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# Soft colour interactions and diffractive Higgs productionTalk presented by R.E. at HEP2003 Conference, Aachen, Germany.

## 1 Introduction

Recently there has been a lot of interest in searching for the Higgs boson at the Tevatron or LHC through diffractive hard scattering, see KMR ; CR  for recent overviews with references. Predictions of cross sections from various models vary by orders of magnitude, however, and therefore it is important to consider predictions of the same models for observables in other experimental channels, that can be compared to existing or coming data from the Tevatron.

Two such observables in events with two leading protons, so-called double pomeron exchange events (DPE), are dijet production at the Tevatron, and production of pairs of photons with large invariant mass at the Tevatron and LHC. There exist data for the former CDF-DPE ; AW  and data is expected for the latter.

In this talk we summarize our predictions from the soft colour interaction (SCI) model SCI  for diffractive Higgs boson production PRL ; PRD2  and diphoton production PRD2  as well as the comparison of results for dijet production from CDF with our calculations PRD2 ; PRD .

## 2 The model

The SCI model SCI  was developed in an attempt to better understand non-perturbative QCD dynamics and provide a unified description of all final states. The basic assumption is that soft colour exchanges give variations in the topology of the confining colour string-fields which then hadronize into different final states, with and without rapidity gaps or leading protons.

To be able to use the SCI model for hadron-hadron collisions, it has been implemented in the Monte Carlo program PYTHIA Pythia . The hard parton level interactions are given by standard perturbative matrix elements and parton showers, which are not altered by the softer non-perturbative effects. The SCI model then applies an explicit mechanism where colour-anticolour (corresponding to non-perturbative gluons) can be exchanged between the emerging partons and hadron remnants. The probability for such an exchange cannot yet be calculated and is therefore taken to be a constant given by a phenomenological parameter $`P`$. These colour exchanges modify the colour connections between the partons and thereby the colour string-field topology, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Standard Lund model hadronization Lund  of the string fields then leads to different final states, with gaps in rapidity regions where no string was present. These soft processes do not affect the cross section for the hard scattering process, but only the distribution of hadrons in the final state. Diffractive events are then selected using one of two criteria: (1) a leading (anti)proton with $`x_F>0.9`$ or (2) a rapidity gap in the forward or backward region, for example $`2.4<|\eta |<5.9`$ as used by the CDF collaboration.

For a detailed description of the model and its application to diffractive hard scattering in hadron-hadron collisions, see Ref. PRD .

## 3 Results

The SCI model has previously been shown to be very successful in reproducing diffractive HERA data, e.g., for the diffractive structure function and various final state observables SCI ; MC99-SCI . Furthermore, in an earlier paper PRD , we showed that *all* diffractive data from CDF and DØ existing at the time could be reproduced with the *same* model. This is a nontrivial result, and in fact there is no other model for diffraction in the literature that can achieve this without various types of modifications. This gives very strong support to the SCI model and to the reliability of our predictions for diffractive Higgs production.

Let us begin by considering single diffractive (SD) hard scattering. In ref. PRD , we reproduced the diffractive ratios $`R=\sigma ^{\mathrm{diff}}/\sigma `$ for SD production of $`W`$, $`Z`$, $`b\overline{b}`$, $`J/\psi `$ and dijets, as well as various kinematical distributions for dijets. For dijets, the CDF collaboration has also made measurements is DPE events, and we get a reasonable agreement with the cross section, and good agreement with the transverse momentum dependence of the cross section as well as the dijet mass fraction.

The latter is defined as the fraction of the total invariant mass of the system without the leading protons that the pair of jets takes, and is sensitive to the amount of extra radiation in the event. It is shown in Fig. 2 together with the CDF data CDF-DPE .

For so-called exclusive production of dijets, this ratio should be equal to one, although experimental smearing would give a peak at slightly lower mass fraction AW . This is clearly not seen in the data in fig. 2, nor in the newer data presented at this conference AW . Our simulations, however, neatly reproduce the measured distribution.

Turning now to Higgs production, we select all hard subprocesses in PYTHIA which produce a Higgs boson. The dominant one is $`ggH`$ via a quark loop, which accounts for 50% and 70% of the cross section, depending both on the Higgs mass and the center of mass energy. Our results in the following are based solely on leading order cross sections.

Applying the SCI model on the resulting partonic state gives rise to different color string topologies, resulting in different final states after the standard Lund model Lund  has been applied for hadronization (Fig. 1). The results for diffractive Higgs production are shown in detail in PRL  and we summarize the main results in terms of overall cross sections in Table 1.

At the Tevatron, the cross section for Higgs in DPE events, which would have the least disturbing underlying hadronic activity, is too small to give any produced events. Higgs in single diffractive events are produced, but in small numbers such that only the decay mode $`Hb\overline{b}`$ with the largest branching ratio will give any events to search for.

At LHC, the high energy and luminosity facilitates a study of single diffractive Higgs production, where also the $`H\gamma \gamma `$ decay should be observed. A few DPE Higgs events may be observed, but these events will not be as clean as naively expected. The available energy is enough to produce the Higgs and the leading protons as well as an underlying event that will populate forward detector rapidity regions with particles PRL , and the rapidity gap will be in the very forward region not covered by detectors. This causes a much lower diffractive cross section when requiring a gap instead of a leading proton at LHC.

Finally, we want to discuss the production of a pair of photons, either as decay products of the Higgs boson, or a pair of prompt photons. The $`H\gamma \gamma `$ decay mode is of experimental interest due to its clear signature with two photons of high $`p_{}`$. Its branching ratio is, however, quite low since it proceeds via a higher order loop diagram. Therefore, this decay mode gives too low rates to be observable in diffractive interactions, except for a handful $`H\gamma \gamma `$ in single diffraction at LHC.

