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# ADP-03-140/T575 Chiral extrapolation and physical insights

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Over the past few years there has been a significant effort into the study of the chiral extrapolation problem for lattice QCD. Extrapolation of lattice QCD simulation results to the light quark mass regime is nontrivial due to nonanalytic variation of hadron properties with quark mass. Such nonanalytic behaviour arises as a consequence of spontaneously broken chiral symmetry in the QCD ground state.

Early research in extrapolations of nucleon properties  discovered that one could obtain reliable extrapolations by incorporating the model-independent constraints of chiral symmetry near the chiral limit. Importantly, these studies highlighted the fact that the rapid, nonanalytic variation with quark mass must be suppressed at some intermediate energy scale. Above pion masses $`500\mathrm{MeV}`$, nucleon properties become smoothly varying functions of the quark mass, $`m_qm_\pi ^2`$. This observation has a simple physical explanation. Once the Compton wavelength of the pion becomes small ($`\lambda _Cm_\pi ^1`$) relative to the finite extent of the nucleon, chiral loop effects become suppressed .

Recent work has established that these features are all naturally built into chiral perturbation theory ($`\chi `$PT) when evaluated with a finite-range regulator (FRR) . The formulation of $`\chi `$PT with chiral loop integrals cut-off in momentum space at a finite energy scale has been established by Donoghue et al. . Finite-range cutoff effects in chiral effective field theory have also been studied in the context of lattice regularised $`\chi `$PT .

A case study of the nucleon mass expansion  has demonstrated that the use of FRR improves the convergence properties of the $`\chi `$PT expansion. The expansion has been demonstrated to be applicable up to pion masses of at least $`m_\pi ^20.8\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. This allows a reliable connection with modern lattice QCD simulations. A range of functional forms for the momentum space cutoff have been investigated and the systematic errors induced by the cutoff have been found to be below the 1% level.

Following this study it has been demonstrated that one-loop FRR-$`\chi `$PT is able to extrapolate modern lattice QCD simulations of the nucleon mass with minimal systematic uncertainty . Figure 1 shows extrapolations of two-flavour dynamical QCD lattice data  based upon four different functional forms for the regulator. The residual dependence on the regulator is beyound the resolution of this figure.

With an increasing number of dynamical baryon simulations in lattice QCD  it is essential to incorporate a correct treatment of chiral physics. Only then can an interesting comparison of theory and experiment be carried out.

In this paper we highlight some of the features learned about the chiral structure of baryons. In particular we look at the nucleon and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance in both dynamical and quenched simulations of QCD. The majority of the effects of dynamical sea quarks in baryon masses, relative to QQCD, can be explained by the modified chiral structure . Special features of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ baryon in quenched QCD also allow for a unique opportunity to study quenched chiral physics .

## 2 BARYON MASSES

As outlined in the Introduction the use of a FRR in $`\chi `$PT is essential for the chiral expansion to be applicable at the quark masses simulated in state of the art dynamical lattice simulations. The application of quenched $`\chi `$PT  to quenched simulations has demonstrated similar success with the use of a FRR . The remarkable discovery of this work was that the primary difference between quenched and dynamical spectroscopy can be explained by the differences in the chiral loop contributions.

Using FRR we express the chiral expansion of the nucleon mass as

$$m_B=a_0+a_2m_\pi ^2+a_4m_\pi ^4+\mathrm{\Sigma }_B(m_\pi ,\mathrm{\Lambda }),$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_B`$ is the total contribution to the nucleon mass from chiral-meson loop diagrams and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is a regulator parameter governing the range. For the nucleon mass the corresponding contributions are shown in Fig. 2, with analogous diagrams for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. These diagrams give rise to the leading and next-to-leading nonanalytic behaviour in the chiral expansion. It is important to note that although $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_B`$ is a function of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, the dependence on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is removed through renormalisation of the chiral expansion .

In the quenched case we first note the inclusion of two additional diagrams which are absent in the case of QCD. The flavour-singlet $`\eta ^{}`$ is also a light degree of freedom in the quenched theory and hence contributes to the low-energy effective field theory . Details of the role of the $`\eta ^{}`$ in the context of baryon mass extrapolation have been discussed extensively in Ref. .

The contributions from the standard $`\pi `$-meson loops are also modified in the quenched theory. In QCD meson-baryon loops are attractive and hence the binding energy has the effect of lowering the effective mass of the state in question. Of particular interest in the quenched theory is the $`N`$$`\pi `$ loop contribution to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mass. The sign of this diagram is reversed and the loop acts repulsively, raising the mass of the resonance in the quenched theory.

This phenomenology can easily be understood by considering a pictorial, quark-flow description of the processes contributing to the $`N`$$`\pi `$ loop in full QCD. Figure 3 shows all different topological contributions to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}N\pi `$ loop diagram. Diagrams (b) and (c) both indicate the propagation of an unphysical $`uuu`$ octet baryon. These two processes must sum to zero in the physical theory, i.e. (c)=$``$(b). QCD is also flavour-blind and knows nothing of the quark flavour propagating in the loop, meaning that processes (a) and (b) are identical. In the quenched theory the only remaining diagram is (c), which is a $`uuu`$ quark state degenerate with the nucleon. By deduction this contribution is precisely the same in magnitude as Fig. 3(a) with the opposite sign.

Fits of both quenched and dynamical simulations based upon Eq. (1) have been performed in Ref. . In fitting to the results of staggered fermion simulations in quenched and 2+1-flavour QCD  it was found that the analytic coefficients $`a_i`$ of Eq. (1) show exceptional agreement between the quenched and dynamical simulations. This indicates that the most significant difference between the quenched and dynamical spectroscopy can be accounted for by the corresponding differences in the leading chiral corrections, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_B\mathrm{\Sigma }_B^{(Q)}`$.

This observation allows one to take quenched lattice QCD data and determine a phenomenological estimate of the quenching effects. One simply fits quenched data using Eq. (1) with the appropriate quenched chiral corrections. By retaining the fit parameters $`a_i`$ and replacing the chiral corrections by their corresponding full QCD contributions the physical masses can be reconstructed.

In Fig. 4 we show the fits to preliminary results of the CSSM Lattice Collaboration using FLIC fermions . The lattice scale has been set via the Sommer scale, $`r_0=0.5\mathrm{fm}`$. This gives a lattice spacing of $`0.128\mathrm{fm}`$ on a $`20^3\times 40`$ volume. The flattening of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the chiral regime is clearly displayed by these new simulation results. This effect is primarily caused by the reversal in sign of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }N\pi `$ contribution as discussed above.

The dashed curves in Fig. 4 represent our estimate of unquenching effects where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_B^{(Q)}`$ has been replaced by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_B`$. The chiral contributions here have been evaluated using a $`0.8\mathrm{GeV}`$ dipole regulator. This value was the optimal $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ found in Ref.  which gave best agreement between dynamical lattice QCD and experiment. These results are preliminary and finite volume effects are yet to be taken into account, yet we already see remarkable agreement with the experimentally measured masses.

We see from Fig. 4 that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ suffers from larger quenching effects due to the repulsive $`N\pi `$ loop contribution. It has also been recognised that other excited states seem to lie systematically high in the quenched approximation. Using chirally improved quark actions the BGR Collaboration have noted that there seems to be a correlation between the quenched discrepancies and the physically observed widths . As chiral extrapolation techniques for excited states are developed  it will be interesting to see if more quenched spectroscopy can be similarly understood in terms of chiral interactions.

## 3 MAGNETIC MOMENTS

Chiral loop effects are known to give large contributions to the electromagnetic structure of baryons. In fact the leading nonanalytic contribution to the neutron’s magnetic moment is nearly one third the experimental value. Chiral symmetry effects in nucleon electromagnetic structure describe dynamical, nonperturbative structure beyond the simple quark model of QCD . Such is the magnitude of the pion loop effects that one should expect dramatic results in lattice calculations as the light quark mass regime is probed.

Once again we find that the repulsive interaction of the $`N\pi `$ loop means that the magnetic moment of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ baryon is especially interesting in QQCD.

The best lattice calculations of the electromagnetic structure of baryons have so far been restricted to the quenched model of QCD . Because of the absence of $`q\overline{q}`$ pair-creation, pion loop effects are typically suppressed in the quenched approximation . However, the inclusion of the flavour singlet $`\eta ^{}`$ does offer the opportunity for detection of enhanced chiral behaviour in quenched simulations. As a result of double-hairpin loops the leading nonanalytic contribution is $`\mathrm{log}m_\pi `$ — i.e. magnetic moments diverge in the chiral limit .

In the case of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ it is the next-to-leading order corrections which cause the most significant chiral effects. The flavour symmetry of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ interpolating fields ensure that in the quenched approximation, assuming isospin symmetry, the magnetic moment is proportional to the charge. Just considering the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$ is therefore sufficient to determine the chiral behaviour of all charge states in the quenched theory.

We apply the diagrammatic method of Leinweber  to determine the quenched chiral corrections to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ baryon magnetic moment. Preliminary results have been documented in Refs. .

As for the nucleon, the vertex correction from the double hairpin $`\eta ^{}`$ dressing gives rise to a leading logarithmic divergence. The magnetic current induced by a pion loop is zero in the quenched theory. In the case of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$ this is a trivial observation, as meson fields can only be generated by $`u\overline{u}`$-pairs and must therefore be neutral.

It is the vertex corrections to the magnetic moment which give rise to the most interesting physics in the quenched approximation. In particular, it is once again the contribution from the intermediate $`uuu`$-baryon which gives rise to a clear signal of quenched chiral physics. The contribution from the electromagnetic current coupling to the baryon in Fig. 3(c) causes a reversal of the chiral effect relative to physical QCD. As for the case of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mass as described above, the repulsive interaction of this loop enhances the effect of quenching in the chiral regime.

We show preliminary results of FLIC fermion simulations  of baryon magnetic moments . In particular, we plot together the $`p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ magnetic moments in Fig. 5. We observe that at moderate quark masses the expected heavy-quark theory result is observed, with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ lying slighty above the proton.

However, in the light-quark regime chiral physics becomes apparent with the clear separation of the two signals. The downward curvature in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ is dominated by the coupling to an intermediate octet baryon. This demonstrates a clear picture of nonperturbative effects resulting from dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in quenched lattice QCD.

