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# Fractionalization in the cuprates: Detecting the topological order

## Abstract

The precise theoretical characterization of a fractionalized phase in spatial dimensions higher than one is through the concept of “topological order”. We describe a physical effect that is a robust and direct consequence of this hidden order that should enable a precise experimental characterization of fractionalized phases. In particular, we propose specific “smoking-gun” experiments to unambiguously settle the issue of electron fractionalization in the underdoped cuprates.

Does the electron splinter apart (i.e fractionalize) in the cuprate high-$`T_c`$ materials? This question has been the subject of heated debate for some years, and is apparently far from being settled. Phenomenologically, electron fractionalizion is very appealing, primarily because it provides a simple explanation of the superconductivity. Upon fractionalization the charge of the electron is liberated from it’s Fermi statistics, thereby allowing the electron charge to directly condense leading to superconductivity without invoking ideas of pairing. Further, several other unusual properties of the cuprates find a natural explanation in terms of the fractionalization idea, most notably the angle-resolved photoemission results.

Despite these attractive features, there has been considerable difficulty in constructing an acceptable theory of fractionalization for the cuprates. This is partly due to inadequacies in our theoretical understanding, but more problematic has been the lack of clear experimental signatures indicative of electron fractionalization. In this paper, building on our recent theoretical understanding of fractionalization using a $`Z_2`$ gauge theory formulation, we overcome this difficulty. In particular, we predict a novel physical effect that is a robust property of fractionalized phases - this makes possible a direct and unambiguous experimental test of whether the electron splinters apart in the cuprates.

Fractionalization theory: In our recent work we demonstrated that a general class of strongly interacting electron models could be recast in the form of a $`Z_2`$ gauge theory, which then enabled us to provide a reliable discussion of issues of electron fractionalization. In particular, we demonstrated the possibility of obtaining fractionalized phases in two or higher spatial dimensions. In such a phase, the electron splits into two independent excitations - the spin of the electron is carried by a neutral fermionic excitation (the “spinon”) and the charge is carried by a bosonic excitation (the “chargon”). There is a third distinct excitation, namely the flux of the $`Z_2`$ gauge field (dubbed the “vison”). The vison is gapped in the fractionalized phase. The $`Z_2`$ gauge theory approach is closely related to the ideas on vortex pairing and other gauge theoretic formulations of fractionalization.

The precise theoretical characterization of a fractionalized phase is in it’s “topological order” \- a concept that has been elucidated clearly in the context of the quantum Hall effect by Wen and coworkers. A fractionalized phase in a manifold with a non-trivial topology has a ground state degeneracy which depends on the topology. A vison that is trapped in each “hole” in the manifold stays there forever, but does not affect the ground state energy in the thermodynamic limit. Consider for instance a cylinder. There are two states depending on whether or not a vison has threaded the cylinder. The inability of the trapped vison to escape from the cylinder is the hallmark of the fractionalized phase.

The topological order inherent in a fractionalized phase endows it with a tremendous amount of robustness to various “real-life” complications. For example, topological order survives in the presence of weak amounts of disorder. It can also coexist with various other conventional broken symmetries, such as charge or spin ordering. Thus, if the cuprates do show fractionalization, features like charge stripes or even antiferromagnetism are side effects (albeit interesting ones) and not directly related to the origin of the superconductivity.

It is also important to understand the role of a finite non-zero temperature on the topological order. Theoretically, the effect of finite temperature depends crucially on the spatial dimension. In two spatial dimensions (2d), the visons are point-like excitations, and are gapped in the fractionalized phase. But at any non-zero temperature, there will be a finite density of thermally excited visons, thereby destroying the topological order. In a three dimensional fractionalized phase, however, the visons are loop-like excitations, costing a finite energy per unit length. Consequently, at low temperatures large vison loops are absent and the topological order survives. As the temperature is increased there will eventually be a true phase transition where the vison loops unbind.

For quasi-two dimensional layered materials such as the cuprates, two distinct fractionalized phases are possible. First, the fractionalization can occur independently in each layer with the different layers being “decoupled” from one another. In this case, vison loops proliferate between the layers, and the topological order exists only for visons which penetrate a layer. As in 2d, this order is destroyed by arbitrarily small temperature. Alternatively, with strong enough interlayer coupling it is possible that the interlayer vison loops are also expelled, resulting in a phase with full three dimensional topological order that survives at low non-zero temperatures.

Detecting the topological order: Armed with the theoretical understanding described above, we may pose a sharp and definite question about the cuprates. Quite generally, there are three qualitatively distinct possibilities for the behavior of the underdoped cuprates with regard to the phenomenon of fractionalization.

(i) Fractionalization and the associated topological order simply does not occur in the cuprates (see Fig. 1).

(ii)The topological order occurs independently in each two dimensional layer, and hence strictly speaking, exists only at zero temperature (see Fig. 2).

(iii)The topological order is three dimensional, and survives up to a non-zero temperature (see Fig. 3).

Which one of these three possibilities is actually realized in the real materials? It is widely believed that the pseudogap line in the cuprates is only a crossover and not a true phase transition. This, and other phenomenological considerations (specifically the “incoherent” c-axis transport), probably disfavor 3d topological order as a serious possibility in the cuprates. Nevertheless, for conceptual purposes it will be very useful to begin by considering this case. Though this is distinguished from the other two cases by having a finite temperature phase transition, a direct experimental characterization of the 3d topological order would be preferable.

We now propose an experiment that is directly sensitive to the presence of topological order, presuming initially that scenario (iii) is realized. Imagine the following sequence of events:

(a) Start with an underdoped sample in a cylindrical geometry, with the axis of the cylinder perpendicular to the layers. In the presence of a magnetic field, cool into the superconducting phase such that exactly one $`hc/2e`$ flux quantum is trapped in the hole of the cylinder.

(b) Heat the sample to above $`T_c`$. The magnetic flux penetrates into the sample, but the vison will still be trapped. This is because of the finite temperature topological order in case (iii).

(c) Now turn off the magnetic field. The vison will still remain trapped. We have thereby prepared the sample above $`T_c`$ with zero magnetic field in a state with a vison threading the cylinder.

(d) How do we tell that there is a vison trapped? The simple way is to cool the sample back down below $`T_c`$. The trapped vison still cannot escape but must nucleate an $`hc/2e`$ quantum of magnetic flux. This flux will be generated spontaneously and can be in either direction - thereby breaking the time reversal invariance achieved in (c)!

An alternate experiment is to again repeat the sequence of events (a) to (d), but now work at a fixed very low temperature and move from the superconductor into the (underdoped) insulator, and back, by adiabatically tuning some parameter. Again, one should see a spontaneous $`hc/2e`$ flux generated if the ground state on the insulating side is fractionalized. This experiment is, of course, much more challenging. It has recently been demonstrated however that an electrostatic field can be used to move across the superconductor-insulator phase boundary at low temperature, at least for very thin films. Another possibility is to use photodoping (or perhaps even pressure).

These experiments offer a direct and conceptually straightforward way to detect the presence of 3d topological order. In particular, if case (i) is what is actually realized, there will certainly be no spontaneous flux generated at the end of either experiment.

But what if the topological order is two-dimensional (case (ii)), as seems more likely for the cuprates? In the experiment performed by tuning across the superconductor-insulator phase boundary at zero temperature, a spontaneous flux is certainly expected. But at finite temperature the topological order is strictly speaking absent, and a trapped vison will ultimately escape at long times. As is usual in such cases, the result will then depend on how fast the experiment is performed. In step (b) above, the magnetic flux penetrates into the sample almost immediately but at low temperatures the vison will remain trapped for a much longer time of order $`t_vt_0e^{\frac{E_0}{k_BT}}`$. Here, $`E_0`$ is the energy cost for a vison in a single layer and $`t_0`$ is some microscopic time scale. Provided the time scale of the experiment is smaller than $`t_v`$, a spontaneous magnetic flux should be present at the end. But if the time scale of the experiment is significantly longer than $`t_v`$, there will be no flux and the presence of the ($`T=0`$) topological order will be missed. It is therefore essential that the experiment be performed over time scales smaller than the vison decay time. To this end, it is clearly advantageous to heat the sample only slightly above $`T_c`$ in step (b) above. Interlayer coupling will presumably enhance $`t_v`$, so that less anisotropic materials might also be preferable.

An advantage of these experiments is that they offer a direct and unambiguous route to detect the presence of topological order. With topological order, the spontaneous generation of flux should be insensitive to unavoidable materials complications, such as impurities and other coexisting broken symmetries (stripes, etc). In that sense, this experiment gives a characterization of fractionalization that is as clear-cut as the Meissner effect is for superconductivity, or quantization of the Hall conductivity for the quantum Hall effect.

