text:
# I Introduction

## I Introduction

Atmospheric neutrino data from Super-Kamiokande provides strong evidence that $`\nu _\mu `$’s created in the atmosphere oscillate to $`\nu _\tau `$ with mass-squared difference $`|\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2|3\times 10^3`$ eV2 and almost maximal amplitude . Furthermore, the recent solar neutrino data from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) establishes that electron neutrinos change flavor as they travel from the Sun to the Earth: the neutral-current measurement is consistent with the solar neutrino flux predicted in the Standard Solar Model , while the charged-current measurement shows a depletion of the electron neutrino component relative to the total flux . Global fits to solar neutrino data give a strong preference for the Large Mixing Angle (LMA) solution to the solar neutrino puzzle, with $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sol}}^25\times 10^5`$ eV2 and amplitude close to 0.8 .

The combined atmospheric and solar data may be explained by oscillations of three neutrinos, that are described by two mass-squared differences, three mixing angles and a $`CP`$ violating phase. The atmospheric and solar data roughly determine $`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$, $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2`$ and the corresponding mixing angles. The LMA solar solution will be tested decisively (and $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2`$ measured accurately) by the KamLAND reactor neutrino experiment . More precise measurements of the other oscillation parameters may be performed in long-baseline neutrino experiments. The low energy beam at MINOS  plus experiments with ICARUS  and OPERA  will allow an accurate determination of the atmospheric neutrino parameters and may provide the first evidence for oscillations of $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ at the atmospheric mass scale . It will take a new generation of long-baseline experiments to further probe $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ appearance and to measure the leptonic $`CP`$ phase. Matter effects are the only means to determine sgn($`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$); once sgn($`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$) is known, the level of intrinsic $`CP`$ violation may be measured. Matter effects and intrinsic $`CP`$ violation both vanish in the limit that the mixing angle responsible for $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ oscillations of atmospheric neutrinos is zero.

It is now well-known that there are three two-fold parameter degeneracies that can occur in the measurement of the oscillation amplitude for $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ appearance, the ordering of the neutrino masses, and the $`CP`$ phase . With only one $`\nu `$ and one $`\overline{\nu }`$ measurement, these degeneracies can lead to eight possible solutions for the oscillation parameters; in most cases, $`CP`$ violating ($`CPV`$) and $`CP`$ conserving ($`CPC`$) solutions can equally explain the same data. Studies have been done on how a superbeam , neutrino factory , superbeam plus neutrino factory , or two superbeams with one at a very long baseline  could be used to resolve one or more of these ambiguities.

In this paper we show that by combining the results of two superbeam experiments with different medium baselines, $`<1000`$ km, the ambiguity associated with the sign of $`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$ can be resolved, even when it cannot be resolved by the two experiments taken separately. Furthermore, the ability to determine sgn($`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$) from the combined data is found to not be greatly sensitive to the size of $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2`$, unlike the situation where data from only a single baseline is used. If both experiments are at or near the peak of the oscillation, a good compromise is obtained between the sensitivities for resolving sgn($`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$) and for establishing the existence of $`CP`$ violation. If $`|\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2|`$ is not known accurately, the neutrino energies and baselines can be chosen to give fairly good sensitivity to the sign of $`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$ and to $`CP`$ violation for a range of $`|\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2|`$.

The organization of our paper is as follows. In Sec. II we discuss the parameter degeneracies that can occur in the analysis of long-baseline oscillation data. In Sec. III we analyze how two long-baseline superbeam experiments can break degeneracies, determine the neutrino parameters, and establish the existence of $`CP`$ violation in the neutrino sector, if it is present. A summary is presented in Sec. IV.

## II Parameter degeneracies

We work in the three-neutrino scenario using the parametrization for the neutrino mixing matrix of Ref. . If we assume that $`\nu _3`$ is the neutrino eigenstate that is separated from the other two, then $`\delta m_{31}^2=\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$ and the sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$ can be either positive or negative, corresponding to the mass of $`\nu _3`$ being either larger or smaller, respectively, than the other two masses. The solar oscillations are regulated by $`\delta m_{21}^2=\delta m_{\mathrm{sol}}^2`$, and thus $`|\delta m_{21}^2||\delta m_{31}^2|`$. If we accept the likely conclusion that the solar solution is LMA , then $`\delta m_{21}^2>0`$ and we can restrict $`\theta _{12}`$ to the range $`[0,\pi /4]`$. It is known from reactor neutrino data that $`\theta _{13}`$ is small, with $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.1`$ at the 95% C.L. . Thus a set of parameters that unambiguously spans the space is $`\delta m_{31}^2`$ (magnitude and sign), $`\delta m_{21}^2`$, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}`$, $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{23}`$, and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$; only the $`\theta _{23}`$ angle can be below or above $`\pi /4`$.

For the oscillation probabilities for $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e`$ we use approximate expressions given in Ref. , in which the probabilities are expanded in terms of the small parameters $`\theta _{13}`$ and $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ , which reproduces well the exact oscillation probabilities for $`E_\nu >0.5`$ GeV, $`\theta _{13}<9^{}`$, and $`L<4000`$ km . In all of our calculations we use the average electron density along the neutrino path, assuming the Preliminary Reference Earth Model . Our calculational methods are described in Ref. .

We expect that $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}`$ will be measured to an accuracy of $`10`$% at $`3\sigma `$ from $`\nu _\mu \nu _\mu `$ survival in long-baseline experiments , while $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ will be measured to an accuracy of $`10`$% at $`2\sigma `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}`$ will be measured to an accuracy of $`\pm 0.1`$ at $`2\sigma `$ in experiments with reactor neutrinos . The remaining parameters ($`\theta _{13}`$, the $`CP`$ phase $`\delta `$, and the sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$) must be determined from long-baseline appearance experiments, principally using the modes $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e`$ with conventional neutrino beams, or $`\nu _e\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ at neutrino factories. However, there are three parameter degeneracies that can occur in such an analysis: (i) the ($`\delta ,\theta _{13}`$) ambiguity , (ii) the sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) ambiguity , and (iii) the ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguity  (see Ref.  for a complete discussion of these three parameter degeneracies). In each degeneracy, two different sets of values for $`\delta `$ and $`\theta _{13}`$ can give the same measured rates for both $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ appearance and disappearance. For each type of degeneracy the values of $`\theta _{13}`$ for the two equivalent solutions can be quite different, and the two values of $`\delta `$ may have different $`CP`$ properties, e.g., one can be $`CP`$ conserving and the other $`CP`$ violating.

A judicious choice of $`L`$ and $`E_\nu `$ can reduce the impact of the degeneracies. For example, if $`L/E_\nu `$ is chosen such that $`\mathrm{\Delta }|\delta m_{31}^2|L/(4E_\nu )=\pi /2`$ (the peak of the oscillation in vacuum), then the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the average appearance probabilities vanish, even after matter effects are included . Then since it is $`\mathrm{sin}\delta `$ that is being measured, the ($`\delta ,\theta _{13}`$) ambiguity is reduced to a simple ($`\delta ,\pi \delta `$) ambiguity, $`CPV`$ solutions are no longer mixed with $`CPC`$ solutions, and $`\theta _{13}`$ is in principle determined (for a given sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) and $`\theta _{23}`$). If $`L`$ is chosen to be long enough ($`>1000`$ km), then the predictions for $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$ and $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$ no longer overlap if $`\theta _{13}>`$ a few degrees, and the sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) ambiguity is removed; our previous studies indicated that for $`\delta m_{21}^2=5\times 10^5`$ eV2 this happens at $`L>1300`$ km if $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}>0.01`$  (before experimental uncertainties are considered). However, the persistence of the sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) ambiguity is highly dependent on the size of the solar oscillation mass scale, because large values of $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ cause the predictions for $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$ and $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$ to overlap much more severely than when $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ is smaller. Also, existing neutrino baselines are no longer than 735 km. In this paper we explore the possibility that two experiments with medium baselines ($`<1000`$ km) can determine sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$), even when data from one of the baselines alone cannot. We then address the sensitivity for establishing $`CP`$ violation.

## III Joint analysis of two superbeam experiments

### A Description of the experiments and method

For our analysis we take one baseline to be 295 km, the distance for the proposed experiment from the Japan Hadron facility (JHF) to the Super-Kamiokande detector at Kamioka. For the neutrino spectrum of this experiment we use their $`2^{}`$ off-axis beam with average neutrino energy of 0.7 GeV . For the second experiment we assume an off-axis beam in which the beam axis points at a site 735 km from the source (appropriate for a beamline from NuMI at Fermilab to Soudan, or from CERN to Gran Sasso). For the off-axis spectra of the NuMI experiment we use the results presented in Ref. , which provides neutrino spectra for 39 different off-axis angles ranging from $`0.32^{}`$ to $`1.76^{}`$.

