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# Probing the dark side: Constraints on the dark energy equation of state from CMB, large scale structure and Type Ia supernovae

## I introduction

Several independent methods of observation all suggest that most of the energy density in the universe is in the form of a component with negative pressure – dark energy. The simplest possibility for such a component is a cosmological constant which has a constant equation of state $`P_Q=\rho _Q`$. However, in the general case the dark energy can have an equation of state which is time-dependent, $`P_Q=w_Q(t)\rho _Q`$ Wetterich:fm ; Peebles:1987ek ; Wetterich:bg ; Zlatev:1998tr ; Wang:1999fa ; Steinhardt:nw ; Wang:2001ht ; Wang:2001da ; Baccigalupi:2001aa . Dark energy with a time-dependent equation of state has been invoked to explain the coincidence problem, the fact that the energy density in dark energy is roughly equal to that in dark matter exactly at the present epoch. By coupling a scalar field to matter one can obtain tracking solutions for the time dependence of the dark energy density so that it always follows the dominant energy density component.

Generic to most of these proposed candidates for dark energy is the fact that $`w_Q1`$ at all times. This is, e.g., the case for most quintessence models where a scalar field is rolling in a potential (potential driven quintessence). Since most of the plausible models lie in this category, the likelihood analyses which have been used to find $`w_Q`$ have cut away the region with $`w_Q<1`$. From a purely phenomenological point of view this is not justified and can lead to severe bias in parameter determination. This is particularly worrisome because the most recent data set an upper limit on $`w_Q<0.85`$ (68 % confidence) Bean:2001xy  (see also Corasaniti:2001mf ), but not a lower limit. Therefore, if the true model has $`w_Q<1`$, the upper bound could be wrong (and in principle a full analysis could even rule out a cosmological constant as being the dark energy). In fact there are several models which predict a dark energy component with $`w_Q<1`$ Caldwell:1999ew ; Chiba:1999ka ; Ziaeepour:2000qq ; Faraoni:2001tq ; Riazuelo:2000fc ; Schulz:2001yx . This possible bias problem was also discussed in Ref. Maor:2001ku .

In the present paper we reanalyse cosmological data from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), large scale structure (LSS) and Type Ia supernovae (SNe) without the constraint $`w_Q1`$. We make the simplifying approximation that $`w_Q(t)=`$ const. Even though this is certainly not true for many models of dark energy, almost all models can be very well approximated by a model having a constant $`w_{Q,\mathrm{eff}}`$, which is then calculated as a properly weighted mean of $`w_Q(t)`$ Huey:1998se ; Bean:2001xy . With this approximation the dark energy density evolves simply as $`\rho _Qa^{3(1+w_Q)}`$, where $`a`$ is the scale factor.

Our analysis of the present data is in many ways similar to that performed in Ref. Bean:2001xy . However, in addition to the extension of the parameter space to $`w_Q<1`$ we also include new data from the 2dF galaxy survey.

Finally, we discuss the prospects for measuring $`w_Q`$ precisely with future high precision CMB and SN data.

## II Data analysis

### II.1 CMB and large scale structure

CMB data set — Several data sets of high precision are now publicly available. In addition to the COBE Bennett:1996ce  data for small $`l`$ there are data from BOOMERANG boom , MAXIMA max , DASI dasi  and several other experiments WTZ ; qmask . Wang, Tegmark and Zaldarriaga WTZ  have compiled a combined data set from all these available data, including calibration errors. In the present work we use this compiled data set, which is both easy to use and includes all relevant present information.

LSS data set — At present, by far the largest survey available is the 2dF 2dF  of which about 147,000 galaxies have so far been analysed. Tegmark, Hamilton and Xu THX  have calculated a power spectrum, $`P(k)`$, from this data, which we use in the present work. The 2dF data extends to very small scales where there are large effects of non-linearity. Since we only calculate linear power spectra, we use (in accordance with standard procedure) only data on scales larger than $`k=0.2h\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, where effects of non-linearity should be minimal.

The CMB fluctuations are usually described in terms of the power spectrum, which is again expressed in terms of $`C_l`$ coefficients as $`l(l+1)C_l`$, where

$$C_l|a_{lm}|^2.$$
(1)
The $`a_{lm}`$ coefficients are given in terms of the actual temperature fluctuations as

$$T(\theta ,\varphi )=\underset{lm}{}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi ).$$
(2)
Given a set of experimental measurements, the likelihood function is

$$(\mathrm{\Theta })\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}x^{}[C(\mathrm{\Theta })^1]x\right),$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }=(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }_b,H_0,n,\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ is a vector describing the given point in parameter space, $`x`$ is a vector containing all the data points, and $`C(\mathrm{\Theta })`$ is the data covariance matrix. This applies when the errors are Gaussian. If we also assume that the errors are uncorrelated, it can be reduced to the simple expression, $`e^{\chi ^2/2}`$, where

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_{\mathrm{max}}}{}}\frac{(C_{l,\mathrm{obs}}C_{l,\mathrm{theory}})_i^2}{\sigma (C_l)_i^2},$$
(4)
is a $`\chi ^2`$-statistic and $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the number of power spectrum data points oh . In the present paper we use Eq. (4) for calculating $`\chi ^2`$ for the CMB data. Since we also use data from the 2dF survey the total $`\chi ^2`$ is then given by

$`\chi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N_{\mathrm{max},\mathrm{CMB}}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(C_{l,\mathrm{obs}}C_{l,\mathrm{theory}})_i^2}{\sigma (C_l)_i^2}}`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N_{\mathrm{max},\mathrm{LSS}}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(P(k)_{\mathrm{obs}}P(k)_{\mathrm{theory}})_j^2}{\sigma (P(k))_j^2}}.`$
The procedure is then to calculate the likelihood function over the space of cosmological parameters. For calculating CMB and matter power spectra we have used the publicly available CMBFAST package CMBFAST . The 2D likelihood function for $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,w_Q)`$ is obtained by keeping $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,w_Q)`$ fixed and marginalising over all other parameters.

As free parameters in the likelihood analysis we use $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, the matter density, $`w_Q`$, the dark energy equation of state, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$, the baryon density, $`H_0`$, the Hubble parameter, $`n`$, the scalar spectral index, and $`\tau `$, the optical depth to reionization. The normalisation of the CMB data, $`Q`$, and of the 2dF data, $`b`$, are taken as completely free and uncorrelated parameters in the analysis. This is very conservative and eliminates any possible systematics involved in determining the bias parameter. We constrain the analysis to flat ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{\Omega }_Q=1`$) models, and we assume that the tensor mode contribution is negligible ($`T/S=0`$). These assumptions are compatible with analyses of the present data WTZ , and relaxing them does not have a big effect on the final results.

Table I shows the different priors used. We use the constraint $`H_0=72\pm 8\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ \[$`hH_0/(100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1)`$\] from the HST Hubble key project freedman  (the constraint is added assuming a Gaussian distribution) and the constraint $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.020\pm 0.002`$ from BBN Burles:2000zk .

Fig. 1 then shows the 68.3 % and 95.4 % confidence allowed regions, corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=2.31`$ and 6.17 respectively.

For very negative values of $`w_Q`$ the CMB and LSS constraint is independent of $`w_Q`$. The reason is that at such low $`w_Q`$ the dark energy influences the CMB spectrum only via the late integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. However, the late ISW effect decreases in magnitude as $`w_Q`$ decreases. This effect can be seen in Fig. 2 where CMB power spectra are plotted for different values of $`w_Q`$.

