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# Rayleigh Laser Guide Star Systems: UnISIS Bow Tie Shutter and CCD39 Wavefront Camera

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The UnISIS Rayleigh laser guide star system has been commissioned as described in Thompson and Teare (2002). The system is built around a 30 Watt excimer laser that emits short 90 mJ pulses of 351 nm light at rates up to 333 Hz. These pulses are projected in the ”full- aperture broadcast” mode and are focused in the stratosphere at an altitude of $``$20 km above mean sea level ( $``$18 km above the telescope). Immediately after the outgoing pulse of laser light hits the telescope primary mirror, a bright flash of low altitude Rayleigh scattered light fills the near-field of the telescope. As described below, the science cameras can be shielded from this near-field burst of light by dichroics because the projection method – a 10,000 RPM rotating glass disk – blocks the adaptive optics system from seeing a large fraction of this light in the first few microseconds after the laser pulse. It is more difficult to protect the laser guide star wavefront camera because it is highly sensitive to the laser wavelength. We use two methods to accomplish the latter task: a continuous high speed read and flush of the CCD wavefront camera and a Pockel’s cell shutter.

We start in Sec. 2 with a general discussion of ways that other laser guide star projection systems handle the contaminating Rayleigh scattered light, and then we review the UnISIS rotating disk projection system. In Sec. 3 we describe briefly the dichroic isolation of the UnISIS science cameras. In Sec. 4 we describe how the UnISIS wavefront sensor is hidden from the low altitude near-field burst of Rayleigh light with our new bow tie Pockel’s cell shutter system, and then in Sec. 5 we describe the second level of protection for the wavefront sensor: a continuous high-speed read and flush mode of the UnISIS wavefront CCD. The general characteristics of the UnISIS CCD system and its future upgrades are also described in Sec. 5. An up to date block diagram of the UnISIS optical layout will be included in the next paper of this series, but a close approximation (not showing the bowtie shutter) can be found in Thompson et al. (1998).

## 2 LASER GUIDE STAR PROJECTION SYSTEMS

Sodium resonance line excitation at 589.3 nm is the primary alternative to Rayleigh laser guide stars, yet sodium laser guide star systems also suffer from low altitude Rayleigh contamination. Because astronomy-qualified sodium laser systems that have been built to date are continuous lasers (or at least quasi-CW), design alternatives are limited for hiding their low altitude contaminating Rayleigh scattered light. A commonly suggested scheme for sodium lasers is to project the laser beam from behind the Cassegrain secondary mirror with special purpose projection optics. Once this scheme is implemented, the Cassegrain secondary mirror will provide a natural shadow when low altitude Rayleigh light is viewed from the telescope focal plane. As laser guide star systems become more complex, with multiple laser beams projected from the same telescope, only the lowest parts of the Rayleigh scattered light can be hidden behind the Cassegrain mirror. The two simple (single laser guide star) sodium systems now in operation or close to it – at Lick and Keck Observatories – employ quasi-CW lasers, and the laser projector is a small collimator strapped to the side of each telescope. In these two cases, Rayleigh scattered light is visible in the telescope focal plane, but it appears projected off to the side of the science object. A focal plane mask blocks it out. With future multiple laser guide star systems with 1 arcmin to 2 arcmin fields of view, focal plane masking will not work, so the low altitude Rayleigh scattered light is likely to become an obstacle to the installation of multiple laser guide star systems based on CW sodium-wavelength lasers.

The advantages of the full aperture broadcast method of UnISIS were described by Thompson and Teare (2002) who termed the UnISIS system ”Stealth qualified” because the FAA has placed no restrictions on the use of the laser projection system, and they require no active countermeasures. At Mt. Wilson a major fraction of the 2.5-m primary mirror is used as the projector optic, and this feature of UnISIS helps to dilute the energy density at all points except at high altitude where the laser is focused. Given the expected size of the Cassegrain mirror on the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes, laser projection optics nearly as large as the 2.5-m primary mirror at Mt. Wilson could be used. This would allow these systems to be Stealth qualified, too, and would hide the lowest portions of the outgoing Rayleigh scattered light in the shadow of the central Cassegrain obstruction. But for the present, the UnISIS ”Stealth” characteristic comes at the price of having Rayleigh scattered light projected onto the primary mirror of the telescope in full view of the science cameras.

The Rayleigh guide star system at Starfire Optical Range (Fugate et al., 1994) also used the telescope primary mirror to project a pulsed laser beam into the sky in full aperture broadcast mode. The polarized Starfire laser beam was injected into the telescope by placing a polarizing beamsplitter cube on the telescope’s optical axis. Light from a pulsed copper-vapor laser was directed into the side of this cube, and light from satellites and astronomical objects was viewed through it in a direct line along the telescope’s optical axis. Not surprisingly, the cube beamsplitter fluoresced continuously, and the background light it emitted prevented the Starfire system from seeing low surface brightness astronomical objects.

To avoid the fluorescence encountered in the Starfire system, UnISIS is designed to have as its beam-sharing element a 10,000-RPM rotating disk. Highly reflective and laser hardened multi-layer dielectric spots are deposited onto the front surface of a glass disk, and the laser light is reflected off these spots. In principle, no light enters the glass disk substrate. Two other effects are also at work. First, even if the substrate beneath the reflective spots glows by fluorescence (excited by photons that leak through the reflective spot), the fluorescing portion of the disk rotates off the optical axis. Second, for the short time that the spot remains on the optical axis (as the laser fires), it acts like a shutter to prevent near-field Rayleigh scattered light from entering the UnISIS adaptive optics system. The laser pulse length is $``$20 ns and the disk rotates completely out of the beam over a period of $``$100 $`\mu `$s. For the first few microseconds (50 times longer than the laser pulse and at a time when the Rayleigh backscatter is the strongest) only a small fraction of the pupil opens as the reflective spot moves to the side. This shuttering action of the reflective spot helps to hold back the 351 nm photons for both the dichroic shield erected for protection of the science cameras and the electronic shutter used for the wavefront sensor CCD. For more details on the rotating disk design and its operation, see Thompson and Xiong (1995) and Thompson and Teare (2002).

## 3 HIDING THE SCIENCE CAMERAS FROM RAYLEIGH SCATTERED LIGHT

The first several optical elements in the UnISIS adaptive optics system are shared for both the science and the down-link UV laser guide star photons. The dichroic separation is made immediately after the UnISIS deformable mirror. At this point, the UV light is reflected off an optical surface coated with a multi-layer dielectric with peak reflectivity greater than 99.9% at 351 nm, and the longer wavelength science light passes through it. This special-order dichroic (Optical Coating Technologies, Inc., Easthampton, MA) is flat topped and $``$20 nm wide. Wavelengths longer than 400 nm are transmitted to the science focal plane, and we count on UV blocking filters (for the CCD science camera) and the lack of UV and blue sensor responsivity (for the near-IR camera) to suppress all laser guide star photons that manage to leak to the final science focal plane of UnISIS.

## 4 POCKEL’S CELL SWITCH AND THE BOW TIE

Much more care must be taken to prevent laser contamination in the UV wavefront section of UnISIS because there the optics are designed to have the highest possible UV throughput at 351 nm. As mentioned above, a two-stage plan was devised to block the low altitude Rayleigh scattered contaminating light. The first stage involves a Pockel’s cell shutter system designed by Crawford (2002). In brief, a Pockel’s cell shutter consists of two crossed polarizers with a Pockel’s cell switch sandwiched between them. When the Pockel’s cell is turned off, it has no effect on the light, and the crossed polarizers pass no light. When a precisely adjusted level of high voltage is applied to the Pockel’s cell’s birefringent crystal, all light entering the cell has its plane of polarization rotated 90o, so 100% of the light entering the first polarizer exits the second. The Pockel’s cell can be switched on and off in microseconds. A crucial part of a Pockel’s cell shutter design is to create a precisely collimated beam. Crawford (2002) reports that the level of collimation has to be within one part in 105 to produce good extinction.

