text:
# I Introduction

## I Introduction

Recent experiments with radioactive ion beams have mapped out neutron drip line nuclei around $`N=20`$ and $`N=28`$ . These exotic nuclei with high isospins have many peculiar properties quite distinct from those found in the stability valley. The usual shell closures at $`N=20`$ and 28 have been questioned, new shell closures have been predicted and doubts have been expressed for the validity in this region of the usual nucleon-nucleon interaction or nuclear matrix elements which are so successful in describing the nuclei close to the stability line. The neutron-rich nuclei near the drip line show large neutron skin or neutron halo and the radii are larger than those expected from the usual $`r_0A^{1/3}`$ law. A number of ”Borromean” nuclear systems like $`{}_{}{}^{11}Li`$, $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$ , $`{}_{}{}^{32}Ne`$ etc. have been discovered which result in unstable nuclei after one neutron removal but stable ones on two neutron removal. These are only a few of the exotic properties found in nuclei near the drip line.

There have been a number of attempts, both in the non-relativistic as well as in the relativistic frameworks, to understand the properties of nuclei in the vicinity of the drip line. In different models, though some of the properties are qualitatively the same, there are also some striking differences. As for example, experimental results  show that $`{}_{}{}^{32}Mg`$ is highly deformed ($`\beta _20.5`$) whereas the RMF theory predicts  nearly spherical configuration for this isotope; the shell model calculations with relatively smaller model space also have similar conclusions . On the other hand, a recent shell model calculation carried out in the extended model space  produce deformation in consonance with the experimental finding. However, some anomalies persist in the binding energies of some nuclei around the drip line.

Several calculations of drip line nuclei around $`N=28`$ have been performed applying the RMF theory in the Hartree-BCS  as well as within the Hartree-Bogoliubov  framework. The coordinate space description of the RMF theory in the spherical configuration has been used  for the study of neutron rich nuclei around $`N=20`$. With the advancement of radioactive ion beam techniques, the neutron drip line is getting shifted to higher $`N`$value. As for example, a recent experiment at RIKEN  shows that $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$ rather than $`{}_{}{}^{29}F`$ is the most likely candidate for the drip line fluorine isotope. It is conjectured  that onset of deformation is responsible for the extrastability for $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$.

Recent analyses  of the single-neutron separation energies $`S_n`$ and other experimental data for neutron-rich light nuclei, however, indicate the appearance of a new magic number at N=16 and the disappearance of the traditional magicity at N=20. Dissolution of the N=8 magic number in neutron-rich $`Li`$ and $`Be`$ isotopes  and the appearance of magicity at N=6 in $`{}_{}{}^{8}He`$  have also been pointed out. The structures of these nuclei near the drip line are discussed in reference to the picture of the island of inversion  and have recently been systematically studied in the framework of Monte-Carlo shell model (MCSM) . In the present work, we will focus on the theoretical understanding of the extension of the drip line in $`F`$ chain and the appearance of shell closure at N=16 in the light of relativistic mean field framework.

The organization of the paper is as follows. In Sec. II, the formalism used have been out-lined very briefly. In Sec. III, the results and discussions are given. Finally, in Sec. IV, we present the summary and the concluding remarks.

## II Formalism

The details of the formalism of the RMF theory for calculating various observables like deformation, total energy etc. can be found in Refs. . However, for the sake of completeness we write down the effective Lagrangian density used describing the nucleon-meson many-body systems followed by a brief discussion. The Lagrangian density reads

$``$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_i\left(i\gamma ^\mu _\mu M\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_i+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^\mu \sigma _\mu \sigma U(\sigma )g_\sigma \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_i\sigma \mathrm{\Psi }_i`$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\omega ^2\omega ^\mu \omega _\mu g_\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_i\gamma ^\mu \omega _\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\stackrel{}{R}^{\mu \nu }\stackrel{}{R}_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\rho ^2\stackrel{}{\rho }^\mu \stackrel{}{\rho }_\mu `$
$`g_\rho \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_i\gamma ^\mu \stackrel{}{\rho }_\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\mathrm{\Psi }_i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }e\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_i\gamma ^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{(1\tau _3)}{2}}A_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_i.`$
The scalar-isoscalar meson $`\sigma `$, the vector-isoscalar meson $`\omega `$ and vector-isovector meson $`\rho `$ are included in this description. The arrows in Eq. (1) indicate isovector quantities. The scalar self-interaction term $`U(\sigma )`$ of the $`\sigma `$ meson is taken to be non-linear,

$$U(\sigma )=\frac{1}{2}m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2+\frac{1}{3}g_2\sigma ^3+\frac{1}{4}g_3\sigma ^4.$$
(4)
The nucleon mass is $`M`$; meson masses are $`m_\sigma `$, $`m_\omega `$ and $`m_\rho `$; $`g_\sigma `$, $`g_\omega `$ and $`g_\rho `$ are the corresponding coupling constants and $`e^2/4\pi =1/137`$ is the fine structure constant. The field tensors for $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ are given by $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\stackrel{}{R}^{\mu \nu }`$; for the electromagnetic field it is $`F^{\mu \nu }`$. Recourse to the variational principle followed by the mean-field approximation treating the fields as $`c`$numbers results in the Dirac equation for the nucleon and Klein-Gordon type equations for the mesons and the photon. For the static case, along with the time reversal invariance and charge conservation, the equations get simplified. The resulting equations known as the relativistic Hartree equation or RMF equation along with BCS approximation for inclusion of pairing are solved self-consistenetly to yield the fields and the single-particle states in an axially deformed basis expansion method .

The solution of the fields in the axially deformed basis for the odd-even or odd-odd nuclei is quite a difficult task. The time reversal symmetry in the mean field is violated for these systems. The odd particle induces polarisation current and time-odd component in the meson fields. The time-odd component plays important role in the description of magnetic moment and moment of inertia in rotating nuclei . However, the effect on deformation and binding energies are very small and can be neglected to a good approximation . In the present calculation for odd nuclei, we employ the blocking approximation  which restores the time reversal symmetry.

## III Results and Discussions

For our calculation, we choose the NL3 parameter set  for the Lagrangian density given by Eq. (1). This particular set reproduces the bulk properties of nuclei quite satisfactorily including the nuclear matter incompressibility $`K_{\mathrm{}}`$. To check the sensitivity of the results with the choice of the parameter set we have also calculated the ground state properties of some of the isotopes near the drip line using NL1 and NLSH sets having significantly different $`K_{\mathrm{}}`$. Among these three sets, the results with the NL3 set are in better agreement with the experimental values. In the following we shall present the results calculated with the NL3 parameter set. The calculations have been performed by expanding fermionic and bosonic wave functions in 20 oscillator shells for axially deformed configuration. The $`pp`$ and $`nn`$ pairing correlations have been considered in the BCS approximation. The strength of these correlations are determined from the proton and neutron pairing gaps $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$ evaluated from the experimental odd-even mass differences in the 4-point formula. The more accurate five-point formula  might have been employed, however, near the drip lines since some points would have been missed, for consistency we use the four-point formula throughout; moreover, the difference between the two is found to be very nominal. Though the experimental masses for the relevant nuclei are available  with large neutron excess, a few are still missing near the neutron drip line. The pairing gaps for these nuclei are taken by extrapolating the general trends of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$.

