text:
# ADP-01-56/T488 Quenched chiral perturbation theory for baryon form factors

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Separation of the valence and sea-quark-loop contributions to the meson cloud of full QCD hadrons is a non-trivial task. Early calculations addressing the meson cloud of mesons employed a diagrammatic method . The formal theory of quenched chiral perturbation theory (Q$`\chi `$PT) was subsequently established in Ref. . There, meson properties were examined in a formulation where extra commuting ghost-quark fields are introduced to eliminate the dependence of the path integral on the fermion-matrix determinant. This approach was extended to the baryon sector in Ref. .

While the formalism of Q$`\chi `$PT is essential to establishing the field theoretic properties, it is desirable to formulate an efficient and perhaps more intuitive approach to the calculation of quenched chiral coefficients. Rather than introduce extra degrees of freedom to remove the effects of sea-quark loops, the approach described herein describes the systematic separation of valence and sea-quark-loop contributions. Upon removing the contributions of sea-quark-loops, one arrives at the conventional view of quenched chiral perturbation theory.

Since the presentation of this talk, there has been a resurgence in Q$`\chi `$PT calculations. In particular, the magnetic moments of octet baryons have been examined  using the formal approach of Q$`\chi `$PT . There the leading-nonanalytic (LNA) behavior of the magnetic moment for each baryon of the octet is calculated. The formal approach completely eliminates all sea-quark-loop contributions to baryon moments.

However, sea-quark loops do make a contribution to matrix elements in the quenched approximation. Insertion of the current in calculating the three-point correlation function provides pair(s) of quark-creation and annihilation operators. These can be contracted with the quark field operators of the hadron interpolating fields providing “connected insertions” of the current, or self-contracted to form a sea-quark-loop contribution or “disconnected insertion” of the current. The latter contributions to baryon electromagnetic form factors have already been examined in quenched simulations . Hence in formulating quenched chiral perturbation theory it is important to provide an opportunity to include these particular sea-quark-loop contributions.

In the following, a new intuitive method is presented for the rapid calculation of the quenched chiral coefficients of the LNA terms of QCD. While the quenched $`\eta ^{}`$ also gives rise to new nonanalytic behavior, such effects on baryon magnetic moments are numerically small in the region of interest  and are not addressed further in this brief report. Sec. 2 proves the technique via a consideration of baryon masses. The derivation of the quenched chiral coefficients for the quenched magnetic moments of octet baryons is described in Sec. 3. The technique provides a separation of magnetic moment contributions into full, sea, valence and quenched valence contributions, the latter being the conventional view of the quenched approximation. Sec. 3 also outlines how both baryon mass and meson mass violations of SU(3)-flavor symmetry are accounted for. A comprehensive examination of the individual quark-sector contributions to octet baryon magnetic moments is presented in Sec. 4.

## 2 QUENCHED BARYON MASSES

The following calculations are simplified through the use of the standard octet and singlet interaction Lagrangians  in which meson-baryon couplings are subsequently expressed in terms of the $`F`$ and $`D`$ coupling coefficients. For example, $`f_{NN\pi }=F+D`$, $`f_{\mathrm{\Sigma }NK}=DF`$, etc. In the following, numerical estimates are based on the one-loop corrected values  of $`F=0.40`$ and $`D=0.61`$, with $`f_\pi =f_K=93`$ MeV.

The quark flow diagrams of Fig. 1 illustrate the processes which give rise to the LNA behavior of proton observables. Table 1 summarizes the contributions of the $`\pi `$-, $`\eta `$\- and $`\eta ^{}`$-cloud diagrams of Fig. 1 labeled by the corresponding quark-flow diagrams. The suppression of sea-quark-loops in the quenched approximation renders the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass degenerate with the pion. The octet-decuplet transition couplings are taken to be negligible. Summation of these couplings and incorporation of the factors from the loop integral provides the LNA term

$$(3F^2+D^2)\frac{m_\pi ^3}{8\pi f_\pi ^2}=3.92m_\pi ^3.$$

The separation of the meson cloud into valence and sea-quark contributions is shown in the quark-flow diagrams labeled by letters. To quench the theory, one must understand the chiral behavior of the valence-quark loops of Figs. 1(a), (d) and (f) and the sea-quark loops of Figs. 1(b), (c), (e), (g), (h) and (i) separately. If one can isolate the behavior of the diagrams involving a quark loop, then one can use the known LNA behavior of the full meson-based diagrams to extract the corresponding valence-loop contributions.

For example, Fig. 1(b) involves a $`u`$-quark loop where no exchange term is possible. Thus the $`u`$-quark in the loop is distinguishable from all the other quarks in the diagram. The chiral structure of this diagram is therefore identical to that for a “strange” quark loop, as illustrated in Fig. 1(h), provided the “strange” quark in this case is understood to have the same mass as the $`u`$-quark.

The corresponding hadron diagram which gives rise to the LNA structure of Fig. 1(b) is therefore the $`K^+`$-loop diagram above Fig. 1(h), with the distinguishable “strange” quark mass set equal to the mass of the $`u`$-quark. That is, the intermediate baryon masses appearing in the $`K^+`$-loop diagram are degenerate with the nucleon. Similarly, the “kaon” mass is degenerate with the pion.

The sum of the first two lines of Table 2 provides the contribution of diagram Fig. 1(b). Similar arguments allow one to establish the remaining loop contributions to the light-meson cloud. Summing the couplings of Table 2 indicates sea-quark-loops contribute

$$(9F^26FD+5D^2)\frac{m_\pi ^3}{24\pi f_\pi ^2}=2.82m_\pi ^3,$$

to the LNA behavior of the nucleon such that the net quenched contribution is

$$(3FDD^2)\frac{m_\pi ^3}{12\pi f_\pi ^2}=1.10m_\pi ^3,$$

in agreement with the more formal approach of Labrenz and Sharpe .

## 3 BARYON MAGNETIC MOMENTS

The LNA contribution to baryon magnetic moments proportional to $`m_\pi `$ or $`m_K`$ has its origin in couplings of the electromagnetic (EM) current to the meson propagating in the intermediate meson-baryon state. In order to pick out a particular quark-flavour contribution, one sets the electric charge for the quark of interest to one and the charge of all other flavours to zero.

Table 3 reports results for the $`u`$-quark in the proton. The total contributions are calculated in the standard way, but with charge assignments for the intermediate mesons (indicated in the Charge column) reflecting in this case $`q_u=1`$ and $`q_d=q_s=0`$. The extra baryon subscripts on the meson masses are a reminder of the baryons participating in the diagram to facilitate more sophisticated treatments of the loop integral in which baryon mass splittings are taken into account. The LNA contribution is $`\beta \frac{m_N}{8\pi f_\pi ^2}m_\pi \chi m_\pi `$ with $`\beta `$ and $`\chi `$ indicated in the last two columns.

“Sea-quark-loop contributions” are contributions in which the EM current couples to a sea-quark loop, in this case a $`u`$ quark. Using the techniques described in Sec. 2, one can calculate the contributions of these loops alone to the baryon magnetic moment. The Mass column of Table 3 is a reminder that the mass of the “kaon” considered in determining the coupling is actually the pion mass for diagrams 1(b) and (e). These diagrams will contribute, even in the quenched approximation, when disconnected insertions of the EM current are included in simulations .

Subtracting the sea-quark-loop contributions from the total contributions provides the valence contribution of full QCD. “Quenching considerations” focus on diagrams in which the EM current couples to a valence quark in a meson composed with a sea-quark loop. Subtracting off these couplings from the valence contribution provides the quenched valence contribution.

## 4 RESULTS

This approach allows one to separate an individual quark-flavour contribution into four categories, namely: full, loop, valence, and quenched valence contributions. The LNA loop contribution is relevant to disconnected insertions of the EM current in either full or quenched QCD, whereas the LNA valence contribution is relevant to connected insertions of the EM current only in full QCD. The final category of quenched valence contributions is relevant to connected insertions of the EM current in quenched QCD. The latter is often referred to as the quenched QCD result.

Similar arguments allow one to calculate the contributions of all quark flavors. Table 4 reports values for the coefficient, $`\chi `$, providing the LNA contribution to baryon magnetic moments ($`\chi m_\pi `$ or $`\chi m_K`$ as appropriate) by quark sectors normalized to unit charge. Charge symmetry provides the contributions for the other baryons and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ is the isospin average of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$. Quenched coefficients for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are determined via SU(3)-flavour symmetry.

Baryon moments are constructed from the quark sector coefficients by multiplying the $`u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$ results by their appropriate charge factors and summing. For example, the proton moment is $`\mu _p=2u_p/3d_p/3s_p/3`$ and the neutron moment is $`\mu _n=u_p/3+2d_p/3s_p/3`$.

