuration has also been called ‘planar’ or ’two dimensional’ Q ball.

The energy of this configuration can be made finite and localized in three dimensions by considering closed Q strings. These configurations which have been shown to be produced during spherical Q ball collisions are unstable towards collapse due to their tension. In order to stabilize them we need a pressure term that will balance the effects of tension. This term appears if we substitute the string ansatz (3) by the ansatz of the form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=f(\rho )e^{i\omega t}e^{i\alpha (z)}$$
(4)
where $`\alpha (z)`$ is a phase that varies uniformly along the z axis. This phase introduces a new non-zero $`J_z`$ component to the conserved current density (2). The corresponding current is of the form

$$I_z=𝑑z\frac{d\alpha }{dz}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}\pi 𝑑\rho \rho f^2$$
(5)
Consider now closing the infinite Q string ansatz (4) to a finite (but large) loop of size $`L`$. The energy of this configuration may be approximated by

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi L𝑑\rho \rho f^2}}+\pi L{\displaystyle 𝑑\rho \rho f^2}`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(2\pi N)^2\pi }{L}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\rho \rho f^2}+2\pi L{\displaystyle 𝑑\rho \rho U(f)}`$
$``$ $`I_1+I_2+I_3+I_4`$
where we have assumed $`\alpha (z)=\frac{2\pi N}{L}z`$ and the terms $`I_i`$ are all positive. Also $`Q`$ is the charge conserved in $`3D`$ defined as

$$Q=\omega 2\pi L𝑑\rho \rho f^2$$
(6)
The winding $`2\pi N=𝑑z\frac{d\alpha }{dz}`$ is topologically conserved and therefore the current (5) is very similar to the current of superconducting strings.

After a rescaling $`\rho \sqrt{\lambda _1}\rho `$, $`z\lambda _2z`$ the rescaled energy may be written as

$$E=\frac{1}{\lambda _1\lambda _2}I_1+\lambda _2I_2+\frac{\lambda _1}{\lambda _2}I_3+\lambda _1\lambda _2I_4$$
(7)
This configuration can be metastable towards collapse since Derrick’s theorem is evaded due to the time dependence of the configuration (4). Demanding metastability towards collapse in any direction we obtain the virial conditions

$`I_3+I_4`$ $`=`$ $`I_1`$ (8)
$`I_2+I_4`$ $`=`$ $`I_1+I_3`$ (9)
In order to check the validity of these conditions numerically we must first solve the ode which $`f`$ obeys. This is of the form

$$f^{\prime \prime }+\frac{1}{\rho }f^{}+(\omega ^2(2\pi N)^2/L^2)fU^{}(f)=0$$
(10)
with boundary conditions $`f(\mathrm{})=0`$ and $`\frac{df}{d\rho }(0)=0`$. Equation (10) is identical with the corresponding equation for 2D Qballs (see ansatz (3)) with the replacement of $`\omega ^2`$ by

$$\omega ^2\frac{(2\pi N)^2}{L^2}\omega ^2$$
(11)
Solutions of (10) for various $`\omega ^{}`$ and $`U(f)=\frac{1}{2}f^2\frac{1}{3}f^3+\frac{B}{4}f^4`$ with $`B=4/9`$ were obtained in Ref. . Now it is easy to see that the first virial condition (8) may be written as

$$\omega ^2𝑑\rho \rho f^2=2𝑑\rho \rho U(f)$$
(12)
This is exactly the virial theorem for 2D Qballs (infinite Q strings) with $`N=0`$ and field ansatz given by (3) with $`\omega `$ replaced by $`\omega ^{}`$. The validity of this virial condition has been verified in Ref. . This therefore is an effective verification of our first virial condition (8).

The second virial condition (9) can be written (using the first virial (8)) as

$$2I_3=I_2$$
(13)
which implies that

$$\frac{2\pi N^2}{L^2}=\frac{𝑑\rho \rho f^2}{𝑑\rho \rho f^2}$$
(14)
This can be viewed as a relation determining the value of $`L`$ required for balancing the tension ie for metastability.

These virial conditions can be used to lead to a determination of the energy as

$$E=2(I_1+I_3)$$
(15)
In the thin wall limit where $`2\pi 𝑑\rho \rho f^2=Af_0^2`$ ($`A`$ is the surface of a cross section of the Q ring) this may be written as

$$E\frac{Q^2}{2LAf_0^2}+\frac{(2\pi N)^2Af_0^2}{2L}$$
(16)
and can be minimized with respect to $`f_0^2`$. The value of $`f_0`$ that minimizes the energy in the thin wall approximation is

$$f_0=\sqrt{\frac{Q}{2\pi NA}}$$
(17)
Substituting this value back on the expression (16) for the energy we obtain

$$E=\frac{2\pi NQ}{L}$$
(18)
This is consistent with the corresponding relation for spherical Q balls which in the thin wall approximation lead to a linear increase of the energy with $`Q`$.

