text:
# Transverse negative magnetoresistance of 2D structures in the presence of strong in-plane magnetic field: weak localization as a probe of interface roughness

## I Introduction

The interference correction determines in the main the temperature and magnetic field dependences of the conductivity of weakly disordered two-dimensional (2D) systems. This correction originates in the constructive interference of time-reversed electron trajectories. For an ideal two-dimensional gas of spin-less particles only perpendicular magnetic field $`B_{}`$ destroys the interference resulting in negative magnetoresistance, whereas an in-plane magnetic field $`B_{}`$ does not effect the interference correction. Altshuler  Therefore, an applying of in-plane magnetic field should not change the magnetoresistance caused by the perpendicular field.

For real 2D system placed in in-plane magnetic field an interface roughness leads to that an electron effectively feels random perpendicular magnetic field at motion. This effect not only gives rise to the negative magnetoresistance at in-plane magnetic field but changes the magnetoresistance in perpendicular field in the presence of in-plane field.

Another mechanism of influence of in-plane magnetic field on the interference correction is the spin relaxation. If the relaxation is strong enough it suppresses the weak localization leading to positive magnetoresistance in very low magnetic field and appearance of so-called antilocalization maximum on the resistivity-magnetic field curve. In-plane magnetic field resulting in Zeeman splitting decreases the spin relaxation rate and, thus, affects the interference induced magnetoresistance. Malshukov0  This mechanism is not effective in considerably dirty systems, in which the spin-relaxation rate is less than the dephasing rate and antilocalization maximum is not evident even at very low temperature.

Anomalous low field magnetoresistance at perpendicular magnetic field has been studied extensively for many years. Considerably less attention has been directed to the effect of in-plane magnetic field on interference correction. Although the effects are small they are interesting because give an information on interface roughness of 2D structures. The first detailed experimental study of effects of in-plane magnetic field on negative magnetoresistance at perpendicular field was carried out in Ref. Wheeler,  for silicon MOSFETs. There was shown that short-range correlated roughness ($`L<l_p`$, where $`L`$ is distance over which fluctuations are correlated and $`l_p`$ is mean free path) leads to decreasing of phase breaking time ($`\tau _\phi `$) by in-plane magnetic field and thus to changing of the shape of magnetoresistance curve. The theoretical analysis carried out in recent paper by Mathur and BarangerMathur  shows that effect of in-plane magnetic field on the shape of magnetoresistance curve strongly depends on relationship between $`L`$, $`l_p`$ and $`l_\phi =\sqrt{D\tau _\phi }`$, where $`D`$ is diffusion coefficient. Thus, the experimental studies of the interference correction in the presence of in-plane magnetic field gives a possibility to find the parameters of interface roughness in particular structure.

This paper is devoted to the experimental study of the interference induced transverse negative magnetoresistance of GaAs/InxGa1-xAs/GaAs quantum wells with different scales of interface roughness in the presence of strong in-plane magnetic field. It is organized as follows. In the next section we give experimental details. Experimental results are presented and discussed in Sec. III: Sec. III.1 and Sec. III.2 are dedicated to results of magnetoresistance measurements for the samples with short- and long-correlated roughness, respectively, Sec. III.3 is concerned with the results of atomic force microscopy.

## II Experimental details

In the present work we experimentally study the two types of single quantum well heterostructures. The structure 3512 is GaAs/InGaAs/GaAs quantum well heterostructure which consists of 0.5 mkm-thick undoped GaAs epilayer, a Sn $`\delta `$-layer, a 9 nm spacer of undoped GaAs, a 8 nm In0.2Ga0.8As well, a 9 nm spacer of undoped GaAs, a Sn $`\delta `$-layer, and a 300 nm cap layer of undoped GaAs. In the second structure, H5610, the arrangement of the doped layers was the same as in the first one. The difference only is that the thin layer of InAs instead of In0.2Ga0.8As layer has been grown. The large lattice mismatch between InAs and GaAs results in this case in formation of nanoclusters. They are situated on the InAs wetting layer of one-two monolayers thickness, which is thin deep quantum well for electrons. The samples were mesa etched into standard Hall bars and then an Al gate electrode was deposited by thermal evaporation onto the cap layer through a mask. Applying the gate voltage $`V_g`$ we were able to change the electron density and conductivity of 2D gas. At electron density higher than approximately $`7\times 10^{11}`$ cm-2 for structure 3512 and $`9\times 10^{11}`$ cm-2 for structure H5610, the states in $`\delta `$-layers start to be occupied that affects the dephasing rate and influences the magnetoresistance curve. our1  In the present paper we restrict our consideration by the case when the states in $`\delta `$-layers are empty. In opposite case additional effects in parallel magnetic field occur which will be considered elsewhere. The structures parameters for some gate voltage are presented in Table 1.

In order to apply tesla-scale in-plane magnetic field while sweeping subgauss control of perpendicular field, we mount the sample with 2D electrons aligned to the axis of primary solenoid (accurate to $`1^{}`$) and use an independent split-coil solenoid to provide $`B_{}`$ as well as to compensate for sample misalignment. The two calibrated Hall probes were used to measure $`B_{}`$ and $`B_{}`$.

## III Results and discussion

To make evident the difference in the effect of in-plane magnetic field on the shape of negative magnetoresistance at perpendicular field for these structures we have presented the data for both structures in Fig. 1 together. The magnetic field scale has been normalized to characteristic for weak localization field $`B_{tr}=\mathrm{}/(2el_p^2)`$. One can see that in-plane magnetic field changes the shape of magnetoresistance curve within wide range of perpendicular field for structure 3512, while for structure H5610 the changes of the shape occur at low perpendicular field only. Below we demonstrate that this difference results from the different correlation lengths of roughness in these structures.

### III.1 The role of short-range correlated roughness

Firstly, let us consider the data for the structure 3512. Thorough studying of the weak localization correction at $`B_{}=0`$ shows that experimental data are in excellent agreement with conventional theory:

1. Magnetoconductance is well described by standard Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka (HLN) expressionHLN

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (B)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{xx}^1(B)\rho _{xx}^1(0)=\alpha G_0H(B,\tau _\phi ),`$
$`H(B,\tau _\phi )`$ $``$ $`\psi \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _p}{\tau _\phi }}{\displaystyle \frac{B_{tr}}{B}}\right)\psi \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{B_{tr}}{B}}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\tau _p}{\tau _\phi }}\right)`$ (1)
with $`\alpha `$ and $`\tau _\phi `$ as fitting parameters. In Eq. (1), $`G_0=e^2/(2\pi ^2\mathrm{})`$, $`\psi (x)`$ is a digamma function, $`\tau _\phi `$ is the phase breaking time. For strictly diffusion regime ($`\tau _p/\tau _\phi 1`$, $`B/B_{tr}1`$) the prefactor $`\alpha `$ has to be equal to unity. As Fig. 2(a) illustrates, the values of the fitting parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\tau _\phi `$ only slightly depend on the magnetic filed interval in which the fit is done.
2. The temperature dependence of $`\tau _\phi `$ is close to $`T^1`$-law \[see Fig. 2(b)\].
3. The temperature dependence of the conductivity at $`B=0`$ is logarithmic. Slope of the experimental $`\sigma /G_0`$-versus-$`\mathrm{ln}T`$ dependence is about $`1.45\pm 0.05`$. Here, the unity comes from the weak localization and 0.45 comes from the electron-electron interaction.our2

Now let us analyze the data when in-plane magnetic field is applied. As seen from Fig. 2(a) in this case the magnetoconductance $`\sigma (B_{},B_{})\sigma (0,B_{})`$ is well described by Eq. (1) also and the fitting parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\tau _\phi ^{}`$ (hereinafter, $`\tau _\phi `$ relating to $`B_{}0`$ will be labelled as $`\tau _\phi ^{}`$ ) depends only slightly on the fitting interval. As clearly seen from Fig. 3(a) the value of $`\tau _\phi ^{}`$ strongly decreases when $`B_{}`$ increases.

