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# Two-photon processes in faint biphoton fields

## 1 Introduction

The term “biphoton” has been suggested by D.N. Klyshko  for describing systems of entangled photon pairs, such as those produced in the Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (SPDC) of light111In acknowledgment of D. N. Klyshko’s founding role in studies of parametric processes in optics, SPDC is sometimes referred to as “Klyshko radiation”.. In this process, a pump photon is coherently converted into a pair of entangled photons in a $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ medium , while the phase and spectral properties of the pump are transferred to the biphoton . This phase then can be recovered by a two-photon correlation measurement. In this context, describing this system as “two photons” is not complete and even may be misleading as it tends to omit the quantum correlation properties of the photon pair ; so the term “biphoton” proves to be very useful.

A pair of entangled particles that are space-like separated is an excellent system for testing the concepts of physical *locality* and *reality* . Therefore it is not surprising that SPDC has received great attention as an entanglement source for Bell inequalities tests. The whole variety of such tests can be generally described as nonlocal biphoton interference experiments. As a further development, experiments involving higher-order interference have been carried out, such as the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger theorem test  and quantum teleportation .

Besides purely a fundamental interest, study of the biphoton light has inspired development of new information and measurement technologies, such as quantum cryptography , sub-shot noise optical phase measurements , quantum clock synchronization , and others. Most recently, the possibility of sub-diffraction-limited imaging  and lithography  has been discussed. There is a clear shift of the research in biphoton optics towards practical applications. It is also clear that the difficulties on the path to such applications are quite severe and have one common root, which is the detection problem.

Consider quantum cryptography, which is generally believed to be the most mature of quantum optical technologies. It has been shown  that the main limitation blocking its practical implementation is the single-photon detection rate. It is not possible, with the state-of-art single-photon detectors, to achieve the detection rate that would make useful wideband quantum crypto-communication channels . Similarly, quantum optical interferometers are theoretically capable of being noise-limited at the fundamental (Heisenberg) level $`1/<n>`$, while the classical shot-noise limit is $`1/\sqrt{<n>}`$ ($`<n>`$ being the mean number of photons per measurement). Therefore the quantum measurement of the phase has advantage over the classical one only when $`<n>`$ is large. But for a large photon flux, any coincidence detection technique will fail because of the finite dead time of photon counting detectors and coincidence circuit time-windows. Thus again, the detection rate of photon pairs is the limiting factor. The situation gets even more complicated for quantum lithography, where the two-photon detectors are molecules in the resists that are small and distributed in the media. Here one has to worry not only about the detection rate, or fast two-photon sensitivity, but also about the transverse correlation properties of the biphoton light.

Therefore the search for fast two-photon processes that could enable a true two-photon detector (as opposed to an electronic coincidence circuit), that could be used for study of strong biphoton fields, becomes one of the most important questions of the applied quantum optics. So far, no two-photon processes induced by the biphoton field have been demonstrated, although a much brighter radiation consisting of photon pairs from optical parametric oscillator (OPO) has been shown to be more efficient for second harmonic generation  and for two-photon ionization of atoms  than the ordinary coherent radiation. On the other hand, two-photon processes in strong classical fields, such as pulsed laser fields, have been studied quite extensively.

The goal of our research is to analyze the possibility of direct two-photon detection of the biphoton field and to determine the physical system which is most suitable for this purpose. In the following sections we will demonstrate the advantage of biphoton light over coherent light for driving two-photon processes. This advantage will be shown considerable enough to make up for extremely low power of the biphoton sources such as SPDC. Then, we will discuss two types of processes that could serve for direct two-photon detection: optical up-conversion and the photo-electric effect.

## 2 Photon detection in biphoton and coherent fields

We will use a conventional concept of a photon detection event , which takes place with a probability proportional to a constant $`\eta `$ (the *quantum efficiency* of the detector) and to the probability to have at least one photon in the detection volume $`V`$. This volume can be generally defined in phase space as $`V=\mathrm{\Delta }k_x\mathrm{\Delta }k_y\mathrm{\Delta }k_z\mathrm{\Delta }x\mathrm{\Delta }y\mathrm{\Delta }z`$, just like the phase-space volume occupied by radiation from a source. For example, in the $`(x,p_x)`$ subspace of the phase space, a point-like detector may be represented as a vertical line, whereas a distributed but wavelength selective detector (a bandpass filter) will be represented as a horizontal line. If the source or the detector are single-mode, then their x- and k-volumes are reciprocal to each other, and $`V=(2\pi )^3`$. Therefore the number of modes a detector can see, or a source can radiate, can be calculated as

$$M=\frac{V}{(2\pi )^3}=\frac{AL}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{k^2}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Delta }\omega ,$$
(1)
where for the x-part of $`V`$ we substitute a product of the detector’s cross section $`A`$ and its length $`L`$, and for the k-part we take

$$\mathrm{\Delta }k_x\mathrm{\Delta }k_y\mathrm{\Delta }k_z=k^2\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Delta }k=\frac{k^2}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Delta }\omega .$$
(2)
In Eqs. (1) and (2), $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ are the solid angle and frequency ranges, respectively, and $`c`$ is the speed of light.

Knowing the definition of the “detection event” and associated with it phase-space volume, we can estimate detection rate for radiation with known properties. For example, in the next section we will consider optical up-conversion process, which is the reverse of the SPDC process, as a two-photon detector. A peculiarity of such a detector is that the phase space volumes for two up-converting photons are different. Any *signal* photon can be up-converted anywhere within the illuminated part of the crystal (the x-volume) and within the k-volume whose ($`\lambda ,\theta `$) section is shown as a tuning curve in Fig.1. But the up-conversion only may take place in presence of the *idler* photon satisfying the phase matching conditions with the signal photon:

$`\omega _s+\omega _i`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _p,`$
$`\stackrel{}{k}_s+\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{k}_p,`$ (3)
where $`\omega _p`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}_p`$ are the frequency and wave vector of the pump. The choice which photon is the signal and which one is the idler is arbitrary, just like in SPDC.

The phase space volume for a signal photon contains a large number $`M`$ of modes, however the phase space volume for the *phase-matching* idler photon is transform-limited in all directions for a single-mode pump. Hence this volume is equal to $`(2\pi )^3`$ and contains only one mode. In the limit of weak fields, $`<n>1`$, both volumes are filled with at least one photon each with probability $`M<n>\times <n>`$. When this condition is fulfilled, a detection occurs with probability $`\eta ^{(2)}`$ which absorbs the quantum efficiencies of non-linear up-conversion and of subsequent photo detection. Therefore the two-photon detection probability from a coherently illuminated up-conversion detector can be estimated as

$$R_{coh}=\eta ^{(2)}M<n>^2.$$
(4)
Even though the detector we describe is capable of seeing a large number $`M_{spdc}`$ of modes, not all of them may be filled by the radiation source. In practice, the laser sources used in the up-conversion and second harmonic generation experiments are well collimated and have a relatively narrow frequency band width. Therefore in Eq. (4), we should take the number of modes of a laser source $`M=M_{laser}`$.

Now instead of coherent light let us consider the biphoton light. The most important distinction is that under proper imaging conditions (more detail in the next section), for every signal photon the phase-matched idler photon is guaranteed to be present, so the detection volumes are filled with at least one photon each with probability $`M<n>`$. In contrast with Eq. (4), in this case $`M=M_{spdc}`$, and instead of (4) we get

$$R_{spdc}=\eta ^{(2)}M_{spdc}<n>.$$
(5)
Comparing the two-photon signal from coherent light (4) and from biphoton light (5) we can determine how much biphoton light is more efficient than coherent light for the type of two-photon process we presently consider. This comparison can be carried out either for equal intensities, or for equal $`<n>`$. We will carry it out for equal intensities, since this will allow for a direct comparison with known experiments.

The mean number of photons per mode $`<n>`$ can be expressed in terms of brightness as

$$<n>=\frac{I\lambda ^3}{\mathrm{}c}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Delta }\omega },$$
(6)
where $`I`$ is intensity. Multiplying (6) by (1) we get the following equation:

$$M<n>=\frac{IAL}{c\mathrm{}\omega },$$
(7)
which appears rather obvious, since its left side is the mean total number of photons, and the right side is the total energy of radiation divided by the energy of a photon.

Now we can directly compare the signals from coherent and biphoton fields:

$$\xi \frac{R_{spdc}}{R_{coh}}=\frac{M_{spdc}<n>_{spdc}}{M_{coh}<n>_{coh}^2}.$$
(8)
Substituting (6) and (7) in (8) and assuming $`I_{spdc}=I_{coh}I`$, we find

$$\xi =\frac{\mathrm{}c\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_{coh}\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{coh}}{I\lambda ^3}.$$
(9)
Now let us make numeric estimates. We consider a Type-I BBO crystal near collinear degenerate phase matching with the central wavelength $`\lambda _0=702`$ nm, whose spectrum is shown in Fig.1. The typical light power we get from a 5 mm - long Type-I BBO crystal is 50 nW. This SPDC light is generated by the pump beam that is approximately 100 microns in diameter. This gives us $`I5W/m^2`$. For comparison, we will take a mode-locked pulsed laser with pulse width of 150 fs ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{coh}4\times 10^{13}s^1`$) and duty cycle of $`10^5`$. This laser is focused into a 100 $`\mu m`$ spot with near-diffraction divergence of $`\theta _d\lambda /d5\times 10^5`$ radians, which gives us $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }2\pi \theta _d^23\times 10^4`$ st. radians. Substituting these numbers into Eq. (9) we obtain $`\xi 200`$. It is easy to see that an estimate carried out for $`<n>_{spdc}=<n>_{coh}`$ (and valid when both types of radiation have similar spectral width and divergence) gives a much larger value of $`\xi `$.