These results reveal that the $`u`$-quark in the proton, known to have small statistical errors , provides an excellent opportunity to directly view nonanalytic behavior associated with the quenched meson cloud of baryons in the quenched approximation. Figure 2 illustrates the anticipated curvature  based on the quenched valence results presented here.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Matthias Burkardt, Tony Thomas, Tony Williams and Ross Young for beneficial discussions. This research is supported by the Australian Research Council.


format: text

text:
# Orbital Magnetism in the Cuprates

## 1 Introduction

It has been proposed that the pseudogap state is a phase with a broken symmetry and an order parameter, not a state with a merely fluctuating order. The distinction between the two is enormous. The order parameter, which is due to a particle-hole condensate with internal “angular momentum” 2, will be termed the $`d`$-density wave (DDW). We have predicted that the present day neutron scattering experiments have enough resolution to provide a direct evidence of this order. And, indeed, there are some preliminary neutron scattering measurements in the bilayer YBa2Cu3O6.6 that appear to have observed the theoretically predicted order parameter. There are other experiments on YBa2Cu3O6.5, which observe a magnetic signal, but appear to be from remnant spins left over from the undoped antiferromagnet. While the experimental situation must be resolved, we shall focus merely on the theoretical predictions because a precise analysis is necessary to make sure that what is being observed is not an artefact. The fundamental signature of this order parameter is an elastic Bragg peak centered at two-dimensional wave vector $`𝐐=(\pi /a,\pi /a)`$, where $`a`$ is the lattice spacing of the CuO-lattice. Since the magnitude of the staggred orbital fields is of order 10 G, the experiments are diificult.

The neutron scattering from DDW was addressed previously, but the polarized neutron scattering and the important question about the current form factors were not. The current form factors play an important role in polarized neutron measurements, without them one may be led to physically incorrect results. Moreover, the crucial connection to the pseudogap phase was not made, nor was it made clear that such a phase truly survived beyond the large-$`N`$ mean field theory due to presumed gauge fluctuations. There is also a proposal of a circulating current phase, which does not break translational symmetry. The similarity with the DDW state is merely superficial. At the very least, the signature, on robust symmetry grounds, is a neutron signal at $`Q=0`$ which is fundamentally different. We will have nothing to say about this proposal, as it is not germane to the present set of experiments.

## 2 Order parameter

The singlet DDW is defined by the order parameter $`\mathrm{\Phi }_𝐐`$ in terms of a particle-hole condensate

$$c^\sigma (𝐤+𝐐,t)c_\rho (𝐤,t)=i\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_𝐐}{2}(\mathrm{cos}k_xa\mathrm{cos}k_ya)\delta _\rho ^\sigma ,$$
(1)
where $`\sigma `$, $`\rho `$ are spin indices. The order parameter breaks time reversal, parity, translation by a lattice spacing, and the rotation by $`\pi /2`$, although the product of any two of these is preserved. Interestingly, DDW does not modulate charge at all, but it modulates currents. The reason it is still called a density wave is because it is a particle-hole condensate, and $`d`$-wave refers to the internal form factor of the particle and the hole, which is $`(\mathrm{cos}k_xa\mathrm{cos}k_ya)`$. We expect that the magnetic field generated by the circulating currents should be proportional to the pseudogap. A simple estimate results in a tiny field of order 10 G due to currents circulating in a CuO plaquette as shown below:

Although this simple model captures the correct symmetry, it is cruicially deficient in predicting the correct neutron scattering intensities, as we shall see. It is a priori clear that the flow of currents cannot be along infinitesimally thin wires, but it must spread out, both because of finite sized atomic orbitals and because of electron-electron interactions. One can model the more realistic current distribution by the form factors $`\alpha (𝐪)`$ and $`\beta (𝐪)`$ in the Fourier transform of the current distribution $`𝐣(𝐪)`$without destroying the symmetry of the order parameter ($`𝐪𝐣(𝐪)=0`$), where

$`𝐣(𝐪)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_𝐐{\displaystyle \underset{𝐆_{}}{}}\delta _{𝐪_{},𝐆_{}}f(𝐪)`$ (2)
$`\times \left[\left(\alpha (𝐪){\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐱}}{q_x}}\beta (𝐪){\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐲}}{q_y}}\right)(\alpha (𝐪)\beta (𝐪)){\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐳}}{q_z}}\right].`$
Here, $`𝐪_{}=(q_x,q_y)`$, $`f(𝐪)=\mathrm{sin}(\frac{q_zd}{2})`$, $`d`$ is the separation between the two CuO-planes within a bilayer complex, and $`𝐆`$ is a reciprocal lattice vector. The simplest choice is to take $`\alpha (𝐪)`$ and $`\beta (𝐪)`$ to be dependent on $`q_z`$ only, such that $`\alpha (q_z)\beta (q_z)q_z^2`$, as $`q_z0`$. The choice of this current density was discussed in Ref. 5.

## 3 Experimental detection of DDW

The DDW is usually hard to detect because

$$\underset{𝐤}{}c^\sigma (𝐤+𝐐)c_\rho (𝐤)\underset{𝐤}{}(\mathrm{cos}k_xa\mathrm{cos}k_ya)=0$$
(3)
There is no net modulation of charge and spin that could be measured. Contrast this with a $`d`$-wave superconductors (DSC) for which a similar momentum sum of the particle-particle condensate also vanishes. Nonetheless, because of broken gauge symmetry, Meissner effect follows, irrespective of the pairing channel. This is not possible for a DDW because the broken symmetry is in the Ising universality class, and experiments seeking to uncover such order must (a) be sensitive to spatial variation of kinetic energy or currents, (b) measure higher order correlations of the charge or spin density as in 2-magnon Raman scalletring, nuclear quadrupole resonance, etc. One nice feature of DDW is that a thermodynamic transition is possible in two dimensions due to the Ising nature of the order parameter.

Impurities will mix $`d`$-wave order with the $`s`$-wave order proportional to the concentration of impuritiues. This may be an indirect way to reveal the hidden broken symmetry, because the corresponding $`s`$-wave order is none other than the conventional charge density wave (CDW). Another possibility is spin-orbit coupling, which will mix spin density wave (SDW) with DDW. In mean field theory, there is some evidence that DDW may incommensurate for higher doping. If this is the case, the charge order must inevitably be mixed in, an idea that can be experimentally probed by scanning tunneling measurements inside the vortex core of the mixed DDW and DSC phase. The detailed nature of the charge order appear to be highly nonuniversal, and certainly cannot be used as a diagnostic tool for theories of pseudogap.

## 4 Neutron scattering

### 4.1 Unpolarized neutron scattering

For unpolarized neutron scattering, the differential scattering cross sections for Bragg scattering from an ordered array of orbital currents is given by

$$\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)\frac{\left|𝐣(𝐪)\right|^2}{q^2},$$
(4)
where $`𝐪`$ now is the momentum transfer. We certainly do not know the form factors $`\alpha (𝐪)`$ and $`\beta (𝐪)`$ beyond their limiting forms, but a reasonable guess can be made to see the robust features of the intensity modulation as a function of the momentum transfer. For this purpose, we have chosen $`\alpha (𝐪)=f(q)e^{(\frac{q_z}{q_0})^2}`$, and $`\beta (𝐪)=f(q)e^{(\frac{q_z}{q_1})^2}`$. So, the intensity is parametrized by a orthorhombicity parameter $`\lambda (𝐪)=e^{[(\frac{q_z}{q_0})^2(\frac{q_z}{q_1})^2]}`$ and $`\beta (𝐪)`$. Note that all other factors, such as the magnitude of the order parameter, drop out if we normalize with respect to a reference Bragg reflection intensity. We then replace $`\beta (𝐪)`$ by the well known Cu form factor, which is likely to be an upper bound because the orbital currents are more spread out in real space than atomic orbitals. We choose $`q_0=2\pi /d`$ and $`q_1=0.275q_0`$. We shall see that the unpolarized intensity is not sensitive to the choice of the $`\lambda `$-parameter.

There is no question that the unpolarized neutron scattering intensities are dramatically diffrent for orbital currents in comparison to spins lying in the $`a`$-$`b`$ plane as shown in Fig. 2. The scattering from spins pointing along the $`c`$-direction can be easily calculated and is similar to the scattering from orbital currents. These two cases can be distinguihed by going to higher order Bragg reflections such $`(H,H,L)`$, for $`H>1/2`$, for example $`(3/2,3/2,L)`$. The results for orbital currents fall off very rapidly in contrast to spins pointing in the $`c`$-direction.

### 4.2 Polarized neutron scattering

The Bragg scattering intensity for polarized neutrons from orbital currents is given by

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}}\right)_{if}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^4}}\left|f|\stackrel{}{\mu }|i𝐪\times 𝐣(𝐪)\right|^2,`$ (5)
where $`\stackrel{}{\mu }`$ is the neutron spin, and $`|i`$ and $`|f`$ are the initial and the final states of the neutron. It is easy to see that if the scattering vector is parallel to the direction of polarization, the entire scattering is spin flip. This is useful to identify magnetic scattering from non-magnetic scattering and the intensity ratios should follow the same pattern as that of the unpolarized case. When the scattering vector $`𝐪`$ is perpendicular to the polarization, there can be both spin-flip and non-spin-flip scattering. This geometry contains additional information, which is the ratio of the spin-flip to non-spin-flip scattering. A common experimental set up is to polarize neutron along along the $`[1,\overline{1},0]`$ direction as shown in Fig. 3, so that the new $`x`$-axis is along $`[1,1,0]`$, and the new $`y`$-axis is along $`[0,0,1]`$.

Then a simple calculation shows that the ratio of the non-spin-flip to spin-flip scattering intensity, $`NSF/SF`$, for Bragg reflection $`(H,H,L)`$ is

$$\frac{NSF}{SF}=2\left(\frac{\lambda (L)1}{\lambda (L)+1}\right)^2\left(\frac{Hc}{La}\right)^2\left[1+\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{La}{Hc}\right)^2\right],$$
(6)
which vanishes identically if there is no orthorhombicity, that is, $`\lambda (L)=1`$. This is a nontrivial result for orbital current theory.

For the choice of the parameters described earlier, corresponding to $`\lambda (L=1)0.4`$, this ratio for the reflection $`(1/2,1/2,1)`$ turns out to be $`1`$. Thus, while modeling of the orthorhombicity of the current distribution had very little effect on the unpolarized intensity, its effect on the polarized scattering is striking, turning the ratio $`(NSF/SF)`$ to order 1 as compared to 0.

## 5 Concluding remarks

Other possible evidence against spin order is the existence of a spin gap due to the Ising universality class of the DDW order, and the small moment of order $`2\times 10^2\mu _B`$ corresponding to the field due to circulating currents. We made an educated guess for the microscopic nature of the current distribution. Clearly, we need a better understanding of it, although the ratio of the intensities as a function of the momentum transfer for unpolarized scattering is very insensitive to the modeling of the current distribution. Thus, we believe that our results are quite robust.

## Acknowledgments

We thank H. Mook and P. Dai for many discussions. This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The purpose of the present research is to detail a new method by which information extracted from a single, fixed network structure can be utilized to understand the physical processes which guided the formation of that structure. There are a variety of structures in nature and biology whose temporal development is difficult to observe. Accordingly, the principle data from which to understand the physics that drove the formation of these structures is the final structure itself.

An excellent example of the use of a final network structure to study the underlying physics is the work of Rodriguez-Iturbe and Rinaldo on river basins . Detailed investigations of the structure of river basins combined with a variety of simulation and theoretical analysis support the conclusion that minimal energy dissipation is the driving force (both global and local) in the structure of river basins . Similarly, natural complex branching patterns are observed in systems as diverse as retinal neurons , dielectric breakdown  and human vasculature . Another recent example is the network of invading cells in malignant brain tumors observed in vitro .

All of these problems can be mapped to the language of spanning trees. For example, in the case of invading tumor cells, the tumor cells form branched chains, i.e., tree structures. The brain offers these invading cells a variety of pathways they can invade along (such as blood vessel and white fiber tracts) which may be interpreted as the edges of an underlying graph, with the various resistances along these pathways playing the role of edge weights. In many of these cases, the underlying physics behind the formation of the observed patterns are only beginning to be understood. The work presented here offers a useful tool in studying the driving forces in the formation of these structures.

Here we consider the class of structures called spanning trees. Formally, spanning trees are defined on graphs and, in the most basic definition, are a loopless, connected set of edges that connect all of the nodes in the underlying graph (see Figure 1). Many different spanning trees can be generated for any given graph. Therefore, it is possible to introduce minimization criteria on the spanning-tree problem and select only those trees which satisfy the criteria. Thus spanning trees represent an excellent test case for investigating the relation between individual structures and the minimization criteria that govern their formation.

A broadly useful class of spanning trees (for examples see refs. ), is the minimal weight spanning tree (MST) . The MST is defined on an underlying graph whose edges each have some weight assigned to them. The MST is then the spanning tree (a subset of the edges in the underlying graph) that minimizes the *total* weight of the edges it includes. The minimal weight spanning tree represents a structure whose formation is guided by a *global optimization* principle. It is also possible to define other types of criteria for spanning trees. For example, it is possible to define a spanning tree such that only the lowest weight edges at each node are used (a detailed discussion of such a class of structures follows), giving a system with purely local criteria. Other types of criteria can also be imposed, such as the degree constrained minimum spanning tree , but are not considered here.

One of the structures we study in this paper is the generalized minimal spanning tree (GMST), proposed by Dror et al. . The GMST is useful in considering problems in which there are relevant length scales longer than a single edge. For example, a biological system is characterized by the diameter of a cell (mapped to a graph edge) as well as the length scale of diffusion in the system, which might be several cell diameters. As the name suggests, the GMST is a generalization of the MST. The GMST is defined on a graph in which the nodes have been partitioned into groups. The spanning condition for the GMST is redefined (relative to the MST) such that instead of requiring that every node in the graph be included in the tree, the inclusion of at least one node from each group is required. The GMST structure is the tree that meets this definition of spanning and minimizes the total weight of the edges it includes. When each group contains only one node, the GMST reduces to the MST.

The second class of trees considered in the present work is our generalization of the invasion percolation network  that we call the generalized invasive spanning tree (GIST). The invasion percolation network begins with a connected cluster of edges (in the simplest case, this could be just one edge). This cluster then “invades” the remaining edges by taking one edge from the boundary of the cluster and including it in the cluster. The edge that is included is the single edge, of those on the cluster boundary, with the lowest weight. Additional edges are then included, one at a time, in the same fashion until the cluster percolates (spans) across the system. The generalization of the invasion percolation network to the GIST, in analogy to that of the GMST, partitions the nodes into groups and modifies the percolation condition, such that one node from each group must be spanned.

For graphs in which each group is a single node (i.e. those graphs for which the GMST reduces to the MST), the GIST reduces to an acyclic invasion percolation network (i.e., an invasion percolation network without loops) . It has been shown that the acyclic invasion percolation network is identical to the MST . Thus for graphs in which each group is a single node, the GMST and GIST are equivalent structures. Because of this equivalence, it is necessary to consider the GMST and GIST with groups of more than one node, rather than only the MST and invasion percolation, to understand the relation between local and global minimization criteria on tree structures.

The GMST and GIST structures were chosen because they generally offer extremes of global and local criteria. Both classes of trees have criteria which dictate the weight of edges chosen. The GMST structures choose the edges that minimize the total weight of the structure, even if that forces a higher weight edge to be chosen locally. In contrast, the GIST structures include the lowest weight edge locally, even if this results in a higher total weight for the entire tree. Except in the case of single-node groups noted above, each criterion results in a different final structure (though by definition both yield spanning trees). By comparing these structures, the effect of each type of criteria can be identified. Moreover, we provide a method to change a GIST structure incrementally into a more globally optimal GMST-like structure. This allows various structural features to be observed as a function of the degree to which either criterion is imposed. These intermediate structures can then serve as benchmarks for comparison when a real image is analyzed.

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 is comprised of a description of the GMST and GIST structures. It also contains brief summaries of the protocols used to form these trees, as well as methods for transitioning from the GIST towards the GMST. Section 3 contains basic statistical descriptions of the structures generated for a given set of graph realizations. Section 4 introduces the statistical measurements of edge density and tortuosity and outlines how they may be used to study an experimentally observed image. Finally, Section 5 has some concluding remarks.

## 2 Models and algorithms

Spanning trees were generated for graphs with 250,000 nodes arrayed on a square lattice connected by 500,000 edges. The nodes were divided into groups of 64 nodes each, with each group containing the nodes within an eight by eight square. The size of the groups was chosen such that the groups were large enough to allow many possible subtrees within a group, but still small enough to allow many groups within the graph. Each edge was randomly assigned a weight uniformly distributed between 0 and 1. Twenty graph realizations were generated using a different random seed for each (i.e., a different set of edge weights). The choice of an underlying graph that conforms to the square lattice and groups that were spatially compact was made to allow the resulting trees to be visualized readily. The methods presented here, however, are general to any type of graph.

We have employed one of the heuristics developed by Dror et al. for generation of the GMST structures . A brief summary of the algorithm that we have used is given below. The interested reader is referred to the original paper for a more detailed discussion of several possible protocols for producing GMST’s. We have chosen to use heuristic H1 given by Dror et al. For any given graph (generally containing many loops), this method begins with a small tree (initially comprised of a single edge) connecting two groups via the most efficient path possible. The tree is then “grown” by adding the shortest path that enables the tree to span a new group (i.e., one not already spanned by the tree). This step is repeated until the tree spans all of the groups in the system.

GMST algorithm:

1. Initialize the tree by choosing a group randomly and connecting it to the closest neighboring group. Here closest means the group containing the node which can be added to the existing tree by the lowest weight path.
2. Find the group closest to the tree not already included in the tree and connect it to the tree.
3. If all of the groups are now spanned, terminate the algorithm, otherwise return to step 2.

This algorithm was chosen because the specific details of our application allow it to be implemented efficiently. For example, because the graph we use has a straightforward geometric interpretation, it is simple to determine which group may be closest to the existing tree and what nodes within the tree are likely to be close to these groups. Thus, rather than identifying the minimum path to each region at each step, the distance to the majority of regions need not be calculated and further, for the regions that are checked, the distance from only a limited number of the nodes included within the tree must be calculated. Finally, as is discussed below, the size and regularity of the graph make it unnecessary to generate a distinct tree starting from each group and then find the tree with minimum total weight among these. Instead, a very small sample of groups is used as possible starting points and the minimum of these is designated the GMST.

As a basis of comparison for the globally minimized structure that the GMST protocol generates, we have defined a class of structures which we term generalized invasive spanning trees, or GIST’s. GIST structures meet the same spanning conditions as GMST structures, but include local minimization in place of the GMST requirement of minimum total weight. The GIST structures are “grown” one edge at a time, analogously to the process of invasion percolation.

GIST protocol:

1. Begin with a tree comprised of the lowest weight edge in the underlying graph.
2. Add to the tree the lowest weight edge remaining that adjoins the existing tree.
3. If the newly added edge forms a loop with the edges already in the tree, delete it from the tree and from further possible additions.
4. If the tree now spans at least one node from each group, it is the GIST. Otherwise, return to step 2.

The third step in the GIST protocol is included to ensure that a loop-less, tree structure is obtained, which is analogous to the creation of “trapped” regions in the trapping invasion percolation algorithm. With this exception, the protocol outlined above is identical to a standard invasion percolation protocol . The only apparent difference is that standard invasion percolation algorithms terminate once the system is percolated (i.e., connected) in a few coordinate directions, rather than when it meets the spanning criterion given here. However, a change of language makes it clear that the spanning criterion is equivalent to a percolation condition of a rather unusual structure in high dimensional space. Consider a graph consisting of $`2K`$ groups. Each group of nodes can be mapped to one face of a hypercube in $`K`$ dimensions. A percolating cluster in this arrangement, which includes no internal nodes, is one that connects all of the faces of the hypercube or, in other words, one which connects at least one node from each group. Thus the group spanning requirement for a graph whose nodes are divided into $`2K`$ groups is equivalent to percolation of a hypercube whose nodes are confined to the faces of the cube in $`K`$ dimensional space. Note that this equivalence means that any of the highly-refined algorithms developed for the generation of invasion percolation networks (e.g. Sheppard et al. ) could be modified for use here affording tremendous computational speed-ups relative to the simple algorithm currently employed.

Of importance for the purpose of comparison with GMST structures is that the criterion for adding an edge to the growing GIST structure is based only upon a local condition. At every node in the system, the lowest weight edges will be included in the tree first, independent of which edge is most useful in meeting the “terminating” condition that requires all groups to be spanned. Thus the GIST represents the locally optimal extreme of all generalized spanning trees, while the GMST represents the globally optimal extreme. A careful comparison of the GIST and GMST protocols, however, reveals that under certain conditions the algorithms are identical. Specifically, the GMST protocol reduces to the GIST one for the situation in which each group is of cardinality 1. In other words, if each group is comprised of a single node, the closest new group is always connected to the existing tree by the lowest weight edge adjoining the tree, excluding those edges that would form a loop. For such graphs the GMST and GIST reduce to the MST and the acyclic invasion percolation network, respectively. The MST and acyclic invasion percolation structures have previously been shown to be identical . As the groups increase in size, however, the GIST and GMST structures diverge from one another.

As reported below, the structures generated by the GIST protocol are extremely dense by comparison to GMST structures and consequently difficult to compare directly. To address this issue we have adopted a simple method termed “pruning,” which reduces the density of the GIST. In the pruning process, the edges comprising the GIST are sorted in order of non-increasing weight. Each “redundant” edge is then removed in turn, beginning with the highest weight edges. Here redundant is used in the same sense as in Dror et al., indicating an edge whose deletion leaves a spanning tree . Indeed, this procedure is very similar to Heuristic H2 proposed by Dror et al. for the generation of a GMST from the MST of the same graph. Because (unlike the heuristic employed by Dror et al.) the initial tree in our use of the pruning algorithm is not an MST, the resulting tree is still quite far from the GMST. The result of repeatedly applying this algorithm to any initial tree is to reduce the density of the tree leading to a backbone structure. This is similar to the concept of identifying the (elastic or flow-carrying) backbone of a percolation cluster.

Finally, a second transforming protocol was employed to study structures whose properties are intermediate between the GMST and the backbone of the GIST. These intermediate structures serve as useful comparison points for branched networks that are a mixture of GMST and GIST backbone structures. Furthermore, investigating structures between the GIST backbone and the GMST allows us to assess the value of different statistics over a range of structures, rather than only at the extremal structures. This method is an adaptation of the third heuristic proposed by Dror et al. The procedure begins with any feasible spanning tree, which is then gradually converted to a more globally optimal structure.

Conversion protocol:

1. Begin with the backbone of the GIST.
2. Choose an arc (an unbranched chain of edges) within the tree.
3. Delete this arc and reconnect its end points with the path of lowest weight.
4. Return to step 2, until a termination criterion is met.

There are a few important observation that must be made regarding this protocol. The most important is that it is not able to transform the tree structure to the same extent as the heuristic employed by Dror et al. . The main reason for this is the reconnection step (step 3) in this protocol fixes the end points of the new arc, whereas Dror et al. allow the replacement arcs to begin and end at arbitrary nodes within the tree. This is a compromise between the time complexity of the code and the efficiency of the resulting algorithm. Without this simplification, the time scaling of the code is too slow for use on the graph sizes considered here. In addition, the termination condition is also chosen to reduce computation time. The exhaustive search proposed by Dror et al. is more effective overall, but requires too much computational time to apply to the graphs used here. Instead, we have used a condition in which arcs are chosen randomly and replaced until 5000 successive replacements do not reduce the total weight of the spanning tree.

GMST structures took approximately 3 hours to generate on a single node of an IBM SP2 computer. GIST structures required roughly 4 minutes each to generate. Because of its comparative speed, the GIST routine was not optimized for execution time and could likely be accelerated considerably. The run time of the pruning algorithm depends directly on the size of the tree in the input. Runs on the initial GIST structures took approximately 6 minutes each, while runs on structures close to the GIST backbone took less than one minute. Finally, the conversion algorithm required approximately 10 hours per total conversion.

## 3 Results and Standard Characterizations

For each graph realization, GMST and GIST structures were generated. The GIST was then pruned repeatedly yielding a backbone structure, which was in turn reduced to a more globally minimal structure using the conversion protocol. As noted previously, the GMST protocol requires choosing a starting group. While the best possible GMST (within the limits of the heuristic method employed) requires testing every group as a potential starting point, in practice for our graphs this proved unnecessary. To test the variation in total weight caused by the choice of starting points, the GMST protocol was run for a single graph 100 times with a different starting point each time. In all cases, the final structures were closely related to one another (differing in less than 10% of included edges). Furthermore, the total weights of the trees were narrowly distributed, with a relative standard deviation of 0.2%. As such, almost any starting group will yield a good approximation of the GMST. For the data presented here, we generated three potential GMST structures and selected the minimum of those as the GMST. Examples of the GIST and GMST are shown in Figure 2. The trees depicted are small samples of the entire tree structure. Also shown in the figure are the trees resulting from the pruning and conversion algorithms, which are labeled backbone and converted, respectively. Note that the GIST has a much higher density than any of the other structures, making direct comparisons with it difficult.

Figure 3 shows the total weights of several spanning trees for a single graph. Two features from this figure merit special mention. One feature is the gap in total weight between the result of the conversion protocol and the GMST. This difference highlights the limitations of the conversion protocol as formulated here. In principle, a more complete conversion could produce trees closer to the GMST, for example by following the protocol outlined by Dror et al. more faithfully. However, as noted above, the computational cost of such an approach was prohibitive. While the protocol given above for the conversion of the backbone structure calls for termination after a fixed number of consecutive arc replacements leave the structure unchanged, the conversion process may also be stopped after a fixed number of attempted replacements or after a set total weight has been passed. Either of these choices will result in a structure that is only partially converted. In other words, this will result in a structure that has some globally dictated characteristics, but still has significant degrees of local minimization incorporated.

The second notable feature is the large drop-off in total weight between the GIST and its backbone. This drop indicates that a significant majority of the edges in the GIST structure (over 80%) play no role in meeting the spanning requirement. That many edges in the GIST can be removed is to be expected, in that edges are added to the GIST with no regard for the utility in creating a spanning tree. However, the degree to which edges can be removed is surprising. The pruning algorithm considers only the weight of an edge and its role in maintaining a single, connected spanning tree. This is a primarily local calculation and so it was originally expected that the backbone structure would be closely related to the GIST. Instead, the majority of edges in the GIST are pruned away in creating the backbone.

While the weights shown in Figure 3 are for a single graph, the variation in the weight of each tree between graphs is very small. This is not due to similarities in the actual trees, which display very few common edges. For example, less that 4% of the edges in the GMST for one graph are present in the GMST for any other graph. Instead, it suggests that the total weight of a GMST is insensitive to the specific details of the underlying graph. The total weights of each type of tree averaged over twenty different graph realizations are given in Table 1. Also listed in Table 1 are the average edge densities for each type of graph. The edge density is calculated as the number of edges included in the spanning tree divided by the number of edges in the complete graph. As expected, the edge density is strongly correlated with the total weight of each tree. Because the minimization of the total tree weight is the objective of the GMST protocol, the total tree weight can serve as an estimator of the degree to which a tree resembles the GMST.

Figure 4 shows the inclusion fraction distribution, or more briefly the inclusion fraction, which is defined as the fraction of edges in the underlying graph of a given weight included in each tree as a function of edge weight. For the GIST, the inclusion fraction has a sigmoidal dependence on edge weight. Recalling the previous discussion of the equivalence between spanning and percolation, it is useful to compare the inclusion fraction of the GIST to that of invasion percolation networks. The inclusion fraction for a sufficiently large (non-trapping) invasion percolation network is expected to take the form of a step function, with finite-size effects evidenced by deviations from the ideal function before and after the step . The GIST distribution displays near perfect step behavior at high edge weights, (with a vanishingly small number of high weight edges included) but a much more gradual drop-off at lower edge weights relative to an ideal step function. This behavior is reminiscent of an invasion percolation network with trapping . At large sizes, the inclusion fraction for this type of percolation network drops sharply beyond a critical value of edge weight (like a step function). At low edge weights, however, the inclusion fraction drops off gradually as the critical value is approached. The area between the inclusion fraction for the percolation network and the step function approaches a non-zero constant for large systems. This same type of low weight edge behavior is observed in the GIST inclusion fraction. A finite fraction of low weight edges are not included in the GIST because adding them would create a loop. In addition, there is a small area at the periphery of the graph (comprised of the most extreme groups) that is rarely visited by the tree. This finite-size effect is the reason the inclusion fraction of the GIST does not reach its limiting value of one at the lowest edge weights.

The inclusion faction for the backbone structure matches that of the GIST exactly at high edge weights. The few high weight edges included represent “bottlenecks” in the GIST, which are essential to the backbone. These bottlenecks should not be confused with the most vital edge of a spanning tree, which is the edge whose exclusion (and the subsequent reconnection of its end-points) would cause the greatest increase in total tree weight for a minimized tree , though they are likely to coincide to some degree. Instead, they occur when, in the course of creating the GIST, the invading tree reaches a point where all of the edges on the boundary of the current tree are high weight edges. One of these high weight edges must be included in the GIST and cannot be removed in the pruning process. Based on our simulations, this situation arises several times in the typical construction of a GIST. All of these instances are during the early stages of the tree formation, however, and so a vanishingly small fraction of the high weight edges is included in the limit of an infinitely large graph. It is interesting to note that the inclusion fraction for the backbone structure has an extended plateau at low edge weights. This suggests that low weight edges are equally likely to be included in the backbone structure nearly independent of their weight (below a threshold). This can be contrasted with the curve for the GMST, in which lower weight edges are included more frequently than higher weight edges for all edge weights. The inclusion fraction for the converted structure is intermediate between the backbone and the GMST. Although the distributions shown in Figure 4 differ significantly from one another, the mean weight of the edges included in each tree are very consistent (varying by a maximum of 0.02).

## 4 Analysis and Discussion

While the differences between the various types of trees in standard characterizations such as total weight or included edge fraction are clear, they are also of little utility in analyzing a single given structure. These measurements rely on the complete knowledge of the graph, including all edge weights. When considering a physical problem such as the infiltration of tumor cells into a porous gel, this level of information is generally difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Instead a measurement relying only on the specific details of the observed structure and the most rudimentary information about the underlying graph is desirable. Furthermore, in such examples the complete structure of the tree is frequently difficult to image. Accordingly, a statistical measurement relying only on local information would be of particular value.

One measurement that meets these criteria is the occupied edge density, which measures the fraction of edges in the underlying graph that are included in the spanning tree, a measurement that only requires an estimate of the total number of edges in the underlying graph (along with the network structure). As shown in Figure 4, the mean weight of the edges included in each tree varies little between different types of structures. Thus, the total weight of a tree correlates strongly with the fraction of edges in the underlying graph occupied by the tree. Another useful measurement is the *tortuosity*, $`\tau `$, of the arcs in the tree. Here tortuosity takes its common geometric meaning and is defined as an average of the ratio of the path length between two arbitrary nodes in the tree and the Euclidean distance between them. For a relatively large tree, this measurement can be made by averaging over the nodes included in the tree (or even a portion of the tree, if the tree is large enough). For small trees, however, an ensemble of trees would be necessary for an accurate measurement. This measurement can be made with no information about the underlying graph at all. For the trees considered here, the tortuosity is an increasing function of the path length.

$$\tau (\mathrm{})=\frac{\text{Path length between two arbitrary nodes}}{\text{Euclidean distance between nodes}}$$
(1)
In this equation, we have explicitly indicated that tortuosity should be measured for a single path length $`\mathrm{}`$, hereafter this notation will be suppressed and tortuosity will be indicated simply as $`\tau `$. The angular brackets indicate an average over pairs of nodes (and over structures, if more than one is given).

Figure 5(a) depicts average tortuosity curves for several types of spanning trees. The variation in the tortuosity curves between graph realizations is extremely small (the relative standard deviation is less than 0.1%) and as such is not indicated on the plot. Note that the tortuosity curves are ordered such that the GIST tree is the most tortuous, while the GMST is the least tortuous, with the backbone structure and the converted structure falling in between. Figure 5(b) shows the relation between total tree weight and tortuosity. In this figure, the average total weight of each type of tree is plotted against the average tortuosity at a fixed path length. The length chosen here was twenty edge lengths, but similar plots can be made for any path length up to the lengths considered. Tortuosity and total weight are positively correlated for all of the trees considered. The tortuosity and total weight of the spanning trees vary almost linearly between the backbone and GMST structures. The GIST structure, however, has a very high total weight relative to the backbone structure that is not accompanied by a correspondingly large increase in tortuosity. This suggests that in some respects the structure of the backbone resembles that of the GIST more closely than is indicated by the difference in total weight. Here it is simply noted that this resemblance comports with our initial expectation that the pruning algorithm would not affect the structure of the GIST to a very significant degree. Further investigation is necessary to understand the relation between a GIST and the resulting backbone tree more completely.

Assessing the degree to which a tree has been formed under a global criterion requires more than just measuring the tortuosity (or occupied edge density). In particular, the measurements presented above are all specific to one type of graph - a square lattice with random and uniformly distributed edge weights. Thus the scale set by the GIST and GMST structures in the this work can only be used to evaluate trees that develop on underlying graphs with similar average coordination and distributions of edge weights. If a tree develops on a graph that has a different distribution of edge weights or different coordination number, new standards for the tortuosity (for example) of the GIST and GMST structures will need to be set. A simple example will serve to illustrate this point. Table 2 compares the weight and tortuosity of trees generated on several underlying graphs. The first data set is for the graph used in generating Figure 3. The second is for an identical graph except the edge weights are rescaled such that they span 0.45 to 0.55, while maintaining the same ordering. Because the GIST considers only relative weights (i.e., which edge has the lowest weight) this rescaling does not affect the structure of the GIST. The GMST, however, is profoundly affected producing a tree that is significantly less tortuous at a fixed path length, though the total weight increases appreciably. Thus, a tree that developed on the second graph can have a very different balance of global and local influence than one developed on the first graph even though they both have the same tortuosity. For example, while a tortuosity of 1.32 would indicate a structure very close to the GMST of the first underlying graph, the same structure would have developed on the second underlying graph with a significant degree of local influence.

The need for standards (i.e. tortuosity measurements for the GIST and GMST) for the specific type of underlying graph presents a less serious obstacle than appears at first glance. In particular, it is not necessary to reproduce an exact replica of the real graph. As discussed above, the variation of tortuosity between different realizations of the same type of graph is extremely small. Thus, the only knowledge required to measure and evaluate the tortuosity of a tree is a statistical understanding of the underlying graph. In addition, computational experiments indicate that the exact form of the edge weight distribution also does not impact the tortuosity of the GMST significantly. To make this assessment, we have generated a GMST structure on a graph with edge weights drawn from a Gaussian distribution with mean 0.5. The Gaussian distribution was scaled such that the standard deviation matched that of a uniform distribution between 0 and 1, with values below 0 or above 1 set to the appropriate extreme. The statistical properties of the GIST and GMST on this graph are listed in Table 2 as Graph 3. The results are very similar to those for a graph with uniformly distributed edge weights. While it is necessary to test several other types of edge weight distributions before the claim can be confirmed, these results indicate that tortuosity is not sensitive to the exact form of the edge weight distribution. Recalling that the structure of the GIST is not determined by the distribution of edge weights, this means that setting the tortuosity standards for a general class of underlying graphs can be accomplished with very limited information about the specific graph.

In practical terms, given a single tree structure (or an ensemble of small structures), a simple procedure can be followed to estimate its relation to the GMST and GIST.

Evaluation protocol

1. Measure the tortuosity, $`\tau `$, for the given tree at a fixed path length.
2. Generate the GIST and GMST for the underlying graph thought to exist in the problem being considered and measure their tortuosities.

1. Estimate the coordination number of the expected underlying graph. Generate a model underlying graph, with the same type of coordination. For example, expecting a coordination number of 6, one could use a triangular lattice. Estimate the length scale of any long-range effects in the system and group the nodes in the underlying graph in accordance with this length scale.
    2. Using any distribution of edge weights, generate the GIST and measure its tortuosity, $`\tau _{GIST}`$.
    3. Estimate the relative dispersion of the edge weights in the graph. This requires an approximation of the ratio $`\sigma /\mu `$, where $`\sigma `$ is the standard deviation and $`\mu `$ is the mean of the edge weights.
    4. For the underlying graph chosen in step 2(a), generate a graph realization whose edge weights are drawn from a distribution with the relative dispersion estimated in step 2(c). Generate the GMST for this graph realization and measure its tortuosity, $`\tau _{GMST}`$.
3. Evaluate the ratio

$$\overline{\tau }=\frac{\tau \tau _{GMST}}{\tau _{GIST}\tau _{GMST}}$$
(2)
which represents the degree to which the given tree resembles the GIST. For example, a value of $`0.1`$ would indicate a structure that is primarily globally optimal (GMST-like), while $`0.8`$ would indicate a structure that is dominated by local effects (GIST-like).

As an example, consider the problem of cells moving through a porous medium under the influence of a nutrient gradient. The pores in the medium play the role of edges in the graph and their intersections are the nodes. Assume that we can measure the coordination number of the pore structure, perhaps by the same imaging technique that has produced the tree we are analyzing. For a medium with a coordination number of three, we might choose a hexagonal lattice as our graph. The long-range effect we are investigating is the influence of the nutrient gradient, so groups in the graph should be the size of the nutrient diffusion length scale. So our underlying graph would now be a hexagonal lattice, tiled into groups each of which has the same length scale as the nutrient diffusion length in the real system. Using this graph, we can use any edge weight distribution we choose and generate the GIST. To generate the GMST, however, it is necessary to make one more estimate - we must decide what type of resistances are present. For this problem, the resistance might be caused by the cells squeezing to fit into the pores. Thus the weight of an edge would be the inverse of the pore diameter. After estimating the range of pore diameters in the porous medium, we can construct an edge weight distribution that matches this estimate. Using this distribution, we can complete our graph realization and measure the tortuosity of the GMST. Note that the only information required in this process was very general and should be relatively easily accessible experimentally.

## 5 Conclusions

The results described above show that altering the criterion for including edges in a spanning tree from a global one (the GMST) to a local criterion (the GIST) has a measurable impact on the statistical characterization of the resulting trees. In particular, the total weight, occupied edge density, inclusion fraction distribution, and the tortuosity varied systematically with different types of spanning trees. Of these, however, the majority require extensive information about the graph under consideration, including individual edge weights. In contrast, however, measurement of the tortuosity of a tree only requires information about the structure of the tree. Measurement of the occupied edge density requires minimal information about the underlying graph, in addition to the tree structure, but does not require the detailed information necessary for measurements like the total weight or the inclusion fraction distribution. As noted above, both the edge density and the tortuosity measurements for a single network must be made in the context of the type of underlying graph present. We emphasize that while this context requires some basic knowledge of the characteristics of the underlying graph, this is a much more accessible level of information than the complete information required for measurements such as the total weight of the tree.

Using tortuosity to characterize a network has one additional advantage. The tortuosity is measured along individual arcs for relatively small path lengths. Thus the tortuosity of a structure can be measured accurately even if only a small portion of the structure is observed. This is of particular value in assessing systems that are challenging to image completely. These features make the tortuosity and occupied edge density promising tools for the investigation of naturally occurring tree structures whose temporal formation cannot be observed directly.

One type of variation that is not addressed in the discussion above is a change in the coordination number of the graph. It has been shown that changing the coordination of the underlying graph has a pronounced impact on the percolation threshold in the invasion percolation system . As such, it is expected that similarly pronounced impacts would be observed on the structure of any spanning tree. Characterizing the effect of different coordination numbers on the structure of the GMST, however, follows the exact methodology outlined in this paper. In sum, employing the protocols discussed previously on a graph of interest will yield a set of benchmark tortuosity or occupied edge density measurements that may then be used to assess whether global or local weight criteria played an important role in the development of any given tree structure.

## Acknowledgements

This work has been supported in part by grants CA84509 and CA69246 from the National Institutes of Health. The work was also supported by the Engineering Research Program of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences at the Department of Energy (Grant DE- FG02-92ER14275). The authors would like to thank Dr. T. S. Deisboeck for valuable discussions.

## Figure Captions

Figure 1: Example of a weighted graph and the resulting minimal spanning tree. (a) shows all of the edges and nodes in a graph, with the weight of each edge indicated next to the edge. Graph edges are depicted by broken lines. (b) shows the minimal spanning tree for this graph, which is the set of edges that connects every node in the graph in the tree with the lowest total weight. Edges included in the tree are shown as solid lines, while edges not included remain broken lines. The total weight of the tree in (b) is 40, and the occupied edge density (number of edges included in the tree divided by total number of edges in the graph) is $`15/25=0.6`$. (c) shows the invasion percolation network for the same graph. Note that the invasion percolation network may have loops and in this case there are two closed loops. If loop formation is prevented (resulting in the highest weight edge in any loop remaining unoccupied) the result is the acyclic invasion percolation network. As can be readily seen by comparing figures (b) and (c) the acyclic invasion percolation network is identical to the MST.

Figure 2: Examples of the (a) GIST, (b) GMST, (c) backbone, and (d) converted structures for a single graph. The backbone structure is the result of repeatedly applying the pruning algorithm to the GIST. The converted structure is the result of applying the conversion algorithm to the backbone structure. In each case a small, representative section is shown (not the entire tree). The underlying graph is not shown in these images.

Figure 3: The total weight of several types of trees for a single graph realization. Inset is a magnification of the three low weight trees to highlight the relative difference. The GIST, backbone, and converted structures fall along a continuum of structures as indicated by the connecting line. The backbone structure is generated by repeatedly pruning the GIST. The converted structure is the result of applying the conversion protocol to the backbone structure. Spanning trees between the converted tree and the GMST have yet to be produced.

Figure 4: Plot of the fraction of edges included in each tree as a function of edge weight. The mean weight of the edges included in each tree is indicated by the circle on each distribution.

Figure 5: (a) Tortuosity versus path length for several types of trees averaged over twenty graph realizations. The variation between graphs is sufficiently small that the curve for each graph is indistinguishable from the averaged curve. Note that the ordering of the curves corresponds to the total tree weights (i.e., high tortuosity correlates with high total weight). This correlation is explicitly displayed in (b). Inset is a magnification of the low total weight points, emphasizing their relative differences. Also included in the inset are several intermediate structures that are generated during the conversion algorithm.


text:
# Hadronic structure of the photon at LEP

## 1 Introduction

The photon is a unique particle in that it can act both as a fundamental field, the gauge boson of QED, and as an extended object with structure. The structure function of the photon differs from that of the proton and other hadrons, because the photon has a point-like coupling to quarks, calculable in perturbative QCD, as well as a non-perturbative hadron-like component, described by the vector meson dominance model (VDM) as a superposition of the light neutral vector mesons $`\rho ^0`$, $`\omega ^0`$ and $`\varphi `$.

The classical way to study the structure of the photon  at $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ colliders is through the deep inelastic scattering (DIS) of electrons (or positrons) on the quasi-real photons emitted by the other beam. The structure functions $`F_2^\gamma `$ and $`F_\mathrm{L}^\gamma `$ can be extracted from the measured differential cross-section using the following formula:

$$\frac{\text{d}^2\sigma _{\mathrm{e}\gamma \mathrm{eX}}}{\mathrm{d}x\mathrm{d}Q^2}=\frac{2\pi \alpha ^2}{xQ^4}\left[\left(1+(1y)^2\right)F_2^\gamma (x,Q^2)y^2F_\mathrm{L}^\gamma (x,Q^2)\right],$$

where $`\alpha `$ is the fine structure constant, $`Q^2`$ is the photon virtuality defined as the negative four-momentum squared of the virtual probe photon, while $`x`$ and $`y`$ are the dimensionless Bjorken variables. In the usual kinematic conditions at LEP $`y`$ can be neglected, therefore the longitudinal component $`F_L^\gamma `$ can not be measured. $`Q^2`$ can be calculated from the measured angle and energy of the scattered electron, but in contrast to electron-proton scattering, the target photon energy is not known, therefore $`x`$ can only be obtained from the invariant mass of the hadronic system, $`W`$, as $`x\frac{Q^2}{Q^2+W^2},`$ neglecting the virtuality of the target photon.

## 2 Photon structure at low $`x`$

The most important uncertainty in the measurement of the photon structure at low Bjorken $`x`$ lies in the reliable modelling of the hadronic final state, which in most cases is only partially contained in the detector, leading to the need for a complicated unfolding procedure relying on Monte Carlo simulation.

The available Monte Carlo models have recently been critically compared to the combined data of several LEP experiments . The differences between the experiments are used to estimate the systematic errors, usually smaller than the differences between the models, thus the comparison can serve as a constraint when developing new models.

OPAL recently published a measurement  of $`F_2^\gamma `$ concentrating on its behaviour at low $`x`$ in various regions of $`Q^2`$ from 1.9 to 17.8 GeV2. This analysis improves the reconstruction of the hadronic final state by incorporating kinematic information from the scattered electron, measured more precisely than the hadrons, and uses a special treatment of the energy in the forward calorimeters, to make the detector response more uniform. In addition a two-variable unfolding in $`x_{\mathrm{cor}}`$, the measured value of the Bjorken variable $`x`$ using the above methods, and $`E_\mathrm{T}^{\mathrm{out}}/E_{\mathrm{tot}}`$, the transverse energy out of the plane of the scattered electron scaled by the total observed energy, is used to further reduce the model dependence of the results, leading to much reduced total systematic errors, as can be seen in Figure 1 for the two lowest $`Q^2`$ regions.

The data are consistent with, but do not prove the presence of a rise in $`F_2^\gamma `$ at low $`x`$ predicted by QCD and observed for the proton at HERA. In general, the shape of the GRV and other leading order parametrisations is consistent with the data, but the predictions are too low for low $`Q^2`$ values.

## 3 Photon structure at high $`Q^2`$

At high $`Q^2`$ the point-like component of $`F_2^\gamma `$ is expected to dominate. In this region the hadronic system has more transverse momentum and therefore it is better contained in the detector, leading to much better correlation between its true and measured invariant mass. This fact justifies the use of the traditional one-dimensional unfolding in the $`x_{\mathrm{vis}}`$ variable, the value of $`x`$ calculated from the part of the hadronic final state that is visible in the detector. This approach was used in the new OPAL measurement  using the full LEP2 data set shown in Figure 2, an extension of the measurement discussed above to the $`Q^2`$ range from 7.1 to 2323 GeV2 by detecting the scattered electron in the electromagnetic endcap detectors.

A similar measurement  performed by DELPHI is also shown in Figure 2. This analysis uses a new approach with a multi-variable fit to the observed distributions to adjust the individual components of the hadronic structure function. This method results in larger uncertainties, but reduced model dependence.

## 4 $`Q^2`$ evolution of the photon structure function

Perturbative QCD can not predict the absolute normalisation of $`F_2^\gamma `$, which has to be extracted from data, but its evolution with $`Q^2`$ is predicted to be logarithmic. Previous measurements of this evolution have been improved significantly by DELPHI and OPAL in  and  both in terms of the precision and in terms of the $`Q^2`$ range covered, as shown in Figure 3 for medium values of $`x`$. The measured slope is noticeably higher than the existing leading order QCD parametrisations.

Instead of one wide range of $`x`$, the $`Q^2`$ evolution of $`F_2^\gamma `$ can also be measured in separate regions of $`x`$ so that the scaling violations in each region can be examined. In contrast to the proton, the photon structure function shows positive scaling violations at all values of $`x`$, as expected from QCD due to the point-like coupling of the photon to quarks.

## 5 Charm structure function of the photon

An interesting question is the flavour composition of the photon structure function. Charm events can be recognised by reconstructing the $`\mathrm{D}^{}\mathrm{D}^0\pi `$ decay, where the small mass difference between the D and the D0 ensures that the phase space for random combinations faking this decay is small. Applying this well established charm identification method to deep inelastic e$`\gamma `$ scattering one can measure the charm structure function of the photon separately.

Figure 4 shows the recent update  of the first such measurement performed by OPAL, using improved Monte Carlo models and all the LEP2 data to obtain better precision. The data are divided in two bins of $`x`$; the point-like component of the photon is expected to dominate for $`x>0.1`$, while the hadron-like component is more significant for $`x<0.1`$, according to the NLO calculation of .

While the OPAL data are well described by both the NLO calculation and the leading order Monte Carlo models for $`x`$ above 0.1, the predictions are much lower than the data below $`0.1`$, suggesting a significant hadron-like component of $`F_{2,\mathrm{c}}^\gamma `$.

## 6 Conclusions

We have seen that the structure function of the photon has been investigated in a wide range of $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ and its charm content has been studied separately. The introduction of new experimental methods and better Monte Carlo models coupled with the increased LEP energy and luminosity have opened up new regions of the phase-space and lead to more precise results. Further improvements both in the analysis techniques and in the Monte Carlo models, as well as the combination of the data of the LEP experiments can lead to more interesting results over the coming years.


text:
# Novel aspects of spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics

\[

## Abstract

There is a renewed interest to study spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics in various electronic materials. The motivation to examine the spin degrees of freedom (mostly in electrons, but also in holes and nuclei) comes from various sources: ranging from novel applications which are either not feasible or ineffective with conventional electronics, to using spin-dependent phenomena to explore the fundamental properties of solid state systems. Taken in a broader context, term spintronics is addressing various aspects of these efforts and stimulating new interactions between different subfields of condensed matter physics. Recent advances in material fabrication made it possible to introduce the nonequilibrium spin in novel class of systems, including ferromagnetic semiconductors, high temperature superconductors and carbon nanotubes–which leads to a question of how such a spin could be utilized. For this purpose it is important to extend the understanding of spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics to consider inhomogeneous systems, various heterostructures, and the role of interfaces. This article presents some views on novel aspects of spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics (referring also to the topics which were addressed at the conference Spintronics 2001) and suggests possible future research directions.

\]

The foundations for many aspects of spin-dependent phenomena which are currently investigated in the context of electronic materials have been developed over the past several decades. One of the basic ingredients–electrical spin injection (as a method to create nonequilibrium spin population) in metals , semiconductors , and superconductors , has already been proposed by Aronov in the 70’s. Other important examples, electrical detection of spin-polarized current through tunneling measurements in ferromagnet/superconductor junctions, optical generation of spin-polarized carriers in semiconductors (spin pumping and optical orientation)  studies  spin relaxation and spin coherence times (often denoted as T1 , and T2, respectively), or Rashba spin-orbit coupling , have also been known for quite some time. It is also interesting to note some early ideas, perhaps not appreciated at the time. For example, Ref.  mentions spin-based memory, and what can be called Feher’s effect  suggests how to purely electronically control nuclear spins , a desirable prospect in the current context of quantum information processing. Nevertheless, experimental demonstrations of some of the desired effects, accompanied with substantial challenges, have only recently been realized. This is well illustrated by the example of electrical spin injection from a metallic ferromagnet into a semiconductor. Such a spin injection, together with the Rashba spin-orbit coupling was an essential element for one of the early proposals for spintronic devices–spin field-effect transistor (spin-FET)  by Datta and Das. While the electrical spin injection in metals , and even in high temperature superconductors, has been achieved , spin injection from a metallic ferromagnet into a semiconductor proved to be more difficult . The corresponding problem of spin injection across an interface between a magnetic and a nonmagnetic material, or consequently the conversion of spin-polarized current into unpolarized current, has similarities with the conversion of charge current between normal (N) and superconducting (S) regions . This analogy with the standard situation for charge transport in N/S systems was first employed to spin injection into a normal metal  and later extended to semiconductors . It was suggested that for an effective spin injection (in a diffusive transport regime) it is important to reduce the conductivity mismatch between materials. Assumptions leading to the concept of conductivity mismatch are better satisfied for two metals  than when at least one of the materials is a semiconductor. For ferromagnetic metals, in contact with semiconductors, several complications can arise, including band bending, interface effects (spin-polarized transport influenced by a formation of Schottky barrier), and the possibility of bipolar (involving electrons and holes) transport. Even in the absence of conductivity mismatch, for a semiconductor p-n junction, consisting of magnetic and nonmagnetic regions, there still could be no spin injection at low applied bias. The concept of conductivity mismatch has stimulated important theoretical work, including a proposal that it can be eliminated by insertion of a tunneling contact . Several experimental groups have implemented this idea and substantial spin injection has been reported even at room temperature  (a ferromagnetic tip can also serve as an efficient spin injector ). Related to the efforts concerning the spin-polarized transport in semiconductors, these advances could mark an important shift in interest–from asking how to inject spin; to questions about what could be done with the (nonequilibrium) spin in a semiconductor.

In comparison, considering a similar time period, since the proposal of spin-FET, there has been a very significant progress in the context of metallic systems (which include metallic ferromagnets, normal metals and insulators). The understanding of spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics has reached a mature level and many questions about what can be done with injected spin have been answered. There are already successful spintronic applications utilizing magnetoresistance  (mostly giant and tunneling magnetoresistance (GMR,TMR)) including magnetic read head, magnetic sensors and nonvolatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM). In contrast, very little is known about the spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics in inhomogeneous semiconductors and their heterostructures. Ideas about possible device applications also require substantial additional efforts since, unlike conventional semiconductor electronics, even the simplest structures are only beginning to be understood. However, semiconductor spintronics offers several important advantages such as versatility in doping and fabrication of various structures, signal amplification, electronically tunable spin-orbit coupling, optical manipulation, bipolar transport, and simple integration with the dominant semiconductor technology, among others. Materials advances, leading to the III-V ferromagnetic semiconductors, such as (In,Mn)As , and (Ga,Mn)As  have resulted in the constantly growing list of additional compounds (GeMn , CdMnGeP , TiCoO  (Ga,Mn)N , (Ga,Mn)P ) including support for possible room temperature ferromagnetism in (Ga,Mn)N  and (Ga,Mn)P. Typically, in these materials the spin-polarized carriers are holes with faster spin relaxation rates (influenced by the strong spin-orbit coupling), but is also possible to have spin-polarized electrons and ferromagnetism at lower, non-degenerate, levels of doping , which may be desirable for potential applications. Several methods to influence ferromagnetism have been demonstrated, for example, it can be optically induced , or controlled with gate voltage  (which changes carrier concentration and consequently the Curie temperature of a semiconductor). More recent studies  have shown that only a small fraction of gate voltage reported in  is sufficient to control ferromagnetism. A possible historical obstacle for faster progress concerning these materials is that the ferromagnetism and semiconductors were traditionally studied separately, and that some of the similarities with an earlier class of ferromagnets  or colossal magnetoresistive materials (CMR) were not sufficiently explored. Theoretical studies of ferromagnetic semiconductors  are facing many challenges, such as, understanding the origin of ferromagnetism, their complex phase diagram (typically, the insulating phase, corresponding to higher doping, is less understood), or the role of disorder. Some of the approaches are using concepts developed for strongly correlated systems  and similarities with earlier magnetic semiconductors . There are additional difficulties related to the lack of systematic transport measurements and large uncertainties in the basic material parameters. Furthermore, these materials may not be a simple homogeneous systems and there are complications in the efforts to interpret measurements. For example, temperature dependent magnetization (which often departs significantly from a Brillouin function) can sensitively depend on the type of measurement performed on the same sample .

Both ferromagnetic  and semimagnetic semiconductors  (in the presence of applied magnetic field) can be employed to electrically inject spins into a nonmagnetic semiconductor. Together with optical orientation and spin pumping, this provides various methods to explore how to use the nonequilibrium spin in semiconductors. In a theoretical proposal  to study spin-polarized p-n junctions (which could serve as a building block for all-semiconductor spin transistor), it was shown that, with an inhomogeneous doping, the magnetization could increase in the interior of a nonmagnetic material, away from the point of spin injection . Carrier spin polarization can be tuned with the applied bias (which can extend the spin diffusion range). By shining circularly polarized light p-n junction can serve as spin-polarized solar battery  giving rise to spin and charge currents, accompanied by net voltage. There are also several other methods to generate spin currents in semiconductors , and to realize a spin-polarized battery . It was shown experimentally that there could be a large increase  in the spin injection efficiency if a spin-polarized p-n junction is used instead of a heterostructure.

For an inhomogeneously doped magnetic semiconductor, the magnitude of Zeeman splitting could change with position resulting in an effective magnetic force which separates carriers of different spins (analogous to a homogeneously doped sample in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic field ). A theoretical study  of bipolar spin-polarized transport in inhomogeneous magnetic semiconductors predicts an exponentially large magnetoresistance, resulting from the magnetic field dependence of the population of the minority carriers (following Boltzmann statistics, for nondegenerate doping). Another study, for a unipolar transport, governed by the majority carriers, considered the effect of magnetoresistance in a transistor structure . To fully exploit the effects of exponential magnetoresistance, which can be realized by considering magnetic/nonmagnetic p-n junction , it would be desirable to seek materials with large g-factors (g$`>`$500 is reported at low temperatures ) even at room temperature. Several interesting effects can occur if spin is electrically injected at the $`n`$-terminal of such p-n junctions. Nonequilibrium spin can lead to a charge current even at no applied bias, as well as to an open circuit voltage which changes sign if the spin polarization of injected carriers is reversed (similar effects of spin-charge coupling were previously discussed in the context of metallic systems ). There is also an associated GMR effect, governed by the relative orientations of the spin polarization of the injected spin and that in the magnetic $`p`$-region. For a unipolar transport, similar to metallic systems, GMR effect was experimentally demonstrated  in the all-semiconductor heterostructure where spin was electrically injected from a magnetic into a nonmagnetic semiconductor. Magnetic/nomagnetic p-n junction could be also used to probe electronically the spin-relaxation time (or consequently the spin diffusion length) by measuring current-voltage characteristics as a function of magnetic field . Several experimental studies have used similar inhomogeneous doping in magnetic structures , considering, for example, reverse bias and tunneling in ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic diodes  or diodes consisting of both hole- and electron-doped manganites . Bipolar spin-polarized transport  can also be extended to consider various implementations of all-semiconductor spin transistors . The nonequilibrium spin could be electrically injected or generated by shining circularly polarized light, and such devices would be capable, analogous to conventional bipolar transistors, of amplifying signals.

The efforts to experimentally demonstrate the proposal of Datta and Das  were accompanied by substantial difficulties, but studies of spin-polarized transport in hybrid ferromagnet/semiconductor structures, related to spin-FET geometry, are still continuing . In the ballistic limit it is convenient to use the simple approach applied to the N/S systems  and to extend it to spin-polarized transport in semiconductors , with interfacial scattering modeled by a $`\delta `$-function ; however it is suggested that to include Rashba spin-orbit coupling some care is needed . Hybrid ferromagnet structures were also considered as a method to combine the effects of magnetoresistance, extensively studied in metallic systems, with the versatility of semiconductors . To overcome the problems of spin-injection, across the Schottky barrier, at a ferromagnet/semiconductor interface, in several geometries hot-electron transport is used  for different realizations of transistor devices (hot-electron transport in metallic systems can be used to perform a ballistic electron magnetic microscopy ). More recently, a magnetic tunnel transistor , which can operate at room temperature (and with higher output currents, than in the previous proposals ), was examined. It combines the usual structure of a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), which serves as an emitter–base part of a transistor, together with a GaAs collector (which forms a Schottky barrier at the interface with the ferromagnetic base). The degree of spin-filtering in MTJ, and consequently the magnitude of the collector current, depends on the relative orientation between the two directions of magnetization in the emitter and base. The magneto-collector current (defined analogously to GMR), is nonmonotonic as a function of energy (controlled by the emitter-base voltage) of injected hot-electrons, and can attain up to 64% (with output currents of 1 $`\mu `$A at room temperature and applied bias of 1.4 V). A possible application of such magnetic tunneling transistor could be as an effective injector of spin-polarized current into a semiconductor. By applying a small magnetic field ($``$15 Oe, is sufficient to switch the direction of magnetization in the base) the spin polarization of injected current can be significantly changed.

There is a wide range of interest to study spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics in structures which involve superconducting material. For example, spin-dependent response of a superconductor can be used to probe the unconventional pairing symmetries (to identify the orbital, and the spin symmetry of the superconducting state). Alternatively, the superconducting region can serve as a diagnostic tool for studying spin-polarized transport in other materials or to investigate magnetically active interfaces. While the pioneering experiments on spin-dependent tunneling  involving superconductors have influenced the early development of spin-polarized transport, perhaps two other aspects, involving superconductors, have generated a substantial interest in recent research. One of them pertains to the materials advances and fabricating CMR/high temperature superconductor (HTSC) heterostructures. Related experiments  and the spin injection into HTSC’s made it possible to consider low-power superconducting devices which could have current gain and serve as very fast switches (an alternative proposal, with heterostructures consisting of ferromagnetic semiconductors and superconductors, has been suggested for implementation of logic circuits and switches ). However, theoretical understanding of the corresponding nonequilibrium processes including spin injection and spin relaxation, not limited to simple ferromagnets and $`s`$-wave superconductors  is still a formidable challenge facing complex properties of both CMR’s and HTCS’s. For example, even for a simple material such as Aluminum, a long-term puzzle related to spin relaxation has only recently been resolved . The other aspect, which has often been examined, is considering how the process of Andreev reflection (in addition to Andreev  addressed independently in a less known work of de Gennes and Saint James ) is influenced by spin polarization in both conventional , and unconventional superconductors . Andreev reflection in low temperature, $`s`$-wave, superconductors has already been established as a sensitive method to experimentally measure carrier spin polarization in various materials . If, on the other hand, HTCS’s  are considered, there is a much bigger temperature range available to study spin-polarized transport across interfaces with magnetic materials. The sign change of the pair potential in unconventional superconductors can give rise to Andreev bound state (midgap states)  and, as a consequence, to zero bias conductance peak. In the presence of spin-polarization such Andreev bound states can be suppressed  and used in conductance measurements to estimate the temperature dependence of an interfacial spin polarization at the CMR/HTSC’s interface  and examine the influence of interface morphology on spin-polarized transport. In addition to ferromagnet/superconductor (F/S) junction, there is growing interest to examine other configurations where spin-polarized Andreev reflection plays an important role. For example, it was proposed that the ferromagnetic contacts placed on the same side of superconductor can lead to large magnetoresistive effects  and an experimental realization could employ a geometry where one these ferromagnets would be a spin-polarized STM tip . Some similar aspects of modified Andreev reflection, which could arise when the two ferromagnetic regions are on the same sides of a superconductor, were also examined with the addition of a quantum dot  or by considering effects of metallic and insulating ferromagnets . Since the Josephson effect, in the nonmagnetic systems, is related to Andreev reflection , it is important to understand the effects of spin polarization on Andreev reflection for Josephson effect in S/F/S structures . Andreev reflection can also serve to investigate entangled spin states of electrons  (the wave function of two electrons is not a simple product of the wave functions for individual electrons), an important concept for spin-based quantum computing and quantum communication . In an earlier theoretical proposal to study spin-entanglement through transport measurements, geometries involving beam splitters and double quantum dot have been considered . Since Cooper pairs are a natural source of spin-entangled electrons it was suggested  that they could be used in a similar transport measurements, where it may be even possible to consider different signature of spin-triplet pairing, the symmetry supported in the context of Sr2RuO4  and some quasi-one-dimensional superconductors . However, additional complications would arise in systems with Cooper pairs of mixed spin symmetry .

One of the consequences, resulting from the studies of spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics, is that it is often difficult to limit contributions to a particular field. Instead, concepts originally introduced in a specific context keep reappearing in seemingly unrelated areas and merging both fundamental and applied aspects. In addition to studies of superconductivity, systems of reduced dimensionality (quantum wires, quantum dots, etc.) offer a similar example. With the possibility of fabricating carbon nanotubes  as a natural realization of one dimensional (1D) quantum wires, it is important to consider the influence of interactions that could lead to the breakdown of Fermi-liquid theory and to spin-charge separation (for example, spin and charge excitations can have different velocities) in a 1D Luttinger liquid . Spin-charge separation was also proposed in the context of HTSC’s  and there are suggestions of how spin injection  and transport measurement could be used to detect it in a Luttinger liquid  and in HTSC’s . Theoretical studies of spin transport in Luttinger liquids  indicate that it is qualitatively different from the spin transport in Fermi liquid (as well as from the charge transport in Luttinger liquid). On one hand, this poses an additional difficulty to use experience from the research on spin-polarized transport in more conventional electronic materials, while, on the other hand, supported by the findings for charge transport in carbon nanotubes , it opens a possibility for molecular spintronics. There are still only a small number of experiments which examine the spin-dependent transport in carbon nanotubes , while some theoretical studies consider spin and charge pumping  and the effect of Rashba interaction  in a Luttinger liquid . It is also interesting to note  the similarity of spin-dependent transport in a Luttinger liquid to Andreev reflection in superconductor/normal metal/superconductor junctions. It is conceivable that, in addition to the carbon nanotube analogue of magnetic tunnel junction , there will soon be other configurations (heterojunctions, transistors, etc.) that would explore spin-dependent transport and spin dynamics. Perhaps, one of the future challenges could be to involve more carbon in spintronics and consider how to combine the spin degrees of freedom with the progress in C60 superconductivity .

I would like to thank J. Fabian, S. Das Sarma, E. I. Rashba, and R. De Sousa for useful discussions. This work was supported by DARPA and the US ONR.