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# Five guidelines for the evaluation of site-specific medium range probabilistic temperature forecasts

## 1 Introduction

Meteorological forecasts attempt to convey information about uncertain future weather states. They can consist of single values, or of a distribution of values with probabilities for each outcome. In the single value case, the value should usually be interpreted as the mean of the distribution of future outcomes. In the probabilistic case, the probabilities are hopefully good indications of the real probabilities of possible events.

Both forecasts of the mean and probabilistic forecasts have potential applications in the energy and weather derivatives industries: our examples will come from the latter. Forecasts of the mean are useful when one wishes to evaluate the expectation of a linear function of the temperature. Calculating the fair strike for a linear weather swap contract is an example of this (see Jewson and Ziehmann (2002) for details). Probabilistic forecasts are useful in two ways: firstly, when one wishes to evaluate the expectation of a non-linear function of the temperature, and secondly, when one wishes to evaluate the distribution of values that can be attained by any function of the temperature. Calculating the fair premium for a weather option contract is an example of the first case, and calculating the distribution of outcomes for any weather derivative is an example of the second (see Jewson and Caballero (2002) for details).

Forecasts for the mean temperature are usually produced using linear regression applied to the output from numerical weather prediction models. Traditionally the input for the regression has been the output from a single integration of such a model. More recently the input for the regression has been taken from the mean of an ensemble of such integrations. All these regressions typically deal with temperature that has been converted into either single anomalies (from which the seasonal cycle of the mean has been removed) or double anomalies (from which the seasonal cycle of the mean and variance has been removed).

Forecasts for the distribution of temperature are most easily produced as a by-product of the regression step used to produce the forecast for the mean temperature. Standard regression routines fit the variance of the residuals, which can be taken as the variance of the predicted temperature distribution. Probabilistic forecasts can also be produced from the distribution of the members of an ensemble forecast. The hope is that such an ensemble based method will give better probabilistic forecasts than the regression based approach because it has the potential to give forecasts in which the uncertainty varies with the state of the atmosphere. However, at this point in time, little research has been done to compare these two methods for generating probabilistic forecasts, and to assess whether the ensemble member based approach really can give better predictions. Results in Jewson (2003a) suggest that probabilistic forecasts based on regression on the ensemble mean are actually very hard to beat.

Users of meteorological forecasts in the energy and weather derivatives industries are well able to understand the potential value of good probabilistic forecasts. The pricing of many types of energy and weather derivative contracts are based on a fully probabilistic analysis of possible future outcomes, and incorporating probabilistic forecasts into these pricing algorithms is not necessarily very difficult. However, probabilistic forecasts are at present rather little used. There are a number of reasons for this, and we will not try to identify them all here. Rather, we will focus on one particular reason which is to do with the methodologies used to verify and present probabilistic forecasts.

Users of forecasts are generally skeptical, not to say cynical, about the claims of meteorological forecasters. This is, perhaps, justifiable. There is a large measure of moral hazard involved in believing in the analysis of a forecast when it is performed by people who have something to gain from the success of that forecast. For this reason, it is essential that analyses of forecasts should be performed with strictly correct methodologies that clearly address the questions that users need to see addressed. However, a quick perusal of the academic literature on the use of probabilistic forecasts suggests that this is not the case. We will not review this literature in detail: suffice to say that we have not been able to find a single paper (including our own) that gives useful information about real site-specific forecasts 222if you have written one, please get in touch!. Many of the papers we have read (such as Roulston and Smith (2003), Taylor and Buizza (2003), Jewson et al. (2003)) get many of the methodologies correct, and produce *interesting* results, but none of them go quite far enough. Unfortunately, in order to prove that a forecast is *truly* useful, rather than just *possibly* useful, one has to get the whole methodology correct. Consequently, it would seem impossible, from the published literature alone, to work out whether the available probabilistic forecasts really have any practical use, and to work out how to use them. There are plenty of good ideas, and some strong indications that such forecasts *may* be useful, but none of the articles really gets to the heart of the matter and show that they *really are* useful.

In order to contribute to the goal, of, hopefully, being able to show that probabilistic forecasts are useful, we list below five guidelines which we believe are necessary, and perhaps even sufficient, conditions for proving that a probabilistic forecast is useful in practice.

### 1.1 Skill measures

This article is not about skill measures. However, throughout there is an implicit assumption that some skill measure is available which allows us to test whether one probabilistic forecast is better than another. At the time of writing, we ourselves prefer likelihood-based skill measures (see Jewson (2003b)).

## 2 The Guidelines

1. Comparison with observations not analysis

Our first guideline is that forecasts should be compared with real ground-based observations, rather than analyses. Comparison with analyses is routinely used by forecasting agencies as a way of evaluating forecasts, mainly because it is convenient, and allows comparison of upper-air and gridded fields. However, the results of comparison with analysis are not useful when trying to show that forecasts of ground-based observations have any skill: they can only show the potential that such skill might be possible. There is, however, many a slip twixt analysis and observation and only a proper comparison with ground-based observations really answers the questions that users of forecasts need to see answered.

2. Use of skill measures not correlations

Correlations between forecasts and observations, and between the spread of ensemble forecasts and the skill, are often used as measures of the potential skill in a forecast. But they do not necessarily translate into real skill, and so, in the end, cannot be used to indicate that a forecast is useful, only that it *might* be useful.

3. Comparison with appropriate simple models

There are a number of situations in which forecasts should be compared with, and beat, forecasts from an appropriate simpler model before one can claim the forecast is useful.

* In order to prove that a forecast of the mean temperature derived from an ensemble forecast is useful one has to compare with the best forecast of the mean temperature that can be derived from a non-ensemble forecast.
* In order to prove that a probabilistic forecast derived from the distribution of the members of an ensemble is useful one has to compare with the best probabilistic forecast that can be derived from the ensemble mean alone using past forecast error statistics.
* In order to prove that a probabilistic forecast derived from the ensemble mean is useful one has to compare with the best probabilistic forecast that can be derived from a single member of the ensemble using past forecast error statistics.
* It is *not* useful, however, to compare a probabilistic forecast from an ensemble with a single forecast from a single model integration as such a comparison confuses two issues: whether probabilistic forecasts are better than single forecasts, and whether ensembles are a useful way to make probabilistic forecasts.
* It is *not* useful to compare probabilities derived from the distribution of the members of an ensemble with probabilities derived from a single model integration and past forecast error statistics because this also confuses two issues: whether the distribution of the members of the ensemble contains useful information, and whether the ensemble mean contains useful information.

In those cases where past forecast error statistics are used to create a probabilistic forecast, the simplest model to use is linear regression.

4. In sample and out of sample tests

In-sample tests can be useful in the sense that if forecast A, derived from a complex calibration model, does not beat forecast B, from a simple calibration model, then it is very unlikely to beat it out of sample. However, the reverse is not true: if forecast A, from a complex calibration model, *does* beat forecast B, from a simple calibration model, in in-sample tests, this usually proves nothing about what will happen out of sample. For this reason, out of sample tests are always needed if one is attempting to prove that a more complex calibration model is better.

5. Avoiding aggregation

It is common practice when validating forecasts to aggregate temperatures over a region. Because the information in forecasts is greater on larger scales, this usually gives better validation results. There may be cases where users of forecasts *are* interested in forecasts for large scales, but in most cases forecast users are specifically interested in individual sites. This is particularly the case for the weather derivative market.

It is also common practice to aggregate the *results* of validation over many locations (as opposed to aggregating the temperature before validation) especially amongst national met services who may produce forecasts for hundreds of locations. This may be useful as an overall performance measure, but it is not useful for users of forecasts who are typically interested in performance at individual sites.

## 3 Summary

Many papers and reports have been written which show that certain probabilistic forecasts *might* be useful. We have presented five methodological guidelines that should be followed if one wishes to show that a forecast really *is* useful.


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# Pair-breaking and superconducting state recovery dynamics in MgB2

## .1 Figure Captions:

Figure 1: The a) imaginary and b) real conductivity as a function of frequency shown at various time delays following excitation with a fluence $`\text{F}3`$ $`\mu `$J/cm2 at 7K. Inset to a): $`E_{sam}(t)`$ at 7K and 35K. Inset to b): the time evolution of $`\sigma _r`$ and $`\sigma _i`$ taken at $`\nu =0.8`$ THz.

Figure 2: a) The PI change in conductivity ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }E_{sam}`$) as a function of temperature. b) The PI reflectivity traces at various temperatures plotted on a semi-log scale. The normal state trace (90K) is vertically shifted for clarity. The T-dependence of the superconducting state recovery time, $`\tau _R`$, determined by single exponential fits to the data (solid lines) is presented in the insets.

Figure 3: a) The rise time dynamics at 7 K taken at various *F* in $`\mu `$J/cm2 (for presentation purpose all traces have been shifted vertically by 0.1). Solid circles represent the data obtained by scanning the pump line while measuring $`\mathrm{\Delta }E(t=t_0)`$, while the open circles correspond to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma `$ measured directly. Solid lines are fits to the data using Eq.(2), with the intensity *F* (absorbed energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$) dependence of $`\tau `$ and $`K`$ plotted in panels b) and c). Dashed lines in b) and c) represent the best fit to Eqs.(3). Inset to panel a): Solutions of Eq.(2) for different $`K`$.


