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# Decoherence and dephasing in strongly driven colliding Bose-Einstein condensates

## Abstract

We report on a series of measurements of decoherence and wavepacket dephasing between two colliding, strongly coupled, identical Bose-Einstein condensates. We measure, in the strong excitation regime, a suppression of the mean-field shift, compared to the shift which is observed for a weak excitation. This suppression is explained by applying the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional. By selectively counting only the non-decohered fraction in a time of flight image we observe oscillations for which both inhomogeneous and Doppler broadening are suppressed, in quantitative agreement with a full Gross-Pitaevskii equation simulation. If no post selection is used, the decoherence rate due to collisions can be extracted, and is in agreement with the local density average calculated rate.

The dephasing of a momentum excitation in a non-uniform Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is governed by several factors structure-factor , ketterle-bragg . Notably, the inhomogeneous broadening of the Bogoliubov energy shift and the Doppler broadening. We denote these processes as dephasing since they involve a reversible, although nonlinear, evolution of the macroscopic wavefunction. In contrast, the decoherence of such an excitation due to collisions with the BEC, involves coupling to a quasi-continuum of initially unoccupied momentum states ours-beliaev . This process is driven by the fluctuating ground-state occupation of these modes, and is therefore inherently irreversible on timescales larger than the so called ”memory time” of the system cohen .

In previous works the inhomogeneous lineshape was seen to agree, for short Bragg coupling times, with both the experimental data ketterle-phonon , ours-multibranch , and with simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) dalfovo-momentum . At longer timescales the inhomogeneous lineshape is resolved into radial modes ours-multibranch . Weak probe Bragg spectroscopy and interferometry were also used to characterize the coherence and spatial correlation function of condensates phillips  and quasi-condensates linewidths . In this letter we measure the dephasing and decoherence of strongly driven oscillations between two identical colliding BECs. By post selecting the non-decohered fraction we observe a strong suppression of both inhomogeneous and Doppler broadening mechanisms, which is in quantitative agreement with the results of a GPE simulation. The observed collisional decoherence rate is seen to agree with the expected local density approximation (LDA) average of the free particle collision rate.

The RMS width of the LDA inhomogeneous lineshape for high momentum excitations is given by $`\sqrt{8/147}\mu `$, where $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential of the BEC structure-factor . The RMS Doppler broadening is given by, $`\sqrt{8/3}\mathrm{}k/mR_z`$ structure-factor , where $`k`$ is the wavenumber of the excitation, $`m`$ is the mass of the BEC atom and $`R_z`$ is the Thomas-Fermi radius of the condensate. For our experimental parameters the Doppler dephasing rate is predicted to be $`0.6`$ kHz, which is clearly dominated by the expected $`3.0`$ kHz inhomogeneous dephasing rate lineshapes . A GPE simulation GPE  of the final excited population in a weak Bragg/Ramsey type experiment (an initial $`40`$ $`\mu `$sec weak coupling Bragg pulse, followed by a delay, and then a second pulse in phase with the first), with simulation parameters as described for our experimental system below, is shown in Fig. 1 (solid boxes). A simplified LDA of the Ramsey signal (solid line), taking only the density inhomogeneity into account, is seen to be in agreement with the full simulation. Here the weakly excited state, in the Bloch vector picture, precesses around the effective inhomogeneous local detuning, and this leads to decaying oscillations in the total final excited population. The calculated inhomogeneous dephasing rate of $`3.0`$ kHz for our system agrees roughly with the Ramsey signal both in the simulation and in LDA theory. We conclude that weak excitations, at short times, are well understood by LDA theory phillips .

We now turn to the case of a strong excitation, i.e. where population of the zero-momentum condensate is completely (or nearly) depleted and transferred coherently to a travelling condensate in a Rabi-like oscillation. For sufficiently large $`k`$, the momentum of the excitation, we approximate such states by $`\psi (r,z)=a\varphi _0(r,z)+be^{ikz}\varphi _0(r,z)`$ Meystre , where $`a`$ and $`b`$ are the amplitudes of the effective two level system and $`|a|^2+|b|^2=N`$, with $`N`$ being the total number of atoms. $`\varphi _0(r,z)`$ is the ground-state wavefunction of the system with no excitations. The energy of such a state $`\psi `$ can be evaluated by the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional CCT2  $`E=𝑑V\{\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}|\psi (r,z)|^2+V_0(r,z)|\psi (r,z)|^2+\frac{g}{2}|\psi (r,z)|^4\}`$, where $`V_0`$ is the external potential and $`g`$ is the mean-field coupling constant. By differentiating the energy by the excited state population $`|b|^2`$, and considering the result as a function of $`|b|^2`$, we find a population dependant excitation energy. For our experimental system we find a nearly linear decrease in excitation energy from the Bogoliubov prediction (weak excitation) at low $`|b|^2`$, via the free particle value at $`|b|^2=N/2`$ down to a symmetrically downshifted energy for $`|b|^2N`$, where the zero-momentum state is simply a weak excitation of the travelling condensate. The intuitive picture is that the energy per particle required to transfer the condensate from $`|b|^2=0`$ to $`|b|^2=N`$ is simply the free particle energy, since the internal interaction energy is not changed by such a transformation. At sufficiently large Rabi frequencies, that achieve complete population inversion, the temporary mean field detuning averages to zero due to its symmetric nature, and the resonance shifts to the free particle value.

Our experimental apparatus is described in Steinhauer . Briefly, a nearly pure ($`>90\%`$) BEC of $`1.6(\pm 0.5)\times 10^5`$ 87Rb atoms in the $`|F,m_f=|2,2`$ ground state, is formed in a QUIC type magnetic trap QUIC . The trap is cylindrically symmetric, with radial ($`\widehat{r}`$) and axial ($`\widehat{z}`$) trapping frequencies of $`2\pi \times 226`$ Hz and $`2\pi \times 26.5`$ Hz, respectively. This corresponds to $`\mu /h=2.48`$ kHz.

We excite the condensate at a well defined wavenumber using two-photon Bragg transitions Phillips-Bragg . The two Bragg counter-propagating (along $`\widehat{z}`$) beams are locked to a Fabri-Perot cavity line, detuned 44 GHz below the $`5S_{1/2},F=25P_{3/2},F^{}=3`$ transition. At this detuning and at the intensities used here, there are no discernable losses from the condensate due to spontaneous emission. The frequency difference $`\delta \omega `$ between the two lasers is controlled via two acousto-optical modulators. Bragg pulses of variable duration and intensity are applied to the condensate, controlling the excitation process.

Following the Bragg pulse, the magnetic trap is rapidly turned off, and after a 38 msec of time of flight expansion the atomic cloud is imaged by an on-resonance absorption beam, perpendicular to the $`\widehat{z}`$-axis. Fig. 2 shows the resulting absorption images, for different excitation strengths and duration. Fig. 2a shows a perturbative excitation with the large cloud at the left corresponding to the BEC. A halo of scattered atoms is visible between the BEC and the cloud of unscattered outcoupled excitations to the right. In Fig. 2b we show a $`\pi /2`$ pulse which generates a nearly symmetric excitation. The two condensates collide producing a strong collisional sphere. In Fig. 2c we show a nearly complete $`\pi `$ pulse, with a weak zero momentum component remaining as an excitation of the travelling condensate. We note the weak thermal cloud surrounding the origin, which is largely unaffected by the Bragg pulse. When we increase the duration time of Rabi oscillations (Fig. 2d), the effective two level system is eventually depleted by collisions.

We measure the response of our system by integrating over the elliptical areas shown in Fig. 2a. The solid lines are gaussian fit areas to the uncollided atoms. The dashed line contains the entire region of interest, including the collisional products. We define the number of atoms observed in the excited region inclosed in the ellipse to the right as $`N_k`$ and those corresponding to the initial BEC (left) as $`N_0`$. $`P_{tot}`$ is the total momentum (in units of the momentum of a single excitation) along $`\widehat{z}`$ measured inside the dashed ellipse, and normalized by the overall number of observed atoms.

The suppression of the mean-field shift in strongly excited condensates is shown in Fig. 3b, where the resonance is clearly ($`14.9\pm 0.2`$ kHz from a gaussian fit) in agreement with the free particle value ($`15.08`$ kHz, indicated by the dotted line). This should be compared to the resonance ($`16.05\pm 0.2`$ kHz from a gaussian fit) observed in Fig. 3a for a weak excitation in agreement with the expected LDA value of $`16.15`$ kHz (indicated by the dashed line). The solid lines are GPE simulations of the system, which also confirm the suppression of the mean-field shift.

