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# Back-action cancellation in interferometers by quantum locking

thanks: Unité mixte de recherche du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure et de l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie

## Abstract

We show that back-action noise in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-waves detectors can be completely suppressed by a local control of mirrors motion. An optomechanical sensor with an optimized measurement strategy is used to monitor mirror displacements. A feedback loop then eliminates radiation-pressure effects without adding noise. This very efficient technique leads to an increased sensitivity for the interferometric measurement, which becomes only limited by phase noise. Back-action cancellation is furthermore insensitive to losses in the interferometer.

Sensitivity in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-waves detectors Bradaschia90 ; Abramovici92  is ultimately limited by quantum noise of light. Phase fluctuations introduce noise in the measurement whereas radiation pressure of light induces unwanted mirrors displacements. Both lead to a quantum limit and potential applications of squeezed states to overcome this limit have motivated a large number of works in quantum optics Caves81 ; Jaekel90 ; Braginsky92 ; Kimble02 .

It has recently been proposed to enhance the sensitivity in interferometric measurement by active control of mirrors displacements Courty03 . Active control can reduce classical noise such as thermal noise in cold-damped mechanical systems Milatz53 ; Grassia00 ; Cohadon99 ; Pinard00  and may in principle be used to reduce noise in a quantum regime Wiseman95 ; Mancini00 ; Courty01 .

The scheme proposed in Courty03  is based on a local control of each mirror of the interferometer. An optomechanical sensor made of a high-finesse cavity monitors the mirror motion. A feedback loop then locks the mirror at the quantum level, with respect to the position of the other mirror of the sensor cavity. The sensor sensitivity is transferred to the interferometric measurement, resulting in a reduction of back-action noise due to radiation pressure in the interferometer.

In this paper we show that a similar technique can be used to completely suppress back-action noise. An optimized measurement strategy for the optomechanical sensor allows one to freeze the mirror in an absolute way, leading to a complete elimination of radiation-pressure noise. We furthermore show that this behavior is insensitive to the characteristics of the interferometer. In contrast to injection of squeezed states Kimble02 , back-action cancellation is still obtained in presence of losses in the interferometer.

The basic setup is shown in Fig. 1. We focus on the active control of one mirror of the interferometer (mirror $`m`$ in Fig. 1). The interferometric measurement is schematized as the measurement of a length variation $`X_{\mathrm{sig}}`$ of a Fabry-Perot cavity which can be considered as one of the two arms of a gravitational-wave detector (left part of Fig. 1). Motion of mirror $`m`$ relatively to the position of a reference mirror $`r`$ is measured by an optomechanical sensor made of both mirrors. The intensity of the field reflected by this high-finesse cavity is measured after being phase-shifted by a detuned cavity. The result of the measurement is fed back to the mirror in order to control its displacements.

Fields $`a`$ and $`b`$ in both the interferometer and sensor are described by quantum annihilation operators $`a\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$, $`b\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ at frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, whereas mean fields are characterized by complex amplitudes $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ normalized in such a way that $`\left|\alpha \right|^2`$ and $`\left|\beta \right|^2`$ correspond to photon fluxes Reynaud92 . We define in a usual way the quadrature $`a_\theta `$ of field $`a`$ as,

$$a_\theta \left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=e^{i\theta }a\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]+e^{i\theta }a^{}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right].$$
(1)
When the mean field $`\alpha `$ is real, intensity and phase quadratures respectively correspond to the quadrature $`a_0`$ aligned with the mean field and to the orthogonal quadrature $`a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}`$.

For a lossless and resonant single-ended cavity, the incident, intracavity, and reflected mean fields can be taken real. Assuming the frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of interest smaller than the cavity bandwidth, the input-output relations for the interferometer cavity are given by Courty01 ,

$`\gamma _\mathrm{a}a`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2\gamma _\mathrm{a}}a^{\mathrm{in}}+2ik_0\alpha \left(X_\mathrm{m}+X_{\mathrm{sig}}\right),`$ (2)
$`a^{\mathrm{out}}`$ $`=`$ $`a^{\mathrm{in}}+\sqrt{2\gamma _\mathrm{a}}a,`$ (3)
where $`\gamma _\mathrm{a}`$ is the damping rate of the cavity, $`k_0`$ the field wavevector and $`X_\mathrm{m}`$ the displacement of mirror $`m`$. The intensity quadrature is left unchanged by the cavity ($`a_0^{\mathrm{out}}=a_0^{\mathrm{in}}`$) whereas the input-output phase-shift is proportional to the cavity length variation,

$$a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{out}}=a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{in}}+2\xi _\mathrm{a}\left(X_\mathrm{m}+X_{\mathrm{sig}}\right).$$
(4)
The optomechanical coupling parameter $`\xi _\mathrm{a}`$ is related to the intracavity mean field amplitude $`\alpha `$ and to the cavity finesse $`_\mathrm{a}=\pi /\gamma _\mathrm{a}`$,

$$\xi _\mathrm{a}=2k_0\alpha \sqrt{2_\mathrm{a}/\pi }.$$
(5)
Measurement of the phase of the reflected field provides an estimator $`\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sig}}`$ of the signal, obtained by a normalization of the output phase $`a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{out}}`$ as a displacement. $`\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sig}}`$ is the sum of the signal $`X_{\mathrm{sig}}`$ and extra noise terms,

$$\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sig}}=\frac{1}{2\xi _\mathrm{a}}a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{out}}=X_{\mathrm{sig}}+\frac{1}{2\xi _\mathrm{a}}a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{in}}+X_\mathrm{m}.$$
(6)
The first noise term is related to the incident phase-noise $`a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{in}}`$ and corresponds to the measurement noise. The second term is the displacement $`X_\mathrm{m}`$ of mirror $`m`$. For a quantum-limited interferometer without control, it corresponds to the back-action noise due to radiation pressure of intracavity field $`a`$. It is deduced from the evolution of the velocity $`V_\mathrm{m}=i\mathrm{\Omega }X_\mathrm{m}`$ which can be expressed from eq. (2) in terms of the incident intensity quadrature $`a_0^{\mathrm{in}}`$,

$$Z_\mathrm{m}V_\mathrm{m}=2\mathrm{}k_0\alpha a_0=\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{a}a_0^{\mathrm{in}},$$
(7)
where $`Z_\mathrm{m}`$ is the mechanical impedance of mirror $`m`$. At frequency relevant for gravitational-wave interferometers, a suspended mirror can be considered as a free mass with an impedance related to the mirror mass $`M_\mathrm{m}`$,

$$Z_\mathrm{m}i\mathrm{\Omega }M_\mathrm{m}.$$
(8)
Both noises in (6) are uncorrelated for an incident coherent state, the noise spectra for any quadrature $`a_\theta ^{\mathrm{in}}`$ being given by Reynaud92 ,

$$\sigma _{a_\theta a_\theta }^{\mathrm{in}}=1,\sigma _{a_\theta a_{\theta +\frac{\pi }{2}}}^{\mathrm{in}}=0,$$
(9)
where the spectrum $`\sigma _{a_\theta a_\theta ^{}}^{\mathrm{in}}`$ is the quantum average of the symmetrized product of quadratures,

$$a_\theta ^{\mathrm{in}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]a_\theta ^{}^{\mathrm{in}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right]=2\pi \delta \left(\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right)\sigma _{a_\theta a_\theta ^{}}^{\mathrm{in}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right].$$
(10)
The sensitivity of the interferometer is described by the equivalent input noise $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{sig}}`$ equal to the spectrum of noises in the estimator $`\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sig}}`$. One gets for a free interferometer,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{sig}}^{\mathrm{free}}=\frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{a}^2}\left[1+\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{a}^{\text{sql}}/\mathrm{\Omega }\right)^4\right],$$
(11)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{a}^{\text{sql}}`$ is the frequency where contributions of both noises are equal,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{a}^{\text{sql}}=\sqrt{\frac{2\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{a}^2}{M_\mathrm{m}}}.$$
(12)
As shown in curve a of Fig. 2, phase noise is dominant at high frequency with a flat frequency dependence, whereas radiation pressure is dominant at low frequency with a $`1/\mathrm{\Omega }^4`$ dependence. This behavior leads to the so-called standard quantum limit for a free interferometer with incident coherent light Caves81 ; Jaekel90 ; Braginsky92 . It corresponds to the minimum noise level reachable at a given frequency by varying the optomechanical coupling $`\xi _\mathrm{a}`$ (curve d).

The sensor cavity measures the motion of mirror $`m`$. Since it is a resonant single-ended cavity, field $`b`$ obeys equations similar to (2) and (3) except for the cavity length variation now equal to $`X_\mathrm{r}X_\mathrm{m}`$ ($`X_\mathrm{r}`$ is the displacement of the reference mirror $`r`$). For this measurement we take advantage of the squeezing of light due to the self phase-modulation induced by radiation pressure Kimble02 . Instead of measuring the phase quadrature $`b_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{out}}`$, we detect a properly chosen quadrature $`b_\theta ^{\mathrm{out}}`$ of the reflected field. Equations for this quadrature and for mirror $`r`$ are,

$`b_\theta ^{\mathrm{out}}`$ $`=`$ $`b_\theta ^{\mathrm{in}}+2\xi _\mathrm{b}\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(X_\mathrm{r}X_\mathrm{m}\right),`$ (13)
$`Z_\mathrm{r}V_\mathrm{r}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{b}b_0^{\mathrm{in}},`$ (14)
where the optomechanical coupling $`\xi _\mathrm{b}`$ for cavity $`b`$ is defined in the same way as $`\xi _\mathrm{a}`$ \[eq. (5)\]. Note that values of $`\xi _\mathrm{b}`$ as large as $`\xi _\mathrm{a}`$ are experimentally accessible with moderate incident power by using a high-finesse cavity Courty03 . In the following, mirror $`r`$ is for simplicity assumed to be identical to mirror $`m`$ so that $`Z_\mathrm{r}=Z_\mathrm{m}`$.

The sensor provides an estimator $`\widehat{X}_\mathrm{m}`$ of the displacement of mirror $`m`$. The sensitivity for this measurement is limited by the phase noise of beam $`b`$ and by the motion of mirror $`r`$ due to radiation pressure,

$`\widehat{X}_\mathrm{m}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\xi _\mathrm{b}\mathrm{sin}\theta }}b_\theta ^{\mathrm{out}}`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`X_\mathrm{m}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\xi _\mathrm{b}}}b_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{in}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cot}\theta }{2\xi _\mathrm{b}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{b}}{\mathrm{\Omega }Z_\mathrm{r}}}\right)b_0^{\mathrm{in}}.`$
Last term vanishes for a frequency-dependent value $`\theta ^{\mathrm{opt}}`$ of quadrature angle $`\theta `$ defined by,

$$\mathrm{cot}\theta ^{\mathrm{opt}}=\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}/\mathrm{\Omega }\right)^2,$$
(16)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}`$ is the sql frequency for cavity $`b`$ defined in a similar way as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{a}^{\text{sql}}`$ \[eq. (12)\]. The equivalent input noise for the sensor measurement is then only related to incident phase-noise and no longer depends on radiation-pressure effects on reference mirror $`r`$. Quadrature $`\theta ^{\mathrm{opt}}`$ actually corresponds to the best strategy for the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurement Kimble02 . At high frequency, radiation-pressure effects are negligible and the optimal quadrature is the phase $`b_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{out}}`$ of the reflected field. As frequency decreases, radiation pressure becomes dominant and the optimal quadrature tends toward the intensity quadrature.

The result of the sensor measurement is fed back to mirror $`m`$ via a force proportional to the estimator $`\widehat{X}_\mathrm{m}`$. The mirror motion in presence of feedback depends on radiation pressure of both cavities and on the feedback force,

$$Z_\mathrm{m}V_\mathrm{m}=\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{a}a_0^{\mathrm{in}}\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{b}b_0^{\mathrm{in}}+i\mathrm{\Omega }Z_{\mathrm{fb}}\widehat{X}_\mathrm{m},$$
(17)
where $`Z_{\mathrm{fb}}`$ is the transfer function of the feedback loop. For the optimum detection strategy \[eq. (16)\], the resulting motion of mirror $`m`$ is,

$$\left(Z_\mathrm{m}+Z_{\mathrm{fb}}\right)V_\mathrm{m}=\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{a}a_0^{\mathrm{in}}\mathrm{}\xi _\mathrm{b}b_0^{\mathrm{in}}\frac{i\mathrm{\Omega }}{2\xi _\mathrm{b}}Z_{\mathrm{fb}}b_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{in}}.$$
(18)
The main effect of control is to change the response of mirror $`m`$ to radiation-pressure by adding a feedback-induced impedance $`Z_{\mathrm{fb}}`$ to the free mechanical impedance $`Z_\mathrm{m}`$. For a large feedback gain, the effective impedance is increased, then reducing mirror displacements. The control also contaminates mirror displacements by the noise in the sensor measurement \[last term in eq. (18)\]. Since this noise is only related to incident phase-noise of cavity $`b`$, the control can freeze the motion of mirror $`m`$ in an absolute way, down to the limit associated to this noise. In contrast to a non-optimized measurement Courty03 , the mirror locking is insensitive to the motion of reference mirror $`r`$ induced by radiation-pressure fluctuations.

One gets from eq. (6) the estimator $`\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sig}}`$ for the interferometer in presence of feedback,

$`\widehat{X}_{\mathrm{sig}}`$ $`=`$ $`X_{\mathrm{sig}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\xi _\mathrm{a}}}a_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{in}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\xi _\mathrm{b}}}{\displaystyle \frac{Z_{\mathrm{fb}}}{Z_\mathrm{m}+Z_{\mathrm{fb}}}}b_{\frac{\pi }{2}}^{\mathrm{in}}`$ (19)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{\mathrm{\Omega }\left(Z_\mathrm{m}+Z_{\mathrm{fb}}\right)}}\left(\xi _\mathrm{a}a_0^{\mathrm{in}}\xi _\mathrm{b}b_0^{\mathrm{in}}\right).`$
Since all noises are uncorrelated the equivalent input noise is given by,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{sig}}=\frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{a}^2}+\frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{b}^2}\left|\frac{Z_{\mathrm{fb}}}{Z_\mathrm{m}+Z_{\mathrm{fb}}}\right|^2+\frac{\mathrm{}^2\left(\xi _\mathrm{a}^2+\xi _\mathrm{b}^2\right)}{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\left|Z_\mathrm{m}+Z_{\mathrm{fb}}\right|^2}.$$
(20)
For an infinite feedback gain, radiation-pressure noise is completely suppressed \[last term in eq. (20)\] and the equivalent input noise reduces to the sum $`1/4\xi _\mathrm{a}^2+1/4\xi _\mathrm{b}^2`$ of phase noises of both cavities. The sensitivity no longer depends on frequency and tends to the phase noise of the interferometer alone as $`\xi _\mathrm{b}`$ increases (dashed curves in Fig. 2). The best sensitivity is obtained by optimizing the gain in eq. (20),

$`Z_{\mathrm{fb}}^{\mathrm{opt}}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_\mathrm{m}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{fb}}/\mathrm{\Omega }\right)^4,`$ (21)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{sig}}^{\mathrm{opt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{a}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{b}^2\left[1+\left(\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{fb}}\right)^4\right]}},`$ (22)
where frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{fb}}`$ is defined as,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{fb}}^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}\sqrt{\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{a}^{\text{sql}}\right)^2+\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}\right)^2}.$$
(23)
For frequencies smaller than the cutoff frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{fb}}`$, the resulting noise is similar to the one obtained for an infinite gain, whereas it reduces to the phase noise of the interferometer alone at high frequency. As shown in Fig. 2, one gets a clear increase of sensitivity at low frequency where back-action noise is completely suppressed and replaced by the phase noise of field $`b`$, without any loss at high frequency.

The optimized detection strategy \[eq. (16)\] is achieved by sending the field $`b^{\mathrm{out}}`$ in a detuned cavity and by detecting the reflected intensity (see Fig. 1). For a rigid and detuned cavity with a bandwidth comparable to frequency of interest, expression (2) of the intracavity field is modified as,

$$\left(\gamma +i\mathrm{\Delta }i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau \right)c=\sqrt{2\gamma }c^{\mathrm{in}}=\sqrt{2\gamma }b^{\mathrm{out}},$$
(24)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the detuning and $`\tau `$ the round trip time of the cavity. According to the input-output relation (3) written for field $`c`$, the cavity simply induces a frequency-dependent rotation in phase space of quadratures, the output quadrature $`c_\theta ^{\mathrm{out}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ being equivalent to the input quadrature $`b_{\theta \varphi _\mathrm{\Omega }}^{\mathrm{out}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ with a rotation angle $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Omega }`$ given by,

$$\mathrm{cot}\varphi _\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{\gamma ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2\tau ^2}{2\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }}.$$
(25)
Since the mean reflected field is rotated by an angle $`\varphi _0`$, the measured intensity quadrature $`c_{\varphi _0}^{\mathrm{out}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ corresponds to the quadrature $`b_{\varphi _0\varphi _\mathrm{\Omega }}^{\mathrm{out}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$. One gets the correct angle $`\varphi _0\varphi _\mathrm{\Omega }=\theta ^{\mathrm{opt}}`$ by choosing the cavity bandwidth $`\gamma /\tau `$ and the detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as,

$$\gamma /\tau =\mathrm{\Delta }/\tau =\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}/\sqrt{2}.$$
(26)
Taking into account the global phase-shift experienced by the field in the detuned cavity, the input signal $`\widehat{X}_\mathrm{m}`$ of the feedback loop \[eq. (15)\] is given by,

$$\widehat{X}_\mathrm{m}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right]=\frac{1}{2\xi _\mathrm{b}}\frac{\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}\right)^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2\sqrt{2}i\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}c_{\varphi _0}^{\mathrm{out}}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\right].$$
(27)
It corresponds to a causal filtering of the intensity fluctuations reflected by the detuned cavity.