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# A Sample of X-Ray active extragalactic Sources suitable for NIR Adaptive Optics Observations

## 1. Introduction

### 1.1. Near Infrared Adaptive Optics

Adaptive Optics (AO) systems on large telescopes like NACO at the VLT (Brandner et al. 2002) overcome the limitations introduced by earth’s turbulent atmosphere in terms of image degradation and allow imaging and spectroscopy at the diffraction limit of these telescopes (see Beckers 1993 for a review). For example an 8m-class telescope offers an angular resolution of $``$50 mas at 1.65 $`\mu `$m. AO therefore enables the study of extragalactic targets at highest spatial resolution and e.g. directly allows the comparison of more distant galaxies with nearby ones, observed without AO in the same wavelength domain, at the same spatial resolution.

The near infrared (NIR) is a sensitive tracer of the mass dominating (older) stellar populations in galaxies. At the same time the NIR is less affected by extinction, but still sensitive to the distribution and contribution of (warm) dust. Studying the detailed morphology, dynamics and composition of the sources described below is therefore ideally done in the NIR since especially the circum-nuclear regions of the targets are expected to be extincted.

### 1.2. The X-Ray Background

The X-ray background (XRB) in the 0.5-10 keV regime has been resolved into discrete sources by recent work on X-ray surveys like ROSAT, Chandra, and XMM (e.g. Hasinger 1998; Miyaji, Hasinger, & Schmidt 2000; Mushotzki et al. 2000; Giacconi et al. 2001; Brandt et al. 2001b). However, the astrophysical nature of these sources still remains unknown. Especially two subjects are of interest in this context. The hardness of the X-ray spectra: It is found that the cosmic XRB is much harder than the X-ray emission of unobscured (type I) AGN in the local universe. Therefore the existence of a substantial obscured AGN (type II) population is required. These are found preferentially at lower redshifts ($`z0.6`$), in contrast to predictions of XRB models (Gilli 2003 and references therein). An important question in understanding the nature of sources with hard X-ray spectra is whether they are hardened due to a large amount of intrinsic (circum-nuclear) absorption or whether the spectrum of the central engine itself is intrinsically hard. It is quite likely that the X-ray spectra are of composite nature, i.e. both the emission and absorption mechanisms are of importance. In this case it has to be determined how the nuclear properties are correlated with the properties of the corresponding hosts. Evolution of X-ray active AGN: A recent result (Tacconi et al. 2002) is that the more (spectroscopically) passive X-ray-bright, early-type galaxies may originate from a population of ULIRG galaxies that contain QSO-like active galactic nuclei. Some of the ULIRGs resemble local QSOs in their NIR and bolometric luminosities because they are very efficiently transforming dust and gas into stars and/or feed their central engine. However, ULIRGs have smaller effective radii and velocity dispersions than the local QSO/radio galaxy population. This then implies that their corresponding host and black hole masses must be smaller. Smaller Black holes are found in local Seyfert galaxies. Indeed, based on optical SDSS spectra, the sources in our sample resemble those of LINERs or Seyferts (Fig. 1). It is therefore likely that they do not evolve into optically bright QSOs but rather into quiescent field ellipticals or in a still active state into X-ray-bright, early-type galaxies that can be found in ROSAT and CHANDRA based samples. If this finding is correct then our X-ray based sample should reveal host galaxy properties quite similar to AGN-dominated and star formation dominated ULIRGs. In other words they should fall close to the fundamental plane of early-type galaxies. The question is: How do they compare to L rotating ellipticals, giant ellipticals, optically/UV-bright, and low-z QSOs/radio galaxies, i.e. what is their parent population?

## 2. The ROSAT/SDSS based Sample

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, e.g. York et al. 2000) with its multicolor photometric and spectroscopic data presents a rich source to search for astrophysically interesting objects.

To address the above stated questions, using a cross-correlation of SDSS optical and ROSAT X-ray data provided by the Early Data Release (EDR, Stoughton et al. 2002) and the ROSAT All Sky Survey (RASS, Voges et al. 1999), we searched for extragalactic, X-ray active objects brighter than $`r<20`$ with a natural guide star (NGS) brighter than $`r<15`$ in their vicinity. These magnitude units provide reasonable AO performance on 8m-class telescopes. Recent AO implementations allow NGS/science target angular separations up to $`40^{\prime \prime }`$. These criteria resulted in a set of 27 galaxy/NGS pairs.

To only select the best optical X-ray counterparts we rejected those objects fulfilling one ore more of the following conditions:
(1) *Angular separation between optical and X-ray position larger than $`40^{\prime \prime }`$.* The SDSS database identifies ROSAT sources with galaxies/AGN if the separation between both positions is less than $`60^{\prime \prime }`$.
(2) *Hardness ratio of -1 or a stellar optical color $`ug<1.3`$.* These are indicative for X-ray active stars, the former typical for white dwarfs. In this case the X-ray emission might be dominated by the NGS rather than the galaxy.
(3) *X-ray emission which shows excess extend over the ROSAT psf width.* Here the X-ray flux is likely to be dominated by emission from an extended hot gas component at the center of a galaxy cluster (cf. Voges et al. 1999).

The final sample consists of 12 galaxy/NGS pairs in the redshift range $`0.06<z<0.67`$. Their X-ray luminosities (calculated, assuming a power-law index of -2 and an average galactic absorption column density of $`3\times 10^{20}`$cm-2) range from $`10^{42}`$ erg s-1 to $`10^{43}`$ erg s-1 (Fig. 1). Of these sources five objects have SDSS spectra, one of which appears as a ’passive’ elliptical, although its X-ray luminosity indicates nuclear activity (cf. Comastri et al. 2002). For the remaining galaxies we used their photometric redshifts. Another source also shows a red nucleus (source no. 5 in right inset of Fig. 1) contained in the 2Mass survey, indicating the presence of warm dust, heated by star formation and/or the central engine.

## 3. Conclusions

The SDSS and its cross-correlations with other surveys provide means to find suitable extragalactic sources for follow-up NIR observations at highest angular resolution and sensitivity of 8m-class telescopes. Large telescopes are also necessary, because the optical counterparts of deep X-ray sources become very faint. NIR observations give complementary information to the optical and X-ray data in terms of highest resolution images of the detailed structure of the host galaxies. NIR colors and spectra give information on the stellar content of the host galaxies and the importance of the presence of dust. Furthermore dynamical information from spectra give estimates for host masses and possibly black hole masses, since the NIR emission is a more accurate tracer of the mass in galaxies.

Our sample represents a significant first step to a statistically relevant sample of X-ray active extragalactic sources observable with adaptive optics on large telescopes like the VLT.

## References

Beckers, J. M. 1993, ARA&A, 31, 13

Brandner, W et al. 2002, The Messenger, 107, 1

Brandt, W. N. et al. 2001b, AJ, 122, 2810

Comastri, A. et al. 2002, ApJ, 571, 771

Giacconi, R. et al. 2001, ApJ, 551, 624

Gilli, R. 2003, ArXiv Astrophysics e-prints, 3115

Hutchings, J. B., & Neff, S. G. 1997, AJ, 113, 550

Hasinger, G. 1998, AN, 319, 37

Miyaji, T., Hasinger, G., & Schmidt, M. 2000, A&A, 353, 25

Mushotzky, R. F. et al. 2000, Nature, 404, 459

Richards, G. T. et al. 2001, AJ, 121, 2308

Stoughton, C. et al. 2002, AJ, 123, 485

Strateva, I. et al. 2001, AJ, 122, 1861

Tacconi, L. J. et al. 2001, ApJ, 580, 73

Voges, W. et al. 1999, A&A, 349, 389

York, D. G. et al. 2000, AJ, 120, 1579


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# References

Charmonium polarization in $`e^+e^{}`$ and heavy ion collisions

B.L. Ioffe

Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, B. Cheremushkinskaya 25,
Moscow 117218, Russia, E-mail: ioffe@vitep1.itep.ru

## Abstract

In $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV Belle Collaboration found, that $`J/\psi `$ mesons are predominantly produced in association with an extra $`\overline{c}c`$ pair. The possible mechanisms of $`J/\psi `$ production are discussed and the probability of the associate production of $`\overline{c}c`$ pair is estimated. The choice between these mechanisms can be done by measuring $`J/\psi `$ polarization. It is suggested, that in case of heavy ion collisions one may expect remarkable transverse polarization of produced $`J/\psi `$, if quark-gluon plasma if formed. The measurement of asymmetry of $`e^+e^{}(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ angular distribution in $`J/\psi e^+e^{}(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ decay is a useful tool for detection of quark-gluon plasma formation in heavy ion collisions.

1. Recently, Belle Collaboration reported the measurement of $`J/\psi `$ production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV . It was found that the cross section of $`J/\psi `$ production significantly exceeds theoretical expectations based on the Color Singlet Model (CSM)  and non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) . Even more surprisingly, it was found that most of the observed $`J/\psi `$’s were accompanied by an extra $`\overline{c}c`$ pair, with $`\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi \overline{c}c)/\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi X)=0.59_{0.13}^{+0.15}\pm 0.12`$. This ratio exceeds the existing theoretical predictions by about an order of magnitude. The problem has recently attracted attention of many theorists – see, e.g. -.

Let us consider the diagrams of $`J/\psi `$ production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation. There are three types of such diagrams. In the diagrams of the first type (Fig.1a) $`J/\psi `$ is formed by the fusion of $`\overline{c}c`$ pair produced by the initial virtual photon. This means that $`\overline{c}c`$ quarks, which initially were moving in the opposite directions, turn around and have almost equal and parallel momenta in the final state. The momentum conservation is ensured by the radiated gluons which may produce light ($`q=u,d,s`$) $`\overline{q}q`$ or charmed $`\overline{c}c`$ pairs. The diagrams of the second type (Fig.1b) correspond to the fragmentation of $`c`$ (or $`\overline{c}`$) into $`J/\psi `$. This process requires the production of an additional $`\overline{c}c`$ pair by emission of at least one gluon by initial $`c`$ or $`\overline{c}`$. Finally, the third type of processes are described by the diagrams in which the initial virtual photon creates a pair of light quarks and the $`J/\psi `$ is formed from the $`\overline{c}c`$ pair produced by an exchange of gluons (Fig.1c). Evidently, the diagram of Fig.1c is suppressed in comparison to diagrams of Figs.1a,b by a factor of $`\alpha _s(m_c)`$ and will be disregarded in what follows.

On general grounds one may expect that the diagrams of Fig.1b dominate at very high energies of the colliding $`e^+e^{}`$, when the ladder of $`\overline{c}c`$ pairs is formed and the process may be described by Regge theory (such process was considered by Kaidalov ). It is easy to estimate the energies starting from which one may expect the dominance of the diagrams of Fig.1b. Let $`p_c`$ be the momentum of the $`c`$quark (in the $`e^+e^{}`$ c.m. system) fragmenting into $`J/\psi `$. Then the minimal value of the recoil momentum $`q`$, corresponding to the forward production, is equal to

$`q{\displaystyle \frac{M_{J/\psi }^2m_c^2}{2p_c}}.`$ (1)
By requiring $`q`$ to be at least as small as $`q0.5`$ GeV (typical for Regge asymptotics), we get $`p_c>10`$ GeV, i.e. $`\sqrt{s}>20`$ GeV. In fact one may expect that the energy should be $`\sqrt{s}>50`$ GeV.

Probably, the mechanism of Fig.1b cannot be the dominating one at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV. The more suitable candidate for description of $`J/\psi `$ production in $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation at this energy is Fig.1a mechanism.

Belle Collaboration  measured the distribution of events as a function of the mass of the system recoiling against the $`J/\psi `$. The recoil mass was defined as

$`M_{recoil}=\sqrt{(\sqrt{s}E_{J/\psi }^{})^2p_{J/\psi }^2}`$ (2)
where $`E_{J/\psi }^{}`$ and $`p_{J/\psi }^{}`$ are the energy and momentum of $`J/\psi `$ in the c.m. frame. It was found that $`M_{recoil}`$ concentrates in the domain $`M_{recoil}5`$ GeV, with almost no events below $`2.8`$ GeV . This invariant mass is sufficiently larger than the threshold for the production of an additional $`\overline{c}c`$ pair. At such large $`M_{recoil}`$ one can expect, that the perturbative theory is valid in the production of additional to $`J/\psi `$ hadrons and the mass of $`c`$ quarks may be neglected. If all additional quarks are produced incoherently, then one would expect

$`R{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (J/\psi \overline{c}c)}{\sigma (J/\psi X)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}`$ (3)
for $`X=\overline{c}c+\overline{q}q,(q=u,d,s)`$. If they are produced coherently, then light quarks are in the $`SU(3)`$ singlet state $`|X_{light}=|\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d+\overline{s}s\sqrt{3}`$. Therefore, light and charm quarks should be produced in association with the $`J/\psi `$ with equal probabilities, and we find

$`\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi \overline{c}c)/\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi X)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ (4)
Probably, the true answer is somewhere between the estimations (3) and (4).

In fragmentation mechanism (Fig.1b) we have evidently $`R=1`$.

Let us now turn to the discussion of $`J/\psi `$ polarization. Since the photon in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation is mostly transverse, it has helicity $`\lambda =\pm 1`$. Therefore the $`\overline{c}c`$ produced by the photon should have opposite helicities of $`\lambda _c=+1/2,\lambda _{\overline{c}}=1/2`$ or $`\lambda _c=1/2,\lambda _{\overline{c}}=+1/2`$. Initially, heavy quark and antiquark move in the opposite directions in the center of mass system of $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation with the velocities $`v=\sqrt{14m_c^2/s}`$ which are close to $`v1`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV. However, to become bound in the $`J/\psi `$ (or any other bound state of charmonium), at least one of the quarks has to change the direction of its momentum by radiating gluons (and extra quark–antiquark pair(s)) since the relative velocity of heavy quarks in a bound state should be small. Since in QCD the helicity of the quark is conserved, a change in the direction of its momentum should be accompanied by the spin flip. We thus come to the conclusion that in the case of $`J/\psi `$ produced at high momentum, the total spin of $`J/\psi `$ should have zero projection on its direction of motion, which corresponds to the longitudinal polarization.

This is in agreement with the experimental result of the BaBar Collaboration , which states that the angular distribution of positively charged lepton decay product with respect to the direction of $`J/\psi `$ measured in the CM frame is $`W(\theta )1+\alpha cos^2\theta `$ with $`\alpha =0.46\pm 0.21`$ for CM momentum $`p^{}<3.5`$ GeV, and $`\alpha =0.80\pm 0.09`$ for CM momentum $`p^{}>3.5`$ GeV. (In this distribution, $`\alpha =1`$ corresponds to longitudinal polarization, $`\alpha =+1`$ to transverse, and $`\alpha =0`$ indicates no polarization).

As is clear from Fig.1b one of the $`c`$ quarks has helicity, say, $`\lambda =+1/2`$; the helicity of the other quark created from the vacuum is uniformly distributed. Therefore the mean value of $`\alpha `$ is equal to zero (it is easy to see that the cases of $`\alpha =+1`$ and $`\alpha =1`$ have equal probabilities), and the produced $`J/\psi `$ is unpolarized. The conclusion is that the precise measurement of $`J/\psi `$ polarization can distinguish among two mentioned above production mechanisms.

2. The possibility to form quark–gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions is an intriguing problem of strong interaction physics. To establish the formation of plasma, a number of signatures were proposed; here we will concentrate on heavy quarkonia. Suppression of heavy quarkonium states has been suggested long time ago by Matsui and Satz  as a signature of the deconfinement phase transition in heavy ion collisions. Their, by now well–known, idea is that the Debye screening of the gluon exchanges will make the binding of heavy quarks into the bound states impossible or unlikely once a sufficiently high temperature is reached. The lack of quarkonium states would thus signal deconfinement; this effect was indeed observed and studied in detail at CERN SPS by the NA38  and NA50 Collaborations . The results on $`J/\psi `$ production at RHIC have recently been presented by the PHENIX Collaboration . The observations of quarkonium suppression have been interpreted as a signal of quark–gluon plasma formation . However, different conclusions were reached in , where it was argued that the effect may arise due to quarkonium collisions with the comoving hadrons. Additional tests of the quark–gluon plasma formation could help to clarify the situation.

I would like to present here the idea: to use the polarization of $`J/\psi `$, produced in heavy ion collisions for diagnostics of quark-gluon plasma.

Let me first formulate what I mean by the quark–gluon plasma, since different definitions sometimes may result in misunderstanding. I define the quark–gluon plasma as a gas of quarks and gluons in which the interactions can be described by perturbative QCD and non–perturbative effects are either absent or can be neglected. It is no need to specify the properties of this state of matter in more detail to develop the idea.

It is well–known that the description of the data on heavy quarkonium production within the framework of perturbative QCD (pQCD) meets with siginificant difficulties. Both the absolute values of the measured production cross sections of hidden heavy flavor states and the relative abundances of different quarkonia are not described well within the perturbative framework, but perhaps the most spectacular failure of pQCD is the polarization of the produced quarkonia. Even an extension of a perturbative approach based on non–relativistic QCD , which allows certain non–perturbative physics, does not allow to explain the polarization measurements .

Let us illustrate this idea in more detail using the example of $`J/\psi `$ polarization. There are two mechanisms of $`J/\psi `$ production in hadron collisions – direct, when $`J/\psi `$ is produced by perturbative and non–perturbative interactions of gluons and quarks, and cascade, when $`J/\psi `$ is created as a result of decays of C–even $`\overline{c}c`$ states, $`\chi _cJ/\psi +\gamma `$. In quark–gluon plasma, the cascade production mechanism should be at least as important as direct production. Indeed, in the lowest order of perturbation theory, $`J/\psi `$ is produced by the three gluon fusion or by two gluon fusion followed by the gluon emission off the $`\overline{c}c`$ system. In both cases the probability of $`J/\psi `$ production is proportional to $`\alpha _s^3(m_c)`$. The probability of $`\chi _c^{0,2}`$ production is proportional to $`\alpha _s^2(m_c)`$, i.e. it is of lower order in $`\alpha _s`$, which however is largely compensated by the branching ratio $`B(\chi _2J/\psi +\gamma )20\%`$ for the $`J/\psi `$ production.

In ref  $`J/\psi `$ production cross section in $`\pi N`$ interactions was calculated in perturbation theory. The contributions from various sources to the $`J/\psi `$ production in $`\pi ^{}N`$ collisions at the incident energy of $`185`$ and $`300`$ GeV are shown in Table 1 (the data are from ).

Table 1

|  |  |  |  | $`\sigma \left(J/\psi \right),nb`$ | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | $`\sigma \left(\chi _2\right),nb`$ | $`\frac{\sigma _{dir}(J/\psi )}{\sigma (\chi _2J/\psi )}`$ | $`\frac{\sigma (\chi _1)}{\sigma (\chi _2)}`$ | dir | $`\chi _2J/\psi \gamma `$ | $`\chi _1J/\psi \gamma `$ | Total |
| Exper. | $`188\pm 30\pm 21`$ | $`0.54\pm 0.1\pm 0.1`$ | $`0.70\pm 0.15`$ | 102 | 35 | 42 | 180 |
| Theory | 78 | 0.17 | 0.067 | 13.2 | 14.7 | 1.6 | 29.5 |

As is clear from Table 1 the perturbative calculations of $`J/\psi `$ production in $`\pi N`$ collisions disagree with the data by a factor 6: the nonperturbative effects are dominant.

Let us now turn to $`J/\psi `$ polarization as reconstructed from the angular distributions of electrons (muons) from the $`J/\psi e^+e^{}(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ decays. Generally the electron (muon) distribution has the form

$`W(\theta )1+\alpha cos^2\theta ,`$ (5)
where $`\theta `$ is the emission angle of $`e^+`$ (or $`\mu ^+`$) relative to the direction of $`J/\psi `$ motion in its rest frame; at small $`p_t`$, this direction coincides with the direction of the beam. The value $`\alpha =1`$ corresponds to the transverse polarization, $`\alpha =1`$ – to the longitudinal polarization, and $`\alpha =0`$ to unpolarized $`J/\psi `$. In perturbation theory, in the case when $`J/\psi `$ is produced through the $`\chi _2J/\psi +\gamma `$ decay, the coefficient $`\alpha `$ in Eq. (5) is determined unambiguously (at small $`p_t`$): $`\alpha =1`$ . This comes from the fact that $`\chi _2`$ is produced by two–gluon fusion, $`gg\chi _2`$, for which the effective interaction is $`f_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }`$ is the energy–mometum tensor of the gluon field and $`f_{\mu \nu }`$ is the wave function of $`\chi _2`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }`$ has only $`J_z=\pm 2`$ spin projections on the direction of gluon momenta (indeed, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }`$ may be considered as a source of the graviton field), the same spin projections has the $`\chi _2`$. As a result, $`J/\psi `$ produced via $`\chi _2`$ decay is transversely polarized, $`J_z=\pm 1`$ and thus $`\alpha =1`$.

This conclusion is somewhat modified when the initial transverse momenta of the gluons are taken into account. This reduces the value of $`\alpha `$ to

$`\alpha \alpha ^{}=\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{(1\frac{3}{2}\theta _0^2)}{1+\alpha \theta _0^2/2}},`$ (6)
where $`\theta _0^24p_t^2/M_\chi ^2`$. For $`p_t1`$ GeV, the formula Eq.(6) yields a reduction of polarization down to $`\alpha 0.5`$; still, this value corresponds to a significant transverse polarization.

The asymmetry coefficient $`\alpha `$ was also computed for the directly produced $`J/\psi `$ and for the production via the $`\chi _1`$ decay . The results are $`\alpha _{dir}0.25`$ for direct production and $`\alpha _{\chi _1}0.15`$ for the production via $`\chi _1`$ decay (except the forward region of $`x_F>0.8`$, where both $`\alpha _{dir}`$ and $`\alpha _{\chi _1}`$ begin to increase). After summing all channels of $`J/\psi `$ production it was found  that $`\alpha _{tot}^{pert}0.5`$. Experimentally , no sizable polarization in the entire range of $`x_F`$ was observed, $`\alpha 0`$ (there is however an indication that at very large $`x_F`$ $`\alpha `$ becomes negative). This disagreement between theory and experiment demonstrates again that the production mechanism of $`J/\psi `$, and possibly $`\chi _1`$ and $`\chi _2`$ in hadronic collisions is essentially non–perturbative.

Let is now dwell upon the $`J/\psi `$ production in heavy ion collisions. Let us assume that at sufficiently high collision energy the quark–gluon plasma is formed. Due to the arguments presented above, the formation of quarkonia will thus take place in the plasma (this will of course result in the suppression of the formation probability ). The non–perturbative effects should thus be absent (or small), and we are left only with the perturbative mechanism. Then, according to the third row of Table 1, about one half of $`J/\psi `$’s will be produced directly and another one half via $`\chi _2J/\psi +\gamma `$. (The approximate equality of these contributions stems from the fact that the extra power of $`\alpha _s`$ in the direct production cross section is compensated by a relatively small branching ratio – about $`20\%`$ – of the $`\chi _2J/\psi +\gamma `$ decay.) We thus expect that the asymmetry coefficient of the electron (muon) angular distribution in the $`J/\psi e^+e^{}(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ decay in the case of quark–gluon plasma formation will increase from zero to about (at $`p_t=0`$) $`\alpha 0.6`$. The account of the initial transverse momentum distribution of gluons as discussed above reduces asymmetry coefficient to

$`\alpha 0.35÷0.4.`$ (7)
Conclusion. In case of quark-gluon plasma formation in heavy ion collisions, one may expect an essential increase of $`J\psi `$ polarization in comparison with that in hadronic collisions. Therefore, the measurement of electron (muon) angular asymmetry of $`J/\psi e^+e^{}(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ decay is an effective tool of detection of quark-gluon plasma formation in heavy ion collisions.

The content of my talk is based of the papers by D.Kharzeev and myself ,. This work was partially supported by INTAS grant 2000-587 and RFBR grant 03-02-16209.


text:
# Evidence for bipolar jets in late stages of AGB winds

## 1. Jet-driven asymmetry evolution in AGB stars

Concurrently, an increasing number of jet and jet-like features has been identified in various PNe and PPNe, prompting a suggestion that jets are also responsible for symmetry breaking in AGB winds (Sahai & Trauger 1998). The strongest evidence for jets comes from maser observations, including proper motion measurements, of both the fast collimated jets and the slow spherical wind (e.g., IRAS 16342-3814: Sahai et al. 1999; K3-35: Miranda et al. 2001; Hen 3-1475: Riera et al. 2003; IRAS 22036+5306: Sahai et al. 2003). Probably the youngest display of such a configuration of masers is the AGB star W43A (Imai et al. 2002). Considering that these jets are detected when they already break out from the confinement of a slow high density AGB wind, there has to exist an earlier instance of jet-evolution when only a small expanding cocoon is detectable (Scheuer 1974).

If large scale bipolar jet-cavities were to be carved out from the AGB wind of PPNe, as demonstrated in IRAS 16342-3814, then the cocoon expansion has to operate already during the AGB phase. Thus the aforementioned asymmetric AGB objects should provide glimpses of the cocoon expansion. The direct kinematic evidence of this process exists only for V Hya and W43A, where expansion velocities are measured. In the other objects, asymmetries revealed in imaging observations fit into this scenario.

The youngest example of a jet-cocoon in AGB stars, as we argue in section 2.2., exists in IRC+10011. A more advanced stage of cocoon evolution is present in the prototype C-rich star IRC+10216. Its cocoon is of a similar size, but the asymmetry is more pronounced and evident even in the K-band, unlike IRC+10011 where only the J-band image shows clear asymmetry. The C-rich star V Hya provides an example that is further along in evolution. Recent CO observations by Sahai et al. (2003) show a morphology of a bipolar outflow with velocities of 100–150 km s-1 breaking from the confinement of the high-density region of the slowly expanding AGB wind. A similar structure has been found in the O-rich star X Her, with a spherical wind of 2.5 km s-1 and two symmetrically displaced 10 km s-1 components, likely to be the red and blue shifted cones of a weakly collimated bipolar flow. An even more evolved system is the C-rich star CIT6, where a bipolar asymmetry dominates the image both in molecular line mapping and in HST-NICMOS imaging.

These examples show that a bipolar asymmetry, most probably created by collimated outflows, appears during the final stages of AGB mass outflow. This represents the first instance of symmetry breaking in the evolution from AGB to planetary nebula. It is still not clear, however, what physical process drives these jets. Diversity in their properties could lead toward diversity in geometrical and physical properties of the bipolar asymmetry. When the AGB phase ends, a mixture of various processes emerges, such as multiple jets and fast winds. Their interaction with the AGB circumstellar asymmetries leads to the myriad of complex structures found in PPN and PN sources.

## 2. IRC+10011: the youngest example of jets in AGB stars?

The oxygen-rich star IRC+10011 (= IRAS 01037+1219 = CIT3 = WXPsc) is one of the most extreme infrared AGB objects. It is surrounded by an optically thick dusty shell formed by a large mass loss rate of $``$ 10-5Myr-1. The shell expansion velocity of $``$ 20 km s-1 has been measured in OH maser and CO lines. This source served as the prototype for the first detailed models of AGB winds by Goldreich & Scoville (1976) and of the OH maser emission from OH/IR stars by Elitzur, Goldreich, & Scoville (1976). The sphericity of its dusty wind had been considered secure. The recent discovery by Hofmann et al. (2001; H01 hereafter) of distinct asymmetries in its envelope was, therefore, a surprise. They obtained the first near infrared bispectrum speckle-interferometry observations of this source with a resolution of tens of AU (Figure 1, upper row). While the H- and K’-band images appear almost spherically symmetric, the J-band shows a clear asymmetry.

### 2.1. 2D radiative transfer modeling

These images impose strong constrains on the circumstellar dust density distribution in the inner regions. It can be easily shown that scattering by a $`1/r^p`$ dust density distribution produces a $`1/r^{p+1}`$ brightness profile. Since the J-band image at 1.24 $`\mu `$m is dominated by dust scattering, the following geometry was deduced directly from the image: along the polar axis, the dust density declines as $`1/r^{0.5}`$, while the rest of the dusty wind has the typical $`1/r^2`$ density profile (Figure 2, left). Without good observational constraints on the large scale structure, we adopted the approach of the minimum number of free parameters in which the bipolar cones radially extend to $`R_{\mathrm{cone}}`$ with the half-opening angle $`\theta _{\mathrm{cone}}`$. Thus our model should be considered only a first-order approximation to the actual structure of IRC+10011.

The radiative transfer calculation was performed with LELUYA, a 2D code that can handle arbitrary axially symmetric dust configurations without approximations (www.leluya.org). General scaling properties of the radiatively heated dust (Ivezić & Elitzur 1997) have been applied such that the dust condensation temperature of 900 K is the only dimensional quantity specified. All other properties can be expressed in dimensionless terms. Luminosity is irrelevant, only the stellar spectral shape is needed, which we take as black-body at 2,250 K. Similarly, only the spectral shapes of the dust absorption and scattering coefficients are needed. We use the silicate grains of Ossenkopf, Henning & Mathis (1992) with the standard size distribution described by Mathis, Rumpl & Nordsieck (1977). However, we found that fits of the visibility curves require the upper limit on the grain sizes reduced to 0.20 $`\mu `$m from the standard 0.25 $`\mu `$m.

The best fit to the overall spectral energy distribution and imaging visibility curves yields visual optical depth of 20 along the conical symmetry axis and 40 in the equatorial plane. The angular radius of the dust condensation cavity is $``$ 35 mas (23 $`\pm `$ 5 AU). The fit also yields a bolometric flux of $`10^9\mathrm{W}/\mathrm{m}^2`$, corresponding to 10.82 mas for the stellar angular size. The system is observed at an inclination $`i=25^{}\pm 3^{}`$ from the axis so that the wind obscures the receding part of the bipolar structure, creating the observed asymmetry of the scattering image. When imaged at long wavelengths, such as the K’-band, the dust thermal emission starts to dominate (Figure 2, right). The asymmetry is then less apparent since the central heating by the star tends to produce spherical isotherms.

Assuming standard gas-to-dust ratio, the overall mass of the IRC+10011 circumstellar shell is 0.13M. The measured wind velocity of 20 km s-1 gives a lifetime of $``$ 3,800 years for the current outflow phase. This corresponds to a mass loss rate of 3$`\times `$10-5Myr-1, which is a signature of the very end of AGB evolution. Our modeling suggests the existence of a toroidal density enhancement at distances of more than $``$ 100 AU. Imaging observation by Marengo et al. (1999) provide a possible indication of such structure.

### 2.2. Bipolar cones as expanding jet cocoons

The derived gas density at the base of each cone is 1.3$`\times `$106cm-3, while at the base of the wind region it is 1.7$`\times `$108cm-3. This large disparity implies that the bipolar cones are sustained by high-velocity ram pressure, most probably due to high-velocity low-density jets. We find that the opening angle of the cones is 2$`\theta _{\mathrm{cone}}=30^{}`$ and they extend to about 500 to 1000 AU. The cone emission comes from the swept-up ambient wind material. All of these properties are consistent with the jet evolution picture first described by Scheuer (1974): jets are clearing the polar regions but are trapped by the ambient material pushed ahead by their ram pressure, resulting in an expanding cocoon. The current density distribution in the cocoon is just a snapshot of an inherently dynamic structure. We find the jet lifetime is $``$ 200 years. In comparison with the other asymmetric AGB objects, IRC+10011 currently provides the youngest known example of asymmetry in AGB outflows.

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# Formation of Quantum-Degenerate Sodium Molecules

## Abstract

Ultra-cold sodium molecules were produced from an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate by ramping an applied magnetic field across a Feshbach resonance. More than $`10^5`$ molecules were generated with a conversion efficiency of $``$4%. Using laser light resonant with an atomic transition, the remaining atoms could be selectively removed, preventing fast collisional relaxation of the molecules. Time-of-flight analysis of the pure molecular sample yielded an instantaneous phase-space density greater than 20.

Atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) provide a new window into macroscopic quantum phenomena BEC (1999). A molecular condensate could lead to a host of new scientific explorations. These include quantum gases with anisotropic dipolar interactions, tests of fundamental symmetries such as the search for a permanent electric dipole moment, study of rotational and vibrational energy transfer processes, and coherent chemistry, where reactants and products are in coherent quantum superposition states. So far, the highly successful techniques for creating atomic BEC have not led to success for molecules. Laser cooling is difficult due to the complicated level structure of molecules Bahns et al. (1998), and evaporative cooling requires the preparation of a dense gas of molecules, where elastic collisions dominate inelastic collisions.

Alternative techniques, such as buffer gas loading Weinstein et al. (1998) and Stark deceleration Bethlem et al. (1999), have been successful in obtaining cold molecules. Yet these methods are still far from achieving the requisite phase-space density for BEC. The difficulty in cooling molecules directly can be circumvented by creating ultracold molecules from quantum-degenerate atomic samples. This requires molecule formation without release of energy, which can be accomplished either by photoassociation Wynar et al. (2000) or by “tuning” a molecular state via a Feshbach resonance Inouye et al. (1998) to be degenerate with the atomic state. A Feshbach resonance occurs when an applied magnetic field Zeeman shifts a molecular state to zero binding energy. By ramping an external field across a Feshbach resonance from negative to positive scattering length, translationally cold molecules in high vibrational states can be created adiabatically Mies et al. (2000); van Abeelen and Verhaar (1999a); Yurovsky et al. (1999).

The first observation of a Feshbach resonance in ultracold atoms showed a high rate of atom loss Inouye et al. (1998); Stenger et al. (1999). Theories accounted for this loss by assuming the formation of ultracold molecules Mies et al. (2000); van Abeelen and Verhaar (1999a); Yurovsky and Ben-Reuven (2003). These molecules were predicted to decay vibrationally in less than $`100`$ $`\mu `$s due to a two-body rate coefficient of order $`10^{10}`$ cm3/s. Because of this, no successful attempt was made to detect a molecular signature until atom-molecule beats were observed in 85Rb, lasting about $`100`$ $`\mu `$s Donley et al. (2002). Recent fermion experiments using magnetic field sweeps have observed molecules with lifetimes approaching 1 sec Regal et al. (2003a); Cubizolles et al. (2003); Jochim et al. (2003); Strecker et al. (2003). Until now, similar experiments with bosons have only been carried out during ballistic expansion Dürr et al. (2003); Herbig et al. (2003). According to theory, the decay of molecules composed of fermionic atoms is suppressed by Pauli blocking Petrov et al. (2003), whereas molecules composed of bosons decay rapidly. This could explain the low conversion efficiency of about 5% for bosons, compared to $`>`$50% for fermions, where more adiabatic field ramps are possible.

If highly degenerate atoms (both fermionic and bosonic) are converted adiabatically to molecules, the molecules can be created at a phase-space density exceeding 2.6, the critical value at which a uniform, ideal Bose gas condenses Huang (1987). Previous experiments Herbig et al. (2003); Cubizolles et al. (2003); BEC  have measured or estimated conditions close to or around this critical phase-space density.

Here we report the production of trapped sodium molecules from an atomic BEC. The initial phase-space density of the molecular sample was measured in excess of 20. High phase-space density could only be achieved by rapidly removing residual atoms, before atom-molecule collisions caused trap loss and heating. This was accomplished by a new technique for preparing pure molecular clouds, where light resonant with an atomic transition selectively “blasted” unpaired atoms from the trap. In contrast to spatial separation via a Stern-Gerlach method Herbig et al. (2003); Dürr et al. (2003), this technique can separate out the molecules faster and does not require a large difference in the magnetic moments of the atoms and molecules.

To generate the molecules, sodium condensates in the $`|F=1,m_F=1`$ state were prepared in an optical dipole trap. The radial and axial trap frequencies of $`\omega _r=2\pi \times 290`$ Hz and $`\omega _z=2\pi \times 2.2`$ Hz, respectively, gave Thomas-Fermi radii of $`R_r=5`$ $`\mu `$m and $`R_z=650`$ $`\mu `$m, and a peak density of $`1.7\times 10^{14}`$ cm-3 for 5 million atoms. An adiabatic radio frequency sweep was used to transfer the atoms into the $`|1,1`$ state, which has a 1 G wide Feshbach resonance at 907 G Inouye et al. (1998); van Abeelen and Verhaar (1999b).

After 1 second equilibration in the optical trap, the molecules were generated using the field ramping scheme illustrated in Fig. 1a. An applied magnetic field was ramped in $``$100 ms to 4 G below the 907 G Feshbach resonance. The field was generated using a pair of large bias and small anti-bias coils. Because molecules are only created when sweeping across the resonance from negative to positive scattering length, the field was stepped up to 913 G as quickly as possible ($``$$`\mu `$s) to jump over the resonance with minimal atom loss. After allowing 2.5 ms for transient field fluctuation to damp out, the field was ramped down in time $`\tau _{Down}`$. Due to atom-molecule coupling, part of the atomic population was transferred into the molecular state following the Landau-Zener avoided crossing. With the given width of the resonance and the atomic density, we use a simple Landau-Zener model to calculate a ramp speed of $``$$`10^4`$ G/s to transfer roughly half the atoms to the molecular state Mies et al. (2000); van Abeelen and Verhaar (1999a); Yurovsky and Ben-Reuven (2003). However, inelastic collisions led to fast decay for both the atoms and the molecules near the resonance. We found that a faster ramp speed of $``$$`10^5`$ G/s (corresponding to $`\tau _{Down}=50`$ $`\mu `$s) gave optimal results. The conversion efficiency of atoms to molecules was $``$4%. Slower ramp speeds resulted in a similar number of molecules, but at higher temperature (see Fig. 1e).

The blast pulse was applied along the radial axis of the trap to minimize collisions between the escaping atoms and the molecules at rest. A $`20`$ $`\mu `$s pulse of resonant light removed all atoms from the optical trap, leaving behind a pure molecular sample (see Fig. 1). At only 4 G below the Feshbach resonance, the light was still close to resonance with molecular photodissociation to low-velocity atoms, but the overlap matrix element was sufficiently diminished to leave the molecules unaffected. After a variable hold time, the optical trap was switched off and the molecules expanded ballistically for between 4 to 20 ms. The molecules were detected by converting them back to atoms with field ramp-up in $`\tau _{Up}=100`$ $`\mu `$s at the end of expansion. Varying $`\tau _{Up}`$ between $`50`$ $`\mu `$s and 4 ms did not affect the recovered atom number, though shorter $`\tau _{Up}`$’s recovered atoms with larger kinetic energy Mukaiyama . Thus we assume all molecules are converted back to atoms. A resonant absorption image was taken after an additional $`500`$ $`\mu `$s, which allowed the imaging field to settle. The rapid conversion of molecules to atoms after a long expansion time ensured that the absorption images accurately depicted the momentum distribution of the *molecular* cloud.

Atoms and molecules were separated during the ballistic expansion by a Stern-Gerlach technique (Fig. 1e). Due to trap imperfections, the large bias coils provided an additional radial gradient of the axial field of $``$2.8 G/cm in the vicinity of the condensate. This value was determined from the trajectory of the falling atoms. Since the molecules have a different magnetic moment, they separate from the atoms during the ballistic expansion (Fig. 1e). From the separation of the atomic and molecular clouds at different times, we determined the difference between atomic and molecular magnetic moments to be 3.2$`\mu _B`$ ($`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton), in good agreement with theory Yurovsky and Ben-Reuven (2003).

For different ramp down times $`\tau _{Down}`$, the time-of-flight images of the molecular cloud exhibit drastically different momentum distribution. The coldest cloud was obtained with the fastest ramp down time possible, $`\tau _{Down}=50`$ $`\mu `$s (Fig. 2). A gaussian fit was used to determine the molecular temperature $`T_m`$ and the phase-space density. Due to the rapid ramp down, the molecules had no time to adjust to the external trapping potential or any mean-field interactions. Therefore, we assume the molecules were *uniformly* created with the Thomas-Fermi profile of the original atomic BEC. The peak phase-space density is then given by

$$PSD_{peak}=\left(\frac{h}{\sqrt{2\pi k_BT_mM_m}}\right)^3\frac{N_m}{\frac{8\pi }{15}R_r^2R_z}$$
(1)
where $`h`$ is the Planck constant, $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`M_m`$ is the molecular mass, $`N_m`$ is the number of molecules. The second factor in the equation is the peak density for a Thomas-Fermi profile.

Fig. 3a shows the phase-space densities obtained for different holding time in the optical trap. Phase-space densities in excess of 20 were observed, much larger than the critical value of 2.6. This demonstrates that a quantum-degenerate cloud of atoms can be transformed into a quantum-degenerate molecular gas.

The high initial phase-space density decayed rapidly ($``$2 ms), due to molecule loss and heating. For a pure molecular sample at a peak density of $`4\times 10^{12}`$ cm-3, the molecule number dropped by half in 5 ms and the apparent temperature doubled in 2 ms. Since the molecules are formed in a high vibrational state with quantum number $`v=14`$, losses are most likely due to vibrational relaxation. The high loss rate of the molecules is consistent with theoretically predicted 2-body relaxation rate coefficients of $`10^{10}`$ cm3/s Yurovsky et al. (1999); Soldán et al. (2002). Because the loss of molecules is faster at the high densities near the bottom of the trap, it is accompanied by heating. This is in contrast to evaporative cooling, where the losses occur at the top of the trap. Such anti-evaporative heating gives a time constant four times slower than the observed heating rate. We therefore believe that the rapid increase in the apparent temperature is due to the inward motion of the molecular cloud (see below), and possibly transfer of the vibrational energy of the molecules.

Our calculation of the phase-space density is conservative, since almost all errors lead to an underestimation of the value. The most critical quantity is the thermal velocity $`v_{therm}=\sqrt{2k_BT_m/M_m}`$ obtained from the gaussian fit of the cloud, since the phase-space density scales with the third power of $`v_{therm}`$. We determined the velocity by simply dividing the size of the cloud by the time-of-flight, without correcting for imaging resolution and initial cloud size.

Correcting for the imaging resolution of $`10`$ $`\mu `$m compared to the typical cloud size of $`50`$ $`\mu `$m would increase the phase-space density measurement by 6%. In addition, radial excitation of the trapped cloud (shown in Fig. 4) contributed to the size of the cloud after the ballistic expansion. From the fits, the smaller of the two gaussian radii was used to calculate $`v_{therm}`$, assuming that the larger size was caused by radial excitations. Yet since the radial excitation can occur in two orthogonal directions, we estimate that the extracted thermal velocities were still overestimated by $``$10%. We also considered magnetic focusing of the cloud due to residual field inhomogeneities. Because we use large coils ($`17`$ cm in diameter and $`4`$ cm away from the condensate) to produce a homogeneous magnetic field, any residual radial curvature due to radial fields is calculated to be $`0.1`$ G/cm2. An upper bound for the radial curvature of the axial fields was obtained from trap frequency measurements and ballistic expansion measurements as $`<1`$ G/cm2. This can only reduce the size of the cloud by less than 2% after a typical ballistic expansion time of 17 ms.

We assume resonant absorption in determining the number of atoms. Any systematic effect such as small detuning or saturation, would lower both $`N_m`$ and the Thomas-Fermi volume (proportional to $`N^{\frac{3}{5}}`$, where $`N`$ is the number of condensed atoms). The net effect is an underestimate of the phase-space density. In addition, because the molecular formation process is non-linear in atomic density, the assumption of the atomic Thomas-Fermi volume for molecules is likely an overestimate. Furthermore, in the absence of strong mean-field repulsion (due to the much lower molecular density), the molecular cloud would not sustain the initial size of the atomic condensate (used in equation (1)), and shrink to a smaller size within a few milliseconds ($``$ radial trap period). If we assume radial thermal equilibrium while keeping the axial length fixed (as the axial trap period is 500 ms), the phase-space density would be 2 to 4 times higher than is shown in Fig. 3. To sum up, the extracted peak phase-space densities are underestimated by $``$30%, and all other critical systematic effects would raise the value even further.

When a molecular cloud with high phase-space density equilibrates by elastic collisions, it should form a condensate. There is no prediction for the scattering length of the molecules, which are formed in the $`|v=14,l=0`$ state Moerdijk et al. (1995). Assuming a prototypical scattering length of $`100a_0`$ ($`a_0`$ is the Bohr radius), we estimate the elastic collision rate between molecules to be 6 s-1, which is smaller than our loss rate. Thus, the so-called ratio of good and bad collisions is smaller than one.

Recent work on molecules composed of fermionic lithium Cubizolles et al. (2003); Jochim et al. (2003) and potassium Regal et al. (2003b) atoms showed a dramatic increase in lifetime close to the Feshbach resonance. Theoretically, the rate of vibrational relaxation should decrease with the scattering length $`a_s`$ as $`a_s^{2.55}`$ due to Pauli blocking Petrov et al. (2003). In contrast, for molecules composed of bosonic atoms, the rate should increase proportionally to $`a_s`$ Petrov . On the other hand, the elastic collision rate is proportional to $`a_s^2`$, so for large $`a_s`$ one would expect the ratio of good-to-bad collisions to exceed one. However, if this condition is met at loss rates faster than the trap frequency, the cloud can only establish local, not global equilibrium.

Whether our molecular sample is a condensate depends on one’s definition of BEC. If phase-space density in excess of 2.6 (corresponding to a diagonal matrix element of the single-particle density matrix larger than one) is sufficient, then one may regard a short-lived atom-molecule superposition state Donley et al. (2002) as a molecular BEC. However, following this definition, a small excited state admixture in an optically trapped BEC would qualify as BEC of electronically excited atoms. If one asks for the additional requirement of a pure molecular sample, we have achieved that in this work. Another definition would require phase coherence, which could again be observed even in short-lived samples. Should one also require a lifetime of the degenerate sample exceeding the collision time (to achieve local equilibrium), the trap period (to achieve global equilibrium), or the inverse mean-field energy (the typical dynamic timescale)? In our opinion, BEC requires thermal equilibrium. High phase-space density is necessary, but not sufficient.

In conclusion, we have created a quantum-degenerate gas of $`10^5`$ cold sodium molecules with a phase-space density $`>`$20. This was achieved with a fast magnetic field sweep through a Feshbach resonance, followed by quick removal of the remnant atoms with resonant light. This purification was necessary to avoid heating and decay of the molecules through inelastic collision processes. These processes could also be avoided by loading the atomic BEC into an optical lattice in the Mott-insulator phase with a filling factor of two Greiner et al. (2002); Jaksch et al. (2002) which, after sweeping the magnetic field through the Feshbach resonance, would result in a long-lived sample of isolated molecules.

The authors would like to acknowledge M. Xue for experimental assistance with the project. We also thank A.E. Leanhardt and M.W. Zwierlein for their critical reading of the manuscript. This research is supported by NSF, ONR, ARO, NASA, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.


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# Possible evidence of a spontaneous spin-polarization in mesoscopic 2D electron systems

## Abstract

We have experimentally studied the non-equilibrium transport in low-density clean 2D electron systems at mesoscopic length scales. At zero magnetic field ($`B`$), a double-peak structure in the non-linear conductance was observed close to the Fermi energy in the localized regime. From the behavior of these peaks at non-zero $`B`$, we could associate them to the opposite spin states of the system, indicating a spontaneous spin polarization at $`B=0`$. Detailed temperature and disorder dependence of the structure shows that such a splitting is a ground state property of the low-density 2D systems.

Spin polarization of electrons in low dimensional systems at $`B=0`$ has recently attracted extensive theoretical and experimental attention. In the metallic regime, this is commonly attributed to the spin-orbit (SO) effect, where the bulk inversion asymmetry (the $`k^3`$ term) and the interface inversion asymmetry (the Rasba term) result in an energy separation of several millivolts between the spin bands in narrow band semiconductors das . At low electron densities however, the electron-electron interaction dominates over the kinetic energy, and a homogeneous 2D system becomes unstable to spontaneous spin polarization (SSP) due to exchange varsano ; dharma . Since the influence of interaction is strong at lower dimensions, several recent experimental investigations on the spin state of 0D stewart ; folk  and 1D systems thomas  have indicated the possibility of a SSP, even though the origin and nature of such a phase is controversial. In low-density 2D electron systems (2DES’s), however, a direct observation of a “spin gap” has remained experimentally illusive, even though evidence of an enhanced g-factor and anomalous spin-susceptibility have been reported when the disorder is low tutuc ; okamoto ; shashkin ; zhu .

It is now known that, an unpaired spin in weakly-isolated systems are screened by Kondo-like singlet formation with the electrons in the leads kondot . This results in a resonance in the tunnelling density-of-states (DOS), and an enhancement in the differential conductance ($`dI/dV`$) through the system when the chemical potential of the leads are aligned. When studied as a function of source-drain bias ($`V_{SD}`$), the zero-bias peak (ZBP) splits linearly in finite $`B`$ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_Z=g^{}\mu _BB`$, where $`g^{}`$ and $`\mu _B`$ are the effective g-factor and the Bohr magneton respectively. Recent non-linear studies in ballistic quantum point contacts (QPC’s) have also shown the evidence of a ZBP kond1d , which was attributed to a Kondo-like correlation resulting from a dynamic SSP in 1D. In this Letter, we report the direct observation of SSP in low-density 2DES’s. High quality 2DES’s of mesoscopic length scales were used with no intentional in-plane confinements. In the localized regime, clear evidence of a split ZBP was observed at $`B=0`$. The magnitude of the split ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) evolved continuously with $`B`$, implying its origin to be related to the underlying spin structure of the 2DES. Simultaneous measurement of the Fermi energy ($`E_F`$) showed that such a polarization is an intrinsic ground state property of 2D systems, and depends critically on the impurity scattering, as well as the temperature ($`T`$) and magnetic field ($`B`$).

We have used 2DES’s confined to the triangular potential wells of Si $`\delta `$-doped GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. In most samples, the 2DES’s were formed $``$ 300 nm below the surface. Disorder was varied by changing the spacer thickness $`\delta _{sp}`$ separating the dopant layer from the GaAs/AlGaAs interface. Data from two samples with $`\delta _{sp}`$ = 40 nm and 60 nm (referred as A78 and A79, respectively) are reported in this work, even though all the samples show qualitatively similar results. In both samples, a source-drain voltage $`V_{SD}`$ was applied on a $`5\mu `$m$`\times 5\mu `$m region of the wafer, defined by an etched mesa and a metallic surface gate. At zero gate voltage ($`V_g=0`$) the mobility of both samples were $`2\times 10^6`$ cm2/V-sec. Lifetime measurements confirm the dominance of the small angle scattering. By varying $`V_g`$, electron density ($`n_s`$) as low as $`5\times 10^9`$ cm-2 could be attained in sample A79 (corresponding to an interaction parameter $`r_s=1/a_B^{}\sqrt{\pi n_s}7.6`$, where $`a_B^{}`$ is the effective Bohr radius). In all the magnetic field measurements, $`B`$ was applied in the plane of the 2DES and parallel to the direction of the current. The differential conductance $`dI/dV`$ was measured with a standard 2-probe mixed ac-dc method, where the ac excitation bias was kept at $`<k_BT/e`$. For all samples, the gate was trained several hundred times to obtain an excellent run to run reproducibility (better than 0.1%).

Dependence of the linear response conductance ($`G`$) on $`V_g`$ is shown in Fig. 1 at various values of $`B`$, recorded at $`T35`$ mK in sample A79. We focus on the localized regime (MIT in A79 occurs at $`G3\times e^2/h`$), where the electron density is low, and the interaction effects are most pronounced. For all $`V_g`$, $`G`$ was found to decrease rapidly with increasing $`B`$. The functional dependence of the in plane magneto-conductance (MC) on $`B`$ has been shown to change from $`e^{B^2}`$ to $`e^B`$ at a critical field $`B_c`$, when the electron gas becomes completely spin polarized, and the majority and minority spin bands are separated by the Fermi energy tutuc ; zhu . In the inset of Fig. 1 we have shown the zero-bias MC as a function of $`B^2`$ at four representative gate voltages. The values of $`B_c`$ at each $`V_g`$, shown by the arrows, indicate a deviation from the linear behavior at low fields. This enables us to evaluate the spin non-degenerate Fermi energy $`E_F^{}`$ as $`E_F^{}=g^{}\mu _BB_c`$. The dependence of $`E_F^{}`$ on $`V_g`$ is shown in Fig. 2c. We have used a $`g^{}=3.4|g_b|`$ for evaluating $`E_F^{}`$, where $`|g_b|=0.44`$ is the band g-factor in bulk GaAs. This value of $`g^{}`$ is obtained from $`V_{SD}`$ measurements, and will be discussed later. Note that above $`V_g0.376`$ V, corresponding to $`n_s5\times 10^9`$ cm-2, the transport is essentially 2D in nature with $`E_F^{}`$ varying approximately linearly with $`V_g`$. The slope $`dE_F^{}/dV_g`$ was found to be $`12`$ meV/V, agreeing roughly with the effective free-electron spin non-degenerate 2D density-of-states, $`(dE_F^{}/dV_g)_{free}=(h^2/2\pi m^{})dn_s/dV_gϵ_0ϵ_rh^2/2\pi em^{}d_s16`$ meV/V, where $`d_s=310`$ nm is the depth of the 2DES from the surface, and $`m^{}0.067m_e`$ is the band effective mass of the electron. The discrepancy could be due to a weak density-dependence of $`g^{}`$ tutuc . Below $`V_g0.376`$ V ($`G0.30.4\times e^2/h`$), $`E_F^{}`$ drops abruptly, possibly due to the onset of inhomogeneity in the charge distribution as screening becomes weak.

The $`V_{SD}`$ dependence of $`dI/dV`$ at various values of $`V_g`$ (i.e., $`n_s`$) is shown in Fig. 2a. $`V_g`$ differs by 1 mV in successive offset-corrected traces. The striking feature of these traces is the double peak structure of $`dI/dV`$ with a local minimum at $`V_{SD}=0`$. This was found to be a generic feature observed in all the low-disorder samples of similar dimensions. The detection of the double-peak structure was difficult in the strongly localized regime ($`V_g0.385`$ V), as well as in the metallic regime ($`V_g0.35`$ V), indicating a disorder-dependent window of $`n_s`$ where the effect becomes clearly visible. In most cases the peaks are dissimilar in magnitude and width, both of which vary when $`V_g`$ is changed. The separation ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) of the peaks shows a non-monotonic dependence on $`V_g`$, as shown in Fig. 2b. At low $`V_g`$ ($`0.385`$ V), $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is largest, but decreases rapidly with increasing $`V_g`$, reaching a minimum at $`V_g0.375`$ V. Comparing to the $`V_g`$ dependence of $`E_F^{}`$ (Fig. 2c) we find the onset of linear dependence of $`E_F^{}`$ at the same $`V_g`$. When $`V_g0.375`$ V, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ increases roughly linearly with increasing $`V_g`$. Since this regime can be directly associated with a 2D ground state, we shall restrict further discussions on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ to this range of $`V_g`$. Extrapolating the linear dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we find the $`V_g`$ ($`0.395`$ V) at which $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$, agrees within the experimental uncertainty with the $`V_g`$ ($`0.408`$ V) at which the extrapolated $`E_F^{}=0`$, establishing a direct correspondence between $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`n_s`$.

In order to investigate the nature of this effect, we have then studied the double peak structure in a parallel magnetic field. The behavior is illustrated with the trace measured at $`V_g0.37`$ V, indicated by the arrow in Fig. 2b. This is shown in Fig. 3, where the traces with increasing $`B`$ are vertically offset for clarity. The peak positions ($`V_p`$) change non-monotonically as a function of $`B`$ (see the arrows). We find that the peaks close in over the field scale of $`B0.5`$ T, but eventually separate at higher fields (see the inset of Fig. 3). The evolution of the peaks with $`B`$ strongly suggests a spin-related effect, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the energy difference between the opposite spins. Note that the $`B`$-field does not split each peak individually, differentiating our case from a disorder induced quantum molecule. An asymmetrical suppression of the peaks with increasing $`B`$ sets the maximum field scale ($`2.8`$ T) of our experiments, beyond which the left peak becomes undetectable.

The observability and characteristics of the peaks were found to depend critically on disorder and $`T`$. We have changed the local disorder profile over the sample region by controlled thermal cycles from room temperature to 4.2 K. The result for three successive thermal cycles carried out for A78 are shown in Fig. 4a. All traces (B and C are shifted vertically for clarity) were recorded at a similar $`E_F`$ and $`B=0`$. While the general behavior of $`dI/dV`$ is similar and agrees with that of A79, we find the overall magnitude and width of the peaks to differ markedly, even from one cooling to the other. In general, when the cooling was done at a slow rate (trace A: over a few hours) we found the peaks to be more pronounced than when the cooling was done rapidly (trace C: over few tens of minutes). Greater disorder in C is also observable in terms of the linear response conductance, $`G0.1e^2/h`$, which, in case of A is $`0.3e^2/h`$. Disorder broadening also affects the observability of the effect as the sample dimensions are increased. Typically, no double-peaks were observed in $`10\mu `$m$`\times 10\mu `$m samples.

Thermal broadening of the peaks, associated with a strong suppression of the peak height, from $`T70`$ mK to $`0.5`$ K are shown in Fig. 4b. Note that even though $`G`$ at $`V_{SD}=0`$ rises with increasing $`T`$, as expected in a localized system, it is essentially a result of the overlap of the broadening peaks. This also confirms that as a function of $`V_{SD}`$, we indeed observe a non-linear effect, and the double peak structure is a ground-state property of the 2D electron system in the low density regime.

We now discuss possible mechanisms which may give rise to such a structure in non-equilibrium measurements. Assuming the formation of a weak tunnel barrier, which physically splits the 2D region in two parts, the conservation of the transverse momentum will allow tunnelling through the barrier only at $`V_{SD}=0`$. This would result in a disorder-broadened ZBP in the tunnelling $`dI/dV`$. An interaction-induced suppression of states at $`E_F`$, e.g., $`\mathrm{ln}(|ϵ|\tau )`$ in the diffusive regime altshuler  or Efros-Shklovskii-type soft gap $`|ϵ|`$ in the hopping regime es , may then spilt the ZBP to give rise to the double peak structure rudin . The main arguments against such a scenario are, (a) the separation of the peaks are $`B`$-independent, hence inconsistent with Fig. 3, and (b) the separation decreases with increasing $`E_F`$, contrary to the result of Fig. 2b rudin .

To investigate if the peak separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is indeed spin-related, we have plotted $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as a function of $`B`$ for the data shown in fig. 3. As shown in Fig. 5, at low fields $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ decreases with increasing field, while at high $`B`$ ($`1`$ T), $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ shows monotonic increase as $`B`$ increases. In this high-$`B`$ regime, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ tends asymptotically to a linear $`B`$ dependence (the solid line), which when extrapolated, passes through the origin. This we identify as Zeeman spin splitting. From the asymptote, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_Z=g^{}\mu _BB`$, we find $`g^{}`$ to be $`1.49=3.4|g_b|`$, agreeing closely to the values reported in recent measurements over similar range of $`n_s`$ tutuc . The peak positions thus represent the energies of two opposite spin states in a magnetic field, and from the non-zero separation at $`B=0`$, signify a non-zero spin polarization.

From the critical role of spin , and also the behavior of $`dI/dV`$ near $`V_{SD}=0`$, a Kondo-like many-body correlation, as discussed extensively in the context of quantum dots kondot , can be envisaged. There are however important differences. In our system, as in the case of QPC’s, there are no obvious singly-occupied quasi-bound electronic states. Unlike the suggested ferromagnetic states in QPC’s karl , the magnetic moment of a frozen spin-polarized state in 2D would be much higher than that of a single electron, and hence Kondo-type screening would be difficult. However, as indicated in Fig. 2a for $`V_g0.375`$ V, the spin-polarization in our system seems to be dynamic, and increases with $`n_s`$. This, as suggested for QPC’s meir , in presence of optimal band-hybridization, could result in a Kondo-enhanced ZBP in $`dI/dV`$. Our case is however further complicated by the splitting of the ZBP at $`B=0`$, resembling the behavior of ZBP in dots and QPC’s at a finite $`B`$ kondot ; kond1d . Although the Kondo effect in coupled dot systems has a similar non-equilibrium behavior as a function of $`V_{SD}`$ at $`B=0`$, such a case would appear only over a restricted parameter range of inter-dot and lead couplings, and hence should be rather rare in open systems with no intentional confinement ddot .

Finally, in parallel $`B`$, it has been shown that in sufficiently smooth disorder, both SO and exchange-induced spin splitting could result in satellite-peaks in the tunnelling DOS at finite bias $`\pm \sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_Z^2}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is the magnitude of SSP apalkov . The tunnelling DOS could be obtained in a non-linear $`dI/dV`$ measurement if we assume a quasi-ballistic transport in our clean mesoscopic samples, i.e., electron energies are lost mainly at the leads. Apart from explaining the double-peak structure in $`dI/dV`$, this also justifies, (a) broadening of the peaks with disorder and (b) the linear $`B`$-dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ at high $`B`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_Z`$. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ arises from a strong SO coupling, one expects negative magneto-conductance at low perpendicular $`B`$-field, arising from weak antilocalization. No evidence of antilocalization was observed in our mesoscopic 2D systems. The SO-origin of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ seems to be unlikely on two more grounds. First, calculation of the magnitude of splitting in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures, taking into account both bulk and Rashba terms, shows that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ would be $`0.05`$ meV below $`n_s10^{11}`$ cm-2 pfeffer . Secondly, if the absence of antilocalization is attributed to a $`B`$-dependent $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, as in large open quantum dots, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ increases with $`B`$ at low fields folk ; halperin . However, as shown in the inset of Fig. 5, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{\Delta }_Z^2}`$ decreases with increasing $`B`$ in our samples. Alternatively, if we assume that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ arises due to exchange, and in the Fermi liquid limit, represents the shift of one spin state with respect to the other (see the inset of Fig. 5), then an estimate of polarization $`\zeta `$ could be obtained as $`\zeta =(n_sn_s)/n_s\mathrm{\Delta }/2E_F^{}`$. In the regime of 2D conduction, $`V_g0.375`$ V, we find $`\zeta 0.1`$, implying only a partial spin polarization. This is probably not surprising considering the low $`r_s67`$ in our system, and finite $`T`$ dharma . The exchange-origin of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is also supported by the decrease of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ with increasing $`B`$, as the additional confinement ($`B^2`$) imposed by $`B`$ tends to counteract the formation of parallel spins karl .

In conclusion, non-linear conductance measurements in high quality mesoscopic 2D electron systems show direct evidence of spontaneous spin polarization at low electron densities. This spin polarization is density-dependent, and manifested by a split zero-bias peak in source-drain bias at $`B=0`$. The peaks are generally asymmetric and strongly depend on the local disorder. Simultaneous measurement of the Fermi energy, and temperature-dependence of conductance confirm the splitting to be an intrinsic property of 2D systems, and also identify a window of electron density and temperature over which the splitting becomes experimentally observable.