The above virial conditions demonstrate the persistance of the Q ring configuration towards shrinking or expansion in the two periodic directions of the Q ring torus for large radius. In order to study the Q rings of any size and its stability properties towards any type of fluctuation we must study the full evolution of a Q ring in 3D by performing energy minimization and numerical simulation of evolution. This is precisely what we did for a potential energy given by :

$$U(\varphi )=\frac{1}{2}|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2\frac{1}{3}|\mathrm{\Phi }|^3+\frac{B}{4}|\mathrm{\Phi }|^4$$
(19)
The ansatz we used that captures the above mentioned properties of the Q ring is

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=f(\rho ,z)e^{i[\omega t+n\varphi ]}$$
(20)
where the center of the coordinate system now is in the center of the torus that describes the Q ring and the ansatz is valid for any radius of the Q ring. We have also replaced $`N`$ by $`n`$.

The energy of this configuration is

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{f^2𝑑V}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \left[\left(\frac{f}{\rho }\right)^2+\frac{n^2f^2}{\rho ^2}\right]𝑑V}`$ (21)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \left[\left(\frac{f}{z}\right)^2\right]𝑑V}+{\displaystyle U(f)𝑑V}`$ (22)
The field equation for $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is

$$\ddot{\mathrm{\Phi }}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }+\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Phi }+B|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2\mathrm{\Phi }=0$$
(23)
Substituting the ansatz (20) we find that $`f(\rho ,z)`$ should satisfy

$$\frac{^2f}{\rho ^2}+\frac{1}{\rho }\frac{f}{\rho }\frac{n^2f}{\rho ^2}+\frac{^2f}{z^2}+(\omega ^21)f+f^2Bf^3=0$$
(24)
In order to solve this equation we minimized the energy (22) at fixed $`Q`$ using the algorithm

$`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta E}{\delta f}}`$ (25)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2f}{\rho ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{f}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{n^2f}{\rho ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{^2f}{z^2}}`$ (26)
$`+`$ $`(\omega ^21)f+f^2Bf^3`$ (27)
with boundary conditions $`f(0,z)=0`$, $`\frac{f(\rho ,z)}{z}|_{z=0}=0`$. The validity of the algorithm is checked by

$$dG/d\tau =\delta E/\delta fdf/d\tau =(dE/d\tau )^2<0$$
(28)
In (25) $`\omega `$ is defined as

$$\omega =\frac{Q}{f^2𝑑V}$$
(29)
In the algorithm, we have used the initial ansatz:

$$f(\rho ,z)=\text{const}\mathrm{exp}^{\frac{(\rho \rho _0)^2+z^2}{\text{const}}}$$
(30)
where $`\rho _0`$ is a fixed initial radius. The energy minimization resulted to a non-trivial configuration $`f(\rho ,z)`$ for a given set of parameters $`B,n,Q`$ in the expression for the energy. We then used (29) to calculate $`\omega `$ and constructed the full Q ring configuration using (20).While the details of our numerical analysis can be found elsewhere we just report the main results.

It was verified that the Q ring configurations evolve with practically no distortion and are metastable despite their long evolution. Finite size nonsymmetric fluctuations were found to lead to a break up and eventual decay of the Q ring to one or more Q balls. Thus a Q ring is a metastable as opposed to a stable configuration.

The Q ring configuration we have discovered is the simplest metastable ring-like defect known so far. Previous attempts to construct metastable ring-like configurations were based on pure topological arguments (Hopf maps) and required gauge fields to evade Derrick’s theorem due to their static nature. This resulted in complicated models that were difficult to study analytically or even numerically. Q rings require only a single complex scalar field and they appear in all theories that admit stable Q balls including the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). The simplicity of the theory despite the non-trivial geometry of the field configuration is due to the combination of topological with non-topological charges that combine to secure metastability without added field complications.

The derivation of metastability of this configuration opens up several interesting issues that deserve detailed investigation. They pertain to the various mechanisms of formation of Q Rings (Kibble and Affleck-Dine mechanisms, Q ball collisions etc.) as well as on the dependence of the winding N on Q. We hope to have something interesting to report in the forthcoming 70th birthday celebration of Holger.


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# Anomalous scattering of highly dispersed pulsars

## 1 Introduction

Fluctuations in the Galactic electron density distribution are responsible for scintillation and scattering of radio signals propagating through the interstellar medium (ISM). The resulting observable phenomena have been studied extensively to investigate the nature of the density irregularities (e.g. Rickett 1977). Pulsars are particularly useful as probes of the medium because of their small angular diameter and spatial distribution with samples on many lines of sight through the Galaxy. Scattering of pulsar signals through an irregular random ISM causes the signal to arrive from different, multiple ray paths with different geometric lengths, so that a pulse which left the source at one instant, arrives at the observer over a typical time interval, $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$, commonly the scatter broadening time. Further, along different ray paths the radiation acquires random phases which cause interference in the plane of the observer to produce diffraction patterns. The pattern decorrelates over a characteristic bandwidth $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _\mathrm{d}`$.

Both the scatter broadening time and decorrelation bandwidth are strongly dependent on frequency $`\nu `$, i.e. $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}\nu ^\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _\mathrm{d}\nu ^\alpha `$, and are related to each other by $`2\pi \tau _{\mathrm{sc}}\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _\mathrm{d}=C`$. The “constant” $`C`$ is of the order unity but changes for different geometries and different models for the turbulence wavenumber spectrum, $`P_{\mathrm{n}_\mathrm{e}}`$ (e.g. Lambert & Rickett 1999). Knowledge of the spectrum would provide valuable insight into the physics of the ISM irregularities. A commonly used description for the wavenumber spectrum is a power-law model with large range between “inner” and “outer” scales, $`\kappa _i^1`$ and $`\kappa _o^1`$, (e.g. Rickett 1977), i.e.

$$P_{\mathrm{n}_\mathrm{e}}(q)=\frac{C_{\mathrm{n}_\mathrm{e}}^2}{(q^2+\kappa _o^2)^{\beta /2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{q^2}{4\kappa _i^2}\right]$$
(1)
where $`q`$ is the magnitude of the three-dimensional wavenumber and $`C_{\mathrm{n}_\mathrm{e}}^2`$ is the strength of fluctuation for a given line-of-sight. For $`\kappa _oq\kappa _i`$, one obtains a simple power-law model with a spectral index $`\beta `$, i.e. $`P_{\mathrm{n}_\mathrm{e}}(q)=C_{\mathrm{n}_\mathrm{e}}^2q^\beta `$ and $`\alpha =2\beta /(\beta 2)`$ (e.g. Lee & Jokipii 1975). For a pure Kolmogorov spectrum, $`\beta =11/3`$, we expect $`\alpha =4.4`$. In turn, by measuring $`\alpha `$, one can infer $`\beta `$ and hence details about the actual wavenumber spectrum. A value of $`\beta =4`$ could, for instance, describe a medium with abrupt changes in density caused by randomly placed, discrete clouds along the line-of-sight (Lambert & Rickett 1999).

In this Letter, we report measurements of $`\alpha `$ by carefully determining $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ over a wide frequency range for a sample of nine highly dispersed pulsars, selected to be observable at 4.8 GHz and located towards the inner Galaxy. Measurements of $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ can be hindered by possible frequency evolution of the intrinsic pulse shape but we use results from previous studies of pulsars unaffected by scattering to estimate these pulse shape effects. Although one could attempt to measure $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _\mathrm{d}`$ instead, predicted values are well below 50 Hz at 1 GHz and cannot be measured with the frequency resolution of typical filterbanks. This results in a surprisingly small number of published spectral indices (see Cordes, Weisberg & Boriakoff 1985, Johnston, Nicastro & Koribalski 1998). Consequently, the data presented here are in fact the first ever measurements of $`\alpha `$ for pulsars with high dispersion measure (DM).

## 2 Observations and Data analysis

Dual circular polarization observations were made both with the 100-m radio telescope at Effelsberg (1.4, 2.7 and 4.9 GHz) and the 76-m Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank (0.6, 0.9, 1.4 and 1.6 GHz). Most of the pulse profiles recorded at Effelsberg were obtained with a coherently de-dispersing backend, the Effelsberg Berkeley Pulsar Processor (Backer et al. 1997). For pulsars listed in Table 1, the total available bandwidth ranges from 28 to 45 MHz at 1.4 and 2.7 GHz and up to 128 MHz at 4.85 GHz. At lower frequencies, we often obtain higher sensitivity by employing an incoherent hardware de-disperser consisting of $`4\times 60`$ channels of 0.667 MHz, providing a bandwidth of 40 MHz per polarization. Resulting dispersion broadening times 111$`t_{\mathrm{DM}}=8.3\mathrm{DM}\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{\mathrm{BW}}/\nu ^3\mu s`$, where DM is the dispersion measure (pc cm-3), $`\nu `$ is the observing frequency (GHz) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{\mathrm{BW}}`$ the filterbank channel bandwidth (MHz)., $`t_{\mathrm{DM}}`$, for the pulsars observed lie in a range of 0.8 ms $`t_{\mathrm{DM}}`$ 1.3 ms. Detailed descriptions of the hardware set-up can be found in Seiradakis et al. (1995) and Kramer et al. (1999).

At Jodrell Bank, the pulse profiles were obtained for each polarization with an incoherent hardware de-disperser using filterbanks with varying number of channels and bandwidths. At 0.6 GHz we used 32 channels of 0.125 MHz bandwidth (2.0 ms $`t_{\mathrm{DM}}`$ 5.4 ms), at 0.9 GHz 32 channels of 0.25 MHz each (1.1 ms $`t_{\mathrm{DM}}`$ 2.0 ms), at 1.4 GHz we employed 32 channels of 1 MHz each (1.7 ms $`t_{\mathrm{DM}}`$ 3.2 ms), while we employed 8 channels of 5 MHz bandwidth at 1.6 GHz (0.8 ms $`t_{\mathrm{DM}}`$ 10.0 ms). Details of the system can be found in Gould & Lyne (1998).

Typical observation times were between 30 – 60 min, depending on observing frequency, bandwidth and flux density of the individual source. Incoming signals were folded with the topocentric pulse period and two circular polarizations were added to produce total power profiles. The signal-to-noise ratios of our profiles range from 13 to 67.

In order to measure the scatter broadening, $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$, we performed least–squares fits of an artificial model profile, $`P^\mathrm{M}(t)`$, representing the scattered intrinsic pulse shape, to the observed profile. For each pulsar, a template $`P^\mathrm{T}(t)`$ is constructed as a sum of Gaussian components fitted to an unscattered, high–frequency profile using a procedure developed by Kramer et al. (1994, 1999). Usually, the high–frequency profile used is observed at 4.9 GHz, except for PSR B1820$``$14 and PSR B1815$``$14 where we use data taken at 1.6 GHz and 2.7 GHz, respectively, because of the low signal-to-noise of their 4.9 GHz–profiles. For the given DMs, we can expect the scatter broadening to be negligible at these frequencies (Bhattacharya et al. 1992), but we discuss the validity of this assumption in more detail later. For each lower frequency, $`P^\mathrm{M}(t)`$ is the convolution of the template $`P^\mathrm{T}(t)`$ with the impulse response function characterizing the scatter broadening, $`s(t)`$, the dispersion smearing across the filterbank channel, $`d(t)`$, and the instrumental impulse response, $`i(t)`$,

$$P^\mathrm{M}(t)=P^\mathrm{T}(t)s(t)d(t)i(t)$$
(2)
where $``$ denotes convolution (Ramachandran, Mitra & Deshpande 1997). The rise times of the receivers and backends are small enough to consider the effect of $`i(t)`$ to be negligible, while $`d(t)`$ is a rectangular function of width $`t_{\mathrm{DM}}`$ for incoherent de-dispersion and of zero width for coherent de-dispersion. Williamson (1972) pointed out that multi–path scattering due to both thick and thin screens leads to an exponential decay of the pulse giving $`s(t)=\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau _{\mathrm{sc}})`$. In general, $`s(t)`$ can assume different functional forms for different geometries reflecting also different rise times of scattered pulses (Lambert & Rickett 1999) which could lead to uncertainties in the estimation of $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$. However, the frequency dependence of the scatter broadening time, i.e. $`\alpha `$, can be expected to remain unaffected as we discuss later.

The best fit of the model pulse shape to that observed is obtained by minimizing the normalized $`\chi ^2`$ value,

$$\chi ^2=\frac{1}{(N4)\sigma _{\mathrm{off}}^2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}[P_i^\mathrm{O}P_i^\mathrm{M}(a,b,c,\tau _{\mathrm{sc}})]^2$$
(3)
where $`P^\mathrm{O}`$ is the observed profile, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{off}}`$ the off-pulse rms, and $`N`$ the number of bins in the profile. During the fit, we adjust four free parameters of the model pulse profile $`P^\mathrm{M}`$, i.e. an amplitude scale-factor, $`a`$, constant offsets in baseline 222usually close to zero, $`b`$, and phase, $`c`$, and the scatter broadening time $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$. We obtain best–fit values and uncertainties for $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ from the $`\chi ^2`$-contours in the $`c`$-$`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ plane. An example for an observed profile, the best–fit model profile and $`\chi ^2`$-contours for the fit is shown in Figure 1.

## 3 Factors affecting scatter-broadening-measurements

Measuring $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ can be difficult since the intrinsic pulse shape often changes slowly with frequency in two distinct ways. First, outer profile components often have flatter flux density spectra than central components (Rankin 1993, Lyne & Manchester 1988 ). Second, pulse widths decrease with increasing frequency (Sieber, Reinecke & Wielebinski 1975). While changes in widths are significant below $``$1 GHz, at higher frequencies the width usually saturates to a constant value (Thorsett 1991, Xilouris et al. 1996, Mitra & Rankin 2001). Both effects, if not carefully accounted for, can give rise to inaccurate estimation of $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$. As we use high frequency profiles to create our templates, stronger outer components could make the template too wide for the lower frequency profiles. Due to this effect, we may tend to underestimate $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ at lower frequencies. Alternatively, at frequencies around 1 GHz, it is also possible to mistake an evolving trailing profile component for parts of a scattering tail. This aspect is however not always present and hard to predict. In contrast, virtually every pulsar’s width is increasing towards lower frequencies. The model profile would then be too small, overestimating $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ for frequencies well below 1 GHz.

In order to quantify the impact of these possibly competing effects, we have simulated “typical” pulse profiles and their frequency evolution, made them subject to scatter broadening and applied our analysis procedure under the additional presence of noise. While confirming the above effects, the combined profile evolution hardly affects our results, i.e. the derived scatter broadening times agree very well with the true values. Width evolution does not change the actual values of the scatter broadening times significantly. The largest impact is when unnoticed outer components slowly evolve at high frequencies, which in our sample is only seen for PSRs B1820$``$11 and B1849+00. Our simulations show that increased error bars are sufficient to account for these effects, so that we conservatively quote 3$`\sigma `$ error bars for all scatter broadening times in what follows. We additionally confirm by determinations of $`\alpha `$ using scatter broadening times measured at the two lowest frequencies only that our results are unaffected by possible changes in pulse profiles.

## 4 Results and Discussion

Table 1 summarizes our measurements of $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$. For PSRs B1750$``$24, B1758$``$23, B1805$``$20, B1815$``$14 and B1820$``$11, these can be compared to those obtained by Clifton et al. (1992) at a single frequency. We find our more accurate scatter times to be in very good agreement with their results. Note that all but one of the scatter broadening times are factors of several larger than predicted by the Taylor & Cordes (1993) model. However, this model is poorly constrained for distant, heavily scattered pulsars.

Figure 2 displays the measured frequency dependence of $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ from which we determine the spectral indices $`\alpha `$ listed in Table 1. Earlier multi–frequency observations of pulsars with low DMs (see Cordes, Weisberg & Boriakoff 1985, Johnston, Nicastro & Koribalski 1998) derived spectral indices that are consistent with a pure Kolmogorov spectrum, i.e. $`\alpha =4.4`$ (Figure 3). In contrast, for our highly dispersed pulsars we find all individual values of $`\alpha `$ to be significantly lower than $`\alpha =4.4`$ and usually even lower than $`\alpha =4.0`$ of a “$`\beta =4`$–model” (Lambert & Rickett 1999). The average spectral index is $`\alpha =3.44\pm 0.13`$ (see also Figure 2).

Deriving the spectral index of the wavenumber spectrum from equation (1), $`\beta =2\alpha /(\alpha 2)`$, we obtain values that are significantly larger than those expected from standard theories such as $`\beta =11/3`$ or $`\beta =4`$ (Table 1). Interestingly, Cordes et al. (1985) predicted departures from the Kolmogorov spectrum such as wavenumber enhancements to be detected in multi-frequency observations of high-DM pulsars. Other observational inconsistencies with a simple Kolmogorov spectrum have been explained by steeper spectra ($`\beta >4`$, e.g. Goodman & Narayan 1985), the influence of an inner scale (Coles et al. 1987), or physically slightly different models (Lambert & Rickett 1999, 2000). It is, however, interesting to note that recent results suggest that observations along lines of sight of enhanced scattering at low Galactic latitudes are described by a Kolmogorov spectrum in an extended medium (e.g. Stinebring et al. 2000, Lambert & Rickett 2000). While the DMs of the pulsars in these studies are typically lower, we observe an apparently different behavior.

Lambert & Rickett (1999) point out that the scatter broadening function, $`s(t)`$, depends to some extent on the actual geometry and spectral model, although our $`\chi ^2`$ values show that our profiles can be described accurately by the model. In the worst case, according to their results, our individual scatter broadening times could be consistently under- or over-estimated by an amount which is typically well covered by our $`3\sigma `$ error-bars. While $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ computed for a given frequency may change slightly, its spectral dependence, $`\alpha `$, shows only minor variations well within the quoted uncertainties when testing it by increasing (or decreasing) each $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ by a fixed percentage. We conclude that our weak frequency dependence, $`\alpha <4`$, is real and cannot be explained by simple application of standard theories.

Anisotropic irregularities may lead to variations in the broadening functions for different frequencies. This causes essentially the phenomena of anomalous scattering in the ISM as discussed recently by Cordes & Lazio (2001). In particular, one usually assumes that the transverse extent of the scattering screen is arbitrarily large and that the strength of the scattering is uniform across the screen. However, if this assumption is relaxed and/or pulsar distances are large, several anomalous effects can emerge that can in principle flatten the observed frequency dependence of $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ by reducing the amount of scattering apparent at lower frequencies. In our case, the observed anomalous behaviour could be caused by scattering at multiple screens with finite extension transverse to our line-of-sight. As a consequence, less radiation reaches the observer at lower frequencies since some of the radiation that would be scattered by an infinite screen is now lost. For such scattering geometries, one can expect to detect several breaks in the $`\tau _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ power-law spectra (see e.g. Figure 3. of Cordes & Lazio 2001). A finer frequency sampling and higher signal-to-noise ratios may be able to reveal these spectral features in future observations.

We are grateful to Jim Cordes, Simon Johnston and Barney Rickett for helpful discussions. Note added in proof. – The equation $`\beta =2\alpha /(\alpha 2)`$ is only valid for $`\beta <4`$. As shown in Table 1 this results, however, in values of $`\beta `$ larger than 4. For turbulence spectra with $`\beta >4`$, a relationship $`\beta =68/\alpha `$ is valid (Cordes et al., 1986, ApJ, 310, 737; Romani et al., 1986, MNRAS, 220, 19). Applying this to $`\alpha `$ listed in Table 1 results however in values $`\beta <4`$. We conclude again that our results are not consistent with standard theory. We also note that a scatter broadening function $`s(t)=1/\sqrt{t}\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau _{\mathrm{sc}})`$, which is a conceivable alternative shape in the limit of one-dimensional scatterers that might pertain to situations with large scattering (Cordes 2001, private communication), does not appropriately describe our scattered profiles, in contrast to $`s(t)`$ used in the Letter.


