text:
# A Deep, High-Resolution Survey at 74 MHz

## 1 Introduction

The new 74 MHz system on the Very Large Array (VLA), fully implemented in 1998 (Kassim et al., 1993), has opened a new window into the previously unexplored regime of very low frequency radio observations at high sensitivity and sub-arcminute resolution.

The radio source population at very low frequencies is of interest for several reasons. Samples selected at $`\nu 74`$ MHz are completely dominated by isotropic radio emission, unlike those found at higher frequencies, where orientation-dependent Doppler boosting enhances the observed emission for some fraction of sources: even for the 178 MHz 4C survey (Pilkington & Scott (1965); Gower, Scott, & Wills (1967)) 10% of sources were significantly affected by Doppler beaming (Wall & Jackson, 1997), leading to biased samples of radio sources where those sources with jets pointing toward us are relatively over represented. In addition, at frequencies below 100 MHz spectral curvature is much more common than at higher frequencies, providing an important tool for studying the properties of the absorbing gas. This is because at low frequencies, the needed optical depths for absorption due to free-free absorption by H ii regions (intrinsic or intervening) or synchrotron self-absorption require lower electron densities than at higher frequencies.

The ability to find steep spectrum sources is of value because of its relative efficiency in finding very high redshift radio galaxies ($`z>2`$). Identifying ultra-steep spectrum sources has now been used by many groups for a number of years to find the highest redshift radio galaxies (Röttgering et al., 1994; Chambers et al., 1996; Blundell et al., 1998). This method has been implemented mainly with frequencies above 150 MHz (De Breuck et al. (2000), Blundell et al. (1998)), and is based on the curved nature of the radio spectral energy distribution. Most low-redshift radio galaxies have spectra that flatten below 325 MHz, while the higher redshift objects are observed at a higher rest frame frequency, where the SED is steep. At 74 MHz, this method is likely to be even more efficient, since the spectra of most low-redshift radio galaxies will have flattened to a much greater degree at this very low frequency, increasing the contrast between them and the high redshift radio galaxies.

Although radio galaxies are no longer the only galaxies found at the very highest redshifts (Hu et al., 2002; Kodaira et al., 2003; Cuby et al., 2003) and certainly not the most abundant high-redshift galaxies (Steidel et al., 1996, 1999) they do have unique characteristics: (1) the selection via radio emission means that radio-loud AGN are selected free of caveats concerning dust, which is probably a very important factor in the high-redshift Universe, as is evidenced by the huge sub-millimeter luminosities associated with radio galaxies at high redshift (e.g. Archibald et al. 2001; Reuland et al. 2003) (2) their strong narrow-emission lines allow relatively simple redshift determinations that do not rely on stellar continuum breaks or absorption lines and (3) powerful ($`L_{151}>10^{25}`$ W m-2 Hz-1) radio galaxies inhabit some of the most massive galaxies in the Universe at all cosmic epochs (Jarvis et al., 2001; De Breuck et al., 2002; Willott et al., 2003), and as such provide a unique probe into the build-up of massive galaxies. With the recent work on the correlation between black-hole mass and bulge luminosity in the local Universe (Magorrian et al., 1998), the fact that galaxies which exhibit powerful radio emission are the most massive means they probably host the the most massive black holes (Dunlop et al., 2003; Bettoni et al., 2003). The evidence for super-massive black holes in the centers of all bulge dominated galaxies also implies that every massive galaxy in the local Universe may have had an active phase in the past. This is further reinforced by the similarity in number density of super-massive black holes in the local Universe and the density of quasars at $`z2.5`$, i.e. the quasar epoch. Thus, we may need to understand AGN activity to understand massive galaxy formation in general.

A further characteristic of radio galaxies is, by definition, their radio emission. This allows a unique estimate of the time since the radio AGN was triggered (Blundell, Rawlings, & Willott, 1999), and it enables us to probe the gaseous environment via Faraday rotation measures (Carilli et al., 1997). But possibly more importantly in the years to come, it allows us to probe 21 cm HI absorption along the line-of-sight to the radio source. This will be vitally important as 21 cm absorption (and emission) will allow us to probe the epoch of reionization. These studies will be tractable with the development of the new era of radio telescopes such as the LOFAR111http://www.lofar.org (Kassim et al., 2000) and the SKA222http://www.skatelescope.org which will have the sensitivity to probe such a signal. Radio sources that are placed at the epoch before which the reionization is fully completed will be a very important probe of this epoch, allowing the study of the neutral gas at parsec and kiloparsec scales. Such scales are much smaller than are being probed by WMAP or Plank. Thus, it is crucial to find radio sources at $`z>6`$ to allow these investigations to take place, and selecting ultra-steep spectrum (USS) radio sources is a well proven technique for finding the highest-redshift radio galaxies (Rawlings et al., 1996; van Breugel et al., 1999), and selecting at 74 MHz allows us to do this better than ever before.

In this paper, we describe the survey with a discussion of observational methodology in Section 2 and the mapping results and source extraction in Section 3. In Section 4 we explore the nature of the 74 MHz radio source population. In Section 5, we identify the ultra-steep spectrum sources and present high-resolution follow-up radio observations to determine their identities.

## 2 Observational Methodology

### 2.1 The Data Set

The data used to produce this survey comes from observations taken on March 7, 1998, intended to map two normal galaxies at 74 MHz (NGC 4565 and NGC 4631). Though these two targets were largely resolved out at this resolution, the combination of A-configuration resolution, favorable ionospheric conditions and pointings near the north galactic pole where the background temperature is low produced the deepest observation ever obtained below 100 MHz. That the two fields observed were separated by $`6.4^{}`$, which is roughly the radius of the primary beam at 74 MHz, allowed the two fields to be ideally combined to produce a single deep image of an area roughly $`17^{}\times 10^{}`$ in size.

The data was taken in spectral line mode to reduce bandwidth smearing and to facilitate removal of radio frequency interference. The total bandwidth of 1.54 MHz was divided into 128 channels, which Hanning smoothing reduced to 64. The central frequency was 73.8 MHz and the integration time was 10 seconds. Each of the two pointings was observed for 3 hours, and the observation alternated between the two fields to better distribute the $`uv`$-coverage.