Using the off-axis components of the beam has the advantage of a lower background  due to reduced $`\nu _e`$ contamination and a smaller high-energy tail. Off-axis beams also offer flexibility in the choice of $`L`$ and $`E_\nu `$. For example, for a beam nominally aimed at a ground-level site a distance $`L_0`$ from the source, the distance to a ground-level detector with off-axis angle $`\theta _{OA}`$ can lie anywhere in the range

$$2R_e\mathrm{sin}(\theta \theta _{OA})L2R_e\mathrm{sin}(\theta +\theta _{OA}),$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =L_0/(2R_e)`$, and $`R_e=6371`$ km is the radius of the Earth. Then for $`L_0^2R_e^2`$ the possible range of distances for an off-axis detector at approximately ground level is

$$L_02R_e\theta _{OA}<L<L_0+2R_e\theta _{OA}.$$
(2)
The neutrino energy and neutrino flux $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\nu `$ decrease with increasing off-axis angle as

$$E_\nu =\frac{0.43E_\pi }{1+\gamma ^2\theta _{OA}^2},\mathrm{\Phi }_\nu \frac{E_\nu ^2}{L^2},$$
(3)
where $`\gamma =E_\pi /m_\pi `$ is boost factor of the decaying pion. Thus a wide range of $`L`$ and $`E_\nu `$ can be achieved with a single fixed beam, although the event rate will drop with increasing off-axis angle because the flux decreases and the neutrino cross section is smaller at smaller $`E_\nu `$ (thereby putting a limit on the usable range of $`L`$ and $`E_\nu `$).

For the first experiment at $`L_1=295`$ km, we assume that the neutrino spectrum is chosen so that the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ oscillation probabilities vanish (after averaging over the neutrino spectrum), using the best existing experimental value for $`\delta m_{31}^2`$. The JHF $`2^{}`$ off-axis beam  satisfies this condition for $`\delta m_{31}^2=3\times 10^3`$ eV2. This spectrum choice reduces the ($`\delta ,\theta _{13}`$) ambiguity to a simple ($`\delta ,\pi \delta `$) ambiguity, as described in Sec. II. For the second experiment we allow $`L_2`$ and $`\theta _{OA}`$ to vary within the restrictions of Eq. (2). This flexibility can be fully utilized if a deep underground site is not required; the short duration of the beam operation (an 8.6 $`\mu `$s pulse with a 1.9 s cycle time ) may enable a sufficient reduction in the cosmic ray neutrino background. We assume that the proton drivers at the neutrino sources have been upgraded from their initial designs (from 0.8 to 4.0 MW for JHF  and from 0.4 to 1.6 MW for FNAL ), so that they are both true neutrino superbeams. We assume two years running with neutrinos and six years with antineutrinos at JHF, and two years with neutrinos and five years with antineutrinos at FNAL; these running times give approximately equivalent numbers of charged-current events for neutrinos and antineutrinos at the two facilities, in the absence of oscillations. For detectors, we assume a 22.5 kt detector in the JHF beam (such as the current Super-K detector) and a 20 kt detector in the FNAL beam (which was proposed in Ref. ). Larger detectors such as Hyper-Kamiokande or UNO would allow shorter beam exposures or higher precision studies. In all of our calculations, we assume $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=3\times 10^3`$ eV2, $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$, $`\delta m_{21}^2=5\times 10^5`$ eV2, and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}=0.8`$, unless noted otherwise.

We first consider the minimum value of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ for which the signal in the neutrino appearance channel can be seen above background at the $`3\sigma `$ level (the discovery reach), varying over a range of allowed values for $`\theta _{OA}`$ and $`L_2`$ in the second experiment. The discovery reach depends on the value of $`\delta `$ and the sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$; the best (when $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$) and worst (when $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$) cases in the $`\nu `$ channel (after varying over $`\delta `$) are shown in Fig. 1. In the $`\overline{\nu }`$ channel, the best case occurs for $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$ and the worst for $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$. In our calculations we assume a background that is 0.5% of the unoscillated charged-current rate (see Ref. ), and that the systematic error is 5% of the background. However, we note that our general conclusions are not significantly affected by reasonable changes in these experimental uncertainty assumptions. Detector positions where there is no $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ dependence in the rates are denoted by boxes. The best reach is $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.003`$, which occurs for $`\theta _{OA}0.5`$-$`0.9^{}`$. In the worst case scenario the reach degrades to $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.01`$.

The measurement of $`P`$ and $`\overline{P}`$ at $`L_1`$ allows a determination of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\delta `$, modulo the possible uncertainty caused by the sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$, assuming for the moment that $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$, so there is no ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguity. The question we next consider is whether an additional measurement of $`P`$ and $`\overline{P}`$ at $`L_2`$ can determine sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$), measure $`CP`$ violation, and distinguish $`\delta `$ from $`\pi \delta `$. We define the $`\chi ^2`$ of neutrino parameters ($`\delta ^{},\theta _{13}^{}`$) relative to the parameters ($`\delta ,\theta _{13}`$) as

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i}{}\frac{(N_iN_i^{})^2}{(\delta N_i)^2},$$
(4)
where $`N_i`$ and $`N_i^{}`$ are the event rates for the parameters ($`\delta ,\theta _{13}`$) and ($`\delta ^{},\theta _{13}^{}`$), respectively, $`\delta N_i`$ is the uncertainty in $`N_i`$, and $`i`$ is summed over the measurements being used in the analysis ($`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ at $`L_1`$ and $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ at $`L_2`$). For $`\delta N_i`$ we assume that the statistical error for the signal plus background can be added in quadrature with the systematic error. For a two-parameter system ($`\delta `$ and $`\theta _{13}`$ unknown), two sets of parameters can be resolved at the $`2\sigma `$ ($`3\sigma `$) level if $`\chi ^2>6.17`$ ($`11.83`$).

### B Determining the sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$

To determine if measurements at $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ can distinguish one set of oscillation parameters with one sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$ from all other possible sets of oscillation parameters with the opposite sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$, we sample the ($`\delta ,\theta _{13}`$) space for the opposite sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) using a fine grid with $`1^{}`$ spacing in $`\delta `$ and approximately 2% increments in $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$. If the $`\chi ^2`$ between the original set of oscillation parameters and all of those with the opposite sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is greater than $`6.17`$ ($`11.83`$), then sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is distinguished at the $`2\sigma `$ ($`3\sigma `$) level for that parameter set.

Figure 2 shows contours (in the space of possible $`L_2`$ and $`\theta _{OA}`$ for the second experiment) for the minimum value of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ (the $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ reach) for distinguishing sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) at the $`3\sigma `$ level when $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ data from $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ are combined. As in Fig. 1, the boxes indicate the detector positions where the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the average probabilities vanish. The best reach of about $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.03`$ can be realized for $`\theta _{OA}0.7`$-$`1.0^{}`$ and $`L_2`$ values near the maximum allowed by Eq. 2 ($`875`$-$`950`$ km). Table I shows the sensitivity for determining sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) for different combinations of detector size and proton driver power in the two experiments. The table shows that once enough statistics are obtained at JHF (with a 22.5 kt detector and a 4 MW source), combined JHF and NuMI data significantly improve the $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ reach for determining sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) at $`3\sigma `$ (by nearly a factor of two compared to data from a 1.6 MW NuMI alone).

The ability to distinguish the sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$ is greatly affected by the size of the solar mass scale $`\delta m_{21}^2`$, because the predictions for $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$ and $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$ overlap more for larger values of $`\delta m_{21}^2`$. In Fig. 3a we show the region in ($`\delta ,\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$) space for which parameters with $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$ can be distinguished from all parameters with $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$ at the $`3\sigma `$ level for several possible values of $`\delta m_{21}^2`$, using combined data from $`L_1=295`$ km and $`L_2=890`$ km, with $`\theta _{OA}=0.74^{}`$ for the second experiment. With this configuration the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the average probabilities vanish for both experiments and nearly maximal reach for distinguishing sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is achieved. A similar plot using only data at $`L_2=890`$ km and $`\theta _{OA}=0.74^{}`$ is shown in Fig. 3b. We do not show a corresponding plot for $`L_1=295`$ km because the shorter baseline severely inhibits the determination of sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$). A comparison of the two figures shows that for $`\delta =270^{}`$ (where the $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$ predictions have the least overlap with any of those for $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$) the sensitivity to sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is not significantly improved by adding the data at $`L_1`$. However, at $`\delta =90^{}`$ the ability to distinguish sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is much less affected by the value of $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ when the data at $`L_1`$ is included. With data only at $`L_2`$, sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) can be determined for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}=0.1`$ when $`\delta =90^{}`$ only for $`\delta m_{21}^2<8\times 10^5`$eV2, while with data at $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ it can be determined for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ as low as 0.04 for $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ as high as $`2\times 10^4`$ eV2. The corresponding results for $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$ are approximately given by reflecting the curves in Fig. 3 about $`\delta =180^{}`$.

