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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider was completed in 1999 and a host of new experimental results soon appeared. During the past year, the nuclear physics community has undertaken the task of formulating a long range plan to guide funding priorities for the next 10 years. What follows is my view of the future. I have chosen to be rather speculative at times. I will first review what we have learned so far, then pose the questions formulated in the Long Range Plan (LRP), and use these to guide a discussion of the future measurements which should be made.

In addition to the many recent experimental results, theory has been making rapid progress in explaining the phenomena we are seeing at RHIC. This is possible for two reasons. First, powerful theoretical techniques, have been brought to bear on the problem. These are reviewed elsewhere in these proceedings by A Dimitru. Secondly, RHIC has taken us into a regime in which these theoretical techniques are applicable. It is the convergence of theory and experiment which leads to new understanding. The collection of experimental data alone makes us simple accountants of miscellaneous facts. On the other-hand a non-verifiable theory may be elegant, but will not give us an understanding of the world in which we live. I would like to suggest that a sort of standard model is just beginning to emerge in our understanding of the evolution of relativistic heavy ion collisions in the regime we have entered. This picture is not entirely new. The general picture of the phase diagram of QCD has been around for many years. What is new, is that RHIC, now takes us into a regime in which theoretical techniques can now be used to do reasonably reliable calculations, using the model, of experimentally measurable quantities. As such we are beginning to enter into an era of precision measurements in which theoretical predictions of a fundamental nature can be made, and experiments can be done under controlled conditions so that these ideas can be tested.

To do many of these measurements, RHIC will need an increase in luminosity. What is being proposed by the community is an increase by a factor of 40 by the use of electron cooling. In addition, experiments will need to be upgraded, to enhance capabilities and increase sensitivity for rare or hard to measure probes, and to increase the ability of detectors to handle a higher data rate through the use of higher level triggers and expanded DAQ. The details of this will be covered in the next talk by T. Ludlam.

## 2 What Have We Learned?

I will first summarize of some of the results from RHIC as they stand now. Much of this material is covered in more depth in separate contributions to this volume. Unless specified, the data is from the first run where the center-of-mass energy was 130 GeV. A small amount of data is now available from run-2 where the center of mass energy was at the canonical value of 200 GeV. Needless to say, the various RHIC collaboration are working hard to produce the results from this latest run.

### 2.1 Initial Conditions: Energy Density and the Colored Glass Condensate

The first task is to make an experimental estimate of the initial energy density of the system formed in collisions at RHIC to see whether it is high enough to induce a phase transition. Lattice calculations indicate that the phase transition should occur between 150 and 200 MeV corresponding to energy densities between 0.6 and 1.8 GeV/fm3 with the lower estimate being favored by models which include light fermions. Bjorken has given an estimate of the energy density assuming boost invariance

$$ϵ=\frac{E}{Volume}=\frac{1}{\pi R^2}\frac{1}{2c\tau _0}(2\frac{dE_T}{dy})$$

where R is the radius of the nucleus in question, and $`\tau _0`$ is the time after the initial collision of thermalization when a temperature can first be defined, typically taken to be between 0.2 and 1 fm/c. As theory has improved it has been recognized that there are at least two relevant time scales for $`\tau _0`$. The first, as described below is a formation time related to the Colored Glass Condensate. The second, is the actual thermalization time. The PHENIX collaboration has measured $`dE_T/dydE_T/d\eta =503\pm 2GeV`$, giving an energy density times thermalization time to be $`ϵ\tau _0=4.6(GeV/fm^3)(fm/c)`$. Conservative estimates give $`\tau _01fm`$, whereas estimates from the equilibration of gluons give $`\tau _00.20.3fm`$. This gives an energy density estimate of between 5 and 23 GeV/fm3, an order of magnitude greater than that required for the phase transition as predicted on the lattice.

Recently, McLerran and his colleagues have proposed that the initial conditions in heavy ion conditions could be calculated assuming that the gluon distributions at low x are saturated. The gluon distributions at low-x for protons $`1/x^\delta `$, hence violate unitarity at very low x and saturate. In protons it will occur at about $`x10^4`$ depending on the Q2. In a Lorentz contracted nucleus, there is essentially a geometric magnification factor of A1/3 making the relevant $`x10^2`$. McLerran and his colleagues assumed that since the occupation numbers were high, one could use a classical approximation. This leads to non-perturbative calculations of various experimentally measured quantities, using renormalization group methods which depend on a scale Qs, the saturation momentum given by $`Q_s=\alpha _s\frac{xG_A(x,Q_s^2)}{\pi R_A^2}`$. At RHIC, this is around 1-2 GeV/c. They have dubbed this state, a Colored-Glass-Condensate for reasons I will not explain here.

One of the first calculations to be done using these methods was for the multiplicity distributions as a function of centrality at $`\sqrt{s}=`$130 GeV (figure 1a). Admittedly this was a post-diction after the data was available. However, Kharzeev and Levin then predicted the centrality dependence at the higher energy of $`\sqrt{s}=`$200 GeV. The prediction, shown in the right panel of the figure does extremely well for the recently published central data from the PHOBOS collaboration. It will be important to observe whether the centrality dependence at the higher energy is borne out. The model gives us an initial energy density of 18 GeV/fm3 in good agreement with the estimate above. This corresponds to a formation time of $`\tau _0\tau _{formation}1/Q_S0.10.2fm/c`$. Presumably equilibration happens somewhat later. This time corresponds to the time in which the gluons “go on mass shell”, hence this energy density refers not to a thermalized energy density, but rather the maximum energy density reached by the system. Kharzeev, Levin, and Nardi have also made a prediction at $`\sqrt{s}=`$22 GeV, but they point out that the model may not work since $`\alpha _s`$ becomes large. Their central prediction at this energy is that the number of charged particles per participant at mid-rapidity rises slowly by about 20% for central collisions due to the running of the coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$.

It is worth examining the source of the centrality dependence of the multiplicity in the CGC model. In this model the number of gluons per participant is proportional to the inverse of the strong coupling constant hence, somewhat schematically, $`N_{ch}N_{gluons}1/\alpha _s(Q_s^2)`$. The value of $`Q_s^2`$ rises as a function of centrality since the quantity of interest is the number of gluons per unit area in the target nucleus as seen by a particular projectile. The more the number of gluons, the higher the saturation scale. This is shown in figure 2 where $`(Q_s)`$ is plotted versus Npart. The corresponding value of $`1/\alpha _s(Q_s^2)`$ is also plotted and compared to the multiplicity per participant as measured by the PHOBOS collaboration. The shapes of the distributions are similar since $`dN/d\eta `$ calculated in the CGC model is proportional to $`1/\alpha _s(Q_s^2)`$. This gives rise to the agreement between the theory and the data shown in figure 1a. This result connects the centrality dependence of the the multiplicity per participant to the running of the coupling constant. If $`\alpha _s`$ did not run, there would be no centrality dependence. It is interesting that a bulk property such as the total multiplicity is intimately connected with a fundamental property of QCD - the running of the coupling constant. The calculation relies on the fact that the number of produced particles is essentially equal to the number of gluons liberated in the initial collision, which in turn is equal (actually a factor of 2ln2=1.34) to the number of gluons in the initial virtual saturated state. This then implies that the number of particles may be conserved through the parton to hadron transition - a miraculous fact noted in reference . One can speculate why this is so. An understanding of this may lead to insights into the chiral and deconfinement phase transitions, since the process of partons turning into hadrons includes the generation of the dressed masses of the quarks which comprise hadrons and the confinement of quarks into hadrons. Such a conservation may not hold for other quantities such as the momentum distributions of the final state particles which may be influenced by later stages of the system.

The Colored Glass Condensate model nicely explains one of the seemingly disappointing early results from RHIC. The charged particle multiplicity was found to be lower than naive expectations which sprung from entropy arguments invoking the fact there would be more degrees of freedom in a system of quarks and gluons than in a system of hadrons. In the CGC scenario, the production of entropy is simply choked off by the saturation.

Early results from both the STAR and PHOBOS collaborations indicated that there was a surprisingly strong elliptic flow in non-central collisions (see figure 3). Elliptic flow is an anisotropy which exhibits itself in the momentum distribution of the produced particles. This anisotropy in momentum reflects a space anisotropy of the original, almond shaped collision region. For the space anisotropy to be transfered to the momentum, the system must equilibrated. Since flow is a collective effect, and each particle’s direction is defined by the spacial distribution of all the particles, each particle must “know” the shape of the original distribution. The effect is self quenching. If the time for equilibration is too long, the collision region looses its almond shape, hence the momentum distribution looses its anisotropy. A strong elliptic flow, therefore, implies an early thermalization. The details of this argument were developed in a more rigorous fashion by U. Heintz and his colleagues. One can see in figure 3a, that in mid-central collisions, the data gives a value that is consistent with hydrodynamics which of course assumes thermalization with a zero mean free path. This hydrodynamical model requires a thermalization time of 0.6 fm/c giving an energy density of 20 GeV/fm3, again consistent with the previous estimate.

It seems fairly certain, then that the initial state formed in Au-Au collisions at RHIC is a strongly interacting system at very high energy density. We can begin to assemble a model (figure 4) of RHIC collisions beginning as a Colored Glass Condensate - essentially a saturated condensate of gluons. This is a virtual state since it is presumably there in all nuclei. What is important in collisions at RHIC, is that the colliding system provides a mechanism for the virtual gluons to become “real” in a formation time which is of order 0.1-0.2 fm/c. These “real” gluons, then form the initial state which is of interest to us. At this point they are not equilibrated - they have just come into existence at the beginning of the second stage.

The mechanism and timescale of thermalization is probably the most critical question to answer in the short term. If thermalization of gluons occurs then we have the inevitable conclusion that we have created a Quark-Gluon Plasma. The Parton Cascade Model showed the importance of radiative processes in equilibration. Recently, Mueller and his colleagues have shown this by analytical techniques as well. They give an estimate for the equilibration time as 1/Qs multiplied by some power of $`\alpha _s`$. The Monte-Carlo implementation of the Parton Cascade Model gives an equilibration time of $``$ 0.3 fm/c, for a total formation time plus thermalization time of about 0.5 -0.6 fm/c. This is consistent with the value found from the elliptic flow results and hydrodynamic models of 0.6 fm/c, however this agreement should probably not be taken too seriously until more reliable estimates for the thermalization time can be made.