The requirement of the two high-$`p_{}`$ photons to be essentially back-to-back in the transverse plane and isolated, removes the major backgrounds of photons as decay products in jets. The serious background to this signal is given by the production of a pair of prompt high-$`p_{}`$ photons from the hard processes $`q\overline{q}\gamma \gamma `$ and $`gg\gamma \gamma `$. In Ref. PRD2  we show that this background is always larger than the signal from Higgs decay and conclude that $`\gamma \gamma `$ is not a straightforward signal for observing the Higgs boson in diffractive events.

On the other hand, prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ production has a large enough cross section to be investigated in diffractive events. At the Tevatron, observable rates are predicted for SD events with $`p_{}^\gamma `$ up to $`75`$ GeV, so the model can be tested against data even up to scales of order $`m_H/2`$, but for DPE, $`p_{}^\gamma `$ is only observable up to 15-20 GeV.

Similarly at the LHC, prompt $`\gamma \gamma `$ gives observable rates for SD for $`p_{}^\gamma `$ up to $`100`$ GeV and for DPE up to $`50`$ GeV, i.e. up to the scale of $`m_H/2`$.

Thus, the basic mechanism for producing rapidity gap events with a high mass state from $`gg`$ fusion via a quark loop can be tested already at the Tevatron and further investigated at the LHC.

## 4 Conclusions

To summarize, we have shown results supporting the conclusion that the SCI model, though very simple, is able to reproduce a vast array of experimental data and is therefore likely to give trustworthy results also for the diffractive production of Higgs bosons. We have therefore provided predictions for diffractive production of Higgs, and also for dijets and diphotons, that can be used to test the model against even more data. It is worth mentioning again, that data from both diffractive DIS at HERA and from diffractive hard scattering in $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions at the Tevatron are correctly described. This is a unique feature of the SCI model, and further supports its use.

The predicted cross section for single diffractive Higgs production at the Tevatron is too low to be useful, and for DPE events, the cross section is far too small to yield an observable event rate. At the LHC both single diffractive and DPE events should be possible to observe for a Standard Model Higgs with a mass between 100 GeV and 200 GeV. However, diffractive events are not as clean as expected, with a lot of radiation in the forward regions even in events with leading protons. Similarly, the cross section for double prompt photons is very small at the Tevatron.

The phenomenological success of this simple model also makes it interesting to consider whether one could find a more theoretical basis for the colour-carrying soft exchanges occurring in the model. Work in this direction is currently in progress BEHI .


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# Quantum phase transition in the Plaquette lattice with anisotropic spin exchange

## 1 Introduction

Low dimensional quantum antiferromagnets show show a wide variety of magnetic low–temperature behavior, like magnetic long range order or spin disorder with or without a spin gap. Based on the findings of a recent experimental study of a new compound $`Na_5RbCu_4(AsO_4)_4Cl_2`$  I will examine a quantum spin system which shows a purely quantum phase transition by singlet formation. This and related models have been studied previously . From this results one argues that the observed low-temperature magnetic transition in $`Na_5RbCu_4(AsO_4)_4Cl_2`$ can probably not be explained within a simple Heisenberg-type model approach. Therefore additional anisotropic spin interactions have to be taken into account and in this paper I will study the influence of a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction and a four-spin exchange interaction on the quantum phase transition in the Plaquette lattice.

## 2 The Model

I consider an antiferromagnet on a two–dimensional square lattice with different types of interactions:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`J_p{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}\widehat{s}_i\widehat{s}_j+J_n{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}\widehat{s}_i\widehat{s}_j`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝐃_{ij}(\widehat{s}_i\times \widehat{s}_j)+W_{4S}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}(\widehat{s}_i\widehat{s}_j\widehat{s}_k\widehat{s}_l)`$
The interactions are: $`J_p`$ – Heisenberg type between 4 spins building a plaquette $`\mathrm{}`$, $`J_n`$ – Heisenberg type between plaquettes on a simple square lattice, $`𝐃_{ij}`$ – DM-type between plaquette spins and $`W_{4S}`$ – a four-spin interaction between plaquette spin respectively.

The DM interaction $`𝐃_{ij}`$ is a vector the components of which have to be extracted from the lattice symmetries . Here we consider one particular realization $`𝐃_{ij}=(W_{DM},W_{DM},0)`$ where the x- and y-components are equal. Due to symmetry considerations the interaction reverse sign on adjacent plaquette bonds (see Fig.1). The four-spin exchange $`W_{4S}`$ emerges from the strong-coupling expansion of the Hubbard model and has been recently discussed in ladders and two-dimensional lattices .

## 3 Results

It has been shown that without anisotropic exchange (i.e. $`W_{DM}=0`$ and $`W_{4S}=0`$) there is a critical $`J_n0.55`$ where the Plaquette lattice changes from a disordered spin gap state to a long-range ordered Néel-like ground state . I calculate for small finite lattices (N=16,20) the quantum ground and first excited states with exact diagonalization.

By analyzing the differential spin correlations between plaquettes and the spin gap for selected values of $`W_{DM}`$ and $`W_{4S}`$ I extract the critical value of $`J_n`$ where the phase transition takes place.

For the particular chosen DM interaction we see a shift of $`J_n^{crit}`$ to smaller values. We argue that this type of DM interaction always destabilizes the plaquette order by disturbing the singlet building on them. Interestingly enough, a related DM interaction on the $`J_1`$$`J_2`$ square lattice studied previously  also showed a similar effect.

For small values of $`W_{4S}`$ we observe a similar behavior as in the case of the DM interaction. But interestingly for larger $`W_{4S}`$ the tendency to smaller $`J_n^{crit}`$ reverses and it seems that at some strength of $`W_{4S}`$ the corresponding $`J_n^{crit}`$ becomes larger then for the isotropic system. That means that the four-spin exchange $`W_{4S}`$ can have two opposite effect depending in its strength. It either stabilizes the Néel-like order on the lattice or (if strong enough) can help to build singlets on the plaquettes.

Additional calculations on larger lattices will be carried out in order to confirm these conclusions.

There are several open questions; about the influence of the particular chosen symmetry of the DM interaction, about the result of a mixing of both anisotropic interactions (which might reveal new and interesting order phenomena) and about the nature of the phase transition (first or second order). In a more detailed study I will consider those and other problems and report the results elsewhere.

This work was supported by NSF grant ACI-0081789.


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# Multiscale self-organized criticality and powerful X-ray flares

## 1 Introduction

The solar flares are the manifestation of a sudden, intense and spatially concentrated release of energy in the solar corona. According to the Parker’s idea  stochastic photospheric fluid motions shuffle the footpoints of magnetic coronal loops. The high electrical conductivity of the coronal gas implies that the magnetic field is frozen-in, so that the subsequent dynamical relaxation within the loop results in a complex, tangled magnetic field, essentially force-free everywhere except in numerous small electrical sheets which form spontaneously in highly-stressed regions. As the current within these sheets is driven beyond some threshold, reconnection sets in and releases magnetic energy, leading to localized heating. In this picture there exists a separation of timescales between energy input to the system (minutes to hours, for photospheric motions), and energy release (seconds to minutes, for reconnection and thermalization under coronal conditions). It means that the coronal loop is slowly driven by footpoint motions. Thus, the coronal field does meet the requirements for the appearance of self-organized criticality (SOC): self-stabilizing local threshold instability; open boundaries; and separation of time scales between driving and avalanching. Following to this picture the authors of Ref.  suggested that SOC could describe the main features of the hard X-ray flares with avalanches of the reconnection events as the flares (see for further development - and references therein). Power law probability density functions (PDF) observed for peaks, waiting and duration times of the X-ray flares present the main experimental support of this hypothesis. This experimental information, however, turned out to be non-sufficient to distinguish between the SOC and fluid (MHD) turbulence processes mixed in the solar corona . There exist substantial differences between SOC and turbulence mechanisms for explanation of the power law PDF’s . Such differences can be ascribed to the lack of long time correlations for the avalanches in the monoscale SOC models. The distinction between the two mechanisms is however lost in the 2D BTW (Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld) model , which obeys a peculiar form of multiscaling for the PDF’s of several avalanche measures -. The 2D BTW model has long time correlated bursts and other turbulence-like intermittent properties if studied at the wave time scales. It is suggested in  that such SOC models would be candidates to describe the solar flares. It should be also noted, that recent investigations , show that the lack of exponential distribution for the waiting times between the solar flares (which is mentioned in Ref. ) cannot be considered as a reason for discarding the SOC models as underlying dynamics. The long-range correlations of different nature can result in the non-Poissonian behavior of the waiting times for the SOC systems. The long-range correlations for the solar flares dynamics can have both internal and external reasons (a correlated drive related, for instance, to planetary motions affecting the Sun dynamics ). The problem now is: How can one distinguish between fluid (MHD) turbulence and the SOC models with long-time correlations in the observed flares? We consider continuous X-ray solar flux measured during a remarkable two-week period from 9 July to 23 July 2000 year. This period can be called as a flares festival: 98 C-class, 39 M-class and 3 X-class flares. For example, in analogous period of 1997 year the only one low-power B-class flare was observed. In the minute time scale we have more than 21000 data points presumably dominated by the powerful X-ray flares. We will use a combined spectral-moments analysis of the signal to extract information about underlying physical mechanisms.

## 2 Data and analysis

The data was obtained by GOES-10 satellite of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration USA (NOAA) providing the kind of continuous monitoring of the whole-sun X-ray flux, $`I`$, for the 0.5-to-4 A wavelenght band (1-minute averages). The data are given in $`Watts/cm^2sec`$.

We believe that a mix of different complex mechanisms produce the total X-ray flux. Therefore, characteristics of the raw signal generally do not exhibit some recognizable properties, which could be used for identification of the underlying physical processes. One should use some ”threshold” technic to obtain the recognizable features. On the other hand, even if such features will appear, then a single certain characteristic, such as spectrum or PDF, cannot univocally indicate a dominating mechanism. For instance, different mechanisms (including SOC and fluid turbulence) can produce the same power-law spectrum ”-1”. To resolve this problem we will analyze two different physically meaning fields: the flux, $`I`$, itself and its so-called local dissipation rate ,:

$$ϵ_t=\underset{k=1}{\overset{t}{}}(I_{k+1}I_k)^2/t$$
$`(1)`$
Statistical properties of such gradient measure are generally independent on statistical properties of the original time series $`I_k`$. This fact allows us considering simultaneously the two statistically independent fields: $`I`$ and $`ϵ=(\mathrm{\Delta }I)^2`$, produce a reliable identification of the underlying physical mechanisms. The name of the $`ϵ`$ measure comes from fluid turbulence, where the measure indeed is directly related to the dissipation processes . Moreover, in our case the $`ϵ`$ field seems to be also directly related to dissipation (see Introduction). Therefore, we will perform the threshold discrimination of the data set using just the dissipation field $`ϵ_k=(I_{k+1}I_k)^2`$. Then, we return to the $`I`$-field to look at spectrum of $`I`$ after excluding the data points with the large (above the threshold) dissipation. The recognizable power-law spectrum of $`I`$ appears at low-frequencies at the threshold value of the dissipation field $`ϵ10^{12}W^2/cm^4s^2`$. The spectrum is shown in figure 2 (figure 1 shows the low-frequency spectrum of the raw flux $`I`$ for comparison).