We conclude that combining measurements of $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e`$ from two superbeam experiments at different $`L`$ results in a much more sensitive test of the sign of $`\delta m_{31}^2`$ than one experiment alone, especially for larger values of the solar mass scale $`\delta m_{21}^2`$.

The ability to determine sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is also affected by the value of $`\theta _{23}`$. We found that the $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ reach for determining sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) at $`3\sigma `$ varied from 0.02 to 0.04 for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}=0.90`$ (compared to 0.03 when $`\theta _{23}=\pi /4`$), depending on whether $`\delta m_{31}^2`$ is positive or negative, and whether $`\theta _{23}<\pi /4`$ or $`\theta _{23}>\pi /4`$. The sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) sensitivities for different possibilities are shown in Table II.

### C Establishing the existence of $`CP`$ violation

An important goal of long-baseline experiments is to determine whether or not $`CP`$ is violated in the leptonic sector. In order to unambiguously establish the existence of $`CP`$ violation, one must be able to differentiate between ($`\delta ,\theta _{13}`$) and all possible ($`\delta ^{},\theta _{13}^{}`$), where $`\delta ^{}=0^{}`$ or $`180^{}`$ and $`\theta _{13}^{}`$ can take on any value. For our $`CP`$ violation analysis we vary $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}^{}`$ in 2% increments, as was done in the previous section when testing the sgn($`\delta m_{13}^2`$) sensitivity.

Figure 4 shows contours of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ reach for distinguishing $`\delta =90^{}`$ from the $`CP`$ conserving values $`\delta =0^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$ at $`3\sigma `$ (with the same sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$)), plotted in the ($`\theta _{OA},L_2`$) plane, assuming $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ data at both $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ are combined. The $`CP`$ reach in $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ can go as low as 0.01 for $`\theta _{OA}0.5`$ to $`0.9^{}`$. Results for $`\delta =270^{}`$ are similar to those for $`\delta =90^{}`$.

Figure 5 shows the minimum value of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ for which $`\delta `$ can be distinguished from all $`CP`$ conserving parameter sets with $`\delta =0^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$, including those with the opposite sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$), at the $`3\sigma `$ level when $`\theta _{OA}=0.74^{}`$ and $`L_2=890`$ km, for several different values of $`\delta m_{21}^2`$. Figure 5a shows the reaches if data from JHF and NuMI are combined, while Fig. 5b shows the reaches if data from NuMI only are used. For most values of $`\delta `$, when $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ is higher the $`CP`$ effect is increased, and hence $`CP`$ violation can be detected for smaller values of $`\theta _{13}`$. However, there is a possibility that a $`CPV`$ solution with one sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) may not be as easily distinguishable from a $`CPC`$ solution with the opposite sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$); this occurs, e.g., in Fig. 5a for $`\delta m_{21}^2=1\times 10^4`$ eV2, where the predictions for ($`\delta =45^{}`$ and $`135^{}`$, $`\delta m_{31}^2>0`$) are close to those for ($`\delta =0^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$, $`\delta m_{31}^2<0`$); in this case the $`CP`$ reach for those values of $`\delta `$ is about the same for $`\delta m_{21}^2=1\times 10^4`$ eV2 and $`\delta m_{21}^2=5\times 10^5`$ eV2.

We note that if data from only JHF are used (and assuming $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.1`$) no value of the $`CP`$ phase can be distinguished at $`3\sigma `$ from the $`CP`$ conserving solutions when $`\delta m_{21}^2<8\times 10^5`$ eV2, principally because the intrinsic $`CP`$ violation due to $`\delta `$ and the $`CP`$ violation due to matter have similar magnitudes and it is hard to disentangle the two effects. For larger values of $`\delta m_{21}^2`$, the intrinsic $`CP`$ effects are larger and $`CP`$ violation can be established; e.g., if $`\delta m_{21}^2=1\times 10^4`$ ($`2\times 10^4`$) eV2, maximal $`CP`$ violation ($`\delta =90^{}`$ or $`270^{}`$) can be distinguished from $`CP`$ conservation at $`3\sigma `$ for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}>0.006`$ ($`0.001`$). Therefore, when $`\delta m_{21}^2=1\times 10^4`$ eV2, most of the $`CP`$ sensitivity of the combined JHF plus NuMI data results from the JHF data; for $`\delta m_{21}^2=2\times 10^4`$ eV2 the two experiments contribute about equally to the $`CP`$ sensitivity.

The boxes in Figs. 2 and 4 indicate the values of $`L_2`$ and $`\theta _{OA}`$ for which the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the average probabilities vanish for the second experiment. As indicated in the figures, these detector positions are good for both distinguishing sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) (see Fig. 2) and for establishing the existence of $`CP`$ violation (see Fig. 4), especially for larger values of $`L_2`$. A good compromise occurs at $`\theta _{OA}0.74^{}`$ with $`L_2890`$ km. In Ref.  it was shown that similar values for $`\theta _{OA}`$ and $`L_2`$ using the NuMI off-axis beam gave a favorable figure-of-merit for the signal to background ratio; our analysis shows that such an off-axis angle and baseline is also very good for distinguishing sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) and establishing $`CP`$ violation, when combined with superbeam data at $`L_1=295`$ km.

### D Resolving the ($`\delta ,\pi \delta `$) ambiguity

If $`L_2890`$ km and $`\theta _{OA}0.74^{}`$ are chosen for the location of the second experiment, as suggested in the previous section, then both the first and second experiments are effectively measuring $`\mathrm{sin}\delta `$, and it is impossible to resolve the ($`\delta ,\pi \delta `$) ambiguity. Different values of $`L_2`$ and $`\theta _{OA}`$ would be needed to distinguish $`\delta `$ from $`\pi \delta `$.

Figure 6 shows contours (in the space of possible $`L_2`$ and $`\theta _{OA}`$) for the minimum value of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ needed to distinguish $`\delta =0^{}`$ from $`\delta =180^{}`$ at the $`2\sigma `$ level using $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ data from $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ (it is not possible to distinguish $`\delta =0^{}`$ from $`\delta =180^{}`$ at the $`3\sigma `$ level for any value of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.1`$). Two choices are possible: one with $`\theta _{OA}<0.3`$-$`0.5^{}`$ and $`L_2650`$-$`775`$ km, and another near $`\theta _{OA}1.0^{}`$ with $`L_2950`$ km. The former choice does not do well in distingishing sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$), while the latter choice is nearly optimal for sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) sensitivity but significantly worse for $`CP`$ violation sensitivity. Thus the ability to also resolve the ($`\delta ,\pi \delta `$) ambiguity is rather poor, and comes at the expense of $`CPV`$ sensitivity.

### E Resolving the ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguity

If $`\theta _{23}\pi /4`$, there is an additional ambiguity between $`\theta _{23}`$ and $`\pi /2\theta _{23}`$. This ambiguity gives two solutions for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ whose ratio differs by a factor of approximately $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{23}`$, which can be as large as 2 if $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{23}=0.9`$ . Assuming $`L_1=295`$ km for the first experiment, we could not find any experimental configuration of $`L_2`$ and $`\theta _{OA}`$ for the second experiment that could resolve the ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguity for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.1`$ at even the $`1\sigma `$ level for the entire range of detector sizes and source powers listed in Table I. Therefore we conclude that superbeams are not effective at resolving the ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguity using $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ appearance data. Since the approximate oscillation probability for $`\nu _e\nu _\tau `$ is given by the interchanges $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{23}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{23}`$ and $`\delta \delta `$ in the expression for the $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ probability, a neutrino factory combined with detectors having tau neutrino detection capability provides a means for resolving the ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguity . Another possibility is to measure survival of $`\overline{\nu }_e`$’s from a reactor, which to leading order is sensitive to $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ but not $`\theta _{23}`$ .

### F Dependence on $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$

The foregoing analysis assumed $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=3\times 10^3`$ eV2. If the true value differs from this, then to sit on the peak (where the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms vanish) requires tuning the beam energy and baseline according to the measured value of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$. JHF has the capability of varying the average $`E_\nu `$ from 0.4 GeV to 1.0 GeV, which would correspond to realizing the peak condition for $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=1.6`$-$`4.0\times 10^3`$ eV2 . In principle, NuMI can vary both $`L_2`$ and $`\theta _{OA}`$ to be on the peak. If $`|\delta m_{31}^2|<3\times 10^3`$ eV2, then the best sensitivity to sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is obtained for larger $`\theta _{OA}`$ and longer distances (the larger angle makes $`E_\nu `$ smaller while the longer distance enhances the matter effect), and the sensitivity is reduced (since the matter effect is smaller for smaller $`\delta m_{31}^2`$). The $`CP`$ violation sensitivity is also reduced, although not as significantly. For larger values of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ the sensitivity to sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is better, with $`CP`$ violation sensitivity about the same.