## 3 Up-conversion of biphoton field

Up-conversion of strong coherent fields is routinely used in optical autocorrelators to measure the duration of short pulses. The large value of the enhancement factor $`\xi `$ for the biphoton light suggests that the optical up-conversion can be observed with such light, despite a typically very low efficiency of this process. It should be possible, using a pair of similar nonlinear crystals (the first one for SPDC and the second one for the up-conversion), to detect the up-converted UV photons emitted from the second crystal. Fig.2 is a conceptual drawing of a system which brings back together all photon pairs emitted from a localized source at various angles, while preserving the phase-matching conditions (that are equivalent for SPDC and for the up-conversion) by an imaging system with a unity magnification. This system is represented by a lens placed between the two nonlinear crystals at the distance $`2f`$ from each.

A rough estimate of the expected detection rate of the up-converted UV photons can be carried out based on the above-found biphoton enhancement factor and on the experimental observation that a $`1`$ Watt laser pump such as described in the previous section focused down to about 100 microns on a BBO crystal similar to the one we use for up-conversion produces approximately 600 mW of the second harmonic. Scaling this number quadratically to a 50 nW pump power and multiplying by the duty cycle to obtain an estimate for CW, we get $`1.5\times 10^{20}`$ W of the up-converted light, or about 0.2 photons per second. To take the biphoton nature of our “pump” into account, we multiply this number by the enhancement factor $`\xi `$, arriving at $`40`$ photons per second. Such a signal should be detectable with a low-noise photomultiplier tube with a few percent quantum efficiency. However, this number gets significantly lower if a more careful evaluation is carried out, and various mechanisms of the phase mismatch are taken into account. To perform such an evaluation we need to understand the transverse correlation properties of a biphoton.

While the longitudinal (temporal) correlation in the biphoton field has been extensively studied in both theory and experiment, starting from the pioneering works , the studies of its transverse correlation are few. A very broad theoretical description is given in ; theoretical analysis along with experimental data is also presented in ; study of biphoton propagation through generic imaging systems is reported in .

Summarizing the analysis from , we write the quantum state of a biphoton emitted in a monochromatically pumped SPDC process as

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=F(\stackrel{}{k}_s,\stackrel{}{k}_i)|1_{\stackrel{}{k}_s}|1_{\stackrel{}{k}_i}𝑑\stackrel{}{k}_s𝑑\stackrel{}{k}_i,$$
(10)
where the delta-like two-photon amplitude $`F(\stackrel{}{k}_s,\stackrel{}{k}_i)`$ which entangles the signal SPDC mode labelled by its wave vector $`\stackrel{}{k}_s`$ with the idler mode $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ breaks up into a product of its longitudinal and transverse parts:

$$F(\stackrel{}{k}_s,\stackrel{}{k}_i)=F_x(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega ,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)F_z(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega ,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i).$$
(11)
In Eq. (11), the arguments of the two-photon amplitude $`F`$, representing the wave vectors and frequencies of the signal and idler photons, are first replaced by the variations of these values from their central values that satisfy the phase matching conditions (3) so that

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ $``$ $`\omega _s(\stackrel{}{k}_s)\omega _{s0}(\stackrel{}{k}_{s0})=\omega _{i0}(\stackrel{}{k}_{i0})\omega _i(\stackrel{}{k}_i),`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}_s`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{}{k}_s\stackrel{}{k}_{s0},`$ (12)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{}{k}_i\stackrel{}{k}_{i0}.`$
Then, the longitudinal ($`z`$) and transverse ($`x`$) components of the phase mismatch $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}_s+\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{k}_s`$ are expressed via $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ and the variations of the angles $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _{s,i}`$ to result into the expressions for the $`F_x`$ and $`F_z`$ in Eq. (11).

The physical meaning and the use of the two-photon amplitude (11) is quite transparent. One can set $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _{s,i}=0`$ and study only the temporal, or longitudinal, correlation of the biphoton. This is often done since such an approximation describes the most usual type of experiments with SPDC, when the signal and idler modes are selected by a set of narrow pinholes. On the other hand, one could collect the biphoton light from a broad range of angles, but through a pair of very narrow band-pass optical filters. This case corresponds to the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =0`$ which gives the angular, or transverse, part of the biphoton amplitude, which we need to find.

As it has been shown in , $`F_x`$ reflects the properties of the pump angular spectrum and the transverse inhomogeneities of the crystal; it has a Gaussian shape for a Gaussian shaped pump. $`F_z`$ depends on the polarization and wavelength dispersion properties of the nonlinear crystal. The analysis for a monochromatic Gaussian pump of the diameter $`a`$ and for a Type-I crystal of the length $`l`$ yields simple expressions for $`F_x`$ and $`F_z`$ as functions of the internal angles $`\theta ^{(in)}`$. Assuming $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =0`$ we have

$`F_x`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{(2\pi a)^2}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n(\lambda _s)}{\lambda _s}}\mathrm{cos}[\theta ^{(in)}(\lambda _s)]\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s^{(in)}{\displaystyle \frac{n(\lambda _i)}{\lambda _i}}\mathrm{cos}[\theta ^{(in)}(\lambda _i)]\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i^{(in)}\right)^2\right\},`$
$`F_z`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sinc}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi l}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n(\lambda _s)}{\lambda _s}}\mathrm{sin}[\theta ^{(in)}(\lambda _s)]\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s^{(in)}+{\displaystyle \frac{n(\lambda _i)}{\lambda _i}}\mathrm{sin}[\theta ^{(in)}(\lambda _i)]\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i^{(in)}\right)\right\}.`$ (13)
The wavelengths $`\lambda _{s,i}`$ correspond to $`k_{s0}`$ and $`k_{i0}`$, and are related by the phase matching conditions (3) to each other and to the angles $`\theta `$.

It is of interest to point out that $`F_x`$ is a function of the angular variation differences, while $`F_z`$ is a function of their sum. Therefore (considering the opposite signs of $`\theta _s`$ and $`\theta _i`$ ) $`F_x`$ defines the range of angles over which both the signal and idler differ from the exact phase-matching directions, while preserving the angle between them. The function $`F_z`$ defines the range of variation of the angle between the signal and idler. This is similar to factorization of the temporal (longitudinal) part of the biphoton amplitude, which has been shown to break up as a product of functions of the sum and difference of two detection times: $`u(t_1t_2)\times v(t_1+t_2)`$ . In this case, $`v`$ takes on the shape of the pump frequency spectrum (and is similar to $`F_x`$ in the present study) and $`u`$ depends essentially on the polarization and wavelength dispersion properties of the crystal (and is similar to $`F_z`$ in the present study).

The internal angles in Eq. (13) may be replaced by the external ones via the Snell’s law. The results are shown in Fig.3 for the pair $`\lambda _s=690`$ nm, $`\lambda _i=715`$ nm. The product of $`F_x(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$ and $`F_z(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$ gives $`F(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$, whose absolute square can be interpreted as a correlation function of the angular variations $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i`$. It turns out that the width of $`F_z`$ strongly depends on the signal and idler wavelength variation from degeneracy (when $`\lambda _s=\lambda _i`$), getting broader as these wavelengths approach the degenerate values. Three examples of $`F^2(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$ for different signal and idler wavelengths are shown in Fig.4, where the middle plot corresponds to the product of functions from Fig.3.

Understanding of the transverse correlation properties of biphotons allows for a more thorough analysis of the biphoton up-conversion experiment. In particular, it allows us to establish the required degree of precision in alignment of the crystals’ optical axes. To do this we substitute the arguments of the correlation function $`F^2(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$ with the phase-matching angles variations:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _{s,i}=\frac{\theta _{s,i}}{\alpha }\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha ,$$
(14)
where the derivative is calculated with respect to the angle $`\alpha `$ between the optical axis and the pump beam. The function obtained from from substituting Eq. (14) into $`F^2(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$ represents the degree of overlap between the the down- and up-conversion phase matching conditions for crystals whose optical axes are misaligned by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$. In the following, we will call it the overlap function. Curiously, this function is practically uniform throughout the entire SPDC spectrum. Fig.5 shows two plots of this function: for degenerate, and for far non-degenerate wavelengths, that looks like a single line.

From Fig.5 we see that the crystals’ optical axes need to be aligned to about $`0.2^{}`$ which is not hard to achieve. A bigger difficulty arises from the finite length of the crystals. Even though the parts of the down-converting crystal displaced from the 1:1 imaging plane still do get imaged onto the up-converting crystal, the signal and idler rays now cross at angles different from their phase matching angles $`\theta _s,\theta _i`$. These angular errors can be found from simple geometrical considerations as functions of the linear displacement $`z`$ from the 1:1 imaging plane. Substituting them into $`F^2(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$ we find the overlap function as a function of $`z`$ for different parts of the SPDC spectrum. Integrating this function over $`z`$, we find the overall spectral overlap function. From Fig.6 we see that in case of a 5 mm BBO crystal at collinear degenerate phase matching, only a relatively narrow wavelength range can be efficiently up-converted. As a result, the above estimate of 40 photons per second is considerably reduced. These and other difficulties have so far precluded a convincing experimental demonstration of biphoton detection via optical up-conversion, however we plan to continue our work in this direction.

## 4 Photo-electric processes in a biphoton field

Another system interesting for the study of two-photon processes is a metal or semiconductor surface. If the red threshold of the external photo-electric effect in such a system corresponds to the total energy of the photon pair, one can expect a detectable photo-current corresponding to two-photon processes in the near absence of single-photon photo-current. The advantage of this system over the optical up-conversion is a much larger possible two-photon response cross-section; the disadvantage is that, in practice, such systems are very hard to characterize due to their complexity and a large number of simultaneously occurring physical processes.