This suppression of the mean-field shift should cause a similar decrease in the inhomogeneous broadening, leading to longer coherence times for strongly driven condensates. We explore this at various driving Rabi frequencies (but holding $`\delta \omega =2\pi \times 15`$ kHz constant). Fig. 4a and 4b show $`P_{tot}(t)`$ at the driving frequencies of $`1.2`$ kHz and $`8.6`$ kHz, respectively. Fig. 4c and 4d show $`N_k/(N_0+N_k)(t)`$, for the same driving frequencies.

The dashed lines in Fig. 4a and 4b are exponentially decaying oscillations, fitted to the experimental points. Here the decay is mainly due to collisions between the two condensates. The solid lines in Fig. 4c and 4d are GPE simulations with no fit parameters. We observe the remarkable result that by post-selecting the non-collided fraction we can recover the GPE dephasing behavior, despite the fact that the GPE totally disregards collisions between the excitations and the BEC and considers only the evolution of the macroscopic wavefunction.

The results of this analysis are summarized in Fig. 5. Here the solid boxes show the measured dephasing decay rate of $`N_k/(N_0+N_k)(t)`$. An additional experimental point is measured at the Bragg driving frequency of $`3.4`$ kHz. The solid line represents the theoretical dephasing rate obtained by numerically solving the GPE and then fitting the time evolution to an oscillating exponential decay.

The empty boxes are the fitted decay rate of the oscillations in $`P_{tot}(t)`$. The dashed line is the result of the theoretical sum of the GPE dephasing rate calculated above (solid line), plus the free particle LDA collision rate (1.66 kHz) collision-value , with no fitting parameters.

There are several points of interest in this figure. Firstly, we note that the suppression of inhomogeneous effects is again confirmed both in simulation and in experiment. This can be observed by the minima of the simulation curve at $`3`$ kHz driving frequency. The experimental data agrees with this trend. Where the observed decay rates of $`P_{tot}`$ and $`N_k/(N_0+N_k)`$ are 2 and 10 times smaller, respectively, than the calculated inhomogeneous dephasing rate (as shown in Fig. 1).

Secondly, the GPE simulation dephasing rate ($`0.1`$ kHz) near $`3`$ kHz driving frequency is significantly slower than the Doppler dephasing rate ($`0.6`$ kHz). The experimental points agrees with this trend. This suppression can be understood by considering the system in the frame of reference of the travelling light potential Stringari-lattice . In this reference frame the condensate is on the edge of the Brillion zone, and is repeatedly reflected by the potential. Due to the strong lattice potential, there is a broad region in momentum space for which the group velocity is zero. Consequently, the two wavepackets do not separate, suppressing the Doppler broadening as well. The reason for the increase in the dephasing rate at higher driving frequencies beyond $`3`$ kHz appears to result from the excitation of other momentum modes along with wavepacket spreading in momentum space.

Thirdly, we note that we can use the measured decay rates of $`P_{tot}(t)`$ and $`N_k/(N_0+N_k)(t)`$ to isolate and estimate the decay due to collisions. We thus measure the collisional cross section to be $`7.1(\pm 1.8)\times 10^{16}m^2`$ in agreement with the known collision-value  value of $`8.37\times 10^{16}m^2`$ collision-comment .

In conclusion, we measure a suppression of the mean-field shift for a strong excitation of the BEC. We also observe an order of magnitude suppression of the inhomogeneous broadening and Doppler broadening mechanisms between strongly driven colliding Bose-Einstein condensates. Furthermore, we measure a collisional decoherence rate in agreement with that expected from previous measurements.

In the future we hope to observe a splitting in a Bragg probe spectrum from such a strongly driven system. We also hope to measure a shift in the energy of the excitations due to off-resonance Bragg pulses, in analogy with the ac Stark shift. This shift may even modify the collision rate by shifting the resonance energy sufficiently to influence the interaction with the finite width collisional quasi-continuum kurizki .

This work was supported in part by the Israel Ministry of Science, the Israel Science Foundation and by Minerva foundation.


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# The effect of the spin-orbit interaction on the band gap of half-metals

## Abstract

The spin-orbit interaction can cause a nonvanishing density of states (DOS) within the minority-spin band gap of half-metals around the Fermi level. We examine the magnitude of the effect in Heusler alloys, zinc-blende half metals and diluted magnetic semiconductors, using first-principles calculations. We find that the ratio of spin-down to spin-up DOS at the Fermi level can range from below 1% (e.g. 0.5% for NiMnSb) over several percents (4.2% for (Ga,Mn)As) to 13% for MnBi.

Half-metals are materials showing spin ferromagnetism, but with the exotic property of presenting a metallic density of states (DOS) only for the one spin direction (usually majority), in parallel with a clear band gap around the Fermi level $`E_F`$ for the other direction. Experimentally, the first of the kind to be reported were half-metallic Heusler alloys by de Groot et al. in 1983.deGroot83  More recently, other half-metals were found, such as CrO2,Soulen98  La0.7Sr0.3MnO3,Soulen98  or diluted magnetic semiconductors.Ohno98  Furthermore, ordered zinc-blende CrAs and CrSb were fabricated by molecular beam epitaxyAkinaga00  and relevant calculations suggest these and many similar zinc-blende systems to be half-metallic.Shirai00 ; Galanakis03  So has been the case with a variety of Heusler alloys.Galanakis02  The rising interest in half-metallic systems is partly caused by their potential applications in spin electronics,Wolf01  since junctions made of half-metals should theoretically present 100% magnetoresistance or 100% spin polarized currents.

Although the ab-initio calculations show the presence of half-metallicity in this variety of materials, with a clear band gap around $`E_F`$ for the minority spin, this can be partly suppressed by, e.g., defects,Ebert91  spin excitations at increased temperature, or non-quasiparticle states.Irkhin94  Even at low temperature and in the defect-free case, there is still the question of spin-orbit interaction. Although this is weak and in many cases can be neglected, in principle it should couple the two spin channels so that the presence of states around $`E_F`$ for the majority spin is partly reflected in the minority DOS. Thus one cannot have a real gap, but a small DOS, its smallness depending on the strength of the spin-orbit coupling for each material; this effect could have also implications in the ideas about spin-dependent transport and spintronics devices. It is the purpose of this paper to give a quantitative picture for this effect for a few typical systems, and to argue if and how crucially this could affect spin-dependent transport. As model systems we have chosen the Heusler alloy NiMnSb, the ordered zinc-blende alloys CrAs, CrSb and MnBi, and the chemical disorder in diluted magnetic semiconductor Ga0.95Mn0.05As.

Our first-principles calculations are based on the screened Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (KKR) Green function method, incorporating fully relativistic effects (from where the spin-orbit interaction emerges). For the description of the diluted magnetic semiconductors, the coherent potential approximation (CPA) was also employed. Details about the method can be found in Ref. Papanikolaou02, . In the calculations we have used the atomic sphere approximation (ASA), in which it is assumed that the potential around each atomic site is spherically symmetric. In the open structures, such as the zinc-blende, the large empty interstitial space is accounted for by placing at appropriate positions empty spheres (treated as atomic spheres with no nuclear charge). In the expansion of the Green function in local orbitals a cutoff of $`l_{\mathrm{max}}=3`$ was taken for the ordered compounds and of $`l_{\mathrm{max}}=2`$ for the CPA calculations. We have employed both the fully relativistic (solving the Dirac equation) and the scalar relativisticKoelling77  methods for comparison. The latter includes all other relativistic effects except spin-orbit coupling, so that the two spin channels are decoupled and half-metals appear with a clean gap for spin-down around $`E_F`$.