The tuning of the experiments to the peak (where the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the average probabilities vanish) requires knowledge of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ before the experimental design is finalized. The values of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ and $`\theta _{23}`$ will be well-measured in the survival channel $`\nu _\mu \nu _\mu `$ measurements that would run somewhat before or concurrently with the appearance measurements being discussed here, but of course this information may not be available when the configurations for the off-axis experiments are chosen. If $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ is known to 10% at $`3\sigma `$ (the expected sensitivity of MINOS), then the sensitivities to sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) and $`CP`$ violation are not greatly affected by baselines that are slightly off-peak. If the baselines and neutrino energies for the superbeam experiments must be chosen before a 10% measurement of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ can be made, a loss of sensitivity to sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) could result by not being on the peak. For example, if the experiments are designed for $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=3\times 10^3`$ eV2 but in fact $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=2.5\times 10^3`$ eV2, the $`3\sigma `$ sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) reach is less ($`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}=0.04`$, compared to 0.03 for $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=3\times 10^3`$ eV2). If $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ is actually $`2\times 10^3`$ eV2, the $`3\sigma `$ sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) reach extends only down to $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}0.075`$, just a little below the CHOOZ bound.

Since the sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) determination has the worst reach in $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}`$ (compared to the discovery reach and the $`CPV`$ sensitivity), and since not knowing sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) can induce a $`CPV/CPC`$ ambiguity, the measurement of sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is crucial. If $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ is not known precisely, then the exact peak position is not known, and an off-axis angle and baseline should be chosen that will give a reasonable reach for sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) over as much of the allowed range of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ as possible. For example, $`\theta _{OA}=0.85^{}`$-$`0.90^{}`$ and $`L930`$ km gives a sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) reach that is fairly good for the range $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=2\times 10^3`$ eV2 to $`4\times 10^3`$ eV2. The reach for sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is farthest from optimal at the extremes ($`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}=0.06`$ versus the best reach of 0.05 when $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=2\times 10^3`$ eV2 and 0.03 versus the best reach of 0.02 when $`|\delta m_{31}^2|=4\times 10^3`$ eV2). But the $`CPV`$ reach remains at least as good as the sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) reach for this range of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$.

## IV Summary

We summarize the important points of our paper as follows:

1. Two superbeam experiments at different baselines, each measuring $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu \overline{\nu }_e`$ appearance, are significantly better at resolving the sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) ambiguity than one experiment alone. Using beams from a 4.0 MW JHF with a 22.5 kt detector $`2^{}`$ off axis at 295 km and a 1.6 MW NuMI with a 20 kt detector $`0.7`$-$`1.0^{}`$ off axis at $`875`$-$`950`$ km, sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) can be determined for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}>0.03`$ if $`\delta m_{31}^2=3\times 10^3`$ eV2. Sensitivities for other beam powers and detector sizes are given in Table I.
2. For the most favorable cases, a higher value for the solar oscillation scale $`\delta m_{21}^2`$ does not greatly change the sensitivity to sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) when $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ data from two different baselines are combined (unlike the single baseline case, where the ability to determine sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) is significantly worse for $`\delta m_{21}^2>5\times 10^5`$ eV2).
3. Running both experiments at the oscillation peaks, such that the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the average probabilities vanish, provides good sensitivity to both sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) and to $`CP`$ violation. On the other hand, the ability to resolve the ($`\delta ,\pi \delta `$) ambiguity is lost, and the ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguity is not resolved for any experimental arrangement considered. However, the ($`\delta ,\pi \delta `$) and ($`\theta _{23},\pi /2\theta _{23}`$) ambiguities do not substantially affect the ability to determine whether or not $`CP`$ is violated (although the latter ambiguity could affect the inferred value of $`\theta _{13}`$ by as much as a factor of 2).
4. Since running at or near the oscillation peaks is favorable, knowledge of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ to about 10% (from MINOS) before these experiments are run would be advantageous. If $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ is not known that precisely in advance, then the detector off-axis angle and baseline can still be chosen to give fairly good (though not optimal) sensitivities to sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) and $`CP`$ violation.

We conclude that superbeam experiments at different baselines may greatly improve the prospects for determining the neutrino mass ordering in the three-neutrino model. Since a good compromise between determining sgn($`\delta m_{31}^2`$) and establishing the existence of $`CP`$ violation is obtained when both experiments are tuned so that the $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ terms in the average probabilities approximately vanish, knowledge of $`|\delta m_{31}^2|`$ would be helpful for the optimal design for the experiments.

## Acknowledgments

We thank A. Para for information on the NuMI off-axis beams, and A. Para and D. Harris for helpful discussions. This research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grants No. DE-FG02-95ER40896, No. DE-FG02-01ER41155 and No. DE-FG02-91ER40676, and in part by the University of Wisconsin Research Committee with funds granted by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.


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# 170 Nanometer Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging using Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy

## 1 Introduction

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has had many benefits to medicine and biology. However, the low sensitivity of the conventional inductive detection of nuclear magnetic moments has limited MRI to the micrometer scale and above. The alternative technique of force detection of the magnetic resonance, Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM), increases both the sensitivity and the resolution of MRI. Force detected NMR allows imaging with resolution well below one micrometer in solids, which opens up the application of MRI to semiconductor devices, thin films, and other nanostructures. In this article, we report force detection of 71,69Ga and 75As magnetic resonance in the semiconductor GaAs, in combination with optical pumping to increase the nuclear spin polarization. We demonstrate one-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging of GaAs with 170 nanometer slice separation and resolve two regions of reduced nuclear spin polarization density separated by only 500 nanometers.

## 2 Materials and Methods

The force measured in a MRFM experiment is the force between two magnets: a small ferromagnet, and the nuclear (or electron) magnetic moments of the sample. Figure 1 shows an illustration of the MRFM probe head. In our experiment, the ferromagnet is a 250 $`\mu `$m diameter iron cylinder. The sample is a $`260\times 180\times 3`$ $`\mu `$m3 layer of GaAs, doped at $`0.6\times 10^{18}`$ cm-3 Si and $`2.0\times 10^{18}`$ cm-3 Be. To detect the force between the sample and the ferromagnet, the GaAs sample is mounted with silver-filled epoxy on the end of a microcantilever and positioned 60 $`\mu `$m from the surface of the iron magnet. We used a Si3N4 cantilever coated with 300 Å Ti and 700 Å Au on both sides for thermal conductivity (total spring constant $`k`$ of the Au/Ti/Si3N4/Ti/Au sandwich $`0.05`$ N/m). The loaded cantilever has a mechanical resonant frequency, $`f_c=490`$ Hz and $`Q=75`$ at 5 K in He exchange gas. The motion of the cantilever is observed with a fiber optic interferometer. Further description of the cryostat and electronics is given in references .

The oscillation of the cantilever is driven by cyclic adiabatic rapid passage (ARP). The RF magnetic field ($`\omega _{RF}/2\pi =51.50`$ MHz) has a triangle wave frequency modulation with peak-to-peak frequency width of $`2\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi `$, which flips the resonant nuclei at a frequency $`f_{ARP}`$. The RF magnetic field ($`2B_10.4`$ mT) is provided by a 700 $`\mu `$m diameter, 1 1/2 turn copper coil. The static magnetic field for resonance (3.96 T for 71Ga at 51.50 MHz) is provided by the combination of an external superconducting magnet and the 250 $`\mu `$m diameter iron cylinder. The small size of the iron magnet results in a large magnetic field gradient (6000 T/m) at the center of the sample which provides the spatial selectivity for imaging. Only those spins in a total magnetic field satisfying the resonance condition will contribute to the signal.

Even at 5 K, the thermal spin polarization of the nuclei is rather small, $`6\times 10^4`$. To increase the nuclear spin polarization, we optically pump the GaAs sample. An optical fiber shines circularly polarized light on the sample with a wavelength of 823 nm (near the bandgap of GaAs). Because of the GaAs band structure, the circularly polarized light creates electron-hole pairs with the electrons having 50% net polarization. The electrons then polarize the nuclei, through hyperfine interactions primarily at electronic defects (dynamic nuclear polarization). The optical pumping was typically done at 0.2 T external applied field because of the higher nuclear polarization achieved at low field. The magnetic field was then ramped up for the NMR measurements. Because of the long $`T_1`$ (21$`\pm `$5 min), very little spin polarization is lost in the roughly one minute required to change the magnetic field. The optical power (roughly 1400 W/m2) was kept low to avoid heating the sample. Since the sample is mounted at the end of a thin cantilever, thermal conductance away from the sample is low ($`25\mu `$W/K).

## 3 Results

We observed all three naturally abundant nuclear isotopes in GaAs, 71Ga, 69Ga and 75As, as shown in figure 2. The large width of the isotope peaks reflects the magnetic field gradient and the spatial extent of the sample. Each isotope peak is a 1D image of the nuclear spin polarization density of that isotope. For our cylindrical magnet, the imaging slices are shaped like a plate (thin with some curvature), as shown in cross-section in figure 3. The first signal at the lowest external magnetic field is from the bottom center of the sample. The signal grows rapidly with increasing external field as the slice volume extends deeper into the 3 $`\mu `$m thick sample. Once the tip of the imaging slice extends beyond the sample, the signal size declines slowly because of the reduced sample volume within the imaging slice. Using the observed maximum offset of the signal from the nominal resonance fields and the saturation magnetization for iron (2.18 T), we can calculate the magnetic field gradient and the resonant slice geometry. For the imaging slice corresponding to the peak signal in figure 4 ($``$, 3.388 T), the slices are separated by 170 nm with a total volume of 600 $`\mu `$m3 and a magnetic field gradient of 6000 T/m. This volume contains $`5\times 10^{12}`$ 71Ga nuclei with a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 14 $`/\sqrt{Hz}`$. Figure 4 shows single shot measurements of 2.5 or 5 seconds without any averaging. The good agreement between the leading edge of the data (figure 4 $``$) and the calculated signal (dotted line) confirms the calculated magnetic field gradient. The difference in the decline of the signal at higher external fields is caused by spatial variation in the optical pumping, which is most effective at the center of the sample. Figure 5 shows the nuclear spin polarization enhancement by optical pumping. Optical pumping at 0.2 T external field creates nuclear polarization as much as 12 times greater than the thermal polarization achieved at 5K and 4 T.

To demonstrate our ability to resolve structure in the nuclear spin polarization density, we want to see how close two planes of nuclear polarization can be and still be distinguished. To create contrast in our uniform GaAs sample, we sweep the magnetic field with constant frequency RF on, which inverts the nuclear polarization. During this sweep, we reduce the nuclear polarization in two closely spaced slices by exposing them to several seconds of cyclic ARP (see Fig. 6). Between the two slices of reduced polarization, we leave a third slice whose polarization is inverted along with the rest of the sample region, but has nominally unaltered polarization magnitude. Following this, we measure the resulting polarization. As shown in figure 4, we can resolve the nuclear spin polarization signal from two slices separated by only 500 nm. This is only an upper limit on the resolution of this instrument because we are doing cyclic ARP on each slice twice: first to reduce the spin polarization to provide contrast and then a second time to measure the image. Some of the blurring of the slices occurs in the creation of the spin-polarization contrast before imaging.

## 4 Discussion

The thickness of the spatial imaging slices in our experiment is primarily determined by the frequency width of the ARP relative to the magnetic field gradient. In this experiment, the highest resolution data was taken with the peak-to-peak frequency modulation of the adiabatic rapid passage, $`2\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi =4`$ kHz (equivalent to 0.31 mT for 71Ga) and the data points were taken every 1 mT. The data points are thus separated by the magnetic field step size divided by the field gradient, 1 mT / (6000 T/m) = 170 nm. We found that reducing the ARP modulation further rapidly reduced the SNR. This is logical because there are multiple effects which smear the spatial resolution at the 0.1 mT level. First, there is $`B_10.2`$ mT, which determines the width of the resonance. Assuming that the adiabatic condition is met during the passage and that relaxation processes can be neglected, the modulation of the z-axis magnetization is

$$M_z(t)=M_0(𝐫)\frac{\gamma \delta B(𝐫)\mathrm{\Omega }t}{\sqrt{[\gamma \delta B(𝐫)\mathrm{\Omega }t]^2+(\gamma B_1)^2}}$$
(1)
where $`M_0(𝐫)`$ is the nuclear polarization at position $`𝐫`$, $`\gamma `$ is the nuclear gyromagnetic ratio ($`\gamma =2\pi \times 13.0`$ MHz/T for 71Ga), $`\gamma \delta B(𝐫)=\gamma B(𝐫)\omega _{RF}`$ is the offset field from resonance, and $`B(𝐫)`$ is the total magnetic field at a position $`𝐫`$ in the sample. The time variable, $`t`$, varies from -1 to +1 during the adiabatic passage. This equation is correct for the spin 3/2 nuclei in this experiment, 71,69Ga and 75As, as long as the quadrupole coupling is negligible. In this equation, $`B_1`$ has two effects. Large $`B_1`$ increases the width of the resonance, thus modulating spins further from the center of the slice. Large $`B_1`$ also increases the frequency width, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, required to fully modulate the spins. A small $`\gamma B_1`$ relative to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is required to have the slice width depend primarily on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Having $`\gamma B_1<\mathrm{\Omega }`$ provides a large modulation of the spins and sharper edges of the imaging slice.

However, $`B_1`$ in combination with $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`f_{ARP}`$ also determines the adiabaticity of the rapid passages. To have adiabatic passages requires the adiabatic parameter $`A`$,

$$A=\frac{(\gamma B_1)^2}{4\mathrm{\Omega }f_{ARP}}1$$
(2)
This equation clearly favors large $`B_1`$. Figure 6 shows the effect of $`f_{ARP}`$, $`B_1`$, and $`\gamma `$ on the decay time $`\tau _m`$ of the nuclear magnetization driven by ARP. The available measurement time becomes significant for $`B_1>0.05`$ mT. As a result, the experiment requires both $`\gamma B_1\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`(\gamma B_1)^24\mathrm{\Omega }f_{ARP}`$. If we take $`\gamma B_1=\mathrm{\Omega }`$, we can simplify these equations to see that we require roughly $`4f_{ARP}\gamma B_1\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Since minimizing $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ gives us the highest resolution, we also want to minimize $`f_{ARP}`$. In order to use the Q enhancement of the mechanical cantilever resonance to amplify the signal relative to measurement noise, we want $`f_{ARP}=f_c`$. In this experiment, a rather large sample was deliberately used to mass load the cantilever and lower its resonant frequency, $`f_c`$.

Besides these considerations for the cyclic ARP measurement, sample properties also can provide limits to the current experimental resolution. The intrinsic linewidth of 71Ga in GaAs is about 0.2 mT. As can be seen in figure 6(c), even if the rapid passage is very adiabatic, the driven magnetization still decays in about 10 seconds. Even for an adiabatic passage, the time spent on resonance is limited by the spin lock time constant, $`T_{1\rho }`$. Another effect which could limit spatial resolution is spin diffusion. The effect of spin diffusion was not seen in this experiment. Spin diffusion should become important as the resolution is further increased based on the expected spin diffusion constants, ($`D=10^{13}`$ cm2/s for 75As).

The current resolution is limited by the size of $`B_1`$ and linewidth relative to the magnetic field gradient, not the sensitivity. There is room for improvement of the resolution (and the sensitivity, also) by decreasing the size of the ferromagnetic particle, which increases the magnetic field gradient. Higher field gradients have already been used for ESR experiments. For detailed comparisons of mechanical versus inductive detection of magnetic resonance, see references .

## 5 Conclusions

We have used force-detected magnetic resonance to image GaAs in one-dimension with 170 nanometer slice spacing and resolve two regions of reduced nuclear spin polarization density separated by only 500 nanometers. We also demonstrated the combination of force-detected magnetic resonance with optical pumping to increase nuclear spin polarization. We can detect volumes containing $`4\times 10^{11}`$ 71Ga$`/\sqrt{Hz}`$ with orders of magnitude of further improvement expected. This enables NMR of very small samples and high resolution imaging. We envision wide ranging application of force-detected magnetic resonance to study many types of samples including biological membranes and molecules, surfaces and thin films, and semiconductor materials and devices.

## 6 Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the DARPA Defense Science Office Spins in Semiconductors program. The sample was grown and processed by Peter Newman and Monica Taysing-Lara. The authors would like to thank John A. Marohn and John Sidles for many helpful discussions.


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# The significance of the fragmentation region in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions

## Abstract

We present measurements of the pseudorapidity distribution of primary charged particles produced in $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collisions at three energies, $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$, 130, and 200 GeV, for a range of collision centralities. The centrality dependence is shown to be non-trivial: the distribution narrows for more central collisions and excess particles are produced at high pseudorapidity in peripheral collisions. For a given centrality, however, the distributions are found to scale with energy according to the “limiting fragmentation” hypothesis. The universal fragmentation region described by this scaling grows in pseudorapidity with increasing collision energy, extending well away from the beam rapidity and covering more than half of the pseudorapidity range over which particles are produced. This approach to a universal limiting curve appears to be a dominant feature of the pseudorapidity distribution and therefore of the total particle production in these collisions.