In its first implementation, the Pockel’s cell switch used only 50% of the laser guide star return signal. The UnISIS excimer laser is unpolarized and a conventional Pockel’s cell switch requires a polarized input beam. When the UnISIS return laser guide star flux was first measured, this flux was too low to operate the wavefront sensor in closed loop. At that point it was obvious that some means would have to be devised to recover the lost 50% of the laser guide star signal. The bow tie design allows both polarizations to enter the wavefront camera.

The bow tie is based on the birefringent properties of Thompson polarizers. Figure 1 shows the functional properties of a single Thompson polarizer which consists of two pieces of calcite cemented together and cut in such a way that one entering unpolarized beam produces two output beams, one of each polarization. These two beams emerge with an angular separation of $``$45o. Figure 2 shows a schematic drawing of the dual Pockel’s cell bow tie switch from Crawford (2002). Note that all optical components in Figure 2 sit in a precisely collimated portion of the UV wavefront optical train. The first Thompson prism, positioned at the entrance to the bow tie, works in a direct way to split the single entrance beam into two orthogonally polarized beams. The second Thompson prism, positioned at the exit of the bow tie, performs the reverse function of recombining the two polarized beams. The two separate paths through the bow tie satisfy the Pockel’s cell design requirement of having a Pockel’s cell sandwiched between two crossed polarizing elements.

In Figure 2, the bow tie appears to be symmetric with the two beams exiting the first Thompson prism at exactly 45o. In reality, the angle is not exactly 45o because commercially available Thompson prisms are designed to work over a relatively broad wavelength range, and the calcite (like all optical materials) does not have the same index of refraction at all wavelengths. The calcite crystals are cut to make the angle between the two output beams close to 45o. Figure 3 shows the bow tie Pockel’s cell switch as it is implemented on the UnISIS optics table. Note the 180o reversal (top to bottom) between the design drawing and the implementation: the exit beam line is along the top of Figure 2 but along the bottom of Figure 3. The two Pockel’s cells were manufactured by Inrad Incorporated (Northvale, NJ) and are Model 212-150 with KD\*P crystals. They are switched with a TTL pulse sent to a Q-switch driver, which is also from Inrad, Model 2-018 with high voltage adjustable up to 5 kV. The 1/4 wave phase delay occurs at approximately 3.5 kV with both Pockel’s cells.

The installation and alignment of the bow tie optical system required tremendous patience. The two output beams must be recombined with the two optical axes coincident and the beam directions identical. The pupil images must coincide to within a fraction of the 24$`\mu `$m pixel size on the wavefront sensor. Attaining this adjustment is eased somewhat by a beam reduction between the 5 mm diameter collimated beam and the 0.936 mm pupil diameter on the wavefront CCD. The two collimated beams must match to $``$20 $`\mu `$m. Once this alignment is achieved on the UnISIS optics table, it seems to hold for months.

Maximum extinction is reached when a Pockel’s cell is oriented exactly perpendicular to the local optical axis. A gross misalignment destroys the extinction, and a minor misalignment produces irregular pupil illumination. As installed in UnISIS, the bow tie produces a maximum extinction of 1000.

At the present time, the bow tie shutter has one deficiency: its front-to-back transmission is only 34% (i.e. a single leg of the bow tie transmits 17%). We plan to investigate three areas that might lead to improved throughput. First, each of the Thompson prisms consists of two pieces of calcite held together with cement. We suspect that the cement within the Thompson prisms might have unusually high absorbtion at 351 nm. Calcite is a natural product, and heavy element contaminants in optical materials absorb UV photons. Third, the 351 nm absorbtion might be high simply because the optical path length through the calcite is high. In its current configuration, the bow tie shutter requires each beam to traverse 2 x 30 mm of calcite.

In an alternate design for the bowtie shutter, the Thompson prisms could be replaced with Glan-Laser prisms. These prisms also split an unpolarized input beam into two polarized components and separate them by approximately 45o. Although Glan-Laser prisms are also made of calcite, the path length for each beam can be as small as 2 x 13 mm, and the two pieces of calcite are not cemented: they are separated by an air-space. A pair of Glan-Laser prisms placed at opposite corners of a parallelogram will mimic the function of the bowtie switch described here.

We recently tested the transmittance of a 10 mm square Glan-Laser prism provided by Nova Phase, Inc. (Newton, NJ). After accounting for the loss of light at the (currently uncoated) prism surfaces, the internal transmittance for this particular calcite prism was found to be 30$`\%`$ for a single polarization. This should be compared to a 17$`\%`$ transmittance for one leg of the current system with Thompson prisms. Finally, we note that a completely separate alternate strategy for shuttering the pulsed Rayleigh return signal is discussed at the end of Section 6.

## 5 WAVEFRONT SENSOR ELECTRONICS AND THE CCD39

The Marconi CCD39 is well suited to wavefront sensing applications. It has a relatively small format at 80x80 pixels, 4 read-out amplifiers, relatively high UV quantum efficiency, and low amplifier read noise. The light sensitive area is 1.92x1.92 mm (see Figure 4). Because the flash of low altitude Rayleigh light is very bright, a significant level of contaminating light leaks through the Pockel’s cell shutter. To insure that the contaminating signal is gone by the time the return laser guide star light arrives $``$100$`\mu `$s later, the following clearing process was implemented in the camera electronics (built by Astronomical Research Cameras Incorporated, San Diego, CA). When the CCD39 is not collecting an exposure, it is programmed to idle in a fast and continuous readout mode in which both parallel and serial registers on all four amplifiers are cleared. In this idle period, these registers are read-out at the full 10 MHz clock rate, and the output information is simply dumped. This process continues until the camera receives an external TTL signal, at which point the sensor is immediately reset and put into an integration mode.

As explained in Thompson and Teare (2002), a closed-loop wavefront correction cycle of UnISIS begins when a TTL pulse is created as an optical fiber detects the outgoing laser pulse. The TTL pulse is sent into a digital delay generator programmed to wait 100$`\mu `$s before strobing the CCD39 which halts the CCD clearing mode and prepares the sensor to receive the laser guide star light. After the camera settles for about 10$`\mu `$s, the Pockel’s cell shutter is opened for the time gate appropriate for the laser guide star return signal. The CCD39 then finishes its exposure, the camera readout begins, and this readout triggers the adaptive optics reconstructor computer to analyze the wavefront gradients from the Shack-Hartmann image it has just received.

Experimental tests of the CCD39 sensor with the Pockel’s cell shutter show that both systems (CCD clearing and Pockel’s cell extinction) are needed to hold back the Rayleigh backscatter flash. An example of the wavefront return signal from the Rayleigh laser guide star is displayed in Fig. 10 of Thompson and Teare (2002) where we display a single wavefront snapshot as well as the integrated sum of 45 consecutive exposures from a 20 Hz duty-cycle experiment. In this experiment, the original UnISIS CCD39 sensor was being used with its 48% quantum efficiency and a read noise of 4.4e- rms at a 3.2$`\mu `$s per pixel read rate. A new sensor is now available with 68% quantum efficiency, and because the new sensor has a somewhat higher amplifier responsivity, we anticipate the same or perhaps lower read noise with the new sensor. Mt. Wilson is a site where RF interference is a problem, so it was a major accomplishment to get the CCD39 to perform at the 4.4e- r.m.s. noise levels. This is the same performance we see in an RF-free lab setting. By trial and error we found that the lowest noise was achieved when the camera and electronics were completely isolated from all ground planes.

In its current configuration, the UnISIS wavefront sensor works at a maximum frame rate of 833 frames per second giving a frame to frame latency of 1.2ms in closed-loop operation. Note that the per pixel dwell time of 3.2$`\mu `$s mentioned above applies only to the 13x13 array of active Shack-Hartmann quadcells (each 2x2 pixels), so the actual read time for the active pixels is 0.54$`\mu `$s. The camera electronics consume the remaining 0.7$`\mu `$s. New timing board electronics now available through Astronomical Research Cameras Incorporated will allow the UnISIS CCD camera frame rate to increase to 1360 frames per second for a frame-to-frame latency of 735$`\mu `$s. This upgrade will significantly improve the closed-loop performance of UnISIS on nights when the atmospheric turbulence has a short timescale.

The 13x13 quadcells used by UnISIS are distributed over an area on the sensor that spans 38x38 pixels because guard rows and guard columns separate each active 2x2 quadcell to prevent spillover. During a read-out cycle of the exposed frame, the guard columns and rows are skipped and the data are dumped at a high rate much like the clearing mode described above. A map of the active pixels superimposed on the 80x80 sensor geometry is shown in Figure 5 (reproduced from Thompson et al. (1998)).

## 6 SUMMARY

Laser guided adaptive optics is still in an early phase of development, and there are many ways yet to be found to configure both the lasers and the cameras to minimize interference from the inevitable low-altitude Rayleigh scattered light, whether this comes from sodium resonance laser guide stars or from Rayleigh laser guide stars. We have presented here several examples of how this is accomplished in UnISIS. We find that the greatest design flexibility comes with pulsed lasers rather than CW systems, and one of the more significant characteristics of the system design is whether aircraft and satellite avoidance can be handled in a fashion that can be called ”Stealth”. Pulsed lasers at 351 nm provide a distinct advantage in both regards. However, new technological innovations will continue to alter the balance for some time to come. One simple example is the potential ability of embedding the shutter function in the silicon substrate of the wavefront sensor CCD, thereby making Pockel’s cell switching unnecessary. MIT / Lincoln Laboratory has the ability to produce sensors of this type, but no UV sensitive versions are currently available for wavefront sensing (Reich, 2002). Other technological advances will, no doubt, come along as laser guided adaptive optics systems mature.

A number of people have contributed to the work reported here. This includes Richard Castle, Dr. E. Harvey Richardson and Bill Knight and his machine shop crew. At Mt. Wilson Observatory we acknowledge support provided by Mount Wilson Institute Director Dr. Robert Jastrow and technical assistance by Robert Cadman, Sean Hoss, Chris Hodge, Joe Russell, Victor Castillo and Thomas Schneider of Schneider Engineering. Telescope operator support at the 2.5-m telescope was provided by Kirk Palmer, Michael Bradford, and Jim Strogen. Marconi CCD39 wavefront software support was provided by Jamie Erickson and Scott Striet. The Pockel’s cells used in UnISIS were supplied by ThermoTrex Incorporated (San Diego, CA) as part of a surplus equipment transfer, and we thank Dr. David Sandler for assistance in that transfer. This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation: AST-9220504, AST-0096741 and by funds from both the University of Illinois and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. All support is very gratefully acknowledged.


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# Quantifying the levitation picture of extended states in lattice models

## I Introduction

In the past few years increasing attention has been payed to the challenge of connecting two important limits for non interacting two-dimensional (2D) disordered systems: the existence of extended states at the center of broadened Landau bands in the integer Quantum Hall (QH) regime  and the prevailing view of localization of all electronic states, according to the scaling theory of localization . The first attempt at unifying both limits appeared in the form of a conjecture, proposed independently by Laughlin  and Khmelnitskii: the extended states at the center of the Landau bands should float up (or levitate) in energy above the Fermi level with decreasing magnetic field or increasing disorder.

A landmark in the history of this problem was the proposal of the Global Phase Diagram (GPD) of the integer QH effect , which is based on the levitation conjecture. Initially performed experiments could verify transitions from the first QH plateau, $`\nu =1`$ (or $`\nu =2`$ in the case of non polarized spin systems), to the insulator , according to the Diagram prediction. Several recent experiments, however, show evidences of direct transitions from QH states up to $`\nu =7`$ to the insulator state , not allowed by the GPD. These experimental results apparently put the levitation conjecture under probation. From a theoretical point of view, the floating up of extended states has been investigated by perturbative approaches , as well as, by several numerical works based on lattice models . The perturbative approaches identify weak levitation regimes in the strong magnetic field limit. The scenario of numerical works is controversial, including a non-float-up picture, where the extended states are supposed to disappear at finite $`B`$ or disorder strength . Other works show evidences of incipient floating up for white-noise disorder . Some recent works have considered lattice models with correlated disorders  arguing that correlations would extended the floating up process to lower magnetic fields, smoothing out lattice effects. Nevertheless, a full microscopic understanding of the levitation is still lacking and, moreover, a consensual quantitative description of how this effect takes place is not available.

The aim of this work is to go a step forward in the direction of such quantitative description. The problem is treated within the framework of a 2D tight-binding lattice, and both white-noise and correlated disorder potentials are investigated. With a careful emulation of the continuum limit of the lattice model, the dependence of the extend states levitation on the disorder potential landscape, magnetic flux and Landau level index, could be mapped out, for an energy range within the corresponding Landau bands, but far beyond perturbative limits. We could find an universal quantitative relation describing the levitation of extended states as a function of the relevant parameters of the problem.

## II Lattice model calculation

For sake of completeness we briefly describe the model Hamiltonian for a square lattice of s-like orbitals, with nearest-neighbor interactions only:

$$H=\underset{i}{}\epsilon _ic_i^{}c_i+\underset{<i,j>}{}V(e^{i\varphi _{ij}}c_i^{}c_j+e^{i\varphi _{ij}}c_j^{}c_i)$$
(1)
where $`c_i`$ is the fermionic operator on site $`i`$. The magnetic field is introduced by means of the phase $`\varphi _{ij}=2\pi (e/h)_j^i𝐀𝑑𝐥`$ in the hopping parameter $`V=1`$. In the Landau gauge, $`\varphi _{ij}=0`$ along the $`x`$ direction and $`\varphi _{ij}=\pm 2\pi (x/a)\mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ along the $`y`$ direction, with $`\mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_0=Ba^2e/h`$ ($`a`$ is the lattice constant). Disorder is introduced by assigning random fluctuations to the orbital energy $`\epsilon _i`$. Two different kinds of disorder are considered: in the white-noise case these energies are uncorrelated, taking $`\epsilon _i|W/2|`$. In the correlated disorder model, a gaussian correlation $`\epsilon _i=\frac{1}{\pi \lambda ^2}_j\epsilon _je^{|𝐑_i𝐑_j|^2/\lambda ^2}`$ is assumed, with correlation length $`\lambda `$ and $`\epsilon _j|W/2|`$. We consider unit cells of 40x40 sites with periodic boundary conditions.

The degree of localization of the states is evaluated by means of the Participation Ratio (PR) :

$$PR=1/(N\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_i|^4)$$
(2)
where $`N`$ is the number of lattice sites and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i`$ is the amplitude of the normalized wavefunction on site $`i`$. Extended states can be identified by well resolved peaks in the PR as a function of energy.

Lattice models have to be used very carefully: one has to know how lattice and size effects may hinder valid conclusions for the continuum limit (which should be described by the effective mass approximation), where the actual physical situation takes place. This can only be warranted for low magnetic flux values through the lattice unit cell and for the lowest few Landau levels, which constitutes, indeed, the continuum limit of the Hofstadter spectrum . However, at low magnetic fluxes, it is expected that lattice effects start to manifest on the localization character of the states for sufficiently strong disorder: states with negative Chern numbers moving down from the band center eventually annihilate extended states related to the lowest Landau levels . In this way, we consider only the results for the lowest Landau levels and small magnetic fluxes $`\mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_01/20`$, to keep within a parameter region where the lattice effects are negligible on the electronic spectra. Indeed, for the particular case $`\mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_0=1/20`$, there are 10 tight-binding sub-bands (Landau levels) between the bottom of the spectrum and the band center. Current carrying state annihilation is absent at such low fluxes up to the disorder intensities investigated.

## III Results and discussion

### A Density of states and localization of states

The Participation Ratio is a very intuitive quantity for discriminating the degree of localization of electronic states . In the context where quantizing magnetic fields are present, the PR has shown to be a good tool in the identification of the extended states positions, compared to other approaches like the Thouless number . For well separated Landau bands (small disorder strength or high magnetic fields), we have observed the peaks in the PR occurring exactly at the center of each band. However, decreasing the magnetic flux or increasing the disorder, deviations of the PR peaks to the high energy side of the bands, could be progressively observed, characterizing the floating up of delocalized states. Fig. 1 is an example of our calculations, showing the density of states (DOS) and the PR for the lowest two broadened Landau bands, for a correlated disorder potential in which $`W/V=4.0`$ and $`\lambda =1.5a`$. The energy floating up of the $`1^{st}`$ Landau band extended states is indicated by $`\delta E_0`$. It’s important to note here that $`\delta E`$ deviations are already observed before the Landau bands superpose. For all calculations presented throughout this work, the DOS and the PR are averages over 100 disorder realizations.

A wide range of disorder and flux parameters has been analyzed, for white-noise disorder and for various correlation lengths in the described correlated disorder model. In a previous work , we have discussed the main differences in the DOS and in the qualitative character of the localization of states, as a function of modifications in the potential landscape. For white-noise disorder, the Landau bands show a constant broadening and are fairly Gaussian-like. In Fig. 1, the broadening (taken at half height) $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$, is defined for the lowest band as an illustration. It also can be seen that as soon as a finite correlation length is introduced, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ shrinks with increasing Landau level index . Other important feature observed is that as the potential is smoothed, the line-shape of the DOS changes, becoming perfectly fitted by Gaussian curves (the sum of dotted gaussian fits coincides with the calculated DOS in the scale of Fig. 1). This observed dependence may contribute to resolve the discrepancies reported in the literature  about the exact form of the Landau level DOS.

### B Levitation in the lowest landau level

The results obtained from varying the disorder intensities, for fixed magnetic fluxes ($`\mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_0=1/20`$), and following the levitation of extended states of the $`1^{st}`$ Landau band are summarized in Fig. 2. The normalized shifts, $`\delta E_0/\mathrm{}\omega _c`$, are plotted as a function of $`\mathrm{}\omega _c/\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$, the ratio between the energy separation of Landau levels and the band width. It should be noticed that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is a linear function of the disorder amplitude $`W/V`$, the actual input in the simulations. Each curve in Fig. 2 corresponds to a different disorder potential: circles, fitted by the darkest line, are for the white-noise case; the other lines are for different correlation length cases. These results represent our first quantification of the levitation process: in all cases shown, the fittings are of the form $`\delta E_0/\mathrm{}\omega _c=\alpha (\mathrm{}\omega _c/\mathrm{\Gamma }_0)^2`$. The white-noise case is a clear upper limit for the levitation of the lowest extended state, with $`\alpha _{wn}=0.37`$. Increasing the disorder correlation length decreases the energy shift and $`\alpha `$ becomes linearly dependent on the length scale $`l_B/\lambda `$, where $`l_B=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/eB}`$ is the magnetic length (inset of Fig. 2). This linear behavior begins to saturate for $`l_B/\lambda >2`$, since in this limit there is no distinction between the correlated and white noise potential landscapes concerning the extended states.

For the white-noise case, the equivalence between decreasing the magnetic field and increasing disorder on the floating up of the extended states has been established: results for different magnetic fluxes and different disorder amplitudes collapse on the same curve. For finite correlation lengths, however, this equivalence does not hold anymore, since a new length scale, $`l_B/\lambda `$, is introduced. In this way, when $`W/V`$ is varied for other flux values, different $`\alpha `$ from curve fittings are obtained.

Having this length scale, $`l_B/\lambda `$, in mind, a general relation for the floating up of the extended states can be recovered for all magnetic fields and all correlation lengths. As can be seen in Fig. 3, the extended state energy shifts collapse on:

$$\frac{\delta E_0}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}=\beta \frac{l_B}{\lambda }\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)^2$$
(3)
where $`\beta 0.17`$. These results indicate that the levitation of the first extended state follows a well defined and universal behavior. It is expected that for small correlation lengths ($`l_B/\lambda >2`$) a white-noise like potential landscape is recovered. Indeed, eq.(3) holds for all smoothened disorder potentials until $`\beta l_B/\lambda =\alpha _{wn}`$ (i.e, $`l_B/\lambda 2.1`$), and for $`l_B/\lambda >2`$ extended states show maximum levitation, according to $`\delta E_0/\mathrm{}\omega _c=\alpha _{wn}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_0/\mathrm{}\omega _c)^2`$. A slight saturation of the levitation can be observed for $`\lambda =3a`$ in Fig. 3, indicating that size effects may become important for longer correlation lengths.

### C Levitation in higher Landau levels

The evolution of the extended states related to higher Landau level could also be followed, within the same procedure described for the lowest one. A particular example is shown in Fig. 4, where the energy shifts for the lowest and the second extended states were calculated for five different disorder amplitudes, $`W/V`$. It should be noticed that for any given disorder $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1<\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$, but even taking this into account for the analysis, the levitation is always less pronounced in the second Landau level. It is not shown here, but we verified a levitation even smaller for the third band, and so forth. This evidence that the levitation is reduced as N increases, is in opposition to the original levitation conjecture  and to perturbative calculations .

Although the curve for levitation in the $`N=1`$ level is clearly separated from that for $`N=0`$ in Fig. 4, a similar dependence of the energy shift with the energy scale ratio has been found: $`\delta E_1/\mathrm{}\omega _c=\alpha _1(\mathrm{}\omega _c/\mathrm{\Gamma }_1)^2`$. However, to obtain a general expression like eq.(3) valid for $`N>0`$, we have found that a new quantity has to be considered, namely the ratio between the widths of different Landau bands: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_N/\mathrm{\Gamma }_01`$.

Considering only the lowest and the second extended state, the ratio $`\delta E_1/\delta E_0`$ as a function of $`\lambda /l_B`$ is represented in the inset of Fig. 4. An upper limit of equally intense levitation occurs for the white-noise case and a clear minimum for this ratio is seen at a finite correlation length. The evolution of $`\delta E_1/\delta E_0`$ is qualitatively similar to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ variation with the correlation length, as discussed by Ando and Uemura . In fact it is verified that $`\delta E_1/\delta E_0(\mathrm{\Gamma }_1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_0)^4`$ Having these results in mind, the energy shifts of the extended states, a generalization of eq.(3) is possible, valid now for any Landau level index $`N`$:

$$\frac{\delta E_N}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}=\beta \frac{l_B}{\lambda }\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_N}{\mathrm{}\omega _c}\right)^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_N}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}\right)^2.$$
(4)
This is illustrated in Fig. 5, where energy shifts for the second and third Landau levels are included. Considering the ratio $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_0)^2`$, these shifts for higher Landau level index all collapse on the same line obtained for the lowest one (represented by the the dashed line, for comparison).

The importance of the present quantification of the levitation also lies in the fact that comparisons with other than numerical approaches, start to become possible. The levitation in energy of the extended states is defined by a length scale, $`l_B/\lambda `$, and an energy scale, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/\mathrm{}\omega _c`$. In this way, concerning the length scale, the weak levitation limit result of Fogler reminds our eq.(4). On the other hand, the present energy scale dependence can be identified in the perturbative approach of Haldane and Yang and even in the original levitation conjecture . However, a strict comparison is still not possible. As we have seen, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ defines the broadening of the Landau band and is disorder and Landau level index dependent. A clear connection to the single particle relaxation time used in ref. is therefore not available. The other approaches  rely on the scattering time, $`\tau `$. Although both quantities, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\tau `$, are related, they are not equivalent .

The continuum limit of the lattice model connects to the effective mass approximation by a tight-binding parameterization emulating the effective mass of an electron: $`m^{}=\mathrm{}^2/(2|V|a^2)`$. This parameterization points out the possibility of direct comparison with experimental results by further increasing the system size. Such comparisons should take into account independent measurements of the DOS , since the present work reveals a correlation between the general features of the DOS and the qualitative character of the levitation of extended states.

## IV Final remarks

In conclusion, we verified that the relevant parameters to map the behavior of the levitation are: first, the energy scales ratio, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/\mathrm{}\omega _c`$; and secondly, the length scales ratio $`l_B/\lambda `$; while dependence with the Landau level index can be scaled by the Landau bands widths ratio. The important aspect presented here is that the levitation can be described by a simple scaling expression, eq.(4), valid for a wide parameter region, where we can assure that a lattice model emulates the continuum model. For the system sizes considered, this continuum window spans from low disorder or high magnetic field (consistent with the emulation proposed) to $`\mathrm{}\omega _c/\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$. The highest value calculated in this region is $`\delta E_0/\mathrm{}\omega 0.4`$, still slightly below the crossing to the second Landau band that occurs at $`\delta E_0/\mathrm{}\omega =0.5`$, but far beyond a weak levitation limit .

The dependence of the levitation with the Landau index of the extended state could lead to important consequences on the QH phase diagrams. The GPD  requires that $`\delta E_{N+1}/\delta E_N>1`$. Although the present results are for a levitation regime still within the same Landau band, we find $`\delta E_1/\delta E_01`$ as a upper limit (in the white-noise case), while for finite correlation lengths (smoothened disorder potentials) $`\delta E_1/\delta E_0<1`$, consistent with a phase diagram where direct transition from the Hall insulator to $`\nu >1`$ are allowed. Hence, the exact form of the QH phase diagram could be disorder model dependent. The present results give therefore a clear guidance for future work: the extension of the scaling to lower magnetic fields and longer correlation lengths (larger systems), keeping within the continuum limit of the lattice model.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to E. R. Mucciolo and E. Miranda for several discussions and suggestions. This work was supported by FAPESP, CNPq and CAPES.


text:
# 1 (A) Muon spin rotation data from 1: The oscillations in the asymmetry demonstrate long-range magnetic order at all temperatures measured (up to 310 K) temperature dependence of (B) the relaxation rate of the oscillations (dotted line is a guide to the eye) and (C) the muon-spin rotation frequency and the corresponding magnetic field at the muon site. In (C) the line represents a fit to a phenomenological expression for the temperature dependence of the order parameter in a magnetic material. Good fits could be obtained by fixing the transition temperature at values in the range 350 to 450 K, demonstrating that the magnetic ordering temperature of 1 probably lies above 350 K.

The Hydride Anion in an Extended Transition Metal Oxide Array: LaSrCoO3H0.7

M.A. Hayward111Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZD, U.K., E.J. Cussen1, J.B. Claridge1, M. Bieringer1, M.J. Rosseinsky1\*, C.J. Kiely1,222Materials Science Division, Department of Engineering, University of Liverpool, L69 3BX, U.K., S.J. Blundell333Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PU, U.K.,
I.M. Marshall3 and F.L. Pratt444RIKEN-RAL Muon Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX, U.K.

We present the synthesis and structural characterisation of a transition metal oxide hydride, LaSrCoO3H0.7, which adopts an unprecedented structure in which oxide chains are bridged by hydride anions to form a two- dimensional extended network. The metal centers are strongly coupled by their bonding with both oxide and hydride ligands to produce magnetic ordering up to at least 350 K. The synthetic route is sufficiently general to allow the prediction of a new class of transition metal-containing electronic and magnetic materials.

The covalent interaction between the O2- anion and the d-orbitals of the transition metal cation is at the heart of the remarkable electronic properties of the transition metal oxides(1, 2): even in mixed-anion oxyhalides(3), it is the metal-oxide interactions which dominate the physical properties. Developing synthetic routes to materials in which other anions partially replace oxide could open up the possibility of preparing entirely novel families of electronically active transition metal compounds. The hydride anion, H-, with a 1s2 electronic configuration, is known to engage in strong covalent bonding with transition metal centres in discrete molecular species(4) and would be an excellent candidate for the transmission of exchange interactions or electron delocalization between transition metal cations in an oxide hydride, if the formidable synthetic difficulties barring the path to such a phase could be overcome. The problem is that H-, unlike O2- or halide anions such as F- and Cl-, is a powerful reducing agent and would be expected to transform the transition metal component of a typical high-temperature ternary transition metal oxide synthesis into the metal, defeating most possible synthetic strategies. Here we demonstrate a low-temperature topotactic route to insert H- anions directly into an extended transition metal oxide array, and show that H- transmits exchange interactions between the transition metal cations at least as effectively as O2-, opening up a new mechanism for designing co-operative effects in solids.

We have recently shown that NaH is an effective low-temperature reducing agent for ternary transition metal oxides. At temperatures below 190C NaH affords the Ni(I)(5) and Co(I)(6) oxidation states, but at higher temperatures completely reduces the metal because of the presence of hydrogen gas in thermal equilibrium with the hydride salt. In order to study the solid-state reactivity of H- with ternary transition metal oxides at higher temperatures, we used the more thermally stable CaH2 (with a decomposition temperature of 885C compared with 210C for NaH). CaH2 was reacted with the Co(III) oxide LaSrCoO4, which adopts the layered K2NiF4 structure with square planar CoO2 sheets alternating with (La/Sr) O rock-salt layers and octahedral co-ordination around Co(III). Reaction for two periods of 4 days at 450C in a sealed Pyrex tube with intermediate grinding afforded a mixture of CaO and an orthorhombic phase 1 (7). The orthorhombic phase is structurally related to the starting material and its lattice parameters suggest a one-dimensional Sr2CuO3 structure that consists of chains of corner sharing MO4 squares (7). The transformation to such a structure suggests that 1 is the Co(I) phase LaSrCoO3, formed by the reductive topotactic extraction of O2- to afford CaO. CaO was removed from 1 by washing with 0.1M NH4Cl in degassed methanol under nitrogen and then filtering and drying under vacuum. The structure and composition of 1 were investigated by powder synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) and neutron diffraction, and selected-area electron diffraction (SAED).

The 290 K synchrotron XRD pattern was readily indexed with the orthorhombic Sr2CuO3-type unit cell in the Immm space group, an assignment confirmed by SAED (7). Structural refinement showed that the cations occupy the metal positions expected for the Sr2CuO3 structure. The ambient temperature neutron powder diffraction data, however, could not be indexed on this basis; a doubling of the basal ab plane area was required to account for additional diffraction reflections observed at large d-spacings. The absence of these reflections in the XRD and SAED data, which would be sensitive to superstructure formation due to chemical or crystallographic ordering, suggests they are of magnetic origin.(5)

Magnetic long-range order in a strongly one-dimensional (1D) structure such as that adopted by Sr2CuO3 is totally unexpected at 300 K. We therefore recorded muon spin rotation ($`\mu `$SR) data(8) to investigate the behavior of the magnetic moments carried by the cobalt cations(Fig. 1A). Clear oscillations are apparent over the entire temperature range which signify a quasi-static magnetic field at the muon site. This result demonstrates unambiguously that 1 is uniformly magnetically ordered throughout its bulk at temperatures up to at least 310 K. The amplitude of the oscillations corresponds to a signal from the whole sample so these results exclude the possibility that only a small region of the sample is ordered. The frequency of the oscillations approaches 71 MHz as T$``$0 (corresponding to an internal field of 0.53 T) and decreases as the sample is warmed to 310 K (Fig. 1C). At the highest temperatures the relaxation rate of the oscillations began to increase and probably reflects the approach of the phase transition. (Fig. 1B). These results do not allow us to determine precisely the Néel temperature, but show that it is likely to be above 350 K. The muon site is likely to be similar to that found in Sr2CuO3 and Ca2CuO3, in which the muon is believed to form an O–$`\mu ^+`$ bond with a bond length of $``$1 Å.(9, 10) However the measured muon precession frequency for these materials is much lower, corresponding to 2.32 and 3.5 mT for Sr2CuO3 and Ca2CuO3 respectively (10). Such low internal fields are associated with magnetic moments less than 0.1 $`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$. The precession frequency in the present case is $`>200`$ times greater than in Sr2CuO3, which is consistent with the moment refined from powder neutron diffraction on 1. The Néel temperatures of Sr2CuO3 and Ca2CuO3 are $`5`$ K and $`11`$ K respectively. The much larger value of $`T_\mathrm{N}`$ observed for 1 points to a large interchain coupling, which is surprising because the lattice constants in the interchain direction are larger than in Sr2CuO3 and Ca2CuO3.

After the verification of long-range magnetic order at room temperature by $`\mu `$SR, a simple antiferromagnetic (AF) ordering model, with antiparallel spin alignment of all neighboring Co spins, was incorporated in refinement of the neutron data. Although this addition gave a satisfactory fit to the magnetic reflections, the fit to the nuclear reflections was unsatisfactory ($`\chi ^2=5.15`$, weighted profile residual ($`R_{\mathrm{wp}}`$) = 5.55%) (7). A difference Fourier map was computed and revealed a strong peak of negative scattering density at (0, 1/2, 0) midway between the Co atoms along the b-axis at the vacant oxide anion position in the CoO2-x sheets (7). Hydrogen is one of the few elements to have a negative neutron scattering length,(11) and therefore hydrogen was inserted into the model at this position. The refinement immediately converged at $`\chi ^2=1.96`$, $`R_{\mathrm{wp}}`$ = 3.43% as shown in Fig. 2, demonstrating that 1 is the first extended transition metal oxide hydride.

The structural analysis was completed by a three histogram refinement of 2.4 Å and 1.59 Å neutron histograms together with the synchrotron data (Fig. 2). The quality of the fits demonstrates the correctness of the structural model, which gives a refined composition of LaSrCoO3H0.70(2). The presence of a small amount of La2O3 is not inconsistent with this composition (7). The ordered magnetic moment carried by the cobalt cations increases from 1.77(5)$`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$ at 290 K to 1.95(4)$`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$ at 2 K. The +1.7 oxidation state of Co deduced from the refined composition with a charge distribution assigning the $`1`$ oxidation state to H is consistent with the position of the Co K-edge in LaSrCoO3H0.70(2),(7) and the presence of hydride was confirmed chemically by quantitative mass spectrometric monitoring of the H2O evolved simultaneously with oxidation of 1 under flowing O2 at 272(5)C, which indicates 0.4 H- per formula unit; while necessarily less accurate than the structure refinement, this chemically confirms the presence of hydrogen. Chemical analysis (5) reveals 0.27% H by mass compared with 0.21% expected for LaSrCoO3H0.70(2).

The structure (Fig. 3) consists of chains of CoO4 squares sharing corners along a to form chains which are linked into a 2D array in the $`ab`$ plane by H- bridges along $`b`$. The CoO2 sheets in the ab plane of the starting material have been replaced with CoOH0.7 sheets in the oxide hydride product, consistent with a reduction-insertion mechanism in which oxide vacancies are created in the xy plane followed by their filling by the H- anions. The Co(II) cations have a mean coordination number of 5.40(4), with the H- anions occupying the axial positions between the square plane of oxide anions. The Co–H distance of 1.80174(2) Å is shorter than either of the Co–O distances and this, coupled with the strong covalency expected for the interaction between Co2+ and H-, produces strong AF coupling between the Co(II) cations within the 2D sheets. The effect of the hydride anions on bridging the Sr2CuO3-like 1D chains is qualitatively demonstrated by comparing $`T_\mathrm{N}`$ of above 300 K here with 11 K in Sr2CuO3 itself. A qualitative comparison between H- and O2-oxide bridges can be made by noting that LaSrCoO3.5 (6) has a Néel temperature of 110 K, with a similar concentration of bridging anions in the $`ab`$ plane.

The high AF ordering temperature of LaSrCoO3H0.70 demonstrates that the H- anion can strongly couple transition metal cations electronically. To confirm this supposition, we have performed spin wave calculations to crudely model the effect of coupling the CoO3 oxide chains by H- anions. We find that increasing the effective exchange between chains in one direction to close to the intrachain exchange $`J`$ is sufficient to raise the Néel temperature to the order of $`J/k_\mathrm{B}`$ (where $`J`$ is the intrachain exchange), even if the coupling in the orthogonal interchain direction is quite weak; the size of the moment will then be near the full value (this scenario is appropriate for LaSrCoO3H0.70, in which we observe a large moment and $`T_\mathrm{N}350`$ K which is of the order of $`J/k_\mathrm{B}`$). If, however the interchain exchange is weak in both directions, the Néel temperature is largely controlled by that weak interchain exchange and the size of the moment is greatly reduced because of quantum fluctuations (this scenario is appropriate for Sr2CuO3, in which the moment is reduced to 0.06 $`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$ and $`T_\mathrm{N}=11`$ K (8)). This stark difference in magnetic properties highlights the crucial role played by the bridging H- ions, and confirms that they are capable of coupling transition metal centres equally as effectively as O2- anions.

The H- anions are exclusively located in the transition metal containing layers in the structure, in contrast to oxyhalides such as Sr2CoO3Cl(3) in which the halide anions occupy the apical positions within the electronically inactive rock salt layers. The demonstration that transition metal oxide hydrides can be isolated now suggests such species should be considered when discussing chemical and catalytic processes involving transition metal oxides, such as the spillover process(12) where only H+ and OH- have been invoked.(13) The site-specific insertion of the H- anions into the oxide sheets may reflect the enhanced bridging interaction with the transition metal cations in this site, or be due to a topotactic transformation mechanism in which anion vacancies present in an LaSrCoO3.5 intermediate are filled with hydride anions. The combination of cation reduction with anion insertion is unusual for a topotactic solid-state transformation, but may prove to be a general route to transition metal oxide hydrides, opening up previously uncharted areas in electronic and magnetic materials synthesis. Quantitative estimates of the strength of the exchange interaction demonstrate that the H- bridge couples metal centres as effectively as O2-, although the different frontier orbital symmetry ($`\sigma `$ only in H-, $`\sigma `$ \+ $`\pi `$ in O2-) promises interesting property differences to be revealed in future detailed studies of this new class of extended solid.(14)

References and notes

1. J. B. Goodenough, J. S. Zhou, Chem. Mater. 10, 2980 (1998).
2. Y. D. Chuang, A. D. Gromko, D. S. Dessau, T. Kimura, Y. Tokura, Science 292, 1509 (2001).
3. S. M. Loureiro, C. Felser, Q. Huang, R. J. Cava, Chem. Mater. 12, 3181 (2000).
4. Z. Y. Lin, M. B. Hall, Coord. Chem. Rev. 135, 845 (1994).
5. M. A. Hayward, M. A. Green, M. J. Rosseinsky, J. Sloan, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121, 8843 (1999).
6. M. A. Hayward, M. J. Rosseinsky, Chem. Mater. 12, 2182 (2000).
7. Full synthetic and structural characterization details are provided as supplemental data at Science online.
8. S. J. Blundell, Contemporary Physics 40, 175 (1999).
9. A. Keren, et al., Physical Review B 48, 12926 (1993).
10. K. M. Kojima, et al., Physical Review Letters 78, 1787 (1997).
11. G. E. Bacon, Neutron Diffraction (Clarendon Press, Oxford, ed. 3rd, 1975).
12. W. C. Conner, J. L. Falconer, Chem. Rev. 95, 759 (1995).
13. S. J. Teichner, Appl. Catal. 62, 1 (1990).
14. We thank the EPSRC for support under GR/N21819 and for access to ILL and ESRF. We thank the donors of the Petroleum Research Foundation, administered by the American Chemical Society, for support. We thank T. Hansen (ILL) and A. Fitch (ESRF) for their expert assistance with the collection of neutron and synchrotron X-ray diffraction data, the staff of the PSI muon facility for their assistance with the muon experiments and L. Murphy (SRS) for assistance with the collection of X-ray absorption data. We are grateful to R. Coldea for useful discussions.


text:
# 1 The angular distribution of the radiation

Is the Energy Balance Paradox Solved?

Amos Harpaz(1) and Noam Soker(2)

1. Institute of Theoretical Physics, Technion, Haifa, ISRAEL

2. Department of Physics, Oranim, Tivon 36006, ISRAEL

phr89ah@tx.technion.ac.il

soker@physics.technion.ac.il

key words: Radiation Reaction Force, Curved Electric Field

Abstract

The question of what is the source of the energy carried by radiation is discussed. The case of a hyperbolic motion is analyzed, describing the solutions suggested in the past for the “energy balance paradox”. The solution to the paradox is found in considering the stress force created in the curved electric field of the accelerated charge, that acts as a reaction force. The work performed by the external force to overcome this stress force is the source of the energy carried by the radiation. This stress force is the spatial component of the four-vector called “Schott term”, that appears in Abraham four-vector. This novel approach solves the “energy balace oaradox”.

Pacs: 41.60-m, 03.50-DE

1. Introduction

The Energy Balance Paradox concerns the question of - what is the source of the energy carried by radiation. This problem is complicated and demands a careful analysis of all the factors relevant to the process. Hence, we shall concentrate here on the most simple case of creation of radiation - a charge accelerated uniformly in its own system of reference, in which case its motion is described in a four dimensional free space as a hyperbolic motion .

One expects that the energy carried by the radiation is created by a work done by the external force against a certain force that exists in the system, where this work should be performed in addition to the work done in creating the kinetic energy of the charged particle. In many publications this problem is treated by using the concept of “radiation reaction force”, where it is assumed that a reaction force created by the radiation is the force that the external force should overcome, and the work done against the reaction force is the source of the energy carried by the radiation. However, in the simple case of the hyperbolic motion this approach meets difficulties that were named “The Energy Balance Paradox”, as no such force exists in this motion.

The difficulties have two sources: one - when the accelerated charge moves with low (zero) velocity, its radiation is symmetric with respect to the plane which is perpendicular to the direction of motion. Thus the radiation does not impart any counter momentum to the accelerated charge, and no radiation reaction force exists. The second source of the difficulties is that usually, it is considered that in the equation of motion of the accelerated charge, a term called Abraham four vector is considered as representing the radiation reaction force. It comes out that in a hyperbolic motion, this vector vanishes. This suits the fact that in this case no radiation reaction force exists, but it leaves us with the paradox.

In the present work we shall analyze the paradox, and the solutions given to it. We shall also show that the solution to the paradox is found when a reaction force is identified, which is not the “radiation reaction force”, but rather a stress force that exists in the curved electric field of the accelerated charge. The work done by the external force to overcome the stress force, is the source of the energy carried by the radiation.

2. The Problem.

The formula for the angular distribution of the radiation power is :

$$\frac{dP}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{e^2a^2}{4\pi c^3}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{\left(1\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta \right)^5}$$
$`\left(1\right)`$
where $`e`$ is the accelerated charge, $`a`$ is the acceleration, $`c`$ is the speed of light, and $`\theta `$ is the angle measured from the direction of motion. Integrating eq. 1 over the angles, yields:

$$P=\frac{2}{3}\frac{e^2a^2}{c^3\left(1\beta ^2\right)^3}=\frac{2}{3}\frac{e^2\left(\gamma ^3a\right)^2}{c^3}$$
$`\left(2\right)`$
where for $`\beta 0\left(\gamma 1\right)`$, yields Larmor formula for the power carried by the radiation:

$$P=\frac{2}{3}\frac{e^2a^2}{c^3}$$
$`\left(3\right)`$
In Fig. 1 we plot the angular distribution of the radiation for several values of $`\beta `$. It is clearly observed that for low velocities ($`\beta 0.01`$), no counter momentum is imparted by the radiation to the charge, and no radiation reaction exists.

The Dirac-Lorentz equation (or LAD as called by Rohrlich) for a charged particle is:

$$ma^\mu =F_{ext}^\mu +\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu =F_{ext}^\mu +\frac{2e^2}{3c^3}\left(\dot{a}^\mu \frac{1}{c^2}a^\lambda a_\lambda v^\mu \right),$$
$`\left(4\right)`$
where $`m`$ is the particle mass, $`v^\mu `$ and $`a^\mu `$ are the velocity 4-vector and the acceleration 4-vector, respectively, and $`F_{ext}^\mu `$ is the external force 4-vector that drives the particle. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ is Abraham 4-vector, which was usually considered as representing the radiation reaction force.

The first term in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$, ($`\frac{2}{3}\frac{e^2\dot{a}^\mu }{c^3}`$), is called the “Schott term”. In a hyperbolic motion, $`\dot{a}^\mu =\frac{1}{c^2}a^\lambda a_\lambda v^\mu `$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ vanishes. This is in accord with the nonexistence of a radiation reaction force in such a motion as shown in Fig. 1 (concerning the conjencture that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ represnts the radiation reaction force). In the present work we follow Rohrlich, who argues that the reaction force responsible for the creation of the radiation should be included in Schott term, thus showing that the vanishing of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ shows that the power carried by the radiation, which is represented in the second term of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ is created by the force represented in Schott term. However, this force is not a radiation reaction force, but rather a reaction force created by the stress force the exists in the curved electric field of the accelerated charge. This reaction force should be overcome by the accelerating external force, and the work performed against this force is the source of the energy carried by the radiation (see section 4).

The presence of $`\dot{a}`$ (the third time derivative of the position) in the equation of motion (eq.4), demands a third initial condition for the solution of the equation of motion of an electric charge (the initial acceleration). In section 4 we find that a stress force, $`f_s`$, which exists in the curved electric field of the accelerated charge, is proportional to the acceleration. Thus, the third initial condition is needed to complement the picture of all the factors involved in such a motion. It is also found that this force, $`f_s`$, is responsible for the creation of the radiation.

3. Solutions suggested

One of the solutions was , that there exists a charged plane, whose charge is equal and opposite in sign to the accelerated charge, and it recesses with the speed of light in a direction opposite to the direction of the acceleration. The interaction between this charged plane and the accelerated charge creates the energy carried by the radiation. Another suggestion was \[5, (eq. 4.9)\], that in such a case the energy radiated is supplied from the self-energy of the charge. Evidently, these suggestions are far from being satisfactory. Some people deduced that a uniformly accelerated charge does not radiate (see Singal). It should be noted that the idea suggested in  resolves another difficulty concerned with this topic, which is the existence of a single electric charge. As we assume that the matter in the universe is neutral, the existence of a solitary charge is a local phenomenon, whose validity is limited to distance scales that are much shorter than distance scales that characterize gravitational considerations. Any treatment of this topic that carries calculations to infinity, cannot be a valid treatment. The treatment suggested by Leibovitz and Peres , considers a system which is neutral.

In a recently published paper, Rohrlich discusses this topic, and criticizing earlier works (including his earlier work), he considers a treatment that should solve the problem. Let us discuss here briefly the treatment suggested in .

The equation of motion given in  is:

$$m_0\dot{v}^\mu =F_{ext}^\mu +F_{self}^\mu $$
$`\left(5\right)`$
where $`m_0`$ is the physical rest mass involved in the process ($`m_0=m+\delta m`$, ), and $`F_{self}^\mu `$ actually equals Abraham 4-vector. $`\delta m`$ represents the electromagnetic mass which will be discussed later. Rohrlich obtained this equation by generalizing the equation of motion, and by demanding that the constant in the generalized equation be $`\frac{2e^2}{3c^3}`$. Rohrlich concludes that the vanishing of Abraham 4-vector ($`F_{self}^\mu `$ in his notation) shows that the radiation energy comes from the Schott term.

This argumentation makes sense but it raises a question: The terms that appear in Abraham 4-vector in this case are the zeroth components of a 4-vector (components that represent power, and not force, see ). The question where is the force that does the work is still there. We are looking for a three dimensional force that acts as a reaction force, and we do not find it in this treatment. The Schott term in this case represents the power performed by the force we are looking for, but not the force itself. We discuss this point in the next section.

4. The stress force solution

When an electric charge is accelerated, its electric field is not accelerated with the charge. It is detached from the charge, and remains inertial. Hence the electric field of the charge becomes curved. Fulton and Rohrlich  calculated the electromagnetic fields of a charge moving in a hyperbolic motion, along the $`z`$ axis, using the retarded potentials method. The equation for the electric field lines were calculated by Singal, and they are drawn in Fig. 2.

The same results were obtained by Gupta and Padmanabhan, where they calculate the electric fields of an accelerated charge in the rest system of the charge, and then transform them to the inertial frame. They also show that by using the retarded coordinates ($`x_{ret},t_{ret}`$) for the accelerated charge, one obtains the expressions for the electromagnetic fields as given in the standard textbooks.

