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# A comparison of neutron star blackbody luminosities in LMXB with the theory of accretion flow spreading on the stellar surface

## 1 Introduction

The nature of the X-ray emission in Low Mass X-ray Binaries (LMXB) has for many years been controversial. It is clear that the accretion flow deposits its energy partly in the accretion disk resulting in heating and X-ray emission, and partly in a boundary layer at the surface of the star or on the stellar surface itself, but the nature of the emission has not been agreed. Firstly, there has been the question of how many continuum components there are. The spectra of the less bright LMXB are clearly dominated by Comptonization which led to the use of the Generalized Thermal model $`E^\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{e}^{E/E_{\mathrm{CO}}}`$ in the fitting of Exosat spectra (White et al. 1988). Only in the case of brighter sources did spectral fitting demand that a blackbody component was added to this. Mitsuda et al. (1989) proposed a model consisting of multi-colour disk (MCD) blackbody emission from the inner accretion disk plus blackbody emission from the neutron star, Comptonized in a region local to the star, and this two-component model is able to fit many sources well. Secondly, there is the identification of the blackbody component in LMXB spectra. Opinion has been divided between location on the surface or boundary layer at the star, or in the inner accretion disk, and this controversy continues to recent times. There are also physical differences between models involving X-ray emission in the boundary layer and those involving the stellar surface (see below). In the former case, it is assumed that the angular momentum in the inner disk adjusts to that of the star in a boundary layer in the disk which becomes the source of X-rays. Thirdly, the location, geometry and size of the Comptonizing region have been controversial. Many theoreticians have favoured Comptonization taking place in an inner, hot region close to the neutron star.

However, the dipping class of LMXB provides answers to these problems although this has not been widely appreciated. This group of $``$10 sources exhibit decreases in X-ray intensity at the orbital period due to absorption in the bulge in the outer disk where the accretion flow from the companion star impacts. Emission models are more strongly constrained in these sources, as models have to fit not only the spectrum of the quiescent source as in other types of LMXB, but also several levels of dipping. Spectral evolution is not simple, and cannot be fitted by absorbed one-component models. It has been shown by analysis of data from many observations with Exosat, ASCA, BeppoSAX and Rossi-XTE that these sources are well-described by a model consisting of point-like blackbody emission plus Comptonized emission from an extended accretion disk corona (ADC) (e.g. Church et al. 1997, 1998; Bałucińska-Church et al. 1999, 2000, 2001; Smale et al. 2001). The blackbody is absorbed rapidly in dipping showing that it is point-like, and has temperatures between 0.9 and $``$2 keV. The Comptonized emission is shown by spectral analysis to be removed gradually, and the complex spectral evolution is well-described by progressive covering of this component in dipping by the absorber, the covering fraction rising smoothly in many cases from zero to unity. This, of course, requires the Comptonizing region to be extended allowing the size to be estimated. Moreover, measurement of dip ingress times directly provides the size of the region, and values of the radius of this region for several sources typically of 50,000 km have been determined (Church 2001). It is clear that a very extended Comptonizing region with high electron temperature can only be identified with an ADC. The dipping sources also indicate that this must be a thin corona, since if an ADC of this large radius was spherical, it is unlikely that the absorber on the outer disk would be able to overlap the source region completely to produce the 100% deep dipping observed in many sources (Smale et al. 2001). It is likely that the ADC in all dipping LMXB is very extended, which can probably be related to the strong effects of the neutron star forming the ADC by evaporation of the accretion disk. Moreover, it is not expected that the dipping sources are atypical, and so an extended ADC is expected in all LMXB. The large measured size of the ADC has several significant consequences as discussed below.

Firstly, these measurements of the ADC radius $`r_{\mathrm{ADC}}`$ allow us to rule out Comptonization models that involve a localized region in the neighbourhood of the neutron star. Secondly, the ADC size measurements have an important consequence for blackbody emission observed from LMXB. It is expected that a substantial fraction of the total available energy will be dissipated initially in the accretion disk, implying a large disk blackbody component. However, because the ADC is very extended, all of the hot inner regions of the disk will be covered by ADC, and consequently it is expected, given the high optical depth of the ADC (Church 2001), that all disk blackbody emission will become Comptonized in the ADC so that no blackbody emission from the disk itself should be visible. It is also clear on the basis of the thin, flat disk and thin, flat ADC geometry, that thermal emission from the disk must be the major source of seed photons for Comptonization in the ADC. Thus, blackbody emission clearly identified in the spectra of many LMXB (e.g. Church & Bałucinska-Church 2001, see below) must be identified with the neutron star/boundary layer without any contribution from the disk being expected. This contrasts with a recent tendency to fit a disk blackbody plus comptt Comptonization model routinely to BeppoSAX data (e.g. Guainazzi et al. 1998; Sidoli et al. 2001; Oosterbroek et al. 2001). This is thus inconsistent with the implications of the large measured sizes of Accretion Disk Coronae.

The large ADC size is also relevant to the comptt Comptonization model used in the above fitting. It has been claimed that this is preferable at low energies ($`<`$ 1 keV) to a cut-off power law representation of Comptonization as the latter implies that the spectral flux density continues to increase with decreasing photon energy, even for very low energies below 0.1 keV. Clearly, at very low energies the flux must decrease because of the lack of seed photons. The comptt model due to Titarchuk (1994) calculates a Comptonized spectrum assuming a sea of soft thermal photons and so avoids an increase of flux at the lowest energies. It uses the Wien approximation to the seed photon spectrum, valid for $`h\nu `$ $`>>`$ $`kT`$. However, usage of this model in which values of $`kT`$ from spectral fitting as high as 1 keV and 2 keV are derived (e.g. Guainazzi et al. 1998) will contravene the assumptions of the model, and will overestimate the seed photon spectrum, and thus the Comptonized spectrum by as much as 100% at 1 keV. Thus a model with $`kT`$ = 2 keV will only be valid above 10 keV. Regarding the availibility of seed photons, we can calculate whether there is any shortage of seed photons below 1 keV as follows. The large size of the ADC referred to above ensures that seed photons produced in the accretion disk out to a radius of $``$50,000 km will be Comptonized as the disk is covered by ADC out to this radius. We have calculated the multi-colour disk blackbody spectrum of this part of the disk assuming a thin disk temperature profile $`T(r)`$ by integration in radius (for appropriate values of mass accretion rate). It is clearly dominated by the soft photons from outer radii. For a luminosity of $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1, the photon spectral flux density forms a broad peak between 0.001–0.01 keV, and for a luminosity of $`10^{38}`$ erg s-1, the flux peaks between 0.01–0.1 keV, showing that there is no deficiency of low energy photons. Thus, the cut-off power law is a perfectly good description of the Comptonized spectrum to energies at least as low as 0.1 keV, whereas application of the comptt model without restricting $`kT`$ for the seed photons to suitably low values will be invalid.

Finally, the extended size of the ADC has implications for reflection in LMXB. Because all of the inner disk is covered by ADC, illumination of the disk by the neutron star will not be possible, and “hot” reflection of this source from the ADC will take place. This will not however, have the absorption features of a reflection component from the accretion disk. Moreover, although the ADC itself can illuminate the disk and lead to reflection, the high values of optical depth obtained for the ADC (Church 2001) suggest that this component will be reprocessed in the ADC and so not observed. This may explain the lack of detections of reflected components in LMXB. In a black hole binary such as Cyg X-1, the ADC radius is much smaller (Church 2001), and so a reflection component can be expected, as observed.

### 1.1 The ASCA survey

The above two-component model used to explain dipping LMXB spectra has been applied recently to a survey of all classes of LMXB, including the Atoll and Z-track sources (Church & Bałucinska-Church 2001), and found to fit all sources well. As part of this survey, it was shown that the blackbody emission cannot originate in the accretion disk, since fitting a two-component model consisting of multi-colour disk blackbody plus a Comptonization term gave in many cases a value for the inner disk radius $`r_\mathrm{i}`$ more than 10 times smaller than the radius of the neutron star assumed to be $``$ 10 km. Thus the blackbody emission has to be from the neutron star and these results support the idea that disk blackbody emission is fully Comptonized in the ADC. The main result of the survey was the systematic behaviour that it revealed in the neutron star blackbody emission as reproduced in Fig. 1. In brighter sources, the 1–30 keV blackbody luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ approached 50% of the total luminosity (the dotted line) as expected in the Newtonian approximation. In fainter sources, $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ fell to much smaller fractions of the total. It was demonstrated that, as the total luminosity increased, the blackbody emitting area increased by a factor of 5400 across the sample, whereas the blackbody temperature $`kT_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ changed (in fact, decreased) by 40% (i.e. a factor of 0.60), corresponding to a change by a factor of 8 in $`T^4`$. Thus, the area is the most important factor in determining the level of blackbody emission.

### 1.2 Possible modification of the blackbody

The survey assumed that there was simple blackbody emission from the surface of the neutron star, and we next discuss this assumption. Firstly, modification of the blackbody was proposed by Rutledge et al. (1999) for transiently-accreting LMXB in quiescence, having $`kT`$ typically 0.2 keV and luminosity $`L`$ $``$ 1033 erg s-1. The modification arises from higher energy photons escaping from greater depths in the atmosphere. This is clearly inapplicable to LMXB not in quiescence emitting at luminosities of 1036–1038 erg s-1 (Rutledge priv comm).

