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# Energy-Decreasing Dynamics in Mean-Field Spin Models

## 1 Introduction

The problem of finding the ground state of a frustrated spin model having a complex energy landscape is, in general, an NP-complete problem: the running time of exact algorithms increases at least exponentially with system size. There are, however, several new ground state techniques devised for specific examples which are able to calculate exact ground state in a polynomial time using elementary algorithms in combinatorial optimization, in particular network flows . This opened the route to the numerical study of very large system sizes for different problems, like spin-glasses , random field Ising model , solid-on-solid model with a disordered substrate , superconducting flux line lattices , and many others. In the general case, where such particular algorithms are not known, one is forced to use approximated methods. These consists in some kind of dynamic in the space of spin configurations which explores different states looking for the lowest energy value. The simplest choice is to consider some kind of Monte Carlo simulation at zero temperature (deep quench) which, starting from a random configuration, follows a random walk of decreasing energy till one ends up on a local energy minimum. One then repeats this procedure a number of time as large as possible and take as better estimate of ground state the lowest energy found. Many variants and improvements have been proposed and among them the Simulated Annealing , which slowly cool the system from high temperature to zero temperature and Parallel Tempering, which uses several temperatures in parallel. Which algorithm is most suitable depends on the nature of the problem; for a recent paper, where the performances of these different Monte Carlo simulation techniques are compared, see ref. .

Monte Carlo dynamics, of one type or another, is stochastic, i.e. for a given (random) initial configuration the trajectory is a random process. On the other hand, to find low-temperature states, one may also consider deterministic dynamics, which uniquely associates to a (random) initial spin configuration a final state according to some evolution rule.

A simple question which naturally arises is the following: what kind of deterministic dynamic is most effective in finding the configurations of smallest energies? While stochastic dynamic have been widely studied in literature, much less is known on statistical properties of deterministic dynamic.

In this paper we focus our attention on two of them: greedy and reluctant: both of them follows a one-spin-flip decreasing energy trajectory, the difference being that while in greedy dynamics the energy decreases of the largest possible amount, the reluctant algorithm makes moves corresponding to the smallest possible energy decrease. Some of the properties of these two minimization algorithms were studied in . In this paper we push further the analysis addressing the following questions:

* For a given number of initial spin configurations which of the two dynamics is more efficient? Which one has the largest basin of attraction?
* For a given elapsed time which one is able to reach the lowest energy states?

In order to answer these questions we considered two different models. For the Sine model (Section 3), where it is available an analytical knowledge of ground state for particular values of system sizes, we focus our attention on the capability of the two algorithms in detecting this ground state. For the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model we present numerical results in Section 4, where the lowest energy found is studied with different parameters in the simulations. The outcome of the analysis is that while for a fixed number of initial spin configurations the reluctant dynamics works better as it was found in ref.  (there is a higher probability to find low energy configurations), when the elapsed running time is fixed the two algorithms gives basically the same results (the time used for a single run grows linearly for the greedy algorithm and quadratically for the reluctant). A final test is also performed in a stochastic convex combination of the two algorithms: at each step the motion is greedy with probability $`P`$ and reluctant with probability $`1P`$. It is found that for large $`N`$ and for fixed running times a substantial improvement is obtained with a $`P=0.1`$.

## 2 Greedy and Reluctant Dynamics

We consider models defined by the Hamiltonian

$$H(J,\sigma )=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}J_{ij}\sigma _i\sigma _j$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _i=\pm 1`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$ are Ising spin variables and $`J_{ij}`$ is an $`N\times N`$ symmetric matrix which specifies interaction between them.

The greedy and reluctant dynamics work as follow. The initial spin configuration at time $`t=0`$ is chosen at random with uniform probability. Then the evolution rule is:

1. Let $`\sigma (t)=(\sigma _1(t),\sigma _2(t),\mathrm{},\sigma _N(t))`$ be the spin configuration at time $`t`$.
2. Calculate the spectrum of energy change obtained by flipping the spin in position $`i`$, for $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_i=\sigma _i(t)\underset{ji}{}J_{ij}\sigma _j(t)$$
(2)
3. Select the site $`i^{}`$ associated with the lowest (resp. highest) of the negative energy change for the greedy (resp. reluctant) dynamic.

$$i_{greed}^{}=\{i\{1,\mathrm{},N\}:\mathrm{\Delta }E_i^{}=\underset{i\{1,\mathrm{},N\}}{\mathrm{min}}\{\mathrm{\Delta }E_i<0\}\}$$
(3)
$$i_{reluc}^{}=\{i\{1,\mathrm{},N\}:\mathrm{\Delta }E_i^{}=\underset{i\{1,\mathrm{},N\}}{\mathrm{max}}\{\mathrm{\Delta }E_i<0\}\}$$
(4)
4. Flip the spin on site $`i^{}`$:

$$\sigma _i(t+1)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\sigma _i(t),\hfill & \text{if }i=i^{},\hfill \\ \sigma _i(t),\hfill & \text{if }ii^{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)

Both the dynamics follows an energy descent trajectory till they arrive to a $`1`$-spin-flip stable configuration, i.e. a configuration whose energy can not be decreased by a single spin-flip. These represent local minima in energy landscape at zero temperature with respect to a $`1`$-spin-flip dynamic. They are also solutions of the mean field TAP equations at zero temperature :

$$\sigma _i=\text{sign}\left(\underset{ji}{}J_{ij}\sigma _j\right)$$
(6)
## 3 Results for the Sine model

The first model we study is a mean-field system, having a very high degree of frustration even tough the bonds between spins are non random. It has been introduced by Marinari, Parisi and Ritort in ref. . The couplings are given by the orthogonal matrix associated with the discrete Fourier transform:

$$J_{ij}=\frac{2}{\sqrt{2N+1}}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi ij}{2N+1}\right)$$
(7)
The ground state of the model is not known for general values of the system size. However, as already noted in , for special values of $`N`$ the ground state can be explicitly constructed using number theory. Indeed, for $`N`$ odd such that $`p=2N+1`$ is prime of the form $`4m+3`$, where $`m`$ is an integer, let $`\sigma ^L`$ be the state given by the sequence of Legendre symbols, i.e.

$$\sigma _i^L=\left(\frac{i}{p}\right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}+1,\hfill & \text{if }i=k^2(modp),\hfill \\ 1,\hfill & \text{if }ik^2(modp),\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
with $`k=1,2,\mathrm{},p1`$. Then, it’s easy to verify (see ) that

$$H(\sigma ^L)=\frac{N}{2}$$
(9)
which is, of course, the lowest value that energy can take due to the orthogonality of interaction matrix.

The explicit knowledge of ground state for selected $`N`$ is a valuable bonus, since it allows a complete control of dynamical and statistical properties of the algorithms for quite large system sizes. In this Section we restrict our analysis to such $`N`$ values for which we have an exact expression of ground state configuration as Legendre symbols. The natural unit of time is the “spin-flip” time, i.e. the cycle during which the dynamic explores all the internal fields in such a way to decide which spin to flip. In this unit the time $`t`$ of a realization of the dynamic for a given initial condition is obtained by counting the number of “spin flip” necessary to reach a metastable configuration.

We run greedy and reluctant dynamics for a large number $`M`$ of initial conditions, keeping track of the number of times $`n_{GS}`$ we found the ground state as final configuration. We also measured the time of each realization $`t_i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},M`$. The number of trials $`M`$ is an increasing function of the system size. For small sizes we stopped when we found the ground state $`10000`$ times. For the largest size $`(N=69)`$ we used up to $`10^9`$ initial configurations, so that the ground state has been found at least $`100`$ times. We computed the following three quantities:

1. the average relaxation time of the dynamic

$$\tau =\frac{1}{M}\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}t_i$$
(10)
2. the estimated probability to find the ground state

$$p_{GS}=\frac{n_{GS}}{M}$$
(11)
3. the average time to find the ground state

$$T_{GS}=\frac{1}{n_{GS}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}t_i$$
(12)

which are obviously related by $`T_{GS}=\tau /p_{GS}`$.

In Fig. (1) we plot the average time of the dynamic to reach a metastable configuration. As one could expect the greedy dynamic is much faster, since it follows the most rapid path to decrease energy. The greedy average time is linear with the system size, while the reluctant dynamic has a characteristic time which increases as $`N^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha 1.90`$.

In Fig. (2) we compare the probabilities of finding ground state for the two algorithms. These have been estimated empirically using formula (11). We always used a number of trials $`M`$ large enough to ensure the robustness of the statistical properties i.e. we increased $`M`$ until the estimated probabilities relaxed to an asymptotic value with negligible fluctuations. We can see that, apart from finite size effects for very small system sizes, both algorithms have an exponentially decreasing probability of finding the ground state. Nevertheless the reluctant probability is a little bit larger which says that, for a given number of initial conditions, reluctant algorithm is more efficient in finding the ground state, i.e. it has a larger basin of attraction. This result agrees with the one in ref. , which using both algorithms with the same number of initial conditions obtained a better estimate of asymptotic value of energy ground state for SK model in the case of reluctant dynamic.

On the other hand, if one measures the average time to find a ground state, Eq. (12), which takes into account both the average time of dynamic and the probability of finding the ground state, one can see from Fig (3) that greedy algorithm requires a smaller time on average. This means that, from a practical point of view, for a given elapsed time greedy dynamic is slightly more efficient.

## 4 Results for the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick <br>model

The Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model is the infinite range case for spin-glasses . The couplings $`J_{ij}`$ are independent identically distributed symmetric gaussian random variables $`(J_{ij}=J_{ji},J_{ii}=0)`$ with zero mean and variance $`1/N`$. Since this is a disordered model one is interested in the quenched average ground state energy. For each $`N`$ this is defined as:

$$e_N^{GS}=\text{Av}\left(\frac{1}{N}\underset{\sigma }{inf}H_N(J,\sigma )\right)$$
(13)
where we denoted by $`\text{Av}\left(\right)`$ the average over the couplings. Analytical knowledge of this quantity is available in the thermodynamical limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ using Parisi Ansatz for replica symmetry breaking theory: $`e_{\mathrm{}}^{GS}=0.7633`$ , while numerical simulations obtained using finite size scaling $`e_{\mathrm{}}^{GS}=0.76\pm .01`$ , $`e_{\mathrm{}}^{GS}=0.755\pm .010`$ , $`e_{\mathrm{}}^{GS}=0.775\pm .010`$ .

The statistical analysis on the Sine model revealed that, for a given number of initial conditions, reluctant dynamic works better than greedy to find the lower states in energy landscape. On the other hand, since the reluctant path is much longer than greedy, from a practical point of view, for a given elapsed time, it is slightly more efficient to make many quick greedy trials than a few slow reluctant runs. For the SK model it is not possible to perform the same analysis, because a complete control of the ground state is lacking and also it fluctuates from sample to sample. To check the conclusion of previous Section we thus performed a series of numerical experiments varying control parameters.

Moreover we investigate the efficiency of a stochastic convex combination of the two algorithms: with probability $`0P1`$ we perform a greedy move and with probability $`1P`$ the corresponding reluctant move. The deterministic dynamics are obtained at $`P=1`$ (greedy) and $`P=0`$ (reluctant) respectively. Intermediate values of $`P`$ are stochastic dynamics where the greedy and reluctant moves are weighted by the probability $`P`$. First of all we probed the average time of the dynamic for different values of $`P`$ using formula (10), which is easily accessible to measurements and has good self-averaging properties. Results are shown in Fig. (4), together with the best numerical fits. Note the progressive increase of the slope in log-log scale from an almost linear law for greedy (bottom) $`\tau _{\{P=1\}}(N)N^{1.04}`$ to an almost quadratic law for reluctant (top) $`\tau _{\{P=0\}}(N)N^{2.07}`$. However an interesting result is that for $`P=0.1`$ we have still have $`\tau _{\{P=0.1\}}(N)N^{1.26}`$, i.e. a stochastic algorithm which makes on average one greedy move (and nine reluctant moves) out of ten has a much smaller average time than the deterministic reluctant algorithm $`P=0`$. We notice that the exponents for greedy (resp. reluctant) algorithm are very close to the integers 1 (resp. 2) with an observed slow crossover between the two for intermediate $`p`$. It would be interesting to have a theoretical understanding of this fenomenon even if only at a heuristic level. We plan to return over this problem in a future work.

Next we measured the lowest energy value found for a given number of initial conditions for different probability $`P`$. One has to choose a protocol to fix the number of initial conditions. Obviously, the larger the system size the bigger must be the number of trials. We tried different choices obtaining similar results. For the sake of space we show in Fig. (5) the results of the run where we choose $`N`$ initial conditions for a system of size $`N`$. The data have been averaged on $`1000`$ disorder realizations. We see that the smaller is the probability of making greedy moves, the lower is the energy found. The best results is obtained for $`P=0`$, which corresponds to deterministic reluctant dynamic. This confirms that, ignoring the total amount of time and imposing constrain only on the number of initial conditions, reluctant dynamic is the most efficient in reaching low energy states.

Finally we compared results of different probabilities in the case one considers a fixed elapsed time. As an example, we present results for an elapsed time of $`100`$ hours of CPU on a CRAY SP3 for $`N`$ in the range $`[50,300]`$. We considered again $`1000`$ disorder realizations and assigned the same time length to each sample ($`6`$ minutes). Obviously in this way reluctant dynamic starts from a smaller number of initial conditions than greedy, because its relaxation time is longer. In Fig. 6 we plot the values of the lowest energy state as a function of $`N`$. We can see from the data that, for a fixed elapsed time, greedy dynamic ($`P=1`$) find lower energy states than reluctant ($`P=0`$). Moreover we observe that the best result is obtained for $`P=0.1`$. Thus we suggest that the more power full strategy to find low energy state using greedy and reluctant dynamic is a combination of them, where most of the steps the move is reluctant and on a small fraction of steps (say $`0.1`$) the move is greedy.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank CINECA for the computation grant on the CRAY SP3 and Prof. I. Galligani for his encouragement and his support. We thank the referees for their suggestions and comments.


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# Printed on Nanoscale Processing by Adaptive Laser Pulses

## Abstract

We theoretically demonstrate that atomically-precise “nanoscale processing” can be reproducibly performed by adaptive laser pulses. We present the new approach on the controlled welding of crossed carbon nanotubes, giving various metastable junctions of interest. Adaptive laser pulses could be also used in preparation of other hybrid nanostructures.

Understanding and fully controlling growth, structural modifications and coalescence of nanoscale materials has a top technological priority. Many excellent examples of such systems can be found among the numerous types of recently discovered nanotubes . These unique materials are usually grown under rather poorly understood conditions using plasma , laser  and other strongly non-equilibrium processes, where catalytic atoms can activate “zipping” of chemical bonds .

Although artificial nanoscale materials resemble bio-macromolecules, they do not possess “inheritable memories”, analogous to DNA, crucial for their exact reproduction. Thus our principal question is, if we can develop effective atomically-precise processing methods, that can reproducibly prepare such systems. This goal has been, for example, achieved in a molecular beam growth of superlattices, where nanoscale patterns in one dimension are practically under full control .

It would be especially attractive to achieve a precise control over some advanced structural modifications. An example is coalescent “welding” of tubular structures , which could lead in crossed nanotubes  to preparation of strong light-weight nets. As just demonstrated experimentally , atomically-smooth welded nanotube structures can be induced by irradiation with electrons of MeV energies. Unfortunately, control over this process is so far limited, and thermal healing of the radiation-induced defects  is only partial.

It thus becomes very interesting to consider thermal welding of nanotubes, driven by an externally applied pressure. Recent simulations  have revealed that this approach could produce defect-free welded structures, with deep energy minima. On the other hand, practical applications could also largely benefit from a reproducible preparation of various metastable atomically-precise structures, with shallow energy minima. An example are nanotube junctions with a “quasi-continuous” variation of their atomic structures.

Here, we address this challenging task, and explore the possibility of a reproducible welding of nanotubes, by “adaptive” laser pulses. A feedback control of ultrashort chirped pulses is already applied in traditional macro-welding of thin films . A precise nanoscale processing could, in principle, be performed by more sophisticated pulses , prepared in optimal control techniques , that can selectively break molecular bonds in gases and liquids . Such pulses possess many degrees of freedom in their complex shaping and tuning, with the potential for a storage of “production informations”.

In Fig. 1, we present a scheme of the controlled welding of crossed nanotubes, realized by their local excitation with adaptive laser pulses. These pulses induce interband electron transitions in a micron-size region, where the hot carriers emit LO phonons. The generated phonons locally decay and heat nanotubes below their melting point ($`T_{melt}4000`$ K) . Reconstruction of C bonds is thus induced thermally in the contact area, where nucleation energies of potential defects are decreased by external pressure. Since the flipped bonds are selected and directed by the configuration of the whole system and the applied pressure, light pulses mostly control the total extent of coalescence. The joined region preserve the hexagonal atomic pattern if the tube structures are complementary (armchair/zigzag).

We start the analysis of the welding control with the description of the nanotube excitation by inhomogeneous light intensity $`E(x,t)`$ . From the Fermi’s Golden rule we can estimate the electron/hole injection rate, $`\dot{n}_{e(h)}(x,t)|E(x,t)|^2`$, in the conduction/valence band of the crossed SWNT. Typically, we use the field intensity $`E_0=5`$ MV/cm at frequency $`\omega =10^{15}s^1`$, for which we obtain $`\dot{n}_{e(h)}0.3`$ ps-1 per unit cell, with 40 C atoms for the (10,10) nanotube . This relatively strong excitation could cause variation of the optical coupling, and even lead to a dielectric breakdown of the system. Nevertheless, it should be possible to adapt the light pulses to these conditions in the learning process, so the structures could be controllably prepared without destruction.

The hot electrons and holes are generated with energies of a few ($`l3`$) LO phonons, which are emitted within $`\tau 0.5`$ ps. Since the carrier velocity is $`v_e1\mu `$m/ps, their energy is relaxed within the micron-size generation volume. Therefore, the phonon injection rate $`\dot{n}_p(x,t)`$ approximately follows the excited electron/hole profile $`\dot{n}_p(x,t)l\left(\dot{n}_e(x,t)+\dot{n}_h(x,t)\right)`$. The LO phonons decay locally into LA phonons, which carry most of the heat. Thus the linear density of heat $`(x,t)`$, generated in each of the crossed nanotubes, is of the form

$`(x,t)_p\dot{n}_p(x,t)2l_p|E(x,t)|^2,`$ (1)
where $`_p=h\nu _0`$ is the LO phonon energy.

We can describe the one dimensional transport of heat by the equation

$`S{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}\left(\kappa (T){\displaystyle \frac{T}{x}}\right)+(x,t)=C(T)\rho {\displaystyle \frac{T}{t}}.`$ (2)
Here, $`\kappa (T)`$ is thermal conductivity, $`C(T)`$ specific heat, $`S1.18`$ nm2 the effective surface per tube in a rope and $`\rho =1.910^{23}`$ kg/nm the mass density of the considered (10,10) armchair nanotube. Both theoretical  and experimental  results in nanotubes lead to a large $`\kappa (T)`$, dominated by a phonon transport. From the predicted value $`\kappa (T=300K)7500`$ W/K$``$m in SWNT, adjusted to the high-temperature profile in graphite , we obtain $`\kappa (T)23.510^3/T^{1/5}`$ W/K$``$m. We can also use the specific heat of graphite , with the high-temperature fit $`C(T)830+28.2(T300)^{1/2}`$ J/kg$``$K.

The thermally induced coalescence of nanotubes is driven by lessening of the pressure-assisted potential energy of the system (enthalpy), as in sintering. It can be realized by sequences of created and annihilated Stone-Wales (SW) 5/7 defects , and some other types of defects . Typically, the energy of the SW defect is $`E_f2\epsilon C_0`$ eV, where $`\epsilon `$ is a local strain . The formation of defects is limited by the size of their activation barrier $`E^{}6\epsilon C_0^{}`$ eV, which can block the process even if $`E_f<0`$. The last condition can be met already at strains $`\epsilon 0.1`$, since $`|C_0||C_0^{}|2030`$ eV. Numerical simulations show  that the magnitude and sign of the material parameters $`C_0`$ and $`C_0^{}`$ depend, in general, on the defect orientation and the tube chirality. Therefore, at the tube crossing, where the pressure-induced strain $`\epsilon `$ is large, only defects with large and negative $`C_0`$ and $`C_0^{}`$ would be thermally nucleated.

This fact could significantly reduce the large number of possible coalescence paths, switching between various intermediate structures. The nucleated defects are predominantly chosen by the types of nanotubes, geometry of their crossing and the applied pressure. Therefore, fluctuations of the followed coalescence paths should be relatively small, so that welded structures with the same number of defects could be reasonably similar. The most favorable path contains structures with the lowest energies. For example, a head-to-head coalescence of two (10,10) C nanotubes can be realized by following a path with just 68 steps of SW defects . In this process, the flipped bonds first interconnect the tubes, soon after a neck is formed, and finally the tubes become smoothly rejoined (see Fig. 1). The goal of the optimal control is to deliberately stop this process at any of the metastable intermediate structures, formed in the vicinity of the most favorable path.

Consider that the system occupies with the probability $`p_i`$ any of the structures with $`i`$ defects, formed in the welding process. The probability $`p_i`$ is described by the rate equation

$`\dot{p}_i={\displaystyle \frac{p_{i1}}{\tau _{i1}^+}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_{i+1}}{\tau _{i+1}^{}}}p_i\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau _i^+}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau _i^{}}}\right),`$ (3)
where the nucleation time $`\tau _i^+`$ ($`\tau _i^{}`$) gives the transition rate for creation of $`i+1`$ ($`i1`$) defects, if the system has $`i`$ defects. The nucleation processes are activated by the temperature at the tube crossing, so the times are

$`(\tau _i^\pm )^12N_{at}\nu _0\mathrm{exp}\left[E_\pm ^{}(i)/k_bT\right].`$ (4)
Here, $`N_{at}20`$ is the effective number of C atoms in the local region, $`\nu _0=10`$ ps-1 is the vibrational frequency, used also in $`_p`$, and $`E_\pm ^{}(i)`$ are activation barriers of the $`i+1`$-th and $`i1`$-th defects for structures with $`i`$ defects.

We model these barriers as follows,

$`E_\pm ^{}(i)=6\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{exp}[\left(|ij_0|\pm 0.5\right)/D_i]\mathrm{eV},`$ (5)
where we assume that the pressure-induced barrier shift, $`\mathrm{\Delta }>0`$, is exponentially relaxed with the growing number $`i`$ of defects, since the pressure (motion of the tubes) cannot follow the fast (pulsed) coalescence. In numerical testing, we apply ns welding pulses, separated by $`\mu `$s periods. After the first pulse, the strain $`\epsilon `$ can return to its initial value in all structures, irrespective of their number of created defects $`j_0`$. In the next pulse, structures with different number of defects $`j_0`$ thus effectively start their evolution with the same barriers $`E_\pm ^{}(i=j_0)=6\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{exp}[\pm 0.5/D_i]`$. Here, the shifts $`\pm 0.5`$ reflect the pressure-induced asymmetry in transitions increasing/decreasing the number of defects by one, which is the driving force of the coalescence.

Let us now discuss in more details practical realization of the welding control. In experiments, we can search the optimal field $`E(t)`$ in a feedback learning loop (see inset of Fig. 4), where we impose our welding requirements. In contrast to the MBE , where growth of individual monolayers is controlled in situ, here the light pulses need to be adjusted to the experimentally obtained structures. Mathematically, this search minimizes certain functional, which reflects the welding requirements  and enables theoretical testing of the method. Since our goal is to reproducibly obtain certain metastable structures, i.e. structures with approximately the same given number $`𝒩_D`$ of defects, we look for a field $`E(x,t)`$ which minimizes the difference

$`F`$ $`=`$ $`|𝒩𝒩_D|,𝒩^n={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}p_ii^n.`$ (6)
Here $`𝒩^n`$ are moments of the distribution $`p_i`$. The variance $`\sigma _D=\sqrt{𝒩^2𝒩^2}`$ describes fluctuations of defects in the prepared structures.

In order to control the nanotube welding, we can take advantage of the fact that the pressure-induced lowering of the barriers $`E_\pm ^{}(i)`$ stops during the fast creation of the first $`D_i`$ defects. Thus, we use short light pulses, heating the system in such a way, that less than $`D_i`$ defects are created by each of them, so that fluctuations in $`\sigma _D`$ remain suppressed by the growing barriers $`E_\pm ^{}(i)`$. If we try to induce more than $`D_i`$ defects by a single pulse, then the tubes would have to be largely heated, since the barriers are not lowered any more by pressure. Therefore, structural fluctuations would significantly grow and welding could spread without control in the whole region of the crossed tubes. This means that metastable structures with more than $`D_i`$ defects would have to be prepared by several pulses, each generating $`𝒩<D_i`$ defects.

We now test these ideas by solving Eqns. (1-6). Since the flipped bonds are largely selected by the system configuration (see above), the field practically only controls the progress of welding. Therefore, we can search it in a Gaussian form $`E(x,t)=E_0\mathrm{exp}(x^2/\sigma _x^2(tt_0)^2/\sigma _t^2)`$, where we fix the parameters $`\sigma _t=2.5`$ ns ($`t_0=4`$ ns) and $`\sigma _x=1\mu `$m, and thus choose $`E_0`$ as the only varied parameter. In each iteration, of the learning scheme in Fig. 4, we apply three identical (separated) pulses to the system. Then we calculate the difference $`F`$, and let $`E_0`$ to evolve until $`F`$ is minimized. In real experiments, we can also vary the shapes of the pulses, in order to fit more complex transient conditions.

Here, we assume that the nanotubes are in a contact with each other at the crossing and with four contacts (two for each), separated $`3\mu `$m away from the tube crossing. They pull the two tubes in opposite directions and thus maintain the vertical force $`F=515`$ nN  at their crossing. We assume that the force leads to the model parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }4`$ eV and $`D_i15`$, used in Eqn. (5). The contacts also provide heat sinks, and are thus held at the temperature $`T_0=300`$ K. In this geometrical configuration, the nanotubes move and restore the force on $`\mu `$s timescale, after each welding pulse.

Figure 2 shows the temperatures $`T(x=0,t)`$ at the crossing, induced by excitation with any of the three (separated) laser pulses. By requesting that the pulses create in total $`𝒩20`$ defects, we have obtained their common optimal field amplitude, $`E_05`$ MV/cm, in several tens of iterations. In the present pulsed regime the temperature rises up to $`T3000`$ K, then it slowly relaxes, as the heat diffuses through the tubes, and is pumped out through the contacts. In the inset, we show the related broadening and reshaping of the temperature profile.

In Fig. 3, we show the probabilities $`p_i(t)`$ of preparing structures with $`i`$ defects, by application of the above three pulses separated by $`\mu `$s time periods. The pressure-induced coalescence leads to narrow population maxima at certain numbers of defects $`i`$ after each pulse. The pulse creates less than $`D_i`$ defects, before the pressure is temporarily released and the coalescence stops. When the pressure rises again, the process continues with the next pulse, until $`𝒩20`$ defects are created. In Fig. 4, we also present the time-dependence of the average number of defects $`𝒩`$ and the variance $`\sigma _D`$, for the excitation in Fig. 3. The simulation shows that $`𝒩`$ largely depends on the transferred energy, while $`\sigma _D`$ remains small, if $`𝒩<D_1`$ within one pulse.

In order to speed up formation of nanotube nets, we can consider simultaneous irradiation of many such junctions under a mask, which would concentrate the light on the selected spots. Tubular nets might be also prepared by self-assembly processes, if we succeed to initiate nanotube branching, i.e. splitting of their growth in orthogonal directions.

With more sophisticated light pulses  the method can also selectively catalyze chemical reactions inside or on the surfaces of nanotubes. This can lead to an efficient preparation of new hybrid materials, with on-site grown “filling” and “dressing”. An example is light-induced polymerization or growth of nanocrystals inside nanotubes . The adaptive pulses could even control electronic processes in nanodevices, especially if the chemical constituents can be reversibly switched by light .

I would like to acknowledge support from EU COCOMO.


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# What do the phase-sensitive experiments tell us?

## Abstract

The phase-sensitive experiments on cuprate superconductors have told us about the symmetry of the condensate wavefunction. However, they can not determine the pairing symmetry of Cooper pairs. To describe a superconducting state, two wavefunctions are needed, condensate wavefunction and pairing wavefunction. The former describes the entirety movement of the pairs and the latter describes the relative movement of the two electrons within a pair. The $`\pi `$-phase shift observed in the phase sensitive Josephson measurements can not prove that the pairing state is d-wave. We present here a new explanation and predict some new observable phenomena.

The pairing symmetry in cuprate superconductors have been receiving great attention Levi ; Anderson ; Chakravarty ; Cox ; Clery ; Kirtley ; TsueiRV ; VanHarlingenRV ; SigristRV ; ScalapinoRV . More and more phase-sensitive experiments on Josephson junctions have demonstrated that the superconducting condensate has a $`\pi `$-phase shift between (100) and (010) surfaces TsueiRV ; VanHarlingenRV . This $`\pi `$-phase shift has been regarded as a direct evidence of d-wave pairing in cuprate superconductors ever since Levi ; Clery ; Kirtley ; TsueiRV ; VanHarlingenRV . However, we will make it clear that the superconducting condensate wavefunction describes the behavior of bosons in condensate while the superconducting pairing wavefunction describes the pairing state in forming a Cooper pair, and therefore these two wavefunctions should be distinguished and considered separately. The phase-sensitive experiments only tell us about the symmetry of the superconducting condensate wavefunction, they are not necessary related to the pairing state of a Cooper pair.

First let us pay attention to some inevitable paradoxes when we describe the Josephson tunneling in current theoretical frames TsueiRV ; Geshkenbein ; Rice .

The $`\pi `$-phase shift was theoretically predicted by Geshkenbein et al. for heavy-fermion superconductors Geshkenbein . In 1992, Sigrist and Rice proposed that the $`\pi `$-phase shift could also be observed in cuprate superconductors Rice . In their picture, the basic notion for the $`\pi `$-phase shift was that the superconducting wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)`$ depends on the direction of the momentum wavevector $`𝐤`$ ($`|𝐤|k_F`$) of the paired electrons. The wavefunction should obey $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)=\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)`$ for p-wave pairing superconductors, and $`C_4\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)=\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)`$ ($`C_4`$ is 90 rotation operator) for d-wave pairing superconductors.

We may perform a gedanken experiment for a p-wave superconductor. Imagine that a barrier is inserted into the sample (Fig. 1a) and makes it two p-wave superconductors with a Josephson junction in-between. The Josephson coupling requires that the superconducting wavefunction has the same sign Geshkenbein  at the two sides of the junction as shown in Fig. 1b. With thinning the barrier, these signs should not change. When the thickness of the barrier shrinks to zero, the two parts will return to its original single superconductor (Fig. 1a) but with no sign difference in wavefunction between its two ends. This is a paradox.

A paradox also occurs for d-wave superconductors. Consider a d-wave superconductor with strict tetragonal symmetry (Fig. 1c). Again, imagine a barrier along $`45^{}`$ direction which divides the superconductor into two triangular superconductors. Since $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)=0`$ at $`45^{}`$ direction, there is no Josephson coupling for an ideal junction. In other words, the two triangular superconductors on the two sides are not coherent with each other. There are infinite number of $`45^{}`$ planes in the superconductor, and every plane divides the superconductor into two parts without phase correlation. Then, how could the superconductor be a superconductor?

The key to avoid the above paradoxes is that one should not mix up the properties of the superconducting condensate with the pairing state of a Cooper pair.

A Cooper pair consists of two particles, it has double degrees of freedom compared to a single particle. We need a condensate wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$ to describe the boson system with the Cooper pairs as the basic units. We also need a pairing wavefunction $`\psi (𝐫)`$ to describe the relative movement between the two particles inside a Cooper pair. Needless to say, the phase-sensitive experiments measure the interference effect of the Cooper pairs. Therefore, these experiments can only give imformation about the condensate wavefunction, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$, not the relative movement characterized by the pairing wavefunction $`\psi (𝐫)`$.

Interference effect is not necessarily related to the internal structure, no matter the basic units are single particles or of complex structure. In Table 1, three different kinds of quantum interferences of particle pairs are compared. In Na atom, what we know about the internal structure is that the outer shell electron may occupy 3s, 3p, or 4p states, etc, but we do not know the definite position of the electron. For a two-photon Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pair EPR , we can never tell the difference between the frequencies of the two paired photons. Similarly, for a Cooper pair, we can never figure out the definite relative momentum $`2𝐤`$ between the two paired electrons. We may only say that the pair is in s-wave, p-wave, or d-wave pairing state.

Furthermore, the internal variable of a Cooper pair is not related to the $`\pi `$-phase shift in Josephson tunneling experiments. If the Cooper pair composed of two electrons with $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐤`$ along x-axis have larger tunneling probability in the x-direction than that with $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐤`$ along y-axis as supposed in ref. Rice ; Ting , the tunneling junctions would serve as Cooper pair filters which divide Cooper pairs into two different groups. However all Cooper pairs occupy in the same macroscopic quantum state and there is no difference among them. It will break the basic principle of quantum mechanics to label the different internal relative moments $`𝐤`$ on Cooper pairs.

Interference effects can measure the potential of the surrounding on the particles only Aharonov-Bohm ; Berry . As shown in Table 1, interference effects depend on the entirety wavefunction of the particles and the internal structure is not related to it. Particularly, in the two-photon EPR experiments two-photon , the wave packets of the two paired photons are totally isolated, but the interference effect of photon pairs can still be observed.

Therefore we conclude that the interference experiments can not tell us anything about the pairing symmetry.

Now it is natural to ask the question: Where does the $`\pi `$-phase shift come from? In the following, we propose a possible explanation.

Superconductor is a macroscopic quantum system. The behavior of all Cooper pairs is the same as that of one pair because all condensed bosons occupy the same ground state. Similar to the ordinary electron system, Cooper pairs also endure the effect of the periodic lattice potential $`U(𝐑)`$ including both electric and magnetic. Its entirety wavefunction obeys Bloch theory and is periodically modulated by $`U(𝐑)`$

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)=u_𝐊(𝐑)exp(i\mathrm{𝐊𝐑})$$
(1)
where $`u_𝐊(𝐑)`$ is a periodic function with the same period as $`U(𝐑)`$. Without current, all Cooper pairs occupy the $`𝐊=0`$ state, so that the wavefunction can be expressed as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)=u_0(𝐑)$$
(2)
All cuprate superconductors have similar $`CuO_2`$ planes which are considered to be responsible for superconductivity. To make the discussion simple and clear, we consider the $`CuO_2`$ plane with strict 4/mmm point group symmetry as in $`Tl_2Ba_2CaCu_2O_{6+\delta }`$. In this case, the condensate wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$ keeps its amplitude under the mirror operators $`M_a`$, $`M_b`$ and $`M_c`$, and 90 rotation operator $`C_4`$, i.e. the possible eigenvalues for these symmetric operators are limited to be $`\pm 1`$. And the phase-sensitive experiments have proved that $`C_4`$ should be $`1`$. Nonzero Josephson tunneling along a-axis and b-axis with a conventional superconductor requires that the eigenvalues for $`M_a`$, $`M_b`$ and $`M_c`$ should be $`+1`$. Then we have $`M_i\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)=\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)(i=a,b,c)`$, and $`C_4\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)=\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$. To meet these conditions, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$ should be zero along all 45 lines through lattice sites, as shown in Fig. 2(a). The Bloch-type superconducting wavefunction around the lattice sites is very similar to the 3d$`_{x^2y^2}`$ single electron wavefunction. This is of no surprise. The superconducting condensate is made up with conduction electrons. The condensate wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$ meets the following relationship

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)|^2n_p(𝐑)n_t(𝐑),$$
(3)
where $`n_p(𝐑)`$ and $`n_t(𝐑)`$ are the density of paired electrons and total conduction electrons respectively.

The position-dependent Bloch-type superconducting wavefunction originates from the strong interaction between Cooper pairs and the lattice background. It should also exist in conventional metal superconductors. However, in conventional superconductors the periodic potential is rather smooth due to the relatively smaller lattice constant and higher electron density, and therefore, the modulation is not strong enough to change the sign of the superconducting condensate wavefunction.

In fact, there are already some experiments showing that the superconducting condensate wavefunction can be modulated by local background potentials, such as the amplitude change and even sign oscillation of the condensate wavefunction within the coherence length at the superconductor/ferromagnet/superconductor junctions Chien .

The Josephson coupling between two superconductors resembles to the chemical bond between two atoms. There is a free energy change caused by the overlap of the two superconducting condensate wavefunctions in the junction area

$$\mathrm{\Delta }F=c\mathrm{\Psi }_L^{}(𝐑)\mathrm{\Psi }_R(𝐑)𝑑𝐑,$$
(4)
where $`c`$ is a positive constant. $`\mathrm{\Delta }F`$ is always negative, so that the contribution from the region with the same sign is always larger than that from the region with opposite signs. Therefore all the phase sensitive experiments TsueiRV  can be understood in the picture.

For the junction configuration shown in Fig. 1c, the Josephson coupling strongly depends on the relative position of the two lattices. Fig. 2(b) and (c) give the examples of two extreme relative positions. The condensate wavefunction is anti-symmetric about the junction plane in Fig. 2(b) (omit some microscopic mismatch) whereas it is symmetric in Fig. 2(c). With continuously shifting the relative position from the former to the latter case, the coupling strength will first decrease, go to zero at a certain position, and then increase again. The condensate wavefunction is anti-symmetric about the junction plane before the position with zero coupling, and becomes symmetric after that position. With the relative position in Fig. 2(b), when the thickness of the barrier approaches zero, the system is reduced into a single superconductor and the wavefunction becomes that for one superconductor. Then, the paradox appeared in direction dependent pictureGeshkenbein ; Rice  no longer exists. In principle, the position dependence of Josephson tunneling along the $`45^{}`$ direction can be tested by phase-sensitive experiments, though it is technically difficult.

The above proposed picture can also be tested with the following observable experiment. If one makes a junction by putting a tip of conventional superconductor to an a-b surface of a cuprate, along the 45 lines through the lattice sites, the critical current of the junction will be exactly zero because of the symmetry of the superconducting wavefunction. When the tip is placed at other positions, the critical current of the junction would be nonzero. Equidistantly scanning the tip above the a-b surface of a cuprate, one will obtain a map of critical current, and also an approximate map of amplitude of the Bloch-type superconducting wavefunction.

In conclusion, to describe a superconducting state, two wavefunctions are needed, condensate wavefunction and pairing wavefunction. The former describes the entirety movement of the pairs and the latter describes the relative movement of the two electrons within a pair. The superconducting interference effects show the properties of the condensate wavefunction, and do not depend on the pairing wavefunction. The $`\pi `$-phase shift observed in the phase sensitive Josephson measurements can not prove that the pairing state is d-wave. In stead, it tells us that the condensate wavefunction of Cooper pairs is a position dependent Bloch type wavefunction which changes its sign within a crystalline cell. Such a wavefunction is resulted from the interaction between cooper pairs and the positive periodic potential. Till now, it is still an open question whether the pairing state is d-wave or s-wave. Since the superconducting wavefunction strongly depends on the local potential, we expect to artificially modulate the phase and the sign of the wavefunction by changing the local potential via the methods such as local doping and hetero epitaxy, etc. It is also possible, by using the local phase shift, to develop some quantum computing elements quantum-computer .


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# Mixed-Symmetry Shell-Model Calculations

## Acknowledgments

We acknowledge support from the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-9970769 and Cooperative Agreement No. EPS-9720652 that includes matching from the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund. V. G. Gueorguiev is grateful to the Louisiana State University Graduate School for awarding him a dissertation fellowship and a travel grant to attend the XXIV International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics held June 15-20, 2002 in Paris, France.

## References


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# Two X-Ray Bright Cataclysmic Variables with Unusual Activities: GZ Cnc and NSV 10934

## 1 Introduction

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are close binary systems consisting of a white dwarf and a red dwarf secondary transferring matter via the Roche-lobe overflow. Some of CVs show dwarf nova (DN) outbursts, which are believed to be a consequence of the instabilities in accretion disks (Osaki, 1996). Outbursts of DNe usually occur semi-regularly. The presence of unusual CVs with DN-like outbursts, which significantly deviate from the canonical picture of DNe, has recently been receiving special attention (Ishioka et al., 2002; Szkody et al., 2002). Some of these objects have been proven to intermediate polars (IPs) \[for recent reviews of IPs, see Patterson (1994); Hellier (1996)\], which contain weakly magnetized white dwarfs. Theoretical attempts have been also made to explain these unusual outburst characters in the presence of a global magnetic field (e.g. Angelini & Verbunt (1989)). We hereby report on the discovery of two X-ray bright DNe, which may be further candidates for these IPs with unusual DN-like outbursts.

## 2 GZ Cnc

GZ Cnc was discovered as a variable star by Takamizawa (Tmz V34). Subsequent observations revealed that this object is a dwarf nova which is identified with a ROSAT source (Kato et al., 2001). The object was independently confirmed to be a cataclysmic variable in the course of optical identifications of ROSAT bright sources (Bade et al., 1998). Jiang et al. (2000) reported an optical spectrum which showed strong Balmer and HeI emission lines. Although Jiang et al. (2000) did not explicitly mentioned, HeII emission lines were detected stronger than in typical dwarf novae (Williams, 1983).

Kato et al. (2001) obtained time-resolved CCD photometry of the 2000 February long outburst. The long duration of the outburst and the slow rising rate suggested that GZ Cnc is a good candidate for a long-period dwarf nova. As reported in Kato et al. (2001), the recorded outbursts up to 2001 were relatively rare. Although there were unavoidable seasonal observational gaps, only three outbursts were recorded between 1999 and 2001.

In 2002 March – May, we noticed a dramatic increase of the outburst frequency. Fig. 1 shows the light curve of the 2002 season, mainly drawn from visual observations by the authors. Some additional observations (visual and CCD) reported to the VSNET Collaboration111 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/ have been incorporated. All observers used $`V`$-band calibrated comparison stars. The uncertainties of the observations are 0.2–0.3 mag, which will not affect the following discussion.

Table 1 lists the known outbursts of GZ Cnc since the discovery by Takamizawa. The shortest interval outbursts in the 2002 unusually active season was only 11 d, and the other two intervals were 21–22 d. As shown in Fig. 1, the durations of the outbursts in 2002 were very short in contrast to the long outburst in 2000 February (Kato et al., 2001). Although such bimodal activity may suggest an outburst activity seen in SU UMa-type dwarf novae (Warner, 1985), the apparent lack of superhumps during the long outburst seems to exclude the possibility of an SU UMa-type dwarf nova (Kato et al., 2001).

Alternately, the present behavior in some aspects resembles a “clustering” of outbursts observed in some IPs \[EX Hya: Hellier et al. (1989); TV Col: Uemura et al. in preparation\], whose interpretation is still in debate (Hellier et al., 2000). Although no clear coherent pulses were detected during the 2000 February outburst (Kato et al., 2001), the presence of HeII emission lines and the relatively strong, hard X-ray spectrum (Bade et al., 1998) makes some resemblance to IPs.

The present activity can also be comparable to V426 Oph, another dwarf nova which is known to show occasionally increased activities (Fig. 2; see also Wenzel & Splittgerber (1990)). V426 Oph has been also suggested to be an IP (Szkody, 1986), although this possibility is recently questioned (Hellier et al., 1990). The relatively hard X-ray spectrum of V426 Oph (Verbunt et al., 1997) is also suggestive of an analogy between GZ Cnc and V426 Oph, which may comprise a new class of cataclysmic variables with prominent occasional increases of outburst activities. These activities may be a result of the weak presence magnetic fields, although the evidence of the magnetic nature (at least in V426 Oph) is still tantalizing.

## 3 NSV 10934

NSV 10934 was discovered as a large-amplitude suspected variable star of unknown classification. The cataloged range of variability was 11.2 to \[15.0 p. We noticed that the object can be identified with a bright ROSAT X-ray source (1RXS J184050.3$``$834305). Since a combination of a large-amplitude variation and the strong X-ray emission suggests a cataclysmic variable, we started systematic monitoring of this NSV object through the VSNET Collaboration (vsnet-chat 3340).222 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/chat3000/
msg00340.html  The first outburst was detected on 2001 March 13 by RS (vsnet-alert 5778).333 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/alert5000/
msg00778.html  Three additional outbursts have been recorded since 2002 July. The well-observed most recent two outbursts have been characterized by a sudden rise (more than 1.3 mag within 1 d), which established the dwarf nova-type variability. Table 2 lists the observed outbursts. Fig. 3 depicts the long-term light curve based on visual observations by the authors (RS, NP, PA) and snapshot CCD observations. The accuracy of the visual observations is 0.2–0.3 mag, which will not affect the following discussion. The shortest interval of the observed outbursts is 46 d.

Astrometry of NSV 10934 was performed on CCD images taken by PN (2002 June 5.423 UT) and BM (2002 July 21.024 UT), both of which were taken during the rapid decline stage from outbursts. The variability of the object has been confirmed by a comparison between the two images. An average of measurements of two images (UCAC1 system, 182 and 71 reference stars respectingly; internal dispersion of the measurements was $``$0′′.1) has yielded a position of 18h 40m 52s.52, $``$83 43 09′′.84 (J2000.0). The position agrees with the USNO$``$A2.0 star at 18h 40m 52s.28, $``$83 43 09′′.2 (epoch 1983.040 and magnitudes $`r`$ = 15.6, $`b`$ = 16.5), or the GSC-2.2.1 star with position end figures of 52s.420 and 09′′.74 (epoch 1993.767 and magnitudes $`r`$ = 15.11, $`b`$ = 17.06), which is most likely the quiescent counterpart of NSV 10934 (Fig. 4).

Fig. 5 shows the enlarged light curve of the best observed outbursts. All the recorded outbursts rather quickly faded. The most recent two outbursts faded more than 1 mag within 3 d of the outburst maximum. Linear fits to the best-observed decline stages of the first two outbursts have yielded decline rates of 0.71$`\pm `$0.06 mag d-1 and 0.71$`\pm `$0.03 mag d-1, respectively. Rather fragmentary data of the recent two outbursts further suggest an even higher value close to the termination of the outbursts: the object faded by 1.5 mag in 0.90 d (JD 2452430.02–.92) and by 3.2 mag in 2.59 d (JD 2452473.93–76.52).

The combination of relatively strong and relatively hard (see Table 3) X-ray detection and short optical outbursts either suggests the possibility of an IP with dwarf nova-like outbursts, a non-magnetic HT Cas-like unusual dwarf nova with rather irregularly spaced short outbursts (Kato et al., 2002; Wood et al., 1995), or a system resembling an unusual dwarf nova BZ UMa with short outbursts and quasi-periodic oscillations (Kato, 1999; Jurcevic et al., 1994).

The precipitous fading (1.5 mag in 0.90 d) recorded during the terminal stage of the outbursts is unlike usual dwarf novae. The sequence of a more slowly fading plateau phase near outburst maxima and a subsequent rapid fading more resembles the behavior of an outburst in the recently discovered IP, HT Cam (Ishioka et al., 2002). The X-ray hardness ratios are also similar (Table 3). HT Cam showed a gradual decline for the first 0.5 d, followed by a dramatic decline by more than 4 mag d-1 (Ishioka et al., 2002). Since the time-evolution of the light curve is slightly slower in NSV 10934, the orbital period of NSV 10934 is expected to be slightly longer than that of HT Cam (86 min), if NSV 10934 indeed turns out to be an HT Cam-like object.

## 4 Conclusion

We report on a discovery of unexpected activities in two X-ray bright dwarf novae. GZ Cnc showed an anomalous clustering of outbursts in 2002, in contrast to a low outburst frequency in the past record. The activity resembles an increased activity seen in some intermediate polars or candidates. We have shown that the outburst characteristics of NSV 10934 closely resembles those of recently discovered intermediate polar (HT Cam) with dwarf nova-type outbursts. The X-ray properties of these objects are summarized in Table 3. We propose that these activities in X-ray strong dwarf novae may be a previously overlooked manifestation of outburst activities in magnetic cataclysmic variables. Further research to elucidate the relation between these unusual cataclysmic variables and IPs is encouraged. Although direct detection of IP pulses is known to be sometimes difficult or tantalizing (see Rosen et al. (1994) for a recent example) we encourage more extensive search for the IP-type coherent signal in quiescence and outburst (cd. HT Cam: Kemp et al. (2002); Ishioka et al. (2002)), and in X-rays.

This work is partly supported by a grant-in aid \[13640239 (TK), 14740131 (HY)\] from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The CCD operation of the Bronberg Observatory is partly sponsored by the Center for Backyard Astrophysics. The CCD operation by PN is on loan from the AAVSO, funded by the Curry Foundation. This research has made use of the Digitized Sky Survey producted by STScI, the ESO Skycat tool, the VizieR catalogue access tool.