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# Collisional properties of ultracold K-Rb mixtures

## Abstract

We determine the inter-species $`s`$-wave triplet scattering length $`a_3`$ for all K-Rb isotopic mixtures by measuring the elastic cross-section for collisions between 41K and 87Rb in different temperature regimes. The positive value $`a_3=+163_{12}^{+57}a_0`$ ensures the stability of binary 41K-87Rb Bose-Einstein condensates. For the fermion-boson mixture 40K-87Rb we obtain a large and negative scattering length which implies an efficient sympathetic cooling of the fermionic species down to the degenerate regime.

Ultracold mixtures of alkali atoms have recently been the subject of intensive experimental research, mainly aimed at the production of novel degenerate quantum systems. Sympathetic cooling ions  in a mixture represents a way to reach the degenerate regime for species which cannot be efficiently cooled by direct evaporation, as in the case of 6Li lithium1  and 41K potassium . In addition, mixing different isotopes or atomic species allows to create ultracold Bose-Fermi systems lithium2 ; ketterle , and paves the way to the creation of binary Bose-Einstein condensates with different atomic species and of ultracold heteronuclear molecules.

In an ultracold mixture the interaction between the components is described in terms of a single key parameter, the inter-species $`s`$-wave scattering length, which for example determines the efficiency of the sympathetic-cooling procedure. In addition, knowledge of the scattering length is important in order to predict macroscopic properties of these mixed systems, such as the stability and phase separation of binary degenerate systems, or microscopic properties, such as the occurrence of Feshbach resonances in the inter-species collisions. While collisions either between alkali of the same species or between different isotopes have often been well characterized weiner , collisions between different alkali species represent a still relatively unexplored field.

In this context, K-Rb mixtures are particularly interesting, since they are promising candidates in the general field of Bose-Fermi and Bose-Bose degenerate gases. Light-assisted inelastic collisions between various K-Rb isotopes have been investigated in magneto-optical traps (MOTs) marcassa ; jila . Ultracold elastic collisions have been instead studied in a magnetic trap, but only the magnitude of the 41K-87Rb $`s`$-wave triplet scattering length has been estimated potassium . In this Letter we report the results of a thorough investigation of the collisional properties of a 41K-87Rb mixture. By studying the interspecies elastic collisions in a broad temperature range, we determine the sign of the scattering length and tighten the bounds on its magnitude. Thanks to this result, we are able to derive by mass scaling the triplet scattering lengths for all the other combinations of K and Rb stable isotopes and to discuss the possibility of producing mixed K-Rb degenerate systems. We also determine a region of confidence for the singlet $`s`$-wave scattering length of the 41K-87Rb mixture from inelastic decay rates of a mixed-spin sample.

The ultracold 41K-87Rb mixture is produced using the apparatus described in potassium . In brief, about 107 K atoms at 300 $`\mu `$K and 5$`\times `$108 Rb atoms at 100 $`\mu `$K are loaded in a QUIC magnetostatic trap quic  using a double-magneto-optical trap scheme. Both species are prepared in their doubly-polarized spin state $`|F=2,M_F=2`$ thanks to an optical pumping stage. A gas prepared in such state has the advantage of being immune to spin-exchange losses and is typically stable. Evaporative cooling is then performed selectively on the Rb sample using a microwave knife tuned to the hyperfine transition at 6.8 GHz (the corresponding transition for K is at 254 MHz), while the K sample is sympathetically cooled through elastic K-Rb collisions. The number of atoms and temperature of both samples is determined simultaneously at the end of each experimental run by absorption imaging, using two delayed resonant light pulses after release from the magnetic trap. Both atomic species experience the same trapping potential with cylindrical symmetry. The axial and radial harmonic frequencies for Rb are $`\omega _{ax}=2\pi \times 16.3`$ s-1 and $`\omega _{rad}=2\pi \times 197`$ s-1 respectively, while those for K are by a factor $`(M_{Rb}/M_K)^{1/2}=1.45`$ larger.

We have investigated the dependence of the K-Rb elastic cross-section on temperature, by performing a series of rethermalization measurements. We drive the system out of thermal equilibrium and observe the subsequent thermalization mediated by elastic collisions. The different trap frequencies for the two species allow us to selectively heat Rb by superimposing a 10% modulation on the trapping potential at twice the Rb radial frequency for typically 100 ms. As an example we show in Fig. 1 the measured increase of temperature of the K sample at $`T1.6\mu `$K that follows heating of Rb, together with an exponential fit to the data. The time constant for rethermalization $`\tau `$ is determined from the fit. We have checked that the aspect ratio of the K sample was constant during the whole rethermalization which is evidence for a common temperature of the spatial degrees of freedom.

We plot in Fig. 2 the measured elastic-collision rate $`1/(\tau \overline{n})`$ as a function of temperature in the range $`(1.645)\mu `$K. Here $`\overline{n}=(\frac{1}{N_K}+\frac{1}{N_{Rb}})n_Kn_{Rb}d^3x`$ is the effective density of K and Rb atoms.

A general model to describe the thermalization between atoms of different masses can be obtained by extending the one of Ref. mosk  to energy-dependent cross sections and to partial waves higher than $`s`$-wave. We have checked that at our temperatures only $`s`$\- and $`p`$-wave collisions are relevant. The thermalization time per unit atomic density mediated by $`s`$\- and $`p`$\- wave collisions is

$$\frac{1}{\tau \overline{n}}=\frac{\xi }{2\alpha _sk_BT}\left[\sigma _svE+\frac{\alpha _s}{\alpha _p}\sigma _pvE\right],$$
(1)
where $`\alpha _s2.7`$ is the average number of $`s`$-wave collisions necessary for rethermalization, $`v`$ is the relative velocity of a colliding pair and $`E`$ is the relative collision energy. We obtain the ratio $`\frac{\alpha _s}{\alpha _p}=\frac{3}{5}`$ upon integration over all collision directions. The factor $`\xi =4\mu /M`$, with $`M`$ and $`\mu `$ the total and the reduced mass respectively, gives a reduction $`\xi 0.87`$ of the thermalization efficiency with respect to the case of equal masses. Finally, the averages $``$ are performed on a classical Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of relative velocities.

The partial cross sections are obtained from a numerical solution of the scattering equations using standard propagation algorithms. The molecular Hamiltonian for collisions of atoms with hyperfine structure includes the kinetic energy of the relative motion, the hyperfine atomic energy and the adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{g}^{+}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{u}^{+}`$ symmetry potentials. The latter have been constructed by smoothly matching the short-range ab initio potential of Lyyra  onto a long-range analytic potential $`V=V_d\pm V_{ex}/2`$. Here $`V_d=C_6/R^6C_8/R^8C_{10}/R^{10}`$ is the dispersion potential and $`V_{ex}`$ is the exchange potential. An accurate van-der-Waals coefficient $`C_6`$ is taken from Ref. Derevianko , $`C_8`$ and $`C_{10}`$ from Marinescu  and the analytic form of $`V_{ex}`$ from Smirnov . The molecular potential is made flexible by adding a short-range correction to the adiabatic potentials (see Ref. EiteNa ). This procedure allows us to tune singlet and triplet scattering lengths to agree with the data.

The experimental data are fitted using a min-$`\chi ^2`$ procedure. Since collisions between atoms prepared in a doubly-polarized spin state are single-channel collisions involving only the $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{u}^{+}`$ symmetry potential, the scattering length $`a_3`$ is the only free parameter in the model c6 . Our main results are shown in Fig. 2. The best agreement is obtained for a positive scattering length $`a_3=163a_0`$, while the best-fit curve for negative $`a_3`$ fails to fit the experiment at high temperature (solid lines in Fig. 2). Actually, for $`a_3<0`$ the cross-section drops with energy from its threshold value $`\sigma _s=4\pi a_3^2`$ at lower collision energies than it does for $`a_3>0`$. Moreover, the curve for $`a_3=163a_0`$ has a significant contribution from a broad $`p`$-wave shape-resonance near the top of the centrifugal barrier which further increases the rate at high $`T`$. This resonance rapidly shifts at lower energies for decreasing $`a_3`$ (dashed line in Fig. 2). This circumstance and the absence of observed resonant features sets a tight lower bound $`a_3150a_0`$ on the confidence interval for $`a_3`$, while the upper bound is looser. Actually, scattering lengths $`a_3200a_0`$ having only a minor $`p`$-wave contribution still agree well with the data.

In order to confirm our determination of the magnitude of $`a_3`$ we have performed an independent measurement of the collisional cross-section, studying the damping of dipole oscillations of a sample composed by 8$`\times 10^4`$ K atoms and 1.5$`\times 10^5`$ Rb atoms, at $`T=1.7\mu `$K. Dipolar modes of the two atomic clouds are excited by displacing the potential minimum along the weak horizontal trap axis for about 30 ms. As shown in Fig. 3 the center of mass oscillations get rapidly coupled and damped by elastic collisions. We fit the experimental data to the solutions of the coupled equations of motion for the clouds centers of mass

$`\ddot{z}_1`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _1^2z_1{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_2}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{N_2}{N}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\dot{z}_1\dot{z}_2\right)`$
$`\ddot{z}_2`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _2^2z_2+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_1}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{N_1}{N}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\dot{z}_1\dot{z}_2\right),`$ (2)
where the labels 1 and 2 denote K and Rb respectively, $`M=M_1+M_2`$, $`N=N_1+N_2`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\overline{n}\sigma _sv`$ is the $`s`$-wave collision rate, $`v`$ is the rms relative velocity, and $`\overline{n}`$ is the atoms density defined above. The low temperature at which the experiment is performed ensures that $`s`$-wave collisions dominate. Our system appears to be in the collisionless regime ( $`\mathrm{\Gamma }<<\omega _1,\omega _2`$), where the position of each center of mass is the sum of two damped sinusoids at the bare frequencies of K and Rb. Our best fit, shown in Fig. 3, well reproduces the experimental observation. From the fitted collision rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=5.2(7)`$ s-1 we determine the magnitude of triplet scattering length $`|a_3|=170_{35}^{+35}a_0`$, where the uncertainty is dominated by that on the atom number. This value for $`|a_3|`$ is in good agreement with the one previously derived from thermalization measurements.