The radius of curvature of the field lines is: $`R_c=c^2/a\mathrm{sin}\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the initial direction of the field line and the acceleration. Now, we follow in brief the calculations given in . In a curved electric field a stress force exists, whose density, $`f_s`$, is given by:

$$f_s=\frac{E^2}{4\pi R_c},$$
$`\left(6\right)`$
where $`E`$ is the electric field, and $`R_c`$ is the radius of curvature of the field lines. In the immediate vicinity of the charge, the electric field can be taken as $`E=e/r^2`$, and we have:

$$f_s=\frac{E^2}{4\pi R_c}=\frac{a\mathrm{sin}\theta }{4\pi c^2}\frac{e^2}{r^4}$$
$`\left(7\right)`$
The stress force is perpendicular to the field lines, so that the component of this force along the acceleration is $`f_s\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$, where $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the local field line and the acceleration. In the immediate vicinity of the charge ($`rc^2/a`$, where the direction of the field line did not change much from its initial direction), $`\varphi \theta `$, and we can write for the parallel component of the stress force:

$$f_s\mathrm{sin}\varphi f_s\mathrm{sin}\theta =\frac{a\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{4\pi c^2}\frac{e^2}{r^4}$$
$`\left(8\right)`$
It is interesting to note that the angular distribution of the parallel component of the stress force is similar to that of the radiation. We have to sum over the parallel component of the stress force, $`f_s`$, and calculate the work done against this force.

In order to sum over $`f_s`$, we have to integrate over a sphere whose center is located on the charge. Naturally, such an integration involves a divergence (at the center). To avoid such a divergence, we take as the lower limit of the integration a small distance from the center, $`r=c\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, (where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is infinitesimal). We calculate the work done by the stress force in the volume defined by $`c\mathrm{\Delta }trr_{up}`$, where $`r_{up}`$ is some large distance from the charge, satisfying the demand: $`c\mathrm{\Delta }tr_{up}c^2/a`$. These calculations are performed in a system of reference $`S`$, which is a flat system that momentarily coincides with the frame of reference of the accelerated charge at time $`t=0`$, at the charge location.

Since the calculations are performed in the flat system $`S`$, the integration can be carried without using any terms concerning space curvature. Integration of the stress force over a volume extending from $`r=c\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ to $`r_{\mathrm{up}}`$, yields the total force due to stress, $`F_s`$:

$$F_s=2\pi _{c\mathrm{\Delta }t}^{r_{\mathrm{up}}}r^2𝑑r_0^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta \left[f_s\mathrm{sin}\theta \right]=\frac{2}{3}\frac{a}{c^2}\frac{e^2}{c\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left(1\frac{c\mathrm{\Delta }t}{r_{\mathrm{up}}}\right).$$
$`\left(9\right)`$
Clearly the second term in the parenthesis can be neglected. $`F_s`$ is the reaction force. The power supplied by the external force on acting against the electric stress is $`P_s=F_sv`$, where $`v`$ is the velocity of the charge in system $`S`$ at time $`t=\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, $`v=a\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. Substituting this value for $`v`$ we get for $`P_s`$:

$$P_s=\frac{2}{3}\frac{a^2e^2}{c^3}.$$
$`\left(10\right)`$
This is the power radiated by an accelerated charged particle at zero velocity (eq. 3).

In order to include this result in the equation of motion (eq. 5), we should add the force $`F_s`$ to the external force, which is the force needed to overcome the stress force, and we should include $`F_s`$ in the spatial part of the Schott 4-vector (Schott term in the notation of ), whose zeroth component is the power created by this force. The work performed by $`F_s`$ is the source of the energy carried by the radiation. This extended equation includes all the forces involved in the process, including the force that performs the work that creates the energy carried by the radiation. Rohrlich is right in his conclusion that the Schott term is the source of the power of the radiation, but this definiftion becomes complete when the stress force ($`F_s`$ from eq. 9) is included in the spatial part of the Schott term.

The expression for the force in eq. 9 (before substituting the integration limits, $`F_s=\frac{2}{3}ae^2/c^2r`$) equals the inertial force ($`4m_ea/3`$) of the electromagnetic mass of the charge as calculated by Lorentz (see ref. , p. 790). However, a work performed against an inertial force cannot be the work that creates the energy carried by the radiation, because such a work creates a kinetic energy of the electromagnetic mass $`m_e`$, and this leaves us with the energy balance paradox. Actually, this electromagnetic mass is already included in the equation of motion by Rohrlich, (eq. 5) as $`\delta m`$ (see ), and the force needed to accelerate this mass is already included in $`F_{ext}^\mu `$.

As an example, let us analyze the case of an oscillatory motion of a charge in a linear antenna (length of $`2D`$), in the $`x`$ direction. the equations of motion are:

$$x=D\mathrm{sin}\omega t;v=\omega D\mathrm{cos}\omega t$$
$`\left(11.a\right)`$
$$a=\omega ^2D\mathrm{sin}\omega t=\omega ^2x;\dot{a}=\omega ^3D\mathrm{cos}\omega t=\omega ^2v$$
$`\left(11.b\right)`$
At time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ (where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is infinitesimal), we use the approximations:

$`\mathrm{sin}\omega t\omega \mathrm{\Delta }t`$, and $`\mathrm{cos}\omega t1`$:

$$x=\omega D\mathrm{\Delta }t;v=\omega D$$
$`\left(12.a\right)`$
$$a=\omega ^3D\mathrm{\Delta }t;\dot{a}=\omega ^3D$$
$`\left(12.b\right)`$
and we find that when we start from a point at which $`a=0`$, $`a_{\left(\mathrm{\Delta }t\right)}=\dot{a}\mathrm{\Delta }t`$.

The motion is linear and from eq. 9 we have the reaction force $`F_{reac}`$ created in a linear motion: $`F_{reac}=F_s=\frac{2e^2}{3c^3}\frac{a}{\mathrm{\Delta }t}`$.

Substituting for $`a`$, we find: $`F_s=\frac{2e^2}{3c^3}\dot{a}`$, which is exactly Schott term. Jackson \[2, eq. 17.8\] calls this expression $`F_{rad}`$, relating it to the radiation reaction force. Since we know that in a linear motion, at low velocities $`(\beta <0.01)`$, no radiation reaction force exists, we deduce that $`F_{reac}`$, that expresses the stress force in the curved electric field, should replace jackson’s $`F_{rad}`$, the non-existing radiation reaction force.

5. Non-Zero Velocity

Equation (10) shows the power emitted by a uniformly accelerated charge calculated at zero velocity. We can consider the case of an accelerated charge, moving with low velocity. From Fig. 1 we observe that in this case, a part of the radiation is radiated forward, and evidently, this part of the radiation imparts a backward momentum to the radiating charge, thus creating a reaction force. To calculate the power created by this reaction force, we follow the calculations given in . We multiply eq. 1 by $`\mathrm{cos}\theta /c`$, (to obtain the parallel component of the momentum flux of the radiation), and integrate over the angles. The integration yields for the parallel component of the momentum flux $`(p_{par})`$:

$$p_{par}=\frac{2}{3}\frac{e^2\left(\gamma ^3a\right)^2}{c^4}\beta ,$$
$`\left(13\right)`$
while the total absolute value of the momentum flux, $`p`$, is found by dividing eq. 2 by $`c`$. (The perpendicular momentum flux vanishes because of the symmetry in the plane perpendicular to the direction of motion, but we still can compare the parallel component of the momentum flux to the total absolute value of the momentum flux of the radiation). By dividing $`p_{par}`$ by $`p`$, we find the weight of the parallel component of the momentum flux in the total absolute value of the momentum flux:

$$\frac{p_{par}}{p}=\beta $$
$`\left(14\right)`$
This fraction is the weight of the parallel component of the momentum flux of the radiation, and this fraction creates a reaction force - a radiation reaction force. To get the weight of the work done by the radiation reaction force we should multiply this fraction by $`\beta c`$ (the velocity of the charge in the rest frame), and we find that the weight of the work done in overcoming the radiation reaction force (the reaction force created by the radiation) in the total power radiated is $`\beta ^2`$. The other part of the energy $`(1\beta ^2=1/\gamma ^2)`$, is created by the stress force that exists in the curved electric field. We find that the relative weight of the work done by the stress force in the total work done by the total reaction force decreases when $`\gamma `$ increases.

5. Conclusions

The solution to the energy balance paradox is found when we consider the stress force that exists in the curved electric field of an accelerated charge. At low (zero) velocities, the work done by the external (accelerating) force in overcoming the stress force is the source of the energy carried by the radiation. The stress force is the spatial component of the Schott 4-vector, which is usually called the Schott term in Abraham 4-vector. Thus, the radiation energy comes from the Schott term, as suggested by Rohrlich.

References

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