### 2.2 Challenges for High Resolution Imaging at Low Frequency

There are many challenges to high resolution imaging at low radio frequencies which have prevented this observational regime from being explored until the past few years. In this section, we summarize these issues and their solutions. Kassim et al. (2003) provide a more comprehensive description of 74 MHz observations with the VLA. In addition, a low frequency data reduction tutorial is available online 333http://rsd-www.nrl.navy.mil/7213/lazio/tutorial.

#### 2.2.1 Radio Frequency Interference

The monitor and control system of the VLA generates significant radio frequency interference (RFI) below 100 MHz, and there is the potential for external RFI as well. For this reason (and others) the data are acquired in spectral-line mode. Excision of potential RFI is performed on a per-baseline basis for each visibility sample. Actual excision is accomplished by correcting the spectral-line data for the shape of the VLA bandpass at this frequency, fitting a linear baseline, then flagging any data exceeding a level typically set to be 6–8 times the expected rms noise level.444This algorithm is contained within the aips task FLGIT. Typically this procedure removes 10-15% of the visibility data. It is notable, however, that at 74 MHz there is no evidence to indicate that any of this RFI is externally generated.

#### 2.2.2 The “3-D Problem”

One crucial aspect for the post processing of these data sets is the need for a three-dimensional inversion of the visibility data. A conventional two-dimensional inversion of the three-dimensional visibility function, as measured by a non-coplanar (i.e., non–east-west) array like the VLA, introduces errors in the image plane which increase as the square of the distance from the phase center. The “3-D” problem becomes severe at long wavelengths where the primary beam is large and contains hundreds of discrete sources which must be properly deconvolved to achieve thermal-noise– or classical-confusion–limited maps.

To solve this problem, Cornwell & Perley (1992) have developed a polyhedron algorithm in which the three-dimensional “image volume” is approximated by many two dimensional “facets,” small enough that the traditional two-dimensional assumption is valid. Thus a “fly’s eye” of small overlapping images, each with its own phase center, is made to cover the large field of view. Typically, many hundreds of facets are needed to map the full primary beam area, and after cleaning and imaging, these images are then combined into a single undistorted image of the full field of view.

#### 2.2.3 Ionospheric Image Distortion

The biggest challenge to achieving high resolution at low frequencies is the distortion of phases caused by the ionosphere, an effect which increases proportionally with wavelength (Kassim et al., 1993). This problem is compounded by the fact that the field of view at 74 MHz is so large, that these phase distortions can vary significantly across the field of view. This puts phase calibration of 74 MHz data into an entirely different regime from higher frequencies in which all phase distortions can be completely described by a single time-variable number for each antenna. For this reason, traditional self-calibration does not apply. Rather, a field-based calibration method, in which the phase calibration is position-dependent, is needed. Such an algorithm has been written by J. J. Condon and W. D. Cotton555VLAFM: a special-purpose task designed to work within aips (Cotton & Condon, 2002). This algorithm models the ionosphere as phase screen varying in space and time, and applies a two-dimensional Zernike polynomial phase correction to correct the phases across the entire field of view.

### 2.3 Data Reduction

Cygnus A (3C405) was used for bandpass and amplitude calibration. Phase calibration was more complicated. As described in section 2.2.3, calibration which applies a constant phase correction to the entire field is insufficient for imaging of the entire 74 MHz VLA primary beam, and field-based calibration is needed. However, an initial calibration estimate is necessary to begin the field-based calibration, and so as a first step, we calibrated the field to a sky model obtained using the 1.4 GHz NVSS catalog (Condon et al., 1998) adjusted for a spectral index of $`\alpha =0.75`$666aips task FACES. Next, field-based calibration was used to remove ionospheric smearing before imaging and cleaning were performed777VLAFM: a special-purpose task designed to work within aips. The field-based calibration was performed with a time resolution of 2 minutes, enough to significantly detect an average of 6 to 10 sources in the field of view. Each pointing was mapped to a radius of $`6^{}`$ using roughly 300 facets. We used a pixel size of $`7.5^{\prime \prime }`$ and each facet was 360 pixels in diameter. A circular $`25^{\prime \prime }`$ restoring beam was used. The images from the two fields were then corrected for the primary beam shape, and co-added to produce a single image.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Image Quality

Our final image has a resolution of $`25^{\prime \prime }`$ and a minimum RMS noise level of 24 mJy/beam, a unique combination for such a low frequency survey (see Figure 1). However, the noise level varies over the image due to the primary beam sensitivity patterns for the two fields, the added sensitivity due to the two fields overlapping and occasional incompletely cleaned sidelobes from bright sources (Figure 2). The image has no real “edge”, just an increase in the noise level with distance from the pointing centers. If we define the survey area as the area in our map for which the RMS noise is lower than a set limit, then as this limit is increased the survey area increases. However, at points more than about $`5^{}`$ from either pointing center the noise level begins to increase so rapidly that the benefits of increasing the survey area quickly diminish (see Table 1). We chose the field edge to be at the 80 mJy/beam noise level, which defines a total survey area of 165.1 square degrees, with almost half of this area having a sensitivity below 40 mJy/beam.

### 3.2 Source Extraction

The same algorithm which was written for use in the 1.4 GHz NVSS (Condon et al., 1998) was used to identify and characterize sources in this 74 MHz survey survey888VSAD: a special-purpose task designed to work within aips. This algorithm works by identifying “islands” of emission in the image above a set threshold and fitting each source to a model of up to four Gaussians. We set as our source detection threshold that sources must have both a peak and integrated flux level at least 5 times the local RMS noise level. Therefore, the source detection threshold varies over the image as the RMS noise varies.

We combined into multiple sources (sources composed of more than one Gaussian component), those sources located within $`120^{\prime \prime }`$ of each other. This distance was chosen because it corresponds to the separation distance of radio sources for which doubles which are components of the same source (usually a radio galaxy) outnumber those that are actually two separate objects by a ratio of 10 to 1 as determined by a recent study of the clustering of radio sources in the NVSS (Overzier et al., 2003). In total, we detected 949 sources (Figure 3) with integrated fluxes ranging from 146 mJy to 39.9 Jy. Of these, 70 were multiple sources. Most sources were not much larger than the $`25^{\prime \prime }`$ beamsize, with only 75 sources (7.9%) measuring larger than two beamwidths across, either as the fitted size of a single source or the maximum separation within a multiple source. Most of the extended sources appear to be FRII type radio galaxies. Figure 4 shows contour maps of the 80 largest sources in the survey. The complete catalog of all sources is available in the electronic edition of the Astrophysical Journal in Table 2.

