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# A search for molecules in damped Lyman-alpha absorbers occulting millimetre-loud quasarsbased on results collected at Onsala Space Observatory, Sweden and the European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile

## 1 Introduction

Millimetre-band molecular absorption systems along the line-of-sight toward quasars can provide a powerful probe of cold gas in the early Universe. Wiklind & Combes (1994; 1995; 1996b) have used such absorption lines to study a variety of properties of the absorbers themselves (e.g. relative column densities, kinetic and excitation temperatures, filling factors). Constraints on the cosmic microwave background temperature can also be obtained by comparing the optical depths of different rotational transitions (e.g. Wiklind & Combes 1996a). If the background quasar is gravitationally lensed, time delay studies can yield constraints on the Hubble constant (e.g. Wiklind & Combes 2001). However, these studies have so far been limited by the paucity of mm-band molecular absorbers: only 4 such systems are currently known–towards TXS 0218+357 (Wiklind & Combes 1995), PKS 1413+135 (Wiklind & Combes 1997), TXS 1504+377 (Wiklind & Combes 1996c) and PKS 1830–211 (Wiklind & Combes 1998).

Recent attention has focused on using molecular absorption lines as a probe for possible changes in the fundamental constants on cosmological time-scales. Detailed studies of the relative positions of heavy element optical transitions compared with laboratory spectra favour a smaller fine structure constant ($`\alpha e^2/\mathrm{}c`$) at redshifts $`0.5<z<3.5`$ at the 4.1$`\sigma `$ significance level (Murphy et al. 2001b, Webb et al. 2001). The observed fractional change in $`\alpha `$ \[$`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha /\alpha =(0.72\pm 0.18)\times 10^5`$\] is very small, so systematic errors have to be carefully considered. However, a thorough search for systematics has not revealed a simpler explanation of the optical results (Murphy et al. 2001c) and so independent constraints at similar redshifts are required.

Comparison of molecular rotational (i.e. mm-band) and corresponding H i 21-cm absorption line frequencies has the potential to constrain changes in $`\alpha `$ with a fractional precision $`10^6`$ per absorption system. The ratio of the hyperfine (H i) transition frequency to that of a molecular rotational line is $`y\alpha ^2g_p`$ and so any variation in this will be observed as a difference in the apparent redshifts of these lines (Drinkwater et al. 1998).

From spectra of two of the known high redshift absorbers, PKS 1413+135 and TXS 0218+357, Carilli et al. (2000) and Murphy et al. (2001a) have

obtained constraints on $`\mathrm{\Delta }y/y`$ consistent with zero $`y`$-variation at redshifts $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}=0.6847`$ and 0.24671, respectively. However, the major uncertainty in the mm/H i comparison is that intrinsic velocity differences between the mm and H i absorption lines can be introduced if the lines-of-sight to the millimetre wave and radio continuum emission regions of the quasar differ, as is certainly the case for PKS 1413+135 and TXS 0218+357 (Carilli et al. 2000). Thus, a statistical sample of mm/H i comparisons is required to independently check the optical results.

One systematic approach to finding new high redshift molecular absorbers is to target high column density systems with known redshifts. A convenient sample is therefore the damped Lyman-alpha absorbers defined to have neutral hydrogen column densities $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}10^{20}`$ cm-2. We therefore compiled a catalogue of all known DLAs and shortlisted those which are illuminated by radio-loud quasars (Curran et al. 2002)111Available from http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/$``$sjc/dla Of these, seven in the northern sky have measured millimetre fluxes, and in the south there are around a dozen DLAs illuminated by millimetre-loud quasars, of which we observed the four loudest (Table 1).

We note that Wiklind & Combes (1994b; 1995; 1996b) searched with null results for redshifted molecular emission and absorption towards 12 and 46 quasars, respectively. However, only 11 are occulted by DLAs and not all of these are radio-loud (Table 2). This motivates a more systematic search for millimetre absorption systems associated with DLAs. In this paper we present the results of our first search: the DLAs which occult known millimetre-loud quasars with the SEST222The Swedish-ESO Sub-millimetre Telescope is operated jointly by ESO and the Swedish National Facility for Radio Astronomy, Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology. and Onsala 20-m telescopes.

## 2 Observations

The northern 3 mm and 7 mm observations were performed in February and April 2002, respectively, with the 20-m telescope at Onsala Space Observatory, Sweden. For the 3 mm observations the SIS receiver was tuned to single-sideband mode and the backend was a hybrid correlator with a bandwidth of 1280 MHz and a channel separation of 0.8 MHz. We used dual-beam switching with a throw of $`12\mathrm{}`$ in azimuth, and pointing errors were typically $`3\text{′′}`$ r.m.s. on each axis. The intensity was calibrated using the chopper-wheel method and typical system temperatures, on the $`T_A^{}`$-scale, were around 300 K. For the 7 mm observations we used the 43 GHz SIS receiver and again the backend was the hybrid correlator with a bandwidth of 640 MHz and a channel separation of 0.4 MHz. Since there is no beam switch capability at these frequencies, we removed the ripple caused by standing waves by subtracting the Fourier components in a transform of the spectra. Typical system temperatures, on the $`T_A^{}`$-scale, were around 200 K.

The southern sources in the sample were observed in April 2002 with the 15-m SEST at La Silla, Chile, using the 100 GHz and 150 GHz SESIS receivers. These were tuned to single-sideband mode and typical system temperatures, on the $`T_A^{}`$-scale, were $`200`$ K for the RX100 and $`250`$ K for the RX150. The backends were acousto-optic spectrometers with 1440 channels and a channel width of 0.7 MHz. As with the Onsala 3 mm observations, we used dual-beam switching with a throw of about $`12\mathrm{}`$ in azimuth, and pointing errors were typically $`2\text{′′}`$ r.m.s. on each axis. Again, the intensity was calibrated using the chopper-wheel method.

## 3 Results and Discussion

Upon the removal of a low order baseline and subsequent averaging of the data for each quasar, no absorption features of $`3\sigma `$/channel were found333See http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/$``$sjc/dla-fig1.ps.gz for the spectra and corresponding r.m.s. noise levels.. In Table 3 we summarise the derived upper limits together with the previously published results.

Comparing the optical depth limits with those in the four known absorbers, the strongest absorber, towards PKS 1830–211, has $`\tau _{\mathrm{mm}}1`$ for HCO+ $`12`$ and $`\tau _{\mathrm{mm}}0.5`$ for HCO+ $`23`$. The weakest, towards PKS 1413+135, has $`\tau _{\mathrm{mm}}0.1`$ for both CO $`01`$ and HCO+ $`23`$. The two remaining systems have optical depths similar to that towards PKS 1830–211 and so our new observations and the previous surveys should have been sensitive to (at least) CO and HCO+ at similar strengths to those in 3 of the 4 known systems. Only for the observations of B 0235+1624, HCO+ $`23`$ towards B 2136+141 (IRAM) and CO $`01`$ towards B 1451–375 are the surveys sensitive enough, particularly for resolutions of $`10`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, to detect an absorption system of a strength similar to that towards PKS 1413+135 (See Table 4).

From the optical depths we may estimate column density limits for each transition. In Table 3 we give the $`3\sigma `$ optical depth limits according to a velocity resolution of 10 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ as well as at a resolution of 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We give the former in order to show the limits corresponding to a visual inspection of the spectra3 and facilitate a more direct comparison with the previous surveys. By multiplying the latter with the expected width of a line, the velocity integrated optical depth for a $`3\sigma `$ detection at $`\mathrm{\Delta }v=1`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ is obtained. For all of the limits, assuming LTE conditions, we can estimate the total column density of each transition from

$$N_{\mathrm{mm}}=\frac{8\pi }{c^3}\frac{\nu ^3.f}{g_\mu A_\mu }\tau 𝑑v,$$
(1)
where $`\nu `$ is the rest frequency of the $`JJ+1`$ transition, $`g_\mu `$ and $`A_\mu `$ are the statistical weight and the Einstein A-coefficient of the transition, $`\tau 𝑑v`$ is the velocity integrated optical depth and $`f`$ is the product of the partition function for an excitation temperature, $`T_x`$ (assumed $`10`$ K), and $`e^{E_J/kT_x}/(1e^{h\nu /kT_x})`$ (see Wiklind & Combes 1995, 1996b, 1999 for details). From the optical depth limits, we derive limits on the total column density per unit velocity, thus normalising the limits which depend on the spectral resolution to which the data have been smoothed.

Since we have only upper limits, and thus no knowledge of the width of any line which may be hidden in the noise, as well as uncertainties in the conversion to H2 column densities for molecules other than CO, it is difficult to draw meaningful comparisons between $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{mm}}`$. However, by assuming an absorption line of FWHM $`20`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (as in the case of 3 of the 4 known absorbers), we estimate for the lowest optical depth limit (CO $`12`$ in B 0235+1624) a value of $`N_{\mathrm{CO}}\stackrel{<}{_{}}6\times 10^{15}`$ $`\text{cm}^2`$ at the $`3\sigma `$ level and a resolution of 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, i.e. $`N_{\mathrm{CO}}/N_{\mathrm{HI}}\stackrel{<}{_{}}2\times 10^6`$. According to $`N_{\mathrm{H}_2}10^4N_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ (e.g. Wiklind & Combes 1998), the molecular to atomic hydrogen column density ratio is $`N_{\mathrm{H}_2}\stackrel{<}{_{}}2\%N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$, which is similar to the lower limit estimated from the optical detection of molecular hydrogen444In the case of $`z>1.8`$ sources, the ultra-violet lines of H2 are redshifted into the optical window, making molecular hydrogen readily observable at these frequencies. As well as towards B 0528–2505 (Foltz, Chaffee & Black 1988) molecular hydrogen has also been detected in the DLAs occulting the radio-quiet quasars B 0000–2620 (Levshakov et al. 2000), B 0013–0029 (Ge & Bechtold 1997; Petitjean, Srianand & Ledoux 2002), B 0347–3819 (Levshakov et al. 2002), B 1232+0815 (Ge & Bechtold 1997; Srianand, Petitjean & Ledoux 2000) and the inferred (Wolfe et al. 1995) DLA towards B 0551–3637 (Ledoux, Srianand & Petitjean 2002). in the DLA towards B 0528–2505 (Carilli et al. 1996). That is, although we have no clear detections of any molecular absorption lines, the current limits may be approaching those sufficiently low in order to detect molecular absorption in damped Lyman-alpha systems.