Finite volume effects cannot play a significant role in the conclusions drawn from this study. The opposite sign on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }N\pi `$ loop means that such a vertex correction to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ baryon magnetic moment will also have a sign which is opposite to that of QCD. The pion loop contributions to the magnetic moments are $`p`$-wave and hence the main effect of the finite volume is to create a gap in momentum space between $`0`$ and $`2\pi /L`$. Because the loop integrals are positive definite for both the proton and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ when $`m_\pi +m_N>m_\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the finite volume can only suppress the magnitude of loop effects but cannot change their sign. Studying the nucleon and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ magnetic moments together therefore provides a clear signal of quenched chiral physics independent of volume effects.

Finite volume effects in the octet baryon sector have been studied in more detail in Ref. . It is found that the finite volume discrepancies in the meson-loop contributions are negligible at the pion masses of interest.

## 4 CONCLUSIONS

The study of both masses and magnetic moments in the quenched approximation helps to provide a deeper understanding of chiral extrapolation. This has also helped in developing a deeper understanding of the internal structure of baryons. In particular, we have identified that the chiral structures evaluated in FRR$`\chi `$PT are able to describe quenched discrepancies in baryon mass calculations.

We identify that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance offers unique features to study the differing chiral properties of quenched and physical QCD. The flattening of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mass observed in FLIC fermion simulations demonstrates a clear signal of quenching effects. In the case of the magnetic moments the effect is much more dramatic. We see the turnover in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ magnetic moment in the chiral regime signifies clear nonperturbative effects, showing strong deviation from the constituent-quark picture of QCD.

## Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council.


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# Mapping the Dark Energy Equation of State

## 1. Introduction

Observations of the distance-redshift relation of Type Ia supernovae have given firm evidence of an accelerated expansion of the universe (Knop et al. 2003; Tonry et al. 2003). As calibratable “standardized candles”, these supernovae are excellently suited to map the expansion history $`a(t)`$ due to the direct relation between the measurements and the cosmological dynamics. The redshift of the supernova, $`z=a^11`$, measures the scale factor $`a`$, the size of the universe when the supernova exploded relative to its current size. The calibrated peak magnitude gives the distance, which translates to the lookback time to the explosion.

The data clearly indicate an acceleration to the expansion rather than the slowing down under gravitational attraction that was previously expected. This gravitational repulsion is generally interpreted in terms of an additional component to the energy density of the universe, and given the name dark energy. Since the effective gravitating mass in general relativity depends on both the energy density $`\rho `$ and pressure $`p`$ in the combination $`\rho +3p`$, such a repulsion and hence acceleration could be induced by a component with strongly negative pressure. Characterized in terms of the equation of state ratio $`w=p/\rho `$, the condition for a single component to accelerate the expansion is $`w<1/3`$.

In order to achieve the acceleration deduced from the distance-redshift measurements, in a flat universe with (decelerating) matter density as well, the energy density in dark energy must amount to $``$70% of the total. Thus the majority of the universe is composed of dark energy, determining the cosmic dynamics and the fate of the universe. Moreover, the equation of state must be substantially negative, $`w1`$. The physics underlying the dark energy sets the equation of state, so to understand this new gravitational or high energy physics requires precise and accurate measurement of this quantity. Is the dark energy Einstein’s cosmological constant ($`w=1`$ exactly), some high energy physics scalar field (often called quintessence), or a sign of modifications to gravity or the presence of extra dimensions? Except for the cosmological constant, almost all theories predict dynamical dark energy, with an equation of state evolving with the cosmic expansion. In fact, this dynamics, in the form of the time variation $`w(z)`$, contains the main clue to the new physics. Thus the goal is to bring together astrophysics and particle physics to map the dark energy equation of state.

## 2. Mapping the Expansion History

The dark energy affects both the expansion history of the universe and the growth history of large scale structure. In addition to the supernova measurements of distances to redshifts of order one, the location of the acoustic peaks in the cosmic microwave background power spectrum provides the distance to the last scattering surface at $`z=1089`$. Observations of galaxy clustering, the mass power spectrum, and velocity distortions of large scale structure depend on the growth history.

At present, no one method provides tight constraints on the equation of state (EOS) due to degeneracies between cosmological parameters, e.g. the dark energy density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_w`$ and the equation of state $`w`$. But combining cosmological probes can break these degeneracies and improve the estimation. One must be careful to ensure that the dark energy has been consistently taken into account when using the quantities derived from different methods, and that, for example, a quoted determination of matter density did not assume a cosmological constant universe. In the current state of the art, such a consistent analysis leads to a measure of the assumed constant equation of state $`w=1.05_{0.20}^{+0.15}`$ (Knop et al. 2003). Note that many models other than the cosmological constant possess an averaged EOS near $`1`$ for part of their evolution, so these limits do not rule out many physically distinct models.

But the observational situation is rapidly improving. The approximation of a constant $`w`$ will soon be confronted with large data sets of supernovae to $`z>1`$ and deep galaxy redshift surveys, and of course the CMB data probe a quantity $`w`$ different from a low redshift, averaged $`w`$. Furthermore, the time variation $`w^{}`$ is a critical clue to the underlying fundamental physics. Analysis of these data in terms of an a priori fixed EOS is insufficient and can both blind and mislead us.

Fortunately there exists a simple parametrization of EOS that incorporates the dynamical aspects but does not require model dependent elements that interfere with comparison of predictions among models. The parametrization

$$w(z)=w_0+w_a(1a)=w_0+w_az/(1+z)$$
(1)
is well behaved to high redshift and serves as an excellent approximation (see Fig. 1, left panel) to slow roll scalar field models of dark energy (Linder 2003a).

Moreover, modifications of the Friedmann equation for the rate of expansion can be written in terms of an effective $`w(z)`$. If we admit ignorance of the physical mechanism leading to the observed acceleration, then we would write

$$[H(z)/H_0]^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z)^3+\delta H^2/H_0^2,$$
(2)
where we know there exists some matter density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and allow some additional term $`\delta H^2`$, which may or may not be a real dark energy. But we can still consistently define an effective EOS as

$$w(z)1+\frac{1}{3}\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\delta H^2}{d\mathrm{ln}(1+z)}.$$
(3)
So how do we design next generation cosmological probes to uncover the crucial information of $`w(z)`$? The clearest hope resides in observations that involve simple, well understood physics, with tightly constrained systematic uncertainties. Perhaps the most promising is the technique that first discovered the dark energy – the Type Ia supernova method. Each supernova provides not just a single data point but a rich stream of crosschecking information in the form of its light curve (magnitude vs. time) and energy spectrum.

The Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP; see right panel of Fig. 1) is a proposed mission dedicated to studying dark energy, employing the supernova method along with other techniques. It consists of a 2-meter aperture telescope in space coupled to a 1 degree field of view mosaic camera instrumented with over half a billion pixels, plus a low resolution spectrograph. Nine filters cover the optical and near infrared from 3500-17000$`\AA `$. SNAP can discover and follow up over 2000 supernovae in the range $`z=0.11.7`$, characterizing them precisely in terms of their spectra, and bounding systematic uncertainties below 0.02 mag (1% in distance).

In its deep survey mode, SNAP repeatedly scans 15 square degrees of sky to study supernovae. At the same time these observations can be used to build up a deep weak gravitational lensing map of the sky, detailing the dark matter distribution. Moreover, the data resources cover 9000 times the area of a Hubble Deep Field and reach coadded depth of AB magnitude 30.3. The wide field survey images 300 square degrees or more to AB=28.1 in nine filters, with the weak lensing information providing important constraints on the cosmological parameters complementary to the supernova determinations (Refregier et al. 2003).

Indeed, complementarity between precision methods greatly strengthens the confidence in and leverage of the dark energy parameter estimations. For such a momentous discovery as dark energy, we need to place a premium on accurate observations, where systematics can be well understood and tightly limited. But even so, the use of two or more techniques with distinct sources of systematics should be strongly sought to ensure dependable conclusions.

Figure 2 (left panel) shows the advantages to combining supernova data from SNAP with CMB data from Planck. While SNAP alone does constrain dark energy models, the inclusion of CMB data means that no prior knowledge on the matter density is required. This makes the conclusions much cleaner, and we see that the parameter contours are much tighter as well, equivalent to those with a prior $`\sigma (\mathrm{\Omega }_M)0.01`$ (Frieman et al. 2003). Together the two data sets can detect the time variation $`w^{}`$ from, say, a supergravity inspired dark energy model at the 99% confidence level. This means we will have advanced from originally detecting the mere existence of dark energy (that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }>0`$) at 99% probability, to characterizing its EOS dynamics at the same level.

Weak gravitational lensing offers another important probe. Wide field, deep data such as from SNAP can constrain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ independently and place limits on a combination of the present EOS $`w_0`$ and the time variation $`w^{}`$. This provides a good crosscheck on the supernova plus CMB results, or further complementarity in the time varying EOS case. See Linder & Jenkins (2003) for calculations using the linear part of the lensing shear power spectrum and Jain & Taylor (2003) and Bernstein & Jain (2003) for shear crosscorrelation methods.

## 3. Mapping the Growth History

The expansion history $`a(t)`$ offers a clear method for mapping the equation of state $`w(z)`$, with the hope of then revealing the underlying physics, for example the scalar field potential $`V(\varphi )`$. The quantity $`w^{}`$ is directly related to the slow roll parameter $`V^{}/V`$. But as we have seen in eq. 3, general modifications of the expansion rate can lead to $`w(z)`$. So we may not be able to uniquely interpret even very precise results. Ideally we would like a second avenue to investigate dark energy, where the equation of state enters differently.

Growth of structure in the universe provides such a path in theory. As dark energy begins to become an important fraction of the total energy density, it acts to shut down the growth of density perturbations in the matter. Through the hierarchical process of structure formation this then has implications for, e.g., galaxy mass profiles and the abundance of galaxy clusters. However, these objects also involve hydrodynamics and feedback, nonlinearities, and a host of sources of astrophysical confusion. The requirement of accurate, well understood probes leads us to look at the largest, mostly linear scales.

Data for precise measurements of effects on the matter power spectrum on large scales requires wide field, deep surveys. One example is weak lensing surveys discussed above, which gravitationally detect even the dark matter. Another involves galaxy redshift surveys. For both, one seeks orders of magnitude improvement, taking for example the recent 2dF (two square degree field) survey and enlarging it to, say, 400dF. An exciting prospect is the KAOS (Kilo-Aperture Optical Spectrograph) instrument proposed for the Gemini 8-meter telescope. This would allow simultaneous redshift determination of 4000 galaxies over a 1.5 square degree field of view. Utilization of this facility in a Dark Energy Project (KAOS Purple Book 2003) to observe a million galaxies at redshifts $`z1`$ and $`z3`$ could probe dark energy by measuring the baryon oscillations in the matter power spectrum.