The straight line is drawn in figure 2 in order to indicate the power-law spectrum

$$E(\omega )\omega ^1$$
$`(2)`$
in the log-log scales. For the discriminated data set (with the spectrum (2) at the low frequencies) we calculated moments of the local dissipation rate (1): $`ϵ_t^p`$. For the multiscale SOC (in particular for the 2D BTW model ) appearance of the multiscaling

$$ϵ_t^pt^{\mu _p}$$
$`(3)`$
is expected. Figure 3 shows the moments against $`t`$ (in log-log scales) and the straight lines are drawn in the figure in order to indicate the multiscaling (3). Slopes of these straight lines (best fit) provide us with multiscaling exponents $`\mu _p`$, which are shown in figure 4 as circles. The time interval where we observe the multiscaling of the dissipation field is: $`10min<Tt<1000min`$.

## 3 Discussion

The BTW prototype model of self-organized criticality is defined on a square lattice ($`L\times L`$) box . On site $`i`$ $`z_i=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$ is the number of “grains”. If $`z_i<4`$, $`i`$, the configuration is stable. Grain addition to a stable configuration is made by selecting at random a site $`k`$ where $`z_kz_k+1`$. If then $`z_k4`$, toppling occurs, i.e. $`z_kz_k4`$, while each nearest neighbor, $`l`$, of site $`k`$ gets one grain ($`z_lz_l+1`$). If $`k`$ is at the border grains are dissipated. The toppling of site $`k`$ may cause instabilities in the neighbors, leading to further topplings at the next microscopic time step, and so on. Thus, an avalanche made by a total number $`s0`$ of topplings occurs before a new stable configuration is reached and a new grain is added. After many additions the system reaches a stationary critical state in which avalanche properties are sampled.

A key notion in the approach to the BTW is that of wave decomposition of avalanches . The first wave is obtained as the set of all topplings which can take place as long as the site of addition is prevented from a possible second toppling. The second wave is constituted by the topplings occurring after the second toppling of the addition site takes place and before a third one is allowed, and so on. The total number of topplings in an avalanche is the sum of those of all its waves. The wave size has a pdf satisfying finite size scaling $`P_w(s,L)s^{\tau _w}f_w(s/L^{D_w})`$, where $`\tau _w=1`$, $`D_w=2`$, and $`f_w`$ is a suitable scaling function.

The multiscaling of the dissipation field

$$ϵ_t=\underset{k=1}{\overset{t}{}}(s_{k+1}s_k)^2/t$$

was observed in the Ref.  for the 2D BTW model and the multiscaling exponents for the BTW dissipation calculated in  are given in figure 4 as triangles. One can see good correspondence between the exponents calculated in  and the observed exponents.

The dissipation threshold $`ϵ10^{12}W^2/cm^4s^2`$, for which the solar X-ray data agree with the 2D BTW model both for the flux spectrum and for the dissipation multiscaling, corresponds to transition from the low intensity M-class flares to the high intensity M-class flares. At present time we do not know why just at this level of the dissipation rate the SOC (presumably BTW) mechanism overcomes all other mechanisms and appears so clear in the X-ray flux data. In any way, we can see that the multiscale SOC takes place there and even appears as a dominating mechanism at a certain stage.

The authors are grateful to the NOAA for providing the data.


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# Stellar Populations, Butcher-Oemler Effect, Star Formation in Clusters

## 1. Introduction

Studying the evolutionary histories of galaxies in clusters has always been an endeavour to understand how galaxies (all galaxies) came to be as we observe them. In recent years, this quest can be better described as an effort to comprehend how galaxies formed and evolved in a “changing” environment. In fact, the common framework for these studies is now a hierarchical universe, in which galaxies can and often change environment during their evolution. When a galaxy infalls into a cluster, it can do so as a single isolated galaxy, as a pair, as part of a group or as member of another merging cluster. A galaxy can experience very different environmental conditions throughout its evolution. A major challenge for today’s research is to identify the effects produced by the various environments on the observable properties of galaxies. It is especially hard to discriminate between minor and major influences. If all environments are potentially expected to have some impact on their galaxies, we would like to discern secondary effects (“cosmetics”) from the primary causes that determine how galaxies are.

In this search we can rely on some objective and measurable properties, such as mass in stars and gas, their chemical content, their motion within the galaxy and the structures they design. The star formation activity is one of the most outstanding characteristics. Though a precise measurement of the current and past star formation activity is no easy task for any galaxy, star formation affects the accessible observables, such as colors and spectra, in such a manifest way that is often the most immediate evidence for evolution.

In this contribution I focus on the build-up of the stellar populations in cluster galaxies and on the evolution with redshift of their star formation activity. The subject has been very rich in results and papers published during the past 25 years, and it is impossible to give an exhaustive summary in a short text. I will therefore only touch upon some of the issues, and highlight just a couple of the most recent results. Overviews on the evolution of the stellar populations in cluster galaxies can be found in Ellingson 2003, Poggianti 2003a and several reviews in the third volume of the Carnegie Observatories Astrophysics Series: Clusters of Galaxies: Probes of Cosmological Structure and Galaxy Evolution (eds. J.S. Mulchaey, A. Dressler, and A. Oemler (Pasadena: Carnegie Observatories, http://www.ociw.edu/ociw/symposia/series/symposium3/proceedings.html).

## 2. Where it all started….and where we are

The Butcher-Oemler effect is the excess of galaxies bluer than the color-magnitude red sequence in clusters at $`z>0.10.2`$ as compared to the richest nearby clusters (Butcher & Oemler 1984).

The origin of the scatter in the fraction of blue galaxies from cluster to cluster at any given redshift, and the consequent search for correlations between the blue fraction $`f_B`$ and the global cluster properties (Smail et al. 1998, Margoniner et al. 2001, Metevier et al. 2000); the trend with redshift of $`f_B`$ in optical and X-ray selected cluster samples and the dependence on cluster selection (Andreon & Ettori 1999, Ellingson et al. 2001, Kodama & Bower 2001, Fairley et al. 2002); the change in galaxy colors with clustercentric distance (Pimbblet et al. 2002); the nature of the galaxies giving rise to the Butcher-Oemler effect (De Propris et al. 2003); these are some of the aspects related to the Butcher-Oemler effect that are still subject of ongoing investigation, witnessing the interest in fully understanding the consequences and the cause of the seminal Butcher & Oemler findings.

Put in a slightly different way, the Butcher-Oemler effect is the presence of large numbers of blue galaxies in rich clusters more distant than those in the local universe. This higher average level of activity in the past has been confirmed and greatly clarified by spectroscopic surveys and by Hubble Space Telescope morphological studies of galaxies in distant clusters (Couch et al. 1994, 1998, Dressler et al. 1997, Balogh et al. 1997, 1998, 1999, Poggianti et al. 1999, van Dokkum et al. 1999, 2000, Fabricant et al. 2000, Ellingson et al. 2001, Postman et al. 2001, Smail et al. 2001, Lubin et al. 2002).

No matter how the evolution in the populations of cluster galaxies is observed, if using the blue colors, the spectral features or the proportion of spiral versus early-type galaxies: all the three types of observations contribute to delineate a picture in which the evolution of galaxies in clusters is strong, given that a large fraction of them at z=0 have evolved from star-forming, late-type galaxies to passively evolving, early-type galaxies within a relatively short period of time (Kodama & Smail 2001, van Dokkum & Franx 2001).

At least three phenomena likely play a role in this evolution (Poggianti et al. 1999, Ellingson et al. 2001, Kodama & Bower 2001): the declining infall rate of galaxies onto clusters at lower z predicted by hierarchical cosmological models (Bower 1991, Kauffmann 1995); the evolution with z of the average star formation rate (SFR) in the “field” galaxies that infall into clusters; and the decline of star formation in the cluster galaxies likely due to some physical process (or processes) that acts when galaxies infall in the denser environment. In fact, though the universe as a whole seems to evolve towards a progressively lower star formation activity in the Madau plot, such a trend appears to be accelerated in clusters (Kodama & Bower 2001).

### The past star formation activity as seen from the absorption lines

The most cited result obtained from spectra of galaxies in distant clusters is the presence of “k+a” spectra, with no emission lines and strong Balmer lines in absorption indicating a vigorous star formation activity that was terminated at some point during the last 1-1.5 Gyr (Dressler & Gunn 1983, Couch & Sharples 1987). Since such spectra inequivocally identify post-starburst or post-starforming galaxies, their excess in distant clusters as compared to the field at similar redshifts is strong, if not the strongest, evidence that star formation is truncated by the dense environment (Dressler et al. 1999, but see Balogh et al. 1999 for a different view). K+a galaxies have been thoroughly discussed elsewhere (e.g. Poggianti 2003b and references therein), but it is worth highlighting here a very recent result from Tran et al. (2003). On the basis of the galaxy velocity dispersions and radii, these authors find that the descendants of the k+a’s observed at $`z0.8`$ must be among the most massive early-type galaxies in clusters today, while the maximum luminosity and galaxy velocity dispersion of cluster k+a galaxies decrease towards lower redshifts. Another result pointing in the same direction is presented in Poggianti et al. (2003), where we analyzed the luminosity distribution of k+a galaxies in the Coma cluster: no k+a as luminous as in the distant clusters is observed, while k+a’s are found to be a significant fraction of the dwarf galaxy population.

### The ongoing star formation activity as seen from the emission lines

In the absence of a significant AGN ionizing radiation, emission lines are present in a spectrum only when there is ongoing star formation activity.

In agreement with the other photometric and spectroscopic signs of current activity, a significant fraction of even the most luminous galaxies in distant clusters have been observed to have emission lines indicating they are actively forming stars (Dressler et al. 1999, Postman et al. 2001), though the fraction of emission line galaxies remains lower in clusters than in the field at all redshifts.

Whether the star formation activity in clusters is enhanced in some of the infalling galaxies, and how relevant this is for the global cluster populations is still debated. Besides considerations based on optical observations in favor and against cluster-triggered starbursts, a striking result comes from dust-free wavelengths: the large numbers of Luminous Infrared starburst galaxies detected by ISOCAM in distant clusters seem to be too high to be consistent with simple accretion of starburst galaxies from the field (Duc et al. submitted, Coia et al. submitted).

Finally, several works have been recently devoted to the study of the emission line trend with clustercentric radius. Balogh et al. (1997, 1998) have shown how the mean equivalent width of \[O ii\] increases radially in distant clusters, failing to reach the mean field value even as far out as several Mpc from the cluster centre. An extension of these radial studies has been carried out using the large datasets of the 2dF (Lewis et al. 2002) and Sloan (Gomez et al. 2003) spectroscopic surveys. As shown in Fig. 1, the mean EW($`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$) increases at lower projected local surface density of galaxies (and, correspondingly, larger distance from cluster centre) down to a density of $`1`$ galaxy per $`\mathrm{Mpc}^2`$, and approaches the field value at $`3`$ times the virial radius of the cluster.

The mean EW, or SFR, used in these studies is the mean over all galaxies (with and without emission lines, of any morphological type), including the passive early-type galaxies that dominate the cluster cores and the highest density regions. A mean total EW decreasing with density and towards the cluster centre is therefore not surprising in this respect. Whether the trend of mean EW simply reflects a different morphological mix as a function of local density, and whether it can be fully explained by the morphology-density relation (Dressler et al. 1997) is still unclear (Lewis et al. 2002, Gomez et al. 2003).

The origin of the observed EW trend remains in my opinion one of the most interesting questions to be answered, together with the origin of the morphology-density relation and the relation between the two. A systematic variation of galaxy properties with the environment does not necessarily imply a “transformation” due to an environmental process beginning to act on a galaxy when this enters an environment for the first time. In principle, one cannot exclude that the correlation of star formation with local density can be partly or fully explained as an “imprinting” on the galaxy star formation history established in the early universe as a function of the local density. For example, the most massive ellipticals in the densest regions today (the cluster cores), that formed most of their stars at very high redshifts, were in the densest regions also at $`z>3`$ and it is then, by those conditions, that their star formation history was decided. These galaxies contribute to the shape of the EW-density relation today as some of the galaxies with EW=0 (devoid of SF), and it is therefore logical to conclude that at least part of the SF-density relation has been established very early on. Similarly, the morphology-density (MD) relation must have a “primordial” component, since at all redshifts the most massive early-type galaxies are found in the highest density regions. However, the MD relation as we observe it today is not fully established at high redshift, because we observe how it evolves in clusters, with late type spirals being transformed into early-type galaxies (Dressler et al. 1997, Lubin et al. 2002).

It is probably time for the astronomical community working on clusters to reconsider the meaning of words such as “primordial” and “environmental”. By “primordial”, do we mean anything that took place at $`z>3`$, or anything that was already engraved in the galaxy “destiny” by the early conditions in the location where they formed their first stars? And by “environmental”, do we mean any physical process that affects galaxies once they enter a “new” environment, implying that their evolution would have been different if they did not become part of it? Or do we consider an effect environmental any time it has to do with something external to the galaxy itself? In this case, what do we consider as the “galaxy itself”, anything that will be part of that galaxy by z=0? Can a process be considered an environmental effect even if it only affected the galaxy at $`z>3`$? Re-thinking the definition of the words “primordial” and “environmental” is not just a semantic exercise, it is probably useful to make progress in an era in which we believe galaxies can change environment, but today’s environment is not necessarily unrelated with the environments of yesterday.

#### Acknowledgments.

I thank the IAU and the organizers of this Joint Discussion on clusters for their kind invitation and for generously supporting my participation with a IAU travel grant.

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# Classical noise and flux: the limits of multi-state atom lasers

## Abstract

By direct comparison between experiment and theory, we show how the classical noise on a multi-state atom laser beam increases with increasing flux. The trade off between classical noise and flux is an important consideration in precision interferometric measurement. We use periodic $`10\mu `$s radio-frequency pulses to couple atoms out of an $`F=2`$ 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate. The resulting atom laser beam has suprising structure which is explained using three dimensional simulations of the five state Gross-Pitaevskii equations.

It is the high flux, spectral density, and associated first order coherence that has made the optical laser central to many technologies. In the field of precision measurement, atom lasers hold similar promise ketterleandco . In a Sagnac interferometer, for example, the inherent sensitivity of a matter wave gyroscope exceeds that of a photon gyroscope with the same particle flux and area by 11 orders of magnitude kasevich1 . In any practical application of interferometry to high precision measurement, whether it be with photons or atoms, there will be a trade off between the classical noise and the quantum noise or flux of the source. In this Letter, we investigate this trade off for an atom laser.

In an unpumped laser, classical noise is the presence of unwanted excited dynamic modes. We find agreement between our experimental results and a full 3D Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) model, and show that at high flux, classical noise increases with increasing flux. That we can achieve agreement between a 3D theory including all Zeeman states and experiment is significant. It is highly likely that the much sought-after pumped atom laser will operate under rather specific conditions of scattering length, temperature and number density us , and experiments will need to be guided by accurate theoretical models that must be validated against experiments if we are to trust their detailed predictions.

Mewes et al. mewes  demonstrated the first atom laser based on the application of pulsed radio-frequency (RF) fields to induce controlled spin flips from magnetically trapped to un-trapped states of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Later it was shown by Hagley et al. that a pulsed Raman out-coupling could be used to achieve a quasi-continuous multi-state atomic beam hagley . Bloch et al. achieved continuous RF out-coulping for up to 100 ms, producing a single state atom laser beam, and showed that this beam could be coherently manipulated in direct analogy to the optical laser bloch1 ; bloch2 . Both temporal and spatial coherence have been measured, and it has been demonstrated that RF outcoupling preserves the coherence of the condensate koehl ; bloch3 ; kasevich . The beam divergence has been measured aspect , and there has been one real time measurement of the flux of an atom laser beam koehl2 . Ballagh et al. ballagh  introduced the Gross-Pitaevskii equation as an effective tool for investigating the atom laser within the semi-classical mean-field approximation and a number of groups found good agreement between GP models and experiment schneider ; steck . Rabi cycling between Zeeman components, a manifestation of the non-Markovian nature of the atom laser jack ; hope , was observed in the experiment of Mewes et al. and could be expected to significantly increase the amplitude, and possibly frequency, noise of the beam. There has been no investigation of the relationship between classical noise and flux in an atom laser, and it is this aspect that we investigate both experimentally and theoretically in this Letter.

Experimentally, a continuous atom laser based on resonant output coupling puts stringent limits on the stability of cold atom traps bloch1 . Typical condensates have a resonant width of 10 kHz. Output coupling requires a stable magnetic bias, $`B_0`$, at the 0.1 mG level, one to two orders of magnitude better than typical magnetic traps. In comparison, a pulsed atom laser is relatively straight-forward to implement. A $`10\mu `$s pulse has a frequency width of 200 kHz, significantly broader than both the 10 kHz resonant width of the condensate, and the instability of our trap which fluctuates within the range $`\pm 15`$ kHz due mainly to thermal fluctuations of the coils. In the work reported in this Letter, we have opted to study a pulsed atom laser to ensure shot to shot reproducibility and allow detailed quantitative comparison to numerical models. We have chosen to study atom laser beams derived from an $`F=2,m_F=2`$ condensate because of the richness and complexity offered by the system, although non-Markovian effects are present even in two-component atom lasers due to the nonlinear atomic dispersion relations.

In our experiment, we produce an $`F=2,m_F=2`$ 87Rb condensate, consisting of approximately 50,000 atoms, via evaporation in a water-cooled QUIC magnetic trap esslinger  with a radial trapping frequency $`\nu _r=253`$ Hz, an axial trapping frequency $`\nu _z=20`$ Hz, and a bias field $`B_0=1`$ G. After evaporative cooling, the BEC was left to equilibriate for 100 ms. We then triggered an RF signal generator set in gated burst mode. The RF pulses were amplified (35 dB) and radiated perpendicular to the magnetic bias field of the trap through a 22 mm radius single loop, approximately 18 mm from the BEC. To ensure that we had calibrated all experimental parameters correctly, we made an initial series of measurements of the number of trapped and un-trapped atoms after the application of single RF pulses of varying amplitude; it was critical to establish agreement between experiment and theory in a simple mode of operation before pursuing studies of more complex dynamics. In Fig. 1, we show the results of these measurements in comparison with a one dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii theory of the atom laser derived from the full 3D model described by the following equations

$$\begin{array}{c}i\dot{\varphi }_2=(+V_T+Gy2\mathrm{\Delta })\varphi _2+2\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _1\hfill \\ i\dot{\varphi }_1=(+\frac{1}{2}V_T+Gy\mathrm{\Delta })\varphi _1+2\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _2+\sqrt{6}\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _0\hfill \\ i\dot{\varphi }_0=(+Gy)\varphi _0+\sqrt{6}\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _1+\sqrt{6}\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _1\hfill \\ i\dot{\varphi }_1=(\frac{1}{2}V_T+Gy+\mathrm{\Delta })\varphi _1+2\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _2+\sqrt{6}\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _0\hfill \\ i\dot{\varphi }_2=(V_T+Gy+2\mathrm{\Delta })\varphi _2+2\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi _1,\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
where $`\varphi _i`$ is the GP function for the $`i`$th Zeeman state. $`V_T=\lambda ^2(x^2+y^2)+z^2,\frac{1}{2}^2+U(\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=2}^2|\varphi _i|^2)`$. Here $`\lambda =\nu _r/\nu _z=12.65`$ is the ratio of trapping frequencies, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are respectively the detuning of the RF field from resonance and the Rabi frequency, measured in units of $`\omega _z=2\pi \nu _z`$. $`U`$ is the two-body interaction coefficient and $`G=z_0mg/(\mathrm{}\omega _z)`$, where $`m`$ is the atomic mass and $`g`$ the acceleration due to gravity. $`z_0=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/m\omega _z}`$ is the usual harmonic oscillator length. The wave functions, time, spatial coordinates, and interaction strengths are measured in the units of $`z_0`$, and $`\omega _z^1`$. The excellent agreement between experiment and theory shown in Fig. 1 indicates that we have a well calibrated and repeatable experiment. Up to the experimental uncertainty in the detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, there are no free parameters in the 1D GP model. The theoretical results of the Rabi oscillations presented in Fig. 1 are in good agreement with the approximate analytic theory presented by Graham and Walls for the limit of strong out-coupling graham .

In the experimental data shown in Fig. 2, we present five pulse trains outcoupled from separate F=2, $`m_F=2`$ condensates. In each case, the pulse train has been outcoupled in an 8 ms time frame. We wait 2 ms after the pulse window before turning the trap off to allow the final atomic pulse to completely separate from the condensate. After a further 2 ms, to allow expansion of the condensate, we image the condensate and pulses with a single lens onto a 12 bit CCD camera. For one, two, three and four RF pulses, we observe predictable out-coupling from the atom laser system. Figure 2(a) is indicative of this behavior, where four RF pulses (separation 2 ms) have been applied to the BEC, and we see four $`m_F=0`$ atomic pulses in the positions expected from gravity. In 2(b) five RF pulses (separation 1.6 ms) have been applied and we observe five atomic wave-packets, again in the expected positions. However, we note that in the later 3 pulses there is a significant blurring with atoms appearing between the expected positions of the pulses. This effect is not due to interference between the wavepackets.