We are left then, at a time of about 0.6 fm/c with a plasma of primarily gluons. Presumably quarks begin to appear as the chemical reactions continue. One of the interesting characteristics of this state is that value of the quark condensate $`<q\overline{q}>`$ is zero and chiral symmetry is restored. The question of how the condensate actually develops is an interesting one which we know very little about. The equilibrated system, which we can now characterize as a QGP expands and generates flow as it cools. The system proceeds through a mixed phase as it begins to hadronize. This is arguably the most interesting time in the history of the collision - the third and fourth stages in figure 4.

At this point we are faced with host of questions. Is the transition first or second order, or simply a cross over? We do not know the relationship between the deconfinement transition, responsible for the binding of quarks into hadrons, and the chiral transition, responsible for the generation of hadronic mass. Are the transitions at the same value of the temperature? What is the latent heat? Is there an inflation related to the phase transition as is presumably true in the early universe? Are there large scale fluctuations? Answering these questions are the primary goals for the present and future program at RHIC.

### 2.2 Hadrons-the Later Stages of the Collision

The system continues to cool and expand in the hadronic phase until eventually all the interactions cease and the particles freeze-out. It is these hadrons which we can actually detect. They should reflect the state of the system at hadronic freeze-out. RHIC has made impressive progress in the measurements of these hadronic observables. More complete descriptions are elsewhere in these proceedings. I will only give a brief overview.

Figure 5 shows the plethora of particle ratios that have already been measured. These values are compared to a model assuming chemical equilibrium with three parameters: the freeze-out temperature T, the baryo-chemical potential $`\mu _B`$, and a strangeness saturation parameter, $`\gamma _s`$. First, one observes that the model works reasonably well and unlike at the SPS, strangeness is saturated, i.e. $`\gamma _s=1`$. The fit gives a temperature of 190 MeV and a baryo-chemical potential of 0.04 at chemical freeze-out. This is consistent with a near baryon free system - a fact which can be deduced from the value of $`\overline{p}`$/p of 0.6 measured by several of the RHIC collaborations.

We can look at thermal equilibrium as well. Figure 6a shows a fit to the inverse slopes, for central collisions in a model assuming a single freeze-out temperature and radial flow for a variety of center of mass energies from GSI to RHIC. One observes that the temperature appears to saturate at a value of about 130 MeV at the AGS and remains the same at the SPS and RHIC. At RHIC however, the value of $`\beta _r0.5`$ is noticeably larger. (I note that the error bars for $`\beta _r`$ and Tth are correlated. If one held Tth constant the errors on the flow velocities would be considerably smaller. This can be seen by simply examining the original inverse slopes.) It appears that at RHIC we are observing an increasing radial expansion. A intriguing speculation is that this expansion might be the result of “inflation” caused by the chiral phase transition, similar to that which caused the inflationary phase of the early universe.

One of the questions that one might ask is whether this rapid radial expansion develops in the early gluon phase of the system, during a mixed phase, or later during the hadronic phase before freeze-out. Figure 6b, shows the actual inverse slopes measured for a variety of particles as a function of the mass. The strange-baryons show a tendency to be below the line corresponding to a particular temperature and radial flow velocity. This might indicate that these particles were freezing out somewhat earlier then their lighter counterparts at a time when the flow had not had time to develop fully. A similar trend was seen at the SPS. This interpretation would imply that at least some part of the radial flow developed during a hadronic stage.

### 2.3 Penetrating Probes

Let us return to the early stages of the collision. Are there probes which can provide information about the state of the system and substantiate the ideas outlined earlier, that is to study the state which may be the QGP? Of course the answer is yes - these are the penetrating probes - leptons, photons, and most notably high pT particles-presumably the leading particles of jets.

Perhaps the most striking result from the recent data at RHIC comes from the observed suppression of high $`p_T`$ particles, particularly $`\pi ^0`$’s from the PHENIX collaboration. X.N. Wang and others have pointed out that high pT jets could be used as probes of the early stages of heavy ion collisions. High pT partons are the result of hard collisions which happen very early in the collision. Hence as they traverse the fireball, their characteristics can give us information about the system from the earliest times. In particular, the energy loss of these partons should be much greater in a system of deconfined quarks and gluons, since they are directly exposed to the color charges of the medium. Because the jets resulting from these high pT partons are difficult to isolate from the soft background, it was suggested that leading particles could be used since they typically take about half the energy of the jet. Early calculations simply assumed a constant energy loss per unit length. More detailed QCD calculations indicate the energy loss actually depends on the total path length of the parton through the fireball. This rather non-intuitive fact is a result of interference effects between the soft gluons radiated from the parton as it looses energy. The energy loss in a QGP can be extremely high - greater than 10 GeV/fm at the highest energy densities presumed to be created in these collisions. However, since the system expands and the lifetime of the high density stage is rather short, the average energy loss of a parton is considerably less.

Before looking at the data, it is worth briefly describing the assumptions used to scale pp collisions to Au-Au collisions. There are two basic scaling methods. The first, and most familiar to heavy ion physicists is scaling with Npart, appropriate for are thermal distributions coming from soft processes. Momentum distributions are usually plotted as a function of the transverse mass, $`m_T`$, a practice coming from that fact that all particles regardless of mass could be described as a universal exponential in $`m_T`$ for lower energy pp collisions. In heavy ion collisions exponentials tended to describe the shape of the spectra, however the slopes diverge with the heavier particles having larger inverse slopes. This was attributed to the effect of hydrodynamic flow tending to give a higher transverse momentum to heavier particles. These processes reflect the bulk nature of heavy ion collisions. Much of the data from the AGS and SPS scale as a function of the number of participants, Npart, which in a central Au-Au collision is 2\*197. A notable exception to this was the production of strange particles which scaled faster than this, and has been attributed to the enhancement of strangeness in heavy ion collisions. The second scaling method is more appropriate for hard processes - i.e. jet production, and is of course more familiar to those working at high energies. Here spectra can be described as a power law pT. There are no collective effects since one assumes that there is essentially one hard interaction. Particles originate from jet fragmentation. Here the scaling to heavy ion cross sections from pp goes as the number of binary collisions - i.e as the number of hard collisions. A central Au-Au collision has about 1000 binary collisions. Analysis of multiplicity distributions provide evidence for a part of the cross section scaling as the number of binary collisions.

Figure 7 shows the $`\pi ^0`$ pT distribution together with the expected value from the scaling of the pp cross section with the number of binary collisions for both peripheral collisions and central collisions. As one can see, the the scaling works well for peripheral collisions. In the central collisions, however, the data is over-predicted. Charged particles show a similar behavior, with some complications, as I will describe in a moment. The effect can be highlighted by dividing the data by the scaled pp distribution as in the right panel, shown now both for $`\pi ^0`$’s and charged particles. In both cases the result is considerably below one. Also shown is the range of results compiled from data at the SPS. The data from the SPS below $`1.5GeV`$ also lies below one, since the production mechanism for these lower energy particles scales as Npart. These are the vast majority of particles. We are concerned with the small number of high pT particles above $`2GeV`$. (The exact value of “high” pT is open to question). At the SPS what we see is an enhancement of high $`p_T`$ particles coming from quark scattering - the well known “Cronin” effect. What is seen at RHIC is quite the opposite. There is a strong suppression above 1.5 GeV for both the charged and neutral particles. Such a suppression may be the first indication of a large energy loss in a QGP.

One may then inquire as to the difference between the charged and neutral spectra. Figure 8 shows the charged spectra for minimum bias events from PHENIX, now using particle ID to the extent possible. One can immediately see the problem. At momenta above 2 GeV, protons and anti-protons dominate the spectra! How can this happen? This certainly is not characteristic of the distributions of leading particles in jets, where only 10% is a baryon. It may be that collective effects such as radial flow are actually pushing the baryons to a higher pT and we are comparing particles which come from different sources - i.e. jet fragmentation after energy loss for the pions, and low energy protons and anti-protons which have been accelerated due to radial flow effects. At the same time the high pT partons themselves loose energy and their daughter pions will have a more thermal spectrum then would be characteristic of jet fragmentation. One of the unanticipated implications for the future, is that particle identification at high $`p_T`$ will be critical to the upgrades considered at RHIC.

Data on leptons and photons will be forthcoming. Already PHENIX has published the first results of electron production giving limits on open charm. This is of particular interest because of the enhancement of intermediate mass dileptons at CERN. However, since charmed quarks themselves pass through the medium just as any other quark, they should loose energy as well and be suppressed; though this effect could be minimized due to a “dead cone” effect. Within the next year we should begin to see results on J/$`\psi `$ production in both the electron and muon channels, low mass vector mesons to the di-electron channel, and perhaps thermal dileptons and direct photons.

## 3 What Would We Like to Know and what Should We Measure?

If the view espoused here of the high pT spectra prevails, it will provide vindication of the model described previously and lead to more conclusive results regarding the possible formation of a Quark Gluon Plasma. Perhaps, as I have indicated, it raises more questions than it answers. As a part of the task of putting together the Long Range Plan for Nuclear Physics several meetings were held to consider the future of of the RHIC program. In doing so, the following four major questions were formulated.

* Evolution of the System: In relativistic heavy-ion collisions, how do the created systems evolve? Does the matter approach thermal equilibrium? What are the initial temperatures achieved?
* Deconfinement: Can signatures of the deconfinement phase transition be located as the hot matter produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions cools? What is the origin of confinement?
* Chiral Symmetry Restoration: What are the properties of the QCD vacuum and what are its connections to the masses of the hadrons? What is the origin of chiral symmetry breaking?
* Matter at the Highest Energy Densities: What are the properties of matter at the highest energy densities? Is the basic idea that this is best described using fundamental quarks and gluons correct?