We determine the singlet K-Rb scattering length $`a_1`$, by measuring the trap loss for collision between K atoms in the hyperfine state $`|2,2`$ and Rb atoms in $`|2,1`$. Our sample is initially composed by a small number of K atoms (3$`\times 10^4`$) and a larger number of Rb atoms (1.2$`\times 10^5`$), both in $`|2,2`$, at a temperature $`T=1.8\mu `$K. We then transfer a small fraction (20%) of both species in $`|2,1`$ using a radio-frequency sweep and we study the subsequent decay of K, which takes place on a timescale much shorter than the lifetime of the doubly spin-polarized mixture. In these experimental conditions K atoms in $`|2,1`$ and Rb atoms in $`|2,2`$ do not contribute significantly to loss of K atoms from the trap. The time evolution of K-atoms number is given to a good approximation by the solution of the single rate equation $`\dot{n}^K(t)=Gn_{|2,2}^K(t)n_{|2,1}^{Rb}(t)`$ with the constraint $`N_{|2,2}^K(t)N_{|2,1}^{Rb}(t)=`$ const. Here $`n`$ is the spatial density, $`N`$ the atom number and $`G`$ is the rate constant for inelastic collisions between K in $`|2,2`$ and Rb in $`|2,1`$ rate . Our collision model agrees well with the experimental data for an inelastic collision rate $`G`$=1.8(9)$`\times 10^{11}`$ cm3 s-1. A comparison between the measured inelastic rate and the numerical calculation (shown in Fig. 4) allows us to determine the region of confidence for the singlet scattering length $`a_1`$, given our interval of $`a_3`$ values. This comparison singles out a region of positive singlet scattering length, $`a_1>30a_0`$, excluding a broad region of strong suppression of inelastic processes centered at $`a_1a_3`$. In alternative, the large negative singlet scattering length $`a_1<210a_0`$ is also compatible with the data. This result represents a first characterization of the singlet K-Rb interaction, and can provide a useful guidance for further collisional studies, in particular for the investigation of Feshbach resonances in selected spin-states.

We have also determined the triplet $`s`$-wave scattering lengths for all the other pairs of K and Rb isotopes. It must be remarked that our analysis for 41K-87Rb is weakly dependent on the number $`N_b`$ of bound states supported by the ABO potentials. In contrast, mass scaling from one isotope to the others depends more strongly on $`N_b`$. Tab. 1 summarizes our results for the number of bound states $`N_b=32`$ supported by the nominal triplet potential. Calculations that allow for a realistic $`(\pm 2)`$ uncertainty in $`N_b`$ do not qualitatively change the results of Tab. 1. With this proviso, we discuss below the consequences of these results.

The repulsive character of the 41K-87Rb triplet interaction indicates that it is possible to form a stable binary Bose-Einstein condensate. Indeed, in case of a negative inter-species scattering length much larger in magnitude than the single-species ones notaa3 , the mean-field interaction would lead to a collapse of the condensates binarybecs ; notabec . Of great interest is also the 40K-87Rb pair, for which we find a negative and probably large inter-species scattering length. Therefore, at least in the absence of unfortunately placed zeros in the elastic cross section, sympathetic cooling of fermionic K with 87Rb can be expected to be highly efficient. Moreover, the attractive character of the interaction should prevent phase separation of the two components once the degenerate regime has been reached moelmer , thus insuring an efficient thermalization even in this regime. This represent a qualitatively different situation with respect to the other known Bose-Fermi mixture, 6Li-7Li, for which the interspecies scattering length is positive lithium3 . We note that among the pairs containing 85Rb, which however does not seem to be an easy partner for sympathetic cooling rb85 , only the 41K-85Rb pair shows a significantly large interaction. Finally, the mixture 39K-87Rb is not particulary appealing, since the interspecies scattering length is expected to be relatively small and, moreover, the formation of a stable Bose-Einstein condensate of 39K with a large number of atoms is prevented by the negative sign of its own scattering length wang .

In conclusion we have drawn a picture of the triplet interaction between all the K-Rb isotopes pairs. Our study paves the way to the production of novel mixtures of degenerate atomic gases, such as Bose-Bose systems with large repulsive interaction and Bose-Fermi systems with attractive interactions. Moreover, it provides important information for predicting the occurrence of magnetically-tunable Feshbach resonances. These resonances would represent a tool to control the inter-species interactions and to drive the production of ultracold heteronuclear molecules.

We are grateful to P. S. Julienne, F. H. Mies, E. Tiesinga, and C. J. Williams for the ground-state collisions code and several useful discussions. This work was supported by MURST, by ECC under the Contract HPRICT1999-00111, and by INFM, PRA ”Photonmatter”.


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# Non-volatile magnetoresistive memory in phase separated La0.325Pr0.300Ca0.375MnO3.

## Abstract

We have measured magnetic and transport response on the polycrystalline La5/8-yPryCa3/8MnO3 ($`y=0.30`$, average grain size 2 microns ) compound. In the temperature range where ferromagnetic metallic and insulating regions coexist we observed a persistent memory of low magnetic fields ( $`<`$ 1 T) which is determined by the actual amount of the ferromagnetic phase. The possibility to manipulate this fraction with relatively small external perturbations is related to the phase separated nature of these manganese oxide based compounds. The colossal magnetoresistance figures obtained (about 80%) are determined by the fraction enlargement mechanism. Self-shielding of the memory to external fields is found under certain described circumstances. We show that this non-volatile memory has multilevel capability associated with different applied low magnetic field values.

Acepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B: Rapid Comm.

+ corresponding author levy@cnea.gov.ar

The unusually large change of resistivity following application of magnetic field, the so called colossal magnetoresistance (MR) effect observed in manganese-oxide-based compounds, is again being the focus of intense research due to the capability of small external forces to tailor the macroscopic material s response. This unique possibility is related to the simultaneous presence of submicrometer ferromagnetic metallic (FM) regions and charge ordered (CO) and/or paramagnetic insulating (PI)ones in some manganites, the Phase Separation (PS) phenomena.

The PS scenario fully develops in the La5/8-yPryCa3/8MnO3 (LPCM($`y`$)) family of compounds, whose end members exhibit homogeneous FM ($`y`$=0) and CO ($`y`$=1) states.  Intense research activities in these compounds were developed by Moscow groups  and by Cheongś group.  In short, these works show the tendency of LPCM($`y`$) to form inhomogeneous structures, which seems to be a generic property of strongly correlated systems.

There are conclusive evidences, both theoretical and experimental,  showing that the high values of MR achieved by PS manganites are due to the possibility of unbalancing the amount of the coexisting phases by the application of low magnetic fields. In La0.5Ca0.5MnO3, a prototypical PS compound with its charge ordering temperature $`T_{co}`$ lower than that of FM ordering $`T_C`$, the huge values of the low field low temperature MR are related to the capability of the field to inhibit the formation of otherwise CO regions, leading to an effective increase of the FM fraction.  Remarkably, it was also shown that this process is only achieved when field cooling (FC) the sample.  Application of low $`H`$ once the relative fractions of the coexisting phases were established has the only effect of domain alignment. At low temperature, this kind of MR affects mainly the intergrain tunneling in polycrystalline samples, with maximum values of the low field MR around 30%.  The application of moderate magnetic fields in the FC mode plays also an unbalancing role in Cr-doped Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3: the low temperature zero-field resistivity of this compound display a strong dependence with the cooling field. The reduction in the resistivity persists even after this annealing field is removed, meaning that the magnetic field remains imprinted in the sampleś resistivity.

The possibility of producing technological applications with PS manganites, both for magnetic reading heads and magnetoresistive data storage, has been one of the aims in the investigation of these kind of systems. However, the mentioned features related to the way in which colossal values of MR can be achieved or the magnetic fields can be imprinted, seem to impose drastic restrictions to its actual implementation.

In this work we show that low magnetic fields can be effectively written under isothermal conditions in the PS manganite La0.325Pr0.300Ca0.375MnO3. This effect is achieved due to the confluence of two factors. On one hand, the fact that within a delimited temperature range the equilibrium state of the system is a true PS one with definite equilibrium fractions of the coexisting phases. On the other one, the fact that in this temperature range the system displays out of equilibrium features governed by a slow dynamics, allowing different long term metastable states to be tuned by a small external stimulus. We claim that the identification and understanding of these ingredients produces a breakthrough for technological uses of PS manganites.

Polycrystalline samples of LPCM(0.3) were synthesized by the sol - gel technique. Thermal treatments were performed at 1000 C. Average grain size determined through Scanning Electrom Micrographs was around 2 microns. Resistivity $`\rho `$ (standard four probe technique) and magnetization $`M`$ (extraction QD PPMS magnetometer) were measured as a function of temperature T in the presence of an external low magnetic field ($`LH`$) $`H`$ $`<`$ 1 T.

