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# Ferromagnetism in (In,Mn)As Diluted Magnetic Semiconductor Thin Films Grown by Metalorganic Vapor Phase Epitaxy

## I Introduction

An approach to spin-sensitive devices for electronic applications, that may exhibit improved spin injection, is the use of III-V diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs).Ohno (1998); Dietl et al. (2000) These alloys, which incorporate a small percentage of magnetic atoms into the semiconductor host, have been shown to exhibit ferromagnetic behavior up to 110 K.Ohno (1998) However, for these materials to find widespread applications, the ferromagnetism should be stable at room temperature. Consequently, much of the current experimental work is directed towards increasing their ferromagnetic transition temperature, $`T_c`$. Since theory predicts that the transition temperature increases with the magnetic-ion concentration, efforts have centered on increasing such concentration.Ohno (2000) The solubility of magnetic ions, however, is often quite low.

III-V DMS have been grown using low-temperature molecular beam epitaxy (LT-MBE) at temperatures lower than 300 C to prevent phase separation. Nevertheless, recently we have demonstrated the growth of single-phase, ferromagnetic In1-xMnxAs, with $`x0.14`$, using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) at temperatures as high as 520 C.Blattner et al. (2001) In this report, we present the results of our investigation of the magnetic properties of these films. We have observed room-temperature ferromagnetic behavior in a nominally single-phase $`p`$-type In0.9Mn0.1As film. In contrast, a comparable high $`T_c`$ has not been observed in single-phase (In,Mn)As grown using LT-MBE. A possible mechanism for the observed high-temperature ferromagnetism, based on transition metal clustering at the atomic level, will be discussed.

## II Epitaxy of (In,Mn)As

(In,Mn)As films were prepared using atmospheric pressure MOVPE, as described earlier.Blattner et al. (2001) Films were grown at temperatures between 475–520 C on semi-insulating GaAs(001) substrates. The precursors used were trimethylindium (TMIn), tricarbonyl(methylcyclopentadienyl)manganese (TCMn) and 0.3% arsine (AsH3) in hydrogen. Phase composition was determined using double-crystal x-ray diffraction (XRD) using Cu K$`\alpha _1`$ radiation. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) was used to determine the Mn concentration in the films.

Figure 1 shows the $`\theta `$-2$`\theta `$ x-ray diffraction pattern with the zinc-blende (004) and (002) reflections for a 300 nm thick In0.9Mn0.1As film grown at 520 C.

No other peaks were observed, indicating that the alloy was phase pure to within 0.1 volume percent. The rocking-curve FWHM for this film was 0.25. Azimuthal ($`\varphi `$) scans for the {202} reflections of the film and substrate were recorded to confirm epitaxy. Figure 2 shows the four-fold-symmetric diffraction pattern for the {202} reflections of the (In,Mn)As film compared with that of the GaAs substrate.

Excellent epitaxial alignment is observed despite the $`7\%`$ lattice mismatch between the film and the substrate.

MnAs was observed in films grown at temperatures lower than 475 C and for Mn concentrations greater than $`x=0.14`$. Growth at temperatures higher than $`530`$ C resulted in very little deposition presumably due to increased indium and manganese desorption from the surface.

## III Magnetic Properties

### III.1 Magnetic field dependence

The magnetic properties of the (In,Mn)As thin films were measured using a SQUID magnetometer. The magnetic field was applied perpendicular to the plane of the film along the easy axis of magnetization for (In,Mn)As.Munekata et al. (1993) The substrate diamagnetic contribution was subtracted from the total magnetization signal. The remaining data consisted of the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic contributions from the film. The total magnetization is given by:

$$M_{\mathrm{tot}}(T,H)=M_F(T,H)+[\chi _p(T)+\chi _d(GaAs)]H$$
(1)
where $`M_F(T,H)`$ is the ferromagnetic component of the film, $`\chi _p`$ is the paramagnetic susceptibility of the film, $`\chi _d`$ is the substrate diamagnetic susceptibility, $`T`$ is the temperature, and $`H`$ is the applied magnetic field. The magnetic response of a nominally single-phase In0.9Mn0.1As film is shown in Figure 3 for applied magnetic fields up to 20 kOe and temperatures of 5, 150 and 300 K.

The inset of Figure 3 shows the complete hysteresis loop for this sample at 5 K. At this temperature the measured saturation magnetization normalized to the film volume was 62 emu/cm3 with a remanence of 10 emu/cm3 and a coercive field of 400 Oe. When the temperature was increased to 300 K, the saturation magnetization decreased only to 49 emu/cm3.

### III.2 Temperature dependence

The magnetization as a function of temperature was measured for the single-phase In0.9Mn0.1As sample discussed above. The sample was zero-field cooled and then subjected to a 10 kOe applied magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the film. After subtraction of the diamagnetic substrate contribution, the resulting magnetization is shown in Figure 4.

A Curie temperature of 333 K was measured for this sample. Such a high Curie temperature for a III-V dilute magnetic semiconductor has been previously attributed to the presence of MnAsvon Molnar et al. (1991) which has a Curie temperature of 318 K. However, the presence of MnAs was not observed by x-ray diffraction in this sample as shown in Figure 1. If a second phase were present, the measured magnetization of 62 emu/cm3 would correspond to a MnAs volume fraction of approximately 10%. This should certainly be observable by x-ray diffraction. If on the other hand the MnAs was present as nanoprecipitates, the magnetization would be considerably smaller as observed in (Ga,Mn)As films.Boeck et al. (1996) Thus the magnetization data is consistent with the alloy film being a single-phase. Currently, we are investigating precipitate formation further through transmission electron microscopic analysis.

The value of the saturation magnetization of (In,Mn)As is given by $`M_s=N_{\mathrm{Mn}}g\mu _BJ_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$, where $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$ is the nominal concentration of Mn ions, $`g`$ is the Landeé factor and is equal to 2 for Mn, $`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton, and $`J_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$ is the spin of Mn. The measured $`M_s`$ using $`x=0.1`$, corresponding to $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$=1.8$`\times `$1021 cm-3, gives a value of $`\mu =3.6\mu _B`$. This corresponds to a value of $`J_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$ between 4/2 and 3/2. This is interpreted as an indication of the presence of valence states other than Mn2+.Ohno et al. (1991)

The temperature dependence of the magnetization was compared to the Brillouin function for different values of the total angular momentum, $`J`$. The lack of agreement between the Brillouin function and the measured data above 150 K indicates that the transition to the ferromagnetic state may not be second order, in which the change in magnetization value is continuous with increasing temperature. It may be first order.

Magnetic disordering as a first order phase transformation has previously been reported and a model to describe this behavior was developed by Bean and Rodbell.Bean and Rodbell (1962) The model predicts that if the exchange interaction is a strong function of the inter-atomic spacing and the lattice is compressible, then the ferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition will be first-order. By introducing a strain energy term into the free energy formulation and minimizing with respect to the reduced magnetization, it was shownBean and Rodbell (1962) that the temperature dependence of the magnetization for $`J=1/2`$ is given by

$$T/T_o=(\sigma \mathrm{tanh}^1\sigma )(1+\eta \sigma ^2/3PK\beta )$$
(2)
where $`\eta 3/2NkKT_c\beta ^2`$, $`\sigma `$ is the reduced magnetization (normalized to the saturation magnetization), $`N`$ is the number of magnetic dipoles per unit volume, $`k`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`K`$ is the compressibility, $`\beta `$ is the slope of the dependence of $`T_c`$ on volume, and $`T_o`$ is the Curie temperature if the lattice were not compressible. $`P`$ and $`T`$ are the pressure and temperature respectively.

For $`\eta <1`$, the transition is second order, and Equation 2 reduces to the Brillouin function for $`\eta =0`$. For $`\eta >1`$, the transition is first order and the magnetization exhibits a discontinuity at the transition temperature. The measured magnetization was compared with the model of Bean and Rodbell for different values of $`\eta `$ as shown in Figure 4.

As can be seen, the best fit occurred for $`\eta =1`$. This indicates that the phase transformation for the alloy has an intermediate character between first and second order.

A deviation between theory and experiment at temperatures above the Curie temperature was also observed. This was addressed in the initial work by Bean and Rodbell and is a consequence of the long-range interaction implicit in the model.Bean and Rodbell (1962) Molecular field theory which was used in the model, indicates no order above the Curie temperature for a normal ferromagnet. Experimentally, however, significant short-range order can be observed.

For comparison, the ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase transition of MnAs has been shown to be first-orderBean and Rodbell (1962); Chernenko et al. (1999); Pytlik and Zieba (1985) with a value of $`\eta =2`$.Bean and Rodbell (1962) We have measured the temperature dependence of the magnetization for an (In,Mn)As sample which exhibited MnAs phase formation. The magnetization is shown in Figure 5 as a function of temperature.

In this case the temperature dependence appears to be clearly first-order. Fitting of the magnetization data using the first-order model resulted in a value of $`\eta =1.8`$. Thus it can be seen that the temperature dependence of the magnetization for (In,Mn)As/MnAs two phase alloys differs from that of (In,Mn)As single-phase alloys. The temperature dependent magnetization of In0.9Mn0.1As sample shown in Figure 4 is closer to second-order and cannot simply be explained by the presence of MnAs nanoprecipitates.

### III.3 Origin of Ferromagnetism

The ferromagnetism observed in III-V DMS films has been previously explained within the framework of sp-d exchange interactions between the Fermi sea and the localized magnetic moments.Dietl et al. (2001) Similar to RKKY theory, this hole-mediated ferromagnetism theory predicts that the Curie temperature is dependent upon both magnetic ion concentration and hole concentration. Using this model Dietl et al. predicted that the transition temperature for (In,Mn)As with a Mn concentration of 5% should be 35 K, which is much lower than that observed in the present study. One possible explanation for the difference is that Mn in the alloy is not randomly distributed on In sites but is present as atomic clusters. This is supported by the recent calculations of van Schilfgaarde and Mryasov based on local density functional theory.van Schilfgaarde and Mryasov (2001) These calculations predict that due to the strong attractive coupling between the Mn ions and the semiconductor cation nuclei, there is a large driving force for the formation of Mn clusters consisting of two or more Mn atoms located at nearest-neighbor cation sites.111Mn substitutes on the In sublattice forming clusters containing 2 or 3 Mn atoms. For magnetic “dimers”, the Mn atoms are located at nearest-neighbor cation sites as in Ref. van Schilfgaarde and Mryasov, 2001. These atomic clusters in turn can stabilize the ferromagnetic state; according to this model, the presence of free carriers is not required. Although the model does not consider kinetic effects, which may determine whether Mn clustering occurs, the growth temperature used for our films is likely sufficient to overcome any kinetic barrier to cluster formation. Indeed clustering of the transition-metal ion has been observed in other III-V DMSs grown at high temperaturesHaneda et al. (2000); Soo et al. (2001a, b) and may also occur in other materials that have been shown to exhibit ferromagnetic behavior while having $`n`$-type conductivity.Reed et al. (2001); Overberg et al. (2001) Presently, we are pursuing extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements of these films to determine the local environment of Mn.

## IV Conclusions

In conclusion, epitaxial, single-phase In0.9Mn0.1As films have been grown using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy at temperatures as high as 520 C. Temperature- and field-dependent magnetization measurements indicated a single-phase film (as measured by x-ray diffraction) to be ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature of 333 K. Modelling of the magnetization data indicated that the ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic phase transition was intermediate between first and second order. The origin of the observed ferromagnetism was discussed in the light of a new theory based on the formation of transition-metal clusters.

## V Acknowledgements

Extensive use was made of the Materials Research Center facilities at Northwestern University. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through the MRSEC program under grant number DMR-0076097.


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# A Constraint on the Gravitational Lensing Magnification and Age of the Redshift z=6.28 Quasar SDSS 1030+0524

## 1 Introduction

Supermassive black holes (SMBH) are believed to power quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGN, see, e.g., Rees 1984, 1990) and extragalactic jets (Blandford 1989). There is mounting evidence that even normal (i.e., non-active) galaxies, including our own, harbor SMBHs in their centers, with black hole masses in the range of $`10^610^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$ (Magorrian et al. 1998; Richstone et al. 1998; Genzel & Eckart 1999; Tremaine et al. 2002). There are many unanswered fundamental questions concerning how and when SMBHs formed and grew (for an exhaustive list of SMBH formation mechanisms the reader is referred to Rees 1984). However, there is now compelling evidence that bright quasar activity reflects the growth of SMBHs by accretion (e.g. Lynden-Bell 1967; Soltan 1982).

The total light output of known quasars, summed over all redshifts, corresponds to $`ϵ10\%`$ of the rest–mass energy of the total BH mass in their presumed remnants at redshift $`z=0`$ (see, e.g., the recent paper Yu & Tremaine 2002, and references therein). Conversely, this implies that SMBHs have grown most of their mass in a luminous phase, accreting no faster than the Eddington rate, corresponding to exponential growth on the timescale of $`t_{\mathrm{Edd}}=4\times 10^7(ϵ/0.1)\mathrm{yr}`$. With the recent discovery of four quasars around redshift $`z6`$ in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), it appears that bright quasar activity already commenced at this early epoch. Under the assumption that these quasar BHs shine at their Eddington limit, and they are not gravitationally lensed, or beamed, their masses are $`(23)\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$. As emphasized by Haiman & Loeb (2001), the time it takes for a SMBH to grow to this size from a stellar seed of $`100\mathrm{M}_{}`$ is $`4\times 10^7\mathrm{ln}(3\times 10^9/100)\mathrm{yr}7\times 10^8\mathrm{yr}`$, comparable to the age of the universe at $`z=6`$ ($`9\times 10^8\mathrm{yr}`$ for a flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe with $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$).

SMBHs at such an early stage in the evolution of the universe can thus be only marginally accommodated into our currently popular cosmological models. Furthermore, their existence implies that the seeds of these SMBHs had to appear at very high redshift ($`z10`$), and also places constraints on the physics of how SMBHs grow. In particular, their growth could not have been much slower than the Eddington rate under a nominal $`10\%`$ radiative efficiency, and high efficiencies ($`20\%`$) can already be ruled out (see, e.g., Haiman & Loeb 2001 for details).

Such conclusions rely on the fact that the SMBHs are indeed very massive. The masses of SMBHs in luminous quasars are uncertain to the extent that the quasars’ emission may be magnified through gravitational lensing by foreground objects (e.g. Turner 1991). Indeed, it is possible to consider the statistics of intervening lenses, together with a luminosity function (LF) of $`z6`$ quasars, to estimate the expected probability that the SDSS quasars were significantly magnified. The $`z=6`$ quasar LF is very poorly constrained, and even strong magnifications can have large probabilities if the LF is steep (Comerford et al. 2002; Wyithe & Loeb 2002). Strong magnification of the SDSS quasars could therefore constitute an alternative explanation to their high BH masses. To a lesser level, the inferred masses of the SMBHs are also subject to variations of parameters in the assumed cosmological model.

A separate question concerns the lifetime of quasars. Unlike the lifetime of stars, which may be computed accurately theoretically, the lifetime of quasars is largely unknown due to large uncertainties in black hole accretion physics (i.e., radiation efficiency) and gas supply. As a result, constraints on the lifetime of quasars can only be placed empirically and indirectly. The very convincing evidence for the existence of massive black holes in majority of normal galaxies (Magorrian et al. 1998; Richstone et al. 1998; Genzel & Eckart 1999; Tremaine et al. 2002) implies that a typical lifetime of quasars of $`t_{Hubble}n_Q/n_G10^7`$yrs, where $`t_{Hubble}`$ is the Hubble time, $`n_Q`$ and $`n_G`$ the observed number density of quasars and normal galaxies, respectively (Blandford 1999). An upper limit on quasar lifetime of $`10^9`$yrs may be inferred based on the low redshift ($`z<3`$) decrease of quasar abundance. The comparison of quasar clustering properties and simulated galaxy halos of comparable clustering properties can also be used to infer a quasar lifetime of $`10^610^8`$yrs (Haiman & Hui 2001; Martini & Weinberg 2001). Finally, a quasar lifetime of $`10^7`$yrs has recently been inferred from the size of the HeIII proximity region of a quasar embedded in an IGM where helium is mostly in the form of HeII (at $`z3`$, see, e.g., Anderson et al. 1999; this is similar to our own method).

In this Letter, we focus our attention on the bright quasar with the highest known redshift, SDSS 1030+0524 at $`z=6.28`$. We analyze the spectrum of this source to derive interesting constraints both on the BH mass, and on the age of this source. This source is unique among the four $`z6`$ quasars, in that it shows a strong Gunn-Peterson trough, and appears to be embedded in a neutral intergalactic medium (IGM). The spectrum of a point source of Ly$`\alpha `$ radiation would show no flux shortward of the central Ly$`\alpha `$ wavelength, due to absorption by the intervening neutral IGM. However, some flux may be transmitted shortward of the Ly$`\alpha `$ line, provided that the source is surrounded by a sufficiently large local ionized region (Strömgren sphere). In an earlier paper (Cen & Haiman 2000; hereafter CH) we showed that the transmission of the blue side of the intrinsic Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line directly depends on the total number of ionizing photons emitted over the lifetime of the source: i.e. on the product of its lifetime and its intrinsic luminosity (or BH mass). This situation is unique for quasars embedded in a neutral IGM. For less luminous objects, such as galaxies, the damping wing of the resonance Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption of the intervening neutral IGM (Miralda-Escudé 1998) would cast a very high optical depth and render most of the intrinsic Ly$`\alpha `$ emission invisible. Likewise, a quasar embedded in a highly ionized IGM at lower redshifts rapidly establishes ionization equilibrium, and the ’proximity effect’ in its spectrum (Bajtlik, Duncan, & Ostriker 1988) reveals no constraint about its age. However, a bright quasar at high redshift, prior to cosmological reionization, such as SDSS 1030+0524, can provide a unique way to tightly constrain both the black hole mass and the age of the quasar. In this Letter we analyze the spectrum of SDSS 1030+0524 to provide such a quantitative constraint.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In § 2, we describe our model for the spectrum of the Ly$`\alpha `$ line of a high redshift source. In § 3, we apply this model to SDSS 1030+0524 to derive a constraint on its lensing magnification and its lifetime. In § 4, we discuss the implications of our results and their caveats. Finally, in § 5, we offer our conclusions. Throughout this paper, we assume the background cosmology to be flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM with $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m},\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b},h)=(0.7,0.3,0.04,0.7)`$.

## 2 Transmission of the Ly$`\alpha `$ Emission Line

In this section, we simulate the observed spectrum of a quasar near its Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line, for a source embedded in a neutral IGM, with a given age and BH mass. Our modeling has two basic steps: (i) we place a quasar in the neutral IGM, and compute the size of its ionized (HII) region, and (ii) we simulate the spectrum of the emission line by assuming an intrinsic template lineshape, and including the effects of the absorbing gas both within and outside the HII region. For a detailed description of the method, the reader is referred to CH. Here we briefly recapitulate.

Ignoring any recombinations, the radius $`R_\mathrm{s}`$ of the Strömgren sphere of a quasar of age $`t_Q`$ is such that the number of hydrogen atoms in the sphere equals the total number of ionizing photons produced by the source:

$`R_\mathrm{s}=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3\dot{N}_{\mathrm{ph}}t_Q}{4\pi n_H}}\right]^{1/3}`$ $`=`$ $`4.5\left({\displaystyle \frac{N_{\mathrm{ph}}}{1.3\times 10^{57}\mathrm{s}^1}}\right)^{1/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{t_Q}{2\times 10^7\mathrm{yr}}}\right)^{1/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+z_Q}{7.28}}\right)^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`4.5\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{bh}}}{2\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{}}}\right)^{1/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{t_Q}{2\times 10^7\mathrm{yr}}}\right)^{1/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+z_Q}{7.28}}\right)^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ (2)
(CH), where $`R_\mathrm{s}`$ is in proper (not comoving) units, $`n_H`$ is the mean hydrogen density within $`R_\mathrm{s}`$, and $`\dot{N}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ is emission rate of ionizing photons from the quasar. For $`n_H`$, we have adopted the mean IGM density at $`z=6.28`$ with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}=0.04`$, and $`\dot{N}_{\mathrm{ph}}=1.3\times 10^{57}\mathrm{s}^1`$ is calibrated from the observed flux of SDSS 1030+0524, extrapolating its continuum to energies above 13.6eV using a standard quasar template spectrum (Elvis et al. 1994, which agrees well with the more recent SDSS template in Vanden Berk et al. 2001, hereafter VdB). Adopting the same template spectrum, and assuming further that the BH powering this quasar is shining at its Eddington luminosity, the mass of the BH is found to be $`M_{\mathrm{bh}}=2\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$. We have used this mass to convert equation (1) into equation (2).

In an evolving and clumpy cosmological density field around a quasar, ionizing photons are lost to recombinations, and the size of the HII region can be reduced relative to the prediction of equation (2). We need to then solve the equation for the radius of the ionization front, $`R_\mathrm{s}`$, taking into account all relevant effects including recombination, density evolution and cosmological effects as follows:

$$\frac{dR_\mathrm{s}^3}{dt}=3H(z)R_\mathrm{s}^3+\frac{3\dot{N}_{\mathrm{ph}}}{4\pi n_H}Cn_H\alpha _BR_\mathrm{s}^3,$$
(3)
where $`H(z)`$ is the Hubble constant at $`z`$, $`Cn_H^2/n_H^2`$ is the mean clumping factor of ionized gas within $`R_\mathrm{s}`$, and $`\alpha _B`$ is the hydrogen recombination coefficient. The three terms on the right side of equation (3) account for the Hubble expansion, the ionizations by newly produced photons, and recombinations, respectively (Shapiro & Giroux 1987; Haiman & Loeb 1997). Although equation (2) is accurate for low clumping factors and quasar ages ($`C10`$, $`t_Q10^8`$ yrs), the results presented here are based on a numerical solution of equation (3).

In general, a quasar has an intrinsic Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line, which is reprocessed along the line of sight to the observer by the opacity of the intervening neutral IGM as well as of the residual neutral hydrogen within the Strömgren sphere. We have to here model the absorption in both regions. The IGM outside the HII region is assumed to be neutral (see discussion below). Inside the HII region, we model the density distribution using the hydrodynamical simulation described in Cen & McDonald (2002). For illustrative purposes, we have chosen here to focus on a single line of sight through this simulation box, which has a mean gas clumping factor of $`C=10`$, and an approximate log–normal density distribution. A full statistical description of the expected flux distribution within the HII region, based on a large sample of lines of sights, is not crucial for our present purposes, but will be considered in a future paper (Haiman & Cen, in preparation).

Finally, in order to model the intrinsic profile of the emission line, we utilize the median Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line shape as observationally determined by VdB. We first obtain the line profile from the VdB spectrum by subtracting a constant $`6.3\times 10^{17}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ Å-1, which is approximately the median observed continuum level. To fit the red (unabsorbed) side of the Ly$`\alpha `$ line of SDSS 1030+0524, we find we have to divide the VdB profile by a factor of $`3`$. To approximate the observed continuum of SDSS 1030+0524, we add back a constant of $`1.1\times 10^{17}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$ Å-1. In other words, the observed continuum flux of SDSS 1030+0524 is about 6 times fainter than that of the median $`z>2.25`$ quasar, while the emission line is only about 3 times fainter. The VdB spectrum is the median spectrum of about $``$150 quasars at $`z>2.25`$, with a mean redshift of $`z3`$. The IGM has an average opacity of $`\tau _{\mathrm{IGM}}0.4`$ at the blue side of the Ly$`\alpha `$ line at this redshift (e.g. Madau 1995). To create our intrinsic template line shape between 1200 and 1215Å (8750 and 8850Å observed), we divide the VdB profile by a correction factor that varies linearly from unity at 1215Å to $`\mathrm{exp}(\tau _{\mathrm{IGM}})`$ at 1200Å. This is intended to take into account the fact that each quasar in the VdB sample suffers from both IGM opacity and from its own proximity effect (so that there is no correction at the line center).

Figure 1 shows the resulting intrinsic Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line (top solid curve), as well as an illustrative example of the processed profile (bottom solid curve). In this example, we assume a quasar age of $`t_Q=2\times 10^7`$ years, and we adopt the ionizing photon production rate of $`\dot{N}_{\mathrm{ph}}=1.3\times 10^{57}\mathrm{s}^1`$, corresponding to the observed flux of SDSS 1030+0524 with no lensing corrections. This results in a proper HII-radius of 4.5 Mpc. The bottom solid curve in Figure 1 shows the resulting reprocessed Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line, including the HI opacities from both within and outside the HII region. Also shown in this figure, as the dashed curve, is the observed flux distribution (Becker et al. 2001).

Our final processed spectrum is in reasonable agreement with the data. There is a discrepancy at the Ly$`\alpha `$ line center: our model does not account for the large apparent additional opacity centered at the quasar redshift. However, this does not effect our conclusions drawn from the blue tail of the Ly$`\alpha `$ line. The crucial feature of the observed spectrum of SDSS 1030+0524 is the presence of significant flux down to 8750Å. Any model that allows for the presence of this flux must have an HII region whose size is at least $`>4.5`$ Mpc, as is the case in the example shown in Figure 1. If the HII region was smaller, the flux at wavelengths above 8750Å would be suppressed by an enormous factor \[$`\mathrm{exp}(10^6)`$\] from the Gunn-Peterson opacity of the neutral IGM.

## 3 Constraints on Lensing Magnification and the Age of SDSS 1030+0524

As we have seen above, the presence of flux in the spectrum of SDSS 1030+0524 down to 8750Å implies that this quasar is surrounded by a large (4.5 proper Mpc) Strömgren sphere. Assuming that its apparent flux reflects its true luminosity, this source is powered by a black hole whose mass is $`M_{\mathrm{bh}}=2\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$, and, from equation (1), its age has to be at least $`2\times 10^7`$ years.111The age could be shorter(longer) if the source was brighter(fainter) in the past. However, SDSS 1030+0524 is already unusually bright; being even brighter would make the BH even more puzzlingly massive.

However, the flux of SDSS 1030+0524 may be magnified through gravitational lensing by foreground galaxies (or stars). As mentioned in the introduction, the probability for significant magnification can be appreciable, depending on the shape of the unknown quasar luminosity function (Comerford et al. 2002; Wyithe & Loeb 2002). Obviously, for a given observed flux from the quasar, a larger gravitational lensing magnification would imply an intrinsically fainter quasar. A fainter quasar would, in turn, require a longer age to produce a Strömgren sphere with the required size of at least 4.5 Mpc. Thus, the minimum quasar age is an increasing function of gravitational lensing magnification. Indeed, a constraint on $`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$ may be most informatively placed in the ($`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$ $`vs`$ magnification) plane.

Figure 2 shows the constraints on the minimum age of SDSS 1030+0524 as a function of its gravitational lensing magnification. The constraint is based on the requirement that the radius of the Strömgren sphere, computed from equation (3), should be $`R_\mathrm{s}=4.5`$Mpc. The case presented here assumes that the IGM is still largely neutral at $`z=6.28`$. The four curves show four cases with $`\alpha =0`$ (ignoring recombinations, in this case $`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$ scales linearly with the magnification), and with three different gas clumping factors, $`C=1`$, $`C=10`$ and $`C=20`$. The upper shaded region is excluded, because it exceeds the age of the universe at $`z=6.28`$.

Several important points may be learned from Figure 2. First, $`t_{\mathrm{min}}<2\times 10^7`$yrs is not allowed for any value of magnification; $`t_{\mathrm{min}}=2\times 10^7`$yrs is an absolute lower limit. Pentericci et al. (2001) derive the age of SDSS 1030+0524 to be $`1.33\times 10^7`$yrs by simply counting ionizing photons at $`z=6.28`$. They do not take into account the evolution of the density field and hydrogen recombination. While we have performed more detailed calculations, we stress that in either case the derived age of the quasar can only be a lower bound, since locally (e.g., at $`\lambda 8750`$Å) the transmission of rest-frame Ly$`\alpha `$ photons is determined by the balance between quasar ionizing flux and hydrogen recombination, once the required age is reached.

Second, the maximum allowed gravitational lensing magnification is a strong function of the assumed clumping factor. For large clumping factors, the size of the HII region lags increasingly behind its value in the no-recombination case, and increasingly longer ages are required. Note that for $`C>10`$, the HII sphere reaches its (steady-state) equilibrium value in a few $`\times 10^8`$ years, after which it ceases to grow. Figure 2 also reveals that for realistic clumping factors ($`C>20`$, see discussion below), the magnification cannot exceed a factor of $`5`$. Even for a clumping factor as low as $`C=10`$, the magnification must be less than a factor of 10. Note that for $`C=10`$, if the quasar was magnified by the maximum possible factor of $`9`$, $`R_\mathrm{s}=4.5`$Mpc (proper) corresponds to the equilibrium sphere radius, which is reached in $`10^{8.5}`$yrs. In this case the size of the Strömgren sphere ceases to increase, once its age reaches $`10^{8.5}`$yrs, regardless when it was turned on. In other words, if the gravitational lensing magnification is $`9`$, the quasar had to be turned on at redshift some redshift prior to $`z10`$. In the more likely case of $`C=20`$, by the same argument, the quasar could only have been magnified by a factor of $`5`$ if it turned on at $`z9`$. To summarize: each SDSS quasar at $`z6`$ could have a significant probability of having being magnified through gravitational lensing by a factor of $`10`$ (Comerford et al. 2002; Wyithe & Loeb 2002), potentially casting doubt on the validity of the derived large BH masses. However, here we find that SDSS 1030+0524 cannot be gravitationally magnified by more than a factor of $`5`$.

## 4 Discussion

Our conclusions above, most importantly that SDSS 1030+0524 cannot be an intrinsically faint and strongly lensed source, relies only on the need for this source to create a Strömgren sphere with a radius at least 4.5 Mpc. In particular, the conclusions are insensitive to the detailed modeling of the density distribution near the quasar. Our most important assumption is that the IGM is largely neutral at $`z=6.28`$; a statement supported by the detection of the Gunn-Peterson trough in the spectrum of this source. Although it would be possible to block out the flux of SDSS 1030+0524 at wavelengths shorter than 8750Å even if the neutral fraction was $`x_\mathrm{H}10^2`$ (Becker et al. 2001; Barkana 2001; Fan et al. 2002), the inferred rapid rise of the metagalactic radiation field from $`z5.5`$ to $`z6.3`$ suggests that the universe is indeed neutral at the redshift of this source (Cen & McDonald 2002; Gnedin 2002). A comparison between the observed ionizing background flux evolution and numerical simulations indeed shows a strong case. Simulations have shown that the reionization phase begins with a relatively slow process on a time scale of about a Hubble time, during which the mean radiation field builds up to a value of approximately $`10^{24}`$erg/cm2/Hz/sec/sr at the Lyman limit. This is followed by a brief “overlap” phase, when the majority of the baryons are ionized, accompanied by a sudden jump in the amplitude of the mean radiation field intensity at the Lyman limit to $`10^{22}10^{21}`$erg/cm2/Hz/sec/sr, which occurs within a redshift interval of a fraction of unity (Miralda-Escudé et al. 2000; Gnedin 2000). If we identify the observed sudden rise of the ionizing radiation background at $`z6.1`$ with the epoch of rapid increase in the ionizing radiation background seen simulations, the baryons must largely be neutral at $`z6.28`$.

An important input to our model is the mean clumping of the gas in the IGM. Cosmological simulations of the canonical $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model yield $`C_{\mathrm{HII}}40`$ (Figure 2 in Gnedin & Ostriker 1997) at $`z6`$. Note that the model adopted in Gnedin & Ostriker (1997) has $`\sigma _8=0.67`$, which is perhaps rather conservative and consistent with the newer, lower normalization based on X-ray clusters (Seljak 2001). A somewhat different clumping factor may be predicted in a model that self-consistently reionizes the universe at $`z6`$ instead of $`z7`$ in the simulation. However, it seems unlikely that $`C`$ can be as low as $`10`$ for a sensible model.

An alternative way to avoid a large BH mass in SDSS 1030+0524 would be if this source has a low total luminosity, but is strongly beamed towards us. A test of this hypothesis is the line/continuum ratio. For a given observed continuum (ionizing) flux, a presence of beaming into a solid angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$ would reduce the strength of any isotropic emission (recombination) line by a factor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }/4\pi `$, since the lines would only be produced only within the cone into which the ionizing radiation is beamed. As we have seen above, the line/continuum ratio of SDSS 1030+0524 is about twice that of the median $`z>2.25`$ quasar. This indicates that SDSS 1030+0524 is less likely to be significantly beamed than a typical high–redshift optical quasar. On the other hand, a typical quasar is indeed unlikely to be significantly beamed: (1) typical optical quasars do not show relativistic spectral features similar to those found in BL Lac objects, which are known to be beamed, (2) there is no indication why a typical quasar is different from lower luminosity AGNs and Seyfert galaxies that are known not to be beamed, (3) there is no natural mechanism to produce a strongly beamed radiation whose spectrum remains close to a black–body, as is seen in the “blue–bump” component in the spectra of many quasars, and (4) assuming no beaming, the characteristic luminosities and abundances of bright quasars near $`z2.5`$ are consistent with the characteristic masses and abundances of their remnant BHs at $`z=0`$ (see, e.g. Yu & Tremaine 2002); strong beaming would likely invalidate this successful agreement.

Combining this with the finding above that the quasar is not magnified through gravitational lensing by a significant factor implies that SDSS 1030+0524 needs to indeed contain a very massive black hole. Assuming the quasar radiates at the Eddington luminosity and magnified through gravitational lensing by a factor of $`5`$, the minimum mass for its resident BH is $`4\times 10^8\mathrm{M}_{}`$, and it then has to have formed at redshift $`z>9`$.

## 5 Conclusions

We have analyzed the flux distribution of the Ly$`\alpha `$ emission of the quasar with the highest known redshift, SDSS 1030+0524 at $`z=6.28`$, discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. From its spectrum, we infer the presence of a large ($`4.5`$Mpc) ionized region around this QSO. The large size of this ionized region makes it impossible for this source to be intrinsically faint, or to be very young. We find that SDSS 1030+0524 could not have been magnified through gravitational lensing by more than a factor of $`5`$. The line/continuum ratio of SDSS 1030+0524 is observed to be twice that of the median $`z>2.25`$ quasar, indicating that this quasar is also unlikely to be significantly beamed. Combining these two facts requires that the minimum mass for its resident BH is indeed $`10^9M_{}`$. If the quasar is not lensed, and is shining at (or below) the Eddington luminosity of its resident SMBH, then the inferred mass is at least $`M_{\mathrm{bh}}=2\times 10^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$, and its minimum age is $`2\times 10^7`$yrs. These numbers can only be modified by gravitational lensing by relatively small factors: if the source is magnified by the maximum allowed factor of $`5`$, the BH mass is $`4\times 10^8\mathrm{M}_{}`$, and in this case, its age has to be longer than $`10^8`$yrs, placing its formation redshift at $`z_f>9`$.

As the formation of such massive black holes in the universe at such high redshifts is already presenting a theoretical challenge, it is important to have limits on the magnification of their fluxes by gravitational lensing. Although SDSS 1030+0524 is currently the only high redshift quasar to which our method is applicable, the constraints we have derived for this source can be repeated and applied to future quasars that will be discovered at $`z6.3`$, prior to the reionization epoch.

We thank Michael Strauss and Dan Vanden Berk for providing the spectrum of SDSS 1030+0524, and the mean SDSS quasar spectrum, in electronic form, together with helpful narratives. ZH acknowledges support by NASA through the Hubble Fellowship grant HF-01119.01-99A, awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract NAS 5-26555. RC was supported in part by grants AST93-18185 and ASC97-40300.


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# Striped phase in a quantum XY-model with ring exchange

## Abstract

We present quantum Monte Carlo results for a square-lattice $`S=1/2`$ XY-model with a standard nearest-neighbor coupling $`J`$ and a four-spin ring exchange term $`K`$. Increasing $`K/J`$, we find that the ground state spin-stiffness vanishes at a critical point at which a spin gap opens and a striped bond-plaquette order emerges. At still higher $`K/J`$, this phase becomes unstable and the system develops a staggered magnetization. We discuss the quantum phase transitions between these phases.

Ring exchange interactions have for a long time been known to be present in a variety of quantum many-body systems thouless  and have been investigated rather thoroughly in solid $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{He}`$ helium . They are also important for electrons in the Wigner crystal phase voelker ; bernu . In strongly correlated electron systems, such as the high-$`T_c`$ cuprates and related antiferromagnets, ring exchange processes are typically much weaker than the pair exchange $`J`$ shastry  and are often neglected. Four-spin ring exchange has, however, been argued to be responsible for distinct features in the magnetic Raman roger  and optical absorption spectra lorenzana . Neutron measurements of the magnon dispersion have also become sufficiently accurate to detect deviations from the standard pair exchange Hamiltonian (the Heisenberg model) and such discrepancies have been attributed to ring exchange coldea ; matsuda . Recently, ring exchange has attracted interest as a potentially important interaction that could lead to novel quantum states of matter, in particular 2D electronic spin liquids with fractionalized excitations misguich ; senthil ; sachdev ; sedgewick ; demler ; balents . Furthermore, for bosons on a square lattice ring exchange has been shown to give rise to a “exciton Bose liquid” phase paramekanti .

Here we study the effects of ring exchange in one of the most basic quantum many-body Hamiltonians—the spin-$`1/2`$ XY-model on a 2D square lattice. We use a quantum Monte Carlo method (stochastic series expansion, hereafter SSE sse1 ; sse2 ; sse3 ) to study the low-temperature behavior of this system including a four-spin ring term. Defining bond and plaquette exchange operators

$`B_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`S_i^+S_j^{}+S_i^{}S_j^+=2(S_i^xS_j^x+S_i^yS_j^y),`$ (1)
$`P_{ijkl}`$ $`=`$ $`S_i^+S_j^{}S_k^+S_l^{}+S_i^{}S_j^+S_k^{}S_l^+,`$ (2)
the Hamiltonian is

$$H=J\underset{ij}{}B_{ij}K\underset{ijkl}{}P_{ijkl},$$
(3)
where $`ij`$ denotes a pair of nearest-neighbor sites and $`ijkl`$ are sites on the corners of a plaquette. For $`K=0`$ this is the standard quantum XY-model, or, equivalently, hard-core bosons at half-filling with no interactions apart from the single-occupancy constraint. This system undergoes a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition at $`T/J0.68`$ loh ; harada  and has a $`T=0`$ ferromagnetic moment $`M_x=S_i^x0.44`$ xyt0 ; xyaws . The $`K`$-term corresponds to retaining only the purely $`x`$\- and $`y`$-terms of the full cyclic exchange.

In a soft-core version of the pure ring model ($`J=0`$), Paramekanti et al. recently found a compressible but non-superfluid phase (exciton Bose liquid) for weak on-site repulsion $`U`$ paramekanti . As the hard-core limit is approached they found a transition to a staggered charge-density-wave phase. Hence, the ground state of the spin Hamiltonian (3) can be expected to change from an easy-plane ferromagnet with a finite spin stiffness $`\rho _s`$ and a magnetization $`M_x`$ at low $`K/J`$ to an Ising-like antiferromagnet with vanishing $`\rho _s`$ and a staggered magnetization $`M_S=(1)^{x_i+y_i}S_i^z`$ at large $`K/J`$. The central result of our simulations is that the competing $`J`$ and $`K`$ interactions give rise to yet a third phase at $`K/J10`$; a striped bond-plaquette phase where the expectation values $`B_{ij}`$ and $`P_{ijkl}`$ alternate in strength with a period of 2 lattice spacings in one of the lattice directions. An example of this order is illustrated in Fig. 1. A similar columnar “bond charge” phase was recently predicted based on a lattice field-theory including a plaquette term sachdev . The field theory also has fractionalized phases, of which we have found no evidence. Hence, the microscopic mechanisms leading to fractionalized spin liquids remain to be clarified.

The SSE simulation method sse1 ; sse2 ; sse3  that we use here has previously been applied to a variety of spin and boson models with two-particle interactions, including the Hamiltonian (3) with $`K=0`$ (the XY-model) xyaws . The generalization to include the four-spin $`K`$-term is relatively straight-forward, although non-trivial new procedures had to be developed for large-$`K/J`$ simulations method . Bond and plaquette strengths such as those shown in Fig. 1 were obtained using open-boundary rectangular $`L_x\times L_y`$ lattices with $`L_y=2L_x`$. The translational and rotational symmetries are then broken and a unique static bond-plaquette strength pattern can be observed when $`K/J10`$ at $`T/J0.5`$. For $`K/J8`$ no order is visible at the centers of large lattices at any temperature. The modulations seen within the stripes in Fig. 1 are strongest at the four corners of the lattice and decrease as the center is approached. They also decrease as the lattice size is increased and in the thermodynamic the striped state should therefore be analogous to the four-fold degenerate columnar spin-Peierls state of Ref. sachdev, .

Our conclusion that the stripes are stable is based on finite-size scaling of correlation functions on periodic $`L\times L`$ lattices. The striped phase can be detected using the bond or plaquette correlations. Here we consider the plaquette structure factor

$$P(q_x,q_y)=\frac{1}{L^2}\underset{a,b}{}\mathrm{e}^{i(𝐫_a𝐫_b)𝐪}P_{a_1a_2a_3a_4}P_{b_1b_2b_3b_4},$$
(4)
where $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_4`$ are the sites belonging to plaquette $`a`$. We have studied the full $`𝐪`$-dependence and only found peaks at $`(0,\pi )`$ and $`(\pi ,0)`$. Hence, the modulations within the stripes seen in Fig. 1 are indeed induced by open boundaries. The spin structure factor is defined as

$$S(q_x,q_y)=\frac{1}{L^2}\underset{j,k}{}\mathrm{e}^{i(𝐫_j𝐫_k)𝐪}S_j^zS_k^z,$$
(5)
where $`r_i=(x_i,y_i)`$ is the lattice coordinate. We will analyze the staggered and striped order parameters per site, defined as

$`M_S^2`$ $`=`$ $`S(\pi ,\pi )/L^2,`$ (6)
$`M_P^2`$ $`=`$ $`P(\pi ,0)/L^2.`$ (7)
The spin stiffness (the superfluid density in the boson representation) is defined by

$$\rho _s=\frac{^2E(\varphi )}{\varphi ^2},$$
(8)
where $`E(\varphi )=H(\varphi )/L^2`$ and the twist $`\varphi `$ is imposed in the $`x`$ or $`y`$ direction so that the corresponding bond operators (1) become $`B_{ij}(\varphi )=\mathrm{cos}(\varphi )(S_i^xS_j^x+S_i^yS_j^y)+\mathrm{sin}(\varphi )(S_i^xS_j^yS_i^yS_j^x)`$. The derivative at $`\varphi =0`$ in Eq. (8) can be directly estimated using the winding number fluctuations in the SSE simulations sse4 .

Fig. 2 shows the spin stiffness and the stripe order parameter on an $`L=64`$ lattice at $`T=J/8`$ (where the results are almost converged to their ground state values). The stiffness becomes very small at $`K/J8`$, where the stripe order increases significantly. Finite-size scaling shows that the stripe order survives in the thermodynamic limit. Results for $`K/J=8.5`$ and temperatures sufficiently low to give the ground state are shown in Fig. 3. For $`L32`$ the data graphed versus $`1/L`$ fall on a straight line, which extrapolates to a non-zero value as $`L\mathrm{}`$. Based on results paramekanti  for the soft-core version of the $`J=0`$ model (or $`K\mathrm{}`$) the staggered magnetization can be expected to be non-zero for large $`K`$. However, as also shown in Fig. 3, at $`K/J=8.5`$ $`M_S^2`$ decreases as $`1/L^2`$ for large lattices, implying that the spin-spin correlations are short ranged \[$`S(\pi ,\pi )`$ is finite\]. Fig. 3 also shows results for $`K/J=64`$, where the scaling behaviors of the two quantities is reversed—$`M_P^2`$ decays as $`1/L^2`$ whereas $`M_S^2`$ extrapolates to a non-zero value. Note that the size-dependence of $`M_S^2`$ is non-monotonic, with a minimum around $`L10`$. Such non-monotonicity has previously been observed for a spatially anisotropic spin model mchain  where it was attributed to the presence of two different low-energy scales in the system. The non-monotonicity seen at $`K/J=64`$ in Fig. 3 indicates that the stripe correlations remain strong with a correlation length $`10`$ lattice spacings. The location of the minimum in $`M_S^2`$ moves to lower $`1/L`$ as $`K/J`$ is decreased, indicating growing stripe correlations. The strong stripe correlations in the staggered phase makes it difficult to determine the $`M_S`$ versus $`K/J`$ curve. Our simulations show that the stripe order persists at least for $`K/J`$ up to $`12`$, and also that the staggered correlations are short ranged up to this coupling. The stripe correlations are short ranged for $`K/J16`$. Between $`K/J=12`$ and $`16`$ the two phases could either co-exist or be separated by a first-order transition. Simulations of larger lattices will be required in order to clarify the interesting transition region.

The superfluid-striped transition appears to be of second order, although we cannot exclude a very weakly first-order transition (which was argued to be more likely in Ref. sachdev, ). The vanishing of the spin stiffness seen in Fig. 2 indicates the opening of a spin gap. A spin gap can be inferred also from the temperature dependence of the uniform magnetic susceptibility,

$$\chi _u=\frac{1}{L^2}\frac{1}{T}\left(\underset{i}{}S_i^z\right)^2.$$
(9)
Fig. 4 shows the $`T`$-dependence for $`L=80`$ (sufficiently large to eliminate finite-size effects). The $`T0`$ susceptibility vanishes for $`K/J`$ between $`7.90`$ and $`7.95`$, i.e., a spin gap is present above a critical coupling in this range. The temperature independence of $`\chi _u`$ at $`K/J=7.80`$ at the two lowest temperatures is expected on account of this being the behavior in the XY-model hasenfratz ; xyaws ; sse2 . The behavior for $`K/J=7.90`$ and $`7.95`$ is consistent with $`\chi _uT`$ at the critical coupling, which is indicative of a $`T=0`$ quantum critical point with dynamic exponent $`z=1`$ chn ; chubukov . At $`K/J7.9`$ we have verified that the stripe structure factor indeed exhibits non-trivial finite-size scaling, $`P(\pi ,0)L^ϵ`$ with $`ϵ<2`$, but the statistical accuracy is not sufficient for determining the exponent to a meaningful precision. Nevertheless, power-law scaling for the same $`K/J`$ at which the spin gap opens supports a continuous quantum phase transition with no intervening disordered phase or co-existence region.

In summary, the spin-$`1/2`$ XY-model with ring exchange exhibits three different ground state orderings as a function of the strength of the ring term. The superfluid-striped transition appears to be a continuous quantum phase transition, whereas the striped-staggered transition most likely is of first order. Since the sign of the $`J`$-term in (3) is irrelevant (the sign of the $`K`$-term is relevant) the superfluid-striped transition could possibly, in an extended parameter space, connect to the order-disorder transition in the two-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet with frustrating interactions read . We also note that the staggered-striped-superfluid phase behavior versus $`J/K`$ shows interesting similarities to the high-$`T_c`$ cuprates, where the pseudogap phase intervening between the antiferromagnetic and superconducting phases exhibits strong stripe correlations hightc . Although the microscopic physics and symmetries are clearly different, a detailed study of the staggered-striped transition may still be useful in this context.

In spite of the absence of a spin liquid phase, the presence of three distinct ordered ground states, and the phase transitions between them, puts the $`JK`$ model (3) in an important class among the basic quantum many-body Hamiltonians. Although the interesting large-$`K/J`$ region may not be of direct relevance to real systems, we expect this and related model to be very useful as systems where complex quantum states and quantum phase transitions can be further explored on large lattices without approximations. Although other models, such as the frustrated $`J_1J_2`$ Heisenberg model read , may show similar or potentially even more complex behavior, sign problems affecting quantum Monte Carlo makes it difficult to obtain conclusive results. It would clearly be interested to study also the $`JK`$ model with a positive sign for the $`K`$-term, in particular to determine whether fractionalized spin liquid phases could arise, but unfortunately this also leads to sign problems.

The $`JK`$ model with the sign of $`K`$ chosen here can be modified in several interesting ways and still be easily accessible to simulations using the SSE method. For example, when relaxing the hard-core constraint there should be a transition to a exciton Bose liquid phase paramekanti , both as a function of on-site repulsion $`U`$ for large $`K/J`$ and as a function of $`K/J`$. It will also be interesting to include a magnetic field to “dope” the striped and staggered phases. Transitions between different charge-density phases and the question of the existence of doped supersolid phases have recently been studied numerically for boson models where charge-density phases are stabilized due to diagonal density-density interactions hebert . In contrast, the striped phase found here arises out of a competition between two kinetic terms and it may hence behave differently upon doping.

We would like to thank L. Balents, M. P. A. Fisher, S. Kivelson, and A. Paramekanti for valuable discussions. We acknowledge support from the Academy of Finland and the Väisälä Foundation (AWS), the Department of Energy, Grant No. DE-FG03-85ER45197 (DJS), and the National Science Foundation, Grant No. DMR-9986948 (RRPS). AWS would also like to thank L. Balents for Packard Foundation support for a visit to UCSB.


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# Discovery of Extremely Large-Amplitude Quasi-Periodic Photometric Variability in WC9-Type Wolf-Rayet Binary, WR 104

## 1 Introduction

Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are massive, luminous, hot stars which have blown away the hydrogen envelope, and are considered to be immediate precursors of some kinds of supernovae. Carbon-rich, late-type subclass of WR stars (WCL) are known as one of the most efficiently dust-productive stellar environments (for recent reviews, see Williams 1995,1997ab). The dust production in these stars not only highlights the problems of the dust formation mechanism in a very hot environment (Williams, 1997a), but also plays an important role in the chemical enrichment in galaxies (Esteban, Peimbert (1995); Schaerer, Vacca (1998)). In addition to the strong infrared emission in WCL stars, which is considered to arise from persistent dust shells, there has been emerging evidence of episodic dust formation in these stars. Veen et al. (1998) reported transient optical fadings in several WCL stars, attributable to temporary condensations of dust clouds.

Crowther (1997) reported remarkable weakening of the WR-type spectral feature, together with a possible 1.1 magnitude photometric fading, in a WR+OB binary WR 104, which was interpreted as a temporary obscuration of the inner Wolf-Rayet wind by a dust cloud. On the other hand, recent interferometric imaging of WR 104 by Tuthill et al. (1999) revealed the amazing “dusty pinwheel nebula”. This extended structure which rotates with a period of 220$`\pm `$30 d \[Tuthill et al. (2002) further reported a refined the period to be 243.5$`\pm `$3 d\] is believed to be formed by the colliding winds of the WR star and companion OB-star. The relation between occasionally reported obscuration episodes and the persistent dusty pinwheel structure, however, remained a mystery Tuthill et al. (1999,2002)111 More recently, WR 98a and perhaps WR 112 are known to have a “dusty pinwheel nebula” (Monnier et al. (1999); Marchenko et al. (2002)), though neither of them are yet known to be as highly variable as WR 104. .

In 2001 April, one of the authors (KH) serendipitously discovered a new variable star named HadV82 (Haseda, 2001), which was subsequently identified with WR 104. This led to a discovery of dramatic photometric variation in WR 104, with an unprecedented amplitude and frequency of fadings among all WR stars. The variation has a quasi-period close to the reported binary period, which provides an essential clue to understanding the relation between the formation of dust and the role of binarity.

## 2 Observation and results

A total of 176 observations were done between 1994 May 12 and 2001 April 26, with twin patrol cameras equipped with D=10cm f/4.0 telephoto lens and unfiltered T-Max 400 emulsions, located at two sites in Toyohashi, Aichi (KH) and Saku, Nagano (KT). The passband of observations covers the range of 400–650 nm. Photographic photometry was done using neighboring comparison stars whose $`V`$-magnitudes were calibrated by T. Watanabe. The overall uncertainty of the calibration and individual photometric estimates is 0.2–0.3 mag, which will not affect the following analysis.

The resultant light curve is presented in figure 2. The star showed an overall range of variability between 11.8 and fainter than 14.5 magnitudes, making the full amplitude greater than 2.7 magnitudes. The raw data are available at $``$ ftp://vsnet.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/pub/vsnet/WR/WR104/wr104obs.jd $``$.

Such a large variation in visible light far exceeds previously known variations of WR-type stars (Veen et al., 1998), which only occasionally show temporary fadings having depths less than 1 magnitude. Faint phases of WR 104 typically last an order of months, which is strikingly longer than any known transient episodes of WR-type variable stars (Veen et al., 1998), which usually last days to weeks. The most remarkable feature is the existence of a quasi-period of 200–400 d, superimposed on a long-term trend, which may be attributed to slow changes of optical depth of the line-of-sight extinction. The result of period analysis using the Phase Dispersion Minimization technique (Stellingwerf, 1978) is presented in figure 3. The strongest period in the range of 50–500 d is 241 d, which is in almost perfect agreement with the suggested orbital period of 243.5$`\pm `$3 d (Tuthill et al., 2002). Figure 4 shows a phase-averaged light curve with this period. The mean orbital light curve is characterized by a rather sharp minimum and a broader maximum.

## 3 Discussion

The previously known most striking evidence of variability in WR 104 is the temporary remarkable weakening of the spectroscopic feature of the WR-type star (Crowther, 1997). Crowther (1997) suggested that occultation by a dust cloud condensation, analogous to R CrB stars, is responsible for the phenomenon. The coincidence of the the remarkable weakening of the WR-type spectral feature and the optical fading supports the idea that the WR-type star was almost entirely obscured at the time of the observation by Crowther (1997).

The remarkable agreement of the dominant period in optical variability with the orbital period supports that at least a considerable fraction of varying dust obscuration is physically related to the binary motion. We mainly discuss on implications of the remarkable coincidence between the period of large-amplitude optical variation and the binary period.

First, the reported low binary inclination of 11$`\pm `$7 (Tuthill et al., 2002) makes unlikely that the tail of the dust spiral is directly responsible for the variation. A possible explanation is the periodic enhancement of dust production in the WR-star wind at the passage of the companion star though an elliptical orbit. This effect is most pronounced in an episodic dust producer, WR 140 (Williams et al., 1990) and presumably WR 137 (Williams et al., 2001). The evidence for this scenario in WR 104 is less convincing, in its little infrared variability (van der Hucht et al., 1996), and in its continuous appearance of the dust spiral Tuthill et al. (1999,2002), and the lack of evidence of a large orbital eccentricity (Tuthill et al., 2002), all of which were considered against episodic dust production around periastron. Further full-orbit interferometric observation, together with contemporaneous visual and infrared photometry will be key information in testing the hypothesis.

The other possibility is that the varying obscuration is of geometrical origin, e.g. varying extinction as a consequence of rotating binary seen through a gradient of absorption near the line of sight. This explanation is similar to an idea to explain the unique variability of the binary central star of the planetary nebula, NGC 2346 (Roth et al. (1984); Costero et al. (1986)). This explanation would require an extremely strong gradient or a sharply defined dense obscuring body in the line of sight. The observed amplitude (more than 2.7 magnitudes) could only be explained if the WR-type component emits about 90% of the visual light, and the star is almost completely eclipsed by this obscuring structure. However, this assumption may not be consistent with its weaker WR-type spectral feature even in the high state than in other WC9 stars (Cohen et al., 1975). Such apparent discrepancies were also observed in WR 137 (Williams et al., 2001), which may be a rather common phenomenon seen in WCL+OB wind collision binaries.

Considering the total line-of-sight absorption of $`A_\mathrm{V}`$=6.5 magnitude (Pendleton et al., 1994), about 4.5 mag of which (after subtracting the interstellar absorption) is likely to be attributed to past mass-loss events of the progenitor, rather than the present dust formation (Cohen et al. (1975), Tuthill et al. (1999)), such a large fraction (2.7/4.5) of variable line-of-sight extinction seems to be difficult to reconcile with the past, presumably more spherical mass-loss episodes. The present discovery of strongly variable extinction may alternately suggest that the highly structured extinction can be being formed via an ejection of dust in the direction of the binary rotation axis. Such a possibility may be tested by a future development of full three-dimensional treatment of dust formation and ejection in a colliding-wind binary.

Another viable explanation is that the three-dimensional structure of the shock front, where the compressed gas is considered to effectively form dust grains (Usov, 1991), itself is the obscuring body. Depending on the geometry, the dusty shock front near the conjunction phase of the binary can completely obscure the inner WR-star wind, as well as the OB star, both are required to explain the spectral variation (Crowther, 1997) and the observed amplitude of optical fading. This explanation would require a higher inclination angle than was reported, or a sufficient vertical structure to obscure the stellar component viewed even nearly pole-on. Detailed high-resolution, full-orbit observation is again indispensable to discriminate the possibilities.

The present discovery of quasi-periodic, highly variable visual obscuration in WR 104 proposes a new class and mechanism of light variability in WR-type stars. With the advent of sub-milliarcsecond optical and infrared interferometry, and the coming era of Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), WR 104 would provide a powerful tool in geometrically resolving the heart of dust production in the most efficiently dust-productive stellar environments.

This work is partly supported by a grant-in-aid (13640239) from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.


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# Content Distribution in Unicast Replica Meshes

## 1 Introduction

One of the main methods of distribution of the free (open source) software is via HTTP and/or FTP downloads. Such software is usually replicated on different servers reducing load on individual servers and improving client latency. Unfortunately some problems are associated with this method of distribution, to name a few:

1. Incomplete or outdated mirrors
2. Absence of tools needed to locate nearest, best mirror server.
3. “Slashdot-effect” - After the new version of software is announced the main server is overloaded for a long period of time. This prevents proper update of the mirror servers.

Intelligent replication of the software can solve first and the third problem. Parallel download from the multiple mirror servers saturating the available bandwidth can be used to resolve the second one.

Commercial content distribution networks (f.e. Akamai ) are using IP multicasting for data transmission between replica nodes. Theirs networks are of the order of hundred thousand hosts and both nodes and network infrastructure are maintained by CDN.

Unfortunately IP multicast suffers from a number of technical problems and the administrative burden of maintenance. These problems prevent it from forming a global infrastructure. It can’t be widely used now as a transport layer for the global mesh of replicas.

On the other side there is a longstanding Internet convention that large or popular sites are widely replicated, usually voluntearly. This process is known as ”mirroring”. Software for replication of WWW and FTP content exists for years - e.g. GNU wget , mirror  and rsync . Recently some formalization of this process has taken place with organization of UK Mirror Service , AARNet2 Mirror Archive  etc. While the old volunteer based mirroring services are operated on a best-effort basis, these new mirrors operate under Service Level Agreements with guaranteed levels of availability.

Mirror servers are updated using the standard client-server model with client pulling data from the server. We propose a method of content distribution in the server-server (or p2p) model that performs much better then standard client-server approach.

In the next section we will review previous work done on the subject, in the third section will introduce our algorithm, in the forth will describe the simulation setup, in section five we will evaluate different heuristics and in the last section we will present conclusions and formulate future development areas.

## 2 Previous work

Dispersity routing split the transfer of information over multiple network paths to provide enhanced reliability and performance. One of the first papers on the subject was the paper of Maxemchuk . Usage of erasure codes in bulk data transfers in multicasting environments was introduced in paper of Byers et all . They used a notion of “Digital Fountain” - case when servers are transmitting encoded parts of data independently, and client can receive as much data as its bandwidth permits. One of the best known applications based on this idea is OpenCola Swarmcast . It can be used as a content distribution media but it was designed so that best performance is achieved at download of one huge file at the presence of large number of clients. Streaming media distribution based on the multiple description coding was proposed in the work of Apostolopoulos and others . They subdivided stream into 2 independent parts, each of them can be either played individually (with degraded quality) or used to reconstruct initial file. These 2 streams can be transmitted independently and from different servers.

The Yoid project  was probably the best effort of creating transport layer for a global CDN. Unfortunately it stoped at the stage of architectural white paper.

A wast literature exists on replica placement in the Content Distribution Networks (see f.e.  and  and references therein). This problem is connected to the data distribution in the p2p environments, and inspired this work.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first one exploring the problem of data distribution in the unicast networks in many-to-many architecture.

## 3 Content Distribution. Best-Client Selection Algorithm

In this section we will introduce a simple model of data distribution in the server-server network. Internet topology has been studied in different papers - since 1997. The main output from these papers that is relevant to us, is that Internet topology can not be modelled as a tree, but should be modelled as a more complicated graph. It was shown  that hop count between Autonomous Systems (AS) is in good correlation with point-to-point measured bandwidth. Papers  states that performance of some of the mirror servers do not depend on this property. That analysis can not be extended to the more general case, due to the large number of valuable parameters not included in the study.

Let assume that we do know the network topology $`h_{ij}`$ (hop count between AS $`i`$ and AS $`j`$) and we do know location of each of the $`N`$ nodes (replicas) in this network. Total amount of data to be downloaded by each replica is $`S`$. As soon as client downloads all data it becomes server and can start transmitting data to any other client on the network.

Let’s assume that we have $`n`$ servers already. Then we can write the following proportionality for the bandwidth of the client $`j`$:

$$b_i\underset{jn}{}\frac{1}{h_{ij}}.$$
(1)
In the capaciated version of this problem we have upper limits on $`b_i`$ \- bandwidth consumption during download is limited by $`u_i`$ (client side) and bandwidth available from the server $`j`$ is limited by $`d_j`$ (server side). Then proportionality (1) is transformed in to following equation:

$$b_i=min(\underset{jn}{}min(f(\frac{1}{h_{ij}}),d_j),u_i),$$
(2)
where $`f(\frac{1}{h_{ij}})`$ is the hypothetical function giving point-to-point bandwidth between nodes $`i`$ and $`j`$.

This equation provides us with 2 clues on what can be done in oder to maximize bandwidth of the system at the shortest time:
a) client should be selected so that $`b_i`$ is maximal (in order to increase number of servers as fast as possible).
b) download process should proceed from multiple servers to one client (in oder to reach $`u_i`$) and to the multiple clients from one server (in oder to reach $`d_j`$).

On one hand we can have not enough severs to saturate download limit of all clients and on another we can have not enough clients to consume all free bandwidth of the servers. Then we can estimate total bandwidth of the system to be

$$\underset{il}{}b_i=min(\underset{jn}{}d_j,\underset{il}{}u_i).$$
(3)
There are two distinct cases in the evolution of the system:
a) when $`_{jn}d_j_{il}u_i`$ (initial phase ) and
b) $`_{jn}d_j_{il}u_i`$ (final phase).

For the simplicity let us assume that $`d_jd`$ and $`u_iu`$ for all hosts. Then total bandwidth at time $`t_0`$ can be written as:

$$B(t_0)dInt(\frac{_0^{t_0}B(t)𝑑t}{S})+dde^{\frac{d}{S}t_o}.$$
(4)
and

$$B(t_0)u(NInt(\frac{_0^{t_0}B(t)𝑑t}{S}))\frac{ud}{u+d}Ne^{\frac{u}{S}(t_0t^{})},$$
(5)
where $`t^{}=\frac{S}{d}\mathrm{ln}(\frac{uN}{d+u})`$ \- time when maximum bandwidth is reached and amount of data servers can transmit per time equals to amount of data clients can receive. Please note that integral only roughly estimates amount of servers at $`t_0`$.

Another, and better, approximation of (5) is

$$B(t_0)=\frac{duN}{d+u},$$
(6)
or bandwidth of the system at $`t^{}`$.

Then $`T`$ \- time when the system will be filled, can be found from the following equation:

$$SN=_0^TB(t)𝑑t,$$
(7)
or

$$T\frac{S}{d}\mathrm{ln}(\frac{uN}{d+u})+\frac{S}{u}$$
(8)
So we see that the time is proportional to the $`S`$ and that $`u`$ and $`d`$ should be of the same order of magnitude. We should also try to maximize $`_{jn}d_j`$ or $`b_i`$ and $`B`$ at any given time.

Then the formal algorithm is the following: when there is any bandwidth left on the server side, new client is selected so that $`b_i`$ is maximal, or $`_{jn}h_{ij}`$ is minimal. Clients can connect to the servers until they reaches $`u_i`$.

Let us provide a simple example clarifying why subdividing $`S`$ into smaller parts and transmitting them individually should give good results.

We subdivide data into two equal parts and subdivide our replica mesh into submeshes $`A`$ and $`B`$ so that mesh characteristics as the same. Hop count distribution should be equal, and nodes nearest to the root server in each group, should be located at the same distance. Then root server starts sending parts $`p_A`$ and $`p_B`$ to the 2 nearest nodes in the meshes. Both parts will be uploaded at $`t_12S/h`$. After download is complete these 2 sub-meshes can act as independent networks, with possible small degradation of connectivity. They will be filled after $`T/2`$ (see (8)). Then they will start filling each other: if $`du`$ they will fill each other at time $`S/(2d)`$, in other case that will happen at $`S/(2u)`$. So the system will be filled approximately 2 times faster compared to (8). Having in mind this example one can believe that time of data propagation will be reduced after subdivision of data. We will explore this approach in our simulation.

## 4 Simulation

For our simulation we choose generated networks of 100 nodes in 3 different topologies. With the “line” topology we have 4 clusters of 25 nodes that are randomly connected within cluster (with average distance of 4 hops). Nodes from neighbour clusters are connected by 9 hops on average, nodes that have one cluster in between– 12 and 2 clusters – 15 hops.

In “triangle” topology nodes within cluster are randomly connected with average distance of 4, node is connected to any node in other clusters with average distance of 12 hops.

In “random” topology nodes are connected randomly with average distance of 10.

All these topologies have average distance of 10 hops.

It was shown in  that most of the characteristics of the Internet structures (like hop distance between ASes and router fanout) obey power-law. We will not use these empirical law in our simulation, as replica placement can obey somewhat different laws or no laws at all.

Bandwidth between two nodes is inversely proportional to hop distance with 25 % of random noise and varies from 1.5 MBps to 20 KBps.

Amount of data to be distributed is 5 GB - around the size of modern Linux distribution.

Node selection is performed using algorithm proposed in previous section. During simulation we include 5% of random noise to bandwidth between nodes. All simulated activity was subdivided in time slots of 1 minute, during that interval nodes were only downloading and no node status updates were made.

### 4.1 Greedy-Global algorithm

In oder to compare our results we choose algorithm used in CDNs to locate position of replica/cache. This algorithm is called Greedy-Global and with minimal modifications can be used in our simulation. This modified method can be formulated the following way: We select replica one-by-one, at each step we choose one of the nodes so, that if replica is placed there, the resulting network overhead is minimized.

Greedy Global heuristics can be modified to suit better p2p distribution. Network overhead is characterized by the following cost function:

$$C=\underset{i}{}D_i,$$
(9)
where sum runs over all client nodes and $`D_i`$ is minimal distance from the client to the server.

Our algorithm is slightly different from regular CDN GG algorithm, as request rate and object popularity are not relevant in out case. This approach selects best location for $`n`$ replicas between $`N`$ nodes ( $`n<<N`$) under steady load from the clients. One would expect that such algorithm can give good performance in our model as well, because when new node becomes server, our mesh have “ideal” replica placement.

When the difference between cost at step $`k`$ (k replicas) and at step $`k+1`$ (k+1 replica) becomes small we can assume that there are enough “perfectly” placed replicas and we can start assigning clients based on our Best Client approach in the submeshes belonging to each replica server. This algorithm resembles current practice of assigning “authoritative” mirrors for each geographical location and redirecting clients to them.

We will use both pure Greedy Global and Greedy Global/Best Client algorithms in our simulation.

We can describe current “best-practice” method of data distribution in the mesh of replicas as the following procedure:

1. Client tries to find the nearest mirror server with required data and start download process.
2. If none is available, it reaches master server.
3. If master server is full, it waits till master server becomes free or some nearby server gets all data.

We do not compare this method to ours, as according to our estimates, it will perform worth then Greedy Global.

## 5 Performance evaluation

Each test was run 100 times and data shown on figures is average. Different lines corresponds to data being subdivided into 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 parts or not subdivided at all.

It can be easily seen from Figure 1 and Table 1, that subdividing data into smaller chunks and transmitting them independently indeed improve system performance. Our results are almost independent on the topology, this means that algorithm will perform equally well in real-life. Time required to fill the system is only slightly larger ($`5\%`$) for 16 then for 32 subparts for all topologies. This can greatly reduce network overhead of the real system.

Results for the simulation with the Greedy Global algorithm are presented on Figure 2. For the sake of space we present figures only for the “line” topology. As one can see the main disadvantage of this heuristics is prolonged start of exponential growth. This is caused by the first client selection. Usually the first selected client is one with nearly the worst connectivity to the root server, as opposed to the Best Client method, where the first client is the nearest one.

We provide more data on the time required to fill system in Table 1. Please note that we include not only pure Greedy Global but also Greedy Global + Best Client. We switch from Greedy to Best Client algorithm when the cost of new placement (9) is more then 70%, 80% and 90% of the previous.

One can easily see that Best Client outperforms all algorithms by 200% for some topologies/parts and by 60% for another.

### 5.1 Load balancing

Our results can be quite sensitive to the load balancing policy. We looked at 4 different policies when selecting client with the same cost function (1) for the given chunk of data:

1. Client that downloaded less of the given part.
2. Client that downloaded more of the given part.
3. Client that downloaded less totally.
4. Client that downloaded more totally.

Results for different topologies and number of parts are presented in the Table 2. They show that time to fill is practically independent from the load-balancing policy. This means that current state of the system can be known only to the level of node ( i.e. node being client or server for the given part).

The results presented on Figure 1 and Table 1 are given for the second policy.

### 5.2 Free Loaders

In our simulation all servers are serving as much data as required. Having in mind good performance of our algorithm we can try the capaciated version when all but root server are serving limited amount of data (up to $`1.2S`$). This case is common to the conventional p2p networks when people are downloading but not serving data. This people are called “free loaders”. In order to estimate impact of them we vary download limit from $`5S`$ to $`1.2S`$ and look at the time required to fill the system. Results are presented in Table 3. One can easily see that no reasonable performance degradation is observed while mirror servers are providing at least twice the original download.

## 6 Conclusions and future work

We propose a method of content distribution in the server-server (or p2p) model that performs much better then standard client-server approach.

Data to be downloaded from the server is subdivided into given number of parts. As soon as client downloads subpart completely it becomes server and can start transmitting it to any other client on the network. When there is any bandwidth left on the server side, new client is selected so that $`b_i`$ is maximal, or $`_{jn}h_{ij}`$ is minimal. Clients can connect to the servers until they reaches $`u_i`$.

We perform simulation for different topologies and compare our heuristic with modified Greedy Global and Greedy Global + Best Client algorithms. We show that our method outperforms another algorithms by 200% for some topologies/number of parts and by 60% for another. Our results are almost independent on the topology, so algorithm may perform equally well in real-life.

It was shown that subdividing data into smaller chunks and transmitting them independently indeed improve system performance. We also found that time required to fill the system is only slightly larger ($`5\%`$) for 16 than for 32 subparts. Subdividing into smaller number of parts can greatly reduce network and computational overhead of the real system.

We explore different load-balancing policies and find that time to fill does not depend on them. This means that current state of the system can be known only to the level of node (i.e. node being client or server for the given part).

We also tried to estimate impact of “free-loaders”. In oder to do that we varied download limit, and find that if servers are transmitting at least twice the size of download, time required to fill the system remains almost the same. This means that our replica mesh may indeed withstand “slashdot effect”.

We are planing to develop decentralized algorithm that will use main results of this paper. It will be interesting to specifically check how many freeloaders can be in the mesh simultaneously and do not degrade performance of decentralized algorithm.

One should check that our system performs well in real Internet topology. For the completeness we should also include simulation results for the current “best-practice” method of data distribution in replica meshes.