## 4 Source Statistics

### 4.1 Source Counts

We present Euclidean-normalized differential source counts in Figure 5. These were calculated within flux density bins of size $`\pm 15\%`$ from the central flux density. To ensure a true measure of source densities, for each flux density bin we only considered the region of the survey in which all sources in that flux density bin are detected with at least $`7\sigma `$ confidence, the canonical level of $`2\sigma `$ completeness for sources selected above a $`5\sigma `$ threshold. Thus, for each flux density bin we only selected sources from the region of the survey with a noise level lower than 1/7 of the lower flux density limit of that bin. The source density was calculated by dividing this source count by the area of that “$`7\sigma `$” region from which the sources were selected.

Also plotted in Figure 5 is a polynomial fit to the source count at 327 MHz (Wieringa, 1991) and its adjustments according to various spectral indices. The data at 74 MHz seems to correspond to an average spectral index of somewhere between $`\alpha =0.5`$ and $`\alpha =0.75`$, though there seems to be an overall trend of steeper corresponding spectral index at higher flux levels. We caution that this is not a direct measurement of the average spectral index as many compact sources seen at 327 MHz are not seen at 74 MHz due to synchrotron self-absorption.

We note that the differential source counts function depends to some degree on our choice of spatial cutoff for grouping sources. Though we grouped components closer than $`120^{\prime \prime }`$ into single sources, if larger physical sources were broken into multiple “sources”, the differential source counts function would be artificially increased for lower flux densities and decreased for the highest flux densities. However, this effect is likely to be minor. For example, if we double the spatial cutoff to $`240^{\prime \prime }`$, only 35 additional sources ($`3.7\%`$) are “grouped”. Further, it is unlikely that all of these new multiple sources are physical, with (Overzier et al., 2003) predicting near parity between physical and coincidental doubles at a spacing of $`240^{\prime \prime }`$.

### 4.2 Comparisons to Other Survey Catalogs

We compared our source catalog to the 1.4 GHz NVSS catalog (Condon et al., 1998) which, with its resolution of $`45^{\prime \prime }`$, is well enough matched to our resolution to provide accurate spectral index measurements. The long frequency interval between 74 MHz and 1.4 GHz also contributes to the accuracy of the spectral index measurements as a flux ratio error of 10% produces a spectral index error of only $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =0.032`$. We found NVSS matches within $`60^{\prime \prime }`$ for 947 out of our total of 949 sources. The two sources without NVSS matches were J1230.6+3247 and J1253.6+2509, implying very steep spectral index upper limits of $`1.47`$ and $`1.78`$ respectively. It is therefore reasonable to wonder if these are real detections. The peak flux density of J1230.6+3247 was measured to be 188 mJy/beam, which is a $`6.3\sigma `$ detection given the local noise level of 29.8 mJy/beam. This relatively strong detection and the fact that the spectral index necessary to explain the lack of detection is, though very steep, not even the steepest in the survey, lead us to conclude that this source is probably real. The peak flux density of J1253.6+2509 was measured to be 256 mJy/beam, which was just barely over our $`5\sigma `$ detection threshold for the local noise level of 50.4 mJy/beam. Because of this and the extraordinary steepness of its spectrum necessary to explain its lack of detection by NVSS, we conclude that it is a non-negligible possibility that this may be a false detection. However, as it meets our criteria for a source detection, we still include it in our source list.

We present the spectral index measurements in Figure 6 plotted versus the integrated flux density at 74 MHz. The spectral indices of all sources with respect to their NVSS counterparts are included in the source catalog, available electronically. We find a median spectral index of $`\alpha =0.79`$. Figure 7 shows the spectral index as a function of 74 MHz flux density, and it is clear that the average spectral index steepens with increasing flux density.

In addition to the spectral index between the widely spaced frequencies of 74 MHz and 1.4 GHz, it is of interest to investigate the actual shape of the spectrum within this interval. For this, we turn to the 327 MHz WENSS survey (Rengelink et al., 1997). Although the WENSS only covers the northern sky down to a declination of $`+29^{}`$, which falls near the middle of our survey region, we find counterparts (within $`60^{\prime \prime }`$) to 545 sources. Figure 9 shows a comparison of the spectral indices for two frequency intervals in the form of a radio color-color plot. As this plot shows, most source spectra flatten considerably from the “low” frequency interval from 327 MHz to 1.4 GHz to the “very low” frequency interval from 74 MHz to 327 MHz. Quantitatively, we found a median change in the spectral index of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =0.24`$.

We also compared our source catalog to the higher resolution ($`5.4^{\prime \prime }`$) 1.4 GHz FIRST survey (White et al., 1997). We found matches within $`30^{\prime \prime }`$ for 945 out of our total of 949 sources (including neither of the 2 sources without NVSS matches). This allowed a much better measurement of source sizes than was possible with the $`25^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution of the 74 MHz observations. We define the source size as either the deconvolved major axis for single sources in FIRST or as the maximum separation between components for the multiple sources. Overall, we find a median source size of $`8.1^{\prime \prime }`$, though we notice a strong correlation between source size and spectral index. Figure 8 shows the median source size as a function of spectral index along with a spectral index histogram. It is clear that the steeper the spectrum the larger the sources, which makes sense as one would expect compact sources to have flatter spectra on average due to synchrotron self-absorption, although this trend seems to stall if not reverse for the very steep spectrum objects ($`\alpha <1`$).

## 5 Ultra Steep Spectrum Sources

### 5.1 Identification and Follow-up

To identify our sample of ultra-steep spectrum (USS) sources, we chose a spectral index cutoff of $`\alpha _{74}^{325}<1.2`$. With this criterion, we identified 26 USS sources out of a total of 949 sources (2.7%). This included 24 sources with measured spectral indices and the 2 sources with no FIRST or NVSS counterparts which have spectral index upper limits which qualify them as USS as well.

