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# Fermi-Bose quantum degenerate 40K-87Rb mixture with attractive interaction

Also at: \]Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trento, 38050 Povo, Italy.

## Abstract

We report on the achievement of simultaneous quantum degeneracy in a mixed gas of fermionic 40K and bosonic 87Rb. Potassium is cooled to 0.3 times the Fermi temperature by means of an efficient thermalization with evaporatively cooled rubidium. Direct measurement of the collisional cross-section confirms a large interspecies attraction. This interaction is shown to affect the expansion of the Bose-Einstein condensate released form the magnetic trap, where it is immersed in the Fermi sea.

The recently demonstrated quantum degeneracy of Fermi-Bose (FB) mixtures of dilute atomic gases hulet ; salomon ; ketterle1  promises to further enrich the field of the physics of degenerate matter at ultralow temperatures ketterle ; varenna . When a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) interacts with a Fermi gas, novel phenomena are expected to occur. The most appealing one is certainly BCS-like fermionic superfluidity, since a BEC could affect interactions between fermions bijlsma ; viverit . Furthermore, different FB interaction regimes could allow studies of phase-separation molmer ; tosi  or of the stability properties of the binary mixtures roth1 .

The mixtures so far reported have in common the use of fermionic 6Li, combined with a BEC of 7Li hulet ; salomon , or of 23Na ketterle1 . For the 6Li-7Li mixtures the FB interaction is *repulsive*, with possible consequences for the separation of the components, and eventually for the thermal contact. For the 6Li-23Na case, the interaction has not been measured, however the theoretical predictions are again in favor of a repulsive character timmcote .

A different, promising scenario would be offered by mixtures combining species with attractive interaction, because the absence of a phase separation would allow efficient cooling well below the Fermi temperature and would favor the interaction between the two components in the degenerate regime. With this respect, a mixture composed of 40K and 87Rb would be particularly interesting. Indeed, precise 41K-87Rb interspecies collisional studies at ultralow temperatures nostrocoll , inferred an *attractive* character for the interaction of the 40K-87Rb pair.

In this Letter we report the production of such a novel macroscopic quantum system, in which a degenerate 40K Fermi gas, composed of more than 104 atoms, coexists with a 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate of up to 2$`\times `$104 atoms. The large interspecies scattering length results in an efficient sympathetic cooling of 40K with evaporatively cooled Rb, as in the case of Bose-Einstein condensation of 41K science . This cooling scheme represents also an alternative to the single-species evaporation approach jin  that was early demonstrated to produce a Fermi gas of K atoms. We observe signatures of the large interaction of the two components also in the degenerate regime.

The degenerate mixture is produced using the apparatus described in Ref.science . In brief, about 105 40K atoms and 5$`\times `$108 87Rb atoms at a temperature around 100 $`\mu `$K are loaded in an elongated magnetostatic trap using a double magneto-optical trap apparatus. As opposed to the case of 41K science , combined magneto-optical trapping of 40K and 87Rb is efficient, as was also shown in Ref. jin1 . Prior to magnetic trapping, both species are prepared in their doubly polarized spin state, $`|F=9/2,m_F=9/2`$ for K and $`|2,2`$ for Rb. These states experience the same trapping potential, with axial and radial harmonic frequencies $`\omega _a=2\pi \times 24`$ s-1 and $`\omega _r=2\pi \times 317`$ s-1 for K, while those for Rb are a factor $`(M_{Rb}/M_K)^{1/2}1.47`$ smaller. Evaporative cooling is then performed selectively on the Rb sample. Due to the different gyromagnetic factors of the two species a radio-frequency evaporation scheme could be implemented evaporazione , in contrast to the boson-boson mixture, for which microwave radiation had to be used.

With an evaporation ramp lasting about 25 s we are able to cool typically 2$`\times `$104 K atoms and 105 Rb atoms to below 1 $`\mu `$K. Sympathetic cooling of 40K with 87Rb is very efficient, with a large ratio of ”good” elastic collisions to ”bad” inelastic collisions. We have measured the interspecies scattering cross-section by performing a rethermalization measurement at a temperature around 400 nK, at which both species are still non-degenerate gases. We drive the mixture out of equilibrium with a short, Rb-selective, parametric heating phase nostrocoll , and we observe the subsequent heating of K, which is mediated by elastic interspecies collisions. For a K sample composed by 1.2$`\times 10^4`$ atoms, coexisting with 4$`\times 10^4`$ Rb atoms we measure a short thermalization time $`\tau `$=57(20) ms. At these ultralow temperatures the collisions have almost exclusively a $`s`$-wave character and, following the model discussed in nostrocoll  $`\tau `$ is linked to the scattering length $`a`$ through $`\tau ^1=4\pi a^2\xi \overline{n}v/\alpha _s`$, where $`\overline{n}=(\frac{1}{N_K}+\frac{1}{N_{Rb}})n_Kn_{Rb}d^3x`$ is the effective density of K and Rb atoms, $`v`$ is their relative velocity, $`\xi 0.86`$ is a factor which takes into account the different mass of two colliding atoms, and $`\alpha _s2.7`$ is the average number of collisions needed for thermalization. Even thought K atoms cannot thermalize between themselves, since $`s`$-wave collisions are forbidden for identical fermions, the thermalization with Rb happens on a timescale longer than the mean period of oscillation in the trap, and this ensures thermalization of the K sample. Actually we have observed that both the density and momentum distributions have gaussian profiles that lead to the same temperature. From the measured $`\tau `$ we derive a quite large magnitude for the 40K-87Rb scattering length: $`|a|`$=330$`{}_{100}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+160}`$ $`a_0`$. Here the uncertainty is dominated by that on $`\tau `$ and by a 40% uncertainty on the atom number. The direct measurement with the fermionic isotope is in agreement with the value $`a`$=-261$`{}_{159}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+170}`$ $`a_0`$ that we previously inferred by mass-scaling from collisional measurements on the bosonic 41K-87Rb mixture nostrocoll . The measurement of a large value for $`|a|`$ also confirms the attractive character of the interaction, since a positive scattering length would have been compatible only with a much smaller magnitude science .

By further cooling the mixture we have evidence of the formation of a degenerate Fermi gas coexisting with a Bose-Einstein condensate. In Fig. 1 we show a series of absorption images of the mixture for three different final energies of the evaporation ramp, which reveals the different nature of the two degenerate gases. Both samples are imaged in the same experimental run, by using two short, delayed light pulses. The images are taken after a ballistic expansion appropriate to measure the momentum distribution of the samples; in particular the expansion lasts 4.5 ms for K and 17.5 ms for Rb. Sections of such images are also shown: they are taken along the vertical direction for K, and along the horizontal direction for Rb. With our experimental parameters, we have a Fermi temperature $`T_F`$=250 nK and a critical temperature for BEC $`T_c`$=110 nK for a sample composed of 104 and 2$`\times 10^4`$ atoms, respectively.

Thermometry of the system is provided by the bosonic component, assuming thermal equilibrium between the two components. As the temperature is decreased by almost a factor of two (from top to bottom in Fig. 1), Rb undergoes the phase-transition to BEC, while the width of the fermionic component remains almost constant. A fit of the coldest K cloud with a Thomas-Fermi profile butts  gives a radius $`R`$=52 $`\mu `$m, which is consistent to within 10% with the minimum radius allowed by Fermi statistics: $`R=R_F\sqrt{1+\omega _r^2\tau ^2}`$, where $`R_F=\sqrt{2k_BT_F/(M\omega _r^2)}`$ is the Fermi radius and $`\tau `$ is the expansion time. For the quasi-pure BEC shown in Fig. 1, a fit to both the thermal and condensate components with gaussian profiles indicate a condensate fraction of 60%. This implies a temperature $`T`$=80 nK of both the BEC and the Fermi gas, which corresponds to 0.3 $`T_F`$.

In these conditions, we see a small decrease of the number of K atoms on the timescale of 1 s, which is the lifetime of the BEC in our system. This indicates the presence of some kind of inelastic collisional process, which will be the object of future investigation.

Further evidence for the achievement of quantum degeneracy is obtained by studying the gaussian $`1/e`$ width of the fermionic sample as a function of temperature. As shown in Fig. 2 the square of the width, normalized to $`R_F`$, scales linearly for $`T>T_F`$, indicating thermal equilibrium between K and Rb. Below $`T_F`$, the data deviate from the behavior expected for a classical gas, and indeed they are better reproduced by the prediction of the model for an ideal Fermi gas butts .

Since we have also observed degenerate mixtures in which the thermal fraction of the condensate was below our detection limit of nearly 30%, the attainment of temperatures lower than those reported cannot be excluded. However, boson thermometry is no longer possible in this regime, and different techniques would be necessary to investigate the evolution of sympathetic cooling when both species are well below their critical temperatures.

In the present experiment we have an evidence for thermal contact between the two species in the degenerate regime, even when no thermal component is detectable for the Rb BEC. This is obtained by leaving the degenerate mixture in the magnetic trap for a relatively long time after the end of the evaporation. The Rb temperature is kept constant by means of a radio-frequency shield, but the background heating ($``$ 100 nK/s) caused by fluctuations in the magnetic field, continuously removes atoms from the BEC. This is illustrated in Fig. 3, together with the simultaneous behavior of K. The evolution of the width of the fermionic distribution indicates that K starts to heat up only when Rb is almost completely evaporated from the trap. Although the gaussian width is not a sensitive ”thermometer” at low temperatures, as shown in Fig. 2, the results reported in Fig. 3 are significant. Indeed, if K were thermally decoupled from Rb, its heating at the observed rate would be detectable after 1 s even in the extreme case of a starting temperature $`T<<T_F`$.

