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# Charged particle fluctuations and microscopic models of nuclear collisions

## I Introduction

One of the main purposes of high energy heavy-ion collisions is to produce a macroscopic size of quark-gluon-plasma(QGP). With hadrons as final observables, several signatures have been suggested: $`J/\psi `$ suppression, single event fluctuations measurements, and void and gap searches. It was also proposed in Ref. that the quantity

$$D(\mathrm{\Delta }y)=N_{ch}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}\delta R^2_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}4\frac{\delta Q^2_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}}{N_{ch}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}},$$
(1)
be used as a signature of QGP. Here $`N_{ch}=N_++N_{}`$ is the total number of charged particles, $`R=N_+/N_{}`$ is the ratio between positive charge and negative charge and $`Q=N_+N_{}`$ is the net charge. The second moments of $`R`$ and $`Q`$ are defined as

$$\delta x^2=x^2x^2,$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ means the average taken over all events and $`\mathrm{\Delta }y`$ is the rapidity window in which we calculate the above quantities. The last step in Eq. (1) is correct to leading order in $`1/N_{ch}`$ and in the fluctuations. It is the observable defined by this last term of Eq. (1) which we calculate throughout this paper. It has been found that for a pion gas, the $`\frac{4\delta Q^2}{N_{ch}}`$ is around 4 and for a QGP gas it is approximately $`1`$; therefore, the $`D`$-measure has been proposed as a signature of QGP.

However, this observable ($`D`$-measure) has some caveats which have been discussed recently. Gazdzicki and Mrowczynski have argued that $`\delta Q^2`$ in $`AA`$ collisions could be determined by the number of participating protons. So the smallness of the $`D`$-measure may be just an indication of the smallness of $`\frac{N_{part}}{N_{ch}}`$. Fialkowiski and Wit have commented that the $`D`$-measure is a rapidity dependent quantity and the prediction of the $`D`$-measure from PYTHIA/JETSET model is smaller than the estimated value for hadron gas and become much smaller (even less than the estimated value for QGP) when the rapidity region is very large.

In reply to the second criticism, Bleicher, Koch and one of us argued that the dependence of $`D`$-measure on rapidity is due to the following two facts: (1) In Ref., the approximation $`N_+_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}=N_{}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}`$ was used which may be not fulfilled for heavy-ion collisions, so one needs to apply the correction $`(\frac{N_+_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}}{N_{}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}})^2`$. (2) Also, it was assumed that the charge ratio fluctuated independently in each rapidity window. This is inappropriate due to global charge conservation, and this brings up another correction factor $`1\frac{N_{ch}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}}{N_{ch}_{total}}`$. After these corrections, it was found that the corrected measure $`D_{corr}(\mathrm{\Delta }y)`$

$$D_{corr}(\mathrm{\Delta }y)=\frac{D(\mathrm{\Delta }y)}{(\frac{N_+_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}}{N_{}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}})^2(1\frac{N_{ch}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}}{N_{ch}_{total}})},$$
(3)
predicted by UrQMD is around $`2.53.1`$ which is consistent with the estimated value of $`D`$-measure for resonance gas. In Ref., no significant differences have been found for $`D`$-measure values at SPS and RHIC energies, meaning that the $`D`$-measure has little energy dependence.

As has been discussed, for example, in Open Standard Code and Routine (OSCAR) conferences, all MCGs used now are not simple codes, they contain different physical ingredients and assumptions; therefore, it is very interesting to study and compare theoretical predictions from some MCGs, which are based on different physics pictures. In this paper we calculate the $`D`$-measure using the VNIb, RQMD v2.4 , HIJING v1.35 , and HIJING$`/B\overline{B}`$ v1.10  models (See section II for a short discussion of these models). One of the striking results is that the values of $`D`$-measure from VNIb model (running with rescattering turned off) is much less than the values of $`D`$-measure from RQMD, HIJING, HIJING/$`B\overline{B}`$ and UrQMD models. The reason for this difference could be the different number of gluons embedded in the model. In heavy-ion collision processes, if the degrees of freedom are partons or hadrons at the initial stage of collisions, we will expect to have a different charged fluctuation if the rescattering effects do not play a key role in interactions. In this sense, the $`D`$-measure could be a signature of QGP. However, to be considered as a good signature of QGP, $`D`$-measure values must be compared also between nucleus nucleus (AA) and proton-proton (pp) collisions. If the $`D`$-measure is dominated by the physics just before hadronization, any differences between the values obtained from AA and pp collisions indicate that either rescattering effects are strong, or a signature of new physics (e.g. presumably QGP) in AA collisions.

One of the aims of this work is to perform a systematic study of the charged fluctuations using many of the available and popular event generators. We believe this exercise is valuable first to establish the fluctuations as a robust variable, then to interpret the physical information the measurements contain. We investigate the effects of rescattering and we also consider the impact parameter dependence of the signal.

This paper is arranged in the following way: In Sec. II, using VNIb, RQMD v2.4, HIJING v1.35, HIJING/$`B\overline{B}`$ v1.10 models we calculate the $`D`$-measure for AA collisions at total centre of mass (c.m) energy $`\sqrt{s}=200`$A GeV and we find that the $`D`$-measure of VNIb (with rescattering turned off) is much less than the $`D`$-measure of other models and an explanation is given. In Sec. III, we study the rescattering effects on VNIb and RQMD. Our results show that rescattering effects may spoil the signature of physics in VNIb; on the other hand, the rescattering effects on the $`D`$-measure of RQMD are less dramatical. A comparison of $`D`$-measure between pp and AA are performed and the similar value between of $`D`$-measure between $`pp`$ and $`AA`$ are explained within a “participant model”. Finally, our discussions and conclusions are given in Sec. IV.

## II  The $`D`$-measure with different MCGs

As in Ref., we will calculate the $`D`$-measure using VNIb, RQMD v2.4 , HIJING v1.35 , HIJING$`/B\overline{B}`$ v1.10  models. In the following we briefly outline the main features of those models.

In HIJING , the physics of minijets is addressed explicitly in perturbative Quantum ChromoDynamics (pQCD). The cross sections for hard parton scattering are calculated at the leading order and a K-factor is invoked to account for higher-order corrections. Soft contributions are modeled by diquark-quark strings with gluon kinks induced by soft gluon radiation. Jet quenching and shadowing can also be treated in this approach. HIJING$`/B\overline{B}`$  is based on HIJING and a baryon junction mechanism is introduced in order to understand the longitudinal distributions of anti-baryons from pA and AA collisions at SPS energies. The junction-antijunction loops that arise naturally in Regge phenomenology are also included in the calculation. Final state interactions among produced hadrons are implemented neither in HIJING nor in HIJING$`/B\overline{B}`$. RQMD  is a transport approach for hadrons and resonances, with initial-state hadronic string generation. There, overlapping strings may fuse into colour-ropes. The fragmentation products from ropes, strings, and resonances may then interact with each other and with the original nucleons. In this model copious rescatterings lead to the development of collective flow and can drive the system towards local equilibrium.

As opposed to RQMD, HIJING and HIJING$`B\overline{B}`$, VNIb treats a nuclear collisions in terms of parton-parton interactions. It uses a transport algorithm to follow the evolution of the many-body system of interacting partons and hadrons in phase space. For hadronization, VNIb uses a parton-cluster formation and fragmentation approach. Rescattering among partons and hadrons is included in the code. One important feature of VNIb is that, at RHIC energy, it generates a substantial gluon population. Those then play an important role in the simulation of RHIC data in VNIb.

In Fig. 1, the values of the $`D`$-measure from VNIb (rescattering turned off) vs. the rapidity window are shown. For comparison, the results from UrQMD are also included in the plot.

We notice that there are big differences between the values of the $`D`$-measure from VNIb and those from UrQMD. Applying the correction method given in Ref., we calculate also the corrected values of $`D_{corr}`$ (see Eq. (3)) and we obtain a higher value for a large rapidity window. For a rapidity window around $`(2,2)`$ we find that the value of $`D_{corr}`$ is around one. For smaller rapidity window, the value of $`D_{corr}`$measure is bigger than one, and this can be explained by the fact that small windows will not catch all the decay products of a resonance. If we analyze the correction factor, $`1\frac{N_{ch}_{\mathrm{\Delta }y}}{N_{ch}}`$ given in Ref., we find that for the whole kinematic phase space this correction factor should be zero and can not be used for very larger rapidities, so we must overlook the results for larger rapidity windows ($`\mathrm{\Delta }y>4`$) in Fig. 1.

The corrected values $`D_{corr}`$ obtained from the predictions of VNIb (rescattering turned off), RQMD, HIJING, HIJING/$`B\overline{B}`$ models are shown in Fig.2. The values from VNIb are lower than the values predicted by other MCG models. The main difference can be due to the different number of gluons embedded in VNIb, which is higher than in any other MCGs considered here.