Figure 1 displays magnetization, resistivity and magnetoresistance as a function of temperature for a LPCM(0.3) sample. Around 220 K the CO state develops, as evidenced both by the increase in $`\rho `$ and the peak in $`M`$. Some degrees below, at $`T_{C1}`$ 210 K, FM clusters nucleate within the CO matrix, producing a peak in $`\rho `$($`T`$) and a steep increase in $`M`$($`T`$). The FM volume fraction of this state, which extends down to $`T_{C2}`$ 100 K, is nearly constant (about 14 %) i.e., below the percolation threshold (17%). In this temperature range the state of the system is characterized by the coexistence of frozen isolated FM clusters within CO regions; these clusters start to grow at $`T_{C2}`$, and an insulating to metal transition develops when the fraction of the FM phase reaches the percolation threshold. Below the freezing temperature $`T_f`$ 75 K the $`M`$($`T`$) data exhibits a plateau, revealing that no further evolution in the fraction of the coexisting phases is produced on further cooling. The FM volume fraction in this low $`T`$ region is about 90 %. These results are in good agreement with previously reported data on the LPCM(0.3) compound.

The MR = $`(\rho (0)\rho (H))/\rho (0)`$ obtained on cooling (FC procedure) is depicted in Fig. 1c for different $`LH`$ values. The high ( $`>`$ 60%) MR values obtained within the PS regime occurring between $`T_{C1}`$ and $`T_{C2}`$ can be understood as the result of the enlargement of the FM phase induced by the LH.  The increase of the FM fraction occurring on cooling down through $`T_{C2}`$ is concomitant with the decrease of the MR curve. This fact can be also understood within the fraction enlargement mechanism: low MR values are obtained as soon as the FM fraction departs from the percolation threshold.  Below $`T_f`$ the fraction of the coexisting phases is no longer controlled by the external field: the low temperature MR figures ( 30 % at $`H`$ = 0.6 T) are consistent with those expected for an homogeneous polycrystalline system.  So, no changes in the relative fraction of the coexisting phases are induced by $`LH`$ below the freezing temperature.

The unusual inhomogeneous state that develops in the $`T`$ range between $`T_{C1}`$ and $`T_{C2}`$ was previously shown to be characterized by interesting time dependent effects, as cooling rate dependence , relaxation in transport  and magnetic  properties, giant 1/f noise,  non equilibrium fluctuations,  etc. The microscopic origin of the dynamics observed in manganites with coexisting FM and CO regions (either short or long ranged) could be related to the strain accommodation , which is induced as a result of martensitic nucleation of the child phase within the parent matrix.

Time relaxation of both $`\rho `$ and $`M`$ were observed between $`T_{C1}`$ and $`T_f`$, indicating that, in this $`T`$ range, the data shown in Fig 1 does not correspond to the equilibrium state. This fact is in close agreement with previously reported cooling rate dependences.  The slope of the relaxations (positive for M measurements, negative for the $`\rho `$ ones) signals that the system reaches the temperature T with a FM fraction lower than that corresponding to the equilibrium state. In Fig. 2 we shown the effect of $`LH`$ applied after zero field cooling the sample to a temperature close below $`T_{C2}`$, while the system is relaxing towards equilibrium. Fig. 2a displays $`\rho `$ at $`T`$= 95.5 K as a function of elapsed time upon the application of magnetic fields of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 T with intermediate switching off. Sudden decreases are observed in $`\rho `$ when the field is applied, followed by slow relaxations. These jumps are related to both the alignment of spins and domains with the field and to the enlargement of the FM phase driven by $`H`$. Remarkably, when the field is turned off the resistivity steeply increases, but without recovering its previous $`\rho _{H=0}`$ (i.e. $`\rho `$ when $`H`$=0) value. As it is suggested by the staircase structure displayed in Fig. 2a, the combination of the mentioned MR effects determines a response which is persistent after the magnetic field is removed.

An interesting fact is that the system still relaxes after the field is switched off (this is not apparent from Fig. 2a due to the time scale used). The inset of Fig. 2a compares the normalized $`\rho _{H=0}`$ values extracted from Fig. 2 as a function of the elapsed time after the $`LH`$ was turned off. Also remarkably, there exists a threshold value $`H_{th}`$ above which the relaxation of $`\rho (t)`$ reverses its sign, i.e. $`\rho (t)`$ slowly increases (instead of decreasing) upon increasing the value of the $`LH`$ applied. This result suggests that the amount of the FM phase decreases after $`H`$ $`>`$ $`H_{th}`$ is applied, as if the system was driven to an over - enlarged metaestable state. This fact signs unambiguously that the equilibrium state of the system between $`T_{C2}`$ and $`T_f`$ is of PS nature, characterized by an equilibrium fraction of the FM phase.

To further elucidate the contribution of each MR mechanism (alignment and enlargement) to the overall persistent MR effect, we studied the response of $`\rho _{H=0}`$ (determined by the previous application of some $`H_{MAX}`$) when further applying $`H`$ $`<`$ $`H_{MAX}`$. Fig. 2b shows the effect of application and removal of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 T after $`H_{MAX}`$ = 0.6 T have been applied and removed at T = 95.5 K. As seen, when $`H`$ is turned on, an immediate response producing a decrease of $`\rho `$ is observed, which vanishes when $`H`$ is switched off. The staircase structure of Fig. 2a is now replaced by deeps at the intervals when the field is turned on, their depth being determined by the $`LH`$ strength, with a characteristic specific MR/$`H`$ value of 22 % / T.

By simple inspection of the above presented results the persistent effect on the resistivity can be unambiguously assigned to the FM enlargement process. The non-trivial relaxation of the system towards its equilibrium point by increasing the FM volume fraction indicates the existence of a distribution of energy barriers through which the FM phase grows against the non-FM one.  As soon as a field $`H_{MAX}`$ is applied the system is forced to increase its FM fraction overcoming the barriers of height less than $`\mu H_{MAX}`$ ($`\mu `$ a characteristic parameter of the system relating the field and energy scales). Once the system is driven to a ”close to equilibrium” state, the effect can not be reversed, and the system keeps memory of its magnetic history in the FM phase fraction. Within this framework, no additional FM enlargement is produced by the ulterior application of $`H`$ $`<`$ $`H_{MAX}`$, and the only effect achieved is due to the alignment mechanism. When $`H`$=0 this alignment MR vanishes, and the response associated with the same previously existing FM volume fraction (determined by $`H_{MAX}`$) is restored, i.e. the previous $`\rho _{H=0}`$ is obtained (Fig. 2b). Thus, the electrical transport response $`\rho _{H=0}`$ is not altered by processes involving external $`H`$ as long as $`H`$ $`<`$ $`H_{MAX}`$; the system keeps memory of $`H_{MAX}`$ encoded in its resistivity in a state which is shielded against external H$`<`$ $`H_{MAX}`$.

The above described scenario seems to be characteristic of the so called ”low $`T_C`$” manganites exhibiting PS. We obtained very similar data to that shown in Fig.2 on La0.5Ca0.5Mn1-yFeyO3 for 0.2 $`<`$ $`y`$ $`<`$ 0.6, another PS family of compounds with rather different hole doping level.  The key ingredients leading to the magnetoresistive memory are the existence of a true PS thermodynamic state joined to the possibility of tuning long term metastable states by small external stimuli. As a distinctive fact, the strength of the persistent MR effect is directly related to the magnitude of the $`LH`$ applied, envisaging applications as a sort of ”analogical memory device”. This multilevel memory associated with different applied magnetic fields below 1 T has similarities to that achieved using electric fields in thin oxide films with pervskite-like structure.  In our case, the system keeps memory of its magnetic history in the FM phase fraction; it can be recovered by transport measurements, with a MR/H performance of $``$ 80 % / T, opening a path for the design of non-volatile magnetoresistive memories.

——————– Project partially financed by CONICET, Fundaciones Antorchas, Balseiro and Vitae.

b Also at ECyT, Universidad Nacional de Gral. San Mart n, San Mart n, Argentina.  Also at CIC, CONICET, Argentina.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In 1962, Linsley  detected a cosmic ray air shower at the pioneering Volcano Ranch array with an estimated energy exceeding $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$. The significance of this event became clear only some years later, following the serendipitous discovery of the universal 2.7 K cosmic microwave background (CMB), when Greisen and, independently, Zatsepin and Kuzmin  noted that cosmic ray nucleons with energies exceeding $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}4\times 10^{10}\mathrm{GeV}`$ would suffer severe energy losses through scattering on the CMB photons due to excitation of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1232)`$ resonance with a cross-section of $`400\mu `$b. Consequently their typical range should decrease rapidly above this energy, leading to a ‘GZK cutoff’ in the energy spectrum if the sources are cosmologically distant. Conversely the absence of such a cutoff in the spectrum (which is approximated by a power-law $`\mathrm{d}N/\mathrm{d}EE^3`$ at lower energies) would imply that the sources are nearby, within the local supercluster.***Recent detailed calculations  indicate that the typical range of a nucleon drops below $`100`$ Mpc above $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$. For heavy nuclei the dominant energy loss process is photodissociation; above $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$ this happens through scattering on the CMB and the typical range is even smaller than for nucleons . For photon primaries the dominant opacity above $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ is due to pair production on the (poorly known ) extragalactic radio background; the mean free path is estimated to be $`15`$ Mpc at $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$ .

Plausible astrophysical sources for such ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) were discussed by Hillas  who noted that simply to contain charged particles long enough for them to be accelerated to such high energies required sufficiently large magnetic fields and/or spatial volumes such as could plausibly be achieved only in a few specific sites such as the extended lobes of giant radio galaxies or active galactic nuclei. Moreover particles of such energies should be undeflected by the weak intergalactic magnetic fields, so should point back to their sources. Thus there was the exciting prospect that further such observations would clarify the long-standing question of the origin of cosmic rays. Indeed UHECRs continued to be observed with other detectors, notably at Haverah Park  and Yakutsk . However, perhaps because of the theoretical prejudice that the sources of UHECRs must be cosmologically distant, as well as concerns regarding uncertainties in the energy measurements, these observations appear not to have been taken seriously . As late as 1993 it was stated that the GZK cutoff is indeed present in the data, confirming the expectation that the sources of UHECRs are distant FR-II radio galaxies .

