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# Instanton contribution to the pion and proton electro-magnetic formfactors at 𝑄²≳1GeV²

## I Introduction

The transition from the non-perturbative to the perturbative regime of QCD is fundamental to our understanding of the strong interactions. For this purpose, the study of exclusive electro-magnetic reactions at intermediate and high momenta plays a prominent role. As for structure functions from inclusive deep inelastic processes, elastic and transition formfactors encode valuable information about the short-distance structure of the hadrons. In contrast, however, exclusive reactions are sensitive to the non-perturbative forces responsible for the recombination of the scattered partons into the final state.

It is now becoming clear that the asymptotic perturbative regime is not yet reached in the electro-magnetic formfactors, even at surprisingly large momentum transfers. This conclusion follows form the results of two high-precision experiments performed at Jefferson Laboratory (JLAB), namely the measurement of the formfactor of the charged pion and of the ratio of electric to magnetic formfactors $`G_E(Q^2)/G_M(Q^2)`$ for the proton. The pion formfactor has been measured very accurately for momentum transfers $`0.6\text{GeV}^2<Q^2<1.6\text{GeV}^2`$ by the $`F_\pi `$ collaboration jlab . Not only are the data at highest experimentally accessible momenta still very far from the asymptotic limit, but also the trend is away from the perturbative QCD (PQCD) prediction (see Fig. 1). This observation contrasts the result of the CLEO experiment for the $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi ^0`$ neutral pion transition formfactor, where the asymptotic PQCD regime is reached already for $`Q^22\text{GeV}^2`$ CLEO .

The ratio $`\mu G_E(Q^2)/G_M(Q^2)`$ for the proton ($`\mu `$ is the magnetic moment) has been obtained from recoil polarization measurements up to $`Q^2<5.6\text{GeV}^2`$ JLAB1 ; JLAB2 . At low momenta, this ratio approaches 1, supporting the older SLAC results, which lead to the conclusion that the proton electric and magnetic formfactors can be very well described by the same dipole fit, $`G_{E(M)dip}^p=e(\mu )/(1+Q^2/M_{dip}^2)^2`$ with $`M_{dip}=0.84\text{GeV}`$. However, at larger momenta, $`Q^22\text{GeV}^2`$, the electric formfactor falls off faster than the magnetic one, and the ratio $`\mu G_E(Q^2)/G_M(Q^2)`$ decreases significantly, in disagreement however with results based on the Rosenbluth separation method.

The slope of the ratio $`\mu G_E(Q^2)/G_M(Q^2)`$ versus $`Q^2`$ is sizable and indicates that the asymptotic prediction is not supported by the available experimental data. In fact, the naive $`Q^2`$ power counting predicts the same scaling in $`Q^2`$ for both electric and magnetic formfactors.

It is natural to ask what dynamics is responsible for the deviation from the asymptotic behavior. By comparing the formfactor of the charged pion to the neutral pion transition formfactor, one concludes that strong non-perturbative dynamics is at work in the former reaction and that it is much weaker in the transition formfactor. Such dynamics must be responsible for delaying the onset of the perturbative regime in the formfactor of the charged pion.

An important question to address is to what extent the observed behavior of the pion and proton formfactors can be understood in terms of the non-perturbative dynamics associated with the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry. Clearly, one expects that these forces should play a prominent role in the pion formfactor, due to its Goldstone boson nature. They similarly influence the proton formfactors. This is most evident in the small momentum regime, where a dynamically generated quark mass provides a source for quark helicity flip, therefore contributing to the Pauli formfactor $`F_2(Q^2)=(G_M(Q^2)G_E(Q^2))/(1+Q^2/(4M^2))`$.

Instantons are non-perturbative gauge configurations which have been shown to play an important role in the dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry (dyakonovchiral ; shuryakrev  for a recent study see also scalar ), as they naturally generate a density of quasi-zero modes of the Dirac operator. These gluon fields are related to the tunneling between degenerate vacua of QCD. In order to account for their contribution to the correlation functions in QCD, one needs to know how often a tunneling event occurs (i.e., the typical instanton density, $`\overline{n}`$) and how long it lasts for (i.e., the typical instanton size, $`\overline{\rho }`$). In the Instanton Liquid Model (ILM), these parameters are extracted phenomenologically from the global properties of the QCD vacuum shuryak82 . This leads to $`\overline{n}1\text{fm}^4`$ and $`\overline{\rho }1/3\text{fm}`$.

The instanton contribution to the pion and nucleon formfactors has been the subject of several studies over the last few years. Early analyses, however, were either model-dependent or could only make indirect contact with experiments. In forkel , Forkel and Nielsen computed the pion formfactor in a sum-rule approach, which takes into account the instanton contribution in the operator product expansion. As in sum-rule approaches, this calculation required a phenomenological description of the continuum of excitations. In order to avoid this model dependence, the relevant electro-magnetic pion and proton three-point functions were calculated in coordinate space in blotz ; 3ptILM . The result can then be compared to phenomenological estimates of the same correlation functions, obtained by Fourier transforming fits of the experimental data. In this way, the unknown contribution from the continuum of excitations could be excluded by considering sufficiently large-sized correlation functions. Unfortunately, this method has the shortcoming that it does not allow a direct comparison of the theoretical predictions in coordinate space to the experimental data.