The predictions obtained from all the above models, except VNIb, are consistent with each other in the limit of statistical errors. If rescattering among produced hadrons is not a dominant effect during heavy-ion collisions, then the $`D`$-measure should be determined by the physics just before hadronization as assumed in Ref.. According to this picture, string model codes, like UrQMD, RQMD, HIJING, HIJING$`/B\overline{B}`$ (we note that UrQMD and RQMD include also hadronic picture in the code), form strings using the quarks or diquarks from two collided nucleons and there is no, or very few gluons. So those quarks and antiquarks will dominate the final state charge fluctuations. On the other hand, for a model like VNIb which contains a large population of gluons, the observed $`D`$-measure should be different from the results calculated from RQMD and HIJING. It is known that if there are only gluons in the initial state of heavy-ion collisions and if we consider gluon fusion processes (like $`ggq\overline{q}`$), then the charge fluctuation in a larger rapidity window (for our case from $`2`$ to $`2`$ for example)

$$\delta Q^20,$$
(4)
as the charge is almost conserved in that window; those gluons also produce large number of charged particles. Thus the $`D`$-measure for a gluon gas should be very small. In the VNIb code, we have quarks, antiquarks and gluons. By examining the parton population in VNIb, we find that the ratio of the number of gluons to the number of quarks and antiquarks from the runs for $`Au+Au`$ collisions at $`200GeV`$ is around $`1.2`$. If we exclude the extra valence quarks (those valence quarks will mainly contribute to fragmentation regions) coming from nucleons (so that $`N_q=N_{\overline{q}}`$ ), then the ratio is $`1.8`$. That is, the central rapidity region is the most gluon dominated region in VNIb code. This could explain why the $`D`$-measure from VNIb is less than the $`D`$-measure from RQMD and HIJING.

This analysis shows that one obtains different values of $`D`$-measure owing to the different physics embedded in the MCG; however, to draw any final conclusion, we should have new theoretical predictions using models such as, for example, ARC and compare them with predictions from VNIb and ZPC. ARC is based on hadronic physics and pictures nuclear collisions in terms of nucleon-nucleon collisions. For nucleon-nucleon collisions, the model uses data from experiment. As opposed to RQMD and HIJING, there is no string picture in ARC. Because of this we expect that ARC should give a value of the $`D`$-measure around three. On the other hand, ZPC is a versatile simulation program that can use initial parton distributions from any source as input, and can study parton evolution and rescattering. However, there is no hadronization algorithm implemented in the code. One could use the parton mode of ZPC to calculate directly the $`D`$-measure which should be less than one, following the reasoning in .

Finally, we mention that one can account for all final state particles in a MCG model, which is not the case in heavy-ion experiments because of the fact that detectors can not detect all charged particles. So, we can imagine that there is no charge conservation among the detected  particles. Here, we will discuss detector efficiency for two cases: Case I: if we assume that the detector efficiency is the same for both positive and negative particles in each event, then the $`R^2`$ and $`R`$ should remain the same. We notice that as the measured charged particles $`fN_{ch}`$ becomes smaller ( here $`f`$ is the detector efficiency which represents the ratio of the measured particles to the produced particles, $`N_{ch}`$ is the production particles), the $`D`$-measure will become smaller too. Case II: We assume two Poissonian distributions for both produced positive and negative charged particles, that is

$$P(N_i)=\frac{N_i^{N_i}}{N_i!}\mathrm{exp}(N_i)i=\pm .$$
(5)
We further assume that due to the detector efficiency, the observed particle number $`S_i`$ follows a Binomial distribution ($`S_\pm N_\pm `$)

$$P(S_i|N_i)=\frac{N_i!}{S_i!(N_iS_i)!}f^{S_i}(1f)^{N_iS_i}i=\pm .$$
(6)
Then one can easily verify that the observed charged particles have again a Poisson distribution

$`P(S_i)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{N_i=S_i}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}P(N_i)P(S_i|N_i)`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(N_if)^{S_i}}{S_i!}}\mathrm{exp}(N_if)i=\pm .`$ (8)
From above we have

$$\delta Q^2=fN_++fN_{}2f^2\delta N_+\delta N_{}.$$
(9)
Thus

$$D=48f\frac{\delta N_+\delta N_{}}{N_++N_{}}.$$
(10)
This indicates that when $`f`$ becomes smaller then the $`D`$-measure will become bigger. This is different from the conclusion in the Case I. In Case I, there is strong correlation between the detector efficiencies of positive and negative charge particles in each event; on the other hand, there is no correlation between detector efficiencies of positive particles and negative charge particles in Case II. The practical case can be more complex. However, as shown here that $`D`$-measure is sensitive to the detector efficiency and we need to exercise caution when comparing theoretical predictions with data.

## III Rescattering effects on the $`D`$-measure

### A Rescattering effects on the $`D`$-measures of VNIb and RQMD

Large rescattering effects can destroy the physical correlations which originate from the QGP phase. Then we will only get a hadronic resonance gas signature, $`D3`$. Rescattering effects depends on two factors, one is the time that particles need to go through the collision region, another one is the density in the collision region. Those two effects will determine the mean free path of particles in the interaction region. For high energy collisions, the time that particles needed to pass through the collision regions is short, since the density is higher. No simple relation exist to determine the effects of rescattering on the $`D`$-measure yet.

We note that $`D`$-measure values from UrQMD model have no impact parameter dependence up to very peripheral collisions and we know that if the impact parameter of AA collisions is very large the nuclei-nuclei collision will be only a superposition of pp collisions (may be one or several pp collisions) and rescattering effects will become smaller. On the other hand, if the impact parameter is smaller, then rescattering effects could play an important role. Most MCGs use the following scheme

$`A+A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle (nucleon+nucleon)}+`$ (15)
$`(secondaryparticle+secondaryparticle)`$
$`+(secondaryparticle+nucleon).`$
UrQMD model predictions show that $`D`$-measure is almost impact parameter independent, and this indicates that rescattering effects do not play a key role for the values of $`D`$-measure at RHIC energy. The physics should then be dominated by the simple $`nn`$ collisions if the model employed the scheme described by Eq. (15). We also remark that the predictions from UrQMD at SPS energy are larger than the predictions at RHIC energy. The main differences could perhaps be attributed to the mix of hadronic degrees of freedom and string degrees of freedom. When energy is higher the string formation dominate the collisions process, while when energy is lower the hadronic picture does. This may explain why the values of $`D`$-measure at SPS energy are slightly higher than the values at full RHIC energy.

In Fig. 3, we plot the values of $`D`$-measure from RQMD (rescattering turned on) in order to study the impact parameter dependence of rescattering, for two different impact parameters regions. Analyzing the results from Fig. 3, we note that rescattering is slightly higher for central collisions ($`b<5fm`$) in comparison with peripheral ones ($`5<b<10fm`$) at low $`\mathrm{\Delta }y`$. Also, the results seems to indicate that rescattering effects are negligible for a rapidity window $`\mathrm{\Delta }y>1.0`$.

We also calculate the $`D`$-measure value from RQMD model at $`130`$GeV with rescattering turned on and off. The results are shown in Fig. 4. It is clear that rescattering effects on the value of $`D`$-measure are within $`10\%`$. This result is consistent with those in Fig. 3.

In Fig. 5, the values of the $`D`$-measure from VNIb (rescattering turned on and off) are shown. It is found that the values of the $`D`$-measure are around $`2.3`$ for rescattering turned on and are smaller with rescattering turned off ($`1.0`$). These results show the different effects of rescattering in VNIb and RQMD v2.4 (see Fig. 34). Those could be related to the different densities of hadronic matter at the beginning stage of hadronization. As the density of hadronic matter of VNIb is higher than the density of RQMD, rescattering plays a more important role in VNIb.

From above we conclude that the values of the $`D`$measure from the RQMD and UrQMD models have no impact parameter dependence. Therefore we strongly suggest that the RHIC experiments must determine the impact parameter dependence of $`D`$-measure to verify the above results. If the experimental values indicate a different trend in comparison with theoretical predictions, we may consider that the idea of Eq. (15) is too simple and one needs to involve other effects, such as the fact that the parton distributions functions in nuclei are potentially different from the parton distributions functions in nucleon.

If $`D`$-measure for AA collisions is dominated by single nn interactions, one can imagine that at lower energy, the single nn collisions is dominated by hadronic picture (cluster picture), and at higher energy, nn collisions can see the content of nucleon. When energies increase, it is expected that gluon should have also higher contribution. Based on the above assumption, if we plot the $`D`$-measure of $`pp`$ collision as the function of collision energy there should exist a drop from three to one. Even if there is no such drop, one needs to get the trend that $`D`$-measure is really high at lower energy and becomes smaller at high energy. Similar analyses should be performed for heavy-ion collisions too, in order to obtain energy dependence of $`D`$-measure from Bevalac to LHC energies.