Secondly, although in the study of X-ray bursts there is observational evidence that there is sometimes modification of the blackbody by electron scattering in the neutron star atmosphere during bursts, there is no such evidence in the case of non-burst emission. Fitting a simple blackbody in a case where modification did take place would lead to errors in $`kT`$ and the emitting area. There are two pieces of evidence for modification in bursts (see the detailed discussion in Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001). Firstly, values of $`kT`$ of $``$3 keV have been obtained for a fraction of bursts from fitting a simple blackbody to the peak, which implies super-Eddington emission. Secondly, an increase in blackbody radius $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ while the blackbody temperature decreased during burst decay was found in the source XB 1636-536 (Inoue et al. 1984; Sztajno et al. 1985). The increase of $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ was thought to be unreal and a consequence of fitting a simple blackbody when the emission was modified blackbody. However, whether this effect is observed depends on whether spectral fitting allows for blackbody emission by the non-bursting source (Sztajno et al. 1986), and so is not strong evidence for modification. More recently, Kuulkers et al. (2002) have presented evidence that during the cooling phase of burst decay in GX 17+2, the blackbody is not modified.

In fact, whether modification takes place depends critically on the electron density $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ which determines whether absorption processes or electron scattering dominate the opacity. Various theoretical descriptions of the neutron star atmosphere in bursting have been given, by Fujimoto et al. (1981), Paczyński (1983), London et al. (1984, 1986), Ebisuzaki et al. (1984), Ebisuzaki (1987) and Madej (1991). However, there are very large disparities between the electron density values in these works, $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ varying between $`10^{24}`$$`10^{32}`$ cm-3. While an atmosphere with $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ = $`10^{24}`$ cm-3 is clearly dominated by electron scattering, a higher density atmosphere is not. Thus the theoretical picture is unclear and we have to rely on observational evidence that some bursts only have a modified spectrum. For these, the effect of modification on measured values of $`kT`$ depends on the ratio of colour temperature to effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{col}}`$/Teff for which recent theoretical values are low, i.e. 1.1 in the work of Madej & Różańska (2000) (Czerny, priv comm), compared with earlier values which were higher. Values can be derived using the London et al. model of $``$1.6 for $`kT_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ = 2 keV appropriate to a burst peak, $``$1.3 for 1.5 keV, and $``$1.1 for 1 keV (assuming hydrogen composition). Thus even these factors imply relatively small corrections for non-burst emission. The effect on emitting area depends on this ratio squared, so in terms of recent theory can reach only 20%. In non-burst emission, there is actually no evidence for modification at all and so it would be inappropriate to apply a correction factor. On the contrary, the ASCA survey results in which the blackbody radius approaches 10 km in bright sources, i.e. consistent with the neutron star radius provide evidence that there is no large modification. Thus it is unlikely that the results of the present paper would be affected.

In Fig. 2, the ASCA survey results are replotted in the form of half-height $`h`$ of the emitting region on the neutron star assumed to be an equatorial strip, more specifically, a sphere intersected by two parallel planes, having emitting area 4$`\pi Rh`$ where $`R`$ is the radius of the neutron star. $`h`$ varied between 20 m (at the lowest luminosities) and the full radius of the star $``$ 10 km. These heights are (for almost all of the data) substantially larger than the half-height of the inner accretion disk calculated using thin disk theory (Shakura & Sunyaev 1976) at some position close to the surface of the neutron star (e.g. 1.001$`R`$). This thin disk half-height is $``$20 m for a luminosity of $`10^{36}`$ erg s-1 and $``$40 m for $`10^{38}`$ erg s-1. However, the inner disk is expected to be radiatively supported over a wide range of luminosities $`>`$ $`3\times 10^{36}`$ erg s-1 and consequently has much larger vertical extent. The radiatively-supported disk merges at some radius with the thin disk and the half-height $`H(r_{10})`$ was calculated at the radius at which the radiation pressure was 10 times the gas pressure (Czerny & Elvis 1987). Remarkably, there was good agreement between $`h`$ and $`H(r_{10})`$ for the majority of the survey sources, the agreement spanning 3 decades in each quantity as shown in Fig. 2 (Fig. 3, Church & Bałucińska-Church 2001). This agreement suggests that the properties of the inner disk determine in some way the blackbody emitting area. In the case of the bright source GX 5-1, the agreement is poor with $`h`$ = 110 km and $`H(r_{10})`$ = 43 km. The blackbody radius $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ is 33 km showing that the data cannot be explained by emission from the neutron star alone, suggesting that the emitting region has expanded to a spherical cloud centred on the star. However, there is good agreement between the height of the cloud at 33 km (= $`R_{\mathrm{BB}}`$) plotted as a triangle in Fig. 2 and $`H(r_{10})`$. A similar point is plotted for the blackbody radius of the source GX 13+1. There is thus some evidence that, for these points also, $`H`$ determines $`h`$. In the present paper, we compare the survey results with possible mechanisms leading to the agreement of $`h`$ = $`H`$, specifically i) radial flow between the accretion disk and neutron star, and ii) accretion flow spreading on the surface of the neutron star (Inogamov & Sunyaev 1999).

The agreement between $`h`$ and $`H`$ suggests that the properties of the inner disk determine the blackbody emitting area in some way. However, there are at least two possible explanations of the agreement. Firstly, there may be radial flow across the gap between the inner disk and the star at all vertical positions above the orbital plane so that the disk height approximately sets the height of the emitting area on the star. This requires there to be a stable, radiatively-supported inner accretion disk, although it has been suggested that the radiative disk is subject to instabilities. These may not however, disrupt the disk in a major way as their characteristic timescale is short (see Sect. 4). Secondly, there may be spreading of the accretion flow on the neutron star surface as proposed by Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999). In this case, accretion flow between the disk and the star will be essentially in the orbital plane. In this mechanism discussed below, the accretion flow spreads vertically over the neutron star, the height reached depending on the mass accretion rate and thus on the total luminosity. The emitting area depends on $`L`$, and the quantity $`H`$ is simply a measure of $`L`$; thus the agreement of $`h`$ with $`H`$ represents the variation of emitting area with luminosity (and does not result from a direct mapping of the disk height onto the star). We next compare the survey results with this theory.

## 2 Accretion flow on the surface of the neutron star

In the often accepted standard theory of accretion flow interaction with neutron stars, it is assumed that the adjustment in angular velocity between the accreting material with high Keplerian velocity and the slower rotation of the star takes place in a boundary layer located in the inner disk (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973; Lynden-Bell & Pringle 1974; Pringle & Savonije 1979; Papaloizou & Stanley 1986; Popham et al. 1993; Bisnovatyi-Kogan 1994; Popham & Narayan 1995). This takes place via turbulent friction between differentially rotating layers in the disk. Thus X-ray emission would take place in this inner disk.

Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) recently proposed a radically different approach in which the adjustment in angular velocity takes place on the surface of the star, material meeting the star in the equatorial plane and flowing vertically on the stellar surface away from the plane and forming a spreading layer. Viscous interaction with the underlying surface takes place while the angular velocity of the flow material differs from that of the star, leading to heating and X-ray emission which rises to a peak at a particular arc distance $`R\theta `$ measured on the surface of the star from the equator. The emitted flux then falls rapidly with $`R\theta `$ as energy is radiated. Thus, for a given luminosity, there is a band on the surface of the star where the X-ray emission takes place. A system of equations was set up for the spreading layer considered essentially as a stellar atmosphere, consisting of hydrostatic equilibrium, radiative equilibrium, an equation of state containing gas and radiation pressure and the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The opacity was assumed to be dominated by Thomson scattering. Transformation and solution of these equations was carried out for a number of values of accretion rate, i.e. neutron star spreading layer luminosity. In particular, results were presented for the variation of X-ray flux $`q`$ defined as the energy emitted per unit area per second, with arc distance. Fig. 3 reproduces the results of Inogamov & Sunyaev for the distribution of X-ray flux with $`R\theta `$ for 4 values of the neutron star luminosity equal to 1%, 4%, 20% and 80% of the Eddington limit $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$. The flux is given relative to the Eddington flux $`q_0`$, where

$$L_{\mathrm{Edd}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}\pi R^2q_0=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.26}\times 10^{38}\frac{M}{M_{}}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1,$$

and

$$q_0=\frac{GMm_\mathrm{p}c}{R^2\sigma _\mathrm{T}}$$

where $`M`$ is the mass of the neutron star, $`m_\mathrm{p}`$ is the proton mass and $`\sigma _\mathrm{T}`$ is the Thomson cross section. $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ is, of course, independent of the radius assumed for the neutron star. Fig. 3 shows $`q/q_0`$ integrated over photon energy as a function of arc length assuming $`q_0`$ appropriate to a 1.4$`M_{}`$ object so that $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ is $`1.76\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1. For the 4 cases, the neutron star luminosities are $`1.76\times 10^{36}`$, $`7.04\times 10^{36}`$, $`3.52\times 10^{37}`$ and $`1.67\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1.

Clearly, at low luminosities the X-ray emission peaks in a narrow strip relatively close to the orbital plane, but extending down to $`\theta `$ = 0. At high luminosities the hot region expands to fill the star. Inogamov & Sunyaev showed that the calculated fluxes were not sensitive to the magnitude of the viscosity parameter, as might be expected. X-ray observations are not capable, of course, of revealing the values $`R\theta _1`$ and $`R\theta _2`$ between which most of the X-ray emission is concentrated assuming the model to be correct, but they do provide values of the emitting area from fitting a simple blackbody. From the measured luminosity and temperature, an area can be derived and compared with the emitting area of the neutron star in the Inogamov & Sunyaev theory, as described in the next section.

## 3 Results

Fig. 3 shows the variation of flux with polar angle $`q(R\theta )`$ expressed as a fraction of the Eddington flux $`q_0`$ in the theory of Inogamov & Sunyaev which we wish to compare with the results of the ASCA survey of LMXB. Although Inogamov & Sunyaev use an electron scattering dominated opacity for the surface layers of the neutron star, they in fact, implement their model assuming simple blackbody emission. As discussed in Sect. 1, whether modification of the blackbody takes place depends on the electron density, and no evidence for modification in non-burst emission is known to exist. Thus we simply obtain the theoretical sizes of the hot regions on the neutron star from Fig. 3 and compare these with blackbody areas from the survey.

We adopt two ways of defining the emitting area from the theoretical variation $`q(R\theta )`$; comparison of these will indicate the uncertainty in the area. Firstly, we use the region on the neutron star corresponding to the FWHM of the flux $`q(R\theta )`$, i.e. the range between points where $`q`$ = $`q_{\mathrm{max}}/2`$. Secondly, we used a definition based on the intensity $`I`$ $``$ $`q(\theta ^{^{}})\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{^{}}𝑑\theta ^{^{}}`$ integrated over the surface of the sphere allowing for the angular dependence of the area $`2\pi R^2\mathrm{cos}\theta d\theta `$. The intensity $`I(\theta )`$ increases asymptotically to a constant value corresponding to the maximum value of $`R\theta `$ at which there is X-ray emission. The range of $`R\theta `$ was then obtained between $`I`$ = 0.50$`I_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and 0.99$`I_{\mathrm{max}}`$. For each method, we calculated the half-height $`h`$ of an equatorial strip having the same area, from the range of $`R\theta `$ values using $`h`$ = $`R\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ with 12 km for the radius of the neutron star as assumed by Inogamov & Sunyaev. These data are shown in Table 1. The case of the highest luminosity point is interesting. The FWHM in this case gives a value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(R\theta )`$ of 15.8 km which corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ = 75.5 if we assume $`R`$ = 12 km, and 90.5 for $`R`$ = 10 km. Thus, in the latter case, the whole star is clearly emitting and the value of $`h`$ equal to $`R\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ becomes 10 km. Alternatively, if we assume that 15.8 km is one quarter of the circumference of the star, a radius of 10.1 km for the neutron star is obtained.

In Fig. 4 we compare values of $`h`$ calculated in these two ways with $`H(r_{10})`$, the height of the inner disk, as a function of total luminosity. This function was shown to agree well with the ASCA survey results by Church & Bałucińska-Church (2001), and was calculated assuming a neutron star radius of 10 km. Open squares show the 99% intensity points, and open circles show the FWHM points. It can be seen that there is less than a factor of two difference between the theoretical points of Inogamov & Sunyaev for the two methods of area calculation. However, the contribution of the neutron star blackbody is only part of the total luminosity in X-ray binaries and so the theoretical points should be corrected. The other major emission component is that arising originally as thermal emission in the accretion disk, which is then Comptonized in the ADC (e.g. Church 2001; Bałucińska-Church et al. 2001) making a dominant contribution in most LMXB. As Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) assumed the Newtonian approximation in which the energy available at the inner edge of the accretion disk is one half of the total energy, one possible method of correction would be to plot the points at $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ = 2$`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$, where $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ is the luminosity of the spreading layer. The points corrected in this way are shown as filled circles and squares. The differing values of neutron star radius used by Inogamov & Sunyaev (12 km) and in the calculation of $`H(r_{10})`$ (10 km) will have only 10% effect on the comparison.

In Fig. 5 we add the survey data points to the comparison. The theoretical points are shown as before, uncorrected and also corrected by a factor of two shift in $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$. We now consider the extent of the required correction further. Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) assume that the spin of the neutron star is essentially zero, and Sibgatullin & Sunyaev (1998) argue that in this case, $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ = $`2.8L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$. This implies that $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ = $`1.34L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$, so that we should correct the theoretical points in Figs. 3 and 4 by moving them to higher values of $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ by 34%. However, this argument predicts that the spectra of LMXB in general would be strongly dominated by the thermal emission of the star, whereas, in fact, in many sources the Comptonized emission strongly dominates, and work on the dipping sources has proven that this originates in an extended ADC. It has been suggested, for example by Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) that modification of the neutron star emission in the stellar atmosphere will take place; however this will not lead to a power law spectrum as observed, but to a spectrum very similar to a simple blackbody (Madej 1991) and the observed dominance of Comptonized emission in the spectrum could only be avoided by assuming that most LMXB have a neutron star spinning sufficiently fast that the emission due to viscous dissipation in the surface is markedly reduced. As an alternative to seeking a theoretical relation between $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$, we can use an approximate observational relationship provided by the ASCA survey. Fig. 1 shows that there is not a simple relationship between $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$, but rather that the blackbody luminosities occupy a broad band of the two-dimensional space. To make an approximate correction, we use the centre of this band. This requires a substantial movement of the theoretical points in Fig. 5 to higher values of $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ as shown by the filled squares labelled B.

However, we can avoid the difficulty of the correction by comparing the theoretical points with the survey data replotted in terms of $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$ instead of $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$ as shown in Fig. 6.

A curve showing the theoretical height of the accretion disk is not shown as this is a function of $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$. It can be seen that the survey points tend to converge with the theory at the lowest luminosity, but are substantially larger than the theoretical points at higher luminosities.

## 4 Discussion

The main result of the ASCA LMXB spectral survey was the agreement of $`h`$ = $`H`$, for sources in the quiescent state (i.e non-flaring). However, it is not clear which of two explanations of this is correct: that of radial flow between inner disk edge and star, in which the height of the inner radiatively supported disk directly determines $`h`$, or the theory of Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) in which spreading of material on the neutron star surface to height $`h`$ depends on the mass accretion rate of which $`H`$ is a measure. In the case of the first mechanism, the inner disk may have the steep radial profile implied by standard theory close to the neutron star, but radial flow takes place across the gap between inner disk and star thus defining the emitting region on the star of similar height to the highest point of the inner disk. Although there has been extensive theoretical investigation of advective flow in black hole systems (e.g. Abramowicz et al. 1996), very little work has been carried out for neutron star binaries, and it is not clear whether the sonic point lies within the stellar surface or not. However, Popham & Sunyaev (2001) show that the radial velocity increases by two orders of magnitude within the disk. Two- or three-dimensional modelling would be required to decide whether radial flow across the gap can take place. A possible objection to the first mechanism is that the radiatively supported inner disk may not be stable, i.e. implying that it cannot exist. The stability of the inner disk in a Galactic black hole system GRS 1915+109 has been considered theoretically by Janiuk et al. (2000) who showed that oscillations are expected leading to periodic variations in the X-ray luminosity of the system similar to those observed. However, it was not found that this leads to major disruption of the disk. Since the timescale for variability depends on mass (Czerny, priv. comm.), we have applied this model to LMXB by scaling the stellar masses, and find a timescale of $``$ 30 s. Variability on this timescale is not obviously observed, and would not in any case prove that major disruption of the disk takes place.

In the present work, we have compared the survey results with the theory of Inogamov & Sunyaev (1999) in two ways. Firstly, we made an approximate comparison as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. When a more appropriate comparison is made by comparing with $`L_{\mathrm{BB}}`$, not $`L_{\mathrm{Tot}}`$, as shown in Fig. 6, the survey results and theory converge at the lowest luminosities, but at higher luminosities, the data, i.e. the emitting areas, exceed the theory by a factor that we estimate as between four and eight. However, the methods used of obtaining the emitting area from theory underestimates the area, for example by using the FWHM, by up to a factor of two. It consequently appears that the data exceed the theory by a factor of two to four. Thus at low luminosities, the emitting area on the neutron star may be determined by accretion spreading, although even here radial flow would be an alternative explanation. At higher luminosities, the area exceeds the spreading theory implying that the area is determined by radial flow which leads to the observed agreement between $`h`$ and $`H`$ and which enhances the contribution due to spreading. Although there is no observational evidence for any modification of the neutron star blackbody spectrum in the non-burst emission of a LMXB, this would lead to an underestimation of the emitting area, and the disparity between the survey results and spreading theory would be somewhat increased.

Extension of the present accretion flow spreading theory which is essentially one-dimensional, to a two-dimensional form would be desirable. Further analysis of LMXB spectra is clearly needed to increase the size of the sample and to make more use of BeppoSAX data to constrain spectral fitting parameters better. However, the present results indicate that while the neutron star accretion flow spreading theory of Inogamov & Sunyaev may set a base level to the neutron star blackbody emission, as observed in the faintest sources, it underestimates the observed blackbody luminosity in brighter sources. This implies that radial flow dominates leading to the agreement between $`h`$ and $`H`$.


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# Coexistence of glassy antiferromagnetism and giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in Fe/Cr multilayer structures

## Abstract

Using temperature-dependent magnetoresistance and magnetization measurements on Fe/Cr multilayers that exhibit pronounced giant magnetoresistance (GMR), we have found evidence for the presence of a glassy antiferromagnetic (GAF) phase. This phase reflects the influence of interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) at low temperature ($`T<140`$K) and is characterized by a field-independent glassy transition temperature, $`T_g`$, together with irreversible behavior having logarithmic time dependence below a “de Almeida and Thouless” (AT) critical field line. At room temperature, where the GMR effect is still robust, IEC plays only a minor role, and it is the random potential variations acting on the magnetic domains that are responsible for the antiparallel interlayer domain alignment.

Given the established presence of GMR-based devices in technology, especially in the multi-billion dollar computer hard disk drive market, it may come as a surprise that there is still an incomplete scientific understanding of the GMR effectHartmann (1999). The mechanism for GMR, first observed in single crystalline (100) Fe/Cr multilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxyBaibich et al. (1988); Binasch et al. (1989) and subsequently in magnetron-sputtered polycrystalline filmsParkin et al. (1990), relies on spin-dependent scatteringFert and Campbell (1976) and the associated dependence of resistance on the relative orientations of the magnetizations in neighboring layers. It is important to recognize that interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) is not necessarily required for a GMR effectHartmann (1999). In a particularly simple manifestation, two neighboring films, separated by a non-magnetic spacer layer, could have different coercive fields, thus giving rise to antiparallel alignment and a GMR effect, as the external field is cycledBarnas et al. (1990). RandomnessZhang et al. (1999); Miltènyi et al. (2000) and competing interactions such as biquadratic couplingSlonczewski (1994); Filipkowski et al. (1995) can also play a significant role. In this paper we identify a glassy antiferromagnetic (GAF) phase which by marking the influence of IEC at low temperatures implies that at higher temperatures random potential variations rather than IEC are responsible for antiparallel alignment.

Our Fe/Cr multilayer samples have been prepared on silicon substrates by ion beam sputter deposition of separate Fe and Cr targets. Extensive characterization of the deposited multilayers showed distinct compositional and structural modulations with well-defined interfaces and a surface roughness on the order of 5Å. Ten and thirty-layer stacks with the repeat sequence \[Fe(20Å)/Cr($`d_{Cr}`$)\] are typically deposited and passivated with a 50Å-thick Cr layer. The Cr spacer thickness $`d_{Cr}`$ is varied over the range 8–12Å. The inset of Fig. 1 shows typical GMR traces at 300K and 10K for the magnetic field parallel to the planes of a \[Fe(20Å)/Cr(12Å) \]$`\times `$30 sample.

In Fig. 1 we show a selected subset of temperature-dependent field-cooled (FC, open symbols) and zero-field-cooled (ZFC, closed symbols) magnetization data for a thirty layer sample with $`d_{Cr}=12\AA `$ and a GMR ratio ($`(R(0)R(H))/R(0)`$, Fig. 1 inset) of 20.6% at 10K. The data were taken using a SQUID magnetometer in fields (indicated on the plot) oriented parallel to the layers. At each field the corresponding FC and ZFC curves can be characterized by three distinct temperatures: an irreversibility temperature $`T_{irr}(H)`$ denoting the bifurcation point below which there is hysteresis (upward arrows), a temperature $`T_m(H)`$ (downward arrows) denoting the maximum in each of the ZFC curves, and an inflection temperature $`T_{infl}`$ (vertical dashed line) which marks the inflection point of each FC curve. Evidently $`T_{infl}`$ is quite robust and independent of field, having a value $`T_{infl}=93.0\pm 1.4K`$ determined to relatively high precision from FC measurements at 5 different fields spanning the range 50-400 Oe.

Compelling evidence for an interlayer rather than intralayer effect is found in the resistance measurements of Fig. 2 on the same sample. For each datum on this graph, the sample was zero-field cooled to the target temperature, the resistance $`R(0)`$ measured, and then a field applied to measure the change in resistance $`\delta R=R(0)R(H)`$. The ratio $`\delta R/R(0)`$ is plotted against temperature for the fields indicated in the legend. The striking aspect of these data is that although the peaks are not as pronounced as those in the ZFC magnetizations of Fig. 1, their positions in an $`H`$-$`T`$ plot of Fig. 3 (open triangles) show close similarity with respect to the positions of the ZFC peaks (solid circles).

The presence of a spin-glass-like phase is buttressed by our finding that $`T_m(H)`$ defines a critical field line (solid circles in Fig. 3) which delineates the onset of strongly irreversible behavior and has the de Almeida and Thouless (AT) formde Almeida and Thouless (1978); Binder and Young (1986), $`H/T(T_g/T1)^{3/2}`$ (inset), where $`T_g`$ is the spin glass temperature. Although other criteria could have been usedBinder and Young (1986), we note that our choice of $`T_m(H)`$ as the criterion determining the AT line has particular cogency because it obeys the scaling form of the AT prediction and extrapolates at zero field to a field-independent glass temperature $`T_g=1.51\times T_{infl}=140`$K, where $`T_{infl}`$, an apparent fixed point, has been independently determined from the FC data (dashed line of Fig. 1).

An additional and essential ingredient for a glassy phase is the presence of disorder measured by the variance, $`\mathrm{\Delta }J`$, in the antiferromagnetic (AF) coupling strengths. This variance arises because of the existence of domains and the concomitant constraints imposed by intralayer dipolar interactions The exchange energy between two Fe moments separated by a spacer layer is of the form $`E=J_{AF}\text{cos}(\mathrm{\Psi })`$, where $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ denotes their relative angle. The intralayer domain structure imposes well-defined orientations of the spins and this constraint will not be consistent, in general, with $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\pi `$ (i.e. with a minimum value of $`E`$). Because of the long-range nature of dipolar interactions, lowering the exchange energy requires the overturning of one or of several clusters of Fe moments, which is energetically inhibited at low temperature. In this regime, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ behaves like a pseudo random variable. A realistic estimate for $`\mathrm{\Delta }J`$ can be obtained by assuming a flat distribution for the values of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ on the \[0, 2$`\pi `$\] interval, leading to $`\mathrm{\Delta }J=J_{AF}/\sqrt{2}`$. At $`T>T_g`$, IEC is present but ineffective because the intralayer dipolar interactions dominate.

Many glassy systems, including the one discussed here, show AT like boundaries without being Ising spin glasses to which the theoryBinder and Young (1986); Cragg et al. (1982) strictly applies. The GAF phase associated with our GMR multilayers is clearly not an Ising system and is more reasonably described in terms of an anisotropic vector model in which the elemental spins, belonging to magnetized domains, are coupled ferromagnetically in the X-Y plane and antiferromagnetically in the perpendicular direction. For such vector glass systems there is an additional degree of freedom in the order parameter and the true phase boundary is delineated at higher temperatures and fields by the Gabay-Toulouse (GT) boundaryGabay and Toulouse (1981). A more comprehensive viewpoint that facilitates understanding of our experiment can be gleaned from the schematic phase diagram, shown in Fig. 4 for the $`H`$-$`T`$ plane at $`J_{AF}/\mathrm{\Delta }J>1`$. (Note that the PM phase is not labeled as a ferromagnetic (FM) phase, since in the presence of a field there is no spontaneous symmetry breaking as the temperature is reduced through the Curie temperature.) In simplified terms the GT line (solid) can be thought of as denoting the onset of a phase transition to glassy behavior and the AT line (dotted) as the onset of pronounced irreversibility. (The experimental signature of the GT line, which has not been measured here, is a divergence in the transverse ac susceptibility.) At $`H=0`$ both lines terminate at $`T=T_g`$.

The following three consequences, confirmed by experiment, are immediately apparent: Firstly, since $`T_gJ_{AF}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }JJ_{AF}`$, it is clear that as $`T_g`$ increases, the boundary of the GAF phase moves out to higher temperatures and fields. Experimentally this is confirmed in Fig. 3 where the AT line for the sample with $`d_{Cr}=10\AA `$ (solid squares) has higher critical fields and a correspondingly higher $`T_g`$ than the sample with 12$`\AA `$ spacer. A second consequence is that the disorder-induced close proximity of $`T_g`$ and $`J_{AF}`$ implies that at low $`H`$ the presence of an AF phase is obscured on the transition (Fig. 4, horizontal dashed arrow) from the PM to GAF phase. If this were not the case, then the field-cooled dc susceptibility would have a maximum at the AF boundary and then saturate at a smaller value as $`T0`$. Such maxima are not observed! A third consequence supporting the existence of a GAF phase comes from the scaling of the field-cooled magnetization with $`H`$. Field- cooled (FC) magnetizations including those shown in Fig. 1 reveal that $`M/HH^u`$ as $`T0`$. Here we find $`u`$=0.58(2) for 5K magnetization data taken at 7 different fields ranging from 100 to 800Oe, thus confirming behavior characteristic of spin glass systems below the lower critical dimension Binder and Young (1986). Finally, in addition to hysteresis, we also observe slow relaxations in the magnetization and resistance that are logarithmic in time and which, but for lack of space, can be explained by invoking constraints on the dynamics imposed by a hierarchy of domain sizes Gabay and Garel (1986a); Prozorov et al. (1999).

To fully appreciate the role of randomness in multilayers, it is important to recognize the difference between GMR multilayers, in which there is a strong interaction between closely coupled interfaces, and bilayer or trilayer configurations in which such interactions can be ignored since there are at most only two interfaces. Thus for example, in studies of exchange bias in single ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic (Co/CoO) bilayersMiltènyi et al. (2000), the onset of exchange bias, which is induced by random interactionsZhang et al. (1999), is observed to occur at a single temperature, the Neel temperature. By contrast, in our case there are two temperature ranges: $`T<T_g`$ = 140K for glassiness and $`T>`$250K where there is a loss of AF order in Cr and disorder is still important. Accordingly, the picture described for FM/AF bilayersMiltènyi et al. (2000) is different for closely coupled multilayers where interactions between multiple ferromagnetic (FM) layers and interactions between interfaces should be taken into account. Similar considerations also apply to the magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) and scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis (SEMPA) studiesPierce et al. (1999) on Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers and magnetization and ferromagnetic resonance studies of CoFe/Mn/CoFe trilayersFilipkowski et al. (1995), all of which specialize to a specific type of spacer layer and do not include the multilayer interactions responsible for our GAF behavior. Our results are thus complementary yet distinct from the results of bilayer/trilayer experiments.

A consideration of the relevant energy scales and the mutual interactions of the magnetized domains in the Fe layers solidifies this emerging picture of spin-glass-like behavior in GMR multilayers. If adjacent Fe layers of thickness $`t`$ and saturation magnetization $`M_s`$ are coupled through an antiferromagnetic exchange $`J`$ per unit area, then saturation at a field $`H=H_s`$ occurs when $`J=HM_st/4`$, a relation found by equating the field energy per unit area, $`HM_st`$, to the energy difference, 4$`J`$, between the aligned and antialigned magnetic configurations . We note that a glass temperature near 140K corresponds to an antiferromagnetic coupling energy $`10`$ meV, in good agreement with theoretical calculationsFishman and Shi (1999); Majumdar et al. (2002) for Fe/Cr layers. In the first calculation by Fishman and ShiFishman and Shi (1999) the Fe layers are exchange coupled below the Neel temperature $`T_n`$ of the Cr spacer and a very strong AF coupling between the Fe and Cr moments at the interface is assumed. For our GAF phase $`T_n`$ is in reality $`T_g`$. In the second calculation by Majumdar et al.Majumdar et al. (2002) magnetoresistance data is well described by a theoretical expression in which RKKY interactions give a best fit AF coupling strength of $`(70\pm 20)`$K.

For $`T>T_g`$, the Fe layers are no longer AF coupled and the expression $`J=HM_st/4`$ to calculate the IEC is no longer relevant. In its place we use the expressionKooy and Enz (1960); Gabay and Garel (1986b) $`H_s=4\pi M_s`$, to calculate the maximum saturation field necessary to align dipolar-coupled domains within each layer. This expression is valid for both perpendicular and parallel fieldsGabay and Garel (1986b). The saturation fields of 10-20kOe in our samples (Fig. 1 inset) and similar samples reported by othersBaibich et al. (1988); Parkin et al. (1990) are the right order of magnitude for Fe which with a saturation magnetization $`M_s=1700`$Oe/cm3 implies a maximum saturation field $`H_s=4\pi M_s=21`$kOe. For our three different samples with $`d_{Cr}`$ = 8, 10 and 12$`\AA `$ we find a linear dependence of $`H_s`$ on $`d_{Cr}`$ which extrapolates to the origin ($`d_{Cr}=0`$) to a value within 5% of $`H_s`$=21kOe, thus validating our use of this analysis.

To associate field scales with energy (or equivalently, temperature), we use the conversion ratio, 2.2$`\mu _BB/k_BT`$=1.5T/K, where the magnetic moment of Fe is 2.2 Bohr magnetons. Accordingly, the dipolar interaction strengths measured by $`H_s`$, which are balanced by domain wall energies, are on the order of a few Kelvin and hence not strong enough at $`T>T_g`$ to determine domain orientation. Rather, domain orientation at $`T>T_g`$ is determined by the much stronger potential variations associated with crystalline anisotropies and the presence of impurities and defects. The presence of a GAF phase implies that IEC is effective in creating an anti-alignment effect beneficial to a large GMR effect only at low temperatures ($`T<T_g`$) and low fields ($`H<H_{AT}`$). The shaded region in the inset of Fig. 1 illustrates just how narrow this region is.

In summary, we show that a heretofore-unrecognized glassy antiferromagnetic (GAF) state coexists with GMR in polycrystalline Fe/Cr multilayer stacks. The very presence of this glassy phase sets an energy scale ($`T_g`$=140K) for antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) that is well below room temperature. We therefore conclude that, for temperatures greater than $`T_g`$, IEC plays only a minor role in forcing the antiparallel interlayer domain orientations that give rise to the ($`H=0`$) high resistance state of multilayer Fe/Cr GMR samples. Rather, random potential variations, which constrain domain orientation, must be taken into account to understand GMR in multilayer GMR devices. The origin of the dependence of $`H_s`$ on spacer thickness in multilayers as observed here and by othersBaibich et al. (1988); Parkin et al. (1990) as well as the origin of the AF couplings for $`T<T_g`$ are totally open questions. This contrasts with the bilayer and trilayer casesZhang et al. (1999); Miltènyi et al. (2000); Pierce et al. (1999) for which the AF couplings have a clear source.

We thank S. B. Arnason, S. Hershfield, P. Kumar and C. Yu for valuable discussions and suggestions. This work was supported by AFOSR, DARPA and NSF.


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# Temperature Evolution of Sodium Nitrite Structure in a Restricted Geometry

## I INTRODUCTION

The problem of the physical properties of materials in a restricted geometry is one of the ”hot” points of modern solid state physics and is not only of fundamental interest but also of practical importance. Along with films, filaments etc. there is large and important group of restricted geometry objects, namely materials confined within porous media (hereinafter we will call them confined materials - CM). In recent years properties of CM and in particular various types of phase transitions (PT) (superconducting p1 ; p2 , superfluid p3 ; p4 , melting-freezing p5 ; p6 ; p7 ; p8 ; p9 ; p10 ; p11  and others PTs p12 ; p13 ; p14 ; p15 ; p16 ; p17 ; p18 ; p19 ; p20 ; p21 ; p22  in different CM have been extensively studied by different experimental methods including calorimetry p5 ; p7 ; p20 , NMR p9 ; p21 , ultrasonic p8 ; p9  and dielectric p12 ; p14 ; p15  measurements, Raman p10 ; p13 , X-ray p12 ; p16 ; p17 ; p18  and neutron scattering p10 ; p14 ; p22 ; p23 ; p24 ; p25 ; p26 , differential thermal analysis p19  etc. It has been shown that CM can form either a system of isolated particles p10  or a net of interconnected dendrite clusters p14  and their physical properties differ drastically from those in corresponding bulk samples and strongly depend on different characteristics of porous matrices and embedded substances such as pore size and geometry, wetting ability, surface tension, interaction between CM and surface of host matrix and so on.

Finite-size effects in ferroelectrics were observed for the first time at the beginning of 1950s p16 . It was shown that the physical properties of dispersed ferroelectrics are significantly different from those of the bulk materials in particular when the characteristic size becomes comparable with correlation length of order parameter critical fluctuations. In detail the modern theoretical and experimental situation is well described in the review p27  and references therein. During last years the development of new nanotechnologies gave the strong impetus to the study of ferroelectric microcomposites as a new basis of ferroelectric memories or an active component in fine-composite materials, however the principal attention was devoted to the thin films or granular ferroelectrics. On the other hand the very interesting and surprising results were recently obtained for ferroelectric CM. In particular the dielectric measurements of NaNO2, KH2PO4 (KDP) and Rochelle salt confined in different porous matrices have shown p14 ; p15 ; p28  the growth of dielectric permittivity $`\epsilon `$ above temperature of ferroelectric phase transition Tc for all materials and all matrices and unexpected increase of Tc at decreasing of characteristic size D for KDP. The most remarkable result was the giant growth of $`\epsilon `$ (up to 108 at 100 Hz - the record value!) at approaching to the bulk melting temperature (Tmelt= 557 K) that was observed for NaNO2 embedded into an artificial opal matrix p15 . The temperature dependence of $`\epsilon `$ in CM case essentially differs from analogous dependence for the bulk NaNO2 p29  typical for classical ferroelectrics, and this giant growth of dielectric permittivity was attributed to the extremely broadened melting process p15 , but no experimental evidence was presented.

We have attempted to study the temperature evolution of structure of confined NaNO2 in porous glass with pores size 7 nm at temperatures below and above Tc by the method of neutron diffraction to clarify the microscopic origin of observed anomalies of dielectric permittivity. This method was successfully used for study of structure evolution of water, cyclohexane p23 ; p24 ; p25 ; p26  and liquid mercury p10  confined within porous media at melting-freezing PT, but no diffraction study of microcomposite ferroelectric materials (except our preliminary results p14 ) were performed earlier. Moreover we do not know any paper dealing with the detailed structure refinement (including determination of thermal parameters) of any confined solid materials.

## II RESULTS

The samples were prepared by immersing of the preliminary warmed up platelets of the porous glass in the melted NaNO2 in the sealed quartz container. The glass samples were tested by the mercury intrusion porosimetry and the pore sizes were found to be 7$`\pm `$1 nm. The volume amount of the salt was about 25%. Measurements were performed on the powder diffractometer G4-2 (LLB, Saclay, France) at 2.3434 Å at room temperature (RT), 400 K, 420 K, 440 K, 450 K and 460 K, i.e. below and above ferroelectric PT temperature Tc $``$ 438 K. The diffraction patterns for 420 K (ferroelectric phase) and 460 K (paraelectric phase) are presented in Fig. 1. The diffuse background observed in addition to the normal diffraction peaks due to porous silica glass was used to determine the nearest Si-O and O-O distances. These parameters were found to be almost equal to those for glass silicate tetrahedron SiO4 p30  and were practically temperature independent therefore the cavity sizes in the host glass matrix do not depend on temperature.

The observed diffraction peaks corresponding to the orthorhombic structure were slightly asymmetric with the width larger then the instrumental resolution, but much smaller then the value expected for the scattering on the isolated 7 nm particles. It leads to a conclusion that due to high wetting ability the sodium nitrite forms a kind of interconnected clusters probably of the dendrite type. Their average size was found from structure refinement to be about 45 nm and was practically temperature independent. One should mention that the situation is quite different from the case of non-wetting compounds like the liquid mercury, which forms on cooling a system of independent particles with characteristic size equal to the average pore diameter p10 .

The diffraction patterns in ferroelectric phase were fitted in the frames of the Im2m space group and following the paper p31  a pseudo-mirror plane perpendicular to b axis was included at y=0 to take into account incomplete ordering of the NO2 groups. In this case the long-range order parameter can be determined as  =f1-f2 p31 , where the fraction f1 of the NO2 groups was placed on one side of the plane and f2=1-f1 on the other side.

Below Tc our results are in a good agreement with published data for the bulk NaNO2, however the anisotropic thermal parameters $`\beta _{ij}`$ are slightly higher then for the bulk p31 . The diffraction patterns above Tc correspond to the paraelectric phase with space group Immm.  The heating through Tc results in the decrease of intensity of most of the peaks. The observed effect is much stronger than that in the case of bulk NaNO2 p31  and is in agreement with our earlier data p14 .

## III DISCUSSION

The results of the refinement procedure have revealed two main distinguishing features of the temperature evolution of structure of embedded sodium nitrite.

The first one is the essential increase of elementary cell volume upon passing through Tc (insert on Fig. 2). Here one can note that a similar phenomenon was observed for the overwhelming majority of different materials at melting p32 . The detailed analysis of temperature dependences of lattice parameters a, b and c shows that in ferroelectric phase the confined NaNO2 expands in the a and b directions and contracts in the c direction similar to the bulk material, but above Tc the lattice parameters a and b increase rapidly and c decreases slowly then in the bulk. As far back as 1961 S. Nomura p29  had shown that the misalignment of the NO2 anion is responsible for the anomalous thermal expansion in the b direction (along macroscopic polarization). He had also supposed that the expansion in the a direction and the contraction in the c direction could be explained by rotation or rotational vibration about arbitrary axis of non-spherical NO2 group, which holds its long axis parallel to the c direction in the equilibrium. Later K. Takahashi and W. Kinase p34  have proposed the microscopic mechanism of the ferroelectric PT and have shown that the mixed type of NO2 group rotation around the a and c axes is achieved. They have shown also that in ferroelectric phase there are the potential barriers, which have strong angular dependences and limit the rotation of the NO2 around a and c axes.

In terms of such a model the observed behavior of unit cell parameters could be explained by the increase of these rotations above Tc, experimentally displaying as a growth of thermal vibrations of ions. And indeed, the second distinguishing feature is the steep growth of the thermal parameters $`\beta _{ij}`$ (Fig. 2) above Tc pointing out the ”looseness” (or softening) of the structure.

Using obtained $`\beta _{ij}`$, the thermal vibration ellipsoids for constituent ions were constructed at all measured temperatures and have been compared with those for the bulk material p31 . The results of refinement at 420 K (below Tc) and 460 K (above Tc) are presented as ellipsoids of 50% probability in Fig. 3 and as ellipsoids of 5% probability in Fig. 4 (inasmuch as oxygen thermal displacements are very large for porous sample). For the bulk material these ellipsoids are close to a sphere at all temperatures and their characteristic sizes increase insignificantly on heating. For sodium nitrite in porous glass below Tc these ellipsoids are clearly anisotropic and slightly larger then for the bulk, but on heating through Tc the shape and size of the thermal vibration ellipsoids change drastically. In the paraelectric phase (above Tc) the vibrations of Na and N form practically flat disks perpendicular the b direction for Na and the a direction for N as a result of mixed rotation around a and c axes, while oxygen ions form very stretched ellipsoids predominantly along the a and c directions, as it should be expected at increasing of rotation around b axis. The obtained values of oxygen thermal displacements along the c and a directions at 460 K (above Tc) are equal to 1.21 Å and 0.93 Å respectively (i.e. more than 25% of O-O (3.34 Å) distance for neighboring NO2 groups) and essentially exceed the Lindemann criterion, which states that bulk material will melt when the average value of thermal displacements of nuclei exceeds 10% - 15% of internuclear distances p32 ; p35 ; p36 .

Having the picture of ion thermal vibrations and keeping in mind the results of structure refinement, we can suppose that the ”looseness” (or softening) of the structure is a distinctive (and true intrinsic) feature of this CM corresponding to the formation above Tc (more then 100 degrees below the bulk Tmelt) ”premelted state” initially manifesting itself in the oxygen sublattice. In this case the mentioned above growth of dielectric permittivity of NaNO2 above Tc p15  could be explained by appearance of ionic current due to jumping diffusion of constituent ions, firstly oxygen ones.

Early analogous premelted effects were studied in metasilicates (Na2SiO3, Li2SiO3 p37 ; p38 ) and some others minerals p39 , such as diopside, anorthite etc., where the heat capacity anomalies have been observed beginning from 100 to 200 degrees below relevant melting temperatures, and for those it was demonstrated, that premelting represents unquenchable configurational changes within phases remaining crystalline up to congruent melting points p39 . It is different from premelting of ice in porous glass p40  or in exfoliated graphite p41  matrices, where the premelted state is formed at the surface layer between the ice and host matrix and strongly depends on surface curvature. In our case the ”premelted state” has a volume character and probably originates from some size effect of yet unclear nature.

In conclusion, for the first time the details of the structure of a solid material embedded in a porous matrix was determined by neutron diffraction. The temperature evolution of structure in a restricted geometry was studied for the ferroelectric NaNO2 embedded in a porous glass and it was shown that this CM forms a kind of interconnected clusters probably of the dendrite type with practically temperature independent average size about 45 nm. Above Tc the volume ”premelted” state is formed, manifesting itself in a sharp growth of the thermal motion parameters, softening of lattice and increasing of lattice volume. In such a case the possible appearance of ionic current due to oxygen jumping diffusion is proposed as a reason of observed giant growth of dielectric permittivity. On cooling below Tc macroscopic polarization and potential barriers suppress the lattice softening and the normal ferroelectric phase exists, but even at room temperature the thermal vibrations are different from those for the bulk material.

The work was supported by the RFBR (grants 00-02-16883, 01-02-17739), the Russian Program ”Neutron Researches of Solids” (the contract 01.40.01.07.04) and ”Solid State Nanostructures” (grant 99-1112).


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# IR control of atoms laser instability

## Abstract

In this paper we show how to control the quantum laser atoms instability using IR radiation. The control can be achieved by controlling the scattering length constant via the infrared coupling constant. This method is applied in the scheme of a continuous CW laser and involves three occupation levels in the condensed atoms. This atoms in Lambda configuration the description of which is given by a Reformed Gross-Pitaevskii equation (RGPE), together with a rate equation. The system is taken to a nonconservative complex Ginzburg Landau equation (CGLE) description from where we use the Benjamin-Feir stability criterium. This method allows us a theoretical construction of any atom laser even for negative interaction constant as is the case of $`{}_{}{}^{7}Li`$.

Since the making of the first condensed buo  and the later study of its coherence properties ket1  at least two other systems have been proposed kas ; hag  for the construction of an atom laser. An atom laser is defined in analogy to optical laser and in a similar way it will operate in a dynamical steady state if some threshold requirement is satisfied holl . In fact, a pulsed atom laser version have been already demonstrated ket2 ; brad1 ; brad2  been constructed by Hansch Hans  and their group. Despite of this the stability control remains a difficulty to overcome, even from the onset of BEC formation, specially for those cases of negative scattering length constants as $`{}_{}{}^{7}Li`$. The main difficulties are the dissipative mechanism given by spontaneous emission and subsequent reabsorption of photons. The first is necessary to obtain the required low temperatures but the second should be avoided because heating is introduced in the system. Several possible solutions both, dynamical and geometrical have been proposed for the reabsorption problem. All the geometrical proposals are based on the reduction of the dimensionality of the trap ols ; pfau  while dynamical ones rely almost entirely upon optical pumping mechanisms sat ; san . In this paper we use a non adiabatic approach in which we consider two IR fields with frequency $`\omega _1`$ and $`\omega _2`$ coupling the levels $`13`$ and $`23`$ respectively, as in Fig 1.

In this framework atoms in the ground state $`|1`$ are in the optically precooled reservoir before pumped to the MOT trap, where the atoms will be excited into the state $`|3`$ by using IR $`w_1`$ field. This corresponds to the thermal cloud or uncondensed phase. The state $`|2`$ corresponds to the trapped state that will be evaporative cooled e.g previous to the condensed phase. The wave intensity and field detunnings should be properly adjusted in order to the temporal windowing of the $`13`$ transition during a time $`t_d=1/\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu =\nu _1\nu _2`$ and $`\nu _1`$, $`\nu _2`$ being the frequencies of fields 1 and 2 respectively. We are therefore quenching one transition ($`13`$) during a time $`t_d`$ and allowing the other one ($`23`$) with the appropriate value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{32}`$.

