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# Observation of coronal loop torsional oscillation

## 1 Introduction

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves and oscillations play an important role in the dynamics of the solar corona (Roberts roberts2 (2000)). They can heat and accelerate the coronal plasma (Goossens et al. goossens (1995)) and also offer an unique tool for developing a coronal seismology (Edwin & Roberts edwin (1983), Nakariakov & Ofman nakariakov2 (2001)). The solar corona is highly structured into narrow coronal magnetic loops which are anchored into the dense photosphere. The loops permit the propagation of three kinds of MHD waves: sausage, kink and torsional Alfvén waves. The closed boundary conditions at the loop footpoints lead to the discrete spectrum of harmonics and consequently to the formation of global oscillations.

The global MHD oscillation in the sausage mode (Roberts et al. roberts1 (1984)) modulate loop cross section and causes the variation of the density and emission measure of radiating plasma. Using coronal loop images obtained with the Yohkoh soft X-ray telescope (SXT), McKenzie & Mullan (mckenzie (1997)) found the periodical modulation of the X-ray brightness, which was interpreted as the signature of global mode oscillation. The global kink oscillations can be detected as transverse displacement of spatial loop positions between fixed nodes. The typical property of recently observed kink oscillations by TRACE (Aschwanden et al. aschwanden (1999), Nakariakov et al. nakariakov1 (1999)) is very short damping time. It was suggested that the oscillations may be damped either due to the phase mixing with anomalously high viscosity (Ofman & Aschwanden ofman1 (2002)) or due to the resonant absorption (Ruderman & Roberts ruderman (2002)) acting in the inhomogeneous regions of the tube, which leads to a transfer of energy from the kink mode to Alfvén (azimuthal) oscillations within the inhomogeneous layer. Consequently the resonant absorption of global kink modes may lead to the global torsional oscillation of coronal loops.

Unfortunately, contrary to the sausage and kink modes, the global torsional oscillations do not cause neither intensity variation nor the spatial displacement of the loop position. Therefore they hardly subject to the observation in usual coronal spectral lines.

The influence of torsional waves propagating along a thin, vertical, photospheric flux tube on Zeeman-split polarized line profiles (Stokes profiles) was studied recently by Ploner & Solanki (ploner (1999)). In the presence of such a wave spatially resolved Stokes profiles are found to oscillate strongly in wavelength, amplitude and blue-red asymmetry. Also observation on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) showed an increase of spectral line width with height (Doyle et al. doyle (1998), Banerjee et al. banerjee (1998)) which can be interpreted as vertically propagating undamped Alfvén waves (Moran moran (2001)). However no wave parameters (wavelength, frequency) were identified, because of the propagating pattern of waves. On the other hand, the stationary character of standing Alfvén waves in magnetic tubes (or torsional oscillations) allows to identify the velocity nodes and antinodes and thus may be used for determining the wave parameters.

We suggest that the global torsional oscillation of coronal loop can be detected by periodical broadening of spectral lines due to the periodic azimuthal velocity. The amplitude of the azimuthal velocity in the torsional oscillation is maximal at the antinodes and tends to zero at the nodes. Therefore the torsional oscillation causes the periodical variation of spectral line broadening with different amplitudes at different heights from the solar surface: the place of stronger variation corresponds to the antinode and the place of constant broadening corresponds to the node. Then the time series of spectroscopic observations at different heights above the active region at the solar limb may allow to determine the period and wavelength of global torsional oscillation and consequently the Alfvén speed in the coronal loops.

Recently, strongly damped Doppler shift oscillations of hot (T$`>`$6 MK) coronal loops were observed with SUMER on SOHO (Kliem et al. kliem (2002), Wang et al. wang (2002)). These oscillations were interpreted as signatures of slow-mode magnetosonic waves excited impulsively in the loops (Ofman & Wang ofman2 (2002)). It is possible that the slow magnetosonic waves (as well as the kink waves) may also cause the oscillation of Doppler broadening in given direction of propagation. However the velocity field of waves is inhomogeneous (which is necessary for the line broadening) only at wave nodes and thus may lead only to negligible effect. On the other hand, the velocity field at wave antinodes will cause the Doppler shift oscillation as was interpreted by Ofman & Wang (ofman2 (2002)). However it is also possible that the Doppler broadening of the line is due to superimpose of several loops in the line of sight containing slow waves at different phases. But in this case the broadening must be nearly constant or it will show rather chaotic behaviour in time than the periodical one. Recently Sakurai et al. (sakurai (2002)) presented a time sequence over 80 min of coronal green-line spectra obtained with a ground-based coronagraph at the Norikura Solar Observatory. They found the oscillations of the spectral line Doppler shifts and interpreted them as propagating slow MHD waves. No clear evidence of the Doppler width oscillations was found. It may indicate that either they could not catch the velocity antinodes of the global torsional oscillation or the oscillations are not common in corona and they are related to the flare or mass ejection. Future space and ground-based spectroscopic observations are necessary to make the conclusion.

In the next section we briefly describe the method of observation and interpret the early observation of Eagen & Schneeberger (egan (1979)) as the global torsional oscillation of coronal loop.

## 2 Observation of the torsional oscillation

Consider a coronal loop as straight magnetic tube, the axis of which is perpendicular to the line of sight. If the tube rotates about its axis with an angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, then the Doppler shift of the observed spectral line with wavelength $`\lambda `$ is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =(\lambda \mathrm{\Omega }/c)x`$, where $`x`$ is the distance from the tube axis in the plane perpendicular to the line of sight and $`c`$ is the speed of light (the expression must be multiplied by $`\mathrm{sin}i`$ if the tube is inclined with the angle $`i`$). The largest shift occurs at the edges of the tube and has a value

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =\frac{\lambda }{c}v,$$
(1)
where $`v`$ is the rotation velocity at $`x=R`$ ($`R`$ is the radius of the tube). So the Doppler shifts at different $`x`$ from the tube axis cause the spectral line broadening by $`2\left|\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda \right|`$. It must be mentioned that the broadening of spectral lines can be caused by thermal motion of ions and turbulent motion of gas, however here we consider only the nonthermal broadening of spectral lines caused by the azimuthal velocity of the tube.

Now suppose that the tube undergoes the torsional oscillation due to the closed boundary conditions imposed at the tube ends. For simplicity the density $`\rho `$ and the magnetic field $`𝐁=(0,0,B_0)`$, directed along the axis $`z`$ of a cylindrical coordinate system $`r,\varphi ,z`$, are considered to be homogeneous throughout the tube. Then the velocity and the magnetic field components of the torsional oscillation can be expressed as

$$B_\varphi =B_0\alpha \mathrm{cos}(\omega _nt)\mathrm{cos}(k_nz),$$
(2)
$$V_\varphi =V_A\alpha \mathrm{sin}(\omega _nt)\mathrm{sin}(k_nz),$$
(3)
where $`V_A=B_0/\sqrt{4\pi \rho }`$ is the Alfvén speed, $`k_n=n\pi /L`$ ($`L`$ is the length of the tube and n=1,2,3…) is eigenvalue of wave number, $`\omega _n`$ is the corresponding eigenfrequency and $`\alpha `$ is the relative amplitude of oscillations. Eigenvalues and eigenfrequencies satisfy the dispersion relation of Alfvén waves

$$\frac{\omega _n}{k_n}=V_A.$$
(4)
The velocity field of each $`n`$th mode has different amplitude of oscillation, but the same frequency $`\omega _n`$ along the tube: the amplitude is maximal at the antinodes $`(\mathrm{sin}(k_nz)=\pm 1)`$ and tends to zero at the nodes $`(\mathrm{sin}(k_nz)=0)`$.

Then the velocity field (3) leads to the periodical variation of Doppler width at each point $`z`$ along the tube axis. It means that the torsional oscillation causes the periodical variation of spectral line broadening (expressed by a half of line width, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda _B`$, hereafter HW) with the same frequency, but with different amplitudes along the tube. The amplitude of HW variation will be maximal at the velocity antinodes and minimal at the nodes. According to the equations (1) and (3) HW can be expressed by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda _B=\frac{\alpha V_A\lambda }{c}\left|\mathrm{sin}(\omega _nt)\mathrm{sin}(k_nz)\right|.$$
(5)
The distance between the points of maximal variation i.e. between the velocity antinodes will be the half wavelength of torsional oscillation. Then the observed period of HW variation allows to determine the Alfvén speed from the dispersion relation (4). Also the amplitude of HW variation at the velocity antinodes (maximal value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda _B`$ along the tube axis) gives the value of $`\alpha `$ i.e. the amplitude of torsional oscillations.

However we have to be sure that the periodical variation of spectral line broadening can be caused only by the torsional oscillations. The velocity field of other wave motions may cause the Doppler shift variations. For example, the slow magnetosonic waves propagating along an applied magnetic field may lead to this effect recently observed by SUMER in given arbitrary loop orientation (Kliem et al. kliem (2002), Wang et al. wang (2002), Ofman & Wang ofman2 (2002)). However neither slow magnetosonic waves, nor kink waves can cause the significant periodical variation of Doppler broadening at given height from the solar surface. The velocity field of waves must be highly inhomogeneous to produce the line broadening. The velocity field of slow magnetosonic waves (as well as the kink waves) is inhomogeneous at velocity nodes, where they can produce only negligible Doppler broadening. On the other hand, they can produce the Doppler shift oscillations at antinodes where the velocity is maximal and almost homogeneous. However it is also possible that the Doppler broadening of the line is due to superimpose of several loops in the line of sight containing slow waves at different phases. But in this case the broadening must be nearly constant or it will show rather chaotic behaviour in time than the periodical one. Therefore from our point of view the torsional waves are best candidates for producing the periodical variation of spectral line broadening.

Thus the observation as a time series at different heights above the active region at the solar limb may allow to determine the wavelength and the period of torsional oscillation. As an example of proposed method let analyse the observation made almost two decades ago by Egan & Schneeberger (egan (1979)). They presented the time series of Fe XIV coronal emission line spectra above both active and quiet regions at the solar limb. They found the Doppler width temporal variations with the period of $`6.1\pm 0.6`$ min above the active region. The width fluctuations were amplified in two 5500 km long segments at heights of 66 000 km and 88 000 km above the limb. The amplitude of variation was 0.125 Å at 88 000 km, while at lowest heights it reduces to 0.04 Å. They also found a marginal evidence for 6 min intensity oscillations at these two positions. For quite region they found neither Doppler width nor intensity variations.

We suggest that this observation can be interpreted as the global torsional oscillation of coronal loop. The two regions of amplified Doppler width variation may correspond to the velocity antinodes of torsional oscillation. They likely belong to the second mode of oscillation, because it has two velocity antinodes at the middle of both footpoints, while first mode has only one at the top (the velocity antinode at the loop top hardly undergo to the observation in this spectral line because of rapidly decreasing intensity in the corona).

As the observations were performed off the solar limb it is reasonable to suppose that the antinodes were located at $``$ 88 000 km height from the photosphere, but the second footpoint was anchored at the reverse invisible side of the Sun, so that only 66 000 km part of footpoint was visible (Fig.1). Then the wavelength of global torsional oscillation can be

$$\lambda =4\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}88\hspace{0.17em}000}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}352\hspace{0.17em}000}\mathrm{km}.$$
(6)
The period of torsional oscillations will be $``$12.2 min i.e. double of observed period. Then we easily calculate the Alfvén speed in corona (here the constant Alfvén speed is assumed along the loop, however in real conditions it may be inhomogeneous which complicates the problem)

$$V_A500\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1.$$
(7)
If the regions of amplified Doppler width oscillations belong to two different loops, then the similar calculation for the loop with velocity antinodes at 66 000 km gives

$$V_A360\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1,$$
(8)
which is below the expected value of the Alfvén speed in corona. Also it seems unreal that the two different loops have the same periods of global mode. On the other hand, the global oscillation of coronal loop in other wave mode may not cause the periodic oscillations of Doppler width. Only the temperature changing due to the nonadiabatic slow MHD waves may lead to this variation. But it seems again unreal that the nonadiabaticity leads to the variation of line broadening with $`25\%`$. Therefore we suggest that the torsional oscillation of one loop can be the reason for the observed phenomenon.

We also easily calculate the amplitude of torsional oscillation for Fe XIV ($`\lambda 5303`$) spectral line from the equation (5)

$$7\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1.$$
(9)
This result is calculated when the loop axis is perpendicular to the line of sight. The amplitude of oscillation will be even greater in the case of loop inclination.

Evaluated Alfvén speed, as well as the amplitude of torsional oscillations, have the suggestive values for the low corona. This gives the idea that the observation of Egan & Schneeberger (egan (1979)) may be interpreted as the global torsional oscillation of coronal loop. Observed intensity oscillations can be interpreted as the density perturbations caused by the nonlinear magnetic pressure acting at velocity antinodes of torsional oscillations.

Another problem is that the amplitude of the Doppler width oscillations in the paper of Egan & Schneeberger (egan (1979)) is comparable or below the instrumental spectral resolution. Therefore the validity of the observation is unclear. On the other hand, Sakurai et al. (sakurai (2002)) could not find clear periodical variation of the line width. It may indicate that either they could not catch the velocity antinodes of the global torsional oscillation or the oscillations are not common in corona and they are related to the flare or mass ejection like the transverse loop oscillations (Schrijver et al. schrijver (2002)). Therefore the future observations are necessary for making the final conclusion. Also analysis of recent space based spectroscopic observations on SOHO and TRACE may reveal more precise data which can test the validity of this method.

## 3 Conclusion

We suggest that the global torsional oscillation of the coronal loop, axis of which is not parallel to the line of sight, can be observed by the periodical variation of spectral line width. The amplitude of the variation must be maximal at certain regions which correspond to the velocity antinodes of torsional oscillations. Then the period of variation will be the half of oscillation period and the distance between the regions with maximal variations will be the half of wavelength. The spectroscopic observation as a time series at different height above the active region at the solar limb may allow to determine the wavelength and the period of the torsional oscillation. Then the Alfvén speed can be calculated which is very important for determination of magnetic field strength in corona. The observation of the spectral lines with larger wavelengths will be more successful, because of their sensitivity to the Doppler shift. Both, ground based coronagraphs and space based instruments can be used. The analysis of early observation (Egan & Schneeberger egan (1979)) give the values of Alfvén speed and the amplitude of torsional oscillations as $`500\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`>7\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ respectively.

We hope that the observation of torsional oscillations after the damping of coronal loop kink oscillations will provide the clue for the damping mechanism and consequently for the coronal heating (Ruderman & Roberts ruderman (2002)).

###### Acknowledgements.

The author thanks the anonymous referee for helpful suggestions.


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# 1 INTRODUCTION

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Simulation of a virtual qubits on a classical computer should not encounter any insuperable difficulties, as the operating program for quantum states modelling on a classical computer has been already developed . In the present study we shall dwell on a classical computer model of quantum entangled states implemented in Pascal (with Delphy) language. This is an operating program of a virtual model for two q-bits. It simulates a controlled correlation or anti-correlation of EPR-Bomm type, including the total one. As the model considered is a classical one, the Bell’s inequalities are not violated within it. The correlation factor of this classical model differs from the quantum analog of EPR state by the factor of $`\sqrt{2}`$. The simulated operating model of quantum entangled states and related discussions simplify understanding of quantum states and EPR-Bohm correlations. This enables starting the study of quantum algorithms and programs for quantum computer modelling on a classical computer.

Until now there has not been found any satisfactory way of modelling of quantum state patterns and their interference on a classical computer. The idea of quantum calculation put forward by R.Feynman in  relies upon the impossibility of quantum patterns calculation on a classical computer in virtue of various reasons. At the same time, creation of quantum pattern models with the help of quantum elements would be rather straightforward. In its turn, this means that quantum elements must be created. This naturally means that these elements must interfere with each other, their correlation factor having to be nonzero. Then, alteration of a single element would alter the whole quantum pattern. This property of quantum elements is called quantum parallelism. While the value of an information unit (a bit) in a classical computer is defined as either 0 or 1, in a quantum computer each quantum element is described by a wave function $`\psi =\alpha |0+\beta |1`$, meaning this element being in the state of superposition of zero and unity, $`\alpha `$,$`\beta `$ being the state complex amplitude (providing $`\left|\alpha \right|^2+\left|\beta \right|^2=1`$) with probabilities $`P(0)=\left|\alpha \right|^2`$, $`P(1)=\left|\beta \right|^2`$.

Construction of virtual quantum states became possible due to the hypothesis on the nature of quantum states . This study considers a stochastic geometrical background generating correlation (or, coherency) of various quantum non-interacting objects. The area of this background localization is called the area of coherence zone. In this area the correlation factor of various quantum microobjects is nonzero. To explain how this could occur, let us consider a physical model with the background of stochastic gravitational fields and waves representing the effect of the stochastic geometrical background, that is, the physical model with the gravitational background (i.e. gravitational fields and waves background). This means that we assume the existence of fluctuations of gravitational waves and fields in each point of the space, which are mathematically represented by metrics fluctuations. If we to discuss a possible quantization mechanism, based on solution concept by Einstein-de Brogle and use the representation of extended particles as localized self-gravitating structures, we can have the self-gravitating solution with the non-resonance quantization mechanism as result .

Theoretical investigation of the vacuum accounting for gravitational fields has been performed in the works by Academician Andrey D.Sakharov . In his first paper of 1967, ”Vacuum Quantum Fluctuations in the Curved Space and Gravitation Theory” it has been stated that ”it is assumed in the modern quantum field theory that the energy-momentum tensor of vacuum quantum fluctuations equal zero , and the respective action $`S(0)`$ is actually zero”. He has further shown that accounting for gravitational field in the vacuum, taking into consideration definition of space-time action dependence form curvature in the gravitational theory of A. Einstein (with invariants of Ricci tensor $`R`$ and metric tensor $`g`$), the action function taking on the form

$$S(R)=\frac{1}{16\pi G}(dx)\sqrt{g}R.$$

Resultant action of all these gravitational fields with number $`j`$ form the functional

$$S_0(\psi )=\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}S_j,$$

$`\psi (x)`$ being the external field given by the metric tensor $`g_{ik}`$ of the gravitational field.

Let us consider two classical particles in a field of random gravitational fields or waves. The General Theory of Relativity gives the length element in 4-dimensional Riemann space as

$$d\mathrm{}^2=g_{ik}dx^idx^k,$$

the metric in the linear approach is

$$g_{ik}=\eta _{ik}+h_{ik},$$

$`\eta _{ik}`$ being Minkowsky metric, constituting the unity diagonal matrix. Hereinafter, the indices $`i,k,\mu ,\nu ,\gamma ,m,n`$ acquire values 0, 1, 2, 3. Indices encountered twice imply summation thereupon. Let us select harmonic coordinates (the condition of harmonicity of coordinates mean selection of concomitant frame $`\frac{h_n^m}{x^m}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{h_m^m}{x^n}`$) and let us take into consideration that $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ satisfies the gravitational field equations

$$\mathrm{}h_{mn}=16\pi GS_{mn},$$

which follow from the General Theory of Relativity; here $`S_{mn}`$ is energy-momentum tensor of gravitational field sources with d’Alembertian $`\mathrm{}`$ and gravity constant $`G`$. Then, the solution shall acquire the form

$$h_{\mu \nu }=e_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{exp}(ik_\gamma x^\gamma )+e_{\mu \nu }^{}\mathrm{exp}(ik_\gamma x^\gamma ),$$

where the value $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ is called metric perturbation, $`e_{\mu \nu }`$ polarization, and $`k_\gamma `$ is 4-dimensional wave vector. We shall assume that metric perturbation $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ are distributed in space with an unknown distribution function $`\rho =\rho (h_{\mu \nu })`$.

Relative displacements $`\mathrm{}`$ of two particles in classic gravitational fields are described in the General Theory of Relativity by deviation equations

$$\frac{D^2}{D\tau ^2}\mathrm{}^i(j)=R_{kmn}^i(j)\mathrm{}^m\frac{dx^k}{d\tau }\frac{dx^n}{d\tau },$$

$`R_{kmn}^i(j)`$ being the gravitational field Riemann’s tensor with gravitational field number $`j`$ of the stohastic gravitational fields.

Specifically, the deviation equations give the equations for two particles oscillations

$$\ddot{\mathrm{}}^1+c^2R_{010}^1\mathrm{}^1=0,\omega =c\sqrt{R_{010}^1}.$$

The solution of this equation has the form

$$\mathrm{}^1(j)=\mathrm{}_0\mathrm{exp}(k_ax^a+i\omega (j)t),$$

with $`a=1,2,3`$. Each gravitational field or wave with index $`j`$ and Riemann’s tensor $`R_{kmn}^i(j)`$ shall be corresponding to the value $`\mathrm{}^i(j)`$ with random modulated phase $`\mathrm{\Phi }(j)=\omega (j)t`$. If we sum all fields, we can write $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t)=\omega (t)t`$, where $`t`$ is the time coordinate.

This random phase is the same for various quantum microobject in the area of this coherent background localization, this area being defined as the one within which the correlation factor for these particles is nonzero. Harmonic oscillations with this type phases could model entangled states.

2. MODELLING OF A VIRTUAL QUBIT ON A CLASSICAL COMPUTER

In the quantum state virtual model, a simple method of generating of two (or more) dichotomic random signals with controlled mutual correlation factor out of a single continuous stochastic process is implemented .

Basing on the system random number generator of the computer, a model of the stationary random process $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t)`$ with $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t)=0`$ has been built determining the random phase evenly distributed over the interval $`0÷2\pi `$. Further, a random signal was generated on its basis with the help of the algorithm

$$a(\alpha ,t)=sign\left\{\mathrm{cos}\left[\mathrm{\Phi }(t)+\alpha \right]\right\},$$

a being $`\alpha `$ an arbitrary parameter It follows from this definition that $`a(\alpha )=0`$, $`a(\alpha \pm \pi )=a(\alpha )`$, that is, the signals $`a(\alpha )`$ and $`a(\alpha \pm \pi )`$ are anticorrelated. At the same time, $`a(\alpha )`$ and $`a(\alpha \pm \frac{\pi }{2})`$ are non-correlated signals. In the general case, correlation of signals $`a(\alpha )`$ and $`a(\alpha +\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha )`$ is

$$M(\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha )=x(\alpha )x(\alpha +\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha )=12\left|\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha \right|/\pi .$$

Therefore, out of a single stochastic process $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t)`$ it is possible to generate two (or more) stochastic dichotomic signals $`a(\alpha )`$ and $`a(\alpha +\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha )`$ with an arbitrary correlation $`M(\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha )`$ between them confined within $`1`$ and $`+1`$. Hence, should the same effect $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t)`$  act on several distant observers, then each of the latter ones, with the help of the ”individual” local parameter an will be capable of ”distant influencing” the paired mutual correlation of observables. This effect is a classical analog of entangled state’s correlation.

## 2 INITIALIZATION OF VIRTUAL QUBITS

Let us consider $`N`$ virtual qubits constructed according to the above algorithm. Let us call q-bit No.1 the control, or signal, one.

If the signal qubit is green, then we assign it the value $`|0`$, if it is red, we output nothing. Hence, at each output we shall get $`N`$ initialized integral qubits. In calculations, red color will correspond to the value $`|1`$.

## 3 HADAMARD TRANSFORM FOR VIRTUAL QUBITS

Let us assume we have a qubit

$$|q=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1);$$

here, for the state $`|0`$ the probability $`P_{|0}=\frac{1}{2}`$, for the state $`|1`$ the probability $`P_{|1}=\frac{1}{2}`$.

However, in the basis rotated by $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$ the state of the virtual qubit is determined.

Let the Hadamard transform $`H`$ be the state of the qubit in the basis rotated by $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$. Then,

$$H|0\frac{1}{2}(|0+|1)$$

$$H|1\frac{1}{2}(|0+|1).$$

Hence, having applied the Hadamard transform to the virtual qubit $`q`$, we get the precisely determined value of the qubit

$$H|q=|0.$$

## 4 LOGICAL COMPONENT $`CNOT`$ IN A VIRTUAL QUANTUM COMPUTER

To apply the logical component $`CNOT`$, using of the above control qubit is required. The qubit to which the logical operation $`CNOT`$ is applied will be called the target qubit. The logical value of the control q-bit is not altered.

Let us consider two cases:

1. If the control qubit has the value $`|1`$, then the target q-bit is switched into the opposite value.

2. If the control qubit has the value $`|0`$, then the value of the target q-bit is not altered.

## 5 CONCLUSION

Operation of quantum algorithms on a virtual quantum computer in case of emulation on a classical computer, a certain time saving should be achieved in solution of certain problems. However, comparing the computation speed of real and virtual quantum computers, one could infer, basing on conclusions of Bell  that computation speed of a real quantum computer shall be higher than that of a virtual quantum computer. This is related to the fact that the correlation factor for real quantum states, according to Bell’s conclusions, should exceed by the factor of the respective value for classical models of these quantum states, that is $`\sqrt{2}`$, for virtual quantum states. On the other hand, presently there is a lot of problems related to implementations, measurements, de-coherentization, etc. This gives rise to the question whether a virtual quantum computer would in the nearest future possess a gain in time in implementing quantum algorithm for quantum computation with respect to a real quantum computer. The answer could be positive due to the host of technical and technological problems with a real quantum computer impossible to be solved in the near future. However, even in the contrary case the virtual model will all the same find an application in classical computers, as it does not require alteration of latter ones, but rather, extends the capabilities of a classical computer through special program utilities described above.


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# A texture tensor to quantify deformations: the example of two-dimensional flowing foams

Abstract:  In a continuum description of materials, the stress tensor field $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ quantifies the internal forces the neighbouring regions exert on a region of the material. The classical theory of elastic solids assumes that $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ determines the strain, while hydrodynamics assumes that $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ determines the strain rate. To extend both successful theories to more general materials, which display both elastic and fluid properties, we recently introduced a descriptor generalizing the classical strain to include plastic deformations: the “statistical strain”, based on averages on microscopic details ( “A texture tensor to quantify deformations” M.Au., Y.J., J.A.G., F.G, companion paper, Granular Matter, same issue). Here, we apply such a statistical analysis to a two-dimensional foam steadily flowing through a constriction, a problem beyond reach of both theories, and prove that the foam has the elastic properties of a (linear and isotropic) continuous medium.

A “plastic” deformation means that microscopic rearrangements take place in the material, so that the microscopic pattern does not return to its initial condition even after the applied force has ended. An example of a highly heterogeneous one in a viscoelastic material is a two-dimensional foam steadily flowing through a constriction (Fig. 1). This apparently simple example is utterly intractable from the perspective of both elasticity theory  and Navier-Stokes  treatments. In this paper, we present a new approach to analyse complex flows of disordered materials.

We prepare the foam by blowing air into the bottom of a column of soap solution. The solution is 10% commercial dishwashing detergent (“Ivory” brand) and 5% glycerol. Its surface tension, measured by the Noüy method, is $`\gamma =28.5\pm 0.1`$ mN.m-1. Filtered air blows at a steady flow rate of 0.08 cm3.s-1 through an 18-gauge (.084 cm ID) stainless steel needle with a 90 bevel. Bubbles are homogeneous in size ($`<`$5% dispersity), and float to the top of the column in random positions. The foam is dry, with a relative fraction of fluid $`<`$3%. Since a bubble edge (a film of soap solution) has two interfaces with air, its line tension $`\lambda `$ is $`\lambda =2\gamma h=28.5\mu `$N.

Bubbles enter a horizontal channel, a Hele-Shaw cell made of two parallel Plexiglas plates $`h=0.5`$ mm apart, 1 m long, and 10 cm wide (Fig. 1). The average bubble velocity is 0.1 cm.s-1. The generation of new bubbles forces the mass of bubbles down the channel, in plug flow (free slip boundary conditions) if the channel was uniform. A 5-mm wide constriction near the end of the channel forces the flow to be heterogeneous. Beyond the constriction the bubbles reexpand into the full width channel for a short distance and then fall from the open channel end (no stress boundary conditions) into a collection vessel. The volume variation during the transit time (50 s) across the field of view, due to pressure differences or diffusion of gas from one bubble to its neighbours, are below our pixel induced detection limit of 2%.

All measurements we present use 60$`\times `$60 pixels sliding boxes (“representative volumes”), meaning that we do not evaluate them within 30 pixels of the channel walls ; and average over 2800 successive images of a 30 Hz movie. To measure the “Eulerian” velocity field, we track the center of mass of each bubble between two successive images and add the velocities of all bubble in the same volume. The velocity field is smooth and regular (Fig. 2), qualitatively indicating that the foam behaves as a continuous medium.

To obtain a more quantitative characterization, we measure the stress in the foam. Stress has dissipative and elastic components; the pressure inside the bubbles and the network of bubble edges contribute to the latter. Since the pressure stress is isotropic, it does not contribute to the elastic normal stress difference $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{xx}\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{yy}`$ (as measured for granular materials ) or shear stress $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{xy}`$, entirely due to the network. Dimensionally, $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ is of the order of the line tension $`\lambda `$ (which, in a 2D foam, is the same for all edges: here 28.5 $`\mu `$N) divided by a typical bubble size.

We measure locally the network stress in each “representative volume element” that is a square box, centered around the point of measurement, of a mesoscopic size: larger than a bubble, but much smaller than the channel width. We proceed as follows. We identify the bubble edges which cross the boundaries of the volume . We determine the tension $`\stackrel{}{\tau }=\lambda \widehat{e}`$ of each edge, where $`\widehat{e}`$ is the unit vector tangent to the edge. We determine the average force $`\stackrel{}{f}`$ on a boundary element $`d\stackrel{}{S}`$ by vectorially adding these tensions and obtain $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ defined by: $`f_i=\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{ij}dS_j`$ ; equivalently, we use an average over all links to improve the statistics .

Clearly, the stress field is strongly heterogeneous (Fig. 3). The upstream influence of the constriction becomes visible as the lobe where $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{xx}\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{yy}`$ changes sign.

To characterize the deformation of the bubbles, we consider a volume $`𝒱(\stackrel{}{R})`$ around the position $`\stackrel{}{R}`$. In this volume, we list all pairs $`(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r^{}})`$ of positions of neighboring vertices connected by one bubble edge. From the vector $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}=\stackrel{}{r^{}}\stackrel{}{r}`$, we construct the tensor $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}=(\mathrm{}_i\mathrm{}_j)`$. This tensor averaged over $`𝒱(\stackrel{}{R})`$ defines the local “texture tensor” $`\overline{\overline{M}}(\stackrel{}{R})`$:

$$M_{ij}=\mathrm{}_i\mathrm{}_j_{𝒱(\stackrel{}{R})},$$

see details in the companion paper . This symmetric tensor has two strictly positive eigenvalues, both of order $`\mathrm{}^2`$, the largest being in the direction in which bubbles elongate. It reflects at large scales the relevant features of the actual microstructure of the material. For instance, Fig. 4 shows an example of $`\overline{\overline{M}}(\stackrel{}{R})`$ measured in the flowing foam experiment of Fig. 3. This texture tensor $`\overline{\overline{M}}(\stackrel{}{R})`$ thus quantifies the qualitative impression of compression or elongation we obtain by looking at the bubbles in each region of Fig. 1. The smooth and continuous variations of the statistical strain tensor field in space validate treating the foam as a continuous medium.

We have defined the “statistical strain tensor” :

$$\overline{\overline{U}}(\stackrel{}{R})=\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{log}\overline{\overline{M}}(\stackrel{}{R})\mathrm{log}\overline{\overline{M}}_0\right).$$

Here the reference value $`\overline{\overline{M}}_0`$ is chosen in the undeformed, isotropic foam far upstream of the constriction (a choice that plays no role in elastic properties): $`\overline{\overline{M}}_0=\mathrm{}_0^2\overline{\overline{I}}/2`$, where $`\overline{\overline{I}}`$ is the identity tensor, here in two dimension. By definition, we calculate the tensor $`\mathrm{log}\overline{\overline{M}}`$ by rotating $`\overline{\overline{M}}`$ to a basis where it is diagonal, take the logarithm of its eigenvalues, then rotate it back into the initial basis (this definition is more convenient than the equivalent one using a development as an infinite series). Hence $`\mathrm{log}\overline{\overline{M}}`$ has the same axes as $`\overline{\overline{M}}`$, and is real and symmetric.

The “statistical strain” tensor $`\overline{\overline{U}}`$ reduces to the usual definition of strain $`\overline{\overline{u}}`$ in the validity limits of classical elasticity . It is purely geometric, and does not explicitly depend on stresses and forces. It applies to a whole general class of materials with both elasticity and plastic rearrangements, whether 2D or 3D, whenever we can experimentally measure the relevant information: whether detailed (list of microscopic positions and links) or mesoscopic averages (quantities related to $`\overline{\overline{M}}`$). It is a state variable, constant in a steady flow, and is not necessarily homogeneous through the whole sample, allowing a thermodynamic description of non-equilibrium complex fluids .

Do the elastic stress and the statistical strain relate deterministically? In Fig. 5 we plot the normal stress difference $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{xx}\overline{\overline{\sigma }}_{yy}`$ versus $`\overline{\overline{U}}_{xx}\overline{\overline{U}}_{yy}`$; in this representation, the isotropic contributions (of $`\overline{\overline{M}}_0`$ in $`\overline{\overline{U}}`$, and of the pressure stress in $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$) play no role, hence we refer only to the foam’s current state. Each data point is a measurement which derives from averages at one position of the foam: data sources are the same as in Figs. 3 and 4. That is, in principle Fig. 5 measures a constitutive relation from a single image; in practice, we average 2800 similar images to improve the precision.

Since $`\overline{\overline{M}}`$, and hence $`\overline{\overline{U}}`$, is completely independent of $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ , the high correlation between $`\overline{\overline{U}}`$ and $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ apparent in Fig. 5 reflects the physical constitutive relation required to treat the foam as a continuous medium, in which details of the microstructure appear only through mesoscopic averages. Since different applied strains $`\overline{\overline{u}}_{appl}`$ can correspond to the same $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$, such relation does not appear in classical $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}vs.\overline{\overline{u}}_{appl}`$ plots .

Moreover, the relation between $`\overline{\overline{U}}`$ and $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ is linear over the whole range covered by this experiment. The slope of Fig. 5 measures $`2\mu `$, where $`\mu `$ is the shear modulus of the foam, much beyond the validity regime of classical elasticity. We find, for the $`xxyy`$ component:

$$\mu _{xxyy}=3.00\pm 0.005\mathrm{mN}.\mathrm{m}^1.$$

The foam is nearly isotropic, since we find almost the same value for the $`xy`$ component:

$$\mu _{xy}=3.06\pm 0.01\mathrm{mN}.\mathrm{m}^1.$$

Note that we find similar values, $`3.00\pm 0.01`$ and $`3.01\pm 0.01`$ respectively, for a foam flowing relatively to a fixed round obstacle (data not shown). A regular “honeycomb” hexagonal lattice has an isotropic shear modulus $`\mu _h=\lambda /(\mathrm{}\sqrt{3})`$, hence with the same tension and average bubble area $`A`$ it would have a shear modulus $`\mu _h=0.465\lambda /\sqrt{A}=2.52\mathrm{mN}.\mathrm{m}^1`$ . Our value $`\mu =3.0`$ is higher: $`\mu /\mu _h=1.2`$. This difference is likely due to the side length disorder $`\mathrm{}^2/\mathrm{}^2=1.22`$ of the foam. How $`\mu /\mu _h`$ depends on the microstructure and its disorder is an open problem .

We have performed the following tests of the validity of our method. We have checked the agreement between our measurement of statistical strain and the classical strain, first analytically on a honeycomb lattice, then numerically on a disordered simulated foam kept in the elastic regime. We have checked that if we increase the size of the volume element, we decrease the fluctuations, and thus the upper and lower values of $`\overline{\overline{\sigma }}`$ and $`\overline{\overline{U}}`$ in Fig. 5, but the slope and hence $`\mu `$ are unchanged. Finally, the value of the shear stress tensor field or shear modulus, resulting from our image analysis, predicts the force exerted by the flowing foam on an obstacle. We have tested it against an independent, macroscopic measurement of the force, and found that they agree (S. Courty et al., in preparation).

In summary, we have measured the stress, the texture tensor and the statistical strain for a 2D flowing foam. We have shown that the 2D foam behaves like a linear and isotropic continuous material.


text:
# Modelling the Zero Point Field

## 1 Introduction

The existence of the Zero Point Field (ZPF) was realised even by Max Planck. In its later version it has come to be known as Quantum Vaccuum, and lately it has been possible to identify it with the mysterious dark energy. The Zero Point Field arises because of the fact that though classically, an oscillator in the ground state has zero energy, Quantum Mechanically, owing to the uncertainity principle, there is an energy fluctuation about the zero energy level.
Interestingly there have been two schools of thought. Zero Point Field, according to Quantum theoriests is a secondary effect arising from the already present oscilaltors. However according to what has come to be known as Stochastic Electrodynamics, the ZPF is primary, and infact Quantum Mechanics can be deduced therefrom. This is a chicken and egg situation.
Recently the ZPF has come into focus once again because of the observed ever expanding, accelerating feature of the universe. In other words there is a large scale repulsion represented by a cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ once invented and then rejected by Einstein, and this cosmic repulsion could be attributed to a mysterious all pervading dark energy, which can be identified with the ZPF: this could be the mechanism which drives the cosmic expansion and acceleration (Cf.ref.) for a review).

## 2 Realising the ZPF

Two of the earliest realisations of the ZPF were in the form of the Lamb shift and the Casimir effect.
In the case of the Lamb shift, as is well known, the motion of an orbiting electron gets affected by the background ZPF. Effectively there is an additioinal field, over and above that of the nucleus. This additional potential, as is well known is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }V(\stackrel{}{r})=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{\Delta }r)^2^2V(\stackrel{}{r})$$

The additional energy

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E=\mathrm{\Delta }V(\stackrel{}{r})$$

contributes to the observed Lamb shift which is $`1000mc/sec`$.
The essential idea of the Casimir effect is that the interaction between the ZPF and matter leads to macroscopic consequences. For example if we consider two parallel metallic plates in a conducting box, then we should have a Casimir force given by

$$F=\frac{\pi ^2}{240}\frac{\mathrm{}cA}{l^4}$$

where $`A`$ is the area of the plates and $`l`$ is the distance between them. More generally, the Casimir force is a result of the boundedness or deviation from a Euclidean topology of or in the Quantum Vaccuum. These Casimir forces have been experimentally demonstrated .
Returning to the ZPF as the ubiquitous dark energy, we observe that , a fluctuating electromagnetic field can be modelled as an infinite collection of independent harmonic oscillators. Quantum Mechanically, the ground state of the harmonic oscillators is described by

$$\psi (x)=\left(\frac{m\omega }{\pi \mathrm{}}\right)^{1/4}e^{(m\omega /2\mathrm{})x^2}$$

which exhibits the probability for the oscillator to fluctuate, mostly in the region given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x(\mathrm{}/m\omega )^{1/2}$$

An infinite collection of such oscillators can be modelled by

$$\psi (\xi _1,\xi _2,\mathrm{})=const.\mathrm{exp}[(\xi _1^2+\xi _2^2+\mathrm{})],$$

which gives the probability amplitude for an electromagnetic field configuration $`B(x,y,z),\xi _1`$, etc. being the Fourier coefficients. Finally, as a consequence there is a fluctuating magnetic field given by

$$B=\frac{\sqrt{\mathrm{}c}}{l^2}$$
(1)
where $`l`$ is the extent over which the fluctuation is measured. Further these fluctuations typically take place within the time $`\tau `$, a typical elementary particle Compton time (Cf.ref.). This begs the question whether such ubiquotous fields could be tapped for terrestrial applications or otherwise.
We now invoke the well known result from macroscopic physics that the current in a coil is given by

$$ı=\frac{NBA}{R\mathrm{\Delta }t}$$
(2)
where $`N`$ is the numer of turns of the coil, $`A`$ is its area and $`R`$ the resistance.
Introducing (1) into (2) we deduce that a coil in the ZPF would have a fluctuating electric current given by

$$ı\frac{NA}{R}\frac{e}{l^2\tau }$$
(3)
In principle it should be possible to harness the current (3).


text:
# Random sampling of an AC source: A tool to teach probabilistic observations

## I Introduction

Probability is fundamental to physics in more ways than one. Probabilistic errors can never be avoided in experimental observations, individual particles and their initial conditions cannot be tracked in classical physics, and quantum mechanics, which is the best available description of nature, is intrinsically probabilistic. While the basic concepts of probability can be introduced nicely through coin tossing and probability boards saraf , they remain setups in the realm of statistics without a direct connection to the physics laboratory. The pedagogy of probability for physics students has received attention, with many proposals of statistics-oriented experiments gen-ajp-2001 ; levin-ajp-1983 ; fscher-ajp-1980 ; fernando-ajp-1976  and theoretical expositions tufillaro-ajp-2001 ; gillespie-ajp-1983 ; ramshaw-ajp-1985 ; sturge-ajp-1999 , providing interesting insights. A more physical example of radioactive decay, a natural random (quantum) process has also been used to teach and demonstrate probabilistic ideas aguayo-ajp-1996 ; lewis-ajp-1982 ; lewis-ajp-1985 ; barnett-ajp1979 . However, a typical physics laboratory requires more experiments involving probability distributions and their manipulation. This paper is an effort in this direction where we describe a simple gadget to study the manipulation of probability distributions.

Imagine inserting the terminals of a DC voltmeter into the AC mains outlet. We expect it to display zero because the DC meter will respond to the average voltage which in this case is zero. The DC voltmeter is not designed to be sensitive to changes of voltage which occur at the frequency (50-60Hz) of a typical AC source. Therefore, the only information we can get from such a measurement is the average voltage.

How does one measure the instantaneous voltage? We need to “store” this value for long enough that a DC voltmeter will be able to read it. One way to do this is to connect a capacitor across the AC source. The capacitor will get charged; the instantaneous voltage across it will determine the instantaneous charge on the capacitor plates. When the capacitor is disconnected from the circuit, the charge and hence the voltage, on the capacitor remains. This can be seen by joining the two terminals of the capacitor, whereby a spark is produced. This voltage can be measured by a high impedance DC voltmeter. The DC voltage measured across the capacitor is then the instantaneous AC voltage of the original source. This DC voltage is the key variable measured in our experiment.

The experiment can be repeated and a different voltage will be obtained each time! If the observation is repeated many times, it is indeed a random sampling of the AC voltage source. This randomly sampled voltage data can be used to construct the probability distribution of the voltage. What information about the AC source is contained in this probability distribution? We will see that the probability distribution depends upon the type of AC waveform used. A triangular wave for example, will give rise to a very different probability distribution as compared to a sine wave. Furthermore, under certain restricted circumstances we can reconstruct the waveform from the voltage probability distribution. We explicitly demonstrate such a reconstruction for the case of a sine wave.

The results presented here are an instructive demonstration of the role of probabilistic analysis in physics experiments. The apparatus is simple and cheap. Elementary C-programs running on an ordinary PC are sufficient to accomplish the data analysis. The data analysis can also be performed using a graph paper, pencil and a pocket calculator. Computer analysis is not essential but is instructive and opens up possibilities of playing around with various parameters.

The experiment can be introduced in a physics laboratory course at several different levels. At the lowest level the data collected by the procedure described in section II can be used to demonstrate the zero mean, maximum and minimum values and the RMS voltage of an AC source. At the next level of the undergraduate physics laboratory, the analysis of Sections IIIII, and IV can be used to calculate the voltage probability distribution for different parameter values and to reconstruct the corresponding waveforms. At a more advanced level, the statistical analysis of section V and simulations can be carried out with the help of computer programs (available in Numerical Recipes numerical-recipies ) to bring out the quantitative statistical aspects of the experiment.

The material in this paper is arranged as follows. In section II we describe the experimental apparatus. Section III provides a theoretical analysis of probability distributions arising from a random sampling of voltages and waveform reconstruction from such a probability distribution. Section IV describes the experimental measurement with AC waveform and the data analysis. In Section V we compare the results of our experiments with data obtained from a simulation. The C-program used for the data analysis in Section IV is provided in the Appendix A. Section VI contains a short discussion and conclusions.

## II Experimental Setup

The experimental setup consists of a capacitor, a voltmeter, an AC source and a double pole switch. The voltmeter is connected across the capacitor which is in turn connected to the source through the switch. The switch when pressed disconnects the source from the capacitor. At this instant the capacitor begins to discharge through the voltmeter. Upon pressing the switch a second time, the source is reconnected to the capacitor. The voltmeter remains connected across the capacitor throughout. A good digital voltmeter with high internal resistance and small capacitance should be used. The circuit diagram is shown in Figure 1.

This arrangement is sufficient to sample the distribution of the voltage developed across the capacitor. The measurement proceeds as follows: the switch is kept in place to ensure that the DC voltmeter shows zero voltage. This happens because the AC is oscillating too rapidly for the DC meter to be able to follow the voltage. Then the switch is pressed to disconnect the AC source and at this stage the voltmeter shows the instantaneous DC voltage across the capacitor. The maximum value shown on the meter is recorded. This voltage is our main observation. The voltage across the capacitor will decay slowly as it discharges through the voltmeter. We are not interested in this decay. The switch is pressed a second time to reconnect the AC source. This completes one measurement cycle. To repeat the observation, at some stage the switch is pressed again and the maximum voltage developed across the capacitor is recorded. The experiment is repeated several times and a list of voltages is generated. This is our basic data set from which we want to draw our conclusions.

It is useful to have two students recording the data; one presses the switch and the other records the maximum voltage on the voltmeter. In some voltmeters the voltage first rises and then begins to fall. To a good approximation we take the maximum voltage to be the instantaneous voltage across the capacitor. An ideal voltmeter will not have this problem; however, no instrument is ideal so there is always a finite measurement time over which the voltage across the voltmeter builds up from zero. To accurately measure the voltage across the capacitor is an interesting exercise in itself; the best way is to actually measure the charge accumulated on the capacitor using a sensitive device like a ballistic galvanometer. It will be interesting to develop newer instruments which can be used in undergraduate laboratories and which can measure charge to a good accuracy. However, for our experiment such precise measurement of voltage across the capacitor is not required. We now turn to the theoretical analysis of random sampling and probability distributions.

## III Theory

Consider a time-dependent observable quantity, say a voltage $`f(t)`$. If we measure this voltage $`N`$ random times in an interval, $`0<t<T`$, we can determine the distribution function $`n(V)`$, the number of times the measurement of $`f`$ results in a value between $`V`$ and $`V+\mathrm{\Delta }V`$. We denote the corresponding probability distribution of values of $`f`$ by $`P(V)`$,

$$P(V)\mathrm{\Delta }V\frac{n(V)}{N}$$
(1)
Given $`f(t)`$, what is $`P(V)`$? Consider a measurement of $`f`$ being done between $`t`$ and $`t+\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. The measured value $`V`$, will be between $`f(t)`$ and $`f(t+\mathrm{\Delta }t)`$. i.e., between $`f(t)`$ and $`f(t)+\frac{df\left(t\right)}{dt}\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. Let $`t_i,i=1,2,\mathrm{}M,`$ be the times at which the voltage is equal to $`V`$, i.e., all the solutions of the equation,

$$f(t_i)=V$$
(2)
If $`P_t(t)`$ is the probability of the measurement being done at time $`t`$, then the probability of the outcome of a measurement being between $`V`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ is,

$$P(V)\mathrm{\Delta }V=\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}P_t(t_i)\mathrm{\Delta }t_i$$
(3)
where,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t_i=\mathrm{\Delta }V\left|\frac{df(t_i)}{dt}\right|^1$$
(4)
We can always invert $`f(t)`$ in the neighborhood of each $`t_i`$.

So let $`t=g_i(V),tt_i`$. Furthermore, let us assume that the random times of measurement are uniformly distributed so that $`P_t(t)=1/T`$. We then have,

$$P(V)\mathrm{\Delta }V=\frac{1}{T}\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}\left|\frac{dg_i(V)}{dV}\right|\right)\mathrm{\Delta }V$$
(5)
Hence,

$$P(V)=\frac{1}{T}\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}\left|\frac{dg_i(V)}{dV}\right|$$
(6)
### III.1 Examples

#### III.1.1 Triangular Wave

$`f(t)`$ $`=`$ $`V_0\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4t}{T}}\right),0<t<T/2`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`V_0\left(3{\displaystyle \frac{4t}{T}}\right),T/2<t<T`$
For $`V_0VV_0`$, every $`V`$ occurs twice at the times,

$`t_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{4}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{V}{V_0}}\right)`$
$`t_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{4}}\left(3{\displaystyle \frac{V}{V_0}}\right)`$ (8)
$`g_1(V)`$ and $`g_2(V)`$ are given by the RHS of the above equations. We can now use the formula in Eqn. (6) to get,

$$P(V)=\frac{1}{2V_0}$$
(9)
Independent of $`V`$. Basically, $`f(t)`$ is spending equal times at all voltages between $`V_0`$ and $`V_0`$ and thus all voltages in this range are equally likely.

#### III.1.2 Sawtooth Wave

$$f(t)=V_0\left(1\frac{2t}{T}\right)$$
(10)
Here, every voltage between $`V_0`$ and $`V_0`$ occurs exactly once at,

$$t_1=\frac{T}{2}\left(1+\frac{V}{V_0}\right)$$
(11)
Applying Eqn. (6) as before yields,

$$P(V)=\frac{1}{2V_0}$$
(12)
again, independent of $`V`$. In fact the probability distributions for the triangular and sawtooth waveforms are exactly the same. In both cases, $`f`$ spends equal times at all voltages between $`V_0`$ and $`V_0`$.

#### III.1.3 Sinusoidal Wave

$$f(t)=V_0\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{2\pi }{T}t+\varphi \right)$$
(13)
Each value of the voltage occurs twice,

$`t_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2\pi }}\left(\mathrm{sin}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{V}{V_0}}\right)\varphi \right)`$
$`t_2`$ $`=`$ $`\pi {\displaystyle \frac{T}{2\pi }}\left(\mathrm{sin}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{V}{V_0}}\right)\varphi \right)`$ (14)
Applying Eqn. (6) gives,

$$P(V)=\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{1}{\sqrt{V_0^2V^2}}$$
(15)
In Sections IV and V we show the comparison of this calculation with the probability distribution computed from the experimental data using a sinusoidal waveform.