The effect of in-plane magnetic field on the negative magnetoresistance can be understand as follows. The weak localization correction to the conductivity results from the interference of electron waves scattered along closed trajectories in opposite directions (time-reversed paths). Magnetic field gives the phase difference between pairs of time-reversed paths $`\phi =2\pi \mathrm{𝐁𝐒}/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ (where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is the quantum of magnetic flux, $`𝐒`$ is the algebraic area enclosed) and thus destroys the interference and results in negative magnetoresistance. The scalar product $`\mathrm{𝐁𝐒}`$ is zero for ideal 2D structures at in-plane magnetic field therefore this field does not destroy the interference, and the negative magnetoresistance is absent in this magnetic field orientation. In real 2D structure the mean electron position in growth direction randomly changes at motion along closed paths due to interface roughness. Therefore the product $`\mathrm{𝐁𝐒}`$ becomes nonzero for in-plane magnetic field that leads to suppression of the weak localization correction. Theoretical analysis Wheeler ; Mathur ; Malshukov shows that for the case of short-range correlated roughness the role of in-plane magnetic field reduces to increasing of the dephasing rate

$$\frac{1}{\tau _\phi ^{}}=\frac{1}{\tau _\phi }+\frac{1}{\tau _{}}$$
(2)
where $`\tau _{}^1`$ is determined by parameters of roughness Mathur

$$\frac{1}{\tau _{}}\frac{1}{\tau _p}\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{4}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2L}{l_p^3}\left(\frac{B_{}}{B_{tr}}\right)^2.$$
(3)
Here, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the root-mean-square height of the fluctuations, and $`L`$ is the distance over which the fluctuations are correlated.

Let us consider how our experimental results for structure 3512 agree with this model. Fig. 3(a) shows that $`\tau _p/\tau _\phi ^{}`$ increases linearly with $`B_{}^2`$ in a full agreement with Eqs. (2) and (3), therewith the slope of this dependence is temperature independent. In framework of this model the temperature dependence of $`\tau _\phi ^{}`$ at the presence of in-plane magnetic field has to saturate on the value $`\tau _{}`$ with decreasing temperature. Figure 2(b) in which the experimental results obtained for $`B_{}=3`$ T are plotted shows that $`\tau _\phi ^{}`$-versus-$`T`$ dependence really tends to saturate at $`T0`$. In the same figure we plot the $`\tau _\phi ^{}`$-versus-$`T`$ curve calculated in accordance with Eq. (2). In this calculation the dependence $`2.5\times 10^{11}/T`$ which is a good interpolation of experimental data for $`B_{}=0`$ \[see Fig. 2(b)\] has been used as $`\tau _\phi (T)`$ in right-hand side of Eq. (2). The quantity $`\tau _{}^1=1\times 10^{11}`$ s-1 has been obtained as a difference between two values $`(\tau _\phi ^{})^1`$ and $`\tau _\phi ^1`$ found experimentally at $`T=1.45`$ K. Good agreement is evident within whole temperature range.

This model predicts also that growth of in-plane magnetic field has to lead to increase of conductivity at $`B_{}=0`$ as follows

$`\sigma (0,B_{})`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma (0,0)+G_0\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _\phi }{\tau _\phi ^{}}}`$ (4a)
$``$ $`\sigma (0,0)+G_0\mathrm{ln}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _\phi }{\tau _p}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2L}{l_p^3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{B_{}}{B_{tr}}}\right)^2\right].`$ (4b)
In Fig. 3(c) we present the in-plane magnetic field dependence of the conductivity which was measured directly and was calculated from Eq. (4a) using $`\tau _\phi ^{}`$ found above \[see Fig. 3(a)\]. One can see that within experimental error these data agree each other satisfactorily. Thus, all effects predicted for the case of the short-range correlated roughness are observed in the structure 3512. Therefore we believe that the slope of $`\tau _p/\tau _\phi ^{}`$-versus-$`(B/B_{tr})^2`$ dependence gives the parameter of roughness $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ which with the use of $`l_p=117`$ nm for $`V_g=1`$ V can be estimated as $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L7.2`$ nm3. Naturally, Eq. (4b) with this value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ well describes the experimental in-plane magnetic field dependences of the conductivity, measured without perpendicular magnetic field \[Fig. 3(b)\].

We have carried out such analysis for various gate voltages and plotted the electron density dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ in Fig. 3(c). One can see that the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ somewhat decreases with decreasing electron density. The following model can explain this observation. The inner interface lying in the depth of the structure has smaller roughness than that lying closer to the cap layer. With the decrease of the gate voltage, i.e., with decrease of the electron density, the wave function is hold closer against the inner interface resulting in the reduction of the role of the more rough outer interface. The larger roughness of the outer interface seems to be natural for the quantum well heterostructures studied because lattice mismatch leads to a strain of InxGa1-xAs layer and corrugation of outer interface. Analogous results were obtained in Ref. Wheeler,  for silicon MOSFET.

### III.2 Effect of nanoclusters on the weak localization

Now let us consider the effect of in-plane magnetic field on the negative magnetoresistance for structure H5610 with nanoclusters. The \[$`\sigma (B_{},B_{})\sigma (0,B_{})`$\]-versus-$`B_{}`$ plot for structure H5610#2 is presented in Fig.4. As seen from Fig.4(a) the negative magnetoresistance measured at $`B_{}=0`$ is perfectly described by Eq. (1). If one tries to fit by Eq. (1) the data measured at $`B_{}0`$ one finds that the fitting parameters strongly depend on the fitting interval. For instance, the prefactor $`\alpha `$ strongly decreases from $`\alpha =2.2`$ to $`\alpha =1.4`$ when the fitting interval of $`B`$ is expanded from $`00.1`$ to $`00.2`$ \[see Fig.4(a)\]. Moreover, the significantly higher than unity value of the prefactor is unreasonable for single quantum well structure with one occupied subband. All this points to the fact that Eq. (1) rather poorly describes the experimental data for structure H5610. We believe that such a behavior is sequence of a long-range correlated roughness which is caused by nanoclusrers. The presence of nanoclusters in this structure leads to smooth random deviation in position of an electron in growth direction when it moves over the quantum well \[see inset in Fig. 4(a)\]. Influence of in-plane magnetic field on the shape of magnetoresistance curve in perpendicular field for the case $`l_\phi >L>l_p`$ was theoretically studied in Ref. Mathur, . However the final expressions are very complicate and cumbersome to compare them with the experimental curves directly.

Another limiting case $`L>l_\phi `$ is very simple and transparent from the physical point of view. In this case one can consider that all the actual closed paths lie on the flat elements of size larger than $`l_\phi `$, which are inclined from ideal 2D plane through small random angles $`\beta `$. This means that the resulting magnetoresistance is a sum of the contributions of these deflected elements. The contribution of each element is $`\delta \sigma (B_n,\tau _\phi )=\delta \sigma (B_{}+\beta B_{},\tau _\phi )`$, where $`B_n`$ is projection of the total magnetic field onto the normal to the element plane. Then, the total magnetic field dependence of the conductivity can be written as

$$\sigma (B_{},B_{},\tau _\phi )=𝑑\beta F(\beta )\delta \sigma (B_{}+\beta B_{},\tau _\phi ),$$
(5)
where $`F(\beta )`$ is the distribution function of the deflection angles. To compare this expression with experimental data one needs to specify the functions in the right-hand side of Eq. (5). We have used the Gaussian distribution for $`F(\beta )`$ with root-mean square $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$. The experimental $`\sigma `$-versus-$`B_{}`$ curve measured at $`B_{}=0`$ has been used as $`\delta \sigma (B_{}+\beta B_{},\tau _\phi )`$. The result of the fitting procedure for $`\sigma (B_{},B_{})\sigma (0,B_{})`$ with one fitting parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ is shown in Fig. 4(b). One can see that this simple model perfectly describes the shape of the experimental magnetoresistance curve in the presence of in-plane magnetic field up to $`B_{}=2`$ T and the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ found from the fit is really small in magnitude: $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta 0.3^{}0.4^{}`$. A noticeable discrepancy between this model and experimental observations is evident at higher magnetic field, $`B3`$ T, the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ sufficiently increases with $`B_{}`$ increase \[see Fig. 6(a)\]. To our opinion, the situation when $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ is independent of in-plane magnetic field seems more natural.

Such a discrepancy between this model and experimental observations evident at $`B_{}3`$ T can be understood if one supposes a simultaneous existence of short- and long-range correlated roughness in the structure H5610. As shown above the short-range correlated roughness results effectively in lowering of $`\tau _\phi `$ in in-plane magnetic field. Thus, it becomes meaningless to use the experimental $`\sigma `$-versus-$`B_{}`$ curve measured at $`B_{}=0`$ in right-hand side of Eq. (5) when $`B_{}`$ is rather high.