### A Location of the $`F`$ and $`Ne`$ neutron drip

We have performed calculations for the binding energies of $`F`$ and $`Ne`$ isotopes extending from the stability line to the drip line lying around $`N=20`$. In Fig. 1 the proton (filled circles joined by dashed line) and neutron (open circles joined by full line) pairing gaps for $`Ne`$ and $`F`$ are shown as a function of neutron number as obtained from the 4-point formula. The circles are replaced by asterisks where the masses used are obtained from systematics . The oscillations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ with maxima at even $`N`$ and minima at odd $`N`$ are manifestations of the weakening of pairing correlations for odd nucleon number. It is seen that for $`F`$, there is a tendency of saturation for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$ at high values of $`N`$ which is not that prominent for $`Ne`$ isotopes. Beyond the experimentally available values, we take $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n=1`$ MeV for both the systems except for $`N=20`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n=0`$ and for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ we take 2 MeV and 3.5 MeV for $`Ne`$ and $`F`$, respectively. The probable uncertainties for these choices may be $``$0.5 MeV as can be estimated from Fig. 1.

The calculated ground state binding energies for the different isotopes of $`Ne`$ and $`F`$ along with the experimental binding energies are shown in Fig. 2. For both the systems it is seen that the agreement of the calculated values with the experimental ones are good upto $`N=16`$ beyond which deviation starts building up. These deviations for $`F`$ isotopes are larger by about a factor of 2 compared to those for $`Ne`$. It is difficult to gauge whether such large deviations can be explained in the relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) theory . It may be mentioned that the agreement of the RMF binding energies with the experimental ones is very good even close to the neutron drip line for isotopes with atomic numbers $`Z12`$ . This indicates that possibly the correlation effects beyond mean field play more important role for nuclei having neutron drip line around $`N=20`$. However, since the uncertainties in the binding energy differences between two successive isotopes are much less, it is still meaningful to explore the drip-line characteristics for these nuclei.

In Fig. 3, we display the one-neutron separation energies $`S_n`$ for the isotopes of $`Ne`$ and $`F`$ where the filled circles joined by the dashed line correspond to the experimental $`S_n`$  and the open circles joined by full line represent the calculated values with the NL3 parameter set. It is seen that the odd-even oscillations are similar to the observed ones for the two nuclei, however, there is some quantitative disagreement, particularly for $`F`$ with $`N>15`$. The calculated two neutron separation energies $`S_{2n}`$ for the two isotope chains are shown in Fig. 4 along with the available experimental values . The stability of all the $`Ne`$ isotopes agrees with the experimental findings, particularly, the stability of $`{}_{}{}^{29}Ne`$ and the instability of $`{}_{}{}^{31}Ne`$. It may be pointed out that $`{}_{}{}^{29}Ne`$ is found to be unstable in the shell-model calculation  contrary to the experimental finding. In our calculations, $`{}_{}{}^{29}F`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{34}Ne`$ lie on the drip line. The nucleus $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$ is found to be bound against one-neutron dripping but unbound by a few hundred KeV against two-neutron dripping contrary to the recent experimental observation  indicating that $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$ is a stable isotope. The pairing gaps were varied by 0.5 MeV but that does not change our conclusion. It may be pointed out that a very recent Monte-Carlo shell model (MCSM) calculation  also gets $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$ unbound by a few hundred KeV.

Recently, it has been pointed out  that the large deformation ($`\beta _20.3`$) is responsible for the extrastability of $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$. To investigate the origin of the large deformation near the drip line, we display the evolution of the neutron and proton single particle energy levels in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively for the $`Ne`$ and $`F`$ nuclei around $`N=20`$. The dashed lines in the figures correspond to the Fermi energies. From Fig.5 at $`N=20`$, the gap between the 1$`d_{3/2}`$ and 1$`f_{7/2}`$ orbitals is $`6`$ MeV. With the increasing neutron number ($`N>20`$) some of the $`m`$components of these orbitals come very close to each other and thereby the lower $`m`$-components of the 1$`f_{7/2}`$ orbital may behave like an intruder state; this induces large prolate deformation in both the systems. The proton orbitals do not show such behavior, this produces lower deformation for protons compared to that for neutrons near the drip line. The deformations for the $`F`$ and $`Ne`$ isotopes are displayed in Fig. 7 where these characteristics are evident.

The rms radii for protons and neutrons for the nuclei $`Ne`$ and $`F`$ as a function of neutron number are shown in Fig. 8. We note that the proton radius increases slowly with the neutron number, whereas the neutron radius follows approximately an $`N^{1/3}`$ law. We find some undulations in the proton radii, particularly for the relatively lower neutron number. This may be traced back to the oscillations of the pairing gaps shown in Fig. 1. Higher the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, levels above the Fermi surface get higher occupancies producing larger radii. This is reflected in the radii shown in Fig. 8.

To study the effects of the different parameter sets on the location of the drip line nuclei, we repeated the calculations with the NL1 and the NLSH parameter sets. Though the absolute binding energies of different nuclei may vary by a few MeV depending on the parameter set, the conclusions regarding the drip line nuclei considerd here remain unchanged.

### B Shell closure at N=16

A shell closure for nuclei gives rise to a break in the plot of one neutron separation energy ($`S_n`$) versus neutron number at fixed $`T_Z`$ (i.e., neutron execss) . Recent experimental data  available for the $`S_n`$ clearly signals appearance of shell closure at N=6, 16 and 32 and disappearance of the conventional shell closure at N=8 and 20 for large values of $`T_Z`$. In this subsection, we mainly focus on the appearance of shell closure at $`N=16`$. The calculated one-neutron separation energies $`S_n`$ for odd-N and odd-Z nuclei for $`T_Z`$ lying between 0 to 4 are displayed as a function of N in the upper panel of Fig. 9; its lower panel shows $`S_n`$ for odd N and even Z nuclei with $`1/2T_Z9/2`$. The odd-even effects are eliminated with this choice. The magic number appears as a decrease of $`S_n`$ with N . The traditional magic number at N=20 is found to persist in our calculation for all $`T_Z`$ (up to $`T_Z=9/2`$) though experimentally there are indications of the dissolution of the magicity  at N=20 for $`T_Z4`$. At N=16, a clear break in $`S_n`$ is seen for $`T_Z3`$ suggesting the appearance of a new shell closure at this neutron number. These correspond to the nuclei $`{}_{}{}^{23}N`$, $`{}_{}{}^{24}O`$, $`{}_{}{}^{25}F`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{26}Ne`$. At $`T_Z=1`$ corresponding to $`{}_{}{}^{30}Si`$ a break in $`S_n`$ is also observed; this does not correspond to a true shell closure as discussed later.

In order to identify the shell closure more clearly, we also study the evolution of the deformation $`\beta _2`$ and the energy gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ`$ across the Fermi surface (the energy difference between the last occupied orbit and the first unoccupied one) with neutron number for different nuclei. In the upper panel of Fig. 10, the deformation of the isotopes of the odd-Z nuclei $`N`$, $`F`$ and $`Na`$ are shown; the same is displayed in the lower panel for the even-Z nuclei $`Ne`$, $`Mg`$ and $`Si`$. All the isotopes of $`O`$ considered are found to be spherical or nearly spherical; their deformations are not displayed here. For all the nuclei considered, the deformation vanishes at N=20 except for $`F`$ having a minimum in $`\beta _2`$ with a small value. At N=16, the isotopes of $`N`$ and $`Ne`$ are found to be spherical reinforcing the existence of shell closure. For $`F`$, there is a local minimum in deformation at N=16 with a relatively small value of $`\beta _20.14`$. Though there is an apparent break in $`S_n`$ at N=16 for $`Si`$, no local minimum in $`\beta _2`$ is found at this neutron number. The deformations of $`Na`$ and $`Mg`$ at N=16 are relatively large.

The energy gap across the Fermi surface of a traditional closed-shell nucleus is relatively large compared to those of the neighbouring nuclei. In Fig. 11, the evolution of this gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ`$ for a few odd-Z (upper panel) and even-Z (lower panel) nuclei is displayed as a function of the neutron number. At N=20, all the nuclei that are stable show robust peaks. At N=16, the nuclei with $`T_Z3`$ also exhibit peaked structures. These peaks are relatively less prominent compared to those at N=20. From the examination of one neutron separation energy, deformation and shell gap, we observe an extra-stability for the nuclei with N=16 and with $`T_Z3`$; thus, the appearance of a new shell-closure at this N-value becomes evident. It is however weaker compared to the traditional one at the nearby neutron number N=20 for all $`T_Z`$ considered here.

We have not included the effect of zero-point vibrations in our calculations, which in general influences the ground state energy. However, the parameters of the effective Lagrangian have been determined through fitting the experimental ground state energies of some nuclei; further inclusion of zero-point oscillation may thus lead to some double-counting. The intrinsic state generated in the mean-field approximation is a superposition of states of different angular momenta; projection of the ground state of good angular momentum from this mixed state has in general an influence on both the ground state energy and the deformation. The angular momentum projection from the RMF state is a nontrivial task, we have not yet attempted it.

## IV Summary and Conclusions

We have calculated some recently observed ground state properties for the isotopic chains extending from the stability line to the neutron drip line for several light nuclei in the relativistic mean-field theory. It is found that though the binding energies of the isotopes near the drip line (around $`N=20`$) are overestimated by a few MeV, the binding energy differences of neighbouring nuclei are fairly reproduced. The present calculation predicts $`{}_{}{}^{29}F`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{34}Ne`$ as drip line nuclei. Experimentally, till date $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$ is considered as the drip-line nucleus and for $`Ne`$ upto mass number 32 has been observed. In our calculation, $`{}_{}{}^{31}F`$ is bound against one neutron separation but unbound against two-neutron separation by only a few hundred KeV. The stability of $`{}_{}{}^{29}Ne`$ and instability of $`{}_{}{}^{31}Ne`$ found in our calculations are in agreement with the experimental observation.

The behaviour of the one neutron separation energy $`S_n`$, the deformation $`\beta _2`$ and the gap across the Fermi-surface of the neutron rich nuclei around N=16 clearly indicate the existence of a neutron shell closure at N=16 for $`T_z3`$. The dissolusion of the neutron shell closure at N=20 for $`T_z4`$ suggested from experiments is however not observed in the present model.

The present calculation suffers from a number of limitations. The treatment of pairing in the BCS approximation is rather uncertain, particularly for the exotic nuclei; the self-consistent Hartree- Bogoliubov approach for pairing is preferable. Correlations beyond the mean field may also be important in the present context. In a recent shell-model calculation , the mechanism for the appearance of shell-closure at N=16 and also the disappearance at N=20 for neutron-rich nuclei is attributed to the shift of the $`1d_{3/2}`$ level to higher energies closer to the $`1f_{7/2}`$ orbit. The microscopic origin of the reorganisation of the levels is claimed to lie in the spin-isospin part of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. In the present calculation, the level reorganisation is not that marked because of which the energy gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ`$ is not too large at N=16 and the shell-closure persists at N=20 even for very neutron-rich nuclei. The probable incompleteness of the present $`\sigma \omega \rho `$ version of the RMF theory for the description of very exotic systems is manifest here and is a possible pointer to the necessity of the inclusion of the pionic degrees of freedom in the RMF framework.

Figure Captions

* Experimental pairing gaps for neutron (open circles joined by full line) and proton (filled circles joined by dashed line) for the isotopes of $`Ne`$ (top panel) and $`F`$ (bottom panel). The asterisks stand for results obtained using masses from systematics.
* Calculated (with the NL3 parameter set) and experimental binding energies for different isotopes of $`Ne`$ (top panel) and $`F`$ (bottom panel). The asterisks stand for results obtained using masses from systematics.
* Calculated (open circles joined by full line) and experimental (filled circles joined by dashed line ) one-neutron separation energies $`S_n`$ for the different isotopes of $`Ne`$ (top panel) and $`F`$ (bottom panel). Calculations are performed with the NL3 parameter set. The asterisks stand for results obtained using masses from systematics.
* Same as in Fig. 3 for two-neutron separation energies $`S_{2n}`$.
* Neutron single-particle spectra around the Fermi surface (dashed line) for different isotopes of $`Ne`$ (top panel) and $`F`$ (bottom panel) close to the drip line calcualted with the NL3 parameter set.
* Same as in Fig. 6 for the proton spectra.
* Neutron quadrupole deformation $`\beta _2`$(n) (dashed line) and proton quadrupole deformation $`\beta _2`$(p) (dotted line) for the different isotopes of $`Ne`$ (top panel) and $`F`$ (bottom panel) calculated with the NL3 parameter set. The open circles joined by full line represent the total deformation.
* Neutron (open circles joined by full line) and proton (filled circles joined by dashed line) rms radii for the different isotopes of $`Ne`$ (top panel) and $`F`$ (bottom panel) calculated with the NL3 parameter set. The arrows on the abscissa correspond to the locations of the neutron drip lines obtained in the present calculation. The asterisk symbols refer to the experimental proton rms radii. In the upper panel, the open and filled squares joined by full and dashed lines, respectively, refer to the neutron and proton rms radii from Ref..
* One neutron separation energy ($`S_n`$) as a function of neutron number for odd-odd (upper panel) and odd-even (lower panel) nuclei.
* The magnitude of the ground state deformation $`\beta _2`$ as a function of neutron number for a few odd-Z (upper panel) and even-Z (lower panel) nuclei.
* The same as in Fig. 10 for the energy gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ`$ across the Fermi surface.


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# The Excitation Spectrum of a Bose-Einstein Condensate

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## Abstract

We report the first measurement of the excitation spectrum and the static structure factor of a Bose-Einstein condensate. The excitation spectrum displays a linear phonon regime, as well as a parabolic single-particle regime. The linear regime provides an upper limit for the superfluid critical velocity, by the Landau criterion. The excitation spectrum agrees well with the Bogoliubov spectrum, in the local density approximation. This agreement continues even for excitations close to the long-wavelength limit of the region of applicability of the approximation. Feynman’s relation between the excitation spectrum and the static structure factor is verified, within an overall constant.

\]

The excitation spectrum of superfluid 4He gives important insights into this superfluid. The excitation spectrum places an upper bound on the superfluid critical velocity. Furthermore, it indicates the types of excitations which occur in the superfluid, and reflects the superfluid’s density correlations. The excitation spectrum of a Bose-Einstein condensate should give similar insight into this system.

The excitation spectrum is the relation $`\omega (k)`$, giving the energy $`\mathrm{}\omega (k)`$ of each excitation, as a function of its wave vector $`k`$. For excitations with wavelengths $`2\pi /k`$ which are comparable to the radius of the condensate, the spectrum is characterized by discrete oscillatory modes, which are strongly dependent on the shape of the condensate. These modes have been measured previously,. For wavelengths much shorter than the radius of the condensate in the direction of $`\stackrel{}{k}`$, the excitation spectrum becomes an essentially continuous function of $`k`$, which characterizes the intrinsic bulk properties of the condensate. In this work, ”excitation spectrum” refers to this bulk regime. We report the first measurement of the excitation spectrum.

Previously, for condensates with various values of the chemical potential $`\mu `$, isolated points on the excitation spectrum were measured, ,,. These points, and their dependence on $`\mu `$, were found to be consistent with Bogoliubov theory.

For a homogeneous condensate (constant density $`n`$), the zero-temperature excitation spectrum is expected to be of the Bogoliubov form, which is valid as long as the wavelength of the excitation is much greater than the $`s`$-wave scattering length $`a`$. The Bogoliubov excitation spectrum is given by

$$\omega (k)=\sqrt{c^2k^2+\left(\frac{\mathrm{}k^2}{2m}\right)^2}$$
(1)
The speed of sound $`c`$ is given by $`\sqrt{gn/m}`$, where the constant $`g`$ is given by $`4\pi \mathrm{}^2a/m`$ and $`m`$ is the atomic mass. The chemical potential $`\mu =gn`$ characterizes the strength of the atomic interactions. In the limit of small $`k`$, $`\omega (k)ck`$. This linear part of the excitation spectrum corresponds to phonons.

By definition, $`\omega (k)`$ is the average frequency of the dynamic structure factor $`S(k,\omega )`$, which gives the response of the excitation process. Integrating $`S(k,\omega )`$ over $`\omega `$ gives the static structure factor $`S(k)`$, which is the Fourier transform of the density correlation function, giving the magnitude of the density fluctuations in the fluid, at wavelength $`2\pi /k`$. In general, the $`f`$-sum rule yields Feynman’s relation

$$S(k)=(\mathrm{}k^2/2m)/\omega (k)$$
(2)
Eq. 2 relates the strength of the resonance to its frequency.

For a BEC in a parabolic trap, the density is inhomogeneous, so (1) does not precisely apply. However, we will see that the form of $`\omega (k)`$ is very close to that of (1). In the local density approximation (LDA), the speed of sound, and therefore the excitation spectrum (1), can be considered to be defined at each point $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ in the BEC, where $`c=\sqrt{gn(\stackrel{}{r})/m}`$. This approximation is valid as long as the Thomas-Fermi radius of the condensate in the $`\stackrel{}{k}`$-direction is much larger than the wavelength of the excitation ,,, . For the parabolic density profile of the condensate in the Thomas-Fermi regime, the excitation spectrum for the entire condensate in the LDA is

$$\omega (k)=\sqrt{c_{ld}^2(k)k^2+\left(\frac{\mathrm{}k^2}{2m}\right)^2}$$
(3)
where $`c_{ld}(k)`$ is given by $`\frac{\mathrm{}k}{2m}\sqrt{S(k)^21}`$, and ,

$$S(k)=\frac{15}{4}\left\{\frac{3+\alpha }{4\alpha ^2}\frac{3+2\alpha \alpha ^2}{16\alpha ^{5/2}}\left[\pi +2\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{\alpha 1}{2\sqrt{\alpha }}\right)\right]\right\}$$
(4)
where $`\alpha 2\mu /[\mathrm{}^2k^2/(2m)]`$ and $`\mu =gn(0)`$, where $`n(0)`$ is the maximum density in the condensate. The value $`c_{ld}\left(k\right)`$ is a weak, monotonically increasing function, which varies from $`c_{eff}32/(15\pi )\sqrt{\mu /m}(=0.68\sqrt{\mu /m})`$ for small $`k`$, to $`c_{\text{large}}=\sqrt{4/7}\sqrt{\mu /m}(=0.76\sqrt{\mu /m})`$ for large $`k`$. The value $`c_{\text{large}}`$ is just the speed of sound for a homogeneous condensate whose density is the density of the inhomogeneous condensate, averaged over each atom. Since $`c_{ld}(k)`$ is nearly constant, the excitation spectrum in the LDA (3) is very similar in form to the homogeneous excitation spectrum (1), illustrating that the excitation spectrum of the trapped condensate should largely reflect the intrinsic properties of the homogeneous condensate. Thus, the functional form of $`\omega (k)`$ reported here provides a test for the Bogoliubov theory for a homogeneous condensate.

Since small $`k`$ corresponds to phonons, $`c_{eff}`$ is the effective speed of sound for an inhomogeneous condensate. The Bogoliubov spectrum in the LDA fulfills the requirement of Bose statistics that the lowest lying excitations be phonons . Phonons are collective excitations, each of which consists of a large number $`N_k`$ of atoms moving with momentum $`\mathrm{}k`$, and $`N_k1`$ atoms moving with momentum -$`\mathrm{}k`$. This momentum distribution of a phonon was measured in . Previously, a sound pulse, composed of a combination of phonons, was imaged in a time sequence of absorption images. The observed sound velocity was in rough agreement with $`c_{eff}`$.

For large $`k`$, (3) is given by

$$\omega (k)\mathrm{}k^2/(2m)+mc_{\text{large}}^2/\mathrm{}$$
(5)
where the first term is much larger than the second. This parabolic part of the spectrum corresponds to single-particle excitations, in which a single atom has a velocity $`\mathrm{}k/m`$, which is much larger than the speed of sound. The second term in (5) is equal to $`(4/7)\mu /\mathrm{}`$ and is independent of $`k`$, reflecting the extra interaction energy experienced by a moving atom.

The transition from collective excitations to single-particle excitations occurs for $`k`$ on the order of $`\xi ^1`$, where $`\xi `$ is the healing length. We take $`\xi ^1`$ to be the solution of $`k=\sqrt{2}mc_{ld}(k)/\mathrm{}`$, which is given by $`\xi ^1=\sqrt{2}m\overline{c}/\mathrm{}`$, and $`\overline{c}(c_{eff}+c_{\text{large}})/2`$.

An upper limit on the superfluid critical velocity can be extracted from the excitation spectrum, via the Landau criterion, which states that the superfluid cannot flow with a speed greater than $`\omega /k`$, for any excitation $`\omega (k)`$ in the spectrum. Therefore, the critical velocity $`v_c`$ cannot be more than the smallest value of $`\omega /k`$ in the entire spectrum. According to Bogoliubov theory, the phonons have the smallest value of $`\omega /k`$, as seen in Fig. 2a, so $`v_c`$ cannot be greater than the speed of sound $`c_{eff}`$. We emphasize that the critical velocity for vortex production is usually much lower than the critical velocity given by the Landau criterion, so vortex production usually limits the speed of superfluid flow,.

The condensate of 87Rb atoms in the 5s1/2, $`F=2`$, $`m_F=2`$ ground state is produced in a QUIC magnetic trap, loaded by a double MOT system. The magnetic trap contains 6$`\times `$107 atoms. After 22 seconds of evaporation, 1$`\times 10^5`$ atoms remain, forming a nearly pure condensate, with a thermal fraction of 5% or less. The bias magnetic field is 2 G. The radial and axial trapping frequencies are 25 Hz and 220 Hz respectively, yielding radial and axial Thomas-Fermi radii of 3 $`\mu m`$ and $`R=28`$ $`\mu m`$, respectively. The chemical potential $`\mu /h=2.02\pm 0.09`$ kHz is determined by the radial size of the condensate in a time-of-flight image.

The excitation spectrum is measured by Bragg spectroscopy,. Two Bragg beams $`A`$ and $`B`$ with approximately parallel polarization, separated by an angle $`3^\text{o}\theta `$ $`130^\text{o}`$, illuminate the condensate for a time $`t_B`$. The frequency of beam $`A`$ is greater than the frequency of beam $`B`$ by an amount $`\omega `$ determined by two acousto-optic modulators. If a photon is absorbed from $`A`$ and emitted into $`B`$, an excitation is produced with energy $`\omega `$ and momentum $`k`$, where $`k=2k_p\mathrm{sin}\left(\theta /2\right)`$, and $`k_p`$ is the photon wave number. Here, we neglect the possibility that a single photon will excite multiple excitations, in contrast to the case of superfluid 4He, in which multiparticle excitations are an important contribution, to $`S(k,\omega )`$.

The wave vector $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ is precisely adjusted to be along the axis of the cigar-shaped condensate. To insure that the entire condensate is stimulated by the Bragg pulse, the length of the pulse $`t_B`$ is chosen such that the spectral width of the pulse is roughly equal to the intrinsic width of the resonance. For this experiment, the broadening due to inhomogeneous density $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{ld}`$ always dominates the Doppler broadening, and is given by 0.45 kHz for large $`k`$, and 0.3 $`\omega (k)/(2\pi )`$ in the phonon regime. Thus, $`t_B`$ is chosen to be roughly $`(2\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{ld})^1`$. For large $`k`$, the resonance may be further broadened by $`s`$-wave scattering.

The beams are detuned $`\mathrm{\Delta }=6.5`$ GHz below the 5S1/2, $`F=2`$ $``$ 5P3/2, $`F=3`$ transition. The intensities $`I_A`$ and $`I_B`$ of each beam are adjusted to values between 0.1 mW cm-2 and 1.1 mW cm-2, so that the number of excitations is 10% to 20% of the number of atoms in the condensate. For pulses of this strength, the chemical potential decreases by an average of only 12% during the pulse, so the Bragg scattering can be considered to be a small perturbation to the condensate. The time average of $`\mu /h`$ during the pulse is $`1.91\pm 0.09`$ kHz, which is taken to be the relevant value for the excitation spectrum.

To measure a single point on the excitation spectrum $`\omega (k)`$, $`k`$ is fixed by $`\theta `$, and $`\omega `$ is varied. The resonant value of $`\omega `$ is taken as $`\omega (k)`$.

After the Bragg pulse, the atoms are allowed to expand freely, after which they are imaged by absorption, as shown in Fig. 1 for $`k`$ within the phonon regime. Two adjacent clouds are seen. The left cloud corresponds to the condensate. The right cloud, displaced in velocity space by $`\mathrm{}k/m`$, corresponds to the excitations. During the time-of-flight, the density of the atomic cloud decreases dramatically, resulting in a decrease in the speed of sound. The phonons of wave number $`k`$ are thus transformed into free particles, which are subsequently imaged. The release process slightly distorts the excitation cloud by mean-field repulsion. This distortion may also contain information regarding the excitation energy.

To determine the efficiency of stimulation of excitations by the Bragg pulse, the total momentum in the axial direction relative to the center of the condensate cloud is computed from the image, in the combined regions of the two clouds. The total momentum is divided by $`N_\text{o}\mathrm{}k`$, where $`N_\text{o}`$ is the average number of atoms in the condensate during the Bragg pulse, to obtain the efficiency. This efficiency is somewhat exaggerated though, because the total momentum includes momentum from the release process.

The thus-measured efficiency $`P(k,\omega )`$ for each direction is shown in Fig. 2, for $`k=2.8`$ $`\mu m^1`$. The curve of $`P(k,\omega )`$ is well-approximated by a Gaussian plus a constant. The constant results from the background in the images. The symmetric shape of $`P(k,\omega )`$ about the resonance frequency probably reflects the spectral shape of the Bragg pulse, rather than the intrinsic shape which is expected to be asymmetric. Therefore, the notation $`P(k,\omega )`$ is employed, rather than $`S(k,\omega )`$, whose shape is the intrinsic shape.

The resonant frequency is taken as the center value of the Gaussian fit to $`P(k,\omega )`$, as shown in Fig. 2. The excitation energy $`\omega (k)`$ is taken as the average of the resonant frequencies for the left and right directions, which removes the effects of the Doppler shift resulting from any sloshing of the condensate in the trap during the Bragg pulse.

The integral of $`P(k,\omega )`$ over $`\omega `$, equal to the integral of $`S(k,\omega )`$, is related to $`S(k)`$ by

$$S(k)=2(\pi \mathrm{\Omega }_R^2N_\text{o}t_B)^1P(k,\omega )𝑑\omega $$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R=\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/(4\mathrm{\Delta })\sqrt{I_AI_B}/I_{sat}`$ is the two-photon Rabi frequency, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the line width of the 5P3/2, $`F=3`$ excited state, and $`I_{sat}`$ is the saturation intensity.

Fig. 3a shows the measured excitation spectrum. The solid line is the Bogoliubov spectrum in the LDA (3), without any fit parameters, for $`\mu =1.91`$ kHz. The measured spectrum is seen to agree well with the Bogoliubov spectrum. A linear phonon regime is seen for low $`k`$, and a parabolic single-particle regime for high $`k`$. The line at $`k=\xi ^1`$ separates these two regimes. The excitations seen to have the smallest value of $`\omega /k`$ are the phonons. Therefore, by the Landau criterion, the superfluid velocity $`v_c`$ is bounded by $`\omega /k`$ for the phonons.

The inset of Fig. 3a shows the low $`k`$ region of the excitation spectrum. To extract the initial slope from the data, (3) is fit to the points with $`k`$ less than 3 $`\mu m^1`$, with $`\mu `$ taken as a fit parameter. The fit is not shown in the figure. The result gives the speed of sound for the condensate to be $`c_{eff}=2.0\pm 0.1`$ mm sec-1, which is also the measured upper bound for $`v_c`$, by the Landau criterion. This value is in good agreement with the theoretical value of $`2.01\pm 0.05`$ mm sec-1, which is the $`k=0`$ slope of the Bogoliubov spectrum for $`\mu =1.91\pm 0.09`$ kHz. The line at $`2\pi R^1`$ indicates the excitation whose wavelength is equal to the Thomas-Fermi radius of the condensate in the axial direction. The measured excitation spectrum agrees with the LDA, even for $`k`$ values approaching this lower limit of the region of validity. For the two lowest $`k`$-values measured, the wavelength of the excitations are long enough that they are clearly visible, as density modulations in the condensate cloud.

Fig. 3a also shows the parabolic spectrum for free particles, $`\mathrm{}k^2/(2m)`$. The measured excitation spectrum is clearly above this curve, reflecting the interaction energy of the condensate. To emphasize the interaction energy, $`\omega (k)`$ is shown again in Fig. 3b, after subtraction of the free-particle spectrum. The theoretical curve is the Bogoliubov spectrum in the LDA, given by (3), minus the parabolic spectrum for free atoms. This curve approaches a constant for large $`k`$, given by the second term in (5).

The closed circles in Fig. 4 are the measured static structure factor $`S(k)`$, by (6). The values shown have been increased by a factor of 2.3, giving rough agreement with $`S(k)`$ from Bogoliubov theory in the LDA (4). Eq. (4) is indicated by a solid line. The required factor of 2.3 probably reflects inaccuracies in the various values needed to compute $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$. The open circles are computed from (2), using the measured values of $`\omega (k)`$ shown in Fig. 3a. The rough agreement between the closed and open circles is consistent with the relation (2), within the multiplicative constant applied to the closed circles. For the determination of $`S(k)`$, it is critical that the apparent number of excitations is not enhanced by extra momentum obtained during the release process. Therefore, the number of excitations is determined by the number of atoms in the excitation cloud, rather than by the total momentum. This technique fails for the two points with the lowest $`k`$ values, where many of the atoms do not exit the condensate cloud. For these points, the measured $`S(k)`$ seen in Fig. 4 is significantly reduced.

For large $`k`$ (short wavelength), $`S(k)`$ approaches unity, corresponding to non-interacting, uncorrelated atoms. For long wavelengths however, $`S(k)`$ counterintuitively approaches zero. For decreasing $`k`$, the condensate contains increasing numbers of atoms with momentum $`\mathrm{}k`$. These atoms, rather than creating additional density fluctuations with wavelength $`2\pi /k`$, actually suppress such fluctuations, because the atoms are correlated in pairs with momenta $`\pm \mathrm{}k`$, and opposite phase.

Since $`S(k)`$ is always less than unity for the values of $`k`$ measured here, the density fluctuations are never greater than in the uncorrelated case. However, $`S(k)`$ is expected to have a peak (a roton) at a wavelength comparable to $`a`$, which is much shorter than the wavelengths reported here, but the increase of $`S(k)`$ at this roton is on the order of $`a^3n`$. For a BEC in an alkali gas, $`a^3n10^4`$, so the roton is negligible. This is in contrast to superfluid 4He, where $`S(k)`$ has a significant roton, corresponding to a minimum in $`\omega (k)`$.

For $`k6.8`$ $`\mu m^1`$, $`s`$-wave scattering is clearly visible. The measured effective scattering cross section decreases with decreasing $`k`$, as predicted in .

In conclusion, we report the first measurement of the excitation spectrum of a Bose-Einstein condensate, and the static structure factor. This spectrum displays several features consistent with theory. The excitation spectrum consists of a linear phonon regime, as well as a single-particle regime. The linear regime provides an upper limit for the superfluid critical velocity, by the Landau criterion. The excitation spectrum agrees quantitatively with the Bogoliubov spectrum, in the local density approximation. This agreement continues even for long-wavelength excitations, close to the limit of the region of applicability of the approximation. The density fluctuations implied by the static structure factor agree with the excitation spectrum within a multiplicative constant, via Feynman’s relation. Feynman’s relation is thus verified within an overall constant.


text:
# Tracing Cosmic Evolution with an XMM Serendipitous Cluster Survey

## 1. Introduction

In an earlier paper (Romer et al. 2001, R01 hereafter) we described the expected catalog properties and scientific applications of an XMM-Newton Cluster Survey (XCS) based on serendipitous detections in pointed observations. We revisit these predictions below, in light of improved knowledge of the in flight performance of XMM. We also compare the XCS to other on-going X-ray surveys.

## 2. The Effect of an Enhanced Internal Background Count Rate on the XCS

Recently it has come to light that the quiescent internal background count rates in the EPIC detectors are roughly ten times higher than was anticipated prior to the XMM-Newton launch (see Lumb 2001). We have, therefore, recomputed the expected properties of the XCS cluster catalog using a total (external plus internal) background level that is roughly double that used in R01. In Table 1, we compare the new predictions (column ii) with those published in Table 4 of R01 (column i). For example, for an open model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$), we now predict that the XCS will detect 390 $`T>4`$ keV, $`z>1`$ clusters at $`>8\sigma `$, compared to 480 in R01. Changes at that level should not severely limit the ability of XCS to differentiate between open and flat cosmological models.

We have also included in Table 1 predictions for the number of XCS clusters that would be detected at $`>3\sigma `$. We did not include low signal to noise detections in R01 because they will be hard to identify using an extent criterion alone. However, when combined with Planck and/or SDSS data, it may be possible to identify these objects in a timely and quantifiable manner, so we include them here for completeness.

The redshift distribution of the $`>3\sigma `$ and $`>8\sigma `$ XCS detections can be seen in Figure 1.

## 3. Comparisons with the MACS and XMM Slew Surveys

The Massive Cluster Survey (MACS, Ebeling, Edge & Henry 2001) has been very successful at identifying high redshift, high luminosity, clusters detected in 22,735 square degrees of the ROSAT All Sky Survey. The wide areal coverage of the MACS (nearly 30 times that of the XCS!) results in sensitivity to a very interesting class of clusters, those at medium redshift and high luminosity ($`L_x>5\times 10^{44}`$ erg cm-2 s-1; 0.1-2.0 keV). MACS clusters are already being used for a variety science programs including studies of cluster evolution and the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect.

Using the R01 methodology and based on the MACS selection function presented in Figure 5 of Ebeling et al. (2001) we have been able to predict the number of clusters that would be detected by MACS as a function of cosmology. We present those results in Figure 1 and Table 1. Overall, we can expect MACS to detect between 100 and 500 clusters at $`z>0.3`$, depending on cosmology.

An XMM Slew Survey has been proposed (e.g. Lumb & Jones 2000). An XMM Slew survey would have two important advantages over the XCS; it would be drawn from random parts of the sky (rather than from regions that surround known X-ray targets) and it would cover significantly more area. Lumb & Jones (2000) estimated an annual survey rate of 4000 square degrees to a flux limit of $`2\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (0.5-2.0 keV). This compares to an estimated annual survey rate for the XCS of $`80`$ square degrees (the XCS catalog will not have a single flux limit, but a typical value will be $`1.5\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 in the 0.5-2.0 keV band, see R01).

We have attempted to predict the properties of a Slew Survey cluster catalog using the R01 methodology. At the time of writing, the Slew Survey had only just begun and the actual sensitivity level was unknown (Lumb, private communication). We, therefore, present results for two different (0.5-2.0 keV) flux limits; $`2\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 and $`3\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, see Figure 2. We have assumed that 4000 square degrees would be covered in one year by the Slew Survey. For comparison we have shown the expected numbers of clusters that would be detected at $`>3\sigma `$ in one year of the XCS (or 80 square degrees).

A Slew Survey with $`2\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 sensitivity would produce a very impressive cluster catalog at low and medium redshifts. Such a catalog would have a variety of applications including constraints on $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ and studies of cluster evolution and Planck foregrounds.

In summary, the MACS and the XMM Slew Surveys have much better low redshift sensitivity than XCS by virtue of their large areal coverage. However, neither will be able to differentiate between open and flat low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ models, because they lack sensitivity to high redshift clusters. These surveys should be seen as complementary too, not in competition with, the XCS.

The XCS faces many challenges, including the complexity of its selection function and our lack of understanding of cluster evolution. The future existence of the XCS should not deter the launch of a dedicated X-ray survey satellite.

## References

Ebeling, H., Edge, A. C., & Henry, J. P. 2001, ApJ, 553, 668

Lumb, D. H. & Jones, L. R. 2000, Large Scale Structure in the X-ray Universe, Proceedings of the 20-22 September 1999 Workshop, Santorini, Greece, eds. Plionis, M. & Georgantopoulos, I., Atlantisciences, Paris, France, p.313

Lumb, D. H., 2001, XMM-Newton CCF Release Note, EPIC Background Files, http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/docs/documents/CAL-TN-0016-1-0.ps.gz

Romer, A. K., Viana, P. T. P., Liddle, A. R., & Mann, R. G. 2001, ApJ, 547, 594 (R01)

We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Juliet McKensie, Shane Zabel and Kevin Bandura with the talk preparations.


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# The K20 survey. I. Disentangling old and dusty star-forming galaxies in the ERO populationBased on observations made at the European Southern Observatory, Paranal, Chile (ESO LP 164.O-0560).