The two-photon response of the photocathodes in photo-multiplier tubes (PMT) has been studied for use in the characterization of temporal properties of ultrafast laser pulses in which the peak intensity is extremely large . Two-photon ionization may proceed by a direct two-photon channel via a virtual level, or by an indirect (cascade) process in which the electron may reside in an intermediate state, such as the conduction band or a deep trap, for some period of time. In many cases it may be beneficial to have an intermediate state in single-photon resonance with the light, because it increases the two-photon absorption rate. However, for the observation of two-photon light from SPDC, long-lived intermediate states may lead to a signal from uncorrelated photons, which is undesirable. The purpose of this work is to characterize a potential material for two-photon detection and to develop an understanding of the relevant physics for optimizing a fast two-photon detector. We are interested in observing the two-photon photo-electric effect from biphoton light, initiated by quantum-correlated photon pairs, rather then by absorption of statistically independent pairs of photons. For efficient discrimination between these two competing processes, we need to make sure the longest lifetime of the intermediate states is not much longer than the biphoton correlation time.

In our experiment, we image the biphoton source onto a $`\mathrm{Cs}_2\mathrm{Te}`$ photocathode with diffraction-limited resolution, as illustrated in Fig.7. We use a PerkinElmer MH922P channel photomultiplier detector in photon counting mode. This CPM has a $`\mathrm{Cs}_2\mathrm{Te}`$ cathode which has a bandgap of 3.3 eV and electron affinity of less than 0.5 eV . The peak quantum efficiency, centered at 200 nm, is about 0.1. It falls off to approximately $`10^3`$ at our pump wavelength (351.1 nm Argon Ion laser line), and to $`10^8`$ at 702 nm, the degenerate signal and idler wavelength. Therefore one might expect to see a two-photon response from our SPDC biphoton source. If the short-wavelength part of the SPDC spectrum is suppressed, the single-photon response is expected to be very small. In our experiment, this part of the spectrum, along with the UV pump, was suppressed by narrow-band and by low-pass optical filters down to the dark noise of the PMT, which was at the level of a few counts per second. The PMT was moved in and out of the image plane. Although it always collected the same amount of light on its photocathode which, is 5 mm in diameter, all of the photon pairs are expected to focus to diffraction-limited spots only in the image plane. Therefore, the two-photon photo-electric signal should have a peak in the image plane. We have observed the expected behavior, see Fig.8. However, the origin of this peak turns out not to be due to the predicted two-photon effect, as discussed below.

Repeating the same experiment for attenuated CW laser light, we see a similar peak. Evidently, this peak arises from the fact that, in both the case of SPDC and the ordinary laser, the illuminated spot is the smallest, and therefore the intensity is the highest, in the image plane. Since the total light power is independent of the photocathode position, we obviously have some kind of a nonlinear (two-photon) process. This process, however, is very slow, which corresponds to a very large longitudinal extent of the two-photon detection volume. Physically, this most likely corresponds to a long lifetime of some intermediate state. As a result, a tight temporal (longitudinal) correlation of the biphoton field gives it no advantage over the attenuated classical light that has photons with Poissonian statistics.

Trying to determine the intermediate state lifetime, to characterize our prospective two-photon detector, we found that its two-photon sensitivity itself depends on time. This dependence is stronger for higher light intensities, that is, near the image plane. The situation can be described as the two-photon self-sensitization, which is illustrated in Fig.9 for an attenuated diode laser at around 650 nm. From Fig.9 we can see that the sensitization rate is higher for a higher intensity and that for the maximum light level we used (1.4 nW focused in a spot of 35 $`\mu `$m in diameter) the two-photon sensitivity can be increased by more than an order of magnitude over a period of time of about 100 seconds, at which point it saturates. We have also observed qualitatively similar power-dependent sensitization effect when keeping the illuminated area constant but changing the light power. However the preference was given to the other method because of experimental convenience.

The photocathode remains saturated for some time after the light is turned off. Its relaxation back to the initial unsaturated sensitivity, as a function of time, is shown in Fig.10. To obtain this dependence, we have sensitized the photocathode at the maximum light level, and then let it sit in the dark, while periodically probing its response with weak light pulses. This response has been normalized to the probe light photon flux to yield directly the quantum efficiency. We found that the resulting decay curve fits to a bi-exponential function with decay constants of around 100 and 5 seconds, which may indicate the presence of at least two intermediate states. A possible explanation is that the electrons undergo indirect single-photon transition into deep trapped states in the bandgap. The nature of these states is unclear to us at this point. These could be surface states as well as localized impurity states, or the states associated with structural defects. In support of the deep-state hypothesis, we should mention the experimental observations of the photoconductivity dynamics in GaAs . In this experiment, filling the deep traps by the photo-activated electrons from a valence band results in a life-time increase of the electrons in the conduction band. The activation and relaxation time scales in this process are close to what we observe for $`\mathrm{Cs}_2\mathrm{Te}`$.

## 5 Conclusions and perspectives

We have considered two types of two-photon processes that can be demonstrated with a faint biphoton field from SPDC and may in principle enable a fast two-photon detector: a process of coherent frequency up-conversion in an optically nonlinear media, and a two-photon photo-electric effect on a semiconductor photo-cathode. This is far from a complete list of processes that can be studied in this context. As the most obvious examples of the two-photon processes left beyond the scope of the present work, we would like to mention the internal photo-electric effect in broad-bandgap semiconductors; the earlier-mentioned ionization of alkali gases ; and photo-chemical processes such as two-photon fluorescence and polymerization, e.g. .

Internal two-photon photo-electric processes should be similar to the external ones with the only difference that for the former the excited photo electrons remain in the conduction band and do not get emitted into vacuum. The internal processes can occur at much further distances from the surface than the external ones. This may simplify description of the internal processes by allowing one to neglect the effects of surface states and surface-bound impurities. We plan on studying this effect and expect that understanding of the mechanisms accompanying the external two-photon photo-electric effect will help.

Two-photon ionization of hydrogen-like gases is an example of a process that could be described analytically. Its simplicity is very attractive for research, however extremely low detection cross section, resulting from a low concentration of atoms in a gas, presents a serious experimental challenge in the case of a faint biphoton field. In photo-chemical fluorescence processes, on the other hand, the two-photon cross-section of an individual molecule can be quite large (reaching $`1,250\times 10^{50}`$ cm4 s per photon ), while the concentration of molecules is also much larger than in gases. The two-photon polymerization is a subject of a great interest, since this is the key to the quantum two-photon lithography. While the two-photon polymerization of specially designed photoresists with strong laser pulses has been successfully demonstrated by several groups, e.g. , the attempts to reproduce the same effect with biphoton field have not so far succeeded. While there are still several questions concerned with the photoresists properties (such as the reciprocity failure for long exposures, the role of thermal mechanisms, etc.) that need to be studied in order to achieve the success, the present study helps to answer one of the key questions by exploring the transverse correlation properties of the biphoton light. Specifically, for any particular imaging system, the transverse correlation function $`F(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _i)`$ that we have studied can be converted from the angular to linear variables $`F(0,\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _s,\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _i)`$ which has a direct relevance for calculating the two-photon exposure doses in quantum lithography.

Acknowledgments

This work was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We would also like to acknowledge financial support from the Office of Naval Research, the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Advanced Research and Development Activity, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. We appreciate fruitful discussions with S.P. Kulik and A.N. Penin.


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# A revised HRD for individual components of binary systems from BaSeL BVRI synthetic photometry.

## 1 Introduction

The knowledge of the fundamental parameters of binary system members is essential because the calibration of binary stars on the HR diagram can be used to determine e.g. the helium abundance, helium-to-heavier-elements ratio, age and mixing length parameter for stars other than the Sun (see e.g. Fernandes et al. 1998, Lastennet et al. 1999b, Lebreton et al. 2001). Recently, ten Brummelaar et al. (2000, hereafter tB00) have provided Johnson BVRI photometric data for individual components of visual binary systems. This is a rare opportunity to derive their individual effective temperature from photometric calibrations, and hence to place the stars on a HR diagram. In this paper, we use the BaSeL models in Johnson BVRI photometry to derive the metallicity-dependent temperature of 56 stars, all binary systems members. Due to their large angular separation (see Table 1 of tB00), these systems should not be in contact so they can be assumed as single stars and provide possible candidates for future comparisons with evolutionary models. Most of these stars already have a Teff determination derived in two steps by tB00: first a spectral type is estimated from each colour (B$``$V, V$``$R and V$``$I) with the Johnson’s (1966) calibration tables, then from each spectral type a Teff is derived from Landolt-Börnstein (1980). Such a method is a good first order approximation, but possible errors can accumulate faster with the addition of two calibration methods (colour-spectral type plus spectral type-Teff) so that their assigned uncertainties might be too optimistic. Moreover, we intend to improve the study of ten Brummelaar et al. (2000) by taking into acount the influence of interstellar extinction and stellar rotation. For these reasons, we present new Teff values, homogeneously determined with the Basel Stellar Library (BaSeL), a library of theoretical spectra corrected to provide synthetic colours consistent with empirical colour-temperature calibrations at all wavelengths from the near-UV to the far-IR and covering a large range of fundamental parameters (see Lejeune et al. 1998 and references therein for a complete description). The BaSeL models have already been used to determine fundamental parameters with success, both in broad or/and medium-band photometry (see Lejeune & Buser 1996, Lejeune 1997, Lastennet et al. 1999a, 2001, 2002). In this paper we intend to use them in the Johnson photometric system. Therefore, we strongly stress that in the remainder of this paper BVRI will stand for Johnson photometry, not the BVRIC Johnson-Cousins photometry. In order to assess the quality of our BaSeL-derived Teffs, we obtained very good agreement with the Alonso et al. (1996) empirical calibrations. Furthermore, some of the individual components have spectroscopic determinations providing a stringent test to the Teffs derived by tB00 and the BaSeL models. In addition, the Marsakov & Shevelev (1995) catalogue provides further comparisons.
The paper is organized as follows: Sect. 2 deals with the description of our working sample and the method used to derive metallicity-dependent Teff with the BaSeL library along with other sources of determinations. Sect. 3 presents the extinction issue and the influence of stellar rotation, and Sect. 4 is devoted to the presentation and the discussion of the results and the revised HR diagram. Finally, Sect. 6 draws our general conclusions.