A direct comparison between ILM predictions and experiments became possible by combining the Single-Instanton-Approximation (SIA) developed in SIA ; thesis  with the mixed time-momentum representation widely used in lattice calculations draper89 . This lead to predictions for the pion and nucleon formfactors pionFF ; nucleonFF , and the pion and nucleon correlators, with particular attention to their energy dispersions mymasses . The SIA is an effective theory of the ILM, in which the degrees of freedom of the instanton closest to the propagating quarks are treated explicitly, while the contribution of all other pseudo-particles in the vacuum is encoded in a single parameter, the quark effective mass SIA . The combined framework has the advantage that one can compute correlation functions in momentum space, which include the dominant short-distance effects. Moreover, this approach does not have the above discussed model dependences. Clearly, in the SIA it is possible to compute accurately only correlation functions which are dominated by single-instanton effects. This, for example, prevents one from making predictions in the small-momentum regime, typically below $`1\text{GeV}`$ (for a detailed discussion see mymasses ).

## II Pion and nucleon formfactors in the SIA

The details of the calculation of the formfactors in the SIA are given in pionFF ; nucleonFF . The formfactors are obtained from appropriate ratios of three- to two-point correlation functions. For example, the pion formfactor is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{G_4^{(3)}(t,𝐪/2;t,𝐪/2)}{G^{(2)}(2t,𝐪/2)}}F_\pi (Q^2),`$ (1)
where $`G_4^{(3)}`$ denotes the pion three-point correlator with fourth component of the electro-magnetic current. In the time-momentum representation, the three-point function $`G_\mu ^{(3)}`$ is given by

$`G_\mu ^{(3)}(t,𝐩+𝐪;t,𝐩)={\displaystyle d^3𝐱d^3𝐲e^{i𝐩𝐱+i(𝐩+𝐪)𝐲}0|j_5(t,𝐲)J_\mu (0,\mathrm{𝟎})j_5^{}(t,𝐱)|0}.`$ (2)
In the ratio for the formfactor, Eq. (1), the propagation of a pion which is struck by a virtual photon is normalized by the propagation in the absence of the external probe. To this end, one needs the pion two-point correlator $`G^{(2)}`$, which is defined analogously

$`G^{(2)}(2t,𝐩)={\displaystyle d^3𝐱e^{i𝐩𝐱}0|j_5(t,𝐱)j_5^{}(t,\mathrm{𝟎})|0}.`$ (3)
Here, the pseudo-scalar current $`j_5(x)=\overline{u}(x)i\gamma _5d(x)`$ excites states with the quantum numbers of the pion and $`J_\mu (0)`$ denotes the electro-magnetic current operator. Similar expressions lead to the nucleon formfactors nucleonFF . We also note that this method does not require the wave function of the hadron as input.

Let us first discuss the results obtained for the pion formfactor pionFF . The SIA prediction is shown in Fig. 1 in comparison to the JLAB data and the monopole fit. For momenta where the SIA is a valid approximation, we observe that our results are consistent with the available experimental data, and coincide with the monopole form in the kinematic region accessible to JLAB. This result complements the analysis of Blotz and Shuryak blotz , where a similar agreement with the monopole fit was found at small momentum transfers. Clearly, upcoming measurements at JLAB will be able to test the single-instanton prediction as the microscopic non-perturbative mechanism at intermediate momentum transfers.

We find that the single-instanton contribution remains well above the PQCD prediction, throughout the region under present and upcoming investigations at JLAB. This nicely contrasts the situation for the $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi ^0`$ transition formfactor, where the asymptotic PQCD regime is reached already for $`Q^22\text{GeV}^2`$ CLEO . This striking difference is explained by instanton arguments as well, since the three-point function in this case has a different chiral structure. As a result, the instanton contribution to the $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi ^0`$ reaction is suppressed with respect to the corresponding contribution to the formfactor of the charged pion. Physically, this is the same reason why the vector and axial channels have a rather strong “Zweig” rule, forbidding flavor mixing, while for the pseudo-scalars such a mixing is very strong.

Next, we consider the results for the formfactors of the proton. In nucleonFF , the electric formfactor was computed in the same approach. We found that the SIA prediction roughly followed the dipole fit. In order to extend the calculation to the magnetic formfactor, one needs to identify a suitable three-point function which relates directly to the physical formfactor and also receives a maximally enhanced single-instanton contribution. The correlation function satisfying these requirements is given by

$`G_2^{(3)M}(t,𝐪/2;t,𝐪/2)={\displaystyle d^3𝐱d^3𝐲e^{i𝐪(𝐱+𝐲)/2}0|\text{Tr}[\eta _{sc}(t,𝐲)J_2(0,\mathrm{𝟎})\overline{\eta }_{sc}(t,𝐱)\gamma _2]|0},`$ (4)
where $`𝐪`$ is chosen along the $`\widehat{\mathrm{𝟏}}`$ direction and $`\eta _{sc}(x)=ϵ^{abc}[u_a^T(x)C\gamma _5d_b(x)]u_c(x)`$ is the nucleon scalar current, which excites states with the quantum numbers of the proton ($`C`$ is the charge conjugation matrix).

Although the SIA leads to reasonable results for both formfactors, it turns out that $`G_E(Q^2)`$ and $`G_M(Q^2)`$ receive rather large contributions from many-instanton effects, even for relatively high momenta, $`Q^214\text{GeV}^2`$, where one would naively expect the single-instanton contribution to be dominant. However, by analyzing the SIA contribution to the relevant three-point correlators, we have found that the single-instanton contribution to the Dirac formfactor $`F_1(Q^2)=(G_E(Q^2)+Q^2/(4M^2)G_M(Q^2))/(1+Q^2/(4M^2))`$ is enhanced and gives a realistic $`F_1(Q^2)`$ already for $`Q^21\text{GeV}^2`$, while the SIA contribution to the Pauli formfactor $`F_2(Q^2)`$ is suppressed. As a consequence, in the SIA one should only expect to obtain a realistic prediction for the electric and magnetic formfactors in the kinematic region where the Dirac formfactor dominates over the Pauli formfactor.

The SIA prediction for $`F_1(Q^2)`$ is presented in Fig. 2. These are preliminary novel results. The details of this calculation will be reported in a separate publication F1pub . The agreement between the theoretical calculation and the extracted experimental data is striking. This implies that the ’t Hooft interaction is able to account for the important non-perturbative dynamics in the proton.

Finally, we qualitatively discuss the instanton contributions to the Pauli formfactor $`F_2(Q^2)`$ of the proton, which receives large contributions from two- and more instantons and thus cannot be addressed in the SIA. The instanton contributions to the Pauli formfactor arise from these collective many-instanton effects, which scale with the square root of the instanton diluteness. The dominant of such instanton-induced collective phenomena is the dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry, which gives rise to a momentum-dependent effective quark mass. Moreover, it has been recently shown by Kochelev that quarks in the instanton vacuum acquire an intrinsic Pauli formfactor kochelev . It was observed that the size of the constituent quarks and the sign of their formfactor agree with the values extracted phenomenologically by Petronzio et al. simula1 . Both quark effective masses and the Pauli formfactor of the constituent quarks enhance the helicity-flipping transitions, and therefore contribute to $`F_2(Q^2)`$. A realistic assessment of the contributions of many-instanton effects to the Pauli formfactor of the proton requires challenging numerical simulations in the ILM, which are currently being performed.

## III Conclusions

We have reported our recent results for the instanton contribution to the pion and proton electro-magnetic formfactors. These are the lightest meson and baryon in the spectrum, where the instanton-induced effects are largest. The SIA makes it possible to perform the calculations for the formfactors directly in momentum space. Our results depend only on two phenomenological parameters of the ILM, which are fixed from global properties of the QCD vacuum.222Note that the SIA prediction of the pion formfactor does not depend on the instanton density, but only on the instanton size, which is extracted from lattice simulations The SIA results agree with experiment, where the corresponding correlators receive contributions from a single instanton. This is the case for the electro-magnetic formfactor of the pion and the Dirac formfactor of the proton. Moreover, the SIA makes predictions for the kinematic regime under investigation at JLAB and constrains the onset of the asymptotic PQCD regime to relatively high momenta for the pion formfactor. Our results imply that instanton-induced forces are able to account for the electro-magnetic structure of the light hadrons at short distances.

Studying the instanton-induced contribution to the hadron formfactors is also important from a broader standpoint, in order to understand the transition from the non-perturbative to the perturbative regime of QCD. We have shown that the ’t Hooft interaction provides an explanation why the perturbative regime is reached much later in the pion formfactor than for the $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi _0`$ transition formfactor. In order to study the effect of instantons on the electro-magnetic formfactor of the proton in the same transition window as for the pion formfactor, one has to evaluate the Pauli formfactor, $`F_2(Q^2)`$, in the ILM. This problem is currently under numerical investigation.


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# Does GRS 1915+105 exhibit ”canonical” black-hole states?

## 1 Introduction

Black-hole candidates are observed to go through different states (van der Klis 1995, Tanaka & Shibazaki 1996, Liang 1998). The source state is defined by certain combinations of the value of the model parameters that are used to account for the X-ray timing and spectral properties. Since similar combinations of the spectral and timing parameters are seen in most black-hole systems the term ”canonical” has been coined to designate those states that are common to many systems (Miyamoto et al. 1992). The four canonical states, in addition to quiescence, that have been recognised are distinguished by the presence or absence of a soft component, normally modelled as a multi-colour black body component at energies below 5 keV (Mitsuda et al. 1984 but see Merloni et al. 2000), by the luminosity and spectral slope of the emission at higher energies and by the different shapes and characteristic frequencies of the QPO and noise components. These are the low/hard (LS; Tananbaum et al. 1972), intermediate (IS; Belloni et al. 1997c, Méndez and van der Klis 1997, Belloni et al. 1996), high/soft (HS; Tananbaum et al. 1972) and very high states (VHS; Miyamoto et al. 1991, Ebisawa et al. 1994). Recent work (Rutledge et al. 1999, Homan et al. 2001) has shown that the intermediate state (IS) and the very high state (VHS) most likely represent the same state. Initially, these states were simply distinguished because in time the IS occurred in transitions between the low state (LS) and the high state (HS). The same spectral and timing properties seen at a count rate above that of the HS in a given source were called VHS properties. However, since the VHS can be found at different flux levels there is no need for two separate states.