We finally analyze the effects of optical losses on control performances. Losses in the interferometer can be accounted for by an additional damping coefficient $`\gamma _\mathrm{v}`$ for the cavity and by a coupling to a vacuum field $`v^{\mathrm{in}}`$ Reynaud92 . Eq. (2) is modified to,

$`\left(\gamma _\mathrm{a}+\gamma _\mathrm{v}\right)a`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2\gamma _\mathrm{a}}a^{\mathrm{in}}+\sqrt{2\gamma _\mathrm{v}}v^{\mathrm{in}}`$ (28)
$`+2ik_0\alpha \left(X_\mathrm{m}+X_{\mathrm{sig}}\right).`$
Proportion of loss is defined by the coefficient $`\eta _\mathrm{a}=\gamma _\mathrm{v}/\left(\gamma _\mathrm{a}+\gamma _\mathrm{v}\right)`$. Losses in the sensor cavity are described by a similar equation with a coefficient $`\eta _\mathrm{b}`$. For the same detection strategy as previously \[eq. (16)\], one can derive the optimum gain and the interferometer sensitivity,

$`Z_{\mathrm{fb}}^{\mathrm{opt}}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_\mathrm{m}\left(1\eta _\mathrm{b}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{fb}}^4}{\mathrm{\Omega }^4+\eta _\mathrm{b}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}\right)^4}},`$ (29)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{sig}}^{\mathrm{opt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{a}^2\left(1\eta _\mathrm{a}\right)}}`$ (30)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{b}^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1\eta _\mathrm{b}}{1+\eta _\mathrm{b}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}/\mathrm{\Omega }\right)^4}}+\left(\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{fb}}\right)^4\right]^1`$
which has to be compared to the sensitivity of the free interferometer in presence of loss, still given by eq. (11) with the phase-noise term $`1`$ in the bracket replaced by $`1/\left(1\eta _\mathrm{a}\right)`$. Losses in the interferometer ($`\eta _\mathrm{a}>0`$, $`\eta _\mathrm{b}=0`$) do not affect the control. One still has a complete suppression of back-action noise since only the phase noise due to field $`a`$ is modified, in the same proportion for the free and controlled interferometers.

Cancellation of back-action noise is of course more sensitive to imperfections in the sensor measurement ($`\eta _\mathrm{b}>0`$). Losses induce an additional cutoff frequency $`\sqrt[4]{\eta _\mathrm{b}}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}`$ both for the optimum gain and the sensitivity \[compare eqs. (29), (30) to (21), (22)\]. At lower frequency the sensitivity can be approximated to,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{sig}}^{\mathrm{opt}}\eta _\mathrm{b}\frac{1}{4\xi _\mathrm{b}^2}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}^{\text{sql}}/\mathrm{\Omega }\right)^4.$$
(31)
Cancellation is no longer perfect at low frequency. The sensitivity is contaminated by radiation-pressure effects in the sensor cavity, in proportion to the loss $`\eta _\mathrm{b}`$. As shown in Fig. 3, however, one still has a reduction of back-action noise by a factor $`100`$ for a $`1`$% loss. Curve d finally shows the sensitivity obtained with a very simple implementation of the feedback loop which consists in a single integrator $`Z_{\mathrm{fb}}/Z_\mathrm{m}=2\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{a}^{\text{sql}}/\left(i\mathrm{\Omega }\right)`$.

To conclude, a local control of mirrors with an optimized measurement strategy allows one to completely suppress back-action noise in interferometric measurement. This very efficient technique presents the advantage to decouple the constraints needed to manipulate quantum noise from the interferometer characteristics. As usual in quantum optics, losses must be avoided in the optomechanical sensor. Quantum locking is however insensitive to losses in the interferometer and does not imply any additional constraint to the interferometer design.


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# Vortex glass transition in a frustrated 3D XY model with disorder

## Abstract

The anisotropic frustrated three dimensional (3D) XY model with disorder in the coupling constants is simulated as a model of a point disordered superconductor in an applied magnetic field. From a finite size scaling analysis of the helicity modulus it is concluded that the data is consistent with a finite temperature transition with isotropic scaling and the correlation length exponent is found to be $`\nu =1.50\pm 0.12`$, consistent with 3D gauge glass universality.

The hypothesis of a vortex glass in disordered high temperature superconductorsFisher (1989); Fisher et al. (1991) has spurred much research and many discussions during more than one decade and continues to be a very controversial issueReichhardt et al. (2000). The essence of this suggestion is that random point disorder in superconductors may conspire with the vortex line interaction to pin the vortices and that this takes place through a sharp transition into a phase with vanishing linear resistance.

Computer simulations have for quite some time played an important role in the examination of critical phenomena and have also recently been used in the study of some vortex glass models. One important such model is the three dimensional (3D) gauge glass, which is an isotropic 3D XY model with randomness included through a random vector potential added to the phase difference of the superconducting order parameter. The evidence has for quite some time pointed at a finite temperature transition in this modelHuse and Seung (1990); Reger et al. (1991), but strong evidence for a real phase transition has been obtained only recentlyOlson and Young (2000) through the use of the exchange Monte Carlo (MC) techniqueHukushima and Nemoto (1996). The value of the correlation length exponent was then found to be $`\nu =1.39\pm 0.20`$. It is however generally recognized that the 3D gauge glass models is too much of a simplification to allow for any safe conclusions regarding the behavior of disordered superconductors in applied magnetic fieldsHuse and Seung (1990). Most seriously, the gauge glass is an isotropic model with no net field which means that the possibility of anisotropic scaling is excluded at the outset.

Two studies with the necessary ingredients of disorder and applied field have so far been reported in the literature. The first is an examination of a frustrated 3D XY model with randomness in the couplingsKawamura (2000), and the data was there interpreted as evidence for a phase transition with $`\nu 2.2`$. The crossing of the data for different sizes expected from finite size scaling, was however not entirely convincing, possibly because of the open boundary conditions employed in the simulation. The second study gives results for a 3D random pinning model with strong disorderVestergren et al. (2002). The value of the correlation length exponent was there found to be $`\nu 0.7`$, undistinguishable from $`\nu 0.67`$ in the pure zero field 3D XY model. This is at odds with the common expectation that a vortex glass transition should be in a different universality class than the pure model.

In this paper we present results from large scale simulations on a frustrated 3D XY model with disorder in the coupling constants. The quantity in focus is the helicity modulus and we find that the data is consistent with a finite temperature glass transition with isotropic scaling and obtain the correlation length exponent $`\nu =1.50\pm 0.12`$. The agreement with $`\nu =1.39\pm 0.20`$ for the 3D gauge glass modelOlson and Young (2000) suggests a common universality class.

The model we simulate is given by the HamiltonianOlsson and Teitel (2001)

$$=\underset{\mathrm{bonds}i\mu }{}J_{i\mu }\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i\theta _{i+\widehat{\mu }}A_{i\mu }+\delta _\mu ),$$
(1)
where $`\theta _i`$ is the phase of the superconducting wave function at site $`i`$ of a periodic $`L_x\times L_y\times L_z`$ lattice and the sum is over all bonds in directions $`\mu =x`$, $`y`$, $`z`$. An applied magnetic field in the $`z`$ direction corresponding to $`1/5`$ flux quantum per plaquette is obtained through the quenched vector potential with the choice $`A_{ix}=y_i\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}\pi /5`$, and $`A_{iy}=A_{iz}=0`$. The randomness is included through disorder in the coupling constants,

$$\begin{array}{cc}J_{i\mu }=J_{}(1+pϵ_{i\mu }),\hfill & \mu =x,y,\hfill \\ J_{i\mu }=J_{},\hfill & \mu =z,\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`ϵ_{i\mu }`$ are independent variables from a Gaussian distribution with $`ϵ_{i\mu }=0`$ and $`ϵ_{i\mu }^2=1`$. The disorder strength $`p=0.4`$ together with the anisotropy $`J_{}=J_{}/40`$ were choosen since they were found sufficient to prohibit the formation of Abrikosov lattices. The simulations are performed with fluctuating twist boundary conditionsOlsson (1995); the $`\delta _\mu `$ in Eq. (1) are the twist variables and the total twist in the respective directions are $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu =L_\mu \delta _\mu `$. The simulations are performed with $`L=L_x=L_y`$ and a fixed aspect ratio, $`L/L_z=5/3`$. The temperature is given in units of $`J_{}`$.

The quantity in focus in our analysis is the helicity modulus which is defined from the change in free energy density, $`f`$, due to an applied twist, $`\delta _\mu `$: $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_\mu =^2f/\delta _\mu ^2`$ Fisher et al. (1973). To use the helicity modulus as a signal of the stiffness of the system the derivative should be evaluated at the twist that minimizes the free energy. In ordered systems this minimum is always at zero twist and the helicity modulus may then be evaluated by means of a correlation function determined with periodic boundary conditions, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu =0`$. For disordered systems, however, the minimizing twist will in general be different from zero and one then needs to make simulations with the twist variables $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu `$ as additional dynamical variables and collect histograms $`P_\mu (\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu )`$. The helicity modulii are then determined from the free energies $`F_\mu =T\mathrm{ln}P_\mu `$, as discussed below. To analyze the critical behavior we use the standard scaling relation for the helicity modulus in 3D,

$$L\mathrm{{\rm Y}}g\left(tL^{1/\nu }\right),$$
(2)
where $`t=(TT_c)/T_c`$ and $`g`$ is a scaling functionLi and Teitel (1989). This expression presumes isotropic scaling; the more general scaling relations are gives in Ref. Vestergren et al. (2002). A naive analysis of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(L)`$ rather than the correct scaling quantity $`L\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$, led to an erroneous conclusion regarding the existence of a vortex glass phase in Ref. Olsson and Teitel (2001).

Our simulations are performed with exchange MC which is a method for simultaneously simulating multiple copies of a particular configuration of disorder with each copy at a different temperature. According to certain rules these copies may now and then interchange temperatureHukushima and Nemoto (1996) and therefore effectively perform random walks in temperature space. These random changes in temperature greatly help the different copies avoid getting trapped in restricted parts of the phase space and therefore makes it possible to sample the whole phase space and obtain the true thermodynamic averages. In our simulations the temperatures were chosen according to the equation

$$T_m=T_{\mathrm{min}}\left(\frac{T_{\mathrm{max}}}{T_{\mathrm{min}}}\right)^{m/N_T},m=0,\mathrm{},N_T1,$$
(3)
with $`T_{\mathrm{max}}=0.24`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{min}}`$ as given in Table 1. Before doing the actual exchange MC the initial spin configurations for the $`N_T`$ temperatures were obtained by slowly cooling the system with standard MC simulations. The number of temperatures, the acceptance ratio for the exchange step, and the number of disorders simulated for the different system sizes are shown in Table 1. The exchange steps are attempted once every 16 sweep.

The exchange MC method ensures that all the different copies remain at thermal equilibrium as soon as equilibrium has been reached. The approach to equilibrium may however be very slow since information and configurations have to propagate all the way from high to low temperatures. We have carefully examined the approach to equilibrium and especially for our largest sizes the times for equilibration are indeed very long. For the next largest size, $`L=20`$, equilibration is only reached after about $`2.9\times 10^6`$ sweeps, and to make thermalization at all possible for our largest size, $`L=25`$, we chose not to go to quite that low temperatures for the largest size, cf. Table 1. This was decided since the time required for thermalization may increase very rapidly with decreasing temperature. Still, about $`4.5\times 10^6`$ sweeps were necessary to reach equilibrium for $`L=25`$.

For each system size, disorder configuration and temperature the main output from the simulations are histograms $`P_\mu (\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ;\tau )`$, where $`\tau `$ enumerates bins corresponding to $`2^{18}=262144`$ sweeps over the lattice. The further analysis is then based on the average

$$\overline{P_\mu }(\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu )=\frac{1}{\tau _{\mathrm{max}}}\underset{\tau =1}{\overset{\tau _{\mathrm{max}}}{}}P_\mu (\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ;\tau ),$$
(4)
and the helicity modulus is determined from the curvature at the minimum of the associated free energy by fitting a second order polynomial to the free energy in a narrow interval around the minimum, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ^0`$, which is also determined in the fit,

$$\overline{F_\mu }(\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu )\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_\mu \frac{V}{2L_\mu ^2}(\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu \mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ^0)^2.$$
(5)
However, it turns out that the values of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_\mu `$ obtained in this way are biased towards too large values. The origin of this bias as well as the method employed to eliminate it from the data is discussed below after the discussion of the results.

We now focus on disorder averaged quantities for which the bias mentioned above has already been eliminated. With $`[\mathrm{}]_{\mathrm{av}}`$ denoting the average over disorder configurations we define

$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_x+\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_y]_{\mathrm{av}},`$ (6a)
$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ $`=`$ $`[\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_z]_{\mathrm{av}}.`$ (6b)
Our results for $`L\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ are shown in Fig. 2. To a very good accuracy the data for the different sizes cross at a single temperature. To further verify the scaling according to Eq. (2) we fit our data for $`L\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ near $`T_c`$ to a fourth order polynomial expansion of $`g(tL^{1/\nu })`$ and obtain the values $`\nu =1.50\pm 0.12`$ and $`T_c=0.123\pm 0.003`$. The collapse which is shown in Fig. 3 is excellent and holds in a surprisingly large temperature interval. The error estimates are obtained with a resampling technique and correspond to one standard deviation.

A vortex glass transition should also be seen in the parallel component of the helicity modulus and since the anisotropy exponent enters the scaling relation in different ways for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$Vestergren et al. (2002), a scaling analysis of $`L\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ constitutes an additional test that the scaling actually is isotropic. The crossing of $`L\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ at $`T_c`$ for different sizes and the scaling collapse are shown in the insets of Figs. 2 and 3, respectively. From the not so smooth curves it is clear that the precision in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ is much worse than for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$. This may be traced back to the less good quality of the histograms $`P_z(\mathrm{\Delta }_z)`$, as shown in the inset of Fig. 1. Nevertheless, the data for $`L\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}`$ (see inset in Fig. 3) collapses nicely when using the same values of $`\nu `$ and $`T_c`$ as in the main figure. This therefore constitutes additional evidence for a vortex glass transition in the model. We now turn to the bias mentioned above and also discuss similarities and differences with the more common method to determine the root mean square current $`I_{\mathrm{rms}}`$, in analyses of models with disorder.

As mentioned above the determination of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ from a twist histogram suffers from a bias towards too large values. To investigate the reason for this bias we performed additional simulations with fluctuating twist boundary conditions of the pure zero-field 3D XY model and collected histgrams $`P(\mathrm{\Delta },\tau )`$ where $`\tau `$ enumerates the bins. This data was then used to calculate averages over $`\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ consecutive bins $`\overline{P}(\mathrm{\Delta };\tau _{\mathrm{aver}})`$, which in turn were used to determine the helicity modulus. By repeating this procedure for several values of $`\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ the dependence of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ on $`\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ was determined. From this kind of analysis it was found that the bias decays as $`1/\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ to a very good precision. Another finding is that the bias may be made to vanish altogether by making use of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^0=0`$ in Eq. (5) instead of using $`\mathrm{\Delta }^0`$ as a free parameter. ($`\mathrm{\Delta }^0=0`$ is the known value of the minimizing twist in the pure system.) The latter observation suggests that the bias is related to the usual complication in determining the width (variance) of a distribution when the true average is not knownVar . Since $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is inversely related to the variance of the distribution $`P(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ around the maximum it follows that the estimates based on runs of length $`\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ would be expected to decay towards the true value asVar

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\tau _{\mathrm{aver}})=\frac{1}{1b/\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\mathrm{}),$$
(7)
where $`b`$ is a free parameter related to the decorrelation time in the simulations. For small values of $`b/\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ the expected behavior is therefore entirely in accordance with the $`1/\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ decay discussed above.

Returning to our data for the vortex glass model, the procedure used to determine the data points in Fig. 2 consists of three steps: (i) Determine $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_\mu (\tau _{\mathrm{aver}})`$ for each disorder configuration and several values of $`\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ by fitting histogram $`\overline{P}_\mu (\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ;\tau _{\mathrm{aver}})`$ based on $`\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$ consecutive bins, $`P_\mu (\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ,\tau )`$ to Eq. (5). (ii) Calculate the disorder averaged quantities $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}(\tau _{\mathrm{aver}})`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}(\tau _{\mathrm{aver}})`$, cf. Eqs. (6). (iii) Fit this data to Eq. (7) to obtain the unbiased estimates $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}(\mathrm{})`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{}(\mathrm{})`$. The last step is illustrated in Fig. 4 for $`T=0.125`$ close to $`T_c`$. The error bars on the last point for each size are the errors associated with the disorder average.

We now shortly discuss the relation between the helicity modulus calculated in the present paper and the more common method to determine the root mean square current $`I_{\mathrm{rms}}`$Reger et al. (1991). Since the current and the helicity modulus are first and second derivatives, respectively, of the same function $`F(\mathrm{\Delta })`$, both quantities effectively probe the roughness of the function $`F(\mathrm{\Delta })`$. The low temperature phase is characterized by large energy barriers growing with system size whereas the free energy above the transition temperature becomes a flat function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the limit of large $`L`$. However, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ turns out to be more efficient in measuring the roughness of $`F(\mathrm{\Delta })`$. The reason is that $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ measures a property at an extremum (the minimum of the free energy) whereas the current at $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ for a given shape of the function may be large or small depending on the location of the structure in $`F(\mathrm{\Delta })`$. $`I_{\mathrm{rms}}`$ is therefore only *on the average* a good measure of the properties of $`F(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ and this has to be compensated for by using a larger number of disorder configurations. This is the reason for the good precision in our data in spite of the rather small number of disorder configurations.

Note also that there is a bias in the determination of the root mean square current $`I_{\mathrm{rms}}`$ that is very similar to the bias in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ discussed above. For $`I_{\mathrm{rms}}=\sqrt{[I^2]_{\mathrm{av}}}`$ the origin of this bias is that the statistical error $`\delta I`$ gives a term $`(\delta I)^20`$. Since $`\delta I`$ would be expected to vanish with simulation time as $`1/\sqrt{\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}}`$ the bias in $`I_{\mathrm{rms}}`$ would vanish as $`1/\tau _{\mathrm{aver}}`$, which is essentially the same as the behavior of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\tau _{\mathrm{aver}})`$. There is however a difference in that the bias in $`I_{\mathrm{rms}}`$ is easily eliminated by performing two independent simulations, $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, for each disorder and measuring the quantity $`[I_\alpha I_\beta ]_{\mathrm{av}}`$Olson and Young (2000). Since the bias in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is of a very different origin it cannot be eliminated with such methods.

To summarize, we have performed a finite size scaling analysis of the helicity modulus in a frustrated 3D XY model with disorder in the coupling constants. The data is consistent with isotropic scaling and the correlation length exponent is found to be $`\nu =1.50\pm 0.12`$. The good agreement with $`\nu =1.39\pm 0.20`$ of the 3D gauge glass suggests that the two models actually do belong to same universality class.

The author would like to acknowledge helpful discussions with S. Teitel and M. Wallin. This work has been supported by the Swedish Research Council, contract No. E 5106-1643/1999, and by the resources of the Swedish High Performance Computing Center North (HPC2N).


text:
# XMM-Newton Surveys of the CFRS Fields - I: The Sub-mm/X-ray relation Based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and NASA

## 1 Introduction

Recent advances in sub-mm astronomy have allowed rapid progress in our understanding of the early Universe. This region of the electromagnetic spectrum has largely been opened up by the powerful instrumentation that has become available within the last decade. One of the key instruments in this field has been the sub-mm Common User Bolometer Array (SCUBA), operating primarily at $`850\mu `$m, at the Naysmith focus of the 15m James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Since its commission, deep surveys with SCUBA (Smail, Ivison & Blain 1997; Hughes et al. 1998; Barger et al. 1998; Eales et al. 1999) have resolved a significant fraction of the recently discovered far-IR and sub-mm background (Puget et al. 1996; Fixsen et al. 1998; Hauser et al. 1998), also called the Cosmic IR Background (CIRB). The importance of this becomes clear when one considers that the total integrated energy observed in the CIRB is comparable to the total integrated energy associated with the optical-UV background. Dust is very important in the interstellar medium as it absorbs optical-UV photons and re-radiates far-IR photons, thus affecting our view of the Universe. Since this is the mechanism that produces most of the CIRB, it is possible that half of the light ever emitted by stars has been reprocessed by dust. However, there is one other mechanism that could contribute to this background light and that is the absorption, by dust, of the radiation from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).

In the standard model of AGN the central black hole is fed by an accretion disc (eg. Antonucci 1993). Around this disc lies a torus of heavily obscuring material containing large amounts of dust (eg. Nenkova, Ivezić & Elitzur 2002). If viewed close to the axis the AGN may be visible directly, in which case a Quasar or a Type-I Seyfert Galaxy is observed, with characteristic broad spectroscopic lines. Evidence for the obscuring torus comes from observations of Type-II Seyfert Galaxies, which in this model are seen edge-on. type-I emission, which would indicate the presence of an AGN, can only be indirectly observed by reflection off material above and below the torus. Direct evidence for the torus itself comes from its interaction with the nuclear radiation. The AGN heats up the torus which produces primarily mid-IR emission, but there will also be sub-mm emission from the dust. The process is much the same as in starlight re-processing, but here it is mainly UV and X-ray photons that are absorbed, and the dust tends to be hotter. Models suggest that between 5 and $`30percent`$ of the CIRB might be produced in this way (Gunn & Shanks 1999; Almaini, Lawrence & Boyle 1999). Franceschini, Braito & Fadda (2002) argue for the revision of this standard model, and suggest that Type-I and Type-II AGN are different populations that follow unrelated evolutionary paths, in particular at high redshifts. As deeper and more extensive X-ray/mid-IR surveys are collated this possibility will be tested more thoroughly, and a more complete picture of AGN may emerge.

The Cosmic X-ray Background (XRB) on the other hand contains much less energy than the optical or IR backgrounds ($`1/100th`$ depending on the definition). With the advent of powerful new X-ray telescopes such as Chandra and XMM-Newton, it has become possible to resolve most of this background radiation into discrete sources (eg. Rosati et al. 2002; Hasinger et al. 2001). The simplest form of the XRB is a power law defined as,

$$N=KE^\mathrm{\Gamma }$$

where $`N`$ is the number of photons per second per $`cm^2`$ per $`keV`$, $`K`$ is a normalisation constant and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the photon index. This reaches a peak in energy density at $`30keV`$, and below this it has a very hard spectrum with a photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.4`$. The most completely resolved part is the soft XRB ($`0.52keV`$), which is dominated by unobscured AGN and QSOs but these sources have much steeper (i.e. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>1.4`$) spectral shapes than the XRB and cannot explain the spectrum at harder energies. Therefore, a population of more heavily obscured AGN, with flatter spectral shapes, is likely to be involved in the production of the hard XRB. The resolution of the XRB is less complete at these higher energies, although XMM-Newton with its sensitivity up to energies of $`10keV`$, is making a major contribution here. The deepest X-ray surveys with Chandra and XMM-Newton are beginning to reveal a population of highly obscured AGN (eg. Hasinger et al. 2001). An obvious possibility is that these highly obscured AGN, responsible for the hard XRB, are also producing the CIRB.

The most direct way of testing this, of course, is to make X-ray observations of the sources revealed by the deep SCUBA surveys. The studies which have so far been carried out (Almaini et al. 2001; Fabian et al. 2000; Hornschemeier et al. 2000) suggest that SCUBA sources are not generally X-ray sources.

In this paper we report our first results from XMM-Newton X-ray surveys of the Canada France Redshift Survey fields (Lilly et al. 1995). The 3hr and 14hr fields coincide with large and deep SCUBA surveys (Webb et al. 2002 & Eales et al. 2000), and so we report on the sub-mm/X-ray relation. The 10hr field coincides with a much smaller SCUBA survey, so it is not analysed in this paper. It is mentioned here for completeness, with full multi-wavelength analysis of all three fields reserved for a future paper.

Assumed cosmology: $`H_0=75kms^1Mpc^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$.

## 2 X-ray Data Reduction

The data for the 3hr field were taken on 17th February 2001 by XMM-Newton over a period of $`51.5ks`$, using the thin filters and in imaging mode. All three primary instruments gathered data (MOS 1, MOS 2 & PN) as well as the optical monitor (OM) telescope. This field is centred on R.A. 03:02:38.60 Dec. +00:07:40.0.

The 10hr field was similarly surveyed by XMM for $`50.8ks`$, using the thin filter for the PN instrument and the medium filter for the two MOS instruments. This field is centred on R.A 10:00:40.4 Dec. +25:14:20.0.

The 14hr field data was obtained from the public archive after the proprietary period had expired, to complete our coverage of available XMM data for the CFRS fields. This data was first presented in Miyaji & Griffiths (2001). Of the several available exposures of this field, one was selected that most closely matched the exposures of the other two fields. The exposure was taken over $`56.1ks`$, using thin filters, and is centred on R.A. 14:17:12.0 Dec. +52:24:00.0. We do not discuss the Optical Monitor data here, for any of the above surveys.

The XMM-Newton raw data were processed using version 5.3 of an ensemble of tasks collectively titled Science Analysis System (SAS). These tasks allow re-running of basic pipeline processes as well as further data reduction tasks. Initial pipeline processing of the EPIC instruments is achieved through the running of the tasks ‘emproc’ for the two MOS instruments and ‘epproc’ for the PN instrument. This produces the basic calibrated photon event files (recording the time, position and energy of each photon) which are used in all further processing. These tasks also remove hot and flickering pixels and columns.

Filtering of the event files is essential to obtain usable data, and so this is the next step. Non X-ray associated events such as cosmic rays create patterns on the detectors that look different from the impacting of X-rays. These events are flagged and filtered out. On the other hand soft protons, produced by the sun and projected towards Earth in solar flares, produce patterns that look identical to X-rays. Therefore these need to be filtered out by generating a rate curve displaying the count rate for an instrument as a function of time. It is clear from this rate curve when flaring events occur during the observation, because of the vast increase in the count rate, and so the affected time intervals can be removed from the data completely. For the data in this work flaring events cause a loss of $`20percent`$ of the total observing time in the 3hr field and $`10percent`$ for the 10hr field. The 14hr field was less affected by flares and so only $`2percent`$ of data had to be removed.

Specific energy channels can also be selected, enabling images in different energy bands to be produced. Two bands are used in this work, a soft band and a hard band, corresponding to $`0.52keV`$ and $`210keV`$ respectively. The low end $`0.5keV`$ cutoff ensures that X-ray emission from the Galaxy, which is greatest below this level, is kept to a minimum. Attenuation of soft X-rays by Galactic HI is also more pronounced at energies lower than this cutoff and so this too is avoided. The high energy limit of $`10keV`$ is set by the instrument response, which decreases rapidly at higher energies, more so for the MOS instruments than the PN instrument.

The remaining noise is primarily due to the quiescent internal instrument background caused by high energy particles interacting with the structure surrounding the detectors. There is also detector noise but this is negligible and only becomes important at energies below $`0.5keV`$. Due to the small number of photons involved in X-ray observations additional noise is introduced by the poissonian statistics, and ultimately this is the dominant source of error in the measurements.

Once filtering is complete images are produced for each instrument in the two energy bands. Free from bad pixels, flaring events and non X-ray associated events the images can then be passed through the source detection procedure. This is a multi-stage process performed on the combined bands for all three EPIC instruments simultaneously, so that the maximum amount of information is used in determining the source parameters. The process is summarised here.

First, a sliding box source detection algorithm is run on the images which flags any region that exceeds a minimum likelihood limit of 10 (equivalent to about $`4\sigma `$) as a source. The likelihood limit $`L`$ is defined such that $`L=\mathrm{ln}P`$, where $`P`$ is the probability of finding an excess above the background which is not due to a source. The source list produced by this first pass is used to create a “cheese” map whereby all objects in the list are removed from the image which is then interpolated using a spline to create a smooth background ready for the second pass of the sliding box procedure. The combined list from both passes is then fed into a maximum likelihood (ML) algorithm which compares each object with a point spread function (PSF) model to determine a confidence level for it being a source. All objects below a threshold (higher than for the sliding box) are rejected leaving the final source list. This method of source detection is discussed in more detail in Valtchanov et al (2001), and is compared against other methods for detecting sources in XMM-Newton images. In this work a ML limit of 15 is used, to minimise the number of false detections.

In total 451 sources are detected in the three exposures, in one or more instrument or band. These are divided as follows: 146 in the 3hr field, 151 in the 10hr field and 154 in the 14hr field. Full discussion of the X-ray sources, together with catalogues, are reserved for a future paper. For this work only the areas observed in the Canada-UK Submillimeter Survey (CUDSS) are considered.

Using two X-ray bands it is possible to define a quantity called the hardness ratio, which gives an indication as to the basic spectrum of a source. For this work it is defined as:

$$HR=\frac{N(H)N(S)}{N(H)+N(S)}$$

where $`N(H)`$ and $`N(S)`$ are the counts observed for a source in the hard and soft bands respectively, after correction for vignetting. Higher values indicate a harder spectrum.

The minimum detected flux for these surveys is $`0.2\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the soft band, $`1\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the hard band and $`1\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the full ($`0.510keV`$) band. However, the cumulative source counts begin to deviate from the expected power law at fluxes of about 0.6, 3 and $`3\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the respective bands, thus we estimate that the surveys are $`100percent`$ complete at these fluxes.

The astrometry for the source lists are compared to known QSOs in each field and corrected as appropriate. The IDing process, to be discussed more fully in a future paper, was carried out on the corrected source positions. As a second additional check for systematic errors in the X-ray astrometry, the mean offset between the X-ray sources and the IDs was calculated. The residuals after correction revealed no further systematic offsets.

XMM has a typical astrometric accuracy of $`2\mathrm{}`$ for sources near the pointing axis, but this deteriorates gradually for progressively larger off-axis angles. At the depth of these surveys XMM does not suffer from source confusion, which would become important for exposure times of $`150200ks`$. The principle limit in this study is the performance of SCUBA which has a beam size over twice that of XMM. In comparison Chandra has significantly better resolution at $`0.5\mathrm{}`$ astrometric accuracy, and has a lower detector background than XMM, but it is less sensitive (particularly at energies $`>8keV`$) and has a mirror effective area less than 1/5th that of XMM.

The composite images shown in this work are a result of merging images from the PN and two MOS instruments together using the SAS task ‘emosaic’. This task is only used in this instance to produce a clear image, and is not used for further analysis of the data, except for the statistical tests described in section 3.2. See figs. 1 and 2.

The majority of the work presented in this paper concentrates on the 3hr XMM field and the corresponding CUDSS region which lies in the centre of the XMM FoV. The 14hr field is also part of CUDSS but the survey region lies towards the edge of the XMM FoV, and the X-ray data are therefore less reliable.

## 3 SCUBA sources

There are 27 sources detected at $`850\mu `$m in the 3hr CUDSS field, spanning a region of approximately $`9\mathrm{}\times 6.4\mathrm{}`$ (Webb et al. 2002). This lies in the central part of the XMM-Newton FoV which is roughly circular with a diameter of $`30\mathrm{}`$.

The 14hr CUDSS field is approximately $`7.7\mathrm{}\times 6.4\mathrm{}`$ (Eales et al. 2000) and is centred about $`8.5\mathrm{}`$ North-East of the XMM pointing axis. This map contains 23 sources.

### 3.1 X-ray properties of the SCUBA sources

The first thing to do when comparing sources in the same area but different parts of the spectrum is to see if any of them match up. An inexact match-up does not necessarily mean that two objects are unassociated, because of the error in the positional accuracy of both sets of objects, caused by the finite resolution of the instruments involved. For SCUBA the FWHM of the $`850\mu `$m beam is $`14\mathrm{}`$, whereas for XMM the on-axis FWHM is $`6\mathrm{}`$, which increases with larger off-axis angles. For the purposes of this work the XMM PSF can be considered constant, and equal to $`6\mathrm{}`$, across the area containing the 3hr SCUBA sources, as this is a small fraction of the total XMM FoV. As for the 14hr field, the off-axis angle of the CUDSS map means that the XMM PSF is not so well behaved, and further analysis less reliable. However, as an approximation the FWHM has a median value of $`9\mathrm{}`$ across the 14hr CUDSS map.

#### 3.1.1 The 3hr Field

Of the 27 SCUBA sources in the 3hr field only one (CUDSS 3.10) is possibly associated with a region of faint X-ray emission. The flux of this region is below the flux limit of the survey, but it appears as a faint patch in the smoothed image, fig. 1. This region was picked up by an earlier version of the detection software at the thresholds used, however after re-analysis with the updated software, which has better calibration, this source is no longer detected using the same thresholds. An additional degree of uncertainty exists for this region, because it lies on a boundary between two PN CCD chips. Source detection near chip edges is less precise than in the centre of chips, so this possible associations should be regarded with extreme caution.

Given the position of the SCUBA sources the probability that there is a chance coincidence with an unrelated X-ray source within a distance $`r`$ is given by poissonian statistics as:

$$P=1exp(\pi nr^2)$$

where $`n`$ is the surface density of X-ray sources.

CUDSS 3.10 lies $`3.6\mathrm{}`$ from the centre of the region of faint X-ray emission (given by the detection with the earlier version of SAS). The surface density of X-ray sources at the flux limit of this survey is $`n=(5.7\pm 0.5)\times 10^5`$ per square arc second, thus for this source, which is below the flux limit, $`P>0.0023`$. A deeper exposure of this region would determine if this X-ray region is actually a source, and thus a significant association, or just noise.

#### 3.1.2 The 14hr Field

Figure 2 shows the CUDSS 14hr map as viewed in soft X-rays with the SCUBA sources overlayed. CUDSS 14.13 is clearly near a significant X-ray source, and this is indeed detected by the XMM source detection software. This X-ray source has a soft band flux of $`(6.7\pm 0.51)\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ and a hard band flux of $`(2.2\pm 0.25)\times 10^{14}ergcm^2s^1`$, assuming a power law photon index of 1.4. The positional offset is $`4.8\mathrm{}`$, and the surface density of X-ray sources brighter than the flux of this source is $`n=(4.5\pm 0.4)\times 10^5`$ per square arc sec. This leads to $`P=(3.3\pm 0.2)\times 10^3`$ for this coincidence.

Webb et al. (in preparation) discuss this SCUBA source to some extent. It is identified with the optical source CFRS14.1157, which is $`1.2\mathrm{}`$ from the position of our X-ray detection. This source is also detected in the radio (Eales et al. 2000) and by ISO making it an interesting source. It also has a spectroscopically measured redshift of $`z=1.15`$ (Hammer et al. 1995). The optical/NIR colours are very red, $`(IK)_{AB}=2.6`$, consistent with an irregular or spiral galaxy with high extinction, and the X-ray hardness ratio is quite high ($`0.3`$) implying that this is a fairly heavily obscured object. HST imaging of this object shows a disturbed morphology (Webb et al. in preparation), suggesting the X-ray activity may be related to a possible interaction.

By taking the measured redshift for this source, and the X-ray flux in the two bands, it is possible to estimate the column density of neutral hydrogen responsible for the obscuration of the X-rays. If we assume an intrinsic photon index of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.0`$ (Hasinger et al. 2001) then a column density of $`N_H=3.0\times 10^{22}cm^2`$ produces the correct X-ray fluxes.

It is interesting to ask at this point whether, assuming an AGN is responsible for the X-ray emission, it can also be responsible for the sub-mm flux measured by SCUBA (through the heating of dust). By assuming that $`3percent`$ of the bolometric luminosity of an unobscured AGN (optical through to X-ray) is emitted in the $`0.52keV`$ band (Page et al. 2001), and correcting for the intrinsic absorption, the AGN has a total luminosity of $`(2.6\pm 0.2)\times 10^{11}L_{}`$.

The far-IR luminosity on the other hand is $`(5.1\pm 1.5)\times 10^{12}L_{}`$, assuming a single dust temperature of $`40K`$ and $`\beta =1.5`$. This means that the AGN is 20 times less luminous and so cannot possibly power the far-IR luminosity on its own. The majority of the far-IR luminosity must therefore be powered by star-formation, and in-fact Webb et al. (in preparation) estimate a star-formation rate of $`210M_{}Yr^1`$ assuming that the far-IR luminosity is produced in this way. However, the far-IR luminosity is highly model dependent and can be much lower, for example a single temperature dust component of $`<20K`$ gives a far-IR luminosity low enough to be equal to the AGN luminosity. Although this model is unlikely in light of the high inferred star formation rate which would result in at least some warm dust, and this would push up the luminosity greatly. For example, a two dust component model with 50 times as much cold dust ($`15K`$) as warm dust ($`45K`$) and $`\beta =2`$ (e.g. Dunne & Eales 2001) has a far-IR luminosity of $`(2.2\pm 0.7)\times 10^{12}L_{}`$, making it 8 times as luminous as the AGN. Thus, the conclusion that this source is dominated by star-formation and not an AGN is hard to avoid.

Further evidence for the star-formation activity of AGN host galaxies can be found in the $`8mJy`$ SCUBA survey fields (Ivison et al. 2002). The X-ray detected SCUBA sources in these fields ($`15percent`$) are consistent with obscured AGN, but the AGN bolometric luminosities are not sufficient to power the far-IR luminosities, unless the X-ray emission is attenuated by Compton thick ($`N_H>10^{24}cm^2`$) material. If not, star-formation is likely to be responsible instead.

Page et al. (2001) draw a similar conclusion for high redshift X-ray selected sources that have a SCUBA detection. For their sample the AGN luminosity and far-IR luminosity are more closely matched, being at most a factor of 4 different in favour of the far-IR luminosity. The main differences in this case are that the AGN in their sample are at higher redshift ($`z=1.53`$) and are more luminous ($`L_{AGN}>4.36\times 10^{12}L_{}`$) than CUDSS 14.13. The HI column densities in their sample are similar to CUDSS 14.13.

Whereas Page et al. (2001) target X-ray sources with SCUBA, a reverse study whereby bright SCUBA sources are observed with the Chandra X-ray observatory was carried out by Bautz et al. (2000). They measure the AGN/far-IR luminosity for two bright, lensed sub-mm sources at high redshift and find that the AGN is responsible for the majority of the far-IR luminosity in one and $`40percent`$ in the other, implying that some other power source must be responsible for the deficits.

### 3.2 Statistical analysis

The fact that only one out of 50 SCUBA sources matches an X-ray source does not mean that the population as a whole is not significantly emitting X-rays. A simple way to test this is to coadd the X-ray counts associated with each SCUBA source and see if the average X-ray flux of the SCUBA sources is statistically significant. We refer to this as the coadding technique.

The CUDSS 3hr map is located in the centre of the XMM FoV which lies entirely in the central CCDs of the two MOS arrays. However, the PN array contains many chip boundaries in this region, and several SCUBA sources lie on or near one of these boundaries. Therefore, to avoid possible problems caused by inconsistencies between sources, the PN data is not used in the analysis.

Due to the 14hr CUDSS map being off-axis in the XMM survey we consider the 3hr field to be more useful and accurate for study. However, for consistency, the 14hr field is analysed in the same way as the 3hr map, but is considered separately because of the difficulty in combining the results from the two regions in any sensible way. The following description relates to the 3hr field, with differences for the 14hr field noted where relevant.

The XMM optics spread out photons from a point source into several pixels in the images (the PSF). Although the pixel at the co-ordinates of the source should contain the peak of the emission, neighbouring pixels also contain information from the source. This effect is important for faint X-ray sources in particular because in some cases there may be no actual photon counts in the pixel corresponding to position of the source. Therefore, for analysis of the SCUBA sources in the X-ray images, the information from the whole PSF of XMM needs to be recovered and incorporated into the central pixel.

Images were accumulated in each band for the two MOS instruments and superimposed, as described at the end of section 2. They were then convolved with a 2D Gaussian of $`FWHM=6\mathrm{}`$, the FWHM of the on-axis XMM beam ($`9\mathrm{}`$ for the 14hr field to reflect the larger, off-axis, PSF). This creates a map in which the signal in each pixel is the best possible estimate of the X-ray signal at that point. By smoothing the image with the XMM PSF (or a reasonable model for it in this case), the information in the central pixel contains all the information from the surrounding pixels, weighted according to how likely it is that the photons detected in those pixels came from the source. This technique for making the best estimate of the flux at a given point has been widely used in other wavebands (eg. Phillipps & Davies 1991; Eales et al. 2000), and is similar to the stacking technique used in the analysis of the Chandra Deep Fields (eg. Brandt et al. 2001).

The mean X-ray flux of the 27 SCUBA sources was determined for each energy band. To estimate the significance of the values a Monte-Carlo simulation was used. 30,000 random samples of SCUBA sources were produced at randomly selected positions within the CUDSS region, each with 27 sources. The mean X-ray flux for each sample was measured in the same way as for the real sample. The distribution of these means is shown in figs 3(a) and 3(b). The number of trial samples for which the mean equals or exceeds the observed sample mean is then calculated (See figures 4(a) and 4(b) for the 23 SCUBA sources in the 14hr field). A low number of trials exceeding the observation indicates a significantly important measurement.

Out of 30,000 random trials 2,010 equalled or exceeded the observation ($`6.7percent`$) for the soft band and 25,800 ($`86.0percent`$) for the hard band (see fig. 3(a) and 3(b)). A more restricted sample was also tested, in case some of the less secure SCUBA detections were in fact false. The 9 SCUBA sources with the highest flux produced $`63.3percent`$ and $`62.4percent`$ of trials that equalled or exceeded the observation, for the soft and hard bands respectively. Thus the SCUBA population is not detected, and is lost within the unresolved X-ray background. Converting the mean counts per SCUBA source into a mean flux gives a $`99percent`$ upper limit estimate of $`1.25\times 10^{16}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the soft band and $`6.62\times 10^{16}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the hard band, the true values falling below these limits $`99percent`$ of the time.

As an additional test, to take the accuracy of the SCUBA positions into account, we repeated this test by selecting the brightest X-ray pixel within a search radius of $`4\mathrm{}`$ of the given SCUBA position, instead of just taking the pixel value at that position. No significant difference was obtained, as the mean fluxes for both the randomly generated samples and the true samples increased by a similar number of X-ray counts, leading to similar significances and mean X-ray flux limits.

For the 14hr field $`22.7percent`$ and $`7.4percent`$ of trials equalled or exceeded the observation, in the soft and hard bands respectively (see figures 4(a) and 4(b)). The flux limits are less stringent than the 3hr field at $`8.0\times 10^{16}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the soft band and $`1.3\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ in the hard band. This is likely to be a consequence of the 14hr CUDSS region being off-axis in the XMM survey. The vignetting of the telescope increases the flux limit towards the edge of the FoV because of the reduced effective exposure time compared to on-axis.

## 4 sub-mm properties of X-ray sources

Taking the reverse approach, the sub-mm properties of the 18(16) X-ray sources within the 3hr(14hr) SCUBA maps can be determined. The SCUBA maps are heavily confused, not only from the positive sources but also the negative side lobes produced by the chopping procedure. Therefore, the SCUBA sources not associated with X-ray sources are removed from the map, including the side lobes. This reduces the confusion from known sources, in order to better test the low level emission in the map that is unresolved but may still be real, and associated with X-ray sources. After this procedure, the weighted mean $`850\mu `$m flux of the 3hr X-ray population is found to be $`0.48\pm 0.27mJy`$. The 14hr field yields a mean $`850\mu `$m flux of $`0.35\pm 0.28mJy`$. These are not significant detections, but are tentatively suggestive of dust emission.

These measurements are in contrast to the mean sub-mm flux of $`1.69\pm 0.27mJy`$ obtained by Barger et al. (2001) for a sample of 136 X-ray sources selected in the $`28keV`$ band, detected in the Chandra Deep Field North. Although for a restricted sample of soft X-ray sources with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>1`$ they find the mean sub-mm flux is much lower at $`0.89\pm 0.24mJy`$, consistent with our $`3\sigma `$ upper limits of $`0.81`$ and $`0.84mJy`$ for the two fields. This is also consistent with Almaini et al. (2001) who measure a noise weighted mean of $`0.89\pm 0.3mJy`$ for their X-ray sources. It is perhaps not surprising that Barger et al. (2001) find many X-ray sources with hard spectra ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }<1`$), for which they measure a mean sub-mm flux of $`1.77\pm 0.21mJy`$, since their sources are selected in a hard X-ray band. In contrast our sources are selected in the soft $`0.52keV`$ band as well as the hard $`210keV`$ band, and so there are many more sources with soft rather than hard spectra in our surveys. These soft sources dominate our sub-mm measurement which could partially explain our lower values.