## 2 Relevant data of the working sample and description of the method

### 2.1 Working sample and relevant data

We have selected binary stars with at least 2 colours from the list of ten Brummelaar et al. (2000). This selection gives 28 systems (i.e. 56 individual components). Identifications (arbitrary ID number and HD numbers), galactic coordinates and parallaxes ($`l`$,$`b`$ and $`\pi `$ from SIMBAD111The SIMBAD parallaxes are from the Hipparcos catalogue (ESA, 1997, see also Perryman et al., 1997), except for the systems ,  and ., as well as two determinations of the E(B$``$V) colour excess (discussed in §3.1) along with the adopted E(B$``$V) values, and projected rotational velocities are presented in Table 1.

A remark has to be made at this point about the sensitivity of the B$``$V, V$``$R and V$``$I data used in this paper to the Teff, \[Fe/H\] and log g stellar parameters. While these colours are intrinsically sensitive to the Teff, V$``$R and V$``$I are known to be insensitive to surface gravity and not very sensitive to metallicity as shown by Buser & Kurucz (1992) in BVRIC photometry, so no strong constraint can be expected on these two atmospheric parameters. However, we present metallicity-dependent Teff determinations, which means that we can directly predict a temperature range for any given metallicity. This will be of particular interest when a spectroscopic \[Fe/H\] determination is available.
In the next subsections, we present the method used to derive Teff from the BaSeL models along with earlier determinations.

### 2.2 Best fitting method applied to the BaSeL models

For the present work, more than 621,600 models have been computed by interpolation with the Interactive BaSeL Server (Lejeune, 2002), each model giving synthetic photometry in the Johnson system for a set of (Teff, \[Fe/H\], log g). In order to fit the observed colours of the sample stars, we have computed a fine grid in the (Teff, \[Fe/H\], log g) parameter space. The grid explored is defined in this way: 3000 $``$ Teff $``$ 40,000 K in 20 K steps, $``$1 $``$ \[Fe/H\] $``$ 0.5 in 0.1 steps, and 3 $``$ log g $``$ 5 in 0.1 steps.

In order to derive simultaneously the effective temperature (Teff), the metallicity (\[Fe/H\]), and the surface gravity (log g) of each star, we minimize the $`\chi ^2`$-functional defined as:

$`\chi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{col}(\mathrm{i})_{\mathrm{BaSeL}}\mathrm{col}(\mathrm{i})_{\mathrm{Obs}.}}{\sigma (\mathrm{col}(\mathrm{i})_{\mathrm{Obs}.})}}\right)^2\right]`$
where col(i)Obs. and $`\sigma `$(col(i)Obs.) are the observed values (B$``$V, V$``$R, V$``$I) and their uncertainties from tB00, and col(i)BaSeL is obtained from the synthetic computations of the BaSeL models. A similar method has already been developed and used by Lastennet et al. (1996) for CMD diagrams (Lastennet et al. 1999b) and for COROT potential targets (Lastennet et al. 2001). Basically, small $`\chi ^2`$ values are signatures of good fits. A $`\chi ^2`$-grid is formed in the (Teff, \[Fe/H\], log g) parameter space. Once the central minimum value $`\chi _{\mathrm{min}}^2`$ is found, we compute the surfaces corresponding to 1$`\sigma `$, 2$`\sigma `$, and 3$`\sigma `$ confidence levels, as shown on the example of Fig. 1. The uncertainties are therefore as realistic as possible because directly dependent on the uncertainty of the photometric data (see Eq. 1).

#### 2.2.1 Comparison with the Alonso et al. (1996) empirical calibrations in BVRI photometry

Alonso et al. (1996) provided BVRI metallicity-dependent empirical calibrations of the effective temperature, using the Infrared Flux Method Method on a large sample of stars (410 for B$``$V and 163 for VRI colours). The BaSeL models (version 2.2) are based on model-atmosphere spectra calibrated on the photometric fluxes, using for this empirical colour-temperature relations at solar metallicity and semi-empirical ones for non-solar metallicities (see Lejeune et al. 1997, 1998 for details about the calibration procedure). While it is beyond the scope of this paper to give a detailed analysis comparing the BaSeL library with empirical calibrations, it is useful to point out some comparisons with the comprehensive study of Alonso et al. (1996). For dwarf stars, and considering only the colours (B$``$V, V$``$R and V$``$I), metallicities (ranging from $``$1.0 to 0.5) and temperatures hotter than 4000 K relevant for the present study, the difference between Alonso et al. and BaSeL is about 3% (and within 9% in the worst case, i.e. for V$``$R close to 4000 K and \[Fe/H\]$`=`$0.5). More detailed comparisons are shown in Lejeune (2002), but this excellent agreement stongly confirms the BaSeL prediction capabilities in the Johnson photometric system and fully justify their use for many astrophysical applications.
Moreover, the Alonso et al. (1996) calibrations do not allow to cover the range of temperatures we are interested in this paper, because their relationships are only valid below $``$8000 K in B$``$V, and even lower in V$``$R ($``$7600 K) and V$``$I ($``$6800 K). Since these upper limits can be even lower according to \[Fe/H\], the BaSeL library appears to be ideal and accurate enough for the purpose of the present work.

### 2.3 Other determinations

As already mentioned in the Introduction, tB00 determined the Teff for most of the sample. Their results are reported in Tab. 3 and will be discussed in §4.
To be as complete as possible, we looked for other determinations available in the literature and the SIMBAD database. Marsakov & Shevelev (1995) (hereafter MS95) have computed effective temperatures and surface gravities using Moon’s (1985) method, which is also based on the interpolation of the grids presented in Moon & Dworetsky (1985). According to Moon (1985), the standard deviation of the derived parameters are Teff$`=`$$`\pm `$ 100 K. All the MS95 Teffs of our sample are given in Tab. 3.
One of the most comprehensive compilation for our purpose is the 2001 Edition of the Cayrel de Strobel et al. catalogue, which includes \[Fe/H\] determinations and atmospheric parameters ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, log g) obtained from high-resolution spectroscopic observations and detailed analyses, most of them carried out with the help of model atmospheres. Since this new version is restricted to intermediate and low-mass stars (F, G, and K stars), we also checked the previous issue of the compilation (Cayrel de Strobel et al. 1997). Some of our sample stars are included in these catalogues and the Teffs are also reported in Tab. 3.

## 3 Influence of interstellar extinction and stellar rotation

### 3.1 Reddening

Because estimates of the interstellar extinction are required for any photometric calibration method, we pay particular attention to the reddening before deriving any result with the BaSeL library. For each star we took the galactic coordinates ($`l`$ and $`b`$) from SIMBAD, as well as the parallaxe from which we derived the distance $`d`$. Fixing ($`l`$,$`b`$,$`d`$), then we used the MExcessNg code v1.1 (Méndez, van Altena and Ng) based on the code developed by Méndez & van Altena (1998), to derive the E(B$``$V) colour excess. The results we derived are listed in Tab. 1 (MExcess column).
Before adopting the colour excess values provided by this code, we performed some $`\chi `$2 experiments with the BaSeL models to check basic consistency. While good agreement was found in many cases, we found some unexpected results. For instance, the high excess colour found with the above mentioned code (E(B$``$V)$``$0.418) for the system HD 2772 (d$``$110 pc) is in strong disagreement with $`\chi `$2-computations ($`\chi `$2$``$76.). A good fit of the HD 2772 VRI colours is obtained with a much smaller E(B$``$V) value: $`\chi `$2$``$0.3 for E(B$``$V) ranging from 0. to 0.05. Such an example of possible source of errors encouraged us to use another method.

A better approach would be to use colour excess determinations for each star. This can be done from values of neutral hydrogen column density $`N_{HI}`$. For this we used the ISM Hydrogen Column Density Search Tool222http://archive.stsci.edu/euve/ism/ismform.html using the compilation of data (e.g. from satellite missions like ROSAT and EUVE) by Fruscione et al. (1994) plus additional IUE measurements from Diplas & Savage (1994). Giving the position already used with the MExcess code ($`l`$,$`b`$,$`d`$), this tool provides $`N_{HI}`$ measurements for the ten sources nearest to the point in space selected and, even better, a determination for 4 stars of our working sample (, ,  and ).
With the observational estimates (or at least observational constraints) listed in Table 1, we derived E(B$``$V) adopting the following relation between E(B$``$V) and $`N_{HI}`$ (cm-2): E(B$``$V)$`=`$1.75 10-22$`\times `$log($`N_{HI}`$) (see Rucinski & Duerbeck, 1997 and references therein with coefficient ranging from 1.7 to 1.8 10-22).
Finally, to derive the colour excess in V$``$R and V$``$I, we used the following relations: E(V$``$I)$`=`$ 1.527$`\times `$E(B$``$V), E(V$``$R)$`=`$ 0.725$`\times `$E(B$``$V) according to Wegner (1994).
A comparison of both methods to infer the E(B$``$V) colour excess shows a quite good agreement (see Fig. 2 (a)) except for the binaries  (HD 2772, the example discussed before),  and  for which the MExcess model overestimates the colour excess. Moreover, there is no systematics between both methods with the distance (see Fig. 2 (b)). This gives some weight to the validity of the MExcess model, even if we stress that our working sample is small and that we have detected 3 anomalies. It is also interesting to note that both determinations present - as expected - a very small reddening in the close solar neighbourhood (within $``$60 pc on panel (b)).

### 3.2 Rotation

Stellar rotation is known to have an influence on photometric data (see e.g. Maeder 1971, Collins & Sonneborn 1977, Collins & Smith 1985): basically a rotating star is similar to a non-rotating one with smaller effective temperature. Therefore its possible influence on the BVRI Johnson colours have to be studied. This can be neglected for our sample except when the $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ is large. If only considering $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ larger than 100 km s-1 in Tab. 1, the effect of rotation has to be determined for only 5 binaries : , , ,  and .

In order to assess the minimum effect induced by rotation, we assume a uniform rotation (see e.g. Collins, 1966) keeping in mind that a differential rotation (Collins & Smith, 1985) produces a larger effect. To first order333This approximation was applied in simulations of open clusters CMDs by Lastennet & Valls-Gabaud (1996) and Lastennet (1998)., we assume that the B$``$V colour difference between rotating and non-rotating copartners is:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^2h\left(\frac{v\mathrm{sin}i}{100\mathrm{kms}^1}\right)^2$$
(2)
where $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ is the projected rotational velocity of a star, $`v`$ is the equatorial velocity and i is the inclination of the rotation axis to the line–of–sight. Typical constant values in Eq. 2 is $`h2^{\pm 1}`$ (see Maeder & Peytremann 1970, 1972) and may change with spectral type, age and chemical composition (Zorec, 1992).

The influence of rotation on the (B$``$V) colours of the 5 binaries that might be affected is summarized in Tab. 2 where the shift to be applied is $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$(B$``$V). Since the BV photometry is not available for each component of HD 28485  and HD 148857 , we only use the combined photometry available in SIMBAD (B$``$V$`=`$0.32  and B$``$V$`=`$0.01 ) as a rough approximation. In summary, the corrected B$``$V colours are given by (B$``$V)corrected$`=`$ (B$``$V) $``$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$(B$``$V). Using (B$``$V)corrected, the BaSeL models were run again to derive the corrected Teff, hence providing the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$Teff $`=`$ Teff,corrected $``$ Teff. To illustrate this effect, Fig. 3 shows the BaSeL solutions fitting the B$``$V colours of the secondary component of HD 140436 (): before correcting for rotation (upper panel) and after correction (lower panel), assuming the maximum influence reported in Tab. 2 ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$(B$``$V)$`=`$0.023). While the shape of the contour solutions is only slightly modified, the Teff increases when the influence of rotation on the B$``$V colour is taken into account: we measure a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$Teff$`=`$260 K variation on the Teff corresponding to the $`\chi `$$`{}_{min}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ solution.
In summary, the maximum effect that we measured on the Teff due to rotation is between 1.5 and 5% for the more rapidly rotating stars of the sample. This is quite a small effect but we stress that its intensity should be checked in any study where the Teff is relevant.

## 4 Results and discussion

Our final effective temperature results are listed in Tab. 3, along with earlier determinations. A direct comparison of these determinations is discussed in more detail in §4.1. Useful information is given in Tab. 3 for a better interpretation of the Teff determinations from the BaSeL models: the relative error on the Teff when better than 15%, and the $`\chi `$2 defined in Eq. 1 normalized to the number of fitted colours. For clarity of Tab. 3, all good fits are simply labelled by a $`\chi ^2`$ less than 1. The photometric accuracy being often better for the primary stars (see Tab. 5 of tB00), the contours and hence the Teff determinations are less strongly constrained for the secondary components. Finally, it has to be mentioned that the systems  and  are known to have at least a third component (e.g.  is a multiple system that contains at least 5 stars, Mc Kibben et al. 1998). Since these components are not resolved in the photometric measurements of ten Brummelaar et al. (2000), the derived temperatures might be less reliable than for the other stars listed in Tab. 3.

### 4.1 General comparison with earlier results

Fig. 4 compares various Teff determinations: Marsakov & Shevelev (1995), ten Brummelaar et al. (2000), spectroscopic determinations and the present work with the BaSeL library. Both tB00 and BaSeL results show equally good agreement with spectroscopic determinations for temperatures cooler than $``$10,000 K (see panels (a) and (b)). The agreement with spectroscopy is better with BaSeL than tB00 results beyond 10,000 K, even if this conclusion comes from only two objects (primaries of systems  and ). A direct comparison between tB00 and BaSeL solutions (panel (c)) confirms the previous deviation: the agreement is good for temperatures cooler than $``$10,000 K, but tB00 temperatures are systematically and increasingly cooler for hotter temperatures. Another comparison is shown in panel (d) between BaSeL and MS95 determinations (derived from Strömgren photometry): the stars in common show a good agreement in the range 6000-6700 K. The only disagreement appears for the primary of the system  but in this case we know that BaSeL is not able to fit simultaneously the three colour indices B$``$V, V$``$R and V$``$I (see bad $`\chi `$2 in Tab. 3). As a matter of fact, $`\chi `$2-experiments with the BaSeL models show that a good fit is obtained for this star if only B$``$V and V$``$R are kept (hence excluding V$``$I data). In this case, we would derive Teff$`=`$ 7940 K (assuming E(B$``$V)$`=`$ 0) and 8000 K (assuming E(B$``$V)$`=`$ 0.006). In both cases the disagreement shown in panel (d) between MS95 and BaSeL would remain.

### 4.2 More detailed comparisons for two selected binaries

Among the working sample, one of the most studied binary system is 85 Peg ( in Tab. 1). According to spectroscopy, its primary component has an effective temperature of 5524$`\pm `$50 K (Axer et al. 1994). This confirms the quality of the photometric determinations given in Tab. 3 5400$`{}_{140}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+180}`$ K (BaSeL) and 5637$`\pm `$70 K (tB00). An advantage of the BaSeL results is that the Teff is metallicity dependent, as depicted by Fig. 5. Therefore, assuming a value of \[Fe/H\] induces a different Teff solution due to the iso-contours shape. If one adopts the most recent estimation of \[Fe/H\] ($``$0.57$`\pm `$0.11, Fernandes et al. 2002), the corresponding Teff solutions are sligthly reduced and cover the 5270-5510 K range whose upper limit is consistent with the spectroscopy. On the other hand, if the Teff is fixed to its spectrocopic value, the contour of Fig. 5 would suggest a \[Fe/H\] $``$ $``$0.3.
There is no spectroscopic determination for the secondary component of 85 Peg for which we infer Teff$`=`$4220 $`{}_{340}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+420}`$ K from the BaSeL models. This result is in good agreement with tB00 (see Tab. 3).
Another system - $`\xi `$ UMa ( in Tab. 1) - is also of particular interest because it is the only one in Tab. 1 with both components having a spectroscopic determination of their fundamental stellar parameters: (Teff, \[Fe/H\]) $`=`$ (5950 K, $``$0.35) (primary) and (5650 K, $``$0.34) (secondary). The temperatures derived by tB00 are either larger (by more than 6$`\sigma `$ for HD 98231, the primary component) or smaller (by more than 2$`\sigma `$ for HD 98230, the secondary component) than the spectroscopic values. Our determinations with BaSeL are smaller than the spectroscopic values for both components but only inside the 1$`\sigma `$ uncertainty for the secondary, and at $``$1.3$`\sigma `$ for the primary component. However, this better agreement is partly due to the large error bars. Since the BaSeL results are metallicity-dependent, the results reported in Tab. 3 are given for \[Fe/H\] in the range \[$``$1, 0.5\]. If one assumes the spectroscopic values of the iron abundance, we derive temperature solutions slightly greater and with smallest uncertainties: Teff($`\xi `$ UMa A)$`=`$ 5765$`\pm `$85 K and Teff($`\xi `$ UMa B)$`=`$ 5435$`\pm `$215 K, in a better agreement with the spectroscopic values.

### 4.3 The revised HR diagram

Fig. 6 shows a Mbol-log Teff diagram, revision of the HR diagram presented by ten Brummelaar et al. (2000). A subsample of the systems with $`\sigma `$(Teff)/Teff$``$0.15 for both components (see Tab. 3) is shown, excluding 7 systems from the working sample: , , , , ,  and . This selection on the Teff relative accuracy covers a large range of temperatures (from $``$4000 to 16000 K) and, hence, is of particular interest for future tests of stellar evolution models, in particular when the metallicity of the system is spectroscopically known. For this reason we provide in Tab. 4 the Teff fixing \[Fe/H\] to its spectroscopic value444We exclude the system  from Tab. 4 because the uncertainty on Teff remains larger than 15% even fixing \[Fe/H\] to its spectroscopically value ($``$0.02). : the ranges are substantially reduced in comparison to the results listed in Tab. 3 where all the \[Fe/H\] values from $``$0.50 to 1.00 were considered. This illustrates a direct use of the metallicity-dependent Teff derived from the BaSeL iso-contours. This subsample with spectroscopic \[Fe/H\] determinations and revised Teffs for both components should be considered in priority for further applications. In particular, the systems  and  have one main sequence star and one evolved component: this is useful for testing isochrones on different evolutionary phases. The binaries  and  belongs to the Hyades open cluster. The other systems listed in Tab. 4 are close to the Zero Age Main Sequence (ZAMS) and are therefore promising to check ZAMS models for metallicities ranging from $``$0.57 to 0.16.

## 5 Conclusion

The agreement that we obtain between the Alonso et al. (1996) empirical calibrations and BaSeL 2.2 for dwarf stars in the range 4000-8000 K fully justifies to determine the effective temperature from the Johnson photometry of the theoretical BaSeL library. In this context, we have presented new homogeneous Teff determinations for each component of a sample of 28 binary stars from BaSeL synthetic photometry. As expected from BVRI colour combinations, we did not obtain useful constraints on the surface gravity and the metallicity because these colours are not very sensitive to these parameters. Nevertheless our solutions give metallicity-dependent Teffs, which is of particular interest when \[Fe/H\] is known. This sample is of particular importance because there are relatively few systems for which both individual components can be placed in a HRD diagram, except some eclipsing binaries (see e.g. Lastennet et al. 1999a, b) or nearby visual binaries (e.g. Fernandes et al. 1998, Morel et al. 2001). For this reason, we paid particular attention to the influence of reddening and stellar rotation before deriving their Teff. We derived the reddening from two different methods: (i) the MExcessNg code v1.1 (Méndez & van Altena 1998) and (ii) neutral hydrogen column density data. A comparison of both methods shows a good agreement for our small sample, but we point out a few directions where the MExcess model overestimates the E(B$``$V) colour excess. As for the influence of stellar rotation on the BVRI colours, we neglected it except for the 5 stars with large $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$. However, even in these cases the shift in temperature is about 5% at maximum. Our final determinations provide effective temperature estimates for each component (see Tab. 3). They are in good agreement with previous spectroscopic determinations available for a few primary components, and suggest that earlier determinations from tB00 are systematically and increasingly underestimated beyond 10,000 K. A revised HR diagram is provided, with a selection of binaries with relative accuracy on the Teff better than 15%. Finally, reduced uncertainties on the Teff determinations are given by fixing \[Fe/H\] to its spectroscopically value when available. This subsample should be considered in priority for further applications (e.g. calibration of stellar evolution models), in particular the systems  and  because they have now 1) accurate Teff determinations for both components 2) \[Fe/H\] determination from spectroscopy and 3) one main sequence star and one evolved component which is useful for testing isochrones on different evolutionary phases.