The breakthrough came the same year with the detection of an event of energy $`(3.2\pm 0.9)\times 10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$ by the innovative Fly’s Eye detector in Utah, which measured the fluorescence from the excited N2 molecules in the atmospheric shower and was thus able to reliably determine the energy . Moreover the shower was seen to have its maximum at an atmospheric depth of $`815_{35}^{+45}`$ g cm-2, consistent with a proton primary, but significantly less than the expected value of $`1075`$ g cm-2 for a photon primary .Further observations by Fly’s Eye  as well as its successor HiRES  indicated a gradual increase in the depth of maximum with energy, suggesting a change in composition from heavy nuclei to nucleons. Subsequently the Akeno Giant Air Shower Array (AGASA) has detected a large number of air showers with energies exceeding $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ .

In fact the possible existence of such high energy cosmic rays had already been mooted a decade earlier by particle physicists  as a likely signature of Grand Unified Theories (GUTs). In particular, Hill  had proposed that relic topological defects such as magnetic monopoles created during GUT symmetry breaking in the early universe may have formed metastable bound states which would occasionally annihilate at the present epoch, thus releasing high energy quark and gluon jets which would hadronise to release cosmic rays of energy upto the GUT scale. Subsequently the development of superstring theory had led to independently motivated suggestions for the existence of massive relic particles associated with the ‘hidden sector’ of supersymmetry breaking; the lightest such state, having only gravitational interactions, would be metastable, thus a natural candidate for the dark mater . Indeed just before the Fly’s Eye event was announced, detailed studies had been undertaken of the observational signatures of such particles , focussing on the possibility of detecting high energy neutrinos from their slow decays . (Moreover, the possibility that weakly interacting neutral particles such as neutrinos may acquire large interaction cross-sections through new physics had been discussed in the context of the detection of anomalous airshowers from the X-ray binary Cygnus X-3 ).

In recent years several other speculative ideas have been put forward for the possible origin of post-GZK UHECRs and some of them have been studied in sufficient detail as to allow clear experimental tests. The data set has also grown allowing some possibilities to be ruled out altogether and severe constraints to be put on others. This is an opportune time to assess the situation, particularly since the giant Pierre Auger Observatory , under construction in Argentina, has recently seen “first light” and is expected to increase the world statistics of UHECRs by ten-fold within a few years.

## 2 Observational Status

The AGASA experiment has provided most of the data on UHECRs in recent years. In their 2000 review, Nagano and Watson  had noted that the measurements were consistent at the level of $`\pm 15\%`$ in energy (or $`\pm 45\%`$ in flux) with older data from Haverah Park, Yakutsk and Fly’s Eye. After making various necessary corrections, these authors had combined all the data to obtain the ‘standard’ differential energy spectrum:

$`J(E)=`$ $`C\left({\displaystyle \frac{E}{6.3\times 10^9\mathrm{GeV}}}\right)^{3.20\pm 0.05},`$ $`\text{for}4\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV}<E<6.3\times 10^9\mathrm{GeV}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`C\left({\displaystyle \frac{E}{6.3\times 10^9\mathrm{GeV}}}\right)^{2.75\pm 0.20},`$ $`\text{for}6.3\times 10^9\mathrm{GeV}<E<4\times 10^{10}\mathrm{GeV},`$
where $`C=(9.23\pm 0.65)\times 10^{33}`$m-2s-1sr-1eV-1. Although the spectral shape at higher energies was uncertain, there was no evidence of the GZK cutoff upto $`3\times 10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$. Preliminary data in 1999 from the HiRes air fluorescence detector , the successor to Fly’s Eye, had 7 events above $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$, in conformity with this spectrum.

At the International Cosmic Ray Conference in Hamburg in August 2001, AGASA reported 17 events above $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$ with a total exposure of $`6\times 10^{16}`$ m2 st s (the data set having been enlarged by accepting showers inclined by as much as 600 to the vertical), consistent with their earlier data . On the basis of more detailed comparison with simulations, the energy estimates were raised (by 20% at $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$) relative to previously quoted results. As shown in Fig. 1, the flux at $`E>E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ is considerably above the expectation for an uniformly distributed population of cosmologically distant sources (with a power-law injection spectrum chosen to match data at lower energies).

However HIRES, with a similar exposure in the mono mode, reported only 2 events above $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$ , instead of the $`20`$ events expected on the basis of the above standard spectrum (1). In stereo mode, with about 20% of this exposure, only 1 event was seen. As seen in Fig. 2, there is a clear discrepancy with the AGASA data. The resolution of this may have to do with a possible underestimate of the efficiency of atmospheric fluorescence emission at longer wavelengths (more relevant for higher energies due to Rayleigh scattering) as suggested by a recent measurement . This may have caused HiRes to underestimate the energies (and overestimate the exposure) although the magnitude of such corrections cannot yet be precisely quantified . It is also the case that the begining of the ‘ankle’ in the spectrum is a factor of $`2`$ lower in the fluorescence detector data than in the air shower detector data. The Auger Observatory  employs both types of detectors so should be soon able to resolve these discrepancies and establish a consistent energy scale. However it should be emphasised that although the energy spectrum (1) may require revision, the existence of UHECRs above $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ is not in doubt!

New results have also been presented by AGASA on the angular distribution of events on the sky . In accordance with earlier data, there is no evidence for any large-scale anisotropy for the 59 observed showers (having zenith angles $`<45^0`$) with energies above $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$. As seen in Fig. 3, there is no observed correlation with the galactic plane (such as is seen at lower energies around $`10^9\mathrm{GeV}`$ by both Fly’s Eye and AGASA ), or with the super-galactic plane (as had been claimed earlier, particularly in the Haverah park data ). However a number of ‘clusters’ — defined as a grouping of 2 or more events within (approximately the experimental angular resolution of) 2.50 — are seen; the chance probability that these result from an isotropic distribution is estimated by Monte Carlo to be 0.05% for the 5 observed doublets and 1.66% for the 1 observed triplet . Assuming that all observed events above $`4\times 10^{10}\mathrm{GeV}`$ come from one particular class of source, the number of such sources is estimated assuming Poisson statistics to be $`220_{100}^{+207}`$. It is also found that the cosmic rays contributing to the clusters have a hard energy spectrum with a differential spectral index of $`1.8`$. If these are assumed to come from a separate source population then the total number of observed sources is limited to be less than 427 . However it has been pointed out that the data set used to make the initial claim for clustering ought not to be used in the actual analysis; moreover the directions of the most energetic events observed by previous experiments do not line up with any of the 6 ‘clusters’ . Thus the indication for compact sources is exciting but still needs confirmation with increased statistics, as will be provided by Auger.

Finally, with regard to the composition of UHECRs, new data has muddled the picture suggested earlier by Fly’s Eye and HiRes  of a change from heavy nucleus (“iron”) domination at $`3\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV}`$ to nucleon domination at $`10^{10}\mathrm{GeV}`$. The muon content of the AGASA showers implies a mixed composition over $`10^910^{10}\mathrm{GeV}`$  and a new analysis of Haverah Park data also indicates that nucleons make up no more than 34% of the flux in the range $`(0.32)\times 10^9\mathrm{GeV}`$ . As seen in Fig.4, the conclusions are quite sensitive to the choice of the interaction model used  hence the matter cannot be considered to be definitively settled as yet. However it would appear that a bound of $`<50\%`$ can be set on the photon component at $`E>E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ from analysis of horizontal showers at Haverah Park, independently of the interaction model . A similar limit is obtained by AGASA on the basis that photon-initiated showers tend to be muon-poor . This is potentially a powerful discriminant between models of the origin of UHECRs. Unfortunately the propagation of photons at these energies is uncertain since the dominant opacity (towards $`\gamma \gamma `$ pair production) is determined by the low frequency radio background which is poorly measured — the last experimental attempt was in 1970 . Subsequently model-dependent estimates have been made which suggest a mean free path at $`10^{11}\mathrm{GeV}`$ of a few Mpc . Hence even if photons are absent in the UHECRs observed at Earth this does not exclude the possibility that they were emitted by the sources, especially if the mean free path turns out to be even smaller.

## 3 Conventional explanations

The lack of a GZK cutoff, which requires the sources to be relatively nearby, coupled with the isotropy, which implies a cosmologically distant population, pose severe problems for any astrophysical expalanation of UHECRs . For example $`\gamma `$-ray bursts are isotropically distributed and may well have the necessary capability to accelerate protons to such high energies , but being cosmologically distant they cannot provide the events observed at $`E>E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ . Other possible sources such as active galactic nuclei may even be able to account for the post-GZK events if they are concentrated locally by a factor $`>30`$ ; however the local supercluster is overdense by a factor of only $`2`$. There are some nearby active galaxies but even if they can accelerate UHECR these would need to be deflected through large angles (and isotropised) by the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) ; this requires the field strength to be $`100`$ times stronger than the upper limit of a few nG inferred from observational bounds on Faraday rotation in distant radio sources . It has been proposed that the radio galaxy Cen A at 3.4 Mpc is the source of UHECRs ; however detailed calculations  show that this requires an IGMF of $`1\mu `$G to isotropise their directions and even so it would be difficult to account for the direction of the highest energy Fly’s Eye event. By backtracing the 13 most energetic events in a magnetic field modelled as originating from a ‘galactic wind’, the radio galaxy M87 in the Virgo cluster has also been implicated as the source . The convergence of the backtraced events turns out however to be due to the assumed magnetic field geometry and cannot therefore be considered evidence for an unique source .