The presence of short-range correlated roughness in structure H5610 is more pronounced when considering the effect of in-plane magnetic field on the absolute value of the conductivity. Figure 5(a) shows the curves shown in Fig. 4(b) but plotted without subtraction of $`\sigma (0,B_{})`$. Comparing this figure with Fig. 5(b), in which the experimental results are presented, one can see that the model taking into consideration only the long-range correlated roughness does not describe the behavior of absolute value of $`\sigma `$ in in-plane magnetic field. It is most conspicuous at $`B_{}/B_{tr}0.1`$, where the experimental $`\sigma `$-versus-$`B_{}`$ plots are shifted up with $`B_{}`$-increase whereas the calculated curves tend to merge together. It is natural to suggest that the shift of experimental curves is a result of the influence of short range correlated roughness which leads to decrease of $`\tau _\phi `$ and, thus, to increase of the conductivity with increasing of in-plane magnetic field when the perpendicular field is fixed.

To take into account coexistence of both long- and short-range correlated roughness in our model, we have used the quantity $`\sigma (B_{}=0,B_{}=0)+\alpha G_0H(B,\tau _\phi )`$ as $`\delta \sigma (B_{}+\beta B_{},\tau _\phi )`$ in Eg. (5), where $`\sigma (B_{}=0,B_{}=0)`$ is measured experimentally. Thus, we can manipulate by three fitting parameters $`\alpha `$, $`\tau _\phi `$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ to describe quantitatively the experimental results for structure H5610. Figure 5(b) illustrates excellent agreement between experimental results and the model taking into account both types of roughness.

Let us now consider whether the fitting parameters are reasonable. First of all, the value of the prefactor is about $`0.80.9`$ that agrees with sufficiently large $`\tau _\phi `$ to $`\tau `$ ratio at any $`B_{}`$: $`\tau _\phi /\tau 100200`$. Second, the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ does not practically depend on $`B_{}`$ and is close to that obtained at $`B_{}<3`$ T without taking into account the short-range correlated roughness \[see Fig. 6(a)\]. Thus, the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ characterizing the long-range correlated roughness can be estimated at $`0.35^{}`$. Finally, the fitting parameter $`1/\tau _\phi ^{}`$ exhibits quadratical increase when $`B_{}`$ increases \[see Fig. 6(b)\], that allows us to estimate the scale of the short-range correlated roughness using Eqs. (2) and (3). The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ in structure H5610 with nanoclusters occurs to be about $`1.2\text{nm}^3`$ that is less than that for structure 3512. Such an analysis carried out for other gate voltages shows that the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ is independent of electron density within experimental error and, thus, is about $`0.35^{}`$ and the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ increases from approximately $`1`$ to $`1.8\text{nm}^3`$ when the electron density varies from $`0.59\times 10^{12}`$ to $`0.91\times 10^{12}`$ cm-2 \[see Fig. 3(c)\]. As for structure 3512 (see Section III.1), we believe that such a behavior of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ is a result of the shift of the wave function to inner smooth interface of the quantum well that in its turn leads to reduction of the role of outer rough interface.

Thus, for the 2D structure with nanoclusters we can adequately describe the influence of in-plane magnetic field on weak localization combining two limiting theoretical models corresponding to short- and long-range correlated roughness.

### III.3 Results of AFM-studies

To assure that the structure H5610 distinguishes from the structure 3512 by the presence of long-range correlated roughness and to estimate its parameters, we have attempted to measure the profile of the quantum well surface. For this purpose the cap layer was removed using the selective etching.selEtch  After that the surface was scanned by Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) using TopoMetrix Accurex TMX-2100 ambient air AFM in Contact Mode. Si3N4 pyramidal probes were employed. The AFM-images for both structures are shown in Fig. 7. It is clearly seen that the scales of surface roughness are drastically different.

In order to get the quantitative information corresponding to our experiments, we have processed the images.

Let us firstly consider the long-range roughness. In accord with the model used for interpretation of the results for structure H5610 the surfaces presented in Fig. 7 were approximated by set of the flat squares of size $`>l_\phi `$, then the angle distribution function $`F(\beta )`$ entering in Eq. (5) was found. This function is presented in insets in Fig. 7 for both structures. It has been approximated by the Gaussian distribution and the dispersion $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ has been found. The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ obtained for $`=2l_\phi `$ and $`=3l_\phi `$ was close and differed by 30%.

For structure H5610 the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ is about $`2^{}`$ that is five-six times larger than the dispersion obtained from the weak localization measurements \[see Fig. 6\]. The reason for such a discrepancy is qualitatively clear. In reality, an electron moves not over the surface, it moves in the quantum well laying under the surface. Therefore, the deviations of electron in $`z`$-direction are smaller than the roughness magnitude. Thus, we consider the results of weak localization and AFM experiments being in a satisfactory agreement for structure H5610.

For structure 3512, the dispersion is about $`0.035^{}`$, i.e., the long range correlated roughness is practically absent. This fact agrees with the experimental result that only the short range correlated roughness reveals itself in weak localization in the presence of in-plane magnetic field.

To estimate the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ responsible for the influence of the short-range correlations on the weak localization, the surfaces have been scanned with the higher resolution (Fig. 8). The mean peak spacing for structure 3512 found from AFM-image given in Fig. 8(a) is $`65`$ nm, that is really less than mean free path ($`l_p=210`$ nm for $`V_g=0`$). So the use of the short-range correlated roughness model is justified. The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ found as a root-mean square deviation in $`z`$-direction is about $`0.35`$ nm. So, we obtain from independent AFM-measurements the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L8`$ nm3 which is close to that obtained from weak-localization experiment \[see Fig. 3(c)\].

It is more difficult to carry out the analogous estimation for structure H5610. First, the flat and hilly areas look differently at this resolution \[see Figs. 8(b) and 8(c)\]. Second, the peak spacing distribution is very wide and has no maximum. Nevertheless we try to estimate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ using $`l_p/2`$ as $`L`$. The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ found for the flat and hilly areas appears to be different: $`0.2`$ and $`0.6`$ nm, respectively. Therefore, the value of parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ for these areas are significantly different $`1.6`$ nm3 and $`14`$ nm3 (we used here $`l_p=80`$ nm that corresponded $`V_g=0`$). Recall that $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2L`$ obtained from the weak localization experiments is $`(2\pm 0.5)`$ nm \[see Fig. 3(c)\]. Taking into account the large scatter of AFM results, we consider such an agreement as satisfactory.

## IV Conclusion

We have experimentally studied the effects of in-plane magnetic field on the interference induced negative magnetoresistance in perpendicular magnetic field for different types of quantum well heterostructures. It has been shown that the effects significantly depend on the relationship between mean free path and in-plane size of the roughness. The analysis of the shape of the negative magnetoresistance at in-plane magnetic field gives possibility to recognize the characteristic in-plane scale of the roughness and estimate its parameters. The results of weak localization studies have been found in a good agreement with evidence from AFM measurements.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the RFBR through Grants No. 01-02-17003, No. 01-02-16441, No. 03-02-16150, and No. 03-02-06025, the CRDF through Grants No. REC-001 and No. REC-005, the Program University of Russia through Grant No. UR.06.01.002, and the Russian Program Physics of Solid State Nanostructures.


format: text

text:
# Accretion–ejection phenomena from young stars

## 1 Introduction

Collimated ejection of matter is widely observed in several astrophysical objects: inside our own galaxy from all young forming stars (Hartigan et al. hart95 (1995)) and some X-ray binaries (Mirabel and Rodriguez mir99 (1999)), but also from the core of active galaxies (Cao and Jiang cj99 (1999), Jones et al. jones00 (2000)). All these objects share the following properties: jets are almost cylindrical in shape; the presence of jets is correlated with an underlying accretion disc surrounding the central mass; the total jet power is a sizeable fraction of the accretion power.