These baryon oscillations are the analog of the acoustic peaks in the CMB temperature power spectrum. They both arise from the decoupling era, $`z1100`$, when density perturbations in both the baryons and photons could only oscillate without growing. While the peaks and troughs left in the photon spectrum are large, the baryons are overwhelmed by cold dark matter and so only leave wiggles in the matter spectrum. Since the scale of these wiggles is set by the physics at the decoupling era between baryons and photons, they act as a standard ruler to determine the ratio of the observed oscillation scale to the sound horizon. This effectively measures both the angular distance to the redshift of the galaxies used, and the Hubble parameter $`H(z)`$ at that redshift (Blake & Glazebrook 2003; Linder 2003b; Seo & Eisenstein 2003). Because the wiggles depend on well determined physics, measurements in the linear regime, and scales rather than amplitudes, this probe is substantially free from systematic uncertainties. The baryon oscillation method offers good crosschecks and complementarity with the more precise supernova and CMB methods, as illustrated in the right panel of Fig. 2.

Another aspect of large scale structure in the linear regime is the growth of perturbations. The growth factor determines the linear part of the matter power spectrum, and enters the nonlinear part in various semianalytic treatments like extended Press-Schechter formalisms or the halo model. The influence of dark energy appears in two areas: the Hubble drag term that slows the linear perturbation growth and the size and evolution of the matter source term (see Linder & Jenkins 2003 for more discussion). Figure 3 (left panel) shows this influence on the normalized growth $`(\delta \rho /\rho )/a`$. Note that time varying EOS models can have an appreciable effect at quite high redshifts. Another point of importance is that dark energy models that appear degenerate with respect to the CMB (the constant $`w_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ models and the corresponding time varying model in brackets) can be distinguished via the growth factor.

The growth factor $`\delta /a`$ is directly proportional to the gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)`$, through the Poisson equation. This not only gives a useful visual representation of the decay of potentials as dark energy begins to dominate over matter (see the right panel of Fig. 3), but is central to the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect on the CMB low multipoles or large angles. Dark energy parameters enter with a different dependence than for supernova distances or the CMB acoustic peak location. Unfortunately the large angle region of the CMB suffers strongly from cosmic variance, so it is not easy to extract dark energy characteristics from the data, though various methods of crosscorrelation are proposed to try. Nevertheless, the growth history in one manifestation or another offers attractive complementarity with the expansion history as a probe, in particular for looking at modifications of gravity or more complicated dark energy models that involve nonminimal couplings or noncanonical sound speeds.

To attempt to use properties of galaxies or clusters as dark energy probes, we must understand enough to cleanly disentangle astrophysics of these objects from the cosmology. This is a challenging prospect, both for theory and observation. For example a shift by 10% in the limiting mass threshold when counting clusters as a function of redshift is degenerate with a systematic bias in the EOS by 10% (M. White, private communication).

On the theoretical side, until recently no calibration of the cluster mass function (numbers of clusters as a function of mass and redshift) existed for models with time varying EOS. The results of Linder & Jenkins 2003 for the highest mass clusters (least subject to nonlinearities and astrophysical effects) offer some hope as the mass function seems determined predominantly by the linear growth factor. Indeed, it is fit to within 20% by the standard Jenkins et al. (2001) mass formula and definite differences in the amount and evolution of large scale structure exist for various dark energy models. But considerable research remains before we can confidently use galaxies and clusters directly for precision cosmology.

## 4. Conclusion

Dark energy poses a fundamental mystery as to what composes the majority of the universe, dominates its dynamics through a gravitational repulsion, and determines the fate of the universe. Constraints on an averaged equation of state quantity from impressive efforts over the last five years show that it behaves roughly like a cosmological constant. The precision of 15% is already good enough that continuing measurements along these lines are unlikely to be able to detect a deviation from cosmological constant properties at 3$`\sigma `$. But powerful next generation experiments are being designed that are sensitive not to a crude approximation of a constant EOS but that can map out the dynamical physics of a time varying equation of state $`w(z)`$. These will also generate extraordinary astronomical data resources.

Mapping the expansion history to $`z=1.7`$ through the Type Ia supernova method offers great promise. Even more valuable gains in accuracy and precision come from working together with crosschecking and complementary methods such as CMB measurements, weak gravitational lensing, and baryon oscillations measured in the matter power spectrum by large, deep galaxy surveys. Mapping the dark energy equation of state will give us guideposts to high energy physics, the early universe, extra dimensions, or the theory of gravity, as well as reveal to us the true nature of the universe we live in and a picture of our fate.

### Acknowledgments.

I am grateful to the American Astronomical Society and National Science Foundation for an international travel grant. This work was supported in part by the Director, Office of Science, US DOE under DE-AC03-76SF00098 at LBL.

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Blake, C. & Glazebrook, K. 2003, ApJ 594, 665 ; astro-ph/0301632

Frieman, J.A., Huterer, D., Linder, E.V., & Turner, M.S. 2003, Phys.Rev.D67, 083505 ; astro-ph/0208100

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KAOS: http://www.noao.edu/kaos

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# A Monte Carlo method to generate fluorescence light in extensive air showers

## 1  Introduction

There are several questions yet to be solved about cosmic rays with energy above $`10^{18}eV`$. The most exciting topics concern the existence of a cut off in the energy spectrum, the possible anisotropy of the sources, the chemical composition and the propagation mechanisms.

Particles with these energies arrive on Earth with a very low flux and therefore can only be studied by the detection of the extensive air showers (EAS) they produce in the atmosphere. The present HiRes  and the AGASA  experiments have contributed to our understanding of the nature of high energy cosmic rays and future detectors (Auger , EUSO , OWL  and Telescope Array ) are very promising due to the increase in collection area and the use of new technologies.

The fluorescence technique has been used successfully by the HiRes experiment and is also going to be used by the new generation of detectors: Auger, EUSO, Telescope Array and OWL. Fluorescence detectors measure the EAS by counting, as a function of depth, the photons produced by the excitation of nitrogen molecules due to the passage of the charged particles in the shower. The determination of the longitudinal profile and the time the photons have hit the detector allow the reconstruction of the energy and direction of the primary particle.

Monte Carlo simulations have been widely used by cosmic ray physicists to optimize their detectors and to determine reconstruction methods. One of the most popular and tested programs known in the cosmic ray community is CORSIKA . CORSIKA simulates the development of the particles in a shower in a high level of sophistication including three-dimensional particle transport, electromagnetic interactions, decay of unstable particles, multiple scattering, deflection in the Earth’s magnetic field and several high energy hadronic interaction models. Comparisons of CORSIKA simulations and experimental data can be found in .

A shower with energy $`10^{19}eV`$ has more than $`10^{10}`$ particles and a Monte Carlo simulation would take a long time to follow all of them. Hillas  has overcome this problem by using a thinning algorithm in Monte Carlo simulations. This procedure follows only a fraction of the particles with energy below a certain limit and conserve the total energy in the shower. The use of this method has reduced the computational time to practical limits without decreasing significantly the quality of the simulations.

In contrast to the simulation of particles in a shower, the simulation of the fluorescence light produced by the passage of these particles in the air has been done with almost no detail. Calculations made so far were done based on one-dimensional simulations of the fluorescence photons following an average function given by a Gaisser-Hillas  profile. Apparently, the crude treatment given to the simulation of the fluorescence component was justified by the optics and electronics of the present generation of telescopes. However, for the future detectors this justification is certainly not going to be valid.

In reference , Sommers has made analytic calculations to show the possibility of detecting the lateral distribution of a shower with a fluorescence detector. His ideas have been exploited by Góra et al.  using simulations based on a Gaisser-Hillas longitudinal profile and a NKG  lateral distribution function.

More recently, other groups have announced new fast simulations in development  which may be used to produce fluorescence photons. These programs are based on a combination of numerical and Monte Carlo approaches and special attention must be taken in order not to reduce the intrinsic shower fluctuations.

The work presented here explains how we generate fluorescence photons in the CORSIKA framework. Our approach allows the simulation of this component of the shower with great detail. For each charged particle produced in the shower development, the corresponding fluorescence light is produced from the ionization energy loss and the are tracked to the detectors. Atmospheric attenuation may be applied and the particles continue to be followed by CORSIKA down to the observational level resulting in a full hybrid (fluorescence + particles) simulation. In particular, this simulation can be useful for the Auger Collaboration due to its hybrid design.

The atmospheric attenuation is done by a simple implementation that simulates the extinction of photons according to particular atmospheric properties. The user is allowed to implement different atmospheric extinction coefficients. Excluding the showers simulated in section 3.1 where no attenuations has been applied, all simulations in this paper were done with a midlatitude US Standard Atmosphere and scattering of light by aerosols and molecules was taken into account. The aerosol horizontal attenuation length and vertical scale height were set to $`12km`$ and $`1.2km`$, respectively. The mean free path for Rayleigh scattering was set to $`2974g/cm^2`$. Scattering of the fluorescence photons is not simulated in the present version which could be an important effect for some specific geometries of detection and therefore should be accounted for in future implementations.

Historically, the main advantage of using Monte Carlo simulations comparing to analytic models has been considered to be the possibility to reproduce the event by event fluctuations. Nevertheless, the development of the softwares has extended the differences beyond that, among which, we stress the possibility to inject almost all kind of primary particles, the detailed description of the atmosphere and the treatment of each shower component (hadronic and electromagnetic) in an independent way with parameters updated from the accelerator experiments.

Besides that, the simulation we has developed have some other improvements if compared to analytic or one-dimensional models regarding the fluorescence photons production. In a deeper level of analysis, the approach we present here is able to simulate the particle by particle fluctuation in the production of the fluorescence photons, since each charged particles is treated independently.

Moreover, the time information is available for each single photon taking into account its exact position in the atmosphere. This feature would allow for the first time a detailed study of the snapshots proposed in  with a good raytracing resolution.

Recently proposed experiments  are planning to measure the fluorescence yield in more details than done so far by Kakimoto et al. . The fluorescence yield varies with the particle energy and may be completely different for each particle type. The simulation presented here can easily take into account the dependencies of the yield as a function of energy and particle type for each particle in the shower after they have been measured by the proposed experiments. This great level of detail would be practically impossible to be accounted for in a analytical model or in an one-dimensional Gaisser-Hillas approach.