This percentage of USS sources is much higher than that found in the previous USS searche by De Breuck et al. (2000) which found a USS fraction of only 0.5%. Even if we use their stricter USS criteria of $`\alpha <1.3`$, we still have detected 18 USS sources, or 1.9%. It is unclear exactly what causes this difference, but it is possibly due to a combination of effects. First, by selecting sources at 74 MHz, rather than 325, we have eliminated virtually the entire population of flat spectrum objects from our sample. Second, as 74 MHz observations are less sensitive than those at higher frequencies, we have a brighter sample, and it is known that as the flux limit increases, the USS fraction increases.

There are four main possibilities for the identities of such USS sources: (1) pulsars, (2) high redshift radio galaxies (HzRGs: $`z>2`$), (3) cluster halos or relics (CHRs) and (4) fossil radio galaxies (FRGs: radio galaxies for which the energized particles have undergone significant spectral aging). As this survey is located near the north galactic pole, we expect very few if any pulsars. Using the most recent estimate for the radio luminosity function of CHRs (Enßlin & Röttgering, 2002), we predict that on the order of 1 CHR will be detectable in this region given our sensitivity limit, so this is a real possibility. HzRGs, cluster halos and fossil radio galaxies can be distinguished by their morphologies. We expect small ($`30^{\prime \prime }`$) FRII morphologies for HzRGs, while cluster halos or fossil radio galaxies will be much larger and more diffuse. It is difficult to qualify the morphology with the $`25^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution of our 74 MHz images, so again we turn to the 1.4 GHz FIRST survey (White et al., 1997) with its resolution of $`5.4^{\prime \prime }`$. In Figure 10 we present FIRST images of each of the 24 USS sources with an NVSS counterpart. Comparison with the POSS-II shows matches or possible matches to 4 out of 24 sources, roughly consistent with the 15% reported by De Breuck et al. (2000). We have also begun our own follow-up observations at 1.4 GHz with the VLA in A-configuration which provides roughly $`1.4^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution. So far we have so observed 18 of the 24 USS sources with NVSS counterparts and 11 of these were detected (Figure 11), with the remaining 7 likely resolved out. A list of all USS sources we found is provided in the print version of Table 2, and brief descriptions of each USS source follows below.

### 5.2 Brief Description of Individual USS Sources

The following are brief notes on each USS source. Source images at 1.4 GHz are described from FIRST ($`5.4^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution) and or VLA A-configuration follow-up ($`1.4^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution). We speculate on the identity of each source from the four main classes of USS objects: pulsar, cluster halo/relic (CHR), fossil radio galaxy (FRG) or high redshift radio galaxy (HzRG).

J1225.0$`+`$2146: The FIRST map shows a bright double lobed FRII with a separation of roughly $`25^{\prime \prime }`$. This is likely to be a HzRG or FRG.

J1226.3$`+`$2418: The FIRST map shows a $`20^{\prime \prime }`$ FRII with diffuse extension. A-configuration resolved out this source. It was identified in the POSS-II so it probably isn’t high redshift. This is likely to be a FRG.

J1228.9$`+`$3114: The FIRST map shows a diffuse blob of about $`15^{\prime \prime }`$ which is resolved out in A-configuration. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR, HzRG or FRG.

J1229.1$`+`$3040: Unresolved in FIRST but a fit to the A-configuration map shows a source size of about $`1^{\prime \prime }`$. This is likely a HzRG.

J1229.9$`+`$3712: Head-tail morphology in FIRST map. This is likely to be a HzRG or FRG.

J1230.2$`+`$2326: Faint double source in FIRST maps, resolved out in A-configuration. It was identified in the POSS-II so it probably isn’t high redshift. This is likely to be a FRG.

J1230.6$`+`$3247: No FIRST or NVSS counterpart.

J1231.2$`+`$2538: A-configuration shows core-jet morphology with an extent of $`12^{\prime \prime }`$. This is likely to be a HzRG or FRG.

J1231.3$`+`$3724: Unresolved in FIRST. This is likely to be a pulsar or HzRG.

J1231.5$`+`$3236: Resolved out in FIRST and A-configuration. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR or FRG.

J1232.2$`+`$2814: Unresolved in FIRST and A-configuration maps. This is likely to be a pulsar or HzRG.

J1232.6$`+`$3157: A-configuration shows a $`7^{\prime \prime }`$ FRII with much diffuse emission. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR, HzRG or FRG.

J1234.3$`+`$2605: Unresolved in FIRST but a fit to the A-configuration map shows a source size of about $`1^{\prime \prime }`$. This is likely a HzRG.

J1238.2$`+`$2613: Unresolved in FIRST but a fit to the A-configuration map shows a source size of about $`0.5^{\prime \prime }`$. This is likely a HzRG.

J1238.8$`+`$3559: FIRST and A-configuration show a well defined $`17^{\prime \prime }`$ FRII. This is likely to be a HzRG or FRG.

J1243.7$`+`$2830: FIRST and A-configuration show a faint $`2^{\prime \prime }`$ elongated object. This is likely to be a HzRG or FRG.

J1245.9$`+`$3320: FIRST shows a roughly $`15^{\prime \prime }`$ FRI morphology, which is resolved out in A-configuration. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR or FRG.

J1246.4$`+`$2516: FIRST shows a roughly $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ blob, which is resolved out in A-configuration. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR or FRG.

J1248.2$`+`$2747: FIRST and A-configuration show a faint $`6^{\prime \prime }`$ FRII morphology. This is likely to be a HzRG or FRG.

J1249.0$`+`$3615: FIRST shows a roughly $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ FRI morphology. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR or FRG.

J1249.7$`+`$3408: Unresolved in FIRST but a fit to the A-configuration map shows a source size of about $`0.8^{\prime \prime }`$. This is likely a HzRG.

J1250.4$`+`$2941: FIRST shows a $`20^{\prime \prime }`$ FRI morphology, which is mostly resolved out in A-configuration. This is likely to be a HzRG or FRG.

J1252.7$`+`$2207: FIRST shows a $`20^{\prime \prime }`$ diffuse blob. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR, HzRG or FRG.

J1253.4$`+`$2703: FIRST shows a very diffuse object of about $`40^{\prime \prime }`$ diameter which is resolved out in A-configuration. This is an ideal CHR candidate, though no nearby clusters are known.