Most of observed images show jets that are extremely well collimated already close to the source, with an opening angle of only some degrees. On the other hand, the derived physical conditions show that jets are highly supersonic. Indeed, emission lines require a temperature of order $`10^4`$ K, hence a sound speed $`c_s10`$ km/s while the typical jet velocity is $`v_j300`$ km/s. The opening angle $`\theta `$ of a ballistic hydrodynamic flow being simply $`\mathrm{tan}\theta =c_s/v_j`$, this provides $`\theta 5^o`$ for YSOs, nicely compatible with observations. Thus, observed jets could well be ballistic. Note that this qualitative argument is not changed by recent observations of rotation in jets, since the rotation velocity is of the same order than the sound speed (Testi et al. testi02 (2002)).

Therefore, the fundamental question is how does a physical system produce an unidirectional supersonic flow ? This implies that confinement must be intimately related to the acceleration process. To date, the only physical process proved to be capable of accelerating plasma along with a self-confinement relies on the action of a large scale magnetic field (carried along by the jet). Such a magnetic field is assumed to arise from either advection of interstellar (fossil) magnetic field or from local dynamo (or both).

There are three different situations potentially capable, at all evolutionary stages111The evolutionary scenario of a young forming star goes from Classes 0, I (embedded source) to Class II (optically visible Classical T Tauri star) and Class III (Weak line T Tauri star: no signs of accretion/ejection). The correlation between accretion and ejection remains valid from Class 0 to Class II phases (Cabrit et al. cabrit92 (1990), Hartigan et al. hart95 (1995), Bontemps et al. bontemps96 (1996))., of driving magnetized jets from young forming stars:
$``$ The protostar alone: stellar winds extract both energy and mass from the protostar itself (Sauty et al. sauty02 (2002)).
$``$ The accretion disc alone: “disc winds” are produced from a large radial extension in the disc and are fed with both mass and energy provided by accretion (Casse and Ferreira 2000a ).
$``$ The interaction zone between the disc and the protostar: “X-winds” are disc-winds produced in a tiny region around the magnetopause between the disc and the protostar (Shu et al. shu94 (1994), Lovelace et al. love99 (1999)).

Pure stellar wind models are less favoured because observed jets carry far too much momentum. In order to produce an observed jet, a protostar should be either much more luminous or rotating faster than observations show (DeCampli dC81 (1981), Konigl konigl86 (1986)). Unless otherwise proven, this leaves us with either disc-winds or X-winds. Note that what distinguishes these last two scenarii is mainly belief: belief that no significant large scale magnetic field could be found in the innermost disc region (up to a few au). It is however possible to observationaly discriminate between them (Shang et al. shang02 (2002), Garcia et al. 2001b ). Nevertheless, the disc-wind scenario is usually favoured because it offers an ”universal” paradigm able to explain jets from several astrophysical objects without relying on the central object.

## 2 Accretion–ejection from circumstellar accretion discs

### 2.1 The disc ejection efficiency

A large scale (mean) magnetic field of bipolar topology is assumed to thread an accretion disc, allowing ejected plasma to flow along open field lines. This field extracts both angular momentum and energy from the underlying disc and transfers them back to a fraction of ejected plasma. This plasma is accelerated from the disc surface by the so-called ”magneto-centrifugal force” and, farther away, is self-collimated by the magnetic ”hoop-stress” (see Ferreira (f97 (1997)) for an explanation). Accretion and ejection are therefore interdependent, which requires a new theory of accretion discs. Indeed, one must solve the disc vertical structure222Jet models of eg. Blandford and Payne bp82 (1982) or Pelletier and Pudritz pp92 (1992) treated the disc as a boundary condition. as well as the radial one, ie. the full 2D problem. This is the reason why no toy-model has been able yet to catch the main features of these accretion–ejection structures.

In these accretion discs, because mass is being lost in the jets, the accretion rate varies with the axial distance such that

$$\dot{M}_ar^\xi $$
(1)
where $`\xi `$ measures the ejection efficiency (Ferreira and Pelletier fp93 (1993)). While the standard accretion disc model is characterized by $`\xi =0`$, a revisited theory of ejecting discs provides the allowed values of $`\xi `$ as a function of the disc properties (Casse and Ferreira 2000a ). In turn, $`\xi `$ fixes the amount of mass that is actually ejected by the accretion disc. It turns out that the overall jet behaviour (asymptotic jet radius and velocity, degree of collimation) drastically depends on this load (Ferreira f97 (1997), Ouyed and Pudritz ouyed99 (1999)). There has been quite a lot of work done on the area of jet launching from keplerian accretion discs, but only very few addressed explicitely the problem of mass loading into the jet333This holds also for X-wind models., ie. the value of $`\xi `$. To my knowledge, apart from the work reported here, only Wardle and Konigl (wk93 (1993)) and Li (li95 (1995)) did it, but they used crude approximations forbidding them to get the physically acceptable range in $`\xi `$ (see Ferreira (f97 (1997)) for a detailled discussion).

### 2.2 Self-similar models

Answering this can only be done by constructing a self-consistent accretion–ejection model, from the resistive MHD accretion disc to the ideal MHD jet. Dealing with the partial derivatives involves the use of self-similar solutions444Self-similarity is a special case of the method of separation of variables commonly used in mechanics. It allows to solve the full set of MHD equations without any approximation. following the scaling imposed by the gravity of the central object (Ferreira and Pelletier fp93 (1993)). The validity of such solutions is questionable if jets arise from a small region in the disc. However, if jets are launched from a large region (say between $`0.1`$ and a few au), then they provide a correct description. In what follows, I describe some key features of such accretion disc models and recommend the interested reader to refer to the series of published papers.

The accretion disc must be resistive enough so that matter, which is both rotating and accreting, can indeed cross the magnetic field lines. Such a resistivity has to be anomalous and is expected to arise from MHD turbulence. Actually, the main assumption of the model is that such a turbulence can indeed be described by local phenomenological transport coefficients (resistivity, viscosity and heat conductivity). Within this framework, it has been found that steady-state jets require a magnetic field close to equipartition ($`\frac{B^2}{\mu _0}P`$, where $`P`$ is the plasma pressure). The magnetic field cannot be stronger otherwise it would forbid ejection. Indeed, the vertical component of the Lorentz force pinches the disc and the only force pushing matter up is the vertical gradient of the plasma pressure. This occurs at the disc surface where matter can still cross the field lines (Ferreira and Pelletier fp95 (1995)).

For adiabatic or isothermal magnetic surfaces, the ejection efficiency is always very small, typically $`\xi 0.01`$ (Ferreira f97 (1997), Casse and Ferreira 2000a ). However, if some additional heating occurs at the disc surface, enhancing there the plasma pressure gradient, then much higher ejection efficiencies can be reached, up to $`\xi 0.5`$ (Casse and Ferreira 2000b ) ! This fact introduces a tremendous complexity in the theory, since knowing the ejection efficiency $`\xi `$ requires now to solve a realistic energy equation. This is however very promising since it offers a quite natural explanation of why different classes of astronomical objects may produce jets with different efficiencies.

The theory of accretion discs driving jets is now well established, in the sense that both the relevant physical processes and parameter space are known. However, there is still some ”freedom” since the ejection efficiency $`\xi `$ is actually determined by the unknown MHD turbulence parameters (Casse and Ferreira 2000a , 2000b ). Either one gets these parameters from a theory of MHD turbulence inside discs (a dreadfull task), or one uses observations to infer these values.

This is the approach used by Garcia et al. (2001a , 2001b ). The energy equation and ionization equilibrium have been computed along each magnetic field lines, using a self-similar disc-wind model heated by ambipolar diffusion (neutrals-ions collisions). It was then possible to reproduce synthetic observations: spatially resolved forbidden line emission maps, long-slit spectra, as well as line ratios. Line profiles and jet widths appeared to be good tracers of the wind dynamics and collimation, whereas line ratios essentially trace gas excitation conditions. All the above diagnostics were confronted555Convolution by the observing beam is essential for a meaningful test of the models. to observations of T Tauri star microjets, with a very nice general agreement. However, it was found that jets with $`\xi 0.01`$ are too tenuous and with too large velocities666The maximum asymptotic velocity is $`v_j\mathrm{\Omega }_or_o\xi ^{1/2}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_or_o`$ is the keplerian speed at the footpoint of the magnetic field line.. Thus, a detailled comparison with observations shows that T Tauri stars jets require higher disc ejection efficiencies, thereby discs with a warm chromosphere or corona. Such an effect may well be the natural outcome of disc illumination by both UV and X-rays produced by the accretion shock and star itself (see Feigelson and Montmerle feigel99 (1999)).