text:
# On The Low Frequency Quasi Periodic Oscillations of X-ray Sources

## 1 Introduction

The QPO mechanisms of low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) have been paid much attention since early 1996 (van der Klis 2000) following the discovery of kHz QPOs by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The Z sources (Atoll sources), which are high (less) luminous neutron star LMXB (Hasinger & van der Klis 1989), typically show four distinct types of QPOs (van der Klis 2000). These are the normal branch oscillation (NBO) $`520`$ Hz, the horizontal branch oscillation (HBO) $`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}1560`$ Hz, and the kHz QPOs $`\nu _2(\nu _1)2001200`$ Hz that typically occur in pairs with upper frequency $`\nu _2`$ and lower frequency $`\nu _1`$. In several Atoll sources, nearly coherent burst oscillations $`\nu _{burst}300600`$ Hz have also been detected during thermonuclear Type I X-ray bursts. These are thought to be at the spin frequency of the neutron star (NS) or double it (see e.g., Strohmayer et al. 1996, Strohmayer & Bildsten 2000, Muno 2004). Moreover, the low-frequency (0.1 - 10 Hz) QPOs that have been detected in the accreting X-ray black hole candidate (BHC), and the QPO properties of BHCs show many similarities with those of NS sources and the QPO frequencies of NS and BHC follow a tight and systematic correlation over three orders of magnitude in frequency (Psaltis et al. 1999, Belloni et al. 2002). Nevertheless, the frequencies $`\nu _2`$ and $`\nu _1`$, as well as $`\nu _2`$ and $`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}`$, follows very similar relations in five Z sources (Psaltis et al. 1998).

However the frequency separation between the upper and the lower kHz QPOs $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu \nu _2\nu _1`$ is not a constant lower or higher than the inferred NS spin frequency, but in some cases decreases systematically with instantaneous $`\dot{M}`$, e.g. Sco X-1 (van der Klis et al. 1997), 4U1608$``$52 (Mendez et al. 1998a,b), 4U1735-44 (Ford et al. 1998) and 4U1728$``$34 (Mendez and van der Klis 1999). In the latter, the observed coherent burst frequency 364 Hz is higher than its maximum $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ 355 Hz (Mendez and van der Klis 1999).

Various theoretical models have been proposed to account for the QPO phenomena in X-ray binaries (for a review see e.g., Psaltis 2000). In the early detections of the RXTE, the upper kHz QPO $`\nu _2`$ was simply considered to originate from the Keplerian orbital frequency at the preferred radius close to the compact object that experiences the inner accretion flows, and the lower kHz QPO $`\nu _1`$ was attributed to the beating of this frequency with the stellar spin frequency $`\nu _s`$ (Miller et al. 1998). However recently, general relativistic effects have been invoked by Stella and Vietri (1999, hereafter SV99) to account for kHz QPOs, and these can satisfactorily explain the varing kHz QPOs separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$. In this model of SV99, the twin kHz QPOs are ascribed to the Keplerian frequency $`\nu _K`$ and the periastron frequency of material orbiting the central mass at some disk radius, i.e., $`\nu _2=\nu _K=(M/4\pi ^2r^3)^{1/2}`$ and $`\nu _1=\nu _K[1(16M/r)^{1/2}]`$, where r is the Schwarzschild coordinate distance and M is the gravitational mass of the source (We set the speed of light and the gravitational constant $`c=G=1`$ throughout this paper). It is commonly believed that the kHz QPOs are produced close to the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) or the surface of NS, which provides a probe to detect the accretion flow around the non-Newtonian strong gravity region (van der Klis 2000, SV99).

A theory of epicyclic parametric resonance in a relativistic accretion disk was proposed (Abramowicz & Kluzniak 2001, Abramowicz et al. 2003), in which the twin kHz QPOs occur at the frequency of meridional oscillation and the radial epicyclic frequency in the same orbit. This can explain the frequency ratio 3:2 detected in black hole candidates (e.g., XTE J1550-564, Remillard et al. 2002). Although many other viable new ideas have also been proposed (e.g., Wagoner 1999, Psaltis & Norman 2000, Osherovich & Titarchuk 1999, Titarchuk et al. 1998, Klein et al. 1996), there has not yet been any model satisfactorily explains all observed QPO phenomena. The QPO mechanisms of accreting X-ray binaries are still debated and there remain open problems. In the 1980’s, HBO frequency ($`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}1560`$Hz) was interpreted as the beat frequency between the Keplerian frequency of the magnetosphere-disk and the stellar spin frequency using the standard beat frequency model (BFM) (Alpar and Shaham 1985, Lamb et al. 1985). Later, this was considered to be the nodal precession due to the Lense-Thirring effect in the disk (Vietri and Stella 1998). Further, in the model of Titarchuk and Wood (2002), HBO (as a low frequency $`\nu _{low}`$) was ascribed to the magnetoacoustic oscillation frequency, and then a linear correlation between this low frequency and the high frequency $`\nu _{high}`$ (identified to be the Keplerian frequency) is inferred.

In this article, we concentrate on the explanation of LFQPO ($`\nu _{low}`$) or HBO of luminous NS X-ray sources (for Atoll sources, 15 - 60 Hz QPO is supposed to be due to the same mechanism as HBO of Z sources, see e.g., Psaltis et al. 1999), and their relationship to the twin kHz QPOs. However we neglect the details of the physical mechanism for QPO production at the present time. A summary and conclusions are given in the final section.

## 2 The Model and its Results

The accretion flow of the matter around NS and BH is complicated, especially close to the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO), the radius $`R_{ISCO}=3R_s`$, where $`R_s=2M3m`$ (km) (one solar mass corresponds to about 3 km of the Schwarzschild radius) is the Schwarzschild radius calculated using the gravitational mass M, where $`m=M/M_{}`$ is the mass in units of solar mass. In reality, the motion of the accreted matter will be influenced not only by the gravitational field but also by the magnetic field. For simplicity, we assume that the disk matter that exhibits QPO is mainly dominated by the Schwarzschild gravitational field with a slightly eccentric orbit ($`e0`$).

Here we assume that HBO frequency $`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}`$, as well as LFQPO $`\nu _{QPO}`$, is the periastron precession frequency of the accreted orbiting material at some outer disk radius, and the twin kHz QPOs are ascribed to the Keplerian frequency and the periastron frequency of the orbiting material at some inner disk radius (as described by SV99). It is also assumed that there exists a scaling factor $`\varphi `$ to connect the two radii, which will be determined later by the comparison of the QPO data with the model. Therefore, these QPO frequencies are conveniently arranged as follows by defining the parameter $`y\frac{R_s}{r}`$, which is the ratio of the Schwarzschild radius to the instantaneous inner disk radius.

$$\nu _1(y)=(1\sqrt{13y})\times \nu _2(y),$$
(1)
$$\nu _2(y)=\nu _oy^{3/2},$$
(2)
$$\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}(y)=\nu _1(\varphi y)=\nu _o(1\sqrt{13\varphi y})\times (\varphi y)^{3/2},$$
(3)
$$\nu _o\frac{11300}{m}(Hz),$$
(4)
where $`\varphi `$ is the scaling parameter connecting the radii of the inner disk and the outer disk, which we set to be $`0.30.4`$ to give the best consistency when comparing the model with the observational data.

From Eq.(1) and Eq.(2), the parameter y can be expressed as,

$$y=\frac{1}{3}(\frac{\nu _1}{\nu _2})[2\frac{\nu _1}{\nu _2}],y=0.2(\frac{m\nu _2}{1000})^{2/3}.$$
(5)
Considering a maximum value y=1/3 at ISCO from Eq.(1), the parameter y can be approximately acquired using a Taylor expansion of $`\varphi y`$ to the first order in Eq.(3) since the maximum value of $`\varphi y0.4/30.13`$, hence

$$y\varphi ^1(\frac{2\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}}{3\nu _o})^{2/5}.$$
(6)
At the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO), the parameter $`y=\frac{1}{3}`$ and the maximum twin kHz QPO frequencies are given by $`\nu _{Max}=\nu _1(1/3)=\nu _2(1/3)=\frac{2175}{m}(Hz)`$, corresponding to 1200 (Hz) for 1.9 solar masses. The mass of the source can also be expressed by the maximum kHz QPO frequency at ISCO,

$$m=\frac{2175}{\nu _{Max}}.$$
(7)
The relation $`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}`$ vs. $`\nu _2`$ is plotted in FIG.1, together with the measured five Z-source samples, and it is seen that the agreement between the model and the observed QPO data is quite good for the selected values of the NS mass of about m=2.0 ($`M_{}`$) and of $`\varphi =0.4`$, which are the two free parameters in the Eqs.(1-3).

In FIG.2, we take the low-frequency QPO $`\nu _{QPO}`$ of Atoll-sources, as well as several other NS systems and a number of BH binaries for a similar mechanism to HBO of the Z-sources (Psaltis et al. 1999), and plot the theoretical curve with respect to lower kHz QPO $`\nu _1`$. We find remarkably consistent correlations between the theoretical expectations and the detected data which extends over nearly three orders of magnitude in QPO frequency. However one interesting fact is that the theoretical curves are only weakly related to the stellar masses because $`\nu _1`$ and $`\nu _{QPO}`$ are all inversely related to the mass parameter in Eqs.(1) and (3). Their ratio $`\nu _1/\nu _{QPO}=\varphi ^{3/2}(1\sqrt{13y})/(1\sqrt{13\varphi y})`$ has no direct correlation with stellar mass. Further we have for $`\varphi =0.4`$, $`1LOG(\nu _1)LOG(\nu _{QPO})1.25`$, which means that the theoretical curves show little variation in the $`\nu _{QPO}`$ vs. $`\nu _1`$ diagram as a log scale even if the mass changes by one order of magnitude. We plot theoretical curves with parameter conditions $`m=5.0M_{}`$ and $`\varphi =0.4`$ (short dashed line), as well as $`m=10.0M_{}`$ and $`\varphi =0.4`$ (long dashed line), and find that the theoretical curves are insensitive to the mass parameter. However, the mass parameter will influence on the maximum frequency of the lower kHz QPO at ISCO because it is inversely related to the mass from Eq.(7). For example, if 300 Hz QPO in GR 1655-40 were the maximum frequency, then the mass of this source would be 7.0 solar masses, inferred from Eq.(7). It is also seen that $`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}`$ increases slowly with $`\nu _1`$ when $`\nu _1`$ is higher, as anticipated by Psaltis et al. 1999.