J1253.6$`+`$2509: No FIRST or NVSS counterpart.

J1256.9$`+`$2811: FIRST shows a $`15^{\prime \prime }`$ FRI morphology. This is likely to be a high-$`z`$ CHR, HzRG or FRG.

## 6 Conclusions and Future Plans

We have completed a deep, high resolution survey at 74 MHz and identified 949 sources. We measured the differential source counts between roughly 0.22 and 11 Jy, and find them consistent with those found at 327 MHz (Wieringa, 1991) adjusted by a spectral index of roughly $`0.75<\alpha <0.5`$. Comparison with the 1.4 GHz surveys NVSS and FIRST shows that the average source in our survey is steeper than this. This could be explained if a significant fraction of sources become flat or inverted between 327 MHz and 74 MHz, and so are selected against by our flux limited survey. We find that fainter sources tend to have slightly flatter spectra. Source size studies with the FIRST survey indicate that the flat spectrum objects are much smaller than the steeper spectrum objects on average.

A small fraction of sources, 26 out of 949, qualify as USS sources with spectral indices steeper than $`\alpha <1.2`$. We present a list of these sources, along with FIRST images of 24 of these and higher resolution A-configuration VLA images of 18 USS sources. We find that all but a few of these are good candidates for high redshift radio galaxies, while the others are probably fossil radio galaxies or cluster halo, relic systems. We plan optical and spectroscopic follow-up on the HzRG candidates to measure their redshifts.

Acknowledgements

We thank W. C. Erickson for providing us with the data used for this survey. The authors made use of the database CATS (Verkhodanov et al., 1997) of the Special Astrophysical Observatory. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under contract with the national aeronautics and spece administration. The Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II) was made by the California Institute of Technology with funds from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Sloan Foundation, the Samuel Oschin Foundation, and the Eastman Kodak Corporation. ASC acknowledges fellowship support from the National Reseach Council. Basic research in radio astronomy at the NRL is supported by the Office of Naval Research.


format: text

text:
# All-optical reshaping of light pulses using 𝜒⁽²⁾ media

## I Introduction

In optical telecommunications, multiple amplification and attenuation of information-carrying light pulses leads to an amplification of noise which quickly deteriorates the pulse shape, and therefore increases the Bit Error Rate. To overcome such a signal distortion, an active technique of pulse regeneration is used, which is usually performed by opto-electronic techniques. The so called 3R regeneration implies a Re-amplification, Re-shaping and Re-timing of the pulses. An all-optical method to perform these different regeneration functions would be potentially faster and with broader bandwidths. Several methods have been proposed so far and are actively studied, based on third-order nonlinearities or nonlinear amplifiers regeneration ; regeneration2  to implement this function.

Second order nonlinearities have not been studied so far to implement regeneration functions, in spite of the high nonlinear effects that they are likely to produce even at low input powers, and of their intrinsic ultrashort response time. We propose here a passive and efficient method for reshaping optical pulses which uses two successive optical cavities containing nonlinear $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ crystals. We give the results of a first experiment, which show that our proposed scheme is actually able to reshape low power light pulses, performed at $`1.06\mu m`$ and at low bit rates. We also discuss the potentialities of extension of our technique to real optical telecommunication conditions.

Our scheme consists of two non-linear optical cavities which have input-output characteristics with a threshold behavior, and lead to a reshaping of the input pulse. The first cavity has a minimum threshold : as in a laser or an OPO, no significant power exits the cavity below a certain value, $`P_{threshold}^{low}`$ of the pump power. As a result, below $`P_{threshold}^{low}`$ the transmitted power is zero. The second cavity has a maximum threshold $`P_{threshold}^{high}`$ : an input signal with a power above $`P_{threshold}^{high}`$ is transmitted with a constant value equal to $`P_{threshold}^{high}`$. The total transfer function of the two optical devices put in series is thus a steep Heavyside step function : with an incident distorted pulse, the output pulse is close to a square pulse.

We begin in section II by giving the theoretical expressions of the transfer functions of the two cavities. Section III is devoted to the description of the experimental set-up while in section IV we describe the experimental results obtained at the wavelength of $`1.06\mu m`$. Finally, in section V we analyze the possibility to apply these ideas to pulses having a wavelength of $`1.5\mu m`$ and to very high bit rates.

## II Theoretical analysis

### II.1 First optical system : the intracavity SHG/OPO

The first cavity contains a type II $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ crystal, and is illuminated by a beam at frequency $`\omega _0`$, polarized linearly at $`+45^{}`$ of the crystal axes. The cavity is assumed to be at the same time resonant for the ordinary and extraordinary waves at the input frequency $`\omega _0`$, as well as for its second harmonic $`2\omega _0`$, and to have a single coupling mirror at both frequencies. The well-known following equations debuisschert  describe the nonlinear resonant coupling between the intracavity amplitudes of the three interacting fields in the steady-state regime and in the case of exact triple resonance :

$`(1r)A_1`$ $`=`$ $`gA_0A_2^{}+t{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}A^{in}`$ (1)
$`(1r)A_2`$ $`=`$ $`gA_0A_1^{}+t{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}A^{in}`$ (2)
$`(1r_0)A_0`$ $`=`$ $`gA_1A_2`$ (3)
where $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ are the intracavity ordinary and extraordinary wave envelope amplitudes at the fundamental frequency $`\omega _0`$, $`A_0`$ the intracavity second harmonic amplitude and $`A^{in}`$ the input field amplitude, $`r`$ and $`t`$ are the amplitude reflection and transmission coefficients of the cavity coupling mirror at the fundamental frequency, $`r_0`$ and $`t_0`$ the same quantities at the second harmonic frequency. These equations are simplified if one introduces the rotated basis:

$$A_\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(A_1\pm A_2)$$

which represent the amplitude of the fundamental field along the two directions at $`\pm 45^{}`$ from the crystal extraordinary and ordinary directions. The steady state equations can now be written in a decoupled form

$`(1r)A_+`$ $`=`$ $`gA_0A_+^{}+tA_+^{in}`$ (4)
$`(1r)A_{}`$ $`=`$ $`+gA_0A_{}^{}`$ (5)
$`(1r_0)A_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g}{2}}(A_+^2A_{}^2)`$ (6)
These equations are readily solved ou . One finds that there are two different regimes, depending on the input intensity $`P^{in}=|A^{in}|^2`$, separated by a ”pitchfork bifurcation” occurring at an intensity $`P_{threshold}^{low}`$ pitchfork  ( see figure (1)) :

* For $`P^{in}<P_{threshold}^{low}`$, one has

$`A_{}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (7)
$`\left(1r{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{2(1r_0)}}|A_+|^2\right)A_+`$ $`=`$ $`tA_+^{in}`$ (8)
$`A_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g}{2(1r_0)}}A_+^2`$ (9)
This is the usual behavior of an intracavity doubly resonant frequency doubler, in which more and more pump power is converted into second harmonic as the pump power increases.
* For $`P^{in}>P_{threshold}^{low}`$, one has $`A_{}0`$, and :

$`A_+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{t}{2(1r)}}A_+^{in}`$ (10)
$`A_{}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+r}{4(1r)}}(A_+^{in})^2{\displaystyle \frac{2(1r)(1r_0)}{g^2}}`$ (11)
$`A_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1r}{g}}`$ (12)
The intracavity second harmonic power is sufficient to generate an oscillation on the $`A_{}`$ mode. The behavior of the system is similar to an Optical Parametric Oscillator : the second harmonic field is now clamped to its threshold value while the $`A_{}`$ power increases linearly with the input power. If one uses as the output of the device the output field orthogonally polarized to the input field, and at the same frequency, $`A_{}^{out}=tA_{}`$, one will have a zero output below threshold, and a value rapidly growing with the input above threshold, which is the behavior that we need in our reshaping device. It is worthy to note that the present threshold $`P_{threshold}^{low}`$, equal to $`\frac{T^2T_0}{2g^2}`$ for small intensity transmission coefficients at both frequencies, $`T=t^2`$ and $`T_0=t_0^2`$, is the threshold of a triply resonant OPO, which can be in the mW range in optimized conditions 2microns .

Two difficulties must be solved to operate this device. First, we have assumed perfect triple resonance to solve the equations. This is not an easy condition to fulfill, as the fields $`A_0`$, $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ see three different indices in the type II nonlinear crystal, corresponding to three different optical paths. As all the frequencies are fixed, we must then adjust precisely three parameters of the system to fulfill the triple resonance conditions. Two parameters are easily controllable : the cavity length and the crystal temperature, but a third one is needed. This last one could be the setting of a variable birefringent system in the cavity. We chose another approach, which is to insert a quarter-wave-plate (QWP) in the linear cavity, adjusted so that it induces a $`90^{}`$ rotation of the polarization plane for the fundamental wave when it is crossed twice by the beam inside the cavity, and does not change the second harmonic field polarization. In this configuration, for any crystal temperature, the eigenmodes of the cavity are automatically $`(A_+,A_{})`$. We need then to adjust only two parameters to ensure the triple resonance condition : the cavity length and the crystal temperature. Secondly, we have assumed a degenerate operation for the OPO. This is one possibility for the system. But a non-degenerate operation of the OPO can also take place, with signal and idler modes oscillating at different frequencies $`\omega _1`$ and $`\omega _2`$ such that : $`\omega _1+\omega _2=\omega _0`$. This regime of cascading has been theoretically studied theoriecascading1 ; theoriecascading2  and observed manipcascading . Actually, the system will oscillate in the regime (degenerate or non-degenerate) which has the lowest threshold. We will see in section IV.1 that one can find conditions for which it is indeed possible to observe the stable degenerate operation that is needed for reshaping without frequency change, which is necessary for practical applications. A forthcoming publication will give more precise insight into the operation of this kind of optical devices that contain at the same time second order nonlinear elements and birefringent elements.

### II.2 Second optical system : a non-degenerate OPO

The second system consists of a standard, non-degenerate, triply resonant OPO. It is well known that, in a laser above threshold, the gain is clamped to its threshold value by the condition that the saturated gain must equal the losses in the steady-state regime. The same behavior occurs in an OPO, as can be seen very easily from its steady state equations, which are very similar to eqs (1-3), except that now the input power is put in the cavity on the high frequency mode :

$`(1r_s)A_s`$ $`=`$ $`gA_pA_i^{}`$ (13)
$`(1r_i)A_i`$ $`=`$ $`gA_pA_s^{}`$ (14)
$`(1(r_p)^2)A_p`$ $`=`$ $`gA_sA_i+t_pA_p^{in}`$ (15)
where $`A_s`$ and $`A_i`$ are the intracavity signal and idler mode amplitudes (these two modes oscillating at different frequencies), $`A_p`$ the intracavity pump amplitude, and $`A_p^{in}`$ the input pump amplitude; $`r_s`$, $`r_i`$ and $`r_p`$ are the amplitude reflection coefficients of the coupling mirror at the signal, idler and pump frequencies. For the pump field, one has assume that the cavity has two identical coupling mirrors, of amplitude reflection and transmission coefficients $`r_p`$ and $`t_p`$, one used as the input, the second as the output of our optical device.

Solving these very well-known equations debuisschert , one finds that there are two different regimes, depending on the pump intensity $`P_{pump}=|A_p^{in}|^2`$, separated by a threshold $`P_{threshold}^{high}`$ (see figure (2)):

* For $`P_{pump}<P_{threshold}^{high}=\frac{t_p^2(1r_s)(1r_i)}{g^2}`$, one has $`A_s=A_i=0`$. No parametric oscillation takes place. The OPO cavity is a pure passive, resonant, Fabry-Perot cavity with input and output mirrors of equal transmission. Its transmission is therefore 1, and the device is exactly transparent.
* For $`P_{pump}>P_{threshold}^{high}`$, one has $`A_s0`$ and $`A_s0`$, which occurs only when $`|A_p|^2=\frac{(1r_s)(1r_i)}{g^2}`$, whatever the input pump field is : the intracavity pump power is therefore clamped to a value independent of the input, and the output pump field is then clamped to its value at threshold. The excess power brought by the pump is then transferred to the signal and idler beams.

Let us stress that here also, the pump threshold $`P_{threshold}^{high}`$ is the threshold of a triply resonant OPO, which can be very low. But now the system is much simpler to operate than the previous one, as the frequencies of the signal and idler modes are not a priori given (except that their sum is equal to the pump frequency). There is one more degree of freedom than in the first device, and the cavity length and crystal temperature are the only two parameters that need to be adjusted to get the triply resonant condition.