But one should also realize that ”cold” jets, ie. jets produced by the sole magneto-centrifugal force, are an extravagant theoretical simplification. Indeed, there is no physical reason why thermal effects should play no role, especially in view of its enormous importance in the solar wind. Moreover, at the surface of a magnetized accretion disc, one expects strong energy dissipation due to the presence of both small scale magnetic loops and differential rotation. Hence, any disc producing jets should have a magnetically heated corona (see also Kwan kwan97 (1997)).

## 3 Accretion–ejection from the star–disc interface

Even if accretion discs produce jets, only 1 to $`10\%`$ of their mass is being actually ejected. Thus, most of the mass accreting through the disc will eventually fall into the star. Not much freedom is therefore left for our imagination:
$``$ If stellar magnetic fields are ”weak”, then we expect the formation of an equatorial boundary layer between the disc and the star (Regev and Bertout regev95 (1995), Popham et al. popham96 (1996)).
$``$ If stellar magnetic fields are ”strong”, then we expect the disc plasma to be forced to follow the stellar magnetospheric field, giving rise to so-called accretion curtains (or funnel flows, Edwards et al. edwards94 (1994)).

### 3.1 Why is a magnetic interaction zone necessary ?

The ”weak field” scenario has a drawback which may be quite severe. Indeed, all T Tauri stars are observed to rotate at about $`10\%`$ of their break-up velocity (Bertout bertout89 (1989)). This means that matter reaching the equator is rotating much faster than the star. Thus, such a meridional boundary layer can only lead to a stellar spin-up. But the current interpretation of observations is that accreting T Tauri stars (ie. CTTS) maintain a constant period and, once their disc has disappeared (ie. WTTS), their own gravitational contraction makes them spinning up (Bouvier et al. coyotes97 (1997), Bouvier, Forestini and Allain bouvier97 (1997)). This implies that the coupling between the star and the disc must brake down the contracting star and remove both accreting material and its own angular momentum.

One could argue that the star, viscously linked to the surrounding disc, is simultaneously driving a wind that carries away this angular momentum. But to my knowledge, no conventional stellar wind model ever showed that it could indeed produce such a strong magnetic braking. Moreover, if the star is able to produce such a stellar wind, then it surely has also a magnetospheric field threading the circumstellar disc. One has therefore to explain why such a configuration has no dynamical influence on the disc (no relevant torque, no ”freezing” action on the required MHD turbulence).

We are therefore lead to assume there must be a magnetospheric interface between the star and its accretion disc. Such a conclusion is fortunately supported by several observational pieces of evidences: measures of strong stellar magnetic fields (of order kG, Guenther et al. guenther99 (1999)), emission lines probing infalling matter from high latitudes (Beristain et al. beristain01 (2001)), photometric variability and obscuration (Bouvier et al. bouvier99 (1999)), holes in the innermost disc region (Muzerolle et al. muzerolle98 (1998) and references therein).

### 3.2 An ”extended” or a ”narrow” interface ?

We saw that the disc and the star are dynamically linked by large scale magnetic fields in such a way that the contracting star is being spun down. The question now is to find the correct magnetic configuration. Let us first introduce two important definitions:

$``$ The corotation radius, namely $`r_{co}=(GM_{}/\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^2)^{1/3}`$, is defined as the radius where the keplerian rotation is equal to the stellar one (note that disc material is always slightly sub-keplerian).

$``$ The magnetopause radius $`r_m`$ is defined as the equatorial radius below which there is no disc plasma anymore, only the force-free stellar magnetosphere.

The respective location of these two radii plays an important role in the star–disc interface dynamics. There are two extreme magnetic configurations that must allow accretion towards the central star and provide a magnetic braking: (1) an ”extended” interface, which is a situation where stellar field lines thread the accretion disc on a wide range of radii, from $`r_m`$ to a much larger outer radius; (2) a ”narrow” interface where this outer radius is (larger but) of the same order than $`r_m`$.

The extended configuration assumes a (turbulent) disc magnetic diffusivity so that stellar field lines can indeed thread the disc over a large extension (Gosh and Lamb gl78 (1978)). All stellar field lines anchored in the disc at a radius smaller than $`r_{co}`$ produce a spin-up, whereas those anchored beyond $`r_{co}`$ produce a spin-down. Inside this framework, magnetic braking of the star can in principle be achieved if the magnetospheric star–disc link is such that the two torques almost balance each other (Cameron and Campbell cc93 (1993), Li liJ96 (1996)). Usually, it is found that $`r_m<r_{co}`$ but close to it, otherwise the spin-up torque would be too large. However, as Bardou and Heyvaerts (bardou96 (1996)) showed, accretion inside the disc requires a viscous torque greater than that due to the stellar field lines. As a consequence, the consistent magnetic diffusivity must be so large that, instead of being maintained at the same radius (producing thereby a spin-down torque), the magnetospheric field lines inflate (Aly’s theorem aly84 (1984)) and diffuse rapidly outside the disc. The configuration envisionned cannot simply be sustained.

It seems therefore more natural to expect a sharp transition from the force-free magnetosphere to the star-disconnected accretion disc, ie. a ”narrow” star–disc interface. This is much harder to model since it involves strong gradients in both radial and vertical directions. This sharp transition requires $`r_mr_{co}`$ in order to provide only a negative torque (magnetic braking), ie. a disc truncated at quite a large distance from the stellar surface $`R_{}`$ (the minimum distance would be $`r_mr_{co}3R_{}`$). This arises only from the constraint that the star–disc interaction must provide a magnetic braking on stellar timescales ($`10^5`$ to several $`10^6`$ yrs), much longer than the local disc dynamical timescale (days). How does the system maintain $`r_mr_{co}`$ on these long timescales is still an open question.

## 4 The Reconnection X-wind model

### 4.1 Formation of a magnetic neutral line

Both theoretical and observational arguments point towards the following picture: accretion discs are truncated at $`r_mr_{co}`$ by stellar magnetospheres whose radial extension inside the discs are quite narrow. There is however something weird about this picture. If the disc has to be the reservoir of the stellar angular momentum, then how can accretion take place ? Discs are much less massive than the central star so it is quite hard to imagine they will cope with the huge stellar torque and quietly carry away (by radial viscous transport) the excess angular momentum deposited by the star. In the X-wind model, such a transport is assumed to be provided by viscosity around the magnetopause, so that this excess is finally carried away out of the disc by the X-wind (Shu et al. shu94 (1994)). But this X-wind is nothing more than a disc wind, capable only to transport the exact amount of angular momentum that allows disc plasma to accrete. In other words, one cannot drive a jet with stellar rotational energy if the field lines are anchored in the disc. So, understanding the accretion–ejection physical process leads us to favour a ”stellar wind” as the final reservoir for the stellar angular momentum.

Still, observed jets are probably of no stellar origin. But if jets are indeed produced by the circumstellar disc, then the large scale magnetic field in the disc has to match in some way the stellar magnetospheric field. We already know that such a matching has to occur in a narrow region around $`r_m`$, where it is reasonable to assume a stellar magnetic field of dipolar structure. Now, if the stellar magnetic moment is oriented in the same direction as the disc magnetic field then one gets a situation where both magnetic fields cancel each other (Figure 1). This leads to the formation of a magnetic neutral line777In this simplified picture, the magnetic moment is aligned with the stellar rotation axis, leading to an axisymmetric neutral line. But this process (and its consequences) remains valid if the dipole is misaligned. In this case, the magnetic neutral line breaks into two oppositely directed angular sectors with a magnetic neutral segment. at the axial distance $`r_X`$, defined as $`B_{}(r_X)=B_{disc}(r_X)`$ (Ferreira et al. f00 (2000)).

This neutral line is an azimuthaly extended reconnection zone: closed magnetospheric field lines are being ”converted” into open field lines linked to the star. If the disc turbulence is indeed able to sustain the amount of magnetic resistivity required, then such a picture could well be a (time-averaged) representation of a star–disc interface. Note that this reconnection line is located in the disc equatorial plane, so that it is not clear whether or not it could be observed as some X-ray activity (ie. flares related to the presence of a disc).

### 4.2 Extraction of stellar angular momentum by a wind

Where would this magnetic X-point be located in the disc ? A reasonable answer is provided if we demand that the model satisfies (on a time-averave sense) all the following constraints: narrow interface at $`r_mr_{co}`$, magnetic braking by a stellar wind and jet formation from the circumstellar disc. The last constraint tells us that the disc magnetic field must be close to equipartition, namely $`B_{disc}\dot{M}_{acc}^{1/2}`$. The first constraint obviously imposes $`r_X>r_mr_{co}`$. Using some crude prescription for the stellar magnetic field, namely $`B_{}r^n`$ ($`n3`$ free and mimicking a ”compressed” magnetosphere), then one gets the value of the stellar magnetic moment, which can then be compared to observations.

The remarkable property of such a configuration is that magnetic braking is automaticaly achieved. Indeed, at radii greater than $`r_X`$, disc plasma is unaware of the star and its dynamics is exactly the same as in an accretion–ejection structure. But around $`r_X`$ a sharp transition occurs: matter on the disc equatorial plane crosses the magnetic neutral line and is deflected vertically by the vertical Lorentz force to form accretion curtains (at $`r_m<r_X`$ all disc material has been deflected). But matter which is already located at the disc surface is pushed vertically away and loaded onto newly opened field lines. Now, those lines are rotating at the stellar angular velocity which is greater than that of the plasma (as long as $`r_X>r_{co}`$). This means that this material is experiencing a ”magneto-centrifugal” acceleration from the star ! Hence, the star itself is indeed powering (with rotational energy and angular momentum) plasma that was originally inside the disc. Since plasma is being loaded at $`r_X`$ and not at $`R_{}`$ as in conventional stellar winds, we call these winds ”Reconnection X-winds”.

It is noteworthy that such ejection events at the star–disc interface are most probably time-dependent. They are indeed highly dependent on the fact that $`r_X>r_{co}`$ and on the local magnetic topology, which itself depends on both stellar dynamo and disc MHD turbulence. So, we expect that such a configuration is actually producing accretion–ejection events in some intermittent way, involving short (days: MHD turbulence) to quite long (years or more: stellar dynamo) timescales. Since every ejection event is channeled by the surrounding disc-wind, it would observationaly appear as a ”collimated” bullet.

Such a configuration is especially useful for the very early phase of the star (embedded protostar, Class 0 and I). Indeed, once optically visible, the star rotates at only $`10\%`$ of its break-up velocity. This means that stellar material, that originally came from a molecular cloud, already lost a huge amount of specific angular momentum. To my knowledge, such an efficient angular momentum extraction has never been obtained during the collapse itself. It can be shown however that Reconnection X-winds can very efficiently brake down a contracting protostar (from break-up to $`10\%`$ of it), on timescales compatible with the duration of the embedded phase (Ferreira et al. f00 (2000)).

### 4.3 Fossil fields and early stellar dynamo

To summarize, we suppose that a non-negligible fraction of the magnetic flux carried by the parent molecular cloud remains trapped during the formation of the protostellar core. The result is a protostar with a magnetic moment parallel to the magnetic field threading the newly formed surrounding accretion disc. We expect that in the innermost region of the disc the magnetic energy will be close to equipartition with the disc thermal energy, initiating jets from the disc itself. We further suppose that a stellar dynamo begins to operate in the rapidly rotating convective protostar. In contrast with usual stellar dynamo models, the protostar is in contact with an accretion disc which itself carries a remnant magnetic flux. Note that by contact, we mean transfer of both mass and angular momentum: the behaviour of such dynamos has not been studied yet. We therefore speculate that the particular boundary conditions provided by the magnetized disc will favour growing dynamo modes with a magnetic moment aligned with the disc field (on a quasi-stationary regime)888This behaviour will obviously change once the disc has vanished. In particular, diffusion of any fossil field will then become possible..

Although this is a speculation, it is quite natural to envision protostar evolution as being strongly influenced by both initial (presence of strong fossil fields) and boundary (circumstellar accretion disc) conditions. Such a speculation leads to Reconnection X-winds, that may solve the angular momentum problem in star formation. If this picture is viable, then dynamo theory would have to be revisited, for a protostar could no longer be treated as a convective star in vacuum.


text:
# THE ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF ATOMS IN THE FIELD OF THERMAL RADIATION

## Abstract

Using the principle of detailed balance and the assumption on the absorption cross-section consistent with available astrophysical data, we obtain the energy distribution of atoms in the field of thermal blackbody radiation and show that this distribution diverges from the Boltzmann law. There is an inversion of the high energy level population at sufficiently high temperatures.

In the unified model of compact radio sources, radio emission from active galactic nuclei and pulsars is treated as thermal radiation from an accretion disk amplified by a maser mechanism . A maser amplification of thermal radio emission in continuum produces the high brightness temperatures of compact radio sources and a rapid variability of total and polarized flux density, that is characteristic for non-saturated maser sources. In particular, pulsars signals show a variability on every observable time scale up to nanoseconds . The brightness temperatures of OH masers have the magnitude $`T_b<10^{12}K`$, and those of water masers have the magnitude $`T_b<10^{15}K`$ . Compact extragalactic sources (active galactic nuclei) exhibit brightness temperatures in the range of $`10^{10}K`$ to $`10^{12}K`$ , so these temperatures have an order of magnitude of those of OH masers.

Maser amplification in continuum is closely connected with the stimulated origin of thermal radio emission. The induced origin of thermal radio emission follows from the relations between Einstein’s coefficients for spontaneous and induced emission of radiation. However, the detailed mechanism of maser amplification has been unknown so far. In this paper we show that there is an inversion of the high energy level population at sufficiently high temperatures which can give rise to the maser amplification in continuum in a hot plasma.

The original Einstein theory of spontaneous and induced emission of radiation did not take into account a line width . Here we show, in particular, that the account for a natural line width essentially changes the conclusions on the wavelength dependence of the absorption and stimulated emission cross-sections as well as the relations between Einstein’s coefficients.

Consider two level system (atom) with energy levels $`E_1`$ and $`E_2>E_1`$ which is in equilibrium with thermal blackbody radiation. We denote as $`\nu _s=A_{21}`$ the number of transitions from the upper energy level to the lower one per unit time caused by spontaneous emission of radiation with the frequency $`\omega =\left(E_2E_1\right)/\mathrm{}`$, where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the Planck constant. The number of transitions from the energy level $`E_2`$ to the energy level $`E_1`$ per unit time caused by stimulated emission of radiation may be written in the form

$$\nu _i=B_{21}B_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu =\sigma _{21}\frac{\pi B_\nu }{\mathrm{}\omega }\mathrm{\Delta }\nu ,$$
(1)
where

$$B_\nu =\mathrm{}\omega ^3/\left(2\pi ^2c^2\right)\left(exp\left(\mathrm{}\omega /kT\right)1\right)$$
(2)
is a blackbody emissivity (Planck’s function), $`\sigma _{21}`$ is the stimulated emission cross-section,$`T`$ is the temperature, k is the Boltzmann constant, c is the speed of light, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ is the line width.

The number of transitions from the lower level to the upper one per unit time may be written in the form

$$\nu _{12}=B_{12}B_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu =\sigma _{12}\frac{\pi B_\nu }{\mathrm{}\omega }\mathrm{\Delta }\nu .$$
(3)
where $`\sigma _{12}`$ is the absorption cross-section.

Here A21,$`B_{21}`$ and $`B_{12}`$ are the coefficients introduced by Einstein , the coefficients $`B_{12}`$ and $`B_{21}`$ being modified to account for the line width $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$.

We denote as $`N_1`$ and $`N_2`$ the number of atoms occupying the energy levels $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$, respectively. The levels $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$ are suggested for simplicity to be non-degenerated.

In the equilibrium state the full number of transitions from the lower level to the upper one is equal to the number of reverse transitions :

$$N_1\nu _{12}=N_1B_{12}B_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu =N_2\nu _{21}=N_2\left(A_{21}+B_{21}B_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu \right).$$
(4)
The line width $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ is suggested to be equal to the natural line width :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\nu =A_{21}+B_{21}B_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu .$$
(5)
It is assumed that the lower level has a zero energy width, i.e. this level is a ground state.