The strong interaction, described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), may be studied under conditions of high parton density and high energy density, using ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. The high density regime of QCD is sensitive to nonlinear dynamics and nonperturbative effects, including parton saturation, the onset of color deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration. More specifically, the pseudorapidity density of charged particles $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$, where $`\eta \mathrm{ln}\mathrm{tan}(\theta /2)`$, is related to the entropy density at freezeout. It has been demonstrated that the growth with energy of $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$ at mid-rapidity is modest compared to the original expectations , and provides a strong constraint on the initial state parton density and further particle production during the subsequent evolution of the system. This Letter focuses on particle production away from mid-rapidity, which constrains the collision dynamics more completely.

We have measured the pseudorapidity distribution of charged particles, $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$, over a broad range of $`\eta `$ for $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collisions at a variety of collision centralities (impact parameters). These measurements were made for three energies, $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$, 130, and 200 GeV, covering a span of an order of magnitude in the same detector, allowing for a reliable systematic study of particle production with energy in these collisions. The data were taken using the PHOBOS apparatus  during the year 2000 and year 2001 runs of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The apparatus used in this analysis comprises a set of silicon detectors with nearly complete coverage for $`|\eta |<5.4`$, which are used for detecting the charged particles, and plastic scintillator counters, covering $`3<|\eta |<4.5`$, used for triggering. Event selection cuts were made on the plastic scintillators or silicon detectors and also on timing information from the forward hadronic calorimeters, which measure the energy deposited by spectator neutrons.

The pseudorapidity densities $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$ were corrected for particles which were absorbed or produced in dead material (primarily the beryllium beampipe or the magnet steel) and for feed-down products from weak decays of neutral strange particles. More details of the analysis procedures leading to the charged particle pseudorapidity density can be found in Ref. . Two improvements in the handling of common mode noise in the silicon detectors have been implemented for this analysis, leading to small changes in the results and to a slight reduction in the systematic errors. First, the event-by-event common-mode noise in the ring detectors ($`3.0<|\eta |<5.4`$) was found to grow with pad size, and the correction scheme was modified to include this effect. This refinement was already in place in Ref. . Second, for very high occupancies, the common mode noise correction in the octagon detector ($`|\eta |<3.2`$) becomes slightly inaccurate. A comparison of the data from the octagon detector with those from the more highly segmented vertex detector was used to determine a correction factor for this effect as a function of $`\eta `$, centrality, and beam energy. This correction was only required near mid-rapidity ($`|\eta |<1.5`$) for the central data and it was less than 4% everywhere even in the 0–6% centrality bin of the 200 GeV data. For the 6–15% bin of the 200 GeV data and the 0–6% bin of the 130 GeV data, this correction was less than 1% everywhere. For the more peripheral high energy bins and for the 19.6 GeV data, no correction was required.

The centrality of the collision is characterized by the average number of nucleon participants $`N_{part}`$. For the 130 and 200 GeV data sets, this was estimated from the data using two sets of 16 paddle counters covering $`3<|\eta |<4.5`$ forward and backward of the interaction point. The truncated mean of the signals in each set of detectors is proportional to the total charged multiplicity in this region of pseudorapidity. In order to extract $`N_{part}`$ for a given fraction of the cross-section, we rely on the fact that the multiplicity in the paddles increases monotonically with centrality, but we do not assume that the number of participants is proportional to the multiplicity. The monotonic relationship between the truncated paddle mean and $`N_{part}`$ was verified using the neutral spectator energy measured in the forward hadronic calorimeters. For peripheral events, the dominant uncertainty in $`N_{part}`$ is given by the trigger efficiency uncertainty. Using several methods, based on the HIJING model , we have estimated our minimum-bias trigger efficiency for events with a vertex $`z_{vtx}`$ near the nominal interaction point to be $`ϵ=97\pm 3`$%. The final systematic errors on $`N_{part}`$, ranging from 3–6%, are tabulated in Ref.  where this method was outlined in more detail.

At the lowest RHIC energy, $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=`$ 19.6 GeV, the much lower beam rapidity ($`y_{beam}3`$) precludes using the same method of analyzing the trigger counters ($`3<|\eta |<4.5`$). Instead, we construct a different quantity, “EOCT”, which is approximately proportional to the multiplicity: the path-length corrected sum of the energy deposited in the octagon (silicon) detector($`|\eta |<3.2`$). In the first step, both HIJING simulations and simple Glauber model  Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate the fraction of the total cross-section ($`ϵ`$) in the triggered sample, as well as to estimate the systematic error. For consistency with the higher energy results, the low $`N_{part}`$ tail is assumed to be distributed as in HIJING, leading to $`ϵ=52\pm 4`$%. Once $`ϵ`$ is determined, cuts are made in EOCT in a similar way as with the paddle signal to extract $`N_{part}`$ for a chosen fraction of the total cross-section . As with the paddle signal, we only assume that EOCT is monotonic with $`N_{part}`$, not that it is proportional to it. The $`N_{part}`$ values and the estimated systematic uncertainty for various centrality bins in the 19.6 GeV data are given in Table I.

Figure 1 shows the charged particle pseudorapidity distributions ($`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$) measured at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=`$ 200, 130, and 19.6 GeV for different centrality bins for $`5.4<\eta <5.4`$. The statistical errors are comparable to the size of the data points. The 90% confidence-level systematic errors are shown as a gray band for selected, but typical, centrality bins.

Due to the large coverage in $`\eta `$, $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$ is measured over almost the full range, except for a small missing fraction at very high $`|\eta |`$. Using data at lower energy (see Figure 2), this fraction is estimated to be less than 2% for the 130 and 200 GeV central (0–6%) results. Table II lists the integrated charged multiplicity for three energies in different ranges of $`\eta `$. The fiducial range $`|\eta |<4.7`$ is quoted for easier comparison to data from the BRAHMS experiment . After correcting for the slight differences in centrality binning, the BRAHMS data for 130 and 200 GeV are each $`6`$% below the results quoted here, consistent within the quoted errors of both experiments. The remaining columns show the result in the fiducial range $`|\eta |<5.4`$ of PHOBOS, and the total inferred $`N_{ch}`$.

To separate the trivial kinematic broadening of the $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$ distribution from the more interesting dynamics, the data for $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collisions at different energies can be viewed in the rest frame of one of the colliding nuclei. Such an approach led to the ansatz of “limiting fragmentation” , which successfully predicted the energy dependence of particle production away from mid-rapidity in hadron collisions, including $`\mathrm{p}\overline{\mathrm{p}}`$ . This ansatz states that, at high enough collision energy, both $`d^2N/dy^{}dp__T`$ and the mix of particle species (and therefore also $`dN/d\eta ^{}`$) reach a limiting value and become independent of energy in a region around $`y^{}0`$, where $`y^{}yy_{beam}`$ and rapidity $`y\mathrm{tanh}^1\beta _z`$.

Figure 2a shows the scaled, shifted pseudorapidity distributions $`dN_{ch}/d\eta ^{}/N_{part}/2`$ for central $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collisions which span a factor of ten in collision energy ($`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$). The distributions are scaled by $`N_{part}/2`$ to remove the effect of the different number of nucleons participating in collisions with different centralities. The results are folded about mid-rapidity (positive and negative $`\eta `$ bins are averaged). The distributions are observed to be independent of collision energy over a substantial $`\eta ^{}`$ range. This is consistent with and extends a similar observation made by BRAHMS  over a more restricted $`\eta ^{}`$ range. Both the 19.6 and 130 GeV data reach 85–90% of their maximum value before deviating significantly (more than 5%) from the common limiting curve. These data demonstrate that limiting fragmentation applies well in the $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ system and that the “fragmentation region” is rather broad, covering more than half of the available range of $`\eta ^{}`$ over which particles are produced. In particular, the fragmentation region grows significantly between 19.6 GeV and 130 GeV, extending more than two units away from the beam rapidity. A similar effect was observed in $`\mathrm{p}\overline{\mathrm{p}}`$ collisions, over a range of $`\sqrt{s}`$ from 53 to 900 GeV . In both cases, particle production appears to approach a fixed limiting curve which extends far from the original beam rapidity, indicating that this universal curve is an important feature of the overall interaction and not simply a nuclear breakup effect. This result is in sharp contrast to the boost-invariance scenario  which predicts a fixed fragmentation region and a broad central rapidity plateau that grows in extent with increasing energy.

Figure 2b shows the scaled pseudorapidity distributions for a set of non-central collisions, which also exhibit limiting fragmentation over a broad range of $`\eta ^{}`$. These results also show that the extent of the fragmentation region is nearly independent of centrality.

Figure 3 shows the centrality dependence of the $`dN/d\eta ^{}/N_{part}/2`$ distribution at the two extreme energies: 19.6 and 200 GeV. These data demonstrate that the result in the fragmentation region changes significantly with centrality. Figure 4 shows the ratio of non-central to central data with (90% C.L.) systematic errors included. The error in the ratio involves a partial cancellation of the systematic errors in the individual measurements. For $`\eta ^{}>1.5`$, the scaled pseudorapidity density actually grows in the peripheral data with respect to the more central data. This effect has already been observed for $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=`$ 130 GeV  and for $`\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}`$ collisions at 17 GeV , and is confirmed here for $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ at 19.6 and 200 GeV. This contradicts the suggestion, put forward in references , that the limiting curve for particle production in the fragmentation region is independent of centrality as well as of energy. It should be noted that the hypothesis of limiting fragmentation does not imply that the limiting curve is independent of centrality, just that $`dN/d\eta ^{}/N_{part}/2`$ is energy-independent for a fixed centrality, once at sufficiently high energy.

The strong centrality dependence seen in Figure 3 has two features: an excess of particles at high $`\eta `$ in peripheral $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ events and a narrowing of the overall pseudorapidity distribution, perhaps caused by a shift of particles from high $`\eta `$ toward mid-rapidity for more central collisions. The excess of particles at high $`|\eta |`$ can be most easily seen in Figure 1, where, for the 19.6 GeV data, the absolute yield of charged particles actually grows for non-central collisions. It should be noted that the very peripheral limit of a $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collision is not an $`\mathrm{N}+\mathrm{N}`$ collision, but rather an $`\mathrm{N}+\mathrm{N}`$ collision with two large excited nuclear remnants, one of which is at $`y^{}=0`$. The increased particle production near $`y\pm y_{beam}=0`$ due to the nuclear remnants has been studied in $`p+A`$ collisions  and for lower energy $`\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}`$ collisions . The narrowing of the overall distribution may be due to dynamical effects, such as baryon stopping , or kinematic effects, such as a shift in $`\eta ^{}`$ (for fixed $`y^{}`$) due to the particle mix ($`\mathrm{p}/\pi `$ ratio) changing with centrality. This narrowing of the distribution can be characterized as an increase at mid-rapidity  with an approximately compensating reduction at high $`\eta `$.

In summary, we have performed a comprehensive examination of the pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles produced in $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collisions at RHIC energies from $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ to 200 GeV, including an estimate of the full charged particle multiplicity at three energies. For central collisions at the highest energy, we find that a total of more than 5000 charged particles are produced. These results span eleven units of pseudorapidity, a factor of ten in energy, and a factor of five in $`N_{part}`$ — all measured in a single detector. The data show a number of interesting features. First, limiting fragmentation (energy independence of $`dN/d\eta ^{}`$) is valid over a large range of $`\eta ^{}`$. Second, the scaled $`dN/d\eta `$ shape is not independent of centrality at high $`\eta `$. The $`\eta `$ distribution is broader in peripheral collisions than in central collisions. Third, as in $`\mathrm{p}\overline{\mathrm{p}}`$ collisions, the fragmentation region in $`\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}`$ collisions grows in pseudorapidity extent with beam energy, becoming a dominant feature of the pseudorapidity distributions at high energy.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the management of BNL and the C-A department for providing the variety of collision energies at RHIC which made this work possible. This work was partially supported by US DoE grants DE-AC02-98CH10886, DE-FG02-93ER40802, DE-FC02-94ER40818, DE-FG02-94ER40865, DE-FG02-99ER41099, W-31-109-ENG-38, and NSF grants 9603486, 9722606 and 0072204. The Polish groups were partially supported by KBN grant 2-P03B-10323. The NCU group was partially supported by NSC of Taiwan under contract NSC 89-2112-M-008-024.


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# Oscillatory mean-field dynamos with spherically symmetric, isotropic 𝛼

## Abstract

Until recently, the existence of oscillatory mean-field dynamos of the $`\alpha ^2`$-type with spherically symmetric and isotropic $`\alpha `$ was an open question. We find such dynamos by means of an evolutionary strategy, and we illustrate the spectral properties of the corresponding dynamo operators.

For decades, homogeneous dynamos have been the subject of purely theoretical research that tried to explain magnetic field generation in such inaccessible regions as the Earth’s deep interior, the sun’s convection zone, or the spiral arms of galaxies. In 1999, this situation has changed with the first successful dynamo experiments at the sodium facilities in Riga PRL1 ; PRL2  and Karlsruhe MUST ; STMU . Now, dynamos run in laboratory, and their kinematic behavior can be predicted with an error margin of a few percent RMP . Dynamo theory is not unaffected by those developments in dynamo “engineering”. Whereas in the past the relevance of a dynamo model was ultimately judged by its applicability to real cosmic bodies, it is now sensible to ”tailor” particular models which could show interesting features, e.g. field reversals or mode switching, in the laboratory.

These developments give also new impetus on spectral analysis of dynamo operators. One of the simplest dynamo models is a mean-field dynamo with a spherically symmetric and isotropic helical turbulence parameter $`\alpha `$. In particular, the case with constant $`\alpha `$ is one of the rare models in dynamo theory that can be solved semi-analytically KRST ; KRRA . Though the construction of a spherically symmetric, isotropic $`\alpha ^2`$-dynamo seems away from realistic cosmic dynamos with their, for instance, typical antisymmetry with respect to the equatorial mid-plane, the basic analysis of this simplest case of $`\alpha ^2`$-dynamos is a necessary starting point for the investigation of more realistic dynamos. Despite its simplicity, the spherically symmetric, isotropic $`\alpha ^2`$-dynamo exhibits a rich spectral structure if $`\alpha `$ is allowed to vary with the radius STGE1 ; STGE2 . In particular, complex eigenvalues have been found for a number of models RAE86 ; RABR ; SCZH ; STGE2 . However, it always turned out that other modes with higher degrees $`l`$ of the spherical harmonics had larger growth rates than the considered oscillatory mode (cf. RUEO ). An explicit example of a spherically symmetric, isotropic $`\alpha ^2`$-dynamo with the dominating mode being oscillatory does not exist up to present.

Thus motivated, our concrete goal in the present paper is to solve the following inverse problem: Find, for an $`\alpha ^2`$-dynamo with spherically symmetric, isotropic $`\alpha `$, a radial dependence $`\alpha (r)`$ so that the eigenmode for $`l=1`$ has zero growth rate and non-zero frequency and that all other modes have negative growth rates. This task fits into a class of recently treated inverse problems concerning the determination of $`\alpha (r)`$ from the demand that certain spectral properties (a few given eigenvalues, STGE1 ; STGE2 ) or spatial properties of the magnetic field (“hidden dynamos”, TILG ) are fulfilled.

In the following, we will shortly describe the forward solver that is used for the determination of the eigenvalues, and the evolutionary strategy (ES) which we employ to solve the inverse problem formulated above.

We start with the induction equation for a mean-field dynamo model with a spherically symmetric $`\alpha `$-coefficient (for the basics of mean-field dynamos see KRRA ). Inside a sphere of radius $`R`$ the electrical conductivity $`\sigma `$ is constant, whereas it is zero in the exterior. In the interior of the sphere the magnetic field $`𝑩`$ has to satisfy the induction equation

$`{\displaystyle \frac{𝑩}{t}}=\times (\alpha 𝑩)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu _0\sigma }}\mathrm{\Delta }𝑩`$ (1)
and the source-free condition

$`𝑩=0.`$ (2)
At the boundary $`r=R`$, the magnetic field has to match continuously to a potential field in the exterior.

As usual KRRA , we decompose $`𝑩`$ into a poloidal and a toroidal part,

$`𝑩=\times (𝒓\times S)𝒓\times T,`$ (3)
with the defining scalars $`S`$ and $`T`$ expanded in spherical harmonics according to

$`S(r,\theta ,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}Rs_l^m(r)Y_l^m(\theta ,\varphi )\mathrm{exp}(\lambda _lt),`$ (4)
$`T(r,\theta ,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}t_l^m(r)Y_l^m(\theta ,\varphi )\mathrm{exp}(\lambda _lt).`$ (5)
For the remaining of the paper, we will measure the length in units of $`R`$, the time in units of $`\mu _0\sigma R^2`$, and the parameter $`\alpha `$ in units of $`(\mu _0\sigma R)^1`$.

Using Eqs. (3-5), the induction equation (1) can be transformed into the eigenvalue equation system:

$`\lambda _{l,n}s_l`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dr^2}}(rs_l){\displaystyle \frac{l(l+1)}{r^2}}s_l+\alpha (r)t_l,`$ (6)
$`\lambda _{l,n}t_l`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}(rt_l)\alpha (r){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}(rs_l)\right)`$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{l(l+1)}{r^2}}(t_l\alpha (r)s_l).`$
In our particular case of a spherically symmetric, isotropic $`\alpha `$ there is no coupling between field modes differing in the degree $`l`$ of the spherical harmonics. The order $`m`$ of the coefficients of the defining scalars has been skipped as it does not show up in the equations. The radial wavenumber is labeled by the index $`n`$.

The boundary conditions at $`r=1`$ are as follows:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{ds_l}{dr}}|_{r=1}+(l+1)s_l(1)=t_l(1)=0.`$ (8)
A shooting technique and a fifth order Runge-Kutta method was used to solve this system numerically, utilizing and adapting standard routines from Numerical Recipes PTVF . This code has been validated by comparison with exact results (available only for $`\alpha =constant`$), and with the results of other codes, including an integral equation solver XUSG .

For the description of the inverse spectral solver we will be very short as it has been described in detail in STGE1 ; STGE2 . We use an evolutionary strategy (ES), with a “population” of “individuals” (parameter vectors that describe the function $`\alpha (r)`$) evolving in a “fitness” landscape according to principles taken from biology. Finally the evolution is stopped when the population has gathered in the (hopefully) global maximum of the fitness landscape. Note that in every step of the evolution the eigenvalue equation system (6-8) is solved correctly, without any compromise with other functionals to be minimized.

This evolutionary strategy is very robust, and it can easily be used for the solution of different inverse spectral problems STGE1 ; STGE2 . For the solution of our task we define the fitness $`F[\alpha ]`$ of a function $`\alpha (r)`$ according to:

$`F[\alpha ]`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{}(\lambda _{1,1}[\alpha ]))^2`$ (9)
$`(1+ϵ+\mathrm{tanh}(\mathrm{}(\lambda _{1,1}[\alpha ])f))^1`$
$`(1+ϵ+\mathrm{tanh}(\mathrm{}(\lambda _{2,1}[\alpha ])))^1`$
$`(1+ϵ+\mathrm{tanh}(\mathrm{}(\lambda _{3,1}[\alpha ])))^1.`$
What is the motivation for this choice of the fitness? The first term, to begin with, tries to keep the growth rate $`\mathrm{}(\lambda _{1,1}[\alpha ])`$ of the eigenmode with $`(l=1|n=1)`$ as close as possible to zero. The second term makes the frequency $`\mathrm{}(\lambda _{1,1}[\alpha ])`$ of this mode repel from the parameter $`f`$ which will be considered as variable. The third and the fourth term are chosen so as to force the growth rates for $`(l=2|n=1)`$ and $`(l=3|n=1)`$ to be less than zero. In a strict sense one should also demand the growth rates for all the higher values of $`l`$ and $`n`$ to be less than zero, but this can also be checked a-posteriori. The small value $`ϵ`$, which is only used to avoid numerical overflows, is chosen as 10<sup>-6</sup>.

It should be mentioned that the ES can be combined with a certain regularization of the functions $`\alpha (r)`$. By means of a regularization parameter we can adjust the allowed mean quadratic curvature of $`\alpha (r)`$ STGE1 . It turns out that if we start with a large regularization parameter that keeps the mean quadratic curvature of $`\alpha (r)`$ small we do not get any solution of our problem. Only with a rather small regularization parameter that allows more curvature of $`\alpha (r)`$ the ES yields solutions.

In Fig. 1 we represent, for four different values of the parameter $`f`$, the functions $`\alpha (r)`$ resulting as solutions of the ES. Note that the functions $`\alpha (r)`$ change their sign at least once. As we started with large regularization parameters without getting solutions, the curves in Fig. 1 can be considered as the “simplest” ones (in the sense of minimal mean quadratic curvature) that fulfill our spectral demands. The analytical expressions for the curves are given in the following table:

| $`f`$ | $`\alpha (r)`$ |
| --- | --- |
| 0.7 | -19.88+347.37 $`r^2`$ -656.71 $`r^3`$+335.52 $`r^4`$ |
| 2.0 | -20.95+399.40 $`r^2`$ -765.69 $`r^3`$+387.61 $`r^4`$ |
| 5.0 | -21.46+426.41 $`r^2`$ -806.73 $`r^3`$+392.28 $`r^4`$ |
| 9.0 | -23.93+594.35 $`r^2`$-1243.02 $`r^3`$+665.27 $`r^4`$ |

For these functions $`\alpha (r)`$, the growth rates of the eigenmodes with $`(l=1\mathrm{}3|n=1)`$ and the frequency of the eigenmode with $`(l=1|n=1)`$ are as follows:

| $`f`$ | $`\mathrm{}(\lambda _{1,1}[\alpha ])`$ | $`\mathrm{}(\lambda _{1,1}[\alpha ])`$ | $`\mathrm{}(\lambda _{2,1}[\alpha ])`$ | $`\mathrm{}(\lambda _{3,1}[\alpha ])`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 0.7 | 0.00 | 4.98 | -5.08 | -12.02 |
| 2.0 | 0.00 | 6.02 | -5.35 | -13.02 |
| 5.0 | 0.01 | 7.24 | -3.64 | -10.82 |
| 9.0 | -0.11 | 9.30 | -1.42 | -9.32 |

These values have been validated in an a-posteriori analysis of the spectrum for the functions $`\alpha (r)`$.

Evidently, the ES delivers functions $`\alpha (r)`$ that fulfill the spectral demands formulated above. The $`(l=1|n=1)`$ eigenmode with zero growth rate is oscillatory, while the remaining eigenmodes have growth rates less than zero. To be on the safe side, we have also computed the growth rates for modes with $`l>3`$, which also turned out to be less than zero.

For the sake of illustration, let us concentrate in the following on the spectral properties for the special case with $`f=5`$. In Fig. 2 we show the growth rates for the eigenmodes with $`(l=1|n=1,2)`$ and $`(l=2\mathrm{}6|n=1)`$ as functions of $`C`$, which is used to scale the magnitude of $`\alpha (r)`$ (for $`C=0`$ we have the free decay case, $`C=1`$ corresponds to the obtained functions $`\alpha (r)`$). Details of this plot close to the critical point $`C=1`$ are shown in Fig 3.

At $`C=0`$, all modes start as non-oscillatory modes (with purely real eigenvalues). At $`C=0.818`$, the two modes with $`(l=1|n=1)`$ and $`(l=1|n=2)`$ merge and continue as a pair with complex conjugate eigenvalues (only a single line is shown). Interestingly enough, at $`C=1.097`$ this pair splits off again and the two modes with $`(l=1|n=1)`$ and $`(l=1|n=2)`$ continue separately, again with purely real eigenvalues. In between, at $`C=1.00`$ the pair crosses the abscissa, hence dynamo action occurs. All modes with higher $`l`$ and $`n`$ have still negative growth rates at $`C=1.00`$.

In Figs. 4 and 5 the growth rates and frequencies for the modes with $`(l=1|n=1\mathrm{}7)`$ are plotted. These figures give a flavor of the complexity of the spectrum, with its merging and splitting points of modes with different $`n`$.

In this respect, another aspect should be addressed. Whereas the spectra for the functions $`\alpha (r)`$ for $`f=0.7,2.0,5.0`$ are rather similar, there is a transition if we go to $`f=9.0`$. Figure 6 shows the corresponding spectrum. Whereas in Fig. 4 we observed a merging of the modes with $`n=1`$ and $`n=2`$, we get now a merging of the modes with $`n=2`$ and $`n=3`$. For larger $`C`$, the modes with $`n=1`$ and $`n=4`$ come together, meeting at the same point with the common line of the complex conjugated $`n=2(3)`$ modes.

Evidently, the dynamo operators connected with the obtained functions $`\alpha (r)`$ show very interesting spectral features which warrants further analysis.

A complete characterization of the $`\alpha (r)`$-profiles that fulfill our spectral demands would require an extensive parameter study. At least we can get a certain feeling on the broadness of the ”corridor” for a limited type of deformations. For this purpose, we start with the function $`\alpha (r)=21.46+426.41r^2806.73r^3+392.28r^4`$ which was the solution for $`f=5`$. Now let us change the coefficient of the $`r^4`$ term, leaving all other coefficients unchanged. Figure 7 shows the upper and the lower limits of the corresponding deformations that still belong to our oscillatory class of dynamos. Above the upper limit, the $`(l=2|n=1)`$ mode starts to dominates. Below the lower limit, the $`(l=4|n=1)`$ mode dominates.

In summary, we have found a class of oscillatory mean-field dynamos with spherically symmetric, isotropic $`\alpha `$ working in a finite volume with homogeneous conductivity. The obtained functions $`\alpha (r)`$ are smooth and by no means exotic or of a pronounced layer type RAE86 ; RABR , but they are characterized by at least one change of sign along the radius. In the sense of minimal averaged quadratic curvature, our solutions seem to be the simplest ones.

As for the back-reaction regime, an interesting behaviour of the considered dynamo models is conceivable. Even a slight modification of the functions $`\alpha (r)`$ due to the action of the Lorentz forces could trigger a transition to a non-oscillatory mode (either with $`l=1`$ or with higher $`l`$).

We do not claim any particular astrophysical relevance of our result. However, keeping in mind that the Karlsruhe dynamo experiment is an $`\alpha ^2`$-dynamo (although with an anisotropic $`\alpha `$-tensor) one could imagine a generalization of our method to similar laboratory dynamos.