### II.3 Total system

If the two previously described devices are put in series, one obtains an overall input-output characteristics which is sketched in figure (3). This curve is close to the one we need for pulse reshaping, except for the intermediate region $`P_{threshold}^{low}<P_{pump}<P_{threshold}^{high}`$, for which the response is linear. The best reshaping will be obtained when this central part is as steep as possible.

## III Experimental set-up

The input beam is produced by a Nd:YAG laser at $`1.06\mu m`$ (Lightwave 126-1064-700). In order to produce a light pulse, we use an acousto-optic modulator to modulate the intensity of the transmitted beam (modulation frequency $`3kHz`$). To mimick the high frequency noise existing on the pulse, we superimpose on the enveloppe a high frequency modulation ($``$ 100 $`kHz`$) and simulate the high frequency noise (fig. 4.a).

### III.1 Intracavity SHG/OPO

The characteristics of the two cavities are summarized in Tab.1. The first cavity has highly reflecting mirrors both for $`1.06\mu m`$ and $`0.53\mu m`$. The pump at $`1.06\mu m`$ is sent at a $`45^{}`$ angle with respect to the crystal axis. The output beam is separated from the input by using a polarizing beam splitter in front of the optical device. At low input power, it is first converted in green light by a standard doubling process. When the intracavity green power is sufficient, parametric down conversion occurs which transfers the power back to the pump wavelength but on the orthogonal polarization. However, this system has a high threshold, above $`600mW`$ in our experimental conditions. In order to reduce his threshold, we have added a quarter waveplate at $`1.06\mu m`$ inside the cavity. In that case, we observed a much more efficient intracavity second harmonic generation, and a parametric oscillation threshold could be as low as 300 $`mW`$. This fairly large threshold is mainly due to the fact that the reflection coefficients were not optimized (in particular, the green reflection coefficients should be maximum which is not the case).

### III.2 Non-degenerate OPO

This system has been described extensively in a previous publication 2microns ; sqpompe . Let us briefly mention here its main features : A PPLN crystal with an inversion period of 30 $`\mu m`$ is placed inside a symmetric cavity which has a large finesse (over 200) for the wavelengths around $`2\mu m`$ and a lower finesse at $`1\mu m`$ (around 40). The crystal temperature is kept close to the degeneracy temperature (parametric conversion between $`1.06\mu m`$ and $`2.12\mu m`$) so that parametric oscillation occurred for all cavity lengths within a pump resonance, because of the overlap between the oscillation ranges of nearby signal and idler pairs of modes of wavelengths close to $`2\mu m`$ 2microns . The threshold was on in the order of a few $`mW`$. This threshold was chosen to obtain a transmitted field as close as possible to a square function : its value is much lower than the maximum intensity at the output of the first cavity to ensure a steep transmission function. Let us also mention that in our experiment, the input and output mirrors for the $`1.06\mu m`$ beam where not of equal transmission. As a result the power of the transmitted beam was very small compared to the input one, and not equal, as in the theoretical approach of the previous section. This is due to the fact that we used, instead of an optimized cavity, an existing one as used in the experiment described in ref 2microns .

## IV Experimental results

### IV.1 Intracavity SHG/OPO

Fig. 4 shows the input and output intensities of the first device as a function of time. The maximum input power on this cavity was 350 $`mW`$ in order to be above the threshold $`P_{threshold}^{low}`$ mentioned above. It can be seen on fig. 5 that the effect of the cavity is close to a perfect ”high-pass filter”, as far as intensities are concerned : powers below $`P_{threshold}^{low}`$ are not transmitted while those above this value are linearly transmitted.

A crucial point of the device is that the output beam (orthogonally polarized reflected pump beam) is at the same frequency as the input beam. In a first experiment, we looked at the interference pattern between the input and the output beam, and observed that there were no fringes when the second harmonic beam was not $`TEM_{00}`$. Clear fringes only appeared when, by a careful alignment and crystal temperature tuning, the green output was $`TEM_{00}`$. The frequency degenerate operation was corroborated by a second experiment, where we used a confocal Fabry-Perot cavity to monitor the frequency of the output beam, orthogonally polarized with respect to the input beam. The confocal Fabry-Perot cavity is formed by two curved mirrors with radius of 50 $`mm`$ and reflectivity of 95% for $`1.064\mu m`$ that the free spectral range is 1.5 $`GHz`$. Figure 6 shows the output beam and the pump beam transmitted intensities through the confocal Fabry-Perot cavity when scanning the analysis cavity at $`60Hz`$ and scanning the self pumped OPO at 650Hz : this figure shows that, when the system is not perfectly tuned up, it oscillates in a non-degenerate regime and generates sidebands around the pump frequency (fig. 6, left), whereas one can find experimental conditions for which the down-converted output has the same frequency as the pump, within the experimental uncertainties (fig. 6, right).

### IV.2 Non degenerate OPO

We have plotted on fig. 7 the relevant intensities for the second cavity as a function of time : 7.a shows the incident intensity, while 7.b shows the transmitted intensity. The output intensity displays a very clear clamping of the power above the threshold $`P_{threshold}^{high}`$, at a value equal to the transmitted pump power at threshold, typically a few $`mW`$. On fig. 8, the ”low-pass filter” (for intensities) effect of this cavity is shown via its transfer function.

The peak that one observes at the beginning of the flat top of the transmitted intensity is due to a dynamical effect of delayed bifurcation that has already been observed in OPOs when their pump power is scanned with time richy . As the incoming pump power increases above threshold, the onset of the oscillation is delayed by a time interval that is larger than the characteristic evolution times of the cavity.

### IV.3 Total cascaded system

The complete experimental set-up is shown on fig 9. The beam reflected by the intracavity SHG/OPO is separated from the input beam by a polarizing beam splitter and sent to the non-degenerate OPO. The output beam intensity and the experimental transfer function for the total system are shown on fig. 10. One observes that the time dependence of the output beam intensity is close to a rectangular pulse, and accordingly that the transfer function shows the desired behavior with a response very close to a step function.