## 1 Introduction

Extremely red objects (EROs, here defined with $`RKs>5`$) were discovered serendipitously a decade ago (Elston et al. 1988), and recent wide-field surveys revealed that they form a substantial population (Thompson et al. 1999; Daddi et al. 2000, D00 hereafter; McCarthy et al. 2001). Having the colors expected for high-$`z`$ old and passively evolving galaxies, EROs offer the opportunity to test whether the present-day massive ellipticals formed at early cosmological times ($`z_f>`$2–3) with a subsequent passive and pure luminosity evolution (PLE), or whether they formed more recently through the merging of spiral galaxies (e.g. Baugh et al. 1996; Kauffmann 1996). Studies on small fields claimed a deficit of EROs, thus favouring the hierarchical merging scenario (e.g. Zepf 1997; Barger et al. 1999; Rodighiero et al. 2001), but recent surveys on wider fields showed that the surface density of EROs is consistent with elliptical galaxy PLE expectations (D00; Daddi, Cimatti & Renzini 2000). Since only a few old galaxies have been spectroscopically identified (e.g. Spinrad et al. 1997; Cohen et al. 1999), their fraction among EROs remained still unconstrained. On the other hand, EROs may also be high-$`z`$ starbursts and AGNs strongly reddened by dust extinction. Such a possibility was confirmed by the identification of this kind of galaxies among EROs, but, again, these results were limited to a handful of objects (e.g. Graham & Dey 1996; Cimatti et al. 1998; Gear et al. 2000; Pierre et al. 2001, Smith et al. 2001, Afonso et al. 2001), thus leaving undetermined the relative fractions of old and dusty galaxies in ERO samples.

Because of the stringent test of galaxy formation scenarios that EROs can provide, it is therefore of prime importance to determine the relative fractions among the two classes of galaxies. In this Letter, we report on the first results of deep VLT optical spectroscopy of a complete and sizeable sample of EROs. A cosmology with $`H_0=70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ is adopted.

## 2 The K20 ERO sample

The selection and the observations of the ERO sample were made in the context of the K20 survey (http://www.arcetri.astro.it/$``$k20/). The prime aim of such a survey is to derive the redshift distribution of about 550 $`K`$-selected objects with $`Ks20`$ in order to constrain the galaxy formation models. The targets were selected from a 32.2 arcmin2 area of the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS; Giacconi et al. 2001) using the images from the ESO Imaging Survey public database (EIS; http://www.eso.org/science/eis/; the $`R`$\- and the $`Ks`$-band images were reduced and calibrated by the EIS team and by our group respectively), and from a 19.8 arcmin2 field centered at 0055-269 using NTT+SOFI and VLT-UT2+FORS2 $`Ks`$\- and $`R`$-band images respectively (Fontana et al. in preparation). More details on the photometry will be given in forthcoming papers. From the total sample with $`Ks20.0`$, we extracted the subsample of EROs with $`RKs5.0`$, with the colors measured in 2′′ arcsec diameter corrected aperture to match the color definition of D00. The total sample includes 78 EROs, corresponding to a surface density of 1.50$`\pm `$0.17 arcmin-2, consistent with that of Thompson et al. (1999) (1.88$`\pm `$ 0.11 arcmin-2 over a field of 154 arcmin2). The ratio between the number of EROs and the total number of objects at $`Ks19.2`$ is 0.134$`\pm `$0.021, consistent with the value of 0.127$`\pm `$0.006 of D00.

Multi-object spectroscopy of EROs was made with the ESO VLT UT1 and UT2 equipped with FORS1 (October-November 1999) and FORS2 (November 2000) during 0.5′′-1.5′′ seeing conditions and with 0.7′′-1.2′′ wide slits depending on the seeing. The grisms 150I, 200I, 300I were used with typical integration times of 1-3 hours. Dithering of the targets along the slits between two fixed positions was made for most observations in order to efficiently remove the CCD fringing and the strong OH sky lines at $`\lambda _{obs}>7000`$ Å. The spectra were calibrated using standard spectrophotometric stars, dereddened for atmospheric extinction, corrected for telluric absorptions and scaled to the total $`R`$-band magnitudes.

## 3 The ERO spectral types and relative fractions

The spectroscopic analysis was done by means of automatic software (IRAF: rvidlines and xcsao) and through visual inspection of the 1D and 2D spectra. The redshift distributions are shown in Fig. 1.

According to the observed features, EROs were grouped into two classes: (1) old if the spectrum showed no emission lines, a prominent D4000 break, strong CaII H&K absorptions, and the overall shape of the continuum expected in case of an old passively evolving elliptical, (2) star-forming when the spectrum showed a clear \[OII\]$`\lambda `$3727 emission and no evidence for a strong D4000 break. Among the 15 old EROs, four present weak \[OII\]$`\lambda `$3727 emission. We also identified two galaxies at $`z>1.6`$ thanks to MgII$`\lambda `$2800 and FeII$`\lambda `$2600 absorptions, but their nature remained ambiguous because of the lack of other distinctive spectral features. Table 1 summarizes the results, giving the numbers of spectroscopically identified and unidentified EROs ($`N_{id}`$ and $`N_u`$), of old ($`N_{old}`$) and star-forming galaxies ($`N_{sf}`$).

In this paper, we limited the analysis to the $`Ks19.2`$ subsample of EROs because it provides the best compromise between spectroscopic completeness (67% of the EROs identified vs. 44% at $`Ks20`$) and significant statistics. In such a subsample, the fractions of old and star-forming galaxies are respectively $`N_{old}/N_{tot}=31\%÷64\%`$ and $`N_{sf}/N_{tot}=33\%÷67\%`$, where the range of such fractions corresponds to assuming that none or all of the unidentified objects belong to the group. Such fractions are generally consistent with the results of HST imaging by Moriondo et al. (2000) and Stiavelli & Treu (2000).

## 4 The ERO average spectra

In this Letter we limit the discussion to the average spectra of the identified galaxy types in order to derive their main properties that would be otherwise difficult to characterize in the individual noisier spectra. The average spectra shown in Fig. 2, obtained deredshifting (with a 5 Å rest-frame bin), normalizing and stacking the equally weighted individual spectra, are relative to all spectroscopically identified EROs with $`Ks20.0`$, but they do not significantly change if only the $`Ks19.2`$ EROs are used.

### 4.1 Old EROs

By comparing the average spectrum of old EROs with Bruzual & Charlot (2000, private communication) simple stellar population (SSP) models (Salpeter IMF, $`Z=Z_{}`$) and no dust extinction, and taking into account the observed average $`RKs`$ color (5.19$`\pm `$0.06), we derive an average age of 3.3$`\pm `$0.3 Gyr (Fig. 3). The amplitude of the average D4000 break (1.92$`\pm `$0.06) is consistent with an age of 2.8$`\pm `$0.3 Gyr. If we adopt an average age of 3.1$`\pm `$0.3 Gyr for $`Z=Z_{}`$, the mean formation redshift is then $`z_f=2.4\pm 0.3`$. If an e-folding time of star formation $`\tau =0.3`$ Gyr is adopted, or if a Scalo (1986) IMF is used, the age increases to about 4 Gyr. SSP models with a lower metallicity ($`Z=0.4Z_{}`$) would further increase the age to $`56`$ Gyr leading to extremely high $`z_f`$. On the other hand, a higher metallicity with $`Z=2.5Z_{}`$ would reduce the age to $``$1.1 Gyr and the formation redshift to $`z_f1.5`$, but it would underestimate the observed $`RKs`$ colors of old EROs at $`z>1`$, thus being an inappropriate possibility for the highest redshift objects.

To summarize, being SSP models with an instantaneous burst of star formation rather unrealistic, the age of $`3`$ Gyr and $`z_f=2.4`$ should be considered lower limits if $`Z=Z_{}`$.