## 4 Models involving new physics

Given the problems of an astrophysical origin, it is natural to speculate that UHECRs are linked to physics beyond the Standard Model. Many novel suggestions have been made in this regard . I shall focus on only those which have been investigated in sufficient detail so as to provide falsifiability criteria.

### 4.1 Z-bursts

Since at least one species of relic neutrinos must have a mass of $`0.1\mathrm{eV}`$, it is an attractive possibility to suppose that these provide a target for ultra-high energy neutrinos from distant sources to annihilate on. This would create “Z-bursts” with an energy of $`m_Z^2/2m_\nu 4\times 10^{12}(m_\nu /1\mathrm{eV})^1\mathrm{GeV}`$, i.e. in just the right energy range to be a source for UHECRs . The energy spectrum of the nucleons and $`\gamma `$-rays resulting from $`Z`$ decays is well measured at LEP so a detailed comparison can be made with the data . In fact a good match to the energy spectrum is obtained for a relic neutrino mass of $`0.26_{0.14}^{+0.2}\mathrm{eV}`$; however the required ultra-high energy flux is rather large, taking into account that such light relic neutrinos cannot have a overdensity within the GZK distance of more than a factor of $`2`$ . Although there are no direct experimental limits at such energies, any reasonable extrapolation to somewhat lower energies would violate the limits obtained recently by AMANDA. Moreover it is not clear how such high energy neutrinos would be created in the hypothetical cosmic sources — usually this would require the acceleration of even higher energy nucleons! (In principle, high energy neutrinos may be produced through the decays of super-massive relic particles  but such decays ought to also produce UHECRs directly as we discuss below, making this mechanism of less interest.) An alternative solution is to increase the local density of relic neutrinos by postulating that they are degenerate ; however this is increasingly constrained by failure to observed the associated ‘late ISW effect’ in the angular power spectrum of the CMB, as discussed by Hannestad at this meeting .

### 4.2 Strongly interacting neutrinos

Neutrinos with electroweak interactions cannot initiate the observed airshowers but, as has been speculated for some time , they may be become strongly interacting through new interactions. This possibility has been recently revived with the realisation that the string scale may in principle be as low as the TeV scale if there are new dimensions in Nature. However as discussed by Plümacher at this meeting, the increase in cross-section through (t-channel) exchange of Kaluza-Klein gravitons is inadequate to account for the characteristics of the observed events . A string-theoretic calculation in which the string amplitude is approximated as a sum over s-channel resonances (leptoquarks) also comes to a negative conclusion .

### 4.3 New neutral primaries

The GZK cutoff would be higher if the primary particle is a new stable hadron which is heavier than a nucleon. For example it might be a bound state of a light gluino if that is the lightest supersymmetric particle  or perhaps a H-dibaryon . The air showers that would be initiated by such a particle (“uhecron”) have been studied in detail  and comparison with data limits the primary mass to be $`<50\mathrm{GeV}`$. The experimental constraints on new stable hadrons are already quite stringent  and it is likely that such a particle can soon be found or excluded. The interactions needed to produce such particles in distant sources must also produce neutrinos and $`\gamma `$-rays and the latter should be detectable, e.g. by Cêrenkov telescopes such as VERITAS, MAGIC and HESS .

### 4.4 Violation of Lorentz invariance

It has been noted that a small modification of the relation between momentum and energy in special relativity may undo the GZK cutoff . In particular this may happen for a deformed dispersion relation $`c^2p^2=E^2(1+E/M_\mathrm{P})+\mathrm{}`$, motivated by considerations of quantum gravity at the Planck scale . However this needs further examination in a quantum gravitational framework before definite conclusions can be drawn since, e.g., energy might be conserved only in a statistical sense .

### 4.5 Decaying supermassive dark matter

As mentioned earlier, the possible existence of relic metastable massive particles whose decays can create high energy cosmic rays and neutrinos had been discussed  before the famous Fly’s Eye event  which focussed attention on the enigma of UHECRs. Subsequently this idea was revived  and it was further pointed out that such particles, being cold dark matter, would naturally have a overdensity by a factor of $`10^4`$ in the halo of our Galaxy . Hence if their slow decays generate UHECRs, all propagation effects will be unimportant (except possibly for photons) in determining the observed spectrum and cosmposition, and, moreover, there should be a detectable anisotropy  in the arrival directions, given our asymmetric position in the Galaxy. In order to account for the highest energy events with the observed rates, the particle mass should exceed $`m_X>10^{12}\mathrm{GeV}`$ while its lifetime is determined to be $`\tau _X3\times 10^9\zeta _Xt_0`$, where $`t_010^{10}`$ yr is the age of the universe and $`\zeta _X`$ is the fraction of the halo dark matter density in the form of such particles . This is in accordance with the theoretical expectation for ‘cryptons’ . Moreover, as discussed by Kolb at this meeting, it is plausible that such particles (“wimpzillas”) were created with a cosmologically interesting abundance through the changing gravitational field at the end of inflation .

The spectra of the decay products is essentially determined by the physics of QCD fragmentation . Recently several groups have undertaken calculations which improve on previous efforts  in being both better connected to laboratory data (available upto LEP energies) and incorporating the possible effects of new physics e.g. supersymmetry at higher energies . As discussed by Toldra  at this meeting, an effective approach is to evolve the fragmentation functions measured at the $`Z^0`$ peak (for neutrinos, inferred using HERWIG) upto the scale of the decaying particle mass by solution of the DGLAP evolution equations. Similar results are obtained in two independent calculations  and, as seen in Fig. 5, the evolved spectrum of nucleons is in good agreement with the ‘flat’ component (1) of cosmic rays at $`E>E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$. On the negative side, the decay photons, which have a similar spectral shape are more abundant by a factor of $`2`$, so this model (as well as the related one involving annihilations of wimpzillas ) would seem to be ruled out by the Haverah Park bound  on the photon component of UHECRs. However, as commented earlier, it is quite possible that such high energy photons are significantly attenuated in their passage through the low frequency radio background; this would in turn generate a background of low energy $`\gamma `$-rays and it is necessary to check that this does not exceed observational limits (work in progress).

Detailed calculations have also been made of the expected anisotropy, adopting different possible models of the dark matter halo (cusped, isothermal, triaxial and tilted) . We find that the amplitude of the anisotropy is controlled by the extent of the halo, while the phase is controlled by its shape. As seen in Fig. 6, the amplitude of the first harmonic is $`0.5`$ for a cusped halo, but falls to $`0.3`$ for an isothermal halo, while the maximum is in the direction of the Galactic Centre, with deviations of up to $`30^0`$ possible for triaxial and tilted haloes. Contrary to a recent claim  the halo of M31 is not bright enough to provide conclusive evidence for this hypothesis. However another key signature of a dark matter origin may be some ‘clustering’ of events since the halo CDM distribution is expected to be clumpy rather than being smooth . Thus this model has several interesting observational signatures and can easily be falsified, e.g. if the UHECRs turn out to be heavy nuclei .

## 5 Conclusions

After a long hiatus, high energy cosmic rays have again become very interesting for particle physicists looking for evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. The source of the highest energy particles in Nature is an equally interesting enigma for astrophysicists. As Lemaître first suggested, the origin of such particles may even be linked to the early universe, although not quite as he imagined! Presently the data are tantalising but not sufficient in either quantity or quality to distinguish definitively between proposed models. The good news that this will soon be remedied by the Auger array  which should be complete by 2004 and is expected to detect $`2000`$ events above $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ within 5 years. Moreover the ambitious space-based experiment EUSO , scheduled for a 3-year flight on the International Space Station in 2007, will provide another substantial increase in collecting power. This is an exciting time for cosmic ray physics and we look forward to the surprises that Nature has in store for us.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Matts Roos and the other organisers of this stimulating meeting for the invitation to speak, and Wyn Evans, Francesc Ferrer and Ramon Toldra for their collaboration in the work presented here. I am grateful to Alan Watson for communicating his expert views on the experimental situation.


text:
# Removing 1/𝑓 noise stripes in cosmic microwave background anisotropy observations

## 1 Introduction

In recent years a substantial improvement in measurements of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation has taken place leading to several CMB anisotropy detections which support the gravitational instability scenario for structures formation (Smoot et al. 1992, Górski et al. 1996) and a universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_01`$ (Miller et al. 1999, De Bernardis et al. 2000, Balbi et al. 2000, Pryke et al. 2001). A more complete analysis of current data implies multi-dimensional fits to jointly constrain several cosmological parameters (e.g. Lineweaver 1998, Tegmark & Zaldarriaga 2000). These estimations relay always on the accuracy by which foreground emissions and experimental systematic effects are known and properly accounted for. One of the major problems in present and future CMB anisotropy experiments, are all those possible systematic effects which affect the experiments in several ways.

In this respect a space mission is the optimum being free from the unwanted contamination from ground and Earth atmosphere emission. The Microwave Anisotropy Probe ($`MAP`$111http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/) satellite (Bennett et al. 1996) by NASA has begun its mission aimed at all-sky imaging of the last scattering surface of CMB photons, at several frequencies and with high angular resolution. In 2007 the Planck satellite222http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Planck/ (Mandolesi et al. 1998, Puget et al. 1998) by ESA, will probe the very early phase of the Universe with even higher spectral coverage, sensitivity and angular resolution. Both satellites will operate around the $`L_2`$ Lagrangian point of the Sun-Earth system. This will allow a considerable rejection of the Sun, Earth and Moon radiation (see, e.g., Burigana et al. 2000), and the adopted redundant scanning strategy observing the same sky region several times on different time scales and by different detectors, allows a high control of systematic effects. In particular, Planck is a third generation of CMB mission, covering the widest frequency range ($`\nu `$ 30 - 900 GHz) ever probed, necessary for a high accuracy subtraction of foreground contamination, and reaching a sensitivity per 0.3 pixel size of few $`\mu `$K at each frequency channel $`\nu \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}400}`$ GHz. Therefore an accurate monitoring and removal of systematic effects is crucial to reach the planned scientific objectives.

In the context of the Planck-LFI (Low Frequency Instrument) a detailed study of the major sources of systematic effects has been carried out. Burigana et al. (1998) and Mandolesi et al. (2000a) considered the impact of main beam distortions on CMB observations. Maino et al. (1999) took into account the problem of the so-called $`1/f`$ noise due to gain fluctuations in HEMT amplifiers in Planck-LFI receivers. A detailed study of the Galactic straylight contamination in LFI observations has been carried out by Burigana et al. (2001), where the effects of optical distortions are compared with the $`1/f`$ noise contamination.

The $`1/f`$ noise typically leads to stripes in the final map (Janssen et al. 1996) altering the statistical properties of the cosmic signal which is particularly relevant for CMB anisotropy. This effect can be parameterized by the knee-frequency $`f_k`$ (i.e. the frequency at which the white and $`1/f`$ noise power spectra are equal) which should be as small as possible with respect to the spin-frequency of the satellite (e.g. for Planck $`f_s=0.0167`$ Hz corresponding to 1 r.p.m. spin velocity). It is therefore crucial to properly correct this effect both by hardware and software techniques. The LFI, pseudo-correlation receivers, are properly designed to reduce the $`1/f`$ noise (Bersanelli et al. 1995). Delabrouille (1998) has implemented a technique for destriping Planck observations starting from the Time Ordered Data (hereafter TOD) and taking advantage of the redundancy of the Planck scanning strategy. Maino et al. (1999) have considered a similar technique in the more specific context of Planck-LFI observations and using the current theoretical predictions on LFI receiver properties. The results show that the destriping quality is remarkably good, except for the degenerate case in which all the crossings between different scan circles are concentrated very close to the ecliptic poles.

Although destriping algorithms are sometimes considered approximations of proper map making algorithms (recently implemented for large data time ordered data by, e.g., Natoli et al. 2001 and Dore et al. 2001) they should be considered as methods to remove drifts in the TOD’s and returning TODs cleaned from many classes of systematic effects (see, e.g., Mennella et al. 2001 for an analysis of periodic fluctuations). This is more suitable for many data analysis purposes directly on TODs such as monitoring of variable and transient sources (Terenzi et al. 2001). In the following analysis we make use of maps obtained by co-adding the TOD’s cleaned by destriping codes: this way of proceed is one of the possible methods to quantify the quality of the destriping algorithms.

A key issue of destriping techniques is the operative definition of crossing between two different scan circles, since these techniques are based on the condition that the observed temperatures in the sky have to be the same for identical sky directions, although the samplings are taken along different scan circles at different times. Of course one can be more or less restrictive on the definition of the crossing condition: a more restrictive definition therefore may reduce the number of crossing possibly affecting the destriping quality while a less one may insert an extra-noise due to the different sky signals in the two not exactly coincident sampling directions.

Another issue is the validity of the $`1/f`$ noise drift approximation in terms of a constant baseline (offset) for each averaged scan circles (or significant fraction of it), which in general holds as long as $`f_k`$ is not far larger than $`f_s`$. Of course, the values of $`f_k`$ appropriate to LFI receivers will be probed in future real hardware analysis. It is therefore interesting to assess the maximum values of $`f_k`$ for which the destriping algorithm still works well removing $`1/f`$ noise stripes at a level which does not compromise the determination of CMB angular power spectrum.

In this paper we want to address these issues, evaluate the impact of different crossing conditions for different models of the microwave sky, including instrumental noise. Furthermore we push the knee-frequency to extremely high, and hopefully unrealistic, values ($`1`$ Hz) to evaluate the destriping quality also for pessimistic cases.

We want to stress the fact that, although applied for the specific case of the Planck mission, these arguments are relevant to almost any CMB anisotropy observations. In typical CMB experiments,the scanning strategy implies repeated observations of the same sky regions on different time scales such as, e.g., BEAST (Seiffert 1996), COSMOSOMAS (Watson 1997). Note that the actual implementation of our destriping algorithm is completely independent of the details of the scanning strategy and of the pixelisation scheme333Our first implementation (Burigana et al. 1997b) worked in fact with the QUAD-CUBE scheme and the subsequent applications (Maino et al. 1999) with the HEALPix scheme (Górski et al. 1998) did not imply any modification at all..

This paper is organized as follows. We briefly describe the Planck scanning strategy and the generation of the TOD’s in Sect. 2. The basic recipes of our destriping technique and the discussion of the crossing conditions are presented in Sect. 3. We report our simulation results in Sect. 4, where we assess the impact of the choice of crossing condition and intrinsic sky fluctuations on destriping quality. We dedicate Sect. 5 to the evaluation of the impact of possible high values of the knee-frequency on the destriping quality. We discuss there also the dependence of the destriping efficiency on the instrumental parameters (sensitivity and sampling rate) at different frequencies and introduce the functional form for noise power spectrum after destriping. Finally, we discuss our results and draw our conclusions in Sect. 6.

## 2 Planck observations

### 2.1 Scanning strategy

The orbit selected for Planck satellite will be a tight Lissajous orbit around the $`L_2`$ Lagrangian point of the Sun-Earth system (Mandolesi et al. 1998, Puget et al. 1998). The spacecraft spins at $``$ 1 r.p.m. ($`f_s0.0167`$ Hz) and, in the simplest scanning strategy, the spin axis is essentially kept on the antisolar direction at constant solar aspect angle by a re-pointing of $`2.5^{}`$ every hour444This simple scanning strategy provides also a smooth and quite uniform sky coverage which covers $`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}99}\%`$ of the full sky. The LFI and HFI (High Frequency Instrument) share the focal plane of an Aplanatic telescope (see, e.g., Mandolesi et al. 2000b for a discussion on the advantages of this configuration) of 1.5 meter size which field of view is at an angle $`\alpha =85^{}`$ from the spin-axis. Therefore Planck will trace large circles in the sky. In the nominal 14 mission months $`10200`$ spin-axis positions will be exploited covering twice nearly the whole sky, some regions of which will be covered three times. The actual sampling frequency (i.e. the frequency at which the sky signal is sampled along a given scan circle) adopted for LFI is about 3 samplings per FWHM resulting in a different number of samplings at the four LFI frequencies.

The details of the scanning strategy are not yet frozen and it may or not include a precession of the spacecraft spin axis about another axis kept along the antisolar direction re-pointed of $`2.5^{}`$ every hour.

### 2.2 From TOD to sky maps

We have implemented a code (“Flight Simulator”, Burigana et al. 1997b, 1998 and Maino et al. 1999) simulating the Planck scanning strategy and observations and applied to the study of some systematic effects. The relevant geometrical inputs of the code are the angle $`\alpha `$ between pointing and spin axis, beam position on the focal plane as well as beam response function. Other inputs are parameters describing the noise properties of the receivers.

We adopt here the nominal Planck scanning strategy, i.e. with 14 months of mission and re-pointing of the spin-axis every hour by $`2.5^{}`$ assuming 3 samplings per FWHM, and refer in this section to the case of simulations at 30 GHz where the nominal resolution (FWHM) is $`33^{}`$. The generation of instrumental noise is performed directly in Fourier space and FFT transformed back in real space (see Maino et al. 1999 for details).

We use the HEALPix pixelisation scheme (Górski et al. 1998), which is the adopted baseline for Planck products. The output of our Flight Simulator code are 4 matrices: N, with pointing pixel number at specified resolution (usually larger than the beam size for a proper sampling of beam resolution), T, with sky temperature plus full noise (white + $`1/f`$ noise), W, with sky signal plus white noise only and G, with sky signal only. Each matrix has $`n_s`$ rows equal to the number of spin axis positions ($`n_s10200`$) and $`n_p`$ columns equal to the number of samplings, weakly dependent on $`\alpha `$, along a scan circle ($`n_p1980`$ at 30 GHz). The matrices W and G are computed to evaluate respectively the degradation of $`1/f`$ with respect ideal white noise case and the impact of the scanning strategy geometry on the observed signal.

From these TOD we build sky maps: making use of N, possibly degraded at the desired resolution of the final map, and T we simply coadd the temperatures of those pixels which are observed several times during the mission. In the same way we build maps with only white noise, from W, and, using G, without receiver noise.

## 3 Definition of the problem

As first pointed out by Janssen et al. (1996) the effect of $`1/f`$ noise can be seen as one additive level (baseline or offset) different for each scan circle (or significant fraction of it). Since we work with scan circles averaged over 1-hour period, we strongly reduce drifts within the circle and we are left with the “mean” $`1/f`$ noise level for that observing period. Furthermore average is like a low-pass filter operation and, as long as the $`f_k`$ is not far larger than $`f_s`$, this leaves only the very low frequencies components of the $`1/f`$ noise. Therefore it is a good approximation to model the effect of $`1/f`$ noise on the averaged scan circles as a single baseline $`A_i`$. We want to recover these baselines in order to properly adjust the signal.

### 3.1 Destriping technique

The destriping technique considered here, developed by Burigana et al. (1997b) and by Maino et al. (1999), has been derived from the COBRAS/SAMBA Phase A study proposal (Bersanelli et al. 1996) and from a re-analysis of Delabrouille (1998).

The first logical step of this method is the search of the crossings, i.e. to find the common pixels observed from different scan circles. This can be done at the desired resolution, not necessarily the same of the final map, if poorer than that at which the pixel stream is computed and stored. Let us indicate with $`N_{il}`$, $`T_{il}`$ and $`E_{il}`$ the pixel number, the observed signal and the “white” noise level for the pixel in the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ row (scan circle) and $`j^{\mathrm{th}}`$ column (sampling along the circle) in matrices N, T and (W-G) respectively. Let also be $`\pi `$ the index that identifies a generic pair of observations of the same pixel: of course the index $`\pi `$ is related to two elements in the matrix N: $`\pi (il,jm)`$ where $`i`$ and $`j`$ are the indexes for two different scan circles and $`l`$ and $`m`$ the respective position of the observed pixel.

Following Maino et al. (1999) baselines are recovered solving the linear system:

$$\underset{\pi =1}{\overset{n_c}{}}\left[\frac{[(A_iA_j)(T_{il}T_{jm})][\delta _{ik}\delta _{jk}]}{E_{il}^2E_{jm}^2}\right]_\pi =0$$
(1)
for all the $`k=1,\mathrm{},n_s`$ (here $`\delta `$ is the usual Kronecker symbol). This simply translates into a set of $`n_s`$ linear equation:

$$\underset{h=1}{\overset{n_s}{}}C_{kh}A_h=B_k,k=1,\mathrm{},n_s$$
(2)
which can be easily solved: the matrix of the coefficients $`C_{kh}`$ is positive defined, symmetric and non singular. This last property is verified provided that there are enough intersections between different scan circles. A detailed discussion on the solving of system in Eq.(2) and RAM requirements can be found in Burigana et al. (1997b).

### 3.2 Crossing condition and sky map resolution

It is clear that the capabilities of the destriping technique to recover circles baselines strongly depend on the distribution of crossing points and on the quantity of crossings between different scan circles. Of course, these properties are correlated to each other and depend on the scan angle $`\alpha `$, the beam position on the telescope field of view, the selected scanning strategy and, finally, on the definition of the crossing condition. This concept is parameterized in our code by the size of the pixel in which two samplings on two different scan circles have to fall to be considered as a “crossing”. Maino et al. (1999) demonstrated that for $`\alpha =90^{}`$ an off-axis beam (typical LFI position with $`(\theta _B,\varphi _B)=(2.8^{},45^{})`$ in the focal plane) destripes better than an on-axis beam ($`\theta _B=0^{}`$ or $`\varphi _B=0^{}`$ or $`\varphi _B=180^{}`$) since for the former the crossing points are spread on a large region around the Ecliptic polar caps while, for the latter, they are practically only at the poles causing the system in Eq.(2) to be almost degenerate.

In order to better clarify the impact of the crossing condition on the destriping quality, let us consider the situation depicted in Fig. 1: here filled circles represent samples along two crossing scan circles while the cross indicates the crossing point. This could be regarded as a typical situation in which no sample could be associated to the crossing point.

Therefore one possibility would be to interpolate the signals (and consequently the noise) of the two samplings to the crossing points and feed the result into Eq. (2) as in Revenu et al. (1999). We prefer not to interpolate but address the problem in a different way although our approach is formally equivalent to interpolation if only CMB is considered. However when considering foreground emission from point sources, that have large power on small angular scales, interpolation is no more practicable and may lead to large errors. We identify pointings by means of HEALPix pixel numbers at a suitable resolution and two pointings are considered coincident if they have the same pixel identification number. This however leaves an uncertainty: pointings can fall into the same pixel but could not be exactly coincident. This makes the signal of the two samplings different due to small scales fluctuations of sky signal due to CMB and foreground emissions.

Since the sky signal has power also on small angular scales (e.g., due to discrete point sources) it is crucial to have a sky pixelised with the highest possible resolution in order to follow these fluctuations. It is also important to have a crossing pixel dimension small enough to be as close as possible to the real samplings along the scan circles. The ideal case would be having a map with super-resolution and performing the crossing search at a resolution closer to the angular dimension of a single sampling. Only in this case is it possible to evaluate the true capabilities of a destriping algorithm. However it is not necessary to go to very high resolution ($`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}^{}`$) since, at least for LFI, the highest resolution is $`10^{}`$ at 100 GHz, which means $`3.3^{}`$ per samplings.

Reducing the crossing pixel size has the effect of dramatically lowering the number of crossings between scan circles, possibly affecting the destriping quality. It is however worth to note that the crossings are $`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^7`$ (on a pixel $`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3.5}^{}`$, see, e.g., Table 1) while baselines to be determined are at least 3 orders of magnitude less. In the next section we will present accurate simulations that quantify the impact on the destriping quality of sky signal fluctuations on small angular scales and crossing accuracy between scan circles.

## 4 Simulations

We consider input maps with $`𝒩_{\mathrm{side}}=1024`$ corresponding to $`3.5^{}`$ pixel size. We use the baseline for the Planck scanning strategy with $`\alpha =85^{}`$ and the spin-axis always on the Ecliptic plane. Beam position in the focal plane is chosen to be a worst case with respect the distribution of crossings between scan circles: crossings are limited to a small region around the polar caps. Within the actual focal plane arrangement this results in a position $`(\theta _B,\varphi _B)(4^{},180^{})`$.

Our sky model is composed by primordial CMB anisotropy according to a standard CDM model555$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{CDM}=0.95,\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.05`$ and $`H_0=50`$ Km/s/Mpc normalized to $`COBE`$, plus a model for the Galactic emission. This model has the spatial template of Galactic dust emission as in Schlegel et al. (1998) which has high angular resolution and therefore includes signal fluctuations on small scales. The emission of this map has been normalized to take into account dust, free-free and synchrotron emission at 30 GHz as derived from $`COBE`$-DMR data (Kogut et al. 1996). A realization of extra-galactic point sources has been derived from number source counts extracted from a Poissonian distribution (Toffolatti et al. 1998).

### 4.1 Pure sky signal

We want to evaluate the impact of intrinsic sky signal distribution on the destriping. To quantify the effect, we first consider simulations with no instrumental noise. The search for common pixels between different scan circles is based upon pixels with size $`3.5^{}`$. The output map has pixel size of $`13.7^{}`$ which is close to the Nyquist frequency for the 30 GHz beam FWHM. After destriping we subtract the “destriped” map from the map obtained simply co-adding pixels according to the scanning strategy. As we expect we found a small excess of noise since pixels that are considered coincident by the destriping algorithm, have indeed different sky signals (e.g. see Fig. 2). The destriping algorithm tries to adjust this signal difference as if it was due to different offsets in the scan circles. In Fig. 3 we show the residual extra noise (hereafter REN) for the sky model which includes extra-galactic point sources: stripes are clearly inserted by the destriping code.

In Table 1 we report $`rms`$ and peak-to-peak amplitude of the REN as a function of the dimension of pixel used for searching for common observations between scan circles. The input signal includes a pure CMB sky, CMB plus Galactic signal and CMB plus Galactic emission and extra-galactic radio sources. The results at 30 GHz are clearly the worst case for LFI with respect to the contribution of foreground emissions.

Of course, when the crossing pixel has the same size of pixel input map, the effect is zero as expected and therefore we do not report this results. The REN increases, as expected when enlarging the crossing pixel size, particularly for the case with extra-galactic point sources due to their power on very small angular scales. The situation with pure CMB sky is less dramatic due to the smooth sky gradient.

Note that the $`rms`$ and peak-to-peak amplitude of the effect lie in the range $`0.41.4\mu `$K and $`6.08.6\mu `$K respectively on a pixel of $`13.7^{}`$. These numbers have to be compared with the expected sensitivity at 30 GHz re-scaled to $`13.7^{}`$ pixel size, which is of the order of 15$`\mu `$K. It is important to remind that the goal for the overall budget for systematic effects is few $`\mu `$K and this effect could contribute in principle in non negligible way to the budget.

### 4.2 Sky signal and full noise

We include in our simulations the effect of instrumental white and $`1/f`$ noise with a knee frequency of about 0.1 Hz. The sky signal include CMB, Galactic emission and extra-galactic radio sources (this is close to a realistic scenario).

To assess the impact of sky signal fluctuations and crossing condition on the destriping efficiency we compare two sets of simulations: the first with pure noise and the second with noise plus signal. In both cases, as in Sect. 4.1, the output map has $`13.7^{}`$ pixels while searching for crossing is performed at $`13.7^{}`$ and $`6.8^{}`$. Any difference between the two cases indicates the impact of sky signal and crossing condition on destriping quality.

Results show that pure noise case is almost identical to the case which includes sky signal: differences in REN are of the order of 0.13% and 0.56% when crossings are searched on 6.8 and 13.7 pixels sizes respectively. Furthermore we find very little improvement in destriping quality when crossings are based on pixel sizes smaller that the one of the final map (typical differences are below 0.5%).

This means that the quantity which determines the destriping quality is the noise component while the sky signal plays a minor role adding only small degradation.

A crucial estimator of the $`1/f`$ stripes impact on CMB anisotropy measurements is its angular power spectrum. It can be directly compared to the CMB angular power spectrum and with the spectra that characterize other classes of both instrumental and astrophysical contaminations.

In the case of instrumental pure white noise and in the limit of full sky coverage the angular power spectrum is given by

$$C_{\mathrm{}}\frac{4\pi }{N_{\mathrm{pix}}^2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_{\mathrm{pix}}}{}}\sigma _i^2,$$
(3)
where $`\sigma _i`$ is the noise in the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ pixel and $`N_{\mathrm{pix}}`$ is the total number of pixels.

In Fig. 4 the angular power spectrum of the REN for the pure signal case (CMB + Galaxy + Extra-galactic sources) is shown compared with the expected level of white noise and the noise spectrum after destriping (pure noise case). It is clear that most of the excess at low $`\mathrm{}`$s is due to residual $`1/f`$ noise after destriping (see Maino et al. 1999). For higher $`\mathrm{}`$ ($`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}50}`$), where the destriping algorithm works better and the noise spectrum is almost white, the contamination is below the white noise level.

This again underlines the small impact of signal correlation in the destriping algorithm and, furthermore, leads to the conclusion that, in this realistic case of sky signal and instrumental noise, the destriping algorithm does not introduce extra-correlation since the residual after subtraction of the input sky is almost white noise plus a residual $`1/f`$.

## 5 Destriping quality versus knee-frequency

Since the sky signal contributes only marginally to the destriping quality when instrumental noise is included, we concentrate our attention on instrumental noise only with increasing values of the knee-frequency. We proceed with the analysis of high values of the knee-frequency, up to 1 Hz. This in principle might impact the destriping quality because the filter applied to the data (i.e. the mean over 1-hour period) could not be adequate and so the constant baseline approximation of residual noise

### 5.1 Simulations at 30 GHz

We explore the intervals of $`f_k`$ ranging from 0.025 Hz up to 1 Hz: the former being derived from theoretical computation as in Burigana et al. (1997a) and Seiffert et al. (2001), the latter being a pessimistic conservative case. These knee-frequencies span from values comparable with the spin frequency to values $`100`$ times larger. Note that for LFI the baseline requirement is set to $`f_k<0.05`$ Hz. The output map has the usual $`13.7^{}`$ resolution and the crossing pixel size is $`13.7^{}`$ following the results of previous section.

In Table 2 we report results of the fractional, compared to the white noise, REN $`rms`$ before and after destriping, together with their ratio. It is clear the increasing degradation for increasing $`f_k`$ after destriping: this reaches value of 13% to 30% of the white noise $`rms`$ at 0.4 and 1 Hz respectively.

The ratio is another indicator of destriping degradation: it decreases and will approach unity for extreme high values of $`f_k`$. It is however interesting to note the small range of values exploited by the ratio compared to the wide range in $`f_k`$ indicating a good capability of destriping to control the residual noise.

The increase of the degradation for increasing knee-frequency would have an impact on the angular power spectrum obtained inverting the sky map after destriping. In Fig. 5 we report the angular power spectra before and after destriping for $`f_k=0.1`$ Hz (left) and $`f_k=1`$ Hz (right) respectively. The height of the blobs increases as well as the low-multipole tail of the residual noise. This of course could be a problem in the extraction of the CMB angular power spectrum in particular if the structures related to low-$`\mathrm{}`$ tail show a non-gaussian distribution. This can be verified by Wiener filtering residual noise map taking the low-$`\mathrm{}`$ tail as a signal and subtract from it the white noise level derived from the high multipoles. It can be shown that only for very low $`f_k`$ the distribution of the residual noise could be approximated as a gaussian, while for larger $`f_k`$ stripes appear: this is indeed the level of stripes that the destriping algorithm is not able to remove since it is completely embedded into white noise. However this effect has to carefully considered in CMB data analysis in presence of $`1/f`$ noise.

We also consider simulations at 30 GHz with $`f_k=0.4`$ and 1 Hz in which we try to recover two baselines per circle instead of a single baseline. After destriping the level of extra noise is around $`14\%`$ and $`31\%`$, respectively for $`f_k=0.4`$ and 1 Hz almost the same as in the single baseline case. This means that despite the fact the $`f_k60\times f_s`$, a single baseline is a good approximation of the averaged $`1/f`$ noise.

### 5.2 Dependence on the sampling per circle: simulations at 100 GHz

To complete our estimates on the dependence of the destriping efficiency and of the residual $`1/f`$ noise on the instrumental parameters at different frequencies we extended our simulations to include a case with a larger number of samplings per scan circle.

We performed simulations, including only instrumental noise, at LFI 100 GHz channel that has a nominal angular resolution of 10 and a noise level per unit integration time which is about 3 - 4 times larger than a single channel at 30 GHz. We exploit the same geometrical configuration of the previous 30 GHz case and $`f_k=0.4`$ Hz. Output maps are at $`𝒩_{\mathrm{side}}=1024`$ with 3.5 pixel size that is appropriate for the 10 angular resolution. Crossings between scan circles are searched for on 3.5 and 1.75 pixel size. For both cases we obtain the same results: the fractional REN after destriping is $``$ 4.3% of the white noise.

For further checking the dependence of destriping quality upon white noise level and number of samples along a scan circle, we carried out another simulation with the same parameters as before but with the white noise level properly scaled in order to have the same noise level per unit integration time as at 30 GHz. We obtain a fractional REN after destriping of $`4.4\%`$ of the white noise level, almost equal to the previous result. Comparison with results in Section 5.1 indicates that, for the same value of the knee-frequency and white noise level, the larger the number of samplings along a scan circle, the better destriping quality is achieved.

### 5.3 Upper limits on the $`1/f`$ noise impact

As shown above, the residual $`1/f`$ noise contamination after the destriping, expressed in terms of fractional additional noise with respect the pure white noise, significantly decreases with increasing sampling rate.

In our simulations we have located the beams in a worst-case position regarding the destriping quality assuming an angle $`\alpha =85^{}`$ and a scanning strategy without precession of the spin-axis. The inclusion of the precession although affecting the distribution of integration time per pixel, might partially increase the destriping performance (Maino et al. 1999).

In addition Burigana et al. (2001) have shown that the quality of the destriping algorithm is not significantly affected by the main beam distortion effect and by the beam rotation. The interpretation of this result is analogous to that discussed in Sect. 4 to explain the results of Table 1: differences of few $`\mu `$K between the two signals (without noise) of a crossing used in the destriping algorithm, due either to the underlying different sky or to different beam orientations, are overwhelmed by the instrumental noise fluctuations.

These considerations strongly indicate that the results reported in Table 2, strictly holding for the configuration considered there, can be regarded as more general upper limits applying to the residual $`1/f`$ noise contamination after destriping. We can then exploit the results of Table 2 to derive analytical upper limits for the extra noise after destriping with respect to the case of pure white noise as a function of the knee-frequency. Fitting the results we obtain a power law of the form:

$$\mathrm{log}(rms)\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.898}\times \mathrm{log}(f_k)0.517,$$
(4)
where $`rms`$ is expressed in terms of white noise level (%) and $`f_k`$ is in Hz. The accuracy in $`rms`$ of Eq. (4) is $`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}`$% in the explored range of $`f_k`$.

## 6 Discussion and conclusions

We have reported here a detailed study on removal of $`1/f`$ noise features in CMB observations directly on TODs to obtain cleaned TODs. For this purpose we have made use of the destriping algorithm developed by Burigana et al. (1997b) and Maino et al. (1999) taking into account the impact of intrinsic sky signal fluctuations on the angular scale used to recover common observations between different scan circles and by extending the range of the most relevant instrumental parameters, such as sensitivity, knee frequency and sampling rate.

We have verified that, with pure sky signal in absence of noise, relaxing the crossing condition has the effect of introducing REN which appears as stripes in the map. This is particularly important when including in simulated input sky the contribution coming from radio sources. The typical $`rms`$ effect is of the order of 0.6$`\mu `$K and shows peak-to-peak amplitude of $`7\mu `$K at 30 GHz. This effect, although small, may be in principle important since the overall budget for systematic effects for LFI is of few $`\mu `$K. On the other hand, we find that this effect is practically eliminated when the instrumental noise is taken into account, since the noise component is the dominant one.

We explore a wide range of possible values of knee-frequency from 0.01 Hz up to 1 Hz. The extra noise after destriping increases with increasing values of $`f_k`$ and we derive an analytical expression for the upper limits of the residual $`1/f`$ noise contamination in terms of fractional excess of noise with respect to the pure white noise case. In the worst case the residual contamination may be relevant if the knee frequency is not strongly reduced via hardware; for example, for $`f_k=0.4`$ Hz (1 Hz) we find a fractional REN of about 13% (30%).

We have verified that a single baseline approximation in the use of the destriping code is still valid even for high values of the knee frequency, since up to $`f_k=1`$ Hz no significant improvement is found by using two baselines per scan circle.

Furthermore we find that the destriping quality is only very slightly improved when crossings are searched on pixels smaller than the ones of the final map.

Finally, our simulations at 100 GHz show that the destriping quality does not depend on the intrinsic white noise level, whereas it improves about proportionally to the number of samplings along the scan circle. Analogously, from the comparison with the results obtained in a previous simulation work (Maino et al. 1999), we find that the current Planck 2.5 shift in spin axis re-pointing, better than the 5 shift of the Phase A study, provides a better sampling along the azimuthal direction which further improves the destriping quality.

This extensive study of the destriping algorithm capabilities and dependencies upon different configurations confirms the robustness of the technique and allows to improve its use. Furthermore the general approach of this technique, allow its application to most of the present and future CMB experiments where a redundant scanning strategy is considered. In CMB observations the complexity and the mixing of many classes of instrumental and astrophysical systematic effects requires a particular care. In fact new detailed analyses based on both measured hardware performances provided by laboratories tests and on a more detailed description of instrument and mission parameters (including focal plane assembly, scanning strategy, detailed knowledge of sampling strategies) will be carried out in the future.

###### Acknowledgements.

It is a pleasure to thank F. Argüeso Gómez and L. Toffolatti for the point source map. The use of the HEALPix package is acknowledge. We would like to thank Uroš Seljak and Matias Zaldarriaga for making their CMBFast code publicly available. We are indebt with M. Maltoni, M. Malaspina, L. Danese, A.J. Banday and B.D. Wandelt for useful discussions. DM and CB warmly thank the TAC in Copenhagen for hospitality in summer of 1998 where this work has been started.