The DOS $`n_\sigma (E)`$ per spin $`\sigma `$ is related to the retarded Green function $`G_\sigma (\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r^{}};E)`$ via

$$n_\sigma (E)=\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}G_\sigma (\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r};E)d^3r$$
(1)
Usually for the calculation a very small imaginary part $`iϵ`$ is added to the real energy $`E`$ and the Green function and DOS are evaluated at $`E+iϵ`$. In this way the DOS of every eigenstate is no more a delta function of the energy but is rather smoothed via a Lorentzian broadening. This method has the advantage of needing fewer $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ points for the integration in the Brillouin zone to obtain a smooth DOS, saving computational time. Nevertheless there is the disadvantage that, in the presence of a band gap, the band edges are not sharp and one also obtains a very low nonzero DOS within the gap due to the Lorentzian broadening. In our case this causes a problem, since the DOS within the minority gap due to spin-orbit coupling is also small and drowned in the background of the Lorentzian broadening. To overcome this difficulty one would have to go much closer to the real energy axis, which would demand too many $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ points. We have used an alternative, which saves calculation time: Since the Green function is analytical in the complex energy plane $`E_z`$, we are able to extrapolate to the real energy axis by knowing the variation of the Green function for $`E_z`$ along a line parallel to the real axis. To our knowledge, this method was first proposed by Gray and Kaplan,Gray86  who also report on the numerical limitations. The resulting accuracy within the gap is much better than that of the traditional method, and good enough for our purposes, although sometimes numerical fluctuations of the DOS are visible.

In our calculations we solve the Dirac equation, thus treating the spin-orbit term exactly. But for a better understanding we give now a brief description of the first order effect of the interaction in a Schrödinger picture. We remind that the spin-orbit coupling of the two spin channels is related to the unperturbed potential $`V(r)`$ around each atom via the angular momentum operator $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ and the Pauli spin matrix $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$:

$$V_{\mathrm{so}}(r)=\frac{1}{2m^2c^2}\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\frac{1}{r}\frac{dV}{dr}\stackrel{}{L}\stackrel{}{\sigma }=\left(\begin{array}{cc}V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}& V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}\\ V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}& V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}\end{array}\right)$$
(2)
Analyzed in spinor basis, it takes the $`2\times 2`$ matrix form above. We denote the two spin directions with $``$ and $``$, the unperturbed crystal hamiltonian for the two spin directions as $`H^0`$ and $`H^0`$, and the unperturbed Bloch eigenfunctions as $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0`$. Then the Schrödinger equation for the perturbed wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}=(\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{},\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{})`$ reads

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}H^0+V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}E& V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}\\ V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}& H^0+V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}E\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{}\\ \mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{}\end{array}\right)=0`$ (7)
The potential terms $`V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}`$ are responsible for flipping the spin. Within the gap region of the half-metal, where no spin-down states of the unperturbed hamiltonian exist, the spin-down solution can be found in first order by solving Eq. (7) for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{(1)}`$ (the index (1) stands for the first-order solution). The solution reads formally:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{(1)}=\frac{1}{H^{}+V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0}V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0$$
(8)
with $`E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0`$ the eigenenergy of the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0`$. We see that in the gap region the spin-down intensity is a weak image of the band structure $`E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0`$ of the spin-up band. Since the DOS is related to $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{(1)}|^2`$, it is expected that within the gap the DOS has a quadratic dependence on the spin-orbit coupling strength: $`n_{}(E)(V_{\mathrm{so}}^{})^2`$. But there is also a modification by the term $`1/(H^{}+V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0)`$ (this is actually the Green function), which increases the weight of the states close to those $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ points where the unperturbed spin-up and spin-down bands cross, i.e., $`E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0=E_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^0`$. To see this we can rewrite Eq. (8) by expanding the Green function in spectral representation:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{(1)}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3r^{}\underset{n^{}}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^{(0)}(\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{\Psi }_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^{(0)}(\stackrel{}{r^{}})}{E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0E_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^0}V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}(\stackrel{}{r^{}})\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{(0)}(\stackrel{}{r^{}})}`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^0|V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0}{E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0E_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^0}}\mathrm{\Psi }_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^0(\stackrel{}{r})`$
Here, the summation runs only over the band index $`n^{}`$ and not over the Bloch vectors $`\stackrel{}{k}^{}`$, because Bloch functions with $`\stackrel{}{k}^{}\stackrel{}{k}`$ are mutually orthogonal. Close to the crossing point $`E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0E_{n^{}\stackrel{}{k}}^0`$ the denominator becomes small and the bands strongly couple. Then one should also consider higher orders in the perturbation expansion. Since at the gap edges there exist spin-down bands of the unperturbed hamiltonian, this effect can become important near the gap edges.

Now we proceed to the analysis of our results. The results for the Heusler alloy NiMnSb, which was found by de Groot et al. in 1983 to be half-metallic,deGroot83  are shown in Fig. 1. In the top panel, the atom-resolved DOS is shown, following a scalar relativistic calculation. The Fermi level is within the band gap for minority spin and the material is half-metallic. In this scale, the relativistic calculation shows no difference in the DOS compared to the scalar relativistic. In the middle panel the gap region is shown in a relativistic calculation. Again, no minority DOS is seen in this scale. But when we magnify the minority DOS in the lower panel, it becomes clear that the DOS is nonzero in the gap region — it is of the order of $`0.5\%`$ of the majority DOS in the vicinity of $`E_F`$. We have checked the DOS in this scale for the scalar relativistic calculation and have found it to be zero, thus we conclude that we see here a spin-orbit effect and not an artificial Lorentzian broadening due to the imaginary part of the energy in the calculation. The fluctuations of the Mn DOS (full line) are due to numerical noise of the $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ integration and extrapolation scheme, and mark its limit of accuracy.

The next example is the ordered half-metallic alloy CrAs in the zinc-blende structure. This was invented by Akinaga and co-workersAkinaga00  in 2000 and found to be half-metallic. Our results are presented in Fig. 2. In the top panel, the scalar relativistic atom-resolved DOS is shown. The Fermi level is within the minority-spin gap, close to the conduction band edge. (The latter is mainly of $`d`$ character, containing the wavefunctions of the $`e_g`$ subspace Galanakis03 ). Focusing in the range of the gap, we can see the DOS in more detail in the middle panel in a relativistic calculation. Below $`1\mathrm{eV}`$ one recognises the majority $`d`$ states of $`e_g`$ character.Galanakis03  Around $`0.9\mathrm{eV}`$ the DOS has a minimum, as the $`e_g`$ states end and the $`d`$ states of $`t_{2g}`$ character start, forming wide bands. In this scale no spin-orbit effect is visible in the minority gap. But if we focus further in energy (lower panel) it is clear that the structure of the majority DOS is reflected in the minority DOS: one can recognize the peak of the $`e_g`$ states below $`1\mathrm{eV}`$, then the minimum and finally the presence of the $`t_{2g}`$ band above $`0.8\mathrm{eV}`$. This is the effect of the term $`V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^{}`$ in Eq. (8). But we also observe the rapid increase of the DOS as the energy approaches the band edges; this comes from the term $`1/(H^{}+V_{\mathrm{so}}^{}E_{n\stackrel{}{k}}^0)`$. The minority DOS in the middle of the gap is again small, giving a minority/majority DOS ratio of $`0.2\%`$. In a similar calculation for zinc-blende CrSb (first fabricated by Zhao et al.Zhao01 ) we find that the minority DOS in the middle of the gap is around $`0.7\%`$ of its majority counterpart. This rise is expected, as the spin-orbit interaction is stronger for the $`5p`$ states of Sb than for the $`4p`$ of As. (The trend can be seen for example in a systematic study of the spin-orbit cross section of $`sp`$ impurities in Mg in Ref. Papanikolaou92, , where Sb is found to have four times higher spin-orbit cross section than As. Since the spin-orbit interaction is in first approximation an atomic property, the trend is similar here.)

A recent theoretical investigationXu02  has suggested the ordered zinc-blende alloy MnBi as a good candidate for half-metallicity. Although this has not yet been fabricated, we take it as a good example to show the spin-orbit effect, since Bi is a heavy element with strong spin-orbit interaction because of the 6p states. The scalar and fully relativistic DOS are shown in Fig. 3. It is evident that here the spin-orbit interaction has a much stronger influence. The minority DOS at $`E_F`$ is of the order of $`13\%`$ of its majority counterpart, a huge quantity in comparison to the analogous percentage in CrAs or NiMnSb. The relativistic effect shows up also in the orbital magnetic moment, being $`0.11\mu _B`$ and mostly concentrated at the Mn atom, while the spin moment remains at $`4.0\mu _B`$ per unit cell as in the scalar and non-relativistic case. We note that, although the spin-orbit interaction is strong here, the majority spin is still dominating at $`E_F`$. Thus MnBi would be a useful material for spin electronics despite the spin-orbit effect, as its spin polarization at $`E_F`$ is robust against moderate volume change as pointed out in Ref. Xu02, .