In this paper, we describe the simulation, test it against old and simple approximations and illustrate the use of the program by calculating the lateral size of the shower as a function of the distance to a ground based telescope. This application shows that the lateral distribution of showers with energies $`10^{18}`$, $`10^{19}`$ and $`10^{20}eV`$ measured by detectors similar to the Auger telescopes configuration can not be neglected when distances from the detector to the shower axis are shorter than $`4km`$, $`8km`$ and $`14km`$, respectively.

## 2 Fluorescence Light Simulation

We used CORSIKA as the basic framework for the generation of particles in the shower. The detailed simulation implemented in CORSIKA makes all the information needed to generate fluorescence photons for every charged particle in a shower available. Explicitly, the position of creation and death of the current particle and the energy deposit of this particle in the atmosphere are accessible.

For each charged particle produced inside CORSIKA, a new subroutine that generates the fluorescence light is called. With the initial and final positions $`(\stackrel{}{r}_i,\stackrel{}{r}_f)`$ and energies $`(E_i,E_f)`$ of the particle the subroutine does a Monte Carlo simulation for the production and propagation of fluorescence photons.

However, when the energy of a particle falls below a certain value, it is neglected by CORSIKA and the information needed to create fluorescence photons is not available. For electrons and positrons below the energy cut, $`50keV`$, we made the hypothesis that they deposit all the available energy as they are discarded by CORSIKA. We also assume that the track length traveled by these particles ($`\mathrm{\Delta }X`$) is given by the Bethe-Bloch theory and the stopping range is calculated assuming the continuous-slowing-down-approximation.

As explained previously, in simulations of high energy EAS one usually adopts a thinning method in order to reduce the number of particles to be followed and stored. In this procedure a weight *W* is attributed to each particle. As can be seen in Figure 1, where we show the average weight of particles in a $`10^{19}eV`$ shower simulated with thinning factor $`10^6`$, many particles have weight well beyond 1000.

In order to avoid the necessity of applying an unthinning procedure in the detector simulation we considered the energy deposited by a single particle as given by: $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=W\mathrm{\Delta }E_{particle}^{single}`$.

Since the total path ($`\mathrm{\Delta }X`$) and the energy deposited by particles ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$) with energy above the energy cuts and by electrons and positrons with energy below the cutoff are now known, the number of photons produced by each of these particles can be calculated using the fluorescence yield given by Kakimoto et al. :

$$N_{pht}=\frac{dE}{dX}\rho 𝑑x\left(\frac{A_1}{1+\rho B_1\sqrt{T}}+\frac{A_2}{1+\rho B_2\sqrt{T}}\right)\left(\frac{dE}{dX}\right)_{1.4MeV}^1$$
(1)
where the temperature $`T`$ and the density $`\rho `$ are functions of the altitude and the constants are $`A_1=89.0m^2kg^1`$, $`A_2=55.0m^2kg^1`$, $`B_1=1.8m^3kg^1K^{1/2}`$, $`B_2=6.5m^3kg^1K^{1/2}`$ and $`(dE/dX)_{1.4MeV}=1.8MeV/(g/cm^2)`$.

Finally, since fluorescence emission is isotropic, only a small fraction of these photons is emitted towards the detectors and this fraction depends only on the distance to the detector and on its geometry. Once the user has defined the position and radius of the detectors for which the simulation is done, the average number of photons emitted by a charged particle in the direction of the detectors can be calculated as:

$$\overline{\mathrm{}}=N_{pht}\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }_{tot}}{4\pi }$$
(2)
where $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_{tot}`$ is the solid angle subtended by all the detectors.

In general, we have $`\overline{\mathrm{}}<1`$ because the solid angle subtended by the detectors is small compared to $`4\pi `$ and despite the great amount of photons emitted, the probability that any of them will be directed inside $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_{tot}`$ is very small. According to the physical process involved, the final number of photons (*N*) emitted towards the detectors, by the passage of one given particle, can be described by a Poisson distribution with average $`\overline{\mathrm{}}`$. Figure 2 shows the distribution of the number of photons emitted towards the detector, for the same events as in figure 1.

Knowing the number of photons to be emitted by the particle, its trajectory is divided in *N* equal intervals and one photon is emitted from the center of each interval. The emission point is set to the middle of each interval and the direction of emission of the photon is drawn inside the solid angle of one of the detectors. Therefore, we can evaluate whether or not the photon’s trajectory lies within the solid angle subtended by the disk that defines the detector. If the intersection of the trajectory with the disk exists, the emission position, propagation direction, time and wavelength of photons that hit a detector are saved in a file. The wavelength is drawn from the known fluorescence spectrum .

## 3 Tests

The longitudinal profile of charged particles is the most important feature of a cosmic ray shower measured by fluorescence detectors. The longitudinal development of the shower is used to estimate the energy and gives a hint on the mass of the primary particle.

In order to test the fluorescence photon production we have compared the number of photons produced along the shower development and the arrival time of these photons at a telescope simulated by our program with an analytic calculation based on the longitudinal energy deposited in the atmosphere as given by standard CORSIKA.

We have also compared the longitudinal profile of a real event detected by the Fly’s Eye telescope  with the simulation of the same shower.

### 3.1 Certification of the Number and Arrival Time of Photons

We have simulated vertical showers with energy $`10^{18}eV`$. For this application, electrons were chosen as primary particle of the showers because we would like to avoid confusions derived from the energy channeled into neutrinos, high energy muons and nuclear excitation in hadronic showers . The thinning factor was set to $`10^6`$ to reduce fluctuations in the longitudinal profile and no atmospheric attenuation was applied.

The fluorescence photons produced by our code are propagated down to a telescope of radius $`10m`$, positioned $`40km`$ away from the shower core. For the studies presented in this section, we have stored the height of production and the arrival time of the photons detected by the telescope as can be seen in figures 4 and 3.

The standard version of CORSIKA records the energy deposited in the atmosphere by all particles in intervals of a given grammage. We have set the bin size to be 10 $`g/cm^2`$ and from the longitudinal energy deposit profile we were able to calculate analytically the number of photons produced in a bin and consequently the average arrival time of this photons in the telescope.

To the amount of energy deposited in one bin corresponds a certain amount of photons detected in the telescope that is given by equations 1 and 2 where density and temperature can be approximated to the values at the middle of the bin. Since the distance between the telescope and the middle of the bin along the axis of the shower is known we can also calculate the time these photons would hit the detector.

In this calculation all particles are considered to be emitted along the axis of the shower so that to be able to compare with our three-dimensional program we have positioned the telescope far away of the axis ($`40km`$) in order to minimize the differences. However, the number of photons measured by a regular fluorescence detector with few meters of aperture would be very small at this distance. To avoid fluctuations due to low statistics we simulated a detector with $`10m`$ of aperture. No telescope optics or electronics were simulated.

Figure 4 shows, for a single shower, the longitudinal profile of photons that end up to be detected in the telescope and the results of the analytic calculation based on the energy deposited in the atmosphere. The agreement between our simulation and the simple calculations is perfect. Similar results are obtained for all showers at different energies and inclinations.

Figure 3 shows the arrival time in bins of 100 ns as given by our program and the analytic calculation. Again the agreement is very good and similar results are obtained for all showers at different energies and inclinations.

The comparisons shown in these graphics proves that our simulation program is able to reproduce the right number and arrival time of photons at the telescope as expected by simple arguments.

### 3.2 Comparison to a Real Event

In 1995, the Fly’s Eye experiment detected a very clear shower with energy well beyond the GZK cut-off. This event has been published  and we used the reconstructed longitudinal profile as a test of the consistency for our program.

The famous shower has landed $`13.6km`$ away from the telescope and its primary energy and zenith angle were estimated as $`320EeV`$ and $`43.9^o`$, respectively. See  for details of the reconstruction. We have simulated with our program 10 events with the same energy and geometry of the Fly’s Eye shower: 5 initiated by proton, and 5 by iron. The produced photons were propagated through the optics of a telescope similar to the Auger Fluorescence Telescopes . The design of these telescopes is a Schmidt camera with a corrector ring determining an aperture of radius $`1.1m`$ and a spherical mirror with $`30^o\times 30^o`$ field of view . The photomultiplier camera is formed by 440 phototubes in a grid of $`22\times 20`$ with $`1.5^o`$ field of view each. In the simulations of the signal detected by the photomultipliers we have added a poissonian noise with average equal to the night sky background.

The simulation was reconstructed to give the longitudinal profile according to the standard procedure described in . Figure 5 shows a comparison of the longitudinal profile determined by the Fly’s Eye group with the longitudinal profile simulated with our code. An integration of the profile leads to the energy of the primary particle. The estimated energy from the simulations is $`3.4\pm .51(rms)\times 10^{20}eV`$ which is in good agreement with the value estimated by the Fly’s Eye Collaboration.

## 4 Applications

Several new applications are possible with this three dimensional fluorescence and particle simulation. Among them, we could stress the verification of hybrid reconstruction methods, the analysis of arrival time of the photons in a telescope as suggested by Sommers , the determination of the “missing energy”  in a shower and the configuration of the new generation of fluorescence detectors.

However, the first demanding application is to determine the capability of a fluorescence detector to distinguish a one-dimensional shower from a three-dimensional one. In other words, in which conditions a fluorescence detector is going to detect the lateral distribution of particles in a shower?

To answer this question, we have simulated two sets of 100 vertical showers initiated by $`10^{19}eV`$ protons. The thinning factor was set to $`10^6`$. One set was simulated with the three-dimensional program described here, and the other with an one-dimensional simulation following a Gaisser-Hillas distribution. Ten telescopes were positioned in a line from $`2km`$ up to $`20km`$ away from the core of the shower, equally spaced in steps of $`2km`$.

We have simulated the fluorescence detectors used by the Auger collaboration described in section 3.2 and the quantitative conclusions shown here might be very different for detectors with different configurations, in particular for telescopes with different pixel size.

Figure 6 shows an example of the number of pixels triggered in the camera by one-dimensional and three-dimensional methods for a shower falling $`4km`$ far from the telescope. Adopting a simple trigger condition given by those pixels with signal 4$`\sigma `$ above the average of the noise in that event, we are able to measure the number of pixels triggered in the Auger telescopes as a function of the distance of the shower core for one-dimensional showers and for three-dimensional showers. Figure 7 shows this comparison. The number of pixels triggered by the shower simulated with the one and three-dimensional approaches are, within the statistical variation, the same for distances greater than $`8km`$.

Another parameter that can give us the sensitivity of the detector to the lateral distribution of showers is the radius of a circle ($`\zeta `$ measured in degrees) on the photomultiplier camera which maximizes the signal to noise ratio, $`S/N`$. The distribution of the triggered pixels in a camera allows us to determine the main track of the shower. The method to determine $`\zeta `$ consists in searching the radius of the circle centered on the track along the entire path which maximizes $`S/N`$.

Figure 8 shows the curve of $`\zeta `$ obtained for one and three-dimensional simulations as a function of the distance between the telescope and the core position of the shower. The $`\zeta `$ angle increases for small distances for the one-dimensional simulations because of the scattered Čerenkov light included in the simulations.

Figure 8 shows that for core distances closer than $`8km`$ of the telescope the lateral distribution of the particles in the shower produces a measurable spread of the signal in the photomultiplier camera. The $`\zeta `$ angle increases quickly as the core gets closer to the telescope.

### 4.1 Energy Dependency

The capability of a fluorescence telescope to distinguish between one-dimensional and three-dimensional showers certainly depends on the primary energy of the shower. With increasing energy, the lateral spread of the particles gets larger in comparison with one-dimensional approximations and it should be easier to measure the width of the signal.

In order to study the energy dependency we simulated 50 vertical proton showers with primary energy $`10^{18}eV`$ and 10 vertical proton showers with primary energy $`10^{20}eV`$. The number of events was reduced in comparison to the previous analysis because the errors had shown to be small. We used the same thinning factor set to $`10^6`$.

Figure 9 shows the number of pixels triggered as a function of the distance from the shower axis. We show the comparison between one-dimensional and three-dimensional simulations. Similar plots for the $`\zeta `$ angle have been done and show the same results. We have limited the distance from the axis to the shower in the region we expected to find the separation between the one and three dimensional approaches. Based on figures 7 and 9 we are able to determine the maximum distance that a fluorescence telescope may be able to measure the lateral distribution of a shower as a function of energy as being $`4km`$ for $`10^{18}eV`$, $`8km`$ for $`10^{19}eV`$ and $`14km`$ for $`10^{20}eV`$ showers.

### 4.2 Evaluating the influence of the *thinning*

The distribution of weights given as a function of the lateral distribution of the shower is not constant and depends on the particle type. Therefore, the unthinning procedure for the production of fluorescence photons proposed in section 2 should be tested in order to guarantee that no spurious fluctuations have been introduced in the determination of the lateral size of the shower seen by a fluorescence telescope.

Figure 10 shows that the unthinning procedure implemented here is not able to smooth the fluctuations in the longitudinal profiles. In this figure, we show the number of photons detected by the telescope as a function of depth for one vertical shower initiated by an electron with energy $`10^{18}eV`$. The thinning factor was set to $`10^4`$. The telescope is $`40km`$ away from the axis of the shower and has $`10m`$ radius. We have set the same configuration of the shower presented in figure 4 except for the thinning factor. The analytic calculations were carried out in the same way as explained in section 3.1.

The comparison between figure 4 (Thinning Factor $`10^6`$) and figure 10 (Thinning Factor $`10^4`$) illustrates the fluctuations caused by a strong shower thinning. Nevertheless, figure 10 shows our simulation produces the expected number of photons independently of that factor.

However, in this article we would like to guarantee that the results shown in section 4 are independent of the thinning factor. Therefore, we have also used the number of pixels triggered in the camera and the $`\zeta `$ angle to verify the thinning influence on the final measurement of the lateral spread of the showers. We have simulated ten vertical proton initiated showers with energy $`10^{19}eV`$ for different thinning factors ($`10^4`$,$`10^5`$, $`10^6`$ and $`10^7`$) through the Auger telescopes and determined the distribution of the number of pixels triggered and $`\zeta `$ as described above.

Table 1 shows the average number of pixels triggered and $`\zeta `$ angle for each thinning factor for telescopes at $`4km`$ and $`8km`$ away from the shower axis. As can be seen, the unthinning algorithm does not introduce any detectable fluctuation in the shower lateral size measured by Auger type telescopes for the thinning factor ranging from $`10^4`$ to $`10^7`$.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented here a new approach to simulate fluorescence photons in an atmospheric air shower. A three-dimensional and fully hybrid (particles+photons) simulation tool was developed under the CORSIKA framework. In our routines, fluorescence photons were produced for all charged particles in a shower and for electrons and positrons with energy below the CORSIKA cut-off.

This program is going to be useful for the new generation of detectors (Auger, EUSO, Telescope Array and OWL) due to the improvement in the technology used by them. As shown here, for the new observatories the shower can not be considered one-dimensional in all cases and therefore a three-dimensional approach should be used to optimize the construction and in the elaboration of reconstruction methods.

In this paper, the number of photons produced along the longitudinal development of the shower and the arrival time of the photons in the detector determined by our program have been compared to analytical calculations based on the energy deposited profile given by CORSIKA.

A good agreement can be seen in figures 4 and 3. The famous $`320EeV`$ shower detected by the Fly’s Eye experiment was also simulated according to the geometry given in . The consistency of our simulation can be seen as a test of the approach proposed here from one hand and as confirmation of the profile reconstructed by them from the other hand.

Our code was approved in several comparisons of simulated and real data. The arrival time, the longitudinal profile and the energy determined by our simulation show a very good agreement to what has been published so far.

The fluctuation due to thinning algorithm introduced in section 2 has been tested in respect to its influence on the lateral distribution of particles. No effect of the thinning was found in a range from $`10^4`$ to $`10^7`$ of the thinning factor when detectors similar to the Auger telescopes configuration are used.

Applications of the code were performed. We determined the sensitivity of a fluorescence telescope of the kind used by the Auger collaboration to the lateral distribution of the particles in a shower. Such a telescope could distinguish a real shower from a one dimensional approximation for distances of the core closer than $`4km`$ for $`10^{18}eV`$ showers, $`8km`$ for $`10^{19}eV`$ showers and $`14km`$ for $`10^{20}eV`$ showers.

These results represent a limit on the possibility to measure the lateral distribution of particles with a fluorescence telescope based on time information as suggested by . However, a great number of showers with energy beyond $`10^{19}eV`$ with core closer $`8km`$ can be detected and reconstructed by the present and future fluorescence telescopes. For this subset of events we suggest a detailed analysis of the data in order to possibly measure the lateral distribution of the particles.

## 6 Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dieter Heck for very fruitful discussions during the development of this code. This work was supported by the Brazilian population via the science foundations FAPESP and CAPES to which we are grateful. The calculations were done at Campinas using the computational facilities funded by FAPESP. We are also very grateful to Carlos Escobar for reading the manuscript and for useful discussions.


text:
# Differential Charge Sensing and Charge Delocalization in a Tunable Double Quantum Dot

## Abstract

We report measurements of a tunable double quantum dot, operating in the quantum regime, with integrated local charge sensors. The spatial resolution of the sensors allows the charge distribution within the double dot system to be resolved at fixed total charge. We use this readout scheme to investigate charge delocalization as a function of temperature and strength of tunnel coupling, demonstrating that local charge sensing can be used to accurately determine the interdot coupling in the absence of transport.

Coupled semiconductor quantum dots have proved a fertile ground for exploring quantum states of electron charge and spin. These “artifical molecules” are a scalable technology with possible applications in information processing, both as classical switching elements Chan02 ; Gardelis03  or as charge or spin qubits Engel03 . Charge-state superpositions may be probed using tunnel-coupled quantum dots, which provide a tunable two-level system whose two key parameters, the bare detuning $`ϵ`$ and tunnel coupling $`t`$ between two electronic charge states vanderWiel03 , can be controlled electrically.

In this Letter, we investigate experimentally a quantum two-level system, realized as left/right charge states in a gate-defined GaAs double quantum dot, using local electrostatic sensing (see Fig. 1). In the absence of tunneling, the states of the two-level system are denoted $`(M+1,N)`$ and $`(M,N+1)`$, where the pair of integers refers to the number of electrons on the left and right dots. For these two states, the total electron number is fixed, with a single excess charge moving from one dot to the other as a function of gate voltages. When the dots are tunnel coupled, the excess charge becomes delocalized and the right/left states hybridize into symmetric and antisymmetric states.

Local charge sensing is accomplished using integrated quantum point contacts (QPC’s) positioned at opposite sides of the double dot. We present a model for charge sensing in a tunnel-coupled two-level system, and find excellent agreement with experiment. The model allows the sensing signals to be calibrated using temperature dependence and measurements of various capacitances. For significant tunnel coupling, $`0.5k_BT_et<\mathrm{\Delta }`$ ($`T_e`$ is electron temperature, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the single-particle level spacing of the individual dots), the tunnel coupling $`t`$ can be extracted quantitatively from the charge sensing signal, providing an improved method for measuring tunneling in quantum dot two-level systems compared to transport methods vanderWiel03 .

Charge sensing using a QPC was first demonstrated in Ref. Field93 , and has been used previously to investigate charge delocalization in a single dot strongly coupled to a lead in the classical regime Duncan99 , and as a means of placing bounds on decoherence in an isolated double quantum dot Gardelis03 . The back-action of a QPC sensor, leading to phase decoherence, has been investigated experimentally Buks98  and theoretically backaction . Charge sensing with sufficient spatial resolution to detect charge distributions within a double dot has been demonstrated in a metallic system Amlani97 ; Buehler03 . However, in metallic systems the interdot tunnel coupling cannot be tuned, making the crossover to charge delocalization difficult to investigate. Recently, high-bandwidth charge sensing using a metallic single-electron transistor Schoelkopf98 , allowing individual charging events to be counted, has been demonstrated Lu03 . Recent measurements of gate-defined few-electron GaAs double dots Elzerman03  have demonstrated dual-QPC charge sensing down to $`N,M=0,1,2\mathrm{}`$, but did not focus on sensing at fixed electron number, or on charge delocalization. The present experiment uses larger dots, containing $`200`$ electrons each (though still with temperature less than level spacing, see below).

The device we investigate, a double quantum dot with adjacent charge sensors, is formed by sixteen electrostatic gates on the surface of a GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As heterostructure grown by molecular beam epitaxy (see Fig. 1). The two-dimensional electron gas layer, 100 nm below the surface, has an electron density of $`2\times 10^{11}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and mobility $`2\times 10^5\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$. Gates 3/11 control the interdot tunnel coupling while gates 1/2 and 9/10 control coupling to electron reservoirs. In this measurement, the left and right sensors were QPCs defined by gates 8/9 and 13/14, respectively; gates 6, 7, 15, and 16 were not energized. Gaps between gates 5/9 and 1/13 were fully depleted, allowing only capacitive coupling between the double dot and the sensors.

Series conductance, $`g_{\mathrm{dd}}`$, through the double dot was measured using standard lock-in techniques with a voltage bias of $`5\mu \mathrm{V}`$ at 87 $`\mathrm{Hz}`$. Simultaneously, conductances through the left and right QPC sensors, $`g_{\mathrm{ls}}`$ and $`g_{\mathrm{rs}}`$, were measured in a current bias configuration using separate lock-in amplifiers with $`0.5\mathrm{nA}`$ excitation at 137 and 187 $`\mathrm{Hz}`$. Throughout the experiment, QPC sensor conductances were set to values in the 0.1 to 0.4 $`e^2/h`$ range by adjusting the voltage on gates 8 and 14.

The device was cooled in a dilution refrigerator with base temperature $`T30\mathrm{mK}`$. Electron temperature $`T_e`$ at base was $`100\mathrm{mK}`$, measured using Coulomb blockade peak widths with a single dot formed. Single-particle level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}80}\mu \mathrm{eV}`$ for the individual dots was also measured in a single-dot configuration using differential conductance measurements at finite drain-source bias. Single-dot charging energies, $`E_C=e^2/C_o500\mu \mathrm{eV}`$ for both dots (giving dot capacitances $`C_o320\mathrm{aF}`$), were extracted from the height in bias of Coulomb blockade diamonds LK97 .

Figure 2(a) shows $`g_{\mathrm{dd}}`$ as a function of gate voltages $`V_2`$ and $`V_{10}`$, exhibiting the familiar ‘honeycomb’ pattern of series conductance through tunnel-coupled quantum dots Pothier92 ; Blick96 ; Livermore96 . Conductance peaks at the honeycomb vertices, the so-called triple points, result from simultaneous alignment of energy levels in the two dots with the chemical potential of the leads. Although conductance can be finite along the honeycomb edges as a result of cotunneling, here it is suppressed by keeping the dots weakly coupled to the leads. Inside a honeycomb, electron number in each dot is well defined as a result of Coulomb blockade. Increasing $`V_{10}`$ ($`V_2`$) at fixed $`V_2`$ ($`V_{10}`$) raises the electron number in the left (right) dot one by one.

Figures 2(b) and 2(c) show left and right QPC sensor signals measured simultaneously with $`g_{\mathrm{dd}}`$. The sensor data plotted are $`\delta g_{\mathrm{ls}(\mathrm{rs})}`$, the left (right) QPC conductances after subtracting a best-fit plane (fit to the central hexagon) to remove the background slope due to cross-coupling of the plunger gates (gates 2 and 10) to the QPCs. The left sensor shows conductance steps of size $`3\times 10^3e^2/h`$ along the (more horizontal) honeycomb edges where the electron number on the left dot changes by one (solid lines in Fig. 2(b)); the right sensor shows conductance steps of size $`1\times 10^2e^2/h`$ along the (more vertical) honeycomb edges where the electron number of the right dot changes by one (solid lines in Fig. 2(c)). Both detectors show a conductance step, one upward and the other downward, along the $`45`$-degree diagonal segments connecting nearest triple points. It is along this shorter segment that the total electron number is fixed; crossing the line marks the transition from $`(M+1,N)`$ to $`(M,N+1)`$. Overall, we see that the transfer of one electron between one dot and the leads is detected principally by the sensor nearest to that dot, while the transfer of one electron between the dots is detected by both sensors, as an upward step in one and a downward step in the other, as expected.

Focusing on interdot transitions at fixed total charge, i.e., transitions from $`(M+1,N)`$ to $`(M,N+1)`$, we present charge-sensing data taken along the “detuning” diagonal by controlling gates $`V_2`$ and $`V_{10}`$, shown as a red diagonal line between the triple points in Fig. 3(a). Raw data (no background subtracted) for the two sensors are shown in Fig. 3(b). The transfer of the excess charge from left dot to right dot causes conductance steps on both QPCs, clearly discernable from background slopes caused by coupling of gates 2 and 10 to the QPCs.

Also shown in Fig. 3(b) are fits to the raw sensor data based on a model of local sensing of an isolated two-level system in thermal equilibrium, which we now describe. Varying $`V_2`$ and $`V_{10}`$ along the red diagonal changes the electrostatic energy difference, or bare detuning $`ϵ`$, between $`(M+1,N)`$ and $`(M,N+1)`$ states. The lever arm relating gate voltage to detuning is set by the slope of the diagonal cut (see Fig. 3(a)) and various dot capacitances, and can be calibrated experimentally as described below. When the tunnel coupling $`t`$ mixing these two states is small compared to the single-particle level spacings for the individual dots, we can consider a two-level system whose ground and excited states, separated by an energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\sqrt{ϵ^2+4t^2}`$, consist of superpositions of $`(M+1,N)`$ and $`(M,N+1)`$ Cohen96 . The probability of finding the excess charge on the left dot while in the ground (excited) state is $`\frac{1}{2}(1ϵ/\mathrm{\Omega })`$. The excited state is populated at finite temperature, with an average occupation $`1/(1+\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Omega }/k_BT_e))`$. The average excess charge (in units of $`e`$) on the left and right dots is thus:

$$\left\{\begin{array}{c}mM\\ nN\end{array}\right\}=\frac{1}{2}\left(1\frac{ϵ}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2k_BT_e}\right)\right).$$
(1)
Our model assumes that each sensor responds linearly to the average excess charge on each dot, but more sensitively to that on the nearest dot as demonstrated experimentally in Fig. 2. The resulting model for sensor conductance is:

$$g_{\mathrm{ls}(\mathrm{rs})}=g_{o\mathrm{l}(o\mathrm{r})}\pm \delta g_{\mathrm{l}(\mathrm{r})}\frac{ϵ}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2k_BT_e}\right)+\frac{g_{\mathrm{l}(\mathrm{r})}}{ϵ}ϵ.$$
(2)
The first term on the right is the background conductance of the QPC, the second term represents the linear response to average excess charge, and the third represents direct coupling of the swept gates to the QPC. As shown in Fig. 3(b), our model gives very good fits to the data. For each trace (left and right sensors), fit parameters are $`g_{o\mathrm{l}(o\mathrm{r})}`$, $`\delta g_{\mathrm{l}(\mathrm{r})}`$, $`\frac{g_{\mathrm{l}(\mathrm{r})}}{ϵ}`$, and $`T_e`$. In these data, the tunnel coupling is weak, and we may set $`t=0`$.

Figure 3(c) shows the effect of increasing electron temperature on the transition width. Here, vertical axes show excess charge extracted from fits to QPC sensor conductance data. Sweeps along the red diagonal were taken at refrigerator temperatures of $`30\mathrm{mK}`$ (blue), $`200\mathrm{mK}`$ (green) and $`315\mathrm{mK}`$ (red). We use the $`315\mathrm{mK}`$ (red) data to extract the lever arm relating voltage along the red diagonal (see Fig. 3(a)) to detuning $`ϵ`$. At this temperature, electrons are well thermalized to the refrigerator, and thus $`T_eT`$. The width of the sensing transition at this highest temperature lets us extract the lever arm, which we then use to estimate the electron temperature for the blue (green) data, getting $`T_e=102(196)\mathrm{mK}`$.

We next investigate the dependence of the sensing transition on interdot tunneling in the regime of strong tunneling, $`tk_BT_e`$. Figure 4 shows the left QPC sensing signal, again in units of excess charge, along the detuning diagonal crossing a different pair of triple points, at base temperature and for various voltages on the coupling gate 11. For the weakest interdot tunneling shown ($`V_{11}=1096`$ mV), the transition was thermally broadened, i.e., consistent with $`t=0`$ in Eqs. (1) and (2), and did not become narrower when $`V_{11}`$ was made more negative. On the other hand, when $`V_{11}`$ was made less negative, the transition widened as the tunneling between dots increased. Taking $`T_e=102\mathrm{mK}`$ for all data in Fig. 4 and calibrating voltage along the detuning diagonal by setting $`t=0`$ for the $`V_{11}=1096`$ mV trace allows tunnel couplings $`t`$ to be extracted from fits to our model of the other tunnel-broadened traces. We find $`t=10\mu \mathrm{eV}`$ $`(2.4\mathrm{GHz})`$ (green trace), $`t=16\mu \mathrm{eV}`$ $`(3.9\mathrm{GHz})`$ (turquoise trace), and $`t=22\mu \mathrm{eV}`$ $`(5.3\mathrm{GHz})`$ (purple trace). Again, fits to the two-level model are quite good, as seen in Fig. 4.

Finally, we compare tunnel coupling values extracted from charge sensing to values found using a transport-based method that takes advantage of the $`t`$ dependence of the splitting of triple points (honeycomb vertices) Ziegler00 ; vanderWiel03 . In the weak tunneling regime, $`t\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the splitting of triple points along the line separating isocharge regions $`(M+1,N)`$ and $`(M,N+1)`$ has two components in the plane of gate voltages, denoted here $`\delta V_{10}`$ and $`\delta V_2`$. The lower and upper triple points are found where the lowest energy $`M+N+1`$ state (the delocalized antisymmetric state) becomes degenerate with the charge states $`(M,N)`$ and $`(M+1,N+1)`$, respectively. Using the electrostatic model in Ref. vanderWiel03 , we can show that $`\delta V_{10(2)}`$ are related to various dot capacitances and $`t`$ by

$$\delta V_{10(2)}=\frac{|e|}{C_{g10(g2)}}\left(\frac{C_m}{C_o+C_m}+2t\frac{C_oC_m}{e^2}\right).$$
(3)
Here, $`C_{g10(g2)}`$ is the capacitance from gate $`10(2)`$ to the left (right) dot, $`C_o`$ is the self-capacitance of each dot, and $`C_m`$ is the interdot mutual capacitance. All these capacitances must be known to allow extraction of $`t`$ from $`\delta V_{10(2)}`$. Gate capacitances $`C_{g10(g2)}`$ are estimated from honeycomb periods along respective gate voltage axes, $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_{10(2)}|e|/C_{g10(g2)}6.8\mathrm{mV}`$. Self-capacitances $`C_o`$ can be obtained from double dot transport measurements at finite bias vanderWiel03 . However, lacking that data, we estimate $`C_o`$ from single-dot measurements of Coulomb diamonds LK97 . Mutual capacitance $`C_m`$ is extracted from the dimensionless splitting $`\delta V_{10(2)}/\mathrm{\Delta }V_{10(2)}\frac{C_m}{C_o+C_m}0.2`$, measured at the lowest tunnel coupling setting.

Tunnel coupling values as a function of voltage on gate 11, extracted both from charge sensing and triple-point separation, are compared in the inset of Fig. 4. The two approaches are in good agreement, with the charge-sensing approach giving significantly smaller uncertainty for $`t0.5k_BT_e`$. The two main sources of error in the sensing approach are uncertainty in the fits (dominant at low $`t`$) and uncertainty in the lever arm due to a conservative 10 percent uncertainty in $`T_e`$ at base. Error bars in the transport method are set by the smearing and deformation of triple points as a result of finite interdot coupling and cotunneling. We note that besides being more sensitive, the charge-sensing method for measuring $`t`$ works when the double dot is fully decoupled from its leads. Like the transport method, however, the sensing approach assumes $`t\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (which may not be amply satisfied for the highest values of $`V_{11}`$).

In conclusion, we have demonstrated differential charge sensing in a double quantum dot using paired quantum point contact charge sensors. States $`(M+1,N)`$ and $`(M,N+1)`$, with fixed total charge, are readily resolved by the sensors, and serve as a two-level system with a splitting of left/right states controlled by gate-defined tunneling. A model of local charge sensing of a thermally occupied two-level system agrees well with the data. Finally, the width of the $`(M+1,N)(M,N+1)`$ transition measured with this sensing technique can be used to extract the tunnel coupling with high accuracy in the range $`0.5k_BT_et<\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

We thank M. Lukin, B. Halperin and W. van der Wiel for discussions, and N. Craig for experimental assistance. We acknowledge support by the ARO under DAAD55-98-1-0270 and DAAD19-02-1-0070, DARPA under the QuIST program, the NSF under DMR-0072777 and the Harvard NSEC, Lucent Technologies (HJL), and the Hertz Foundation (LIC).


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# Evidence for CuO conducting band splitting in the nodal direction of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ

(October 30, 2003)

## Abstract

Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with ultimate momentum resolution we have explicitly resolved the bilayer splitting in the nodal direction of Bi-2212. The splitting is observed in a wide doping range and, within the experimental uncertainty, its size does not depend on doping. The value of splitting derived from the experiment is in good agreement with that from band structure calculations which implies the absence of any electronic confinement to single planes within bilayers of Bi-2212. Other consequences of this finding are also discussed.

preprint: xxx

Joys and pitfalls in the development of an appropriate theory for high temperature superconductors (HTSC) are intimately related with results from angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), which is a direct probe of the quasi-particles and their interaction DamascelliRMP03 . Continuous improvement of the spectrometers leads not only to discovering new phenomena but also, and quite often, to a change of established paradigms. A distinguishing feature of modern ARPES is the ability to resolve the bilayer splitting (BS) of the CuO conduction band in the bilayer cuprates. For the first time such a splitting has been observed for overdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi-2212) FengPRL01 ; ChuangPRL01  and then also for optimally doped and underdoped samples ChuangXXX ; KordyukPRB2002  (clearly resolved below KordyukPRB2002 ; BorisenkoPRB2002  and above BorisenkoPRL2003  the superconducting transition). It has been found FengPRL01 ; ChuangPRL01  that the observed splitting can be approximated by a momentum dependence $`t_{}(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)^2/2`$, which is expected for an inter-plane hopping between two CuO layers (where $`t_{}`$ describes the interlayer hopping mainly mediated via Cu$`4s`$ orbitals when the splitting along the node is much less than the maximum splitting at the saddle-point) AndersenJPCS95 .

One of the main conclusions coming from the observation of the BS is that the HTSC cuprates are not so unusual as it was assumed before. The strong correlations in these systems produce rather weak effects on the lineshape of the photoemission spectra BorisenkoPRL2003 ; KordyukPRL2002 , which can be described within the quasiparticle self-energy concept KimPRL2003 . They do not cause a principal modification of the electronic structure as the initially proposed electronic confinement to single planes within a bilayer can do Anderson1997 . In the next step, to address a question like ”Is there still some space for strong correlation effects which are beyond the local density approximation (LDA) Drechsler  and could not be treated in terms of a renormalization?”, the values of the BS should be compared between theory and experiment. Although the largest BS can be found in the spectra from the antinodal region \[around the ($`\pi `$,0)-point\], it is not a trivial task to extract its bare value from them. There are two main reasons for this: (i) both the deviations of the renormalized band positions from the positions of corresponding peaks in energy distribution curves (EDCs) and the deviations of the bare band positions from the renormalized ones depend on the self-energy vs. frequency model KordyukPRL2002 ; (ii) the superconducting gap and the pseudogap additionally complicate the analysis KordyukPRB2003 . So, at this stage, it is not clear whether the observed splitting values can be completely reconciled with a quasiparticle dressing of bare electrons. In addition at the antinodal points there is some uncertainty caused by the unresolved presence or shifts wang ; xu  and unknown details of BiO derived states predicted by the LDA.

In this paper we focus on the nodal region, where (i) within the energy scale of the splitting the renormalization with binding energy can be considered as linear and (ii) the $`d`$-wave gap vanishes. We have found that the splitting along the nodal direction of bilayer Bi-cuprates is not zero but persists from underdoped to overdoped doping levels and for different composition. We show that the observed splitting is in good agreement with LDA based band structure calculations and is caused by the vertical O2$`p_\sigma `$-O2$`p_\sigma `$ hopping between two adjacent CuO layers. This finding, leaving no space for the mentioned electronic confinement, puts some restrictions on possible microscopic mechanisms of high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity.

The data have been obtained in the experimental setup where we combined a high resolution light source of a wide excitation energy range (U125/1-PGM beamline at BESSY Follath2001 ), an angle-multiplexing photoemission spectrometer (SES100) and a 3-axis rotation cryo manipulator. The total energy resolution was set to 10 meV, the angular resolution of the analyzer is 0.15. The data were collected at 25 K on a bilayer superstructure-free led-doped Bi(Pb)-2212 underdoped by oxygen reduction to $`T_c`$ = 76 K (Pb-UD76), a pure underdoped Bi-2212 (UD80), an optimally doped Bi-2212 (OP89), an overdoped Bi(Pb)-2212 (Pb-OD73), and a single-layer Bi(La)-2201 with $`T_c`$ = 32 K.

Fig. 1 gives the experimental evidence for the nodal splitting. The Fermi surface map (normalized to maximum intensity BorisenkoPRB2001 ) of Bi(Pb)-2212 OD73 is shown on panel (a). The map is measured with 50 eV excitation energy over a wide momentum region marked in (c): pointing up and down arrows mark the nodal directions in the 1st and 2nd Brilouin zones (BZs) respectively; the dashed line goes through M-points representing the boundary of the ”magnetic” BZ. It is seen that the bilayer splitting is highly anysotropic but does not vanishe along the nodes. The nodal region within the rectangle in (a) is zoomed in in (b). Sketch (c) is based on the tight binding fit of the FS of an OD sample KordyukPRB2003 .

In order to demonstrate the persistence of the nodal spliting for different dopping levels we focus on the energy distribution maps (EDMs) BorisenkoPRB2001  in which the photocurrent intensity of outgoing electrons is plotted as a function of their energy and inplane momentum. We use different excitation energies that has appeared to be a powerful tool to distinguish the bilayer splitting effect on the photoemission spectra KordyukPRL2002 . Panels (d-g) show EDMs for Bi-2212 UD80 (d,e) and Bi-2212 OP89 (f,g) measured along different nodal directions at different excitation energy: (d) and (e) in the 1st BZ along the (0,0)-($`\pi `$,$`\pi `$) (or $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$Y) direction, (f) and (g) in the 2nd BZ along the (2$`\pi `$,0)-($`\pi `$,$`\pi `$) (or ZX) direction. These are the directions along which the 5x1 superstructure replicas for Pb-free Bi-2212 are well spaced KordyukPRL2002  and, therefore, do not effect the spectra in question. It is seen that for the 1st BZ the photoemission from the bonding band is suppressed at 27 eV (d) but becomes visible at 17.5 eV (e) (the data for the OP sample are similar and are not shown). In the 2nd BZ the photoemission from the bonding band is suppressed at 18 eV (f) and becomes visible at 20 eV (g).

Fig. 2(a) represents the energy cuts of Fig. 1(e) at constant momentum, EDCs, and (b) momentum cuts at constant energy, momentum distribution curves (MDCs). Although the photocurrent intensity at 17.5 eV is rather low, one can notice the presence of two bands in EDCs that appears as a peak with a shoulder (see EDCs in between two dotted ones in panel a). More explicitly the splitting is seen on MDCs, where two peaks can be clearly distinguished (see MDCs which are close to the $`E_F`$-MDC shown by the dotted line in panel b). In Fig 2(c), in order to improve statistics, we integrate the MDCs along the experimental (renormalized) dispersion in the energy range 10–20 meV around $`E_F`$, where the MDC width does not vary dramatically. In all measured bilayer samples from UD76 to OD73 two peaks in nodal MDCs are well resolved at certain conditions which we describe below.

Exploring a wide excitation energy range (17–50 eV), we can conclude that the dependence of matrix elements on excitation energy for the nodal point in the 1st BZ exhibits a local maximum at about 17.5 eV for both the total intensity from bilayer split band and the intensity from the bonding band compared to its antibonding counterpart bonding . The observed excitation energy dependence of the effect is in accord with recent calculations of ARPES matrix elements SahrakorpiPRB2003  which show that in the low energy range the emissions are dominated (peaked at about 18 eV) by excitation from just the O sites. For the nodal point in the 2nd BZ the dependence on matrix elements is different and the bonding band is the most pronounced for $`h\nu `$ = 20–21 eV excitation energy: the MDCs 2 in Fig. 2(c) are derived from Fig. 1(f,g) and show how the bonding band peak appears when going from 18 eV (dotted curve) to 20 eV (solid curve).

In contrast to bilayer compounds, the single-layer sample shows no signature of the splitting. The nodal $`E_F`$ MDCs for Bi-2201 measured in the 1st BZ are presented in Fig. 2c (curve 4) for two excitation energies: 17.5 eV (solid curve) and 27 eV (dotted curve). While the width of given MDCs is larger than that of each band for the bi-layer samples (due to worse surface flateness or larger scattering on impurities), its lineshape remains symmetric and excitation energy independent.

In order to extract precise BS values we fit the integrated MDCs to a superposition of two independent Lorenzians (an example of a fitting curve is shown in Fig 2c). For the Bi-2212 UD80 sample $`\mathrm{\Delta }k`$ = 0.012(1) Å-1 which corresponds to 48(4) meV bare band splitting (for bare Fermi velocity $`v_F`$ = 4.0 eVÅ KordyukPRB2003 ) or 23 meV splitting of the renormalized band (renormalized Fermi velocity $`v_F^R`$ = 2.0 eVÅ). For other bilayer samples the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }k`$ are similar: 0.015(1) Å-1 (Pb-UD76), 0.015(2) Å-1 (OP89), 0.014(3) Å-1 (Pb-OD73).

To compare the experimentally derived BS value to LDA predictions we use two different bandstructure calculational codes: LMTO Yaresko  and FPLO Rosner . In particular, there is a perfect agreement with LMTO calculations, according to which the BS in the nodal direction is 50 meV at $`E_F`$. The correspondent $`k`$-space splitting is 0.013 Å-1. The FPLO procedure gives smaller splitting values: 0.0047 Å-1 in momentum or 20 meV in energy. Alternately switching off the hopping between different orbitals we have found that it is vertical hopping between O2$`p_\sigma `$ (i.e. the orbitals that form $`\sigma `$ bonds with Cu) that makes the main contribution to the nodal splitting value. From a simple evaluation within a 6-band model the bilayer splitting along the nodal direction ($`k_x=k_y`$, $`0<k_x<\pi `$) is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon =8t_{pp}t_{dp}^2(1\mathrm{cos}k_x)/\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ = 3.4 eV is the difference in energy between the middle of the CuO conducting band and the O2$`p_\sigma `$ orbital, $`t_{dp}`$ = 1.5 eV is an in-plane Cu3$`d`$–O2$`p`$ hopping integral, and $`t_{pp}`$ is an effective inter-plane O2$`p_\sigma `$–O2$`p_\sigma `$ hopping integral which we estimate as 0.048 (0.02) eV within the LMTO (FPLO) scheme. This relatively large value and the orbital analysis imply that the hoppings mostly proceed via Ca atoms. The differences between LMTO and FPLO results are related to different potential construction. The larger experimental values of the BS compared with the FPLO prediction might be attributed to the mentioned different shifts of the chemical potential Drechsler .

Since the MDC width in the vicinity of $`E_F`$ increases slowly with binding energy, we have traced the dispersions of both antibonding and bonding bands up to 30 meV from $`E_F`$ (Fig 3a). Fig 3b shows the width of antibonding and bonding peaks as functions of binding energy, which can be associated with the scattering rate. Such a possibility to extract the scattering rate separately for both antibonding and bonding bands could give a chance to resolve the present dilemma—what is the main boson for electrons to couple: phonons or spin fluctuations. For it has been predicted EschrigPRL2003  that the scattering by spin fluctuations should be odd (the antibonding electrons scatter to bonding band and vice versa) and should result in different widths of antibonding and bonding MDCs. Unfortunately, the differences between bonding and antibonding MDC widths presented in Fig 3b stay, strictly speaking, within the experimental error and can be considered as only a hint in favor of the spin-fluctuation scenario. We also note, that the nodal splitting can be a reason for a peak-dip-hump like structure occasionally observed in the nodal direction of the cuprates which has been ascribed to strong electron-phonon interaction LanzaraNature . The width in $`k`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$, for each band at $`E_F`$ is about 0.012 Å-1 which is still 2.5 times larger than the estimated momentum resolution, $`R_k`$. This difference can come from roughness of the sample surface and from a finite scattering on impurities.

The significance of the O2$`p_\sigma `$–O2$`p_\sigma `$ hopping which we observe should be taken into account also in the antinodal region in order to extract the Cu$`4s`$ admixture and to compare with theory LiechtensteinPRB1996 . The experimental determination of the precise amount of the admixture of such ”nonstandard orbitals”, being important for some aspects of the low energy-physics of various cuprates remark2 , is a challenging current problem for a future fully microscopic theory.

In conclusion, we have experimentally resolved the bilayer splitting in the nodal direction of Bi-2212. It is observed in a wide doping range and its size, within the experimental uncertainty, does not depend on doping concentration. The value of splitting derived from the experiment is in agreement with LDA band structure calculations. This implies evidence for the lack of any electronic confinement to single planes within a bilayer in Bi-2212 due to strong correlations. The LDA orbital analysis enables us to assign the observed BS predominantly to vertical inter-plane hopping between O2$`p_\sigma `$ orbitals.

We acknowledge useful discussions with H. Eschrig, K. Koepernik and T. Mishonov. We are grateful to O. Rader for the help with the experimental setup. The project is part of the Forschergruppe FOR538 and is supported by the DFG under grants number KN393/4 and 436UKR17/10/04, and by the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique.


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# Yes, 60 years later we are still working hard on vortices

To describe HeII, a bosonic quantum fluid, Lev Landau proposed a two-fluid theory in 1941 based on the concept of elementary or gapless excitations. The success of this concept was later extended to fermionic quantum fluids. It has become a cornerstone in our understanding of physics in condensed states. Nowadays no question on it would be asked by any busy researcher. What less well-known is that Landau’s 1941 paper also started the intriguing history on topological excitations, vortices: Their existence was forbidden in his theory because Landau feared that it might destroy the rigidity of the superfluid state. His famous critical velocity criterion on supercurrent was not based on topology. One of the consequences of this misconception was the delayed publication of the classical paper by A.A. Abrikosov, co-winner of 2003 Nobel Prize, on the existence of vortices and of vortex lattice in superconductors. Till these days the vortex dynamics has been remaining a fascinating research topic. R.J. Donnelly and W.F. Vinen, two of the three editors, are witnesses of and principal contributors in this long quest to understand dynamics of topological excitations.

The book is timely: The last major summary of the field was given by R.J. Donnelly in 1992, almost ten years ago; The discovery of high Tc superconductors has led to a tremendous progress in the statistical understanding of vortex states in superconductors during 1990’s; and the study of topological excitations in Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC’s) discovered in the middle 1990’s begins to provide a fresh look on structure and dynamics of topological excitations. Many world-renowned experts have contributed to it. I already mentioned Donnelly and Vinen. Here is an additional but by no means an exhaustive list: A.L. Fetter, P.V.E. McClintock, L.M. Pismen, E. Varoquaux.

Let me give a random sampling of the book along with my comments. P.H. Roberts and N.G. Berloff provided a lucid presentation of vortex structure from a nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE) with the normalization to superfluid density, though I am afraid that NLSE cannot be identified as the GP equation and it is latter which has not been derived by first principles in HeII. Nevertheless, for anyone wishes to gain a quick understanding of vortex structure, their contribution is a must. S. Rica further explored a very interesting consequence, the nucleation of vortices, within NLSE, a process vital in the understanding of the stability of supercurrent carrying states. The tools used in study of vortex dynamics in suerpfluids and superconductors start to be applied to the corresponding part in BEC’s. The contribution by H.P Buechler, V.B. Geshkenbein, and G. Blatter is such an example. However, they did not check a ‘no-go theorem’ in quantum field theory which implies that starting from their Eq.(3) the quantum nucleation is impossible. This throws a serious doubt on their quantum nucleation rate formula. R.J. Donnelly presented a concise summary of the experimental status on the superfluid turbulence. Superfluid appears to be a right system for such a study: The Reynolds number of superfluid is by definition infinite, hence obviously in the large Reynolds number regime desired for turbulence. It would be interesting to explore the connection between the superfluid turbulence and complicated vortex states in superconductors. The most interesting contribution in the book is by W.F. Vinen. With his forceful insight and motivated by an earlier study, Vinen stressed the importance of study of superfluid turbulence in a regime where normal fluid is negligible. It may reveal the importance of vortex-phonon interaction in this regime. As an emerging phenomenon, the superfluid turbulence may not depend on many microscopic details, particularly on those of mutual friction coefficients plaguing the interpretation of experimental data, in much the same way as that in the vortex states in superconductors. Vinen’s suggestion should have an important methodological implication. It seems to be already supported by the numerical study such as presented in the contribution by of M. Tsubota, T. Araki, and S.K. Nemirovskii. It is most likely to expect a major progress in this direction.

Another line of approach to vortex dynamics starts from topology, which links naturally to the underlying quantum phase and microscopic theories. A long but partial list of major contributors is as follows: F. London (1948), L. Onsager (1949), R.P. Feynman (1954), B.D. Josephson (1962), P.W. Anderson (1966). The history and current research activities from topological perspective were nicely summarized by D.J. Thouless (Topological Quantum Numbers in Nonrelativistic Physics, World Scientific, 1998). It is evident that vortex dynamics from topological point of view was missed in the reviewed book. Nevertheless I do take a notice that there is one contribution by L. Eaves discussing the connection to Quantum Hall effect and another by H.C. Chu and G.A. Williams discussing the generalization of Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, and that Onsager was referred in the contribution by V. Penna. Also conspicuously, through out the book there is no mentioning of the classical vortex dynamics experiment by Vinen in 1961 on a direct measurement of Magnus force, the transverse force on moving vortex. It is perhaps not surprising that though various corrections to the transverse forces are discussed in contributions by E. Sonin and by L.M. Pismen, no conditions were given on when and how their approximated results can be subjected to experimental tests. In view of more recent experimental indications of the absence of such corrections to the Magnus force, the experiment on Josephson-Anderson effect in superfluid of (R.E. Packard, 1998) and one on direct measurement of the transverse force in superconductors (X-M. Zhu, E. Brandstrom, B. Sundqvist, 1997), any knowledgeable reader would naturally ask Sonin and Pismen to provide testable conditions. Perhaps the field is still under the spell of Landau in its fondness towards classical hydrodynamic approach.

Apart from fields where it has already played an important role, such as superfluids, superconductors, BEC’s, and Josephson junction arrays, one can easily find applications of vortex dynamics in many other fields of current interest, for example, the already mentioned quantum Hall effect, neutron stars, optical solitons, quantum computation, and, not the least, string theory. As already suggested by the book, one would like to expect a new synthesis on vortex dynamics with insights from both classical fluid and topology based on more experiments from superfluid turbulence and BEC’s. I believe the reviewed book will serve as a catalyst for a sequel to D.J. Donnelly’s 1992 book, and recommend it to a prospective researcher as a good entry and a more experienced one for a quick survey, by keeping the need of topological consideration in mind.