A number of other equally robust predictions can be made when the conditions in the above experiment are slightly modified. Specifically, if the initial magnetic flux trapped in step (a) is $`hc/e`$ rather than $`hc/2e`$, there will be no trapped vison in step (b) - hence there will be no spontaneous flux observed. More generally, if the initial flux is an odd multiple of $`hc/2e`$, a spontaneous flux of $`hc/2e`$ will be generated at the end, whereas with an even multiple of $`hc/2e`$ initially, there will be no spontaneous flux. This even/odd effect is a direct reflection of the Ising character of electron fractionalization above one dimension.

Another interesting geometry to consider, particularly if case (ii) is realized, is to repeat the experiment with the axis of the cylinder parallel to the layers. Then, the vison can escape by passing between adjacent layers, and no spontaneous flux will be generated (independent of the initial flux).

Once a vison is trapped in a topologically ordered phase, one can also imagine other more subtle physical effects that will distinguish it from the same sample with no trapped vison. For instance, thermal or even electrical conductance of a cylinder with a trapped vison will be different from that without the vison, since the interference contribution from paths of spinons or chargons that wind around the cylinder will be affected (extra minus sign for an odd winding if vison is present). Detecting this effect will of course require “phase-coherence” around the cylinder - which presumably only occurs at very low temperatures and in a small sample. In the cuprates with $`d`$-wave pairing, thermal transport may be preferable due to the presence of low energy spinon excitations which could transport heat. Another subtle effect is that the superconducting transition temperature should be slightly smaller if a vison is trapped.

Practical considerations: The experiments proposed above are certainly challenging and would require a good deal of care. In tuning out of the superconducting phase either with temperature or by other means, it is important to make sure that the sample is definitely no longer superconducting. This could be done by monitoring the resistance simultaneously. But better still would be to check directly that no magnetic flux is still trapped after the external field is turned off in step (c).

It seems most likely that the topological order, if present at all in the cuprates, will be two-dimensional in character. In that case, it is essential that the time scale of the experiment be smaller than the vison decay time $`t_v`$. Since $`t_v`$ increases exponentially with the ratio of the vison gap to the temperature, the sample should be heated just above $`T_c`$ in step (b). Moreover, if the vison gap is of order the pseudogap temperature $`T^{}`$ (eg measured in photoemission) as we proposed earlier, it would be preferable to work with very underdoped samples. This will maximize the vison decay time $`t_v`$, being exponentially large in the ratio $`T^{}`$ to $`T_c`$.

In this paper we have discussed a very general and robust physical effect that must be present in the underdoped cuprates if they exhibit electron fractionalization. The robustness of the effect is due to the topological order inherent in the fractionalized phase. Experimental confirmation of this effect would unambiguously establish the presence of fractionalization in the underdoped cuprates. Conversely, if the experiment fails to observe the effect when performed with sufficient care, it would establish the absence of fractionalization.

Electron fractionalization, and the associated topological order, may well be more widely prevalent in strongly interacting many-fermion systems than has been previously assumed. In particular, liquid and solid $`He3`$, the two dimensional electron gas at low density and a plethora of heavy fermion and organic materials all show a host of unusual phenomena which are poorly understood. Experiments along the lines of those proposed in this paper might enable a detection of the otherwise elusive topological order that may lurk in these systems. As in the cuprates, a proximate superconducting or superfluid phase would be required to detect - and manipulate - this “hidden” topological order.

We are grateful to Leon Balents, S. Sachdev, and Doug Scalapino for fruitful discussions. This research was generously supported by the NSF under Grants DMR-97-04005, DMR95-28578 and PHY94-07194.


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# Can cosmic strangelets reach the earth ?

## Abstract

The mechanism for the propagation of strangelets with low baryon number through the atmosphere of the Earth has been explored. It has been shown that, under suitable initial conditions, such strangelets may indeed reach depths near mountain altitudes with mass numbers and charges close to the observed values in cosmic ray experiments.

The existence of Strange Quark Matter (SQM), containing a large amount of strangeness had been postulated by various authors quite a few years ago. In a seminal work in 1984, Witten  proposed that SQM with roughly equal numbers of up, down and strange quarks could be the true ground state of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the accepted theory of strong interactions. While only SQM with very large baryon numbers were initially thought to be favorable (in terms of stability), later calculations have shown  that small lumps of SQM can also be stable. The occurrence of stable (or metastable) lumps of SQM, referred to in the literature as strangelets, would lead to many rich consequences; for a recent review, see .

Strangelets may arise from various scenarios; they could be formed in highly energetic nuclear collisions associated with the formation of quark-gluon plasma , or they might be of cosmological origin, as remnants of the cosmic QCD phase transition . Collisions of strange stars could also lead to the formation of strangelets which could contribute to the cosmic ray flux . In heavy ion collisions, it is thought that strangelets with atomic number $`A`$ upto 20 - 30 may be formed , the stability of which depend rather sensitively on the parameter values (like the Bag constant) and an underlying shell-like structure. For larger strangelets ( $`A>`$ 40), the stability appears to be more robust . We confine our attention in this work to such larger strangelets, which may not be readily formed in heavy ion collisions in the laboratory but could be of cosmic origin. A discerning property of such strangelets would be an unusual charge to mass ratio ( $`Z/A`$ 1) .

The obvious place to look for such strangelets would be in the cosmic ray flux. In this context, it may be recalled that there have been intermittent reports in the literature  about the detection of exotic cosmic ray events, with unusually low charge to mass ratios; some of these events are tabulated in Table 1. Although it appears natural to identify these events with strangelets, no consensus has yet emerged, primarily because of the ambiguities associated with the mechanism of propagation of strangelets through the terrestrial atmosphere. For example, if a strangelet arriving at the top of the atmosphere has a baryon number $`A`$ 1000, there would be a serious problem with its penetrability through the atmosphere, as the exotic events are observed at quite low altitudes. One could assume that their geometric cross sections are very small. Alternately, one could conjecture, a la Wilk et al  and others , that although the initial mass of the strangelet is very large, it decreases rapidly due to collisions with air molecules, until the mass reaches a critical value $`m_{crit}`$ below which the strangelet simply evaporates into neutrons.

The difficulties associated with this kind of interpretation are twofold. Firstly, one has to take account of the fact that, unlike ordinary nuclear fragments which tend to break up in collisions, strangelets can become more strongly bound if they absorb matter . Secondly, since a strangelet has a net electric charge, it experiences an ever increasing geomagnetic field, which considerably lengthens its path before reaching a certain altitude. This implies many more interactions with the nuclei of the atmospheric atoms, as a result of which the strangelet would “evaporate” much before the desired depth is reached.

These difficulties can be naturally overcome in a different scenario, proposed recently by the present authors , in which the stability of the strangelet plays a very important role. In this model, an initially small strangelet, during its travel through the Earth’s atmosphere, picks up mass, rather than lose it, from the atmospheric atoms. Such a situation may prevail unless the propagation velocity of the strangelet through the atmosphere is so high that in a collision with the atmospheric nucleons, the excitation energy would exceed the binding energy. We have estimated that for our case, where the initial $`A`$ is larger than 40, this upper limit on the velocity comes out to be above 0.7c. (We disregard the possibility of fission-like fragmentation of the strangelets.) The equation governing the rate of change of mass with respect to distance traveled is given by,

$$\frac{dm_s}{dh}=\frac{f\times m_n}{\lambda }$$
(1)
and the equation of motion reads

$$\frac{d\stackrel{}{v}}{dt}=\stackrel{}{g}+\frac{q}{m_s}(\stackrel{}{v}\times \stackrel{}{B})\frac{\stackrel{}{v}}{m_s}\frac{dm_s}{dt}$$
(2)
In the above equation, $`m_s`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ represent the instantaneous mass and the velocity of the strangelet, $`q`$ is the charge and $`\lambda `$ is the mean free path of the strangelet in the atmosphere. The factor $`f`$ determines the fraction of neutrons that are actually absorbed out of the incident neutrons ($`m_n`$ ). In this case, $`\lambda `$ is both a function of $`h`$ (which determines the density of air molecules) and $`m_s`$ (which is related to the interaction cross section). The initial velocity has to be bigger than a threshold value, so that a strangelet of a given initial mass and charge can arrive at an altitude $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}25}km`$ from the sea level , surmounting the geomagnetic barrier.The upper limit of 25 km is chosen primarily to economise on the computation time and is a fortiori justified since the density of the atmosphere above this height is almost negligible for our purpose. The variation of atmospheric density with height has been described by a parametric fit to the data given in the standard reference of Kaye and Laby .

According to the above analysis, a strangelet with an initial mass of $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}64}amu`$ and charge $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$ evolves to a mass $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}340}amu`$ or so, by the end of its journey, an altitude $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3.6}km`$ above the sea level (typically the height of a north east Himalayan peak in India, like Sandakphu , at a geomagnetic latitude $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}30}^0N`$). This mass is quite close to the few available data (see Table 1) and seems to support the interpretation that exotic cosmic ray events with very small $`Z/A`$ ratios could result from SQM droplets. However, it was assumed in  that only neutrons are absorbed preferentially over the protons from the nuclei of the atmospheric atoms (i.e. charge of the strangelet remains constant), the protons being coulomb repelled. It should nonetheless be realized that in the earlier phase of the journey, when the relative velocity between the strangelet and the air molecule is large, some protons will indeed be absorbed, albeit with a lower cross section than that for neutron capture. As the strangelet builds up in mass as well as in charge, the coulomb barrier at the surface of the strangelet gets steeper and the relative velocity also gets further reduced. This will slow down the charge transfer process and ultimately inhibit it. Also, one cannot avoid the issue of loss of energy of the strangelet through ionisation of the surrounding media. As we shall see, the ionisation losses, which become quite significant at comparatively low altitudes, actually provides a lower limit to the height at which the strangelets can be detected successfully.

In this letter, we therefore try to explore the consequences of the absorption of protons by the strangelets in course of their journey through the terrestrial atmosphere in a relativistic setting. The equation of motion (2) can be generalized to a relativistic form in a straightforward manner:

$$\gamma m_s\frac{d\stackrel{}{v}}{dt}=m_s\stackrel{}{g}+q(\stackrel{}{v}\times \stackrel{}{B})\gamma \stackrel{}{v}\left(\frac{dm_{s_n}}{dt}+\frac{dm_{s_p}}{dt}\right)m_s\stackrel{}{v}\frac{d\gamma }{dt}\frac{f(v)}{\sqrt{3}}\stackrel{}{v}$$
(3)
where $`\gamma `$ is the Lorentz factor. The third term takes care of the deceleration of the strangelet due to the absorption of neutron as well as protons, where the proton absorption term is related to the neutron absorption term as

$$\frac{dm_{s_p}}{dt}=\frac{\sigma _p}{\sigma _n}\frac{dm_{s_n}}{dt}f_{pn}\frac{dm_{s_n}}{dt}$$
(4)
where $`\sigma _p`$ and $`\sigma _n`$ are the cross sections for neutron and proton absorption, respectively. Treating, classically, the proton of energy $`E`$ as a free charged particle of unit charge in the repulsive coulomb field of the strangelet, we can easily estimate the minimum separation $`r_{min}`$ along the trajectory to be given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{(mv_ob)^2}{2mr_{min}}}+U(r_{min})=E`$

where $`U(r)`$ represents the potential energy of the proton due to the coulomb field of the strangelet; $`v_o`$ is the relative speed with which the $`N_2`$ nuclei (and hence, its constituent protons) approach the strangelet and $`b`$ is the impact parameter. Assuming that charge transfer can take place when $`r_{min}R_s`$ (the radius of the strangelet), the corresponding value of $`b(b_c)`$ is $`b_c^2=R_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(1U(R_s)/E)`$, so that the proton capture cross section ( $`\sigma _p`$ ) by a strangelet of atomic number $`Z_s`$ is $`\sigma _p=\pi b_c^2=\pi R_s^2\left[1\frac{Z_Se^2}{4\pi ϵ_0R_S}/E\right]`$.

In contrast, the scattering cross section for neutrons ($`\sigma _n`$) is just $`\pi (r_n+R_S)^2`$ and hence,

$$f_{pn}=\frac{R_s^2}{(r_n+R_s)^2}\left(1\frac{1}{E}\frac{Z_se^2}{4\pi ϵ_0R_s}\right)$$
(5)
Finally, the last term of equation (3) accounts for the ionisation loss. The expression for $`f(v)`$ is given by

$$f(v)=\frac{dE}{dx}=\frac{Z_s^2e^4nZ_{med}}{4\pi ϵ_0^2m_ev^2}ln\left(\frac{b_{max}}{b_{min}}\right)$$
(6)
Here, $`n`$ represents the number density of the atmospheric atoms at a particular altitude, $`Z_{med}`$ is the number of electrons per atom of $`N_2`$ which can be ionised, $`m_e`$ is the mass of the electron and $`b_{max}`$ and $`b_{min}`$ are the maximum and minimum values of the impact parameter. At large velocities, expression (6) reduces to, with $`I`$ denoting the average ionising energy,

$$f(v)=\frac{Z_s^2e^4nZ_{med}}{4\pi ϵ_0^2m_ev^2}ln\left(\gamma ^2\frac{2m_sv^2}{I}\beta ^2\right)$$
(7)
However, when the velocity of the strangelet falls below a critical value $`v2Z_sv_0`$( $`v_0=2.2\times 10^6m/s`$ is the speed of the electron in the first Bohr orbit), electron capture becomes significant which can be accounted for by the replacement $`Z_sZ_s^{\frac{1}{3}}\frac{v}{v_o}`$ .

Equation (3) was solved by the $`4^{th}`$ order Runge-Kutta method with different sets of initial mass, charge and $`\beta `$. It may be mentioned at this point that the first term in eqn (3) is not important in magnitude, as is to be expected. We have nonetheless included it for numerical stability. This serves to define the downward vertical direction in the vector algorithm, especially for very small initial velocities.

In figure 1, we have plotted final masses (for initial masses 42, 54, 60 and 64 $`amu`$ ) with initial $`\beta `$ for a fixed initial charge 2. This graph shows the following interesting feature; the final value of the mass decreases at first with increasing values of the initial $`\beta `$ and then begins to increase again after a critical value of $`\beta `$ is reached. This feature, although not apparent from the curve corresponding to the initial mass $`M=64amu`$, clearly reveals itself for lower initial masses. From the same figure, it can also be inferred that the value of $`\beta `$ where the ’dip’ occurs shifts to the left with increasing values of the initial mass. Although mathematically delicate ( it can be seen from eqn(3) that a higher value of speed leads to an increasing value of the mass increment, which in turn slows down the particle), a qualitative explanation of this feature might be given as follows. One can think of the total region through which the strangelet travels being divided into two distinct subregions. In subregion I, corresponding to higher altitudes, the number of atmospheric particles is small, while this number is considerably larger in subregion II, corresponding to lower altitudes. For small initial mass (smaller size), the strangelet has a greater chance to escape subregion I if $`\beta `$ is higher, so that it will pick up lesser mass from this region. On the other hand, if $`\beta `$ is very high, the volume that the strangelet sees will be contracted (the twisted tube through which it travels will be constricted) as a result of which it will interact with a greater number of atmospheric particles whence it will pick up a larger number of nucleons. It is clear that for an initially bigger (more massive) strangelet, this critical value of $`\beta `$ will be lower, as it will be able to sweep through a larger number of atmospheric particles right from the start.

Let us now consider a representative set of data with initial mass 64 $`amu`$ and charge 2 for detailed discussion. The results for $`\beta _0=0.6`$ are shown in figures 2 and 3, where the variation of speed ($`\beta `$) and the energy of the strangelet with altitude are depicted. The sharp change seen at $``$ 13 km corresponds to the onset of electron capture, which is handled phenomenologically through the effective $`Z_s`$. The insets of figures 2 and 3 show a zoomed-up view of the respective quantities near the endpoint of the journey. It is apparent from the figures that the ionisation term reduces the overall energy and speed considerably from the nondissipative situation . However, the zoomed-up insets in figs.2 and 3 show that the strangelets may have enough energy to be detectable at an altitude of 3.6 km from the sea level. For example, for the values of the initial quantities $`m_{s_o}`$ and $`\beta _o`$ shown here, the strangelet is left with a kinetic energy $``$8.5 MeV (corresponding to $`\frac{dE}{dx}=2.35MeV/mg/cm^2`$ in a Solid State Nuclear Track Detector (SSNTD) like CR-39), which, although small, is just above the threshold of detection $`(\frac{dE}{dx})_{crit}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}2MeV/mg/cm^2`$ for $`\beta <10^2`$ in CR-39 for the present configuration. Below this height, the possibility of their detection with passive detectors like SSNTD reduces to almost zero.

Table 2 lists the final values of the quantities mass, charge, $`\beta `$, and the energy of the strangelet at the end of the journey for different initial velocities. A comparison between tables 1 and 2 shows that the final masses and charges are very similar to the ones found in cosmic ray events.

In conclusion, we have presented a model for the propagation of cosmic strangelets of none-too-large size through the terrestrial atmosphere and shown that when proper account of charge and mass transfer as well as ionisation loss is taken, they may indeed reach mountain altitudes, so that a ground based large detector experiment would have a good chance of detecting them.

The works of SB and SKG were supported in part by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Government of India, New Delhi.


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# Equilibration and Dynamic Phase Transitions of a Driven Vortex Lattice

\[

## Abstract

We report on the observation of two types of current driven transitions in metastable vortex lattices. The metastable states, which are missed in usual slow transport measurements, are detected with a fast transport technique in the vortex lattice of undoped 2H-NbSe2. The transitions are seen by following the evolution of these states when driven by a current. At low currents we observe an equilibration transition from a metastable to a stable state, followed by a dynamic crystallization transition at high currents.

\]

Vortices in type II superconductors are easily trapped in long lived metastable states created by the random pinning potential. A driving current assists in vortex de-trapping and in finding the stable states, in essence assuming the role of temperature in ordinary phase transitions. This analogy was pointed out by Koshelev-Vinokur (KV) who showed that when the vortices are set in motion by a current $`I`$, the random potential appears as a temporally fluctuating Langevin force in the moving frame . The random potential can then be replaced by a ”shaking temperature” $`T_s1/I`$, which leads to a simpler problem of a pure system at an effective temperature $`T_{eff}=T+T_s`$. Thus, if the pure system crystallizes at a temperature $`T_m`$, the actual system will crystallize when driven by a current $`I_t(T_mT)^1`$. This KV transition separates a disordered state at low currents from an ordered one at high currents. Further work  predicted that the transition is preceded by a regime of plastic flow followed by smectic ordering. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) on the field-cooled (FC) vortex lattice in undoped 2H-NbSe2  provided evidence for current induced ordering. This data are generally accepted as direct evidence for the KV transition despite the fact that for usual slow transport measurements under the same experimental conditions the transition is absent . This discrepancy could be an indication of metastability in the FC vortex state, in which case the observed ordering in the SANS data would be an equilibration rather than the KV transition. Thus far however metastability in the vortex lattice of undoped 2H-NbSe2 was thought to be absent .

In this letter we present results of fast transport measurements that demonstrate the existence of metastable states in undoped 2H-NbSe2. The experiments probe the dynamic transitions with emphasis on distinguishing between equilibration and the KV-transition. We show that the current induced transition in the FC state is in fact an equilibration from a disordered metastable state to an ordered stable state and not the KV transition. We further find that in the peak effect region (a region of the phase diagram, just below Hc2 where the critical current increases with field and temperature) the vortex lattice can undergo two current induced transitions. The first is an equilibration transition observed at low currents which is then followed by the KV crystallization at much higher currents.

The sample was an undoped single crystal 2H-NbSe2 platelet of dimensions 1.5x0.65x0.025mm3. Its critical temperature $`T_c`$ was $`7.1`$K , the transition width 80 mK and the normal resistance near $`T_c`$ was $`21`$x10$`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{\Omega }`$. A four probe measurement with low resistance AgIn solder contacts was used to monitor vortex response. The response to fast current ramps - 200A/s- was detected with a fast (2$`\mu s`$ response time) amplifier while the slow ramp -$`5\times 10^5`$A/s - measurements were obtained with a Keithley 181 nanovoltmeter. The magnetic field was kept along the $`c`$ axis of the sample and the current was in the $`ab`$ plane. The zero-field-cooled (ZFC) and the FC vortex lattices were prepared by applying the magnetic field after or before cooling the sample through $`T_c`$ respectively in the absence of applied current. The degree of order of the vortex lattice was inferred from the critical current, $`I_c`$, (defined by a 5$`\mu `$V response criterion) by using the Larkin-Ovchinnikov model , according to which $`I_c`$ grows with the degree of disorder.

In Fig.1 we compare the current-voltage ($`IV`$) curves of the FC and ZFC lattices. When probed with slow current ramps the response of the two states is identical and no evidence of metastability is observed. This is in contrast to results in Fe doped 2H-NbSe2 where strong metastability and hysteresis were found in slow transport measurements. Here the temperature dependence of the critical currents (inset of Fig. 1(a)) is the same for both states, and exhibits a pronounced peak effect just below $`T_c`$. But in spite of the identical response in slow measurements, the initial vortex states prepared by ZFC and by FC are not identical.

The difference between the two states becomes evident only in fast measurements. This is illustrated in Fig.1 (b) where significant hysteresis is seen when comparing the fast $`IV`$ curve for the pristine FC state, measured on the first ramp-up of the current, with that recorded when the current is ramped down. The critical current of the pristine FC state is almost twice that of the annealed state recorded on the down ramp, indicating that it is more disordered. By contrast the pristine ZFC state starts out with a low critical current, is unchanged by current cycling and its $`IV`$ curves are independent of ramping speeds. We conclude that the ZFC state is ordered and stable. For the FC state, the $`IV`$ curves obtained after the first ramp up (including the ramp down and all subsequent ramps) are identical to those of the ZFC state indicating that the FC lattice reorders during the first ramp. It follows that the FC lattice is initially in a disordered metastable state which reorganizes under the influence of a current into a stable ordered configuration.

The current driven organization of the FC lattice is seen directly in the inset of Fig.1(b) through the evolution of the response to a current step. After an initial waiting time the response starts growing from zero as the vortices order into a state with lower critical current, and saturates to a value that depends on the amplitude of the applied current. In order to study the current dependence of the reorganization the pristine FC state was driven with long (100sec) current steps and then quenched by suddenly removing the current. When the current is removed the evolution of the vortex state is arrested instantaneously and then resumes from the exact same state when the current is turned back on. This is clearly seen in the inset of Fig.1(b). Thus, when the quenched state is probed by recording the $`IV`$ curve with a fast current ramp the critical current reflects the degree of order of the state at the moment of quenching.

In Fig.2(a) we plot the critical current of the quenched state as a function of current-step amplitude. No evolution is seen until $`I^{}=`$6.7mA where we note the onset of a sharp transition from disordered state (higher $`I_c`$) to ordered state (lower $`I_c`$). The transition is completed at $`I_{cs}=`$8 mA, at which point the voltage response becomes measurable in the $`IV`$ curve. Also shown are the results for the same experiment on the pristine ZFC lattice and the annealed FC and ZFC lattices. The vortex lattice was annealed with a slow ($`5\times 10^5`$A/s) cycle of the current between 0 and 50 mA. The absence of a jump in $`I_c`$ indicates that the current does not cause ordering of the ZFC and annealed states. For higher amplitude current steps, $`I>I_{cs}`$ the $`IV`$ curves of all quenched states are identical, regardless of the initial state. The transition at $`I^{}`$ is the same as that seen in the SANS measurements and interpreted as the KV crystallization . But the fact that it occurs at such low currents makes it an unlikely candidate for the KV transition. This is confirmed by the temperature dependence of $`I^{}`$, shown in Fig.2(b). Here $`I^{}`$ decreases with increasing temperature, in contrast to the predicted increase with temperature for the KV-transition. We conclude that $`I^{}`$ is not where the KV transition occurs but rather the onset of a current driven equilibration from the metastable disordered FC state to a stable ordered state.

To further illustrate the difference between the equilibration and the KV transition we repeated the above experiment in the peak effect region, where the KV transition  and a current driven reorganization in the the ZFC lattice were seen with transport measurements. Since much higher currents are required in order to observe the KV transition, Joule heating needs to be considered. For example, for a 45 mA (the highset current in Fig.3) continuous current drive, a temperature increase of 25 mK in the sample was detected. The details on the determination of Joule heating in these experiments is presented elsewhere . To avoid heating at high currents we apply the current step in a sequence of short, 10$`\mu `$s, pulses separated by 500$`\mu `$s cooling intervals with no current. For currents below 15mA pulsing was not necessary since heating was negligible (less than 3mK) and the measured $`I_c`$ was the same for continuous and pulsed applications. In the following discussion we focus on the data which show no heating. In Fig.3(a) we show the critical current of the quenched vortex lattice following the application of 100s current steps of various amplitudes. At low currents $`II^{}`$=4.5mA no measurable change occurs in the vortex states. For higher currents, $`I^{}<I<I_{cs}`$=8.6mA the current driven organization sets in, affecting each state differently. The critical current of the FC state drops rapidly, that of the ZFC state increases while the annealed lattice curve is almost unchanged. At $`I_{cs}`$ all the curves converge, overlapping at higher currents, which indicates that in this regime the vortex state is determined by the driving current alone and is independent of the initial preparation. The critical current decreases with increasing current step amplitude saturating at a value which is lower than that of the stationary vortex lattices, as expected for the KV transition.

In order to identify the KV crystallization we follow the usual approach in transport measurements focusing on the shape of the differential resistance curve shown in Fig. 3(b). The differential resistance is vanishly small for low currents and becomes finite only above $`I_{cs}`$ where metastability has disappeared. As the current is increased further the curve rises to a maximum value of 21.7 $`m\mathrm{\Omega }`$ reached at $`I_p=20.4mA`$ and then drops down saturating at the Bardeen-Stephen free flux flow value $`R_{BS}`$= 18m$`\mathrm{\Omega }=R_nH/H_{c2}`$ at $`I_t=`$28.8mA. Its shape can be interpreted according to numerical simulations on the motional organization of a vortex lattice : at low velocities the motion is plastic leading to a defective lattice. The defect density increases with velocity resulting in a corresponding increase in differential resistance which peaks at $`I_p`$. At this point the vortices move in an array of almost periodic channels forming a smectic state characterized by transverse order alone. As the velocity is further increased the vortices order inside the channels eventually crystallizing at $`I_t`$. The temperature dependence of $`I_t`$, shown in Fig.4, is consistent with the KV prediction for the crystallization with $`T_m=4.37\pm 0.01`$K. In the same figure we also show the curves for $`I^{}`$, $`I_{cs}`$, $`I_p`$ and $`I_t`$ which separate the different dynamic regimes of the moving vortex system as described in the caption.

In both sets of measurements presented here the FC state is initially metastable and can reorganize into a stable state when driven by a current. The reorganization sets in at a current $`I^{}`$ which is significantly lower than the critical current of the pristine FC state. Below the peak region, the FC state undergoes an equilibration transition at $`I^{}`$ which leads to an ordered stable state indistinguishable from the ZFC state. By contrast the ZFC state is unaffected by the current. For the data in the peak effect region, vortex reorganization sets in at $`I^{}`$ for $`both`$ the FC and ZFC states, one becoming more ordered the other more disordered until, at $`I_{cs}`$, they merge into a single state and loose the distinction of their initial preparation. Thus, by analogy with the equilibration transition seen below the peak region, we conclude that in this part of the phase diagram the initial FC and ZFC states are both metastable and $`I^{}`$ is the onset of a current driven equilibration transition to a mixed stable state.

Several aspects of this data can be understood in the context of recent Hall probe measurements on Fe doped samples which have shown that in the peak effect region a stable disordered phase can be injected through a surface barrier at the sample edges. This mechanism can readily account for the disordering of the ZFC vortex lattice as indicated in Fig. 3 and in Ref. . In fact it is possible that $`I^{}`$ is associated with a surface barrier, so that bulk vortices are not subject to a Lorentz force until $`I^{}`$ is exceeded. Other features of the data can be described in terms of the phenomenological parameter for the distance that the disordered phase penetrates into the sample, $`L_r(T,H,I)`$. For example $`L_r0`$ below the peak where the ordered state is stable , but it is finite at low velocities in the peak region where the two phases coexist. At high velocities, where the random potential is averaged out in the moving vortex frame, $`L_r0`$ which leads to a stable ordered state.

In summary, the experiments described here demonstrate that a metastable vortex lattice can undergo two types of current driven transitions. Below the peak effect region we observed a current driven equilibration transition from a metastable disordered state to a stable ordered one. In the peak effect region we detected both the equilibration and the KV transitions.

We thank A. Rosch, E. Zeldov and Y. Paltiel for useful discussions. Work supported by NSF-DMR-9705389 and DOE DE-FG02-99ER45742.


text:
# The dusty SF history of distant galaxies and modelling tools

## 1. Introduction

In the last few years, a remarkable number of studies of the high-z universe have been devoted to the determination of the cosmic history of star formation $`SFR(z)`$. The main motivation for these efforts is that baryons are the only observational tracers of the evolution of large scale structures, which are driven by the gravitational collapse of dark matter (DM). The function $`SFR(z)`$ in principle constrains cosmogonic theories for the build up of structures, with the obvious, but sometimes underestimated, caveat that baryons assembly is strongly affected also by a much more complex physics than dark matter.

In the local universe surveyed by IRAS $`30\%`$ of the energy is dust reprocessed: if the same were true at high–z, optical–UV observations would suffice to determine $`SFR(z)`$ with a small uncertainty. But the IRAS observations demonstrated as well that in local galaxies dust reprocessing is an increasing function of the star formation activity, and can’t be reliably determined by UV and optical data alone. This is vividly illustrated for instance by figure 2 of Sanders and Mirabel (1996), which shows that infrared-selected galaxies range over 3 order of magnitude in $`L_{ir}`$, while the optical luminosity change only by a factor of 3-4, with minor differences in the shape of the optical-UV SED.

It is therefore quite natural to suspect that in the more active young universe an higher fraction of star luminosity was reprocessed by dust.

## 2. The dusty SF history of galaxies

Indeed, several pieces of evidence have shown that most of the SF in the high–z universe is dust obscured or dimmed to a substantial degree: (1) The discovery of a cosmic far-IR/sub-mm background by the COBE satellite (Puget et al 1996, Fixsen et al 1998, Hauser et al 1998), whose energy density, which is at least a factor 2-3 larger than the optical-UV one, indicates that a large fraction of the energy radiated by stars over the history of the universe has been reprocessed by dust. (2) The discovery that the population of star forming galaxies at $`z24`$ that have been detected through their strong Lyman-break features are substantially extincted in the rest-frame UV (Pettini et al 1998, Steidel et al 1999). (3) The discovery of a population of sub-mm sources at high redshift ($`z>1`$) using SCUBA, whose luminosities, if they are powered by star formation in dust-enshrouded galaxies, imply very large star formation rates ($`10^2M_{}\text{yr}^1`$), and a total star formation density comparable to what is inferred from the UV luminosities of the Lyman-break galaxies (Smail et al 1997, Hughes et al 1998, Lilly et al 1999). (4) The ISO detection of a population of strong IR sources; 15 $`\mu `$m ISOCAM (Oliver et al 1997) and 175 $`\mu `$m ISOPHOT surveys (Kawara et al 1998, Puget et al 1999) show a population of actively star forming galaxies at $`0.4<z<1.3`$, which boosts the cosmic star formation density by a factor $`3`$ with respect to that estimated in the optical from the CFRS. For (1) and (3), there is the caveat that the contribution from dust-enshrouded AGNs to the sub-mm counts and background is currently uncertain, but probably the AGNs do not dominate (e.g. Granato, Danese & Franceschini 1997).

A summary of the present status of the determination of $`SFR(z)`$ is given for instance by figure 17 of Genzel and Cesarsky (2000). The main point is that while a few years ago it was claimed, based on optical observation, that this function has a peak at $`z1`$ and declines at higher redshift, it is now clear instead that $`SFR(z)`$ steeply increases between $`z=0`$ and $`z=1`$, but than stays flat to at least $`z4`$.

## 3. Implications

As already mentioned, the determination of $`SFR(z)`$ aims to constrain cosmogonic scenarios. In the past decades, two extreme opposite possibilities have been studied:

(1) monolithic models (e.g. Eggen, Lynden-Bell & Sandage 1962, Larson 1975, etc), characterized by a timetable for SF dependent on morphological type, and by an evolution of galaxies as individual units. In particular, ellipticals had a huge burst of SF at high z, followed by a monolithic/passive evolution.

(2) By converse, according to hierarchical clustering models (e.g. White & Rees 1978, White & Frenk 1991), massive objects formed at late times by the merging of smaller subunits, and therefore the assembly of massive ellipticals occurred at $`z<1`$;

The early claims of a $`SFR(z)`$ peaking around $`z1`$ were warmly welcome as a success of the prediction of hierarchical clustering models, but as already remarked the observational situation has now changed.

Without going into the details of the evidences in favor or against the two scenarios above, it seems now that clear they are converging to some intermediate point. Indeed monolithic models have been originally developed focusing on astrophysical arguments concerning luminous matter. By converse, the merging picture has been mostly driven by the predicted evolution of dark matter halos through hierarchical clustering. For instance, on one hand, a more prolonged SF for field ellipticals has been proposed (e.g. Franceschini et al. 1998) and a role of merging below $`z1`$ is apparent from optical surveys (Schade et al. 1999 and references therein). On the other hand present semi-analytical models, while reproducing several observations, are seriously at odd with SCUBA counts (Silva 1999), and do not reproduce the observed trends of $`\alpha `$-enhancement in ellipticals (Thomas & Kauffmann, 2000).

The emerging picture (say the ”middleman” scenario, e.g. Schade et al 1999) is that massive ellipticals assembly most of their stellar mass early (e.g. $`z>3`$) but some fraction of stars form later ($`z<2`$). To obtain this, the simplified prescriptions adopted by semi-analytical models to describe the complex behavior of baryons in DM halos need some revision.

## 4. Modelling tools

In any case, the recent discoveries demonstrate that in order to understand the history of star formation in the universe from observational data, a unified picture, covering all wavelengths from the far-UV to the sub-mm, is indispensable. The UV and the far-IR are especially important, since young stellar populations emit most of their radiation in the rest-frame UV, but a significant fraction of this is dust reprocessed into the rest-frame far-IR. Therefore (i) panchromatic observations, with proper emphasis on the mid-IR to the sub-mm, are required and (ii) these observations should be interpreted using spectral synthesis tools taking into account dust reprocessing in a decorous way.

The spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of model galaxies are computed with the spectral synthesis technique. If dust were negligible in the system, as it is usually assumed to be the case in local elliptical galaxies, the only required ingredients would be (1) the distribution of stars in age and metallicity, and (2) a library of Simple Stellar Population spectra (SSPs), i.e. the integrated spectrum of a single generation of stars of given initial mass function (IMF), age and metallicity.

Then the galaxy SED at a given age $`t_G`$ would be given by a simple integral over its past history. For a monolithic evolution model, were there is a one to one relationship $`Z(t)`$ between the galactic age and its metallicity, we have:

$$L_\lambda (t_G)=_0^{t_G}SSP_\lambda (t_Gt,Z(t))\times SFR(t)𝑑t$$
(1)
were $`SFR(t)`$ is the star formation rate.

In merging models there is no unique age-metallicity relation $`Z(t)`$, since each galaxy results from the ’combination’ of several progenitor galaxies which have merged to produce that galaxy. The progenitor galaxies each had their own star formation and chemical history. In this case a birthrate function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(t,Z)`$ is introduced, where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(t,Z)dtdZ`$ gives the mass of stars that were formed in the time interval $`(t,t+dt)`$ with metallicities in the range $`(Z,Z+dZ)`$. The composite $`\mathrm{\Psi }(t,Z)`$ in general has a broad distribution of metallicity at each age, and the above integral has to be replaced by a slightly more complicated computation:

$$L_\lambda (t_G)=𝑑Z_0^{t_G}SSP_\lambda (t_Gt,Z)\times \mathrm{\Psi }(t,Z)𝑑t$$
(2)
But the true complexity arises whenever dust reprocessing must be taken into account, which is the rule for star forming systems. Dust absorbs and scatters photons very effectively below $`1\mu `$m, and thermally reradiates the absorbed energy above a few $`\mu `$m. This yields large modifications in the SED. These effects require radiative transfer computation of starlight through dust. This is by itself a major complication, since in any geometry with a minimum of realism the radiative transfer can be done only by means of numerical techniques. But the worst problem is that the results are a strong function of the optical properties of dust and of the geometrical arrangement of dust and stars, introducing several parameters and uncertainties in the models.

Concerning the dust optical properties, they are relatively well understood in our own galaxy, but they are known to be a function of the environment. At least three different sites of interaction between stellar photons and dust grains need separate consideration: AGB envelopes, molecular clouds (MCs), diffuse ISM. Moreover variations of dust properties even within each of these environments are known to exist. Further complications come from the presence of small grains, which are not in thermal equilibrium with the radiation field and whose emission has to be computed by means of statistical techniques, and/or by modelling the carriers of unidentified IR bands, likely Policiclyc Aromatic Hydrocarbons.

As for the geometry of stars and dust, it is certainly much more complex than that adopted in most models. At very least two phases in the ISM should be considered: besides a relatively smooth diffuse ISM, responsible in the Galaxy of the cirrus emission discovered by IRAS, a clumpy component, the MCs, is present. Moreover, since the birth and first evolutionary stages of stellar lives occur in MCs, the ’primary source’ of radiation is clumpy as well, since the younger the stars the more closely associated to MCs they are.

Several papers in the last few years tried to address some of these technical or astrophysical difficulties, which are on the other hand the minimal requirements for a meaningful modelling of UV to sub-mm SED of star forming galaxies. A non exhaustive briefly commented list of most recent models follows:

* Witt, Thronson & Capuano (1992), Gordon, Calzetti & Witt (1997), Fioc & Rocca Volmerange (1997, PEGASE), Ferrara et al. (1999), Bianchi et al. (2000) considered only the extinction effects of dust. These models, with the only exception of PEGASE, use Monte Carlo methods, allowing a treatment of scattering with an accuracy difficult to reach with other methods, which however tend to be much faster. Monte Carlo computations are therefore particularly suited for detailed comparison with optical images of single spiral galaxies. However in all but Bianchi et al. (2000) paper the assumed geometry is more or less oversimplified with respect to real galaxies, lacking in particular the consideration of molecular clouds and their association with young stars.
* Other authors (e.g. Mazzei, De Zotti & Xu 1994; Devriendt, Guiderdoni & Sadat 1999: STARDUST) included also a computation of dust emission, but with substantial simplifications. In the latter paper, dust absorption is modelled assuming a 1D slab geometry, and the dust temperature distribution is not predicted. Instead, the dust emission spectrum is modelled as the sum of several components, whose temperatures and relative strengths are chosen so as to reproduce the observed correlations of IR colors with IR luminosity found by IRAS in the local Universe. While this kind of approach is undoubtedly very simple and has relatively few parameters, it is not directly linked to the physics of dust emission. Therefore it lacks of predictive power for systems very different from the local galaxies against which it has been calibrated. In particular it may be limitative for high redshift applications.
* Efstathiou, Rowan–Robinson & Siebenmorgen (2000) and Bianchi et al. (1999) also included dust emission, but still with some restrictions. The first paper introduces a simple physical treatment of the time evolution of GMC, but, being thought for applications to starburst galaxies, it neglects the effects of diffuse dust. These are important at least for normal spirals but to some level even for weak starbursts. The latter paper represents probably the state of the art of Monte Carlo models in this field. The only limitation, besides the intrinsic slowness of the method, is that small grains and PAH are not yet included, preventing the comparison with MIR data.

The only general purpose model in which all the geometric and optical properties issues listed above have been addressed is GRASIL (Silva, Granato, Bressan & Danese 1998, executables are available for download at http://grana.pd.astro.it/). This stellar population + dust model includes a realistic 3D geometry, with a disk and bulge, two phase dust in clouds and in the diffuse ISM, star formation in the clouds, radiative transfer of starlight through the dust distribution, a realistic dust grain model including PAHs and quantum heating of small grains, and a direct prediction of the dust temperature distribution at each point in the galaxy based on a calculation of dust heating and cooling. The adopted algorithm allows its use in applications requiring predicted SEDs from the UV to the sub-mm of thousands of galaxies, in reasonable computing time (e.g. Granato et al. 2000). The comparison with results from more precise Monte Carlo computations is on the other hand very positive (for details see http://grana.pd.astro.it/). GRASIL is the first published model taking into account a progressive escape of young stars from the thickest phase of the ISM, namely the parent molecular clouds. This feature has proven to be fundamental to understand UV properties of galaxies, in particular the shallow and featureless attenuation law of starburst galaxies (see Granato et al. 2000 for details).

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text:
# Complex Scaling of the Faddeev OperatorThis work is supported in part by the Academia Sinica, the National Science Council (ROC), and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

## Abstract

The work is devoted to comparison of two different approaches to calculation of three-body resonances on the basis of the Faddeev differential equations. The first one is the well known complex scaling approach. The second method is based on an immediate calculation of the zeros of the scattering matrix continued to the physical sheet.

For years the complex scaling  is considered as one of the most convenient methods for calculation of resonances. This method gives a possibility to rotate the continuous spectrum of an $`N`$-body Hamiltonian with analytic potentials. The binding energies stay fixed in this rotation while the resonances appear as additional complex eigenvalues of the scaled Hamiltonian situated in the sectors of the unphysical sheets which become accessible during the scaling transformation. Surveys of the literature on the complex scaling method and its various applications can be found in . Here we only note that for a rather wide class of the interaction potentials the complex-scaling resonances are proved to be at the same time the scattering-matrix resonances  (i. e. they are also the poles of the scattering matrix analytically continued in corresponding unphysical sheets).

Various different methods, of course, are also used for calculations of the resonances. Among the methods developed to calculate directly the scatering-matrix resonances we, first, mention the approach based on the momentum space Faddeev integral equations  (see, e. g., Ref.  and references cited therein). In this approach one numerically solves these equations continued into an unphysical sheet and, thus, the three-body resonances arise as the poles of the continued T-matrix. Another approach to calculation of the scattering-matrix resonances is based on the explicit representations  for the T- and S-matrices, continued into unphysical sheets, in terms of the physical sheet. From these representations one infers that the three-body resonances can be found as zeros of certain truncations of the scattering matrix only taken in the physical sheet. Such an approach can be employed even in the coordinate representation .

To the best of our knowledge there are no published works applying the scaling approach to the Faddeev equations. Thus, the purpose of the present work is two-fold. On the one hand, we make, for the first time, the complex scaling of the Faddeev differential equations. On the other hand we compare the complex scaling method with the scattering-matrix approach . We do this making use of both the approaches to examine a model system of three bosons having the nucleon masses and the three-nucleon ($`nnp`$) system itself.

We start with recalling that the three-body Schrödinger operator $`H_{3b}`$ reads after the scaling transorm as follows

$`H_{3b}(\vartheta )=U(\vartheta )H_{3b}U(\vartheta )=\mathrm{e}^{2\vartheta }\mathrm{\Delta }_X+{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}v_\alpha (\mathrm{e}^\vartheta |x_\alpha |),\alpha =1,2,3.`$ (1)
where $`\vartheta =\mathrm{i}\theta `$ with $`\theta `$ while $`x_\alpha ,y_\alpha `$ are the standard Jacobi variables, $`X(x_\alpha ,y_\alpha )`$. By $`\mathrm{\Delta }_X`$ we understand the 6–dimensional Laplacian and by $`v_\alpha `$, the two-body potentials. The corresponding scaled Faddeev equations that we solve have the following form:

$`[\mathrm{e}^{2\vartheta }\mathrm{\Delta }_X+v_\alpha (\mathrm{e}^\vartheta |x_\alpha |)z]\mathrm{\Phi }^{(\alpha )}(X)+v_\alpha (\mathrm{e}^\vartheta |x_\alpha |){\displaystyle \underset{\beta \alpha }{}}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(\beta )}(X)=f_\alpha (X),\alpha =1,2,3.`$ (2)
Here $`f=(f_1,f_2,f_3)`$ is an arbitrary three-component vector with components $`f_\alpha `$ belonging to the three-body Hilbert space. The partial-wave version of the equations (2) for a system of three identical bosons with $`L=0`$ reads

$`\mathrm{e}^{2\mathrm{i}\theta }H_0^{(l)}\mathrm{\Phi }_l(x,y)z\mathrm{\Phi }_l(x,y)+V(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\theta }x)\mathrm{\Psi }_l(x,y)=f_l(x,y),`$ (3)
Here, $`H_0^{(l)}`$ denotes the partial kinetic energy operator and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_l`$, the partial-wave component of the sum $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1)}+\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}+\mathrm{\Phi }^{(3)}`$. Explicit expression for $`H_0^{(l)}`$ as well as a formula explicitly relating $`\mathrm{\Phi }_l`$ to $`\mathrm{\Psi }_l`$ can be found, e. g., in .

For compactly supported inhomogeneus terms $`f_l(x,y)`$ the partial-wave Faddeev component $`\mathrm{\Phi }_l(x,y)`$ satisfies the asymptotic condition

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\Phi }_l(x,y)\hfill & =\hfill & \delta _{l0}\psi _d(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\theta }x)\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{i}\sqrt{E_tϵ_d}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\theta }y)\left[\mathrm{a}_0+o\left(y^{1/2}\right)\right]\hfill \\ & +\hfill & \frac{\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{i}\sqrt{E_t}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\theta }\rho )}{\sqrt{\rho }}\left[A_l(y/x)+o\left(\rho ^{1/2}\right)\right],\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
where $`\psi _d(x)`$ stands for the wave function of the two-body subsystem while $`\mathrm{a}_0`$ and $`A_l(y/x)`$ the main asymptotical coefficients effectively describing the contributions to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_l`$ from the elastic $`(22)`$ and breakup $`(23)`$ channels, respectively.

In the scaling method a resonance is looked for as the energy $`z`$ which produces a pole to the function

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\theta ,z)=\left[H_F(\theta )z\right]^1f,f$$
(5)
where $`H_F(\theta )`$ is the non-selfadjoint operator resulting from the complex-scaling transformation of the Faddeev operator. This is just the operator constituted by the l. h. s. parts of Eqs. (2). The resonance energies should not, of course, depend on the scaling parameter $`\theta `$ and on the choice of the terms $`f_l(x,y)`$.

In the table we present our results obtained for a complex-scaling resonance in the model three-body system which consists of identical bosons having the nucleon mass. To describe interacation between them we employ a Gauss-type potential with a barrier term taken from Ref.  the barrier value $`V_b`$ (see  for details) being fixed, $`V_b=1.5`$. The figures in the table correspond to the roots of the inverse function $`[\mathrm{\Phi }(\theta ,z)]^1`$ calculated on the basis of the finite-difference apporoximation of Eqs. (3 – 4) in polar coordinates. Description of the finite-difference algorithm used can be found in Ref. . In the present calculation we have taken up to 400 knots in both hyperradius and hyperangle variables while for the cut-off hyperradius we take 40 fm. One observes from the table that the position of the resonance depends very weakly on the scaling parameter $`\theta `$ which confirms a good numerical quality of our results.

| $`\theta `$ | $`z_{\mathrm{res}}`$ (MeV) | $`\theta `$ | $`z_{\mathrm{res}}`$ (MeV) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 0.25 | $`5.95250.4034\mathrm{i}`$ | 0.50 | $`5.95260.4032\mathrm{i}`$ |
| 0.30 | $`5.95260.4033\mathrm{i}`$ | 0.60 | $`5.95260.4033\mathrm{i}`$ |
| 0.40 | $`5.95260.4032\mathrm{i}`$ | 0.70 | $`5.95260.4034\mathrm{i}`$ |

We compare the resonance values of the table to the resonance value $`z_{\mathrm{res}}=5.9520.403\mathrm{i}`$ MeV obtained for the same three-boson system with exactly the same potentials but in the completely different scattering-matrix approach of Ref. . We see that, indeed, both the complex scaling and the scattering matrix approaches give the same result.

As to the $`nnp`$ system where we employed the MT I–III  model, both these methods give no resonances on the two-body unphysical sheet (see ). Also we have found no resonances in the part of the three-body sheet accessible via the scaling method. Thus, at least in the framework of the MT I–III model we can not confirm the experimatal result of Ref.  in which the point $`1.5\pm 0.3\mathrm{i}(0.3\pm 0.15)`$ MeV was interpreted as a resonance corresponding to an exited state of the triton.

The triton virtual state can be only calculated within a scattering-matrix method but not in the scaling approach. Our present improved scattering-matrix result for the triton virtual state obtained within the method  is $`2.690`$ MeV (i. e. the virtual level lies 0.47 MeV below the two-body threshold). This result has been obtained with the MT I-III potential on a grid having 1000 knots in both hyperradial and hyperradial variables and with the value of cut-off hyperradius equal to 120 fm. Some values for the energy of virtual state obtained by different authors can be found in , and all of them are about 0.5MeV below the two-body threshold.


text:
# References

The Weyl-Wigner-Moyal (WWM) method - provides an alternative way of formulating quantum mechanics. In this formulation, quantum observables are described by real functions in phase space. For a modern introduction to the WWM approach see .

In  Muller introduced a new product rule for gauge invariant Weyl symbols and gave a generalizalion of the Moyal formula to the case of non-vanishing electromagnetic fields. A WWM formulation for systems with first-class quantum constraints was given in . In Antonsen’s formulation, second-class constraints are turned into first-class quantum constraints by introducing negative powers of Planck’s constant in the expansions of some Weyl symbols.

Our objective in this paper is to present a WWM formulation of a Dirac quantized constrained system. We assume that our system may have first- and second-class constraints. We also assume that gauge conditions have been chosen, and we treat them as ordinary constraints in phase space. A classification of second-class constraints within the total hamiltonian approach can be found in

We consider a physical system described by the canonical hamiltonian $`H_c(z)`$ and the constraints (including the gauge conditions) $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu (z)`$ ($`\mu =1,2,\mathrm{},2m`$). The phase space of the system is assumed to be the symplectic euclidean vector space $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$. Denote by $`z(q_1,p_1,q_2,p_2,\mathrm{},q_n,p_n)`$ the points belonging to $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$. The constraints $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu (z)=0`$ ($`\mu =1,2,\mathrm{},2m`$) ($`m<n`$) define a subspace of $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$ called  the reduced phase space $``$.

We assume the constraints satisfy the following conditions:

$$rank\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu }{z_i}\stackrel{}{=}2m$$
(1)
$$det\{\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_\nu \}0$$
(2)
The label $``$ above the equality indicates that this equality holds in the subspace $``$. Condition (1) guarantees that the dimension of the reduced phase space $``$ is $`2n2m`$. Condition (2) tells us that $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu `$ ($`\mu =1,2,\mathrm{},2m`$) form a set of second-class constraints . The bracket in (2) is a Poisson bracket in $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$. The Poisson bracket between any two differentiable functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ in $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$ can be written as :

$$\{f,g\}=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2n}{}}J_{ij}_if_jg,$$
(3)
where,

$$J=\left(\begin{array}{ccccccc}0& 1& & & & & \\ 1& 0& & & & & \\ & & 0& 1& & & \\ & & 1& 0& & & \\ & & & & \mathrm{}& & \\ & & & & & 0& 1\\ & & & & & 1& 0\end{array}\right)$$
(4)
is the symplectic matrix in $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$ .

For systems with second-class constraints, it is useful to introduce the Dirac bracket . The Dirac bracket between two differentiable functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ on $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$ is a function defined as follows :

$$\{f,g\}_D=\{f,g\}\underset{\mu ,\nu =1}{\overset{2m}{}}\{f,\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu \}C_{\mu \nu }^1\{\mathrm{\Phi }_\nu ,g\}$$
(5)
where,

$$C_{\mu \nu }\{\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_\nu \}$$
(6)
A discussion of the properties and applications of Dirac brackets can be found in . Dirac brackets satisfy the Jacobi identity :

$$\{\{f,g\}_D,h\}_D+\{\{h,f\}_D,g\}_D+\{\{g,h\}_D,f\}_D=0$$
(7)
It is convenient to rewrite the Dirac bracket (5) in the form:

$$\{f,g\}_D=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2n}{}}J_{ij}^D_if_jgfJ^Dg$$
(8)
where,

$$J_{ij}^D\{z_i,z_j\}_D$$
(9)
The matrix $`J^D`$ is a degenerate matrix of rank $`2n2m`$. Notice that the $`2m`$ vectors $`\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu }{z}`$ are null eigenvectors of $`J^D`$.

$$J_{ij}^D.\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu }{z_j}=0,\mu =1,2,\mathrm{},2m.$$
(10)
Under canonical transformations in $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$, the rank of the matrix $`J^D`$ remains invariant.