GRS 1915+105 displays an extraordinary richness in variability, with regular and stable behaviour interspersed with flaring activity. Belloni et al. (2000, hereafter B00) analysed a large set of observations of GRS 1915+105 and classified them in 12 separate classes, based on their light curves and colour-colour diagram (one more class was identified by Klein-Wolt et al. 2002). Despite this complex X-ray behaviour the variability of the source can be understood as transitions between three basic states: states A and B exhibit a soft spectrum, state B having a higher count rate and a slightly harder spectrum than state A. State C is characterised by a low count rate and hard spectrum (B00, see also Markwardt et al. 1999). The transitions between these states can be very fast (seconds). States A and C may appear as short ($`<`$ 100 s) or long (days) intervals. In contrast, the source never stays in the B state for more than a few hundreds of seconds. Ten of the twelve classes are characterised by repeating patterns of transitions between two, or all three, of the states. There are, however, two classes, class $`\varphi `$ and $`\chi `$ which do not show state transitions (B00). They are characterised by the absence of large amplitude variations or patterned variability. Class $`\varphi `$ is associated with state A only and class $`\chi `$ shows characteristics exclusively of state C. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether we can establish, observationally, a relation between the three states observed in GRS 1915+105 and the ”canonical” states of other black-hole systems. A timing analysis of some of these classes and the implications on various corona models has recently been presented by Ji et al. (2003).

## 2 Observations

We have chosen $`RXTE`$ PCA observations that represent the three basic states of B00. These three states occur for various durations in the large number of variability classes. The fourth column of Table 1 indicates from which class the basic states were extracted. Obs. 2 contains a smooth transition between state A and B, virtually impossible to separate. If one arbitrary cuts the AB interval into two halves and assumes that one half represents state A and the other half state B then the results of the spectral fitting for both states agree within the errors. All three states show variations in count rate by a factor of two over the time analysed in this work. However, on average state B is brighter than state C and it, in turn, is brighter than state A.

Figure 1 shows the one-day average All Sky Monitor (ASM) light curve of GRS 1915+105. The period covered by the observations is marked by two dotted lines in the upper panel. An enlargement of that interval is shown in the lower panel. The dots represent the initial time of the individual observations.

A soft (HR1) and a hard (HR2) X-ray colour were defined as the ratio of the intensity 5-13 keV over 2-5 keV and 13-60 keV over 2-5 keV, respectively. The colour-colour diagram (CD), shown in the upper panel of Fig. 2, clearly separates the observations in three branches which correspond to each one of the states. Different symbols represent the different states: circles for A, squares for B and triangles for C. The short state A (Obs. 25) is marked by an filled circle and Obs. 2, which contains a transition between states A and B by a filled square. The dashed lines show the positions corresponding to model spectra that generally describe the energy spectrum (disk-blackbody and power law, see B00 for a description of the CD). The points along the disc-blackbody (DBB) line represent steps of 0.1 keV in $`kT`$. The points along the power law (PL) line correspond to changes in photon index by steps of 0.1. The absorption was fixed to $`N_H=6.0\times 10^{22}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup>. The pattern traced by GRS 1915+105 in the CD is reminiscent of the comb-like structure reported by Homan et al. (2001, Fig. 3) for XTE J1550–564. The main difference is that the points in the hard branch lie above the power-law line and not below as in XTE J1550–564. This could be due to a higher disk blackbody temperature.

## 3 Power spectra

Power spectra were obtained by dividing the light curves into 256-s segments and calculating the Fourier spectrum of each segment. The time resolution was 1/512 seconds, giving a Nyquist frequency of 256 Hz. Given the shorter duration of the B-state and short A-state observations 16-s segments were used in those cases. Only photons with energies in the range 2–13 keV (PCA channels 0–34, PCA epoch 3) were accumulated. Finally, the power spectra of each segment were averaged together and logarithmically rebinned to produce one power spectrum for each observation.

