text:
# The 𝑢'𝑔'𝑟'𝑖'𝑧' Standard Star System

## 1 Introduction

We present the newly established standard star network for the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ filter system (see Fukugita et al., 1996). This standard star network was developed at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station. These stars form the basis for the photometric calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The SDSS uses a 2.5-m telescope at Apache Point Observatory (APO) to produce a five-band, photometrically calibrated digital imaging survey of $`\pi `$ steradians (10,000 square degrees) of the Northern Galactic Cap (Gunn et al., 1998; York et al., 2000) as one of its major data products.

It is not our purpose here to describe in detail the full end-to-end process of calibrating the SDSS photometric data. That is the topic of a future paper. Here, we merely wish to present a self-contained description of the standard star network upon which the SDSS photometry is based. We do note, however, that one of the targets of the SDSS is to achieve a level of photometric uniformity and accuracy such that the system-wide rms errors in the final SDSS photometric catalog will be less than 0.02 mag in $`r^{}`$, 0.02 mag in $`(r^{}i^{})`$ and $`(g^{}r^{})`$, and 0.03 mag in $`(u^{}g^{})`$ and $`(i^{}z^{})`$, for objects bluer than an M0 dwarf. To meet this target, internal goals were set for the accuracy of the primary standard star system: the uncertainty in the mean calibrated magnitudes for any given primary standard star should be $``$1.5% at $`u^{}`$, $``$ 1% in $`g^{},r^{}`$ and $`i^{}`$, and $``$1.5% at $`z^{}`$. As we will show later in this paper, we more than meet these goals for all but a handful of stars.

In addition, we must mention that, due to small-but-significant differences between the USNO and 2.5-m filters, the final 2.5-m SDSS published photometry will likely differ systematically from the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system at the few percent level for $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ and slightly worse for $`u^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$ (see Stoughton et al., 2001). When transformation equations between the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system and the 2.5-m SDSS photometry have been robustly determined, they will be promptly made available to the astronomical community. (Note: the intended accuracy of these transformation equations is included within the above-mentioned error budget for the photometric calibrations of the final SDSS imaging catalog.)

The nomenclature used in this system differs slightly from the traditional photometric literature. This was done to avoid confusion with existing SDSS papers and nomenclature. In the traditional sense, Vega ($`\alpha `$ Lyr) is the ultimate “fundamental” standard. However, in this paper we refer to three subdwarf stars which were used to set the initial system zeropoint as “fundamental” with the other 155 stars of the system being referred to as “primary” stars. The term “secondary” is used within the SDSS nomenclature to refer to the photometric system transfer patches — pieces of the sky that are observed by a 0.5-m telescope that are used to transfer the photometric solution to the main survey imaging telescope.

In the following sections we present details of the standard star development program. We describe the instrumentation and filter system in §2, selection of the initial set of stars in §3, and a brief overview of the reduction software that was used to develop the network in §4. Final results for the inital set of $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ primary standard stars are presented in §5, and we discuss future extensions to this system in §6.

## 2 Observations and Instrumentation

The observations were obtained using the 1.0-m Ritchey–Chrétien telescope at the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Flagstaff Station (USNO-FS) during the bright period of each lunation from March 1998 through January 2000 inclusive. Since the program stars were fairly bright the moon did not unduly hamper the observations; however, we did maintain a minimum 30$`\mathrm{°}`$ radius of avoidance near the moon that, for the most part, allowed us to use the dome to shield the telescope from direct moonlight. This observing restriction had a slight impact on the choice of stars observed each night. The few “faint” stars (fainter than about $`r^{}`$=13.2) on the list were observed when the moon was below or within one hour of the opposite horizon from the star so the dome could be used to block the moon completely.

All of the observations were direct exposures with a thinned, UV-AR coated, Tektronix TK1024 CCD operating at a gain of 7.43$`\pm `$0.41 electrons per ADU with a readnoise of 6.0 electrons. This CCD is similar to the CCDs used in the main SDSS survey camera and the CCD used by the 0.5-m photometric monitoring telescope at APO. The camera scale of 0.68 arcsec/pixel produced a field of view of 11.54 arcmin.

Testing of the chip revealed a linear response up to 15,200 ADU and a second, well behaved and correctable linear response region up to 27,500 ADU (see Figure 1). This change in the CCD response function, and sense of the change, is due to the clocking scheme that was employed in the TK1024 read electronics. The integration and the lowering of the transfer gate occurred simultaneously. The net result is that, since the summing well has more charge for brighter objects, the charge begins to ‘spill over’ the gate potential faster for these objects, resulting in an effective longer integration time (and a seemingly higher gain) than for the faint objects.

Exposure lengths were tailored to maximize the number of potential standard stars in each field with good photon counts in all five filters while not exceeding the first linear portion of the response curve for the primary star of interest. Tailoring the exposure lengths allowed us to develop multiple standards in several fields. Use of the linearity response curve allowed correction of the brighter stars when good atmospheric seeing caused counts greater than 15,200 ADU per pixel while allowing us to maximize observing efficiency in some of the more populated fields. The drawback of targetting multiple stars per field was a decrease in the signal to noise ratio for the extreme red or blue stars within the same field for which the exposures were not optimized.

The five filters of the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system have effective wavelengths of 3540 Å, 4750 Å, 6222 Å, 7632 Å, and 9049 Å, respectively, at 1.2 airmasses.111Note that the $`g^{}`$ filter has been determined to have an effective wavelength 20 Å bluer than that originally quoted by Fukugita et al. (1996). They cover the entire wavelength range of the combined atmosphere+CCD response and their construction is described by Fukugita et al. (1996). Also shown in that paper (their Figure 1) are the designed response curves for the filters multiplied by the QE curve of a thinned, UV-AR coated Tektronix TK1024 CCD, similar to the detector that was used in the development of this standard system. The $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ filters have sharp cutoffs by design. The passbands were selected to exclude the strongest night-sky lines; for example O I ($`\lambda `$5577) and Hg I ($`\lambda `$5461). The bulk of the $`u^{}`$ band response is blueward of the Balmer discontinuity which, when combined with the $`g^{}`$ filter, yields high sensitivity to the magnitude of the Balmer jump but at a cost of lower throughput for the narrower $`u^{}`$ filter (compared with Johnson $`U`$). In Figure 2, we show the filter responses multiplied by the sensitivity data for a CCD similar to that used to set up the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system. These curves represent the expected total quantum efficiencies of the filter transmissions, the QE of the CCD surface, and the reflections from two aluminum mirror surfaces. The two sets of response curves shown are for the case without atmospheric extinction (upper curves) and as modified for typical extinctions at 1.2 airmasses (lower curves). Figure 3 compares the (normalized) $`UBVR_\mathrm{c}I_\mathrm{c}`$ filter curves with those of the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system.

The filter transmission data as measured by the Japan Participation Group within the SDSS, the filter manufacturing specifications and the CCD+filter response curves are available on-line at http://home.fnal.gov/$``$dtucker/ugriz/index.html. These curves, as well as the other $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ links from this page will be updated as needed.

This project used 183 nights of telescope time spanning a 22 month (24 lunation) period beginning in March 1998. The raw statistics for the success of each observing run are in Table 1 where the first two columns give the year and month of the observing session followed by the UT date. The third and fourth columns give the number of nights allocated on the telescope and the number of those nights that were clear, where “clear” is defined as no clouds were seen in the sky by the observer for a stretch greater than three hours at a time. As a consequence, we collected data on some nights indicated as “clear” that later proved not to be usable. The last column gives the total number of usable $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ observations from each observing run where one observation indicates one star observed once in each of the five filters.

## 3 The Stars & Observing Strategy

In order to have the standard star system in place for the start of SDSS science operations, as required for follow-up spectroscopy target selection algorithms, it was necessary to save time during establishment of the network of standard stars. This was done by making use of previous work on standard stars so that variable stars in the initial fields were already identified. A preliminary list of 63 standard candidates was derived from the work of Thuan & Gunn (1976), Oke & Gunn (1983), and Oke (1990). This list was supplemented using the work of Sandage (1964), Veeder (1974), Stone (1977), and Kent (1985), and then pared to 36 stars using a magnitude cut. The remaining stars were then heavily supplemented using equatorial $`UBVR_\mathrm{c}I_\mathrm{c}`$ standard stars (Landolt 1973, 1983, 1992) which served to fill in gaps in right ascension and provide potential color pairs for secondary extinction terms. Additional red stars were obtained from the USNO photometry program (H. Harris, private communication, 1998). At the beginning, our preliminary list contained roughly 200 candidate stars. In the end, the list was trimmed to just those stars with ten or more observations (in each of the five filters) in the current program, or four or more observations in our program provided they had been used as standards in other systems with at least 10 observations to indicate they were not variables. In the end, 164 stars were observed often enough to be included in the reduction process for the final network. Of these, 158 were retained for the final catalog of standards defining the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system.

The primary goals for the SDSS are large scale structure studies using galaxies and QSOs so this first version of the standard network is limited, for the most part, to stars bluer than about M0 to avoid the strengthening metal bands and flare stars. Further, most of the survey area is around the North Celestial Pole with a limited area near the celestial equator, so a heavy emphasis was placed on stars in the northern hemisphere. Expansion of the network to the southern hemisphere and to redder stars is underway (see §6).

Rather than selecting some fiducial spectral type to have null colors (as in the $`UBVR_\mathrm{c}I_\mathrm{c}`$ system), our aim was to set the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ standard star network on the $`AB`$ system. Recall that, in the $`AB`$ system, a monochromatic magnitude is defined such that

$$AB_\nu =2.5\mathrm{log}f_\nu 48.60,$$
(1)
where $`f_\nu `$ is the flux per unit frequency from an object in ergs s-1 cm-2 Hz-1; thus,

$$f_\nu (\mathrm{Jy})=3631\mathrm{dex}(0.4AB_\nu )$$
(2)
(Oke & Gunn, 1983; Fukugita et al., 1996).

As noted, the $`AB`$ is, strictly speaking, a monochromatic system, defining a magnitude for a single frequency $`\nu `$. The $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system, however, is very much a broadband filter system. Tying a broadband system to a monochromatic flux is complicated by the existence of stellar absorption lines and by the fact that the mean wavelength of a broadband filter depends on a given star’s color. As a compromise solution, we follow Fukugita et al. (1996)’s lead, and define an $`AB`$ broadband magnitude by the following equation:

$$m=2.5\mathrm{log}\frac{d(\mathrm{log}\nu )f_\nu S_\nu }{d(\mathrm{log}\nu )S_\nu }48.60,$$
(3)
where $`f_\nu `$ is the energy flux per unit frequency on the atmosphere and $`S_\nu `$ is the system response.