However, it is difficult to determine whether the thermal contact is direct or mediated by a possible, undetected thermal cloud. In our magnetic trap, the centers of mass of the two species are displaced due to the different gravitational sag for K and Rb. This displacement, $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=2.9`$ $`\mu `$m, is not sufficiently large to affect the geometrical overlap of the two degenerate components, since the radial sizes of the Fermi and Bose gases are $`R_F`$=5.1 $`\mu `$m and $`R_B`$=2 $`\mu `$m, respectively. Therefore, the BEC is completely immersed in the Fermi sea, with a ratio of the two volumes of approximately 1:16, hence direct thermal exchange is possible. However, the contribution of an undetected thermal cloud cannot be excluded, also because of the large K-Rb interaction. For instance at $`T`$=0.5$`T_F`$ we calculate that 104 uncondensed bosons would thermalize with an equal number of fermions in about 50 ms.

The large attractive interspecies interaction is expected to affect the density profile of both degenerate gases roth1 ; roth . Our experimental configuration is more suitable for the observation of the effect of the mutual interaction on the boson. While the Rb BEC is completely immersed in the Fermi sea, only a relatively small volume fraction of K is exposed to the attraction. In fact, we have seen a modification on the ballistic expansion of the BEC due to the presence of the other species. In general, we found that BECs coexisting with the Fermi gas invert their aspect ratio more rapidly than normal during the expansion. As an example, the evolution of the axial-to-radial aspect ratio of the condensate is shown in Fig. 4 for both the cases of a pure BEC and of a BEC with the Fermi gas. In the former case the expansion is in agreement with the theoretical prediction stringari  for the experimental trap parameters. The latter case is instead better reproduced by the behavior expected for a pure BEC confined in an effective potential with frequencies 10%larger than the actual ones. This constitutes a direct evidence of the interaction, and qualitatively agrees with the expectations reported in Ref. roth  of a tighter confinement for a BEC in a Fermi gas with mutual attraction. However, a precise reconstruction of the BEC density profile in the trap is not straightforward from these observations. Indeed, in modelling the data of Fig. 4 as appropriate for a free-expanding condensate we have neglected possible effects of the interaction of Rb with K also during the early phases of the expansion, which instead cannot be ruled out a priori and need further investigation.

In conclusion we have produced a degenerate mixture in which a Rb BEC is fully immersed in a K Fermi sea. The mutual attractive interaction constitutes an important novelty, since it allows thermal contact between the FB components to continue into the degenerate regime, where loss-induced heating of the Fermi gas may also play a significant role timmermans . A deeper exploration of thermal exchange in the degenerate regime will require the development of new techniques for better thermometry. One possible scheme could be based on the production of velocity-selected Rb atoms chikkatur  for the study of their collisional relaxation in the fermionic gas ferrari . We also observed a first evidence of the effect of the strong FB interaction on the density profile of the bosons. Further insight in this phenomenology could be obtained, for instance, through the study of the dynamics induced by the interaction, following the release of one of the two species from the trap vichi .

Finally, we note that this K-Rb mixture opens new possibilities for the production of ultracold heteronuclear molecules. In particular, as recently discussed in Ref. goral , dipolar fermions could provide a new landscape for the quest of fermionic superfluidity.

We acknowledge stimulating discussions with G. Ferrari, who also contributed to the initial stages of the experiment, and with M. Modugno. We thank R. J. Brecha for a critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by MIUR under a PRIN project, by ECC under the Contract HPRICT1999-00111, and by INFM, PRA ”Photonmatter”.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Supersymmetry (SUSY) is widely recognized as a possibility in our quest for physics beyond the Standard Model. The particle spectrum of a particular SUSY model depends on the dynamics of the SUSY breaking. Determination of the SUSY breaking mechanism thus constitutes an integral part of any new accelerator proposal. Different sectors of the supersymmetric model can often be independently investigated in such contexts. An important component of such a model is the chargino-neutralino sector, where the physical states are formed as linear superpositions of the charged (or neutral, as the case may be) gauginos and Higgsinos respectively. A clear and unambiguous observation of this sector is important, as this will not only tell us about the SUSY breaking parameters lending themselves as gaugino masses, but also reveal crucial details of the mixing process operative here, driven by quantities such as the Higgsino mass $`\mu `$ and the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two Higgs doublets present in the model.

Direct searches at the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider have already set lower limits of about 99 GeV  on the mass of the lightest chargino. Charginos and neutralinos with higher masses can be explored at Run II of the Tevatron or at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where a useful signal arises from the ‘hadronically quiet’ trilepton final states formed by decays of the $`\chi _2^0\chi _1^\pm `$ pair . Here $`\chi _1^\pm `$ is the lightest chargino and $`\chi _2^0`$, the next-to-lightest neutralino. However, this mode becomes hard to tag to whenever the leptonic decay channels of the $`\chi _1^\pm `$ get suppressed. This can happen, for example, in theories with anomaly mediated SUSY breaking (AMSB) . Anomaly mediated models attempt to link the dynamics of SUSY breaking to models with extra compactified dimensions. The SUSY breaking sector is confined to a 3-brane separated from the one on which the standard model fields reside. SUSY breaking is conveyed to the observable sector by a super-Weyl anomaly. One remarkable feature of these models is the proportionality of the soft gaugino masses to the corresponding gauge beta-function coefficient ($`b_i`$). Since $`b_2`$ (corresponding to $`SU(2)`$) is smaller than $`b_1`$ (same for $`U(1)_Y`$), the $`SU(2)`$ gaugino mass $`M_2`$ is smaller than $`M_1`$. As a result, the lightest neutralino ($`\chi _1^0`$), the LSP, is practically degenerate with $`\chi _1^\pm `$ and both are wino-like. With the mass separation being a few hundred MeVs at best, the $`\chi _1^\pm `$ decays dominantly into a $`\chi _1^0`$ (which is stable and invisible so long as lepton and baryon numbers are conserved) and a soft pion. The lower limit on the mass of such a chargino is around 87 GeV . Thus a $`\chi _1^0\chi _1^\pm `$ pair, as opposed to $`\chi _2^0\chi _1^\pm `$ whose production rate is suppressed, essentially escapes undetected. One way out here is to look for macroscopic tracks left by the chargino , but the success of this strategy is not guaranteed. Alternative signals for such a scenario have been proposed and studied in detail in the context of a high-energy electron-positron collider, via an analysis of the ‘single photon plus missing energy’ signals arising from $`e^+e^{}\chi _1^+\chi _1^{}\gamma `$ . In this paper, we suggest another possibility, namely, the radiative production of chargino pairs in photon-photon collision, triggered by laser back-scattering in a linear $`e^+e^{}`$ or $`e^{}e^{}`$ collider.

The advantage of the photon-photon collision mode is that the production is controlled only by electromagnetic interaction. Thus the chargino production rates are independent of the mixing mechanism. Also, in an electron-positron collider the single photon signals are plagued with backgrounds from $`e^+e^{}\nu \overline{\nu }\gamma `$. A similar background is virtually nonexistent in photon-photon collisions. Since only charged particles are formed via $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions at the tree level, the single photon visible final states do not get any contribution from $`\chi ^0`$ pairs, unlike in the case of $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions. And lastly, as we shall discuss in further detail in section 4, the suggested signals in an $`e^+e^{}`$ collider can be strongly affected by the sneutrino mass , at least in a very significant region of the parameter space. Such model dependence is completely avoided in the $`\gamma \gamma `$ mode.

In section 2 we point out some features of the process $`\gamma \gamma \chi ^+\chi ^{}\gamma `$ in the two-photon centre-of-mass frame. The more realistic case of a laser back-scattering experiment, and possible ways of eliminating backgrounds, are taken up in section 3. We summarise our numerical results and conclude in section 4.

## 2 $`\gamma \gamma \chi ^+\chi ^{}\gamma `$ for monochromatic photon beams

The production, governed solely by quantum electrodynamics, proceeds through six Feynman diagrams. To understand the signal profile, it is useful to consider the individual contributions from each of the various helicity combinations. Clearly, not all of the 32 possible amplitudes are independent, related as they are by discrete symmetries (charge conjugation and parity). With

$$\sigma _{ijkln}\sigma (\gamma _i\gamma _j\chi _k^+\chi _l^{}\gamma _n)$$
(1)
where the subscripts (taking values $`\pm `$) refer to the respective particle helicities, we have

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}\hfill \sigma _{}& =& \sigma _{+++++}\hfill & & & & & & \\ \hfill \sigma _+& =& \sigma _{++++}\hfill & & & & & & \\ \hfill \sigma _+& =& \sigma _{++++}\hfill & =& \sigma _+\hfill & =& \sigma _{++++}\hfill & & \\ \hfill \sigma _{++}& =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & & \\ \hfill \sigma _{++}& =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & & & & & & \\ \hfill \sigma _{+++}& =& \sigma _{++}\hfill & & & & & & \\ \hfill \sigma _+& =& \sigma _{++++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{++++}\hfill & =& \sigma _+\hfill & & \\ \hfill \sigma _{++}& =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{++}\hfill & & \\ \hfill \sigma _{++}& =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{++}\hfill & & \\ & =& \sigma _{++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{+++}\hfill & =& \sigma _{++}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
The above relations are true not only for the total cross-sections but also for any partial sum, as long as the two charginos are subjected to identical phase space constraints. Thus we have chosen to show, in Fig. 1($`a`$), the cross-sections corresponding to the nine independent helicity combinations appearing in the first column of each of the above equations.

The following observations are in order here.

* Each of the cross-sections is beset with kinematical singularities. One of them corresponds to the final state photon being a soft one. The other corresponds to mass and collinear singularities in the event of a vanishing chargino mass.
* The electromagnetic vertex is helicity preserving. As all the final states with identical polarisation states for the chargino pair must have encountered a helicity flip, the corresponding amplitudes must be proportional to at least $`M_\chi `$. Thus, in the limit of vanishing chargino mass, these particular amplitudes should approach zero.

Clearly, wherever applicable, the two effects mentioned above pull the cross-sections in different directions, one enhancing it, the other suppressing. However, if we impose a minimal energy requirement on the final state particles as also demand that they be (at least slightly) away from the beam pipe and also not collinear with each other, then the kinematic singularities mentioned above are no longer present in the partial cross-section. In such an event, the helicity reversal argument, wherever applicable, would prevail and pull the cross-section down for sufficiently small chargino mass. Figure 1($`a`$) confirms this. The cuts applied here are $`2^{}\theta _\gamma ,\theta _{\chi ^\pm }178^{}`$ and $`\theta _{\chi ^\pm \gamma }>5^{}`$, where $`\theta _{\chi ^\pm \gamma }`$ is the angular separation of the photon with the charginos.

It is instructive to examine Fig. 1($`a`$) in some detail. The fall-off at large chargino masses ($`M_\chi \sqrt{s_{\gamma \gamma }}/2`$) is but a reflection of phase space suppression. In the small $`M_\chi `$ regime, the rapid fall in $`\sigma _{ijn}`$ is a consequence of the aforementioned helicity-flip in the corresponding amplitudes. Similarly the continued growth at small masses for $`\sigma _{++}`$ and $`\sigma _+`$ is symptomatic of the collinear singularity. The case of $`\sigma _{++}`$ might seem counterintuitive. However, this particular amplitude is essentially governed by a double-helicity flip with the consequent $`M_\chi ^4`$ behaviour of the cross-section for small masses. Some additional insight can be obtained if one considers the partial wave decomposition of the amplitudes into different angular momentum states. For example, the $`J=2`$ initial state prefers to go to a final state where the chargino pair can be thought of to be in $`J=1`$ state and hence the final state charginos have opposite polarisations (in other words, $`\sigma _{++}=\sigma _{+++}\sigma _{+\pm }`$). Similar arguments can be constructed for the other helicity amplitudes as well.

While the discussion above helps us in understanding the dynamics of the process under consideration, the helicity of the photon in the final state is virtually immeasurable. Furthermore, since we would be primarily interested in the case of the chargino decaying into a neutralino and a pion, the chargino polarisation information is also lost.111In fact, even if we were to consider fermionic decay modes such as $`\chi ^+\chi ^0\mathrm{}^+\nu `$, the effects of chargino polarisation are essentially averaged over as long as the decay products are invisible. Thus, we might as well sum over the final state polarisations, thereby reducing the number of independent cases to only two:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill \sigma _{}& & \underset{k,l,n}{}\sigma _{kln}\hfill & =& \sigma _{++}\hfill \\ \hfill \sigma _+& & \underset{k,l,n}{}\sigma _{+kln}\hfill & =& \sigma _+\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
In Fig. 1($`b`$), we explicitly demonstrate the $`M_\chi `$-dependence of these cross-sections, again for the ideal case of monochromatic beams. The cuts applied in drawing the figures are $`E_\gamma >5`$ GeV and $`5^{}\theta _\gamma 175^{}`$. Note that $`\sigma _+`$ dominates for small values of $`M_\chi `$ ceding way to $`\sigma _{}`$ at large chargino masses. The turnover point could also be inferred from a study of Fig. 1($`a`$). The exact location approaches $`M_\chi \sqrt{s_{\gamma \gamma }}/4`$ from below as the energy increases.

## 3 Signals from backscattered photons and background elimination

While an almost 100% polarised photon beam is possible, obtaining an intense high energy monochromatic beam is a near impossibility. In an actual experiment, one proposes to scatter laser beams off the $`e^+e^{}`$ or $`e^{}e^{}`$ pair in the linear collider, and make the scattered photons collide against each other. The cross-section for a subprocess with a given centre-of-mass energy has to be folded with the energy distributions of both the photons, which are essentially Compton spectra. Not only has this spectrum a spread in the photon energy, it is not even in a pure polarisation state. The exact shape of the spectrum and the polarisation density matrix is determined by the polarisation of the initial laser beam and the electron (positron).

The basic parameters in the calculation are the energies of the primary electron (positron) and the laser beam ($`E_b`$ and $`E_l`$ respectively), their polarisations, and the angle of incidence ($`\theta `$) between the electron beam and the laser. The quantity

$$z=\frac{4E_bE_l}{m_e^2}\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\theta }{2}$$
(4)
determines the maximal fraction of the electron energy carried by the scattered photon . An arbitrary increase in this fraction results in pair production through the interaction of the incident and scattered photons. $`z=2(1+\sqrt{2})`$ is considered to be an optimal choice  in this respect, and such a value of $`z`$ has been adopted in this calculation. Expectedly, the said cross-sections are beset with kinematical singularities and hence are well-defined only when regulated (in other words, when phase space constraints are imposed).

Let us start by focusing on the invisible decay

$$\chi ^\pm \chi ^0+\pi ^\pm $$
(5)
when pion is expected to be soft. Thus, the signal is

$$\gamma \gamma \gamma +\text{missing energy-momentum}.$$
(6)
To ensure that such a photon is visible, we demand that it is emitted sufficiently away from the beam pipe and that it carries sufficiently large transverse momentum. To be specific, the events are subjected to the following cuts:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill 10^{}& & \theta _\gamma \hfill & & 170^{}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathit{}_T& =& p_T(\gamma )\hfill & & 10\mathrm{GeV}\hfill \\ & & E(\gamma )\hfill & <& 100\mathrm{GeV}\hfill \\ & & E(\pi ^\pm )\hfill & <& 5\mathrm{GeV}\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
where the last condition has been put to ensure invisibility of the pions222Were we to consider the decay mode $`\chi ^+\chi ^0\mathrm{}^+\nu `$, a similar restriction on the lepton energy would be imposed instead.. As will be seen below, these criteria not only ensure visibility of the signals and and ward off singularities, but also serve to eliminate practically all of the SM background. The restriction on the maximal photon energy might seem puzzling at this moment, but the need to impose such a requirement would become clearer as we proceed.

Armed with the above requirements, we can convolute the cross-section with the photon spectra. As has been mentioned, the latter are determined by the polarisations of the incident laser and the electron-positron pair. Clearly, 16 such distinct combinations are possible. However, with the final state polarisations having been summed over, it can easily be seen that only 6 of these combinations are independent. Rather than consider all six, we shall focus our attention on the two particular combinations (apart from the simplest case, viz., the unpolarised one), that result in the largest cross-sections for relatively heavy charginos.

Figure 2 shows the final cross-sections after applying the above set of cuts, for two values of the electron-positron (or electron-electron) centre-of-mass energy. Polarisation efficiencies of $`90\%`$ for electrons and $`100\%`$ for photons have been assumed. As the graphs show, the cross-sections have a significant dependence on the beam polarisation choice for the entire range of chargino masses considered. In particular, for large $`M_\chi `$, the dependence is quite sizable with the different cross-sections varying by almost an order of magnitude.

While we postpone comments on the numerical results till the next section, it is essential at this stage to enter into a discussion on the sources of backgrounds. The SM backgrounds to the signal of Eqn. (6) arise from each of the following processes:

* $`\gamma \gamma ^+^{}\gamma `$, where $``$ is a light charged boson ($`\pi `$, $`K`$, $`\rho `$ etc.);
* $`\gamma \gamma f\overline{f}\gamma `$ (where $`f`$ is a lepton or a light quark) with the leptons escaping detection;
* $`\gamma \gamma W^+W^{}\gamma `$ with the $`W`$ decay products escaping detection;
* $`\gamma \gamma \gamma Z`$ with the $`Z`$ decaying into neutrinos.

We consider each in turn.

$`\gamma \gamma ^+^{}\gamma `$: Events such $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\gamma `$ production could be approximately studied assuming naive scalar electrodynamics. While this is expected to work fairly well at low momentum transfers (where the pion structure is not resolved), one would be justified in questioning the applicability for high energy processes such as the one we are concerned with. Notwithstanding this criticism, this method is expected to yield at least an order of magnitude estimate of the rates. Using this approach, we find that the admittedly large differential cross-section is heavily biased towards very energetic pions. Once the criteria of Eqn. (7) are imposed, this source of backgrounds is essentially eliminated. Analogous statements hold for other possible mesons and hadrons with the comprehensive result that this background is negligible.

$`\gamma \gamma f\overline{f}\gamma `$: In order to fake our signal, the pair of charged particles have to travel close enough to the beam axis so as to escape detection. The exact criteria for this to happen are, of course, dependent on the (as yet unknown) detector design. However, it is reasonable to impose the following event detection criteria .

* Any charged fermion emitted at an angle greater than $`10^{}`$ with the beam axis is detected as long as its energy is at least 5 GeV.
* Instrumentation in the region between $`10^{}`$ and $`1.2^{}`$ with the beam axis would make detection possible there, provided the particle has a minimum energy of 50 GeV.
* At angles less than $`1.2^{}`$, no detection would be possible.

Any particle that does not satisfy at least one of the above criteria would then escape undetected and hence contribute to the missing energy-momentum. Explicit calculation shows that no such event satisfies the event selection criteria of Eqn. (7) and hence the corresponding background is eliminated completely.

$`\gamma \gamma W^+W^{}\gamma `$: Quite analogous to the previous case, this particular process would contribute only if the decay products of the $`W`$’s escape detection. It is quite obvious that this particular background would be even smaller than the $`f\overline{f}\gamma `$ one, and again of no concern.

$`\gamma \gamma \gamma Z`$: Interestingly, this one-loop process proves to be the largest background. The corresponding cross-section, calculated in , is of the order of 30 (50) $`fb`$ for $`\sqrt{s_{e^+e^{}}}=500(1000)\mathrm{GeV}`$. Folding in the invisible decay width of the $`Z`$, this would imply an “irreducible” background of 6 (10) $`fb`$. A naive comparison with Figs. 2 thus suggests a severely limited mass reach of our signal. Fortunately, event kinematics comes to our rescue. Thinking, for the moment, in terms of monochromatic photon beams, the outgoing photon, too, would be monochromatic333The energy spread due to a possibly off-shell $`Z`$ is negligible. with an energy of $`E_\gamma =(s_{\gamma \gamma }m_Z^2)/2\sqrt{s_{\gamma \gamma }}`$. On the other hand, the photon in the signal process has a wide energy distribution peaking, typically, at smaller $`E_\gamma `$. In the ideal case, then, eliminating photons lying within a relatively narrow energy band would have solved our problem. In reality though, one has to convolute this result with the photon spectrum. Two factors come into play here: ($`i`$) the cross-section $`\sigma (\gamma \gamma \gamma Z)`$ falls off very fast below $`\sqrt{s_{\gamma \gamma }}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}170\mathrm{GeV}`$; and ($`ii`$) with our favoured choice of beam polarisations (namely, opposite polarisations for incoming electron and laser), the photon beam is strongly peaked at large momentum fractions. Together, these imply that, even on folding with the spectrum, the bulk of the contribution arises from very energetic photons leading to typically large values of the outgoing photon energy. The signal profile, on the other hand, is strongly peaked at small outgoing photon energies (see Fig. 3). That the spread is wider for smaller chargino masses is, of course, easily understood. However, since the cross-section for a smaller $`M_\chi `$ is larger, a larger fractional loss in the signal is still not too costly. More importantly, as Fig. 3 shows, a restriction of $`E_\gamma <100\mathrm{GeV}`$ (see Eqn. 7) leads to a very small loss of signal, while suppressing the $`\gamma Z`$ background to a small fraction of a femtobarn444Note, though, that our argument does not hold for $`\gamma Z`$ production starting from resolved photons. However, as Ref. points out, the corresponding cross-sections by themselves are more than a magnitude smaller.. To summarise, we have established that the selection criteria of Eqn. (7) serve to make our signal almost background-free.

## 4 Numerical results and conclusions

In the absence of any background, 5 events would constitute a discovery. A perusal of Figures 2 (along with reasonable estimates for detector efficiencies) thus gives us the discovery potential for a particular choice of beam polarisation. Assuming an integrated luminosity of 100 $`fb^1`$ , an invisible chargino of mass upto about 165–175 GeV can thus be detected at a linear collider operating at $`\sqrt{s}=500`$ GeV. For a 1 TeV collider, the limit can easily go up to 370 GeV or so555The kinematic limit for the two modes are 207 GeV and 414 GeV respectively.. This should be contrasted with the search limits that can be reached through radiative chargino production in electron-positron collision. Although it has been claimed that charginos can be probed upto the kinematic limit in the latter case, such a claim is tenable only when the sneutrino-induced diagrams do not contribute appreciably to the production rate. As has been shown in Ref. , the signal rate suffers a reduction by nearly an order of magnitude due to destructive interference when sneutrino masses are close to the lower limit obtained from LEP. Thus, an unambiguous exploration of the chargino-neutralino sector is not possible from $`e^+e^{}`$ collision data. A further consideration is that of the $`\nu \overline{\nu }\gamma `$ background. While the part that emanates from $`Z\gamma `$ background can be largely eliminated by registering events within a certain window in the photon energy, the non-resonant part needs a much more careful reconsideration in terms of photon energy and momentum 666Note, however that right polarising the electron beam could suppress background while eliminating the aforementioned model-dependence of the signal.. The errors involved in such reconstruction, and the efficiency factor coming therein, may considerably reduce the efficacy of invisible chargino searches in this channel. Signals suggested in $`\gamma \gamma `$ collision can be advantageous in this respect, thanks to both the total absence of the $`\nu \overline{\nu }\gamma `$ backgrounds as well as the lack of interference, in the signal cross-section, from the sneutrino-induced channels.

Another matter of particular interest is the determination of the chargino mass. Unlike in the case of an $`e^+e^{}`$ collider, the cross-section here is a function of only $`M_\chi `$ and the centre-of-mass energy. As Figs. 2 show, the dependence is quite a marked one, especially for the ($`++`$) polarisation combination. Thus, event counting itself would allow a fairly good determination of $`M_\chi `$, provided sufficient luminosity is available. Furthermore, the difference in the functional dependence of $`\sigma (M_\chi )`$ for different polarisation choices could be exploited for consistency checks. In addition to this, one would expect the edge of the photon energy spectrum to give an independent measurement. However, as this is true in principle, in practice this turns out to be of little use. Even for an integrated luminosity of $`100\mathrm{fb}^1`$, the event rates fall to such low values near the edge that the corresponding errors would be too large for this method to be useful.

So far, we have assumed that $`\chi _1^\pm `$ decay to $`\chi _1^0\pi ^\pm `$ has $`100\%`$ branching ratio. This, however, is a model dependent feature. The width in this channel primarily depends on the mass difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$) between $`\chi _1^0`$ and $`\chi _1^\pm `$. In anomaly mediated models, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ cannot exceed a few hundreds of MeV. In that case, $`\chi _1^0\pi ^\pm `$ is the overwhelmingly dominant channel in which the chargino can decay. Apart from AMSB, almost invisible charginos can occur for $`\mu M_{1,2}`$ (with $`M_2`$ substantially smaller than $`M_1`$) or $`\mu M_{1,2}`$. The first choice is very similar to the AMSB scenario, where the LSP (as well as the lighter chargino) is basically a wino. In the second case (Higgsino LSP), $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ can be relatively larger so that the three-body decay of a $`\chi _1^\pm `$ leading to $`l^\pm \nu \chi _1^0`$ can take place. The opening up of such a mode reduces the branching ratio of the two-body channel down to $`515\%`$. Invisibility of the lighter chargino in such cases is dictated by the softness of the lepton coming from the three-body channel as well as the pion from the two-body channel. The invisible branching fraction of $`\chi _1^\pm `$ for such invisible decays can then vary from $`3340\%`$ depending on the parameters. With such branching ratios, the signals discussed here enable us to probe a lighter chargino mass upto about $`175(340)`$ GeV with $`e^+e^{}`$ centre-of-mass energy of $`0.5(1)`$ TeV and integrated luminosity of $`100fb^1`$. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }m<m_\pi `$, then $`l^\pm \nu \chi _1^0`$ is the only possible decay mode of the $`\chi _1^\pm `$. Here the leptons will be so soft that we can expect a signal of the type (single photon \+ missing energy) for this case as well.

Before we conclude, it may be relevant to note that ways of probing an invisibly decaying chargino have also been suggested in the context of the LHC. The proposed methods consist in either the detailed study of superparticle cascades and the various $`jets+leptons+missingenergy`$ final states , or the analysis of $`forwardjets+missingenergy`$ signals  induced by gauge boson fusion into chargino pairs. The search limit for invisible charginos in the first case, however, is again crucially dependent on the slepton (sneutrino) mass parameters. In the second method, the search limits are independent of this parameter, and can extend upto chargino masses of 300–500 GeV at various confidence levels. However, backgrounds cannot be completely removed there, and the success of the analysis depends on the precision of the background estimates. The $`\gamma \gamma `$ channel of invisible chargino production, being largely background-free with the suggested event selection criteria, can thus be complementary to the searches carried out at a hadron collider.

Acknowledgement: D.C. thanks the Department of Science and Technology, India for financial assistance under the Swarnajayanti Fellowship grant. B.M. acknowledges partial support from the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, Government of India. A.D. thanks Academy of Finland (project number 48787) for financial support.


text:
# Recovery of continuous wave squeezing at low frequencies

## Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a system that produces squeezed vacuum using a pair of optical parametric amplifiers. This scheme allows the production of phase sidebands on the squeezed vacuum which facilitate phase locking in downstream applications. We observe strong, stably locked, continuous wave vacuum squeezing at frequencies as low as 220 kHz. We propose an alternative resonator configuration to overcome low frequency squeezing degradation caused by the optical parametric amplifiers.

Squeezed states of light have the potential to improve the sensitivity of interferometric Xiao87 , spatial Fabre99  and spectroscopic Polzik92  measurements. In almost all experiments to date the squeezing has been observed at frequencies above 1 MHz, at lower frequencies most laser sources are classically noisy. Many interesting spatial and interferometric signals occur in the Hz to kHz regime Boccara80 ; Meshkov00 , to study these dynamics it is useful to produce squeezing at lower frequencies. Two experiments using pulsed laser light have produced squeezing in the kHz regime Bergman91 ; Hirano92 . However, for applications that involve resonators or have peak power limitations (e.g. optical damage) such as advanced gravitational wave detection Meshkov00 , the squeezed light should be continuous wave.

In this paper we report the demonstration of continuous wave squeezing in the kHz regime. By operating a pair of optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) within a Mach-Zehnder interferometer we produced a squeezed vacuum at frequencies as low as 220 kHz. In this configuration it was possible to produce bright sidebands on the squeezed vacuum. These sidebands acted as a phase reference that allowed the phase of the vacuum to be locked in a downstream homodyne detector. The frequency of the squeezing reported here was limited from below by noise introduced inside the OPAs. We propose an extension to this work that should eliminate these techincal issues and produce squeezing at much lower frequencies.