Bearing this in mind, we then analysed the spectra for tentative features within a range corresponding to the uncertainty in the DLA redshift555Although we have searched for possible absorption lines close to the expected redshifts, it may possible that the line-of-sight to the mm-band and optical emission regions of the quasars may differ ($`\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}>0`$), giving rise to intrinsic offsets between any millimetre absorption and the known DLA redshifts. Drinkwater et al. (1998) compared millimetre and H i 21-cm Galactic absorption profiles and found that the individual velocity components in the profiles corresponded to within $`\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}=1.2`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Carilli et al. (2000) argued that $`\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}10`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ is typical of the velocity dispersion of the interstellar medium in galaxies, and that it may even be as high as $`\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}100`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. In order to account for this, we searched for possible absorption lines in a velocity region $`[\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}\sigma _{\mathrm{DLA}},\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}+\sigma _{\mathrm{DLA}}]`$ centered on the expected DLA frequency with $`\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}=100`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{DLA}}`$ the uncertainty in the DLA redshift.. In each case the continuum level was defined using a polynomial baseline fit and for each channel we generated a 1$`\sigma `$ error from the r.m.s noise in a window of $`2N_{\mathrm{win}}+1`$ channels centered on that channel. Using this error array, we identified absorption features as series of $`n`$ channels over which a deviation from the continuum level was observed with significance $`>\sigma _{\mathrm{lim}}`$ standard deviations. Note that the significance of an absorption feature, $`\sigma _n`$, is an overestimate because the flux in adjacent channels is (positively) correlated \[each spectral resolution element is sampled at approximately the Nyquist rate, see Murphy, Curran & Webb (2002) for details\].

According to the “expected” $`\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}=100`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ velocity differences in the optical and millimetre wave lines-of-sight5, the only candidate features identified in our analysis are HCO+ $`23`$ and CO $`34`$ towards B 0458–020 as well as the HCO+ $`23`$ line towards B 0834–201. As seen in Table 4, however, increasing the line-of-sight velocity difference to $`\delta _{\mathrm{LOS}}=200`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ significantly increases the number of candidates. This suggests that either the authenticity of the candidate features is questionable and/or we have

underestimated the uncertainties in the DLA redshifts. It is interesting to note that all but one of the candidate lines occur in DLAs with high column densities ($`N_{\mathrm{HI}}10^{21}`$ $`\text{cm}^2`$). The one exception is B 0834–201 which has the highest visual magnitude of these candidates. We emphasise that Table 4 is only intended as a shortlist for follow up observations, which may or may not yield absorption systems at the listed redshifts.

Of all the candidate systems, the most promising and visually striking example of a possible absorption line is the 151.71 GHz feature towards B 0458–020 (Fig. 1), which has a high visual magnitude as well as the highest neutral hydrogen column density of the sample.

Comparing this “detection” of -8 mK (0.24 Jy at SEST) with the estimated flux density at 152 GHz (0.62 Jy, estimated from the neighbouring values in Table 1) gives an optical depth of $`\tau _{\mathrm{mm}}0.5`$. The $`9`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ FWHM of the line gives a column density estimate of $`N_{\mathrm{CO}}8\times 10^{16}`$ $`\text{cm}^2`$ or $`N_{\mathrm{H}_2}10^{21}`$ $`\text{cm}^2`$, i.e. $`20`$% of $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$. This compares well with the column densities and their ratios for the known absorbers, i.e. $`1040\%`$ (Wiklind & Combes 1994, 1995, 1996c, 1999, Carilli et al. 1998), although it is considerably higher than the rest of the DLA sample.

## 4 Summary

We have observed 18 transitions for molecular absorption over the redshift range $`0.2z3`$ in 11 damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems which lie along the line-of-sight towards radio-loud quasars. Of these, 9 quasars have flux densities $`0.1`$ Jy in the millimetre band, making our observations sensitive to optical depths $`0.1`$ at a $`3\sigma `$ level and a spectral resolution of 10 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, thus improving the limits for 11 transitions over the previous results.

From these observations and the previously published results, we estimate an upper limit of $`2`$% for the molecular hydrogen to neutral atomic hydrogen column density ratio. This is the lower limit derived by Carilli et al. (1996) based on a molecular hydrogen detection and a redshifted H i 21 cm non-detection. This is consistent with the results of Liszt (2002) who suggests that the low metallicity of the Lyman-alpha system is not favourable for the formation of molecules, but our limit perhaps suggests that we are close to the values necessary to detect absorption lines in at least the high column density ($`N_{\mathrm{HI}}4\times 10^{21}`$ $`\text{cm}^2`$) DLAs. Subsequently, from an analysis of the spectra we find several significant features located close to the expected redshifts, which do, however, require confirmation. Therefore follow up observations of the candidates given in this article should be the next step in searching for the elusive high redshift molecular absorption systems.

###### Acknowledgements.

We wish to thank the John Templeton Foundation for supporting this work. SJC acknowledges receipt of a UNSW NS Global Fellowship and FTR acknowledges support from the Chilean Centro de Astrofísica FONDAP No. 15010003.


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# An experimental investigation of criteria for continuous variable entanglement

## Abstract

We generate a pair of entangled beams from the interference of two amplitude squeezed beams. The entanglement is quantified in terms of EPR-paradox Reid88  and inseparabilityDuan00  criteria, with observed results of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x|y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x|y}^{}=0.58\pm 0.02`$ and $`\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x\pm y}^{}}=0.44\pm 0.01`$, respectively. Both results clearly beat the standard quantum limit of unity. We experimentally analyze the effect of decoherence on each criterion and demonstrate qualitative differences. We also characterize the number of required and excess photons present in the entangled beams and provide contour plots of the efficacy of quantum information protocols in terms of these variables.

Entanglement is one of the most interesting properties of quantum mechanics, and is an important ingredient of quantum information protocols such as quantum teleportationBennett93 , densecoding Bennett92 ; Ralph02  and quantum computation DiVincenzo95 . In the Schrödinger picture, a necessary and sufficient criterion for the emergence of entanglement is that the state describing the entire system is inseparable, i.e. the wavefunction of the total system cannot be factored into a product of separate contributions from each sub-system. Using the Heisenberg approach, a sufficient criterion for the presence of entanglement is that correlations between conjugate observables of two sub-systems allow the statistical inference of either observable in one sub-system, upon a measurement in the other, to be smaller than the standard quantum limit, i.e. the presence of non-classical correlations. The latter approach was originally proposed in the paper of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen Einstein35 . These two different pictures result in two distinct methods of characterizing entanglement. One is to identify an observable signature of the mathematical criterion for wave-function entanglement, i.e. inseparability of the state. The second looks directly for the onset of non-classical correlations. For pure states these two approaches return the same result suggesting consistency of the two methods. However, when decoherence is present, causing the state to be mixed, differences can occur.

We present the generation and investigation of Gaussian continuous variable entanglement between the amplitude and phase quadratures of a pair of light beams; henceforth termed quadrature entanglement. We will use the measure proposed by Duan et al. Duan00  as an example that identifies wave-function inseparability and refer to this as the inseparability criterion. As an example of an entanglement criterion based directly on the observation of non-classical correlations, we will use the demonstration of the EPR-paradox as quantified by Reid and Drummond Reid88 , and refer to this as the EPR criterion. We introduce decoherence in the form of optical loss to both entangled beams and experimentally demonstrate qualitative and quantitative differences between the two criteria. These differences suggest a more comprehensive representation may be appropriate. We represent the entanglement on a plot of the number of photons required to generate it versus the number of excess photons. We present efficacy contours for some common quantum information protocols on this plot.

Fig. 1 shows the experimental setup that was used to generate quadrature entanglement. Two independent amplitude squeezed beams at 1064 nm were produced by a pair of type I optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) constructed from hemilithic MgO:LiNbO3 crystals and output couplers. The seed power to the OPAs was adjusted so that the two squeezed beams were of equal intensity. Both had 4.1 dB of squeezing at 6.5 MHZ as measured in a homodyne detector with total detection efficiency of 85 %. Further details of this setup are reported in Bowen02 . We produced a pair of quadrature entangled beams by interfering the squeezed beams with relative phase of $`\pi /2`$ on a 50/50 beam splitter, and observed a visibility of $`98.7\pm 0.3`$ % for the process. Each of the entangled beams was interrogated in a balanced homodyne detector that could be locked to detect either its phase or amplitude quadrature. We observed $`96\pm 0.5`$ % visibility between each entangled beam and its homodyne local oscillator. Epitaxx ETX500 photodiodes with approximately 93 % quantum efficiency were used. Both the EPR and inseparability criteria could be quantified by analyzing correlations between these two homodynes.

The EPR criterion for a given pair of beams $`x`$ and $`y`$ can be related to their degree of quantum correlation. This is quantified by the product of conditional variances $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}`$ of conjugate quadratures between the beams. Limiting ourselves to the amplitude $`\widehat{X}^+`$ and phase $`\widehat{X}^{}`$ quadratures, the EPR criterion is Reid88

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^{}<1$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^\pm =\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_x^+|\delta X_x^\pm \delta X_y^\pm |^2/\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_y^\pm =\mathrm{min}_{g^\pm }(\delta X_x^\pm g^\pm \delta X_y^\pm )^2`$; we expand the quadrature operators into a mean unchanging term $`\widehat{X}^\pm `$ and a noise operator $`\delta \widehat{X}^\pm `$, $`\widehat{X}^\pm =\widehat{X}^\pm +\delta \widehat{X}^\pm `$. Satisfaction of the EPR criterion between two beams is a sufficient but not necessary condition for their entanglement (i.e inseparability). It is easily measurable, and has been used to characterize entanglement in a number of experiments conditional .

We are interested in the effect of decoherence in the form of optical loss on the EPR and inseparability criteria. For entanglement generated as in fig. 1 from a pair of pure squeezed beams both with squeezed variances $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sqz}}`$, the left-hand-side of eq. (1) as a function of detection efficiency $`\eta `$ is

$`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^{}=4(1\eta +{\displaystyle \frac{2\eta 1}{\eta (\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sqz}}+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sqz}}^12)+2}})^2`$ (2)
Notice that when $`\eta =0.5`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^{}=1`$, independent of the level of squeezing; it follows that for $`\eta <0.5`$ the EPR criterion cannot hold.

The inseparability criterion relies on the identification of separability with positivity of the P-representation distribution of the state. For states with Gaussian noise distributions and symmetric correlations on the conjugate quadratures, it can be related to measurable correlations Duan00

$$\left(|a|\widehat{X}_x^++\frac{\widehat{X}_y^+}{a}\right)^2+\left(|a|\widehat{X}_x^{}\frac{\widehat{X}_y^{}}{a}\right)^2<2(a^2+\frac{1}{a^2})$$
(3)
where $`a`$ is an experimentally adjustable parameter. In our experiment the entangled beams were produced on a 50/50 beam splitter and were indistinguishable from each other; in this case $`a=1`$ and the criterion can be written $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^++\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{}<2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}`$ is the minimum of the variance of the sum or difference of the operator $`\widehat{X}`$ between beams $`x`$ and $`y`$ normalized to the two beam shotnoise, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}=\mathrm{min}(\delta \widehat{X}_x\pm \delta \widehat{X}_y)^2/2`$. The symmetric correlation restriction on eq. (3) becomes unnecessary for indistinguishable entangled beams when the criterion is written in a product form

$$\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{}}<1$$
(4)
For our experimental configuration the left-hand-side of eq. (4) as a function of efficiency can be expressed

$$\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{}}=\eta \mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sqz}}+(1\eta )$$
(5)
Notice that, in contrast to the EPR criterion, even as $`\eta `$ approaches zero, for any level of squeezing eq. (5) is below unity. It can be shown from eqs. (2) and (5) however, that for $`\eta =1`$, (i.e. for pure measured states) criteria (1) and (4) are qualitatively equivalent.

In our experiment correlations were observed between the output currents from the homodyne detectors measuring beams $`x`$ and $`y`$ when locked simultaneously to the amplitude or phase quadrature. The inseparability criterion was determined by analyzing the unity gain sum and difference photocurrents between the two homodynes in a spectrum analyzer. The spectrum analyzer had 300 kHz resolution bandwidth and 300 Hz video bandwidth and was set to zero span at 6.5 MHz. Ten consecutive traces each containing 400 measurement points were averaged for each result. All measured traces were at least 4.5 dB above the detection darknoise which was taken into account. The variances of the sum and difference photocurrents were normalized to the vacuum noise scaled by the combined power of the two homodyne local oscillators and the two entangled beams. The minimum of these two normalized variances is $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{x\pm y}^2\widehat{X}`$ for the quadrature being measured in the homodynes. With no additional loss in the system we observed $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^\pm =0.44\pm 0.01`$ for both the amplitude and phase quadratures. The left-hand-side of criterion (4) was then $`\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{}}=0.44\pm 0.01`$ which is well below unity and indicates that our beams were indeed quadrature entangled.

The EPR criterion was determined in a similar manner to that described above. This time, however, rather than being fixed to unity, the gain between the two homodyne photocurrents was optimized to minimize the measured variances; and the normalization was performed with respect to vacuum fluctuations scaled by only one homodyne local oscillator and entangled beam. The optimum results obtained for each quadrature were $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^+=0.77\pm 0.01`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^{}=0.76\pm 0.01`$, and the left-hand-side of criterion (1) was in the regime for observation of the EPR-paradox, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x|y}^{}=0.58\pm 0.02<1`$.

As discussed earlier, the criterion for demonstration of the EPR-paradox and inseparability are qualitatively different. In particular, the criterion for demonstration of the EPR-paradox strongly depends on mixedness, whereas the inseparability criterion is independent of it. We demonstrated this experimentally by adding loss to each of the quadrature entangled beams. This changed both the degree of entanglement and also it’s mixedness. Placing a polarizing beam splitter and half-wave plate in each entangled beam allowed the introduction of arbitrary loss. We took measurements of both criteria for a number of loss settings, the results are shown in fig. 2. The experiment agrees very well with our theoretical predictions. As discussed in Duan00 , no matter what the loss, the inseparability criterion always holds. The EPR criterion however, fails for loss greater than 0.48. In fact as observed earlier, it is impossible for the EPR criterion to hold for loss greater than or equal to 0.5. The error bars on the plots can be attributed to uncertainty in the loss introduced, small fluctuations in the local oscillator powers and, for the EPR criterion, error in the optimization of the electronic gain.

Many applications have been proposed for entanglement. In general, these applications differ in their sensitivity to the mixedness of the entanglement. For example, unity gain quantum teleportation is independent of mixedness, whereas densecoding can be very sensitive to it. For this reason, it is useful to characterize entanglement on a two dimensional diagram which includes both the degree of entanglement and its mixedness. This may be conveniently achieved with a photon number diagram.

The average number of photons per unit bandwidth per unit time in a sideband of an optical beam is given by $`\overline{n}=\delta \widehat{a}^{}\delta \widehat{a}`$, where $`\widehat{a}`$ is the field annihilation operator and can be related to the quadrature operators by $`\widehat{a}=(\widehat{X}^++i\widehat{X}^{})/2`$. $`\overline{n}`$ can be written in terms of quadrature variances as $`\overline{n}=(\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}^++\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}^{}2)/4`$. In general some minimum number of photons $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is required to maintain a given degree of entanglement between a pair of optical beams. For indistinguishable entanglement with Gaussian noise statistics $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$ can be expressed as a function of the left-hand-side of the inseparability criterion in eq. (4)

$$\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}=\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{})^{\frac{1}{2}}+(\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{})^{\frac{1}{2}}}{2}1$$
(6)
and is a measure of the degree of entanglement. Any photons in excess of $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$ are not necessary for the entanglement and contribute to the mixedness of the state. The number of excess photons $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{excess}}`$ is just the total number of photons of both beams minus the number required to sustain the entanglement, and can be written in terms of the average of the amplitude and phase quadrature variances of the two entangled beams

$`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{excess}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{n}_x+\overline{n}_y\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$
$`=`$ $`(\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_x^++\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_x^{}+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_y^++\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_y^{})/4\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}1`$
We characterized $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{excess}}`$ for our entanglement over the frequency range from 2.5 MHz to 10 MHz. Measured spectra for $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{}`$ are shown in fig. 3. The amplitude quadrature measurement is significantly degraded at low frequencies due to the resonant relaxation oscillation of our laser. Effectively this means that at low frequencies we have a mixed state with many more photons present than necessary for our entanglement. At high frequencies both spectra degrade due to the bandwidth limitations of our OPAs.

Fig. 4(a) shows the resulting spectra for $`\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\widehat{X}_{x\pm y}^{}}`$, this spectra directly results in a spectra for $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$. We measured the amplitude and phase quadrature variances of each entangled beam independently. The average of these measurements, which provides the total photon number $`\overline{n}_x+\overline{n}_y`$, is shown in fig. 4(b).

$`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{excess}}`$ were calculated from eqs. (6) and (An experimental investigation of criteria for continuous variable entanglement), and are plotted against each other in fig. 5. At low frequencies the number of excess photons is large due to contributions from our lasers resonant relaxation oscillation, and the number of photons required to maintain the entanglement is small due to poor squeezing. As the frequency increases away from the relaxation oscillation the number of excess photons decreases and the entanglement, and therefore $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{min}}`$ , improves. At high frequencies the bandwidth of our OPAs limit the amount of squeezing and consequently the number of photons required to maintain the entanglement decreases. The contours on each of the four plots in fig. 5 show the efficacy of different protocols that the entanglement might be useful for. The details of how these contours were calculated will be included in a future publication Bowen02B . Fig. 5(a) shows efficacy contours for demonstration of the EPR-paradox as defined in criterion (1), the curving of the contours shows the dependence of the criterion on mixedness. This plot implies that for our entanglement the optimum sideband frequency for observation of the EPR-paradox is near 6.6 MHz. Fig. 5(b) shows efficacy contours for unity gain quantum teleportation CVtele . Here the contours run vertically, with no dependence on the mixedness of the entangled state, this result implies that optimum teleportation results would be observed near 6.2 MHz. Fig. 5(c) shows contours of the channel capacity for densecoding when an average of only 6.75 photons per bandwidth per time are allow in the sidebands. These contours show an extremely strong dependence on the number of excess photons carried by the entanglement, this is because every excess photon is one less that can be used to encode information. Accordingly, the optimum channel capacity would occur at 10 MHz where our entanglement is most pure. Increasing the total number of photons allowed in the sidebands can negate this problem entirely Ralph02 . In fig. 5(d) we show efficacy contours for densecoding where 250 photons per bandwidth per time are allowed in the sidebands. In this case the contours are almost vertical and show very little dependence on the number of excess photons, resulting in an optimum channel capacity near 6.3 MHz.