On the other hand, if the rescattering effects play a key role as in VNIb model, the signature of the initial stage of heavy-ion collisions will be lost. However, combined analysis of $`D`$-measure with other signatures of QGP probably could still give us some more information about the unknown matter created in the early stages of AA collisions.

### B $`D`$-measure for pp and AA

We compare the values of $`D`$-measure for $`pp`$ and $`AA`$ collisions obtained from VNIb (rescattering turned off), VNIb (rescattering turned on), HIJING v1.35, HIJING/$`B\overline{B}`$ v1.10, RQMD v2.4 (rescattering turned on) in Fig. 6(a-e). We note that the $`D`$-measure for AA collisions from VNIb without rescattering, HIJING, HIJING/$`B\overline{B}`$ and RQMD are all consistent with the $`D`$-measure for $`pp`$ interactions. On the other hand, the values of $`D`$-measure for AA from VNIb with rescattering are larger than the predictions for $`pp`$ due to rescattering effects.

The interesting result is that $`D`$ values are similar for $`pp`$, and $`Au+Au`$ collisions for all MCGs when rescattering effects are neglected. In the following, we try to explain this in the framework of a “participant model”. As in Ref., we write

$$Q=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_p}{}}Q_i.$$
(16)
Here $`Q`$ is the total charge of $`AA`$ collisions, $`Q_i`$ is the charge produced by each nucleon +nucleon ($`n+n`$) collisions in a specific rapidity window and $`N_p`$ is the number of $`nn`$ collisions for each $`AA`$ collisions. Taking the average over a number of events we have

$$Q=N_pQ_i$$
(17)
and

$$Q^2=N_pQ_i^2+N_p(N_p1)Q_i^2.$$
(18)
In the derivation we have used $`Q_iQ_j=Q_iQ_j`$. The mean charged multiplicity for $`AA`$ collisions can be expressed as

$$N_{ch}=N_pn_i.$$
(19)
Here $`n_i`$ is the charged particles produced by each $`n+n`$ collisions. Finally we get the following equation:

$$\frac{\delta Q^2}{N_{ch}}=\frac{\delta Q_i^2}{n_i}+\frac{Q_i^2}{n_i}\frac{\delta N_p^2}{N_p}.$$
(20)
If the $`P(N_p)`$ distribution is Poissonian, then $`\frac{\delta N_p^2}{N_p}=1`$. In Ref., the author estimated the above value to be around $`1.1`$. $`\frac{Q_i^2}{n_i}`$ should be much less than one for very high energy $`n+n`$ collisions, that is

$$n_i>>Q_i.$$
(21)
To confirm this, we plot the ratios of $`\frac{Q_i^2}{n_i}`$ vs. rapidity window for $`pp`$ collisions at $`200\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$ in Fig. 7. One sees clearly, that for smaller rapidity windows the ratio is near zero, while for whole window the value is around 0.2. The later is due to charge conservation effects. For larger rapidity regions, the particles are produced mainly near the leading valence quarks, so we notice that there is a sharp increase of the value $`\frac{Q^2}{N_{ch}}`$ for larger rapidity window. For the inner part of the rapidity region, due to the charge conservation, the mean charge $`Q_i0`$. From above figures we can safely say that $`D`$-measure for $`AA`$ collisions should be roughly the same as for $`pp`$ case when the rescattering effects are negligible. Any deviation between the $`D`$-measure of $`AA`$ and $`pp`$ may indicate a signature of new physics in $`AA`$ collisions. Thus, it is necessary to check the consistency between $`pp`$ collisions and $`AA`$ collisions results before we may conclude that $`D`$-measure is a signature of QGP.

## IV Comments and conclusions

Theoretical predictions of $`D`$-measure from VNIb, HIJING v1.35, HIJING/B$`\overline{B}`$ v1.10, RQMD v2.4, indicate that the fluctuation of charge is sensitive to the parton number embedded in the model if the rescattering effects are not essential; therefore, $`D`$-measure can be a signature of QGP.

However, if the charge fluctuation shows no impact parameter dependence, then we have to slightly change our views. If we observe similar signal for pp and for peripheral collisions, the charge fluctuation could be only a signature of the fundamental degrees of freedom that we need to take into consideration in the collision processes. In other words, charge fluctuation can tell us when we should treat the heavy-ion collisions as simple hadronic cascade or when is necessary to use QCD, or some model in between. This idea has been used in $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions to see when one should use a cluster picture and when one needs to use a parton picture. If the $`D`$-measure for $`AA`$ is bigger than the $`D`$-measure for $`pp`$, there could exist a stronger rescattering effects in heavy-ion collisions; on the other hand, if the $`D`$-measure for $`AA`$ is lower than the $`D`$-measure for $`pp`$, some new physics in $`AA`$ collisions should be involved. Upcoming experiments at RHIC will allow us to draw more definite conclusions.

To consider $`D`$-measure as a signature of QGP, one must certify that the model from Ref. and Ref. can not be applied for pp collisions. If a single thermal model is valid for both $`AA`$ and $`pp`$ collisions, then the conclusions that $`D`$-measure is a signature of QGP may be questionable. If the statistical model for parton degrees of freedom can also be used in pp collisions we can not see any reason why the predictions from pp collisions should be different from the prediction of $`AA`$, but we totally agree that the $`D`$-measure can tell us if we need to consider partonic or hadronic degrees of freedom in the collisions.

Our theoretical predictions using different MCG models show that $`D`$-measure is sensitive to different parton content embedded in the model if the rescattering effects is not dominant. We find that the $`D`$-measure values do not depend on impact parameter for RQMD v2.4 model and also we obtain similar results for AA and pp collisions, and we explain this using the participant model. On the other hand, we find that the values of $`D`$-measure from VNIb model are strongly dependent on rescattering effects which spoil the original signature from the initial state of collisions. However, any deviation among the prediction of $`D`$-measure for different impact parameter in AA collisions and pp collisions may indicate that the rescattering effects play a key role in interactions, or a signature for new physics (e.g. presumably QGP) in AA collisions. Note that a recent paper was concerned about the specific effects of rescattering on the $`D`$-measure. Within the framework of existing empirical models, our work can be seen as a quantitative answer to those questions. Also it will be crucial to repeat the calculations done here with the soon-to-be-release next version of the parton cascade code.

Recently, the STAR collaboration has analyzed the $`D`$-measure at RHIC energy ($`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$GeV) and has found that the $`D`$-measure value is around three and has no centrality dependence. This results are consistent with our prediction and those of Ref.. In the calculation of the STAR collaboration, they did not use the correction which accounts for the net charge and global charge conservation; if we consider this correction, the $`D`$-measure will be around $`3.9`$. However, the high value of $`D`$-measure does not imply that QGP is not formed at RHIC, this high value of $`D`$-measure may still be explained by final state rescattering.

Acknowledgment

This work was partly supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Fonds FCAR of the Quebec Government. The authors would like to thank U. Heinz, V. Koch, S. Mrowczynski, S. Voloshin and R. Wit for helpful communications.


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# High Energy Beam Test of the PHENIX Lead–Scintillator EM Calorimeter

## 1 Introduction

The PHENIX experiment at RHIC started data taking in 2000, with relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Subsequent runs will also use polarized proton beams to carry out a program of spin physics. In PHENIX, the electro-magnetic (EM) calorimeter is the primary tool for measuring photons and electrons/positrons. In order to cover topics in both physics programs, e.g. a thermal photon measurement in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, and prompt photon, $`\pi ^0`$ and weak boson measurements in spin physics, the EM calorimeter needs to cover a wide energy range extending from a few hundred MeV to 80GeV. A goal of the spin physics program is to measure differential cross sections of prompt photon and $`\pi ^0`$’s to an accuracy of 10%. A 2% accuracy in the calorimeter energy scale is required to achieve this for $`p_T>`$ 10GeV/$`c`$ of interest, because the cross sections fall steeply as their energy increases. The EM calorimeter was originally designed for relativistic heavy-ion physics. There are two kinds of calorimeter in the PHENIX detector. One is a Shashlik  type lead–scintillator sampling calorimeter (PbSc) and another is a lead glass calorimeter (PbGl). Table 1 shows their basic parameters. A “super-module” is composed of 12$`\times `$12 channels for the PbSc calorimeter and 4$`\times `$6 channels for the PbGl calorimeter. The total EM calorimeter system in the PHENIX detector consists of the PbSc super-modules and the PbGl super-modules.

The calorimeter’s energy resolution, linearity and hadron rejection had already been measured at BNL-AGS in the energy range up to 7GeV . In order to extend these measurements to the energy range up to 80GeV, a beam test was performed at the CERN-SPS H6 beam line in 1998.

In this article, we describe the beam test and present results of the PbSc data analysis.

## 2 Setup

Figure 1 shows a setup of the beam test. One PbSc super-module and four PbGl super-modules were located at the H6 beam line, and both were tested with electron beams in the momentum range of 10GeV/$`c`$ to 80GeV/$`c`$ and $`\pi ^+`$ beams of 40GeV/$`c`$. Both kinds of calorimeter were placed on a movable platform to change positions and angles of the incident beam on the calorimeter. Delay-line Wire Chambers (DWC)  were located just in front of the calorimeter for measurements of the vertical and horizontal beam incident position. Incident-position dependence of the energy deposit were measured and corrected using the DWC. Two scintillators (S1 and S2) were used as trigger counters, and two other scintillators (muon counters) were set behind iron blocks to identify muons in the beam. There was a Čerenkov Differential counter with Achromatic Ring focus (CEDAR) further upstream of the S1 for electron identification.

We used the 10GeV/$`c`$ muon beams for channel-by-channel gain adjustment of the PbSc super-module channels in addition to the electron beams. For time-dependent gain drift correction of the PbSc calorimeter, we used a laser monitoring system .

The DWC has good position resolution (0.2mm) and high single-particle detection capability (2$`\times `$105 particles/sec). It consists of one anode-wire plane and two cathode wire planes which surround the anode plane. The cathode planes have 2mm wire spacing. Their wires are connected with a delay-line through which signals are read out by a TDC module. Timing information corresponds linearly to position information. The active area is 100$`\times `$100 mm2, and the area with linear response is 80$`\times `$80 mm2

A beam trigger was composed of a S1 signal (“$`S1`$”), a S2 signal (“$`S2`$”) and a coincident signal of two muon counters (“$`\mu `$”). An electron trigger was made by $`S1S2\overline{\mu }`$ and a muon trigger was made by $`S1S2\mu `$. Triggers for pedestal measurement and for the laser monitoring system were used to take those data between beam spills.

We used two different HV settings;

* a ”normal” HV setting (1.23–1.29kV) for energy measurements up to 80GeV
* a ”low” HV setting (1.13–1.19kV) for energy measurements up to 160GeV.

To readout PMT signals from the calorimeter, we used front-end electronics (FEE) from the CERN experiment WA98.

## 3 Analysis

The deposited energy in each channel was calculated by multiplying the ADC count by a calibration factor, $`C(t)`$ (GeV/count). The calibration factor has time dependence. We parameterize the time dependence by an initial gain factor, $`G`$ (GeV/count), and a gain drift, $`D(t)`$.

$$C(t)=G\times D(t).$$

The time dependent factor, $`D(t)`$, is defined to be 1 at the time of the muon calibration run.

The ADC count is derived from low and high gain ADCs which are both implemented to cover a wider dynamic range. We found a 1% difference between the ratio of high-to-low gain in electron trigger events and in laser trigger events. To determine the channel dependent high-to-low gain ratio, we use the measured ratio in electron beam trigger events for the 40 channels which have hits in the electron beam data. For the other channels, we measure the ratio with the laser trigger events. These channels have only a small contribution to the electron beam energy measurement hence a small effect on the systematic error. The average value of the high-to-low ratio is 7.8. The ADC value is derived from the low gain ADC when the low gain ADC count is larger than 90 counts. We also found there is no time dependence of the high-to-low ratio during whole run. The systematic error caused by the high-to-low ratio is less than 1% for those channels which have the electron beam data. There is a negligible contribution of the other channels to the systematic error.

The gain factor is adjusted channel-by-channel by using muon trigger events. In order to identify muons, the following selections are applied.

1. The channel which has the largest energy deposit in all channels must have more than 80% of the energy sum of all channels.
2. The number of channels which have energy deposit more than 130MeV must be zero or one.

When a muon beam penetrates one channel longitudinally, the most probable energy deposit is about 300MeV. Selection 1 requires that there are some hits which make a peak on that channel. Selection 2 requires it is a minimum-ionizing single particle and rejects background from other kinds of particles, and multi-hit of particles. By requiring both selections, muons which penetrate one channel are selected.

After the muon selection, we have more than 100 muons in each of the 40 channels. We adjust gains of these 40 channels so that the MIP peak position is at the same energy. The peak position is determined to a precision of 2–3%. In order to improve precision of the gain adjustment and to obtain the gain factor for the other channels, we use electron beam trigger events. The remaining errors of channel-by-channel adjustment of the gain factor is 3% in total. These errors are statistical ones. The systematic errors are smaller than these.

An absolute value of the gain factor to provide correct energy scale is fixed at the electron beam energy of 20GeV. The result shows the average value of the gain factor is 110 (count/GeV).

The time dependence of the gain was obtained using laser trigger events. The time variation of the laser amplitude was less than 3% reflecting the stability of the laser output. To monitor the fluctuation of the laser output, we use a truncated mean of the laser amplitude.

The gain drift factor obtained with this method works reliably over periods of order a few hours. Between some sets of runs the gain drift is normalized by using the beam energy of 20GeV in the period. The accuracy of the beam energy is 1% at 15GeV.

In this analysis, the total deposited energy is defined as a sum of energies in the $`5\times 5`$ channels centered on the channel with the maximum energy deposit. The total energy is corrected by a position dependent factor.

The upper-left figure of Fig.2 shows the hit position dependence of the energy sum in $`5\times 5`$ channels for the 20GeV electron beam. In this figure, the coordinate $`(X,Y)`$ shows a hit position in one channel obtained by the DWC. The hit position $`(0,0)`$ presents the center of the channel and $`(1,1)`$ presents the edge of the channel. The position dependence is fitted as shown in the upper-right figure of Fig.2 by the following formula.

$$1+a\times (X^2+Y^2)+b\times (X^4+Y^4)+c\times X^2Y^2$$
(1)
We obtained a best fit with the following parameters;

$`a`$ $`=`$ $`0.3079`$
$`b`$ $`=`$ $`0.3643`$
$`c`$ $`=`$ $`0.02894`$
We use these parameters to correct for the position dependence of the energy measurement. The lower-left figure shows the deviation of the energy sum from the fitted hit position dependence and the lower-right figure shows a projection of the deviation. The deviation is 0.5% of the energy sum. The systematic error remaining after the position dependence correction is evaluated to be 0.5%.

## 4 Results

Figure 3 shows the efficiency for the 40GeV positron beam when we require a measured energy deposit greater than $`E_{cut}`$, and the pion rejection power for the 40GeV $`\pi ^+`$ beam obtained with the same cut.

The energy resolution at each energy point was obtained by fitting a Gaussian distribution within $`\pm 2\sigma `$ around the electron peak. The electron trigger events contained a 10% pion contamination. The contamination in the electron peak region is less than 0.1% because only 1% of the pions deposit more than 90% energy in the calorimeter. The $`\chi ^2`$ of the fitting is reasonably small.

Figure 4 shows energy resolution obtained by both beam tests at CERN and BNL. They can be fit with linear or quadratic expressions. Only statistical errors are taken into account in the fits. We estimate an additional 1% systematic error based on the reproducibility of the measurements at each energy point. The results of the fits are

$$\sigma _E/E=1.2\%+\frac{6.2\%}{\sqrt{E(GeV)}}$$

$$\sigma _E/E=2.1\%\frac{8.1\%}{\sqrt{E(GeV)}}$$

where $``$ denotes a square of the quadratic sum, $`\alpha \beta =\sqrt{\alpha ^2+\beta ^2}`$. They are valid in the energy region of 0.5GeV to 80GeV with 1% systematic uncertainty.

Figure 5 shows the residual (measured energy with the calorimeter less the beam energy, divided by the beam energy) of the energy sum in $`5\times 5`$ channels versus the beam energy. We see that the calorimeter response is linear within 2% systematic uncertainties in the energy region from 20GeV to 80GeV. There is some indication of a 2% deviation from linearity at 10GeV, however this is within our systematic errors. Such a deviation cannot be due to one of the following corrections; the gain drift correction, pedestal subtraction, high-to-low ratio correction, or the energy sum of $`5\times 5`$ channels. We considered the following possible sources;

* run-time problems in the monitoring system
* linearity of the WA98 FEE
* linearity of the PMT
* an inherent non-linearity in the calorimeter due for example to the interplay between light attenuation in the wave-length-shifter (WLS) readout fibers and longitudinal shower leakage beyond the calorimeter.

Linearity of the WA98 electronics which was used to digitize signals from the calorimeter was investigated. We found that it has linear response within 1%. Linearity of the PMT had also been investigated and confirmed to have linear response within 2% . The light leakage in the WLS fiber is evaluated by the simulation program. The energy leakage is evaluated to be 1% at 10GeV and 4% at 80GeV . These effects tend to cancel one another, so we do not expect the intrinsic non-linearity to be as large as 2%. In summary, the only place where the measured residual approaches the limit of 2% is at 10 GeV. Nevertheless, the residual is consistent within our systematic error of being linear at this energy. We’ve examined a number of possible causes for a deviation from linearity but none has been found.

Position resolution of the beam hit position is evaluated with the logarithmic method . In the logarithmic method, the position is determined by the following formula.

$$X=\frac{{\displaystyle \underset{i=1\mathrm{}N}{}}C_i\times x_i}{{\displaystyle \underset{i=1\mathrm{}N}{}}C_i}$$

where $`x_i`$ denotes a center of each channel in the horizontal direction. Similarly, $`Y`$ is defined in the vertical direction. The weights $`C_i`$ are;

$`R_i`$ $`=`$ $`Max[0,E_i/E_{total}]`$
$`C_i`$ $`=`$ $`Max[0,log(R_i)+C_0]`$
where $`E_{total}`$ is the total energy, $`E_{total}={\displaystyle \underset{i=1\mathrm{}N}{}}E_i`$ and $`C_0`$ is a constant. A larger value of $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ is expressed by $`Max[\alpha ,\beta ]`$.

The deviation in a short period shows that systematic uncertainty in the logarithmic method is 2mm.

Figure 6 shows the position resolution obtained by both beam tests at CERN and BNL. The points can be fitted by a formula;

$$\sigma _x(\text{mm})=1.4(\text{mm})+\frac{5.9(\text{mm})}{\sqrt{E(\text{GeV})}}.$$

## 5 Conclusion

We measured the energy resolution, linearity and position resolution of the PHENIX EM calorimeter in a test beam at CERN. For the PbSc calorimeter, we obtained energy resolution of;

$$\sigma _E/E=1.2\%+\frac{6.2\%}{\sqrt{E(GeV)}}$$

$$\sigma _E/E=2.1\%\frac{8.1\%}{\sqrt{E(GeV)}}$$

and position resolution;

$$\sigma _x(\text{mm})=1.4(\text{mm})+\frac{5.9(\text{mm})}{\sqrt{E(\text{GeV})}}.$$

A major purpose of the test was to investigate the performance of the calorimeter in the energy range up to 80GeV and, in particular, the linearity of response versus beam energy. Since our goal in PHENIX is to measure prompt photon and $`\pi ^0`$ production cross sections with the calorimeter within 10% errors it is important to understand the linearity of the calorimeter at the level of 2%. In the analysis of the PbSc calorimeter, the response is found to be linear to approximately this level.

## Acknowledgment

We are grateful for test beam support we received while at CERN from Konrad Elsener and Alfredo Placci. We would also like to thank the ALICE-Phos group for assistance during the run and our colleagues in the PHENIX EM Calorimeter group for discussions. We also acknowledge the support of Hideto En’yo and Bill Zajc. This work has been partially supported within the framework of the RIKEN–BNL Collaboration for RHIC Spin Physics and under a grant from the US-Dept. of Energy.


text:
# Coherent light transport in a cold Strontium cloud

## Abstract

We study light coherent transport in the weak localization regime using magneto-optically cooled strontium atoms. The coherent backscattering cone is measured in the four polarization channels using light resonant with a $`J_g=\mathit{0}J_e=\mathit{1}`$ transition of the Strontium atom. We find an enhancement factor close to 2 in the helicity preserving channel, in agreement with theoretical predictions. This observation confirms the effect of internal structure as the key mechanism for the contrast reduction observed with an Rubidium cold cloud (see: Labeyrie et al., PRL 83, 5266 (1999)). Experimental results are in good agreement with Monte-Carlo simulations taking into account geometry effects.

During the past twenty years, the outstanding development of mesoscopic physics led to a critical inspection of coherent effects in wave transport. First motivated by electronic transport in conducting devices electrons , the underlying physical ingredients proved to be relevant to any linear waves and in particular to light. This triggered active research in the field of optics during the past two decades Kuzmin  leading to the observation of coherent backscattering Wolf  and universal conductance fluctuations Scheffold  to quote a few. A challenge in this field is still the observation of strong localization of visible light. It was recently reported for near-infrared light using semi-conductors powders Wiersma , but the interpretation of the experiment in term of Anderson localization was questioned scheffold99 . Cold atoms have been quite recently considered as promising scattering media to achieve strong localization Nieuwenhuizen . Indeed, they constitute perfectly monodisperse samples of resonant point-dipole scatterers with large cross-sections. Moreover high spatial density is achieved by adequate trapping techniques bec ; katori .

In this letter we report the observation of coherent backscattering (CBS) of light on cold strontium atoms in the weak localization regime $`kl1`$ ($`k`$ is the light wavenumber and $`l`$ the elastic mean free path). CBS is an interferential enhancement of the *average* scattered intensity reflected off a disordered scattering medium qqchose . It originates from a two-wave constructive interference (near exact backscattering) between waves travelling along a given scattering path and its reversed counterpart. For classical scatterers, bearing on general symmetry arguments valid in the absence of any magnetic field, the CBS interfering amplitudes have been shown to have equal weights at exact backscattering in the so-called parallel polarization channels Bart . In the $`linlin`$ channel the incoming and detected light fields have same linear polarization. In the $`hh`$ channel, both light fields are circularly polarized with the same helicity, that is opposite polarizations (because the CBS signal is emitted in the backward direction). In the perpendicular channels, nothing ensures the equality of the two interfering amplitudes and the contrast of the interference is decreased. The single scattering events require a separate treatment as the direct and reversed paths coincide and do not contribute to the CBS enhancement in the backward direction. For spherically symmetric scatterers, single scattering does not contribute in the $`linlin`$ and $`hh`$ channels. Thus, the CBS contrast (peak to background ratio) is predicted and has been observed to be exactly 2 in the helicity preserving polarization channel $`hh`$ Wiersma2 . Using an atomic gas at resonance, a dynamic breakdown of the CBS effect can occur due to the scatterers motion during the transit time of a photon inside the medium. This restricts the RMS velocity $`\delta v`$ below a critical velocity given by $`v_c=\mathrm{\Gamma }/k`$ (where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the width of the atomic dipole resonance), a condition which is well fulfilled for a laser cooled atomic gas labeyrie9900 . The quantum internal structure of atoms has also severe consequences for coherent light transport in atomic media. A degeneracy in the groundstate induces a dramatic scrambling of the CBS effect jonckmuller . This has been first experimentally observed with a cold Rubidium sample on a $`J_g=3J_e=4`$ transition labeyrie9900 . These results highly motivated the use of nondegenerate groundstate atoms, like strontium, to benefit from full interference effects in coherent transport.

The cold strontium (Sr) cloud is produced in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). The transverse velocity of an effusive atomic beam, extracted from a $`500^{}`$C oven, is immediately compressed with a 2D optical molasse. A 27 cm long Zeeman slower then reduces the longitudinal velocity to within the capture velocity range of the MOT ($``$ 50 m/s). The Zeeman slower, molasses, MOT, and probe laser beams at 461 nm are generated from the same frequency-doubled source. Briefly, a single-mode grating stabilized diode laser and a tapered amplifier are used in a master-slave configuration to produce 500 mW at 922 nm. The infrared light is then frequency doubled in a semi-monolithic standing wave cavity with an intra-cavity KNbO$`_\text{3}`$ crystal. The cavity is resonant for the infrared light while the second harmonic exits through a dichroic mirror providing 150 mW of tunable single-mode light, which is then frequency locked on the 461 nm 1S0-1P1 strontium line in a heat pipe. We use acousto-optic modulators for subsequent amplitude and frequency variations. The MOT is made of six independent trapping beams of 5.2 mW/cm2 each, red-detuned by $`\delta =\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from the resonance. The saturation intensity is 42.5 mW/cm2 and the natural width of the transition is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/2\pi =32`$ MHz. Two anti-Helmoltz coils create a 100 G/cm magnetic field gradient to trap the atoms. A small population loss to metastable states is repumped to the ground state using two additional red lasers. The best achieved optical thickness of our Sr MOT is $`b3`$. It is deduced from transmission measurements of a resonant probe through the cloud shortly after switching the MOT off. Note that because the optical thickness of the atomic cloud is larger than one, the imaging of the cloud does not yield a signal proportional to the atomic density (flattening at the center) and the whole process thus overestimates the size of the cloud (see discussion below). The number of trapped atoms $`N10^7`$ is derived from the MOT fluorescence signal. From a CCD image the RMS radius of the cloud has been estimated at 0.65 mm yielding a mean free path $`l0.5`$ mm ($`kl7000`$). The RMS velocity of the atoms is less that 1 m/s, well below the critical velocity $`v_c=`$ 15 m/s.