## V Possible implementation to very high bit rates at $`1.5\mu m`$

In all-optical pulse reshaping systems, two parameters play an important role : the operating power and the response time. In the present demonstration experiment, the incident power on the first cavity is about 350 $`mW`$, which is beyond the current powers of optical telecommunication pulses. This is mainly due to the fact that the first cavity is not optimized. Thresholds in the range of tens of $`mW`$ could be obtained by using high quality materials and coatings and optimizing the cavity parameters. The response time of our present system is rather long, of the order of 200 $`ns`$ : it is related to the cavity build-up time of the two cavities which are long cavities with rather high finesses. The most important question for the future of our proposed technique is whether our system can be modified and optimized in order to be able to reach very high bit rates, namely 40 $`Gbit/s`$, and at the telecommunication wavelength of $`1.5\mu m`$. We will address this question in the present section.

Several nonlinear materials are compatible with the telecommunication wavelength, namely Gallium Arsenide, Aluminium Gallium Arsenide, or Zinc Selenide. These materials posses very large nonlinearities, as large as $`120pm/V`$ in the case of Gallium Arsenide but they cannot be phase matched using birefringence.

The rising time issue is the most difficult to solve. In order to reduce this time, one must use small cavities, and therefore shorter non-linear crystals, and/or lower reflectivities for the mirrors, two methods which have the detrimental effect of increasing the thresholds at the same time.

The threshold of a triply resonant OPO is given by

$$P_{threshold}=\frac{T_0T_1T_2}{64\chi ^2L_c^2}$$
(16)
where $`T_i`$ denotes the transmission coefficient of the cavity for mode $`i`$, $`L_c`$ the crystal length and $`\chi `$ is the non linear coupling strength depending on the nonlinearity, geometry and optical indices through the relation :

$$\chi =d_{eff}\frac{w_0w_1w_2}{w_0^2w_1^2+w_0^2w_2^2+w_1^2w_2^2}\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}\omega _0\omega _1\omega _2}{\pi ϵ_0c^3n_0n_1n_2}}$$
(17)
where $`d_{eff}`$ is the crystal nonlinearity in $`m/V`$, $`w_i`$ is the waist size, $`\omega _i`$ is the pulsation and $`n_i`$ the indices of refraction of the three interacting modes. Assuming the system is operated close to frequency degeneracy, that is $`\omega _{1,2}=\omega _0/2`$ and that the pump, signal and idler indices and Rayleigh ranges are identical, the nonlinear coupling strength can be expressed in terms of wavelength and Rayleigh length, as :

$$\left(\frac{\chi _{exp}}{\chi }\right)^2=\left(\frac{(d_{eff})_{exp}}{d_{eff}}\right)^2\frac{z_R}{(z_R)_{exp}}\left(\frac{\lambda _0}{(\lambda _0)_{exp}}\right)^4\left(\frac{n}{n_{exp}}\right)^2$$
(18)
where the index $`exp`$ denotes experimental values, $`\lambda _0`$, $`(\lambda _0)_{exp}`$ denote the pump wavelength in the vacuum, these two wavelengths being different due to the fact that our experiment was performed with a $`(\lambda _0)_{exp}=532nm`$ pump while a telecom implementation would require $`\lambda _01550nm`$.

If we also assume that the cavity length is equal to the crystal length, one can use the expression for the finesse as a function of the cavity rise time

$$=\frac{\pi c\tau }{2nL_c}$$
(19)
We now obtain the following formula for the ratio of the thresholds :

$$\frac{P_{threshold}}{P_{exp}}=(_0_1_2)_{exp}\left(\frac{2n}{\pi c\tau }\right)^3\left(\frac{(d_{eff})_{exp}}{d_{eff}}\right)^2\frac{z_R}{(z_R)_{exp}}\left(\frac{\lambda _0}{(\lambda _0)_{exp}}\right)^4\left(\frac{n}{n_{exp}}\right)^2L_{exp}^2L_c$$
(20)
One obtains a counterintuitive result, namely that the threshold becomes lower as the crystal/cavity length diminishes. This is due to the fact that the finesse is fixed by the value of the cavity length in order to keep the cavity lifetime $`\tau `$ constant. A small cavity is thus desirable to obtain a low threshold as well as a short rise time. The experimental values correspond to an optimized cavity containing a KTP crystal pumped by a frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser at 532$`nm`$ generating signal and idler around 1064$`nm`$ yielding $`P_{exp}=20mW`$ with $`n_{exp}1.8`$, $`(d_{eff})_{exp}=3pm/V`$, $`L_{exp}=1cm`$, $`(_{0,1,2})_{exp}=115`$. When one sets a cavity/crystal length of 10$`\mu m`$, a rise time $`\tau `$ of $`10ps`$ (compatible with operating bit rate of 40 GBit/s), and a Rayleigh length of 10$`\mu m`$ compatible with the crystal length, one obtains a finesse $`140`$ and threshold $`P_{threshold}110mW`$ with the values corresponding to gallium arsenide ($`n=3.4`$ and $`d_{eff}=120pm/V`$). This value of the threshold is compatible with the values used in optical telecommunications. The very short length of the crystal is also an advantage as one can have a crystal length equal to or shorter than the coherence length of the material which partly removes the problem of phase-matching. It is important to note that the variation of the threshold with $`\tau `$ is very fast so that a small increase of the rise time up to 15$`ps`$ leads to a similar threshold using Lithium Niobate ($`n=2.2`$ and $`d_{eff}=20pm/V`$).

We have shown in this section that the realization of very short rise time systems for all optical reshaping is within reach by developing current techniques and using available materials. However, because of the presence of the resonance cavity, this system is only able to reshape optical pulses centered around a given wavelength.

## VI Conclusion

We have demonstrated that optical cavities containing $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ media can be used for all optical passive reshaping of optical pulses. We have experimentally obtained reshaping with a threshold compatible with optical powers propagating in optical fibers. We have shown that very fast response times can be realized using very short monolithic cavities made of high nonlinearity crystals.

###### Acknowledgements.

Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel, of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, is associated with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. This work was supported by France-Telecom (project CTI n 98-9.003). Zhang Kuanshou was on leave from the Key Laboratory for Quantum Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China. T. Coudreau is also at the Pôle Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques FR CNRS 2437. The authors want to thank V. Berger for fruitful discussions.