###### Acknowledgements.

EL thanks René A. Méndez for kindly providing his reddening model source code, and Marian Douspis for his IDL computing skills. It is a pleasure to thank Edouard Oblak for useful suggestions about the colour excess aspect of this paper. We thank the referee, T. ten Brummelaar, for his careful reading of the manuscript. EL and TL are supported by the ”Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia” (FCT) postdoctoral fellowships (grants SFRH/BPD/5556/2001 and PRAXIS-XXI$`/`$BPD$`/22061/99`$ respectively). This work was partially supported by the project ”PESO/P/PRO/15128/1999” from the FCT. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service.


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# Cluster formation versus star formation around six regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud

## 1 Introduction

The Large Magellanic Cloud is known to have a very different star formation history compared to our Galaxy. It is known to house a different variety of star clusters, which are not found in our Galaxy. Our Galaxy has very old and very dense clusters, called globular clusters and a large number of intermediate to very young clusters with only a few hundred to thousand stars as members, called open star clusters. In the LMC, only a few globular clusters are found and they are referred to as red globulars. There are another set of dense and compact star clusters known as blue globulars, which look like globular clusters, but their age ranges from a few giga years to a few million years. The mechanism responsible for the formation of these dense star clusters in LMC is not known, when our Galaxy seems to be creating clusters which are hardly bound.

In the recent years, the LMC has been very thoroughly studied using various surveys, for example, OGLE II (Udalski et al. u2000 (2000)), Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey (Zaritsky et al. z97 (1997)). These surveys were used partly or fully to study the star clusters and the stellar population in LMC. However, these two are done separately such that the spatial correlation between the star and cluster formation episodes are not studied. Girardi et al. g95 (1995) used the star cluster catalogue of Bica et al. bea96 (1996) to derive the star cluster properties in LMC. Pietrzynski & Udalski pu00 (2000) used the OGLE II data and studied the age distribution of LMC star clusters. There were also studies on star clusters and stellar population around them, (for example, Olsen et al. o98 (1998) and Olsen o99 (1999)), but these also do not compare the spatial correlation between cluster and star formation episodes. It is concluded that in general, the star clusters in LMC are not good tracers of the stellar population (van den Bergh v99 (1999)). This conclusion has been made from the analysis of the cluster and stellar population in the whole of LMC. In this study, an attempt is made to study the correlation between the star formation and cluster formation episodes around a few regions in LMC.

The recent star forming regions, like the 30 Dor and super giant shells found in LMC indicate that the star formation which began at one point propagates to larger distances in the LMC. The theories put forward to explain these structures include stochastic self-propagating star formation, SSPSF (Feitzinger et al. f81 (1981)) and recently by de Boer et al. b98 (1998), suggesting bow-shock induced star formation. It is quite likely that these type of groups and star formation processes existed in older times as well. If these type of structures existed in LMC, then the cluster population surrounding a region of stellar population should have some correlation in age. Also, nearby regions would then show similar cluster formation episodes and similar number of clusters per episode of cluster formation. We explore this correlation in this study, by looking at star clusters in neighbouring regions in LMC.

## 2 Data and analysis

### 2.1 Regions

The regions studied here were chosen for a different project, that is, to study the stellar population around novae in LMC (see Subramaniam & Anupama sa02 (2002)). We selected 6 regions for the present analysis. The stellar data within a radius of a few arcmin is used to study the star formation history (SFH) of the region under consideration, whereas the star clusters are identified within 30 arcmin radius to study the cluster formation events. The regions satisfy the following two conditions - a) there are good number of star clusters within 30 arcmin radius and b) ages are known for most of the identified clusters. The location of these regions are given in Table 1. These locations are also plotted in figure 1. The dots show the centers of the regions studied and the big circles around them show the extend of the region scanned for star clusters.

It can be seen from figure 1 that the first and the second regions are located nearby, and similarly the regions third and fourth are located close by. Of these, regions 1, 2, 3 and 4 are located just outside and south of the Bar, whereas, region 5 is located within the Bar. The region 6 is located within the Bar, but towards the north-western side of the Bar.

### 2.2 Field stars

Field stars within a radius of a few arcmin were identified from the OGLE II survey (Udalski et al. u2000 (2000)). As more observations were found to be available in the I passband, we used the photometric data in the V and I passbands and V vs (V$``$I) colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of the identified field stars were used in further analyses.

The stellar data are corrected for an assumed LMC reddening of $`E(VI)=0.10`$ mag. Although the reddening in the LMC has been shown to be varying and clumpy (Udalski et al. u99 (1999)), the uniform reddening assumed here was found to be satisfactory while fitting the isochrones to the main-sequence of the CMDs. Assuming the relation $`A_V=3.24E(BV)`$ and $`E(VI)=1.37E(BV)`$, the value of $`A_V=0.355`$ mag. This value of extinction agrees (within errors) with that estimated by Dolphin d00 (2000). Following Pietrzynski & Udalski pu00 (2000) a distance modulus of 18.24 mag for the LMC is assumed here. For this value of distance modulus, 1 arcmin corresponds to 13.4 pc on LMC.

The different stellar populations are identified by isochrone fits to the CMDs. An isochrone fit to the MS identifies the youngest population while the isochrone fits to the RGB identifies the older population. The slope of the RGB and the brightest point of the RGB are dependant on the age and metallicity of the stellar population. The analysis done in Subramaniam & Anupama sa02 (2002) found that the metallicity of the stellar population agrees well with the Z=0.008 isochrones. Hence we adopt the value Z=0.008 for the metallicity. The isochrones were obtained from Bertelli et al. bea94 (1994).

The limiting magnitude in the OGLE II data is around $`V=21.0`$ mag. This implies the stars in the MS are younger than about 1.6 Gyr, while the RGB stars are a mixture of both young and old population. Therefore the present data is not suitable to understand the star formation history older than around 4 Gyr.

### 2.3 Star clusters

The star clusters in the vicinity of six regions were identified and their properties obtained based on the following catalogues: Pietrzynski et al. pea99 (1999) (P99), Bica et al. bea99 (1999) (B99), Bica et al. bea96 (1996) (B96), Pietrzynski and Udalski pu00 (2000) (PU2000). B96 presented integrated UBV photometry of 624 star clusters and associations in the LMC. They estimated the ages of the clusters based on their integrated colours and hence classified the clusters into SWB types (Searle, Wilkinson & Bagnoulo swb80 (1980)), which is basically an age sequence. This classification can be used to obtain the approximate age of the clusters. B99 is a revised version of the above catalogue and contains about 1808 star clusters for which the positions and extents are tabulated. Pietrzynski et al. pea99 (1999) presented photometric data of 745 star clusters and their nearby field, of which 126 are new findings. Pietrzynski and Udalski pu00 (2000) estimated the ages for 600 star clusters presented in the P99 catalogue. The catalogues in B99 and P99 were used to identify the clusters, while B96 and PU2000 were used to estimate the ages of the identified star clusters.

Clusters have been identified within 30 arcmin radius around 6 regions using B99 around the regions tabulated in table 1. 109 clusters have been identified near 6 regions. Of these, age estimates for 89 clusters could be obtained from PU2000 and B96. The B96 gives the age of the cluster in terms of groups. As the interest is in the overall age of the cluster population rather than the ages of the individual clusters, age groups give a better insight. Therefore, even those clusters whose exact age is known are also grouped. The number of clusters detected near each region, the number for which the age is known and the number of clusters in various age groups are tabulated in Table 2. The clusters are grouped into the following five age groups:

(a) clusters with ages $`\mathrm{log}\tau <7.5`$, indicating clusters of very young age

(b) clusters with ages $`7.5\mathrm{log}\tau <8.0`$, indicating clusters which are relatively young.

(c) clusters with ages $`8.0\mathrm{log}\tau <8.5`$, equal to 8.0 and less than 8.5, indicating a group of moderately young clusters.

(d) clusters with ages $`8.5\mathrm{log}\tau <9.0`$,

(e) clusters with ages $`\mathrm{log}\tau 9.0`$, indicative of intermediate to old population.

Field stars within a radius of a few arcmin are analysed to study the star formation history, while clusters within 30 arcmin ($``$ 400 pc) radius are considered to identify the cluster formation episodes. The choice of larger radius for the clusters is justified as they are being used to study the events which took place on relatively larger scales. It is found that the supergiant shell LMC 4 is about 1 Kpc in diameter. Therefore, we have chosen very similar length scale for identifying the star clusters.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Region 1

Within a radius of 400 pc, we identified 17 star clusters around this region and ages are known for 15 of them. We find that, forty percent of the clusters have ages in the range 100 – 300 Myr, 33.3% of clusters have ages in the range 300 – 1 Gyr and 13.3% clusters are older then 1 Gyr. Hence, this region experienced a 2.5 times enhancement in the formation of clusters, between 300 – 1 Gyr, and increased a little more around 300 Myr and continued till 100 Myr. In the last 100 Myr, this region has formed 1 cluster older than 30 Myr and one cluster younger than 30 Myr. Hence there has been a constant formation of clusters with varying rates. Figure 2 shows the histogram of the normalised fraction of clusters with respect to age.

The CMD and LF of 4238 field stars within a radius of 2 arcmin is shown in figure 2. A broad RGB, a prominent clump and a few bright giants are seen in the evolved part of the CMD. The broad RGB is indicative of stars with a range in ages. The isochrone fit to the right most end of the RGB indicates that the reddest stars are 2.5 Gyr old. Stars belonging to a population older than 2.5 Gyr is not found. It is also seen that at the fainter end of the CMD, the MS and the RGB are not well separated, but joined together due to the presence of sub giants and the isochrone fits show that the stellar population are of ages 1.3 Gyr and 1 Gyr. The MS is wide upto $`M_V=0.5`$ mag and the width decreases at brighter magnitudes. This probably indicates a decrease in star formation. The isochrone of age 300 Myr shows that the star formation probably continued till then. The vertical extension of the RGC, as seen in the CMD also indicates that stars younger than 1 Gyr, in the range 300 – 1 Gyr, are present. The well populated MS also indicates the same. The brightest part of the CMD is found to be 100 Myr old. There is no indication of the presence of stars younger than 100 Myr.

It is seen that the star formation event between 1.0 and 2.5 Gyr resulted in the formation of two star clusters. The star formation which continued to younger ages, resulted in the formation of 5 star clusters, which fall in the age range 300 – 1 Gyr. This event probably ended around 300 Myr with the creation of another 6 star clusters. The above two are seen as enhancements in the cluster formation between 300 Myr – 1 Gyr and 100 Myr – 300 yr. The latest star formation event at 100 Myr resulted in one cluster formation. We do not see stars less than 100 Myr old, though one cluster is found which is aged less than 30 Myr. The cluster and star formation events are correlated, except for the youngest population of clusters.

### 3.2 Region 2

15 star clusters were identified within a radius of 30 arcmin ($``$ 400 pc), of which the ages are known for 12. 58% of the clusters in this region have ages between 100 – 300 Myr, 25% between 300 Myr and 1 Gyr. Only 8% of clusters are either younger than 30 Myr or older than 1 Gyr. Hence the bulk of cluster formation has occurred in the 100-300 Myr range with a tapering towards 1 Gyr. A histogram of the normalised cluster fraction against age is shown in Figure 3.

The field star population within 3 arcmin (40 pc) radius is studied based on a CMD of 3018 stars. The CMD is shown in figure 3. Isochrones corresponding to 10 Gyr, 3.2 Gyr, 1.3 Gyr and 125 Myr are used to fit the CMD and estimate the ages of the stellar population. A few stars belonging to the 10 Gyr population are seen in the RGB, as indicated by the 10 Gyr isochrone. There seems to be no stellar population between 10 Gyr and 3.2 Gyr. Isochrones of ages 3.2 Gyr and 1.3 Gyr fit the RGB and the RGC as well as the sub giant branch stars which connect the MS and the RGB at the fainter end of the CMD. This implies that a bulk of the stars were formed during this time. The stars towards the right side of the 1.3 Gyr isochrone at the RGB belong to a younger population. The MS between $`M_V`$ 1.0 – $``$1.0 shows scatter, indicating continued star formation, probably on a reduced scale. The brightest stars in the MS are about 125 Myr old.

A small enhancenment in the star cluster formation occured between 300 Myr – 1 Gyr and a substantial enhancement occured between 100 Myr – 300Myr. When we compare these with the star formation episodes, we find that corresponding to the star formation between 3.2 – 1.3 Gyr, there is one cluster formed in the region. The continued star formation created 3 more clusters. Corresponding to the star formation event at 125 Myr, we see maximum number of star clusters in the range 100 – 300 Myr. There is one cluster which is less than 30 Myr old, but no field population is found younger than 125 Myr. Thus the star formation and the cluster formation are correlated, except for the youngest cluster formation event. This is similar to what is observed in region 1.

### 3.3 Region 3

27 star clusters are found within the 30 arcmin radius, of which the ages are known for 22. 18% of the clusters have ages within 30 – 100 Myr, 50% have ages between 100 – 300 Myr and 32% have ages between 300 – 1 Gyr. These indicate that there was a burst of cluster formation some time during 100 – 300 Myr with a tapering star formation before and after this burst. The normalised cluster fraction is shown against age in figure 4.

The CMD of 2152 stars within a radius of 3 arcmin is shown in Figure 4. The CMD shows a scattered RGB and MS, and a RGC. The isochrone fits reveal that the oldest traceable population is about 4.0 Gyr. The star formation then continued to about 1.3 Gyr. This is indicated by the fit of the isochrone to the subgiant branch location and the red giants of the RGB. It is clearly seen that the clump population basically belongs to the 1.3 Gyr population and younger. A few stars can be seen to the left of the 1.3 Gyr isochrone at the RGB, which indicates that the star formation continued for more recent times, probably with less vigour. The broad MS and the subgiant branch located in between the MS and the RGB, support the above fact. There is a clear signature of the 300 Myr old population as indicated by the isochrone. There are only a few stars which are birghter than the turn off of the 300 Myr isochrone in the MS, and these are found to be 100 Myr old.

In this region, we see that the cluster formation experienced an enhancement between 100 Myr – 300 Myr, with a few clusters being formed before and after that. The field star population do not show a strong presence of RGB population, especially when compared to the CMDs of regions 1 and 2. This indicates that the star formation event in the age range 1.3 – 4.0 Gyr was not very strong. This star formation event did not produce any star clusters also. The star formation seems to have continued upto 300 Myr, where we see that most of the star clusters are formed. The star formation which occured at 100 Myr has resulted in the formation of 4 star clusters. The cluster and star formation events are thus correlated in this region also.

### 3.4 Region 4

There are 24 star clusters in the vicinity and ages are known for 19 of them. The maximum number of star clusters were formed during the period 100 – 300 Myr, when 58% of the clusters were formed. 21% of clusters were formed during 300 – 1 Gyr period, 10% formed during the 30 – 100Myr period and the rest during the period before 1 Gyr. It appears that this region has been forming clusters from the beginning, with an increase in the rate before 1 Gyr, which increased further between 300 – 100Myr. Subsequently the rate appears to have and then reduced and stopped by 30 Myr. Figure 5 shows the normalised fraction of the clusters.

The CMD of stars within 2 arcmin radius plotted in Figure 5 comprises of 5244 stars. The RGB is well populated with a prominent RGC. The isochrone fit reveals that the the stars in the RGB have ages in the range 1.3 – 3.2 Gyr. Very few stars belonging to the age of 10 Gyr is seen in the CMD. The broad MS below $`M_V`$ = 0.0 mag indicates a continued star formation from about 1.3 Gyr to lesser ages. This probably continued till 300 Myr, as indicated by the isochrone fit. The brightest part of the MS is found to be 63 Myr old.

The cluster formation episode is seen to be quite strong in the age range 100 Myr – 300 yr, when a substantial increament in the clusters formed in seen. On comparing the star and cluster formation episodes, we find that the star formation event which occured in the age range 3.2 – 1.3 Gyr has managed to form two star clusters. The star formation which continued to younger times resulted in the formation of 4 star clusters. The star formation 300 Myr coincides with the cluster formation around the same time, resulting in the formation on 11 star clusters. The latest star formation event at 63 Myr, resulted in the formation of 2 star clusters. These indicate a good correlation between star and cluster formation events.

### 3.5 Region 5

This regions is situated right at the center of the LMC Bar. Seventeen clusters are found in the vicinity, of which the ages are known for 13 clusters. Cluster formation in this regions appears to be at a more or less constant rate until 30 Myr. 31% of clusters are with ages more than 1 Gyr, and 23% of clusters in the lower age ranges. Hence the cluster formation rate was lowered around 1 Gyr, after an initial higher rate. The normalised cluster fraction is plotted against age in figure 6

The CMD of 6503 field stars within a region of 2 arcmin (27 pc) radius is plotted in Figure 6. The RGB, RGC and the MS are well populated. The isochrones corresponding to the ages 10 Gyr, 4 Gyr, 2.5 Gyr, 1 Gyr, 630 Gyr, 400 Gyr, 251 Gyr and 40 Gyr are plotted on the CMD. These isochrones seem to fit most of the stars in the RGB. It can be clearly seen that this region has experienced a more or less continuous star formation from 4 Gyr. We do see some stars belonging to the 10 Gyr population. Most of the RGB stars are located between the isochrones of ages 4 Gyr and 250 Myr. The isochrone fit to the MS of the CMD shows that the brightest MS stars are 40 Myr old.

The field stars convey almost the same information as the star clusters, regarding the star formation history of this region. Both indicate a constant star formation in this region from 4 Gyr till 30-40 Myr ago. The star cluster formation is also seen to be continuous and without much fluctuation over this period. We see that in this region, the star and the cluster formation episodes are very well correlated.

### 3.6 Region 6

In this region, 9 star clusters have been identified within 30 arcmin radius and the ages of 8 clusters are known. 50% of the clusters have ages in the range 30 – 100 Myr, 12.5% have ages in the range of 100 – 300 Myr, 25% in the range 300 – 1 Gyr and 12.5% have ages beyond 1 Gyr. This shows that there has been a constant cluster formation, with a rate which doubled during the 300 – 1 Gyr period and quadrupled during 30 – 100 Myr period. A histogram of the normalised cluster fraction against age is shown in figure 7.

3302 field stars located within 4 arcmin (54 pc) radius were identified and the CMD of the field stars are plotted in Figure 7. The CMD shows a very well populated MS with a fair number of young stars. The RGB is well populated with a slightly scattered RGC. The isochrones corresponding to the ages 10 Gyr, 3.2 Gyr, 1.6 Gyr, 400 Myr and 79 Myr are shown in the CMD. The 3.2 Gyr and 1.6 Gyr isochrones fit the bulk of the RGB stars. It can be seen that the 1.6 Gyr isochrone fits the subgiant branch as well. A few brighter subgiant branches are seen, indicative of younger stars. The CMD shows a population of stars directly above the RGC, which is like the extension of the RGC. These can be fitted with isochrones of age 400 Myr. This is indicative of a star formation event around 400 Myr. The CMD of this region shows an almost detached MS and the RGB at the magnitude level, $`M_V=1.5`$ mag, and only a few subgiant branches are seen connecting the two at brighter magnitudes. This indicates that the RGB population is relatively older. The brightest stars in the MS of the CMD is fitted very well with the 79 Myr isochrone, indicating that the star formation stopped around 79 Myr ago. This youngest population is also found to have a good number of stars indicating a relatively stronger star formation event.

The star formation event duting the age range 3.2 – 1.6 Gyr has produced one cluster in the vicinity. The star formation which occured at 400 Myr has probably resulted in the creation of two star clusters. This is seen as a small enhancement in the star cluster formation in figure 7. We do not see any significant star formation event between 400 and 79 Myr, though we see one cluster in this age range. The field stars show a strong star formation event at 79 Myr, a corresponding cluster formation event is also seen resulting in the formation of 4 star clusters. This is seen as a substantial enhancement in the cluster formation between 30 – 100 Myr period. Therefore, we see that the star formation and the cluster formation events are more or less correlated.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 star and cluster formation events

The results presented in the last section is summarised in table 3. It can be seen from table 3 that the major star formation events which occurred in the regions studied are mostly three or less than that. These events in some regions have continued and hence produced stars for longer duration. We consider the star formation events one by one below.

We do not attempt to study the correlation between the cluster and star formation events before 4-5 Gyr, as the data used here are unsuitable for this purpose. Also, it is well known that LMC does not have star clusters in the age range 3 – 10 Gyr. There are only a few star clusters which are older than 10 Gyr and we do not study the star formation events in this age range. We see from the previous section that, the density of the very old population is very small and in some regions, no trace of this population is found.

The major event of star formation started somewhere around a few Gyr in most regions of the LMC. In the regions studied here, we find that the intermediate age stars are formed from 4 Gyr , where 4 Gyr is the upper age limit. This star formation event has started at three different times, 4 Gyr, 3.2 Gyr and 2.5 Gyr. This event later seems to have ended or decreased in intensity by 1.0 – 1.6 Gyr. The star cluster population in this age range is present in 5 of the 6 regions studied. In the sixth region, we do not find much of the intermediate age stars, which is well correlated with the absence of any clusters. In most of the regions the star formation continued to more recent times, but in a subdued manner. The continued star formation to ages less than 1 Gyr is seen in the CMDs and this corresponds to the continued cluster formation events.

The moderately young population of 250 – 400 Myr is seen in 5 of the 6 regions studied here. In all these regions, an enhancement in the fraction of clusters is also observed. In the case of region 5, the star formation is continued till 250 Myr, which is also reflected in the number of clusters found in this age range. In the case of region 2, the 300 Myr episode is not seen. Stars belonging to 125 Myr old population is seen in the CMD of region 2, and a cluster formation event has occured between 100 and 300 Myr. So we assume that the star and the cluster formation events coincide.

The most recent star formation in the regions studied here is found to be around 100 Myr, except for region 5. Star clusters also show an episode of cluster formation around this time. In the case of region 2, the cluster formation episode has occurred at about 125 Myr, and for region 5, it has occurred at about 40 Myr. In two regions one cluster each have been found, with ages less than 30 Myr, the corresponding star formation event is not seen in the CMDs. This probably would indicate that this latest star formation event, which resulted within the last 30 Myr is probably an isolated event, producing very less number of field stars.

Girardi et al. g95 (1995) estimated the age distribution of star clusters in LMC. They found three periods of enhancement in the formation of star clusters in LMC, namely at 0.1 Gyr, 1–2 Gyr and 12 – 15 Gyr. The cluster formation episodes identified in this study is in good agreement with the above results, but identified yet another episode of enhanced star cluster formation at 300 Myr. Pietrzynski & Udalski pu00 (2000) found peaks in star cluster formation at 7 Myr, 125 Myr and 800 Myr. They also found peaks at 100 Myr and 160 Myr, which they attribute to the last encounter of the Magellanic Clouds.

It is of interest to look for any correlation in star/cluster formation events between the regions studied here, especially when the first four regions are not very far from one another. The regions 1 and 2 are separated by about 200 pc, and we see that the number of clusters around these regions are very similar. The star formation has started a bit early in region 2 and this region did not experience the 300 Myr episode of star formation. Therefore there is only very little similarity between the star formation as well as cluster formation events around the regions 1 and 2, though the number of star clusters found are similar. Again, the number of clusters identified near the regions 3 and 4 are very similar and the separation between these two regions is also about 200 pc. The fraction of clusters formed at each age bin is also similar. The star formation is found to have started a bit early in region 3. Both the two regions have experienced the 300 Myr episode of star formation. Region 3 ended the star formation relatively early. Therefore we see that the star formation and the cluster formation events in these two regions are well correlated. Therefore it is quite likely that the regions three and four underwent very similar cluster and star formation events. The separation between the left and the right extreme points of regions 3 and 4 are about 1 Kpc. We see that the cluster formation events are well corelated within a length scale of 1 Kpc. This is similar to the length-scale found in the super giant shell LMC 4, which is found to have a diameter of $``$ 1 Kpc (de Boer et al. b98 (1998)). This might suggest that similar processes or cluster formation events have taken place in the past in LMC.

A look at the cluster fraction with respect to age, in regions 5 and 6 reveal that these two regions have quite different age distribution of clusters. The region 5 is located well within the Bar and the SFH is very different. This region seems to have experienced continuous star formation as well as cluster formation, thoughout from 4 Gyr to 40 Myr. This probably is due to the fact this is the central region, and likely to have had constant supply of molecular clouds. The star formation occurring around this region, could also have kept the star formation going on in this region. Also to be noticed is the high density of stars found in this region, compared to the other regions studied here.

### 4.2 Star formation events and LMC interactions

We see from this study that three star formation events could be identified from the CMDs of the field stars. And we find that the populous star clusters around the regions also follow these three events. This trend is seen in all the 6 regions studied here. One region (region 5) is found to have experienced continuous star formation. As it is located at the center of the bar, it is likely that the star formation events in this region are unaffected by the factors influencing the rest of the LMC.

The correlated star and cluster formation events which we see can be due to some common triggering. These events could be due to some external factors affecting the LMC. The most quoted and looked into mechanism for this, is the interaction between LMC, SMC and the Galaxy. There are many studies which look for the signatures of possible encounters (Westerlund w97 (1997) and references therein, Maragoudaki m01 (2001)) and also studies which do simulation of the dynamics of the interaction between the three galaxies (Fujimoto & Murai fm84 (1984), Gardiner & Neguchi gn96 (1996), Gardinet et al. g94 (1994)). These have found that the LMC had an interaction with our Galaxy at about 1.5 Gyr ago, with SMC at 0.2 – 0.4 Gyr and LMC had a perigalacticon at 100 Myr. The close encounters between LMC and SMC were expected to have occured at 1.5 Gyr, 3–4 Gyr, 5–6 Gyr, 7–8 Gyr and finally 10 Gyr ago (Vallenari v97 (1997)).

The star formation which started at 4 Gyr in LMC central regions does not seem to have created star clusters. The 4 Gyr population is mainly seen inside the Bar region of LMC and there are indications that the star formation started a little later in the outer regions of LMC, especially in the northern regions (see Subramaniam & Anupama sa02 (2002), Vallenari v97 (1997)). The star formation, even in the outskirts of the Bar is found to have started a little later, like 3.2 Gyr, 2.5 Gyr etc.. Probably the 4 Gyr star formation is mainly associated with the Bar. It will be interesting to find out whether the 4 Gyr star formation episode corresponds to the formation of the Bar in LMC. The populous star clusters are formed somewhere between 1 and 3 Gyr. One does not know whether this cluster formation event has anything to do with the LMC-SMC-Galaxy interaction at about 1.5 Gyr.

The 300 Myr cluster formation episode is seen in the whole of LMC and also in SMC (Maragoudaki et al. m01 (2001)), confirming that the both the galaxies are affected. It is quite clear that the star formation and the cluster formation events in LMC and SMC were started due their interaction. Therefore, it is quite likely that the populous star clusters formed at this time are as a result of star formation mechanisms due to interactions. Some clusters could also have been formed due to the propagating star formation started by the triggers. Similarly, the star and the cluster formation episodes seen around 100 Myr could be due to the perigalacticon passage of LMC. This could have triggered the star formation events, leading to the formation of populous star clusters. Probably this event triggered star formation in SMC as well. To summarise, this study shows that, among the three episodes of correlated star and cluster formation events, two seems to have started due to the interaction of LMC with Galaxy or SMC. A proper understanding of the dynamical history of the LMC, SMC and Galaxy will probably shed some light on the possible reasons for the 4 – 2.5 Gyr star and cluster formation episodes.

## 5 Conclusions

The present study focussed on the correlaton between star and cluster formation in six regions of the LMC. The results are summarised blow:

* The star formation around few tens of parsec and cluster formation around 400 pc centered at six regions are studied. It is seen that in all the six regions, the star formation events and the cluster formation events are more or less correlated. Though coresponding to the youngest clusters, aged less than 30 Myr, no stellar population is seen.
* The cluster formation events and the fraction of star clusters formed at these events were found to be very similar for the two regions located to the south-east of the Bar. This might suggest that these regions experienced similar cluster formation triggers at almost similar instances.
* The major star formatoin events are found to be three in most of the regions studied here. The star formation which began about 4 Gyr ago, continued upto around 1 Gyr, or continued further. The other two events have taken place around 300 Myr, and at 100 Myr.
* Two of the above three events seem to correlate with the interactions of LMC with SMC and Galaxy, except the 4 Gyr event. The cluster and the star formation events at 300 Myr and 100 Myr are likely to be triggered by the galaxy interactions. Therefore, the populous star clusters formed at these instances are likely to be the product of star formation mechanisms due to triggers arising from interactions and some from the propagation of these events.