In the method proposed the influence of reabsorption mechanism is then minimized by adjusting the dark state window at will in such a way that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{32}\mathrm{\Omega }_{32}`$. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{32}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{32}`$ are the spontaneous decay rate from level $`3`$, and Rabi flopping frequency associated to the probe field respectively. We point out that this is a different picture than considered in that of “Festina Lente” limit cir  since in that method the comparison is done between the trap frequency $`w`$ and fluorescence rate $`\gamma `$.

Note that, with this mechanism we propose loading the thermal cloud into the magnetic trap directly and continuously, hence carrying out the the evaporative cooling in a steady state regime and thus a CW atom laser is obtained.

We are then left with the atomic pump from the uncondensed $`|3`$ level to the phase condensed state $`|2`$ described by the hamiltonian

$$H_i=g_2V(b_2a_2^{}\varphi _2^{}+b_2^{}a_2\varphi _2),$$
(1)
where $`g_2`$ is the IR coupling constant in the unit of volumen defined as $`g_2=\mu _{23}\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}\omega _2}{ϵ_0V}}.`$ $`b_i`$ ($`b_i^{}`$) are the annihilation (creation) operators for $`\omega _i`$ photons and $`a_i`$ ($`a_i^{}`$) are the annihilation (creation) operators for atoms in the internal state $`i`$ defined in the usual matter field operator as $`\psi (\stackrel{}{r})=_\alpha \varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{r})a_\alpha `$ where $`\varphi _\alpha (\stackrel{}{r})`$ are the spatial dependent particle wave function and $`V`$ is the volume.
Following the procedure of Ref. dalf1 , we calculate the IR coupling term with

$$[\varphi ,H_i]=\mathrm{\Omega }_2V\mathrm{}|\varphi _2|^2,$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_2=g_2b_2/\mathrm{}`$ stands for the Rabi frequency, and $`V`$ as the cavity volume. In the other hand, since $`\varphi _2`$ is the condensed phase, we have dropped subindex $`2`$ and substitute $`\varphi _2\varphi `$; from now on we replace $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{32}\mathrm{\Omega }_2\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

The condensed atoms are described by the GPE

$$i\mathrm{}\dot{\varphi }=^2\varphi +V_t\varphi +g|\varphi |^2\varphi ,$$
(3)
where $`\varphi `$ is the condensed wave function, $`V_t`$ is the harmonic trapping potential and $`g`$ the interatomic interaction constant given by $`g=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a/m`$. The scattering length constant is $`a`$ and $`m`$ the atomic mass . We adopt the generic model for an atom laser described by Kneer *e*t al in ref wolf  and rewrite equation (1) with terms of sink and gain (pumping and outcoupling) plus the IR coupling giving by expression 2. We then couple the resulting equation with a rate equation as proposed by Spreeuw *e*t al speew ,

$`i\mathrm{}\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`^2\varphi +V_t\varphi +g|\varphi |^2\varphi `$ (4)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Gamma }n_u\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\mathrm{}\gamma _c\varphi +\mathrm{\Omega }V\mathrm{}|\varphi |^2\varphi .`$
$`\dot{n_u}`$ $`=`$ $`R(r)\gamma _un_u\mathrm{\Gamma }n_cn_u,`$ (5)
Here we prefer to deal with a local coupling. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the local $`(m^3s^1)`$ rate constant coupling the condensed field $`\varphi `$ with the uncondensed density $`n_u`$, and is related to the global rate used in Ref.  $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{^{}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{V}(s^1)`$. $`\gamma _c`$ is the escape rate of condensed atoms leaving the BEC (outcoupled atoms) and $`\gamma _u`$ the escape rate for the uncondensed atoms (its inverse plays as the life time of the trap). $`n_c=|\varphi |^2`$ is the local density of the condensed atoms. $`R(r)`$ is the non uniform, locally depleted pumping process for the uncondensed atoms coupled to the condensed phase. Because of this local depletion, the uncondensed phase $`n_u`$ has a sensible space dependence and undergoes a diffusion process luis . Beside this, the influence of $`R`$ upon BEC dynamics have been shown to be critical at high pumping rates, where three-body recombination suppress the high frequency dynamics which is an important factor that limit the atom laser stability olga .

Now we have to add a real space constant diffusion term $`D_r^2n_u`$ to equation $`(5)`$ and after applying an adiabatic elimination procedure Haken , find a quasi stationary solution for $`n_u`$ in terms of $`\varphi `$ and replace it into equation $`(4)`$, which then becomes a closed equation for $`\varphi `$. All this procedure is done on the scenario for which the $`\varphi `$ dynamics is much slower compared to $`n_u`$ dynamics.

Following the procedure of Ref. luis , we have

$$n_u=\frac{R}{\gamma _u}(1+\frac{D_r}{\gamma _u}^2\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\gamma _u}|\varphi |^2).$$
(6)
As we replace this expression in Eq.(4), the operator $`^2`$ acts on its right upon the space function $`\varphi `$. By doing this we derive a closed equation for $`\varphi `$:

$`\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }RD_r}{2\gamma _u^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2m}}]^2\varphi [{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2R}{2\gamma _u^2}}+i(\mathrm{\Omega }V+{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\mathrm{}}})]|\varphi |^2|\varphi |`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`[({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }R}{2\gamma _u}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _c}{2}})i{\displaystyle \frac{V_t}{\mathrm{}}}]\varphi .`$
We now write the parameterized CGL Eq.(8)

$$\dot{\varphi }=\epsilon \varphi +(1+ic_1)^2\varphi (1+ic_2)|\varphi |^2\varphi ,$$
(8)
where

$`\epsilon `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}({\displaystyle \frac{R\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\gamma _u\gamma _c}}1),`$ (9)
$`c_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}\gamma _u^2}{mRD_r\mathrm{\Gamma }}},`$ (10)
$`c_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma _u^2}{R\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}}(\mathrm{\Omega }V+{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\mathrm{}}}).`$ (11)
Eq. (7), is based on sound physical ground, is far from being a purely conservative (GP) or purely dissipative (real Ginzburg Landau) Equation. Instead it display both characters.

The term $`i\frac{V_t}{\mathrm{}}\varphi =ic_0\varphi `$ in Eq. (7) have been eliminated by the rotation transformation $`\varphi \varphi e^{ic_0t}`$. The model have been made dimensionless using characteristic length and time scales: $`l_0=(\frac{RD_r\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\gamma _u^2\gamma _c})^{\frac{1}{2}}3.10^6m`$. Thus, dimensionless space coordinates are now $`x/l_0`$, $`y/l_0`$, $`z/l_0`$. Furthermore $`\tau =\gamma _ct`$ with $`\gamma _c=50s^1`$ , and $`|\varphi |^2(\frac{R\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}{2\gamma _u^2\gamma _c})|\varphi |^2`$.

We are now ready to write down, the Benjamin-Feir criterium ben  for stability of the open system

$$c_1(c_2)<1.$$
(12)
Note that $`c_1`$, $`c_2`$ displays explicit dependence on the pumping rates and Rabi frequency allowing us a direct control on the atom laser stability throughout application of Benjamin-Feir criterium given by expression (12) In what follows we consider two cases :
a) The $`{}_{}{}^{87}Rb`$ (Fig 2). We have the experimental reasonable values $`\gamma _u=1500s^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=7.02\times 10^{16}m^3s^1`$, $`R=2.13\times 10^{20}m^3s^1`$, $`D_r=2\times 10^8m^2s^1`$, $`g/\mathrm{}=4.8\times 10^{17}m^3s^1`$,$`V=2.5\times 10^{16}m^3`$. For this case it can be seen that for any IR Rabi coupling the $`{}_{}{}^{87}Rb`$, Atom laser, is always stable and the only possible limit is due to the upper values permitted for the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

b) $`{}_{}{}^{7}Li`$ (Fig 3). We use now the next values: $`\gamma _u=87s^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=5.4\times 10^{17}m^3s^1`$, $`R=1.61\times 10^{20}m^3s^1`$, $`D_r=2\times 10^8m^2s^1`$, $`g/\mathrm{}=1.61\times 10^{16}m^3s^1`$, $`V=2.5\times 10^{16}m^3`$.

Note that in this case there is some range of Rabi frequency for non stability, running for the values $`0<\mathrm{\Omega }<0.35`$. In the other hand there is an interesting range of values for stability as displayed in the Fig. 2 from $`0.35<\mathrm{\Omega }<0.6`$. Discussion about the upper limit of stability of the atom laser remains. It comes to our attention a very recent work by Haine et al ha , where strong dependence on pumping rates are displayed for stability of $`{}_{}{}^{85}Rb`$ atoms. However in this numerical work there is no IR interaction. In conclusion we have shown the possibility of controlling the laser atoms stability in the framework of quasi- CW optical pumping and IR coupling , even for those cases of negative scattering length as $`{}_{}{}^{7}Li`$. As a final comment, we point out the wide spectrum of theoretical possibilities for studies of atoms laser using the CGLE which seems to be a properly equation, for describing the dynamical of an open BEC.


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# Reply to the Comment on ”Evidence for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay” [Mod. Phys. Lett. A 16(2001)2409]

The critics  of ref.  — henceforth called KDHK — have listed nine objections. As coauthor of KDHK, I have advised the experimentalists in questions of statistics and want to discuss the nine points in the sequel. Part of the criticism is justified as one shall see.