### II.2 Type Ia supernovae

SN data set — The SN data set used in this analysis corresponds to Fit C from the Supernova Cosmology Project as described in perlmutter . This is a subsample of a total of 60 SNe where two SNe are excluded as statistical outliers, two because of atypical lightcurves and two because of suspected reddening.

We use this data set to fit $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`w_Q`$, taking advantage of the cosmology dependence of the distance-redshift relation. Type Ia SNe are very useful as distance indicators because of their high luminosities and small dispersion among their peak absolute magnitudes ($`\sigma _m`$ 0.15). Also, they have distinct spectral lines, allowing for accurate redshift determinations.

The apparent and absolute magnitudes are related by

$$m(z)=M+5\mathrm{log}\left[𝒟_L(z,\mathrm{\Omega }_m,w_Q)\right]5\mathrm{log}H_0+25,$$
(6)
where $`𝒟_L:=H_0d_L`$ is the part of the luminosity distance that remains after multiplying out the dependence on the Hubble constant (expressed here in units of km s-1 Mpc-1). In the low redshift limit, Eq. (6) reduces to a linear Hubble relation between $`m`$ and $`\mathrm{log}z`$:

$$m(z)=+5\mathrm{log}z,$$
(7)
where we have expressed the intercept of the Hubble line as $`:=M5\mathrm{log}H_0+25`$. This quantity can be measured from the apparent magnitude of low redshift standard candles, without knowing the value of $`H_0`$. Thus, with a set of apparent magnitude and redshift measurements $`m(z)`$ for Type Ia SNe, we can find the best-fit values of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,w_Q)`$ to solve the equation

$$m(z)=5\mathrm{log}\left[𝒟_L(z,\mathrm{\Omega }_m,w_Q)\right].$$
(8)
The $`\chi ^2`$ is then given by

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{\left[m_i5\mathrm{log}\left[𝒟_L(z_i,\mathrm{\Omega }_m,w_Q)\right]\right]^2}{\sigma _i^2},$$
(9)
where $`\sigma _i`$ is the statistical uncertainty for each event, We assume a flat geometry of the universe when calculating $`𝒟_L`$ and marginalise over $``$ where we assume no prior knowledge.

In Fig. 3, the 68.3 % and 95.4 % confidence allowed regions are showed. The best-fit values are $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.45`$ and $`w_Q=1.9`$, indicating the possibility of a bias in the parameter determination when imposing the constraint $`w_Q1`$.

### II.3 Combined constraint

When all the available data is combined, a fairly stringent bound on $`w_Q`$ is obtained. The 68.3 % and 95.4 % confidence combined bounds are shown in Fig. 4. For $`w_Q`$ alone we find a 95.4 % confidence bound of $`2.68<w_Q<0.78`$.

## III discussion

### III.1 Constraints from present data

An important point is to determine whether the relaxation of the bound $`w_Q1`$ significantly affects the likelihood analysis for the part of parameter space which is above $`w_Q=1`$. This could be the case if the best-fit value of $`w_Q`$ lies in the excluded region as is the case for the current SN data, where the best-fit value corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.45`$, $`w_Q=1.9`$. For the CMB+LSS data the situation is the same, with the overall best fit being at $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.26`$, $`w_Q=2.6`$. In Fig. 5 we plot the the likelihood contours with the constraint $`w_Q1`$ imposed. In terms of $`w_Q`$ alone the 95.4 % confidence bound is now $`1w_Q<0.71`$.

Comparing this to the bound obtained without the constraint shows that the likelihood contours are fairly similar and that the bias is not a significant problem. Our Fig. 4 can for instance also be compared to Fig. 3 of Ref. Bean:2001xy . Apart from the smaller allowed region in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ because of the tighter BBN constraint and the use of the full 2dF data set, the two plots are very similar. The bound on $`w_Q`$ found in Ref. Bean:2001xy  is $`1w<0.73`$, very similar to the constraint found in the present analysis when the constraint $`w_Q1`$ is imposed.

This shows both that our constrained analysis is consistent with Ref. Bean:2001xy  and that this previous analysis of $`w_Q`$ is not seriously biased.

The next very important point of our analysis is that one obtains a non-trivial lower bound on $`w_Q`$ from the combination of CMB, LSS and SN data. From SN data alone we can infer that $`w_Q12`$ is ruled out at the 68.3 % confidence level, but combining this with CMB and LSS data tightens the bound significantly to $`w_Q>2.68`$ at 95.4 % confidence. It is also very interesting and perhaps somewhat suggestive that a cosmological constant lies in the 68.3 % confidence allowed region.

### III.2 Constraints from future data

The ability to constrain the equation of state parameter $`w_Q`$ of a dark energy component using future CMB and Type Ia SN data have been recently investigated by a number of authors, see, e.g., goliath  and references therein. Our analysis differ in the respect that we do not impose the constraint $`w_Q1`$ and that we use the most current anticipated data sets.

CMB data set —For CMB we use simulated data from the Planck Surveyor satellite. For simplicity we use only data from the HFI 100 GHz channel, assuming an angular resolution of 10.7 arcmin and a pixel noise of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T=1.7\times 10^6`$ Planck . This channel is not polarization sensitive and so our assumed data set seems conservative compared to what can be expected from the full Planck data. On the other hand we do not include foregrounds in our analysis. The simulated data is generated from an underlying flat model with the following parameters: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`w_Q=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.02`$, $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, $`n=1.0`$, and $`\tau =0`$.

SN data set — We use simulated data sets corresponding to three year’s data from the proposed satellite telescope the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP; snap ) and the predicted results from the Supernova Factory Campaign (SNfactory; snfac ) scheduled to start in the end of 2002.

The SNAP satellite would be capable of discovering and taking spectra of $`2800`$ Type SNe per year for redshifts $`z<1.7`$. The current projected redshift distribution follows the distribution in the SNAP proposal snap  for $`z<1`$ and is approximately uniform at higher redshifts linder . The SNfactory data set consists of 200 SNe between $`0.03<z<0.06`$ and 100 SNe between $`0.06<z<0.15`$. The simulated data is generated for the same underlying model as for the CMB simulations.

In Fig. 6 we show a likelihood analysis based on the simulated CMB and Type Ia SN data. It is clear that again the data will complement each other, the CMB data being very sensitive to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and the SNIa data to $`w_Q`$. From the combined data set we estimate that it is possible to obtain a 95.4% confidence interval on $`w_Q`$ of roughly 0.05 relative precision in the two parameters. In this note we have neglected the possible use of multiple imaged core-collapse SNe to constrain $`w_Q`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, see Ref. multisne .

It is important to note that the confidence regions presented only take into account statistical uncertainties. For future Type Ia SN data sets, systematic errors from, e.g., dust obscuration, luminosity evolution and gravitational lensing might be comparable to or even larger than the statistical errors. In Fig. 7 the confidence regions corresponding to the middle panel of Fig. 6 is shown if lensing effects from 90 % NFW dark matter halos and 10 % point masses are included in the simulated data set (generated with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ and $`w_Q=1`$). It is obvious that gravitational lensing, if not taken into account, will cause an underestimation of the matter density and in order to reach the full potential of the large statistics, we need to to correct for the effect, e.g., as described in amanullah . For the CMB data there may also be systematic errors of a magnitude comparable to the purely statistical ones.

However, if the systematic errors can be controlled in an effective matter, we conclude that it should be possible to constrain the equation of state parameter $`w_Q`$ of the dark energy to high accuracy using future CMB and SN data sets.

###### Acknowledgements.

We wish to thank A. Melchiorri for valuable discussions during the initial stages of the project.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1  Introduction

This is a letter of intent to build a new high intensity neutrino beam at BNL in two phases. The first phase will involve AGS upgrades consisting of an addition to the present LINAC to yield a total LINAC energy of 400 M$`e\text{V}`$, and an accumulator ring with permanent magnets mounted in the AGS tunnel. This will allow injection into the AGS at 2.5 G$`e\text{V}`$and an AGS cycle time of 1 Hz. At 28 G$`e\text{V}`$, the intensity should be $`1.2\times 10^{14}`$ protons per pulse and the power 0.53 MW. The second phase will require new power supplies for the AGS and booster magnets for rapid cycling, an RF upgrade, and additional shielding; these will produce an AGS cycle time of 2.5 Hz and 1.3 MW power. The new intense proton beam will be used to produce a conventional horn focussed neutrino beam directed at the far detectors. We propose to send the beam to two different distances: the very long distance of 2540 km (2880 km) to the Homestake (WIPP)  laboratory, and a much shorter distance of 400 km to a new detector location in upstate New York.

It is now well known that the strongest evidence for neutrino oscillations so far comes from astrophysical observations of atmospheric neutrinos with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2=(1.64.0)\times 10^3e\text{V}^2`$ and maximal mixing  and from solar neutrinos with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2(210)\times 10^5e\text{V}^2`$ and the LMA solution for solar neutrinos . The observation by the LSND experiment  will soon be re-tested at Fermilab by the mini-Boone  experiment, therefore we will not discuss it further in this document. There are several accelerator based experiments (K2K, MINOS, and CNGS)  currently in construction phase or taking data to confirm the atmospheric neutrino signatures for oscillations. There is now a consensus that there are four main goals in the field of neutrino oscillations that should be addressed soon with accelerator neutrino beams:

1. Precise determination of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ and definitive observation of oscillatory behavior.
2. Detection of $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ in the appearance mode. If the measured $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ for this measurement is near $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ then this appearance signal will show that $`\left|U_{e3}\right|^2(=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13})`$ from the neutrino mixing matrix in the standard parameterization is non-zero.
3. Detection of the matter enhancement effect in $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ in the appearance mode. This effect will also allow us to measure the sign of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$; i.e. which neutrino is heavier.
4. Detection of CP violation in neutrino physics. The neutrino CP-violation in Standard Model neutrino physics comes from the phase multiplying $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{13}`$ in the mixing matrix. This can be detected by observing an asymmetry in the oscillation rates $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ versus $`\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e`$.

In the following we will briefly describe how all of these goals can be achieved under reasonable assumptions for the various parameters using the new intense AGS based beam and the long and very long baselines.

In the first section of this letter of intent we describe the physics purpose of the new beam sent along the baseline of 2540 km (results for 2880 km are similar). The second section describes the physics case for the shorter distance of 400 km. The third section briefly discusses the design and construction of the AGS upgrades. And the last section describes the construction of the new neutrino beam.

## 2 Very Long Baseline Experiment

The calculated energy distributions of a $`\nu _\mu `$ beam produced by 28 G$`e\text{V}`$ protons is shown in Fig. 1 . The $`0^{}`$ calculation has been shown consistent with neutrino beam data . The spectrum peaks at about 1 G$`e\text{V}`$ with a total spread at half intensity of about 1 G$`e\text{V}`$. Further work on the optimization of this spectrum for the very long baseline experiment is on going. We calculate the event rate without oscillations assuming a 0.5 MW proton beam power with 28 G$`e\text{V}`$ protons ($`1.1\times 10^{14}`$ ppp), a 0.5 MT fiducial mass detector and 5 years of running. Because the AGS can run in a parasitic mode to RHIC we expect to get beam for as much as $`1.8\times 10^7`$ sec per year. However, we conservatively assume only $`1.0\times 10^7`$ sec of AGS running per year here. Using these parameters and the relevant cross section, we calculate that the number of quasi-elastic charged current muon neutrino events in a detector located at 2540 km will be $`5700`$ in five years running. The number of neutrino events of all types will be approximately twice this number. This large statistics combined with the long baseline makes many of the following important measurements possible.

The angular distribution of the muons from the quasi-elastic process $`\nu _\mu +n\mu ^{}+p`$ produced by the $`0^o`$ beam in Fig. 1 are shown in Fig. 2; the principal background, $`\nu _\mu +n\mu ^{}+p+\pi `$ is also shown . A variety of strategies are possible to reduce this background further in a water Cerenkov detector. Knowing the direction of an incident $`\nu _\mu `$ accurately and measuring the angle of the observed muon allows the energy of the $`\nu _\mu `$ to be calculated, up to Fermi momentum effects. This method is used by the currently running K2K experiment . The known capability of large water Cerenkov detectors indicates that at energies lower than 1 G$`e\text{V}`$ the $`\nu _\mu `$ energy resolution will be dominated by Fermi motion and nuclear effects. The contribution to the resolution from water Cerenkov track reconstruction depends on the photo-multiplier tube coverage. With coverage greater than $``$ 10%, we expect that the reconstruction resolution should be adequate for our purposes. In the following discussion we assume a 10% resolution on the $`\nu _\mu `$ energy. This is consistent with the resolution achieved by the K2K experiment.

The range of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^21.24\frac{E_\nu \text{[G}e\text{V}\text{]}}{L\text{[km]}}`$ covered by the proposed experiment using the beam in Fig. 1 extends to the low value of about $`5\times 10^4e\text{V}^2`$. The lower end of this extensive range of values is considerably below the corresponding values for other long baseline terrestrial experiments . If the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ turns out to be towards the lower end ($`10^3`$) of its current range or if the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2`$ turns out to be towards its high end ($``$ $`10^4e\text{V}^2`$) then large and very interesting interference effects in the very long baseline experiment will be possible.

Extra-long neutrino flight paths open the possibility of observing multiple nodes (minimum intensity points) of the neutrino oscillation probability in the disappearance experiment. Observation of one such pattern will for the first time directly demonstrate the oscillatory nature of the flavor changing phenomenon. The nodes occur at distances $`L_n=1.24(2n1)E_\nu /\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$, $`n=1,2,3,`$ …. In Fig. 3, as an example, we show the flight path $`L`$ versus $`E_\nu `$ relationship of the nodes for $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=0.003\mathrm{e}\text{V}^2`$, a value close to the value measured in atmospheric neutrino experiments . An advantage of having a very long baseline is that the multiple node pattern is detectable over a broad range of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$. This is demonstrated in figures 4 and 5 which shows the disappearance of muon type neutrino events as a function of neutrino energy in quasi-elastic events; the plots do not contain background. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ as small as 0.001 $`e\text{V}^2`$ the oscillation effects will be very large. Even in the presence of background we expect that the statistical error on $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ will be small ($``$ 0.5 %) and the systematic error from the energy scale of the detector will dominate the total error.

The oscillation of $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ is discussed is several recent papers . This oscillation in vacuum is described fully by the following equation:

$`P(\nu _\mu \nu _e)`$ $`=`$ $`4(s_2^2s_3^2c_3^2+J_{CP}\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }_{21})\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{31}}{2}}`$
$`+2(s_1s_2s_3c_1c_2c_3^2\mathrm{cos}\delta s_1^2s_2^2s_3^2c_3^2)\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }_{31}\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}`$
$`+4(s_1^2c_1^2c_2^2c_3^2+s_1^4s_2^2s_3^2c_3^22s_1^3s_2s_3c_1c_2c_3^2\mathrm{cos}\delta J_{CP}\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Delta }_{31})\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}}{2}}`$
$`+8(s_1s_2s_3c_1c_2c_3^2\mathrm{cos}\delta s_1^2s_2^2s_3^2c_3^2)\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{31}}{2}}\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}}{2}}`$
where

$$J_{CP}s_1s_2s_3c_1c_2c_3^2\mathrm{sin}\delta $$
(2)
$`J_{CP}`$ is an invariant that quantifies CP violation in the neutrino sector. The formula for $`P(\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e)`$ is the same as above except that the $`J_{CP}`$ terms have opposite sign. Please see attached appendix (hep-ph/0108181) for definitions of symbols but note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{31}`$ is the atmospheric term and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}`$ is the solar term. The vacuum oscillations for a baseline of 2540 km are illustrated in Fig. 6 as a function of energy for both muon and anti-muon neutrinos. The main feature of the oscillation is due to the term linear in $`\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{31}}{2}`$. The oscillation probability rises for lower energies due to the terms linear in $`\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}}{2}`$. The interference terms involve CP violation and they create an asymmetry between neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. The vacuum oscillation formula (Eq.2) and Fig. 6 show that the CP asymmetry also grows as $`1/E`$ in the 0.5-3.0 G$`e\text{V}`$ region. Because of this effect it is argued that the figure of merit for measuring CP violation is independent of the baseline. For very long baselines the statistics for a given size detector at a given energy are poorer by one over the square of the distance, but the CP asymmetry grows linearly in distance .

The vacuum oscillation formulation must be modified to include the effect of matter . The $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ probability in the presence of matter is shown in Figs. 7 and 8. When compared to Fig. 6 we can see that matter will enhance (suppress) neutrino (anti-neutrino) conversion at high energies and will also lower (increase) the energy at which the oscillation maximum occurs. The effect is opposite (enhancement for anti-neutrinos and suppression for neutrinos) if the sign of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ is negative. The matter enhancement effect in neutrino oscillations has been postulated for a long time without experimental confirmation . Detection of such an effect by measuring a large asymmetry between neutrino and anti-neutrino oscillations or by measuring the spectrum of electron neutrinos is a major goal for neutrino physics. This measurement will also yield the sign of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$.

Figures 9, 10 and 11 show the spectrum of electron type neutrinos that will be detected at 2540 km. The signal for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.04`$ will be about 100 events. The background for this signal will come from the intrinsic contamination of $`\nu _e`$ particles in the beam as well as neutral current events producing $`\pi ^0`$s. This background will be examined in detail in a future update to this proposal. From past experience using this beam, we expect that the total background in the signal region can be reduced to about 0.5% of the charged current muon neutrino events. The advantages of the very long baseline are in obtaining a large enhancement at higher energies and creating a nodal pattern in the appearance spectrum. Both of these can be used to further improve the sensitivity of the experiment. The very long baseline experiment has a great advantage if $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{21}^2`$ is found to be somewhat larger within its allowed range $`(210)\times 10^5e\text{V}^2`$. This is shown in Fig. 11. The differences in the electron neutrino spectra are striking within Figs. 9 and 10,11.

To understand CP violation, the effect of matter enhancement must be clearly understood and subtracted from any observation. If CP violation is large and the signal to $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ is also large then it is possible to measure CP violation with just the ($`\nu _\mu `$) neutrino beam. As shown in Fig. 6 the effects of CP violation grow linearly as energy is decreased (or the baseline increased). For a very long baseline experiment it is possible to compare the signal strength in the $`\pi /2`$ node versus the $`3\pi /2`$ or higher nodes. Such a comparison will yield a measurement of CP violation. Any such measurement of CP must be augmented by data using a muon anti-neutrino beam. Such a program of measurements will require large statistics. This proposal has the flexibility to obtain much larger data sets because the detector will eventually be upgraded to its final configuration with 1 MT of mass and the AGS accelerator complex can be upgraded up to 2.5 MW of beam power. It is also possible that the conventional neutrino beam which we propose here will be replaced by a neutrino factory based on a muon storage ring .

### 2.1 Detectors for the very long baseline experiment

The conversion of Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota, into the National Underground Science Laboratory (NUSL), tentatively to take place in 2002, will provide a unique opportunity for a program of extra-long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. As explained above these will be possible because of the length of the baseline, 2540 km from the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) to Lead, South Dakota. It is proposed that the NUSL facility will accommodate an array of detectors with total mass approaching 1 Megaton. Most of these will be water Cerenkov detectors that can observe neutrino interactions in the desired energy range with sufficient energy and time resolution .

An alternative to Homestake also exists at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) located in an ancient salt bed at a depth of $`700m`$ near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The distance from BNL to WIPP is about 2880 km. The cosmic ray background will be higher at WIPP because the facility is not as deep as Homestake which has levels as deep as $`2500m`$. The increased background, although undesirable, is not an insurmountable problem. However, the mechanical design of a large cavity in a salt bed has to be very different because of the slow movement of salt that causes a cavity to slowly collapse in a salt mine. In this LOI we will not address the detailed issues of detector design and cost. A more detailed study of a very large water Cerenkov detector has been done by the UNO collaboration .

Currently, a study is in progress to site the LANNDD, 70 KT liquid Argon detector at WIPP . The key issue at this stage is one of safety and a proposal to the DOE to study this is in preparation. In Figure 12, we show the LANNDD detector in a possible underground location at WIPP. One advantage of the WIPP site is that, it is owned by the DOE and now has a program of underground science. We note that the recent Neutrino Factory Study  at BNL identified the WIPP site as one possible location for a far detector, and the current BNL neutrino beam could use the same concept. The LANNDD detector can be used for neutrino physics, as well as the search for proton decay and other astro-particle physics goals. Currently, the ICARUS detector at the Gran Sasso is being constructed with a 3KT detector as a goal. The operation of this detector will provide key information for the eventual construction of LANNDD and for the neutrino physics identified in this LOI.

## 3 Long Baseline Experiment

A dedicated experiment to detect $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ appearance signature in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$ region of 0.003 $`e\text{V}^2`$ needs to have low background from the intrinsic $`\nu _e`$ contamination as well as neutral current events that produce $`\pi ^0`$s which can mimic the $`\nu _e`$ QE CC signature. This can be achieved by placing a fine grained detector 1.5 degrees off-axis from the BNL neutrino beam. As originally pointed out by the E889 collaboration  at angles larger than the divergence of the pion beam the neutrino spectrum is almost independent of the pion energy and has a narrow spectrum peaking at 1 G$`e\text{V}`$ (See Fig. 1). If the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2=0.003e\text{V}^2`$ is known with good precision then the detector could be placed at 412 km which is at the point of the first maximum for oscillations. This is shown in figure 13. At this distance and energy the effect of matter enhancement is small and a very sensitive experiment for $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ appearance could be performed with a high resolution fine grained detector such as a liquid argon time projection chamber, with maximum performance achieved if the detector is immersed in a $``$ 1/2 T magnetic field .

We calculate the number of events in a 1.5 degree off-axis beam in a 10 kT liquid Argon detector assuming 0.5 MW of beam power and 5 years of running. In the absence of oscillations there will be about 2000 quasi-elastic muon neutrino events. The total number of events including neutral current events will be about 1.5 times this number. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2=0.003e\text{V}^2`$ the number of muon quasi-elastic events will drop to only $``$200. If $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}=0.01`$ then the number of electron neutrino quasi-elastic events will be about 40. The background from the electron neutrino contamination in the beam and the neutral current $`\pi ^0`$ will be spread widely in energy, but the signal of 40 events will be in the peak of the neutrino spectrum. The high energy resolution of the liquid Argon detector as well as the granularity should make it possible to reduce the neutral current background to a negligible level . The intrinsic electron neutrino background in the AGS neutrino beam is known to be at 0.5 % level .

The viability of a large liquid argon detector is presently being demonstrated by the ICARUS collaboration  in cosmic-ray tests of a 300-ton module located on the Earth’s surface. Fig. 14 shows an example of the detailed tracking information obtainable with this technology.

A magnetized liquid argon detector would give the maximal discrimination against backgrounds in a neutrino beam, would enhance the ability to perform CP violation experiments, and would permit use of a beam produced by a solenoid focussing scheme  that contains both neutrinos and antineutrinos. An R&D experiment is proposed to use a prototype liquid argon detector in a magnetic field to determine the sign of electrons via analysis of their electromagnetic showers up to several G$`e\text{V}`$ .

## 4 AGS Upgrade

The preliminary design of the AGS upgrades and the new neutrino beam has been produced by the AGS department to reach an AGS power of 0.53 MW in its first phase and 1.3 MW in the second phase . In the first phase the LINAC will be improved to inject protons to the booster at 400 M$`e\text{V}`$ (at present it is 200 M$`e\text{V}`$), and the booster energy increased to 2.5 G$`e\text{V}`$ from 1.8 G$`e\text{V}`$. The addition of a fixed field accumulator storage ring between the booster and the AGS main ring will increase the AGS input beam from the present 4 booster pulses per AGS acceleration to 6 booster pulses per AGS acceleration and, at the same time, increase the AGS frequency from 0.6 Hz to 1.0 Hz. The AGS power increase would be from 0.14 to 0.53 MW. Figures 15 to 17 show the proposed additions. The new accumulator will be in the same tunnel as the AGS. Figure 18 shows the present and proposed AGS injection modes. The AGS intensity upgrades and parameters are shown in Table 1. The location of the accumulator ring in the AGS tunnel is shown in Figs. 16 and 17 and the accumulator parameters given in Table 2. The fixed field magnets of the accumulator ring will be essentially copies of the magnets produced for a similar purpose at Fermilab . In the second phase of the upgrades the AGS repetition rate will be increased to 2.5 Hz to reach a total beam power of 1.3 MW.

The tentative cost estimates for the various upgrades and improvements are shown in Table 3, separated into two relatively independent phases of roughly equal cost. It is possible to rearrange the order in which the improvements are made. A partial study of the options is shown in Table 1. Three options are shown:

1. only the LINAC is improved,
2. only the accumulator is added,
3. both are done.

Some AGS and booster power supply upgrades are assumed along with the accumulator. A detailed study of space charge, intensity, injection energies, rep rate, power and cost needs to be made to make a much more specific proposal for this upgrade. This would come about with approval of the present letter of intent.

## 5 Neutrino Beam Design

The geographic location of BNL on one side of the continent allows us to send beams to a variety of distances including very long baselines of 2000 km or more. This is shown in Fig. 19. The distances from BNL to Lansing NY, Soudan MN, Lead SD(Homestake), and WIPP in NM are 350, 1770, 2540, and 2880 km, respectively. The respective dip angles are 1.7, 7.9, 11.5, and 13.0 degrees. The difficulty of building the beam and the cost increases with the dip angle.

For the purposes of this LOI we use the design for a conventional wide band horn focussed neutrino beam similar to that used in previous experiments at BNL such as E734 (Fig.20). The design shown uses a water cooled copper target. For much higher intensities this target will have to be redesigned. It is very likely that we can adapt the graphite target design used for NuMI at FNAL. We also need to modify the horn focussing to make a wider band beam to increase the neutrino flux in the 4 G$`e\text{V}`$ region. There are a number of ways to optimize the horn design; we will not discuss them here.

Our preliminary design for a beam to Homestake is shown in figures 21 and 22. This can be adapted to any far location in the western direction. Our design addresses a number of issues. At BNL we are constrained to keep the beam line above the water table which is at a shallow depth ($``$ 20 m) on Long Island. Therefore the beam has to be constructed on a hill that is built with the appropriate 11.5 degree slope. Fortunately, it is relatively easy, and inexpensive to build such hills on Long Island because of the flat, sandy geology. It is important to keep the height of the hill low so that the costs are not dominated by the construction of the hill. The proton beam must be elevated to a target station on top of the hill. The cost of the hill can be lowered by bending the proton beam upwards as quickly as possible. We have, however, used the design and bend angle used for the RHIC injection lines for our design because the RHIC injection lines have well known costs.

The new proposed fast extracted proton beam line in the U-line tunnel will be a spur off the line feeding RHIC. It will turn almost due west, a few hundred meters before the horn-target building. In addition to its 90 degree bend, the extracted proton beam will be bent upward through 13.76 degrees to strike the proton target. The downward 11.30 degree angle of the 667.8 ft meson decay region will then be aimed at the 2500 meter level of the Homestake Laboratory. This will require the construction of a 39 meter hill to support the target-horn building, so as to avoid any penetration of the water table. At its midpoint (about Lake Michigan) the center of the neutrino beam will be roughly 120 km below the Earth’s surface.

For a shorter baseline to Lansing NY in approximately the same direction as Homestake, we would not have to build the hill, which would lower the cost by a considerable amount. We are considering a number of strategies for combining the proton transport and the target station for the two different baselines.

A preliminary estimate of the cost without any of the customary burdens is shown in table 4. The costs are based on the the RHIC injector work, as well as the E889 proposal and the neutrino factory study. The conventional construction costs are dominated by the size of the hill which is approximately proportional to the third power of the decay tunnel length. In our cost estimate we assume that we will bury the beam dump underground to reduce the height of the hill. It is assumed that the target station shielding can be retrieved from existing resources. We have also estimated the cost assuming 200 m and 150 m long decay tunnels. The spectra shown in Fig. 1 are based on a 200 m long tunnel. A shorter tunnel could reduce the intensity at higher energies because of the longer flight paths of parent pions. We will study this optimization further in future updates of this proposal.

## 6  Conclusion

We have outlined the neutrino physics program for an intense new neutrino beam from the Brookhaven AGS. The four goals of accelerator neutrino physics: precise determination of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{32}^2`$, detection of $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ appearance, measurement of the matter effect, and detection of CP asymmetries in the neutrino section are all possible for the proposed complex for reasonable values of the oscillation and mixing parameters, some of which are not yet known. Further surprises in neutrino physics should not be discounted, therefore any new facility must have sufficient flexibility to address new challenges. Our proposal allows such flexibility because of the possibility to mount both very long (over 2500 km) and intermediate (400 km) baseline experiments with beam intensity that can be increased in stages.

The AGS complex is unique because it can be upgraded simply by increasing the repetition rate of the machine. This ability allows us the flexibility to continuously upgrade the facility to as much as 2.5 MW . In this proposal we have examined upgrades up to 1.3 MW. The estimated cost of the first phase of the AGS upgrades to reach 0.53 MW, plus the new neutrino beam directed to Homestake is approximately $100M. With a 30 percent contingency, the total cost is $130M. It is probable that the first three modules of the detector array will be produced in about five years, so that construction of the AGS upgrades and neutrino beam would be planned for that period and involve an average expenditure of approximately $30M/yr. For a detector at intermediate baseline the costs will be less. The total yearly cost to the AGS department to provide protons for and maintain the neutrino beam would be about $9M, approximately equal to the operations expense at present for HEP experiments. Neither the duration of the construction period nor the anticipated cost of the improvements to the BNL AGS complex is large in relation to plans and expenditures now usual for major apparatus in high energy and elementary particle physics. Moreover, the improvements to the AGS and the new beam line will be available for carefully chosen other physics (for example, rare muon and kaon decays as well as muon EDM measurements) in addition to providing important advances in our understanding of this exciting new frontier of elementary particle physics.


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# Single Photons on Pseudo-Demand from Stored Parametric Down-Conversion

## I Introduction

It is widely recognized that a reliable source of single photons on demand is required for the realization of a variety of quantum information processing applications . In the ideal case, such a source is often envisioned as a system capable of emitting a single photon at the push of a button, with spectral and temporal properties engineered in such a way  that it can be used to demonstrate higher-order interference effects with photons emitted from other independent sources . Here we describe an alternative single-photon source for applications of this kind in which a single photon can be switched out of a storage loop at periodic time intervals. Since these time intervals can be chosen to match the cycle time of a quantum computer, a pseudo-demand source of this kind would be just as effective as a source in which the photon can be produced at arbitrary times.

Because of the interest in single-photon sources on both a basic physics and application-driven level, searches for a practical system have been widespread. A partial list of candidate systems includes the use of single atoms , ions , molecules \[8-11\] , and quantum dots \[12-19\] , as well as Coulomb-blockades , diamond color-centers , microwave cavities , quantum interference systems , and surface acoustic wave devices . Strong evidence of photon antibunching has already been demonstrated in many of these systems, and several of them are rapidly being engineered towards the ideal of a “push-button” single-photon source.

In contrast to most of these sources of single photons, spontaneous parametric down-conversion is a very convenient source of pairs of photons . Because down-conversion is a coherent process subject to phase-matching conditions , the photons of a chosen pair are known to be emitted in well-defined directions with respect to one another. This aspect of down-conversion has been extremely useful for the generation of heralded single photons, in that the detection of one photon of a pair signals the presence and direction of the other photon with certainty . Nonetheless, down-conversion has not yet been used as a source of single-photons on demand because the pairs are essentially emitted at random times . Although the use of pulsed-pump down-conversion restricts the possible pair emission time to known intervals, the actual interval at which the pair will be emitted still cannot be chosen on demand.

A potential solution to this problem is illustrated in Figure 1. A pair of photons is emitted by a parametric down-conversion source (PDC) pumped by a train of short pulses from, for example, a femtosecond mode-locked laser. The pair can therefore only be emitted at one of the well-defined times defined by the repetition rate of the pulsed laser, but the specific pulse which actually produces the pair can not be chosen in advance. Once a pair has been emitted, the detection of one of the photons is used to activate a high-speed electro-optic switch that re-routes the other photon into a storage loop. The stored photon is then known to be circulating in the loop and can be switched out at a later time chosen by the user, providing a source of single-photons on pseudo-demand.

In this paper, we report a proof-of-principle down-conversion experiment demonstrating a single-photon source of this kind. The current version of the experiment utilized a continuous-wave pumping laser, but an extension of the apparatus to a conventional pulsed-pump down-conversion source should be straightforward.

The remainder of the paper is outlined as follows: In section II we describe the details of the down-conversion experiment, which involved a 4 meter free-space storage loop along with a fiber optic delay line and high-speed Pockels cell to implement the real-time electro-optic switch. In section III we present results which clearly demonstrate the desired switch-out of single-photons after a user-chosen number of round trips through the loop. The possibility of a practical photonic qubit memory device based on the use of this type of storage loop  is discussed in section IV. In addition, we discuss the near-term benefits of this source within the context of efficient linear optics quantum computation , focussing on the use of a master pulsed laser to increase the synchronization of several sources and to overcome the problems associated with false-triggering events. A brief summary is provided in section V.

## II Experiment

### II.1 Switching and Timing

Our implementation of a high-speed electro-optic switch and storage loop is outlined in Figure 2. The switch is comprised of a polarizing beamsplitter (PBS), which reflects vertically polarized photons and transmits horizontally polarized photons, and a Pockels cell (PC) that is used to rotate the polarization of the stored photon. The Pockels cell is configured in such a way that it will not affect the stored photon’s polarization unless it is turned “on” by a classical pulse from the user. When it is turned on, the Pockels cell will rotate the polarization of the stored photon by $`90^o`$.

Photons $`a`$ and $`b`$ of a down-conversion pair are incident from the left, and classical information describing the detection time of photon $`a`$ by detector $`D_a`$ is sent forward to the user. Since the two photons of a pair are created at the same time, the user knows that photon $`b`$ is entering the storage loop after a fixed initial delay $`\tau _i`$. Because photon $`b`$ is vertically polarized, it is reflected into the storage loop by the PBS, and would simply be reflected out of the loop and into the output mode after one round-trip if the Pockels cell were left “off”.

In order to store photon $`b`$ in the loop, the user sends a short classical pulse $`p_1`$ to the Pockels cell so that it is turned “on” only during the first pass of photon $`b`$. The polarization of photon $`b`$ is therefore rotated from vertical to horizontal, causing it to be transmitted by the PBS and into the storage loop for a second round-trip. Because the Pockels cell is turned “off” during the second and subsequent round-trips, photon $`b`$ remains horizontally polarized and continues to circulate around the storage loop.

The user can then choose when to switch out the stored photon by sending a second classical pulse, $`p_2`$. The leading edge of $`p_2`$ is timed so that the Pockels cell rotates the polarization of photon $`b`$ from horizontal back to vertical after a chosen number $`n`$ of round trips. In this way photon $`b`$ is reflected out of the storage loop by the PBS and into the output mode on command.

Based on this principle of operation, it is clear that the round-trip time $`\tau _s`$ through the storage loop must be greater than the rise-time of the Pockels cell. As is shown in Figure 3, the rise-time of the Pockels cell used in our experiment (ConOptics Inc. Model 360-80/D25) was measured to be roughly 10 ns, which dictated a minimum free-space storage loop length of just over 3 m. We therefore constructed a 4 m storage loop, which allowed the stored photons to be switched out at chosen intervals every 13.3 ns.

The initial delay $`\tau _i`$ shown in Figure 2 is not part of the switching and storage loop, but was simply needed to account for the time required by the user to process the classical detection signal from $`D_a`$ and send the pulse $`p_1`$ to activate the Pockels cell. As will be described in the next subsection, $`\tau _i`$ was on the order of 500 ns in our experiment.

### II.2 Experimental Design

A schematic of the actual experiment is shown in Figure 4. The set-up was a modification of our earlier experiment on feed-forward control for linear optics quantum computation, and additional technical details can be found in reference . The down-conversion photon pair source consisted of a 1.0 mm thick BBO crystal pumped by roughly 30 mW of the 351.1 nm line of a continuous-wave Argon-Ion laser. The BBO crystal was cut for degenerate Type-II collinear phase matching and produced pairs of co-propagating, but orthogonally polarized photons at 702.2 nm . The orthogonally polarized photons $`a`$ and $`b`$ of a given pair were separated using the auxiliary polarizing beamsplitter shown on the left side of Figure 4.

The trigger photon $`a`$ passed through a 10 nm FWHM bandwidth filter, $`f`$, centered at 700 nm and was detected by $`D_a`$, a Perkin Elmer model SPCM-AQR-12 single-photon counting avalanche photo-diode. The TTL output pulse of $`D_a`$ was then sent to two independent Canberra model 410A electronic gate-and-delay generators (GD1 and GD2), which provided the TTL pulses $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ described within the context of Figure 2. The use of the two gate-and-delay generators allowed precise and simple control of the timing of the $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ pulses sent to the Pockels cell driver. Note that a TTL OR gate was used so that either $`p_1`$ or $`p_2`$ could be used to turn “on” the Pockels cell, as required. The minimum duration of $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ in this configuration was 100 ns, which was significantly longer than the round-trip time through the 4 m storage loop. The timing of $`p_1`$ was therefore adjusted so that the Pockels cell transition between “on” and “off” would occur immediately after the first pass of photon $`b`$. In a similar manner, the timing of $`p_2`$ was adjusted so that the transition from “off” back to “on” would occur just before the arrival of photon $`b`$ during its final pass through the Pockels cell. As will be seen below, the timing of $`p_1`$ was therefore set to a fixed value relative to a detection event at $`D_a`$, while the timing of $`p_2`$ was set to several different values to demonstrate the ability to switch out the stored photon on command after a chosen number of round trips.

Before entering the storage loop, it was necessary to delay photon $`b`$ to account for the time required to process the detection of photon $`a`$ and turn on the Pockels cell with $`p_1`$. The total required initial delay $`\tau _i`$ was therefore the sum of the operation time of several components. The avalanche photodiode $`D_a`$ required 18 ns to produce the leading edge of its TTL output pulse . Furthermore, the gate and delay generators were configured with a dead time of 200 ns, so that the production of the trailing edge of $`p_1`$ actually required 300 ns. In addition, the TTL OR gate imposed 18 ns of delay, and the time required by the Pockels cell driver amplifiers was roughly 38 ns . Various coaxial cables used to connect these devices imparted an additional 60 ns of delay. Therefore, photon $`b`$ had to be delayed by at least 434 ns. As shown in Figure 4, this was accomplished by launching photon $`b`$ into a 120 m fiber optic delay line (3M brand FS-3224 single mode fiber) which provided over 500 ns of delay. Photon $`b`$ was launched into and out of the fiber delay line by fiber couplers (fc) comprised of suitable microscope objectives mounted on microtranslation stages. A standard fiber polarization controller (fpc) was used to negate the effects of birefringence induced by the fiber.

After emerging from the fiber delay line, the vertically polarized photon $`b`$ was steered by two mirrors into the main polarizing beamsplitter and reflected into a 4 m free-space storage loop formed by a right angle prism (pr) and mirrors $`m_1`$ through $`m_4`$. The Pockels cell was placed inside the storage loop with its fast and slow axes rotated $`45^o`$ from the vertical direction. When we refer to the Pockels cell as being turned “off”, it was actually DC biased in such a way that it would cause no rotation of any polarization state of photon $`b`$. When triggered by $`p_1`$ or $`p_2`$, the digital Pockels cell driver would turn “on” the Pockels cell by applying the measured half wave voltage (roughly 115 V at 702.2 nm). At these switching times, the Pockels cell would rotate the polarization of photon $`b`$ by $`90^o`$ as described in section II.1. An additional half-wave plate ($`\frac{\lambda }{2}`$) was placed before the Pockels cell. The waveplate was nominally oriented so that it did not rotate the polarization, but it could be re-oriented for various diagnostic tests.

In order to minimize beam divergence and maximize the total number of possible round trips, two 1 m focal-length lenses were used inside the storage loop. Note that one of the lenses and the right angle prism (pr) were mounted on longitudinal translation stages. In this way, an unfolded version of the storage loop can be viewed as a Gaussian transmission line  that could be optimized by their relative positions. The degree of collimation produced by the output coupler (fc) of the fiber delay line was then adjusted in an attempt to mode-match the beam into the storage loop. The alignment and focussing of this set-up was accomplished by coupling bright light at 694 nm from a laser diode into the fiber delay line.

After the desired number of round trips, photon $`b`$ was switched out of the storage loop and into the output mode, where it was detected by a second single-photon avalanche photodiode, $`D_b`$. The output of $`D_b`$, as well as an additional GD1 output signalling a $`D_a`$ event, were sent to a conventional coincidence counting circuit which, in practice, was used to record the time of arrival of the stored photon $`b`$ at $`D_b`$ relative to the time of arrival of the trigger photon $`a`$ at $`D_a`$. An accumulated histogram of the number of coincidence counts as a function of this relative time difference would therefore show a series of possible peaks separated by multiples of the 13.3 ns round-trip time of the 4 m storage loop.

## III Results

Figures 5 and 6 summarize the results of our proof-of-principle demonstration of a source of single-photons on pseudo-demand from stored parametric down-conversion. Figure 5 shows a histogram of the number of coincidence detections as a function of the arrival time of photon $`b`$ at $`D_b`$ relative to the arrival time of photon $`a`$ at $`D_a`$. For this data, the Pockels cell driver was intentionally disconnected, and the half-wave plate inside the storage loop of Figure 4 was set with its fast axis rotated by $`22.5^o`$ with respect to the vertical direction.

Upon being reflected into the storage loop by the main polarizing beamsplitter, photon $`b`$’s vertical polarization state was therefore rotated by $`45^o`$ (In this case the Pockels cell would do nothing but apply an overall irrelevant phase-shift for any applied voltage). After 1 round trip through the storage loop, the $`45^o`$ polarized photon $`b`$ therefore had a 50% chance of being reflected out of the loop by the polarizing beamsplitter, and a 50% chance of being transmitted back into the loop for a second round trip. The transmitted amplitude, which was horizontally polarized, was once again rotated to $`45^o`$ by the half-wave plate, and the cycle repeated indefinitely.

The accumulated peaks shown in Figure 5 therefore provide an excellent diagnostic tool for testing the quality of the storage loop and measuring the magnitude of any detrimental loop losses. If the loop were perfectly aligned and had no optical losses, we would expect to see a coincidence count histogram that decays as $`(\frac{1}{2})^n`$, where $`n`$ is the number of round trips after the first pass through the loop. This ideal case is represented by the dashed line in Figure 5. The data was better fit by a decay curve that went as $`(\frac{1}{2.7})^n`$, indicating a loss of 26% per round trip through the loop. Of this 26% loss, roughly 18% could be attributed to the various reflection and transmission losses from the optics forming the storage loop, with the remaining 8% being due to imperfect alignment and focussing of the Gaussian transmission line. This loop loss was lower than initially expected, and evidence of single photons completing up to twelve round trips through the loop was seen in auxiliary experiments.

The main results of this paper are shown in Figures 6 (a) through (d). The data shows coincidence count histograms analogous to that shown in Figure 5, but with the waveplate set to its nominal position to cause no polarization rotation. In these examples, full user-control of the storage and switch-out of single-photons as described in section II was implemented. Figure 6 (a) shows the accumulated counts when the user decided to switch out the photon on command after 2 round trips, while Figures 6 (b), (c), and (d), respectively show switching out after choosing 3, 4, or 5 round trips.

The integrated area under the peak of interest in each of the successive plots does decay in rough agreement with the 26% loss per round trip deduced from Figure 5. In addition, small undesired peaks due to switching errors can be seen in each of the four plots. We believe that these small switching errors were primarily due to the fact that the photon beam was diverging through the Pockels cell in the storage loop, making it impossible to apply the correct half-wave voltage to the entire wavefront. In any event, the data shown clearly demonstrates the concept of single-photons on pseudo-demand from stored down-conversion.

## IV Discussion

### IV.1 False Triggering and Photon Loss Errors

In the current experiment, the effects of loop losses and switching errors were relatively small compared to the effects of false triggering events and photon loss errors. False triggering events arise from the dark-count noise events of the trigger detector $`D_a`$. These dark counts are indistinguishable from real photon $`a`$ detection events and cause the user to mistakenly think that a photon $`b`$ is stored. Similarly, photon loss errors occur when a real trigger photon $`a`$ is detected but the corresponding photon $`b`$ was lost before even entering the loop. In practice, neither of these errors will represent a major drawback for this type of single-photon source, as described below.