### 4.2 Star-forming EROs

As a first attempt to investigate the nature of the star-forming EROs, we compared the global shape of their average spectrum with template spectra of star-forming galaxies, although the presence of \[NeV\]$`\lambda `$3426 emission with an equivalent width $`W=3.6\pm 0.7`$ Å may indicate a more complex picture with also a contribution from dust-obscured AGN activity. A more detailed analysis based on absorption lines with an equivalent width of a few Å is not warranted by our data because of the limited signal to noise ratio. Among the Kinney et al. (1996) templates, a good agreement is found only with their so called SB6 spectrum (i.e. the average spectrum of starburst galaxies with $`0.6<E(BV)<0.7`$ as derived from the H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta `$ ratio), but only if the reddening is increased by an additional $`E(BV)0.5`$ (we adopt the Calzetti et al. 2000 extinction curve throughout the paper). Since the stellar continuum and the ionized gas of dusty starbursts suffer different extinctions ($`E(BV)_{star}0.44E(BV)_{gas}`$; Calzetti et al. 2000), the net total extinction of the continuum of the ERO average spectrum is $`E(BV)_{star}(0.65\times 0.44)+0.50.8`$.

The average spectrum of e(a) VLIGs (Very Luminous Infrared Galaxies; $`\mathrm{log}(L_{IR}/L_{})>11.5`$; Poggianti & Wu 2000) also provides a global satisfactory agreement at $`\lambda >3600`$ Å without the need of extra dust extinction (the median reddening estimated for the e(a) galaxies is $`E(BV)_{gas}`$=1.1 based on H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta `$ ratio, corresponding to $`E(BV)_{star}0.5`$; Poggianti & Wu 2000).

Finally, a comparison with synthetic spectra of star-forming galaxies with solar metallicity, Salpeter IMF and constant star formation rate (SB99 models, Leitherer et al. 1999 and Bruzual & Charlot 2000 models) showed that the global shape of the continuum and the average $`RKs`$ color can be reproduced with a wide range of ages and with $`0.6<E(BV)<1.1`$.

The possibility that a fraction of star-forming EROs have an old bulge component contributing to the red colors (e.g. similar to the red massive disk galaxy at $`z=1.34`$ of van Dokkum & Stanford 2001) is not ruled out by our data. In fact, HST imaging already showed that the ”non-elliptical” EROs are morphologically made by a heterogeneous population ranging from highly irregular systems (likely to be the most dusty starbursts) to disky galaxies (Moriondo et al. 2000; Stiavelli & Treu 2000). The noise in our spectra hampers a detailed analysis of the individual EROs. However, by subtracting the average spectrum of old from that of star-forming EROs, we estimate that at most 30-40% of the total light of the star-forming EROs at $``$4000 Å can be due to an old system. In such a case, the average reddening would decrease to $`E(BV)_{star}`$0.7 using the SB6 template to reproduce the “pure” star-forming component.

## 5 The density of old EROs and limits on $`z_f`$

Since old EROs have spectra consistent with being passively evolving ellipticals, we compared their density with different model predictions.

### 5.1 The surface density

The total surface density of EROs with $`Ks19.2`$ and $`RKs5.0`$ in our sample is 0.88$`\pm `$0.13 arcmin-2, consistent with that derived by D00 and Firth et al. (2001) over larger fields. In marked contrast, the surface density of EROs (counted as old plus dusty galaxies) predicted by the hierarchical merging models at $`K=19.2`$ presented by Firth et al. (2001) and Smith et al. (2001) are below the observed density by factors of $``$4 and about an order of magnitude respectively.

From the minimum and maximum fractions of old EROs derived in Section 3, the implied surface densities of ellipticals at the same magnitude limit should be in the range 0.27-0.55 arcmin-2. Within the uncertainties, such densities agree with those predicted by the PLE models of Daddi et al. (2000b) with $`\tau `$=0.3 Gyr (0.24 and 0.54 arcmin-2 for $`z_f`$=2.2 and $`z_f`$=3.5 respectively), suggesting a minimum formation redshift of $`z_f2.2`$, consistent with the age derived from the average spectrum. The result does not significantly change if the 4 old EROs with weak \[OII\]$`\lambda `$3727 emission are excluded from the sample. If $`\tau `$=0.1 Gyr is adopted, or if the minimum fraction of old EROs (31%) is applied to the surface density of EROs derived by D00 in a much wider field (0.67 arcmin-2 over 450 arcmin2), or if the 2MASS $`K`$-band local luminosity function of early type galaxies is used (Kochanek et al. 2001), the lower limit becomes $`z_f2`$.

### 5.2 The comoving density

Taking into account the nominal lower redshift limit imposed by the $`RKs5.0`$ color cut and the upper boundary due to the sensitivity of our spectroscopy (0.85$`\stackrel{<}{}`$$`z`$$`\stackrel{<}{}`$1.30), we derive a comoving density of ellipticals in that redshift range of (2.16$`\pm `$0.62) $`\times 10^4`$ Mpc-3. Such a density can be considered a lower limit because some ellipticals can escape the threshold of $`RKs5.0`$ due to the dispersion of the observed $`RKs`$ colors around the model color prediction. Even so, the densities expected in the Daddi et al. (2000b) PLE model with $`\tau `$=0.3 Gyr are in the range of (1.8,2.7) $`\times 10^4`$ Mpc-3 for $`z_f`$(2.2,2.4), thus being consistent with the observed densities.

## 6 The role of dusty star-forming EROs

The observed star formation rate (SFR) of each star-forming ERO has been estimated both from the \[OII\]$`\lambda `$3727 line emission and the 2800 Å continuum luminosities using the relations of Kennicutt (1998). The average SFRs at $`z_{mean}=1.096`$ are SFR(\[OII\])=3.6 M yr-1 and SFR(L2800)= 1.8 M yr-1. Adopting the comoving volume included between the observed $`z_{min}`$ and $`z_{max}`$, the corresponding SFR densities are SFRD(\[OII\])=0.0011 and SFRD(L2800)=0.0005 M yr-1 Mpc-3. Such SFRDs clearly represent lower limits because no corrections for dust extinction and for incompleteness have been applied. However, such SFRs may also be partly overestimated if dust-obscured AGN activity is present in some EROs as suggested by the possible \[NeV\]$`\lambda `$3426 emission (Fig.1).

If we conservatively adopt an average $`E(BV)0.5`$ (see Section 4) and apply the corresponding extinction corrections, the ERO SFRD becomes $`0.015`$ M yr-1 Mpc-3, formally corresponding to a contribution of about 20% to the global SFRD of the universe at $`z1`$ (without counting EROs) corrected for dust extinction ($`0.08`$ M yr-1 Mpc-3, as discussed by Somerville et al. 2001). Even if the uncertainties are large because of the assumptions on the SFR estimators and on the adopted extinction curve, our result strongly suggests that EROs may be important in the cosmic star formation budget at $`z1`$.

Our results also suggest that the ERO selection provides the possibility to uncover the population of high-$`z`$ dusty star-forming galaxies in a way complementary to the surveys for submillimeter/millimeter-selected galaxies. In fact, if the dereddened SFRs of star-forming EROs are in the range of 50-150 M yr-1 (possible for $`E(BV)0.50.7`$), this would suggest that their far-infrared luminosities are generally below $`10^{12}`$ L (adopting the relationship SFR\[M yr-1\]=$`4.5\times 10^{44}`$LFIR\[erg s-1\]; Kennicutt 1998). Such a scenario would explain the origin of the low detection rates of EROs in submillimeter/millimeter continuum follow-up observations, typically sensitive to detect ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIGs, L$`>10^{12}`$ L) at $`z`$$`\stackrel{>}{}`$1 (e.g. Mohan et al. 2001).

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the referee, P. McCarthy, for the constructive comments, and the VLT support astronomers for their kind assistance. AC warmly thanks ESO (Garching) for the hospitality during his visits, A. Franceschini for useful discussion and B. Poggianti for providing the VLIG spectrum.