The power spectrum of the observations in the soft branch (state A) is characterised by a strong red-noise component (Fig. 3). However, a single power-law function does not fit the data well. Instead, a broken power law plus one Lorentzian component with frequency in the range 1–3 Hz are required. The peaked noise is normally accompanied by one harmonic. In Obs. 3-4, an extra broad component at around 0.07 Hz is needed in order to obtain an acceptable fit. The central frequency of the main peaked noise component decreased with time from $``$ 2 Hz to $``$ 1 Hz. The Q-value (the central frequency divided by the FWHM) was $`<1`$, that is, lower than the generally accepted value of 2 to be considered as a QPO. The break frequency is always above the peak frequency and varies in the range 8-13 Hz. In this state as the 2–13 keV count rate increased, the fractional root-mean-squared (rms) amplitude in the frequency range 0.01–20 Hz increased as well. The power spectrum of the short A state can be fit by a single power law, i.e., with no break. The power spectrum of the B state is qualitatively similar to that of state A (Fig. 3), although no broad Lorentzian component is required.

In the hard branch (state C), the power spectra contain a strong band-limited noise component together with one QPO peak (occasionally with some harmonics) in the frequency range 0.01–10 Hz (Fig. 3). The power spectrum is flat below the QPO frequency and steepens to a power law above the QPO frequency. As the 2–13 keV count rate increases, the frequency of the QPO increases and its amplitude (rms) decreases. As the source becomes harder the rms amplitude increases whereas the QPO frequency decreases. As in state A a broken power law describing the continuum and one or two Lorentzians modelling the QPO feature and its harmonics were used to fit the power spectra. The value of the break frequency is lower in state C (1–4 Hz) than in state A (8–13 Hz). Table 1 shows the results of the power spectral fits.

## 4 Connection with canonical states

From the point of view of the timing analysis the power spectra of states A and B are almost indistinguishable and very similar to the power-law like power spectrum of other black-hole candidates that have gone through the VHS: GX 339-4 (Miyamoto et al. 1991), GS 1124–68 (Miyamoto et al. 1994; Takizawa et al. 1997), GRO J1655–40 (Méndez et al. 1998). The red- and peaked-noise components and an amplitude of variability in the range 7–10% are all properties of the VHS, when the energy spectrum is soft. As the source becomes harder, i.e, as the source enters the C state, QPOs in the frequency range 1–10 Hz and flat-top noise show up in the power spectra. The shape of the power spectra now resembles that of Cyg X–1 (Belloni et al. 1996), GRO J1655–40 (Méndez et al. 1998), XTE J1748–288 (Revnivtsev et al. 2000) in a IS/VHS.

The GRS 1915+105 observations of June 29 and July 3 present the lowest HR1 ratio ($`0.8`$), i.e. they show the softest energy spectrum, among all the observations in this paper. In these two observations the source shows characteristics that approach that of the HS: GRO J1655–40 (Méndez et al. 1998), GS 1124–68 (Miyamoto et al. 1993) or GX 339–4 (Belloni et al. 1999), namely, a weak noise component, the absence of QPO, soft spectrum and red noise in the form of a power law. However, the fact that the source never reaches the disc blackbody curve (Fig. 2) and that the rms amplitude is still rather high (5-7%) preclude the association of these observations with the canonical HS.

Although the properties of the radio emission have not been traditionally used to define the source states it is worth pointing out that in state C, GRS 1915+105 is a source of strong radio emission (Naik & Rao 2000; Muno et al. 2001, Klein-Wolt et al. 2002). In this state the optically thick radio emission has been shown to originate in a compact jet (Dhawan et al. 2000). Since radio jets in black-hole candidates have been detected in the LS only (Fender 2001), one may wonder whether state C of GRS 1915+105 resembles the canonical LS. The answer is that neither the fractional rms, QPO frequency or break frequency of the flat-top noise component that characterise state C in GRS 1915+105 lie in the range of those found in the canonical LS: the frequencies are too high and the rms amplitude too low.

## 5 Discussion

GRS 1915+105 is unusual among black-hole systems because of its extreme variability (B00 and references therein) and its long periods of X-ray activity. GRS 1915+105 was discovered as an X-ray transient (Castro-Tirado et al. 1994) but it has been detected persistently since then. Permanent X-ray emission is a characteristic of black-hole binaries with massive companions (Cyg X–1, LMC X–1 and LMC X–3). In contrast, all confirmed low-mass black-hole binaries are transients. GRS 1915+105 contains a K-MIII star (Greiner et al. 2001).

A proposed model for the interpretation of the X-ray variability involves the disappearing and subsequent refilling of the inner region of an accretion disk due to the onset of a thermal/viscous instability (Belloni et al. 1997a; 1997b). This effect, not observed in other sources on similarly short time scales, led B00 to define three states, A, B and C based on the X-ray hardness of the source and its position in the colour-colour diagram. State C was interpreted as corresponding to the unobservability of the inner portion of the accretion disc, whereas in states A and B the disc would be seen up to the last stable orbit. The association of the flat-top power spectrum of GRS 1915+105 (state C) with the canonical VHS has already been suggested (Morgan et al. 1997; Paul et al. 1997), although the notion of state C came only later. States A and B have not been explored as such and their timing association with black hole states is new.

In Table 2 a comparison of the timing and spectral parameters of each state in GRS 1915+105 with respect to average values found in other black-hole systems is presented. The properties of states A and B agree well with the canonical VHS even though they do not exhibit proper low-frequency QPOs (in the sense of having a Q-value greater than 2). State C, which does show QPOs, shows a prominent thermal component and strong radio emission. Also, the power spectrum is power-law like for states A and B and flat-top like for state C. No correlation is found between the shape of the noise and the count rate. These relatively rapid changes (hours to days) of the continuum of the power spectrum of GRS 1915+105 have been seen in other systems. During a VHS the power spectrum of GX 339–4 (Miyamoto et al. 1991) and of GS 1124–683 (Miyamoto et al. 1993, Takizawa et al. 1997) manifested two different shapes according to the fraction of X-ray photons in the power-law energy spectral component. A flat-top shape was obtained when there was a substantial amount of counts contributing to the power-law in the energy spectrum. When this component was weak the power spectra turned into a power-law shape, that is, the same behaviour as in GRS 1915+105.

If one looks into the current models that have been put forward to explain the phenomenology of the spectral states in black-hole candidates, it is possible to understand why GRS 1915+105 is not so different from other ”well-behaved” systems. Although no current model can explain the whole phenomenology of this type of systems, it is suggested that in the LS the accretion disc stops at a certain distance from the black hole, whereas in the HS the disc extends all the way to the last stable orbit (Chen & Taam 1996; Esin et al. 1997; Zhang et al. 1997). States A and B, being associated with the observability of the entire disc, can be identified with high-flux states, i.e., the VHS. Likewise, given that state C corresponds to the lack of the inner part of the accretion disc, is perhaps not surprising that it presents some similarities with the canonical LS. The fact that the canonical HS is not seen in either of the three states implies that the power-law tail, whose absence characterises the HS energy spectra of black-hole systems at higher energies, must always play a strong role in GRS 1915+105. In short, as in canonical sources the variations in the value of the innermost radius of the accretion disc determine the transition between the states. However, in GRS 1915+105 these variations move all in the range of the VHS.

## 6 Conclusion

The analysis of the aperiodic variability and spectral hardness of GRS 1915+105 reveals canonical behaviour but also a number of peculiar properties compared to other black-hole candidates. The source spends most of its life in a sort of very high state, showing complex variability. Occasionally, it transits to a hard, but not necessarily low state where the flux remains stable and no patterned variability is seen, and where the source can stay for tens of days. The continuum power spectra can be described by two different shapes according to the hardness of the spectrum: flat-top noise, which appears when the spectrum is hard, and power-law noise when the spectrum is softer. Such behaviour has been seen in other black-hole systems during the very high state. No correlation of the shape of the noise with count rate is seen.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the referee B. Paul for his suggestions that improved the presentation of the paper. PR is a researcher of the programme Ramón y Cajal funded by the Spanish Ministery of Science & Technology and by the University of Valencia. The authors also acknowledge partial support via the European Union Training and Mobility of Researchers Network Grant ERBFMRX/CT98/0195. TB acknowledges the Cariplo Foundation for financial support. This research has made use of data obtained through the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Online Service, provided by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.


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# Controllable Josephson current through a pseudo-spin-valve structure

## Abstract

A thin Co/Cu/Permalloy (Ni80Fe20) pseudo-spin-valve structure is sandwiched between superconducting Nb contacts. When the current is passed perpendicular to the plane of the film a Josephson critical current ($`I_C`$) is observed at 4.2 K, in addition to a magnetoresistance (MR) of $``$ 0.5 % at high bias. The hysteresis loop of the spin-valve structure can be cycled to modulate the zero field $`I_C`$ of the junction in line with the MR measurements. These modulations of resistance and $`I_C`$ occur both smoothly and sharply with the applied field. For each type of behaviour there is a strong correlation between shape of the MR loops and the $`I_C`$ modulation.

Josephson junction, pseudo-spin-valve

Josephson junctions with ferromagnetic barriers (SFS) have been investigated recently using weak ferromagnets. Due to the oscillating superconducting order parameter in the F layer, the groundstate phase difference of the S electrodes was found to change from 0 to $`\pi `$ (a so-called $`\pi `$-junction) as a function of temperature and F thickness Ryazanov et al. (2001); Kontos et al. (2001). SFS junctions have also been fabricated with the strong ferromagnets Ni Blum et al. (2002) and Co Sürgers et al. (2002). In the above cases the F layer has a profound effect on the properties of the junction. Using an F layer to controllably alter the properties of a Josephson junction is important for a fundamental understanding of the physics, but also has potential applications as a memory element.

In this Letter we extend the work on single F layer junctions and examine a S/pseudo-spin-valve (PSV)/S Josephson junction. The PSV consisted of two F layers with different coercive fields, separated by a Cu spacer. This artifical structure allows active control of the magnetic state of the barrier. In contrast to previous relatively large SFS junctions where the F layer was demagnetised, here we actively pursue inhomogeneous magnetic structure. The magnetoresistance (MR) of the PSV gives direct access to information about relative orientation of the Co and Py layers, and the magnetic state of the barrier. The junction dimensions were such that the field $`H`$ required to switch the F layers at 4.2 K is comparable to the $`I_C(H)`$ modulation period. The PSV structure with no antiferromagnetic pinning layer avoids the strong reduction of critical current density $`J_C`$ found in for example $`\gamma `$-FeMn Josephson junctions Bell et al. (in press). We will show that $`I_C`$ can be controlled by putting the PSV into the parallel and anti-parallel remenant states.

Nb/Py/Cu/Co/Nb films were deposited on (100) oxidised silicon substrates by d.c. magnetron sputtering at 0.5 Pa, in an in-plane magnetic field $`\mu _0H40`$ mT. The sputtering system was cooled with liquid nitrogen and had a base pressure better than $`3\times 10^9`$ mbar. The Nb thicknesses were 180 nm and Cu spacer thickness was 8 nm, (to avoid significant ‘orange peel’ magneto-static coupling between F layers). The Co and Py layers which showed a Josephson current were of the order of 1 nm and 1.6 nm respectively. The films were patterned to micron scale wires with broad beam Ar ion milling (1 mAcm-2, 500 V), and then processed with a Ga focused ion beam to achieve vertical transport with a device area in the range $`0.21`$ $`\mu `$m2. The fabrication process is described in detail elsewhere Bell et al. (2003).

Transport measurements were made in a liquid He dip probe. For the $`I_C(H)`$ and $`R(H)`$ measurements a quasi-d.c. ($`15`$ Hz) $`IV`$ was directly measured and $`I_C`$ extracted using a voltage criterion. The $`R(H)`$ measurements used a bias current of $`23`$ mA, which is much greater than $`I_C`$, but less than the critical current of the Nb electrodes. The magnetic field was applied in-plane in the direction of the applied field during deposition. As seen in the relatively thick device in Fig. 1, the $`R(H)`$ and $`M(H)`$ measurements are consistent with one another as expected. For the thinner F layers, Figs. 2 and 3 show the two different behaviours of $`R(H)`$. The sudden jumps in Fig. 3 compared to the smooth variation of $`R`$ in Fig. 2 can be explained by sudden switches of a small number of domains in the barrier. The crossover from smooth to sharp $`R(H)`$ switching takes place as the junction area $`A`$ is reduced below $``$ 0.45 $`\mu `$m2, but is not strongly dependent on the device aspect ratio, (the aspect ratio is the junction dimension perpendicular to the deposition field / dimension parallel to it). In both cases, despite the different $`R(H)`$ behaviour, MR = ($`R_{\mathrm{max}}`$-$`R_{\mathrm{min}}`$) / $`R_{\mathrm{max}}`$ of the order of 0.5 % was obtained for the devices in this work. The MR is consistent with the F layer and spacer thicknesses Slater et al. (2001). The $`I_C(H)`$ is not a ‘sinc’ function as seen in uniform junctions, and is hysteretic in the same sense as the MR measurements (inset of Fig. 2). In this case the junction dimension in direction perpendicular to the field is 320 nm. The first minima of the $`I_C(H)`$ pattern for this junction dimension with a non-magnetic barrier would be expected at $`\mu _0H`$ $``$ 60 mT:Bell et al. (in press) hence there is extra complication added by the magnetic barrier.

To avoid this added complexity ‘zero field’ $`I_C`$ was also measured. Hence the device was prepared in distinct remenant states. To achieve this a saturating field of $`\pm `$ 30 mT was first applied. A field $`H_{\mathrm{SET}}`$, was then applied in the opposite direction. The field was then reduced to zero. The differential resistance as a function of bias current of the junction was then made with a lock-in amplifier, and the $`I_C`$ found. In this way the parallel and anti-parallel remenant state $`I_C`$s were measured. Hence ‘applied field’ in Figs. 2 and 3 for the ‘zero field $`I_C`$’ is $`H_{\mathrm{SET}}`$. ‘$`I_C`$’ is the average of the absolute values of the positive and negative $`I_C`$s. The symbols in Figs. 2 and 3 show zero field $`I_C`$. The correlation between $`I_C`$ and $`R(H)`$ is striking. The first sudden switch of $`R(H)`$ in Fig. 3 but not in $`I_C`$ is attributed to a metastable state not present at zero field. For several devices $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_C`$ = ($`I_C^{\mathrm{max}}`$-$`I_C^{\mathrm{min}}`$) / $`I_C^{\mathrm{max}}`$ $``$ 30 %, extremal values of 17 % and 45 % were also obtained, but there was no scaling with dimension, area or aspect ratio. The $`I_C(T)`$ monotonically decreased with $`T`$, with parabolic behaviour as $`I_C0`$, (inset Fig. 2). When normalised to the $`I_C`$ at 4.2 K both remenant states showed very similar behaviour: we attribute this to the $`T`$ dependence of the superconducting gap.

The change in $`R`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ and $`R`$ were inversely proportional to $`A`$ (Fig. 4): hence interface scattering is the dominant mechanism of MR Albert et al. (2002). Current induced switching is not present since the current density is $``$ 1 $`\times `$ $`10^{10}`$ Am-2 which is a few orders of magnitude lower than required Albert et al. (2002). $`A\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ was in the range $`5.48.7\times 10^{17}`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$m2, and $`AR=1.1\pm 0.2\times 10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$m2. Using the two-current model from Yang et al Yang et al. (1995), with their ‘best fit’ parameters for Nb, Cu, Co and Py, for our thicknesses $`AR=9\pm 1\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$m2 in good agreement with our results. $`A\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ was too small to predict within the errors of the parameters of Yang et al.

The junction $`R_N`$ is the same as the value of the $`R(H)`$ measurements, and will be referred to as simply $`R`$. The $`I_CR`$ was in the range 0.8 to 2 $`\mu `$V. The $`I_CR`$ for a given thickness of barrier should be constant. Hence despite the apparent large difference in the shape of the $`R(H)`$, the $`I_CR`$ is the same to within a factor of approximately two, which is reasonable allowing for a few Åvariation of barrier thickness over the chip. Given that Co and Py are strong ferromagnets, we expect a small $`J_C`$, despite the thin barrier thickness. Compared to the Co junctions of Sürgers et al Sürgers et al. (2002), where the barrier thickness was 5 nm, $`J_C`$ at 2.1 K was $``$ 1 $`\times `$ $`10^7`$ Am-2. Assuming $`J_C\mathrm{exp}(d/\xi _F)`$ with $`\xi _F`$ $``$ 1 nm, a thickness 2 nm gives $`J_C`$ $``$ 2 $`\times `$ $`10^7`$ Am-2. Although the comparison is crude, the experimental values in the range $`0.51.2`$ $`\times `$ $`10^8`$ Am-2 are somewhat larger than this. $`J_C`$ is constant to within a factor of two over the range of areas, but showed an interesting scaling with device aspect ratio (inset of Fig. 4), which is not understood at present. The value of $`I_C`$ and $`R(H)`$ behaviour with thermal cycling is not perfectly reproducible, but show the same qualitative behaviour. This is possibly due to different magnetic configurations ‘frozen in’ when cooled.

With the device geometry stray flux from the electrodes is present Bell et al. (2003). However given the strong correlation between $`I_C`$ and $`R`$ for the two very different types of $`R(H)`$ behaviour, and that $`R`$ is determined solely by magnetic structure of the barrier, we conclude that the effect of stray field from the electrodes is not important in directly determining $`I_C`$. A more quantitative argument can be used Clinton and Johnson (1998): modelling the fringe field as a line source, the flux density $`B=\mu _0M_Sd_F/2\pi r`$, where $`r`$ is the distance from the end of the track, and $`d_F`$ the F thickness. The saturation magnetisation $`M_S=1.42\times 10^6`$ Am-1 for Co. Considering the barrier as simply a 2 nm thick Co, for $`r`$ = 500 nm, $`B`$ $``$ 1 mT. The magnetic induction from the barrier itself must also be considered. Using a simplistic model, in the worst case if we assume all of the moment present in the barrier passes into the junction, perpendicular to the dimension $`x`$, then the flux in the junction is $`\mathrm{\Phi }=xd_F\mu _0M_S`$. For $`x=0.5`$ $`\mu `$m, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`0.8\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=h/2e`$ is the flux quantum). This can explain the suppression of $`I_C`$, but not the lack of scaling of $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_C`$ with the dimension $`x`$, and also neglects the ‘return flux’ in the opposite direction which should reduce $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. Net magnetic induction shifts the $`I_C(H)`$ pattern away from zero field and reduces the zero field $`I_C`$ Ryazanov (1999). Devices demagnetised both above and below $`T_C`$ showed an increased value $`R(0)`$, above $`R_{\mathrm{max}}`$ as expected Pratt Jnr et al. (1991), but no increase in zero field $`I_C`$ above $`I_C^{\mathrm{max}}`$. Hence it would seem that stray induction does not strongly influence these devices.

In conclusion we have measured the Josephson current through a pseudo-spin-valve structure. The zero field $`I_C`$ shows strong modulation as the distinct remenant states of the PSV were mapped out. There was a strong similarity between the $`R(H)`$ and zero field $`I_C`$. At present theoretical work has been done on similar structures Bergeret et al. (2001); Chtchelkatchev et al. (2002), but in different limits to the present work. A combination of these works may be required to explain the complex behaviour due to the inhomogeneous magnetic structure in the PSV. It is nonetheless clear that $`I_C`$ can be actively controlled using the PSV barrier. If the barriers are replaced by weaker F layers, (e.g. CuxNi1-x or PdxNi1-x) then for $`T<4.2`$ K a much larger $`J_C`$ may be large enough to produce spin torque effects Waintal and Brouwer (2002). A suitable design with the weak alloys and thicknesses chosen to be around the $`0\pi `$ transition should allow the creation a controllable $`\pi `$-SQUID by switching one of the two devices into the anti-parallel state. This would be a magnetic version of the voltage controlled design using normal metal junctions Baselmans et al. (2001). We acknowledge the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK.