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# Quasi Two-Dimensional Electron–Hole Systems in a Perpendicular Magnetic Field

## TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

II. EXACT DIAGONALIZATION OF SMALL SYSTEMS

III. EXCITONS AND EXCITONIC COMPLEXES

IV. PSEUDOPOTENTIALS

V. GENERALIZED COMPOSITE FERMION MODEL

VI. CONDENSED STATES OF CHARGED EXCITONS

VII. OTHER CHARGE CONFIGURATIONS

VIII. PHOTOLUMINESCENCE

A. $`N`$-Electron–One-Hole Systems

B. Photoluminescence Selection Rules at High Magnetic Fields

C. Singlet and Triplet Charged Excitons at Low Magnetic Fields

D. Skyrmion Excitons

IX. SUMMARY

## I Introduction

In semiconducting inversion layers and heterostructures, electrons can be confined to a very thin layer in one direction, but they are able to move freely in the plane perpendicular to the direction of confinement. These effectively two-dimensional electron systems (2DES) have been of great interest for more than three decades ando ; bastard . Because the electron concentration can be varied over a wide range of values within a single sample, these 2D systems are ideal testing grounds for studying many body interactions.

The application of a large dc magnetic field perpendicular to the 2D layer results in some notable novel physics. The single electron states coalesce into highly degenerate Landau levels whose energy is given by $`\epsilon _n=\mathrm{}\omega _c(n+1/2)`$ where $`\omega _c`$ is equal to the electron cyclotron frequency $`eB/mc`$, and $`n`$ is a non-negative integer. Each Landau level can hold $`N_\varphi =B𝒜/\varphi _0`$ electrons of a given spin, where $`𝒜`$ is the area of the sample and $`\varphi _0=hc/e`$ is the quantum of flux. The integral quantum Hall effect iqhe  occurs when $`N`$ electrons exactly fill an integral number of Landau levels resulting in an integral value of the filling factor $`\nu =N/N_\varphi `$. In that case the ground state is incompressible because an infinitesimal decrease in the area $`𝒜`$, which decreases $`N_\varphi `$, requires a finite energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ to promote an electron to the next Landau level.

It is more difficult to understand why fractional quantum Hall states tsui ; laughlin  are incompressible jpcm ; pseudo ; varenna . When $`N_\varphi `$ is larger than $`N`$, no gap occurs in the absence of electron–electron interactions. At very high values of the applied magnetic field, there is only one relevant energy scale in the problem, the Coulomb scale $`e^2/\lambda `$, where $`\lambda =(\mathrm{}c/eB)^{1/2}`$ is the magnetic length. In that case standard many body perturbation theory is inapplicable. With remarkable insight, Laughlin proposed a ground state wavefunction and the form of the elementary excitations that contained the essential correlations responsible for the energy gap laughlin . Exact diagonalization of the interaction Hamiltonian within the Hilbert subspace of the lowest Landau level is a very good approximation at large values of $`B`$ (where $`\mathrm{}\omega _ce^2/\lambda `$). Although it can be carried out only for relatively small systems, it gives beautiful confirmation of Laughlin’s picture of the essential correlations. The numerical diagonalization studies are usually carried out on a spherical surface of radius $`R`$ on which the electrons are confined numerical ; fano . A magnetic monopole of strength $`2Q\varphi _0`$, where $`2Q`$ is an integer, is located at the origin. It produces a radial magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}=(2Q\varphi _0/4\pi R^2)\widehat{r}`$. The single particle eigenstates are denoted by $`|Q,l,m`$ and are called monopole harmonics fano . They are eigenfunctions of $`\widehat{l}^2`$, $`l_z`$, and the single particle Hamiltonian $`H`$, with eigenvalues $`l(l+1)`$, $`m`$, and $`(\mathrm{}\omega _c/2Q)[l(l+1)Q^2]`$ respectively wu . Because the energy eigenvalue must be positive, the allowed values of $`l`$ are given by $`l_n=Q+n`$, where $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$. The lowest Landau level or angular momentum shell has $`l_0=Q`$ and the allowed values of $`m`$ have $`|m|Q`$. An $`N`$-electron eigenfunction can be written

$$|m_1,m_2,\mathrm{},m_N=C_{m_N}^{}\mathrm{}C_{m_2}^{}C_{m_1}^{}|0.$$
(1)
Here $`C_m^{}`$ creates an electron in state $`|l_0,m`$. There are $`G_{NQ}=N_\varphi !/N!/(N_\varphi N)!`$ of $`N`$-electron states in the Hilbert space of the lowest Landau level (with degeneracy $`N_\varphi =2Q+1`$). The numerical problem is to diagonalize the interaction Hamiltonian in this $`G_{NQ}`$ dimensional space. Typical numerical results are shown in Fig. 1 for a system of 10 electrons with value of $`2Q`$ between 24 and 29 acta phys .

It is well-known in quantum field theory that the presence of a Chern–Simons gauge field, obtained by attaching to each electron an infinitesimally thin flux tube carrying magnetic flux $`\alpha \varphi _0`$, has no effect on the classical equations of motion wilczek . The reason for this is that the Chern–Simons magnetic field is given by $`\stackrel{}{b}(\stackrel{}{r})=\alpha \varphi _0_i\delta (\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_i)\widehat{z}`$, where $`\stackrel{}{r}_i`$ is the position of the $`i^{th}`$ electron and $`\widehat{z}`$ is a unit vector parallel to the applied $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ field. Because two electrons cannot occupy the same position, a given electron never senses the Chern–Simons magnetic field due to any other electron. However, it does experience the vector potential

$$\stackrel{}{a}(\stackrel{}{r})=\alpha \varphi _0d^2r_1\frac{\widehat{z}\times (\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1)}{|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1|^2}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r}_1),$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r}_1)`$ is the density operator for the electron fluid. Adding $`\stackrel{}{a}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ to $`\stackrel{}{a}(\stackrel{}{r})=\frac{1}{2}B(\widehat{z}\times \stackrel{}{r})`$, the vector potential of the dc magnetic field, gives a very complex many body Hamiltonian for a quantum mechanical system. It is usually treated by starting with a mean field approximation in which $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(r)\mathrm{\Psi }(r)`$ is replaced by its ground state expectation value $`n_S`$, the uniform equilibrium density, in Eq. (2). Then, the mean field Hamiltonian becomes a sum of one-particle Hamiltonians in the presence of the mean magnetic field $`B^{}=B+\alpha \varphi _0n_S`$. Despite the lack of a small parameter, fluctuations beyond the mean field have been treated by standard many body perturbation theory with qualitative success halperin ; lopez .

Jain introduced the idea of a composite Fermion (CF) to represent an electron with an attached flux tube which carries an even number $`\alpha `$ ($`=2p`$) of flux quanta cf . In the mean field approximation the CF filling factor $`\nu ^{}`$ is given by $`\nu _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}=\nu ^1\alpha `$, i.e. the number of flux quanta per electron of the dc field less the CF flux per electron. When $`\nu ^{}`$ is equal to an integer $`n=\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$, then $`\nu =n(1+\alpha n)^1`$ generates (for $`\alpha =2`$) quantum Hall states at $`\nu =1/3,2/5,3/7,\mathrm{}`$ and $`\nu =1,2/3,3/5,\mathrm{}`$. These are the most pronounced FQH states observed.

In the spherical geometry one can introduce an effective monopole strength seen by one CF chen . It is given by $`2Q^{}=2Q\alpha (N1)`$ since the $`\alpha `$ flux quanta attached to every other CF must be subtracted from the original monopole strength $`2Q`$. Then $`|Q^{}|=l_0^{}`$ plays the role of the angular momentum of the lowest CF shell just as $`Q=l_0`$ was the angular momentum of the lowest electron shell. When $`2Q`$ is equal to an odd integer $`(1+\alpha )`$ times $`(N1)`$, the CF shell $`l_0^{}`$ is completely filled, and an $`L=0`$ incompressible Laughlin state at filling factor $`\nu =(1+\alpha )^1`$ results. When $`2|Q^{}|+1`$ is smaller or larger than $`N`$, quasielectrons (QE’s) or quasiholes (QH’s) appear in the shell with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=l_0^{}+1`$ or $`l_{\mathrm{QH}}=l_0^{}`$, respectively. The low energy sector of the energy spectrum consists of the states with the minimum number of quasiparticle excitations required by the value of $`2Q^{}`$ and $`N`$. The first excited band of states will contain one additional QE–QH pair. The total angular momentum of these states in the lowest energy sector can be predicted by addition of the angular momenta ($`l_{\mathrm{QH}}`$ or $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}`$) of the $`n_{\mathrm{QH}}`$ or $`n_{\mathrm{QE}}`$ quasiparticles (QE’s or QH’s) treated as identical Fermions. In Tab. 1 we demonstrated how these allowed $`L`$ values are found for a 10-electron system with $`2Q`$ in the range $`292Q21`$. By comparing with numerical results acta phys  presented in Fig. 1, we readily observe that the total angular momentum multiplets appearing in the lowest energy sector are always correctly predicted by this simple mean field Chern–Simons picture.

It is quite surprising that this mean field Chern–Simons picture works so well. Fluctuations beyond the mean field interact via both Coulomb and Chern–Simons gauge interactions. The mean field Chern–Simons picture introduces a new energy scale $`\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}`$ proportional to the effective magnetic field $`B^{}`$, in addition to the Coulomb scale $`e^2/\lambda `$. For large values of the applied magnetic field, this new energy scale is very large compared with the Coulomb scale, but it is totally irrelevant to the determination of the low energy spectrum.

The reason for the success of the mean field Chern–Simons picture has been discussed in detail in terms of the behavior of the electron pseudopotential $`V(L^{})`$, the interaction energy of a pair of electrons as a function of the total angular momentum $`L^{}`$ of the pair fermiliquid ; pseudo ; jpcm ; lee ; no411 ; prb61 . If $`V(L^{})`$ is of the form $`V_\mathrm{H}(L^{})=A+BL^{}(L^{}+1)`$, which we refer to as a “harmonic” pseudopotential, then every angular momentum multiplet which has the same value of the total angular momentum $`L`$ has the same energy. In other words, the interactions, which couple only states with the same total angular momentum, introduce no correlations. Any linear combination of eigenstates with the same total angular momentum has the same energy. If $`V(L^{})`$ increases more quickly with increasing $`L^{}`$ than $`V_\mathrm{H}(L^{})`$, then Laughlin correlations, maximum possible avoidance of pair amplitudes for the largest values of $`L^{}`$, give the lowest energy states. We call such pseudopotentials superharmonic. For harmonic and subharmonic pseudopotentials, Laughlin correlations do not occur.

Properties of 2D electron systems are most frequently studied by transport measurements, or by optical measurements ando ; bastard . The latter include infrared absorption and reflection, inelastic light scattering, and photoluminescence. In all of these processes, valence band holes are either created or destroyed. Therefore, it is important to include the valence band holes in the theoretical investigations of the many body correlations.

In this review we investigate how the properties of quantum Hall systems are affected by the presence of a few valence band holes, either confined to the same 2D surface as the 2DES, or separated from it by a finite distance $`d`$ jpcm . When $`d`$ is equal to zero, the strengths of the electron–electron and electron–hole interactions are equal in magnitude. Then a “hidden symmetry” results from the fact that the commutator of the Hamiltonian with the operator $`d^{}(0)`$, which creates an exciton of momentum zero, satisfies the relation lerner ; dzyubenko ; macdonald

$$[\widehat{H},d^{}(0)]=E_X(0)d^{}(0).$$
(3)
Here $`d^{}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ creates an exciton of wavevector $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ and $`E_X(0)`$ is the binding energy of a single exciton. The operator $`d^{}(0)`$ can be written

$$d^{}(0)=N_\varphi ^{1/2}\underset{k^{}}{}c_k^{}^{}b_k^{}^{},$$
(4)
where $`N_\varphi =2Q+1`$ and $`c_k^{}^{}`$ (or $`b_k^{}^{}`$) creates an electron (or hole) in the lowest Landau level with wavenumber in the $`y`$-direction (in the Landau gauge) given by $`k^{}`$. Because of Eq. (3), if $`|\varphi `$ is an eigenfunction of $`\widehat{H}`$ with eigenvalue $`E_\varphi `$, then $`d^{}(0)|\varphi `$ is an eigenfunction of $`\widehat{H}`$ with energy $`E_\varphi +E_X`$. In other words, neutral excitons affect the energy of the electron system only by adding the energy of the bare exciton to the total electron energy. The neutral exciton is essentially uncoupled from the electron system, and states containing only $`N_X`$ neutral excitons and $`N_e`$ free unbound electrons are called “multiplicative states”. Although in some circumstances they can be the lowest energy states, multiplicative states are not necessarily the ground states prl70 ; prb51-10880 .

This paper is organized as follows: In Section II, we present results of exact numerical diagonalization of small electron–hole systems confined to the same spherical surface under the assumption that $`\mathrm{}\omega _ce^2/\lambda `$. In Section III, states containing neutral excitons (X), negatively charged excitons ($`X^{}`$), and larger excitonic complexes ($`X_n^{}`$=an electron bound to $`n`$ neutral excitons) are found. From the analysis of their energy spectra we can determine the binding energy of the excitonic complexes. In Section IV, the pseudopotential describing the energy of interaction $`V_{\mathrm{AB}}(L^{})`$ of a pair (A and B can represent any of these charged Fermions: $`e`$, $`X^{}`$, $`X_2^{}`$, …) as a function of the angular momentum of the pair is extracted from the numerical results. In Section V, a generalized composite particle model for a multicomponent quantum liquid is introduced. Because the pseudopotentials $`V_{\mathrm{AB}}(L^{})`$ are “superharmonic”, i.e., increase faster than $`L^{}(L^{}+1)`$with increasing $`L^{}`$, Laughlin correlations among the constituents can occur. In Section VI, for a system containing only negatively charged excitons ($`X^{}`$), Laughlin condensed states of these $`X^{}`$ Fermions are found at particular values of the $`X^{}`$ filling factor $`\nu _X^{}`$. However, other charge configurations can also exist. For example, one $`X^{}`$ can break up into an electron and a neutral X. Knowledge of the pseudopotentials $`V_{\mathrm{AB}}(L^{})`$ allows us to evaluate the low lying energy spectra for each charge configuration. This is presented in Section VII.

The main connection of our theoretical work with experiment is through the analysis of photoluminescence (PL). In this experimental technique, commonly used in studying the 2DES, a small number of conduction electron–valence hole pairs are excited in a quantum well containing $`10^{11}`$ to $`10^{12}`$ electrons/$`\mathrm{cm}^2`$. Because $`N_eN_h`$, the separation between valence band holes is very large, and it is only necessary to study the radiative electron–hole recombination of a single hole interacting with the conduction electrons. The luminescence energy depends on the energy of the $`N_e`$-electron–one-hole initial state and that of the $`N_e1`$ electron final state. The energy spectra of a system of nine electrons and one valence hole as a function of the separation $`d`$ between the layer containing the 2DES and that containing the hole is presented in Section VIII A. Several different values of the monopole strength $`2Q`$ are considered, and the interpretation of prominent bands of states is given. In Section VIII B, selection rules for the radiative recombination of the hole with an electron are discussed, and a few simple examples are given. In these sections it was assumed that the electrons and hole were confined to 2D planes, and that $`\mathrm{}\omega _ce^2/\lambda `$, so that only the states in the lowest Landau level had to be considered. For more realistic experimental systems, the ratio of $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ to $`e^2/\lambda `$ need not be large. Then, the Hilbert subspace in which the diagonalization is performed must contain an admixture of higher Landau levels. In addition, the effect of finite quantum well widths must be included. This is done for very small systems (two or three electrons and one hole) in Section VIII C. The total electron spin must be specified, because the negatively charged excitons can form in singlet ($`J_e=0`$) or triplet ($`J_e=1`$) spin states. The diagonalization gives us the eigenfunctions as well as the eigenvalues of all the eigenstates. The former can be used to study the oscillator strength for PL. In Section VIII D, we consider the spin flip excitations of a Landau level at filling factor of unity. These excitations are spin waves, and their dispersion relation and interactions can be obtained from the numerical results. When the filling factor $`\nu `$ differs from unity due to the presence of one hole ($`h`$) in the $`\nu =1`$ level (or one spin reversed electron ($`e_\mathrm{R}`$) in the higher spin level) additional pairs of holes and spin reversed electrons are spontaneously formed and bound to the hole (or to the spin reversed electron). The number of such $`h`$$`e_\mathrm{R}`$ pairs depends on the Zeeman energy, and the resulting “spin textures” are called antiskyrmions (or skyrmions) skyrmions ; cote ; paredes ; wqskyrmion . They are very much analogous to the $`X_n^{}`$ excitonic complexes. When a valence band hole is introduced into an electron system at a filling factor of unity, it should create and bind $`he_\mathrm{R}`$ pairs to form “skyrmion excitons.” It seems quite likely that skyrmion excitons play an important role in PL near filling factor $`\nu =1`$. The final section is a summary of results on electron–hole systems in 2D.

## II Exact Diagonalization of Small Systems

In the presence of a strong applied magnetic field, neutral excitons $`X`$ and spin-polarized charged excitonic complexes $`X_k^{}`$ can occur. These $`X_k^{}`$ complexes consist of $`k`$ neutral excitons bound to an electron and must be distinguished from spin-unpolarized ones (e.g. the singlet $`X^{}`$) that occur at lower magnetic fields but unbind when $`\mathrm{}\omega _ce^2/\lambda `$. The $`X_k^{}`$ complexes are long lived Fermions whose spectra display Landau level structure. Here we perform exact numerical diagonalization (within the subspace of the lowest Landau level) for small systems containing $`N_e`$ electrons and $`N_h`$ holes ($`N_e>N_h`$).

The numerical diagonalization for the electron–hole system is a simple extension of that for electrons alone. One can select states that have a definite value of $`M`$, the $`z`$-component of the total angular momentum. The holes are Fermions, but distinguishable from the electrons. Therefore, we can construct states in which the $`N_e`$ electrons occupy states with distinct values of $`m`$, the $`z`$-component of the single electron angular momentum, and the $`N_h`$ holes occupy states with distinct values of $`m^{}`$, the $`z`$-component of the hole angular momentum. Because the electrons and holes are distinguishable, the values of $`m`$ and $`m^{}`$ selected from the range between $`l`$ and $`l`$ need not be different for the two types of Fermions. When the interaction Hamiltonian is diagonalized within the subspace of the lowest Landau level, the eigenvalues $`E(L)`$ are obtained.

## III Excitons and Excitonic Complexes

In Fig. 2, we show the energy spectrum (in magnetic units) of a system of two electrons and one hole at $`2Q=10`$ as a function of the total angular momentum $`L`$ prb60-2 . The lowest energy state at $`L=Q`$ is the multiplicative state with one neutral exciton in its $`l_X=0`$ ground state and one electron of angular momentum $`l_e=Q`$. Only one state of lower energy occurs in the spectrum. It appears at $`L=Q1`$ and corresponds to the only bound state of the negatively charged exciton $`X^{}`$. The value of the $`X^{}`$ angular momentum, $`l_X^{}=Q1`$, can be understood by noticing that the lowest energy single particle configuration of the two electrons and one hole is the “compact droplet”, in which the two electrons have $`z`$-component of angular momentum $`m=Q`$ and $`m=Q1`$, and the hole has $`m=Q`$ giving $`M=Q1`$.

As marked with lines in Fig. 2, unbound states above the multiplicative state form bands, which arise from the $`e`$$`h`$ interaction and are separated by gaps associated with the characteristic excitation energies of an $`e`$$`h`$ pair. (The $`e`$$`h`$ pseudopotential, i.e., the energy spectrum of an exciton, is shown in the inset). These bands are rather well approximated by the expectation values of the total ($`e`$$`e`$ and $`e`$$`h`$) interaction energy, calculated in the eigenstates of the $`e`$$`h`$ interaction alone without $`e`$$`e`$ interaction.

In Fig. 3, we display the energy spectrum obtained by numerical diagonalization of the Coulomb interaction of a system of four electrons and two holes at $`2Q=15`$ prb60-2 . The states marked by open and solid circles are multiplicative (containing one or more decoupled $`X`$’s) and non-multiplicative states, respectively. For $`L10`$ there are four rather well defined low lying bands. Two of them begin at $`L=0`$. The lower of these consists of two $`X^{}`$ ions interacting through a pseudopotential $`V_{X^{}X^{}}(L^{})`$. The upper band consists of states containing two decoupled $`X`$’s plus two electrons interacting through $`V_{e^{}e^{}}(L^{})`$. The band that begins at $`L=1`$ consists of one $`X`$ plus an $`X^{}`$ and an electron interacting through $`V_{e^{}X^{}}(L^{})`$, while the band which starts at $`L=2`$ consists of an $`X_2^{}`$ interacting with a free electron.

Knowing that the angular momentum of an electron is $`l_e^{}=Q`$, we can see that $`l_{X_k^{}}=Qk`$, and that decoupled excitons do not carry angular momentum ($`l_X=0`$). For a pair of identical Fermions of angular momentum $`l`$ the allowed values of the pair angular momentum are $`L^{}=2lj`$, where $`j`$ is an odd integer. For a pair of distinguishable particles with angular momentum $`l_A`$ and $`l_B`$, the total angular momentum satisfies $`|l_Al_B|L^{}l_A+l_B`$. The states containing two free electrons and two decoupled neutral excitons fit exactly the pseudopotential for a pair of electrons at $`2Q=15`$; the maximum pair angular momentum is $`L^{MAX}=14`$ as expected. By comparing this band of states with the band containing two $`X^{}`$’s, we can obtain the binding energy of the neutral exciton to the electron to form the $`X^{}`$. The other binding energy, that of a neutral exciton to an $`X^{}`$ to form an $`X_2^{}`$ can be obtained in a similar way.

We define $`\epsilon _0`$ as the binding energy of a neutral exciton, $`\epsilon _1`$ as the binding energy of an $`X`$ to an electron to form an $`X^{}`$, and $`\epsilon _k`$ as the binding energy of an $`X`$ to an $`X_{k1}^{}`$ to form an $`X_k^{}`$. An estimate of these binding energies (in magnetic energy units $`e^2/\lambda `$ where $`\lambda `$ is the magnetic length) as a function of $`2Q`$ are given in Tab. 2 prb60-1 . We note clearly that $`\epsilon _0>\epsilon _1>\epsilon _2>\epsilon _3`$.

## IV Pseudopotentials

In Fig. 3, the band of states containing two $`X^{}`$’s terminates at $`L^{}=10`$. Since the $`X^{}`$’s are Fermions, one would have expected a state at $`L^{MAX}=2l_X^{}1=12`$. This state is missing in Fig. 3. We surmise that the state with $`L^{}=L^{MAX}`$ does not occur because of the finite size of the $`X^{}`$. Large pair angular momentum corresponds to the small average separation, and two $`X^{}`$’s in the state with $`L^{MAX}`$ would be too close to one another for the bound $`X^{}`$’s to remain stable. We can think of this as a “hard core” repulsion for $`L^{}=L^{MAX}`$. Effectively, the corresponding pseudopotential parameter, $`V_{X^{}X^{}}(L^{MAX})`$ is infinite. In a similar way, $`V_{e^{}X^{}}(L^{})`$ is infinite for $`L^{}=L^{MAX}=14`$, and $`V_{e^{}X_2^{}}(L^{})`$ is infinite for $`L^{}=L^{MAX}=13`$.

Once the maximum allowed angular momenta for all four pairings $`AB`$ are established, all four bands in Fig. 3 can be roughly approximated by the pseudopotentials of a pair of point charges with angular momentum $`l_A`$ and $`l_B`$, shifted by the binding energies of appropriate composite particles. For example, the $`X^{}X^{}`$ band is approximated by the $`e^{}e^{}`$ pseudopotential for $`l=l_X^{}=Q1`$ plus twice the $`X^{}`$ energy. The agreement is demonstrated in Fig. 3, where the squares, diamonds, and two kinds of triangles approximate the four bands in the four-electron–two-hole spectrum. The fit of the diamonds to the actual $`X^{}X^{}`$ spectrum is quite good for $`L^{}<10`$. The fit of the $`e^{}X^{}`$ squares to the open circle multiplicative states is reasonably good for $`L^{}<12`$, and the $`e^{}X_2^{}`$ triangles fit their solid circle non-multiplicative states rather well for $`L^{}<11`$. At sufficiently large separation (low $`L^{}`$), the repulsion between ions is weaker than their binding and the bands for distinct charge configurations do not overlap.

There are two important differences between the pseudopotentials $`V_{AB}(L^{})`$ involving composite particles and those involving point particles. The main difference is the hard core discussed above. If we define the relative angular momentum $`=l_A+l_BL^{}`$ for a pair of particles with angular momentum $`l_A`$ and $`l_B`$, then the minimum allowed relative angular momentum (which avoids the hard core) is found to be given by

$$_{AB}^{min}=2\mathrm{m}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{n}(k_A,k_B)+1,$$
(5)
where $`A=X_{k_A}^{}`$ and $`B=X_{k_B}^{}`$. The other difference involves polarization of the composite particle. A dipole moment is induced on the composite particle by the electric field of the charged particles with which it is interacting. By associating an “ionic polarizability” with the excitonic ion $`X_k^{}`$, the polarization contribution to the pseudopotential can easily be estimated. When a number of charges interact with a given composite particle, the polarization effect is reduced from that caused by a single charge, because the total electric field at the position of the excitonic ion is the vector sum of contributions from all the other charges, and there is usually some cancellation. We will ignore this effect in the present work and simply use the pseudopotential $`V_{AB}(L^{})`$ obtained from Fig. 3 to describe the effective interaction.

## V Generalized Composite Fermion Model

When the pseudopotential describing the interaction of a pair of identical Fermions as a function of the pair angular momentum is “superharmonic”, the low energy states are those with Laughlin–Jastrow correlations. By this we mean that these low energy states avoid to the maximum possible extent having pairs with pair angular momentum $`L^{}=2l1`$, its maximum value. If Chern–Simons flux is added adiabatically to the interacting Fermions, Laughlin correlations automatically results. The Laughlin correlations allow us to describe the interacting Fermions in terms of an effective angular momentum $`l^{}=lp(N1)`$ where $`N`$ is the number of identical Fermions, and $`p`$ is an integer. The value of $`l^{}`$ can be thought of in terms of a composite Fermion (CF) transformation in which the monopole strength $`2Q`$ is replaced by $`2Q^{}=2Q2p(N1)`$, i.e., the original monopole strength seen by one electron minus the Chern–Simons flux on every other electron (to which $`2p`$ Chern–Simons flux quanta oppositely oriented to the applied magnetic field have been added). This “effective” angular momentum $`l^{}`$ results in the electrons having as a largest possible pair angular momentum of $`L^{}=2l^{}1=2l12p(N1)`$. By forbidding states with the largest allowed electron pair angular momenta, we do not allow pair states with the smallest spatial size and the largest repulsion.

We know from our numerical calculations that we can obtain states with neutral excitons, electrons, charged triplet excitons $`X^{}`$ and higher spin polarized excitonic complexes $`X_k^{}`$. The charged particles are all Fermions with Landau levels. Clearly, the low energy sector of the energy spectrum can contain different types of charged Fermions: electrons, $`X^{}`$, $`X_2^{},\mathrm{}`$. It is straightforward to construct a generalized CF picture for a multicomponent Fermion plasma. Let’s define the effective monopole strength $`2Q_a^{}`$ seen by a CF of type $`a`$ as

$$2Q_a^{}=2Q\underset{b}{}(m_{ab}\delta _{ab})(N_b\delta _{ab}).$$
(6)
What we have done here is to attach to all type $`a`$ Fermions $`(m_{aa}1)`$ flux quanta that couple only to the charges on all other type $`a`$ Fermions and $`m_{ab}`$ flux quanta sensed only by charges on the type $`b`$ Fermions. This is a straightforward generalization of what we did in making the CF transformation for a one component (electron) plasma. The coefficients $`m_{ab}`$ are the powers that occur in the generalized Laughlin wavefunction, $`_{i,j}(z_i^{(a)}z_j^{(b)})^{m_{ab}}`$ where $`z_i^{(a)}`$ is the complex coordinate of the $`i^{th}`$ Fermion of type $`a`$ and the product is over all pairs $`i,j`$. For different multicomponent systems generalized Laughlin incompressible states are expected to occur when (i) all the hard-core pseudopotentials are avoided and (ii) each type of CF’s (i.e., CF<sub>a</sub>’s, CF<sub>b</sub>’s, …) completely fills an integral number of their angular momentum shells. In other cases, low lying multiplets are expected to contain different kinds of CF quasiparticles (QE<sub>a</sub>’s, QE<sub>b</sub>’s, …, or QH<sub>a</sub>’s, QH<sub>b</sub>’s, …) of the incompressible generalized Laughlin states.

## VI Condensed States of Charged Excitons

Consider for a moment a system containing 12 electrons and six holes on a Haldane spherical surface at monopole strength $`2Q=17`$. The charge configuration with the largest binding energy is that containing six $`X^{}`$ charged excitons. We will refer to it as (i); its total binding energy $`\epsilon _i`$ is equal to $`6(\epsilon _0+\epsilon _1)`$. If we make a CF transformation on this system of $`N_X^{}=6`$ negatively charged excitons, we obtain $`2Q_X^{}^{}=2Q2(N_X^{}1)=7`$. The angular momentum of the $`X^{}`$ is given by $`l_X^{}=Q1=15/2`$ and that of the CF $`X^{}`$ by $`l_X^{}^{}=Q_X^{}^{}1=5/2`$. This means that the six CF $`X^{}`$’s completely fill the $`l_X^{}^{}=5/2`$ shell giving a Laughlin $`L=0`$ incompressible state at $`\nu _X^{}=1/3`$. Note that $`2l=\nu ^1(N1)`$ holds for the quantum liquid of $`X^{}`$’s just as it did in the case of electrons.

Although the $`X^{}`$ particles have relatively long lifetimes for radiative recombination of an electron–hole pair, it seems unlikely that the Laughlin condensed state of negatively charged excitons can be observed by the standard experimental techniques used in the case of condensed states of an electron liquid. One point worth noting is that the generalized CF picture of a multicomponent plasma can be thought of in terms of fictitious CF fluxes and CF charges that have different “colors”. For example, electrons could have a red Chern–Simons charge and $`X^{}`$’s a green charge. Then $`(m_{ee}1)`$ red and $`m_{eX^{}}`$ green Chern–Simons fluxes would be attached to each electron, while $`(m_{X^{}X^{}}1)`$ green and $`m_{X^{}e}`$ red Chern–Simons fluxes would be attached to each $`X^{}`$.

## VII Other Charge Configurations

For the 12-electron–6-hole system, other charge configurations besides the six $`X^{}`$’s can occur as excited states. Among these are (ii) $`e^{}+5X^{}+X`$ with total binding energy $`\epsilon _{ii}=6\epsilon _0+5\epsilon _1`$, and (iii) $`e^{}+4X^{}+X_2^{}`$ with total energy $`\epsilon _{iii}=6\epsilon _0+5\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2`$. The total energy of any state depends on the interaction energy of the constituent charged particles as well as the binding energy.

The system of eighteen particles (12 electrons and 6 holes) at $`2Q=17`$ is too large for us to diagonalize in terms of the electrons and holes and their interactions. However, we can obtain a reasonable approximation to the low lying energy spectrum by considering the different charge configurations denoted by (i) through (iii) each of which contains only six charged Fermions. We make use of our knowledge of the binding energies, angular momenta, and pseudopotentials $`V_{AB}(L^{})`$ where $`A`$ and $`B`$ can be $`e^{}`$, $`X^{}`$, or $`X_2^{}`$. The results of this simpler numerical calculation are presented in Fig. 4 prb60-1 . There is only one low lying state of the six $`X^{}`$ configuration, the $`L=0`$ Laughlin $`\nu _X^{}=1/3`$ state. There are two bands of states in each of the charge configurations (ii) and (iii).

The results presented in Fig. 4 can be understood from the generalized CF model. The CF predictions are: (i) For the system of $`N_X^{}=6`$, we take $`m_{X^{}X^{}}=3`$ and obtain the Laughlin $`\nu _X^{}=1/3`$ state as discussed earlier. Because of the hard core of the $`X^{}X^{}`$ pseudopotential, this is the only state of this charge configuration. (ii) For the $`e^{}+5X^{}+X`$ configuration, we can take $`m_{X^{}X^{}}=3`$ and $`m_{eX^{}}=1,2`$, or 3. For $`m_{eX^{}}=1`$, we obtain $`L=1,2,3^2,4^2,5^3,6^3,7^3,8^2,9^2,10`$, and 11. For $`m_{eX^{}}=2`$, we obtain $`L=1`$, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. For $`m_{eX^{}}=3`$, we obtain $`L=1`$. (iii) For the grouping $`e^{}+4X^{}+X_2^{}`$, we set $`m_{X^{}X^{}}=3`$, $`m_{eX_2^{}}=1`$, $`m_{X^{}X_2^{}}=3`$, and $`m_{eX^{}}=1,2`$, or 3. For $`m_{eX^{}}=1`$, we obtain the multiplets $`L=2,3,4^2,5^2,6^3,7^2,8^2,9`$, and 10. For $`m_{eX^{}}=2`$, we obtain $`L=2,3,4,5`$, and 6, and for $`m_{eX^{}}=3`$, we obtain $`L=2`$. In the groupings (ii) and (iii) the sets of multiplets obtained for higher values of $`m_{eX^{}}`$ are subsets of those obtained for lower values of $`m_{eX^{}}`$. We would expect them to form lower energy bands since they avoid additional small values of $`_{eX^{}}`$. However, note that the (ii) and (iii) states predicted for $`m_{eX^{}}=3`$ (at $`L=1`$ and 2, respectively) do not form separate bands in Fig. 4. This is because the $`V_{eX^{}}`$ pseudopotential increases more slowly than linearly as a function of $`L^{}(L^{}+1)`$ in the vicinity of $`_{eX^{}}=3`$. In such case the CF picture fails pseudo .

The agreement of our CF predictions with the data in Fig. 4 is really quite remarkable and strongly indicates that our multicomponent CF picture is correct. We were indeed able to confirm predicted Jastrow type correlations in the low lying states by calculating their coefficients of fractional parentage shell ; pseudo . We have also verified the CF predictions for other systems that we were able to treat numerically. If exponents $`m_{ab}`$ are chosen correctly, the CF picture works well in all cases.

## VIII Photoluminescence

In photoluminescence (PL) experiments the absorption of light creates a small number of electron–hole pairs in a quantum well that already contains a concentration of conduction electrons. The valence band holes interact with the system of electrons. The ultimate $`e`$$`h`$ recombination results in an emitted photon whose energy is equal to the energy difference between the initial state of $`N`$ electrons and one valence hole and the final state containing $`N1`$ electrons. The initial state depends on the $`e`$$`h`$ interaction, which in turn depends on the reparation between the plane containing the $`N`$ electrons and the plane of the valence hole. Such separation, which occurs, for example, in asymmetrically doped quantum wells, breaks the hidden symmetry. This allows for a rich PL spectrum which can be used as a probe of the low lying $`e`$$`h`$ states even at very high magnetic field, where only states within the lowest Landau level are of importance. Because the number of valence band holes excited optically is so small, it is sufficient to study the eigenstates of a single hole interacting with the $`N`$ electrons in the quantum well.

### VIII.1 $`N`$-Electron–One-Hole Systems

We start by considering the eigenstates of a system consisting of $`N`$ electrons confined to a plane $`z=0`$ and interacting with one another and with a valence hole confined to a plane $`z=d`$, where $`d`$ is measured in units of the magnetic length $`\lambda `$. The cyclotron energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ is assumed to be much larger than the Coulomb energy $`e^2/\lambda `$, so that only the lowest Landau level enters our calculation. In Fig. 5 we present the energy spectra for a system of nine electrons and one valence band hole at different values of the separation between electron and hole layers, and at different values of the monopole strength $`2Q`$ pe11 . For $`d1`$ we have strong coupling between the electrons and the hole. Neutral ($`X`$) and charged triplet excitons ($`X^{}`$) are found. The multiplicative states at $`d=0`$ are shown as solid dots surrounded by a small circle. Non-multiplicative states at $`d=0`$ can have an $`X_t^{}`$ exciton interacting with the remaining $`N2`$ electrons. For $`d1`$ the valence hole interacts very weakly with the $`N`$-electron system, and the spectra can be described in terms of the eigenstates of the $`N`$-electron system multiplied by the eigenfunction of the hole with angular momentum $`\widehat{L}=\widehat{L}_e+\widehat{l}_h`$. For intermediate values of $`d`$ ($`d2`$) the $`e`$$`h`$ interaction is not a weak perturbation on the electronic eigenstates, but it is not strong enough to bind a full electron to form an exciton.

For $`d=0`$, $`X`$ and $`X^{}`$ bound states occur. Due to the “hidden symmetry”, the multiplicative states containing an $`X`$ have the same spectrum as the eight electron system shifted by the $`X`$ binding energy. The CF model cf ; chen  tells us that the effective monopole strength seen by one CF in a system of $`N^{}=N1=8`$ electrons near $`\nu =1/3`$ is $`2Q^{}=2Q2(N^{}1)`$. $`Q^{}`$ plays the role of the angular momentum of the lowest CF shell (Landau level), therefore $`Q^{}=3.5`$, 4, 4.5, and 5 for the multiplicative states in frames (a), (b), (c), and (d) of Fig. 5, respectively. Since the lowest shell can accommodate $`2Q^{}+1`$ CF’s, it is exactly filled in Fig. 5(a), but there are 1, 2, and 3 excess CF’s for Fig. 5(b), (c), and (d), respectively. The excess CF’s go into the next shell as Laughlin QE’s with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=Q^{}+1`$, giving one QE with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=4`$(b), two QE’s each with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=4.5`$(c), and three QE’s each with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=5`$(d). The angular momentum of the lowest band of multiplicative states are obtained by the addition of the angular momentum of the QE excitations, remembering that they are identical Fermions. These states are shown as points surrounded by a small circle in all frames for $`d=0`$. In the absence of QE–QE interactions (i.e., for mean field CF’s) all the states in the lowest CF band of each spectrum would degenerate, but QE–QE interactions remove this degeneracy. Higher energy multiplicative states that appear in the figure contain additional QE–QH pairs.

For the non-multiplicative states we have one $`X^{}`$ and $`N_e=N2`$ remaining electrons. The generalized CF picture prb60-1  allows us to predict the lowest energy band in the spectrum in the following way. The effective monopole strength seen by the electrons is $`2Q^{}=2Q2(N_e1)2N_X^{}`$, while that seen by the $`X^{}`$ is $`2Q_X^{}^{}=2Q2N_e`$. Here, we have attached to each Fermion (electron and $`X^{}`$) two fictitious flux quanta and used the mean field approximation to describe the effective monopole strength seen by each particle (note that a CF does not see its own flux). The angular momentum of the lowest CF electron shell is $`l_0^{}=Q_e^{}`$, while that of the CF $`X^{}`$ shell is $`l_X^{}^{}=Q_X^{}^{}1`$ pb256 ; prb60-2 . For the system with $`N_e=7`$ and $`N_X^{}=1`$ at $`2Q=21`$, 22, 23, and 24, the generalized CF picture leads to: one QH with $`l_{\mathrm{QH}}=3.5`$ and one $`X^{}`$ with $`l_X^{}^{}=2.5`$, giving a band at $`1L6`$ for Fig. 5(a); two QH’s with $`l_{\mathrm{QH}}=4`$ and one $`X^{}`$ with $`l_X^{}^{}=3`$ giving $`L=012^33^34^45^36^37^28^2910`$ for Fig. 5(b); three QH’s with $`l_{\mathrm{QH}}=4.5`$ and one $`X^{}`$ with $`l_X^{}^{}=3.5`$ for Fig. 5(c); and four QH’s with $`l_{\mathrm{QH}}=5`$ plus one $`X^{}`$ with $`l_X^{}^{}=4`$ for Fig. 5(d). In the figure, we have restricted the values of $`L`$ and of $`E`$, so that not all the states are shown.

For $`d1`$, the electron–hole interaction is a weak perturbation on the energies obtained for the $`N`$-electron system prl70 ; prb50 ; prb51 . The numerical results can be understood by adding the angular momentum of the hole, $`l_h=Q`$, to the electron angular momentum obtained from the simple CF model. The predictions are: for $`2Q=21`$ there are three QE’s each with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=3.5`$ and the hole has $`l_h=10.5`$; for $`2Q=22`$ two QE’s each with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=4`$ and $`l_h=11`$; for $`2Q=23`$ two QE’s each with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=4.5`$ and $`l_h=11.5`$; and for $`2Q=24`$ no QE and $`l_h=12`$. Adding the angular momenta of the identical Fermion QE’s gives $`L_e`$, the electron angular momenta of the lowest band; adding to $`L_e`$ the angular momentum $`l_h`$ gives the set of allowed multiplets appearing in the low energy sector. For example, in Fig. 5($`\mathrm{b}^{\prime \prime }`$) the allowed values of $`L_e`$ are $`1357`$, and the multiplets at 7 and 3 have lower energy than at 1 and 5. Four low energy bands appear at $`4L18`$, $`8L14`$, $`6L16`$, and $`10L12`$, resulting from $`L_e=7`$, 3, 5, and 1, respectively.

For $`d1`$, the electron–hole interaction results in formation of bound states of a hole and one or more QE’s. In the two-electron–one-hole system, the $`X`$ and $`X^{}`$ unbind for $`d1`$, but interaction with the surrounding unbound electrons in a larger system can lead to persistence of these excitonic states beyond $`d=1`$. For example, the band of states at $`d=0`$ in Fig. 5(a) that we associated with an $`X^{}`$ interaction with a QH persists at $`d=1.5`$ in Fig. 5($`\mathrm{a}^{}`$). However, it appears to cross another low energy band that extends from $`L=3`$ to 8. This latter band can be interpreted in terms of three QE’s interacting with the hole as was done in the weak coupling limit shown in Fig. 5($`\mathrm{a}^{\prime \prime }`$). The other bands of the weak coupling regime (those beginning at $`L=5`$, 6, 7, 8, and 9) have disappeared into the continuum of higher states as a result of the increase of $`V_{eh}`$.

For $`2Q=22`$, the lowest band can be interpreted in terms of one $`X^{}`$ interacting with two QH’s of the generalized CF picture. The $`X^{}`$ has $`l_X^{}^{}=3`$ and the QH’s each have $`l_{\mathrm{QH}}=4`$. The allowed values of $`L_{2\mathrm{Q}\mathrm{H}}`$ are 7, 5, 3, and 1, and the molecular state $`\mathrm{QH}_2`$ which has the smallest average QH–QH distance would have $`l_{\mathrm{QH}_2}=7`$. This gives a band of $`X^{}+\mathrm{QH}_2`$ states going from $`L=l_{\mathrm{QH}_2}l_X^{}^{}=4`$ to $`L=l_{\mathrm{QH}_2}+l_X^{}^{}=10`$. A higher band beginning at $`L=2`$ might be associated with a 2QH state at $`L_{2\mathrm{Q}\mathrm{H}}=5`$ interacting with an $`X^{}`$. The origin of the other bands is less certain.

For $`2Q=23`$, there are two low lying bands. The first contains a hole with $`l_{\mathrm{QE}}=4.5`$. This gives rise to a band beginning at $`L=7`$ of which only the lowest two members are indicated. A second band appears to contain an additional QE–QH pair. The cost of energy in creating this additional pair is comparable to the energy gained through the interaction of the additional QE with the hole. The lowest $`h\mathrm{QE}_2`$ state occurs at $`l_{h\mathrm{QE}_2}=l_hl_{\mathrm{QE}_2}=3.5`$ (this results from choosing $`l_{2\mathrm{Q}\mathrm{E}}=8`$, the largest value from the set of allowed $`L_{2QE}=8`$, 6, 4, 2, and 0) and adding $`l_{h\mathrm{QE}_2}`$ to $`l_{\mathrm{QH}}=3.5`$ to obtain a band with $`0L7`$. The state with $`L=7`$ is missing, probably due to the large QE–QH repulsion at $`l_{\mathrm{QE}\mathrm{QH}}=1`$. The bands occurring at $`2Q=25`$ are even more uncertain.

### VIII.2 Photoluminescence Selection Rules at High Magnetic Fields

Exact numerical diagonalization gives both the eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions. The low energy states $`|i`$ of the initial $`N`$-electron–one-hole system have just been discussed. The final states $`|f`$ contain $`N^{}=N1`$ electrons and no holes. The recombination of an electron–hole pair is proportional to the square of the matrix element of the photoluminescence operator $`\widehat{}`$, where $`\widehat{}=d^2r\mathrm{\Psi }_e(\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{\Psi }_h(\stackrel{}{r})`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_e`$ (or $`\mathrm{\Psi }_h`$) annihilates an electron (or hole). We have evaluated $`|<f|\widehat{}|i|^2`$ for all of the low-lying initial states and have found the following results prb63-1 ; prb63-2 . (i) Conservation of the total angular momentum $`L`$ is at most weakly violated through the scattering of spectator particles (electrons and quasiparticles) which do not participate directly in the recombination process if the filling factor $`\nu `$ is less approximately 1/3. (ii) In the strong coupling region, the neutral $`X`$ line is the dominant feature of the PL spectrum. The $`X^{}\mathrm{QH}_2`$ state has very small oscillator strength for radiative recombination. (iii) For intermediate coupling, the $`h\mathrm{QE}_2`$ and an excited state of the $`h\mathrm{QE}`$ (which we denote by $`h\mathrm{QE}^{}`$) are the only states with large oscillator strength for photoluminescence.

At zero temperature ($`T=0`$), all initial states must be ground states of the $`N`$-electron–one-hole system. At finite but low temperatures, excited initial states contribute to the PL spectrum. The photoluminescence intensity is proportional to

$$w_{if}=\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}}𝒵^1\underset{i,f}{}e^{\beta E_i}f|\widehat{}|i^2\delta (E_iE_f\mathrm{}\omega ),$$
(7)
where $`\beta =(kT)^1`$ and $`𝒵=_ie^{\beta E_i}`$.

### VIII.3 Singlet and Triplet Charged Excitons at Low Magnetic Fields

As mentioned in Section VIII B, only spin polarized charged excitons (with $`J_e=1`$) are bound when the ratio $`(\mathrm{}\omega _c)/(e^2/\lambda )`$ tends to infinity. In real systems at finite values of this parameter, both singlet ($`J_e=0`$) and triplet ($`J_e=1`$) charged excitons occur. According to the theory whittaker  the singlet $`X_s^{}`$ is the ground state (GS) at low values of the magnetic field, while the triplet $`X_t^{}`$ is the GS at very high magnetic fields. Numerical calculations of the ground states of both the singlet and triplet charged excitons whittaker  indicated a crossing at roughly 30 Tesla for a symmetric GaAs quantum well, the width of which was about 10 nm. Observation of PL by Hayne et al. hayne  displaying three peaks that were interpreted as the $`X`$, $`X_t^{}`$, and $`X_s^{}`$, showed no crossing of the $`X_t^{}`$ and $`X_s^{}`$ up to the fields of 50 Tesla. This led the experimenters to question the validity of the variational calculations.

In this section we study very small systems (either two or three electrons and one valence band hole) in narrow ($``$ 11.5 nm) symmetric GaAs quantum wells. We include the effects of Landau level mixing caused by the interactions, and the effect of finite well width on the effective interaction. Only a single subband is used in the calculations, since the quantum well is relatively narrow. Both electrons and holes are described in the effective mass approximation, and interband coupling is partially accounted for by a magnetic field dependence of the cyclotron mass of the hole (taken from experimental data) cole . The Zeeman energy depends on both the well width and the magnetic field $`B`$. Five Landau levels for both the electrons and holes were included in the calculation in order to obtain satisfactory convergence. The energies obtained for different values of the monopole strength $`2Q`$ were extrapolated to the large $`Q`$ limit to eliminate finite-size effects.

The energy spectra of the two-electron–one-hole system calculated for $`2Q=20`$ are shown in Fig. 6 pe8 . Open and solid symbols mark singlet and triplet states ($`J_e`$ is the total electron spin), and each state with $`L>0`$ represents a degenerate $`L`$ multiplet. Since the PL process (annihilation of an $`e`$$`h`$ pair and emission of a photon) occurs with conservation of angular momentum, only states from the $`L=Q`$ channel are radiative pb256 ; prb60-2 . Recombination of other non-radiative states requires breaking rotational symmetry (e.g., by collisions with electrons). This result is independent of the chosen spherical geometry and holds also for a planar quantum well, except that the definition of the conserved momentum is different pe3 .

The occurrence of a strict PL selection rule at finite $`B`$ may seem surprising, since the hidden symmetry lerner ; dzyubenko  that forbids the $`X_{td}^{}`$ recombination in the lowest Landau level does not hold when the mixing with higher Landau levels is included. (The “d” in $`X_{td}^{}`$ means “dark” and $`X_{td}^{}`$ is called the dark triplet because it is forbidden to decay radiatively.) However, it is both the hidden symmetry and the above-mentioned angular momentum conservation that independently forbid the $`X_{td}^{}`$ recombination, and the latter remains valid at finite $`B`$. Although the hidden symmetry and resulting $`N_X`$ conservation law no longer hold at finite $`B`$, the $`X_{td}^{}`$ recombination remains strictly forbidden because of the independently conserved $`L`$.

We expect breaking of both symmetries for real experimental situations. The presence of impurities and defects, and $`e`$$`X_{td}^{}`$ scattering during recombination in the presence of excess electrons can relax the strict conservation of the $`X^{}`$ angular momentum in the radiative decay. However, for narrow and symmetric quantum wells containing a relatively small number of excess electrons, the symmetries may be only weakly broken and some remnant of the strict conservation laws may survive.

Three states marked in Fig. 6 are of particular importance: $`X_s^{}`$ and $`X_{tb}^{}`$ (“b” stands for “bright”) are the only strongly bound radiative states, while $`X_{td}^{}`$ has by far the lowest energy of all non-radiative states. The radiative triplet bound state $`X_{tb}^{}`$ is identified for the first time. The binding energies of all three $`X^{}`$ states are extrapolated to $`\lambda /R0`$ and plotted in Fig. 7(a) as a function of $`B`$ pe8 . For the $`X_s^{}`$, the binding energy differs from the PL energy (indicated by thin dotted line) by the Zeeman energy needed to flip one electron’s spin, and the cusp at $`B42`$ T is due to the change of sign of the electron $`g`$-factor. For the triplet states, the PL and binding energies are equal. The energies of $`X_s^{}`$ and $`X_{td}^{}`$ behave as expected: The binding of $`X_s^{}`$ weakens at higher $`B`$ and eventually leads to its unbinding in the infinite field limit macdonald ; the binding energy of $`X_{td}^{}`$ changes as $`e^2/\lambda \sqrt{B}`$; and the predicted whittaker  transition from the $`X_s^{}`$ to the $`X_{td}^{}`$ GS at $`B30`$ T is confirmed. The new $`X_{tb}^{}`$ state remains an excited triplet state at all values of $`B`$, and its binding energy is smaller than that of $`X_s^{}`$ by about 1.5 meV. The oscillator strengths $`\tau ^1`$ of a neutral exciton $`X`$ and the two radiative $`X^{}`$ states are plotted in Fig. 7(b). In the two-electron–one hole spectrum, the strongly bound $`X_s^{}`$ and $`X_{tb}^{}`$ states share a considerable fraction of the total oscillator strength of one $`X`$, with $`\tau _{tb}^1`$ nearly twice larger than $`\tau _s^1`$.

The comparison of calculated magnitude and magnetic field dependence of the $`X^{}`$ binding energies with the experimental PL spectra hayne ; shields ; finkelstein1 ; finkelstein2 , as well as high oscillator strength of the $`X_{tb}^{}`$, lead to the conclusion that the three peaks observed in PL are the $`X`$, $`X_s^{}`$, and $`X_{tb}^{}`$.

To understand why the $`X_{td}^{}`$ state remains optically inactive even in the presence of collisions, the $`e`$$`X^{}`$ interaction must be studied in greater detail. Our numerical results for a three electron–one hole system indicate that the lowest band of states consists of a triplet $`X^{}`$ and one unbound electron. Because the $`X_t^{}e`$ pseudopotential is superharmonic, in real experimental systems at a low electron concentration ($`\nu 1/3`$) Laughlin correlations between the electron and $`X_t^{}`$ will effectively isolate the $`X_t^{}`$ from the surrounding 2DES. This prevents close collisions of the $`X_t^{}`$ and the spectator electron during the $`e`$$`h`$ recombination. Although the $`X_{td}^{}`$ is no longer forbidden to decay radiatively since the spectator electron can change its angular momentum in the recombination process, this scattering process is weak for $`\nu <1/3`$. The oscillator strength for radiative decay of the $`X_{td}^{}`$ is found to be more than an order of magnitude smaller than those of the $`X_s^{}`$ and $`X_{tb}^{}`$. These results support the interpretation that the three peaks observed in many experiments correspond to the $`X`$, $`X_s^{}`$, and $`X_{tb}^{}`$. The $`X_{td}^{}`$ is not observed because of its small oscillator strength. The $`X_{td}^{}`$ recombination line has been observed only recently, when special care (very low temperatures and high quality samples) were taken to detect its weak signal yusa . Even more convincing is the comparison with infrared absorption at very low temperature where only the $`X_{td}^{}`$ state is heavily occupied. Absorption spectra show only one strong peak in contrast to PL spectra which shows three, because the higher population of the $`X_{td}^{}`$ compensates for its lower oscillator strength for radiative recombination compared to the $`X_s^{}`$ and $`X_{tb}^{}`$.

### VIII.4 Skyrmion Excitons

In order to understand the excitonic complexes that can be formed near filling factor $`\nu =1`$, it is first necessary to study the kinds of elementary excitations than can occur in the absence of valence band holes. For filling factor $`\nu `$ equal to unity, the lowest energy excitations are spin flip excitations which create a reversed spin electron $`e_\mathrm{R}`$ in the same $`n=0`$ Landau level leaving behind a spin hole $`h`$ in the otherwise filled $`\nu =1`$ state. Even when the Zeeman energy $`E_\mathrm{Z}`$ is zero, the Coulomb exchange energy will spontaneously break the spin ($`,`$) symmetry giving a spin polarized ground state.

In Fig. 8(a) we show the low lying spin excitations of the $`\nu =1`$ state (with $`E_\mathrm{Z}`$ taken to be zero) for a system of $`N=12`$ electrons ssc122 . The solid square at $`L=0`$ is the spin polarized $`\nu =1`$ ground state with spin $`S=6`$. The symbol $`K=N/2S`$ is the number of spin flips away from the fully spin polarized state. The band of open squares connected by a dashed line gives the spin wave (SW) dispersions $`\epsilon _{\mathrm{SW}}(L)`$. The angular momentum $`L`$ is related to wavenumber $`k`$ by $`L=kR`$, where $`R`$ is the radius of the spherical surface to which the $`N`$ electrons are confined. The SW consists of a single $`e_\mathrm{R}h`$ pair; its dispersion can be evaluated analytically kallin . The solid circles, open circles, etc. represent states containing 2, 3, $`\mathrm{}`$ spin flips (i.e., 2, 3, $`\mathrm{}e_\mathrm{R}h`$ pairs). Dot-dashed lines connect low lying states with equal numbers of spin flips. It is interesting to note the almost straight line connecting the lowest energy states at $`0L6`$. This can be interpreted as band of $`K`$ SW’s each with $`l_{\mathrm{SW}}=1`$ with $`L=K`$. The near linearity suggests that these $`K`$ SW’s are very nearly noninteracting in the state with $`L=K`$.

In Fig. 8(b) we present the lowest energy spectra for $`\nu =1^{}`$ (i.e., a single spin hole in the $`\nu =1`$ state). In both Fig. 8(a) and (b) only the lowest energy states at each $`L`$ and $`S`$ are shown. Of particular interest in Fig. 8(b) is the band of states with $`L=S=QK`$ and negative energy. These are antiskyrmion states, $`S_K^+=K\text{ }e_\mathrm{R}+(K+1)h`$, bound states of one spin hole and $`K`$ spin waves fertig ; ssc122 . They are analogous to interband charged excitons charged excitons ; szlufarska , but they can be equilibrium states not subject to radiative decay at the appropriate value of the Zeeman energy. Skyrmion states are $`S_K^{}=K\text{ }h+(K+1)e_\mathrm{R}`$. Electron–hole symmetry requires their existence for $`\nu >1`$.

It has been demonstrated ssc122  that in the fractional quantum Hall regime analogous excitations occur with $`\mathrm{QE}_\mathrm{R}`$ and QH replacing $`e_\mathrm{R}h`$ and $`h`$ of the integral quantum Hall case. Spin waves, skyrmions, and antiskyrmions made from Laughlin quasiparticles occur for $`\nu 1/3`$. The most stable skyrmion or antiskyrmion size depends weakly on the quantum well width for the $`\nu 1`$ state, but for $`\nu 3,5,\mathrm{}`$ the well width $`w`$ must be of the order of a few times the magnetic length in order to obtain stable bound states of spin waves and spin holes or reversed spin electrons wqskyrmion ; ssc122 ; cooper .

The skyrmion and antiskyrmion states $`S_K^\pm `$ are quite analogous to the excitonic $`X_K^\pm `$ states of valence band holes interacting with conduction band electrons. In the ideal theoretical model, a valence hole has exactly the same interaction as a spin hole in the $`\nu =1`$ state of the conduction band. In fact these two types of holes can probably be distinguished by an pseudospin as is done for electrons on different layers of a bilayer system bilayer ; brey ; marinescu . The spectrum and possible condensed states of a multicomponent Fermion liquid containing electrons, $`X^{},X_2^{}`$, etc., has been considered in Ref. prb60-1 . Exactly the same ideas are applicable to a liquid of electrons and skyrmions or antiskyrmions of different sizes. The only difference is that the skyrmion $`S^{}=h(e_\mathrm{R})_2`$ is stable while the $`X^{}=ve_2`$ has a finite lifetime for radiative recombination of $`e`$$`v`$ pair.

When there are $`N_h`$ spin holes in the $`\nu =1`$ level (or $`N_e`$ reversed spin electrons in addition to the filled $`\nu =1`$ level) and when $`N_h`$ (or $`N_e`$) is much smaller than $`N2Q+1`$, the degeneracy of the filled lowest Landau level, then the most stable configuration will consist of $`N_h`$ antiskyrmions (or $`N_e`$ skyrmions) of the most stable size. These antiskyrmions (or skyrmions) repel one another. They are positively (or negatively) charged Fermions with standard Landau level structure, so it is not surprising that they would form either a Wigner lattice or a Laughlin condensed state with $`\nu `$ for the antiskyrmion (or skyrmion) equal to an odd denominator fraction as discussed in Refs. ssc122 ; prb60-2 ; skyrmions ; cote ; paredes ; wqskyrmion .

In the ideal theoretical model, a valence hole acts exactly like a spin hole in the $`\nu =1`$ level of the conduction band. Therefore we would expect an excitonic complex consisting of $`K`$ spin waves bound to the valence hole to be the lowest energy state, in the same way that the antiskyrmion consisting of $`K`$ spin waves bound to a spin hole in the $`\nu =1`$ level gives the lowest energy state when $`E_\mathrm{Z}`$ is sufficiently small. For a small number of valence holes, the $`X_K^+=v(e_\mathrm{R}h)_K`$ excitonic complexes formed by each valence hole will repel one another. If a small number of antiskyrmions are already present (for $`\nu <1`$), the positively charged antiskyrmion–charged exciton repulsion will lead to Laughlin correlations or Wigner crystallization of the multicomponent Fermion liquid. Just as for the charged excitons ($`X^{}`$) in the dilute regime, the PL at low temperature will be dominated by the $`X_K^+S_K^{}^++\gamma `$ process, with $`K^{}=K`$ or $`K1`$ depending on spin of the annihilated valence hole (i.e., on the circular polarization of the emitted photon $`\gamma `$). This corresponds to the most stable $`X_K^+`$ undergoing radiative $`ev`$ or $`e_\mathrm{R}v`$ recombination and leaving behind an antiskyrmion consisting of $`K`$ or $`K1`$ spin waves bound to a spin hole of the $`\nu =1`$ state. Because the valence hole and the spin hole in the $`\nu =1`$ conduction level are distinguishable (or have different pseudospin) even in the ideal theoretical model this PL is not forbidden. It will be very interesting to see how realistic sample effects (finite well width, Landau level admixture, finite separation between the electron and valence hole layers) alter the conclusions of the ideal theoretical model.

For $`\nu 1`$, negatively charged skyrmions are present before the introduction of the valence holes. The skyrmions are attracted by the $`X_K^+`$ charged exciton, but how this interaction affects the PL can only be guessed. It is possible that the interaction of the valence hole with the skyrmions will lead to the formation of an $`X`$ or an $`X_{td}^{}`$ and spin waves. The $`X_{td}^{}`$ will be very weakly radiative (just as in the case of $`\nu 1/3`$). However, the recombination can occur with a majority spin electron. This case was considered in Ref. neg skyrmions ; portengen  for the case of a single $`X_{td}^{}`$.

We believe that numerical diagonalization for realistic models including Landau level admixture and finite well width should explain the behavior of PL for electron filling factors close to unity. Only qualitative behavior expected has been discussed in this work. Realistic “numerical experiments” are being carried out to check whether the expected behavior is correct.

## IX Summary

This review contains a discussion of the energy spectra of a system of $`N_e`$ electrons and $`N_h`$ holes. In photoluminescence, $`e`$$`h`$ recombination leads to peaks in the spectra that depend on the initial and final states. For ideal systems, with $`\mathrm{}\omega _ce^2/\lambda `$, very narrow quantum wells, and $`|V_{ee}|=|V_{eh}|`$, the spectra contain information only about the neutral exciton. For non-ideal systems, where $`|V_{eh}||V_{ee}|`$, spectra contain information about the electron–electron correlations in the underlying electron gas.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support by Grant DE-FG 02-97ER45657 of the Material Research Program of Basic Energy Sciences–US Department of Energy. AW acknowledges support from Grant 2P03B02424 of the Polish KBN and KSY acknowledges partial supports by the ABRL(R14-2002-029-01002-0) through the KOSEF and by PNU(2003).


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# Watching the Birth of Super Star Clusters

## 1. Introduction

While the first suggestions that young analogues to globular clusters exist in the local universe came from ground-based imaging (Arp & Sandage 1985), the age of the super star cluster really dawned with the subarcsecond imaging capabilities of HST, which allows super star clusters (SSCs) to be resolved in nearby galaxies (e.g., O’Connell et al. 1995, Whitmore & Schweizer 1995) The Antennae galaxies alone have thousands of young (Myr) SSCs (Whitmore et al. 1999.) Some of these clusters are revealed only by infrared imaging (Vigroux et al. 1996); presumably these are the youngest regions. Clues to the mystery of how large and potentially bound clusters form lie in the environments of the youngest, embedded regions, which are visible only in the radio and infrared.

That large extragalactic compact HII regions exist and can be detected was first inferred for the starburst in M83 by Turner, Ho, & Beck (1987) on the basis of a high Brackett line/radio continuum ratio, although their 8<sup>′′</sup> (160 pc at M83) infrared beam did not allow them to define the nature of the unexpected Brackett excess (cf. Thompson 1987). With arcsecond mid-infrared imaging, Telesco and Gezari (1992) isolated a compact 12 $`\mu `$m source that they suggested was a forming globular cluster in M82. Pina et al. (1992) and Keto et al. (1993) found a similar strong and compact mid-infrared source in the starburst galaxy, NGC 253.

High spatial resolution IR imaging and spectroscopy with HST and large ground-based telescopes and the expanded high frequency imaging capability at the VLA now allow the study of nebulae in the infrared and radio at subarcsecond resolution, corresponding to scales of $``$1 pc in local galaxies. With this resolution one can now study the star formation processes in individual regions. Due to time and space limitations we will focus on the impact of these observations on issues in the formation of large bound clusters as exemplified by the well-studied young embedded SSC in the dwarf galaxy NGC 5253.

## 2. Radio Continuum Imaging of the Supernebula in NGC 5253

Improvements in sensitivity and phase calibration at high frequencies at the VLA now allow the detection of young, compact HII regions in nearby galaxies. Free-free emission, with its flat spectrum, is most easily detected at wavelengths shorter than 2 cm, where it dominates over synchrotron emission, which declines with frequency. The other advantage of high frequency observing is that the resolutions are higher at these frequencies; beams as small as 50 mas are now possible with the VLA using the Pie Town link. We can now image parsec-scale structures within nearby starbursts.

NGC 5253 is a peculiar dwarf elliptical galaxy (Caldwell & Phillips 1989), with a starburst that has created numerous star clusters within the past 2.5 to 50 Myr (Calzetti et al. 1997, Tremonti et al. 2001.) There is abundant and extended H$`\alpha `$ emission (Walsh & Roy 1987). Comparison of H$`\alpha `$ and radio continuum (Beck et al. 1996) indicate that extinctions are high toward the radio peak (Calzetti et al. 1997). At a distance of only 3.8 Mpc, we are able to easily resolve the youngest parts of the starburst in NGC 5253.

Subarcsecond VLA imaging of NGC 5253 at 2 and 1.3 cm revealed a tiny but luminous nebula (Figure 1). Our most recent Pie Town image has a resolution of 50 mas and shows that the nebula is slightly elliptical, 0.7 pc by 0.9 pc in diameter, and optically thick at 2 cm, with a turnover frequency ($`\tau `$=1) of 15 GHz. This tiny nebula contains at least 4000 O stars, and possibly as many as a million stars total, with a luminosity of $`1\times 10^9\mathrm{L}_{}`$. About half of this luminosity emerges in mid-infrared dust continuum emission (Gorjian, Turner, & Beck 2001). The high density implied by its high turnover frequency suggests that this “supernebula” is very young. We cannot now say how young, although comparison with Galactic compact HII regions would indicate that it is less than 1 Myr old.

## 3. What’s Going on in There? Can We Know? A Gravity-Bound Nebula

In order to study the kinematics of the embedded “supernebula” in NGC 5253, spectroscopy in the infrared or radio is required. Radio recombination lines were detected by Mohan, Ananthamariah, & Goss (2001), confirming the basic radio continuum findings of Beck et al. (1996) and Turner et al. (1998). Brackett recombination lines at 2.17 and 4.05 $`\mu `$m were detected using NIRSPEC at Keck (Turner et al. 2003). These lines also confirm the radio continuum results. The Brackett line emission in this galaxy is overwhelmingly dominated by the supernebula.

The Brackett lines reveal another interesting and unique property of the supernebula. The Brackett linewidths are $`75\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, FWHM, consistent with the radio recombination lines of Mohan et al. (2001). This is remarkably narrow for the size and mass of this cluster. For a nebula with diameter 0.7 pc, the escape velocity is $`40\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for a cluster of 4000 O stars alone; for a Salpeter IMF down to M stars, the escape velocity could be as high as $`120\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, with virial linewidths only slightly smaller. The supernebula is actually in or close to gravitational equilibrium. Nebulae in the Galaxy are not confined by gravity, nor is the more evolved and diffuse nebula 30 Doradus. This HII region has very different—probably not expanding and possibly static—dynamics.

It is worthwhile to pause and reflect on the meaning of this small linewidth in the presence of 4000 O stars within a volume only 1 pc across. It is difficult enough to form a single, solitary O star (see the contribution by H. W. Yorke in this volume), given their violent tendencies, propensity toward outflow (Figure 2a, Shepherd & Kurtz 1999) and general windiness. Outflows, which start in the accretion phase, probably continue throughout a goodly fraction of an O star’s main sequence lifetime (Yorke & Sonnhalter 2002), and radiation-driven winds certainly do. If the O star is massive enough, it may go through a luminous blue variable phase, such as observed in the star $`\eta `$ Car, and could lose as much as $`10^3\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (Figure 2b, Morse et al. 1998). Next is the Wolf-Rayet phase, which occurs for massive stars of a certain age (2-3 Myr); Wolf-Rayet “ring” nebulae have sizes of a few pc and velocities up to $`100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Figure 2c, Gruendl et al. 2000). The ultimate manifestation of the nastiness of an O star is the expulsion of its outer layers in a supernova explosion (Figure 2d, from Hughes et al. 2000). What riotous events are transpiring within the little supernebula? Given the confinement of gas, can we tell? Confinement of gas in itself could have implications for the dynamical evolution of the cluster, and could facilitate stellar collisions and perhaps even stellar mergers (Bonnell & Bate 2002.)

## 4. Formation of a Bound Cluster Must be Efficient, and Is

To form a bound star cluster, at least 50% of the original gas mass must end up in stars. Star formation efficiencies in the Galaxy are $``$1-2% on the $`50`$ pc sizescales of GMCs (Lada, Margulis, & Dearborn 1984), although efficiencies on sizescales comparable to the cluster size are higher. This is consistent with the lack of young bound clusters in the Galaxy.

In NGC 5253 we observe a stream of molecular gas falling into the galaxy (Figure 3: Meier, Turner, & Beck 2002). There is a similar infalling stream in Henize 2-10 (Kobulnicky et al. 1995). Most of the molecular gas is separated spatially and kinematically from the supernebula and from the optical star clusters near it; the infalling gas cannot be associated causally with the current forming star cluster. There is a small amount of gas, $`4\times 10^5\mathrm{M}_{},`$ within the galaxy proper (Cloud D). This can be compared to an estimated $`0.71.2\times 10^6\mathrm{M}_{}`$ in stars. Star formation has nominally been $``$ 60–75% efficient in NGC 5253. There are sizeable uncertainties in the gas mass, which is based on two different CO lines, due to the unknown metallicity dependence of the Galactic conversion factor, and to the stellar IMF (the lower efficiency corresponds to a lower mass cutoff of 1 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$). However, the gas mass estimated from dust emission is in agreement with the CO mass, to within 30% (Meier et al. 2003, in prep.), so we expect the high efficiency is real.

## 5. Summary

High resolution radio and infrared observations in nearby galaxies have found luminous and compact nebulae excited by obscured super star clusters. The IR emission of these nebulae can be a significant, or even dominant, part of the total galactic flux. In NGC 5253, there are so many young stars in such a small volume that the gravitational attraction appears to be slowing or stopping the rapid expansion of the nebula. The star formation efficiency also appears to be quite high in this galaxy, $`6075`$%, which is consistent with the formation of bound clusters. Star formation in SSC-starburst galaxies does not much resemble that closer to home.

### Acknowledgments.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of P.T. P. Ho, D. S. Meier, J. H. Lacy, V. Gorjian, L. Crosthwaite, D. S. Meier, J. Larkin, & I. McLean to this work. This research is supported by NSF Grant 0307950.

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# Electromagnetic break-up of nuclei with 𝐴=3÷7

## 1 General remarks on the LIT for inclusive and exclusive cases

In both inclusive and exclusive electromagnetic reactions one has to deal with the very difficult problem of the continuum wave functions entering the relevant matrix elements. For light systems this is true even at low energies since their discrete spectra are very limited. The essential idea of the LIT method is to calculate integral transforms of these matrix elements (or of proper combinations of them) with Lorentzian kernels and then invert the transforms (see ). The reason to take this detour is ”economical”: it turns out that, in order to calculate the Lorentz transforms of these matrix elements, continuum solutions of the Schrëdinger equation are not required. Instead one has to find finite norm solutions to Schrödinger-like equations with external sources. This implies that one can use the much simpler bound state methods to solve them.

For the inclusive case one can prove that one only needs to solve

$$(\widehat{H}E_0\sigma _R+i\sigma _I)|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1=\widehat{O}|\psi _0,$$
(1)
while for the exclusive case the solution of the following additional equation is required

$$(\widehat{H}\sigma _R+i\sigma _I)|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_2=\widehat{V}|\varphi \text{.}$$
(2)
In the first equation $`E_0`$ and $`|\psi _0`$ denote the nuclear ground state energy and wave function, respectively, $`H`$ is the nuclear Hamiltonian, $`\widehat{O}`$ is the electromagnetic operator and $`\sigma _R`$ and $`\sigma _I`$ are the Lorentz kernel parameters, i.e. center and width of the Lorentzian, respectively. In the second equation $`\widehat{V}`$ denotes the potential between particles belonging to different fragments and $`|\varphi `$ is the wave function of non interacting fragments.

In the inclusive case the norm of $`|\psi _1`$ is the LIT of the inclusive response function, in the exclusive case the overlap between $`|\psi _1`$ and $`|\psi _2`$ is connected in a simple way to the matrix element of an exclusive reaction. I will not report here the derivation of the LIT method which can be found e.g. in . I will only stress that in both cases an essential point is the use of the closure property of the Hamiltonian eigenstates. This means that, in a way, the LIT method is a very powerful extension of sum rule approaches.