In conclusion, we have produced strong, stably locked quadrature entanglement. It was characterized in terms of EPR and inseparability criteria with optimum results of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x|y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x|y}^{}=0.58\pm 0.02`$ and $`\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x\pm y}^+\mathrm{\Delta }^2X_{x\pm y}^{}}=0.44\pm 0.01`$, respectively. We observed qualitatively and quantitatively different behaviour for the two criteria on the introduction of controlled decoherence. A more complete characterization of entanglement can be achieved by considering both the inseparability and the mixedness of the entanglement. We introduce a photon number plot that characterizes the entanglement in terms of the number of photons necessary to maintain the entanglement, which can be directly related to the inseparability criterion, and the number of excess photons that contribute to mixedness. We represent our experimental results on such a diagram, and present efficacy contour for the EPR criterion, and teleportation and densecoding protocols.


text:
# Disorder induced critical phenomena in magnetically glassy Cu-Al-Mn alloys

## Abstract

Measurements of magnetic hysteresis loops in Cu-Al-Mn alloys of different Mn content at low temperatures are presented. The loops are smooth and continuous above a certain temperature, but exhibit a magnetization discontinuity below that temperature. Scaling analysis suggest that this system displays a disorder induced phase transition line. Measurements allow to determine the critical exponents $`\beta =0.03\pm 0.01`$ and $`\beta \delta =0.4\pm 0.1`$ in agreement with those reported recently \[Berger et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4176 (2000)\].

preprint: APS/123-QED

Beyond equilibrium, the response of a physical system to an external applied force shows hysteresis. Close to the rate independent limit, when thermal fluctuations do not control the kinetics of the system, the hysteresis path is reproducible from cycle to cycle. This athermal behavior is observed, for instance, in the magnetization reversal through a first-order transition in many magnetic systems at low enough temperatures. Modeling the shape of the hysteresis loops is a difficult problem that has attracted a great deal of interest for many years. Theoretical studies of the zero-temperature (absence of thermal fluctuations) hysteresis in a number of lattice models with different kinds of quenched disorder (random fields Sethna et al. (1993), random bondsVives and Planes (1994), random anisotropiesE.Vives and A.Planes (2001), etc…) have shown that by increasing the strength of disorder, the hysteresis loops change from displaying a discontinuous jump in the magnetization reversal (ferromagnetic character) to behave smoothly with the applied field. This change has been interpreted as a disorder induced non-equilibrium phase transition. For this phase transition, critical exponents corresponding to different models have been computed from numerical simulations and renormalization group methods. Moreover, universal scaling has been predicted. For instance, for short-range $`3d`$ modelsPerković et al. (1999) $`\beta =0.035\pm 0.028`$ and $`\beta \delta =1.81\pm 0.32`$, whereas for mean field modelsDahmen and J.P.Sethna (1996) $`\beta =1/2`$ and $`\beta \delta =3/2`$.

In contrast to the considerable amount of theoretical research, only very few experimental works have been devoted to corroborate the actual existence of disorder induced phase transitions in the hysteresis loop. Obradó et al. E.Obradó et al. (1999a) showed that the hysteresis loops in the magnetically glassy phase of Cu-Al-Mn change with increasing disorder (related to the alloy composition) as predicted by the models. However, no critical exponents were estimated in that work. Later, Berger et al. A.Berger et al. (2000) studied the effect of magnetic disorder on the reversal process in Co/CoO bilayers. In this case, the antiferromagnetic CoO layer allows a reversible tuning of disorder by temperature variation. They prove the existence of hysteresis-loop criticality and determine critical exponents. Nevertheless, the obtained exponents ($`\beta =0.022\pm 0.006`$ and $`\beta \delta =0.30\pm 0.03`$) show important discrepancies with the theoretical predictions. Therefore, more effort is needed in the experimental analysis of other candidates in order to confirm the existence of disorder induced phase transitions as predicted by theory.

In this letter, we present magnetic hysteresis loops for different compositions and temperatures below the freezing temperature in a Cu-Al-Mn alloy. A critical transition line associated with the onset of a discontinuity in the hysteresis loop in the temperature-field-composition space has been determined, and the critical exponents have been obtained from the scaling of the magnetization curves. Our exponents show a remarkable agreement with the previous experimental estimates A.Berger et al. (2000), thus supporting the idea of universality in such disorder induced transitions. Nevertheless, results also indicate that $`T=0`$ theoretical models may lack an essential physical ingredient in order to account for finite temperature measurements.

A Cu66.6Al20.4Mn13.0 single crystal has been grown by the Bridgeman method. The crystallographic structure is $`L2_1`$ ($`Fm3m`$)which can be viewed as four interpenetrated fcc sublattices E.Obradó et al. (1999a). From the ingot, a parallelepiped specimen ($`a3.4`$ mm, $`b2.4`$ mm and $`c2.2`$ mm) has been cut with $`a`$ and $`b`$ oriented along the  and  directions, respectively. The sample was annealed for 10 min at 1080 K, quenched in a mixture of ice and water and aged at room temperature for several days. The magnetic properties of Cu-Al-Mn arise from localized magnetic moments at Mn-atoms. These moments are coupled through an oscillating effective RKKY interaction. Due to non-stoichiometry, Mn-atoms are not uniformly distributed on one of the $`L2_1`$ sublattice sites. This disorder is at the origin of the glassy behavior observed at low temperatures E.Obradó et al. (1999b).

The magnetization as a function of temperature and magnetic field has been measured with a SQUID magnetometer. Results presented here have been corrected for demagnetizing field effects. Fig. 1 shows the behavior of the zero field cooled (ZFC) and field cooled (FC) susceptibilities as a function of temperature. Measurements have been done by applying a field of 100 Oe. The different symbols correspond to the field applied in the  and  crystallographic directions. No significant anisotropy is observed. The ZFC and FC curves split at a temperature of $`43`$ K below the position of the $`\chi `$ peak at $`55`$ K. The splitting confirms the onset of irreversibility and the glassy behavior at low temperatures. Moreover, the inset shows an enlarged view of the FC susceptibility in this glassy region. The existence of a minimum in this curve indicates that, along this metastable path, there is a tendency for the system to develop a field induced ferromagnetic component at low temperatures. No indication of such a tendency can be observed in the ZFC curve.

Fig. 2 shows a series of examples of hysteresis cycles at selected temperatures in the range from $`5`$K up to $`45`$K. Each loop has been obtained by cooling from $`150`$ K in the absence of an external field down to the selected temperature and slowly varying the field from $`050`$ kOe$`50`$ kOe$`50`$ kOe. This allows to obtain the virgin magnetization curve and the full saturation loop. Although it is not displayed in the figure, above $`40`$ kOe (and below $`40`$ kOe) the loops show already a reversible behavior. Nevertheless, saturation of the magnetization is still not reached at $`50`$ kOe. To a high degree of accuracy, the loops are symmetric under inversion of the magnetization and field axis. Note first that above $`T43`$ K no hysteresis effects are observed, consistently with the behavior of $`\chi (T)`$ in Fig. 1. Secondly, the loops in the range from $`15`$ K to $`45`$ K are typical of a glassy system while, at $`T<15`$ K the loops display a jump associated with the field induced ferromagnetic component. This becomes more pronounced as the temperature is lowered. On the other hand, the virgin curves do not show any signature of a ferromagnetic component, in agreement with the behaviour of the ZFC susceptibility in Fig. 1.

The characterization of the onset of the ferromagnetic component is presented in Fig. 3, where we show the behavior of the estimated coercive field $`H_{coe}(T)`$ and the magnetization jump $`\mathrm{\Delta }M(T)`$ as a function of temperature 111The coercive field is estimated by linear interpolation between the two data points closer (above and below) to $`H=0`$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ is estimated as the difference between $`M_+`$ and $`M_{}`$, that are the extrapolated values (through a parabolic approximation to the $`M(H)`$ curve) of the magnetization at $`H_{coe}(T)`$.. The coercive field exhibits a peak at $`T_c13`$ K which, within the errors, coincides with the temperature where $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ vanishes and is close to the position of the minimum in the FC susceptibility. These results corroborate the existence of a continuous phase transition which occurs within the glassy phase.

In order to understand the role played by the configurational disorder and/or thermal fluctuations in this transition it is important to study results corresponding to other compositions for which the different stoichiometry give rise to different degrees of disorder. Besides the measurements presented above corresponding to $`x=13.0\%`$, we have used data for polycrystalline samples with $`x=6.3\%`$ and $`x=9.0\%`$, published previously E.Obradó et al. (1999b). To characterize the critical behavior we have performed a scaling analysis of the $`M(H)`$ curves. The direct fitting of the $`\beta `$ exponent from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ vs. $`T`$ data (in Fig. 3) does not provide reliable estimates of $`\beta `$ since the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ are strongly influenced by the numerical procedure used in the extrapolations 1313footnotemark: 13. For a fixed Mn content, the distance to the critical point is measured through

the reduced temperature $`t=(TT_c(x))/T_c(x)`$ and reduced field $`h=(HH_{coe}(x,T))/H_{coe}(x,T)`$. The standard scaling hypothesis Sethna et al. (1993); A.Berger et al. (2000) for the positive and negative hysteresis loop branches is $`M_\pm =t^\beta _\pm \left(h/t^{\beta \delta }\right)`$. In order to scale data for different compositions, we generalize the preceding expression to include the fact that the magnetic moment $`\mu (x)`$ depends on the Mn content. Renormalization of the magnetization by a factor $`\mu (x)`$ yields the following scaling hypothesis:

$$M_\pm =\mu (x)t^\beta _\pm \left(h/\mu (x)^\delta t^{\beta \delta }\right).$$
(1)
This hypothesis is tested in Fig.4, where we have represented in a log-log scale $`M/\mu t^\beta `$ versus $`h/\mu ^\delta t^{\beta \delta }`$. Data correspond to scaling of hysteresis loops at different temperatures and compositions as indicated by the legend. A very good scaling of the curves is obtained. The best data collapse corresponds to $`\beta =0.03\pm 0.01`$ and $`\beta \delta =0.4\pm 0.1`$. The upper curve in Fig. 4 (which has been shifted by a factor of 10 in the vertical scale for clarity) corresponds to $`T<T_c(x)`$ data and the lower curve to $`T>T_c(x)`$ data. Solid (open) symbols correspond to $`_+`$ ($`_{}`$) branches. The values of $`\mu (x)`$ for each of the studied composition are estimated using the derivative with respect to $`H`$ of Eq. (1):

$$\mu (x)\left[\left(\frac{_\pm }{H}\right)_{H_{coe}}H_{coe}\right]^{1/(1\delta )}t^\beta .$$
(2)
The obtained values, except for a multiplicative factor, are $`\mu (x=6.3\%)=0.566`$, $`\mu (x=9.0\%)=0.575`$, and $`\mu (x=12.9\%)=0.625`$. The numerical estimations of $`T_c(x)`$, obtained from the improvement of the collapses in Fig. 4, are $`T_c(x=6.3\%)=0.5`$ K, $`T_c(x=9.0\%)=6.0`$ K and $`T_c(x=13.0\%)=13.2`$ K. It is important to note that the collapse of the data corresponding to $`x=13.0\%`$, considered separately from the other compositions (without the need of fitting $`\mu `$), render values of $`\beta `$ and $`\beta \delta `$ within the same error bars.

An independent method to check the consistency of the scaling is to analyze the critical behavior of the $`H_{coe}(x,T)`$ surface. According to the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, assuming the standard scaling behavior for the entropy and the magnetization and using Griffiths equality H.E.Stanley (1983), one obtains

$$\left(\frac{H_{coe}(x,T)}{T}\right)_xt^{\beta \delta 1}.$$
(3)
Integration yields $`[H_{coe}(x,T)H_c(x)]/H_c(x)t^{\beta \delta }`$. The consistency of the data with this predicted power-law behavior is checked in the inset of Fig. 4. The straight lines have a slope of $`\beta \delta =0.4`$. For the $`x=13\%`$ case, for which the amount of data is larger, we can perform a linear fit of such a behavior, rendering $`H_c(x=13.0\%)=560\pm 15`$ Oe. The fit is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 5 shows the complete $`(H,T,x)`$ metastable phase diagram. The line across the $`(x,T)`$ plane is an estimation of the freezing temperature obtained from the susceptibility maxima (from Fig.1 and from Ref. E.Obradó et al., 1999b). To a good approximation, this temperature determines the spin freezing temperature in the low concentration region. However, for concentrations larger than $`8\%`$, as

can be seen in Fig. 1, the position of the peak overestimates the temperature where irreversibility occurs. The thick line is the line of critical points, at the edge of the first-order transition surface (shaded) where the magnetization exhibits a discontinuity. The projection of this critical line is also shown on the $`H=0`$ plane.

The exponents $`\beta `$ and $`\beta \delta `$ obtained in the present work are in good agreement with those reported recently in the study of Co/CoO bilayers A.Berger et al. (2000). In that case, the authors argue that their system exhibits a disorder induced phase transition. The amount of disorder is controlled through the antiferromagnetic order of the CoO layer which changes when the temperature crosses the Néel point. In our case we can guess a similar origin, since it is know that ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism coexist in non-stoichiometric Heusler alloys M.O.Prado et al. (1998); E.Obradó et al. (1999a); M.Acet et al. (2002). This hypothesis is also consistent with the behavior of the hysteresis loops that become closed at relatively small fields but do not saturate up to high fields. We suggest that even at the low temperatures studied in the present work, the antiferromagnetically interacting moments act as random fields on the frozen ferromagnetic moments. Temperature changes are able to alter this effective disorder causing the disorder-induced phase transition. We want to note that the zero temperature model for Cu-Al-Mn E.Obradó et al. (1999b), which considers the random position of Mn atoms on the four interpenetrated sublattices in the fcc structures and the coupling through an RKKY interaction, also predicts that such a system will display a disorder induced phase transition at $`T=0`$ and $`x=7.5\%`$. This is very close to the estimated value of $`x`$ for which $`T_c0`$. As occurs with previous experimental estimations for Co/CoO bilayers, the low value of $`\beta `$ is in agreement with the predicted theoretical exponents for short ranged zero-temperature 3d models with metastable dynamics. However, the value of $`\beta \delta `$ falls out of the error bars of the numerical estimations. It is worth to note that Berger et al. claimed that their system, in contrast to our’s, behaved as a 2d system. This is, however, in contradiction with the fact that for the 2d case, no disorder induced phase transition is theoretically expected O.Perković et al. (1996).

In conclusion we have proven the existence of criticality in the magnetic hysteresis loops in Cu-Al-Mn. The non-equilibrium critical line has been determined in the $`(H,T,x)`$ diagram. Both temperature and composition are the variables that allow to tune the critical amount of disorder. The coexistence of ferro and antiferromagnetic components in the system is at the origin of the observed behaviour.

This work has received financial support from CICyT (Project No MAT2001-3251), CIRIT (Project 2001SGR00066) and IBERDROLA. J.M. acknowledges financial support from DURSI.


text:
# Near-infrared imaging and the 𝐾-𝑧 relation for radio galaxies in the 7C Redshift Survey

## 1 Introduction

The luminous radio and narrow-line emission from radio galaxies provides a convenient method for selecting at least a subset of the most massive galaxies at a wide range of redshifts. At low redshifts, powerful radio sources are known to be triggered only within massive elliptical galaxies (Bettoni et al. 2001). The near-infrared magnitudes of radio galaxies out to beyond $`z=5`$ (De Breuck et al. 2002) suggest that radio galaxies at all redshifts have extreme stellar masses. Standard CDM-based galaxy formation models predict that structures grow in a hierarchical fashion. The formation epoch and evolution of the most massive galaxies is therefore of relevance to such models.

The near-infrared $`K`$-band emission from radio galaxies is dominated by stellar light in most cases (Best, Longair & Röttgering 1998; Simpson, Rawlings & Lacy 1999). Although narrow emission lines can dominate in some objects (Eales & Rawlings 1993), this is confined to only the most radio-luminous objects at $`z>2`$ (e.g. Jarvis et al. 2001a). The $`K`$-band magnitudes of radio galaxies from the bright 3CRR sample (Laing, Riley & Longair 1983) follow a tight correlation with redshift (Lilly & Longair 1984). The nature of this ‘$`Kz`$ relation’ showed that the stellar luminosities of high redshift radio galaxies are considerably more luminous than the curve representing no stellar evolution and consistent with a passively evolving population which formed at high redshifts. The small dispersion in $`K`$-magnitudes at a given redshift evident in the 3CRR sample is also found in other complete samples and continues up to at least $`z=3`$ (Jarvis et al. 2001a). Together these facts suggest that radio galaxies are a homogeneous population which formed the bulk of their stars at high-redshifts ($`z_\mathrm{f}>5`$) and evolved passively from then until the present day.

Eales et al. (1997) presented $`K`$-band data for radio galaxies in the 6CE sample which has a flux-density limit a factor of about 5 times lower than the 3CRR sample. They found that the less radio-luminous 6CE galaxies tended to have fainter $`K`$-band magnitudes than 3CRR galaxies at similar redshifts. They determined a difference of 0.6 mag for the two samples at $`z>0.6`$, but found that at $`z<0.6`$ there was no difference between the samples. Such an evolutionary change in the radio-luminosity dependence of stellar luminosities was interpreted by Best et al. (1998) as due to radio luminosity being more closely related to the mass of the black hole at high redshifts than at low redshifts where availability of fuel would dominate. Lacy, Bunker & Ridgway (2000) used near-infrared imaging of sources from the 7C–III region of the 7C Redshift Survey (7CRS; selected at a flux-density limit a factor of 20 times lower than 3CRR) to show that radio galaxies at $`0.8<z<1.4`$ from both the 7CRS and 6CE samples are fainter by 0.4 mag than 3CRR galaxies. They suggest two possible reasons for this correlation between host and radio luminosities: (i) AGN-related contamination of the stellar light; (ii) a correlation of both luminosities with the mass of the central black hole.

It is important in studies of the properties of radio galaxies that the samples used should be close to complete in terms of secure optical identifications and redshifts. There are several biases which can appear for incomplete samples, such as missing objects with the weakest emission lines because spectra are harder to obtain. Similarly, spectroscopically targeting the faintest sources at $`K`$-band (e.g. with the aim of finding the highest redshift galaxies, De Breuck et al. 2001) will bias the sample in terms of its $`Kz`$ relation.

In this paper we present near-infrared imaging of a completely-identified sample of radio sources selected at 151 MHz from the 7C catalogue. This sample (regions 7C–I and 7C–II of the 7CRS) has 90% spectroscopic redshift completeness (Willott et al. 2002) with reasonable estimates of the redshifts for the remaining few sources from multi-colour photometry (Willott, Rawlings & Blundell 2001). We combine these data with those from the 3CRR, 6CE (Rawlings et al. 2001), 6C (Jarvis et al. 2001a,b) and 7C–III (Lacy et al. 2000) samples to define the $`Kz`$ relation from over 200 radio galaxies in samples with high spectroscopic completeness.