In what remains of this paper, I would like to take each of these questions in turn and make some suggestions about measurements which might help us answer these questions, and point out what upgrades will be necessary. In any set of such suggestions, there is a danger of compartmentalizing certain results to answering certain questions. In reality our subject is rich with overlapping subjects - measurements meant to answer questions about the later hadronic part of the collision may lead to information about the early stages of the collision.

I will also give more detailed examples of what might be done in three particular measurements - low mass vector mesons, onium suppression, and jet suppression - keeping in mind the statements I have made about precision measurements. I will conclude with a suggested set of priorities for our community.

### 3.1 Evolution of the System

This is perhaps the question for which the suite of detectors at RHIC are most capable of answering, at least for the later hadronic stage of the collision. We already have a basic understanding of much about the final freeze-out phase. It appears that the final state hadrons reflect a both chemical and kinetic thermal distribution. We have first estimates of the kinetic and chemical freeze-out temperatures, chemical potentials, and expansion velocities. There is much left to understand, however, we have the tools in hand to do much of the work. Detectors are well equipped to study HBT, flow and particle yields and spectra.

Thanks to improvements in theory, we may be close to some understanding of the initial stage of the collision as well. Detailed tests of the CGC model will be made in future eA machine proposed to be done at RHIC and in pA collisions with upgraded detectors for looking at collisions involving small x partons.

What is missing is a clear understanding of the stages, after the formation of the CGC particularly related to the thermalization of the initial gluon distribution. Does the strength of the elliptic flow signal really imply that thermalization occurs as early as 0.6 fm? If so, it may be that we already have the answer in hand but it is important to gather more information.

One of the possibilities for examining this stage of the collision is though real and virtual photons from quark-anti-quark annihilation, materializing as electron or muon pairs radiating from the hot, dense QCD matter. While such radiation is emitted at all times during the collision, the reaction dynamics favors emission from the hottest part of the colliding system. Thus, measurement of the distribution of the blackbody thermal radiation will give us information on the initial temperature, and possibly the black body nature of the spectrum. If so, these photons would play the same role for us that the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation did for our understanding of the early universe. The background to such a signal is formidable since photons and electrons are copiously produced from other sources such as $`\pi ^0`$ decay. Upgraded detectors designed to reject such backgrounds will be necessary. Systematic analysis, and variation of the initial conditions will be required to solidify the interpretation.

### 3.2 Deconfinement

As mentioned previously, the suppression of high pT hadrons from the energy loss of partons as they pass through a deconfined medium is an important signal of deconfinement. This may be enough to establish the effect, however it will be important to be more quantitative. This can be done by making measurements of direct photons produced opposite high transverse momentum hadrons. Since the photon recoils against the quark jet, and since it does not suffer energy loss in the deconfined medium, the photon serves as a indicator of the initial transverse momentum of the jet. This will provide a means to make careful, quantitative measurements of the energy loss. One interesting possibility is to flavor tag the high transverse momentum hadron. A leading K- with no valence quarks is more likely to come from a gluon jet. This would allow one to measure the difference in the energy loss between gluon and quark jets. Gluon jets are expected to loose energy at twice the rate of quark jets in a deconfined medium. These measurements will require high luminosity because of the low cross sections of such high pT events. In addition detectors will be required to handle the large luminosities, as well as to identify hadrons to high pT.

J/$`\psi `$ suppression is another well-known signature of deconfinement. PHENIX will be able to measure J/$`\psi `$ production in both the muon and electron channels. STAR will have access to the electron channel within the next several years as their electromagnetic calorimeter is completed providing a second measurement of this signature. One of the critical measurements that must accompany the measurement of the J/$`\psi `$ is that of open charm production to see whether open charm is enhanced or comes from the “melting” of the J/$`\psi `$. To do this, specialized vertex detectors must be added with the position resolution that would allow a measurement of the charm vertex separated from the original event vertex. STAR, PHOBOS and PHENIX have all embarked on R and D programs to construct such an upgrade.

The J/$`\psi `$ is but one of the vector mesons in the charm family. The excited states of the J/$`\psi `$ as well as the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ family will all exhibit some degree of suppression. The suppression of the associated $`c\overline{c}`$ and $`b\overline{b}`$ states, can also be observed since they decay to the detectable vector mesons. Each of these states will ”melt” at a different temperature (figure 9). In fact the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ will be used as a control since it should not be suppressed at all at RHIC energies. By varying the temperature of the system though changes in beam energy and species, one can change the pattern of suppression of the various states. Not only would this be a convincing signature of a phase transition, it would give a good measure of the actual energy density.

It appears that the densities are high enough, even in mid-central collisions where the reaction plane can be obtained, that there is a QGP formed albeit with a smaller volume then in very central collisions. This then raises the possibility that one can actually do tomography on the collision region and map out its density profile to some degree in the following manner. One would measure the angle between the reaction plane and the probe of interest, for instance a high pt particle opposite a photon and measure the energy loss as a function of the reaction plane. The path length perpendicular to the reaction plane is longer than in the direction of the reaction plane because of the almond shape of the collision region in semi-central collisions. As an example of a particularly interesting question that this could address is to see the relationship between energy loss and path length on the one hand and energy density on the other by examining the differences in energy loss as a function of the path length. This would enable one to check the path length squared dependence of the energy loss, mentioned before.

The measurements mentioned in this section would require measuring small cross section processes in many bins of centrality, pT and reaction plane. This demands an increase in the luminosity as well as large acceptance detectors capable of measuring leptons, photons, high pt particles with particle identification.

### 3.3 Chiral Symmetry Restoration

Chiral symmetry is broken through the creation of a vacuum scalar condensate that couples to hadrons and provides most of their mass. The challenge for RHIC experiments is to search for evidence of in-medium mass changes of the low mass vector mesons associated with the restoration of chiral symmetry. A direct measurement of the mass of light vector mesons such as the $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$, and $`\varphi `$ is possible since they decay rather rapidly within the fireball created at the time of collisions and before hadronization. The decay to di-electrons is particularly interesting since electrons should not be re-scattered in the medium and their invariant mass should reflect the mass of the vector meson in the altered vacuum state. Since some fraction of the vector mesons decay outside the medium (in the case of the $`\omega `$ some 70-80%), these can be used as a calibration point for the measurement. The fraction exhibiting a shifted mass should change as a function of the transverse momentum and the size of the central fireball. This would be a particularly dramatic signature of the altered vacuum. As in the case of the thermal di-electron signal, a major upgrade will be needed to reject background for detection of the $`\rho `$, the shortest lived, and hence the broadest of the vector mesons unless it is strongly enhanced which it may well be.

The presence of a phase transition as the system cools is also expected to cause fluctuations, which may survive the hadronic phase as fluctuations in particle number and type. Fluctuations and droplet formation are of particular interest, since similar processes may account for much of the large scale structure of the universe and the inhomogeneities observed in the cosmic microwave background. A variety of fluctuations have been proposed as a signature of a phase transition. If the transition is first order, the growth of hadronic droplets and the shrinking of quark-gluon droplets may yield a lumpy final state and large fluctuations in particle number . If the transition is a smooth but sufficiently rapid crossover, domains of misaligned chiral condensate may be formed. If the transition occurs near a critical point separating first order behavior from crossover behavior, long wavelength fluctuations imprint unique signatures on the momenta of soft pions. Experiments will search for such phenomena, and correlate their appearance with other quark-gluon plasma signatures.

The models of chiral symmetry restoration have followed essentially two approaches. The first, typified by Rapp and Wambach’s model assumes hadronic degrees of the freedom as the staring point. The other, typified by Brown-Rho scaling, uses primarily quark degrees of freedom. Under the hadronic description, the restoration of chiral symmetry means that the vector (e.g. the $`\rho `$) and the axial vector (e.g. the $`A_1`$) will become degenerate when chiral symmetry is restored. Typically the particle widths increase and the mass does not go to zero. Brown and Rho however, assumed that all particle masses scale with the chiral condensate which of course goes to zero when chiral symmetry is restored. These two views are of course, seemingly contradictory - a situation that is somewhat endemic to this subject. The two groups have made the conjecture that there is a quark-hadron duality and that the two approaches will give the same results if one did not have to resort to perturbation theory, but somehow could calculate the results directly which, of course is probably not possible, at least not analytically. The only difference between the two approaches, then is simply the difference between the sets of basis states or “degrees of freedom” that they choose to use to solve the problem.

Let us suppose that the chiral and deconfinement transition occur at the same place. Let us also assume that the Rapp Wambach model was correct below the phase transition, where at least at very low temperature their set of basis states seem reasonable, and Brown Rho scaling is appropriate above the transition in the sense the the quark masses scale with the chiral condensate. The Rapp Wambach Model predicts that as we approach the phase transition from below the vector and axial vector particles widen and become degenerate. Above the phase transition, the quarks deconfine and presumably the light quark masses will go to their bare quark masses - essentially zero on the scales which we are considering. At the phase transition, somehow these pictures must merge. It may be that neither set of basis states are the correct ones to use near the phase transition. If one was able to find the correct basis states, one may actually be able to do the calculation in the region of interest.

A similar situation was faced by condensed matter theorists in trying to explain super-conductivity. Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer managed to guess the correct set of basis states to use - Cooper pairs. Presumably they could have constructed their theory using electrons as the basis states. The theory would have been just as good but it would have been hopelessly complicated. Finding the right set of basis states is one of the major steps to solving such a problem. In the case of QCD, it may be that neither the hadronic nor the quark basis are the best set of basis states to use near the phase transition. It also may not be possible to guess the right set of such states with knowledge available to theorists now. What is needed are experimental results, which then can used as a foundation for making a reasonably educated guess. Of course we can approach this problem in a brute force manner using lattice gauge theory on massive computers, however finding the right degrees of freedom or basis states gives one a much better qualitative understanding of the phenomena. This is one of the instances in which the interplay between theory and experiment is the most productive.

The detection of low mass vector mesons, particularly the $`\rho `$, decaying to di-electrons is a challenging task for similar reasons to the the problem of identifying the thermal di-electron signal mentioned previously- the backgrounds are fierce from $`\pi ^0`$ Dalitz decays and photon conversions. A scheme of rejection of Dalitz and conversion pairs must be implemented.

The $`\rho `$, in addition to being useful for the understanding of chiral symmetry restoration, can also be used as a clock of the mixed and hadronic phases of the collision. Since the lifetime is so short, the $`\rho `$ decays and is regenerated several times during the collision - for instance from $`\pi \pi `$ interactions. Since electrons do not interact strongly they can emerge from the collision relatively unhindered. A long mixed and hadronic phase should enhance the $`\rho `$ to di-electron signal in a matter which yields the lifetime.

In order to study some of these effects, and the need for Dalitz rejection, a simulation was done using as input, the model of Rapp and Wambach which includes the restoration of chiral symmetry and the enhancement of the $`\rho `$ due to the aforementioned effect. Figure 10a shows the resonance shape of the $`\omega `$ meson for a variety of temperatures. One can see the slight mass shift, and the broadening of the line shape. A run of $`10^9`$ central events (about 2 years of running) was assumed. Figure 10b shows the signal for the $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ assuming the current PHENIX detector which has no Dalitz rejection. The first thing to note is that if the enhancement of the $`\rho `$ is as strong as the Rapp-Wambach model indicates, the signal will be clearly measurable even with the current configuration of the PHENIX detector without Dalitz rejection. To illustrate the difficulties, however, we turn to the $`\varphi `$ which shifts in a manner similar to the $`\omega `$. Figure 10c shows a comparison of the signal from low-pt central events where the effect should be the strongest, to the high-pt peripheral events where it should be essentially normal. The statistical error bars are very poor due to the large subtraction which must be performed due to the background. Clearly, one would not be able to deduce any difference. A 90% Dalitz rejection was assumed for figure 10d, and a clear effect of width broadening due to chiral symmetry restoration can be seen.

There are essentially two schemes being considered for Dalitz rejection. One of the methods contemplated is that of a hadron blind detector with large acceptance which has a high probability of detecting both particles of a Dalitz pair. This typically involves a field free region near the vertex so that the low momentum partner is not bent out of the acceptance of the detector. Since the detector is sensitive to electrons which have a relatively low multiplicity, electrons and positrons can be reconstructed and rejected if they are consistent with a Dalitz of conversion pair. Such a scheme could even be implemented on-line. The second involves the use of a vertex detector together with the ability to do good particle identification. Such a detector could measure low momentum electrons since it is so close to the vertex. The background pair could then be rejected in a similar manner to the hadron blind scheme.

### 3.4 Matter at the Highest Energy Densities

There is a great deal to learn about hadronic interactions at very high energies where we are probing the very low x region of the hadron wave-function. The CGC is critical to understanding these process and an understanding of the gluon densities at these high energies forms the basis for the calculations of the initial conditions in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Critical experiments to perform will include pA and eA collisions. A future project at the RHIC Collider will be the addition of an electron ring to study eA collisions. In the near future we can begin to use pA collisions. Proton-nucleus collisions are necessary component of the heavy ion program as well, since pA as well as pp collisions serves as a basis for the normalization of AA collisions to provide an understanding of phenomena such as nuclear shadowing. An increase in luminosity is necessary for this task since the same rare signals must be detected.

Signals which can be used to measure the relevant gluon distributions primarily come from gluon fusion processes. These include the production of heavy quarks and W bosons and direct photons. Anti-quark distributions can be probed via Drell Yan. Saturation will affect the rate and the transverse momenta of these probes. Processes which involve very low -x partons will occur in the very forward portion of the detector and upgrades to lepton, photon and micro-vertex detectors which can cover pseudorapidities as high as $`\eta 5`$ are required.

### 3.5 What is Needed?

We are now left with the task of setting the priorities for the future of the RHIC program. One of the important aspects providing enormous strength to the program is a redundancy in the capabilities of the detectors. The different detection and analysis techniques as well as different regions of acceptance can provide a cross check and corroboration of critical signatures lending credibility to the discovery of new phenomena. In particular, STAR is now adding electromagnetic calorimetry over a large acceptance, providing balance to PHENIX’s aggressive electron and muon identification over a somewhat smaller region.

R and D for the detector upgrades has begun. Funding must be provided for this. Upgrades which will be added should and does include a program for Dalitz rejection, high pT particle identification, and micro-vertex detection for heavy quark production. Weaknesses of the various detectors are being addressed - for instance in the addition of electromagnetic calorimetry for STAR as just mentioned, and the addition of 4$`\pi `$ tracking for the PHENIX detector to enhance jet detection capabilities. STAR already has a good acceptance at very forward rapidities. PHENIX is contemplating the addition of very forward detection of muons and photons as well as a micro-vertex detector in the forward region, though these projects are not as well formulated as some of the others.All detectors must of course enhance their data-acquisition capabilities to enable them to take advantage of the planned luminosity upgrade.

## 4 Conclusions

RHIC provides us with a unique capability to understand QCD interactions, both at high temperatures and in bulk, which was the primary focus of this paper. It will also study pp, pA, and eA collisions in which we can study the quark and gluon distributions themselves as well as the spin of the nucleon in the very rich polarized proton program which I have not mentioned at all.

I remain optimistic about many of the ideas as explained in this paper, particularly the Colored Glass Condensate. However it must be emphasized that it is far too early to assume that it is a well established theory. Only further experimental evidence can tell us whether it is right or wrong. In fact it may well be that the CGC model turns out to be incorrect, however, the important point is that the future of the RHIC experimental program (and LHC) is very bright. The future of theory in the field is progressing rapidly as well and hand in hand, theory and experiment will work together such that perhaps in the next 5-10 years, our picture of high-temperature QCD will be much more complete giving us an understanding of the nature of the phase transitions and the nature of confinement and hadronic mass-which I remind the reader makes us most of the ordinary matter we see around us.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the numerous theorists who have patiently explained much of this material to me and corrected many of my misconceptions. I would like to particularly thank Larry Mclerran who read much of the introductory material and reigned is some of my enthusiasm for the absolute reliability of QCD calculations for the energies available at RHIC and reminded me that our task was not so much to create or “discover” the Quark-Gluon-Plasma but to understand it. Any errors remaining in the text are mine.


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# Josephson Plasma in RuSr2GdCu2O8

## Abstract

Josephson plasma in RuSr2GdCu2O8, Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3), and RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5) compounds is investigated by the sphere resonance method. The Josephson plasma is observed in a low-frequency region (around 8.5 cm-1 at T $``$ $`T_c`$ ) for ferromagnetic RuSr2GdCu2O8, while it increases to 35 cm-1 for non-ferromagnetic Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3), which represents a large reduction in the Josephson coupling at ferromagnetic RuO2 block layers. The temperature dependence of the plasma does not shift to zero frequency (i.e. $`j_c`$ = 0) at low temperatures, indicating that there is no transition from the $`0`$-phase to the $`\pi `$-phase in these compounds. The temperature dependence and the oscillator strength of the peak are different from those of other non-magnetic cuprates, and the origins of these anomalies are discussed.

It is believed that the electronic state of high-$`T_c`$ cuprates in the superconducting state is two-dimensional. Many cuprates exhibit dc and ac intrinsic Josephson effects, which reveals that the $`\mathrm{}`$S/I/S/I/S/I/S$`\mathrm{}`$ ($`\mathrm{}`$superconductor/insulator/superconductor$`\mathrm{}`$) -type Josephson-coupled layer model is applicable to high-$`T_c`$ cuprates. In this case, the plasma of condensed carriers observed in most of the cuprates in the far infrared to microwave region is thought to be Josephson plasma. There have been many studies of this phenomenon, since it represents the interlayer phase coherence between CuO2 layers and may be related to the mechanism of high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity Gaifullin et al. (2000); Shibata and Yamada (1996, 1997a); Anderson (1995); Shibata (2001); Kakeshita et al. (2001); Dulić et al. (2001). Of particular importance is that it provides information about the junction parameters without the need to fabricate the mesa of an intrinsic Josephson junction; the maximum critical current $`j_c`$ of the junctions is directly related to the Josephson plasma frequency $`\omega _p`$ by the equation $`\omega _p^2`$ = 8$`\pi ^2`$$`cd`$$`j_c`$/$`ϵ_0`$$`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, where $`d`$ and $`ϵ_0`$ are the width and dielectric constant of the insulating layer. It should be noted that $`\omega _p`$ can be deduced even from the ceramics, since the Josephson plasma can be observed by measuring the sphere resonance of powder samples as well as by conventional single crystal measurementsNoh et al. (1989, 1990); Shibata and Yamada (1996, 1998); Shibata and Matsuda (1999).

Recently, much attention has been paid to RuSr2GdCu2O8 and related materials, as the coexistence of superconductivity and ferromagnetism has been reported in these compoundsBauernfeind et al. (1995); Bernhard et al. (2000); Felner et al. (2000); Klamut et al. (2001); Boris et al. (2001). Since superconductivity and ferromagnetism are mutually exclusive, many possible superconducting order parameters have already been discussed, including the self-induced vortex state, the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov type, triplet superconductivity, and the $`\pi `$-phaseBauernfeind et al. (1995); Bernhard et al. (2000); Felner et al. (2000); Klamut et al. (2001); Pickett et al. (1999); Kanegae and Ohashi (2001); Houzet et al. (2001). The crystal structure of RuSr2GdCu2O8 is similar to that of YBa2Cu3O7-δ with RuO2 layers replacing the Cu-O chains, and the ferromagnetic order, which is observed at a Curie temperature of $`T_\text{M}`$ = 133 K, is attributed to the Ru moment. Although the magnetic structure of the compound has not yet been clarified, it seems that the Ru moments are anti-ferromagnetic ordered along the c-axis and canted to the ab-plane, which makes the ab-plane weak-ferromagneticChmaissem et al. (2000); Lynn et al. (2000). So, the system may be regarded as the $`\mathrm{}`$S/F/S/F/S/F/S$`\mathrm{}`$ ($`\mathrm{}`$superconductor/(ferro)magnet/superconductor$`\mathrm{}`$) -type Josephson-coupled multilayers along the c-axis. In this multilayer system, the $`\pi `$-phase, which has a superconducting order parameter that changes the phase by $`\pi `$ between two adjacent superconducting layers, seems to be realized since the node at the ferromagnetic layer greatly reduces the pair breaking effects. The model calculations for this compound predict a transition from the 0-phase to the $`\pi `$-phase at low temperaturesPickett et al. (1999); Kanegae and Ohashi (2001); Houzet et al. (2001), and a peculiar temperature dependence of $`j_c`$; as the temperature decreases, $`j_c`$ should achieve its maximum value, decrease to zero at the transition line due to the decoupling of the junctions, and then increase again in the $`\pi `$-phase regionHouzet et al. (2001). It should noted that this $`j_c`$ temperature dependence has been realized experimentally in artificial Josephson junctions consisting of Nb and ferromagnetic CuxNi1-x alloy as the transition from the 0-junction to the $`\pi `$-junctionRyazanov et al. (2001). In the present case, it is impossible to determine $`j_c`$ by I-V measurement, since no one has yet grown millimeter size single crystal of Ru-cupratesLin et al. (2001). The only way to determine the $`j_c`$ temperature dependence seems to be to measure $`\omega _p`$ by measuring the sphere resonance of powder samples.

This paper reports our measurement of the far-infrared sphere resonance of RuSr2GdCu2O8, Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3), and RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5) powder samples down to 7 cm-1. While all the samples exhibit the Josephson plasma resonance, the temperature dependence does not shift to zero frequency at low temperature as expected from the $`\pi `$ transition. The peak frequency is greatly reduced in the ferromagnetic samples, indicating a considerable reduction in the Josephson coupling of the junctions. The anomalous features of the plasma are also discussed.

The ceramic samples were synthesized by the conventional solid-state reaction of oxides and carbonates under almost the same conditions described in previous reports Bauernfeind et al. (1995); Bernhard et al. (2000); Felner et al. (2000); Klamut et al. (2001); Bernhard et al. (1999). After several cycles of sintering and regrinding, annealing was performed at 1065C for 150 hr at 1 atm O2 for RuSr2GdCu2O8, at 600C for 50 hr at 400 atm O2 for Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3), and at 600C for 30 hr at 180 atm O2 for RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5). A furnace for hot isostatic pressing (HIP) was used for the high-oxygen-pressure annealing. The magnetic susceptibility and resistivity of the samples are summarized in Fig. 1. Although a magnetic transition is observed at $`T_\text{M}`$ = 133 K for RuSr2GdCu2O8 and around 100 K for RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5), no magnetic transition is observed for Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3). The resistivity shows $`T_c^{\text{onset}}`$ = 53 K and $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$ = 34 K for RuSr2GdCu2O8, $`T_c^{\text{onset}}`$ = 64 K and $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$ = 56 K for Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3), and $`T_c^{\text{onset}}`$ = 54 K and $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$ = 46 K for RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5). The powder X-ray diffraction indicated a single phase for RuSr2GdCu2O8, while a slight trace of an unknown impurity phase (less than 5 %) was observed for Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3) and RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5). The magnetic susceptibility, $`T_c`$, magnitude of resistivity, and x-ray results for these data agree well with previous reportsBauernfeind et al. (1995); Bernhard et al. (2000); Felner et al. (2000); Klamut et al. (2001); Bernhard et al. (1999). The samples were ground into fine particles about 2 $`\mu `$m in diameter, mixed with polyethylene powder, and then pressed into pellets about 2 mm thick. Transmission spectra of the pellets were measured down to 7 cm-1 using a Fourier transform interferometer combined with a Si bolometer.

Figure 2 shows the difference between the absorption coefficients of the superconducting and normal states for RuSr2GdCu2O8 ceramics. Below $`T_c^{\text{onset}}`$, the Josephson plasma peak appears and the oscillator strength increases as the temperature decreases. The peak is very broad and it is impossible to determine the peak frequency, however it becomes rather narrow below $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$ = 34 K. The peak is around 8.5 cm-1 at 5 K. The peak frequency is very low compared to that of YBa2Cu3O7-δ plasma above 100 cm-1, which has a similar crystal structure and is in a similar doping level (optimum to overdoped region)Shibata and Yamada (1996); Tokunaga et al. (2001); Kumagai et al. (2001); Liu et al. (2001), and this suggests a large reduction in the Josephson coupling at the ferromagnetic RuO2 block layers. The peak does not shift to zero frequency with decreasing temperature, which indicates that there is no 0 - $`\pi `$ transition in this compound.

Figure 3 shows the Josephson plasma peaks of non-ferromagnetic Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3) ceramics. Compared with ferromagnetic RuSr2GdCu2O8, the peak frequency increases greatly to 35 cm-1 at 5 K. This clearly indicates the large reduction in the Josephson coupling at the ferromagnetic RuO2 block layers for RuSr2GdCu2O8 and its absence at the non-ferromagnetic (Ru, Cu)O2 block layers for Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3). The peak frequencies increase as the temperature decreases, indicating the absence of a 0 - $`\pi `$ transition in this compound. The peak oscillator strength is very weak compared with other cuprates, as discussed later.

A similar peak is also observed in RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5) ceramics, as shown in Fig. 4. In this case, the peak frequency is around 13 cm-1 at 5 K, corresponding to the large reduction in the coupling at the magnetic RuO2 block layers. There are two kinds of junction per unit cell in the compound; that at the RuO2 block layers and that at the fluorite-type (Eu, Ce)O2 block layers, and we may expect the existence of double Josephson plasmaShibata and Yamada (1998); Shibata (2001); Kakeshita et al. (2001); Dulić et al. (2001), which is not seen in Fig 4. The absence of double Josephson plasma may be explained by the degenerating plasma frequencies of both junctions, since the plasma frequency of fluorite-type block layers is around 10 cm$`^1.`$Shibata and Yamada (1997a) The observed broadness of the peak also supports this explanation. Moreover, the temperature dependence of the peak does not show the 0 - $`\pi `$ transition.

Although there is no transition to the $`\pi `$-phase, the plasma shows certain anomalies that are quite different from those of other non-magnetic cuprates. The first is the temperature dependence of the plasma in RuSr2GdCu2O8; the peak frequency of the plasma is almost constant and only the peak oscillator strength increases as the temperature decreases below $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$, which is in contrast to the monotonic $`\omega _p`$ increase in other cuprates. Since the peak oscillator strength is proportional to $`\omega _p^2f`$, where $`f`$ is the volume fraction of the superconductor in the pelletShibata and Yamada (1997b), this indicates that $`\omega _p`$ is almost constant while $`f`$ increases as the temperature decreases. The calculation of $`\mathrm{}`$S/F/S/F/S$`\mathrm{}`$-type multilayers predicts that $`\omega _p`$ decreases slightly at low temperatures from the monotonic increase as the exchange energy increases from zero, and the decrease becomes large as the exchange energy increases to the 0 - $`\pi `$ transition lineHouzet et al. (2001). The constant behavior observed for $`\omega _p`$ suggests that the exchange energy, while not zero for the sample, is small and far from the 0 - $`\pi `$ transition line.

The second anomaly is the weak oscillator strength of the plasma; the observed oscillator strength of the peak is smaller than that of other non-magnetic cuprates, especially for Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3), while we make the volume fraction $`f`$ around 0.01 for all pellets. This can be explained by the very small grain size of the Ru-cuprates, which is known as granularityBernhard et al. (2000). With the sphere resonance method, the powder (about 2 $`\mu `$m) in the pellets is assumed to be a single crystal, and powder whose c-axis is parallel to the electric field of light causes the peak. This assumption seems not to hold for Ru-cuprates since most of the powder is formed of granules rather than a single crystal. The granular powder, which is dominated by the in-plane dielectric constant, does not form a sphere resonance peak, while the powder, which is almost composed of single domains, forms a broad peak due to the modulation of the Josephson-coupling from the in-plane dielectric constant. So, we expect the total absorption peak of granular samples to be small and broad.

The last anomaly is the strong peak broadening between $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$ and $`T_c^{\text{onset}}`$ in RuSr2GdCu2O8. One possible explanation is the granularity of the samples as discussed above. However in this case, we cannot explain the broadening change at $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$. Another possible explanation is the melting of the self-induced vortex at $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$, which has been suggested by other experimentsBernhard et al. (2000); Tokunaga et al. (2001). In this scenario, the peak is sharp in a solid phase below $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$, and it becomes broad in a vortex liquid phase between $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$ and $`T_c^{\text{onset}}`$. Here, we also expect the peak to become sharp again in the liquid phase, which is different from the experiment.

In summary, Josephson plasma is observed at 8.5 cm-1 and 13 cm-1 for ferromagnetic RuSr2GdCu2O8 and RuSr2Eu2-xCexCu2O10 (x = 0.5), and it increases to 35 cm-1 for non-ferromagnetic Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8 (x = 0.3), which indicates a large reduction in the Josephson coupling at the ferromagnetic RuO2 block layers. Although the temperature dependence of the plasma in these compounds does not show the 0 - $`\pi `$ phase transition, no increase in $`\omega _p`$ is observed for RuSr2GdCu2O8 as the temperature decreases, which suggests a small exchange energy in the compound. The anomalous temperature dependence of the peak frequency, broadening of the peak above $`T_c^{\text{zero}}`$, and the small oscillator strength were also discussed.

The author thanks Y. Ohashi, Y. Matsuda, M. B. Gaifullin, H. Takayanagi, M. Naito, and A. Matsuda for valuable discussions.


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# BeppoSAX observations of the young pulsar in the Kes 75 Supernova Remnant

## 1 Introduction

The X–ray pulsar PSR J1846–0258 ($`P=325`$ ms) was discovered by Gotthelf et al. (2000) at the center of the composite supernova remnant Kes 75 (G29.7–0.3). Up to now, no radio detection of PSR J1846–0258 has been reported, with an upper limit of $`0.1`$ mJy at 1.5 GHz (Kaspi et al. 1996). All the information on the pulsar timing parameters has been determined through observations in the X–ray band. Gotthelf et al. (2000) obtained a period derivative of $`\dot{P}=7.1\times 10^{12}`$ s s-1, by comparing five period measurements obtained with the RossiXTE and ASCA satellites in the years from 1993 to 2000. Assuming the canonical relation for the spin-down by magnetic dipole radiation, these values lead to an estimate for the magnetic field of $`B5\times 10^{13}`$ G, above the quantum critical field and in the range of the highest values observed in radio pulsars. Even more remarkably, the characteristic age of PSR J1846–0258, $`\tau =P/2\dot{P}=723`$ years, is the smallest one of any known pulsar.

The association of PSR J1846–0258 with the supernova remnant Kes 75 can be regarded as almost certain: the pulsar is located at the geometrical center of the $`3.5^{}`$ diameter shell (Collins, Gotthelf & Helfand 2002) and is powering a bright radio/X–ray nebula that gives the composite morphology to this supernova remnant. The estimate of the age of Kes 75 is subject to a large uncertainty. Assuming that the shell is still in the freely expanding phase with velocity $`v`$, the age is $`1800d_{19}(v/5000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)^1`$ years, where $`d_{19}`$ is the distance normalized to the value of 19 kpc, estimated for Kes 75 with 21 cm observations (Becker & Helfand 1984). Alternatively, if the remnant is already in the Sedov phase, the age can be estimated by the relation between the radius and the shock temperature inferred from the X–ray spectra. In this way Blanton & Helfand (1996) derived an age of $`7000d_{19}`$ years, based on the temperature of 0.5 keV measured with ASCA. It thus appears that the pulsar characteristic age is smaller than the age of Kes 75, although the large uncertainties involved do not allow agreement between the two values to be precluded.

## 2 Observations and Data Analysis

The location of PSR J1846–0258 was observed twice with the BeppoSAX satellite in March 2001 (see Table 1). The instrument relevant for the observations reported here is the Medium-Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (MECS), that operates in the 1.8–10 keV energy range, providing a good spatial ($`1^{}`$ full width at half maximum (FWHM)) and energy resolution ($`8.5`$% FWHM at 6 keV) over a circular field of view with a diameter of $`56^{}`$ (Boella et al. 1997).

The main target of the first observation (A) was the pulsar AX J1844–0258, therefore PSR J1846–0258 was detected at an off-axis angle of $`23^{}`$ (results on AX J1844–0258 will be reported elsewhere). The second observation (B) was pointed on the Kes 75 supernova remnant. Both observations lasted about 2.5 days, but Earth occultations and passage of the satellite in regions of high particle background resulted in net exposure times of 83.7 ks and 105.3 ks for the MECS instrument.

### 2.1 Timing analysis

For the timing analysis we used only counts with energy greater than 3 keV in order to reduce the contribution of the soft emission from the supernova remnant. For observation B we used a circular extraction region with radius $`2^{}`$ (resulting in 15904 counts), while for observation A we used an elliptical region matched to the shape of the off-axis MECS point spread function (3751 counts). The times of arrival were converted to the Solar System barycenter using the source position R.A.$`=18^\mathrm{h}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}46}^\mathrm{m}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}24.5}^\mathrm{s}`$, Dec.$`=02^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}58}^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}28}^{\prime \prime }`$ (J2000).

We first analyzed the two observations separately, using a folding program to search over a grid of period ($`P`$) and period derivative ($`\dot{P}`$) values and adopting the method described in Leahy (1987) to determine the best period and its uncertainty. Since the individual observations are relatively short compared to the pulsar spin-down timescale, the period values giving the highest signal do not depend significantly on $`\dot{P}`$. We therefore fixed $`\dot{P}`$ to the value $`7.097\times 10^{12}`$ s s-1 (Gotthelf et al. 2000) obtaining the period values reported in Table 1. The light curve obtained from observation B is shown, for different energy ranges, in Fig. 1. The difference between the periods measured in the two observations corresponds to $`\dot{P}=(7.127\pm 0.096)\times 10^{12}`$ s s-1 which is, within the errors, compatible with the value found from the ASCA and RossiXTE data spanning the years 1993–2000 (Gotthelf et al. 2000).

The accuracy of the BeppoSAX satellite clock is good enough to combine the two observations (taken about 15 days apart) into a single data set, thus allowing us to derive a smaller error on $`P`$ and to directly measure $`\dot{P}`$. This was again done by folding the data on a grid of $`P`$ and $`\dot{P}`$ trial values, leading to $`P=324.818968\pm 0.000006`$ ms and $`\dot{P}=(7.095\pm 0.086)\times 10^{12}`$ s s-1, where the values refer to the epoch MJD=51991.08778. These results are consistent with an extrapolation of the timing solution derived by Gotthelf et al. (2000).

### 2.2 Spectral analysis

For the spectral analysis we used only observation B that provided data of better quality since PSR J1846–0258 was detected on-axis, where the MECS instrument has the greatest sensitivity and the best spectral and spatial performances. Moreover, we used also data from the LECS instrument (Parmar et al. 1997) that covers the soft energy range down to 0.1 keV.

For the source spectrum extraction we used first a circle of radius 4 for the MECS and 8 for the LECS in order to maximize the contribution from both the supernova remnant and the pulsar nebula emission. The background spectrum was estimated from a circular corona between 4.7 and 9.5 for the MECS and between 8 and 10.6 for the LECS. The source spectra were rebinned in order to have at least 30 counts per channel.

We verified that a fit with a power-law only fails to describe the data ($`\chi ^2`$/d.o.f. = 463/404), giving strong residuals corresponding to the presence of the emission lines of Si XIII (1.84 keV) and S XV (2.45 keV). We therefore fitted the spectra using a combination of a power law and an optically thin thermal plasma (mekal in the XSPEC softare package v.11), plus an interstellar absorption of Morrison and McCammon (1983). This combination of models is known to be appropriate for Kes 75, because it also takes into account the presence of a thermal shell (Blanton & Helfand 1996). This model produced a very good fit ($`\chi ^2`$/d.o.f. = 398/402) with the following parameters: interstellar absorption $`N_H=4.7(3.95.5)\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2, photon index $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ph}}=2.19(2.072.30)`$, plasma temperature $`kT=0.40(0.350.53)`$ keV. This best-fit is shown in Fig. 2. The thermal and non-thermal fluxes in the 0.1–2 keV range are respectively $`10.1(3.024.4)\times 10^{10}`$ and $`9.9(7.912.0)\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, while the corresponding values in the 2–10 keV band are $`5.4(1.613.0)\times 10^{12}`$ and $`3.4(2.74.1)\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. The contribution of the thermal component to the flux density drops below 10% of the total above 3 keV. To further constrain the spectrum of the nebula, we have repeated the analysis using the data collected from a smaller circle (2 radius), and fixing the temperature of the thermal component and the interstellar absorption to the values obtained previously. This resulted in a best-fit with $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ph}}=2.16(2.102.21)`$ ($`\chi ^2`$/d.o.f.=348/317). The non-thermal unabsorbed flux in the 2–10 keV band is $`3.9(3.54.2)\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. These results are consistent with (and have smaller uncertainties than) those obtained by Blanton & Helfand (1996) with ASCA that, similarly to our instrument, did not have enough spatial resolution to disentangle the contribution from the shell and the central pulsar/nebula.

We also examined the pulsar spectrum in two different phase intervals corresponding to the high and low parts of the pulse profile, finding marginal evidence for a hardening in correspondence of pulse maximum. This indicates that the surrounding diffuse X–ray nebula, giving a higher relative contribution during the phase of low pulsed emission, has a spectrum softer than that of the pulsar. In fact, the preliminary Chandra results reported by Collins et al. (2002), yield a power law photon index of $``$1.5 for the pulsar and $``$1.9 for the nebula.

## 3 Discussion

The period measurement derived with BeppoSAX, together with past measurements (as from Table 1 in Gotthelf et al. 2000), allows an analysis of the rotation history of PSR J1846–0258 in the past decade. All together, there are now 6 different measurements, of which ours is that with the smallest uncertainty (just 12% of the average of all the others). In the case of a smooth evolution represented with a quadratic function, of the form

$$\nu (t)=\nu _0+\dot{\nu }_0(tt_0)+\frac{1}{2}\ddot{\nu }_0(tt_0)^2,$$

a reasonable representation of the data can be achieved with the best fit parameters reported in the first column of Table 2 ($`\chi ^2=3.52`$, for 3 d.o.f.; residuals are plotted in Fig. 3.b). The best fit second derivative of the frequency $`\ddot{\nu }_0`$ is significantly different from 0. In fact a linear fit ($`\ddot{\nu }_0=0`$) can be safely ruled out, as shown by the extremely high $`\chi ^2`$ value ($`534`$, for 4 d.o.f.). We also note that the residuals of a linear fit (Fig. 3.a) are too large to be accounted for by timing noise, even assuming for PSR J1846–0258 a particularly high activity parameter (see, e.g., Arzoumanian et al. 1994).

Under the hypothesis that no glitch has occurred over the time spanned by the period measurements, the available data can be used to determine the braking index $`n`$, defined by the law $`\dot{\nu }\nu ^n`$ and evaluated, in terms of the frequency and its first two derivatives, as $`n=\nu \ddot{\nu }/\dot{\nu }^2`$. The values of the quadratic fit correspond to a braking index $`n=1.86\pm 0.08`$, significantly lower than the canonical value ($`n=3`$) for magnetic dipole losses. For a braking law $`\dot{\nu }\nu ^n`$, the pulsar age is:

$$(1)\tau =\frac{P}{(n1)\dot{P}}\left[1\left(\frac{P_0}{P}\right)^{n1}\right].$$

Assuming an originally fast spinning pulsar ($`P_0P`$), we derive for PSR J1846–0258 an age $`\tau =1675\pm 157`$ yr. The quoted accuracy on $`\tau `$ relies on the assumption that irregularities in the spin evolution are negligible in the range of epochs spanned by the observations. In particular, if found that one or more glitches have occurred in between period measurements, the above estimates should be revised. Although population studies indicate small initial periods for radio pulsars (Bhattacharya et al. 1992, Lorimer et al. 1993) and a value of $`P_01719`$ ms is generally accepted for the Crab pulsar, there is now considerable evidence that fairly long initial spin periods may be common (see, e.g., Torii et al. 1999, Kaspi et al. 2001, Murray et al. 2002). We therefore show in Fig. 4 (solid line), how the age derived from equation (1) depends on the assumed value of $`P_0`$.

The data can also be interpreted by considering the possibility that glitches occurred between the observations. For instance, let us first consider the case of a glitch between the first (October 1993) and the second (March 1999) measurements by comparing the October 1993 value with the extrapolation of a fit to the subsequent measurements. A quadratic fit to the last five points gives a poorly constrained $`\ddot{\nu }_0`$ (corresponding to $`n=0.84\pm 0.68`$; see column (2) in Table 2). The estimated magnitude and even the sign of the glitch actually depend on the value of the braking index. The best fit ($`n=0.84`$) corresponds to a negative jump in frequency, a behavior opposite to what seen in all glitching radio pulsars (Lyne et al. 2000). A conventional sign is obtained only for $`n>1.89`$, which being at only $`1.5\sigma `$ from the best fit, has a non negligible probability.

Another possibility is the occurrence of a glitch at a later time. In fact the residuals in Fig. 3.b show a pattern suggesting a glitch in an epoch between the third and fourth data point. We have then chosen 51500.0 MJD as a possible epoch of this glitch: any different choice of the epoch, within the time interval between the third and fourth data point, will have the only effect of slightly changing the best parameters for the glitch, therefore not changing any of the conclusions that we shall draw below.

For different values of the braking index, we have fitted separately the former and latter set of three data points. We find that for values of $`n`$ larger than about 2.5 we would again come out with an unlikely “anti-glitch”. On the other hand, for $`n`$ smaller than about 1.8 the (negative) $`\dot{\nu }`$ should increase, and also this behavior is in contrast with what seen in radio pulsars (Lyne et al. 2000). In the allowed range for $`n`$ (1.8,2.5), the $`\chi ^2`$ value is monotonically decreasing for increasing $`n`$, but the trend is so shallow that by itself it cannot be taken as a valid argument for preferring higher values of $`n`$. The parameters for the two limit cases are shown in columns (3) and (4) of Table 2, and the corresponding pulsar ages by the dashed lines of Fig. 4.

If a glitch at about MJD 51500 actually occurred, how does it compare with known glitches in other pulsars? Fig. 5 shows the positions, in the parameter plane $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\nu /\nu )`$$`(\mathrm{\Delta }\dot{\nu }/\dot{\nu })`$ of all glitches known in radio pulsars for which both $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\dot{\nu }`$ have been measured (as from Lyne et al. 2000). Superposed is the locus of the points representing the MJD 51500 glitch, for different values of $`n`$. It is apparent that the required glitch has rather normal parameters, with both $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\nu /\nu )`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\dot{\nu }/\dot{\nu })`$ somehow smaller than the average.

## 4 Conclusions

We have presented a new accurate measurement of the spin frequency of the young pulsar PSR J1846–0258 associated to the Kes 75 supernova remnant. Combined with previous data, and making some hypothesis on the glitch history of PSR J1846–0258 our new frequency measurement can be interpreted in different ways.

A simple possibility, assuming no glitches in the years 1993–2001, is in terms of a timing solution with $`\ddot{\nu }=(2.77\pm 0.12)\times 10^{21}`$ Hz s-2. This results in a braking index $`n=1.86\pm 0.08`$ and an estimate for the age of PSR J1846–0258 more in accord with that of the associated supernova remnant (unless the pulsar initial period was close to the current one). Other likely possibilities involve a single glitch with reasonable parameters and lead to a wide range of acceptable ages. If the glitch occurred near MJD 51500 the resulting braking index $`n`$ is in the range 1.8–2.5, while for a glitch between October 1993 and March 1999 we can only get a lower limit of $`n>1.89`$.

Braking indices have so far been measured only for five pulsars. Except for PSR J1119–67 which has $`n=2.91\pm 0.05`$ (Camilo et al. 2000), all of them have $`n`$ significantly smaller than 3, similar to the values suggested by our analysis for PSR J1846–0258. Such values are $`2.51\pm 0.01`$ (Crab pulsar; Lyne, Pritchard & Graham-Smith 1993), $`2.837\pm 0.001`$ (PSR B1509–58; Kaspi et al. 1994), $`1.4\pm 0.2`$ (Vela pulsar; Lyne et al. 1996), and $`1.81\pm 0.07`$ (PSR B0540–69; Zhang et al. 2001).

The pulsar with the highest glitch rate (about one per year) in the sample studied by Lyne et al. (2000), is PSR B1737–30, which is also the one with the highest magnetic field ($`1.7\times 10^{13}`$ G). We cannot exclude that PSR J1846–0258 had more than one glitch in the eight years spanned by the observations, but in this case no information on $`n`$ can be derived from our data. Interestingly, the glitch parameters we inferred for PSR J1846–0258 in Fig. 5 are similar to those observed in PSR B1737–30. A finer monitoring in the future will establish whether PSR J1846–0258 is indeed similar to PSR B1737–30.

As already mentioned by Gotthelf et al. (2000), the $`P`$ and $`\dot{P}`$ values of PSR J1846–0258 are very similar to those of the radio pulsar PSR J1119–6127 ($`P=407.6`$ ms, $`\dot{P}=4\times 10^{12}`$ s s-1, Camilo et al. 2000). A remarkable difference between these two young and energetic pulsars ($`\dot{E}_{\mathrm{rot}}2\times 10^{36}`$ erg s-1) is the lack of a bright pulsar wind nebula around PSR J1119–6127 (Crawford et al. 2001). These authors suggested that high magnetic field pulsars produce radio nebulae that fade rapidly, an interpretation apparently contradicted by the brightness of the Kes 75 core. If the value $`n=1.86`$ is confirmed for PSR J1846–0258, the difference in the brightness of the wind nebulae of these two pulsars might be related to their different braking index values ($`n=2.91\pm 0.05`$ for PSR J1119–6127; Camilo et al. (2000)). While spin-down by magnetic dipole radiation yields $`n=3`$, a value $`n=2`$ is expected if the pulsar braking is driven by the presence of a strong relativistic wind, which could also have an effect on the emission from a surrounding nebula.

We thank C. Paizis for useful discussions. This work has been partly supported by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MIUR) under Grant Cofin2001–02–10.


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# Evidence for Magnetic Field Induced Changes of the Phase of Tunneling States: Spontaneous Echoes in (KBr)1-x(KCN)x in Magnetic Fields

## Abstract

Recently, it has been discovered that in contrast to expectations the low-temperature dielectric properties of some multi-component glasses depend strongly on magnetic fields. In particular, the low-frequency dielectric susceptibility and the amplitude of coherent polarization echoes show striking non-monotonic magnetic field dependencies. The low-temperature dielectric response of these materials is governed by atomic tunneling systems. We now have investigated the coherent properties of tunneling states in a crystalline host in magnetic fields up to 230 mT. Two-pulse echo experiments have been performed on a KBr crystal containing about 7.5% CN-. Like in glasses, but perhaps even more surprising in the case of a crystalline system, we observe a very strong magnetic field dependence of the echo amplitude. Moreover, for the first time we have direct evidence that magnetic fields change the phase of coherent tunneling systems in a well-defined way. We present the data and discuss the possible origin of this intriguing effect.

The low-temperature properties of disordered materials like amorphous solids and crystals containing certain point defects are governed by atomic tunneling systems Esq98 ; Hun00 . In glasses such systems arise from the tunneling motion of single atoms or small groups of atoms between energetically almost equivalent positions separated by a potential well. In the so-called tunneling model it is assumed that these atomic tunneling systems can be approximated by particles moving in a double-well potential consisting of two adjacent harmonic wells And72 ; Phi72 . The tunneling states are characterized by two parameters, the tunnel probability $`\mathrm{exp}(\lambda )`$ and the asymmetry energy $`\Delta `$. The latter is given by the difference in depth of the two wells. As a consequence of the irregular structure of glasses, these two parameters are widely distributed. According to the tunneling model the asymmetry energy $`\Delta `$ and the tunnel parameter $`\lambda `$ are independent of each other and uniformly distributed as $`P(\lambda ,\Delta )\mathrm{d}\lambda \mathrm{d}\Delta =\overline{P}\mathrm{d}\lambda \mathrm{d}\Delta `$, providing a description of the low-temperature properties of glasses on a phenomenological basis.

In contrast to the situation in amorphous solids where the microscopic nature of the tunneling states is hitherto unknown, in crystals with certain point defects the tunneling states are well-defined and can be described on a microscopic basis Nar70 ; Bri75 ; Wue97 . As prominent examples we mention KCl containing Li+, and KBr with CN-. In a certain range of concentrations the system (KBr)1-x(KCN)x is often referred to as model system for the tunneling states in glasses, because it exhibits great similarities of its low-temperature properties with those of amorphous materials DeY86 . The glassy properties arise from the electric and elastic interaction between the CN- ions leading to an orientational disorder characterized by a broad distribution of the parameters of the tunneling systems like in structural glasses.

At low concentration ($`x<0.001`$) the interaction between the CN- ions can be neglected and the tunneling systems can be described in terms of isolated defects. Because of the cubic symmetry of KBr, eight potential minima in $`111`$ direction exist for isolated CN- ions. For the resulting tunneling splitting $`\Delta _0/k_\mathrm{B}`$ of the ground state values between 0.5 and 1.5 K have been derived from measurements of specific heat DeY86 ; Dob86 , thermal conductivity Sew66  and infrared absorption Bey75 ; Var80 . At intermediate concentrations ($`0.01<x<0.1`$) the presence of pairs of strongly coupled CN- ions at next nearest neighbor sites plays an important role Lut82 ; Ens94 ; Ens95 . The tunnel splitting of such pairs is only of the order of 10 mK.

Until very recently it was the general belief that the dielectric properties of insulating glasses – free of magnetic impurities – are largely independent of external magnetic fields. However, new investigations have shown that the low-temperature dielectric properties of certain multi-component glasses are extremely sensitive to magnetic fields. In particular, the low-frequency dielectric susceptibility Str98 ; Str00 ; Woh01 ; Hau01 ; Coc02 ; Hau02  and the amplitude of spontaneous polarization echoes Lud02  show a striking non-monotonic dependence on the applied magnetic field.

To explain these findings it has been suggested that atomic tunneling systems couple directly to magnetic fields Ket99 ; Wue02 . In the model proposed by Kettemann et al. it is assumed, that some tunneling particles exist that have not just one path along which they can tunnel between the two potential minima but several — like in a Mexican hat type of potential. The presence of a magnetic field breaks the time reversal symmetry and thus changes the tunneling probability along different paths. As a result the tunnel splitting $`\Delta _0`$ becomes magnetic field dependent. Since for a single tunneling system this effect is rather weak it has been suggested that the coupling of a large number of such tunneling systems leads to an enhancement of the magnetic field dependence. The model by Würger considers pairs of weakly interacting two-level systems consisting of systems with roughly the same energy splitting. Such pairs have four levels, the middle two of which are almost degenerate. Due to their interaction the tunneling path of each individual tunneling system is slightly deformed, effectively turning the tunneling path of such pairs into a loop. Magnetic fields change the splitting of the almost degenerate levels noticeably and influence in this way the dielectric properties of the glass. Würger estimated that this effect would be of the right order of magnitude to explain the observed magnetic field dependence of the dielectric susceptibility in multi-component glasses.

To further investigate the influence of magnetic fields on tunneling systems, we have performed two-pulse polarization echo experiments. Since in glasses the microscopic nature of the tunneling splitting is hitherto unknown, we have decided to look for a possible magnetic field effect in crystals with tunneling defects. (KBr)0.925(KCN)0.075 was chosen because it is known to show intense polarization echoes at low temperatures due to strongly coupled pairs of CN- ions. The sample was placed in the uniform field region of a re-entrant microwave cavity, loaded having a resonance frequency of about $`\omega /(2\pi )1`$ GHz. Two short rf pulses, 100 ns and 200 ns in duration, separated by a delay time $`t_{12}`$ of a few $`\mu `$s were used to generate spontaneous polarization echoes occurring at $`2t_{12}`$. The amplitude of such echoes is proportional to the number of resonant tunneling systems that stay coherent during the time interval $`2t_{12}`$, or in other words, have not undergone phase disturbing processes.

Fig. 1 shows the magnetic field dependence of the amplitude of two-pulse echoes generated in a single crystal (KBr)0.925(KCN)0.075 at two different electrical field strengths. As in glasses the echo amplitude is strongly influenced by external magnetic fields leading to a non-monotonic variation. Therefore, we conclude that the magnetic field dependence of the dielectric response is not a unique property of certain glasses, but also occurs in very different materials like single crystals containing point defects but no magnetic impurities. Since the origin of the tunneling states in crystals and their microscopic parameters are well-known, studies of the magnetic field effects in such materials should be very useful to gain insight into these intriguing effects.

The data shown in Fig. 1 have been obtained at two different amplitudes of the microwave pulses used to excite the echo. Clearly, at the larger electric field amplitude the magnetic effect is enhanced, indicating a non-linear electric field dependence. The overall pattern, however, appears to be unaltered. This observation agrees well with previous echo investigations of a-BaO-Al2O3SiO2. A closer inspection of the magnetic field dependence reveals several distinct features. Close to zero field, a tiny minimum appears, that was not observed in case of a-BaO-Al2O3SiO2. In addition, several bumps on the slope towards higher magnetic fields are present. It is tempting to assign the occurrence of these additional structures to the much narrower distribution of the tunnel splitting of CN- pairs in (KBr)0.925(KCN)0.075 compared to the distribution in glasses. It might be that in amorphous solids the corresponding features are simply washed out.

Surprisingly, the pattern changes with a variation of the delay time between the pulses. Fig. 2 shows the magnetic field dependence of the amplitude of two-pulse echoes in (KBr)0.925(KCN)0.075 obtained at different delay times. Obviously there is a systematic relation between the delay time and the magnetic field at which certain features occur. Note in particular the broadening of the central peak with decreasing delay time. This dependence indicates that the magnetic field has an influence on the phase evolution of the resonant tunneling systems, because between the two excitation pulses as well as between the second pulse and the echo the phase develops freely. To strengthen this point further we have plotted in Fig. 3 the data of Fig. 2 as a function of the product $`Bt_{12}`$ of magnetic field $`B`$ and delay time $`t_{12}`$. Clearly, the feature at $`B0`$ has now the same width for all curves and the additional structure seen at higher fields appears at roughly the same $`Bt_{12}=0.5\times 10^6`$Ts as indicated by the two dashed lines in Fig. 3.

We conclude from this observation that the magnetic field couples to the tunneling states and changes the phase linearly with time. An obvious problem of this interpretation is that the second pulse applied in our experiment causes formally a time reversal of the phase development and therefore any additional phase shift accumulated during $`t_{12}`$ should be compensated for in the time interval from $`t_{12}`$ to $`2t_{12}`$. Since this is obviously not the case we have to assume that the magnetic field breaks the time reversal symmetry in this experiment.

One possible scenario that could lead to such a symmetry breaking would be a change of the magnetic moment of the tunneling systems by the microwave pulses. This is conceivable if the tunneling systems are not spherically symmetric and therefore neither the ground state nor the excited states are eigenstates of the angular momentum operator. Although isolated CN- tunneling states in KBr crystals should exhibit a spherical symmetry, at a concentration of 7.5% the elastic interaction between the defects lead to an orientational disorder and therefore in general to a non-spherical symmetry of the tunneling systems.

It should be added that our experiments show that we are dealing with asymmetric tunneling states, because the tunnel splitting of the relevant pairs is about 10 mK Ens94  and the experiments have been performed at a resonance energy of 1.13 GHz corresponding to an energy of 56 mK. For such asymmetric tunneling states the effective magnetic moment will be different for each eigenstate. This means that the phase change accumulated during the time $`t_{12}`$ before the inverting pulse and afterwards do not cancel exactly when the echo appears. This effect could lead to an enhanced or reduced polarization at $`2t_{12}`$ depending on the delay time in the experiment. Perhaps this scenario is not the only possible way in which the magnetic field breaks the time inversion symmetry in this experiment. At the present time, however, no other mechanism is known.

Let us now analyze more quantitatively the features – minima and maxima – , that coincide on the $`Bt_{12}`$ plot. The width of the central peak of the curves in Fig. 3 is about $`0.2\times 10^6`$Ts, meaning the corresponding minimum appears at $`|Bt_{12}|=0.1\times 10^6`$Ts. The unit of this quantity is mass divided by charge. If we assume that charges comparable with an elementary charge are involved we may conclude that a mass of the order of 10 proton masses is required to account for this minimum, or equivalently, a magnetic moment of the order of a nuclear magnetic moment. The features indicated by the two dashed lines appear roughly at $`|Bt_{12}|=0.5\times 10^6`$Ts, indicating that a 5 times larger mass or in turn a 5 times smaller magnetic moment seems to be involved. At the present time this analysis is completely empirical, because we do not know whether the magnetic moments observed in our experiment are due to the orbital motion of tunneling particles or due to the nuclear magnetic moments associated with the CN- molecule. In the latter case it would by unclear why the nuclear magnetic moment is so strongly coupled, to the tunneling motion of the CN- ions.

The overall increase of the echo amplitude towards larger fields does not depend on the delay time and therefore cannot be rescaled in a $`Bt_{12}`$-plot. It seems that this effect is caused by a different mechanism and is not directly related to the occurrence of the specific features mentioned above. If we again cast a glance at Fig. 1 we see that the curve obtained at higher excitation amplitude shows an increase of the echo amplitude at the largest magnetic field of 230 mT of about a factor of 3 compared to the zero field data, with the tendency of a further increase. It seems that roughly a factor of 3 more tunneling systems are moving in phase coherently at 230 mT. Since the zero field data have been obtained after adjusting the experimental parameters such that the echo amplitude had its maximum for the applied excitation pulses, the strong increase of the echo amplitude with magnetic field appears to be very mysterious.

Two possibilities for an explanation are conceivable: Either magnetic fields suppress an absorption mechanism that reduces the observed echo amplitude at zero field, or magnetic fields suppress phase perturbing processes, which dominate the dephasing a zero magnetic field. Studies of the microwave absorption in magnetic fields have shown no indication for a magnetic field dependent absorption mechanism, ruling out the first of the two possibilities. In order to investigate the second explanation, we have performed measurements of the echo decay as a function of $`t_{12}`$ in different applied magnetic fields. Only a very slight influence of the magnetic field on the decay of the echo is found, which is by far not sufficient to explain the factor of three increase of the echo amplitude in magnetic fields. However, the measurement of the echo decay as a function of the delay time is only sensitive to processes which influence the free development of the phase between and after the two excitation pulses. Any phase disturbing process that would act only during the excitation pulses would not change the decay pattern as a function of delay time and therefore cannot be ruled out as a possibility. We have no plausible physical picture how such a dephasing process limited to the excitation pulses can come about, but the strong dependence of the magnetic field effect on the amplitude of the microwave field might be taken as a support for the validity of this interpretation.

In summary, magnetic field effects of the dielectric properties have been observed for the first time for a crystalline system containing point defects. A strong non-monotonic increase of the amplitude of spontaneous polarization echoes with applied magnetic field has been fund in (KBr)0.925(KCN)0.075. Certain features in the variation of the echo amplitude with the magnetic field depend on the delay time between the two exciting pulses. This observation clearly indicates that the external magnetic field couples to the tunneling systems and changes their phase relative to the external electric field in a well-defined way. The overall increase of the echo amplitude and the dependence on the electrical field strength might be explained by a hitherto unknown dephasing mechanism that only occurs during the excitation pulses.

We thank R. Weis, A. Würger, M.v. Schickfus, P. Strehlow and S. Hunklinger for helpful comments and experimental support. We are grateful to F. Luty for providing the sample. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Grant No. Hu359/11).