Noise cancellation schemes have been proposed to enhance squeezing utilizing Kerr non-linearity in fibers Shirasaki90  and second harmonic generation Ralph95 . The scheme presented here is similar to that of Shirasaki90  but uses optical parametric processes. A single laser beam is split on a 50/50 beam splitter and used to seed a pair of identical OPAs, each consisting of a $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ non-linear medium inside an optical resonator. The OPA output fields are then re-combined in phase on another 50/50 beam splitter as shown in Fig. 1. The phase of the seed field relative to a non-resonant second harmonic pump field dictates the seed amplification of each OPA. This phase is controlled to de-amplify the seed, resulting in amplitude squeezed output fields. In this configuration the overall non-linearity $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ of each resonator, which is dependant on the crystal non-linearity and pump power, becomes real and negative. A treatment of optical parametric oscillation which uses the linearized formalism of quantum mechanics and the mean field approximation is given in Lam99 . Extending this to optical parametric amplification we obtain the fourier domain amplitude quadrature operators $`X_{\mathrm{sqz},j}^+`$ for the fields exiting the OPA output couplers

$`X_{\mathrm{sqz},j}^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}}}{i\omega \mathrm{{\rm Y}}+\gamma }}\left(\sqrt{2\gamma _{\mathrm{ic}}}X_{\mathrm{ic},j}^++\sqrt{2\gamma _l}X_{l,j}^+\right)`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`X_{\mathrm{oc},j}^+\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}}{i\omega \mathrm{{\rm Y}}+\gamma }}1\right)`$
$`X_{\mathrm{ic},j}^+`$ and $`X_{\mathrm{oc},j}^+`$ are the amplitude quadrature operators of the external fields incident on the input (ic) and output (oc) couplers of the OPAs; and the vacuum fields $`X_{l,j}^+`$ result from loss inside each OPA. The two interacting modes considered here are distinguished by the subscripts $`j\{1,2\}`$ throughout the paper (see Fig. 1). $`\gamma _{\mathrm{ic}}`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}`$ and $`\gamma _l`$ are the decay rates respectively due to the input and output coupler transmitivity, and the intracavity loss; and $`\gamma =\gamma _{\mathrm{ic}}+\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}+\gamma _l`$ is the overall resonator decay rate.

The amplitude quadrature operators for the output fields of a 50/50 beam splitter with one intense $`X_{in,1}^+`$ and one vacuum $`X_{\mathrm{in},2}^+`$ input field can be expressed as $`X_{\mathrm{ic},1}^+=(X_{\mathrm{in},1}^++X_{\mathrm{in},2}^+)/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`X_{\mathrm{ic},2}^+=(X_{\mathrm{in},1}^+X_{\mathrm{in},2}^+)/\sqrt{2}`$. Substituting these expressions as the seed fields in Eqs. (1) we obtain

$`X_{\mathrm{sqz},j}^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}}}{i\omega \mathrm{{\rm Y}}+\gamma }}\left(\sqrt{\gamma _{\mathrm{ic}}}\left(X_{\mathrm{in},1}^+(\text{-}1)^jX_{\mathrm{in},2}^+\right)+\sqrt{2\gamma _l}X_{l,j}^+\right)`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`X_{\mathrm{oc},j}^+\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}}{i\omega \mathrm{{\rm Y}}+\gamma }}1\right)`$
The interference of these beams in phase on a 50/50 beam splitter yields an intense squeezed beam, and a squeezed vacuum, which have amplitude quadrature operators $`X_{\mathrm{out},1}^+`$ and $`X_{\mathrm{out},2}^+`$ respectively, given by

$`X_{\mathrm{out},j}^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}}}{i\omega \mathrm{{\rm Y}}+\gamma }}(2\sqrt{\gamma _{\mathrm{ic}}}X_{\mathrm{in},j}^++\sqrt{2\gamma _l}(X_{l,1}^+(\text{-}1)^jX_{l,2}^+))`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}({\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}}{i\omega \mathrm{{\rm Y}}+\gamma }}1)\left(X_{\mathrm{oc},1}^+(\text{-}1)^jX_{\mathrm{oc},2}^+\right)`$
Note that interfering the beams with a $`\pi /2`$ phase shift would have produced an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entangled pair Ou92 . The amplitude noise variance spectra $`𝐕_{\mathrm{out},j}^+`$ of the output beams can be calculated, $`𝐕=X^2X^2`$. Seeding each OPA through its input coupler and assuming that the fields entering through the output coupler and through loss are uncorrelated vacuum we obtain

$`𝐕_{\mathrm{out},j}^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}(\gamma _{\mathrm{ic}}𝐕_{\mathrm{in},j}^++\gamma _l)+\omega ^2+(2\gamma _{\mathrm{oc}}+\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\gamma )^2}{\omega ^2+(\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\gamma )^2}}`$ (4)
These spectral noise distributions are identical to those that would be produced from two independant OPAs, one seeded with the intense input beam ($`X_{\mathrm{in},1}^+`$), and one with the vacuum field entering at the first beam splitter ($`X_{\mathrm{in},2}^+`$) (c.f. Eqs. (1)). Unlike the case for a single vacuum seeded OPA Breitenbach95  however, the resonance frequency of each OPA can be conveniently locked to the frequency of the seed beam and the vacuum squeezed output can be produced with bright sidebands far outside the frequency range for squeezing. These sidebands are produced by applying anti-correlated phase modulation to the intracavity fields of the OPAs, and allow the quadrature of the squeezed vacuum to be locked in downstream applications.

In theory none of the laser noise is carried through onto $`𝐕_{\mathrm{out},2}^+`$. In reality however, the two OPAs will not be identical and this will cause classical noise from the intense input beam to couple into the vacuum output. By varying the input beam splitter ratio it is possible to completely compensate for these differences over some frequency range. For example balancing the intensity of the seed beams such that the intensity of the (ideally) squeezed vacuum output of the system ($`X_{\mathrm{out},2}^+`$) is minimized suppresses the classical noise from the seed beam ($`X_{\mathrm{in},1}^+`$) at $`\omega =0`$. Since the denominators in eqs. (3) are slowly varying with $`\omega `$ while $`\omega \gamma \mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ the classical noise is also suppressed throughout this frequency range. The suppression is only limited by inefficiencies in the mode-matching between the OPA output beams.

The experimental setup used to generate a locked squeezed vacuum is shown in Fig. 2. Two amplitude squeezed beams were produced in a pair of spatially separated optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs). The OPAs were optical resonators constructed from hemilithic MgO:LiNbO3 crystals and output couplers. The reflectivities of the output couplers were 96% and 6% for the fundamental (1064 nm) and the second harmonic (532 nm) laser modes, respectively. The OPAs were pumped with single-mode 532 nm light generated by a 1.5 W Nd:YAG non-planar ring laser and frequency doubled in a second harmonic generator (SHG) Shaddock00 . Each OPA was seeded with 1064 nm light after spectral filtering in a mode-cleaner. An intracavity phase modulation on this seed enabled control of the length of the OPAs. The coherent amplitude of the output of each OPA experienced an amplification dependent on the phase difference between pump and seed ($`\varphi _{\mathrm{sh}}`$). A phase modulation on the second harmonic pump generated an error signal that was used to lock to maximum deamplification. In this regime each OPA produced an amplitude squeezed beam. The seed power to the OPAs was adjusted so that these two beams were of equal intensity. We combined both beams on a 50/50 beam splitter and observed a visibility between them of 98.6 %. One output of this beam splitter was used to lock the relative phase of the input beams producing either an intense (1.2 mW), or a weak (0.9 $`\mu `$W) squeezed beam at the other output. This beam was analyzed in a homodyne detector that was locked so that the phase modulation from the OPAs was not observed. Since the OPA outputs were amplitude squeezed, this setup naturally provided a measurement of the maximally squeezed quadrature independant of the relative phase of the squeezed beams incident on the 50/50 beam splitter. A homodyne visibility of 96 % was observed for the intense squeezed beam. The majority of the power of the weak squeezed beam came from the residual unmode-matched part of the input beams and had a non-Gaussian transverse modeshape, consequently the homodyne visibility observed for this beam was only 28 %. The squeezed vacuum however, arose from the mode-matched part of this beam and therefore had the same homodyne visibility as the intense squeezed beam. The low visibility of the residual power caused the classical noise that it carried to be poorly detected. This effect and the 50/50 beam splitter visibilty together led to a predicted optical supression of approximately 29 dB. The classical noise from the homodyne local oscillator was electronically suppressed by 64 dB and was insignificant for our measurements.

Fig. 3 shows the observed squeezing traces for intense and vacuum squeezed beams. Both the OPA resonators and the homodyne detector were phase locked. The intense squeezed beam was degraded by the resonant relaxation oscillation of the laser and squeezing was only observed above 1.9 MHz. The squeezed vacuum however was observed to be squeezed from 220 kHz to the end of our measurement range at 2.1 MHz, excluding frequencies between 640 kHz and 870 kHz where our optical suppression was not high enough to suppress the laser relaxation oscillation. The signal at 810 kHz was the beat between the SHG and OPA locking frequencies.

The low frequency degradation observed in our squeezed vacuum was caused by uncorrelated acoustic and locking noise introduced within the OPAs. Further improvement to the squeezing spectra could only be achieved by either reducing this noise, or by classically correlating it. Employing a ring OPA as shown in Fig. 4 accomplishes the second of these alternatives. A squeezed output is produced by each of the two directional modes in the OPA. In this configuration the noise introduced in the resonator is common mode and cancels on the vacuum output of a 50/50 beam splitter.