1. “There is no discussion of how a variation of the size of the … analysis window would affect the significance …”

This is not true. The impact of the analysis window was qualitatively shown by KDHK via the comparison of parts (a) and (b) of the Figs. 4–6.

Still I consider the size of the analysis window the most serious part of the criticism. It is intimately linked to the following objection.
2. “There is no relative peak strength analysis of all the $`{}_{}{}^{214}Bi`$ peaks …”

The analysis has been done under the assumption that the peaks showing up in the parts (a) of Figs. 4–6 of KDHK can be identified — at least the ones closest to $`Q_{\beta \beta }.`$ If this is not so, the significance decreases as one sees by comparing parts (a) and (b) of the figures. By “identification”, the agreement of position and intensity of an observed structure with known $`\beta `$\- or $`\gamma `$-rays is meant.

According to present knowledge, the situation is not as bad as the critics conclude from their Table 1 — for two reasons: (i) The expected rate of the weak $`{}_{}{}^{214}Bi`$-lines is larger than the numbers in their table by a factorof about nine. This is due to a problem in the normalization of Fig. 1 of ; it is not the fault of the critics, cf. . (ii) Cascades of $`\gamma `$-rays emitted from a source that is close to the detector are partially summed by the detector. As a consequence the intensities are not proportional to the branching ratios given in . A Monte Carlo simulation of the setup is needed to find the intensisies.

The identification of the peaks would indeed have been the task of KDHK. This means that the analysis window should have been taken wider. Then the analysis must include the simulation of the contaminating peaks.

If the peaks at energies other than $`Q_{\beta \beta }`$ cannot be identified by way of the simulation, the confidence on the possible structure at $`Q_{\beta \beta }`$ will be lower than given in KDHK.

I expect from Tab. 1 of  that this is the case because about half of the intensity to the left of $`Q_{\beta \beta }`$ and about 20% of the peak at $`2053keV`$ are predicted by the simulation.
3. “There is no null hypothesis analysis demonstrating that the data require a peak.”

The statement that there is a peak with probability $`K`$ implies that there may be none. Since the results are probabilistic, it is not possible to demonstrate that the data do require a peak.

Note that the model used to analyze the data, includes the possibility that the intensity of the line is zero. The error intervals given in KDHK have been chosen such as to exclude the value of zero. Therefore every result in KDHK can especially be read as “With probability $`K`$ the intensity zero is outside the error interval”. In this sense the null hypothesis is rejected with the probability onto which the error interval is based.
4. “There is no statement of the net count rate of the peaks other than the 2039-keV peak”.

See item 2.
5. “There is no presentation of the entire spectrum …”

The entire spectrum was published  shortly before KDHK. See, however, item 2 for the normalization of Fig. 1 of .
6. “There are three unidentified peaks in the region of analysis that have greater significance than the 2039-keV peak …”

Since they have higher significance than the significance claimed for the peak at $`Q_{\beta \beta },`$ even future improved analyses need not necessarily consider these peaks to be part of the background. In principle there is no reason to consider all non-identified structures as fluctuations of the background. Peaks that have a high significance may be considered a spectral line although unknown at present.

Hence, a certain arbitrariness of the results remains even when the size of the analysis window is beyond question.
7. “There is no discussion of the relative peak strengths before and after the single-site-event cut …”

The intensity at $`Q_{\beta \beta }`$ after the single-site cut is compatible with the intensity before the cut, if the efficiency of the single site cut is taken into account.

It is due to the choice of the analysis window that this question has not been discussed for the other peaks.
8. “No simulation has been performed to demonstrate that the analysis correctly finds true peaks or that would find no peaks if none existed …”

This cannot be demonstrated. The randomness of the data entails probabilistic conclusions. Especially there is no analysis that would find only the true peaks and would never confuse a fluctuation with a peak. For this reason the results of KDHK have been expressed in terms of the probability that the intensity of the peak lies in a given interval.

KDHK had verified by Monte Carlo simulations of the analysis (not to be confused with the simulation of the experimental setup published in ) that their statements are approximately right if their model is right: The true value of the inferred parameter lies with the relative frequency $`K`$ in the Bayesian error interval $`(K).`$ The Monte Carlo simulations of the analysis had been done to make sure that no numerical errors are present. The simulations have not been mentioned by KDHK because a mathematical theorem ensures that one comes at least close to the above frequency interpretation of the error interval. It is known from the work of Stein  and Villegas  and others that — under certain symmetry conditions — Bayesian error intervals have the desired frequency interpretation. In the present case, the symmetry conditions are not exactly fulfilled because the parameter — the intensity — is real and the observed events are natural numbers.
9. “There is no discussion of how sensitive the conclusions are to different mathematical models …”

Unfortunately, any results — not only the ones of KDHK — are sensitive to the model one chooses to describe peak plus background. The comparison between parts (a) and (b) of Figs.4–6 in KDHK shows it — since the size of the analysis window is part of the model. The model dependence will not disappear when the window is chosen wider. The result continues to depend on the parameterization of background and contaminating peaks.

The model dependence is thus not the problem of KDHK only. It is a ubiquitous problem. Therefore the available methods of statistical inference may need improvement.

What one would like to have, is a procedure to infer the intensity of the peak in question independently of the ansatz for the background. This ansatz should extend over an undisputable length and it should be sufficiently general so that details like the constancy of the background do not matter. Such a procedure is not available at present. The problem of the “marginalisation paradox”  gives a hint how to proceed: Independent parameters are those unaffected by it. Once the notion of independence is clarified, one can devise a procedure to determine the intensity of the interesting line (to a certain extent) independently of the assumptions about the background. This is being worked out.

In summary: The critics have made a valuable point with their concern about the size of the analysis window; the simulation of the experimental setup  indicates that the significance of the possible strucuture at $`Q_{\beta \beta }`$ is lower than claimed by KDHK.


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# Comment on “Nonmonotonic 𝑑_{𝑥²-𝑦²} Superconducting Order Parameter in Nd2-xCexCuO4”

In a recent Letter blumberg02  Blumberg et al. address the symmetry of the superconducting gap in cuprate superconductors. In particular in the electron-doped systems the issue is not yet settled, and not even the phase sensitive experiments phase  arrive at a consistent conclusion. Therefore more spectroscopic information is useful: in addition to the B1g and B2g Raman spectra stadlober95  Blumberg and coauthors measured the A1g component by using an excitation energy of 1.9 eV. They obtain positions of the A1g, B1g and B2g pair breaking peaks at 45, 50 and 67 cm-1, respectively, and conclude, from these positions alone, that the superconducting order parameter has $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry with a non-monotonic dependence on the azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ (see Fig. 1b in Ref. blumberg02 ).

In this Comment we show that the basis for this conclusion is insufficient. This becomes already clear by just following the qualitative arguments of the authors: since the Raman scattering amplitudes $`\gamma _\mu (\varphi )`$ of all symmetries $`\mu `$ are finite at the maximum $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ of the proposed gap function, the spectra in all symmetries will exhibit structures at the same energy $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ as opposed to what is observed blumberg02 ; stadlober95 . In addition, if $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi )`$ has components up to $`\mathrm{sin}(10\varphi )`$ (see caption of Fig. 1) as proposed in Ref. blumberg02  it is hard to probe them with $`\gamma _\mu \mathrm{sin}(2\varphi )`$ without applying a model. Therefore, we calculated the Raman response explicitly. theory  For a small phenomenological damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0.04`$ (Fig. 1 a) both the $`B_{1g}`$ and the $`B_{2g}`$ spectra exhibit two structures at around 50 and 67 $`\mathrm{cm}^1`$, and the $`A_{1g}`$ peak is at approximately 60 and not at 45 $`\mathrm{cm}^1`$ as in the experiment. Even for this small damping all spectra are linear (see inset of Fig. 1 a) up to approximately 20 $`\mathrm{cm}^1`$ theory . A larger damping $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0.30`$ (Fig. 1 b) not only smears out the double peak structure but also completely kills the power laws characteristic for $`d`$-wave pairing for this type of gap.

In general, neither the k dependence nor the magnitude of the gap can be derived from the peak positions alone. Rather an appropriate model and the complete study of the low-temperature and low-frequency power laws are required. Then, constraints for the gap similar to those from the specific heat or the magnetic penetration depth could be obtained.

Here, it is indeed the magnetic penetration depth lambda  $`\lambda (T)`$ which is in direct conflict with the proposed form of the gap. The temperature dependence of $`\lambda (T)`$ can be readily calculated from the functional dependence $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi )`$. No agreement with the data lambda  at any doping can be achieved. Supposed the nonmonotonic gap would be realized an analysis with a monotonic one lambda  would lead to $`\mathrm{\Delta }_09k_BT_c`$ in spite of the restricted phase space around the node.

In conclusion, the functional dependence of the gap proposed in Ref. blumberg02  is neither sufficiently supported by the Raman results nor compatible with the magnetic pentration depth. In spite of that, an anisotropic $`s`$-wave as suggested earlier stadlober95  is probably not the full story either at least not in the entire doping range. Therefore the issue of the superconducting gap in the electron-doped systems cannot at all be considered solved by now.

F. Venturini and R. Hackl, Walther Meissner Institute, Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 85748 Garching, Germany

U. Michelucci, EKM, Universität Augsburg, 86135 Augsburg, Germany