The weak correlation with source mass in the $`\nu _{QPO}`$ vs. $`\nu _1`$ diagram seems to hint that the QPO phenomena of Atoll sources, Z-sources, as well as other accreting X-ray binaries, are intimately related to the specific radii of the disk and the ratio between them. This may reflect a common property of the accretion flow around the gravitational sources. However the mechanism to account for this is still unclear.

From Eqs.(1), (2) and (3), we can derive the theoretical relations between QPO frequencies which are the following,

$$\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}500\varphi ^{5/2}(Hz)(\frac{\nu _1}{500})[10.19(1\varphi )(\frac{m\nu _1}{500})^{2/5}],$$
(8)
$$\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}297.3\varphi ^{5/2}(Hz)m^{2/3}(\frac{\nu _2}{1000})^{5/3}[1+0.15\varphi (\frac{m\nu _2}{1000})^{2/3}],$$
(9)
$$\nu _1297.3(Hz)m^{2/3}(\frac{\nu _2}{1000})^{5/3}[1+0.15(\frac{m\nu _2}{1000})^{2/3}].$$
(10)
If we set the orbit scaling factor $`\varphi =0.4`$, we have the following specific relations,

$$\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}50.6(Hz)(\frac{\nu _1}{500})[10.11(\frac{m\nu _1}{500})^{2/5}],$$
(11)
$$\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}30.1(Hz)m^{2/3}(\frac{\nu _2}{1000})^{5/3}[1+0.06(\frac{m\nu _2}{1000})^{2/3}].$$
(12)
As a comparison, we list the empirical relations between HBO and twin kHz QPO frequencies (Psaltis et al. 1998, Psaltis et al. 1999),

$$\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}(42\pm 3Hz)(\nu _1/500Hz)^{0.95\pm 0.16},$$
(13)
$$\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}=13.2a_2\left(\frac{\nu _s}{300\text{Hz}}\right)\left(\frac{\nu _2}{1\text{kHz}}\right)^{b_2},$$
(14)
with $`a_24.6`$, and $`b_21.8`$. Therefore a consistency between Eq.(11) and Eq.(13), as well as between Eq.(12) and Eq.(14), is apparently found. Furthermore, we can also obtain the NS mass formula represented by the twin kHz QPO frequencies from Eqs.(1-2),

$$m=2.17\times (\frac{\nu _1}{500})^{3/2}(\frac{\nu _2}{1000})^{5/2}[1\frac{\nu _1}{2\nu _2}]^{3/2}.$$
(15)
According to Eq.(15), we can apply the detected twin kHz QPO data (van der Klis 2000) to calculate the stellar mass and obtain the mass average value 1.86 $`M_{}`$ for the six Z-sources and eleven Atoll sources, which is close to the measured NS mass $`1.78\pm 0.23(M_{})`$ of X-ray binary Cygnus X-2 (Orosz & Kuulkers 1999).

## 3 Summary and Conclusions

We have derived a theoretical relation between HBO and $`\nu _1`$, as well as HBO and $`\nu _2`$, and found that the detected low-high frequency correlation (Psaltis et al. 1999, Belloni et al. 2002) can be interpreted if $`\nu _{low}`$ and $`\nu _{high}`$ are identified as HBO frequency and $`\nu _1`$ respectively. Furthermore, from Eq.(11), if we set the parameters m=1.8 $`M_{}`$ and $`\nu _1=700`$ Hz, then we have the approximate relation $`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}0.08\nu _1`$, which is very close to the detected empirical relation given in Eq.(13). The correlation between $`\nu _{\mathrm{HBO}}`$ and $`\nu _1`$ depends weakly on the properties of sources, such as mass, magnetic field and the hard surface of compact objects, which has been anticipated by the observations (Belloni et al. 2002, Titarchuk & Wood 2002).

In conclusion it is remarked that the model described here is a simple and rough one. Many physical details have been neglected. These include NS spin induced gravitomagnetic effect, NS quadruple induced nodal precession (Vietri and Stella 1998), the self-gravity of the disk, magnetosphere structure and magnetic axis inclination, the spiral-in effect of the accreted matter, the origination and influence of the non-zero eccentricity, etc.. In particular, the non-zero eccentricity should have some effects on the QPOs but how this would originate is still unknown. We can at least speculate that the motion of the accreted matter in the disks might not be described exactly by a free test particle in a circular orbit of a purely gravitational field. Consideration of these factors will inform our future exploration and understanding of QPOs. Nevertheless, our proposed QPO frequencies are all inversely related to the radii of the accreted disks, and the instantaneous accretion disk radius is inversely related to the mass accretion rate (see e.g., Shapiro & Teukolsky 1983), which suggests that the QPO frequency would be proportional to the mass accretion rate. This conclusion is consistent with the QPO detections of Z-sources and Atoll sources as well as BHCs (van der Klis 2000).

Thanks are due to T. Belloni, M. Méndez and D. Psaltis for providing the QPO data, and discussions with T.P. Li and W. Zhang are highly appreciated. The author is thankful to the anonymous referee for critical and valuable comments, and suggestions for the revision of the paper.