It may seem that the difficulties of finding solutions in the continuum are translated into the difficulties of inverting integral transforms. However, it turns out that for the case of a Lorentzian kernel the inversion does not suffer from the uncontrolled instabilities typical of other kernels (like e.g. the Laplace one) and that it is possible to obtain very accurate results. This can be seen comparing LIT results with those obtained using explicit continuum states. The comparison has been possible only for cases where explicit continuum states were available, i.e. the two- and three-body systems (see ). As an example in Fig. 1 the results obtained in  are reported, where the photonuclear cross section of triton has been calculated in unretarded dipole approximation, both by solving the Faddeev equations and by the LIT method. As one can see the agreement is at the level of few percents. In Fig. 2 the results are compared with available experimental data. It is clear that more accurate experiments are needed if one wants to disantangle the effects of three-body forces.

In the following I will review results obtained in larger systems, where the LIT seems to be at present the only method to calculate electromagnetic cross sections in a large energy range, especially beyond the two-body break-up thresholds.

## 2 Results for nuclei with $`A>3`$

The photonuclear two-body break-up of 4He has been calculated (see Fig. 3) applying the exclusive version of the LIT method. This allows to give for the first time a result where the final state interaction is fully taken into account, also beyond the three-body break-up threshold. The potential has been chosen to be simply central (MTI-III, ). The experimental situation is very complicated. More comments about the comparison between theory and experiment can be found in the contribution by S. Quaglioni to this conference.

In Fig. 4 inclusive results on the total dipole photodisintegration cross sections of 6He and 6Li are presented (see also ). A noticeable feature is the appearing of two resonance peaks in the 6He case. They may be interpreted as the ”soft dipole mode” due to the collective oscillation of the neutron halo against the alpha core and the classical Gamow-Teller mode of the protons against the neutrons. Of course in the latter case the break-up of the alpha-core is required and therefore this mode appears at higher energy.

It is very interesting to see a collective feature stemming out of a six-body microscopic calculation. This feature seems to persist independently on the potential used. In principle these two modes might exist also in the case of 6Li, (in this case the soft mode could be that of the n-p pair against the alpha particle). One possible explanation for the unique peak of 6Li could be the existence of an additional dipole mode filling the gap between the soft and the Gamow-Teller mode. This third mode would correspond to a 3He-3H oscillation. The corresponding 3H-3H channel in 6He is absent because it is forbidden in dipole approximation.

In Fig. 5 a comparison with available data is shown. In this case calculations have been performed with the AV4’ potential , which includes P-wave interactions. A good agrement with data is obtained for 6Li at lower energy. The P-wave potential contribution is crucial for the agreement (compare with Fig. 3 in ). Sizeable disagreement is still found for 6He and 6Li at higher energies. New and more accurate data and calculations with more realistic potentials are needed to draw some conclusions about the role of the different potential terms.

In Figs. 6 and 7 preliminary results of a microscopic seven-body calculation of the total photodisintegration of 7Li are presented. Also in this case the theoretical result shows a unique peak at about the same energy as the experimental data. Also the height of the peak is well reproduced. The shoulder below 15 MeV is due to different thresholds for the T=3/2 and T=1/2 channels, as shown in Fig. 7.

Finally it should be mentioned that Eqs.(1-2) have been solved by correlated hyperspherical harmonics (CHH) expansions for A=3,4. For A=6,7 the EIHH method  (using the concept of effective interaction) and a reformulation of the LIT, permitting to take advantage of the Lanczos algorithm , have helped the convergence of the results.


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# Untitled Document

QUATERNION DYNAMICS OF THE BRAIN

E. A. Novikov

Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California - San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 - 0402

A nonlinear dynamical modeling of interaction between automatic and conscious processes in the brain is described. Effects of sensations, emotions and reflections on the electromagnetic activity of the brain are represented in terms of quaternion field.

In previous paper  an approach to nonlinear dynamical modeling of interaction between automatic (A) and conscious (C) processes in the brain was presented. The idea is to use complex field with real and imaginary components representing A- and C-processes. The interaction is due to the nonlinearity of the system. This approach was illustrated on the nonlinear equation for the current density in the cortex. The nonlinearity is determined by the sigmoidal firing rate of neurons. More general approaches were also indicated . In this letter the quaternion (Q) approach is described.

Subjective C-experiences can be divided into three major groups: sensations (S), emotions (E) and reflections (R). Note, that subjective S should be distinguished from the automatic sensory input into the neuron system of the brain. The effects of S, E and R on the electrochemical activity of the brain, generally, can be different. These effects should be distinguished in designing experiments and in C-modeling. The natural generalization of the approach  is to use the Q-field for representation of S-, E- and R-effects.

Let us illustrate this on the model equation for the average (spatially uniform) current density $`\alpha (t)`$ perpendicular to the cortical surface :

$$\frac{\alpha }{t}+k\alpha =f(\alpha +\sigma )$$
((1))
Here $`k`$ is the relaxation coefficient, $`\sigma (t)`$ is the average sensory input and $`f`$ represents the sigmoidal firing rate of neurons, for example, $`f(\alpha )=\mathrm{tanh}(\alpha )`$. For the case of spatially nonuniform $`\alpha (t,𝐱)`$ and $`\sigma (t,𝐱)`$ we can use a more general equation, which include typical propagation velocity of signals $`v`$ :

$$\frac{^2\alpha }{t^2}+(k+m)\frac{\alpha }{t}+(kmv^2\mathrm{\Delta })\alpha =(m+\frac{}{t})f(\alpha +\sigma )$$
((2))
Here $`m`$ is an additional parameter and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the two-dimensional spatial Laplacian. This type of equations are used for interpretation of the EEG and MEG spatial patterns (see recent paper  and references therein). In this context we have parameters: $`kmv/l`$, where $`l`$ is the connectivity scale.

Let us now introduce the Q-field:

$$q=\alpha +i_p\psi _p$$
((3))
Here components $`\psi _p`$ represent (S, E, R)-effects and summation is assumed on repeated subscripts from $`1`$ to $`3`$. The quaternion imaginary units $`i_p`$ satisfy conditions:

$$i_pi_q=\epsilon _{pqr}i_r\delta _{pq}$$
((4))
where $`\epsilon _{pqr}`$ is the unit antisymmetric tensor and $`\delta _{pq}`$ is the unit tensor. Formula (4) is a compact form of conditions: $`i_1^2=i_2^2=i_3^2=1,`$ $`i_1i_2=i_2i_1=i_3,`$ $`i_2i_3=i_3i_2=i_1,`$ $`i_3i_1=i_1i_3=i_2`$. Conjugate Q-field is defined by: $`\overline{q}=\alpha i_p\psi _p`$. From (3) and (4) it follow that the components and modulus of Q-field can be obtained by formulas:

$$\alpha =\mathrm{R}e\{q\}=\frac{1}{2}(q+\overline{q}),\text{ }\psi _p=\underset{p}{\mathrm{I}m}\{q\}=\mathrm{R}e\{qi_p\},\text{ }\alpha ^2+\psi _p^2=q^2=q\overline{q}$$
((5))
The Q-multiplication, used in (5), is determined by (4). The Q-inversion is defined by:

$$\frac{1}{q}=\frac{\overline{q}}{q^2}$$
((6))
Note, that the only finite-dimentional division algebras over the real number field are the real numbers, the complex numbers and the Q-field. Functions of Q-field are defined similarly to functions of complex fields. For example:

$$\mathrm{exp}(q)=\mathrm{exp}(\alpha )[\mathrm{cos}(\psi )+j\mathrm{sin}(\psi )\text{ }],\text{ }\psi ^2\psi _p^2,\text{ }ji_p\psi _p\psi ^1,\text{ }j^2=1$$
((7))
Using (4) - (7), we can define many Q-functions, particularly:

$$\mathrm{tanh}(q)=\frac{\mathrm{exp}(q)\mathrm{exp}(q)}{\mathrm{exp}(q)+\mathrm{exp}(q)}=\frac{\mathrm{exp}(2\alpha )\mathrm{exp}(2\alpha )+2j\mathrm{sin}(2\psi )}{\mathrm{exp}(2\alpha )+\mathrm{exp}(2\alpha )+2\mathrm{cos}(2\psi )}$$
((8))
Returning to (1), we now substitute into this equation Q-field (3) instead of $`\alpha `$. It gives four equations:

$$\frac{\alpha }{t}+k\alpha =\mathrm{R}e\{f(\alpha +\sigma +i_q\psi _q)\}$$
((9))
$$\frac{\psi _p}{t}+k\psi _p=\underset{p}{\mathrm{I}m}\{f(\alpha +\sigma +i_q\psi _q)\},\text{ }(p=1,2,3)$$
((10))
These equations are coupled because $`f`$ is nonlinear. Thus, we got Q-modeling of the C-effects. The same scheme can be applied to equation (2) and to any nonlinear model equation. For $`f(\alpha )=\mathrm{tanh}(\alpha )`$, formulas (7) and (8), with shift $`\alpha \alpha +\sigma `$, give explicit form for the nonlinear terms in equations (9) and (10). Note, that so-called extra-sensory effects (if they exist) can be included in this approach by assuming that $`\sigma `$ has imaginary components. When $`\alpha `$ and $`\sigma `$ are relatively small (in a dream or in a state of deep meditation), asymptotically (10) gives closed system of equations for $`\psi _p`$. The nonlinear terms $`\mathrm{I}m_p\{f(i_q\psi _q)\}`$ are quite different from the nonlinear term $`f(\alpha )`$ for the A-process. This may explain peculiar dynamics of dreams and deep meditations, not only in content, but also in intensity.

The obtained description of the C-effects can serve for designing experiments to test the modeling. The chosen sequence of S-E-R-effects seems to be natural for the Q-modeling.

It will be interesting to apply Q-modeling to the first principles, particularly, to the problem of unification of the four major forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, week and strong). The fundamental obstacle to the unification is that gravitation in its nature is quite different from the three other forces. It resists quantization with complex amplitudes, which is the natural description for the other forces. Perhaps, in the Q-description, gravitation can be an analog of real (automatic) process, while other three forces are more ” vibrating” - analog of S-E-R-effects in the ”Brain - Universe”. In the Q-description ”ghosts”  with the negative energy may have natural explanation.

References

 E. A. Novikov, arXiv:nlin.PS/0309043 (2003)

 V. K. Jirsa, K. J. Jantzen, A. Fuchs, and J. A. S. Kelso, IEEE Trans. on Medical Imaging, 21(5), 497 (2002)

 C. V. Johnson, *D-Branes*, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003

 Y. Fujii and K. Maeda, *The Scalar-Tensor Theory of Gravitation*, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003