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# Field-Effect Transistor on SrTiO3 with sputtered Al2O3 Gate Insulator

Electronic mail: \]kazunori-ueno@aist.go.jp Also at: \]Department of Advanced Materials Science, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8581, Japan

Also at: \]Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University Sendai 980-8577, Japan

Also at: \]Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

Also at: \]Department of Advanced Materials Science, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8581, Japan

## Abstract

A field-effect transistor that employs a perovskite-type $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ single crystal as the semiconducting channel is revealed to function as n-type accumulation-mode device with characteristics similar to that of organic FET’s. The device was fabricated at room temperature by sputter-deposition of amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ films as a gate insulator on the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ substrate. The field-effect (FE) mobility is 0.1 $`\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$ and on-off ratio exceeds 100 at room temperature. The temperature dependence of the FE mobility down to 2 K shows a thermal-activation-type behavior with an activation energy of 0.6 eV.

Integrated circuits fully coordinated by functional oxide materials is still an eidolon of the next-generation electronic device. A transition-metal oxide, $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$, has been providing us an ideal laboratory for the fundamental investigation to such oxide electronics, being widely used as one of the most important bulk substrates. It has a simple perovskite-type structure, and fairly smooth surface can be obtained through a chemical etchingsto\_sample . This atomically smooth surface plays a substantial role in realizing a perfect epitaxial growth of two-dimensional heterostructures — a surpassing stage setting for the electronic-device application of the functional oxides. Overture to such expedition is to fabricate a naive metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MISFET) and let it function sufficiently. Nevertheless, although there have been a couple of reports on the simple MISFET with a $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ channelsto\_fet ; italy\_sto , the on-off ratio for an applied field up to $`1.5\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{cm}`$ was only about two, which is far insufficient for a switching device.

In this Letter, we report a new approach to the fabrication of oxide devices. We fabricated an FET on a non-doped insulating $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ single crystal, and revealed that it shows an exemplary FET characteristics unprecedented in any FET’s made of perovskite-type oxide semiconductors so farmott\_fet . Three chisels have carved the niche: one is that we have used a surface of the bulk $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ single crystal as the channel. Another is that we have fabricated the FET structure by a so-called “dry process” with a stencil mask in order to prevent the surface of the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ from being degraded by the standard lithographic technique. The third is that we have selected amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ films for the gate insulator which can be deposited on the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ surface without significant damages while keeping a large breakdown strength as well as large capacitance. However, with candid appreciation, our FET device \[Fig.1(a)\] is a reverse-engineering of that described in recent publications of Schön et al., though the yet perplexing published results were declared to be fraudulent. Our work thus plays a role to give an insight into the feasibility of the claims as well as suggests essential requisites.

We used $`10\times 10\times 0.5\mathrm{mm}`$ single-crystalline $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ pieces, which were polished and etched by a vendorshinkosha  according to Ref. Atomic force microscopy images of the surface exhibited a clear step-and-terrace structure. At first, source and drain electrodes of 20nm thickness aluminum were evaporated on the (100) surface of the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ substrate from a resistively heated tungsten boat through a Ni stencil mask at a rate of $`510\mathrm{\AA }/\mathrm{s}`$ under a pressure of $`10^3\mathrm{Pa}`$. The aluminum electrodes for $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ is reported to be prefeableshimizu . Actually, our electrodes yield an Ohmic contact on $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ as clearly seen in the inset of Fig.2. It is worth mentioning that we kept a considerable distance ($`0.1\mathrm{mm}`$) between the stencil mask and the substrate during the evaporation in order to prevent the substrate from being contaminated by the mask. Then, the amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ films of 50nm thickness were prepared by a radio-frequency magnetron sputtering with a $`99.99\%`$ pure ceramic $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ target ( 50 mm$`\varphi `$ ) in 2 Pa flowing Ar gas. The base pressure of the sputtering chamber was better than $`7\times 10^5\mathrm{Pa}`$. Sputtering power was 100 W and the target-to-substrate (TS) distance was fixed at 120 mm. This TS distance seems to be preposterously large, but is a key point to realize a gentle deposition to the substrate. Actually, the substrate temperature was at maximum 40 $`{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$ during the deposition, even though we do not equip any cooling systems. At the final stage of the process, a gold wire was attached on the top of the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ film by conducting gold paint, which performs as the gate electrode, as shown in Fig.1 (b). Since our $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ substrate was quite insulating, it is important that the gate electrode, i.e. the gold paint, must cover the entire channel region. Otherwise, even a narrow channel region uncovered by the gate electrode might prevent a current flowing between the source and drain electrodes.

The average breakdown voltage of the deposited $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ film was 20 V, which corresponds to 4 $`\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{cm}`$, and the leakage current at the breakdown was several nA. The capacitance per unit area $`C_i`$ was $`0.16\mu \mathrm{F}/\mathrm{cm}^2`$. Though we have attempted to optimize the sputtering condition over a wide range of deposition parameters, a maximum breakdown field has never exceeded $`10\mathrm{M}\mathrm{V}/\mathrm{cm}`$. The source-drain current-voltage ($`I_{DS}`$-$`V_{DS}`$) characteristics with the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$/$`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET with a channel length $`L`$ and a width $`W`$ of $`25\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and $`300\mu \mathrm{m}`$, respectively, were measured for different gate voltages $`V_{GS}`$. The $`I_{DS}`$-$`V_{GS}`$ characteristics were measured for the temperature elevating from 2 to 400 K by 1 K or 2 K step; the measurement for each temperature took about 5 minutes. All measurements was carried out using the Agilent Technologies 4155C semiconductor parametric analyser.

The $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$/$`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ device shows a typical n-channel FET behavior as shown in Fig.2. Application of a positive gate bias greatly enhanced $`I_{DS}`$, while $`I_{DS}`$ did not increase much for $`V_{GS}`$ below 2 V. ( No device we fabricated shows $`I_{DS}`$ enhancement by applying a negative gate bias until the breakdown.) This enhancement of $`I_{DS}`$ is due to the accumulation of negative carriers at the interface between the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ insulator and the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ substrate. A saturation of $`I_{DS}`$ (pinch-off) was also observed for small values of $`V_{DS}`$. This pinch-off behavior indicates that the channel region is sufficiently depleted in this $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ / $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET, while the behavior has been hardly observed in other “dirty” FET’s such as that of amorphous Si. An on-off ratio is one of the most important parameters of FET devices. It is a ratio of $`I_{DS}`$ for a given gate bias to that for zero gate bias. The on-off ratio exceeds 100, which was deduced for $`V_{GS}`$ of 0 V and 4 V at $`V_{DS}`$ of 1 V from the transfer characteristics shown in Fig.3 (a). This value is considerably larger than that of a similar device reported in literatureitaly\_sto , because their device was fabricated at much higher temperatures and therefore suffered from a large background current even in the off-state. The threshold voltage of 1.5 V was also determined from Fig.3(a).

An interesting feature is that the field effect (FE) mobility $`\mu _{FE}`$ of our $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$/$`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET depends on $`V_{GS}`$ up to the value as large as we could apply. In conventional FET, $`\mu _{FE}`$ can be well defined as

$$\mu _{FE}^{lin}=\frac{I_{DS}}{V_{GS}}\left(\frac{L}{C_iWV_{DS}}\right)(1)$$

for large $`V_{GS}`$, i.e. the whole channel region is filled with the accumulated carriers. For $`V_{GS}`$ near the threshold value $`V_{th}`$, $`\mu _{FE}`$ can be alternatively defined as

$$\mu _{FE}^{sat}=\left(\frac{\sqrt{I_{DS}}}{V_{GS}}\right)^2\frac{2L}{C_iW}(2)$$

and the channel is in pinch-off state. As shown in Fig.3 (b), both $`\mu _{FE}^{lin}`$ and $`\mu _{FE}^{sat}`$ increase monotonically with increasing $`V_{GS}`$ above $`V_{th}`$. This large field dependence of the FE mobility is considered to be caused by the change of the field-induced carrier density; i.e., the channel region changes drastically from the insulating state to the more conducting state. Similar feature was reported for several accumulation-mode FET’s on organics and amorphous-Siasi\_gatedepmobility ; org\_gatedepmobility5 .