### III.2 Wave form reconstruction

Having determined the probability distribution $`P(V)`$, the question now is, given $`P(V)`$, what can we say about $`f(t)`$? In general, it is not possible to reconstruct $`f(t)`$ from $`P(V)`$ since many functions can have the same probability distribution of values. However, as we will see, with some additional information about the function, it is possible to reconstruct it.

We first consider the case when $`f(t)`$ is a one-to-one and hence invertible function. We denote the inverse of $`f`$ by $`gf^1`$, so that $`t=g(V)`$. Let $`P_t(t)`$ be the probability that a measurement is done between $`t`$ and $`t+dt`$, then,

$$P(V)dV=P_t(t)dt$$
(16)
where $`t`$ is the time when the voltage is equal to $`V`$. From now, we will restrict ourselves to uniform distributions for the random measurements, i.e.,

$$P_t(t)=\frac{1}{T}$$
(17)
We also have

$$dt=\left|\frac{dg}{dV}dV\right|,$$

hence,

$$P(V)dV=\frac{1}{T}\left|\frac{dg}{dV}\right|dV$$
(18)
We now need some additional information about $`f(t)`$. If $`f(t)`$ is one-to-one, then it is monotonic. Assume that it is monotonically increasing. We can then integrate the above equation to get $`g(V)`$,

$$g(V)=T_{V_0}^V𝑑V^{}P(V^{})$$
(19)
where $`V_0=f(0)`$ and $`g(V)`$ can then be inverted to get $`f(t)`$.

Another situation where $`f(t)`$ can be reconstructed is if we are given that it is a periodic function with period $`T_p`$, has exactly one minimum (and hence one maximum) in a period and is symmetric about its maximum and minimum. A sinusoidal waveform which we use for our experiment is an example of such a function. In this case, we know that it monotonically increases for half the period and monotonically decreases for the other half of the period. Furthermore, if we are sampling over times large compared to the time period, then we randomly sample all the times in a period. So we can replace $`T`$ by the half-period $`\frac{1}{2}T_p`$ in all the above formulae, reconstruct $`f(t)`$ for the half period and then using the symmetry, recover the function for the full period. We can get to the wave shape from the probability distribution in this case; however, we are unable to find the signal frequency.

## IV Results

We now turn to the experimental results and their analysis. For good statistics, a large number of voltages should be recorded, although interesting results begin to emerge with a sample size as low as 100. The results in this section pertain to a sample size of 500 data points with a 50Hz AC source having a peak voltage of $`8.6`$V. The 500 raw data points (used in the analysis) are shown in Figure 3.

The raw data clearly look random and it is not possible to draw any meaningful conclusions by mere visual inspection.

The first step in the analysis is to choose a certain number of bins and find the probability distribution of voltage. This is achieved by the C program given in Appendix A. In Figure 4 we show the graph corresponding to the probability distribution for the voltages divided into 101 uniform bins.

Furthermore, since the function in this case satisfies the conditions for reconstruction, we use the formula given in Eqn. 19 and numerical integration (carried out by the second part of the C program given in Appendix A) for waveform reconstruction and display the results in the lower half of Figure 4. The expected sinusoidal waveform emerges. The actual sine curve is also provided as a solid curve in the same graph for comparison. If we start with a larger raw data set we can improve the quality of reconstruction and also reduce the statistical fluctuation in the probability distribution plot. A detailed statistical analysis is presented in Section V. We observe here that the probability distribution reveals the characteristics of the waveform which are not at all obvious from the raw data.

We note here that there is no way of estimating the frequency of the signal. The sampling times, being random, do not give us any time-scale information; hence the reconstruction gives us only the shape of the signal. For example, two sine waves with different frequencies and same amplitudes will give the same probability distribution and hence the same reconstructed waveforms.

It is instructive to play with the parameters of the experiment. Different frequency and amplitude for the AC can be tried and the experiment can be repeated with different waveforms like triangular or saw tooth and others. One can change the total number of points in the raw data and see how the statistics improves by increasing the sample points, which will be taken up in the next section. For the data analysis the number of bins is the only crucial parameter and it is interesting to see how the quality of analysis changes as we change the bin size. As a demonstration, we re-analyze the same data described above by varying the number of bins to 11 and 1001. One observes (see Figs. 5 and 6) that 11 bins a give much less accurate probability distribution and waveform; however going to 1001 bins does not help much compared to 101 bins.

The 101 bins are able to capture more information available in the data compared to 11 bins, leading to the improved quality of the result. Since the raw data has only 500 points, there is a limit to which we can improve the quality by increasing the bin number. If we want to improve the results further we must increase the number of raw data points and not the bin number. This is a general principle of experimental observations wherein the accuracy of the result is determined by the least accurate part of the observation and analysis.

## V Statistical analysis and Numerical Simulation

As seen in the preceding section, the data when analysed fit well into a sinusoidal curve, reproducing the original voltage form. We now analyse the goodness of this fit and deviations from the expected (theoretical) values.

When a sinusoidal waveform is sampled $`N`$ times randomly, the voltage probability distribution of Eqn. (15) results in the frequency distribution of events

$$n(V)=NP(V)\mathrm{d}V$$
(20)
and the accumulated frequency of events upto a voltage $`V`$ obtained on integration is

$$N_V=_0^VNP(V)dV=\frac{N}{\pi }\mathrm{sin}^1V/V_0.$$
(21)
For discrete bins of size $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$, the integration is replaced by a sum over bins, $`N_V=n(V)=NP(V)\mathrm{\Delta }V`$. In other words, by a cumulative process of adding the frequencies in bins, starting from the $`V=0`$ bin to the $`V=V`$ bin, we recover the sine (actually sine-inverse) form.

The $`N`$ data are binned into $`m`$ bins; assuming that each sample is a random independent event, the statistical error for the frequency in each bin can be taken to be $`\sigma _0=\sqrt{N/m}`$. Thus the error on $`N_V`$ is $`\sigma _j=\sqrt{j}\sigma _0`$, where there are $`j`$ bins from $`V=0`$ to $`V=V`$. With this error, the accumulated frequency $`N_V`$ is fitted to the form in Eqn. (21), with $`V_0`$ as the free parameters, by a standard chi-squared minimisation procedure:

$$\chi ^2=\underset{j}{}\frac{(N_V^{\mathrm{data}}(j)N_V(j,V_0))^2}{\sigma _j^2}$$
(22)
The result of the fitting procedure for the set of 500 sample data from a transformer stepped down to peak voltage (a) 8.6 V, and (b) 17.1 V, is shown in Table 1.

Note that due to switching losses, the largest value of sampled voltage in the first case was 8.3 V and in the latter, 16.4 V. Clearly, switching losses are larger at larger values of the peak voltage and the $`\chi ^2`$ values indicate that the recovery of the waveform is truer at lower peak voltages.

We now turn our attention to a numerical simulation. Two sets of data were simulated (both with $`V_0=8.3`$V), one with 500 sample events (as in the actual experimental data) and one with twenty times as much data, by sampling a sine waveform randomly. The simulated data were binned and analysed as above. The larger data set was scaled suitably for comparison with the smaller sample/experimental data.

The error on the frequency in each bin is again $`\sqrt{N/m}`$. The total frequency, $`_jN_V(j)=N\pm \sqrt{N}=N(1\pm 1/\sqrt{N})`$. Hence, though the error increases as $`\sqrt{N}`$, the fluctuations on the accumulated frequency decrease as $`1/\sqrt{N}`$; therefore, we expect the fits from the 10,000 sample set to be about 5 times ($`\sqrt{20}`$) smoother than those from the 500 sample set. We show the corresponding frequency vs. bin voltage histogram in Fig. 7. The histograms I, II refer to the original data set and the simulated 500-sample data. It is seen that they are very similar in appearance. The histogram III, shifted by a factor of 50 for clarity, is from the 10,000 data set and clearly shows much smaller fluctuations. Correspondingly, as shown in Table 2, the $`\chi ^2`$ for the fits to the accumulated frequency distribution $`N_V`$ are much better for III than for I or II.

The accumulated frequency for the data/simulated data are shown as a function of the voltage in Fig. 8 for the three cases. (The results for III have been scaled down (by 20) to match the overall normalisation for the other two cases.) While fluctuations in the simulated data for 500 samples (Case II) are similar to the experimental data, the fluctuations for the large data sample (Case III) are very small and the corresponding distribution is very smooth. The resulting $`\chi ^2`$ is therefore much smaller in this case, as Table 2 shows. Furthermore, the goodness-of-fit is much better for II than for I, although they correspond to similar sample sizes. This may reflect the fact that Set I actually samples a waveform with peak voltage $`V_{\mathrm{peak}}=8.6`$ V with voltage losses at the time of measurement due to switching; these losses may be complicated functions of $`V`$. No such losses are modeled in our analysis.

In summary, data with smaller voltages at the transformer give better fits to the original sine waveform than data with larger voltages. As expected, the quality of fit improves with amount of data.

## VI Concluding Remarks

A simple experiment was constructed to randomly sample an AC voltage source. The crux of the experiment involved charging a capacitor from an AC source, whose instantaneous voltage is then measured by switching its connection to a DC voltmeter at a random time. The resulting data were analysed to recover information about the AC source. While the frequency of the source could not be determined, the peak voltage and the shape of the original waveform could be accurately found. The procedure involved in inverting the data to recover this information was tested through numerical simulations and statistical analysis. The experiment, along with the analysis, can be effectively introduced into a physics laboratory course at the primary or advanced level. The effects of changing the switching device (to limit losses due to sparking, etc.), the peak voltage of the AC source, and the voltage measuring device, can be studied at various levels of complexity, depending on the ability and inclination of the reader.

###### Acknowledgements.

Arvind thanks National Science Foundation for financial support through Grant Nos. 9900755 and 0139974.

*

## Appendix A C program

We give here the C program used for the data analysis. The input to the program is a data file ‘input.dat’ which should have a single column containing the voltages measured in the experiment. The program scans the file, finds the data attributes (number of data points, the maximum value in the data, the average voltage, etc.) and writes them in the file ‘cap1.out’. It then divides the voltage range into equal sized odd number of bins. The bin number is to be specified on the screen and is read as the variable `bin_nu`. The binned data is written into the file ‘cap2.out’ with the first column containing the bin center and the second the probability of occurrence of voltage in that bin. The second part of the program carries out the waveform reconstruction for the periodic signal and the result is written in the file ‘cap3.out’ where the first column contains the ‘scaleless’ time variable and the second column the voltage reconstructed for that time.

`#include "stdio.h"`
`#include "math.h"`
`main()`
`{`
`const int bin_max=5000; /*` max array size `*/`
`const float epsilon=0.001; /*` voltage range extension(end points) `*/`
`int bin_nu; /*` no. of bins to be used (must be odd)`*/`
`int bin[bin_max]; /*` array of bins `*/`
`int j,i,k; /*` integers to be used in loops `*/`
`int data_max; /*` data points in input.dat `*/`
`int bin1_nu;`
`float voltage[data_max];/*` array of voltages read from input.dat`*/`
`float max_voltage; /*` maximum voltage `*/`
`float average; /*` average voltage `*/`
`float bin_nuf,bin_width,sum[bin_max];`
`/*` bin no. as float, bin width and sum `*/`
`float pbin[bin_max]; /*` probability bin `*/`
`FILE *fp0,*fp1,*fp2,*fp3;`
`fp0=fopen("input.dat","r"); /*` Input file `*/`
`fp1=fopen("cap1.out","w"); /*` Output file 1 `*/`
`fp2=fopen("cap2.out","w"); /*` Output file 2 `*/`
`fp3=fopen("cap3.out","w"); /*` Output file 3 `*/`
`printf("Input the number of bins to be used (odd number)\n");`
`scanf("``%``d",&bin_nu);`
`bin_nuf=bin_nu;`
`data_max=0; /*` Initialization `*/`
`max_voltage=0; /*` Initialization `*/`
`average=0; /*` Initialization `*/`
`for(i=0;i<bin_max;i++) /*` Initialization `*/`
`bin[i]=0;`
`j=1;`
`i=0;`
`while(i!=EOF) /*` Reading data from ‘input.dat’ `*/`

`{`
`fscanf(fp0,"``%``f",&voltage[j]);`
`i=getc(fp0);`
`if (i==’\n’)`
`{`
`j++;`
`data_max++;`
`}`
`}`
`for(i=1;i<=data_max;i++)`
`{`
`average=average+voltage[i];`
`if(fabs(voltage[i]) > max_voltage)`
`max_voltage=voltage[i];`
`}`
`bin_width = 2*(max_voltage+epsilon)/bin_nuf; /*` Computed bin width `*/`
`average = average/data_max; /*` Average Voltage `*/`
`for(i=1;i<=data_max;i++) /*` Filling the bins `*/`
`{`
`for(j=-(bin_nu-1)/2;j<=(bin_nu-1)/2;j++)`
`{`
`if(voltage[i] >=j*bin_width-bin_width/2 &&`
`voltage[i] < j*bin_width+bin_width/2)`
`bin[j+(bin_nu-1)/2]++;`
`}`
`}`

Calculating the probabilities for bins

`for(j=0;j<bin_nu;j++)`
`{`
`pbin[j]=(1.0)*bin[j]/data_max;`
`}`

Some basic facts about the data are computed and written in a file ‘cap1.out’

`fprintf(fp1,"Number of Voltages Scanned =` `%``i\n",data_max);`
`fprintf(fp1,"Maximum Voltage =` `%``.3f\n",max_voltage);`
`fprintf(fp1,"Number of Bins =` `%``i\n",bin_nu);`
`fprintf(fp1,"Average Voltage =` `%``.3f\n",average);`
`fprintf(fp1,"Size of each bin =` `%``.3f\n",bin_width);`

Probabilities for each bin written into the output file ‘cap2.out’ with first column being the center of the bin and the second column the probability for finding the voltage in that bin.

`fprintf(fp2,"Bin Center Probability\n");`
`for(j=0;j<bin_nu;j++)`
`fprintf(fp2,"``%``+8.3f` `%``-1.4f\n",`
`(j-(bin_nuf)/2+0.5)*bin_width,pbin[j]);`

INTEGRATION OF THE DATA

This part of the program integrates the data and reconstructs the waveform assuming that $`f(t)`$ can be reconstructed from the values of $`f(t)`$ in the interval $`[0,T/2)`$ (where $`T`$ is the period of $`f(t)`$) in the following way: $`f(T/2+t)=f(T/2t)0<t<T/2`$. The output is written in a file ‘cap3.out’

`sum[0]=bin[0]*bin_width;`
`for(j=1;j<bin_nu;j++)`
`{`
`sum[j]=sum[j-1]+bin[j]*bin_width;`
`}`
`for(j=0;j<bin_nu;j++)`
`{`
`fprintf(fp3,"``%``+8.3f` `%``+8.3f\n",sum[j],`
`(j-(bin_nuf)/2+0.5)*bin_width);`
`}`
`for(j=0;j<bin_nu;j++)`
`{`
`fprintf(fp3,"``%``+8.3f` `%``+8.3f\n",sum[j]+sum[bin_nu-1],`
`-(j-(bin_nuf)/2+0.5)*bin_width);`
`}`
`for(j=0;j<bin_nu;j++)`
`{`
`fprintf(fp3,"``%``+8.3f` `%``+8.3f\n",sum[j]+2*sum[bin_nu-1],`
`(j-(bin_nuf)/2+0.5)*bin_width);`
`}`
`for(j=0;j<bin_nu;j++)`
`{`
`fprintf(fp3,"``%``+8.3f` `%``+8.3f\n",sum[j]+3*sum[bin_nu-1],`
`-(j-(bin_nuf)/2+0.5)*bin_width);`
`}`
`}`


text:
# A Search for Periodicity in the Super-Kamiokande Solar Neutrino Flux Data

## 1 Introduction

In recent years, we have witnessed a dramatic improvement in our assessment of the solar neutrino problem. The very high statistics of solar neutrino interactions in ordinary water, obtained in the Super-Kamiokande experiment , together with results from the chlorine , gallium  and heavy water  detectors, have demonstrated that neutrinos undergo flavor conversion between the solar core and the earthly experiments. In parallel and at about the same time, the enormous progress in helioseismology and in solar models led to a firmer and refined estimate of the emitted solar neutrino flux , that agrees perfectly with the measurements. A few domains were singled out in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ vs. $`tan\theta `$ parameter plane (see e.g. ), with the so-called Large Mixing Angle solution being the favored one. The very recent observation of reactor neutrino oscillations by the KamLAND group  has further pinned down this solution, although the allowed domain in parameter space is now comprised of two disjoint sub-domains (see e.g. ).

In the present standard view, no large periodic modulation is expected in the solar neutrino signal. Two small effects might be observed, with periods of one year and one day. The obvious yearly modulation is due to the Earth’s orbit excentricity, $`e=0.0167`$, which induces a flux variation $`4e/(1e)^27\%`$ between aphelion and perihelion. There is now some evidence for this flux modulation, at a modest significance level . The possible daily periodicity stems from neutrino oscillations inside the Earth . The amplitude of this so-called day/night effect depends strongly on the neutrino masses and mixings. The day/night comparisons by the Super-Kamiokande  and SNO  collaborations helped to reject some solutions to the solar neutrino problem, and to narrow down the allowed parameter space domain.

Searches for other periodicities have also been performed, such as correlations with the 11-year solar cycle (e.g. ), or the solar synodic period (see e.g.  and references therein); it seems fair to say that no consensus exists on the presence of such periodic modulations.

Very recently, in December 2002, the Super-Kamiokande collaboration has released its solar neutrino flux data in 10 and 45 day bins over the period May 1996 to July 2001, corresponding to 22,400 solar neutrino interactions (see http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/sk/lowe/index.html). This makes it possible to perform a systematic search for any periodicity in this data set, not restricted to the four periods listed above. The present paper reports the results of such a search in the period range from 10 to 500 days, as well as evidence for a periodic modulation, at $`T=13.755\pm 0.011`$ days. I am not aware of any previous systematic periodicity search on solar neutrino fluxes in a wide period range, and especially below 18 days111Half a day after this preprint was first posted, I became aware of a similar search by P.A. Sturrock and D.O. Caldwell, through an AAS meeting abstract, posted at http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v34n4/aas201/647.htm . I very much thank T. Lasserre for pointing this out to me. The periodicity found in the present paper agrees perfectly with that given in this conference abstract.

## 2 The data sample and the search for periodicity

I have used the Super-Kamiokande solar neutrino flux in 10 day bins only, in order to probe the shorter periods. There are $`N=184`$ such data points, for each of which are provided the date and time of the beginning and end of the 10-day bin (in Japan Standard Time JST), the value of $`d^2`$, the average squared Sun-Earth distance in this bin, and the boron-8 solar neutrino flux, together with errors, uncorrected for this distance variation. The relative flux errors are typically between 10 and 20%.

The total time span of the data is 1,864 days (184 bins of 10.1 days in average), corresponding to an actual live time of 1,496 days. The bin size is rather constant, as only 13 bins are shorter than 8 or longer than 12 days, and the standard deviation of the bin size distribution is 1.27 day. The actual distribution of dead time is not provided, so that I have chosen to assign the neutrino flux value to the center of each bin. I have then corrected this flux value for the Sun-Earth distance, using in effect a flux rescaled at 1 AU. (I have used the $`d^2`$ factor provided in the data table, and have checked that it agrees with that computed using the JPL DE406 Solar System ephemerides available at http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/ .) Finally, I subtract in each bin the average flux value given in the same table.

I have then performed a search for periodicity on these “flux excursions”, using a slight variant of the periodogram method . All flux values were used with equal weights, i.e. ignoring their errors. The frequency range from 0.002 to 0.100 d-1 was searched, with a frequency step of 0.0001 d-1; this corresponds to a period range between 500 and 10 days. (The most significant peaks were then scanned again, with a 10 times smaller step, 0.00001 d-1.) The resulting power spectrum is shown in Fig. 1, where the plotted variable is

$$z(\nu )=\frac{|_i(\mathrm{\Phi }_i\mathrm{\Phi }_{av})exp(2i\pi \nu t_i)|^2}{_i(\mathrm{\Phi }_i\mathrm{\Phi }_{av})^2},$$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i`$ is the flux measured at time $`t_i`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{av}`$ the average flux and $`\nu `$ is the probed frequency; the sums run over the $`N`$ data points.

Only one prominent peak is found, at a frequency $`\nu =0.07270\mathrm{d}^1842`$ nHz, corresponding to $`T=13.75\pm 0.05`$ days. (This error is only an estimate, from the width of the periodogram peak.) The height of the peak is $`z_0=10.4`$, corresponding to a probability $`p=e^{z_0}310^5`$. The $`z`$ distribution is shown in Fig. 2. In order to estimate the probability that such a peak be compatible with a statistical fluctuation, one has to know the number of independent frequencies tested by the periodogram analysis. For the frequency range tested here, essentially between 0 and twice the Nyquist frequency, this number is close to $`2N`$, i.e. twice the number of data points (see e.g. , section 13.8, and references therein). The probability to obtain a peak height greater than $`z_0`$ from $`2N`$ tested frequencies is $`1(1p)^{2N}2Np1.1\%`$. Thus the observed peak corresponds, at $`98.9\%`$ C.L., to a periodicity in the Super-Kamiokande 10 day plot data (as of December 2002). The second highest peak of the periodogram, with $`z_1=6.4`$, is perfectly compatible with statistical noise at $`47\%`$ C.L.

Note that the sampling, though quite regular, is sufficiently variable that no aliasing is observed in the periodogram.

The folded flux values are plotted versus their phase in Fig. 3. The phase here is defined as the fraction of a period $`T`$ counted from an arbitrary origin (Modified Julian Day 0, or JD 2,450,000 $``$ 1995, Oct 9.50 UTC); it is a number between 0 and 1. The modulation is clearly visible on Fig. 3.

In order to better estimate the parameters and their errors, I have fitted the 184 data points $`(\mathrm{\Phi }_i,\sigma _{\mathrm{\Phi }_i})`$ with a sinusoidal flux modulation,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_0[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+Asin(2\pi \frac{t_i1200}{T}+\varphi _{1200})],$$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is the time-averaged 8B neutrino flux, $`A`$ the relative signal modulation, $`T`$ the period and $`\varphi _{1200}`$ the phase at a reference date, MJD 1200.0, chosen close to the median time of the SK data. In this fit, the points were weighted using the inverse squared errors quoted by the Super-Kamiokande collaboration. The resulting $`\chi ^2`$ is 165.8 for $`(1844)`$ degrees of freedom. The fitted parameters values are : $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=2.329\pm \mathrm{0.024\hspace{0.17em}10}^6{}_{}{}^{8}\mathrm{B}\nu cm^2s^1`$, $`A=0.067\pm 0.014`$, $`T=13.755\pm 0.011`$ days and $`\varphi _{1200}=0.55\pm 0.22`$ rad. (In comparison, the $`\chi ^2`$ of a constant fit is 187.7 for 183 d.o.f.)

It may seem strange to be able to detect a period that is only 35 % longer than the average time bin size. The neutrino flux in each bin is integrated over the bin width, so that any periodic signal will be washed out when integrated over $`3/4`$ of a period. In the case of a purely sinusoidal modulation, with amplitude $`A`$ relative to the average flux, the measured amplitude after signal averaging over a random 3/4 fraction of a period is $`A^{}=(2^{3/2}/3\pi )A0.30A`$. I will discuss this further in the next section.

Note that, for such an integrated signal, the periodogram search has a much reduced sensitivity to periods close to the time sampling, 10.1 days, and twice the time sampling, 20.2 days. Thus the number of independent frequencies, $`2N`$, that was used above is probably a bit overestimated, and the signal significance under-estimated. A full Monte-Carlo simulation would be necessary to quantify this.

In order to search for a possible bias, either on the 13.75 day period or on its significance level, I have performed a Monte-Carlo simulation generating 10,000 experiments with exactly the same 10 day time bins as Super-Kamiokande, and flux values taken at random from a normal law with the same average ($`2.3510^6\nu \mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$) and the same dispersion ($`0.3310^6`$) as the 184 time bins. The observed $`z`$ distribution is in perfect agreement with an exponential law, and no significant bias is observed near 13.75 days, or anywhere else in the periodogram. Out of the 10,000 simulated data sets, 123 have a maximum $`z`$ value larger than $`z_0=10.4`$. This agrees with our confidence level estimate of 98.9%.

I have also performed a periodogram search on the combined results of the gallex  and gno  collaborations over the period 1991-2001. No significant peak was found. This gives no information on a possible 13.75 day periodicity however : out of the 100 gallex and gno runs, 65 correspond to an exposure time very close to 27.5 days, i.e twice 13.75 days, so that a much reduced sensitivity is expected. I have not analysed the chlorine data, as the time between extractions is even longer for this experiment.

## 3 Discussion and Future Work

Provided the signal presented in the previous section is not simply due to a statistical fluctuation, there exist many tests that could be performed to verify its existence. An identical analysis using the same Super-Kamiokande data, but binned in 3-4 days bins would already prove very useful. The statistics in each bin would decrease by a factor 3, and the statistical errors would increase typically by $`\sqrt{3}`$. The distribution of measured fluxes would hence be wider. But a 13.75 day periodic signal would then, in these bins, be integrated over 1/4 of a period instead of 3/4. The amplitude of the signal would increase by a factor 3, to about 20%, thus more than compensating the increase in the width of the distribution; the significance of any real modulation could be clearly established.

It would then be interesting to check what the actual period is, as 13.75 days could very well be the (dominant) second harmonic of a 27.5 day period. (The periodogram method is not well suited in such a case; the AoV method  could be used instead.) One should also check for aliases with periods shorter than 10 days.

A search for periodicity is always more efficient starting from unbinned data. The ultimate verification would be to search for periodicity using information on each “candidate solar neutrino”, i.e. the time of detection, the angle with respect to the Sun ($`cos\theta _{}`$) and the energy. For the Super-Kamiokande data, one can only speak of “candidate solar neutrinos” as the boron-8 solar neutrino flux is measured as an excess over the roughly constant background in the $`cos\theta _{}`$ distribution (see for example figure 1 of ). One could use a modified version of a periodogram analysis, where each “candidate” would receive a $`cos\theta _{}`$-dependent weight, equal to the fraction of solar neutrinos at its measured $`cos\theta _{}`$. (The closer $`\theta _{}`$ to zero, the larger the weight.)

A simplified Monte-Carlo simulation of such a weighted periodogram analysis has been performed . It shows that a search for an unknown periodic modulation of the flux in the period range from a few hours to a year would allow to detect a 10 % modulation at better than 99 % C.L. (The confidence level increases very fast with the amplitude.) This means that, for a fixed confidence level, the searched frequency interval would then be about a hundred times greater than in the present paper. Equivalently, examining in such an analysis only periods greater than 10 days would lead to confidence levels 100 times better.

In case the signal is confirmed, this would not tell us whether it is due to an instrumental effect, to an actual modulation of the boron-8 neutrino flux, or if it is induced by a modulation in the background. The latter hypothesis could be tested, for example, by a periodogram analysis of events that enter the $`cos\theta _{}`$ plot at negative values (the anti-solar hemisphere) : they are almost all background events. It would also be interesting to search for the same periodicity in other Super-Kamiokande data sets, such as atmospheric neutrinos.

One cannot help noticing that 13.75 days is very close to half the solar synodic rotation period. This may turn out to be a coincidence, or not. There exist many solar observables that display a 13-14 day periodicity, although the peak in their Fourier spectrum is usually quite wide. Examples of these are properties of the chromosphere, solar wind characteristics at the Earth, and even induced geomagnetic activity (see e.g.  and references therein). (The latter two might influence the background level in underground experiments; a quick bibliographic search did not allow me to find a reference in the litterature to a periodicity in the flux of cosmic rays.) Note however that the observed 13.5 day periodicities have not been seen to persist over a very long time span, such as the 5 years of data analysed here. Moreover, the intensity of these modulations vary during the 11-year solar cycle, and often show phase changes between consecutive periods of 13.5 day variability. For that reason, I have tried to split the Super-Kamiokande data into various time bins to search for such phase shifts, with no positive results. It is likely however that the 10-day binned data sensitivity is not large enough to detect such effects, and that the periodogram is not the proper tool here.

In case there is a connection between the observed signal and solar properties, it would certainly be interesting to search for a correlation with the position of the Earth relative to the Sun’s heliographic or heliomagnetic latitude.

Regarding other experiments, we have already mentioned that the gallium and chlorine data have a lower sensitivity, due to the long time between extractions, and to an unfortunate coincidence. If the Super-Kamiokande signal is confirmed by further analyses, the matter should of course be reconsidered, as one would then just have to study the amplitude of a modulation at a known period. In contrast, all other solar neutrino experiments with “real time detection” such as SNO, or the forthcoming Borexino , can use the techniques described above or similar ones to search for a signal. One would expect the SNO data to display the same kind of variation as the SK data, at the level of 20%.

## 4 Summary

I have presented the results of a search for a periodic modulation in the Super-Kamiokande 10 day plot data (as of December 2002). At 98.9 % C.L., a $`T=13.75\pm 0.01`$ day modulation is found. This is close to half the Sun’s synodic rotation period. I have discussed methods to soon check this result, and have sketched possible future directions, in case it is confirmed.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the Super-Kamiokande collaboration for the release of the 10 day plot data, and especially to Dr. Nakahata for kindly answering my questions about it. I am indebted to Michel Cribier for numerous discussions about solar neutrinos, and for his help with the gallex and gno data. I thank Jacques Bouchez, Thierry Lasserre, Bruno Mansoulié and Jim Rich for discussions and comments on this manuscript. I thank Patrick Tisserand for directing me to important references on the known periodicities of the Sun in the 13-14 days range, and for his help in preparing this paper.

*

Figure Captions

1. The power spectrum in the Super-Kamiokande 10 day plot data, from a periodogram analysis. The levels corresponding to a 1, 5 and 20 percent probability of a statistical fluctuation correspond here to $`z=10.5`$, 8.9 and 7.4, respectively.

2. The $`z`$ distribution corresponding to Fig. 1. For data with no significant periodicity, this distribution should be exponential ($`e^z`$). The three $`z`$ values in excess of 6.5 all belong to the same periodogram peak at $`\nu =0.07270\mathrm{d}^1`$.

3. The flux values versus their phase in a period $`T=13.75`$ d. The phase here is the fraction of the period $`T`$, counted from an arbitrary origin (MJD 0.0 $``$ JD 2,450,000). It is a number between 0 and 1, but each data bin has been plotted twice, at its phase and phase + 1.

*

*

*