The noise cancellation techniques described in this paper is compatible with existing techniques such as spectrally filtering the OPA seeds in a high finesse mode-cleaner, or using a servo controlled laser intensity noise eater.

In conclusion, we have produced a locked continuous wave squeezed vacuum with a pair of OPAs. By phase modulating the OPAs we produced phase sidebands that act as a phase reference allowing the quadrature of the squeezing to be locked in downstream applications. We used these sidebands to lock a homodyne detector and measured stably locked vacuum squeezing down to 220 kHz. We propose an alternative OPA configuration that should allow the production of vacuum squeezing at significantly lower frequencies.

The authors acknowledge the Alexander von Humboldt foundation for support of R. Schnabel; the Australian Research Council for financial support; and Dr. D. Shaddock for insightful discussion.


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# Multiperiodic magnetic structures in Hubbard superlattices

## I Introduction

Magnetic multilayers have been the subject of intense study over the last decade. The technologically important giant magnetoresistance (GMR) is one of the most interesting aspects of these compounds. Another aspect which has brought attention to multilayers is the oscillation of the exchange coupling between magnetic layers as the spacer layer thickness is varied. While oscillations with single periods have been well understood for some time, multiperiodicity has been theoretically predicted, and indeed observed, in trilayer materials. Fe/Cr/Fe samples grown by sputtering or molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) display two periods of oscillation of the exchange coupling: a so-called long-period, of about 10 to 12 monolayers thick, is superimposed to a short-period component of about two monolayers thick. This superposition of short- and long-period components has also been observed in other MBE-fabricated trilayer materials such as Fe/Mn/Fe, Fe/Au/Fe,  Fe/Mo/Fe, and Co/Cu/Co. Short-period oscillations, however, disappear if interface quality is not carefully maintained. Recent experiments in Fe/Cr/Fe show that areas of constant Cr thickness, with diameter larger than 3-4 nm on the interface, are necessary for the development of short-period oscillations. It is therefore believed that multiperiodicity has not yet been observed in multilayers due to interface roughness.

From the theoretical point of view, both the quantum well theory and the so-called RKKY theory  can account for many features related to the oscillations of the exchange coupling. For instance, a direct relation between the periods of oscillation and Fermi surface extrema of bulk spacers has been established. However, since the notion of a Fermi surface is not widely applicable to strongly correlated systems, a deeper understanding of multiperiodicity is clearly in order, and microscopic models should provide useful insights.

With this in mind, here we investigate the magnetic properties of a one-dimensional superlattice (SL) model in which electronic correlations are incorporated and treated nonperturbatively. The model consists of a periodic arrangement of $`L_U`$ sites (“layers”) in which the on-site coupling is repulsive, followed by $`L_0`$ free (i.e., $`U=0`$) sites. The role played by relative layer thicknesses on the magnetic and conducting properties of these systems is then probed by varying $`L_0`$ and $`L_U`$.

The SL structure gives rise to several remarkable features, in marked contrast with the otherwise homogeneous system: Local moment maxima can be transferred from repulsive to free sites, and the range of parameters in which this occurs has been expressed in terms of a ‘phase diagram’. In addition, spin–density-wave (SDW) quasi-order can be wiped out as a result of frustration, and the SL structure also induces a shift in the density $`\rho _I`$ at which a Mott-Hubbard insulating phase sets in. Further, by examining the Luttinger liquid version of the model, one finds that these superlattices provide the means to realize gapless insulating phases.

Previous studies of the discrete version of the model resorted to Lanczos diagonalization, which sets limits on the system sizes used; for instance, a 24-site lattice size could only be considered for the low- and high-density regimes ($`\rho =1/6`$ and $`\rho =11/6`$). Nonetheless, one was still able to probe the period of exchange oscillations for these special densities through the analysis of the magnetic structure factor: the peak position displayed oscillatory behavior with the spacer thickness. Here we use the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) technique to study superlattices longer than the ones available through the Lanczos method. With the aid of the magnetic structure factor, we have been able to probe the periodicity of the superlattice over a wider range of layer thicknesses and densities. As we will see, this has led to significant improvements on the phase diagram previously reported, with the addition of information relative to the regions in which one- and two–period-oscillations are found; as it turned out, these regions are closely related to the behavior of the local moment. We have also been able to observe a crossover between the regimes of thin and thick layers; in the latter regime, the ‘aspect ratio’ $`\mathrm{}L_U/L_0`$ is the only relevant geometric parameter, whereas the magnetic behavior in the former regime depends on $`L_U`$ and $`L_0`$ separately.

The layout of the paper is as follows: In Section II we introduce the superlattice model and comment on the calculational procedure. Section III focus on the local moment and how it changes with density and layer thickness. The magnetic structure factor and the periodicity of the superlattices are discussed in Section IV, and Section V summarizes our findings.

## II Model and Calculational Procedure

We define the Hamiltonian as

$$=t\underset{i,\sigma }{}\left(c_{i\sigma }^{^{}}c_{i+1\sigma }+\text{H.c.}\right)+\underset{i}{}U_in_in_i$$
(1)
where, in standard notation, $`i`$ runs over the sites of a one-dimensional lattice, $`c_{i\sigma }^{^{}}`$ ($`c_{i\sigma }`$) creates (annihilates) a fermion at site $`i`$ in the spin state $`\sigma =`$ or $``$, and $`n_i=n_i+n_i`$, with $`n_{i\sigma }=c_{i\sigma }^{^{}}c_{i\sigma }`$; the on-site Coulomb repulsion is taken to be site-dependent: $`U_i=U>0`$, for sites within the repulsive layers, and $`U_i=0`$ otherwise.

We consider the Hamiltonian (1) on lattices with $`N_s`$ sites and $`N_e`$ electrons, and open boundary conditions are used. The appropriate Finite Size Scaling (FSS) parameter, however, is the number of periodic cells, $`N_c=N_s/N_b`$, for a basis with $`N_b=L_U+L_0`$ sites. The ground state wave function and energy are obtained by numerical diagonalization using the finite-system density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. We used lattice sizes up to 150 sites, and truncation errors in the DMRG procedure were kept around $`10^5`$ or smaller. We have performed a systematic study of the magnetic properties for different values of the Coulomb repulsion $`U`$, different occupation $`\rho =N_e/N_s`$ and different configurations $`\{U_i\}`$. Not all configurations $`\{U_i\}`$ fit into all sizes and occupations but, since DMRG allows us to study a wide range of lattice sizes, we were able to establish overall trends.

## III Local Moment Profile

The local moment at site $`i`$ is defined as $`S_i^2=\frac{3}{4}(n_in_i)^2`$, and is a measure of both the magnetism and the degree of itinerancy of the system. Figure 1 shows the local moment profile for the SL with $`L_U=1`$, $`L_0=2`$, $`U=4`$, $`N_s=48`$, and for three different densities; effects of system size on the local moment are negligible. For small densities, such as for $`\rho =0.25`$, one identifies small-amplitude oscillations in the local moment profile; their period ($`2\pi /2k_F`$, with $`2k_F=\pi \rho `$) is determined not by the underlying SL structure, but by the Friedel oscillations in the charge density of the otherwise homogeneous system.

As the density is increased, the SL structure dominates over the Friedel oscillation as evidenced by the data: for $`\rho =0.667`$ the maxima lie on the free sites and the modulation of the profile perfectly matches that of the SL. For large enough densities the maxima migrate to the repulsive sites, as shown by the data for half filling. One should also note that even at the maxima $`S_i^2`$ is considerably reduced from its value at the completely localized limit ($`U=\mathrm{}`$), namely $`S_i^2=3/4`$; the itinerant behavior in these cases is therefore evident.

The above example illustrates the existence of three regions, characterized by different local moment profiles: homogeneous (or Friedel-like), free-site peaked, and repulsive-site peaked. In order to locate the boundaries between these regimes it is useful to determine how the local moment at repulsive and free sites separately change with the density. In addition, we define a bias of the local moment maxima as

$$\delta \frac{S_U^2S_0^2}{S_U^2+S_0^2},$$
(2)
and also study its dependence with the density.

Figure 2 shows the local moment \[both at repulsive ($`S_U^2`$) and free sites ($`S_0^2`$)\] and the bias as functions of the density, for $`U=4`$. In the case of Fig. 2, $`L_UL_0`$, with all SL configurations having $`L_0=1`$, and $`L_U=1`$ ($`N_s=24`$), 2 ($`N_s=48`$) and 3 ($`N_s=64`$). In order to reduce the effects of open boundary conditions we have averaged over the 6 innermost cells. As the density is increased from the completely empty system, we see that for densities smaller than $`\rho _0`$, given by

$$\rho _0=\frac{1}{L_0+L_U},$$
(3)
the local moment increases, and is the same on both sublattices (hence $`\delta =0`$). For the SL’s with $`L_0=1`$ and $`L_U=1`$, 2 and 3 one has $`\rho _0=0.5`$, 0.33 and 0.25, respectively, which are indicated by arrows in Fig. 2. This density corresponds to having one electron on each cell, so that in the case $`L_UL_0`$ electrons have equal probability of being either on a free or on a repulsive site for $`\rho <\rho _0`$.

From Fig. 2 one sees that there is a range of densities above $`\rho _0`$, in which the local moment grows slower on the repulsive sites than on the free ones, since added electrons will preferentially occupy the free sites; hence a negative bias develops within this range. By the same token, $`S_0^2`$ will reach its maximum value at densities smaller than those at which $`S_U^2`$ displays its maximum; for completeness, recall that the maximum value of the local moment on a homogeneous free lattice is 0.375, occurring at half filling.

In strong coupling, the free sites saturate at the density

$$\rho _{}=\frac{2L_0}{L_0+L_U},$$
(4)
which corresponds to having two electrons on each free site, while the repulsive site is empty. Nonetheless, even for moderate couplings, this density is special. Indeed, from Figs. 2(b) and 2(c) one can see that for $`L_U>L_0`$ the bias reaches its minimum value exactly at $`\rho _{}`$. Also, the local moment at repulsive sites shows a bump at $`\rho _{}`$, indicating the beginning of a steady occupation of repulsive sites.

Increasing the density even further, one sees that $`S_U^2`$ reaches its maximum at $`\rho _I`$, defined as

$$\rho _I=\frac{2L_0+L_U}{L_0+L_U},$$
(5)
which, in strong coupling, corresponds to having two electrons on each free site and one on each repulsive site; the maximum of $`S_U^2`$, at exactly this density, is indicative of the SL being in a Mott-Hubbard insulating state. In the region between $`\rho _{}`$ and $`\rho _I`$, the repulsive layer is preferentially filled as the overall density is increased, causing a steep rise (drop) in the local moment at the repulsive (free) sites. As Fig. 2 shows, the consequence is a steady increase of the bias in this interval.

For densities larger than $`\rho _I`$ the free sites are almost completely filled, which is apparent by a considerable decrease in the magnitude of the derivative of $`S_0^2`$ with respect to the density. Fermions will then start to double occupy the repulsive sites, thus causing a reduction in $`S_U^2`$.

The equivalent of Fig. 2 for the case $`L_UL_0`$ is shown in Fig. 3. While the overall behavior is the same, a few differences are worth mentioning. The first one is the behavior of the bias in the range $`\rho <\rho _0`$: While the bias vanishes for $`L_UL_0`$, for $`L_U<L_0`$ it is negative, though of small magnitude. This is due to the fact that in this range of densities, and within each cell, the electrons have more free sites at their disposal to resonate than repulsive ones; this excess of free sites within each cell also explains why the bias still decreases for densities above $`\rho _0`$.

Second, for $`L_U<L_0`$, $`S_U^2`$ is boosted whenever $`\rho =2m\rho _0`$, with $`m=1,2,\mathrm{},L_0+L_U1`$; this can be attributed to the fact that the double occupancy of the repulsive sites is least likely whenever there are an even number of electrons per cell. Note also that the first bump, at $`2\rho _0`$, coincides with the minimum of the bias.

And, third, while for $`L_U>L_0`$ the bias changes sign for $`\rho _{}<\rho <\rho _I`$, when $`L_UL_0`$ this occurs for $`\rho _0<\rho <\rho _{}`$; the actual location of the density at which $`\delta =0`$ depends on the SL configuration, as well as on the Coulomb repulsion $`U`$.

## IV Magnetic Structure Factor and effective densities

Let us now turn to the magnetic structure factor, which is defined as

$$𝒮(q)=\frac{1}{N_c}\underset{i,j}{}\mathrm{e}^{iq(r_ir_j)}𝐒_𝐢𝐒_𝐣.$$
(6)
As $`q`$ is related to the repeating units, $`𝒮(q)`$ probes the relative arrangement between different cells. It is important to have in mind that the homogeneous system displays a single peak in the magnetic structure factor at $`q_{max}=2k_F=\pi \rho `$, for $`\rho 1`$, or $`q_{max}=2k_F=\pi (2\rho )`$, for $`\rho 1`$; the lattice spacing is taken to be unity throughout this paper.

Figure 4 shows $`𝒮(q)`$ for a SL with $`L_U=2`$, $`L_0=1`$, $`\rho =0.87`$, and for two values of $`U`$, namely $`U=4`$ and $`U=16`$. Two peaks in the magnetic structure factor are clearly seen in this case: one at $`q=\pi `$, and another at $`q=3\pi /5`$. While the former is not affected by an increase in $`U`$, the latter grows with $`U`$, though without changing its position. Actually, for sufficiently large $`U`$ the peak at $`q\pi `$ even becomes more pronounced than the one at $`q=\pi `$. Further data show that this happens for a range of values of $`L_0`$, $`L_U`$, and $`\rho `$, as discussed below.

The presence of two peaks (at, say, $`q_{max}`$ and $`q_{max}^{}`$, with $`q_{max}^{}<q_{max}`$) in the structure factor is associated with a tendency of the system to order (strictly speaking, to quasi-order, in one dimension) in a magnetic arrangement dominated by the corresponding periods, $`\lambda =2\pi /q_{max}`$ and $`\lambda ^{}=2\pi /q_{max}^{}`$. As we will see below, the long period oscillates with the spacer thickness, a behavior reminiscent of the exchange oscillation observed in magnetic trilayers.

These two peaks also differ in the way they depend on the system size. Figure 5 shows $`𝒮(q)`$ for the SL with $`L_U=2`$, $`L_0=1`$, $`U=8`$, $`\rho =1.2`$ ($`\rho _{}<1.2<\rho _I`$), and for four different lattice sizes, ranging from $`N_s=30`$ to $`N_s=150`$. From Fig. 5 we see that the inflection already present for $`N_s=30`$ at $`q=2\pi /5`$ sharpens as $`N_s`$ increases, and that there is no change in the position of the peak. We have checked that a similar slow, but steady, growth of the peak height with $`N_s`$ occurs for the homogeneous Hubbard model away from half filling. These features have been observed for other SL configurations and densities, which therefore indicate that whenever a peak is found at $`q\pi `$, it is robust. On the other hand, the peak at $`q=\pi `$ shows a much weaker size-dependence, so that it should be associated with strong, although short-ranged, correlations; this point is illustrated below.

We can then turn to a systematic study of the number of peaks and their positions, by analysing the evolution of the structure factor as the density of electrons is increased. As discussed in Sec. III, for $`\rho <\rho _0`$ the local moments are small, and either their maxima are on the free layers, or they are evenly distributed throughout the lattice, depending on whether $`L_U<L_0`$ or $`L_UL_0`$, respectively. A small or zero bias signals that the SL structure is not very relevant in this situation. Indeed, the spatial decay of the spin-spin correlation function (not shown here) in the case of a superlattice with a small bias can hardly be distinguished from that of the corresponding homogeneous system; as a result, the magnetic structure factor displays a single peak. In addition, this single peak displays a size- and a $`U`$-dependence similar to those for the homogeneous system.

In order to relate the peak position with some density, one can think of a free (homogeneous) lattice in which the sites are grouped in cells mimicking the SL structure under consideration; it then follows that a meaningful quantity is the cell density of electrons,

$$\rho _{\mathrm{cell}}=\frac{N_e}{N_c}=\rho (L_U+L_0),$$
(7)
where $`\rho `$ is the overall density. For the interacting SL, we have found that the peak position is given by the same expression as for the homogeneous case, but with $`\rho _{\mathrm{cell}}`$ replacing $`\rho `$; that is,

$$q_{max}=\pi \rho _{\mathrm{cell}},\text{for}\rho \rho _0.$$
(8)
Thus, the peak position grows linearly with $`\rho `$ up to $`\rho =\rho _0`$ (at which density $`\rho _{\mathrm{cell}}=1`$), when it reaches $`q_{max}=\pi `$; see Figs. 6 and 7.

The single peak regime persists for $`\rho _0<\rho <\rho _{}`$, and, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7, now the peak is always at $`q=\pi `$. The single peaks in this region show a very weak dependence on the system size, which is reflected in the spatial decay of the correlation functions, $`S_0^zS_j^z`$. As illustrated in Fig. 8(a) for $`L_U=L_0=1`$, $`U=4`$, and $`\rho =0.75`$, correlations with origin in either of the sublattices barely survive at large distances; this should be contrasted with the case displayed in Fig. 8(b), for $`\rho =1.75`$ (see below), in which correlations in one of the superlattices are ‘long’ ranged.

At $`\rho _{}`$, and in strong coupling, the free layers are completely filled while the repulsive layers are empty. But as the density is increased beyond $`\rho _{}`$, a second peak emerges, as indicated by the dotted lines in Figs. 6 and 7. This second peak results from the robust moments located on the repulsive sites. Indeed, if one defines an effective electronic density on the repulsive layers as

$$\rho _{\mathrm{eff}}=\rho (L_0+L_U)2L_0,$$
(9)
where $`\rho `$ is the overall density, the long-periods are located at

$$q_{max}^{}=\pi \rho _{\mathrm{eff}}.$$
(10)
With this definition, it also becomes clear that for $`\rho =\rho _{}`$ there is no net moment at the repulsive layers, since $`\rho _{\mathrm{eff}}=0`$.

This two peak structure is present until one reaches $`\rho _U`$, defined by

$$\rho _U2\rho _0,$$
(11)
which corresponds to a single hole per cell. One should also have in mind that the overall magnetic arrangement is determined by the long-period (characterized by $`q_{max}^{}`$), since, as discussed above, this is the one increasing with system size.

An interesting difference between the cases depicted in Figs. 6 and 7 is the fact that in the former $`\rho _U=\rho _I`$, while in the latter $`\rho _U>\rho _I`$, and $`q_{\mathrm{max}}^{}`$ is able to go through at least one complete oscillation before $`\rho `$ reaches $`\rho _U`$. In this case, the situation $`q_{max}^{}=0`$ does not indicate any tendency towards a ferromagnetic arrangement, but is to be associated with frustration of the corresponding long-period SDW. Indeed, when $`L_U=2`$ and $`L_0=1`$ the Mott-Hubbard insulator at $`\rho _I`$ is frustrated, since two spins on each repulsive layer form local singlets. Singlets on different repulsive layers, in turn, do not couple with each other, though short ranged correlations are still present; see Fig. 7(b). The frustration at half filling for $`L_U=3`$ and $`L_0=1`$ can be understood by a similar strong coupling analysis: of the four electrons on each cell, two occupy the free site and the remaining two resonate between three sites, but always forming a singlet. Figure 7(c) shows that further addition of electrons renders these singlets unfavorable, and the system again displays a SDW. At $`\rho =3/2`$, one reenters a frustrated state, again as a result of having an even number of electrons on the repulsive layer. Therefore, we can relate the reentering frustrated configurations to the formation of singlets on the repulsive layer, which occurs whenever there is an even number of electrons per cell; that is, whenever the density goes through an even multiple of $`2\rho _0`$.