Since $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ shows an insulator to metal transition at very low carrier concentration ($`10^{18}\mathrm{cm}^3`$) and the mobility of metallic $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ increases with decreasing temperature,sto\_hall  the temperature dependence of $`\mu _{FE}`$ of our $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ / $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET for various gate biases is worth exploring. When $`V_{GS}`$ is much larger than $`V_{DS}`$, $`\mu _{FE}^{lin}`$ must be a good measure of the intrinsic $`\mu _{FE}`$. Therefore, we used $`\mu _{FE}^{lin}`$ for $`V_{GS}`$ above 4 V and $`V_{DS}`$ of 1 V. The device measured here has L of $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and W of $`400\mu \mathrm{m}`$. As shown in Fig.4, no metallic behavior was observed for $`V_{GS}`$ up to 9 V. ($`V_{GS}`$ of 9 V corresponds to the field induced carrier density of $`10^{13}\mathrm{cm}^2`$.) Indeed, below 270K, $`\mu _{FE}^{lin}`$ for such gate biases are dominated by the thermal activation, though from 180K to 2K the signal was smaller than the noise level of $`10^7\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$. The activation energy $`E_a`$ between 270 K and 230 K was deduced to be $`0.6\mathrm{eV}`$ from the equation $`\mu _{FE}=\mu _0\mathrm{exp}(E_a/k_\mathrm{B}T)`$, where $`k_\mathrm{B}`$ is the Boltzmann constant. This value of $`E_a`$ is independent of $`V_{GS}`$ between 4 V and 9 V and is much larger than the bulk value of 0.14 eV, which was estimated by a time-of-flight techniquestodrift\_ins . Above 300 K, the $`\mu _{FE}`$ seems to be almost independent of $`V_{GS}`$, suggesting the transport mechanism was changed above room temperature. At higher temperatures above 320K, since the gate leakage current increases rapidly with increasing temperature and becomes comparable to $`I_{DS}`$, it is not possible to reliably estimate the mobility.

The gate-dependent and thermal-activation-type mobility is often seen in the accumulation-mode FET of organics, cuprates and amorphous-Siorg\_gatedepmobility5 ; ybco\_fet ; asi\_gatedepmobility . This is considered to reflect the nature of localized levels in the energy gap originated from dangling bonds or grain boundaries. In our $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$/$`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ device, the interface traps due to any surface defects or absorbed contaminants, which were inevitably introduced during the surface preparation by the chemical etching, contributed to the behavior of $`\mu _{FE}`$. Indeed, there still needs a further investigation for the improvement of the device performance, among which the in-situ surface treatment by e.g. an annealing or a homoepitaxial deposition of a buffer layer between $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ and $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ should be considered.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated that an accumulation-mode MISFET devices with low threshold voltages and high on-off ratio can be realized using the surface of the bulk $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ single crystal as a channel and the sputter-deposited amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ as a gate insulator. The gentle deposition of the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ reduced the off-state conductance drastically and the on-off ratio exceeds 100 by the applied gate electric fields of $`0.8\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{cm}`$. The FE mobility was found to be gate-bias dependent and thermal-activation-type as observed in other accumulation-mode FET’s on several materials. We expect that more elaborate interface preparation would improve the device performance. However, the most important message we cast is that we have demonstrated the feasibility of the dry process with the sputtering of amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ directly on the top of any substrates. With this recipe, one can fabricate other FET devices on any functional materials which are to be epitaxially grown on the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ substrates, and a gate electric field enables to tune the electronic properties of such materials — the second stage of the exploration for future oxide electronics.

We would like to thank A. Sawa, H. Sato, R. Kumai, T. Ito T. Okuda, T. Shimizu, T. Yamada and Y. Ishii for their help and valuable discussions.

FIGURES

Fig 1 : (a) Schematic drawing of a field effect transistor (FET) structure fabricated on a single crystalline $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$. The field induced carrier is expected to be accumulated at the interface between the amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ insulator ($`50\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m}`$) and the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ single crystal. (b) Photograph of the FET device on $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$. Before the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ deposition, a hillock of gold paint was heaped on each of the source (S) and drain (D) electrode. (Al electrodes are seen as dark squares.) After the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ deposition, the top of the hillock was scraped off and attached to the lead wire. The gate electrode (G) on the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ layer is the gold paint covering a part of the gap between the source and drain electrodes. The active channel is formed below the gate electrode underneath the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ film.

Fig 2 : Drain-source current $`I_{DS}`$ plotted against the drain-source bias $`V_{DS}`$ of the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$/$`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET at 300K. A channel length and a width of the FET device were $`25\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and $`300\mu \mathrm{m}`$, respectively. The inset shows the blow-up of the $`I_{DS}`$-$`V_{DS}`$ curve for $`V_{GS}`$ = 0 V.

Fig 3 : (a) The gate-source bias $`V_{GS}`$ dependence of the drain-source current $`I_{DS}`$ for a fixed drain-source bias $`V_{DS}`$ = $`+1\mathrm{V}`$ of the same device used for Fig.2. The on-off ratio between $`V_{GS}`$ of 0 V and 4 V for $`V_{DS}`$ of 1 V exceeds 100. (b) $`V_{GS}`$ dependence of the field effect mobility $`\mu _{FE}`$. $`\mu _{FE}^{lin}`$ and $`\mu _{FE}^{sat}`$ were deduced from Fig.3 (a) by using Eq (1) and Eq (2), respectively. Both increases monotonically with $`V_{GS}`$ and no saturation was observed even for large gate bias.

Fig 4 : Field-effect mobility $`\mu _{FE}`$ as a function of temperature. $`\mu _{FE}`$ was deduced by using Eq.(1) for the gate-source bias $`V_{GS}`$ of 4 V, 6 V, 9 V. The device has a channel length of $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and a width of $`400\mu \mathrm{m}`$. The solid line corresponds to a thermally activated behavior with an activation energy $`E_a`$ of 0.6 eV.


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# 𝑏-𝜏 Yukawa non-unification in supersymmetric 𝐒𝐔(𝟓) with an Abelian flavor symmetry

## I Introduction

The Standard Model (SM) of elementary particles represents one of the greatest achievements in theoretical physics of the past century. Particle interactions are derived from local symmetries and are explained at a fundamental level by means of the gauge principle. However, the SM does not provide any real clue for understanding other elementary particle properties, like the fermion masses and mixing angles, that are simply accommodated within the theory. Among the several approaches put forth to tackle this problem, the one proposed long ago by Froggatt and Nielsen (FN) Froggatt:1978nt  always attracted much interest in so far as it is able to account semi-quantitatively for the fermion mass pattern and to yield a couple of predictions. The basic ingredient is a horizontal Abelian symmetry $`U(1)_H`$ that forbids, at tree level, most of the fermion Yukawa couplings. The symmetry is spontaneously broken by the vacuum expectation value (vev) $`S`$ of a SM singlet field. After $`U(1)_H`$ is broken a set of effective operators arises that couple the SM fermions to the electroweak Higgs boson, and that are induced by heavy vectorlike fields with mass $`M`$. The hierarchy of fermion masses results from the dimensional hierarchy among the various higher order operators, that are suppressed by powers of a small parameter $`ϵ=S/M`$. In turn, the suppression powers are determined by the horizontal charges assigned to the fermion fields. In the past, this mechanism was thoroughly studied in different contexts like the supersymmetric SM Leurer:1993gy  or in frameworks where the horizontal symmetry is promoted to a gauge symmetry that can be anomalous Ibanez:1994ig ; Binetruy:1994ru ; GaugeU1 ; Nir:1995bu  or non-anomalous Mira:1999fx . In this work we investigate the consequences of embedding the FN mechanism within a supersymmetric $`SU(5)`$ GUT. This appears as a natural step to take, given that the precise unification of the three gauge couplings within the minimal supersymmetric SM (MSSM) promoted the GUT idea to an almost compelling ingredient for a more fundamental theory.

However, a straightforward implementation of the FN mechanism within a Gran Unified model is not an easy task. Few models have been constructed in which, differently from our case, an anomalous Abelian symmetry is used anomalousGUT . Indeed, in the context of GUTs, non-Abelian flavor symmetries have been often preferred for model building nonabelian . Within a GUT, the main difficulties with the FN mechanism arise because while in the SM there are five different multiplets per generation, and correspondingly five independent horizontal charges, this number is reduced to two in $`SU(5)`$, and to a single one in models in which a full fermion generation is assigned to the same gauge multiplet, like for example in $`SO(10)`$. Since the horizontal charges are free parameters of the model, it is clear that GUTs symmetries overconstrain the FN mechanism. Let us just mention the problem represented by mass ratios like $`m_\mu /m_sm_d/m_e3`$ whose solution has always been a challenge for GUT model building Georgi:1979df . Due to the fact that the leptons and the down-type quarks belong to the same gauge multiplets, it is clear that these mass relations cannot be explained simply by means of a suitable assignment of the horizontal charges.

The main aim of this work is to propose a mechanism that seems capable to account for the problematic mass relations, and therefore could reconcile the FN approach with the GUT idea. Here we will mainly focus on the $`m_b/m_\tau `$ mass ratio, and we will show that in our framework it could well deviate from unity, most naturally at the level of 10%-20%. Such a possibility appears important in view of the fact that the low energy values of the $`b`$ and $`\tau `$ Yukawa couplings, when run up to the GUT scale by means of the MSSM renormalization group equations, do not unify with a precision comparable to gauge coupling unification. Yukawa unification at an acceptable level can be achieved only if strong restrictions are imposed on the MSSM parameter space, and a set of conditions for the supersymmetric particles masses are satisfied b-tau . This fact also prompted for investigations of supersymmetric models with non-universal boundary conditions, that can better accommodate $`b`$-$`\tau `$ unification while satisfying other low energy constraints b-tau-nonuniv .

## II The Model

In $`SU(5)`$ GUTs, the $`SU(2)`$ lepton doublets $`L`$ and the down-quark singlets $`d^c`$ are assigned to the fundamental conjugate representation of the group $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$, while quark doublets $`Q`$, up-type quark singlets $`u^c`$ and lepton singlets $`e^c`$ fill up the antisymmetric $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$. The Higgs field $`\varphi _d`$ responsible for the down-quarks and lepton masses belong to another $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}^{\varphi _d}`$, while $`\varphi _u`$ responsible for the masses of the $`u`$-quarks is assigned to a fundamental $`\mathrm{𝟓}^{\varphi _u}`$. Schematically, the Yukawa Lagrangian reads

$$_Y=y_{ij}^d\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}10}_j\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}^{\varphi _d}+y_{ij}^u\mathbf{\hspace{0.25em}10}_i\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}10}_j\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}5}^{\varphi _u},$$
(1)
where $`y^d`$ represent the down-quarks and leptons Yukawa couplings, $`y^u`$ the up-quark couplings, and $`i,j=1,2,3`$ are generation indices.

Under the assumption that an additional $`U(1)_H`$ flavor symmetry is present and that the fermion masses are generated via the FN mechanism, the couplings $`y_{ij}^{d,u}`$ are no more simple dimensionless numbers, but embed suppression factors that account for the fact that the two terms in (1) now are effective operators of the low energy theory, that only arise after the breaking of $`U(1)_H`$. By introducing the notation $`f_i`$ for the horizontal charge of $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i`$, $`t_i`$ for the charge of $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_i`$ and $`f_u`$ and $`f_d`$ for the multiplets containing the up and down-type Higgs fields, the suppression factors can be written explicitly as:

$$y_{ij}^d=Y_{ij}^dϵ^{f_i+t_j+f_d},y_{ij}^u=Y_{ij}^uϵ^{t_i+t_j+f_u}.$$
(2)
As mentioned above, $`ϵ`$ is a small number, with horizontal charge $`1`$, that arises from the ratio between the vev that breaks $`U(1)_H`$ and the large mass $`M`$ of the heavy vectorlike FN fields needed to generate the effective operators. The numbers $`Y_{ij}^{d,u}`$ in (2) are assumed to be all of order unity, as is indeed more natural for dimensionless couplings. Phenomenologically, the mass hierarchy for the up-type quarks is much stronger than for the down quarks and leptons. This feature be can easily reproduced by means of the following charge assignment: $`t_1=t_2+1=t_3+2`$ and $`f_i=f`$ for each of the three $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$. This yields $`m_u`$:$`m_c`$:$`m_tϵ^4`$:$`ϵ^2`$:$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}`$ and $`m_{d,e}`$:$`m_{s,\mu }`$:$`m_{b,\tau }ϵ^2`$:$`ϵ`$:$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}`$. By choosing $`ϵ1/25`$ the resulting mass ratios are qualitatively correct. Since the top Yukawa coupling is of order unity, it must be allowed by the horizontal symmetry. This implies $`2t_3+f_u=0`$ and suggests the simple choice $`t_3=f_u=0`$. The hierarchy $`m_{b,\tau }/m_t1`$ can also be easily accounted for by choosing $`f+f_d=t_3+f_u+1=1`$. Let us note that a redefinition $`ffx`$ and $`f_df_d+x`$ with $`x`$ an arbitrary number, while it can affect the superpotential Higgs mass parameter $`\mu \varphi _d\varphi _u`$, it leaves invariant all the Yukawa couplings in (2). This is enough freedom to ensure that is it always possible to set to zero the $`SU(5)^2\times U(1)_H`$ mixed anomaly $`3f+_it_i+f_d+f_u2x`$. The pure $`U(1)_H^3`$ and the mixed gravitational anomalies can always be canceled by adding SM singlets with suitable horizontal charges, and therefore $`U(1)_H`$ can be straightforwardly gauged, without implying additional constraints on the horizontal charges. This is quite different from the SM case where consistency with phenomenology implies that either $`U(1)_H`$ is an anomalous symmetry Binetruy:1994ru ; Nir:1995bu  or that the mass of the up quark must vanish Mira:1999fx .

It is noticeable how the gross features of the fermion mass hierarchy can be reproduced by such a simple scheme. Even more interestingly, when we assume that neutrinos masses are generated from dimension five operators yielding mass term $`m_{ij}^\nu \overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_i\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_j`$, the scheme predicts no hierarchy between the neutrino masses and unsuppressed mixings. The last prediction is in qualitative agreement with the most recent results from neutrino oscillation experiments, while the first one is certainly a viable possibility. In fact, this simple scheme has been previously discussed in relation with anarchical neutrino mass matrices Haba:2000be , and it has been shown that it is able to reproduce the known phenomenology in the neutrino sector (see however the criticisms in Espinosa:2003qz ).

Indeed it is somewhat disappointing that at a closer quantitative inspection the scheme produces too many wrong numerical results. Besides the two down-quark to leptons mass ratios mentioned above, the Cabibbo angle $`\theta _C`$ also turns out to be way too small, simply because the parameter $`ϵ`$ that determines the suppression of the various mixings is much smaller than $`\theta _C`$. In our opinion these discrepancies are too serious to be accounted for by simply appealing to random fluctuations in the values of the couplings $`Y_{ij}`$.

Nevetheless, as we will now discuss, the scheme can be retained if one of the initial ingredients of the FN mechanism is modified. While it is generally assumed that the horizontal symmetry is broken by a SM singlet, here we will use the $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟒}`$ adjoint representation of $`SU(5)`$. We assign to the adjoint $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ that breaks $`SU(5)`$ down to the SM a horizontal charge $`1`$ so that its vev $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=V_a`$ with $`V_a=V\mathrm{diag}(2,2,2,3,3)`$ breaks also $`U(1)_H`$. Here the normalization factor $`(2\sqrt{15})^1`$ of the $`SU(5)`$ generator $`T_{24}`$ has been absorbed in $`V`$. It is clear that the suppression factor $`ϵ=V/M`$ will now appear together with additional coefficients related to the different entries in $`V_a`$. We introduce also a second adjoint $`\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ with charge $`+1`$ in order to have a vectorlike representation ($`\mathrm{\Sigma },\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$) under the horizontal symmetry, and allow for GUT scale masses. With this modification, the heavy FN fields responsible for inducing the mass operators of the light fermions are no more restricted to lie only in the $`\mathrm{𝟓}`$ or $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$ representations of the group, as is the case when the $`U(1)_H`$ breaking is triggered by a singlet. Higher dimensional representations like $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟒𝟓}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟕𝟎}\mathrm{}`$ are now allowed, with the only restriction that the relevant vertices involved in the construction of the effective operators must be invariant under $`SU(5)\times U(1)_H`$.

Let us now see what are the implications for the $`b`$ and $`\tau `$ mass operators that, being suppressed by only one power of $`ϵ`$, require just one insertion of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. For the construction of these operators we assume one pair of vectorlike FN fields in the ten dimensional antisymmetric representations of $`SU(5)`$ $`(\mathrm{𝟏𝟎},\overline{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}})`$ and a second pair in the symmetric $`(\mathrm{𝟏𝟓},\overline{\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}})`$. Recalling the light fermions charge assignments $`f+f_d=1`$ and $`t_3=0`$, we need to assign a charge $`1`$ to the $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$ and $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}`$, and $`+1`$ to the conjugate representations. The light eigenvalues $`m_b`$ and $`m_\tau `$ of the resulting $`3\times 3`$ mass matrices can be computed with a very good approximation by summing up the contributions of the two mass operators depicted in fig. 1:

$$_\pm =Y_\pm \overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_a\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_b^{\varphi _d}\left(\frac{\delta _c^a\delta _d^b\pm \delta _d^a\delta _c^b}{2M}\right)\mathrm{\Sigma }_f^d\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.25em}10}^{fc},$$
(3)
where $`a,b,\mathrm{}`$ are $`SU(5)`$ indices. The term in parentheses arises from integrating out the heavy FN fields, with the plus (minus) sign corresponding to the $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}`$ ($`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$), while $`Y_\pm `$ are two numbers of order unity. By projecting out the vevs $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_b^{\varphi _d}=v\delta _b^5`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_f^d=V_a\delta _f^d`$ we obtain:

$$_\pm =Y_\pm \frac{(V_5\pm V_a)}{2M}\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_a\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}10}^{a5}v,$$
(4)
with $`V_5`$=$`V_4`$=$`3V`$ and $`V_1`$=$`V_2`$=$`V_3`$=$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}V`$. Recalling the $`SU(5)`$ field assignments $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}^{a5}=(d,d,d,e^c,0)^T`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_a=(d^c,d^c,d^c,e,\nu )`$, and summing up the two contributions, for the $`b`$ quark $`(a=1,2,3)`$ and $`\tau `$ lepton ($`a=4`$) masses we obtain

$`m_b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(5Y_++Y_{})vϵ`$ (5)
$`m_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(6Y_{})vϵ=m_b+\delta m`$ (6)
$`\delta m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}(Y_{}Y_+)vϵ.`$ (7)
We see that mass unification ($`\delta m=0`$) is achieved only if the two couplings $`Y_\pm `$ are equal. However, there is no reason for this to happen. $`\delta m`$ could be a positive or negative quantity, but in general will be non vanishing. The only requirement for $`Y_\pm `$ is the same one that motivates the whole approach. Namely, they must be of order unity, implying that the hierarchy of the fermion masses and mixing angles is solely determined by the horizontal symmetry, while fluctuations of the dimensionless couplings around unity are only responsible for their exact numerical values. Since we do not have yet a theory for the order one couplings, it is not possible to state what is the size of these fluctuations, but it seems not an unreasonable guess to assume an order of at least a few percent, impling $`\delta m/m10\%20\%`$. From a bottom-up point of view, it is clear that the low energy values of the $`b`$ and $`\tau `$ Yukawa couplings when run up to the scale where the GUT symmetry and the horizontal symmetry are broken will only approximately unify, even if the unification of more fundamental couplings like $`Y_+`$ or $`Y_{}`$ is exact. We stress that $`b`$ and $`\tau `$ Yukawa non-unification is a general outcome of breaking $`U(1)_H`$ through the adjoint of $`SU(5)`$. The particular FN representations introduced, only determine the size of the deviations from unification. For example, had we used just one pair of $`(\mathrm{𝟓},\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}})`$ (and just one coupling $`Y_\mathrm{𝟓}`$) instead than $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$ and $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}`$, we would have obtained $`m_b/m_\tau =2/3`$. However, this deviates too much from unity to be phenomenologically acceptable.

In this work we focused on the issue of $`b`$-$`\tau `$ Yukawa unification. The prediction of an approximate but never exact unification is an intriguing outcome of our framework. It would be interesting to develop further the model and try to explain mass ratios like $`m_e/m_d`$ and $`m_\mu /m_s`$ that, due to their large deviation from unity, represent a real challenge to the idea of Gran Unification. We plan to explore these issues in a future publication InPrep .

Acknowledgments

The idea of breaking the horizontal symmetry with the adjoint of $`SU(5)`$ was suggested long ago to one of us (E.N.) by Zurab Berezhiani. We acknowledge conversations with W. Ponce, D. Restrepo, A. Rossi and expecially with J. Mira. This work was supported in part by Colciencias in Colombia.


text:
# Is the Pre-WMAP CMB Data Self-consistent?

## 1 Motivation and Method

The ever-tightening network of constraints from CMB and non-CMB observations favors a concordant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ cold dark matter (CDM) model that is commonly accepted as the standard cosmological model. As long as the systematic errors associated with CMB observations are small, the CMB power spectrum can play an increasingly large role in establishing and refining this model. Thus, it is crucial to check the CMB data for possible systematic errors in as many ways as possible.

Systematic errors and selection effects are notoriously difficult to identify and quantify. Calibration and/or beam uncertainties dominate CMB measurements and there may be lower level systematic errors of which we are not aware. Individual experimental groups have developed various ways to check their CMB observations for systematic effects (e.g. Kogut et al., 1996; Miller et al., 2002), including the use of multiple calibration sources, multiple frequency channels and extensive beam calibrating observations. Internal consistency is the primary concern of these checks.

Testing for consistency with other CMB observations is another important way to identify possible systematic errors. When the areas of the sky observed overlap, this can be done by comparing CMB temperature maps (e.g. Ganga et al., 1994; Lineweaver et al., 1995; Xu et al., 2001). When similar angular scales are being observed one can compare power spectra (e.g. Sievers et al. 2002). and, for example, check for frequency-dependent discrepancies (Odman 2003).

To calibrate a data set, one needs a trusted external calibrator. In this work we take the point of view that the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM concordance model, that has emerged over the past 5 years due to its compatibility with dozens of observations with independent systematic errors, can be used as a calibrator. These independent observations are the Hubble Key Project constraint on $`h`$ (Freedman et al 2001), the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ constraints from observations of type Ia supernovae (Riess et al. 1998, Perlmutter et al. 1999), big bang nucleosynthesis constraints on the baryon content (Burles et al. 2001), and large scale structure constraints on the amplitude $`\sigma _8^2`$ and shape of the matter power spectrum from the 2-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (Peacock et al. 2001). Recent joint likelihood analyses of this data and the CMB (as summarized in Griffiths & Lineweaver 2003) suggest the observationally concordant cosmology; $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\kappa 0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.7`$ ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=\mathrm{\Omega }_b+\mathrm{\Omega }_c0.3`$), $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.02`$, $`n_s1`$ and $`h0.68`$ with $`A_t`$, $`\tau `$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu `$ taken to be zero.

Our analysis is based on the assumption that the combined cosmological observations used to determine the concordance model are giving us a more accurate estimate of cosmological parameters, and therefore of the true $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ spectrum, than is given by the CMB data alone. Under this assumption, the residuals of the individual observed CMB band powers and the concordance $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model become tools to identify a variety of systematic errors. We look for any linear trends that may identify systematic effects that are correlated with the details of the observations.

A prerequisite for the extraction of useful estimates for cosmological parameters from the combined CMB data set is the mutual consistency of the observational data points. However, for the sake of a clean interpretational story, systematic errors in a data set are sometimes ignored or explained away. David Wilkinson was fond of explicitly showing the systematic errors, or warts as he called them, in his data. In a similar spirit we went looking for warts in the pre-WMAP data.

## 2 Discussion and Summary

We have performed linear fits on the residual data with respect to angular size ($`\mathrm{}`$), galactic latitude, frequency, frequency channels, frequency bandwidth, galactic longitude, instrument type, platform and altitude, pointing uncertainty and area of sky observed (Griffiths & Lineweaver 2003). For the majority, we find little or no evidence for any trend. The most significant linear trend observable in the residuals is with respect to the absolute galactic latitude $`|b|`$ of the observations. The top panel of Fig. 3 shows a linear trend that is inconsistent at more than 95% confidence with a zero gradient line through the residuals. This trend is not eliminated by the removal of any one experiment and may be indicative of a source of galactic emission that has not been appropriately treated. The best-fit line to the data suggests that CMB observations made closer to the galactic plane may be over-estimated by approximately 2%. The weighted average of points with $`|b|>40^{}`$ is $`1\%`$, while it is $`+1\%`$ for $`|b|<40^{}`$. If this is due to galactic contamination, then the normalization Q10 may have to be reduced $`2\%`$ or by $`2\sigma `$ from $`16.3\mu `$K to $`16.1\mu `$K. A more detailed analysis of galactic dust and synchrotron maps may reveal the source of this trend.

At the level of $`1`$ to $`2\sigma `$ we find trends in the residuals with respect to $`\mathrm{}`$ (angular size). Figure 2 indicates that the 6 bins between $`900\mathrm{}1800`$ prefer a lower normalization. This could be due to underestimates of beam sizes or pointing uncertainties or unidentified beam smearing effects at high $`\mathrm{}`$ for small beams. Although we see no significant evidence for trends associated with beam size or pointing uncertainty, limiting the pointing uncertainty analysis to the 5 points with the largest uncertainties yields a trend, suggesting that the largest pointing uncertainties may have been underestimated.

To analyze various experiments, knowledge of the calibration uncertainty of the measurements is necessary. Independent observations that calibrate off the same source will have calibration uncertainties that are correlated at some level and therefore a fraction of their freedom to shift upward or downward will be shared. In this analysis we have marginalized over the calibration uncertainties associated with the observations, treating them as independent free parameters with Gaussian distributions about their nominal values.

Over the past 10 years, successive independent and semi-independent data sets have extended the angular scale, calibration precision and freedom from galactic contamination of the CMB power spectrum. The WMAP measurements (Bennett et al. 2003) are a milestone in this direction. More WMAP data and the results of other CMB experiments are eagerly awaited. Each CMB measurement contains useful cosmological information and no data set is immune to contamination. It is therefore important to compare data sets and check for systematics. Our results indicate that the pre-WMAP data set is consistent with the concordant model although the model seems to need slight modifications around the scale of the first peak and at high $`\mathrm{}`$ (Fig. 2). We find no significant evidence for inter-experiment inconsistencies other than an indication of low-level galactic contamination (Fig. 3). We are now extending our analysis to include the WMAP data.

LMG thanks Martin Kunz for useful discussions and is grateful to the University of Sussex where part of the work was carried out. LMG acknowledges support from the Royal Society and PPARC. CHL acknowledges a research fellowship from the Australian Research Council.


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# Warping of Accretion Disks with Magnetically Driven Outflows: A Possible Origin for Jet Precession

## 1 Introduction

Collimated outflows/jets are produced from active galactic nuclei, compact stars in X-ray binaries, and young stellar objects (YSOs) (e.g., Krolik 1999; Mirabel & Rodriguez 1999; Fender 2003; Reipurth & Bally 2001). Over the last two decades, evidence for jet precession in these systems has steadily increased. The clearest example is the galactic source SS 433, whose jet direction varies with an approximate 164 day period (Margon 1984; Eikenberry et al. 2001). The black hole binary GRO J1655-40 shows jet precession with a period of 3 days (Tingay et al. 1995; Hjellming & Rupen 1995). The jets from the super soft source CAL83 may be precessing with a period of $`69`$ days (Cowley et al. 1998). In AGNs, indirect evidence for jet precession is seen in the morphology of the radio hot spots, which show “fossil” components offset from the “present” component positions (e.g., Cygnus A). Finally, the changes in the flow directions of several YSO jets have been interpreted in terms of jet precession (e.g. Terquem et al. 1999; Bates et al. 2000).

A natural cause for jet precession is the changes of orientation of the underlying accretion disk. In addition, the super-orbital variabilities observed in a number of X-ray binaries (e.g., the 35-day periodicity in Her X-1; see Priedhorsky & Holt 1987; Ogilvie & Dubus 2001) have long been interpreted as due to precession of a tilted accretion disk. In both X-ray binaries and YSOs, the tidal force from the companion star could play a role in driving the precession (e.g., Katz 1973; Wijers & Pringle 1999; Terquem et al. 1999; Bate et al. 2000; Ogilvie & Dubus 2001), although it may not be the only or the dominant effect (e.g., the 3 day precession period of the GRO J1655-40 jet is too short to be explained by the tidal effect for a 2.6 day binary). Most importantly, for the precession to operate, disk tilt needs to be excited and maintained. In accreting binary systems, the disk plane is expected to be aligned with the orbital plane since the disk angular momentum originates from the binary motion. For YSOs in binaries, the disk plane may be initially misaligned with the orbital plane. However, if we consider the disk as a collection of circular rings, different rings will have different precession rates; it has been recognized that the combined effects of differential precession and internal disk stress/dissipation tend to damp the the disk tilt, so that the disk settles into the binary plane (Lubow & Ogilvie 2000).

Several driving mechanisms for disk tilt/warp have been proposed. Schandl & Meyer (1994) showed (in the context of Her X-1) that irradiation-driven wind from the outer parts of the disk can carry away momentum flux and make the disk unstable to warping. Pringle (1996) showed that even without wind loss, radiation pressure itself can induce warping instability in the outer region of the disk. Futher studies indicated this radiation-driven warping instability may indeed operate in X-ray binaries (e.g., Maloney, Begelman & Nowak 1998; Wijers & Pringle 1999), although it does not provide a generic explanation for the long-term variabilities in all X-ray binaries (Ogilvie & Dubus 2001). Quillen (2001) showed that a wind passing over the disk surface may induce warping via Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Finally, in the case of disk accretion onto magnetic stars (e.g., neutron stars, white dwarfs and T Tauri stars), the stellar magnetic field can induce disk warping and precession (Lai 1999; see also Aly 1980; Lipunov & Shakura 1980; Terquem & Papaloizou 2000); this may explain several observed features of quasi-periodic oscillations in low-mass X-ray binaries (Shirakawa & Lai 2002a), milli-Hertz variabilities in accreting X-ray pulsars (Shirakawa & Lai 2002b), and variabilities of T Tauri stars (Terquem & Papaloizou 2000; see also Agapitou et al. 1997).

In this paper we suggest a new disk warping mechanism that is directly tied to the production of magnetically driven outflows/jets. Using an idealized setup (§2), we show that a disk threaded by a large-scale magnetic field may experience a warping instability and precess around the central object (§3). These magnetically driven disk warping and precession arise from the interaction between the large-scale magnetic field and the induced electric current in the disk. While more studies are needed, we suggest that these effects may provide a natural explanation for the procession of jets/outflows and other variabilities observed in various systems (§4).

## 2 The Setup

The current paradigm for the origin of astrophysical jets/outflows involves a large-scale magnetic field threading the accretion disk around a central object (star or black hole); this ordered magnetic field plays a crucial role in extracting/channeling mass, energy and angular momentum from the disk. The energy outflow can be either hydromagnetic (with significant mass flux) (Blandford & Payne 1982) or electromagnetic (dominated by Poynting flux) (Blandford 1976; Lovelace 1976). The origin of the disk-threading magnetic field is not completely clear: the field could be advected inwards by accretion, or generated locally by dynamo processes. In the case of protostellar outflows, the stellar magnetic field may play an important role (Shu et al. 1994, 2000). Many theoretical/numerical studies have been devoted to understanding magnetically driven outflows/jets from accretion disks (e.g., see recent reviews by Lovelace et al. 1999; Königl & Pudritz 2000; Meier et al. 2001).

Figure 1 shows an idealized sketch of the magnetic field – disk configuration in which hydromagnetic outflows are produced. A geometrically thin disk is threaded by the poloidal magnetic field $`𝐁_p=B_R\widehat{𝐑}+B_Z\widehat{𝐙}`$ (where $`\widehat{𝐑},\widehat{𝐙}`$ are unit vectors in cylindrical coordinates). This poloidal field is of course curved (with $`B_R=0`$ at the disk midplane), and we use the superscript “+” to denote the field at the upper disk surface. For a sufficiently inclined field (radial pitch angle $`\theta =\mathrm{tan}^1|B_R^+/B_Z|>30^{}`$), centrifugally driven outflows are possible (Blandford & Payne 1982). The twisting of $`B_p`$ by the disk and the outflow gives rise to a toroidal field $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, which has different signs above and below the disk plane. We introduce the azimuthal pitch $`\zeta `$, so that $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }^+=\zeta B_Z`$ at the upper disk surface. That $`\zeta `$ is positive reflects the fact that the disk always rotates faster than the outflow111In the stationary, axisymmetric, MHD wind theory, $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }/B_p=R(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_d)/V_p`$, where $`V_p(R,Z)`$ is the the poloidal velocity of the outflow and $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R,Z)`$ its rotation rate, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_d`$ is the disk rotation at the midplane. Alternatively, in the absence of outflow, $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ near the disk is governed schematically by the equation $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }/t=RB_Z\mathrm{\Omega }/ZB_\mathrm{\Phi }/\tau _{\mathrm{diss}}`$, where $`\tau _{\mathrm{diss}}`$ is the disspation timescale. In steady state, we find $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }^\pm =\zeta B_z`$, with $`\zeta =(R/H_B)\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _{\mathrm{diss}}`$ (where $`H_B`$ is the vertical scale height in which $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in the magnetosphere varies.. The discontinuities in $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`B_R`$ across the disk imply a net disk surface current (integrated over the disk thickness) $`𝐊=(c/2\pi )(B_\mathrm{\Phi }^+\widehat{𝐑}+B_R^+\widehat{𝚽})`$. Thus, for an unpertutbed (unwarped) disk, the only torque on the disk (per unit area) is the usual magnetic braking torque

$$T_Z=\frac{1}{2\pi }RB_ZB_\mathrm{\Phi }^+=\frac{1}{2\pi }\zeta RB_Z^2.$$
(1)
Angular momentum is extracted out of the disk by the open field lines, and can be carried away by torsional Alfven waves or a centrifugally driven wind (for sufficiently inclined poloidal fields). In addition, the radial magnetic force,

$$F_R=B_ZB_R^+/(2\pi ),$$
(2)
provides partial support of the disk against gravity.

The configuration shown in Fig. 1 lies at the heart of many theoretical models of magnetic disk outflows. The real situation is certainly much more complicated. Nevertheless, in §3 we shall adopt this simple picture in our consideration of magnetically driven disk warping and precession — our goal is to discuss these physical effects in a way that is as transparent as possible, so as to expose their robustness and potential pitfall.

## 3 Magnetically Driven Disk Warping and Precession

We now consider warping perturbations to the disk. The disk can be considered as a collection of circular rings which interact with each other via internal stresses. We specify the disk warping by the unit normal vector $`\widehat{𝐥}(r)`$ for the ring at radius $`r`$. Consider the situation (see Fig. 2) in which the ring around radius $`r`$ is tilted by an angle $`\beta `$ while most of the disk remains flat ($`\widehat{𝐥}_1=\widehat{𝐥}_2=\widehat{𝐙}`$, where $`\widehat{𝐙}`$ is the normal vector of the unperturbed disk; see Fig. 1). Since the magnetic field $`B_Z`$ is produced by all the currents in the disk-outflow system, we posit that $`B_Z`$ at radius $`r`$ is not modified by such a local perturbation. For the ring at $`r`$, the field $`𝐁_Z`$ acts as an “external” magnetic field. Now set up a coordinate system with the $`z`$-axis along the $`\widehat{𝐥}(r)`$ (see the lower panel of Fig. 2) and the associated cylindrical coordinate system $`(r\varphi z)`$. As in the case of the unperturbed disk, twisting of $`B_z=B_Z\mathrm{cos}\beta `$ by the disk rotation produces a toroidal field (in the new coordinate system) $`B_{\varphi ,t}`$ (where the subscript “t” serves as a reminder that this field is due to twisting of $`B_z`$), whose value (at radius $`r`$) at the upper disk plane is $`B_{\varphi ,t}^+=\zeta B_z`$, and at the lower disk plane $`B_{\varphi ,t}^{}=\zeta B_z`$. Note that $`B_z`$ is necessarily continuous across the disk plane in this perturbation. The radial surface current associated with $`(B_{\varphi ,t}^+B_{\varphi ,t}^{})`$ is

$$K_r=\frac{c}{2\pi }B_{\varphi ,t}^+=\frac{c}{2\pi }\zeta B_Z\mathrm{cos}\beta .$$
(3)
Interaction of this $`K_r`$ with $`B_z`$ gives an azimuthal force on the disk, and results in the magnetic braking torque (per unit area) $`T_z=\zeta rB_z^2/(2\pi )=\zeta rB_Z^2\mathrm{cos}^2\beta /(2\pi )`$, analogous to eq. (1). Unlike the unperturbed disk, however, the “extrenal” field $`𝐁_Z`$ now has a $`\varphi `$-component, $`B_\varphi =B_Z\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{cos}\varphi `$, and the interaction of $`K_r`$ with $`B_\varphi `$ gives rise to a vertical force (per unit area)

$$F_z=\frac{1}{2\pi }\zeta B_Z^2\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{cos}\varphi .$$
(4)
This vertical force can also be seen as arising from the imbalance of magnetic stresses above and below the disk plane: $`B_\varphi ^+=B_\varphi +B_{\varphi ,t}^+`$ in the upper disk plane while $`B_\varphi ^{}=B_\varphi B_{\varphi ,t}^+`$ in the lower disk plane, and thus $`F_z=[(B_\varphi ^{})^2(B_\varphi ^+)^2]/(8\pi )`$. Obviously, averaging the force over the azimuthal angle, $`F_z=(1/2\pi )_0^{2\pi }F_z𝑑\varphi `$, gives zero. But since $`F_z`$ is unevenly distributed along the ring, it gives rise to a net torque on the ring. Averaging over $`\varphi `$, the torque per unit area is

$`𝐓_{\mathrm{warp}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}\zeta rB_Z^2\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{sin}\beta \widehat{𝐲}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}\zeta rB_Z^2\mathrm{cos}\beta \left[\widehat{𝐙}(\widehat{𝐙}\widehat{𝐥})\right].`$
Clearly, this torque tends to pull the vector $`\widehat{𝐥}(r)`$ away from “external” magnetic field direction $`\widehat{𝐁}_Z`$. This is the magnetically driven warping instability: for small tilt, the angle $`\beta `$ tends to grow (in the absence of other forces) at the rate

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{warp}}=\frac{\zeta B_Z^2}{4\pi \mathrm{\Sigma }r\mathrm{\Omega }_d},$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the surface density, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_d`$ the angular velocity of the disk. In a hypothetical situation, if $`𝐁_Z`$ had a fixed direction for all $`\beta `$, and if there were no coupling between different rings, the vector $`\widehat{𝐥}(r)`$ would evolve toward being perpendicular to $`𝐁_Z`$, i.e., the plane of the disk (ring) would prefer to lie along the “external” magnetic field (cf. Lai 1999).

In the perturbed disk, the azimuthal surface current $`K_\varphi K_\mathrm{\Phi }=(c/2\pi )B_R^+=(c/2\pi )B_Z\mathrm{tan}\theta `$ (for small $`\beta `$) also interacts with the “external” field $`𝐁_Z`$, which can be decomposed into $`𝐁_Z=B_Z\mathrm{cos}\beta \widehat{𝐳}+B_Z\mathrm{sin}\beta (\mathrm{sin}\varphi \widehat{𝐫}+\mathrm{cos}\varphi \widehat{\varphi })`$. The interaction between $`K_\varphi `$ and $`B_z=B_Z\mathrm{cos}\beta `$ gives a radial force, as in eq. (2). For the perturbed disk ($`\beta 0`$), a new vertical force arises from the interaction between $`K_\varphi `$ and $`B_r=B_Z\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{sin}\varphi `$:

$$F_z=\frac{1}{c}K_\varphi B_Z\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{sin}\varphi .$$
(7)
This force is also equal to $`[(B_r^{})^2(B_r^+)^2]/(8\pi )`$, where $`B_r^\pm =B_Z\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \pm B_Z\mathrm{tan}\theta `$. Again, $`F_z=0`$, but the net torque is non-zero. Averaging over $`\varphi `$, we find the torque per unit area

$$𝐓_{\mathrm{prec}}=\frac{1}{2c}K_\varphi B_zr\mathrm{sin}\beta \widehat{𝐱}=\frac{1}{2c}K_\varphi B_zr\widehat{𝐙}\times \widehat{𝐥}.$$
(8)
Clearly, the effect of this torque is to make the ring (at radius $`r`$) precess around the $`Z`$-axis (the unperturbed disk normal vector). The angular frequnecy of the magnetically driven precession is

$$𝛀_{\mathrm{prec}}=\frac{K_\varphi B_Z}{2c\mathrm{\Sigma }r\mathrm{\Omega }_d}\widehat{𝐙}=\frac{B_Z^2\mathrm{tan}\theta }{4\pi \mathrm{\Sigma }r\mathrm{\Omega }_d}\widehat{𝐙}.$$
(9)
The negative sign implies that the pecession is retrograde, i.e., opposite to the disk rotation.

## 4 Discussion

To get an idea on the warping and precession timescales associated with eqs. (6) and (9), we note the disk angular momentum equation (for an unwarped disks) can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }V_R\frac{d}{dR}(\mathrm{\Omega }_dR^2)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\zeta RB_Z^2+T_{\mathrm{visc}},$$
(10)
where $`V_R`$ is the radial velocity and $`T_{\mathrm{visc}}`$ is the viscous torque. If we set $`T_{\mathrm{visc}}=(f1)(\zeta RB_Z^2/2\pi )`$ and use $`\mathrm{\Omega }_d(GM/R^3)^{1/2}`$, we find

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{warp}}=\frac{\zeta }{\mathrm{tan}\theta }|\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{prec}}|=\frac{V_R}{4fR}.$$
(11)
For typical parameters ($`\zeta \mathrm{tan}\theta f1`$), the warping timescale and precession period are of order the disk infall time $`R/|V_R|`$.

It is important to note that the magnetically driven disk warping and precession discussed in §3 are secular effects which operate on timescales much longer than the disk dynamical time. In deriving eqs. (6) and (9), we have implicitly assumed that the perturbed disk (see Fig. 2) reaches a new steady state so that the magnetic field behaves in a similar way as in the unperturbed disk (e.g., $`B_{\varphi ,t}^\pm =\zeta B_z`$). These effects are not captured in a dynamical perturbation analysis of the disk. Clearly, our derivation of the magnetically driven warping and precession is far from being rigorous. Nevertheless, it suggests that the warped, precessing disk-outflow may be an alternative (and preferred) state for the accretion disk threaded by large-scale magnetic fields.

The effects of magnetically driven warping and precession discussed in this paper are analogous to the similar effects that exist in the accretion disks around magnetic stars (Lai 1999; Shirakawa & Lai 2002a,b; Pfeiffer & Lai 2003; see also Aly 1980; Lipunov & Shakura 1980). In those systems, the central star provides the “external” magnetic field for the disk. The warping and precessional torques arise from the interaction between the surface current on the disk and the horizontal magnetic field (parallel to the disk) produced by the stellar magnetic dipole. Here, in the absence of the central magnetic star, the “external” magnetic field (for the warped region of the disk) is generated by the other currents in the disk-outflow system, and we have argued that similar torques exist: the warping torque relies on the surface current generated by the twisting of the vertical field threading the disk, while the precessional torque relies on the azimuthal screening current due to the diamagnetic response of the disk. The simplistic nature of our arguments (perhaps even to the point of being wrong) in §3 and the complexity of the real astrophysical systems (see references in §2) preclude us from addressing many important issues such as the extent and location of the warped disk region. Nevertheless, we are not aware of any previous discussion of these effects, and we think it is useful to present them so that they may be studied further by the astrophysics community.

The magnetically driven warping and precession effects discussed in this paper potentially have advantages over the other disk warping mechanisms that are needed to explain jet precession (see §1). For example, the radiation driven warping instability (Pringle 1996), while probably important for X-ray binaries (Ogilvie & Dubus 2001), is irrelevant for YSOs (since the instability operates at large disk radii). The magnetic effects discussed in this paper are directly connected to the large-scale magnetic field associated with the jet/outflow, and the model naturally predicts retrograde precession of the warped disk (and thus the jet), in agreement with observations in X-ray binaries (e.g., Her X-1).

The idea for this paper was motivated by the questions from Chris McKee and Frank Shu following a seminar that the author gave at UC Berkeley in 2001. I thank Richard Lovelace for useful discussion. This work is supported in part by NSF Grant AST 9986740 and NASA grant NAG 5-12034, as well as by a research fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation.


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# The FRED Event Display: an Extensible HepRep Client for GLAST

## I Introduction

Event display is becoming more and more a key component of modern high energy physics and astroparticle experiments (see Drevermann  for a nice introduction on the idea of event display); thanks mainly to the wide availability of powerful desktop computers and to the performances of modern programming languages, we have now the possibility to exploit a full 3D event display with modern GUIs and users interactivity at a level that was almost impossible few years ago.

FRED (that is an acronym for FRED is a Recursive Event Display) is part of the ongoing efforts for developing an extensible event display framework111For a description of this general framework see the companion talk heprepglast . for GLAST glast , an international astroparticle experiment lead by NASA; GLAST is an orbital gamma ray telescope that will measure photons in a broad range (from $`20`$ MeV to more than $`300`$ GeV) not covered at the moment by other similar instruments. Its structure, mainly derived from HEP experiments, consists of a standard silicon strip tracker, an hodoscopic calorimeter (CsI) and a plastic scintillator anticoincidence. The launch is scheduled for late 2006 and the lifetime will be at minimum 5 years. Both events topology and detectors geometry in GLAST are rather simple with respect to typical modern HEP experiments; nowadays its user requirements for event display are almost the same, i.e. a fast, modular, extensible, flexible application with a suitable GUI. Modularity is particularly important for GLAST since the development of a modern event display has started late, and almost all the infrastructure of the offline software have been already decided and mostly implemented; in particular GLAST is adopting the GAUDIgaudi  framework for the offline software. With this respect it is important that the new event display does not force changes to the already finalized choices of the software group; on the other side it is quite important that it does not rely heavily on the offline software infrastructure that it is prone to changes that should not affect the graphics representation.

At the moment GLAST has already a GUI service that, althought fast, easy and fully integrated in the software framework, misses some of the structural requirements, expecially on the interactivity side; for example it is not possible to inspect graphics representations for physics attributes.

## II FRED and HepRep

To start to use a new external program can be risky in an andvanced state of the infrastructure software (framework, montecarlo, datastores, geometry repository etc etc); this leaded quite naturally to a server/client paradigm222Please note that here server/client have architectural meanings; in a real implementation they can be two remote applications as well as childs processes of a single local application. in order to separate the physics issues from the graphics ones and to have minimum impact on the offline software of GLAST. The main idea, borrowed by other event displays and expecially from WIREDwired , is to encapsulate the graphics specific issues in a client program, leaving to a server (that for GLAST lives in GAUDI) all the physics related issues that are specific to the experiment, like for example the event structure, relevant physics attributes that need to be exposed to the event display user, geometry of the detectors etc.

Instead of working out a new possible protocol for our framework, we decided to adopt HepRepheprep , a well designed protocol whose generic design allows for a lot of flexibility without enforcing too tight choices to the experiment software; althought it has been originally designed and implemented for WIRED, it is completely general and application independent. Its abstract and pluggable tree structure is able to accomodate all the specific issues of an experiment and is really easy to be customized and to be extended.

FRED is just a new HepRep client; started as a specific GLAST application, thanks mainly to the use of HepRep and some architectural choices described later, it is now mainly experiment independent. In common with WIRED, two kinds of HepRep sources have been implemented in FRED, i.e. a CORBAcorba  source for client/server remote or local operations and an XML persistency file mechanism. Thanks to this, WIRED and FRED will be completely interchangeable for the GLAST experiment, reducing in this way the degree of commitment of the experiment to a single product. Moreover it is possible to plug in other possible sources both as network protocols or persistency file formats (for example WIRED already support Java RMI) to cope with experiment specific requirements.

The innovation of FRED rely in the implementation of an open and extensible architecture that enables users to customize, expand and evolve the main program. In its development we tried to separate the roles of the three main actors in an event display application (see figure 1):

the programmers (normally graphics experts) that design and implement the main programs and all the infrastructure code.

The physics experts who decide what to represent, i.e. the models, and what physical information will augment the graphical representations of an event; for example in GLAST we are providing a “fillers” mechanism, fully described in heprepglast , that can be easily provided by physicists to fill the HepRep hierarchy starting from the transient or permanent data stores for both the event content and the geometry structure.

The end users, who need a fast and easy way to customize the application to their needs, for example augmenting the GUI by adding new buttons, menus voices, general widgets, color schemes etc., or providing completely new features like new input/output formats or experiment specific functionalities. Typical ways to do this is via compiled plugins and/or scripting capabilities.

In this respect FRED can be thought of more as an event display framework rather than as an application.

## III Implementation issues

After a first prototype of FRED implemented completely in C++ in late 2002, we decided, following the discussion in the previous section, to step over to a more open architecture that is able to expose to the end user most of the internal interfaces of the event display. The main reason is to give users the possibility to customize mostly all FRED aspects, from the GUI to the internal functionalities and the interactivity of the user. To this extent the use of a scripting language is quite natural, but for good performances on an intensive graphics application like an HEP event display, some parts have to be desgined and implemented in C++; FRED has been designed as a mixture of these paradigms and the bridge between the two sides (compiled and interpreted one) have been implemented thanks to SWIGswig , a semi-automatic generator of scripting languages extensions.

A simplified scheme of the main FRED components, shortly described in the next sections, is depicted in figure 2.

### III.1 Scripting and GUI domain

For the scripting language, after some comparative evaluations, we have decided to use RUBYruby , a highly dynamic object oriented scripting language; the choice derived mainly from the simplicity and elegance of the language, together with a rather mature development of its main features and of usable libraries that cover all our needs. Moreover it is really simple to provide extensions to the language from shared C++ libraries (using also SWIG) with a negligible impact on performances and a very small footprint in both memory and disk space.

For the GUI we have adopted the FOX-toolkit fox , a C++ multiplatform, open source, extensible, clean library that is gaining popularity over other similar toolkits (Tk, GTK, QT etc.). This toolkit provides out of the box many standard widgets like toolbars, menus, tooltips, trees, shutters, canvases (comprising an OpenGL one) etc. Moreover, thanks to its clear C++ design, its possible to easily subclass existing widgets to customize them or to create new ones from scratch.

Since a RUBY wrapping of that library has already been developed fxruby , it has been very easy to build our framework in a way to let users add new GUI components and new widgets333For this we wish to thank the FOX and Ruby communities (expecially Lyle Johnson) for a lot of helpful advices and for providing us a “user support” that can teach something to propetary software.. This is possible both with scripts plug-in loaded at startup or interactively during a live session via an interactive Ruby interpreter.

### III.2 C++ domain

As already noted, most of the computationally heavy parts of the event display have been implemented in C++.

* All the IO features (expecially related to reading and writing of compressed XML files) have been implemented in C++ using various public available multiplatform libraries expat ; zlib .
* For the graphical representation of the event we choose OpenGL opengl , that is de facto the industry standard for both 2D and 3D graphics (and that work transparently with and without dedicated hardware); in particular we are using at the moment OpenSceneGraph openscene , that is an open source scene graph manager very helpful to augment performances and to use lot of already disposable and efficiently implemented computer graphics algorithms (like text representations, views culling, depth sorting of representables tree etc etc). For the future we are planning to develop our own HepRep based scene graph to minimize duplication of in memory information. For performance reasons all the OpenGL calls have been encapsulated in the C++ side, with no Ruby wrapping at the moment.
* We decided to keep the full HepRep hierarchy, that potentially can be very big for a typical event in GLAST, in the C++ domain; this have been proved to help performances in both creation in memory and access for information retrieval. The full hierarchy is anyway wrapped at Ruby level in order to let user’scripts acess it.
* The CORBA connection has been implemented in C++ by using ACE/TAOace , a fast, multiplatform and stable open source implementation of the CORBA standard. It is provided as an optional shareable library component that can be loaded at startup by Ruby.

## IV Some preliminary results

FRED has been released as a GLAST internal beta in January 2003; the main planned features are present in this preliminar delivery and provided good performances and interaction results:

Multiplatform: tested and supported on Windows 2000/XP and Linux RH, but should work on many Unix flavours thanks to the multiplatform nature of all the toolkits adopted by FRED.

HepRep Sources: in this version the user is able to load compressed HepRep XML files (althought not all the possible HepRep shapes have been already implemented, just the GLAST related ones) or connect to a test CORBA server implemented in the GLAST framework (i.e. GAUDI).

Output: both raster (BMP, PNG and JPG) and vectorial (PostScript) formats are supported.

Interaction: usual zoom, pan, rotate operations via mouse and keys; it is possible to browse the HepRep instances tree and access all the information attached to graphical representables in the event, both interacting with a tree widget or directly selecting the object from the 3D view.

Graphics: using OpenGL, FRED automatically uses any available hardware acceleration; for simple events (like GLAST ones) and using a wireframe representation, performances are very good also in software mode on a typical desktop machine configuration.

Scripting: script API gives access to all the main functionalities of FRED, comprising the possibility to add new widgets to the GUI. FRED has a simple internal editor for scripts and also an interactive embedded interpreter.

In figure 3 we depicted a typical GLAST montecarlo event in the FRED GUI (where it is possible to see the independent multiple views capability of FRED) More screenshots and information can be found on the web page of FRED fredweb .

## V Outlook and conclusions

We are actually working to finalize a stable release and to add some new features;

* New HepRep sources, expecially an HTTP one for browsing events accessible from internet
* Use of the Ruby RMI mechanism, druby, for remote control of FRED from other applications
* Export various format for photorealistic rendering of the event (we are working to a POV exporter and to a RenderMan one)
* More than just wireframe graphics (filled volumes, semitransparency, outlines etc etc); in particular we are working to a layer mechanism in OpenGL that can provide more traditional layered 2D views together to 3D z-buffered wireframe ones.
* A “batch” mode to produce event images (vectorial or raster) without starting the GUI
* Options panel, with possibility to save preferred configuration from one session to the other
* More GLAST specific features (that will be collected in a single plugin), like for example the possible back interaction with GAUDI and the physics algorithms.

Althought FRED is an ongoing project and still lot of work have to be done to provide a stable, full fledged event display suited for modern high energy and astroparticles experiments, the prototype experiments and the overall architecture seem encouraging. In particular we think that the easiness with which it is possible to customize and extend FRED, also interactively during a working session, will provide GLAST and other potential users an interesting way to fine tune the event display to their specific needs.

###### Acknowledgements.

We wish to warmly thanks Joseph Perl and Mark Dönszelmann for helpful discussions on event display and related issues and for providing us HepRep and WIRED; FRED had never started without them. We wish to thanks also all the GLAST software group for encouraging us on our way.