In the present set-up, however, both of these errors were significant. In addition to individual detector dark counts on the order of 200 per second, the single-photon $`a`$ detection rate at detector $`D_a`$ was roughly 3250 counts per second, while the single-photon $`b`$ counting rate at detector $`D_b`$ was only 200 counts per second. Furthermore, the observed coincidence counting rate between the two detectors was only on the order of about 10 per second. Most of this difference between the two detectors’ counting rates was due to the fact that coincidence counting rates here were maximized by fully opening the apertures which defined the path to detector $`D_a`$. Since there was photon $`b`$ loss due to coupling inefficiency into the fiber optic delay line, as well as significant losses at a connection between two fiber patch cords comprising the delay line, this strategy helped ensure that for each successfully launched photon $`b`$, the twin trigger photon $`a`$ would not be lost.

Although no serious efforts were made to reduce these losses and errors in our initial experiments, it should be noted that they do not pose serious problems for a practical use of this type of source. The effects of detector dark counts can essentially be eliminated by the use of femtosecond pulsed down-conversion which allows gating of the sources and detectors. In addition, the problems associated with photon loss errors here are of the same type as those encountered, for example, in the Klyshko absolute detector-calibration scheme . Down-conversion experiments performed along those lines have shown that a near unity ratio of detection rates can be achieved (see, for example, ). Furthermore, new techniques for efficiently coupling down-conversion radiation into optical fibers have recently been demonstrated .

In general, the source needs to be pumped in the conventional regime where the probability of two down-conversion pairs being emitted within the switching time is negligible. Problems associated with low quantum efficiency values of detector $`D_a`$ are not particularly relevant; in principle, an additional switch could be used to prevent untriggered photon $`b`$’s from entering the storage loop.

### IV.2 Prospects for Quantum Memory

The use of “stopped light” in coherently prepared atomic media has been suggested as a possible photonic memory device . Here we consider an alternative memory device  using optical storage loops and switching techniques similar to those demonstrated in this paper.

A quantum memory device must be capable of storing arbitrary qubits, or superposition states. For the case of polarization-encoded qubits, it is clear that the polarizing beamsplitter-based switch demonstrated here would be insufficient. We have previously described a path-encoded qubit scheme for quantum memory based on the use of two phase-locked storage loops of the kind demonstrated here . In that scheme, the qubit values 0 and 1 are represented by two different optical paths, each of which would have its own storage loop and switch.

Despite the encouraging results obtained in our relatively simple storage loop set-up, the main technical problem in the path-encoded qubit memory scheme would be protecting the independent loops from thermally induced phase shifts. A scheme that may be more practical in the near term involves the use of polarization-encoded qubits in a single storage loop, with an interferometric-based electro-optic switch. A project involving an extension of the set-up shown in Figure 4 in this direction is currently underway in our laboratory. Quantum error correction techniques could eventually be used to greatly extend the useful memory storage time of these devices .

### IV.3 Use in Linear Optics Quantum Computation

Although the single-photon source demonstrated here may be useful in a variety of quantum information applications, our primary motivation for this work was within the context of efficient linear optics quantum computation . It has been shown  that near-deterministic quantum logic operations can be performed on photonic qubits using only linear optical elements, additional ancilla photons, and post-selection with feed-forward control  based on the output of single photon detectors, as illustrated in Figure 7.

In addition to the qubits of interest, the input to these linear optics devices includes $`N`$ ancilla photons. A series of single photon detectors and feed-forward control are used to post select the desired logical output, and the operations can succeed with an error rate that scales as low as $`\frac{1}{N^2}`$ in the limit of large $`N`$ .

A key requirement in this linear optics approach is clearly the need for $`N`$ sources of single ancilla photons. What is required is that at some predetermined time, each of the sources will, with near certainty, emit a single photon into its assigned input mode of the linear optics device. An approach to this problem involving the use of an array of low-power pumped down-conversion crystals at each input port is being investigated by Migdall and co-workers . In that approach, detectors for one photon of each possible pair and fast-switching are used to select the input photon based on which crystal had successfully emitted a pair. An approach of that kind would require a large number of efficient optical switches and down-conversion crystals for each input port of the device.

Our approach is based on the use of the single-photon source demonstrated in this paper, which essentially requires only two efficient switching events per source. The experimental results shown in Figure 6 indicate that the source of single-photons on pseudo-demand from stored down-conversion appears to be ideally suited for this task. As shown in the lower portion of Figure 7, one source of this kind would be used at each ancilla photon input port of the linear optics device. The entire experiment would be pumped by a master femtosecond pulsed laser which would provide the required synchronization, as well as reducing the problems associated with dark counts. Pumping of the single-photon sources would be started well in advance of the pre-determined gate-operation time. Each of the ancilla sources would continue to be pumped until a single photon was known to be contained in its storage loop. At the pre-determined gate-operation time, all $`N`$ ancilla could therefore be switched out of their loops, and into their input ports of the linear optics device.

In order to be useful in this linear optics scheme, the photons from each of the independent sources will be required to be indistinguishable in the sense that higher-order interference effects can be observed among them. At present time, the most practical method for ensuring this indistinguishability appears to be the use of narrow-band pre-filtering techniques proposed by Żukowski et. al.  and used in a variety of multi-photon down-conversion experiments (see, for example ). In the example of Figure 7, the filtering will need to be arranged in such a way that dispersion and wavepacket distortion can not be used to distinguish photons which have travelled a different number of round trips through their respective storage loops. An alternative method for ensuring the indistinguishability of the ancilla photons would involve the source engineering techniques described by Walmsley’s group . The development of low-loss optical switches would also be required. Despite these technical challenges, the single-photon source on pseudo-demand demonstrated in this paper may facilitate a near term demonstration of linear optics quantum computation.

## V Summary

In this paper we reported the results of an experiment that demonstrated a source of single-photons on pseudo-demand from stored parametric down-conversion. In our experiment, the detection of one photon of a down-conversion pair was used to activate a high-speed Pockels cell that switched the other photon into a free-space storage loop. The stored photon was then known to be circulating in the loop, and could be switched out on command after any number of round trips. From a practical point of view, one of the attractive features of this source is that the stored photon is released into a well-defined mode as opposed to the random $`4\pi `$ solid-angle emission found in many single-photon sources based on spontaneous decay of a single excited two-state system.

In the current version of our experiment, the minimum length of the storage loop was dictated by the relatively slow 10 ns rise time of the Pockels cell switch. Although efforts could be made to reduce this time, we emphasized that the “push-button” aspect of any single-photon source is not the critical requirement for many quantum information applications. What is required in many cases is simply to know, with near certainty, that a single photon will be emitted at some pre-arranged time in the future. The use of the source described in this paper with pulsed-pump parametric down-conversion appears to be an ideal candidate for these applications.

The losses and switching errors in our relatively simple proof-of-principle experiment were lower than initially expected, which is encouraging for the discussion of a photonic quantum memory device based on this kind of storage loop . Much lower losses should be achievable using suitable optical fiber components. We also described how such a source of single-photons on pseudo-demand may be ideally suited as a source of ancilla photons in a linear optics quantum computation scheme . Useful implementations of linear optics quantum computing will require a large number of these types of sources with much smaller errors, but the results presented here provide a significant step in that direction.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by ONR, ARO, NSA, ARDA, and IR&D funding. We would like to acknowledge useful discussions with M.J. Fitch and M. Donegan.