The evolution of the physical system is described by the hamiltonian:

$$H=H_c(z)+\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{2m}{}}\lambda _\mu (t)\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu (z)$$
(11)
The Dirac-Hamilton equations can be written as:

$$\dot{z}_i=\underset{j=1}{\overset{2n}{}}J_{ij}_jH_c+\underset{j=1}{\overset{2n}{}}J_{ij}\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{2m}{}}\lambda _\mu (t)_j\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu $$
(12)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu (z)=0$$
(13)
The Lagrange multipliers $`\lambda _\mu `$ can be expressed as functions of the canonical variables in the form :

$$\lambda _\mu =\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{2m}{}}C_{\mu \nu }^1\{\mathrm{\Phi }_\nu ,H_c\}$$
(14)
Therefore, the Dirac-Hamilton equations (12,13) can be written in terms of Dirac brackets as follows :

$$\dot{z}_i=\{z_i,H_c\}_D,$$
(15)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu (z)=0$$
(16)
The Dirac quantization for systems with second-class constraints consists in substituting the canonical variables $`z`$ by quantum operators $`\widehat{z}`$ that satisfy the quantum constraints:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}_\mu =0$$
(17)
and have the commutation rules:

$$[\widehat{z}_i,\widehat{z}_j]=i\mathrm{}\widehat{J}_{ij}^D$$
(18)
The quantum evolution of the system, in the Heisenberg picture, is described by the quantum hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_c`$:

$$\frac{d\widehat{z}_i}{dt}=\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[\widehat{z}_i,\widehat{H}_c]$$
(19)
The Dirac quantization prescription is applicable to many systems of interest in Physics .

Our purpose is to develop a WWM formulation of a Dirac quantized constrained system. For simplicity, let us assume that the constraints are linear functions of $`z`$:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu =\underset{i=1}{\overset{2n}{}}\alpha _{\mu i}z_i$$
(20)
where, $`\alpha _{\mu i}`$ are constants such that (1,2) are satisfied.

This is a very strong assumption which is equivalent to assuming that the reduced phase space $``$ is flat: $``$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}^{2n2m}`$.

The first step towards a WWM formulation in $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$ is to define physical observables as Weyl symbols. Weyls symbols are real functions on $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$. Let us say that two Weyl symbols $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ belong to the same equivalent class $`𝒜`$ if and only if:

$$A_1\stackrel{}{=}A_2$$
(21)
In our formalism, a quantum physical observable $`\widehat{A}`$ will be described by a whole equivalent class of Weyl symbols $`𝒜`$. In other words, in this formulation, the values taken by a Weyl symbol outside the reduced phase space $``$ are of no physical significance.

We need to establish a connection between operators and equivalent classes of Weyl symbols that describe one and the same physical observable. We propose the following correspondence:

$$\widehat{A}=(2\pi )^{2n}𝑑\mu (u)𝑑\mu (\zeta )A(\zeta )e^{iu\zeta }e^{iu\widehat{z}}$$
(22)
where the measure,

$$d\mu (z)=dz(2\pi )^m\underset{\gamma =1}{\overset{2m}{}}\delta (\mathrm{\Phi }_\gamma (z))detC^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(23)
$`C`$ is the matrix defined in (6). $`\delta `$ is the Dirac delta function.

The operators $`\widehat{z}_i`$ satisfy the commutation rules:

$$[\widehat{z}_i,\widehat{z}_j]=i\mathrm{}J_{ij}^D$$
(24)
We say that the Weyl symbol $`A(\zeta )`$ and the operator $`\widehat{A}`$ in (22) describe the same quantum observable. Notice that from (22,23) it follows that all Weyl symbols belonging to one equivalent class $`𝒜`$ correspond to the same quantum observable $`\widehat{A}`$.

Notice also that:

$$(2\pi )^{2n}𝑑\mu (u)𝑑\mu (\zeta )\zeta _ie^{iu\zeta }e^{iu\widehat{z}}=\widehat{z}_i$$
(25)
From (25), it immediately follows that:

$$\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{2m}{}}\alpha _{\mu i}\widehat{z}_i=(2\pi )^{2n}𝑑\mu (u)𝑑\mu (\zeta )\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{2m}{}}\alpha _{\mu i}\zeta _ie^{iu\zeta }e^{iu\widehat{z}}=0$$
(26)
Let us define the Weyl product of two equivalent classes $`𝒜`$ and $``$. This product is also an equivalent class of symbols. Let $`A`$ and $`B`$ be two Weyl symbols. The Weyl symbol $`AB`$ will be given by the formula:

$$(AB)(z)\stackrel{}{=}(\pi \mathrm{})^{2n}(\frac{\mathrm{}}{2})^{2m}𝑑\mu (\zeta )𝑑\mu (\xi )A(\zeta )B(\xi )e^{\frac{2i}{\mathrm{}}(\zeta z)J^D(\xi z)}$$
(27)
It is not difficult to prove that:

$$\widehat{A}\widehat{B}=(2\pi )^{2n}𝑑\mu (u)𝑑\mu (\zeta )(AB)(\zeta )e^{iu\zeta }e^{iu\widehat{z}}$$
(28)
Our definition of the Weyl multiplication of symbols is independent of what particular representatives are used. Therefore, (27) provides us with a definition of the Weyl product of two equivalent classes of Weyl symbols.

From (27), assuming that the Weyl symbols are smooth functions in $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$, we can derive a generalized Groenewold’s formula for the Weyl product in the form:

$$(AB)(z)\stackrel{}{=}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2n}{}}J_{ij}^D\frac{}{\zeta _i}\frac{}{\xi _j})A(\zeta )B(\xi )|_{\zeta =\xi =z}$$
(29)
In particular, it is not difficult to see that:

$$z_iz_j=z_iz_j+\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}J_{ij}^D$$
(30)
The Moyal bracket  between two Weyl symbols is defined as follows:

$$\{A,B\}_M=\frac{1}{i\mathrm{}}[ABBA]$$
(31)
From (27) and (31) we obtain:

$$\{A,B\}_M\stackrel{}{=}(\pi \mathrm{})^{2n}(\frac{\mathrm{}}{2})^{2m1}𝑑\mu (\zeta )𝑑\mu (\xi )A(\zeta )B(\xi )\mathrm{sin}(\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}(\zeta z)J^D(\xi z))$$
(32)
If we assume that the Weyl symbols are smooth functions in $`\mathrm{}^{2n}`$, then, using the generalized Groenewold formula (29) we can express the Moyal bracket between two symbols as follows:

$$\{A,B\}_M\stackrel{}{=}\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{sin}(\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2n}{}}J_{ij}^D\frac{}{\zeta _i}\frac{}{\xi _j})A(\zeta )B(\xi )|_{\zeta =\xi =z}$$
(33)
It is not difficult to prove that the new Moyal brackets satisfy the Jacobi identity.

If we assume that the Weyl symbols $`A`$ and $`B`$ are semiclassically admissible , in other words, if we assume that $`A`$ and $`B`$ can be written as :

$$A(\zeta )=A_c(\zeta )+\underset{r=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{}^r}{r!}a_r(\zeta ),$$
(34)
$$B(\zeta )=B_c(\zeta )+\underset{r=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{}^r}{r!}b_r(\zeta ),$$
(35)
then, the new Moyal bracket (33) gives:

$$\{A,B\}_M\stackrel{}{=}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2n}{}}J_{ij}^D_iA_c_jB_c+O(\mathrm{}^2)\stackrel{}{=}\{A_c,B_c\}_D+O(\mathrm{}^2)$$
(36)
To zeroth order in Planck’s constant, the new Moyal bracket is equal to the Dirac bracket.

It is not difficult to see that:

$$\{z_i,z_j\}_M=J_{ij}^D$$
(37)
The quantum evolution of the system is described by the equations:

$$\dot{z}_i=\{z_i,H\}_M$$
(38)
where $`H`$ is a Weyl symbol corresponding to the quantum operator $`\widehat{H}_c`$ in (19).

Notice that, under the strong assumption of linearity of the constraints, it is straightforward to give a Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formulation directly on the reduced phase space $``$. It is not difficult to prove that our definitions (22), (27) and the generalized Groenewold formula (29) are consistent with such a WWM formulation on the reduced phase space.

The problem of quantization on non-trivial reduced phase spaces has been studied by several authors (see for example ).

It is my pleasure to thank M. Karasev, M. Marinov, F. Molzahn and T. Osborn for very useful discussions and comments.