To zeropoint the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system, we used the synthetic $`AB`$ $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ magnitudes of the F subdwarf BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708 as calculated by Fukugita et al. (1996). Using equation 3, Fukugita et al. (1996) computed this star’s $`AB`$ broadband magnitudes by convolving the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system response (Fig. 2) with the Vega-calibrated spectrophotometry of BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708. Our observations of BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708 were then forced to match these synthetic magnitudes and all of the standard stars were scaled to this zeropoint. Thus there is a formally defined relationship between $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ magnitudes and photon flux.

Initial estimates (Eisenstein, private communication; Finkbeiner, private communication) indicate that the present network deviates from a true $`AB`$ broadband system by no more than about 10% in $`u^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$ and 5% in $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$. These systematic errors are due to uncertainties in the absolute calibration of the synthetic $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ magnitudes of BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708, and include uncertainties:

* in the USNO filter transmissions,
* in the CCD response,
* in the atmospheric correction to the filter curves,
* in the relative calibration of BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708 to Vega, and
* in the absolute calibration of Vega

Since the deviations from a true $`AB`$ system are due to zeropoint magnitude offsets in the absolute calibration of BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708 and not due to linear color shifts within the network of stars itself, future corrections towards a $`AB`$ system — if warranted — should only entail a small additive constant in the standard star magnitudes in each filter band, once these constants have been well determined.

In practice, during the early stages of this program, we needed more than one star to cover the sky for those times when BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708 was not visible, so two other F subdwarfs were chosen to be reference stars to supplement BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708: BD+26$`\mathrm{°}`$2606 and BD+21$`\mathrm{°}`$0607 (Table 2). BD+26$`\mathrm{°}`$2606 has excellent spectrophotometry relative to BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708, and BD+21$`\mathrm{°}`$0607 has excellent photometric measurements in the Thuan-Gunn system. Thus, all three of these stars were used as fundamental calibration stars during the setup of the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ standard star network. Note, however, that the final system zeropoint is tied solely to the synthetic photometry of BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708.

At the telescope, we tried to observe one of the three fundamental stars at least every 90 minutes to determine the zero points and judge stability for each night. In addition to the fundamental standards, the target list of primary standards was chosen to maximize the color and airmass ranges for each night. In general, two or three primary fields were observed several times to monitor extinction manually at the telescope over the course of a night. These values were compared with the “all–sky” extinction values determined later by the reduction software using all observations for the night. Additional fields were also observed in a random order to provide a good color spread near the meridian and at high airmass. We attempted to observe each of these fields two or three times a night with at least one hour between repeated observations. On the next usable night of the same observing run, a different set of manual extinction fields was selected and different primary candidate fields were chosen with some, but not complete, overlap. This method reduces dependence on any particular set of extinction stars. The equatorial fields were generally used for extinction to maximize the airmass range and leverage the effect of the color terms. The sky distribution of the final set of stars is shown in Figure 4.

Finally, typically several additional stars within each candidate field were tagged as “extra” or “monitor” stars. Although these stars were excluded from the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ standard star network, they are being calibrated in the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system and, after culling variables, will form the basis of a future catalog of supplementary $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ standards useful for photometric calibration of data from large-format CCD mosaic imaging cameras (Smith et al., 2002).

## 4 Reductions

### 4.1 Software

The reductions for this standard system were performed using the “Monitor Telescope Pipeline” (MTPIPE), a suite of code written in the SDSS software environment (Stoughton, 1995; Sergey et al., 1996). For the development of the standard star network, the pipeline reductions for each night occurred in three steps — preMtFrames, mtFrames, and excal — briefly described here. A more detailed description can be found in an upcoming paper (Tucker et al., 2002).

The first package, preMtFrames, creates the directory structure for the reduction of a night’s data, including parameter files needed as input for the other three packages, and runs quality assurance tests on the raw data. It identifies the image type (e.g., bias frame, twilight flat, standard field), matches the frame name to a list of approved standard star field names, verifies that a full set of frames ($`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$) are present for each field, and creates quality assurance histograms for the bias and flat field frames.

The next package, mtFrames, is the image processing portion of the software. This package creates median filtered bias and flat frames, applies them to the images, and then extracts aperture photometry on all objects found in each image. The candidate standard stars are measured in a 24-arcsec diameter aperture. This large size was selected to avoid problems associated with defocussing the brightest stars, required for some of the observations.

The third package, excal, takes the output of mtFrames and identifies the individual primary candidate and fundamental stars within each field, then calculates the photometric zeropoint and the atmospheric extinction using the instrumental magnitudes for these stars as input. Before the standard star network was calibrated, we used the candidate primary stars as extinction standards and also solved for their best-fit magnitudes based upon that night’s observations. In this mode of operation, only the three fundamental stars — BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708, BD+26$`\mathrm{°}`$2606 and BD+21$`\mathrm{°}`$0607 — had fixed magnitudes; observations of one or more of these three set the photometric zeropoint for the night.

Two additional mtpipe packages — solve\_network and superExcal — were used for the final calibration of the primary standard star network. These are similar to excal in that they solve for the photometric parameters of a set of data and for the best-fit magnitudes of the primary standards. They differ from excal in that they use a single star — BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708 — to set the zeropoint for the photometric solution. BD+17$`\mathrm{°}`$4708 is defined to have the magnitudes given in Table 2 and sets the zeropoint for the SDSS standard star network. Although both solve\_network and superExcal perform a similar task, they differ from each other in that superExcal is largely an outgrowth of the code in excal and its least squares solver, but generalized to run on multiple nights of data; solve\_network, however, was written completely independently of the excal code by one of us (MWR). As such, solve\_network has provided a useful independent check of our superExcal results.

To calibrate the standard stars, we took the following steps:

1. We ran preMtFrames, mtFrames, and excal on each night of data from the USNO 1.0-m telescope.
2. From the output of excal and from observer notes at the telescope, we determined which nights were photometric.
3. Using the output of mtFrames and excal, we ran superExcal for the final version of the calibrations.
4. Using the output of mtFrames and excal, we ran the solve\_network code as an independent check of our superExcal results.
5. Finally, we applied a small (0.00–0.04mag) red leak correction to the $`u^{}g^{}`$ colors, to remove the effects of the $`u^{}`$ filter red leaks (see §4.3).

### 4.2 The Photometric Equations

The equations used to recover the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system have the form:

$`u_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`u_\mathrm{o}^{}+a_u+b_u(u^{}g^{})_\mathrm{o}+k_uX+c_u[(u^{}g^{})_\mathrm{o}(u^{}g^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$ (4)
$`g_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`g_\mathrm{o}^{}+a_g+b_g(g^{}r^{})_\mathrm{o}+k_gX+c_g[(g^{}r^{})_\mathrm{o}(g^{}r^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$ (5)
$`r_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`r_\mathrm{o}^{}+a_r+b_r(r^{}i^{})_\mathrm{o}+k_rX+c_r[(r^{}i^{})_\mathrm{o}(r^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$ (6)
$`i_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`i_\mathrm{o}^{}+a_i+b_i(i^{}z^{})_\mathrm{o}+k_iX+c_i[(i^{}z^{})_\mathrm{o}(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$ (7)
$`z_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`z_\mathrm{o}^{}+a_z+b_z(i^{}z^{})_\mathrm{o}+k_zX+c_z[(i^{}z^{})_\mathrm{o}(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}].`$ (8)
Taking the $`g^{}`$ equation as an example, we note that $`g_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}`$ is the measured instrumental magnitude, $`g_\mathrm{o}^{}`$ is the extra-atmospheric magnitude, $`(g^{}r^{})_\mathrm{o}`$ is the extra-atmospheric color, $`a_g`$ is the nightly zero point, $`k_g`$ is the first order extinction coefficient, $`b_g`$ is the system transform coefficient, and $`c_g`$ is the second order (color) extinction coefficient. The airmass of observation, $`X`$, is as defined by Bemporad (1904).

The zeropoint constants, $`X_{\mathrm{zp}}`$ and $`(g^{}r^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}`$, used in the second order extinction term, were defined, respectively, to be the average standard star observation airmass $`<X>`$ = 1.3 and the “cosmic color,” as listed in Table 3. The cosmic color values were derived from 4428 objects with $`19<r^{}<20`$ in SDSS survey run 752, camera column 3, fields 11-100 \[see Gunn et al. (1998) for a description of the SDSS survey camera\]. This area is on the celestial equator at a Galactic latitude of about 42$`\mathrm{°}`$. The use of these zeropoint constants permits setting $`c_g`$ to zero without affecting the values of the other terms in the photometric equation ($`a_g`$, $`b_g`$, and $`k_g`$), thus simplifying the photometric equations for projects not requiring the highest photometric accuracy.

The excal and superExcal packages solve each of the photometric equations (eqs. 4–8) iteratively, performing the following loop:

1. Feed into the equations the current estimates for the extra-atmospheric magnitudes, colors, and photometric coefficients (e.g., for eq. 5, $`g_\mathrm{o}^{}`$, $`r_\mathrm{o}^{}`$, $`a_g`$, $`b_g`$, $`c_g`$, and $`k_g`$). For the first iteration of this loop, initial estimates for these parameters are fed into the equations.
2. Solve each of the equations in turn for the extra-atmospheric magnitude and the non-color-dependent coefficients (e.g., $`g_\mathrm{o}^{}`$, $`a_g`$, and $`k_g`$), keeping the color-dependent coefficients (e.g., $`b_g`$, $`c_g`$) fixed.
3. Solve each of the equations in turn for the two color-dependent coefficients (e.g., $`b_g`$, $`c_g`$), keeping the extra-atmospheric magnitude and the non-color-dependent coefficients fixed (e.g., $`g_\mathrm{o}^{}`$, $`a_g`$, and $`k_g`$).
4. Permit the user to delete (or undelete) outliers interactively.

This loop will be performed as long as the user continues to delete (or undelete) observations interactively from the solution. (To ensure that the user has finished modifying the dataset, this loop will run an additional three times after the last user modification before outputting the final photometric solutions.)

One can also choose to fix any of the photometric coefficients to a pre-set value and not solve for it. For instance, in setting up the standard star network, we chose to fix the system transform coefficients (e.g., $`b_g`$ in eq. 5) to zero, since the USNO 1.0-m, its CCD, and its filters are the defining instruments of the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system.

Finally, we note that equations 4–8, which are fit by excal and superExcal, take the standard magnitudes and colors and convert them to instrumental magnitudes. The inverse equations are:

$`u_\mathrm{o}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`u_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}+\widehat{a}_u+\widehat{b}_u(u^{}g^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}+\widehat{k}_uX`$ (9)
$`+`$ $`\widehat{c}_u[(u^{}g^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}(u^{}g^{})_{\mathrm{inst},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$
$`g_\mathrm{o}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}+\widehat{a}_g+\widehat{b}_g(g^{}r^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}+\widehat{k}_gX`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`\widehat{c}_g[(g^{}r^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}(g^{}r^{})_{\mathrm{inst},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$
$`r_\mathrm{o}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`r_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}+\widehat{a}_r+\widehat{b}_r(r^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}+\widehat{k}_rX`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`\widehat{c}_r[(r^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}(r^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{inst},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$
$`i_\mathrm{o}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`i_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}+\widehat{a}_i+\widehat{b}_i(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}+\widehat{k}_iX`$ (12)
$`+`$ $`\widehat{c}_i[(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{inst},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}],`$
$`z_\mathrm{o}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`z_{\mathrm{inst}}^{}+\widehat{a}_z+\widehat{b}_z(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}+\widehat{k}_zX`$ (13)
$`+`$ $`\widehat{c}_z[(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{inst}}(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{inst},\mathrm{zp}}][XX_{\mathrm{zp}}].`$
Note that the inverse coefficients have carets, indicating that they do not necessarily have the same values as the direct coefficients of equations 4–8. For a filter $`x`$ with filter $`y`$ as its color index conjugate — i.e., filter $`x`$’s color index is $`(xy)`$ — the conversions from direct to inverse coefficients are

$`\widehat{a}_x`$ $`=`$ $`a_xb_x(a_xa_y),`$ (14)
$`\widehat{b}_x`$ $`=`$ $`b_x,`$ (15)
$`\widehat{c}_x`$ $`=`$ $`c_x,`$ (16)
$`\widehat{k}_x`$ $`=`$ $`k_xb_x(k_xk_y).`$ (17)
Again, using the SDSS $`g^{}`$ filter as a concrete example,

$`\widehat{a}_g`$ $`=`$ $`a_gb_g(a_ga_r),`$ (18)
$`\widehat{b}_g`$ $`=`$ $`b_g,`$ (19)
$`\widehat{c}_g`$ $`=`$ $`c_g,`$ (20)
$`\widehat{k}_g`$ $`=`$ $`k_gb_g(k_gk_r).`$ (21)
Furthermore, we note that for the inverse equations, we must use an instrumental form of the color zeropoint in the second order extinction term. Again, for a generic filter $`x`$ with color index $`(xy)`$,

$$(x^{}y^{})_{\mathrm{inst},\mathrm{zp}}=(x^{}y^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}+(a_xa_y)+(k_xk_y)X,$$
(22)
and, for our concrete example,

$$(g^{}r^{})_{\mathrm{inst},\mathrm{zp}}=(g^{}r^{})_{\mathrm{o},\mathrm{zp}}+(a_ga_r)+(k_gk_r)X.$$
(23)
### 4.3 The Red Leak Correction

There are two small red leaks associated with the $`u^{}`$ filter — one at 8120 Å and another, larger leak beyond 10,000 Å. The latter red leak is largely suppressed by the USNO 1.0-m CCD’s low quantum efficiency at these near-infrared wavelengths.

If we define a flux sensitivity quantity, $`Q`$, by

$$Qd(\mathrm{ln}\nu )S_\nu ,$$
(24)
where $`\nu `$ is the frequency and $`S_\nu `$ is the system quantum efficiency (Fukugita et al., 1996, eq. 5), we can calculate the effects of the two red leaks relative to a non-red-leak $`u^{}`$ passband. Measured for an airmass of 1.2, we find for the non-red-leak $`u^{}`$ passband, the 8120 Å red leak, and the $`>`$10,000 Å red leak, respectively:

$`Q_u^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1.842\times 10^2`$
$`Q_1`$ $`=`$ $`1.009\times 10^6`$ (25)
$`Q_2`$ $`=`$ $`0.783\times 10^7`$
The effect of these red leaks in magnitudes can then be calculated by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_i=2.5\mathrm{log}(Q_i/Q_u^{}),$$
(26)
where $`i=`$ 1 or 2. We find:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ $`=`$ $`10.654`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ $`=`$ $`10.929`$ (27)
Combining these results, we can calculate the correction we need to apply to an arbitrary $`u^{}x^{}`$ color of a star (where $`x^{}`$ is an arbitrary filter) to remove the effects of these two red leaks:

$`(u^{}x^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ $`=`$ $`(u^{}x^{})_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ (28)
$`+`$ $`2.5\mathrm{log}\left(1+0.4\mathrm{dex}[(u^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{true}}\mathrm{\Delta }_1]+0.4\mathrm{dex}[(u^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{true}}\mathrm{\Delta }_2]\right),`$
where $`(u^{}x^{})_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ is $`(u^{}x^{})`$ before the red leak correction and $`(u^{}x^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ is $`(u^{}x^{})`$ after the red leak correction. Note that $`(u^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ and $`(u^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ are merely $`(u^{}x^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ for $`x^{}=i^{}`$ and $`x^{}=z^{}`$, respectively.

Note that equation 28 is an implicit equation and must be solved iteratively. Fortunately, for cases like ours in which the red leak correction is small, we can use the following approximation:

$`(u^{}x^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ $`=`$ $`(u^{}x^{})_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ (29)
$`+`$ $`1.086\times \left(\mathrm{dex}[0.4((u^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{obs}}\mathrm{\Delta }_1)]+\mathrm{dex}[0.4((u^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{obs}}\mathrm{\Delta }_2)]\right),`$
where we were able to replace $`(u^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ with $`(u^{}i^{})_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ and $`(u^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{true}}`$ with $`(u^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ due to the smallness of the red leak corrections. In § 5, where we present the magnitudes and colors for the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ primary standards, we use equation 29 to correct the $`u^{}g^{}`$ colors.

### 4.4 Data

Both excal and superExcal solve for first order extinction coefficients that vary over the course of the night; the extinction is determined for individual segments of time called “solution time-blocks.” The first order extinction coefficients for each night used in the superExcal photometric solution are given in Table 4. These are arranged by UT date and block (YYMMDD-B) with the corresponding Modified Julian Date for the midpoint of each solution time-block (mid-mjd), rounded to the nearest 0.01 day.222The Modified Julian Date is defined by the relation MJD $``$ JD $``$ 2400000.5, where JD is the Julian Date. These are listed in the first two columns of the table. The extinction coefficients and associated uncertainties are given in columns 3–7. These values were determined as part of the superExcal solution. The default solution block within superExcal was set at 3 hours. Each night was examined for obvious breaks — east vs. west; the moon; breaks around possible clouds; before and after midnight — and these were given priority for dividing the night into reduction blocks. In the absence of obvious breaks, the default solution block within MTPIPE, 3 hours, was used. Further, each block had to contain a minimum of 10 observations per passband (about 1.5 hours of observing time), after all rejections, to be kept in the final solution. In the end, 109 usable blocks on 61 nights were determined to be photometric and contained the minimum number of observations to be included in the system solution.

The zeropoints for each of the 61 usable nights are shown in Figure 5. These are calculated by superExcal once for each block of time, from fundamental standard observations. As shown, most nights have similar zero points. Clearly seen in the figure are the times when the mirrors were re-aluminized: once after the second month and again prior to the last four months of observations. A few outlying points correspond with high extinction values but the derived magnitudes for these nights are within the 2$`\sigma `$ error limits for stars observed on those nights.

The primary extinction coefficients (Table 4) for each block are plotted in Figure 6. As seen, the extinction values were generally stable during the program. Three nights with higher than normal extinction values (and low zero points) are seen. However, as mentioned above, the final magnitude values for each of the stars observed during these times were within the accepted limits.

Secondary extinction (color term) values are given in Table 5. Calculating these values is an option in the pipeline code. For the system setup, we assumed there would be one fixed value for all nights and solved for these coefficients. This correction is minor compared with the primary extinction terms so our assumption of a single value does not impact the solution. (For comparison, we also list the values for the secondary extinction coefficients obtained by solve\_network.)

The residuals of each observation in the network solution were examined for trends, as a function of several different variables, within the final network solution. The plots of these test results are available on our $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ web site http://home.fnal.gov/$``$dtucker/ugriz/index.html. To summarize, we found no apparent trends in the residuals as a function of:

* time (over the course of the program),
* airmass,
* magnitude,
* color,
* product of color times airmass,
* right ascension,
* declination,
* hour angle,
* ambient temperature of observation.

We did see an increase in the scatter of the residuals in the $`u^{}`$ filter at fainter magnitudes and for redder stars. This was caused by the tailored exposure times used on each field with multiple candidate stars. Since the exposure times for each standard field were tailored for the brightest candidate, the second, third, fourth … star in each field will be increasingly under-exposed resulting in the scatter. We also noticed an increase in scatter for the bluer star residuals in the $`z^{}`$ filter; also an artifact of the tailored exposure lengths.

The above tests — those showing the residuals from individual observations plotted against a variety of variables — were useful in showing that there are no obvious systematic trends in the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ primary standard star network. To examine the system-wide rms errors in the network, we have plotted the standard error of the mean magnitude for each star in Figures 7 and 8. We have also listed the minimum, the average, and the maximum of these “per star” errors in Table 6, along with the goals needed to meet the survey end-to-end requirements. Figure 7 shows the mean error as a function of magnitude. We clearly see in this plot that the fainter standards in each multiple star field, generally the equatorial fields, have higher errors. Figure 8 shows the mean error as a function of color. Again, we see an increase in the error for the fainter stars in each multiple star field only this time the errors increase for the red stars in the $`u^{}`$ frames and the blue stars in the $`z^{}`$ frames. In both of these plots, the horizontal dashed lines indicate the survey error budget allotted to the standard star network (the survey goals from Table 6). Note, that, for all but a handful of stars in $`u^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$, we more than satisfy the survey goals.

The distribution of the stars in RA–($`g^{}r^{}`$) color space is shown in Figure 9. While this plot was generally used as an observation planning tool during system development, it does show the generally uniform distribution of the standards around the sky, at least in the northern hemisphere.

The color-color space distributions of the final set of stars are shown in Figure 10 ($`u^{}g^{}`$)-vs.-($`g^{}r^{}`$); Figure 11 ($`g^{}r^{}`$)-vs.-($`r^{}i^{}`$); and Figure 12 ($`r^{}i^{}`$)-vs.-($`i^{}z^{}`$). The break in the linear color transforms at about spectral type M0 is clearly seen in Figure 11 and is also evident in Figure 12. Separation of the metal-poor stars from the main sequence dwarfs is seen in Figure 10. The clump of stars in the blue-blue corner of all three of these plots are the warm-hot white dwarfs.

Approximate relations for transforming magnitudes and colors from the Johnson–Morgan–Cousins $`UBVR_\mathrm{c}I_\mathrm{c}`$ system to the SDSS $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system were given in the system defining paper (Fukugita et al., 1996). Full details of the development of the relations presented herein are given by Jorgensen et al. (2002). Fukugita et al. (1996)’s synthetic transformations and our observed relationships are given in Table 7. Our observed transformation relationships are also shown in graphical form in Figure 13, and are similar to those of Fukugita et al. (1996) (their Figure 6). We also present relations for the inverse transformations — from $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ to $`UBVR_\mathrm{c}I_\mathrm{c}`$ — in Table 7 and in Figure 14.

## 5 The Standard Star Network

Finally, we present the magnitude and color data for each star along with astrometric, proper motion and spectroscopic information. Table 8 is arranged in order of increasing right ascension and contains the star name, RA and declination (J2000) in the first three columns. The next five columns give the $`r^{}`$ magnitudes and the four color indices. (N.B.: the $`u^{}g^{}`$ colors listed here have had the $`u^{}`$ red leak correction of eq. 29 applied; see Fig. 15.) These five columns are linked with the next five columns (9-13) which give the standard deviation of the measurements. As a note, during the reductions we calculated the five filter magnitudes. We report colors here as an observational aid. The associated uncertainties for the colors are derived from the magnitude errors added in quadrature. As such, they may be slightly overestimated. The last five columns of this table give the number of individual measurements, by filter, that were used to determine the final magnitudes.

Table 9 is arranged by increasing RA and the first three columns are the same as Table 8. Column 4 gives the Guide Star or Hipparcos catalog number, or indicates it is in the Tycho database. The coordinate epoch follows in column 5. Columns 6–10 give the proper motions and uncertainties in milli-arcsec yr-1 and the reference where these were obtained. Columns 11 and 12 give the spectral type (where known) and reference. The last column indicates that additional notes on a star may be found in the footnotes to the table.

## 6 Future Work

Though the setup of the initial primary standard stars for the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ system is now complete, there is still a large amount of work remaining to make this system widely useful to the astronomical community. Two efforts which will continue through the life of the SDSS are reducing the errors in the mean magnitudes of each standard star and obtaining good magnitudes for all of the additional stars in each of the standard star fields. These will be done by making use of the observations of the SDSS photometric monitoring telescope at Apache Point Observatory. This telescope operates every night during survey operations to obtain extinction data for survey calibration and to transfer the standard star system, through fainter stars, to the 2.5-m survey data.

In addition to the continued refinement of the primary standard star network, two additional areas which require more work are extending the system to redder stars and to the southern hemisphere. The initial standard system was limited to stars generally bluer than about dM0, so the redder stars are needed to obtain accurate magnitudes for the late M dwarfs and the new spectral classes, L and T. An extension to redder stars will make the logical tie into the 2MASS survey for the redder objects more meaningful. We are developing a program to make this extension, specifically to look for additional “knees” in the color–color diagrams. The second area of expansion is into the southern hemisphere. We began this effort in September 2000 using the 0.9-m at CTIO and the same observers and reduction software as used in the setup of the network described in this present paper333http://home.fnal.gov/$``$dtucker/Southern\_ugriz/index.html. We undertook this effort to minimize any discrepancies such as those which have crept into the existing $`UBVR_\mathrm{c}I_\mathrm{c}`$ standards, in which several independent investigators have been involved in calibrating standard stars.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is a joint project of The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, the Max-Plank-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Plank-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), the New Mexico State University, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. Apache Point Observatory, site of the SDSS telescopes, is operated by the Astrophysicsal Research Consortium (ARC).
Funding for the project has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the SDSS member institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The official SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org.
The authors would like to thank the USNO-Flagstaff for making the telescope and detector available for the observations; and Conard Dahn, Joe Hobart, Fred Harris and Hugh Harris for their assistance during the observing sessions. We also thank David Hogg, Michael Strauss, and Gillian Knapp for their valuable reading of the manuscript and comments. JAS also acknowledges the many useful discussions of the project with Conard Dahn and Hugh Harris at USNO, Arlo Landolt at LSU, and Brian Skiff at Lowell Observatory. JAS further acknowledges Lowell Observatory for its support and hospitality during the observing runs. JAS and DLT acknowledge Jeanne Odermann and Sahar Allam for their help in proofreading the text. Finally, we acknowledge the referee, B. Oke, for his many insightful suggestions which have substaintially improved the quality of the paper and presentation of the data.
This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.

| m High proper motion star. |
| --- |
| p HST &/or IUE photometric standard. |
| s HST &/or FUV spectrophotometric standard. |
| w White dwarf star. |
| 1 Heavily reddened star. |
| 2 Not listed in Villanova WD catalog (MS99); =EGGR-382, LTT-300, G270-8, USNO-490. |
| 3 Blue straggler in Per OB1 association. |
| 4 =WD0227+050, EG019. |
| 5 The northern star in an optical pair. |
| 6 Optical double, separation 0.95′. |
| 7 Listed as G5III in Simbad. |
| 8 =HD 259211. |
| 9 Listed as K7 (MSU); W94 notes as long term variable. |
| 10 cf. W94 notes as long term variable; dM4; =“Luyten’s Star”. |
| 11 Listed as B2III in Simbad. |
| 12 Listed as B9V in Simbad. |
| 13 The southern star in an optical pair. |
| 14 Listed as G0 by Kuiper in B85; =LTT12271. |
| 15 Integrated magnitude and spectral type, separation 0.66′. |
| 16 The SW star in an optical double (CL87). |
| 17 =WD1031-114, EG070, LTT3870. |
| 18 =WD1036+433. |
| 19 =WD1105-048, LP672-1, EG076, LTT4099, GJ1152B. |
| 20 =LP672-2, GJ1152A. |
| 21 Listed as G0III in Simbad. |
| 22 Listed as sdK in G97, sdK4 in P43. |
| 23 Listed as M4 in MSU; suspected variable; =GL512A. |
| 24 Listed as G8V in Simbad; =Gl-518.2B; western star of optical pair. |
| 25 Listed as A5p in L73. |
| 26 =GJ643. |
| 27 Listed as A8 in Simbad and newer papers. |
| 28 =HD 172652. |
| 29 =WD2032+248, EG139, LTT16005, G186-031, Gl-794, LHS 3562, LFT 1554, AC+25\_68981. |
| 30 Listed as DA in Villanova WD catalog (MS99); =WD2148+286. |
| 31 =WD2149+021, EG150, Gl-838.4. |
| 32 Low amplitude variable, IS Peg (ZZ Cet type). |
| 33 Integrated magnitude and spectral type, separation 0.93′. |
| 34 Listed as sdG in G97, G2VI in He94. |
| 35 =WD2309+105, EG233, BPM97895. |
| 36 Listed as K0 in Simbad. |


format: text

text:
# 1 HERA Physics

## 1 HERA Physics

The range of the physics scanned by HERA is very broad, from hadroproduction to jets, charm, quark fragmentation and instantons, even though in this contribution we will only focus on low $`x`$.

The setting up of HERA, the first electron-proton collider, at DESY during the nineties of the last century made possible the experimental study of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) processes and, more generally, of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), under kinematical conditions where the interplay between soft and hard physics should play an important role .

The most important measurement in DIS is that of the cross-section of the process:

$`epeX`$,

as a function of any pair of independent Lorentz invariants built from the kinematic variables $`q`$, the four-momentum transfer mediated by the virtual photon, and $`P`$, the four-momentum of the incoming proton, e.g. $`(Q^2,x)`$:

$$Q^2=q^2,x=\frac{Q^2}{2Pq},$$
(1)
The large center of mass energy $`s`$ provided by the $`ep`$ collider allows the detectors of the two international experimental collaborations working at HERA, H1  and ZEUS , the study of the kinematic regimes both at large $`Q^2`$ and very small $`x`$. This newly accessible region of very small $`x`$ is specially interesting from the theoretical point of view. Since

$$x=\frac{Q^2}{Q^2+s+m_p^2},$$
(2)
at fixed $`Q^2`$ the limit $`x1`$ corresponds to the limit of large $`s`$, $`sQ^2`$ (Regge limit), where the Regge Field Theory, which was used to describe the hadronic processes before QCD was accepted as the general field theory accounting for the strong interaction, should be valid. Thus, HERA makes possible the study of DIS where both the perturbative QCD limit, $`Q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$, and the Regge limit should apply, i.e. where the hard-perturbative and soft-nonperturbative physics should interplay and shed light on the fundamental question of confinement. On the other hand, very small $`x`$ means parton densities in which the proton momentum fraction is being shared by many partons (mainly gluons), i.e. very high density parton densities, and thus this region of very small $`x`$ connects the study of DIS with the physics of the heavy-ion collisions, so important in the next future with the operative start of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.

Theoretically, the DIS differential cross-section can be expressed in terms of two independent structure functions $`F_1(x,Q^2)`$ and $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$:

$$\frac{d^2\sigma }{dxdQ^2}=\frac{4\pi \alpha ^2}{xQ^4}\left[\left(1y+\frac{y^2}{2}\right)F_2\frac{y^2}{2}F_L\right],$$
(3)
where $`\alpha `$ is the electromagnetic coupling constant, $`y`$ is the fraction of the electron energy tranferred to the proton in the proton rest frame $`(0<y<1)`$, and $`F_L(x,Q^2)`$ is the longitudinal structure function:

$$F_L=F_22xF_1.$$
(4)
The extraction of $`F_2`$ from the cross-section measurement (3) implies an assumption on $`F_L`$, since there is no direct $`F_L`$ measurements in the HERA regime. Once this assumption is made, we can compare the experimental $`F_2`$ with the theoretical one, that can be written in terms of the quark and antiquark densities, $`q_i`$ and $`\overline{q}_i`$, and the quark charges, $`e_{q_i}`$. However, it has not been possible to derive the hadronic structure from first principles including the interactions of quarks and gluons as given by QCD, and the same happens when calculating the $`ep`$ cross-section.

In fact, only three things are rigorously calculable in QCD , due to the fact that they involve just one large scale: the process $`e^+e^{}hadrons`$, $`F_2`$ in DIS and the form factor in exclusive processes . In DIS, the equations that include the perturbative effects and give the relation between the parton distribution function taken at two different scales are called evolution equations, and they can be obtained rigorously by extracting the perturbative part of $`\sigma _{ep}`$ in the Operator Product Expansion (OPE) frame and summing up the large logarithmic perturbative corrections in the Renormalization Group (RG) equations  for the regime with a large scale:

$$Q^2\mathrm{},with\frac{Q^2}{2\nu }=x1(\alpha _slnx1).$$
(5)
An equivalent formulation to the one based on OPE but expressed in terms of parton language is the one of the DGLAP equations . The physical meaning of this method is very clear since it deals with parton densities and fragmentation functions, which are basic quantities for describing short-distance reactions . From (5), we see that the DGLAP equations can be written by neglecting the terms in $`ln\left(Q^2/s\right)`$ at the leading log approximation in $`ln\left(Q^2/Q_0^2\right)`$. This leads to consider all ladder diagrams in which the transverse momenta are strongly ordered:

$$Q^2\mathrm{}k_{T_i}^2k_{T_{i+1}}^2\mathrm{}Q^2.$$
(6)
This is expected to be good enough when $`Q^2`$ is large but $`x`$ is not too small. In this approximation the DGLAP evolution equation for the parton density $`q_i`$ corresponding to the quark of flavor $`i`$ is (a similar equation can be written for the evolution of the gluon density, $`g`$):

$$\frac{dq_i(x,Q^2)}{dlnQ^2}=\frac{\alpha _s}{2\pi }_x^1\frac{dz}{z}\left[q_i(z,Q^2)P_{qq}\left(\frac{x}{z}\right)+g(z,Q^2)P_{qg}\left(\frac{x}{z}\right)\right].$$
(7)
The $`P\left(\frac{x}{z}\right)`$ functions in (7) are the calculable splitting functions giving the probabilities for the parton branchings.

When $`x`$ is small but $`Q^2`$ is not very large the DGLAP equations can no longer be used. It is for this new regime:

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^2Q^2s,$$
(8)
where no theoretically rigorous evolution equation is available, that a new evolution equation analytically solvable at fixed $`\alpha _s`$ has been proposed, the BFKL evolution equation , in which we can, from (8), consider the leading log approximation in $`ln\left(1/x\right)`$, which translates in resumming the ladder diagrams with strongly ordered $`x_i`$:

$$x_0\mathrm{}x_ix_{i+1}\mathrm{}x,$$
(9)
and no ordering on $`k_{T_i}`$. The BFKL equation is an evolution equation in $`x`$ of the gluon density $`g(x,k_T^2)`$, dominant at small $`x`$:

$$\frac{g(x,k_T^2)}{ln(1/x)}=\frac{3\alpha _s}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk_T^2}{k_T^2}\left[\frac{g(x,k_T^2)g(x,k_T^2)}{|k_T^2k_T^2|}+\frac{g(x,k_T^2)}{\sqrt{4k_T^2k_T^2}}\right].$$
(10)
Thus $`g(x,k_T^2)`$ can be calculated for any small $`x`$ once it is known at some starting value $`x_0`$, for all $`k_T^2`$.

As already mentioned, the BFKL equation can be solved analytically for fixed $`\alpha _s`$, with the $`x`$ and $`k_T`$ behaviors of the solution being:

$$g(x,k_T^2)\left(\frac{x}{x_0}\right)^\lambda \sqrt{k_T^2}\frac{1}{ln1/x},$$
(11)
with

$$\lambda ^{LO}=(n_c\alpha _s/\pi )4ln20.5$$
(12)
for $`n_c=3`$ colors, being the famous BFKL Pomeron intercept. At this point one has to note that different problems appear when trying to solve the BFKL equation at the next-to-leading order (NLO) , among them the impossibility of treating all the terms in the new solution as Regge terms. Still, the NLO estimates of the BFKL Pomeron intercept seem to lead to a value:

$$\lambda ^{NLO}0.25÷0.3.$$
(13)
Also attempts have been made to include the running of $`\alpha _s(Q^2)`$ in the calculation.

In the region where $`x`$ is small and $`Q^2`$ is not too large, now accessible at HERA, the old Regge Field Theory should work. The Regge Field Theory  is a method based on analyticity, crossing symmetries between the $`s`$ and $`t`$ channels and unitarity in the complex angular momenta plane, valid to compute the cross-section of hadron-hadron collisions at high energies (the equivalent in DIS to small $`x`$), by squaring the sum over the scattering amplitudes due to the mesons that can be exchanged in the process. These mesons can be empirically grouped along the so called Regge trajectories, parametrized as straight lines which relate the mass $`m`$ and the spin $`J`$ of the exchanged mesons, $`J=\alpha (m^2)`$:

$$\alpha (t)=\alpha _0+\alpha ^{}t,$$
(14)
where $`\alpha _0`$ is the intercept and $`\alpha ^{}`$ the slope of the trajectory. Thus the elastic cross-section for a hadron-hadron collision will be calculated by summing over all the Regge trajectories whose resonances can be exchanged in the reaction, and the final result can be written as:

$$\frac{d\sigma ^{el}}{dt}(\beta (t))^2s^{2\alpha (t)2},$$
(15)
with $`\beta (t)`$ an unknown real function. Now, by using the optical theorem which relates the total cross-section to the forward elastic amplitude, we can predict the behavior of the total hadron-hadron cross-section:

$$\sigma _{tot}s^{\alpha _01}.$$
(16)
The huge amount of experimental data on hadronic cross-sections for many different processes shows an universal and steady rise at large energies that can only be accounted for by parametrizing all these cross-sections as the sum of two different components:

$$\sigma _{tot}=As^{\alpha _R(0)1}+Bs^{\alpha _P(0)1},$$
(17)
with $`A`$ and $`B`$ process-dependent constants and the intercepts $`\alpha _R(0)0.5`$ and $`\alpha _P(0)1.08`$, universal process-independent constants. While the first term in Eq. (17) represents the exchange of the experimentally detected mesonic resonances (secondary Reggeon), the second term represents the exchange of a hypothetical object, the soft Pomeron, which has the vacuum quantum numbers (electrically and color neutral, isospin $`0`$ and $`C`$-parity $`+1`$), and it is the one responsible, through the value of its intercept larger than $`1`$ (supercritical Pomeron), for the rise of $`\sigma ^{tot}`$ at large energies. This soft Pomeron, as it also happens for the BFKL Pomeron, is suspected to be of gluonic nature. Of course, Equation (17) violates the unitarity constraints imposed by the Froissart bound on the cross-section behavior, so we must interpret the soft Pomeron just as an useful phenomenological tool.

As a matter of fact, DIS processes at small $`x`$ can be viewed in terms of the Regge Field Theory as virtual photon-proton scattering at high energy, with $`F_2`$ dominated by the gluon content of the proton:

$$F_2=\frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha }\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^{tot}F_2\left(1/x\right)^{\alpha _P(0)},$$
(18)
where this should be compared with the solution of the BFKL evolution equation, so we can write:

$$F_2\left(1/x\right)^{\alpha _{BFKL}},$$
(19)
and we view the exchange of a hard BFKL Pomeron in the Regge language as the sum over graphs with one gluon ladder between the interaction particles in perturbative QCD.

Now we are in conditions to address the problems at the origin of the theoretical models that we pretend to review in this contribution. The first question is how to connect QCD and the Regge Field Theory in a theory which could compute quantitatively any DIS or hadronic process in both the soft and hard regimes. The second problem concerns the perturbative QCD prediction of a strong increase of the parton densities at low $`x`$, which led to the idea  that the density of partons (gluons) becomes so big that at some point these gluons cannot be considered as independent partons any more, but they interact among them. To determine whether this is actually the case, and whether these interactions must be taken into account for a consistent description of DIS processes in this small $`x`$ regime, is what is called the saturation problem, at present intensively analyzed, both theoretically and experimentally at HERA. To precisely establish  the way saturation relates to the idea of unitarity, a better understanding of the fundamental question of confinement is needed.

## 2 Theoretical Approaches

Many models have been proposed in the attempt to make the connection between soft and hard physics in a theoretically consistent way during the last years. Given the current lack of both theoretical and experimental tools needed in order to articulate an universal and fundamental approach, all these models are phenomenological to a larger or smaller degree, and they can basically be classified in three main goups. The first class of models explicitly includes saturation, as the dipole models which use the idea that the virtual photon actually splits into a $`q`$-$`\overline{q}`$ dipole and it is this dipole which subsequently interacts with the proton. Here, the size of the dipole will determine the soft or hard character of the interaction. The second class of models, that we will call phenomenological parametrizations of structure functions at low $`Q^2`$, provides a parametrization of the structure function $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ describing the experimental data in the (nonperturbative) region where perturbative QCD is supposed to fail, and then uses this parametrization to be plugged in as an initial condition in the perturbative evolution equations to obtain a description of the experiment in the whole kinematic range. The philosophy behind the third group of models (dynamical models for the low $`Q^2`$ behavior of $`F_2`$) is just the opposite. Now a QCD-based consistent description of the data in the perturbative region is considered, and then extrapolated down to the region of not large $`Q^2`$, through the evolution equations and under certain ad-hoc conditions imposed to maintain the consistency of the description in the region where the perturbative treatment is supposed not to work any more.

The first explicit realization of the idea of saturation was presented not for the nucleon, but for the nuclear case , when it was shown that the Glauber model without gluon interaction leads to the saturation of the $`1/k_T^2`$ growth of the quark and gluon distributions at fixed $`s`$ as $`k_T^2`$ becomes small.

One dipole model very transparent in its physical interpretation is the GW model . Here the structure function $`F_2`$ is separated into two terms:

$$F_2=F^T+F^L,$$
(20)
with, for $`x1`$:

$$F^{T,L}=\frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha }d^2\stackrel{}{r}𝑑z|\mathrm{\Psi }^{T,L}(\stackrel{}{r},z,Q^2)|^2\widehat{\sigma }(x,\stackrel{}{r}).$$
(21)
Here $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{T,L}`$ is the known wave function for a transverse (T) or longitudinal (L) polarized virtual photon $`\gamma ^{}`$ to split into a $`q`$-$`\overline{q}`$ dipole, $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ is the dipole cross-section describing the interaction of the dipole with the proton, and $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ is the transverse separation of the $`q`$-$`\overline{q}`$ pair. Unitarity is built in by the phenomenological form of the dipole cross-section:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \widehat{\sigma }& =& \sigma _0\left(1exp\left(r^2/4R_0^2(x)\right)\right)\hfill \\ \hfill R_0(x)& =& \left(1/Q_0\right)(x/x_0)^{\mathrm{\Delta }/2},\hfill \end{array}$$
(22)
where $`R_0`$ is the so-called saturation radius, $`Q_0=1.GeV`$, and parameters $`\sigma _0`$, $`x_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are fitted to all inclusive DIS data with $`x<0.01`$. Thus in this model, at small $`r`$ one has color transparency and a strong growth of $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ with $`x`$:

$$\widehat{\sigma }r^2x^\mathrm{\Delta },$$
(23)
while at large $`r`$ (or $`x0`$) $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ approaches the black-disk constant value $`\sigma _0`$ (saturation). The transition to saturation is governed by $`R_0(x)`$.

There are models including other saturation mechanisms. One of them is the interaction between partons in the parton cascade , not taken into account in QCD evolution equations, but that could become important to slow down the growth of parton densities. Here, the parton interactions will create an equilibrium-like system of partons with a definite value for the average transverse momentum, $`Q_s(x)`$ (saturation scale). A different proposed saturation mechanism is the percolation of strings , a second order phase transition which takes place when clusters of overlapping strings, with size of the order of the total transverse area available, appear. This phase transition is used as an indication for the onset of saturation of the density of partons. In this approach, which can be generalized to the nuclear case, a multiple exchange model for $`ep`$ collisions is needed.

For the nuclear case, the first approach  presenting the $`k_T^2`$ saturation curves for the quark and gluon distributions at fixed $`s`$ has been extended  to the case where interaction among gluons is taken into account, obtaining the $`x`$ dependence of those curves. Also all multiple Pomeron LO exchanges have been included  in deriving a small $`x`$ evolution equation of $`F_2`$ for a large nucleus from the first nuclear approach without interaction , and it is shown that in the double leading log limit this equation reduces to the GLR equation . In a different model , the valence quarks of the nucleons of the nucleus are treated as the sources of the small $`x`$ gluon distribution of the nucleus.

Among the phenomenological parametrizations of structure functions at low $`Q^2`$, the DL model  is a parametrization of $`F_2`$ that uses two separate (soft and hard) Pomerons:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill F_2(x,Q^2)& =& f_0(q^2)x^{ϵ_0}(1x)^7\hfill \\ & +& f_1(q^2)x^{ϵ_1}(1x)^7\hfill \\ & +& f_2(q^2)x^{ϵ_2}(1x)^3,\hfill \end{array}$$
(24)
with $`ϵ_0=0.4372`$ (hard), $`ϵ_1=0.0808`$ (soft), and $`ϵ_2=0.4525`$ (valence). The ABY model  is another parametrization of $`F_2`$ using two different components, a hard Pomeron plus a soft Pomeron that in this model is taken as a flat term.

The CKMT model  is also a phenomenological parametrization of $`F_2`$ at low $`Q^2`$, but it uses only one effective Pomeron. The CKMT model proposes for the nucleon structure functions:

$$F_2(x,Q^2)=F_S(x,Q^2)+F_{NS}(x,Q^2),$$
(25)
the following parametrization of its two terms in the region of small and moderate $`Q^2`$. For the singlet term, corresponding to the Pomeron contribution:

$$F_S(x,Q^2)=A^Sx^{\mathrm{\Delta }(Q^2)}(1x)^{n(Q^2)+4}\left(\frac{Q^2}{Q^2+a}\right)^{1+\mathrm{\Delta }(Q^2)},$$
(26)
where the $`x`$$``$0 behavior is determined by an effective intercept of the Pomeron, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, which takes into account Pomeron cuts and, therefore (and this is one of the main points of the model), it depends on $`Q^2`$. This dependence is parametrized as :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(Q^2)=\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(1+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_1Q^2}{Q^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_2}\right).$$
(27)
Thus, for low values of $`Q^2`$ (large cuts), $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is close to the effective value found from analysis of hadronic total cross-sections ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$``$0.08), while for high values of $`Q^2`$ (small cuts), $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ takes the bare Pomeron value, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`0.2÷0.25`$. The parametrization for the non-singlet term, which corresponds to the secondary Reggeon (f, $`A_2`$) contribution, is:

$$F_{NS}(x,Q^2)=B^{NS}x^{1\alpha _R}(1x)^{n(Q^2)}\left(\frac{Q^2}{Q^2+b}\right)^{\alpha _R},$$
(28)
where the $`x`$$``$0 behavior is determined by the secondary Reggeon intercept $`\alpha _R`$, which is in the range $`\alpha _R0.4÷0.5`$. The valence quark contribution can be separated into the contribution of the u ($`B_u^{NS}`$) and d ($`B_d^{NS}`$) valence quarks, the normalization condition for valence quarks fixes both contributions at one given value of $`Q^2`$ ($`Q_v^2=2.GeV^2`$ has been used in the calculations). For both the singlet and the non-singlet terms, the behavior when $`x`$$``$1 is controlled by $`n(Q^2)`$, with $`n(Q^2)`$ being

$$n(Q^2)=\frac{3}{2}\left(1+\frac{Q^2}{Q^2+c}\right).$$
(29)
Therefore, for $`Q^2=0.`$ the behavior of the valence quark distributions is given by Regge intercepts, $`n`$(0)=$`\alpha _R`$(0)$``$$`\alpha _N`$(0)$``$ 3/2, while the behavior of $`n(Q^2)`$ for large $`Q^2`$ is taken to coincide with dimensional counting rules. The total cross-section for real ($`Q^2`$=0) photons can be obtained from the structure function $`F_2`$ using the following relation:

$$\sigma _{\gamma p}^{tot}(\nu )=\left[\frac{4\pi ^2\alpha }{Q^2}F_2(x,Q^2)\right]_{Q^2=0}.$$
(30)
The proper $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$$``$$`Q^2`$ behavior when $`Q^2`$$``$0, is given in the model by the last factors in Equations (26) and (28), leading to the following form of the $`\sigma _{\gamma p}^{tot}(\nu )`$ in the CKMT model:

$$\sigma _{\gamma p}^{tot}(\nu )=4\pi ^2\alpha \left(A^Sa^{1\mathrm{\Delta }_0}(2m\nu )^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}+(B_u^{NS}+B_d^{NS})b^{\alpha _R}(2m\nu )^{\alpha _R1}\right).$$
(31)
The parameters in the model were determined from a joint fit of the $`\sigma _{\gamma p}^{tot}`$ data and NMC data on the proton structure function in the region $`1.GeV^2Q^25.GeV^2`$, obtaining a very good description of the available experimental data. The next step in this approach is to introduce the QCD evolution in the partonic distributions of the CKMT model and thus to determine the structure functions at higher values of $`Q^2`$. For this, the evolution equation in two loops in the $`\overline{\text{MS}}`$ scheme with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=200.MeV`$ was used. The results obtained by taking into account the QCD evolution in this way are in a very good agreement with the experimental data on $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ at high values of $`Q^2`$.

The ALLM parametrization  of $`F_2`$ also uses $`Q^2`$-dependent powers of $`x`$, but it does no introduce QCD evolution.

Among the dynamical models of the low $`Q^2`$ behavior of $`F_2`$, we should mention the GRV model , in which the QCD evolution equations are extended down to the very low $`Q^2`$ region ($`Q^2<1.GeV^2`$) using dynamical parton densities generated radiatively from valence-like inputs at some resolution scale. In this model both LO and NLO approximations are used. Another dynamical model is the KP model , where the DGLAP evolution equation at NLO is solved by giving analytical parametrizations for the parton ditributions. This model takes into account the contributions of higher-twist (renormalon-type) operators of the Wilson OPE, which are important at low $`Q^2`$. Finally, the BK model  considers the contributions both from the parton model with QCD corrections extended to the low $`Q^2`$ region and from the low mass vector mesons. There are other vector meson dominance (VMD) models .

On top of these, one can find models which are in the middle of two of the groups above. Thus, in the NZZ model  a color dipole approach is used to solve the BFKL equation with running coupling constant, while another dipole model with both a hard and a soft Pomeron has been proposed  where the large dipoles couple to the soft Pomeron and small dipoles couple to the hard Pomeron. This model has been applied to the case of the charm structure function $`F_2^c(x,Q^2)`$. Also an explicit dipole model with the CKMT pattern of energy behavior (effective $`Q^2`$-dependent Pomeron intercept) has recently been presented . Other attempts have been made by interpolating between Regge behavior and the high $`Q^2`$ DGLAP asymptotics .

## 3 Discussion and Conclusions

In this contribution we have presented a basic introduction to HERA physics, mainly focused on the field of low $`x`$ physics. The low $`x`$ HERA physics provides an important experimental tool to obtain a better understanding of the interplay between soft and hard physics and the relation between concepts as saturation and unitarity, and to address more consistently the fundamental question of confinement. Models including saturation present a decrease of the effective Pomeron intercept as $`x0`$, while in other models the effective intercept should increase as energy (or $`1/x`$) increases.

The experimental evidence of saturation at HERA, specifically the presence of a change in the $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`F_2`$ at very small $`x`$ and moderate $`Q^2`$, presented in a very graphic way as the turnovers of the logarithmic slopes of $`F_2`$, in particular of $`F_2/lnQ^2`$ at moderate $`Q^2`$ and small $`x`$, is not conclusive.

Essential information on the behavior of the structure functions in the region of extremely small $`x`$, not accessible at HERA, will be available at LHC in a hopefully near future.

## Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank and congratulate Stephan Narison for organizing this conference and for his effort to connect, in a two-way profitable relation, our physics community to such a great country as Madagascar and to its scientists. I am also grateful to Marie Razafindrakoto for her success in implementing a friendly organization for the participants before and during the conference, and in dealing with the proceedings. Thanks are due to Fy Rafam’andrianjafy for her help on the week-end tour to the National Park of Andasibe and Manambato, and to all members of the local committee. I wish to thank M.A. Braun and G. Parente for reading and improving the manuscript, and E.G. Ferreiro for her useful comments. Finally, I would like to express my hope that this conference will become only the first of a long and fruitful series to come.


text:
# REFERENCES

\[ \] Comment on ”History Effects and Phase Diagram near the Lower Critical Point in $`\mathrm{YBa}_2\mathrm{Cu}_3\mathrm{O}_{7\delta }`$ Single Crystals”:

A lower critical point $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ of the first order transition line $`B_m(T)`$ signaled by a magnetization jump often appears in $`\mathrm{YBa}_2\mathrm{Cu}_3\mathrm{O}_{7\delta }`$ (YBCO) at a magnetic field in tesla range, for example, as a result of enhanced extrinsic point disorder. Recently, Zhukov et al. have found in their magnetization data the presence of $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ and of a history effect in lower fields than $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$. To try to explain $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ increasing with decreasing oxygen-deficiency $`\delta `$ acting as an extrinsic pinning disorder, they have invoked an intrinsic pinning disorder, of electronic origin, increasing with decreasing $`\delta `$ by assuming $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ as well as the upper critical point $`B_{\mathrm{umc}}`$ to be induced by some (static) disorder. However, since both $`B_{\mathrm{umc}}`$ and $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ decrease with increasing $`\delta `$ , a comprehensive understanding of the phase diagram based on the argument in ref.2 would require such an unacceptable assumption that $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ is controlled by the intrinsic disorder, while $`B_{\mathrm{umc}}`$ is mainly determined by the extrinsic one.

It is well accepted at present that the macroscopic properties in vortex states of real type II superconductors should be described based on the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) model characterized by three material parameters, i.e., the fluctuation strength, anisotropy (dimensionality), and pinning strength. Since a single pinning strength describes possible point-like disorders altogether in GL theory, the doping dependences of $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ and $`B_{\mathrm{umc}}`$ cannot be understood consistently even if artificially introducing a couple of different pinning disorders. Below, we briefly point out that the dependences of the critical points on $`\delta `$  and on an extrinsic pinning disorder can be explained altogether within the GL theory if taking account of the fact that the mass anisotropy $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the fluctuation strength ($`\lambda ^2(T)`$) increase with increasing $`\delta `$, where $`\lambda (T)`$ is the in-plane penetration depth. First, we note that $`B_{\mathrm{umc}}`$ is generally believed to decrease with increasing an effective pinning strength $`D_{p,\mathrm{eff}}`$ (a relative strength of point disorder to the fluctuation strength) which is effectively enhanced by increasing fields. This statement is valid particularly in type II limit where the magnetic screening, important near $`H_{c1}`$, is neglected. Assuming the type II limit in the field range far above $`H_{c1}`$ where the two critical points were detected in YBCO is safely valid. Rather, in our theory, the appearance of $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ is based on the fact that, in layered systems, the vortex-glass (VG) transition curve $`B_{\mathrm{VG}}(T)`$ in type II limit can lie above the $`B_m(T)`$-line (defined in clean limit) in lower fields only because of a difference in their $`T`$-dependences. Since the Ohmic resistance vanishes at $`B_{\mathrm{VG}}(T)`$ possibly corresponding to $`B_p(T)`$ in ref.2, the $`B_m(T)`$-line in $`B<B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ lies within a glass phase. Namely, the superconducting transition in $`B<B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ is a continuous VG transition, and $`B_m(T)`$ is not realized there as the thermal first order transition signaled by a jump of reversible magnetization. Up to the lowest order in the bare pinning strength, the resulting lower critical point is estimated as

$$B_{\mathrm{lmc}}c_LH_{c2}(0)\left(\frac{\varphi _0^2d}{16\pi ^2\lambda ^2(0)k_\mathrm{B}T_c}\right)\frac{\xi _0^4}{d^4\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}D_{p,\mathrm{eff}}^6,$$
$`(1)`$
where $`d`$ the layer spacing, $`\xi _0`$ the in-plane coherence length, and $`c_L`$ is a constant taking a value between $`10^2`$ and $`10^3`$. The inverse of parameter combination in the bracket measures the fluctuation strength per layer. In contrast to $`B_{\mathrm{umc}}`$, the primary origin of $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ decreasing with increasing $`\delta `$ is, according to eq.(1), its remarkable dependence on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\lambda (0)`$ both of which increase with increasing $`\delta `$. Although it is not straightforward to predict a $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$’s sample dependence because it depends competitively on all of the three material parameters, nevertheless we note that, by assuming $`\mathrm{\Gamma }8`$ for the fully-oxidized case and, for brevity, other parameters to have no doping dependences, $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ may stay in tesla range on the overdoped side. Eq.(1) may be insufficient in quantitatively explaining lower $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ values in optimally doped samples where the higher Landau level fluctuations neglected in obtaining eq.(1) are no longer negligible below 1.7 (T) . Nevertheless, the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-dependence of eq.(1) is qualitatively consistent not only with the absence (in accessible fields) of $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ in BSCCO and underdoped YBCO with quite large $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-values but also with a $`\delta `$-dependence of $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ suggested from optimally-doped and three overdoped YBCO samples.

Further, according to recent works, a $`B_{\mathrm{lmc}}`$ of several tesla is present in the parallel field case even in underdoped YBCO. This fact is compatible not with the interpretation invoking an intrinsic disorder negligible in underdoped YBCO but only with the present theory based on the GL model with extrinsic disorder.

We are grateful to T. Nishizaki for informative discussion.

Ryusuke Ikeda
Department of Physics,
Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan


text:
# Doping dependence of an 𝑛-type cuprate superconductor investigated by ARPES

## Abstract

We present an angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) doping dependence study of the $`n`$-type cuprate superconductor Nd2-xCexCuO4±δ, from the half-filled Mott-insulator to the $`T_c`$=24K superconductor. In Nd2CuO4, we reveal the charge-transfer band (CTB) for the first time. As electrons are doped into the system, this feature’s intensity decreases with the concomitant formation of near-$`E_F`$ spectral weight. At low doping, the Fermi surface is an electron-pocket (with volume $`x`$) centered at ($`\pi `$,0). Further doping leads to the creation of a new hole-like Fermi surface (volume $`1+x`$) centered at ($`\pi `$,$`\pi `$). These findings shed light on the Mott gap, its doping evolution, as well as the anomalous transport properties of the $`n`$-type cuprates.

The parent compounds of the high-temperature superconductors are believed to belong to a class of materials known as Mott insulators. At half-filling these materials, predicted to be metallic by band theory, are insulating due to the large Coulomb repulsion that inhibits double site occupation and hence charge conduction. These cuprates become metals and then superconductors when doped with charge carriers away from half-filling. Although the general systematics of Mott insulators and metals are understood, the question of how one may proceed from a half-filled Mott insulator (with only spin low-energy degrees of freedom) to a metal (with a large Luttinger’s theorem respecting Fermi surface) is unanswered. Even after 15 years of intensive research into this fundamental issue in the cuprates, both the manner in which this evolution occurs and the nature of electronic states at the chemical potential remains unclear.

Within the Hubbard model, Mott insulators are described as a single metallic band split into upper (UHB) and lower Hubbard bands (LHB) by a correlation energy $`U`$ that represents the energy cost for a site to be doubly occupied. The high-$`T_c`$ parent compounds are not Mott insulators $`per`$ $`se`$, but may be more properly characterized as charge-transfer insulators. However, it is believed that such systems can be described by an effective Hubbard Hamiltonian, where an oxygen-derived charge- transfer band (CTB) substitutes for the LHB and the charge- transfer gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ plays the role of $`U`$. ARPES measurements on the prototypical half-filled parent Mott insulators Sr2CuO2Cl2 (SCOC) and Ca2CuO2Cl2 (CCOC) have shed light on the dispersive behavior of this CTB. Interestingly, previous photoemission measurements on undoped Nd2CuO4 (NCO) did not reveal a similar feature. This is surprising as one might expect that the half-filled CuO2 planes would exhibit generalities independent of material class. The CTB in NCO may not have been resolved previously due to an anomalous (and yet to be understood) polarization dependence of its intensity, and because it is partially obscured by the main valence band.

In the simplest picture, the chemical potential moves into the LHB or UHB (with a transfer of spectral weight across the correlation gap $`U`$), as the material is doped away from half-filling with holes or electrons respectively. In alternative scenarios, the act of doping creates “states” inside the insulator’s gap, and as a result the chemical potential remains relatively fixed in the middle of the gap. A definitive resolution of this issue has been hampered by the lack of reliable inverse photoemission experiments that, coupled with photoemission, could show where the $`E_F`$ states reside with respect to the CTB and UHB. Information obtained from photoemission alone on different material classes has been interpreted in terms of both scenarios.

The vast majority of ARPES experiments on the high-temperature superconductors have been performed on hole-doped materials. In contrast, the electron-doped materials have been relatively unexplored with this technique. In addition to having interesting properties of their own, these materials provide a unique opportunity to explore the evolution from a Mott insulator to a metal since a greater portion of the states should be occupied, making a full view of the Mott gap possible for photoemission experiments.

In this Letter, we report results of an ARPES study of the electron-doped cuprate superconductor Nd2-xCexCuO4±δ at concentrations $`x=0,0.04,0.10,`$ and $`0.15`$. For the first time, we are able to isolate and resolve the contribution to the spectra from the CTB on the $`x=0`$ sample, as has been observed in the parent compounds of the hole-doped materials, thereby demonstrating the universality of the electronic structure of the CuO2 plane. In NCO this feature appears $``$1.3 eV below the Fermi energy, rendering almost the entire Mott gap visible in our experiment. Upon doping, spectral weight is shifted from the CTB to form states near $`E_F`$. At very low doping, these states are centered around ($`\pi `$,0), forming a small Fermi surface with volume $`x`$. Simultaneously, there is an appearance of spectral weight that begins to span and fill the insulator’s gap. At high doping levels, this in-gap spectral weight moves to $`E_F`$ near ($`\pi /2`$,$`\pi /2`$) and thereby connects with ($`\pi `$,0) derived states to form an LDA-like Fermi surface with volume $`1+x`$. This evolution provides a natural explanation for the confusing transport data from electron-doped cuprates and is qualitatively similar to what one expects from some $`tt^{}t^{\prime \prime }U`$ models.

Single crystals of Nd2-xCexCuO4±δ (NCCO) with concentrations $`x=0,0.04,0.10,`$ and $`0.15`$ were grown by the traveling- solvent floating-zone method in 4 atm. of O2 at Stanford University ($`x=0.04,0.10,`$ and $`0.15`$) and The University of Tokyo ($`x=0`$ and $`0.15`$). Samples of $`x=0`$, $`0.10`$ and $`0.15`$ were oxygen reduced. In addition some data were taken on reduced $`x=0.04`$ samples and were found to have features intermediate to unreduced $`x=0.04`$ and reduced $`x=0.10`$. Measurements were performed at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory’s Beamline 5-4. The data reported here were collected with 16.5 eV photons with 10-20 meV energy resolution and an angular resolution as good as 0.25 ($`1\%`$ of the Brillouin zone) except where indicated. The chamber pressure was lower than 4 x 10-11 torr. In all measurements, sample temperatures were uniformly 10-20K. This presented no charging problems even for the $`x=0`$ insulator. Cleaving the samples in situ at 10K resulted in shiny flat surfaces, which LEED revealed to be clean and well ordered with the same symmetry as the bulk. No signs of surface aging were seen for the duration of the experiments ($``$24 h).

In Figs. 1(a) and 1(b), we show spectra for undoped NCO with polarization of the incoming photons at 45 to the Cu-O bonds. Along the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ to ($`\pi `$,$`\pi `$) cut, a large broad feature disperses out from under the main valence band, reaches a maximum near ($`\pi `$/2,$`\pi `$/2), and then disperses back to higher energy. A very similar dispersion can be seen in the perpendicular direction (Fig. 1(b)). A feature with a strikingly similar shape and energy scale has been seen in CCOC, as shown in Figs. 1(c) and 1(d). Due to this similarity, as well the fact that the feature’s position relative to the chemical potential ($``$1.3 eV; minimum binding energy of its centroid) is approximately the same as this material’s optical gap $``$1.6 eV (measured from the peak in the optical conductivity), we assign this feature to the CTB. This assertion is supported below by its dramatic doping dependence. There is some variability ($`\pm 0.1`$eV) in the exact binding energy of the CTB from cleave to cleave, as also observed in CCOC and SCOC. In Figs. 1(a) and 1(b), the horizonal scale is set to the average position from a number of cleaves. In Figs. 1(c) and 1(d), the energy is given relative to the binding energy minimum of the feature. The $`x=0`$ sample is probably slightly doped so that the chemical potential is pinned near the conduction band minimum (UHB). Part of the discrepancy between photoemission ($``$1.3 eV) and optics ($``$1.6 eV) may stem from the fact that the charge-transfer (CT) gap appears to be indirect, as we will show later.

Having identified the CTB in Nd2CuO4, we can track it as the dopant concentration is increased and spectral weight appears in the near-$`E_F`$ region. In Figs. 2(a) and 2(b), we plot partially angle-integrated energy distribution curves (EDCs) from regions near ($`\pi `$/2,$`\pi `$/2) and ($`\pi `$,$`0.3\pi `$) respectively. One can see that at finite doping levels the CTB spectral weight decreases and intensity develops at energies near $`E_F`$, at what is ostensibly the edge of the upper Hubbard band. This is suggestive of the kind of transfer of spectral weight from high energies to low energies that one qualitatively expects when doping a Mott insulator, and gives us confidence in our assignment of this feature as the CTB.

A closer look at Fig. 2(a) reveals that there is a very weak low-energy “foot” in the $`x=0`$ sample that probably reflects a small intrinsic doping level in this otherwise half-filled material. The larger nondispersive near-$`E_F`$ spectral weight that develops along the zone diagonal for the $`x=0.04`$ sample is gapped by $``$150 meV. This is in contrast to near ($`\pi ,0.3\pi `$) (Fig. 2(b)), where there is spectral weight at $`E_F`$ for $`x=0.04`$ doping levels. For $`x=0.10`$, the zone diagonal spectral weight has moved closer to $`E_F`$ and even stronger $`E_F`$ intensity has formed near ($`\pi `$,$`0.3\pi `$). A weak dispersion is evident along the zone diagonal for the $`x=0.10`$ sample (not shown). At $`x=0.15`$ there is large near-$`E_F`$ weight and a strong dispersion throughout the zone as detailed in our previous work. The small chemical potential shift ($``$150 meV) seen by XPS in NCCO by Harima et. al.  in this doping range is consistent with our result where it appears that band at ($`\pi `$,0) moves on order of this amount when doping from $`x=0`$ to $`x=0.15.`$

Following our previous analysis of the optimally doped compound , we construct Fermi surfaces by integrating EDCs in a small window about $`E_F`$(-40meV, +20meV) and plotting this quantity as a function of $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ (Fig. 3). Consistent with the above observation that spectral weight along the zone diagonal is gapped for $`x=0.04`$, one can see that it is only the states at ($`\pi `$,0) that can contribute to low-energy properties. Here, a Fermi “patch” indicates that there is an extremely low-energy shallow band in this part of the Brillouin zone. At $`x=0.10`$, weight at $`E_F`$ with low intensity begins to appear near the zone diagonal. Near ($`\pi `$,0), the “band” becomes deeper and the Fermi patch becomes a Fermi surface. At $`x=0.15`$, the zone diagonal region has become intense. The full Fermi surface has formed and only in the intensity-suppressed regions near ($`0.65\pi ,0.3\pi `$) (and its symmetry- related points) at the intersection of the Fermi surface with the antiferromagnetic Brillouin zone boundary does the underlying Fermi surface retain its anomalous properties.

We can gain more insight by looking at plots of the EDCs around the putative LDA Fermi surface, as shown in Figs. 2(c)-2(e). In Fig. 2(c), for $`x=0.04`$, a large broad feature is gapped by $``$150 meV near the zone-diagonal region. As one proceeds around the ostensible LDA Fermi surface, the high-energy feature loses spectral weight and may disappear, while another feature pushes up at $`E_F`$. It is this second component that contacts $`E_F`$ near ($`\pi `$,$`0.3\pi `$) to form the small Fermi surface for the $`x=0.04`$ sample. Similar behavior is seen in the $`x=0.10`$ and $`0.15`$ plots; the lowest-energy features become progressively sharper, closer to and upon entering the metallic state. The fact that there are two components supports our conjecture that at low dopings the material can be characterized by a small FS or electron pocket around ($`\pi ,0`$) (volume consistent with $`x=0.04`$) with doping-induced spectral weight at higher energy elsewhere in the zone. As the carrier concentration is increased, the ($`\pi `$,0) FS deforms and a new FS segment emerges. It derives from the diagonal feature progressively moving to $`E_F`$, as seen by comparing the bottom EDCs of Figs. 2(c)-2(e). These two segments connect to form the LDA-like Fermi surface with volume $`1.12\pm 0.05`$.

In the lower panels of Fig. 3, we present a schematic that shows the above described evolution of the E vs. $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ relation along two symmetry directions $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\pi ,\pi )`$ and $`(\pi ,\pi )(\pi ,0)`$ for the four doping levels. The centroid and widths of the features are plotted for the doping levels and momentum space regions where they can be resolved.

The existence of a Fermi patch at ($`\pi ,0`$) in the lightly doped $`x=0.04`$ sample is consistent with some calculations based on the $`tt^{}t^{\prime \prime }U`$ model that predict the lowest electron-addition states for the $`x=0`$ insulator are near ($`\pi ,0`$). This confirms an electron-hole asymmetry (broken by the higher order hopping terms) , as the lowest hole-addition states for the insulator are near ($`\pi /2,\pi /2`$) and is the first direct evidence for an indirect CT gap in the cuprates. However, the spectral weight that appears in the the CT gap is not explained within a simple LHB/UHB picture. Exact $`tt^{}t^{\prime \prime }U`$ model numerical calculations have shown evidence for intrinsic excitations to lie in the insulator’s gap at low doping. These calculations show the features to have only low spectral weight with the majority contribution at ($`\pi ,0`$), as is observed. In addition, the detailed evolution of the electronic structure with doping, especially the $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ space mapping of the low lying excitations of Fig. 3, bears clear resemblance to models that allow the effective $`U`$ to decrease with doping. Within these models, the CT gap closes with increasing doping and the Fermi level now cuts not only the bottom of the conduction band near ($`\pi ,0`$), but also the top of the valence band near ($`\pi /2,\pi /2`$) because of the indirect gap. Here, the band-structure changes as the antiferromangetic coherence factors and gap subside.

Starting from the metallic side, an alternative approach may be one that emphasizes a coupling of electrons to magnetic (or similar) fluctuations with characteristic wavevector ($`\pi ,\pi `$). For example, within this picture as the antiferromagnetic phase is approached and antiferromagnetic correlations become stronger the “hot spot” regions (intersection of the FS and antiferromagnetic Brillouin zone boundary ) may spread so that the zone-diagonal spectral weight is gapped by the approximate nesting of the ($`\pi /2,\pi /2`$) section of FS with the ($`\pi /2,\pi /2`$) section of FS. This scheme obviously breaks down as one gets close to the Mott state, where the zone diagonal spectral weight is not only gapped, but also vanishes.

Our finding of an electron pocket that evolves with doping into a large hole-like Fermi surface provides a route towards explaining the long-standing puzzle that while transport in these materials exhibit unambiguous $`n`$-type carrier behavior at low doping, one has to invoke both electron and hole-carriers to explain data near optimal doping .

In conclusion, it appears that certain elements of both scenarios laid out in the introduction can explain our data. At low carrier concentrations, electrons are doped into regions close to ($`\pi ,0`$) (confirming a particle-hole asymmetry) near the energy expected for the UHB, forming a small Fermi surface. Simultaneously, there is an appearance of spectral weight at higher energy that begins to span and fill the insulator’s gap. At higher electron doping levels, more spectral weight is created in this midgap region and it is this high-energy spectral weight that moves to the chemical potential and completes the $`\stackrel{}{k}_F`$ segment to form a large Fermi surface with a volume close to the expected Luttinger volume.

The authors would like to thank T. Tohyama, P.G. Steeneken, C. Kusko, and R.S. Markiewicz for valuable correspondences. Experimental data was recorded at SSRL which is operated by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Science, Div. of Chem. Sciences and Mat. Sciences. Additional support comes from the Office of Naval Research. The crystal growth work at Tokyo was supported in part by Grant-in-Aids for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture, Japan, and NEDO. The Stanford crystal growth was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts No. DE-FG03-99ER45773 and No. DE-AC03-76SF00515, by NSF CAREER Award No. DMR-9985067, and by the A.P. Sloan Foundation.