The detailed experimental procedure for the CBS observation has been published elsewhere labeyrie9900 . For the Sr experiment, the signal is obtained using a collimated resonant probe beam with a waist of 3 mm. To avoid any effects linked to the saturation of the optical transition (non-linearities, inelastic radiation spectrum) nonlinear , the probe intensity is weak (saturation parameter $`s=0.02`$). The scattered light is collected in the backward direction by placing a CCD camera in the focal plane of an achromatic doublet. The angular resolution of our apparatus is 0.1 mrad, roughly twice the CCD pixel angular resolution. To avoid recording the MOT fluorescence signal while recording the CBS signal, a time-sequenced experiment is developed. The trapping beams and the magnetic field gradient are switched off during the CBS acquisition sequence (duration $`100\mu s`$) and then switched on to recapture the atoms (duration 95% of the 6 ms total cycle time). This procedure also eliminates any possible unwanted nonlinear wave mixing processes. The whole time sequence is then repeated as long as necessary for a good signal-to-noise ratio (typically 15 minutes in the experiment). During the CBS sequence, the image field is opened (and then closed during the MOT sequence) thanks to a mechanical chopper. During the CBS probe interaction time, each atom scatters about 200 photons on average but always remains in resonance since the mean atomic velocity increase is far below $`v_c`$. Consequently, most of them are recaptured during the following MOT sequence. The CBS images (see Fig.1) are finally obtained by subtracting the background image taken without cold atoms. This background image is recorded in the absence of the magnetic gradient during all the acquisition time. We thus checked that the fluorescence signal from the residual Sr atoms was negligible.

In the helicity preserving channel ($`hh`$), the enhancement factor is found to be $`\alpha =1.86\pm 0.10`$ with an optical thickness of $`b=2.9`$ (see Fig. 2), slightly lower the theoretical prediction $`\alpha =2`$. Several experimental issues can explain the difference. First, the finite angular resolution of the detection apparatus lowers the CBS enhancement factor by an amount evaluated to $`\delta \alpha 0.06`$. Because single scattering contributes more than 90% of the total signal in the two authorized channels (see Table 1), the reduction of the cone contrast due to imperfect polarization channel isolation in the $`hh`$ is not negligible. We have measured, in the limit of low optical thickness where single scattering dominates over multiple scattering, the fraction of detected light in the forbidden $`hh`$ channel with respect to the total scattered light. We found a channel isolation about $`5.10^4`$ leading to $`\delta \alpha 0.03`$. Note that single scattering depolarization induced by stray magnetic field acts here like an imperfect polarization isolation. For this reason, its impact on the cone reduction has been minimized during the channel isolation procedure. Another possible source of contrast reduction is a Faraday effect induced by the residual magnetic field lenke00 . It turns out that, despite the huge Verdet constant in the atomic gas medium labeyrie01 , its effect should be smaller than the previously discussed ones. We also checked that the finite transverse size of the laser beam has no significant influence on the signal. Taking into account the systematic errors, we find that the CBS enhancement factor should rather be $`\alpha =`$1.91, consistent with the measured value. A remaining (but yet uncontrolled) source of error in determining $`\alpha `$ is certainly an imperfect estimation of the background level measured at angles large compared to the cone width $`\theta \mathrm{\Delta }\theta _{\mathrm{CBS}}`$.

In the other polarization channels, we observe lower enhancement factors as predicted by the theory (see table 1). In the $`linlin`$ and $`hh`$ channels, the small enhancement factors are mainly due to the strong single scattering contribution – see the relative incoherent background values given in table 1 – which is very important since the optical thickness is not very large. In the $`linlin`$ channel (where single scattering is absent), the relatively high contrast value is explained by the low optical thickness. Indeed, in this situation, short scattering paths dominate and double scattering is known to exhibit full interference contrast in all polarization channels albada87 . In Table 1, we also show data obtained with a Monte-Carlo (MC) calculation, where the amplitude of a multiple scattering path is computed as a function of the initial and final polarizations and of the geometrical positions of the various scatterers. We use a Gaussian distribution for the spatial density of scatterers and take into account the spatial variations of the mean free path during the photon propagation. Our numerical method is tantamount to computing the integral involved in the configuration average using a MC procedure. Given a spatial configuration of the scatterers, we compute simultaneously the various scattering contributions at different scattering orders using the ”partial photon” trick partial\_photon . Typically, it is enough to launch less than 1 million photons on the medium to get a good signal/noise ratio for the CBS peak. For all polarization channels, there is a good agreement for the cone height between experiments and MC simulations adjusted to take into account the polarization channel isolation and angular resolution effects.

The experimental values $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _{\mathrm{CBS}}`$ of the FWHM CBS angular cone width are systematically higher (by a factor 1.4) that the ones given by the MC simulation using the measured optical thickness $`b`$ and size of the atomic cloud. As discussed above, our experimental procedure slightly overestimates the size of the cloud. Modifying the size of the cloud (keeping $`b`$ constant) results only in a global multiplication of the angular scale, keeping identical both the enhancement factor and the cone shape. We are thus inclined to think that the actual RMS radius of the cloud is 0.45 mm instead of 0.65 mm. With this corrected value, we observe an excellent agreement between MC and experimental data in all polarization channels (see Fig. 2 and Table 1). The angular dependence of the cone shape in the linear channels reflects the anisotropy of the scatterer’s pattern albada87 . In the $`linlin`$ channel, an elliptical shape with major axis parallel to the incident polarization is predicted and indeed observed (Fig. 1c). In the $`linlin`$ channel, the directions of maximum scattering are tilted at $`45^{}`$ from the incident polarization, yielding a ”clover-leafed” CBS cone shape (Fig. 1d).

To summarize, we measured the coherent backscattering cone in four different characteristic polarization channels. Our results are in good agreement with a Monte-Carlo calculation. The restoration of a full interference contrast in coherent multiple scattering with atomic gases (as exemplified by the maximum enhancement factor of 2 obtained in the helicity preserving channel) has interesting potentialities for wave localization experiments with cold atoms. For example, in the quest for Anderson localization (which could be obtained only at high density where $`kl1`$) where interferences play a crucial role, a $`J_g=0J_e=1`$ transition appears to be a good choice, since a degenerate internal structure is known to scramble the interference jonckmuller . A maximum enhancement factor of 1.2 was found in Rb experiment labeyrie9900 . Is it now possible to increase the cloud density to reach the Anderson localization threshold? For this purpose, cooling strontium with the intercombination line in a dipole trap appears to be a promising technique katori .

The authors thank the CNRS and the PACA region for their financial support. Laboratoire Kastler Brossel is laboratoire de l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie et de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, UMR 8552 du CNRS.

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# Calibration of the length of a chain of single gold atoms

## I Introduction

In the last few years, there has been a significant advance in the understanding of the electronic properties of atomic-sized contacts. This has been possible thanks to the use of two techniques: the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM)STM1 ; STM2  and the mechanically controllable break junction (MCBJ)MCBJ . In both cases the distance between two electrodes is controlled by means of a piezo-electric transducer which allows for relative displacements of the electrodes down to a resolution in the range of picometers.

In these experiments the current that traverses the contact between two electrodes, at a given bias voltage, is measured as a function of the relative displacement of these electrodes. As the contact is broken, the current changes smoothly during elastic elongation stages, decreasing suddenly in plastic deformations stagesForces ; Untiedt97 . In the last stage before breaking the contact, just a few atoms determine the electronic transport and the conductance is given by the Landauer formula

$$G=\frac{2e^2}{h}\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}T_n.$$
(1)
Here, $`N`$ is the number of available channels for the electrons traversing the contact, $`e`$ is the electron charge, $`h`$ is Planck’s constant, and $`T_n`$ is the transmission probability of the $`n`$th channel. Just before the contact is broken, when there is just a single atom at the contact, the conductance for monovalent metals, such as gold, has been shownOne atom  to be due to a single conductance channel with transmission probability close to unity and therefore with a conductance close to the value $`2e^2/h`$.

It was observed that occasionally the conductance of the one-atom contact for gold remains constant while the distance between the two electrodes increases by more than an interatomic distance, as it is shown in Fig. 1. When it finally breaks, in order to make contact again it is necessary to decrease the interelectrode distance by the same distance. From such observations it was concluded that in these cases a wire only one atom thick was formed between the two electrodeschains . These wires have also been observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM)TEM ; Rodrigues . The Au-Au bond length was reported to be 3.6 Å ($`\pm 30\%`$) and 3.6–4.0 Å in chains  and TEM  respectively. It was recently shown that, apart from Au, chain formation can be observed in Pt and Ir Smit ; Bahn01 . In this paper we concentrate on Au contacts.

Several calculations have confirmed the possibility of the formation of an atomic chain of gold atoms when stretching the monatomic contactDaneses\_sim ; Torres\_ch ; Dani\_ch ; Landman\_sim ; daSilva . However, in all cases a large discrepancy with the reported experimental bond length ($``$ 3.6 Å) was found. The calculations use different methods including ab initio calculations using the local-density approximation Torres\_ch ; Dani\_ch ; Landman\_sim ; Okamota ; De Maria  and molecular-dynamics simulations using effective-medium theoryDaneses\_sim  or tight-binding approximations daSilva . For the wire’s equilibrium bond length the different calculations give a distance between 2.32 and 2.55 Å, and an upper limit after stretching of 3.0 Å, much smaller than the one reported in the experiments.

In this paper we show how the interatomic distance in these atomic wires can be estimated from the conductance vs electrode displacement curves. Using this method we obtain for gold chains at low temperature (4.2 K) an interatomic distance of 2.5 $`\pm `$ 0.2 Å at the average maximum tensile stress at the moment of fracture.

## II Calibration methods

Since the separation between the peaks in the length histogram can provide information on the bond distance in the chains it is crucial to have a good calibration of the displacement of the electrodes as a function of the voltage which is applied to the piezo element of the STM or MCBJ. The various methods that we have used to calibrate our STM and MCBJ are described below.

### II.1 Tunnel barrier

The exponential dependence of the current on the vacuum gap can be used to make a rough calibration in STM, and until very recentlyCalib\_gund  it was the only way to obtain a calibration of the interelectrode displacements in the MCBJ. One makes use of the well-known dependence of the tunnel current $`I_T`$ between two electrodes which are separated by a distance $`d`$, when a small voltage $`V_0`$ smaller than the work function of the electrodes is appliedExpresion de tunel ,

$$I_T(V_0)=KV_0e^{2d\sqrt{2m\varphi /\mathrm{}^2}},$$
(2)
where $`m`$ is the mass of the electron, $`\varphi `$ is the height of the tunnel barrier, approximately given by the mean value of the work function of the two electrodes, $`K`$ is a constant which is related to the area of the electrodes and to the electronic density of states at the Fermi level.

The exponential dependence of the tunnel current with the interelectrode distance makes it very easy to control that distance and this is the basis of operation of the STM. If we represent on a semilog scale the variation of the current as function of the voltage $`V_p`$ applied to the piezo element (see Fig. 2) for the slope $`\gamma `$ we obtain the following expression:

$$\gamma =\frac{\sqrt{2m\varphi }}{\mathrm{}}\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }d}{\mathrm{\Delta }V_P}.$$
(3)
This immediately gives us a calibration of the distance as

$$\kappa =\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }d}{\mathrm{\Delta }V_p}=\frac{\mathrm{}\gamma }{2\sqrt{2m\varphi }}.$$
(4)
This expression is very simple and indeed in experiments with clean electrodes an exponential behavior of the current as a function of $`V_P`$ is found, which would make this a suitable method for calibration of the response of the system to the voltage applied to the piezoelectric transducer. Although a more realistic description for the tunnel barrier must include electron screening effects, it has been arguedScreening  that these effects nearly cancel in the logarithmic derivative, at least for not too small distances.

A problem that arises when using this method is that the value of the tunnel barrier $`\varphi `$ is dependent on the local work function of the closest parts of the two electrodes. This local work function depends mainly on the material with some variation due to surface distortion and crystal orientation \[e.g., the work function for gold in the (100) direction is 5.47 eV while for the (111) direction it has a value of 5.31 eV anisotropia de wf \]. However, the largest deviation is due to the use of helium. Helium gas is commonly used to promote thermal contact for cooling of the STM or MCBJ. It was generally believed that helium gas does not significantly influence the electron tunneling between two metallic electrodes. However, very recently it has been found that atomic layers of adsorbed helium can affect dramatically the work function measured with this techniqueInfluence of He . Since the apparent work function was seen to increase for a He pressure of only 0.01 Torr by 80% above the clean surface value, errors of up to 34% are introduced in the distance calibration due to the presence of a helium atmosphere. For this reason, in the MCBJ experiments described below we avoid using helium as a thermal exchange gas.

### II.2 Gundlach oscillations

A different method for calibrating the MCBJ, based on the Gundlach oscillations, has been developed by O.Yu. Kolesnychenko et al. Calib\_gund . The Gundlach oscillationsGundlach , or field-emission resonances, are observed in the tunnel conductance when a voltage higher than the work function of the electrodes is applied between them.

As illustrated in Fig. 3 when the applied voltage $`V`$ across the tunnel junction is larger than the work function of the electrodes, $`\varphi _{1,2}`$, part of the barrier region becomes classically accessible. In this case the wave function of the electrons in the region between the electrodes will be determined by the superposition of the incoming and reflected waves at the interfaces. This mechanism will give rise to periodic maxima of the transmission as a function of bias voltage when new resonant states are formed between the electrodes.

Using the model for this problem proposed by GundlachGundlach , Kolesnychenko et al. obtained an expression for the differential conductance as a function of bias voltage given by

$$\frac{dI(V)}{dV}A(V)\mathrm{cos}\left[\zeta _d(V)\right].$$
(5)
The amplitude of the oscillations, $`A(V)`$, decreases with voltage as $`V^{3/2}`$ and the argument for the cosine function is given by

$$\zeta _d(V)=\frac{4}{3}\frac{\sqrt{2m}}{\mathrm{}}\frac{(eV\varphi _2)^{3/2}}{eF},$$
(6)
where $`F`$ is the electric-field strength in the vacuum gap.

The relation between the peak position $`V_n`$ of the oscillations in Eq. (5) and their index can be found by equating Eq. (6) to $`2n\pi `$:

$$eV_n=\varphi _2+\left(\frac{3\pi \mathrm{}}{2\sqrt{2m}}\right)^{2/3}F^{2/3}n^{2/3}.$$
(7)
During the experiment we keep $`F`$ constant by applying a feedback to the piezo voltage in order to maintain the current constant. From a plot of $`V_n`$ versus $`n^{2/3}`$ the work function $`\varphi `$ is obtained as the intercept at the voltage axis and from the slope $`\sigma `$ of the curve we obtain the field strength

$$F=\frac{2\sqrt{2m}}{3\pi \mathrm{}}\sigma ^{3/2}.$$
(8)
The distance between the two electrodes will then be related to $`F`$ and the applied bias voltage according to

$$d=\frac{1}{eF}(eV+\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi ),$$
(9)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ is the difference in the work function between the two electrodes. Using these expressions the procedure to make the calibration using the Gundlach oscillations will be as follows: we record the evolution of the conductance, as well as the piezo voltage $`V_p`$, as a function of the applied bias voltage while keeping the current constant (see Fig. 4). Then using Eqs. (7) and (8) we can calculate the field strength $`F1.087\sigma ^{3/2}`$ \[V/nm\]. Finally using Eq. (9) and the response of the feedback to the voltage changes applied to the junction we can obtain

$$\kappa =\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }d}{\mathrm{\Delta }V_p}=\frac{1}{F}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }V}{\mathrm{\Delta }V_p}$$
(10)
for the response at high voltages, where the variation is approximately linear.

### II.3 Interferometric calibration

The interferometric calibration is a very accurate method for distance calibration. We have used an all-fiber interferometer similar to those used in atomic force microscopy Albrecht  to calibrate our STM used in the experiments on atomic chains. A scheme of the experimental set up is shown in Fig. 5.

The tip is fastened to a $`z`$ positioner which is moved by four stacks of shear piezos. To calibrate the displacement of the $`z`$ positioner, the light from a laser diode is focused into a single mode optical fiber and transmitted through a 2$`\times `$2 directional coupler which splits the beam. Part of the light is coupled to a reference photodiode which measures the intensity of the laser beam. This intensity is the one used as reference when focusing the light. The remainder of the beam is transmitted to the end of the fiber which is placed close to a mirror glued to the rear of the $`z`$ positioner. In this way an interferometric cavity is formed between the fiber end and the mirror. About 95% of the beam that reaches the fiber end is transmitted, then reflected at the mirror and directed back into the fiber, interfering with the beam reflected at the fiber end. The optical path difference between both beams—twice the interferometric cavity length—makes the intensity of the resulting beam to be given by

$$I=A+B\mathrm{cos}(4\pi d/\lambda +\delta ),$$
(11)
where $`d`$ is the interferometer cavity length, $`A`$ and $`B`$ are constants that decrease with $`d`$, and $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength of the laser beam, 660 nm. The calibration is performed by approaching the $`z`$ positioner to the fiber until the intensity detected by the signal photodiode is sufficiently large. In order to vary linearly the cavity length, a voltage ramp is applied to the $`z`$ direction piezos while the photocurrent of the signal photodiode is measured. Two typical calibration measurements, with different initial interferometer cavity lengths (and therefore with different mean intensities) are shown in the graph in Fig. 5. For a voltage span $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_p`$, the interference pattern traces a semiperiod. From Eq. (11), it follows that the ratio $`\kappa `$ between the displacement and the applied voltage is

$$\kappa =\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }d}{\mathrm{\Delta }V_p}=\frac{\lambda }{4\mathrm{\Delta }V_p}.$$
(12)
## III Experimental results

For the experiments we have used gold samples of better than 99.99% purity. For the STM experiments we have cleaned the sample with an H2O-H2SO4 (1:3) solution and mechanically sharpened the tip, while for the MCBJ a fresh surface was formed at cryogenic vacuum when breaking the sample. The experiments were all performed at 4.2 K. The conductance curves, from which the plateau lengths are obtained, are all measured at a constant bias voltage of 10 mV.

In Fig. 1 we show a typical experiment were an atomic chain is formed with the inset showing a histogram of last-plateau lengths. We have obtained length histograms with both STM and MCBJ.

A large number of indentation-elongation cycles of gold nanocontacts was made. Special attention was given to include a large number of atomic configurations in the statistics, forcing structural rearrangements of a large number of atoms with frequent deep indentations of several hundreds of nanometers between cycles.

In the case of the MCBJ we have measured for several samples plateau length histograms and each of them was calibrated by both the tunnel barrier method and by means of the Gundlach oscillations. For the tunnel barrier method we have taken a work function for gold of 5.4 eV. In this case the standard deviation in the distribution of calibration values results into an error of 7%. Using this calibration we obtain for the interpeak distance in the length histogram a value of $`2.5\pm 0.2`$ Å. The calibration using the Gundlach oscillation method was hampered most of the times by multiple tip effects in the field resonances and the response of the feedback to the applied voltage often had a very important quadratic term. Such complication appears to be characteristic for gold Influence of He  and the method works better for most other metals. As a result, we estimate the error in the calibration to be of the order of 20% and obtain for the interpeak distance $`2.3\pm 0.4`$ Å. We verified that the calibration obtained by the tunnel barrier method after admitting He gas into the chamber shifts the peak distance to 3.3 Å in agreement with chains .

In the case of the STM configuration, the calibration has been carried out by the interferometric method. This method has the advantage of being independent of tip and sample conditions. Using different lengths of the interferometer cavity, a value of $`\kappa =3.70\pm 0.13`$ Å/V is obtained. The experiments were all performed alternating the conductance with the calibration measurements every 15 000 nanocontacts, while the instrument is maintained at 4.2 K in vacuum. In Fig. 6 we show the resultant length histogram from the STM measurements. We find here again a preference for contacts with one atom in cross section to break at specific values of length with a periodicity of $`2.6\pm 0.2`$ Å.

## IV Discussion

The linear bond between two gold atoms is up to three times stronger than a bulk bond, as found in experiments and simulations Bahn01 ; Forces\_one ; Forces on chains . A single-atom gold contact can sustain a maximum tensile force of 1.5 nN and before this limit is reached it is likely that atoms are pulled out of their position in the banks on either side of the contact. By repeating such atomic structural changes in the banks the one-atom contact evolves into a chain several atoms long. The chain finally breaks when the tensile force necessary to incorporate another atom from the nearby electrodes into the chain is higher than the breaking force of the chain itself. There will be characteristic interelectrode distances for which a chain of $`n`$ atoms is likely to break, as we will argue next.

Let us first discuss a length histogram for metals that do not easily form atomic chains, such as the 4$`d`$ metals Rh, Pd, and Ag investigated in Ref. Smit . For these metals the length histogram shows only a single peak, usually at a shorter length than the first peak in the length histogram for Au. We start counting the length of the plateau when the conductance drops to a typical value for a single atom contact, e.g., below 1.2 $`G_0`$ for Ag. When pulling further the conductance remains roughly at this value while the bonds of the atom with the banks and those inside the banks are being stretched. As soon as the stored elastic energy reaches a maximum the contact breaks. The breaking point depends on the local atomic configurations in the banks near the contact and this leads to a certain width in the peak distribution. Thermal activation over the breaking barrier will also lead to a statistical distribution of observed values. The peak position in the length histogram shows the most probable length over which a one-atom contact can be stretched.

For chain-forming metals such as Au the first peak in the length histogram has the same interpretation as for those that break at a one-atom contact. Its position is at a longer length reflecting the stronger bond for low-coordination Au atoms. For all configurations giving rise to the distribution under the first peak there are equivalent configurations with the central atom replaced by two, three, or more atoms, forming a chain. These will give rise to additional peaks in the length histogram at multiples of the Au-Au bond distance in the chains, but stretched close to the breaking point. These distances are the ones at which the structure reaches the maximum tensile stress while it is not possible to introduce a new atom into the chain to relax it. If we consider that the force needed to break an atomic chain, $`F_b`$, is independent of the length of the chaintension\_independence  then the interelectrode distance at which the $`n`$-atoms chain breaks can be written as

$$L_n=nL_{atat}+(n+1)\frac{F_b}{K_a},$$
(13)
were $`L_{atat}`$ is the interatomic distance when no tension is applied and $`K_a`$ the elastic constant of the bond between atoms in the chain. Therefore the distance between the peaks in the plateau length histogram will be constant and equal to $`\mathrm{\Delta }=L_{atat}+F_b/K_a`$, or in other words, equal to the interatomic distance stretched to the point of breaking.

In this argumentation we have assumed that the banks are not shortened between the point at which the conductance first is seen to drop to the one-atom level and the final breaking point. As long as we limit the discussion to chains of only a few atoms in length this will be correct since the number of atomic layers in the banks will not be modified. Note that our value for the bond distance is based on the first two to four peaks and that atoms may fold in from both sides. Those events that result in a significant modification in the structure and effective length of the banks will only contribute to a smooth background in the length histogram. Only the chain-forming processes that conserve the structure of the banks are expected to be responsible for peaks at regular spacing in the length histogram, and these are thus expected to correspond to the atom-atom distance in the chains. The Au-Au distance is measured from the distance between the peaks in the histogram, and we remark that the position of the first peak (relative to zero length) can differ from this value. For Au the first peak is nearly equal to the distance between the peaks, but different values have indeed been obtained, e.g., in the case of Pt chain length histograms Smit .

The bond distance near the anchoring points of the chain to the banks are expected to be about 10% shorter than the bond distance in the middle of the chain, as illustrated in the calculations by da Silva et al. daSilva . A small variation in the bond length is consistent with our data, as can bee seen from the position of the fourth peak in Fig. 1. The fact that we derive our values for the bond distance mainly from the first three peaks implies that our result is biased toward the smaller distances at the anchoring points.

The interatomic distance for gold atomic chains quoted in Ref. chains  as 3.6 Å $`\pm `$ 30% was affected by calibration inaccuracies in two ways: a systematic error in the calibration due to He exchange gas condensed onto the gold surface, resulting in an overestimate of the Au-Au distance. In addition, variations between various calibrations, which is reflected in the large uncertainty for the Au-Au distance. We have now used three independent techniques for an improved calibration with an accuracy of approximately 7% for two of them, the interferometric method for the STM and the tunnel barrier method for the MCBJ, which show consistence between these techniques and gives a more accurate value of the bond distance in a chain formed by gold atoms. The calibration procedure with the largest error makes use of the Gundlach oscillations and gives a somewhat smaller, but consistent, value. However, there is still a problem of consistency with the results of H. Ohnishi et al. TEM  and Rodrigues and Ugarte Rodrigues  who report an interatomic distance of about 3.3–4.0 Å obtained from TEM images. The discrepancy could be due the different methods used to fabricate the chains or the difference in temperature and environmental conditions. It has been recently pointed out that there exists a possibility of incorporating one oxygen atom per gold atom in an atomic chain BahnThesis . This addition should give rise to a gold-oxygen nanochain with a Au-Au distance of 3.8 Å for a relaxed chain and up to more than 4.2 Å for a stretched one. This kind of chain should exhibit a conductance of one quantum unit.

## V Conclusions

We have applied different calibration techniques for the MCBJ and STM in order to obtain a more accurate value for the distance between peaks in length histograms of the last plateau of conductance before rupture of gold contacts at low temperature. The values obtained for the interatomic distance in a chain of gold atoms at the point of breaking are $`2.5\pm 0.2`$, $`2.3\pm 0.4`$, and $`2.6\pm 0.2`$ Å. We obtain an overall value for the interatomic distance of $`2.5\pm 0.2`$ Å,which closely agrees with results from model calculations.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is part of the research program of the “Stichting FOM,” which is financially supported by NWO, it was funded by the DGI under contract No. MAT2001-1281 and the research has been supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Community under contract No. HPMF-CT-2000-0072. R.G. acknowledges financial support from U.A.M. We thank O.I. Shklyarevskii and R.H.M. Smit for stimulating discussions.