The transition from constant pulse amplitude shown in Fig. 2(a) to varying or noisy pulse amplitude with increasing repetition rate shows a clear trade off between classical noise and flux in the atom laser output. In Fig. 2(c) six RF pulses were applied (separation 1.2 ms), however only five atomic pulses were observed, with the first atomic pulse being entirely absent. This observation is quite repeatable. The complete absence of a pulse is an extreme example of the trade off between classical noise and flux, and it is the dynamics behind this phenomenon that we wished to understand by comparison with a complete 3D GP model. At the higher pulse repetition rate used in Fig. 2(d) where the separation between pulses is 1 ms, the output is further distorted from the ideal. In Fig. 2(e), where the time between pulses has been reduced to $`800\mu `$s, the atom laser beam is longer than expected from pure gravitational acceleration. This can be explained by the influence of the the anti-trapped $`m_F`$ states on the $`m_F=0`$ atoms that comprise the outcoupled beam. It is quite clear from the data that increasing flux (and therefore decreasing shot noise) comes at the price of increasing classical noise.

We have quantitatively modelled the experiment with a full 3D GP simulation including all five Zeeman states and with only the detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as a free parameter (Eq. 1). This is a unique feature of the work presented here and allows us to understand all aspects of the GP physics, and hence the experiment. A 1D model accurately describes a single out-coupling pulse because it is essentially independent of the spatial structure. However we found that a full 3D simulation was needed to accurately track the spatio-temporal dynamics of a multi-pulse experiment. We simulated up to 3.2 ms, allowing three pulses for each case. Parallelised code was run on twelve processors of the APAC National Facility APACNF , requiring up to 800 hours of processor time per simulation. The numerical method was the psuedo-spectral method with Runge-Kutta split time step developed at the University of Otago RK4IP . Spatial grid sizes and time steps were monitored throughout the simulations to ensure the accuracy of the numerical solutions; e.g. the preservation of the normalisation. Spatial grids were grown, and time steps decreased, as required. At the end of simulations, spatial grids in the direction of gravity were 2048 points for the trapped ($`m_F=2,1`$) and anti-trapped ($`m_F=2,1`$) Zeeman states, and 4096 for the atom laser output state ($`m_F=0`$). In the tight and loose transverse directions, 128 and 32 points were used respectively. The corresponding spatial lengths were chosen so that both the momentum space and real space GP functions fit the grid. This was about 40 $`\mu `$m and 140 $`\mu `$m in the tight and loose trap directions, respectively. In the direction of gravity, it was 120 $`\mu `$m for the $`m_F0`$ states, and twice that for the $`m_F=0`$ state. Absorbing boundaries were used for the $`m_F=0,1,2`$ states.

The simulations reveal that all five Zeeman states are involved in determining the final form of the atom laser output. The $`m_F=2`$ state has the least effect, as it is not strongly populated, and it quickly disperses in its anti-trapping potential. However the $`m_F=1`$ anti-trapped state is highly populated and is directly involved in the loss of the initial pulse for the case of Fig. 2(c). The simulation in the left section of Fig. 3 shows how the first $`m_F=0`$ atom laser pulse is destroyed by the second RF pulse: it transfers nearly all of the $`m_F=0`$ component, produced by the first pulse, into the other four Zeeman states (second row, Fig. 3). A new $`m_F=0`$ pulse, somewhat lower than the first, originates from the $`m_F=1`$ state. However, it retains the momentum spread due to the anti-trapping potential, which causes it to disperse and be lost, so that it is not observed in the experiment.

The second atom laser pulse is in fact two distinct pulses; an upper one originating from the $`m_F=2`$ state, and a lower one from the $`m_F=1`$ state. This can be seen most clearly in the third row of Fig. 3, after they have become well separated. Since the two pulse components are not resolvable in the experiment, this is an example of the dynamics revealed by simulation. These components have different initial momenta. The $`m_F=1`$ component, which originated from the $`m_F=2`$ state in the first RF pulse, was moving down towards its trap equilibrium when the second RF pulse arrived.

The lower $`m_F=0`$ pulse created by the second RF pulse escapes the fate of the first pulse because its downward momentum takes it lower than the first pulse, away from resonance. In fact, its position is close to that of the upper second $`m_F=0`$ pulse during the third RF pulse in the case of Fig. 2(b), and it survives for similar reasons. This can be seen by comparing the bottom rows of the $`m_F=0`$ columns of Fig. 3. Similarly the simulations explain the relative intensity of the first and second $`m_F=0`$ pulses in the experimental case of Fig. 2(b).

We have shown, for the case of the $`F=2`$ atom laser, that beyond a critical flux the classical noise on the output beam increases with increasing flux. The prospect of combining atom lasers with atom chips opens up enormous possibilities in precision measurement. Considerations of the trade off between classical noise and flux in atom lasers will be important in many applications in this field. We would expect many of the effects described here to be smaller for the $`F=1`$ atom laser but not absent. Rather than the two trapped states present in the $`F=2`$ laser, only the $`m_F=1`$ state is trapped. Although atoms in the $`m_F=1`$ state are anti-trapped for the $`F=1`$ laser, this state would be significantly populated for strong outcoupling and could be expected to contribute to classical noise on the $`m_F=0`$ output beam just as the anti-trapped $`m_F=1`$ state does for the $`F=2`$ laser studied in this Letter. The effects that we have described will be important not only for pulsed atom lasers, but also for unpumped continuous atom lasers. Just as in the pulsed case, at high flux, atoms will not only be coupled to the output beam, they will also be coupled to other trapped and untrapped Zeeman states and can be backcoupled from the output beam to the condensate. The situation is complex and requires detailed investigation. The quantitative comparison between theory and experiment presented here is unique and points the way to the future development of atom laser sources for precision measurement. This is particularly true for the development of the pumped atom laser, one of the most important and sought-after devices in the field of atom optics.

###### Acknowledgements.

This research was supported by the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing. ACQAO is an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence.