text:
# Future Low 𝑥 Physics and Facilities

## 1 HERA-2

The only existing lepton-nucleon collider which accesses the region of low Bjorken $`x`$ is HERA. During 2001 the detectors were upgraded and the machine was modified to significantly increase the luminosity. Spin rotators were installed enabling to run the collider experiments H1 and ZEUS with longitudinally polarised positrons and electrons. It is now expected to collect over the coming five years an integrated luminosity of 1 fb-1, which represents about ten times the luminosity recorded in HERA’s first running period. This luminosity upgrade primarily is dedicated to the exploration of the low cross section region at high momentum transfers, $`Q^2M_Z^2`$. Yet, a wealth of precise low $`x`$ data can still be expected from HERA which are necessary to further develop low $`x`$ theory. These comprise for example: i) a precision measurement of $`\alpha _s`$ from scaling violations of $`F_2`$, ii) the accurate measurement of the $`x`$ dependence of the longitudinal structure function $`F_L`$ from a series of runs with lowered proton beam energy, iii) first measurements of $`F_2^b`$ and precision data on $`F_2^c`$ in an extended $`x`$ range using new Silicon detectors, iv) data on the diffractive structure functions $`F_2^{D3}`$ and $`F_2^{D4}`$ with a new, very forward proton spectrometer, v) accurate data on vector meson production, on final states and on charm in diffraction. An exciting decade of low $`x`$, high precision $`ep`$ physics is ahead. Key questions in low $`x`$ physics, however, will remain unanswered even after completion of the HERA-2 run because it is restricted to electron-proton scattering at energy $`s=4E_eE_p<10^5`$ GeV2, and because the low $`Q^2`$ acceptance range, around 1 GeV2, in H1 and ZEUS is now obstructed by focusing magnets.

## 2 Low $`x`$ Physics Beyond HERA-2

Future low $`x`$ physics, which can only be sketched here, regards the unknown behaviour of the neutron, photon and nuclear structure, of the nucleon spin composition in this domain and it needs to clarify experimentally the question of saturation. Super-high-energy neutrino scattering  and the LHC data cannot be reliably understood without extending the $`x`$ range considerably beyond the region accessed in $`ep`$ scattering at HERA.

After completion of the currently approved HERA programme there remain precision measurements to be performed in the low $`x`$ region at HERA. These regard in particular the measurement of jets very close to the proton beam direction, to understand the emission of gluons, and the low $`Q^21`$ GeV2 region, in particular the longitudinal structure function $`F_L`$ and the diffractive structure function $`F_2^{D,4}`$ . Such a programme needs the forward and backward regions very close to the beam pipe at HERA to be reopened and upgraded. Efficient proton tagging and a small beam divergence are required as for electron-deuteron scattering.

Deuterons are a source of quasi-free neutrons, apart from nuclear shadowing effects at low $`x<0.1`$. These are related to the diffractive parton densities which provide enough constraint to control shadowing to better than 1-2% of the cross section . The asymmetry of sea quarks, $`\overline{u}\overline{d}`$, can thus be accurately measured from the difference $`F_2^pF_2^n`$, which is free of Pomeron exchange. Furthermore, $`ed`$ data are essential in the unfolding of parton distributions, such as $`sc`$ or the $`d/u`$ ratio, in determining charged current structure functions and in precision tests of the $`Q^2`$ evolution in perturbative QCD. Electron-deuteron scattering appears to be the natural next step beyond $`ep`$ scattering.

Investigation of the nucleon spin structure with $`\stackrel{}{e}\stackrel{}{N}`$ colliders will explore spin phenomena at high $`Q^2`$ and at low $`x`$ for the first time. This opens a completely new field for testing QCD,  making use of the complete final state reconstruction capabilities. For example, dijet signatures can be used to measure the spin distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$. The behaviour of the spin structure function $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ at low $`x`$ is unknown, but expected to change even more dramatically than $`F_2`$. The $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`g_1`$ determines the gluon spin distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$. The integral of $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ enters the proton spin decomposition, $`1/2=J_g+1/2\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }+L_q`$, together with the quark orbital angular momentum and the quark spin distributions, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }=_i\mathrm{\Delta }q_i`$, which are similarly undetermined at low $`x`$. Here $`J_g=\mathrm{\Delta }G𝑑x+L_g`$. Semi-inclusive measurements explore the flavour structure of spin and DVCS is sensitive to off diagonal parton distributions. Photoproduction gives insight into the polarised gluon structure of the photon. The kinematic region of polarised $`eN`$ scattering is a vast terra incognita beyond the fixed target experiment domain. The first $`\stackrel{}{e}\stackrel{}{N}`$ collider experiment, extending also to high $`Q^2`$, may change radically our view on nucleon spin structure since it accesses the sea and the gluon.

The rise of the proton structure function $`F_2`$ towards low $`x`$ in the DIS region is due to a high sea quark density related to a gluon distribution $`xgF_2/\mathrm{ln}Q^2`$ which also rises towards low $`x`$ as $`x`$ Since $`xg`$ is roughly expected to be enhanced $`A^{1/3}`$ in nuclei of atomic number $`A`$, in electron-nucleus ($`eA`$) scattering an equivalent Bjorken $`x=x_N/(A^{1/3})^{1/\lambda }`$ is accessed: nuclei can thus be utilized to $`preview`$ a kinematic region which in $`ep`$ scattering requires a considerable increase of energy $`s`$. This is illustrated by extrapolating $`xg`$ and its experimental uncertainty, using the NLO QCD analysis by the H1 Collaboration , much beyond its range of validity towards extremely low $`x`$ in Fig.1. At a certain value of $`x`$, the rise of the gluon distribution is expected to contradict unitarity limits  which, within an uncertainty of about a factor of two, limit $`xg`$ by $`Q^2/\alpha _s(Q^2)`$. Depending on higher order corrections, contributions $`\mathrm{ln}1/x`$, shadowing effects, the chosen parameterisation of $`xg`$ at minimum $`Q^2`$, the heavy flavour treatment and for different $`A`$ than Ca ($`A=40`$), this picture may be drawn differently. Yet, Fig.1

illustrates the expected density amplification effect of nuclei. Notice in particular the great extension of kinematic range with THERA,  which is the $`eN`$ collider using HERA ($`N`$) and TESLA ($`e^\pm `$). With nuclei, THERA directly accesses the range of super-high-energy neutrino astrophysics with $`x`$ as small as $`10^8`$. Diffraction in nuclei may constitute up to 50% of the inclusive cross section, and since $`xg`$ enters squared into the diffractive cross section, non-linear damping effects may possibly be seen in diffraction first.

## 3 Lepton-Nucleon Collider Prospects

HERA is scheduled to run with upgraded luminosity of $`710^{31}`$cm-2s-1 until the end of 2006.  The ultimate value is estimated to be $`1.310^{32}`$cm-2s-1 which corresponds to an annual luminosity of about 500 pb-1. With such high luminosity the measurement of small asymmetries at low $`x`$ in polarised $`\stackrel{}{e}\stackrel{}{p}`$ scattering is statistically feasible. Polarised electron-proton interactions require a high proton polarisation transferred through the accelerator chain, polarimeters and Siberian snakes for spin rotation. Because of the small anomalous magnetic deuteron moment, polarised $`\stackrel{}{e}\stackrel{}{d}`$ collisions may possibly be realised more easily than $`\stackrel{}{e}\stackrel{}{p}`$. Ions can be accelerated at HERA with some modifications regarding the source, electron cooling in PETRA for heavier nuclei to counter intrabeam scattering (IBS) effects, longer bunch trains and ramp cycles. The luminosity is then estimated to scale as $`L_AL_p/A`$. For deuterons the IBS time exceeds 2h and a luminosity of $`3.510^{31}`$cm-2s-1 can be achieved without cooling. Thus a high luminosity $`ed`$ run can be done right after completion of HERA-2 without any major modification beyond the source.

The EIC  is a project to be proposed in about 2005 as an intense polarised electron-ion collider using electron-beam-cooled ions in RHIC (of up to $`E_p=250`$GeV proton and $`E_{Au}=100`$GeV/A gold energy) colliding with electrons from a ring or linear accelerator of 10 GeV maximum energy. Thus the EIC has 10 times less energy $`\sqrt{s}`$ than HERA. With high luminosity it yet extends the range of current polarised experiments and with heavy nuclei it accesses the region of high parton density. The ring-ring accelerator has an estimated luminosity of $`25(0.7)10^{31}`$cm-2s-1 for p (Au) which is comparable to HERA after run 2. With an energy recovery linac one expects to obtain still higher luminosity of $`100(1.0)10^{31}`$cm-2s-1 for p (Au). The linac, while accelerating $`e^{}`$ only, has the further advantages of providing high polarisation and avoiding synchrotron radiation background.

THERA  collides TESLA leptons of $`250800`$ GeV off HERA nucleons with luminosities of $`0.42.510^{31}`$cm-2s-1 corresponding to annual integrated values between 40 and 250 pb-1 since in a linear electron machine the current does not degrade with time. The TESLA cavities are of standing wave type which allows both arms to be used for acceleration. The rather symmetric $`e/p`$ energy ratio implies that electrons scattered at low $`Q^2`$ and $`x`$ have to be measured very close to the $`e`$ beam direction. Since there is no upstream synchrotron radiation background the beam pipe radius can be small ($``$ 2cm), and the pipe can be equipped with conical exit windows. In the THERA detector design sketched in Fig.2 the mid-backward detector part can be removed for luminosity optimisation. The highest luminosities require precooling in PETRA and dynamic focusing. Much of the low $`x`$ physics, however, can be done with less than 10 pb-1 which opens the exciting possibility to perform the low $`x`$ $`ep`$ programme simultaneously with precision electroweak $`e^+e^{}`$ physics.

THERA would complement the $`e^+e^{}`$ and $`pp`$ colliders in the TeV energy range and cover a huge field of physics as well as accessing the smallest Bjorken $`x`$ values. A superconducting linac with a bunch crossing time of a few 100 ns could also be combined with the Tevatron. An electron ring of 60 GeV energy on top of the LHC would access about the same kinematic region as THERA with an estimated luminosity  of $`10^{32}`$cm-2s-1.

## 4 Summary

Deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering has been a most exciting field of research over three decades. HERA has contributed enormously to the development of strong interaction theory and it will continue to do so with high precision data for quite some time. While many new effects have been observed, they still give rise to basic, yet-unanswered questions in the field of low $`x`$ physics. These regard the saturation of the rise of $`F_2`$ and $`xg`$, the cross-section behaviour down to $`x10^8`$, the mechanism of gluon emission, the nature of diffraction, the theory of heavy quarks in the proton, the unknown spin structure at low $`x`$, etc. Confinement is not understood, and nearly all mass is carried by nucleons, the deep structure of which has only just been addressed experimentally. Future experiments have to aim at maximum accuracy, to extend the kinematic range, to reach regions of higher quark and gluon density, to accelerate nuclei in colliding $`eA`$ mode as well as to study polarised lepton-nucleon interactions at much higher energy than hitherto. High-luminosity DIS has a discovery potential which requires continuing efforts. These successfully focus on three projects, HERA-3, the EIC and THERA, which all deserve to be realised, since they cover different regions in phase space at different times. One hundred years after Rutherford, lepton-nucleon scattering experiments exploring the deep structure of matter will continue to attract our attention.


format: text

text:
# Shell filling in closed single-wall carbon nanotube quantum dots

(Dec. 6, 2001)

## Abstract

We observe two-fold shell filling in the spectra of closed one-dimensional quantum dots formed in single-wall carbon nanotubes. Its signatures include a bimodal distribution of addition energies, correlations in the excitation spectra for different electron number, and alternation of the spins of the added electrons. This provides a contrast with quantum dots in higher dimensions, where such spin pairing is absent. We also see indications of an additional fourfold periodicity indicative of K-K subband shells. Our results suggest that the absence of shell filling in most isolated nanotube dots results from disorder or nonuniformity.

Quantum dots are of broad fundamental interest, both because they are ubiquitous in nanoscale systems, and because they enable extensions and generalizations of the physics of atoms, molecules, nuclei, and impurities in solids ref (a). Two-dimensional (2D) dots formed in semiconductor heterostructures, with controllable size and contact transparency, have been studied intensively for a decade ref (b). Recently, thanks to the arrival of new systems including nanoparticles Ralph et al. (1995), fullerenes H. Park et al. (2000) and nanotubes 5 (5), it has become possible to investigate the influences of geometry, band structure, atomic confirmation, vibrations, and surface chemistry on quantum dots. As with atoms and nuclei, in quantum dots symmetry-related orbital degeneracies combined with spin and the Pauli principle can lead to electronic shells. Shells have indeed been observed in small, symmetric 3D and 2D dots, such as warm metal clusters 6 (6) and small vertical semiconductor dots 7 (7), respectively. However, shell filling is disrupted if the spatial symmetry is imperfect or if the number of electrons $`N`$ is so large that shells overlap in energy. This explains why the spectra of metal nanoparticles and larger semiconductor dots appear chaotic, lacking (as a result of exchange interactions) even the two-fold shells that could arise from the spin degeneracy of each orbital 8 (8, 9).

One-dimensional (1D) quantum dots are now available 10 (10, 11), in the form of single-wall carbon nanotubes. In nanotubes the sole orbital symmetry is a two-fold one, corresponding to the K-K subband degeneracy and resulting from the equivalence of the two atoms in the primitive cell of the graphene structure. Combined with spin this gives a possibility of four-electron shells. As yet unpublished reports 12 (12, 13) indicate that four-electron periodicity can indeed be seen in ‘open’ nanotube devices, where the contacts are highly transparent and the electron states are not localised on the tube. Here we report the perhaps more surprising result that even clean ‘closed’ nanotube dots, showing complete Coulomb blockade (CB), can exhibit simple two-electron spin shells in the addition spectrum, as well as the disordered remnants of four-fold shells. The results imply that, for moderate disorder, exchange corrections are very small in this 1D system, in contrast with the 2D and 3D cases.

Our devices were made by evaporating metal (typically 25 nm gold on 5 nm chromium) contacts, patterned by electron beam lithography, on top of nanotubes grown by laser ablation 14 (14) and deposited from a sonicated suspension in dichloroethane onto SiO2. Their geometry is indicated on the right of Fig. 1. The separation of the two contacts (source and drain) is $`L300`$ nm, and the highly doped silicon below acts as a metallic gate electrode. In all cases the quantity measured was the dc source-drain current $`I`$ with a bias $`V`$ applied to the source and the drain grounded. At low temperature the majority of devices show CB oscillations of the linear conductance $`G`$ as a function of gate voltage $`V_g`$, with varying degrees of regularity 15 (15). We focus here on one quantum dot, selected from about fifty, which exhibited particularly long and regular sequences of CB peaks, as illustrated in Fig. 1a.

A region containing 18 peaks is expanded in Fig. 1b. The spacing, $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g`$, of each pair of adjacent peaks is plotted in Fig. 1c. We see that it alternates, in such a way that we can index the blockade regions with an integer $`n`$ which is even for all the larger $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g`$ values. In a histogram of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g`$ (Fig. 1d) the odd-$`n`$ values all fall in a bin of width 10 mV centered on 100 mV, while the even-$`n`$ values are distributed between about 110 and 140 mV.

The quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g`$ reflects the addition energy, ie, the extra energy required for adding the $`N`$+1’th electron to the dot relative to the $`N`$’th ref (a); 16 (16). Its even-odd alternation naturally suggests two-electron shell filling. To analyse it further, we start with the constant-interaction (CI) model of a quantum dot. This model assumes that the total energy depends only on a given set of orbital energies and a single constant interaction parameter $`U`$, which is the repulsion between any two electrons on the dot. For odd $`N`$, the $`N`$+1’th electron enters the same orbital as the $`N`$’th, with energy $`ϵ_i`$, and the resulting separation of the CB peaks is $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g=U/e\alpha `$, where $`e`$ is the electronic charge and $`\alpha <1`$ is a capacitance ratio. For even $`N`$ the $`N`$+1’th electron enters the next orbital, with energy $`ϵ_{i+1}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g=(U+ϵ_{i+1}ϵ_i)/e\alpha `$. If we identify even $`N`$ with even $`n`$ in the experiment, then the interpretation of the peaks in the histogram of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g`$ is as indicated in the sketches to the right of Fig. 1d. Using $`\alpha =0.10`$ for this device (which can be obtained from the nonlinear measurements discussed below), we then deduce that $`U10`$ meV, while $`ϵ_{i+1}ϵ_i`$ is distributed over the range 1–4 meV. These values are consistent with the usual results for closed nanotube dots 17 (17) that $`U/\delta 5`$ and $`\delta =hv_F/4L`$, where $`\delta `$ is the mean level spacing (assuming the only degeneracy is spin), $`v_F8\times 10^5`$ ms-1 is the Fermi velocity, and $`\delta 2.7`$ meV for $`L300`$ nm.

The CI model predicts that successive CB peaks should show related excitation spectra. The excitations can be studied ref (b) by making a greyscale plot of $`\mathrm{d}I/\mathrm{d}V`$ against $`V_g`$ and the bias $`V`$, as in Fig. 2a. In the diamond-shaped blockade regions no current flows and $`N`$ is fixed, while within the cross-shaped regions the patterns reflect the spectra of transitions between $`N`$ and $`N`$+1 electrons. The first prediction is that for a given shell, the allowed transition energies for adding or removing electrons should be identical. Indeed, we observe that the crosses separated by odd-$`n`$ diamonds, indicated by dotted lines, bear a clear resemblence (though they are never identical). The second prediction is that for adjacent shells, the allowed transitions should follow the same pattern but displaced such that the ground state for one corresponds to the lowest excited state for the other 18 (18). This prediction also holds true, albeit only approximately, in the nanotube dot. A particularly close match occurs for the two central crosses in Fig. 2a. They are shown again in Fig. 2b with the right-hand cross displaced vertically, allowing us to draw horizontal dotted lines which match all the visible electron-adding transitions on both crosses simultaneously.

Furthermore, in the CI model an applied magnetic field $`B`$ splits the two spin levels of each orbital by the Zeeman energy. The result is that most transitions split into pairs, because an electron can be added to an empty orbital, or removed from a full one, with either spin. The only transitions which do not split are those bordering the odd-$`N`$ diamonds, which involve the singly occupied orbital 19 (19). We see this pattern whenever the peak pairing can be identified (as well as most the of the time even when it cannot). For example, Fig. 3 shows the central region from Fig. 2a at $`B=6`$ T. Nearly all the visible transitions are split into pairs, with the exception of those bordering the $`n=3`$ and $`5`$ diamonds.

The essence of the above results is captured in the sketches above Fig. 3, which indicate transitions corresponding to the same orbital on four consecutive CB peaks (crosses). Such an all-round agreement with the CI model has not been found in semiconductor (2D) or metal (3D) quantum dots. This is believed to be because of exchange terms, omitted from the CI model, which modify the level spectrum as $`N`$ changes 8 (8). In 2D and 3D these terms are large enough (relative to $`\delta `$) to shuffle the order in which states are occupied and preclude spin shell filling. Our results imply that in 1D dots the opposite is true: exchange effects are small enough for spin shells to exist.

If exchange corrections are indeed small, then the distribution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g`$ for even $`n`$ in Fig. 1d reflects the distribution of ($`N`$-independent) level spacings, $`ϵ_{i+1}ϵ_i`$. For chaotic quantum dots, this distribution is given by random matrix theory (RMT) 20 (20). RMT is thought to be appropriate for 2D and 3D dots at large $`N`$. However, it is not applicable for a clean 1D dot, which has uniformly spaced levels for all $`N`$. In fact, a likely origin of the broad distribution we observe is suggested by scanned-probe measurements 21 (21), which reveal that nanotubes contain defects. Each defect backscatters resonantly as a function of gate voltage in a manner dependent on its nature 22 (22). A random collection of defects can therefore lead to a complicated spectrum, with a corresponding distribution of level spacings, unique to each nanotube. It will however probably not randomise the Hamiltonian matrix sufficiently for RMT to be applicable.

In nearly all nanotube dots studied to date (see e.g. refs. 10 (10) and 11 (11)), most of the Coulomb diamonds are distorted, with accompanying complex and variable excitation patterns. Similar distortions occur in our selected device at some gate voltages, as can be seen in Figs. 4a and b. The lines of shallower slope in this grayscale plot correspond to a different source-gate capacitance ratio, implying that the geometry of the nanotube dot is not perfectly well defined and can effectively differ between eigenstates. This too can be explained by imperfections: a resonant defect may leave most electron states delocalized throughout the tube, but near resonance it can effectively divide the tube electronically into smaller dots with different capacitances and very asymmetric couplings to the source and drain 21 (21). It may be that our device acts as a single quantum dot over large regions of $`V_g`$ because it contains relatively few defects. Other types of imperfection are also present, including a nonuniform (and possibly dynamically varying) electrostatic potential along the tube, resulting from the electrode potentials and from nearby trapped charges, which it has been suggested 23 (23, 24) may account for the occasional observation of sequences of electrons appearing to enter the tube with the same spin 25 (25).

The observation of spin shells prompts the question of whether the K-K band degeneracy also affects the shell structure. Combined with spin this might produce a fourfold, instead of a twofold, grouping of the peaks. No fourfold grouping is obvious in the data of Figs. 1–3. This does not seem surprising, because the K and K states are very likely to be mixed, either by defects or at the contacts, lifting their degeneracy. Indeed, the measured average level spacing only agrees with theory if this degeneracy is assumed lifted (leading to $`\delta =hv_F/4L`$). However, consider instead the selections of data in Fig. 4. In Fig. 4a the peak spacings, plotted in Fig. 4c, are larger for every fourth diamond. Meanwhile, in Fig. 4b, we see that certain features repeat every four peaks; for example, the pronounced skewing of the ground-state transition line, which we have marked with solid circles in Fig. 4b. The fact that a fourfold periodicity survives in this complex data could be explained as follows. Assume that a given ($`i`$’th) quartet of peaks is associated with wavefunctions having $`i`$ nodes along the tube. The wavefunctions and energies may be disrupted by disorder and exchange. However, the $`i`$+1’th quartet will be disrupted in a similar way to the $`i`$’th, because the addition of one extra node has little consequence as long as the energy is not close to a defect resonance (where the scattering phase varies rapidly with energy). The result will be a complex pattern which repeats, approximately, every time four electrons are added.

We have noticed a clearer four-fold peak grouping in devices which exhibit strong Kondo resonances of the conductance 26 (26). Moreover, very recent studies of similar devices with high contact transparency have shown unmistakable four-fold patterns 12 (12, 13). With such “open” contacts the current is never strongly blockaded, and the electronic states are only weakly confined in the tube. This makes them less sensitive both to disorder and to interactions in the tube, the latter being confirmed by the greatly reduced values of $`U/\delta `$ observed. With nearly ideal contacts, it appears in fact that the charging energy $`U`$ can be neglected completely and the device treated as a noninteracting electron waveguide with weak scattering at the contacts only 27 (27).

The electron system in a nanotube is nevertheless expected to show strong correlations described by Luttinger liquid theory, for which there is a growing body of evidence 17 (17). Many intriguing questions remain as to how the correlations relate to the excitation spectrum, the disorder, and the apparently small exchange terms that allow spin shells to be seen. Nanotube devices containing fewer or no defects, and with improved control of the electrostatic potential, will be required to further our understanding of these finite 1D quantum systems.

In summary, we find that closed one-dimensional quantum dots, unlike their higher dimensional counterparts, can exhibit twofold spin shell filling. We thank Nick d’Ambrumenil, Karsten Flensberg, Poul Erik Lindelof, Boris Muzykantskii, and Neil Wilson for helpful discussions. The experiments were supported by the Danish Research Councils (SNF, STVF).


text:
# Role of disorder in half-filled high Landau levels

## Abstract

We study the effects of disorder on the quantum Hall stripe phases in half-filled high Landau levels using exact numerical diagonalization. We show that, in the presence of weak disorder, a compressible, striped charge density wave, becomes the true ground state. The projected electron density profile resembles that of a smectic liquid. With increasing disorder strength $`W`$, we find that there exists a critical value, $`W_c0.12e^2/ϵ\mathrm{}`$, where a transition/crossover to an isotropic phase with strong local electron density fluctuations takes place. The many-body density of states are qualitatively distinguishable in these two phases and help elucidate the nature of the transition.

Recent experiments have discovered a set of new, compressible states with anisotropic low-temperature magnetotransport properties in high mobility quantum Hall systems near half-filling of the high Landau levels (LLs) . Subsequently, it was proposed that these properties, emerging as a consequence of strong long-range electronic correlations and the quenching of the kinetic energy, are manifestations of the electronic liquid-crystal phases with partially broken translation and rotational symmetries . The anomalous anisotropic transport can be interpreted as arising from a rotational symmetry breaking ground states, i.e. a smectic or a stripe ordered charge-density wave (CDW) phase . Remarkably, a unidirectional CDW state has been predicted to occur in half-filled high LLs in the Hartree-Fock (HF) theory . However, it has been known that the smectic liquid phase in the HF theory is always unstable to translation-symmetry breaking density modulations along the stripes . The latter produces an anisotropic but incompressible striped crystal that is insulating in both directions, inconsistent with experiments. It is thus important to consider quantum fluctuations beyond the HF theory, which is under active investigation.

In this paper, we study the effects of disorder on the ground state and low energy excitations in half-filled high LLs using exact numerical diagonalizations of finite systems with up to twelve electrons. Previously, exact diagonalizations were carried out by Rezayi, Haldane, and Yang  (hereafter referred to as RHY) for clean systems. Although the ground state in this case does not directly exhibit stripe order, RHY discovered that the static density response function $`\chi (𝐪)`$ and the correlation function $`S_0(𝐪)`$ are both sharply and strongly peaked at $`𝐪^{}=(q_x^{},0)`$, indicative of the tendency towards the formation of a unidirectional CDW. They conjectured that in the thermodynamic limit, an external modulation with a period matching $`𝐪^{}`$ will result in a quantum Hall stripe phase. We will show that the presence of disorder leads to several interesting and important results for the ground state and the low energy excitations: (i) A very weak random potential associated with disorder induces a compressible quantum smectic phase as the true ground state. (ii) There exists a critical/characteristic disorder strength, $`W_c0.12e^2/ϵ\mathrm{}`$ where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the magnetic length, which marks a transition/crossover from the anisotropic smectic phase at $`W<W_c`$ to an isotropic fluid phase at $`W>W_c`$ . We illustrate the changes in the collective excitation spectrum in terms of the disorder-averaged many-body density of states (mDOS) at low energies. We show that the latter exhibits an intriguing crossover from that resembles a finite density of in-gap states in the smectic phase to that of a vanishing Coulomb gap behavior in the isotropic phase.

We consider a two-dimensional system in an $`a\times b`$ rectangular cell with periodic boundary conditions imposed in both $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions . In the presence of a strong magnetic field, one can project the Hamiltonian onto the up-most, partially-filled, $`N`$-th Landau level. The projected Hamiltonian in the presence of both Coulomb interaction and disorder can be written as:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}e^{q^2/2}[L_N(q^2/2)]^2V(q)e^{i𝐪(𝐑_𝐢𝐑_𝐣)}`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}e^{q^2/4}L_N(q^2/2)V_{\mathrm{imp}}(q)e^{i𝐪𝐑_𝐢}`$ (2)
where $`𝐑_i`$ is the guiding center coordinate of the $`i`$-th electron , $`L_N(x)`$ is the Laguerre Polynomial, $`V(q)=2\pi e^2/ϵq`$ is the Coulomb potential, and $`V_{\mathrm{imp}}(q)`$ is the impurity potential. We set $`\mathrm{}=1`$ and $`e^2/ϵ\mathrm{}=1`$ for convenience. In Eq. (2), the wave vector $`𝐪=2\pi (i_x/a,i_y/b)`$ with $`i_x`$ and $`i_y`$ integers. The disorder potential is generated according to the correlation relation in $`q`$-space $`<V_{\mathrm{imp}}(q)V_{\mathrm{imp}}(q^{})>=W^2\delta _{q,q^{}}`$, which corresponds to $`<V(𝐫)V(𝐫^{})>=W^2\delta (𝐫𝐫^{})`$ in real space, where $`W`$ is the strength of the disorder in units of $`e^2/ϵ\mathrm{}`$. We consider up to $`N_e=12`$ electrons, spanning a Hilbert space of size $`N_{\mathrm{basis}}=2,704,156`$. Since the disorder potential spoils the symmetry classifications of the states used in RHY, we must deal with the entire Hilbert space. We obtain the exact low energy eigenstates and eigen wave-functions using the Lanczos diagonalization method.

The most direct probe of charge density order in the ground state is the projected electron density $`\rho (𝐫)`$, i.e. the equivalent electron density in the lowest LL describing the spatial distribution of the guiding center (GC) . It is given by

$$\rho (𝐫)=\underset{j1,j2}{}0|a_{j_1}^+\varphi _{j_1}^{}(𝐫)\varphi _{j_2}(𝐫)a_{j_2}|0,$$
(3)
where the summation is over all single particle orbits and $`\varphi _j(𝐫)`$ is the corresponding wavefunction in the lowest LL. In Fig. 1, we show how $`\rho (𝐫)`$ in the ground state evolves with disorder strength $`W`$ for the number of electrons $`N_e=10`$ in the $`N=2`$ LL. The aspect ratio of the system is $`A=b/a=0.75`$, which is an optimized geometry for observing the instability toward the formation of a stripe phase as suggested by RHY. For a very weak disorder strength, $`W=0.015`$, the typical behavior of $`\rho (𝐫)`$ is shown in Fig. 1a as a function of the two-dimensional coordinates. Two nearly perfect stripes are formed along the $`y`$-direction with essentially no density modulations along the stripes. This is the first direct demonstration by exact method of the stripe ordered ground state in finite systems in the presence of weak disorder.

It is important to note that in the clean case studied by RHY, the ground state and all exact many-body eigenstates are spatially homogeneous due to the translational symmetry of the Hamiltonian. Only certain combinations of the five low-lying, nearly degenerate eigenstates, separated by the unique wave vector $`𝐪^{}`$, can give rise to a stripe phase that has a substantial overlap with the HF unidirectional CDW state. It may be possible to realize such a constructed stripe phase in the thermodynamic limit in clean systems if an external potential modulation is present with a wave vector that matches $`𝐪^{}`$ . However, when a relatively weak disorder is turned on, it causes a natural mixing of the low-lying eigenstates and the near degeneracy is lifted. At the same time, the random disorder potential necessarily introduces an oscillatory component matching the wave vector $`𝐪^{}`$. The presence of the enormous static density response $`\chi (𝐪𝐪^{})`$ then gives rise to the unidirectional CDW, or the stripe order in the ground state that we observe.

To further support the picture of weak disorder induced stripe order in the ground state, we calculated the projected equal time density-density correlation function $`S_0(𝐪)`$ defined as follows:

$`S_0(𝐪)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_e}}<0|{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}e^{i𝐪(𝐑_𝐢𝐑_𝐣)}|0>.`$ (4)
We find that for weak disorder of strength $`W0.05`$, $`S_0(𝐪)`$ is quantitatively indistinguishable from the result of RHY for the corresponding clean system, showing strong and sharp peaks at $`𝐪^{}=(\pm 0.97,0)`$ for $`2\pi /a=0.485`$, with a peak value $`S_0(𝐪^{})=3.7`$ in the case of $`N_e=10`$. The peak value of $`S_0(𝐪)`$ increases with the number of electrons to 4.9 at $`N_e=12`$. It can be seen from Fig. 1a that the width of the stripes is given by $`D_s=a/2`$, which equals $`2\pi /q_x^{}`$ with $`q_x=4\pi /a`$, as implied in this picture. It is interesting to note that the edges of the stripes are rather soft, resembling that of a single dominant harmonic variation. Next we discuss the evolution of the ground state with increasing disorder strength $`W`$. Fig. 1b shows the real space profile of $`\rho (𝐫)`$ at $`W=0.045`$. There are still two complete stripes with the same stripe width $`D_s`$. Although density modulations along the stripes are still minimal, the shape of the stripes exhibits pronounced variations in the stripe direction. Thus we conclude that for weak to moderate disorder strength, the ground state is in the quantum Hall smectic phase.

The behavior of the static density-density correlation function $`S_0(𝐪)`$ in the smectic phase is exemplified in Fig. 2a for $`W=0.09`$. Despite the relatively strong disorder potential, the peaks of $`S_0(𝐪)`$ are still locked at $`𝐪^{}`$, but the peak value has been reduced to $`1.96`$. The entire structure of $`S_0(𝐪)`$ remains qualitatively unchanged from the clean limit . The absence of new, emerging peaks at other $`𝐪`$ suggests that the smectic ground state is stable against density modulations along the stripes, even in the presence of translational-symmetry breaking disorder potentials.

We next demonstrate that further increasing the disorder strength $`W`$ eventually makes the smectic phase unstable. The projected density $`\rho (𝐫)`$ is shown in Fig. 1c for $`W=0.1`$. At this value of $`W`$, the smectic phase is on the brink of being unstable. $`\rho (𝐫)`$ shows very strong shape fluctuations and significant density modulations along the stripes with detectable inter-stripe correlations. At a still larger $`W=0.14`$, the $`\rho (𝐫)`$ plotted in Fig. 2d shows that the long-range stripe order is lost: the stripes become raptured and riddled with defects, very much like in the nematic phase. Furthermore, the local orientation of the short-range stripes show indications that it has been rotated away from the $`y`$-axis. The corresponding $`S_0(𝐪)`$ is shown in Fig. 2b. It is clear that the primary peaks around $`𝐪^{}`$ become very much broadened with significantly reduced peak values. Concomitantly, several competing peaks appear in $`S_0(𝐪)`$, marking the breakdown of the smectic phase by random disorder and the emergence of a nematic/isotropic phase with local electron density variations. The positions of these peaks are random and dependent on the disorder configuration. These results suggest that there exists a smectic to nematic-like or isotropic phase transition, or a sharp crossover that takes place at a critical/characteristic $`W_c`$ between $`W=0.10`$ and $`W=0.14`$. We note that it is somewhat difficult to distinguish between a nematic-like and an isotropic phase with short-range stripe correlations in our finite size systems.

In order to pin down $`W_c`$, 40 different disorder configurations have been studied in detail. We find that the disorder strength $`W_c`$, at which multiple random peaks develop in $`S_0(𝐪)`$ and compete with the primary peaks at $`𝐪^{}`$, is always around a narrow region of $`W_c=0.12`$. As expected, the same value of $`W_c`$ can be extracted directly from the spatial distributions of $`\rho (𝐫)`$ shown in Fig. 1. In Fig. 3a, we plot the disorder averaged peak values of $`S_0(𝐪^{})`$ for $`N_e=8`$ and $`N_e=10`$ as a function of $`W`$. $`S_0(𝐪^{})`$ stays almost constant for relatively weak disorder ($`W0.05`$). Then it begins to drop rather quickly around $`W=0.07`$, while the strong peaks of $`S_0(𝐪)`$ remain at $`𝐪^{}`$ and the emergent peaks at other values of $`𝐪`$ are absent. For even stronger disorder, $`S_0(𝐪^{})`$ becomes comparable to the background value of $`S_0(𝐪)`$, which is approximately 0.5 for electrons at half-filling, and simultaneously random peaks emerge around $`𝐪^{}`$. Such a change occurs around $`W_c=0.12`$ for $`N_e=10`$ as marked in Fig. 3a. Due to the finite size effect, the value of $`W_c`$ for $`N_e=8`$ is around $`0.1`$.

We next construct the “order parameters” of the smectic phase $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_y`$, which essentially describe the overlap of the true ground state with the HF unidirectional CDW state ,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_x=<[\underset{j_x}{}\frac{1}{n_s}(n_{j_x}n_{j_x+j0})^2]^{1/2}>.$$
(5)
Here, $`<\mathrm{}>`$ denotes the average over 200 and 40 disorder configurations for $`N_e=8`$ and $`N_e=10`$ respectively. In Eq. (5), the summation is over all single-particle cyclotron orbits along $`x`$-direction with a density $`n_{j_x}=<0|a_{j_x}^+a_{j_x}|0>`$, $`n_s=2N_e`$ is the number of orbits in each LL whereas $`j_0=(D_s/2)/(a/n_s)=n_s/4`$ is the half stripe width in units of orbit number. $`\mathrm{\Delta }_y`$ can be similarly defined.

In Fig. 3b, both $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_y`$ are shown as a function of the disorder strength $`W`$. At $`W=0`$, the ground state is in the uniform phase for the translational invariance of the system, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x=\mathrm{\Delta }_y=0`$. However, when we switch on a weak disorder potential that stabilize the stripes stacked in the $`x`$-direction, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ becomes much larger than $`\mathrm{\Delta }_y`$ and is close to 1. Only for the HF wavefunction, where the cyclotron orbits are either fully occupied or completely empty, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x^{\mathrm{HF}}=1`$. The deviation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ from 1 at small $`W`$ is due to the smooth variation of $`<0|a_j^+a_j|0>`$ between high and low occupation orbits, i.e. the softness of the edges shown in $`\rho (𝐫)`$. This remains true for $`N_e=12`$. Although larger system sizes are needed to rule out the finite size effect, we point out that the absence of the sharp edges is an important observation since many of the recent theoretical descriptions of the smectic phase share a common starting point of coupled one-dimensional edge states along the stripes, which requires the presence of sharp edges.

When $`W`$ is increased to $`0.1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ drops quickly to about $`0.3`$, corresponding to the development of the local density modulations along the stripes shown in Fig. 1c. Again we see that $`W_c0.12`$ can be considered as a transition point between a smectic and an isotropic phase with comparable $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_y`$, signaling the loss of long-range anisotropic charge ordering in the ground state. In the strong $`W`$ region, both $`\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_y`$ effectively describe the strong local charge density fluctuations.

To develop further insights into the physical origin and the nature of such a smectic, quantum Hall liquid state, we plot, in Fig. 4, the many-body density of states (mDOS) for $`N_e=10`$ in the second LL. It is clear that for weak disorder, represented by $`W=0.015`$, the mDOS exhibits features of a finite density of in-gap states. Specifically, there is a finite density of low-lying states separated from all excited states by a finite energy gap. This is a direct evidence that the ground state is compressible. The gap value is $`E_g0.015`$ for both $`N_e=10`$ and $`N_e=8`$. All states below the gap (its number equals $`N_e`$) have a similar $`S_0(𝐪)`$ and projected electron density $`\rho (𝐫)`$, each represents a stripe state in the $`y`$-direction shifted away by one orbit distance. They correspond to long-wavelength phonon excitations. The higher energy states above the gap are isotropic, corresponding to interstitial and defect-like excitations accommodated by the impurity potential. The presence of such a finite energy gap in weak disorder and the nature of the in-gap states suggest that the smectic state obtained here is likely to be the stable ground state in the thermodynamic limit.

Upon increasing $`W`$, the isotropic states move toward lower energy and the gap is reduced. At $`W=0.045`$, the gap region has turned into a minimum in the mDOS. However, the mDOS remains finite in the limit $`E0`$, although its value has been reduced as states are transfered to higher energies by disorder. The filling of the energy gap begins to have an impact on the projected electron density in the ground state shown in Fig. 1b in the form of pronounced shape fluctuations along the stripe directions. With the further increase of $`W`$, the gap eventually collapses. At $`W=0.09`$, the mDOS as a function of $`E`$ exhibits a remarkable behavior: it vanishes linearly in the limit $`E0`$. This behavior remains qualitatively unchanged in the strong $`W`$ region and is insensitive to sample sizes for $`N_e=8,10`$ and $`12`$. Further increase of $`W`$ in the absence of the spectral gap causes strong mixing of the low-lying and the excited states and eventually destroy the smectic phase in favor of an isotropic phase with short-range stripe correlations.

We have also studied the transport property of the anisotropic CDW state by calculating the Thouless energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{xx}`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{yy}`$, which is the change in the ground state energy under the change of the boundary condition in the $`x`$ or $`y`$ direction from periodic to antiperiodic. We find that for weak disorder, e.g. $`W=0.015`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{yy}`$ is about 50 times bigger than $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{xx}`$, suggesting  a large transport anisotropy associated with the quantum Hall smectic phase consistent with the experimental findings.

We would like to acknowledge helpful discussions M. Fogler, E. Rezayi and M. P. A. Fisher. D.N.S. would like to thank the hospitality of the Aspen Center for Physics where this work was initiated. D.N.S. is supported by Petroleum Research Fund grant No. ACS-PRF # 36965-AC5 and Research Corporation award No. CC5643. Z.W. is supported by DOE grant No. DE-FG02-99ER45747 and an award from Research Corporation.


text:
# Imaging Sources with Fast and Slow Emission Components

## Abstract

We investigate two-proton correlation functions for reactions in which fast dynamical and slow evaporative proton emission are both present. In such cases, the width of the correlation peak provides the most reliable information about the source size of the fast dynamical component. The maximum of the correlation function is sensitive to the relative yields from the slow and fast emission components. Numerically inverting the correlation function allows one to accurately disentangle fast dynamical from slow evaporative emission and extract details of the shape of the two-proton source.
PACS: 25.70.-z, 25.70.Pq

Intensity interferometry, the investigation of two-particle correlation functions at small relative momenta, can provide important information about the space-time characteristics and underlying dynamics of particle emitting sources \[1-6\]. At incident energies below the pion threshold, two-proton correlation functions \[1,4,5,7-20\] have been the tool of choice for studying various equilibrium and non-equilibrium emission processes. Initial analyses of two-proton correlation functions in terms of instantaneous emission from sources with Gaussian density profiles have yielded source radii that strongly depend on the energy of the emitted particles , indirectly signaling the importance of lifetime, expansion, and/or cooling effects. Later comparisons of measured correlation functions to predictions of reaction models, assuming either slow evaporative emission  or fast emission according to BUU transport calculations \[12,13,16-19,21\], have provided more quantitative understanding. In particular, some of the correlation functions measured for intermediate-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions have been quantitatively reproduced by BUU transport calculations in a number of cases . Other data, primarily at higher incident energies \[17-19\], indicated emission time scales significantly longer than predicted by BUU transport theory. This led to speculations  that proton emission consists of two major components involving significantly different time scales – a fast component consistent with BUU transport theory predictions and a slower component that might originate from the sequential decay of unstable nuclei produced in multifragmentation reactions . Such scenarios may be rather common, with the decay of an equilibrated residue contributing to the slow component at incident energies below the multifragmentation threshold and the decay of excited fragments from multifragmentation processes contributing to the slow component at higher incident energies. When such slow components are present, quantitative comparisons to dynamical models are contingent upon a determination of the relative contributions of these fast and slow components .

Up to now, correlation function analyses have focused upon obtaining a satisfactory description of the maximum of the correlation function and comparatively little attention was paid to its shape. Numerical inversion techniques have been recently developed \[22-24\] that provide the capability to analyze the shape of the correlation function and thereby extract much more detailed information about the particle emission mechanism. In this paper, we apply these techniques to analyze correlation functions for systems with strong admixtures of fast and slow emission components. Using general arguments, we show that the width of the correlation peak provides a clear measure of the source size for the fast component and that the height of the correlation peak provides the key information about the relative yields from the fast and slow emission components. We confirm these insights by a detailed re-analysis of the shapes of two-proton correlation functions that were measured previously for 14N+197Au collisions at E/A=75 MeV  and were described rather unsatisfactorily  by both BUU calculations and by zero-lifetime Gaussian sources.

Experimentally, the (angle-integrated) two-proton correlation function $`1+R(q)`$ is defined in terms of the two-particle coincidence yield $`Y_2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)`$ and the single particle yields $`Y_1(𝐩_1)`$ and $`Y_1(𝐩_2)`$:

$$Y_2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)=C\left(1+R(q)\right)Y_1\left(𝐩_1\right)Y_1\left(𝐩_2\right)$$
(1)
Here, $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$ are the laboratory momenta of the two coincident particles, $`q=\mu v_{rel}`$ is the momentum of relative motion, and $`C`$ is a normalization constant chosen such that $`R(q)=0`$ for large $`q`$ where final-state interaction effects are negligible. For a given experimental gating condition, the sums on each side of Eq. (1) extend over all particle energies and detector combinations corresponding to each bin of $`q`$.

Theoretical correlation functions are calculated from the angle-averaged Koonin-Pratt formula

$$R(q)=4\pi 𝑑rr^2K(q,r)S(r)$$
(2)
where the source function $`S(r)`$ is defined as the probability distribution for emitting a pair of protons with relative distance $`r`$ at the time the second proton is emitted. The source function reflects both the spatial extent and lifetime relevant to single proton emission. An increase in the emission timescale broadens $`S(r)`$, and for typical proton velocities $`v_{proton}`$ and timescales $`\tau `$ such that $`v_{proton}\tau `$ is comparable to or larger than $`r_0`$, the complications of finite emission timescales need special consideration \[1,5,10,11,14,15,20-25\]. The difficult problem posed by the simultaneous presence of very short and very long time scale emissions is discussed below. The angle-averaged kernel, $`K(q,r)`$, is calculated from the radial part of the antisymmetrized two-proton relative wave-function. At short distances, $`K(q,r)`$ is dominated by the strongly attractive singlet S-wave proton-proton interaction which gives rise to a maximum in $`R(q)`$ at relative momentum $`q20`$ MeV/c. The long-range repulsive Coulomb interaction and antisymmetrization both produce a minimum at $`q0`$ MeV/c . Both the peak at $`q`$ 20 MeV/c and the minimum at $`q0`$ MeV/c are clearly visible in the correlation function represented by the solid line in the right panel of Fig. 1.

The solid line in the left panel of the same figure represents the source function for this correlation function. Its shape, reflecting both short and long-ranged components, is representative of intermediate energy heavy ion reactions. The short-ranged contribution, approximated by the dashed line in the left panel, peaks at $`r=0`$ and originates from fast dynamical emissions that dominate the earlier stages of the reaction. This short-range contribution generates the correlation function described by the dashed line in the right panel. The long-ranged contribution, approximated by long exponential tail at large r-values (dot-dashed line, left panel), corresponds to the emission of one or both protons via long time scale secondary decays of excited fragments or the heavy residue, which are produced in the same collision. Unlike the fast component, the secondary decays that contribute to the long-ranged contribution occur over much longer time scales than can be reliably described by transport theory. Moreover, the influence of this long time-scale component (dot-dashed line, right panel) is negligible everywhere except at $`q<15`$ MeV/c, where the Coulomb interaction and the Pauli principle are major factors and the measurements are very difficult.

The similarity of the dashed and solid lines at $`q>10`$ MeV/c in Fig. 1 makes it clear that the correlation function, at such relative momenta, is sensitive only to the fast dynamical portion of this source. However, the long time scale evaporative decays cannot be ignored. To illustrate clearly their influence, let us discuss an extreme example where emission is dominated by two-components, 1) an instantaneous fast component ($`\tau _1=0`$) and 2) a slow component with sufficiently long decay timescale that its correlation function is negligible ($`\tau _2\mathrm{}`$). If fast emission provides a fraction $`f`$ of the emitted protons, $`Y_{1,fast}=fY_1`$, and if slow emission provides the remainder, $`Y_{1,slow}=(1f)Y_1`$, the resulting correlation function $`R(q)`$ will reflect only the fast source and will be given by

$$R(q)=f^2R_{fast}(q)\lambda R_{fast}(q)$$
(3)
where $`R_{fast}(q)`$ denotes the correlation function when only fast emission is present. Equation (3) stipulates that the height of the correlation function peak, $`R(20MeV/c)`$, is attenuated by the factor $`\lambda =f^2`$; thus, when fast and slow emission processes admix, the height of the correlation peak alone does not determine the source size. However by its very construction, any property solely derived from the shape of the correlation function for fast emission such as the width of the correlation peak, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{FWHM}`$, will remain unaffected.

For simplicity, we assume that the fast component has a simple Gaussian profile,

$$S_G(r)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}r_0^3}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{r^2}{2r_0^2}\right)$$
(4)
where $`\sqrt{3}r_0`$ is the Gaussian rms relative proton-proton source radius. For such Gaussian sources, the parameter $`r_0`$ describes the spatial distribution of emission points for zero lifetime sources . For $`\lambda =f^2=1`$, $`r_0`$ is uniquely related to the height, R(20 MeV/c), (see the curve with $`f=1`$ in the lower right panel of Fig. 2) and to the width, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{FWHM}`$, (see the top right panel of Fig. 2) of the correlation peak. This simple two-component model (STCM) thus contains two parameters, the Gaussian source radius $`r_0`$ and the fraction of coincident pairs resulting from the fast emission components, $`\lambda =f^2`$. Results obtained with the STCM are illustrated in Fig. 2. Consistent with the previous discussion, the top right panel demonstrates that $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{FWHM}`$ depends uniquely on the radius of the fast source, $`r_0`$. The bottom right panel demonstrates that $`R(20MeV/c)`$ depends on both $`r_0`$ and $`f`$. The left panel further emphasizes this latter feature by showing that the same value of the correlation maximum can be achieved for different values of $`r_0`$ and $`f`$.

Thus, measurements of the width, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{FWHM}`$, of the correlation function provide a direct measure of the size of the source. Measurements of both $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{FWHM}`$ and the correlation function maximum, $`R(20MeV/c)`$, provide a unique determination of the relative strengths of equilibrium and dynamical emission components. This finding should remain approximately valid for more realistic emission time scales, $`0<\tau _{fast}<<\tau _{slow}<\mathrm{}`$, provided $`v_{proton}\tau _{slow}>>r_{source}`$ and $`v_{proton}\tau _{fast}r_{source}`$. We emphasize that the correlation function is only sensitive to the details of the long-lived component at very small relative momenta, $`q<15`$ MeV/c  where the long-lived component (dot-dashed line in Fig. 1) generates a non-vanishing correlation function, $`R_{slow}(q)0`$. It may be difficult to utilize this sensitivity to probe the details of the long-lived component when the correlation function exhibits a large peak at 20 MeV/c reflecting the additional presence of a strong short-lived component.

We now apply these ideas to the interpretation of two-proton correlation functions measured at $`\theta _{lab}`$25o for 14N+197Au collisions at E/A=75 MeV . The points on the left panel of Fig. 3 show the correlation functions measured for proton pairs with three different cuts on their total momentum $`P_{tot}=\left|𝐩_1+𝐩_2\right|`$, 270 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 390 MeV/c (circular points), 450 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 780 MeV/c (triangular points), and 840 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 1230 MeV/c (square points). As observed for many other reactions , the height of the correlation peak increases with increasing $`P_{tot}`$. Correlation functions for zero-lifetime Gaussian sources are shown as dot-dashed curves; the measured values of $`R(20MeV/c)`$ can be reproduced by using strongly momentum dependent radius parameters $`r_0=5.9`$ fm, $`4.2`$ fm, and $`3.4`$ fm for the low, medium and high momentum gates, respectively, but the widths of the correlation function peaks cannot be reproduced by these calculations . Indeed, the widths of the measured correlation functions remain roughly constant at about $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{FWHM}1922`$ MeV/c, which implies nearly constant source radii according to Fig. 2. This inconsistency means that these strongly momentum-dependent radius parameters are incorrect.

A somewhat better description of this experimental data can be attained with the STCM by suitable choice of its free parameters ($`r_0`$ and $`\lambda `$ in Eq. (3) and (4)) . The STCM approach describes well data that are dominated by fast dynamical proton emission; the STCM fit for the high momentum gate 840 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 1230 MeV/c is virtually identical to the fit obtained by the numerical inversion procedure discussed below. (The results of the numerical inversion procedure are shown on the left panel of Fig. 3 by the thick gray curves labeled “Imaging”.) On the other hand, the STCM describes poorly the low momentum data for 270 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 390 MeV/c, which have significant contributions from moderately to very long-lived sources. This is clearly shown in the right panel of Fig. 3, which compares the data, the one-parameter Gaussian analysis (dot-dashed line) and the best-fit STCM analysis (thin solid line) for the low momentum gate. (Note, the vertical scale in the right panel has been magnified to allow more sensitive comparisons; the data, the single Gaussian source fit and the numerical inversion fit are the same as in the left panel.) Clearly, the best fit STCM correlation function is wider than the best fit single Gaussian source correlation function; the STCM source radius of $`r_0=4.1`$ fm is smaller than the single Gaussian source radius of $`r_0=5.9`$ fm, consistent with the trends demonstrated in Fig. 2. The measured correlation function is even wider, implying that the true source is even smaller than that extracted via the STCM, but the correct radius information cannot be extracted with the STCM, however, because the shape of the source function is actually not Gaussian. One could attempt to address the mixture of fast and slow components by contructing a model of this mixture . However, we believe that accurate information from correlation functions when there are significant contributions from long-lived sources may be better obtained by avoiding apriori assumptions about the shape of the source.

We do this by numerically inverting the correlation functions to construct an image of the emission source as described in refs. \[22-24\]. Following ref. , the emission sources $`S(r)`$ for the protons were parameterized over $`0r20`$ fm by six third-order b-spline polynomials, and the numerical inversion of Eq. (2) was achieved via the optimization algorithm of ref. . The thick gray curves in Fig. 3 show the best fits to the experimental data with this imaging approach. The agreement is excellent.

The extracted source functions are shown in Fig. 4. The widths of these curves represent the lower and upper limits defined by one-sigma error bars of the extracted source functions. The uncertainties, small at $`r<7`$ fm, become very large at $`r12`$ fm. Better data in the small momentum region ($`q<10`$ MeV/c) of the correlation functions could provide improved constraints on the source at large radii where the source shape is mainly determined by the time scale of the slow emission component. Unfortunately, this part of the correlation function is difficult to measure and the precision of the data at $`q<10`$ MeV/c is limited, as shown in the left panel of Fig. 3.

The shapes of the imaged sources and their integrated values at $`r`$12 fm provide clear evidence for a two-component structure consistent with the occurrence of emission on two very different time scales: a sharply localized central region that can be attributed to a fast emission component, and a tail region that can be attributed to a slow emission component. The half-density radii from the radial source profiles, $`r_{1/2}`$, and the yield ratio $`f`$ from the central ($`r<3r_{1/2}`$) region of the imaged source distributions are given in Table I. Consistent with the weak momentum dependence of the widths $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{FWHM}`$ of the measured correlation functions and contrary to the single Gaussian source fits, the source radii vary little with $`P_{tot}`$. The strong total momentum dependence of the maximum values of the measured correlation functions reflects the momentum dependence of the relative contributions from the fast dynamical and slow evaporative emitting sources. The fast components dominate the high total momentum gate ($`f0.78`$) and become less important at lower momenta where they are reduced to about $`f0.30`$ for $`P_{tot}`$=270-390 MeV/c. At such low momenta, long-lifetime emissions become more important. This ability of imaging analyses to differentiate between fast and slow emissions will enable more quantitative comparisons with transport theories in the future.

In summary, we have investigated the characteristics of angle-integrated two-proton correlation functions for scenarios in which protons are emitted on two very different time scales. An example of such a scenario would be fast dynamical emission from the initial overlap of projectile and target and slow equilibrium evaporation or secondary decays of particle unstable fragments. When both fast and slow emissions are present, determination of the height and width of the correlation peak allow the extraction of the initial source geometry associated with the fast component and the relative yields from the slow and fast emission processes. More detailed information is obtained by numerically inverting the correlation function. Some additional information about the lifetime of the slow component might be extracted if the detailed shape of the correlation function is measured for very small relative momenta. Precision measurements of angle-integrated two-proton correlation functions may thus provide a valuable diagnostic tool for reactions where fast dynamical and slow equilibrium processes compete. Finally, we note that the simultaneous presence of short and long timescale emission may also be relevant for two-pion correlations at higher energies where some of the measured particles are produced via the decay of hadronic resonances \[6,26-29\]. Whether the imaging techniques so useful for these analyses of two-proton correlations can be also useful for two-pion correlations is a subject for future investigations.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. PHY-95-28844 and PHY-0070818. Part of this work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-Eng-48.

References

1. S.E. Koonin, Phys. Lett. B 70, 43 (1977).

2. M. A. Lisa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 2798 (2000).

3. S. Pratt and M.B. Tsang, Phys. Rev. C 36, 2390 (1987).

4. D.H. Boal, C.K. Gelbke, and B.K. Jennings, Rev. Mod. Phys. 62, 553 (1990), and references therein.

5. W. Bauer, C.K. Gelbke, and S. Pratt, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci, 42, 77 (1992), and references therein.

6. U. Heinz and B.V. Jacak, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 49, 529 (1999)

7. S. Fritz et al., Phys. Lett. B 461, 315 (1999).

8. H.A. Gustafsson, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 544 (1984).

9. W.G. Lynch et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 1850 (1983).

10. W.G. Gong et al., Phys. Rev. C 43, 781 (1991).

11. W.G. Gong et al., Phys. Lett. B 246, 21 (1990).

12. W.G. Gong et al., Phys. Rev. C 43, 1804 (1991), and references therein.

13. M.A. Lisa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 3709 (1993).

14. M.A. Lisa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 2863 (1993).

15. M.A. Lisa, Phys. Rev. C 49, 2788 (1994).

16. D.O. Handzy et al., Phys. Rev. C 50, 858 (1994).

17. G.J. Kunde et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2545 (1993).

18. S.J. Gaff et al., Phys. Rev. C 52, 2782 (1995).

19. D.O. Handzy et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 2916 (1995).

20. A. Elmaani et al., Phys. Rev. C 49, 284 (1994).

21. F. Zhu et al., Phys. Rev. C 44, R582 (1991).

22. D.A. Brown and P. Danielewicz, Phys. Lett. B 398, 252 (1997).

23. D.A. Brown and P. Danielewicz, Phys. Rev. C 57, 2474 (1998).

24. D.A. Brown and P. Danielewicz, Phys. Rev. C 64, 014902 (2001).

25.C.J. Gelderloos et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 3082 (1995).

26. This schematic model recalls the core+halo model introduced to describe two-pion correlation functions  There, values for $`\lambda `$ of less than unity have been interpreted as due to coherent pion emission or to contributions from long-lived resonance decays .

27. R. Ghetti et al., Nucl. Phys. A 674, 277 (2000).

28. J.P. Sullivan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 3000 (1993)

29. S. Nickerson, T. Csörgõ and D. Kiang, Phys. Rev. C 57, 3251 (1998)

Table I: Values for the half radius $`r_{1/2}`$ and the fraction $`f`$ of proton emission from the fast component that have been extracted following the procedures outlined in the text. The label “Gaussian” designates the fits using a one-component Gaussian source of Eq. (4). (For the Gaussian profiles, $`r_{1/2}1.18r_0`$.)

| $`P_{tot}`$ region | 270-390 MeV/c | | 450-780 MeV/c | | 840-1230 MeV/c | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | r1/2 (fm) | f | r1/2 (fm) | f | r1/2 (fm) | f |
| Numerical inversion | 2.44$`\pm `$0.37 | 0.30$`\pm `$0.05 | 3.13$`\pm `$0.14 | 0.68$`\pm `$0.03 | 2.93$`\pm `$0.15 | 0.78$`\pm `$0.05 |
| Gaussian | 7 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 |

Figure Captions

Figure 1: The solid line indicates a representative two-proton source function for intermediate energy collisions. The dashed and dot-dashed lines provide a decomposition of the solid line into short and long time scale emissions respectively. Right panel: The solid, dashed and dot-dashed curves show the correlation functions corresponding to the source functions in the left panel.

Figure 2: Two proton correlation functions predicted with the schematic two-component model (STCM) discussed in the text. The left panel gives examples of correlation functions with similar heights of the correlation peak, but different widths. The top right panel illustrates the unique relation between source size and width of the correlation peak; the line corresponds to a linear best fit to the points. The bottom right panel illustrates the relation between the height of the correlation peak, source radius and fraction of proton emission originated from fast processes.

Figure 3: The left panel shows two-proton correlation functions measured  at $`\theta _{lab}25^o`$ for 14N+197Au collisions at E/A = 75 MeV for three different cuts on the total momentum, $`P_{tot}=\left|𝐩_1+𝐩_2\right|`$, of the coincident protons pairs, 270 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 390 MeV/c (circular points), between 450 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 780 MeV/c (triangular points), and between 840 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 1230 MeV/c (square points). The right panel show the correlation function for the 270 MeV/c $`<P_{tot}<`$ 390 MeV/c cut on an expanded vertical scale. The various curves are discussed in the text.

Figure 4: The solid bands show sources reconstructed from the data (Fig. 3) via the inversion technique of refs. \[22-24\]. The dot-dashed lines indicate the sources corresponding to the Gaussian source fits in the left panel of this figure. For both the solid bands and dot-dashed lines, the sources for the highest (lowest) momentum gates have the largest (smallest) values at $`r<2`$ fm.


text:
# The change from accretion via a thin disk to a coronal flow: dependence on the viscosity of the hot gas

## 1 Introduction

For accretion onto black holes at low, sub-Eddington accretion rates the commonly accepted standard picture is that at larger distance the mass accretes via a cool geometrically thin, optically thick disk and changes at a certain distance to a hot coronal vertically more extended gas flow. Accretion in this inner region occurs in a different mode (advection-dominated accretion flow, ADAF) where advection rather than radiation removes the locally generated accretion heat (for reviews see Narayan et al. 1998, Kato et al. 1998). The physics is the same for accretion onto stellar black holes and the black holes in AGN. This picture of a cool geometrically thin disk (with a corona above its inner part), usually modeled using an alpha-viscosity parameterization, together with the ADAF inside was supported by the spectral fits based on this model. In the work of Esin et al. (1997) such a situation was considered and the spectral transitions observed for Nova Muscae 1991 were successfully described by a series of model disks taking the transition to the ADAF at different distances from the black hole. Arising from the difficulty to fit also radio and submillimeter observations it was suggested that the bulk of accreting mass and energy could be carried off by a wind (Blandford & Begelmann 1999). Apart from the question whether wind loss is present or not it is important where and in which way the accretion flow changes to the mode of an advection-dominated flow.

Evaporation of mass from the thin cool disk at the midplane to a hot coronal layer above offers a concept to understand the transition. Such a corona exists predominantly above the inner region of the cool disk. The computation of the vertical structure of the corona allows to determine the amount of mass which flows inward in the corona for each distance from the black hole or compact star, depending on its mass (Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister 1994). A detailed description of this process with application to disks around black holes is given in Meyer et al. (2000b). With decreasing distance from the black hole more and more mass flows in the corona. Where the coronal flow reaches 100% of the total accretion flow the cool disk in the midplane ends and inside is only a hot coronal/advection-dominated flow. We consider the coexistence of thin disk and corona for distances of a few hundred to a few thousands of Schwarzschild radii, which applies to the situation around stellar black holes or nuclei of low-luminosity galaxies. These are the sources for which the spectra were successfully fitted using the ADAF model (Narayan et al. 1998).

The evaporation efficiency depends strongly on the viscosity of the hot coronal gas as already indicated by an analytical approximation formula (Meyer et al. 2000b). Original computations were carried out for a standard value $`\alpha =0.3`$. In the literature various $`\alpha `$-values were discussed. The aim of the present paper is to compute the evaporation efficiency for different viscosity values in detail and to evaluate the consequences for the location of the transition.

In Sect. 2 we give a short description of the physics of evaporation and of our modelling. In Sect. 3 we summarize the viscosity parameters in the literature. In Sect. 4 we present our results. In Sect. 5 we summarize our results and discuss which other effects might also influence the transition.

## 2 The physics of evaporation

The amount of gas which flows in the corona is the amount evaporated from the cool disk minus wind loss. The equilibrium established between the hot gas and the cool disk determines this amount. The coronal evaporation flow physically results from the following mechanism. The hot corona above the cool disk atmosphere transports heat downward by electron conduction. In the lower layers the temperature decreases from its high coronal value to a low chromospheric value, heat conduction becomes ineffective, and the thermal heat flow has to be radiated away. The efficiency of radiation (in the optically thin case) depends on the square of the particle number density while the heating is proportional to the density directly. If this density is too small to radiate sufficiently, the material will heat up and increase the density in the corona. In this way a corona of a given temperature (or a given heating rate) will “dig” itself so deep into the chromospheric layers that a density is reached which is able to radiate away downward heat conduction, and a stationary state is obtained. This also establishes the final density in the corona by way of pressure equilibrium between chromosphere and corona. The gas in the corona still has angular momentum and thereby behaves much like an (albeit thick) accretion disk: Friction transports angular momentum outward and matter flows inward towards the central object. In the steady state it is replaced by matter evaporating from the cool disk.

This equilibrium is found computing the vertical structure of the corona taking into account the relevant processes. We simplify the physical two-dimensional situation, for which an exact description is complicated, additionally difficult due to sonic transition at the free upper boundary. We describe the evaporation process by introducing a simplifying one-zone model for the interaction of corona and disk. This leads to a set of four ordinary differential equations for the variables temperature, pressure, mass flow and heat flux (Meyer et al. 2000b) as a model for the equilibrium between cool disk and corona near the inner edge of the thin disk. Boundary conditions are (1) at the bottom, $`z=z_o`$, no heat inflow and a chromospheric temperature, (2) at the upper boundary no inflow of heat from infinity and no pressure at infinity (this requires sound transition at a certain height $`z_1`$). A detailed derivation of the formulae and a description of the technique of finding the adequate solutions is given in Meyer et al. (2000b).

The evaporation efficiency strongly depends on the mass of the compact central object. For a given mass the efficiency increases with decreasing distance to the center (except in an innermost part). Earlier the coexistence of a cool disk and a corona had already been applied to disks in dwarf nova systems (Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister 1994, Liu et al. 1995). The situation is the same in disks around neutron stars, stellar and supermassive black holes. The quantities accretion rate and distance can be written in units of Eddington accretion rate and Schwarzschild radius ($`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{Edd}}=40\pi GM/\kappa c`$, $`r_\mathrm{S}=2GM/c^2`$, with $`M`$ mass of central black hole and $`\kappa `$ electron scattering opacity). For the properties of two-temperature, optically thin ADAFs (Narayan et al. 1998) such an invariant description was used and the results were successfully applied for accretion on stellar black holes and galactic nuclei. Our relation between evaporation rate and distance also becomes invariant with the above normalization. The transition to a coronal flow around massive black holes in galactic nuclei was discussed in Liu & Meyer-Hofmeister (2001).

The compatibility of our modeling of the transition with the ADAF concept is discussed in Liu et al. (1999). We can expect a smooth transition from an thin outer disk + corona to an ADAF.

Różańska & Czerny (2000a, 2000b) also investigated the coexistence of the hot and the cold gas around galactic black holes and in AGN. Their work follows in principle the same line as the work of Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister (1994) and Meyer et al. (2000b) on the equilibrium between corona and thin cool disk around a white dwarf or a black hole, but focuses on the innermost regions near the black hole. Though the physical picture is basically the same the results differ surprisingly in detail: The accretion rate is higher, e.g. at log $`r/r_\mathrm{S}=4`$ and for $`\alpha =0.1`$ their rate is higher by a factor $``$10 than ours. The maximal coronal mass flow rate is reached at smaller distance from the black hole. Różańska & Czerny (2000a, hereafter RC2000) take a difference between electron and ion temperature into account and include Compton cooling by soft photons from the underlying disk. Both effects were neglected in our treatment because they were unimportant for the coronal structure at distances down to that of the maximal evaporation rate. This is confirmed by recent computations (Liu et al. 2001) including these effects.

Thus the difference between the results must be caused by other differences in the approximations. Mainly two facts may be important in this respect. The semi-analytical approach considers the corona as one layer of constant pressure and thickness $`z=r`$. The computed vertical structure of the corona in Meyer (2000b, Fig.2) has a much narrower pressure scaleheight, at height $`z=r`$ the pressure has dropped already by a factor of 20. This means much less friction and therefore less heating. A further possible significant difference appears in the treatment of the energy carried by friction. RC2000 take the fraction of viscous heating that is caused by advection as proportional to the ratio of ion temperature to virial temperature with a factor 1. In our treatment solving the radial diffusion equation this factor comes out about 5 times larger. The two differences appear to lead to a significantly cooler corona in our work and may therefore well account for the difference in the results. In Fig. 4 of Meyer et al. (2000b) we show a detailed evaluation of the local energy balance at the distance of maximal evaporation efficiency. One sees that gains and losses of energy vary significantly between the bottom of the corona and vertical height $`z=r`$. It is therefore difficult to evaluate the changes arising from the approach of RC2000 using only one layer of constant pressure and thickness $`z=r`$. (Note in this context that there is no difference in the physical treatment of the lower boundary condition. We include the full equilibrium between transport of matter and conductive energy and radiative losses in our equations. For the lowest region near the interface between corona and disk chromosphere (energetically of very little importance) this reduces to the profile that was already derived by Shmeleva & Syrovatskii (1973) for the case of the solar corona.) Considering these arguments it might be preferable to compute the vertical coronal structure.

For the innermost region Deufel & Spruit (2001) investigated the properties of an accretion disk illuminated by ions from the hot corona.

## 3 Values of the hot gas viscosity

In the literature different values for the $`\alpha `$-parameter are discussed. For the ADAF model fits of the spectra of stellar black holes $`\alpha =0.1`$, but also $`\alpha =0.3`$ were used (Narayan et al. 1996, Narayan et al. 1997, Esin et al. 1998). For the modeling of the spectral state transitions of Nova Muscae the value $`\alpha `$ =0.25 seemed to give the best fit (Esin et al. 1997). Later the value 0.1 was used for modeling the spectra of truncated thin disks in low-luminosity AGN (Quataert et al. 1999). Reasons for the choice of the $`\alpha `$ parameter are discussed in Quataert & Narayan (1999). Again $`\alpha =0.3`$ was used for low-radiative-efficiency accretion in the nuclei of elliptical galaxies (Di Matteo et al. 2000). Różańska & Czerny (2000a) used the value 0.1 for their analysis of the two-temperature corona. (The parametrization used in different investigations is not always the same, compare Sect. 5.3).

Another source of knowledge about the viscous stress are magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the inner accretion disk. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the mechanism of angular momentum transport is turbulent magnetic stress (Balbus & Hawley 1998). In their global MHD simulation Hawley & Krolik (2001) investigated the radial structure of disks accreting under influence of MHD turbulent stresses. From their results they find that $`\alpha `$ as a function of radius is below 0.1 in the innermost part and varies between 0.1 and 0.2 further out (their Fig. 13). Note however that this is heavily weighted for the disk interior and is not characteristic for the atmosphere where gas pressure is low and the magnetic field is retively strong (Hawley et al. 2001). (To really relate this to the viscosity parameter used for our computations we would have to consider a magnetic pressure contributing to the “total” pressure to a specified degree).

In view of these different values we determined the evaporation efficiency here for values 0.1 and 0.2 in addition to the earlier results based on 0.3.

## 4 Computational results

We carried out computations for accretion onto a black hole of $`6M_{}`$ at distances $`r`$ from $`10^{8.6}`$ to $`10^{10.5}`$ cm, which corresponds to $`10^{2.35}`$ to $`10^{4.25}`$ $`r_\mathrm{S}`$, respectively, with viscosity parameters $`\alpha `$ 0.1 and 0.2. In Table 1 we list the new results for a number of distances $`r`$, together with the earlier results for the parameter 0.3. $`\dot{M}(r)`$ is the total amount of matter evaporating from the thin disk truncated at distance $`r`$. Mass flow rate $`\dot{M}`$ and distance $`r`$ are also given in units of Eddington accretion rate and Schwarzschild radius. The relation between $`\dot{M}`$ and $`r`$ is invariant with respect to changes of the central mass $`M`$ if accretion rates and distances are measured in these units. The same is true for the coronal temperature (compare Fig. 3 and the comments in Meyer et al. 2000b). The values of pressure at the lower boundary are listed for a discussion of the effect of an outer pressure on the coronal structure.

In Fig. 1 we show the evaporation rate at different distances for the three values of the viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$ = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3. Note that three similar rates are considered: at the inner edge of the thin disk the evaporation rate is equal to the mass flow rate (this fact causes the truncation of the thin disk there). The mass flow rate in the corona is equal to the evaporation rate minus wind loss. The accretion rate onto the black hole is equal to the mass flow rate in the corona, if no wind loss occurs further in. The result shows two important changes: (1) The evaporation efficiency at a given distance $`r`$ is much lower for a smaller viscosity, up to a factor of 10 for $`\alpha =0.1`$ compared to 0.3; (2) for smaller $`\alpha `$, the evaporation efficiency reaches its maximum at larger distances from the black hole, at about $`r=10^{9.2}`$cm for $`\alpha =0.2`$ and $`r=10^{9.75}`$cm for 0.1 ($`r=10^{8.8}`$cm for $`\alpha =0.3`$). This strong dependence on the viscosity parameter is in qualitative agreement with our earlier analytical estimate (Meyer et al. 2001). The estimate however was based on a consideration of the global balance of the various energy terms and also neglected wind losses.

These quite different values for different $`\alpha `$ indicate that, for a given mass flow rate in the outer thin disk the disk truncation occurs at very different distances. While, in the case of a $`6M_{}`$ black hole the mass flow of $`10^{10}M_{}/yr`$ ($`10^{15.8}`$g/s), leads to the disk truncation at $`10^{10.26}`$ cm for $`\alpha =0.3`$ the thin disk would already extend inward all the way towards the last stable orbit for $`\alpha =0.1`$. A disk truncation for $`\alpha =0.1`$ would only be predicted for very low mass flow rates in the outer disk. a ’hole’ in the thin disk would then occur in much fewer cases.

Also shown in Fig. 1 is the maximal temperature in the corona at the inner edge of the thin disk measured in units of the virial temperature $`T_{\mathrm{virial}}=GM/(r\frac{\mathrm{}}{\mu })`$. We see that from distances of $`10^{10.3}`$cm on outward the ratio becomes almost constant and approaches values around one tenth. This is a measure for the pressure scaleheight in the disk, smaller for smaller values $`\alpha `$.

The fraction of mass carried away by the wind also changes with the viscosity. For $`\alpha =0.3`$ the fraction increased from a very low value at the evaporation efficiency maximum (near log $`r`$=8.8) to about 20% (see fraction $`\lambda `$ in Table 1, Meyer et al. 2000b). If we want to compare this with the new results we have to do this at comparable distances (same factor in radius, relative to the radius of the evaporation maximum). The fractions 0.22 at $`10^{10.1}`$cm (for $`\alpha =0.3`$) and 0.17 at $`10^{10.5}`$cm ($`\alpha =0.2`$) show that the part carried away by the wind decreases with $`\alpha `$. This corresponds to the lower temperatures reached and the smaller pressure scaleheight.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Further effects on the transition to the hot flow

The inner accretion regions considered here are in principle embedded in surrounding gas. If the embedding gas pressure would be sufficiently high so that the coronal gas pressure can be overcome the solution would be significantly affected and both heat and gas could flow into the corona from above. In Table 1 the values of the pressure at the transition from disk atmosphere to corona are listed. The pressure values relevant for the comparison might be a factor of a few smaller (for an example of coronal structure see Meyer et al. 2000b, Fig.2). Cooling flows as discussed in the literature occur at very much larger distances than discussed here and are hardly relevant in this context.

Of more direct influence however could be a magnetic field that was carried out with a wind from the innermost ADAF type accretion region and could spread out like an umbrella over the disk. If its pressure becomes comparable to the pressure of the coronal evaporation flow the latter could be suffocated and possibly interesting alterations on the evaporation transition model may result.

### 5.2 Consequences from the new results for the evaporation efficiency

The question arises whether observations can help to discriminate between different $`\alpha `$ values. We shortly summarize here these studies, first the ones concerning stellar black holes, then applications to AGN.

For X-ray novae containing a black hole we determined (using $`\alpha =0.3`$) the truncation of the thin disk taking the mass flow rates from the ADAF based spectral fits. We found the truncation of the thin disk in good agreement with the location of the inner disk edge inferred from the observed $`H_\alpha `$ emission line (Meyer et al. 2000b). Also in good agreement was our prediction for the spectral state transitions (Meyer et al. 2000a) which happen at X-ray luminosities of about $`10^{37}`$erg/s (Tanaka &Shibazaki 1996) for most sources. A thin disk truncation based on the new results for $`\alpha =0.1`$ would not give a good description compared to observation. Also Quataert & Narayan (1999) had pointed out that large values, about 0.25, are needed in applications of the ADAF model to X-ray binaries. Further support for the choice of $`\alpha =0.3`$ comes from the fact that with this evaporation rate the long outburst cycles of X-ray novae can be understood. The evaporation is an important feature for the disk evolution during quiescence with good agreement between observation and modeling concerning the amount of matter accumulated in the disk for the next outburst and the recurrence time as shown in detailed investigations for A0620-00 (Meyer-Hofmeister & Meyer 1999, 2001).

Concerning the truncation of the geometrically thin disks around black holes in galactic nuclei the situation is not so clear. For M87 and NGC 4649 the truncation determined from the evaporation efficiency computed for $`\alpha =0.3`$ (Liu et al. 1999, Liu & Meyer-Hofmeister 2001) gives agreement with the truncation deduced using the ADAF based spectral fit (Narayan et al. 1999). But for low-luminosity AGN the observed UV flux seems to demand a truncation far inward for mass flow rates roughly similar in both cases (Quataert et al. 1999), which could not be explained with a smaller viscosity value in our model: For the discussed mass flow rate and a small viscosity value the disk would instead reach inward towards the last stable orbit and the spectrum would be soft. This discrepancy might point to further effects, maybe from a magnetic field, on the transition from thin disk + corona to the ADAF.

A strong dependence of the evaporation process on the chosen viscosity parameter was also found by Różańska & Czerny (2000a). They show the change of the evaporation rate for values $`\alpha `$ between 0.05 and 0.1. The changes are qualitatively similar to what we find, but differ from ours as already discussed in Sect. 2.

### 5.3 The viscosity parametrization

Discussing the numerical values for the viscosity parameter one should keep in mind the following aspects.

(1) The definition of the viscosity parametrization differs in different investigations. In the original formulation of Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) the viscous stress is given as $`\alpha V_{\mathrm{s}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\rho `$ ($`V_\mathrm{s}`$ sound velocity, $`\rho `$ density). For Keplerian rotation in the disk the viscous stress is $`\frac{3}{2}\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}`$ which leads to $`\mu `$=$`\frac{2}{3}\alpha V_{\mathrm{s}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\rho \mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}`$ for the dynamical and to $`\nu `$=$`\frac{2}{3}\alpha V_{\mathrm{s}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}`$ for the kinematic viscosity. Frank et al. (1992) choose $`\nu `$=$`\alpha V_{\mathrm{s}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}`$, the ansatz without the factor $`\frac{2}{3}`$. The latter formula is used for the computations of the ADAF in the work of Narayan et al. (1997), which means e.g. a value $`\alpha `$=0.2 there would correspond to a value 0.3 in our investigations. To relate the results of the MHD simulations to $`\alpha `$ parameter values the Shakura-Sunyaev formulation was used in Hawley & Krolik (2001).

(2) With the acceptance of the magnetic nature of friction in accretion disks the $`\alpha `$ value should be related to the magnetic pressure. The value $`\beta `$, the ratio of gas pressure to magnetic pressure should account for this. The results for otherwise the same parameter $`\alpha `$ are comparable only if also this value is the same. We have not included the magnetic pressure explicitely in our analysis. Our present calculation confirms the strong influence that the value of $`\alpha `$ has on the maximal evaporation rate and the radial position of this maximum. The near quantitative agreement with the analytical estimate of this effect by Meyer et al. (2000b, equ. (57) which neglects the effects of wind loss) lends some credibility also to the estimate of the effect that an inclusion of magnetic fields in the way suggested in that paper would have. Hawley et al. (2001) have shown that hydrodynamic simulations indicate a value of $`\beta >1`$ in the main body of the accretion disk that formed, but $`\beta <1`$ in the atmosphere where gas pressure drops off on a much shorter scale than magnetic pressure. Taking $`\beta `$=0.5 as an example and reducing the effective thermal conductivity $`\kappa _0`$ by a mean value $`\mathrm{cos}^2\vartheta `$=0.25 for the field inclination $`\vartheta `$ as discussed there this would compensate nearly exactly the effect on the maximal evaporation rate of decreasing $`\alpha `$ by a factor 3 and at the same time shift the radius of maximal evaporation even further in. Due to the strong dependencies one must be very careful when comparing different numerical values for $`\alpha `$ given in the literature.

###### Acknowledgements.