An alternative explanation for the differing mean sub-mm measurements in different studies may come from the different methods used in calculating them. Not removing SCUBA sources that do not coincide with X-ray sources will result in higher residual sub-mm measurements than our method.

The mean soft X-ray flux for the X-ray sources in these two regions are $`(1.8\pm 0.1)\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ for the 3hr CUDSS map and $`(7.8\pm 0.4)\times 10^{15}ergcm^2s^1`$ for the 14hr CUDSS map, measured in the soft band.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 AGN Verses Star-formation

The lack of X-ray/SCUBA coincidences suggests three main possibilities. Either the X-ray survey is not deep enough to detect the AGN that may exist within the SCUBA sources; the AGN are obscured by Compton thick material, leading to very little nuclear radiation escaping unhindered ($`N_H>10^{2425}cm^2`$); or the SCUBA sources do not contain AGN.

Redshift information on the X-ray and SCUBA populations lends support to the separate population hypothesis. Recent deep X-ray surveys (Hasinger et al. 2001; Rosati et al. 2002; Mainieri et al. 2002) have determined the redshift distribution for large fractions of their sources. With a median redshift of $`<1`$ these surveys differ from the AGN synthesis models (Gilli, Salvati & Hasinger 2001) which predict higher peak redshifts 0f 1.3-2. In contrast the deep SCUBA populations have been placed at much higher redshifts, typically $`z2`$ or greater (Ivison et al. 2002; Chapman et al. 2003), which would naturally explain the small overlap between the two observed populations.

Can we be sure that SCUBA sources are powered by star-formation and not by AGN? The latter is still a possibility, despite the low SCUBA/X-ray coincidence, as the AGN may be heavily obscured and as such not visible to this X-ray survey. NGC6240, for example, is known to be a starburst galaxy that also contains a heavily obscured AGN ($`N_H>2\times 10^{24}cm^2`$) (eg. Iwasawa & Comastri 1998; Lira et al. 2002). To compare the SCUBA sources to NGC6240 we use the SED for a ‘high-reddening’ starburst galaxy taken from Schmidt et al (1997). This fits the measurements for NGC6420 well (Lira et al. 2002). We use this SED as a basic template, modified for an X-ray photon index of 1.4 to approximate the broad characteristics of NGC6240 (Iwasawa & Comastri. 1998). We calculate the ratio between the soft X-ray flux and the $`850\mu `$m flux in the observed frame as a function of redshift, and this is plotted in fig. 5. We also plot the X-ray/sub-mm flux ratio for a typical Seyfert 2 galaxy with respect to redshift, using a template also taken from Schmidt et al. (1997).

The upper limit on the ratio of the mean X-ray to sub-mm flux for the SCUBA sample is consistent with the template for NGC6240 as long as the redshifts of the SCUBA sources are $`>2.3`$. This is consistent with redshifts measured for many SCUBA sources (Ivison et al. 2002; Chapman et al. 2003), and so we conclude that in general it is still possible that most SCUBA sources may contain Compton thick AGN like NGC6240. Almaini et al. (2001) rule out the possibility that SCUBA sources are QSOs, unless they are Compton thick and at very high redshift, and show that they are consistent with a starburst template at $`z>2`$. This is in general agreement with our results. The SCUBA sources with secure identifications and spectroscopic redshifts (Webb et al. 2002; Webb et al. in preparation) are also plotted for the two fields.

A similar plot for the X-ray sources is shown in fig. 5(b). Note that the 14hr field has a higher mean X-ray flux because this field is dominated by several bright X-ray sources (two are known QSOs, Schade et al. 1996).

In an alternative approach we can calculate the far-IR and AGN luminosities of the ensemble of X-ray sources in the 3hr CUDSS map, as we did with CUDSS 14.13 (section 3.1.2). We use the mean SCUBA flux measurement of $`0.48mJy`$ at $`850\mu `$m, and assume a column density of $`10^{22}cm^2`$ to be representative of the X-ray sources. For any reasonable far-IR SED the AGN luminosity, from optical through to X-ray, never exceeds the far-IR luminosity for redshifts below 2. If we require the entire sub-mm flux to be produced by the AGN then the X-ray sources must either be modestly absorbed at very high redshifts, or extremely highly absorbed and at lower redshifts. This shows that in general the bolometric luminosities of the X-ray sources in this field are probably dominated by star-formation in the same way as CUDSS 14.13 is. All of this, however, is highly speculative because of the highly model dependent nature of the far-IR luminosity calculation, and the marginal (not even $`2\sigma `$) sub-mm detection.

### 5.2 Extra-Galactic Background Radiation

The following analysis is based on the 3hr CUDSS region.

The upper limit on the average X-ray flux of the SCUBA sample also allows us to place an upper limit on the contribution the SCUBA population makes to the XRB. Our sub-mm sample constitutes about $`20percent`$ of the extra-galactic background at $`850\mu `$m, and so we scale our upper limit by a factor of 5 to calculate an upper limit on the contribution dust sources make to the XRB (assuming that the X-ray/sub-mm ratio is not dependent on sub-mm flux). The sample provides a maximum of $`3.3percent`$ of the XRB at $`0.52keV`$, and so the population as a whole must contribute no more than $`16.5percent`$ in this band. In the hard band the SCUBA sample contributes an upper limit of $`6.1percent`$ to the XRB and so the population as a whole provides at most $`30.7percent`$. It is clear that sub-mm sources do not dominate the X-Ray background at low energies, but it remains to be seen if their contribution to the peak of the XRB ($`30keV`$) is more significant.

Taking the opposite approach we can estimate the contribution of AGN to the $`850\mu `$m background. The simplest way is to convert our $`3\sigma `$ upper limit sub-mm flux, as measured in section 4, of the detected X-ray sources into a smooth background by multiplying it by the number density of X-ray sources detected by our survey. Comparing this to the intensity of the CIRB at $`850\mu `$m gives an estimate of a $`2.3percent`$ contribution from AGN. Assuming the 3hr field is a typical extra galactic region and that the X-ray sources are indeed AGN then this is a little low compared with theoretical models (eg. Almaini, Lawrence & Boyle 1999). Our X-ray survey, however, only resolves about $`32percent`$ of the X-ray background in the soft band. If we assume that the background we have not resolved has the same X-ray/sub-mm ratio as our X-ray sample, then $`7.2percent`$ of the sub-mm background is produced by the sources making up the X-ray background. This may be too low because the fainter X-ray sources may be more heavily obscured, and the results from the Chandra Deep Fields do suggest that the ratio decreases at lower X-ray flux (Barger et al. 2001). However, we have argued above that much of the sub-mm emission from X-ray sources is from dust heated by star-formation and not by AGN, and thus the estimate above is really an upper limit on the contribution of AGN to the sub-mm background. These two arguments work in opposite directions and may act to cancel each other out.

The contribution of the SCUBA sources to the X-ray background and of the X-ray sources to the sub-mm background strongly suggest the two backgrounds are disjoint, with the sub-mm background mostly produced by stellar nucleosynthesis and the X-ray background by accretion on to black-holes.

## 6 Concluding Remarks

This study adds weight to the growing body of evidence pointing to the fact that SCUBA sources may indeed contain active nuclei, but that their presence is secondary to starburst activity as a power source for their high far-IR luminosities. In some cases it is possible to view the active nucleus directly using current X-ray satellites, but there are still many SCUBA sources that show no evidence of X-ray emission. Higher and higher column densities of HI progressively wipe out X-ray emission up to higher energies, and as such are capable of putting AGN beyond detectability by current X-ray detectors sensitive only up to $`10keV`$. If this is the case for the majority of SCUBA sources then the scenario outlined above will need to be modified, as it is possible for the entire sub-mm luminosity of a SCUBA source to be powered by a very powerful but highly obscured AGN, with no need for a starburst. How common such highly obscured systems are is likely to remain uncertain until X-ray instruments become available with good spatial resolution and good sensitivity above $`10keV`$, in order to detect obscured AGN beyond $`z=2`$, where many SCUBA sources are being identified. The deepest current X-ray surveys however (Alexander et al. 2003), suggest that the low detection rate of X-ray emission from SCUBA sources in less deep surveys is more likely to be due to low AGN luminosity rather than heavy obscuration, which would tend to support the statement at the start of this section.

Star-formation may also be the dominant source of the far-IR bolometric luminosity of galaxies containing relatively bright X-ray emitting AGN. Certainly the significant sub-mm measurements of X-ray sources in other studies indicates that this is the case. Even a modest sub-mm flux equates to a high far-IR luminosity, whatever dust SED is assumed.

We conclude that in general the two extra-galactic backgrounds are mainly produced by different processes, with the sub-mm background being predominantly produced by dust being heated by starlight, and the X-ray background being dominated by accretion onto super-massive black-holes.

## acknowledgements

TJW wishes to thank Mat Page for his invaluable advice about the XMM data reduction, Loretta Dunne for her help with the far-IR luminosity calculations and the referee for making useful comments leading to a clearer paper. TJW acknowledges the support of a departmental postgraduate grant. SAE thanks the Leverhume Trust for a research fellowship. TXT acknowledges the partial financial support of NASA grant NAG5-9900.