It follows from the last equation that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\nu =A_{21}/\left(1B_{21}B_\nu \right).$$
(6)
Substituting this expression in the equation 4 , we obtain

$$N_2/N_1=B_{12}B_\nu =\sigma _{12}\frac{\pi B_\nu }{\mathrm{}\omega }.$$
(7)
In the limit of high temperatures $`T\mathrm{}`$, corresponding to the range of frequencies $`\mathrm{}\omega <kT`$, the function $`B_\nu \left(T\right)`$ is given by the Rayleigh-Jeans formula

$$B_\nu =2kT\nu ^2/c^2,$$
(8)
where $`\nu `$ is the frequency of radiation , $`\nu =\omega /2\pi `$.

Since $`B_\nu \mathrm{}`$ when $`T\mathrm{}`$ , it follows from the equation (6) that the coefficient $`B_{21}`$ is depending on the temperature T in such a manner that $`B_{21}B_\nu <1`$ . It is clear that $`B_{21}B_\nu 1`$ when $`T\mathrm{}`$ . The ratio of frequencies of transitions caused by spontaneous and induced emission of radiation is given by the expression

$$\nu _s/\nu _i=A_{21}/\left(B_{21}B_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu \right)=\left(1B_{21}B_\nu \right)/\left(B_{21}B_\nu \right).$$
(9)
This ratio is approaching zero when$`T\mathrm{}`$ , since $`B_{21}B_\nu 1`$. It means that in the range of frequencies $`\mathrm{}\omega <kT`$ thermal radiation is produced by the stimulated emission, whereas the contribution of the spontaneous emission may be neglected .

It follows from equations (7) and (8) that in the Rayleigh-Jeans range of frequencies the ratio $`N_2/N_1`$ is given by the formula

$$N_2/N_1=\sigma _{12}\omega kT/\left(2\pi \mathrm{}c^2\right).$$
(10)
An analysis of observational data on thermal radio emission from various astrophysical objects suggests that the absorption cross-section does not depend on a wavelength of radiation and has an order of magnitude of an atomic cross-section, $`\sigma _{12}10^{15}cm^2`$. Only this assumption is consistent with the observed spectra of thermal radio emission from major planets, the spectral indices of radio emission from galactic and extragalactic sources, and the wavelength dependence of radio source size.

If the absorption cross-section is constant then the energy distribution of atoms has a form

$$N_2/N_1=const\left(E_2E_1\right)kT.$$
(11)
For all real values of the temperature and wavelength of radiation the ratio (11) is much smaller than unit. For example, at $`\lambda =1m`$ the ratio (11) is less than 1, if $`T<10^{18}K`$. It implies that $`N_1N`$, where N is the total number of atoms. There are no reasons to expect that the Boltzmann distribution is still valid for an ensemble of atoms interacting with thermal radiation.

From the relation $`B_{21}B_\nu 1`$ we obtain the stimulated emission cross-section in the form

$$\sigma _{21}\mathrm{}\omega /\left(\pi B_\nu \right)=\lambda l_T/\left(2\pi \right),$$
(12)
where $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength, and $`l_T=2\pi \mathrm{}c/\left(kT\right)`$. Thus, Einstein’s relation $`B_{12}=B_{21}`$, equivalent to $`\sigma _{12}=\sigma _{21}`$, is not valid in the Rayleigh-Jeans region.

Consider now the Wien region $`\mathrm{}\omega >kT`$. There are strong theoretical and observational indications of the stimulated character of thermal blackbody radiation in the whole range of spectrum. First, the spectral energy density of thermal blackbody radiation is described by a single Planck’s function at all frequencies. Second, there are clear observational indications of the existence of thermal harmonics in stellar spectra and of laser type sources. The latter are connected with the induced origin of thermal radiation, similarly to well known maser sources. In particular, a possible non-saturated X-ray laser source emitting in the Fe $`K_\alpha `$line at 6.49 keV was recently discovered in the radio-loud quasar MG J0414+0534 .

Assuming the stimulated origin of thermal blackbody radiation, i.e. $`\nu _s<\nu _i`$ , from equation (8) one can obtain the relation $`B_{21}B_\nu =\sigma _{21}\pi B_\nu /\left(\mathrm{}\omega \right)1`$, and then the stimulated emission cross-section in the form

$$\sigma _{21}\left(\lambda ^2/2\pi \right)exp\left(\mathrm{}\omega /kT\right).$$
(13)
The absorption cross-section is likely to be constant in the whole range of spectrum, so the ratio $`N_2/N_1`$, according to equation (6), is given by the formula

$$N_2/N_1\left(\sigma _{12}\omega ^2/2\pi c^2\right)exp\left(\mathrm{}\omega /kT\right),$$
(14)
which is somewhat similar to the Boltzmann law.

The exact formula for the ratio $`N_2/N_1`$ can be obtained from (6) :

$$N_2/N_1=\sigma _{12}\omega ^2/\left(2\pi c^2\right)\left(exp\left(\mathrm{}\omega /kT\right)1\right).$$
(15)
The function (15) has a maximum at $`\mathrm{}\omega =1.6kT`$. It means that, in the field of thermal blackbody radiation, the excited levels with $`E_2E_1kT`$ are the most populated. Numerically, $`\left(N_2/N_1\right)_{max}=0.8\times 10^{15}T^2`$, so the ratio $`N_2/N_1`$ is less than 1, if only $`T<3\times 10^7K`$. For the temperatures $`T>3\times 10^7K`$ the population of the levels corresponding to the maximum of the function (15) is inverse. It suggests that laser type sources are more easily realized in X-ray and gamma-ray range of spectrum than in the optical region. The well known example is a possible gamma-laser in the Galactic Center emitting in the line 0.511 MeV .

The author is grateful to A.V.Postnikov for useful discussions.

————————————————————————————————————–

 F.V.Prigara. Astron. Nachr., Vol. 324, No. S1, p.425 (2003).

 R.T.Edwards, and B.W.Stappers. Astron. Astrophys. (submitted), astro-ph/0305266.

 M.Vivekanand. Month. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 326, L33 (2001).

 N.G.Bochkarev. Basic Physics of Interstellar Medium (Moscow University Press, Moscow, 1992).

 G.C.Bower, and D.C.Backer. Astrophys. J., 507, L117 (1998).

 K.I.Kellermann, R.C.Vermeulen, J.A.Zensus, and M.H.Cohen. Astron. J., 115, 1295 (1998).

 J.R.Singer, Masers (Wiley, New York, 1959).

 L.D.Landau, and E.M.Lifshitz, Quantum Mechanics, Non-Relativistic Theory (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1958).

 V.B.Berestetskii, E.M.Lifshitz, and L.P.Pitaevskii, Quantum Electrodynamics (Nauka, Moscow, 1989).

 G.Chartas, E.Agol, M.Eracleous, G.Garmir, M.W.Bautz, and N.Moran. Astrophys. J., 568, 509 (2002).

 R.E.Lingenfelter, and R.Ramaty, in AIP Proc. 83: The Galactic Center, edited by G.Riegler, and R.Blandford (AIP, New York, 1982).


text:
# Localization of DNA damage by current exchanging repair enzymes: effects of cooperativity on detection time

## I Model

The model is pictorially presented in Figure 1.

See also Newscientist ; barton\_PNAS\_2003 . The repair enzyme MutY contains an evolutionary well-conserved \[4Fe4S\] cluster that is suspected to change its charge configuration from +2 to +3 upon binding to DNA barton\_PNAS\_2003 . Upon binding to DNA an electron is thus emitted into DNA, while upon receipt of an electron from DNA the MutY-DNA binding is destabilized. As only error-free stretches of DNA are able to transport the electron from one MutY enzyme to a neighboring MutY enzyme delaney\_joc\_2003  this charge exchange enables MuTY to quickly free up scanning resources from error free stretches of DNA barton\_PNAS\_2003  — see Figure 1. In the original proposal only MutY enzymes participates in the current exchange and to illustrate the line of thought we first consider this scenario. Afterward, we then extend the consideration to the case where there are many different kinds of repair enzymes each specialized to fix a specific kind of damage. Furthermore, we also consider the effect of a finite scan length before MutY spontaneously drops off DNA.

### I.1 Only MutY and it scans forever

After a a base pair get damaged, how long time does it take before a MutY enzyme has located the error? In the regime where current scanning yields a considerable speedup in the location of the error, the damaged base pair typically is located by a MutY enzyme that binds to DNA next to it and then scans all the way up to and including the faulty base pair (and not by a MutY enzyme that just happened to be nearby at the time of damage). Let $`t_{\text{detect}}`$ denote the typical detection time and $`v`$ the scan velocity of MutY. The MutY enzyme then typically docks onto DNA within a distance of the order $`vt_{\text{detect}}`$. The rate with which a MutY enzyme randomly docks onto a specific base pair and start scanning is denoted by $`k`$. The probability for a MutY enzyme to land within a distance of $`vt_{\text{detect}}`$ of the error in the time interval $`t_{\text{detect}}`$ can be estimated as $`kvt_{\text{detect}}^2`$. As at time $`t_{\text{detect}}`$ a MutY enzyme typically arrives at the faulty base pair this probability is of order 1 and

$$t_{\text{detect}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{kv}}.$$
(1)
A more detailed model calculation in the supplementary material yields the same result apart from a factor $`1.3`$. The average docking rate $`k`$ can be expressed as

$$k=\frac{N(\text{MutY})}{\tau L}=\frac{1}{vT\tau },$$
(2)
where $`\tau `$ is the time between two successive binding events for a single MutY enzyme. $`N(\text{MutY})`$ is the total number of MutY enzymes and $`L`$ is the total number of base pairs in DNA. $`T=L/v/N(\text{MutY})`$ is the time it takes for all the MutY enzymes to scan all the bases of DNA once. From standard Poisson statistics $`T`$ is also the detection time of a damaged point in the traditional scenario without any cooperation between MutY enzymes. In terms of $`T`$ and $`\tau `$ the detection time is

$$t_{\text{detect}}\sqrt{T\tau }=T\sqrt{\frac{\tau }{T}}.$$
(3)
The cooperation thus give a speed up of order $`\sqrt{\tau /T}`$. Before I get down to consider numbers and orders of magnitude I want to make the model a tad more realistic.

### I.2 Full model

The functionally central \[4Fe4S\] cluster is also present in other repair enzymes e.g. endonuclease III. It is thus very likely that other repair enzymes also are able to inject currents into DNA and participate in the electrical scanning of DNA. Furthermore all of these repair enzymes then get ’attracted’ to the damaged DNA pair in exactly the same way as MutY. In the above model and calculation we thus have to replace ’MutY’ by ’any repair enzyme participating in the DNA mediated charge transport’ — for short just a repair enzyme below. Likewise the calculated detection time $`t_{\text{detect}}`$ becomes the time before the first repair enzyme finds the damaged site and $`T`$ the average time it take for any repair enzyme to find the site without using currents. I have here implicitly assumed that both the scan velocity $`v`$ and the single repair enzyme attempt frequency $`1/\tau `$ are of the same order of magnitude for all repair enzymes i.e. MutY is a typical repair enzyme. Biologically the time $`t_{\text{detect}}`$ is not the most relevant one as the first repair enzyme that arrives at the damaged base pair very likely is unable to fix the damage. For instance is MutY’s primary target oxidation damage resulting in G:A and 8-oxo-G:A mismatched pairs. Instead the first MutY enzyme arrives on average as the $`N/N(\text{MutY})`$ repair enzyme resulting in a detection time of order $`N/N(\text{MutY})t_{\text{detect}}`$. Here $`N`$ is the total number of repair enzymes. $`N/N(\text{MutY})`$ can also be expressed as $`T/T(\text{MutY})`$, where $`T(\text{MutY})`$ is the time it takes for a MutY enzyme to find the site by scanning alone. The MutY detection time is thus

$$t_{\text{detect}}(\text{MutY})T(\text{MutY})\sqrt{\frac{\tau }{T}},$$
(4)
again corresponding to a speedup of size $`\sqrt{\tau /T}`$, but this time $`T`$ is the time it take for any repair enzyme to locate the damage.

I have not yet considered that MutY is known spontaneously to drop off DNA after having scanned of the order 100 base pairs (bp) MutY\_progression\_Biochemistry42(2003) . In order to estimate the effect of this I am going to derive the above result Eq. (4) in a slightly different manner. The MutY enzyme that eventually localizes the damage typically docks onto DNA within a distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ from the faulty base pair, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ both has to be small enough to allow scanning all the way up to the error i.e. $`<100`$bp and also so small that it is unlikely another repair enzyme dock in front of the MutY enzyme while it scans. The last length scale can be estimated to be of the order $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{v/k}=v\sqrt{T\tau }`$. The MutY detection time $`t_{\text{detect}}(\text{MutY})`$ is then determined as above by setting the probability for a MutY enzyme to dock within a distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the time interval $`t_{\text{detect}}(\text{MutY})`$ equal to 1 i.e.

$$t_{\text{detect}}(\text{MutY})=T(\text{MutY})\frac{v\tau }{\mathrm{\Delta }},$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\text{min}(100\text{ bp},v\sqrt{\tau T})`$. Notice that the choice $`\mathrm{\Delta }=v\sqrt{\tau T}`$ leads to Eq. (4).

### I.3 Estimating order of magnitude

I have not been able to find any direct experimental measurements of $`\tau `$ and $`T`$, so I am instead going to use a somewhat more uncertain way to estimate the size of the reduction $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{v\tau }`$. The distance $`v\tau `$ is the average scan length of a repair enzyme (MutY) in the presence of the current interactions. The numerator $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the smallest of the maximal scan length 100bp and the docking distance $`\sqrt{v\tau vT}`$. In fact, I believe these two distances are of the same order of magnitude as anything else seems inefficient, so I assume $`\sqrt{v\tau vT}100`$bp, with equality as the most likely option. The distance $`vT=L/N`$ is the average distance between repair enzymes. From this I can estimate $`v\tau `$. The reduction is thus $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{v\tau }vT/100\text{ bp}=510^4/N`$, where $`N`$ is the total number of repair enzymes with a current exchange mechanism similar to MutY and I have used that the length of E.Coli’s DNA is $`510^6`$ base pairs. Unfortunately $`N`$ is unknown. In demple\_ann\_rev\_biochem\_1994  the number of the two \[4Fe4S\]2+ containing repair enzymes MutY and endonuclease III is estimated to be 30 and 400 respectively. In the same paper the number of formamidopyrimidine glycosylase (FAPy or MutM) repair enzymes is estimated to 400. FAPy does not contain the \[4Fe4S\]2+ cluster. The target of FAPy is 8oxoG which is estimated to constitute 5% of all adducts due to oxidative damage beckman\_jbc\_1997 . All in all it seems reasonable that the total number of repair enzymes participating in the current exchange mechanism is significantly smaller than 50000, and that a speedup of order 10 is realistic. Notice this would correspond to a typical scan length 10 times smaller than the maximal one (100 bp) due to the current exchange mechanism ($`v\tau `$ is of the order 10 bp).

## II Conclusion

In this paper we have considered some of the implications of a very interesting proposal for cooperation between repair enzymes in the localization of defects in single base pairs. First we have pointed out that the mechanism is likely to speedup the localization by a factor of order 10 compared with independent scanning by the repair enzymes. If an error is detected by the 30 MutY enzymes in say 20 minutes (it has to be considerably shorter than the replication time nghiem\_pnas\_1988 ) this corresponds to a reduction in scanning speed from 125 bp/sec to 13 bp/sec. For comparison, the scan velocity for RNA polymerase is 50 bp/sec, while for DNA polymerase it is 1000 bp/sec. Another in principle testable prediction is that upon over expression of all the repair enzymes with say a factor 4 the detection time is only decreased by a factor 2 (both $`T(\text{MutY})`$ and $`T`$ are 4 times smaller), because information is not carried as efficiently along the DNA any more. Physiologically oxidative and radiative environments may result in an increased expression of repair enzymes kim\_mutat\_res\_1996 , so the square root behavior and the coupling of the effectiveness of different kinds of repair enzymes is potentially of huge importance for the mutation rates in these kinds of stress full environments. Summing up, only further experimentation can finally confirm this charge transport mechanism, while we here have demonstrated that the mechanism indeed offers a great benefit for the cell. In addition, the model is a nice toy model for protein cooperativity and one might wonder if the underlying principles behind could be of practical use in apparently unrelated engineering problems.

## Acknowledgments

Kasper Astrup Eriksen acknowledges support from both the Danish Natural Science Research Council grant number 21-03-0284 and the Bio+IT programme under the Øresund Science Region and Øforsk.