As a final example we consider the diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS) Ga0.95Mn0.05As. This material, together with other similar DMS, has been extensively studied in recent years, because it presents ferromagnetism at such low Mn concentrations (discovered by OhnoOhno98  in 1998). Ideally, the Mn impurities substitute Ga atoms in the GaAs lattice. Then the Mn $`3d`$ states of the $`t_{2g}`$ representation ($`d_{xy}`$, $`d_{yz}`$, and $`d_{xz}`$) hybridize with the $`p`$ states of the As neighbors, forming bonding and antibonding $`p`$-$`d`$ hybrids and from them states within the GaAs gap for the spin-up direction. Thus the alloy becomes half-metallic with $`E_F`$ close to the valence band edge. Although there is no consensus yet on the physical origin of the ferromagnetic ordering, which seems to depend on the energetic position of the Mn $`d`$ states,footnote  we have proceeded using the LDA result. We find that the spin-down DOS at $`E_F`$ is $`4.2\%`$ of its spin-up counterpart if we include spin-orbit effects, while the system is half-metallic in the nonrelativistic solution. To understand this relatively high percentage of spin-down states, we observe that $`E_F`$ is very close to the valence band edge. There, the $`p`$ states of As give an important spin-orbit effect. This is known to split the valence band edge of GaAs in two subspaces, one with total (spin + orbital) angular momentum $`j=3/2`$ and one with $`j=1/2`$, so that the valence band edge has no pure spin character.Yu  Similar calculations on Mn-doped ferromagnetic zinc-blende GaN gave us no spin-orbit effect at $`E_F`$ within numerical accuracy. The difference to (Ga,Mn)As is that the $`2p`$ valence states of N compared to the $`4p`$ of As (i) have a much lower spin-orbit interaction, and (ii) are lower in energy so that the Mn impurity $`d`$ band is fully within the band gap, away from the N-dominated valence band states, and the spin-orbit effect weakens.

In summary, we have performed first-principles calculations in order to investigate the effect of the spin-orbit coupling to the spin-down band gap of half-metallic systems. As typical half-metallic systems, describable by the LDA, we have chosen the Heusler alloy NiMnSb, the ordered zinc-blende alloys CrAs, CrSb, and MnBi, and the diluted magnetic semiconductors (Ga,Mn)As and (Ga,Mn)N. We find that the majority-spin states are partly reflected into the minority band gap. The intensity of the DOS for minority electrons in this energy region depends mainly on the strength of the spin-orbit coupling, heavier $`sp`$ elements resulting in a higher ratio of minority/majority spin DOS. Thus we see a trend of increasing min./maj. DOS ratio in the middle of the gap as we go from CrAs (0.2%) to CrSb (0.7%) and finally to MnBi (13%). In NiMnSb we find a ratio of 0.2%. Also, it is important how deep the Fermi level lies within the gap, since majority states close to the gap edges are more drastically spin-flipped than states deep in the gap. This results in high minority-spin DOS (4.2% ratio) for (Ga,Mn)As where $`E_F`$ is very close to the valence band edge. We have also explained these effects within a first-order approximation. For transport applications in spintronics we conclude that even in compounds with strong spin-orbit effect (MnBi or (Ga,Mn)As) the minority DOS at $`E_F`$ is still dominated by its majority counterpart (even in MnBi the ratio is only 13%), whence current should be transported practically only by majority states. Thus in applications other effects, such as gap states due to impurities,Ebert91  stalking faults, or interfaces, could be more important to eliminate by sample improvements.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by the RT Network of Computational Magnetoelectronics (contract RTN1-1999-00145) of the European Commission. One of us (VP) gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft withing the DFG-Förderprojekt FOG 370/2-1 ”Ferromagnet-Halbleiter-Nanostrukturen: Transport, elektrische und magnetische Eigenschaften”.


text:
# A Simulation of the LISA Data Stream from Galactic White Dwarf Binaries

## 1 Introduction

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a planned space-based gravitational wave detector. It will be sensitive to gravitational radiation in the frequency band from $`10^51\mathrm{Hz}`$, with sources ranging from supermassive black hole binaries to stellar mass compact binaries. One of the most abundant sources will be the galactic population of close white dwarf binaries. These sources will dominate the LISA signal from 0.1 mHz up to about 3 mHz and are expected to produce a confusion limited background below $`1\mathrm{mHz}`$. The signal will transition to individually resolved sources above $`5\mathrm{mHz}`$. Data analysis strategies to accommodate the close white dwarf binaries vary according to the nature of the signal. Below 1 mHz, the signal will be isotropic and effectively gaussian with $`>100`$ sources per frequency bin for a one year observation. Above 5 mHz, the signal will individual sources widely separated in frequency. The transition region between 1 and 5 mHz presents unique challenges for data analysis. In addition, sources of gravitational radiation in globular clusters have the greatest angular resolution in this transition zone. It is therefore of use to develop a simulation of the LISA data stream from galactic white dwarf binaries in the transition zone between 1 and 5 mHz test data analysis techniques for handling the foreground signal while identifying other signals of interest such as globular cluster binaries or high mass ratio inspirals into supermassive black holes. We have generated just such a simulation with 90,000 white dwarf binaies and describe in Section 2 the population synthesis and in Section 3 the data stream simulation. The simulated data stream from select globular clusters is described in Section 4.

## 2 Population Synthesis

The population of galactic white dwarf binaries is synthesized using a phenomenological approach. We assume a uniform birthrate over the past $`10^{10}`$ yr, and then assign a binary type at birth according the simulations of Nelemans et al(2001). The birth of the binary is considered to occur after the second white dwarf is formed. The binary types are combinations of four basic white dwarf types - Helium, hybrid Carbon Oxygen (with a thick Helium envelope), Carbon Oxygen, and Oxygen Neon. The binary types and their probabilities at birth are shown in Table 1

Once the binary types have been determined, individual masses are assigned to each white dwarf based upon its type. These are drawn from mass distributions derived from Iben and Tutukov (1986). The orbital period, $`Q`$ (in hours) at birth is chosen by assuming a normal distribution with unit variance in $`\mathrm{log}(Q)`$ with the mean period $`\overline{Q}`$ related to the mass of the secondary using $`m=0.0625\mathrm{log}(\overline{Q})+0.2625`$ if the secondary is a Helium white dwarf and $`\mathrm{log}(\overline{Q})=0.4`$ if it is any other type. Finally, the binary is assigned a birth date between the present and $`10^{10}`$ years ago. The binary is allowed to evolve under the influence of gravitational radiation to determine the present orbital period ($`P`$) using

$$P=\left(Q^{8/3}\frac{8}{3}k_0t\right)^{3/8}$$
(1)
with

$$k_0=\frac{96}{5}\left(2\pi \right)^{8/3}\frac{G^{5/3}M_1M_2}{c^5\left(M_1+M_2\right)^{1/3}}$$
(2)
where $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ are the masses of the white dwarfs (Peters and Mathews, 1963). Finally, the binary is retained as part of the synthesized population if its orbital period is less than $`2000`$ s and greater than the period at Roche lobe contact.

Once the masses and orbital period of the binary have been established, it is then assigned a position in the galaxy according to the probability distribution functions in the cylindrical coordinates $`R`$ and $`z`$ given by:

$`P(R)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_0}}\mathrm{}^{R/R_0}`$ (3)
$`P(z)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2z_0}}\mathrm{sech}^2(z/z_0),`$ (4)
where $`R_0=2500\mathrm{pc}`$ and $`z_0=200\mathrm{pc}`$. The angular coordinate is chosen from a flat distribution and the coordinates are converted to heliocentric spherical polar coordinates, $`(r,\theta _s,\varphi _s)`$, with $`\varphi _s`$ measured from the vernal equinox and $`\theta _s`$ measured from the normal to the ecliptic. The orientation of the binary is described by the direction of the angular momentum vector. The angular coordinates of this vector are assigned using flat distribution functions and are $`(\theta _L,\varphi _L)`$ in the same heliocentric coordinate system. Finally, the orbital phase of the binary ($`\varphi _0`$) is also chosen randomly. The population of binaries is then described by 9 parameters – the masses of the components ($`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$), the orbital period ($`P`$), the position in heliocentric coordinates ($`r,\theta _s,\varphi _s`$), the orientation ($`\theta _L,\varphi _L`$), and the orbital phase ($`\varphi _0`$).

The number of binaries to include in the population is chosen to be 90,000 which is close to the number determined by using the population estimates of Hils, Bender, and Webbink (1990) and (following their lead) reducing this number by a factor of 10. The distribution of the masses of the binaries are shown in Figure 1, and the number of sources per frequency bin for selected frequencies are shown in Figure 2.

## 3 Data Stream Simulation

The LISA data stream simulated from the population of binaries is calculated using the long wavelength approximation of Cutler (1998). Cornish and Rubbo (2003) have shown that this low frequency approximation will suffice for frequencies below $`5`$ mHz. We have calculated the data stream for both the $`h_I`$ and $`h_{II}`$ configurations of Cutler and including both the Doppler phase ($`\phi _D`$) and the polarization phase ($`\phi _p`$). We have chosen for the initial configuration of LISA to be $`\overline{\varphi }_0=0`$ and $`\alpha _0=0`$ which correspond to LISA starting at the vernal equinox at $`t=0`$. The binaries are assumed to have been circularized and therefore emitting monochromatic gravitational radiation with frequency $`f=2/P`$. The data stream is calculated for each binary as a double-precision strain amplitude measured every second for $`32\times 10^6`$ seconds. These data streams have then been combined to form a single stream for all 90,000 binaries. The data stream for $`h_I`$ is shown in Figure 3. It is of interest to note that the amplitude of the signal from the galactic binaries can be seen to vary annually as the antenna pattern of LISA sweeps through the plane of the galaxy, thus showing that the anisotropy of the binary distribution is measurable in this frequency band.

## 4 Globular Cluster Simulations

Although there have been a few simulations of the white dwarf binary population of globular cluster (Hurley and Shara 2003), a detailed synthesis of such a population is very difficult due to the additional complication of the internal dynamics of a globular cluster. Consequently, we have simply chosen to use binaries from our galactic population synthesis to simulate the signal from globular cluster binaries. Since the globular cluster binaries are more localized in space, the time variation of their signal should be different than that from galactic binaries and this is borne out in the simulations performed for five individual globular clusters containing 10 binaries each. The globular cluster populations were simulated by choosing 10 binaries from the population synthesis described in Section 2 with their positions chosen from a three-dimensional normal distribution centered on the position of the globular cluster with a variance given by the half-mass radius. The globular cluster data was taken from Harris (1996). The datastreams from these globular clusters and a combined data stream are shown in Figure 4. Because the globular clusters are much more localized sources, their signals can be reduced to zero as it passes through a null in the antenna pattern of LISA. Searching for such nulls may provide a technique for identifying globular cluster binaries.

## 5 Conclusion

We have synthesized a population of close white dwarf binaries in the galactic disk and used this population to generate a simulated data stream from LISA. This simulation does not include the instrument noise for LISA, but noise can be included in the signal by simply adding the appropriately chosen noise spectrum to the signal. In this way, our simulated data stream can be used to compare the effect of different instrumental noise spectra on the ability of different data analysis techniques to handle the signal from the galactic population of white dwarf binaries. The simulation can also be combined with simulated signals for other sources of interest (as we have done with globular cluster sources), to test different data analysis schemes for extracting these other signals.

We anticipate improving the simulation by including white dwarf binaries with orbital periods greater than $`2000`$ s and incorporating the general response function of Cornish and Rubbo (2003) for binaries with frequencies higher than $`3`$ mHz. In the meantime, we will make the simulations freely available on CD for anyone interested in using it for testing data analysis schemes.

The authors acknowledge support from NASA Cooperative Agreement NCC5-579 and the Montana Space Grant Consortium.

## References


text:
# Status of CMB Polarization Measurements from DASI and Other Experiments

## 1 Introduction

Tremendous progress has been made in characterizing the angular power spectrum of the CMB temperature fluctuations over the last decade. As discussed extensively at the workshop, the temperature anisotropy spectrum is now well-determined from the largest angular scales through the first two acoustic peaks and into the third at $`\mathrm{}700`$. Data on smaller angular scales, in particular from the CBI and ACBAR experiments, have revealed the damping tail of the primordial spectrum (Runyan et al., 2003; Mason et al., 2002; Kuo et al., 2002). The high-$`\mathrm{}`$ data provide evidence for the onset of secondary anisotropy at $`\mathrm{}2000`$ that is also detected at $`\mathrm{}5000`$ with BIMA (Dawson et al., 2001), and that presumably arises at least in part from the integrated Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect from galaxy clusters (e.g., Komatsu & Seljak, 2002; Holder, 2002). Future cosmological studies with the CMB will therefore focus on measurement of the temperature anisotropy at fine angular scales and on the polarization anisotropy at all scales. This paper concentrates on the latter.

Measurements of astronomical polarization are in general difficult and the low level of the CMB polarization signal makes it an especially challenging target. Yet the fundamental nature of the science has fueled rapid progress in experimental efforts to reach unprecedented levels of sensitivity and control of systematics. The following is an abbreviated list of the scientific goals of CMB polarization studies, ranked in increasing order of required instrumental sensitivity:

1. Test the theoretical framework for the generation of CMB anisotropy: Within the context of the standard model, in which peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum are interpreted as the signature of acoustic oscillations seeded by nearly scale-free, primordial adiabatic density fluctuations, current temperature measurements lead to highly-specific predictions for the shape of the polarization power spectrum. Furthermore, it is a firm prediction that density fluctuations should create only $`E`$-mode, i.e., curl-free, polarization patterns on the sky (see § 2).
2. Determine the reionization history of the universe: When the universe underwent reionization, electrons re-scattered the CMB, leading to polarization on the large angular scales corresponding to the horizon size at the epoch of reionization.
3. Improve the precision of CMB-derived cosmological parameters: Polarization accounts for two thirds of the CMB observables permitting higher precision constraints, and also allows various parameter degeneracies to be broken.
4. Provide a probe of large-scale structure to $`z=1100`$. Gravitational lensing of the CMB by intervening structure distorts the polarization pattern generated at the surface of last scattering, leading to an observable $`B`$-mode, i.e., curl component. The $`B`$-mode, although weak, should be detectable and can be used to infer properties of the large-scale structure (Hu & Okamoto, 2002).
5. Test inflation by searching for primordial gravitational waves: Primordial gravity waves will lead to polarization in the CMB (Polnarev, 1985; Crittenden et al., 1993) with both an $`E`$-mode pattern, as for the scalar density perturbations, and a $`B`$-mode pattern, due to the intrinsic polarization of the gravitational waves (Seljak, 1997; Kamionkowski et al., 1997; Seljak & Zaldarriaga, 1997). In inflationary models, the amplitude of the $`B`$-mode polarization from gravity waves is proportional to the fourth power of the inflationary energy scale. While the detection of $`B`$-mode polarization would provide a critical test of inflation, the signal may be so weak as to be unobservable (Lyth, 1997; Kinney, 2003).

The current state of CMB polarization studies is similar to the state of temperature measurements a decade ago, when COBE and FIRS had detected anisotropy (Smoot et al., 1992; Ganga et al., 1993), but much work remained to be done to characterize its power spectrum. Currently, DASI has detected the $`E`$-mode polarization and $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation on degree scales (Kovac et al., 2002), while WMAP has detected the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation on large scales (Kogut et al., 2003; Kogut, 2003). The degree-scale polarization and the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation are critical tests of the underlying theoretical framework for the generation of CMB fluctuations, while the WMAP $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation on very large scales, i.e., the first several multipoles, provides direct evidence of significant reionization at higher redshifts than had previously been supposed.

In this contribution, we first briefly review the mechanism which causes observable polarization within the context of adiabatic density perturbations, lensing by large-scale structure and gravity waves. We next review the history of polarization measurements, the DASI and WMAP detections (particular emphasis is given to the DASI experiment as the WMAP results are also discussed in contributions by Wright (2003) and Kogut (2003)), several upcoming and future experiments, and conclude with a few remarks on the state of the field.

## 2 Generation of CMB Polarization

Polarization of the CMB arises from Thomson scattering of the background radiation off electrons at the epoch of decoupling (Rees, 1968). As scattering can only produce a net polarization if an electron sees a local quadrupole moment, polarization is suppressed as long as the photon mean free path is short, and electrons see a field that is locally uniform. As recombination proceeds, however, the mean free path grows rapidly and electrons begin to see radiation Doppler-shifted by velocity fields within the plasma.

To illustrate this effect, consider a single spatial mode of the density field, i.e., a standing acoustic wave; as the amplitude of the wave oscillates, the photon-baryon fluid will compress and expand. If the mode is growing, the fluid will move toward density crests. In this case, the radiation field seen by electrons near a crest is Doppler-boosted perpendicular to the crest, with no boost seen parallel to the crest, leading to scattered light whose polarization is aligned with the crest. Likewise in the troughs, the radiation is reduced in directions perpendicular to the trough, but uniform along it, and the resulting polarization will be perpendicular to the trough, i.e., the sense of the polarization flips between crest and trough (see Figure 1). If the amplitude of the density mode is decreasing, the sense of the polarization is reversed, but in general, scattering leads to polarization aligned either perpendicular or parallel to the wave vector, a curl-free pattern we refer to as $`E`$-mode polarization (see also Hu & White, 1997; Zaldarriaga & Seljak, 1997). The first detection of $`E`$-modes in the CMB by the DASI experiment is discussed in § 3.2.

We have so far considered a time snapshot of a single density mode; if we now consider the dynamic evolution of that mode, we see that because $`E`$-mode polarization arises from velocities, the amplitude of the polarization will fall to a minimum at the compression or expansion maxima of the density mode, when the velocity drops to zero. Likewise the amplitude of the polarization will be highest at the density nulls, when the fluid velocity reaches a maximum. As a result, the power spectra of the temperature and polarization fields exhibit peaks which are approximately a half-cycle out of phase (see Figure 2). The $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation spectrum quantifies the complex relation between these fields, with the sign of the correlation depending on whether the amplitude of the mode was increasing or decreasing at the time of decoupling.

When the universe reionized, late-time Thompson scattering of CMB photons reduced power in the anisotropy at small scales but regenerated a polarized signal on scales comparable to the horizon at the reionization epoch, leading to a significant low-$`\mathrm{}`$ bump in the $`E`$-mode and $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation spectra. Such a signal has now been seen in the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ spectrum by the WMAP experiment (see § 3.2).

Any polarization field can be decomposed into curl-free ($`E`$-mode) components, and pure curl components, called $`B`$-modes by analogy with electric and magnetic fields. The $`B`$-type harmonic modes exhibit linear polarization at $`\pm 45^{}`$ to the direction of modulation (Figure 1). Such a pattern cannot be produced by density modes, and the presence of $`B`$-modes in the CMB would be the distinctive signature of gravitational effects. A stochastic background of primordial gravity waves generated by inflation would directly source $`B`$-modes in the CMB. Because such waves decay after entering the horizon, the spectrum of the resulting $`B`$-mode signal is expected to peak at large angular scales, with an amplitude that is tied to the (highly uncertain) inflationary energy scale. Within the next decade this signal may be detected yielding exciting direct evidence for inflation, or may be shown to be unobservably small. On small angular scales, $`B`$-modes are confidently expected from gravitational lensing of the $`E`$-mode signal by large-scale structure (see Figure 2), at a level that should be detectable by the next generation of dedicated polarimeters (see § 4);

## 3 Polarization Measurements

Prior to the DASI polarization results discussed below (see Kovac et al., 2002), only upper limits had been placed on the level of CMB polarization, a measure both of the demanding instrumental sensitivity and attention to sources of systematic uncertainty necessitated by the weakness of the expected signal (see Staggs et al., 1999, for a review of CMB polarization measurements). We review these limits below, followed by a discussion of the recent detections of polarization by the DASI and WMAP experiments.

### 3.1 Early Limits

The first constraint on the degree of polarization of the CMB was placed in 1965 by its co-discoverers Penzias and Wilson, who stated that the new radiation they had detected was isotropic and unpolarized within the limits of their observations (Penzias & Wilson, 1965). Over the next 20 years, dedicated polarimeters were used to set much more stringent upper limits on angular scales of several degrees and larger (Caderni et al., 1978; Nanos, 1979; Lubin & Smoot, 1979, 1981; Lubin et al., 1983, see also Sironi et al. 1997), with the best upper limits for the $`E`$-mode and $`B`$-mode polarizations being 10$`\mu `$K at 95% confidence for the multipole range $`2\mathrm{}20`$, from the POLAR experiment (Keating et al., 2001). The POLAR experiment was reconfigured to the COMPASS experiment at intermediate scales (Farese et al., 2003).

An analysis of data from the Saskatoon experiment (Wollack et al., 1993) set the first upper limit on somewhat smaller angular scales ($`25\mu `$K at 95% confidence for $`\mathrm{}75`$); this result is also noteworthy for being the first that was below the level of the CMB temperature anisotropy. The best limit on similar angular scales was set by the PIQUE experiment (Hedman et al., 2002) — a 95% confidence upper limit of $`8.4\mu `$K to the $`E`$-mode signal, assuming no $`B`$-mode polarization. Analysis of CBI data set upper limits similar to the PIQUE result, but on somewhat smaller scales (Cartwright, 2003). An attempt was also made to search for the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation using the PIQUE polarization and Saskatoon temperature data (de Oliveira-Costa et al., 2002).

Polarization measurements have also been pursued on arcminute scales, resulting in several upper limits (e.g., Partridge et al., 1997; Subrahmanyan et al., 2000). However, at these angular scales, corresponding to multipoles $`5000`$, the level of the primary CMB anisotropy is strongly damped and secondary effects due to interactions with large-scale structure in the universe are expected to dominate (Hu & Dodelson, 2002).

### 3.2 Detections

As can be seen in Figure 3, high-resolution experiments have steadily converged on the sensitivity required to see the $`E`$-mode signature expected under the standard model. With the results from the DASI experiment, reported in (Kovac et al., 2002, see also Kovac 2003 for details), the goal of direct detection of the $`E`$-modes has now been achieved, with the ancillary detection of the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation. More recently, the WMAP experiment has reported the detection of the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation on large-scales. These results are summarized in Figure 4.

The DASI experiment exploits the unique properties of interferometry directly to measure Fourier components of the CMB anisotropy with tight control of systematics. As interferometers are correlating devices, they are largely insensitive to sources of incoherent noise, while providing an effective response on the sky that is a near-perfect Fourier filter (see Figure 6). DASI’s elements are mounted on a faceplate that can be rotated to sample different Fourier modes, or to sample the same modes with independent antennas. DASI was used successfully to measure the temperature anisotropy spectrum during the austral 2000 winter; the design and calibration of the instrument, the power spectrum, and the resulting cosmological constraints are reported in Leitch et al. (2002b), Halverson et al. (2002) and Pryke et al. (2002), respectively. For additional details see Halverson (2002).

The reconfiguration and operation of the instrument for polarization observations are described in detail in Leitch et al. (2002a). During the 2000—2001 austral summer, broadband achromatic polarizers were installed in each of the 26–36 GHz receivers, and a large reflecting screen was erected to reduce the sensitivity to contamination from the ground. By mechanically switching the polarizers for each receiver to pass left (L) or right (R)-circularly polarized light, each baseline (a single pair of antennas whose signals are correlated) can sample the full complement of Stokes parameters, where co-polar (RR & LL) states are sensitive to the total intensity, and cross-polar (RL & LR) states are sensitive to linear polarization (see Figure 6). As can be seen in Figure 7, simple combinations of the cross-polar data produce nearly pure $`E`$-mode and $`B`$-mode responses on the sky.

Since the austral summer of 2001, DASI has observed two regions of sky, with a field of view of approximately $`3\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$. A host of consistency tests on the data demonstrate that the combination of shielding, field-differencing and careful characterization of the instrumental polarization has reduced any common-mode residuals to well below the level required to detect CMB polarization, resulting in one of the deepest integrations ever achieved on the CMB. The effective noise on the DASI temperature map of the CMB in these fields is approximately $`2.7\mu `$K, and has been demonstrated to integrate down with the square-root of time from timescales of seconds to years.

The DASI data have yielded a direct detection of $`E`$-mode polarization; parameterizing the power spectrum as a single shaped bandpower over the full $`\mathrm{}`$-range, we find that $`E`$-mode polarization is detected at $`4.9\sigma `$ significance, with likelihood ratio tests demonstrating that the data strongly prefer the concordance model shape to flat or power law alternatives. Results with the various power spectra parameterized in five bands are shown in Figure 4. The shape and amplitude of the $`E`$-mode spectrum are consistent with predictions from the current best-fit model to the temperature data.

The strategy of very deep integration on a small region of sky yielded not only a statistical detection of polarization with DASI, but a data set containing many high signal-to-noise polarization modes. The temperature map, and the polarization map constructed from these high signal-to-noise modes, are shown in Figure 8.

Both DASI and WMAP(see workshop contributions by Wright (2003) and Kogut (2003)) have also detected the distinctive $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation of the CMB, which is a simple consequence of the fact that the fluid velocities which lead to polarization (see § 2) are sourced by the same density fluctuations which lead to temperature anisotropy (second panel of Figure 4). The power of full-sky mapping experiments like WMAP is evident on the largest scales, where the DASI measurement of the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation is limited by sample variance on the temperature signal. The first-year data from WMAP have resulted in confirmation of the predicted large-scale $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation, and extraordinary direct evidence of significant reionization at higher redshifts than had previously been supposed (see Figure 9).

## 4 Ongoing and Upcoming Experiments

### 4.1 Ongoing Experiments

In addition to DASI and WMAP, both of which are still collecting data, there are several ongoing CMB polarization experiments that have recently obtained data. Like DASI and WMAP they can be classified as second-generation experiments and are likely to result in detections. As second generation experiments they have benefited from the lessons learned from the pioneering experiments discussed in §3.1.

#### 4.1.1 ground-based

Ongoing ground-based experiments include DASI (§3.2), the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI, Padin et al. (2002)) and the Cosmic Anisotropy Polarization Mapper (CAPMAP, Barkats (2003)).

The CBI is a companion instrument to DASI which uses low-noise 26–36 GHz HEMT amplifiers (Pospieszalski & Wollack, 2000) and operates from the Atacama plateau in Chile. The thirteen 0.9 meter on-axis Cassegrain interferometer elements are mounted on a common Alt-Az platform which also can be rotated along the line of sight. In early 2003, the receivers were fitted with the same selectable achromatic polarizers developed for DASI (Leitch et al., 2002a). Like DASI, each receiver is sensitive to only one circular polarization state and therefore the interferometer is a factor of four slower than optimum. The benefit of this scheme, however, is that the existing 10 GHz bandwidth, 13-element, correlator (Padin et al., 2001) does not need to be expanded. The polarization sensitivity of the CBI expressed in units of temperature is similar to DASI’s but at three times higher angular resolution, i.e., for similar integration time, the CBI should achieve roughly the same polarization sensitivity as DASI in units of $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}`$, but at three times higher $`\mathrm{}`$. Scaling from the DASI results shown in Fig. 4, we see that the CBI $`\mathrm{}`$-range and sensitivity should be well matched for characterizing the $`E`$-mode spectrum.

The CAPMAP experiment, run by Suzanne Staggs and collaborators, uses the radiometers and techniques developed for the PIQUE experiment (§3.1; Hedman et al. (2002)) on the Bell Laboratory 7-meter off-axis telescope. They operated CAPMAP in 2003 February through April with a limited set of four W-band (14 GHz bandwidth at 90 GHz) polarization-sensitive correlation receivers; they expect to use the full set of sixteen 90 GHz radiometers and four 40 GHz radiometers starting in November 2003. The large telescope enables them to achieve $`4^{}`$ resolution – well suited for measuring the polarization power spectrum from where it peaks near $`\mathrm{}1000`$ to higher $`\mathrm{}`$. The weather in New Jersey, however, limits observing to the winter months. They plan to observe a 1-degree patch at the North Celestial Pole using azimuth scans and expect to measure the $`E`$-mode spectrum in two winter seasons (Barkats, 2003). While the sensitivity of the individual CAPMAP channels at $`1mKs^{1/2}`$ is roughly a factor of two to three times worse than that predicted for ground-based bolometer polarization receivers, CAPMAP is using a technique for which it has been shown that systematics can be controlled and very long integrations times are feasible.

#### 4.1.2 balloon-borne

The current generation of balloon-borne experiments include Boomerang (Montroy et al., 2003) and MAXIPOL (Johnson et al., 2003). The Archeops balloon-borne CMB experiment has also made high frequency measurements of Galactic dust polarization over the angular scales relevant to CMB studies (Benoit et al., 2003). Boomerang made a successful Antarctic long-duration balloon (LDB) flight in 2003 January and collected 11.7 days of data. MAXIPOL had a successful 26 hour flight in 2003 May from Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

The focal plane of Boomerang was reconfigured for its 2003 LDB flight with polarization-sensitive bolometer (PSB) elements. PSBs use a micro-mesh design like the spider-web bolometer design, except that the mesh is in a square grid. The grid is metalized in only one direction to absorb only one linear polarization state of the incident radiation. A pair of PSBs is formed by using two orthogonal elements separated by $`60\mu m`$. A pair of PSBs can then used with a single feed with the advantage that the pair share all the same optics, sidelobes, etc. Boomerang uses four horns to feed four PSB pairs operating at 145 GHz. In addition, there are four horns which each feed a bolometers at 245 GHz and 345 GHz to measure foreground emission from Galactic dust. For these channels, the polarization has been selected by a wire grid located in front of the horn. At 145 GHz, the resolution is $`9.5^{}`$ and the sensitivity of order 160 $`\mu K_{CMB}s^{1/2}`$. They observed a shallow region of 1161 square degrees and a deep region of 123 square degrees.

The MAXIMA experiment (Hanany et al., 2000) was converted to the polarimeter MAXIPOL by adding a rotating half-wave plate and fixed polarizing grids in front of the feed horns (Johnson et al., 2003). The half-wave plate spinning at two Hz causes the polarization sensitivity to be modulated at four Hz. Due to the rotating half-wave plate, all Stokes parameters are measured by each detector. While rotating half-wave plates have been used often in Galactic submillimeter observations, e.g., Hildebrand (2003), this would be the first successful implementation of the technique for CMB measurements. The MAXIPOL focal plane is cooled to 100 $`mK`$ and by scaling the previous MAXIMA sensitivities we can expect sensitivities of order 130 $`\mu K_{CMB}s^{1/2}`$ for each of the twelve 140 GHz channels. The beam size is $`10^{}`$ and the scan length is 2 degrees. MAXIPOL also has four 420 GHz channels to measure foreground polarization emission from Galactic dust.

The Boomerang and MAXIPOL experiments each have sufficient sensitivity to detect the $`E`$-mode polarization at intermediate angular scales; assuming the systematics are understood and controlled, the Boomerang sensitivity should allow the $`E`$-mode spectrum to be characterized beyond what has been reported by DASI.

### 4.2 Upcoming Experiments

#### 4.2.1 ground-based

Two new ground-based bolometric array polarimeters are being developed: BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization, Keating et al. (2003)) and QUEST (Q and U Extra-galactic Survey Telescope, Church et al. (2003)). BICEP is scheduled to deploy to the South Pole for observations starting in Austral Winter 2005. QUEST is expected to be mounted on the DASI telescope (hereafter referred to as QUAD for QUEST and DASI) and to also start observations in Austral Winter 2005<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1The QUEST radiometer and the optics, including the 2.6 meter Cassegrain reflector and secondary are funded, but at the time of this writing the proposal to NSF-OPP to deploy QUEST on DASI at the South Pole is pending..

The BICEP and QUAD experiments are in many ways companion experiments. Both exploit PSB detectors being developed at JPL and share many team members. They are also complementary in $`\mathrm{}`$ space, with BICEP targeting degree angular scales $`10<\mathrm{}<200`$ and QUAD targeting $`100<\mathrm{}<2000`$. The sensitivity of each experiment should allow the $`E`$-mode spectrum to be well characterized. Furthermore, QUAD should be able to detect the gravitational lensed $`B`$-mode spectrum. And, at degree angular scales, BICEP should be able to reach the required sensitivity either to detect the primordial gravitational wave $`B`$-mode signal, or to further constrain the inflationary energy scale, with the caveats that systematics must be controlled to unprecedented levels ($`<0.1\mu K`$) and that foregrounds must also be understood at these levels. In any case, we are likely to learn much from these instruments about the experimental and foreground challenges that will need to be met by extremely deep future CMB polarization measurements.

BICEP will consist of an array of 48 horns feeding PSB detector pairs, half at 100 GHz and half at 150 GHz with 1.0 and 0.7 resolution, respectively. The 150 GHz detectors are expected to have an sensitivity of 280 $`\mu K_{CMB}s^{1/2}`$. Cooled lenses form the optical system, providing a 20 degree field of view. The plan is to observe the South Celestial Pole with the optical boresight offset 5 to 25 from the zenith and rotating the entire array about the line of sight roughly once per minute. A novel ferrite Faraday modulator for each feed will be used to rotate the linear polarization.

QUAD (Church et al., 2003) consists of a radiometer similar to BICEP, but used at the Cassegrain focus of a 2.6-meter on-axis precision telescope. The secondary will be held by a low-loss foam cone as was done successfully for COMPASS (Farese et al., 2003) and CBI (Padin et al., 2002). The entire telescope will be mounted on the existing DASI mount, replacing the faceplate on which the DASI receivers and horns currently reside, as shown in Fig. 5. The QUEST focal plane consists of 12 PSB pairs at 100 GHz and 19 pairs at 150 GHz. The expected sensitivity is 300 $`\mu K_{CMB}s^{1/2}`$ at 150 GHz with a $`4^{}`$ beam. The DASI mount is fully steerable and also can be rotated along the line of sight. The latter feature will be used along with a rotating half-wave plate to modulate the polarization response. The half-wave plate will be not be synchronously rotated as for MAXIPOL, but rather set at a fixed angle for each scan.

The Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2see http://amiba.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw/) is being built for measurements of the fine-scale CMB temperature and polarization anisotropy as well as for observations of the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect. The project is led by the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan and the array will be deployed to Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Like the CBI, AMiBA is an interferometric array mounted on a common platform. The specifications call for 19 elements operating at 90 GHz with full polarization capabilities and a 20 GHz correlation bandwidth. Two sets of array dishes, 1.2 meter and 0.3 meter are planned. Initial observations targeting the $`E`$-mode spectrum with a subset of the array are planned to start in 2004.

#### 4.2.2 satellite-based

The Planck Surveyor <sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3see http://astro.esa.int/SA-general/Projects/Planck/ (Lamarre et al., 2003)) is a dedicated CMB satellite scheduled to launch in 2007 to measure the entire sky in nine frequency bands using coherent, HEMT-amplified radiometers at 30, 40 and 70 GHz and bolometric detectors at 100, 143, 217, 353, 545 and 857 GHz. While initially designed primarily for CMB temperature measurements, it has considerable polarization sensitivity. The HEMT amplifier correlation receivers are intrinsically polarized and there are 4 at 30 GHz, 6 at 44 GHz and 12 at 70 GHz (Mennella et al., 2003). The resolution provided by the single 1.5 meter aplanatic primary ranges from $`33^{}`$ to $`14^{}`$ across these bands. There are four unpolarized detectors for each of the bolometer bands, providing excellent frequency coverage and resolution of $`9.2^{}`$ at 100 GHz, $`7.1^{}`$ at 143 GHz, and $`5^{}`$ at all the higher frequency bands. The prime polarization sensitivity is provided by four PSB pairs for each of the 100, 143, 217 and 353 channels. The polarization sensitivity for the resulting Planck maps is expected to be of order 4 $`\mu K`$ per pixel for the 100 and 143 GHz maps over the entire sky. Comparing Planck to the expected state of the art for ground and balloon-borne experiments 5 years from now, is similar to comparing WMAP to existing experiments. The ground-based and balloon-borne experiments are expected to make deeper polarization maps but over much smaller regions. Planck’s coverage of the entire sky is unique and valuable and its wide frequency range will be unsurpassed for understanding foregrounds. Projections for Planck’s power spectrum results can be found in the excellent CMB review by Hu & Dodelson (2002).

Planck is the next generation satellite, both more ambitious and riskier than WMAP. WMAP was designed with emphasis on control of systematics and calibration even at the expense of sensitivity. There are no active coolers (or heaters) on WMAP and as a result the focal plane runs warmer than optimum. To achieve high sensitivity Planck’s bolometers require active cooling. WMAP used correlation radiometers with receivers fed by completely separate telescopes pointing 140 degrees apart on the sky, providing simultaneous differencing on these scales. Planck has a single optical system and focal plane shared by coherent and bolometric radiometers. On large scales, it will be difficult to match the precision of WMAP. On small angular scales and for polarization measurements, however, the Planck sensitivity is necessary and will allow significant improvements to be made over WMAP. At these scales and sensitivities, the wide frequency coverage of Planck will also be invaluable for understanding foregrounds.

### 4.3 Future Experiments

The current and planned experiments will measure CMB polarization with unprecedented sensitivity. In addition, these experiments will teach us a great deal about the efficacy of new techniques and detectors, about the ability to control systematics and, of course, about astronomical foregrounds.

We are on the cusp of major advances in detector technology both in large-format bolometer arrays and in coherent detector arrays<sup>4</sup><sup>4</sup>4 see http://www.sofia.usra.edu/det\_workshop/ for a current review of detector technology. Using integrated circuit technologies it will shortly be possible to build correlation receivers on a single chip (Gaier et al., 2003); it is possible to conceive of a CAPMAP-like experiment with hundreds of radiometers. The ease of duplicating receivers can also be applied for future interferometers. Interferometers, however, will be limited by the size of broad bandwidth correlators (the correlator scales as $`N^2`$, where $`N`$ is the number of array elements). One can conceive of scaling the DASI and CBI design (Padin et al., 2001) for $`100`$ receivers, but much larger correlators will require further advances in correlator technology.

Large format arrays for bolometers are now possible using both “pop-up” arrays developed at NASA/GSFC (e.g., Dowell et al., 2003) and monolithic arrays developed at Caltech/JPL (e.g., Glenn et al., 2003). The current push in bolometer array technology is directed at micro-machined planar arrays with superconducting transition-edge sensors (TES) with multiplexed readouts. Current arrays of order 1000 channels are being developed and much larger arrays will be possible with this technology. The next step being actively pursued is large format arrays of superconducting microstrip, antenna-coupled bolometer detectors (e.g., Goldin et al., 2003). The antenna-coupled technology offers great flexibility; the elements can be configured for dual polarization and support several frequency channels.

New telescopes are required to take advantage of the new bolometer arrays and at least three are in various stages of planning. The South Pole Telescope (SPT)<sup>5</sup><sup>5</sup>5 Collaboration led by the University of Chicago and including the University of California, Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University, University of Illinois at Urbana and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is an 8-meter, precision, off-axis telescope funded by NSF-OPP to be deployed to the South Pole station in late 2006 and equipped with a 1000-element bolometric radiometer. A large focal plane polarimeter is planned for the SPT, but is not currently funded.

Planning is underway for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT Kosowsky, 2003), a 6 meter off-axis telescope planned for Chile which could also be equipped with a polarimeter. Finally, planning is also underway for Polarbear, a 3 meter off-axis telescope dedicated to CMB polarization measurements with a large array (1000 to 3000 elements) of polarization-sensitive antenna-coupled bolometers (Tran, 2003).

The most ambitious plan on the horizon is for a dedicated CMB polarization satellite to conduct the definitive search, i.e., foreground-limited, for the signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the CMB, i.e., to measure the gravitational wave $`B`$-mode spectrum. It is the goal of the Inflation Probe of NASA’s Beyond Einstein program<sup>6</sup><sup>6</sup>6http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/. NASA plans to fund of order three studies toward the eventual launch of a $350M to $500M Inflation Probe.

## 5 Conclusions

The detection of CMB polarization marks the beginning of a new era in CMB measurements and for cosmology. With the first detection of $`E`$-modes and the $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation, the standard model has a passed a critical test, and already the large-angle $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐸}`$ correlation is pointing the way to a revised understanding of the reionization history of the universe.

Polarization measurements are now at a turning point reached by temperature anisotropy measurements a decade ago, when they were first detected by COBE and FIRS (Smoot et al., 1992; Ganga et al., 1993); as was the case with the temperature measurements, we can count on rapid progress in the characterization of the CMB polarization. The $`E`$-mode spectrum should be well measured by ground-based and balloon-borne experiments, and the Planck Surveyor satellite over the next several years. A few experiments now underway should already be capable of measuring the gravitationally lensed $`B`$-mode spectrum, and possibly even the gravitational wave $`B`$-mode spectrum.

It is unreasonable, however, to expect that increased instrument sensitivity alone will allow the detection of these extremely weak signals. At the required sensitivity levels, systematics will be much harder to control and contamination from astronomical foregrounds will be much more severe. The need for several independent experiments using different techniques including ground, balloon and eventually satellite-based instruments is even more important than it was for the temperature CMB measurements. Continued exploratory work with new techniques and with ever more sensitive detectors is necessary to ensure the eventual success of NASA’s Inflation Probe.

We thank the organizers and staff for a stimulating and well run workshop. This work is supported in part by NSF grants 0094541 and 0096913.