In Section 2 we present the $`K`$-band imaging observations for all the radio galaxies in 7C–I and 7C–II. In Section 3 we discuss corrections made to the observed $`K`$-magnitudes from all the samples to produce a uniform dataset and then discuss the form of the $`Kz`$ relation and its evolutionary interpretation. Section 4 investigates evidence for a correlation between the stellar luminosity (mass) of the host galaxy and the radio luminosity and also considers the evolution in stellar luminosity at a fixed radio luminosity. The conclusions are given in Section 5. In the Appendix we present $`K`$-band images as finding charts for the 7C–I and 7C–II quasars and broad-lined radio galaxies whose properties were discussed in Willott et al. (1998). We assume throughout that $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$.

## 2 Near-infrared imaging

### 2.1 Observations

All members of the 7C Redshift Survey (except the flat-spectrum quasar 5C 7.230 and 3C 200) have been imaged at $`K`$-band to provide an identification for spectroscopy, to determine the near-IR morphology and magnitude. These observations were made over several observing runs at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Sky conditions were photometric on all nights. These observations used the IRCAM3 near-infrared detector. IRCAM3 is a SBRC InSb $`256^2`$ array with a pixel scale of 0.286 arcsec pix-1 and field of view of $`73\times 73`$ arcsec2.

In order to subtract the rapidly changing sky background, provide a good flat-field and avoid problems due to cosmic rays and bad pixels, the observing strategy used was to offset the position of the telescope by 10 arcsec between each 60 second exposure. The offsets were arranged in a $`3\times 3`$ mosaic. Most sources were observed for one of these mosaics (total exposure time 9 minutes) or a multiple thereof. For some of the brightest sources less than 9 minutes was required to achieve good signal-to-noise. In a few cases, individual 60 second frames were corrupted by the electronics or poor guiding problems and these were discarded. The observing log for $`K`$-band observations of the 7C radio galaxies is given in Table 1. The observations of quasars and broad-lined radio galaxies in the sample were described in Willott et al. (1998), but the images are presented in the Appendix of this paper.

### 2.2 Data reduction

Data reduction was performed using the IRAF package. Dark frames of equal integration time to the science frames were taken on all nights. An average dark frame was subtracted from each of the images taken. A flat-field was created for each field observed by combining all of the data frames from the field using a median filter. All the dark-subtracted frames were divided by the normalized flat-field. Registering of the offset frames was performed using the brightest stars in the images. To correct for the small effects of atmospheric extinction at $`K`$-band, each individual frame was scaled by a factor of $`10^{(0.4e\rho )}`$, where $`e`$ is the extinction in magnitudes at $`K`$-band per unit airmass and $`\rho `$ is the airmass through which the field was observed. A map of the bad pixels in the array was obtained so that these pixels could be masked out of the frame combination procedure. All the individual frames of each field were registered and combined taking the average for each pixel using the bad pixel mask and a clipping procedure which rejects pixels more than 4$`\sigma `$ away from the median of the distribution. This gives the final science frame for each field.

### 2.3 Astrometry and identification

Due to uncertainties on scales of a few arcseconds in the telescope pointing, it is necessary to accurately determine the astrometry of the images. This is crucial in this work, since one must ascertain whether objects detected on the images are the counterparts of the radio sources. To fix the astrometry of the $`K`$-band images, finding charts from the APM catalogue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Cambridge, were obtained for each radio source field (Irwin et al. 1994). These charts show objects detected on the red POSS plates to a limit of $`R20`$. For most fields, one or more stars detected on the $`K`$-band images were also on the APM charts. For cases where 3 or more stars appear on both the image and the chart, the IRAF GASP package was used to determine the plate solution for the image. This takes account of any rotation of the array with respect to North-South (typically of the order of one degree) and determines the pixel scale. The parameters output by this task were entered into the headers of the images, so that any pixel position on the images would be transformed to an accurate position on the sky. For cases where only one or two APM stars were detected on the $`K`$-band image, the plate solution for another image with a good fit on the same observing run was used along with the position of one of the detected stars to fix the astrometry. In a few cases no APM stars were visible on the images, but for these objects wider field $`R`$-band images were available and the astrometry could be achieved by first determining the positions of fainter objects on the $`R`$-band images.

The first step to determining whether the counterparts of the radio sources were detected on the $`K`$-band images was by inspection. The VLA maps resolved the radio sources typically into core and lobe components (Blundell et al. in prep.). Where a core is clearly identifiable, it is usual to find the optical counterpart within an arcsecond or two of this position. Where no core is visible, the counterparts are generally found between the two lobes, often approximately equidistant between the two. Where several objects were close to the expected counterpart position, the radio and $`K`$-band images were overlaid. This enabled a better estimate of the identity of the true counterpart. Subsequent optical spectroscopy of candidates revealed the true identification because of the strong emission lines present in most AGN. Note that in cases where cores and counterparts were both visible, the typical offset between the two was up to 1 arcsec. This is equal to the estimated internal accuracy of the APM astrometry (Irwin et al. 1994). Any radio galaxies with ambiguous identifications are discussed in the accompanying paper on spectroscopic observations of regions 7C–I and 7C–II of the 7CRS (Willott et al. 2002).

### 2.4 Photometry

Aperture photometry of radio source identifications was performed using the IRAF APPHOT package. The reduction procedure described above does not subtract the background level off the final images. However, the flat-fielding ensures that there is little spatial structure in the background level. To determine the $`K`$ magnitudes of detected objects, the local background near each object was measured by averaging over the pixels in an annulus about the object. The inner radius and width of the sky annulus were 5 and 8 arcsec, respectively. Note that any pixels above 3$`\sigma `$ of the median counts in the sky region are rejected, ensuring that nearby sources do not contaminate the background level. Photometry was performed using three different diameter apertures of 3, 5 and 8 arcsec.

Over the course of each night, several UKIRT faint standard stars were observed (Casali & Hawarden 1992) for photometric calibration. The reduction process used for these standard star observations was identical to that outlined above for the object frames. Aperture photometry of the standard stars gave the zero-point for the images. The zero-points obtained remained fairly constant throughout individual nights, typically with differences of only $`\pm 0.02`$ mag. The zero-points obtained at $`K`$-band were $`22.5`$ mag for all the observing runs. The $`K`$-magnitudes and positions of radio source identifications are given in Table 1. Fig. 1 shows greyscale representations of the $`K`$-band images. A summary of the basic information on all the sources in regions 7C–I and 7C–II of the 7CRS is given in Tables 2 and 3.

## 3 The $`Kz`$ relation

### 3.1 Data from other samples, and aperture and emission lines corrections

The acquisition of complete $`K`$-band photometry of this sample of radio sources together with $`>90\%`$ spectroscopic redshifts enables us to examine the evolution of the stellar populations of radio galaxies. We do not include in this paper objects which show broad emission lines since they can have a high level of contamination of the $`K`$-band light by non-stellar quasar emission. We do not impose any criteria on the radio structures of the sources considered here, so both FRI and FRII type sources are included. Radio galaxies at $`z<0.05`$ are excluded from our analysis because their large apparent sizes lead to very large aperture corrections from aperture magnitudes.

Lacy et al. (2000) present near-IR data for all radio galaxies at $`z>0.8`$ in the 7C–III region of the 7CRS. Data on all 7C–III galaxies at $`z>1.2`$ are also included here with the 7C–I and 7C–II data described in Sec. 2. This redshift limit was chosen to avoid including objects with data only in the $`J`$-band for which large colour corrections would be necessary to convert to $`K`$-band. Only two of the sixteen sources at $`z>1.2`$ do not have $`K`$-band data and for these objects at $`z1.5`$ we assume a colour of $`HK=0.9`$ to convert from the $`H`$-band magnitudes in Lacy et al.

In addition we can combine our data with those from brighter complete samples to search for any correlation of near-IR luminosity with radio luminosity. The two complete flux-density limited samples selected at a similar radio frequency to the 7CRS are the 3CRR and 6CE samples. $`K`$-band photometry of 3CRR sources is taken from Lilly & Longair (1984), Best et al. (1998), Simpson, Ward & Wall (2000), de Vries et al. (1998), Hutchings & Neff (1997), Rawlings et al. (1996) and Stockton, Canalizo & Ridgway (1999) using the more recent data where multiple measurements exist. Note that this does not include every radio galaxy in the 3CRR sample. 27 out of the 96 3CRR radio galaxies with $`z0.05`$ do not have $`K`$-band photometry in these publications. We assume that the observed sample is representative and that no biases are introduced by the missing sources. A compilation of data for the complete 6CE sample is given in Rawlings et al. (2001). We also include data from the filtered 6C sample because the linear size and spectral index criteria do not seem to affect the position on the $`Kz`$ relation and this sample has very high spectroscopic redshift completeness (Jarvis et al. 2001a,b). The total numbers of $`z0.05`$ radio galaxies in each of the samples with $`K`$-band data are 69 in 3CRR, 47 in 6CE, 65 in 7CRS and 23 in 6C (total 204). The data for all the samples used in this paper are available on-line at http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/$``$cjw/kz/kz.html.

$`K`$-band magnitudes of radio galaxies in the 7C–I, 7C–II and 6C samples are quoted in 3,5 and 8 arcsec apertures. However, for the 3CRR, 6CE and 7C–III radio galaxies the data are given in various apertures. We apply the same procedure as in Jarvis et al. (2001a) to convert from apparent angular size aperture magnitudes to standard 64 kpc metric apertures to be consistent with previous studies. As highlighted by Eales et al. (1993), the strong emission lines of the most powerful radio sources can provide significant flux contamination at $`K`$-band, particularly at $`z2`$ where the H$`\alpha `$ line lies in the $`K`$-band. Jarvis et al. (2001a) accounted for the emission line contribution by assuming that sources follow the emission line – radio correlation of Willott (2001). We adopt this method in this paper and correct the $`K`$-magnitudes of all sources for the expected emission line flux.

### 3.2 The evolution of the stellar hosts of radio galaxies

In Fig. 2 we show the near-infrared Hubble diagram of $`K`$-magnitude versus $`z`$ for the 7CRS, 6CE, 6C and 3CRR samples. The solid line is the best-fit second order polynomial relationship between $`K`$ and $`\mathrm{log}_{10}z`$ for all the data (calculated by minimizing the square of the residuals in $`K`$). Although in Sec. 4 we will show that the different samples do follow slightly different $`Kz`$ relations, the weakness of this effect and the relative lack of evolution of the difference means that we can include all the data here to define the $`Kz`$ relation for all powerful radio galaxies. The best-fit relation is

$$K=17.37+4.53\mathrm{log}_{10}z0.31(\mathrm{log}_{10}z)^2$$
(1)
Eales et al. (1997) found that the dispersion in the $`Kz`$ relation for the 6CE sample increased markedly at redshifts $`z>2`$ and proposed that this was revealing the epoch of formation of massive ellipticals. A similar effect was found by Lacy et al. (2000) including the 7C–III data and high redshift radio galaxies from the literature. However Jarvis et al. (2001a) found no increase in the dispersion up to $`z3`$ for the combination of the 6CE and 6C samples. We have evaluated the dispersion about our best-fit relation as a function of redshift. We find a standard deviation $`\sigma `$ that is approximately constant at all redshifts: $`\sigma =0.57`$ at $`0.05<z<1`$, $`\sigma =0.60`$ at $`1<z<2`$, $`\sigma =0.59`$ at $`2<z<3`$. This appears to be in agreement with the results of Jarvis et al. (2001a), but we caution that the highest redshift bin does not include any 3C sources so the correlation between radio luminosity and $`K`$-magnitude (Sec. 4) may be increasing the dispersion in the lower redshift bins (although Jarvis et al. find comparable dispersions in the 6C data alone at these lower redshifts). One of the 7CRS galaxies at $`z=0.246`$ is much fainter than all other radio galaxies at this redshift and is the only major outlier from the $`Kz`$ relation. This source, 5C 7.178, is discussed further in Willott et al. (2002).

Also plotted on Fig. 2 are curves showing the evolution in apparent $`K`$-magnitude for several model galaxies determined using GISSEL96 (Bruzual & Charlot 2002). The upper curve (dotted line) is for a model galaxy with luminosity $`3L_{}`$ (assuming $`M_K^{}=24.3`$ for local ellipticals from Kochanek et al. 2000) which includes the $`k`$-correction but no evolution in the stellar population. At all redshifts, the spectrum of the model galaxy is that of a 13 Gyr old instantaneous burst with solar metallicity (note that this violates constraints from the age of the Universe at high redshifts). As first shown by Lilly & Longair (1984), at $`z>1`$, radio galaxies are typically more luminous than their local counterparts, implying significant evolution in their stellar populations. This is evident in Fig. 2 by the poor fit of the non-evolving model.

We have also evaluated the evolution in $`K`$-magnitude for evolving stellar population models which formed all their stars in an instantaneous burst at high redshift. Evolving models for a $`3L_{}`$ galaxy with formation redshifts of $`z_\mathrm{f}=5`$ (dot-dashed) and $`z_\mathrm{f}=10`$ (dashed) are also plotted on Fig. 2. The $`z_\mathrm{f}=10`$ curve is remarkably close to the best-fit relation over the whole redshift range, indicating the mean luminosity of radio galaxies is $`3L_{}`$222Jarvis et al. (2001a) used a similar dataset and the same cosmological model as in this paper and quoted the mean $`K`$-band luminosity of radio galaxies as $`5L_{}`$. This was due to their use of $`M_K^{}`$ from Gardner et al. (1997), although the text states that the value of $`M_K^{}`$ used was from the more recent derivation by Kochanek et al. (2000). This does not affect any of their other results.. However at least some of the $`z>3`$ radio galaxies lie closer to the $`z_\mathrm{f}=5`$ curve. It is also worth recalling that in modern theoretical models for galaxy formation (e.g. Somerville & Primack 1999; Cole et al. 2000), there is a significant amount of merging at high-redshifts. This means that objects which appear to follow the $`z_\mathrm{f}=10`$ passive evolution curve could equally well be less massive galaxies with a more recent star-formation epoch. We will not discuss the evolutionary implications of the $`Kz`$ relation in detail here, since these issues have recently been discussed for subsets of these data by Jarvis et al. (2001a) and Inskip et al. (2002). We note that Inskip et al. stated that the passive evolution model with $`z_\mathrm{f}=10`$ in a $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ cosmology did not provide a good fit to their combined 3CRR and 6CE sample. The deviations of their model from the binned data were only $`0.4`$ magnitudes at $`z=0.5,z=1`$ and $`z=2`$, i.e. less than the standard deviation in the data and formally consistent with the evolution over the redshift range $`0.5<z<2`$. Their differing result from ours is due to the new data presented here, our emission line corrections and a slightly different low-redshift normalization. We conclude that the passive evolution model is consistent with the $`Kz`$ relation in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-dominated cosmology, especially given the further complications to be discussed in Sec. 4.

## 4 Radio-luminosity dependence of the stellar host luminosity

There is a simple explanation of why we may expect to find that the stellar luminosities of radio galaxies are correlated with radio luminosity. In essence, this comes down to the fact that more massive objects are generally more luminous. In this case there are several observed correlations that can be used to specify the relationship between stellar and radio luminosity. First, the stellar luminosity of ellipticals is known to correlate almost linearly with the central black hole mass (Magorrian et al. 1988), presumably because the stellar luminosity is very closely related to the stellar mass and there is a tight correlation between host and black hole masses (Gebhardt et al. 2000; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000). The radio luminosity is found to be linearly related to the narrow emission line luminosity (Willott 2001) and therefore presumably to the UV ionizing luminosity (Rawlings & Saunders 1991; Willott et al. 1999). The UV ionizing luminosity draws its power from the accretion of material onto the supermassive black hole. Therefore any correlation between stellar and radio luminosities is likely to have its cause in the fact that both properties correlate positively with the black hole mass. This means that by measuring the strength of any correlation between the stellar and radio luminosities, we can estimate the range of black hole masses in high-redshift radio galaxies.

To investigate the correlation between the stellar and radio luminosities we determine the residuals for each object about the best fitting $`Kz`$ relation presented in Sec. 3.2 and Fig. 2. We do not bin the sources in terms of radio luminosity since the sources from different samples span a range of redshifts at a given luminosity and we wish to investigate the evolutionary dependence of any correlation. However, because the samples are radio flux-limited the median flux-density of 6C sources is $`7`$ times fainter than that of 3C sources and the 7C sources a further factor of $`2.5`$ times fainter than 6C. Therefore the radio luminosities of sources at a given redshift typically differ by these amounts and we determine the mean residual for each sample as a function of redshift. To obtain a large enough number of objects per sample per bin, the bins in redshift have width $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.6`$. To avoid spurious results due to the choice of binning, we have evaluated the mean residual per sample per bin for a range of bins from $`0<z<0.6`$ to $`3.2<z<3.8`$ with steps of 0.2 in $`z`$. This does mean that neighbouring points are correlated but gives a more accurate measure of the true differences between the samples as a function of epoch.

In Fig. 3 we plot the mean $`K`$-magnitude residuals as a function of redshift for the three sets of samples: 7C (7C–I, 7C–II and 7C–III), 6C (6CE and 6C) and 3C (3CRR). The first thing to notice is a statistically significant difference (at the $`>95`$% level) between the 7C and 3C points across the whole redshift range apart from the lowest redshift bin which has a large uncertainty for the 7C sample due to few objects. We confirm the result of Eales et al. (1997), Jarvis et al. (2001a) and Inskip et al. (2002) that 6C radio galaxies are significantly fainter than 3C radio galaxies at high-redshifts, but appear to be similar at $`z<0.6`$. Inskip et al. used a Bayesian statistical approach to show that in fact the two samples are consistent (at the 95% level) with having $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ between 0.1 and 0.4 magnitudes at all redshifts and so there is no strong evidence that the apparent difference between the behaviour at low and high redshifts is significant. Our analysis also confirms this and shows by the large error bars for the 6C sample at low redshifts that this uncertainty is due to the small numbers of sources. The 7C sample, which contains considerably more low-redshift sources, shows no change in the typical $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ at low redshifts. Therefore, attempts to describe the changing behaviour of the radio-luminosity dependence of the $`Kz`$ relation at low redshifts are probably unnecessary (e.g Best et al. 1998).

In the discussions above we have excluded the possibility that the correlation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ with radio luminosity is due to contamination of the $`K`$-band flux by non-stellar emission associated with the AGN, which would be positively correlated to the radio luminosity. Our data have been corrected for emission line contamination so this is unlikely to be the cause of the correlation. Also, Jarvis et al. (2001a) showed that the emission line contribution to the $`K`$-band magnitudes is only serious at $`z>2`$ where the strong H$`\alpha `$ and \[O III\] lines are redshifted into the $`K`$-band. Other possible AGN-related emission mechanisms are partially obscured quasar nuclei, scattered quasar continuum and jet-induced star-formation. These issues have been investigated in detail by Leyshon & Eales (1998), Best et al. (1988), Simpson et al. (1999). Their conclusions are that the bulk of the $`K`$-band light for $`z>1`$ 3CRR radio galaxies (which are the most luminous radio galaxies known) is due to emission from stars. At the highest redshifts ($`z>3`$) it is possible that star formation, maybe induced by the jets, could provide a dominant contribution to the $`K`$-band flux (van Breugel et al. 1998), but this is not the case for most radio galaxies at $`z<2`$ (Pentericci et al. 2001). Our finding that the difference between the $`Kz`$ relations of 3C and 7C galaxies extends down to the lowest redshifts also supports the view that AGN-emission is not responsible for the difference, since at the lowest redshifts even the 3C radio galaxies have only moderately powerful nuclei.

We have shown that there is a significant difference between the $`Kz`$ relations of 3C and 7C galaxies, however there is not strong evidence for systematic differences between the 6C and 7C samples in the binned data. To quantify the amount by which all the samples differ we have calculated the mean offset from the best fitting $`Kz`$ relation of each sample over the redshift range $`0.2<z<1.8`$. This redshift range restriction is due to the paucity of 6C and 7C sources at $`z<0.2`$ and 3C sources at $`z>1.8`$. The mean $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ for each sample is -0.28 for 3C, +0.05 for 6C and +0.27 for 7C. These values are indicated by the horizontal lines on Fig. 3 with the grey shading the $`\pm 1\sigma `$ standard errors. They show a systematic trend of fainter $`K`$-magnitudes in lower radio luminosity galaxies.

Our finding that the 6C radio galaxies are only 0.3 mag fainter than those of 3C galaxies is much lower than the 0.6 mag difference found by Eales et al. (1997). The reason for this different result is that we have included sources at all redshifts, whereas Eales et al. (1997) separated the $`z>0.6`$ and $`z<0.6`$ galaxies and found the value of 0.6 mag for the high-redshift galaxies only. Our difference of 0.3 mag at all redshifts fits well with the analysis of Inskip et al. (2002). McCarthy (1999) showed that the $`Kz`$ relation for the MRC radio galaxies (selected at a radio flux-density a factor of four lower than the 3C sample) follow essentially the same $`Kz`$ relation as the 3C sample, with MRC galaxies being only 0-0.2 mag systematically fainter than 3C galaxies. They claimed this is inconsistent with the 0.6 mag difference for the 3C and 6C samples from Eales et al. (1997). Apart from any biases in the MRC sample due to its spectroscopic incompleteness, it is clear that with our reduced value of the difference between the 3C and 6C samples, the MRC results are perfectly consistent.

The 0.55 mag difference in the mean $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ for the 3C and 7C samples, combined with the factor of 20 difference in their median 151 MHz flux-densities, implies that, on average, the stellar luminosity is higher by a factor $`1.5`$ for radio galaxies which are more powerful by a factor 10.

### 4.1 Evolution of host luminosity at constant radio luminosity

Figs. 2 and 3 have shown that within each flux-density limited sample the passive evolution description provides a good fit to the evolution of the $`K`$-magnitudes. Now we investigate the apparent cosmic evolution in host luminosities at a constant radio luminosity. This is important because the rapid decline in the space density of powerful radio sources at late cosmic epochs (e.g. Dunlop & Peacock 1990; Willott et al. 2001) means that powerful radio sources are triggered much less frequently at low redshifts. But are they triggered in the same sorts of galaxies?

To investigate this, we use the passive evolution model with $`z_\mathrm{f}=10`$ to determine the $`K`$-magnitude of an $`L_{}`$ galaxy as a function of redshift. A galaxy with this evolution in $`K`$-magnitude will therefore have a constant mass with no merging and just passive evolution of the stellar population. For each galaxy in our sample, we can now calculate the evolved host luminosity in terms of a multiple of $`L_{}`$. The galaxy luminosities range from 0.3 to $`14L_{}`$ with a median of $`3.2L_{}`$. The few highest luminosity objects are likely to have their $`K`$-magnitudes brightened by non-stellar emission or recent star-formation, but these outliers will not strongly affect our results since only 15 of the 204 sources have luminosities $`>6L_{}`$.

We only consider the range in redshift up to $`z=2`$ because beyond this the evolution corrections become much more uncertain (e.g the sharp divergence of the $`z_\mathrm{f}=5`$ and $`z_\mathrm{f}=10`$ models in Fig. 2). In Fig. 4 we plot low-frequency radio luminosity against redshift for the radio galaxies in the complete samples up to $`z=2`$. The galaxies are binned in radio luminosity and redshift as shown in the figure. The bins were chosen to roughly separate out the sources into their parent samples and enable the evolution in host luminosity at a constant radio luminosity to be determined. Looking at the mean evolved host luminosities shown in the figure, it is clear that the hosts tend to get relatively less luminous at higher redshifts. This occurs for all three radio luminosity slices, although the significance of the change is only $`2\sigma `$ in each case. The change in host luminosity from low to high redshifts is $`1L_{}`$.

The fact that the evolved host luminosities decrease at higher redshifts can be interpreted as a change in the typical masses of the galaxies emitting a certain radio luminosity as a function of redshift. Note that because of our conservative assumption of using the $`z_\mathrm{f}=10`$ passive evolution model, this is a lower limit to the change in mass with redshift – any later star-formation than $`z=10`$ would tend to increase the change in mass with redshift. This change in the masses of radio galaxies with redshift can be interpreted simply with the rapid evolution in the radio luminosity function from $`z=0`$ to $`z=2`$. It is likely that the correlation between the black hole mass and stellar mass observed at low redshifts (Magorrian et al. 1998) exists to some extent at all redshifts. In this case, the typically higher radio luminosities of galaxies of a certain mass at higher redshifts may be simply the consequence of a higher average accretion rate onto a black hole of given mass, perhaps due to the greater mass of gas available to fuel the activity (e.g. Archibald et al. 2001). Other effects may be important. For example, the environmental density profiles into which jets of a given power propagate are likely to be systematically different at different redshifts. If, because of such environmental effects, sources of a given radio luminosity have lower average jet power at high z than low z, then the galaxy mass difference could again be an artifact of a weak correlation between black hole mass and jet power as discussed in Sec. 4.

Kauffmann & Haehnelt (2000) use a semi-analytic $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM-based galaxy formation model to predict that the host galaxies of luminous ($`M_B26`$) quasars at $`z=2`$ would be $`5`$ times less massive than at $`z=0.5`$. The radio galaxies in our highest luminosity bin have similar radio luminosities to radio-loud quasars with $`M_B26`$. We find the negative evolution in host luminosity (mass) in our bins with median redshifts $`z=0.7`$ to $`z=1.8`$ to be only a factor of 1.3. Even in a $`z_\mathrm{f}=3`$ passive evolution model the evolution in host mass over this redshift interval would be a factor of 2.0. This is at odds with the expectations of Kauffmann & Haehnelt unless there is a significant difference in the types of galaxies hosting radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars such as a lower limit to the mass of radio-loud quasar hosts. However, the similar cosmic evolution of the two types of quasar (Willott et al. 1998) argues against such an interpretation. Indeed, Kukula et al. (2001) compared the host luminosities of radio-quiet quasars with matched nuclear luminosities at various redshifts out to $`z=2`$ and found a similar decrease of at most a factor of two in the host luminosity.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented $`K`$-band imaging for the 49 radio galaxies in regions 7C–I and 7C–II of the 7C Redshift Survey. This sample is selected at a low radio frequency of 151 MHz and a flux-density level a factor of 20 lower than the 3CRR sample. The 7C–I and 7C–II data have been combined with other complete samples to define the near-infrared Hubble diagram for a total of 205 radio galaxies at redshifts ranging from 0.05 to 4.4 and investigate the radio-luminosity dependence of the near-infrared magnitudes.

The $`Kz`$ relation is well fit by a second order polynomial between $`K`$-magnitude and $`\mathrm{log}_{10}z`$:

$$K=17.37+4.53\mathrm{log}_{10}z0.31(\mathrm{log}_{10}z)^2$$
(2)
This curve is very close to the expected $`K`$-magnitude evolution of a passively evolving instantaneous starburst model galaxy which formed at $`z_f=10`$ with present day luminosity of $`3L_{}`$. The rms dispersion about this relation is found to be 0.58 magnitudes at all redshifts up to $`z=3`$. These results are consistent with a high formation redshift ($`z_f>5`$) for radio galaxies.

Using samples of radio galaxies selected at different flux-density limits, we have investigated the radio luminosity dependence of the $`Kz`$ relation. We find that there is a significant difference between the $`K`$-magnitudes of the 3CRR and the fainter 7C radio galaxies over all redshifts. This is best interpreted as being due to a correlation of both properties with black hole mass. The typical evolution-corrected host luminosities decrease at higher redshifts by a factor in the range 1.3-2. This corresponds to a small decrease in the masses of radio galaxies at higher redshifts. The weakness of these correlations of host properties with radio luminosity and redshift aid the interpretation of the strong cosmic evolution of the radio source population. The evolution is due to a higher accretion rate in galaxies of a given mass, presumably due to an increased available mass of gas as fuel supply.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mark Lacy, Steve Eales, Gary Hill and Julia Riley for their contributions to the 7C Redshift Survey. We thank the staff at the UKIRT for their excellent technical support. The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the U.K. Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. We acknowledge the UKIRT Service Programme for some of the near-infrared imaging. CJW thanks PPARC and the National Research Council of Canada for support. MJJ acknowledges the support of the European Community Research and Training Network “The Physics of the Intergalactic Medium”. KMB thanks the Royal Society for a University Research Fellowship.

## Appendix A Near-infrared images of quasars in 7C–I and 7C–II

All members of the 7C–I and 7C–II samples have been imaged at $`K`$-band by us except the flat-spectrum quasar 5C 7.230 and the radio galaxy 3C 200. Redshifts, spectra and multi-wavelength photometry of the 24 quasars and 2 broad line radio galaxies were presented in Willott et al. (1998). In this appendix we present the $`K`$-band images for these sources so that they can be used as finding charts.