And, finally, above $`\rho _U`$ all SL’s return to a single peak regime: $`𝒮(q)`$ has a maximum at $`\pi (2\rho _{\mathrm{cell}})`$ \[$`=\pi (2\rho _{\mathrm{eff}})`$, since $`\rho _{\mathrm{eff}}=\rho _{\mathrm{cell}}2L_0`$\]. The correlations in this regime are quasi–long-ranged, since, as shown in Fig. 8(b), the correlation function with origin at a repulsive site is slowly decaying.

The above analyses of the magnetic structure factor and of the local moment profile can be extended to several other SL configurations, and the outcome can be best summarized by a diagram in the parameter space $`(\rho ,L_0,L_U)`$, showing the presence of four different regions (or phases). Cross sections of the full three-dimensional phase diagram are presented in Fig. 9(a) for $`L_U=1`$ and Fig. 9(b) for $`L_U=4`$. In the low density region (A), located between $`\rho =0`$ and $`\rho =\rho _0`$, the system behaves roughly as if it were homogeneous. The local moments are small and their maxima are located preferentially on the free layers. The SDW is dominated by a single density-dependent wavevector, $`q_{max}=\pi \rho _{cell}`$.

At somewhat larger densities, $`\rho _0<\rho <\rho _{}`$, lies a region (B), in which the positions of the maxima in the local moment profile depend on the repulsion $`U`$, on $`L_0`$, and $`L_U`$. Presumably as a result of this ‘floppy’ character of the local moments, spin correlations in this region are strongly antiferromagnetic, but short-ranged.

As the density is further increased, one enters the double-period region ($`C_1`$), which lies between $`\rho =\rho _{}`$ and $`\rho =\rho _U`$. In this region the local moment on the repulsive layer suffers successive boosts, and one finds SDW’s with a ‘long’ period $`\lambda ^{}=2/\rho _{\mathrm{eff}}`$; the latter are accompanied by strong short ranged correlations, of period $`\lambda =2`$.

And, finally, there is a high density region ($`C_2`$), with densities ranging from $`\rho =\rho _U`$ to $`\rho =2`$. At $`\rho _U`$ the local moment bias is maximum (see Figs. 2 and 3), so it decreases as one increases the density. Nonetheless, one still has SDW’s, now with a single period given by $`\lambda =2/(2\rho _{\mathrm{cell}})`$. By comparing the two cases depicted in Fig. 9, one sees that a growth of the repulsive layer increases the two-peaked region, at the expense of all others.

The full three-dimensional phase diagram is shown in Fig. 10. The densities $`\rho _0`$, $`\rho _{}`$, and $`\rho _U`$ define surfaces in the parameter space $`(\rho ,L_0,L_U)`$ which act as boundaries between the four regions discussed above. The $`\rho _0`$-surface flattens considerably for thick layers, and if one imagines an $`\mathrm{}=1`$ line on the horizontal plane of the figure, we see that the homogeneous-like region is only important for moderately thin layers. The $`\rho _{}`$-surface is the same whether the layers are short or long, since it depends on $`L_U`$ and $`L_0`$ only through the combination $`L_U/L_0\mathrm{}`$; to illustrate this, the intersection of the $`\rho _{}`$-surface with the plane $`\mathrm{}=1`$, shown as a dotted line in Fig. 10, yields $`\rho _{}=1`$ for all $`L_U=L_0`$. The topmost surface ($`\rho _U`$) also displays a similar crossover between thin and thick regimes: for thick lattices $`\rho _U2`$.

We are now in a position to discuss the oscillation in $`q_{max}`$ with the spacer (free layer) thickness, for a fixed electron density; as mentioned before, these are related to the oscillation of the exchange coupling between magnetic layers. When $`\rho \rho _0`$, one has $`q_{max}\pi `$, so that there is no oscillatory behavior in $`q_{max}`$. For $`\rho _0<\rho \rho _{}`$, the peak is always at $`q_{max}=\pi `$, so that again no oscillation is found. Above $`\rho _{}`$, the long-period maxima in the magnetic structure factor are located at $`q_{max}(L_0)=\pi \rho _{\mathrm{eff}}(L_0)`$, where we have emphasized the dependence with $`L_0`$ through $`\rho _{\mathrm{eff}}`$. We can then calculate the period of oscillation, $`\mathrm{\Delta }L_0`$, by setting $`q_{max}(L_0)=q_{max}(L_0+\mathrm{\Delta }L_0),\mathrm{mod}(2\pi )`$. For $`\rho _{}<\rho 1`$ we get

$$\mathrm{\Delta }L_0=\left(1\frac{k_F}{\pi }\right)^1,$$
(12)
where $`2k_F=\pi \rho `$ since $`\rho 1`$; for $`1<\rho \rho _U`$, we similarly find

$$\mathrm{\Delta }L_0=\frac{\pi }{k_F},$$
(13)
where now $`2k_F=\pi (2\rho )`$. Note that this result is not valid for $`L_U=1`$, since, according to Fig. 7, once $`q_{max}`$ vanishes, it does not grow as $`L_0`$ increases. For $`\rho >\rho _U`$, on the other hand, Eq. (13) is applicable.

We have then established that (i) $`\rho _{}`$ acts as a critical density for the appearance of ‘exchange oscillations’, and that (ii) our previous results for $`\mathrm{\Delta }L_0`$, obtained in the high density region, are valid quite generally for $`\rho >\rho _{}`$. Further, Eqs. (12) and (13) reproduce previous findings, within the Hartree-Fock approximation, for the periods of oscillation of the exchange coupling in magnetic multilayers. Also, the experimentally observed short period of two monolayers reported in Ref.  corresponds, in our framework, to the $`\lambda =2`$ correlations. Thus, electronic correlations do not modify the quantum interference effects determining the periods of oscillation from the extrema of the Fermi surface of the spacer material.

## V Conclusions

We have investigated one-dimensional Hubbard superlattices consisting of periodic arrangements of free and repulsive layers, by means of Density Matrix Renormalization Group. By considering a much wider range of lattice sizes and densities than in previous studies, we have refined in several aspects our earlier predictions for the magnetic behavior. There are now four distinct regimes, depending on the range of electronic densities. For less than one electron per periodic cell, the local moment profile is approximately uniform, and spin-density waves are dominated by a single density-dependent wave vector. When the density lies between those corresponding to one electron per cell and to a fully occupied free sublattice (with empty repulsive sites), maxima in the local moment profile develop, which can be either on free sites or on the repulsive sites, depending on the SL configuration, on the density, and on $`U`$; also, spin correlations become short ranged, but dominated by a tendency of neighboring cells to align antiparallel. For densities larger than two electrons per free site one has a two-period magnetic structure. There is a long period SDW, in which the wave vector oscillates as a function of the electronic density. An immediate consequence is that SDW’s with all possible wave vectors are generated within an interval of densities of $`2\rho _0`$; this should be compared with the homogeneous system, for which one needs to vary between an empty lattice and a half filled one in order to generate all possible wave vectors. These long-period SDW’s are superimposed with short ranged correlations with $`q=\pi `$, which disappear for densities above one hole per periodic cell.

We have also extended to a broader range of densities our earlier prediction that the wave vectors for the SDW’s oscillate as the free layer length is varied, with a period determined solely by the electronic density (through the Fermi wave vector). In the context of magnetic multilayers, our results for the period of oscillations exactly reproduce the relation between Fermi surface extrema with exchange coupling oscillation; in addition, the two-monolayer period observed experimentally corresponds in our model to the short period at $`q=\pi `$.

And, finally, we have been able to observe a crossover between the regimes of thin and thick layers; in the latter, the ‘aspect ratio’ $`\mathrm{}L_U/L_0`$ is the only relevant geometric parameter, whereas in the former regime the magnetic behavior depends on $`L_U`$ and $`L_0`$ separately. For instance, when any of the layers are thin – less than about 6 sites long –, the SL structure is not felt at low densities, and it behaves as if it were homogeneous; for thick layers, this quasi-homogeneous behavior is only noticeable at very low densities. Similarly, the region of singly peaked correlations at high densities gets smaller as the layers get thicker.

As a final comment, one should expect that the applicability of the one-dimensional model treated here is very close to being extended beyond the realm of higher dimensional superlattices. Indeed, fabrication of nanowire superlattices has been recently reported. Although these superlattices were made up of semiconducting materials, the prospects of growing metallic and/or magnetic nanosuperlattices are promising. In this case, our results indicate that a careful control of the doping level leads to a wide variety of distinct magnetic behaviors in the same material. Another possible realization of our model would be to a (as yet hypothetical) superlattice made up of single-walled metallic carbon nanotubes, since these have been successfully described in terms of a Luttinger liquid; see, e.g., Ref.  for a partial list of references.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to J. d’Albuquerque e Castro, E. Miranda, and J. Silva-Valencia for discussions. Financial support from the Brazilian Agencies CNPq (ALM and RRdS), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo-FAPESP (ALM), FAPERJ (TP and RRdS), and ‘Millenium Institute for Nanosciences/CNPq-MCT’ (RRdS) is also gratefully acknowledged.