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# Quantum interference with photon pairs created in spatially separated sources

## I Introduction

The principle of indistinguishability is at the heart of the quantum physical description of the world. It leads to the well known phenomenon of interference: if two or more processes lead to indistinguishable detection events, the probability amplitude of the different processes add coherently and an interference term appears feynman ; GHZ . In addition to the most well-known single photon or first order interference, interference in the coincidence detection of two or more photons can also be observed. The so called second-order or two photon interference has been used for instance to highlight the bosonic nature of photons hong87  and to demonstrate non-local effects between photons forming entangled pairs. Moreover it is as the origin of the new field of quantum information processing (for a recent overview concerning the last two points, see e.g. tittel01 ).

Observing second order quantum interferences with photons without common history is a very important issue, since this forms the basis of entangling those photons through a so called interferometric Bell state measurement michler96 ; zukowski95 . The simplest way to observe such interference is to mix the independent, however indistinguishable photons on a beam splitter (i.e one photon per input mode). In this case, the probability amplitudes of both photons being transmitted or both reflected cancel each other and the two photons will always be detected in the same output mode. This is valid of course only if the photons coming from the two sources become indistinguishable after the beam splitter, i.e. if they are described by identical polarization, spatial, temporal and spectral modes. In other words, when all indistinguishability criteria are met, the count rate for coincidence detection of two photons in different output modes of the beam splitter drops to zero. The first experiments showing this effect were made by Mandel and coworkers in the end of the eighties hong87 . The drop in the coincidence count rate when varying the temporal overlap between the two photons is often referred to as a ”Mandel dip”. In those early experiments, the two photons belonged to one photon pair generated by parametric down-conversion (PDC). In this case, the temporal indistinguishability is ensured by the fact that the two photons are created simultaneously. In cases where two independent photons (i.e created in different sources or different PDC events) have to interfere, there are two possibilities to restore the temporal indistinguishability (i.e. to ensure that only photons detected in coincidence within their coherence time contribute). The first and most common way is to create the photon pairs using ultra-short pump pulses such that the downconverted photon’s coherence time (given by the phase matching conditions) is superior to the duration of the pump pulse zukowski95 . The second possibility is to increase the coherence time of the photons such that it becomes larger than the temporal resolution of the detectors. In this way, one can select the photons arriving at the same time at the beam splitter directly by their arrival times at the detectors. This method requires coherence times of the order of a few hundreds of picosecond, with current avalanche photodiodes detectors stucki01 . This can be achieved for instance by using a sub-threshold OPO configuration ou99 .
In the context of observing quantum interference between independent photons, Rarity et al have performed an experiment where a one photon state obtained by PDC and a weak coherent state were mixed at a beam splitter rarity97 . More recently, experiments where two photons from different pairs interfere at a beam splitter have been carried out in order to implement quantum teleportation bouwmeester97 , entanglement swapping pan98 ; jennewein02 , and to create GHZ states bouwmeester99 ; pan01 . In these experiments, however, the two photon pairs were created in the same crystal by means of two subsequent passages of a pump pulse.
In this article, we go a step further and report on the observation of quantum interference with photons from different pairs created in two spatially separated sources. We use non degenerate photon pairs at telecom wavelength. This is an important extension with respect to the previous experiments since some quantum communication protocols (for instance the quantum repeater briegel98 ) rely on the use of photon pairs created at different locations, hence photon pairs from different sources.

## II Mandel dip with independent PDC sources

As shown in Fig. 1, we create pairs of non degenerate photons in two non-linear crystals using short pump pulses. The photons belonging to a pair are separated and two photons from different sources are superposed on a 50-50 beam splitter. We label $`a^{}`$ and $`b^{}`$ ($`c^{}`$ and $`d^{}`$) the creation operators of the two input (output) modes respectively. Unitarity implies that the phase difference between a reflected and a transmitted photon is $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$. For a 50-50 beam splitter, the evolution is thus $`a^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(c^{}+id^{})`$ and $`b^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(ic^{}+d^{})`$.

Suppose that we have one photon in each input mode, i.e the following Fock state:

$$|\psi _{in}=a^{}b^{}|0$$
(1)
After the beam splitter the state becomes:

$`|\psi _{out}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(i(c^{})^2+i(d^{})^2+c^{}d^{}c^{}d^{})|0`$ (2)
$`=i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}|2_c|0_d+i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}|0_c|2_d`$
We thus find that for a 50-50 beam splitter, the two probability amplitudes corresponding to both photons transmitted and both photons reflected – i.e to both photons in different output ports – cancel out and the coincidence rate drops to zero. This description is valid of course only if the photons become completely indistinguishable after the beam splitter. If we delay the photon from one source with respect to the other one, we loose temporal indistinguishability, and the destructive interference diminishes. We define the visibility of the Mandel dip as follows :

$$V_{dip}=\frac{I_{\mathrm{max}}I_{\mathrm{min}}}{I_{\mathrm{max}}}$$
(3)
In the case of two PDC sources, there are different possibilities to create 2 photon pairs at the same time: either one creates one pair in each source, or two pairs in one source and none in the other one. As already said, in order to ensure temporal indistinguishability, the coherence time of the down-converted photons must be larger than the duration of the pump pulses. This implies that the pairs created within the same laser pulse and crystal are subject to stimulated emission Lamas01 . The output state of a non degenerate PDC follows the distribution walls94 ; scarani02 :

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=e^ge^{\mathrm{\Gamma }A^{}B^{}}|0=\underset{n}{}\frac{(tanh\zeta )^n}{cosh\zeta }|n_A,n_B$$
(4)
where $`A^{}`$ and $`B^{}`$ are the creation operators for the PDC modes A and B, and $`|n_A,n_B`$ corresponds to n photons in PDC modes A and B respectively. The parameter $`\zeta `$ is proportional to the amplitude of the pump field and to the non-linear susceptibility $`\chi ^{(2)}`$, $`g=ln(cosh\zeta )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=tanh\zeta `$. In the limit of small $`\zeta `$, we have:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=(1\frac{\zeta ^2}{2})|0+\zeta |1,1+\zeta ^2|2,2+O(\zeta ^3)$$
(5)
If $`P_i(I)=|\zeta |^2`$ is the probability of creating one pair per pulse with a pump intensity I in source i, then the probability of creating 4 photons per pulse in source i by stimulated emission is $`|\zeta |^4=P_i^2(I)`$ . The probability of simultaneously creating one pair in each crystal is $`P_1(I)P_2(I)`$. Assuming that $`P_1(I)=P_2(I)`$ the 4-photons state can then be written as follows (not normalized):

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{4ph}=|2_1,0_2_A|2_1,0_2_B`$
$`+|1_1,1_2_A|1_1,1_2_B`$
$`+|0_1,2_2_A|0_1,2_2_B`$ (6)
where here for instance $`|n__1,m__1_A`$ means that we have n photons in source 1 and m photons in source 2 created in the PDC mode A. It is important to notice that, due to stimulated emission, the amplitudes of each of the 3 terms are the same. This means that, the probability of creating 4 photons per pulse in a specific source is the same as the probability of creating simultaneously 2 photons in source 1 and 2 photons in source 2.

If there is no interference, the photons arriving at the beam splitter will split in half of the cases. The probability of detecting a coincidence outside the dip (od) is thus proportional to:

$$P_{od}\left(\frac{P_1^2}{2}+\frac{P_2^2}{2}+\frac{P_1P_2}{2}\right)=\frac{3P^2}{2}$$
(7)
where $`P_1=P_2=P`$ is the probability of creating one pair per pulse per source. The first two terms represent the creation of four photon in either source, the last term the creation of one pair per source. Inside the dip (id), the contribution of the events where one pair per source is created drops to zero (Eq. 2). We thus have:

$$P_{id}\left(\frac{P_1^2}{2}+\frac{P_2^2}{2}+0\right)=P^2$$
(8)
Finally, the visibility is :

$$V=\frac{P_{od}P_{id}}{P_{od}}=\frac{3P^22P^2}{3P^2}=\frac{1}{3}$$
(9)
The maximum theoretical visibility is thus V=33%, because, in this case, we cannot discard the events where both photon pairs are created in the same crystal. Note that this demonstrate 2 photon interference between 2 thermal sources mandel83 ; kuo91 ; ou99b . However if we detect the two remaining photons as well (4-photon coincidences), we post-select only the events where we create one photon pair per crystal. Therefore the maximum theoretical visibility is V=100 %. A detailed theoretical analysis can be found in ou99b . Obviously, this is valid only if we can neglect the probability of creating three pairs at the same time, two in one source and one in the other one. We will discuss this case later.

## III Experimental setup

The experimental setup is shown in figure 1. The pump laser is a Ti-Sapphire mode-locked laser (Coherent Mira), operating at a wavelength of 710 nm and generating 150 femto-second pulses with 4.5 nm bandwidth (FWHM). The pump beam is split by a beam splitter (BS 1), and the two output modes are used to pump two 10 mm Lithium Triborate(LBO) non linear crystals. The average pump power is $`\overline{P}_{pump}40`$ mW per crystal. In each crystal, non-degenerate collinear photons pairs at telecom wavelength (1310 nm/1550 nm) are produced by type I parametric down conversion. The photons are then coupled into a standard optical fiber and separated using a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM). The 1310 nm photons are directed to a 50/50 fiber coupler (BS 2). The length of optical fibers before the beam-splitter is equalized within a few hundreds of $`\mu m`$, in order to have the same chromatic dispersion in the two input modes. To ensure equal polarization for the photons coming from either source, we use a fiber optical polarization controller (PC) inserted in one arm. In order to insure temporal indistinguishability, the optical distance between BS1 and BS2 must be the same within the coherence length of the down converted photons. To vary this distance and hence to vary the temporal overlap, we use the retroreflector R that is mounted on a micrometric translation stage.

The photons are detected with photon counters. One output of BS 2 is connected to a passively quenched Germanium avalanche photodiode (Ge APD) cooled with liquid nitrogen. The quantum efficiency of The Ge APD is 10$`\%`$ for 40 kHz dark counts. The dark counts are reduced to around 3 kHz by making a coincidence with a 1 ns clock signal delivered simultaneously with each laser pulse ($`t_0`$). The signal count rate on the Ge APD is 40 kHz. The other output is connected to a Peltier cooled (T=220K) Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) APD, operating in so-called gated mode stucki01 . This means that it is only actived within a short time window (100 ns) after a Ge-$`t_0`$ coincidence. InGaAs APDs feature a quantum efficiency of around 30$`\%`$ for a dark count probability of $`10^4`$ per ns. Interference filters (IF) (10 nm FWHM centered at 1310 nm) are placed in front of the detectors to increase the coherence length (time) of the down converted photons to 75 $`\mu m`$ (250 fs). Using the side peaks method developed in marcikic02 , we measure the probability to create one photon pair per pulse in the spectral range given by the filters to be of around 4$`\%`$. The signals from the APD’s are finally sent to detection and fast (1 ns) coincidence electronics. A coincidence between the two detectors for 1310 nm photons and the laser clock ($`t_0`$)is referred as a 3-fold coincidence.

In order to obtain a Mandel dip with 100% visibility, a 4-photon coincidence using also the two others photons at 1550 nm is necessary, in order to post-select only the interfering events. The photons at 1550 nm are detected with InGaAs APDs, gated using a 3-fold coincidence (2 photons at 1310 nm + $`t_0`$). We thus speak of 5-fold coincidence in this case. The very low gate rate imposed by this scheme allows us to avoid problems with afterpulses of the InGaAs APDs stucki01 . Interference filters (10 nm FWHM centered at 1550 nm) are also placed in front of the 1550 nm detectors, in order to reduce the probability of detecting events where 3 pairs are created simultaneously.

## IV Results

Figure 2 shows the coincidence count rate as a function of the position of the retroreflector R, i.e. of the delay of one photon. The circles represent the 3-fold coincidences (2 photons at 1310 nm+ $`t_0`$) and the squares the 5-fold coincidences (4 photons +$`t_0`$). We measure around 160 net 3-fold coincidences and around 0.06 net 5-fold coincidences per second outside the dip. Accidental coincidences (around 20 3-fold and 0.015 5-fold coincidences per second) are already subtracted in the presented data. 3 fold coincidences slightly vary ($`10\%`$), probably due to temperature variation in the lab during day time measurement, and are normalized with the square of single count rate of the Ge APD. The 5-fold curve has been measured during the night, when the temperature was more stable. Thus, count rates variations were smaller and raw data can be used without normalization.

The shape of the dip is given by the convolution of the two wave-packets arriving at the beam splitter hong87 . The spectral transmission of the IF has been measured to be well approximated by a gaussian. We thus fitted our data with the following function :

$$R_c(\tau )=S\left(1Ve^{\frac{\tau ^2}{2\sigma _\tau ^2}}\right)$$
(10)
where $`S`$ is the number of coincidences outside the dip, V the visibility, $`\tau `$ the optical delay and $`\sigma _\tau `$ the $`1/\sqrt{e}`$ half width of the gaussian function. Due to the convolution product, the expected FWHM of the dip is $`\sqrt{2}l_c`$, where $`l_c`$ is the FWHM coherence length of the down converted photons, given by the IF.

We obtain a raw (i.e without subtracting accidental coincidence) visibility of $`V=(21\pm 1)\%`$ for the 3-fold coincidence. When subtracting accidental coincidence, it increases to $`V=(28\pm 2)\%`$, which is close to the theoretical visibility of $`33\%`$. The FWHM of the gaussian fit is of $`142\pm 15\mu m`$. This is slightly larger than the expected value ($`\sqrt{2}l_c=107\mu m`$ for 10nm IF at 1310 nm). When fitting the 5-fold coincidence curve, we obtain a raw visibility of $`(77\pm 2.5)\%`$, which increases to $`(84\pm 2.5)\%`$ when subtracting accidental coincidences. The FWHM of the gaussian fit ($`222\pm 25\mu m`$) is larger than for the 3-fold curve. This can be qualitatively understood by the fact that the 10 nm IF at 1550 nm reduces the bandwidth of the 1310 twin photons to $`7`$ nm by energy conservation.
Various reasons could explain the difference between the theoretical and experimental visibilities. The main reason is the probability of detecting events where 3 pairs are created simultaneously, 2 in one source and 1 in the other source. A calculation similar to eq (2), starting from an input state $`|\psi _{in}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(a^{})^2b^{}|0`$ shows that these events will indeed induce spurious coincidences and thus reduce the visibility of the dip. To estimate this maximal visibility, we calculate the maximal and minimal coincidence count rates ($`I_{max}`$ and $`I_{min}`$) for all cases leading to a 5-fold coincidence, and insert them into eq. (3) with the corresponding probabilities, computed from eq (4). We neglect the events where more than 3 pairs are created simultaneously. The finite quantum efficiency $`\eta `$ of detectors is taken into account, in the sense that the probability of having a click when two photons arrive at the detector is $`2\eta \eta ^22\eta `$ for small $`\eta `$. In the case where the transmissions of the two inputs modes of the beam splitter are the same, a simple but lengthy calculation leads to :

$$V_{max}=\frac{1+8P}{1+12P}$$
(11)
where P is the probability of creating one pair per pulse. For $`P=4\%`$, we find $`V_{max}=89\%`$.
Furthermore, even in the events where we have one photon per input mode, the following reasons, listed by order of importance, might induce distinguishability between the photons, and thus diminish the visibility of the dip . There might be remaining temporal distinguishability due to relatively large (10 nm) filtering of the downconverted photons (compared to the pump bandwidth)ou99b . Moreover, a slight difference in the polarization of the two photons when arriving at the beam splitter could result in a which-path information. Finally, different phase-matching conditions in the two crystals could result in photon pairs with different spectra. Those difference might not be completely cancelled with the 10 nm interference filters.

## V Conclusion

We observed quantum interference with photon pairs at telecommunication wavelengths created by parametric down conversion in spatially separated sources. Two photons, one from each source were mixed on a beam splitter. When recording 2 photon coincidences and varying the temporal overlap between the two photons, we observed a Mandel-type dip with visibility of $`(28\pm 2)\%`$. This is close to the maximum visibility of $`33\%`$, limited by the impossibility to discard the events where 2 pairs are created in the same crystal. Recording 4 photon coincidences and thus post-selecting only events where at least one pair is created in each source, we obtained a net visibility of $`(84\pm 2.5)\%`$, close to the theoretical value. This experiment constitutes a first step towards the realization of quantum teleportation and entanglement swapping with independent sources. However, note that truly independent sources require the use of independent but synchronized fs laser. Although this is nowadays commercially available menlo02 , synchronization of two fs laser at large distance still has to be demonstrated.
*Note* It was recently brought to our attention that a similar experiment was reported in the conference QELS 99 by Rhee and Wang rhee99

### Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Claudio Barreiro and Jean-Daniel Gautier for technical support. Financial support by the Swiss NCCR Quantum Photonics, and by the European project QuComm is acknowledged. W.T. acknowledges funding by the ESF Programme Quantum Information Theory and Quantum Computation (QIT).


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# A determination of gluon spin distribution from the deep inelastic scattering data

## Abstract

In order to determine polarized parton densities in nucleon we have made fits using all experimental data on spin asymmetries measured in the deep inelastic scattering on different nucleon targets. We have used in our analysis next to leading order QCD corrections in $`\overline{MS}`$ renormalization scheme. The functional forms of polarized densities are based on the fit to unpolarized deep inelastic data made by the MRST group (MRST 99). We have concentrated on different models for gluon spin distributions. In the best fit we get for gluon polarization (at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) $`\mathrm{\Delta }G=1.0\pm 0.6`$. The obtained result does not depend very much on various model assumptions.

The experimental data on deep inelastic scattering of leptons on nucleons enable us to determine parton densities in nucleons. For polarized particles such experiments were made in SLAC , CERN  and DESY . The results were analyzed by many groups and several spin distributions and different gluon polarization were presented . In this paper we do not consider any new experimental data. All existing data on polarised deep inelastic scattering were already included in our latest fit  where we have determined polarized parton densities (performing next to leading order QCD analysis in $`\overline{MS}`$ renormalization scheme). However, since our method of determination of spin distributions depends very strongly on the parton distributions for unpolarized case we have performed a new analysis using unpolarized distributions obtained by Martin, Roberts, Stirling and Thorne (MRST) .

The unpolarized densities are the sums of $`+`$ and $``$ components (densities of quarks and gluons with helicity along or opposite to the helicity of the parent nucleon) whereas the polarized ones are given by the differences. The asymptotic behaviour of our polarized parton distributions is determined (up to the condition that the corresponding spin densities are integrable) by the fit to unpolarized data.

The determination of unpolarized parton densities performed by MRST  gives three solutions for gluon distribution. In this paper we want to follow the method used in our previous papers  and to check how different functional form of gluon distributions influences our fits. We will use data for spin asymmetries at given $`x`$ and different $`Q^2`$. Altogether we will use in our analysis 431 experimental points. In our formulae for polarized densities we have included 12 parameters.

Experiments on unpolarized targets provide information on the spin averaged quark and gluon densities $`q(x,Q^2)`$ and $`G(x,Q^2)`$ inside the nucleon. In ref. these distributions (at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) are parametrized as follows:

$$q_i(x)=A_ix^{\lambda _i}(1x)^{\eta _i}(1+ϵ_i\sqrt{x}+\mu _ix),$$
(1)
where one assumes that sea antiquarks and quarks of the same flavour have identical distributions. The similar form one has for gluon density:

$$G(x)=B_Gx^{\lambda _G}(1x)^{\eta _G}(1+ϵ_G\sqrt{x}+\mu _Gx).$$
(2)
The values of constants $`\lambda _i`$ and $`\eta _i`$, used in eqs. (1) and (2), are given in Table 1 for all three solutions which are called lower (L), central (C) and higher (H) gluon solution in ref. (the differences are visible for big $`x`$ values). Our polarized densities for valence quarks (at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) are:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }q_i(x)=x^{\lambda _i}(1x)^{\eta _i}(\alpha _i+\beta _i\sqrt{x}+\gamma _ix),$$
(3)
whereas for sea quarks and antiquarks one has:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}_j(x)=x^{\lambda _s+\frac{1}{2}}(1x)^{\eta _s}(\alpha _j+\beta _j\sqrt{x})+c_ix^{\lambda _\delta }(1x)^{\eta _s+2}\alpha _\delta (1+ϵ_\delta \sqrt{x}+\mu _\delta x),$$
(4)
where $`c_i=+1(1)`$ for up (down) flavour and zero for strange quarks. With such parametrization of quark spin densities we get from the fit approximately $`\alpha _\delta 0`$ and $`\alpha _{\overline{u}}\alpha _{\overline{d}}2\alpha _{\overline{s}}`$ , $`\beta _{\overline{u}}\beta _{\overline{d}}`$. Hence, our a posteriori assumptions are:

$`\alpha _\delta =0,`$
$`\alpha _{\overline{u}}=\alpha _{\overline{d}}=2\alpha _{\overline{s}},`$ (5)
$`\beta _{\overline{u}}=\beta _{\overline{d}}.`$
Such choice is consistent with the SU(2) symmetry in the sea.

For polarized gluon distribution we assume:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }G(x)=x^{\lambda _G}(1x)^{\eta _G}(\alpha _G+\beta _G\sqrt{x}+\gamma _Gx).$$
(6)
The parameters $`\alpha _i`$, $`\beta _i`$ and $`\gamma _i`$ are determined from our fits and presented in Table 2.

Table 1. The values of constants which appear in eqs. (1-4,6) for three solutions of unpolarized gluon density. This figures determine the behaviour of distributions at $`x=0`$ and $`x=1`$.

| Constant | Lower | Central | Higher |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | gluon solution | gluon solution | gluon solution |
| $`\lambda _{u_v}`$ | -0.527 | -0.583 | -0.560 |
| $`\eta _{u_v}`$ | 3.44 | 3.43 | 3.45 |
| $`\lambda _{d_v}`$ | -0.748 | -0.730 | -0.740 |
| $`\eta _{d_v}`$ | 3.86 | 3.86 | 3.95 |
| $`\lambda _s`$ | -1.240 | -1.282 | -1.273 |
| $`\eta _s`$ | 7.63 | 7.65 | 8.30 |
| $`\lambda _\delta `$ | -0.356 | 0.183 | 0.157 |
| $`\lambda _G`$ | 0.131 | -0.031 | -0.005 |
| $`\eta _G`$ | 5.67 | 6.88 | 7.45 |

Table 2. The parameters of three fits calculated at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ .

| Parameter | Lower | Central | Higher |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | gluon solution | gluon solution | gluon solution |
| $`\alpha _{u_v}`$ | 0.110 | 0.499 | 0.279 |
| $`\beta _{u_v}`$ | -3.50 | -4.71 | -4.22 |
| $`\gamma _{u_v}`$ | 13.3 | 14.0 | 13.9 |
| $`\alpha _{d_v}`$ | -0.055 | 0.028 | -0.059 |
| $`\beta _{d_v}`$ | -1.66 | -1.70 | -1.67 |
| $`\gamma _{d_v}`$ | 0.007 | -0.077 | -0.007 |
| $`\alpha _{\overline{u}}`$ | -0.033 | -0.133 | -0.082 |
| $`\beta _{\overline{u}}`$ | 1.54 | 1.37 | 1.58 |
| $`\beta _{\overline{s}}`$ | -0.402 | -0.056 | -0.226 |
| $`\alpha _G`$ | -18.3 | -24.1 | -20.3 |
| $`\beta _G`$ | 52.5 | 117.2 | 86.7 |
| $`\gamma _G`$ | -48.8 | -173.5 | -127.9 |

The total quark distributions are given by:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }u`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }u_v+2\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }d`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }d_v+2\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d},`$ (7)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{s},`$
whereas one has for axial charges:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }u+\mathrm{\Delta }d+\mathrm{\Delta }s,`$
$`a_8`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }u+\mathrm{\Delta }d2\mathrm{\Delta }s,`$ (8)
$`a_3`$ $``$ $`g_A=\mathrm{\Delta }u\mathrm{\Delta }d.`$
In Table 3 one can find above quantities integrated over variable $`x`$ and calculated at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. The axial charge $`a_3`$ is not fixed (usually one fixes it in an analysis) and comes out close to its experimental value. The quantity $`a_8`$ is in some sense fixed i.e., it is included in a fit as an additional experimental point. We put $`a_8=0.58\pm 0.1`$, the value taken (with enchanced to 3$`\sigma `$ error) from the data on hyperon $`\beta `$ decays.

The typical errors of our determination are: $`\mathrm{\Delta }G=1.02\pm 0.61`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }=0.04\pm 0.18`$, where we quote the figures for higher gluon solution. We use all three MRST solutions keeping the quantity $`a_8`$ fixed. As it is seen from Table 3 the best $`\chi ^2`$ we got for higher gluon solution.

Table 3. The integrated quantities from our three fits calculated at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$.

| Quantity | Lower | Central | Higher |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | gluon solution | gluon solution | gluon solution |
| $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ | 0.19 | 0.02 | 0.04 |
| $`a_8`$ | 0.58 | 0.59 | 0.51 |
| $`g_A`$ | 1.25 | 1.29 | 1.31 |
| $`\mathrm{\Delta }u`$ | 0.79 | 0.75 | 0.75 |
| $`\mathrm{\Delta }d`$ | -0.46 | -0.54 | -0.55 |
| $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$ | -0.13 | -0.19 | -0.16 |
| $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ | -0.77 | -1.15 | -1.02 |
| $`\chi ^2`$ | 363.91 | 363.16 | 362.28 |

For higher gluon solution we have tried to make several fits, where we investigate other assumptions which slightly change gluon distribution. In one of the fits we put $`\alpha _{G_H}`$=0 at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ (it means, that gluon density is less divergent at $`x=0`$). In this case we get a fit which is of undistinguishable quality from the best fit (in both cases $`\chi ^2`$ per degree of freedom is 0.86) and one gets $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ = \- 0.63. However, when we put $`\alpha _{G_H}=\beta _{G_H}=\gamma _{G_H}=0`$ (i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }G=0`$ at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) we get $`\chi ^2`$=366.0 (per degree of freedom we have 0.87) which gives not much worse fit. We have also performed other fits, one in which $`a_8`$ is treated as free parameter and in another we allow gluon distributions $`G^+(x)=(G(x)+\mathrm{\Delta }G(x))/2`$ and $`G^{}(x)=(G(x)\mathrm{\Delta }G(x))/2`$ not to be positively defined. In both cases we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }G1.0`$ and $`\chi ^2`$ is nearly as good as in the best fit. In all considered models we get negative polarization of gluons (the negative value of gluon polarization one can find also in ). The values of gluon polarization (from our best fit) at other $`Q^2`$ values are: $`\mathrm{\Delta }G(Q^2=5\mathrm{GeV}^2)=2.0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }G(Q^2=100\mathrm{GeV}^2)=3.9`$. The variations of our model does not change significantly other quantities (see Table 3).

In figures 1 and 2 we present the shapes of gluon spin distribution obtained in our fits at $`Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. One can see that the curves does not differ very much.

We have made fits to precise data on spin asymmetries on proton, neutron and deuteron targets. Our model for polarized parton distributions is based on MRST 1999 fit  to unpolarized data. Gluon polarization comes out negative and relatively high. This conclusion does not depend very much on different assumptions (within our famework) about gluon spin distribution.

PACS numbers: 12.38.-t, 13.60.Hb, 13.88.+e, 14.20.Dh


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# A single photoelectron transistor for quantum optical communications

## Abstract

A single photoelectron can be trapped and its photoelectric charge detected by a source/drain channel in a transistor. Such a transistor photodetector can be useful for flagging the safe arrival of a photon in a quantum repeater. The electron trap can be photo-ionized and repeatedly reset for the arrival of successive individual photons. This single photoelectron transistor (SPT) operating at the $`\lambda `$ = 1.3$`\mu `$m tele-communication band, was demonstrated by using a windowed-gate double-quantum-well InGaAs/InAlAs/InP heterostructure that was designed to provide near-zero electron g-factor. The g-factor engineering allows selection rules that would convert a photon’s polarization to an electron spin polarization. The safe arrival of the photo-electric charge would trigger the commencement of the teleportation algorithm.

Quantum information can take several different forms and it is beneficial to be able to convert among the different forms. One form is photon polarization, and another is electron spin polarization.

Photons are the most convenient medium for sharing quantum information between distant locations. Quantum key distribution Bennett92  has been demonstrated by sending photons through a conventional optical fiber up to distances over 80km Hiskett . As the distance increases, the secure data rate decreases, owing to photon loss. To expand the distance dramatically, it is necessary to realize a quantum repeater, that is based on quantum teleportation Bennett93 . A quantum repeater requires quantum information storage van Enk , and electron spin is a good candidate for such a quantum memory. We need to have a photodetector that converts from photon to electron, while transferring the quantum information from photon polarization to electron spin. This is sometimes called an entanglement preserving photodetector Vrijen . In addition, the photodetector must provide a trigger signal to flag the arrival of a photo-electric charge, and to commence the teleportation algorithm.

A Field Effect Transistor (FET), and a Single Electron Transistor (SET) based on quantum dots, can both function as sensitive electrometers that can detect a single trapped electric charge. Our goal is to safely trap a photoelectron, so that its spin state can then be monitored. In this paper we demonstrate the trapping and manipulation of individual photoelectrons, but we have not yet measured the trapped electron’s spin properties. Previous experiments have demonstrated interband photon absorption resulting in the trapping of photoholes; on self-assembled InAs quantum dots shields , or on DX centers kosaka02 , near an FET source/drain channel. These produce positive photoconductivity, that is fairly common. The trapping of photoelectrons is much more rarely observed, since it is accompanied by negative photoconductivity rose .

Several kinds of photon effects on SETs made on modulation-doped semiconductors have been reported. Photon assisted tunneling is the most common effect. The tunneling takes place between an island and source-drain reservoir blick98 ; blick95 , between two adjacent islands vaart , or between an inner island and an outer ring split into Landau levels by a magnetic field komiyama . In all these cases, the rather long photon wavelengths are controlled by the electron sub-band energy difference, rather than by the fundamental bandgap as in our experiments.

These types of single photon detectors should be distinguished from avalanche photo-diodes, where the single photon sensitivity arises from avalanche gain. In the FET and SET photodetectors, a single trapped electric charge can influence the current of millions of electrons in the source/drain channel. This is indeed the mechanism of “photoconductive gain” rose  that is also sometimes called “secondary photoconductivity” rose . But this form of gain can also be considered as arising from transistor action. Thus the name ”single photoelectron transistor” (SPT) might be appropriate. Since the photoelectron is safely trapped, and is known to have a long spin lifetime in many semiconductors awschalom , it can then be interrogated to determine its spin state. The initial goal is to monitor the photo-electric charge in such a way as to not disturb its spin state. Ultimately the goal is to measure its spin state as well.

At least three requirements should be satisfied to make a photodetector for quantum repeaters: (1) The wavelength that should be in the 1.3$`\mu `$m or 1.55$`\mu `$m, the low-loss window of optical fibers. (2) The sign of the photoconductivity that should be negative, which means the trapped information carrier should be an electron instead of a hole. (3) The electron ge-factor, which should be small, to make the up-and-down electron spin states as indistinguishable as possible Vrijen . The 1st requirement suggests interband transition rather than intraband transition. The 2nd requirement suggests creation of a positively charged trap for an electron. The 3rd requirement is satisfied through ge-factor engineering kosaka01 ; kiselev02 .

The single photoelectron transistor (SPT) that we present in this paper satisfies all of the above requirements. An InGaAs quantum well is used with a bandgap corresponding to $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m, as shown in Fig. 1. In Fig. 2 is shown the window-shaped circular gates that are negatively biased above the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG), leaving behind a relatively positive central island. The InGaAs absorption layer, which has a ge-factor = –4.5 in the bulk, is sandwiched between InP cladding layers, of ge-factor = +1.2, to make the effective ge-factor in the absorption layer nearly zero. The measurements showed clear evidence for negative persistent photoconductivity steps. The abrupt drops in photoconductivity are strongly correlated with photon injection at the $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m wavelength, leading to the conclusion that the SPT detects a single photon by sensing the charge of a safely trapped photoelectron in the absorption quantum well.

The photo-absorption layer is located above the source/drain channel layer, and both are made of In0.53Ga0.47As, separated by a high electron barrier layer made of In0.52Al0.48As to prevent leakage. The source/drain channel layer is modulation doped and formed into a 1-dimensional electron gas (1DEG) channel whose conductance is sensitive to the charge state of the island in the absorption layer above it. All layers were grown by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy on semi-insulating InP, and consisted of a nominally undoped InP buffer layer 100nm thick; an i-In0.52Al0.48As buffer 1000nm thick; a Si-doped (5 $`\times `$ 1017/cm3) n-In0.52Al0.48As doping layer 10nm thick; an i-In0.52Al0.48As lower spacer layer 30nm thick; an i-In0.53Ga0.47As channel layer 10nm thick; an i-In0.52Al0.48As barrier layer 20nm thick; an i-InP cladding layer 10nm thick; an i-In0.53Ga0.47As absorption layer 4.5nm thick; an i-InP cladding layer 10nm thick; and an i-In0.52Al0.48As capping layer 60nm thick. The modulation-doped double-quantum well structure creates a 2DEG in the lower quantum well that is shaped into a 1DEG channel by the two split gates. The gates surround a circular window, 1 $`\mu `$m in diameter, that masks out unnecessary light exposure, and fixes the potential at the edges surrounding of the window. The Schottky gates, Al/Pt/Au, are fabricated using electron-beam lithography and electron-gun evaporation. The source/drain ohmic contacts are made of AuGe/Ni/Au. Scanning Electron Microscope pictures of the whole device and the window gates are shown in Figs. 2c and 2d, respectively. The energy band diagram at zero bias, simulated by one-dimensional Poisson/Schrödinger equation, is shown in Fig. 1.

The sample is illuminated by monochromatic light through a large-core glass fiber, that is carefully shielded to block any photons from the outer jacket. The light is created by a tungsten lamp and then filtered by a monochromator, a long-pass filter passing wavelengths $`\lambda `$\>1000nm, and a 30dB neutral density filter. The optical power at the end of the fiber is measured by a InGaAs detector. The illumination area in the plane of the device is about 5mm in diameter owing to light diffraction from the end of the fiber. Given the small device active area of 7.9 $`\times `$ 109 cm2, defined by the 1 $`\mu `$m diameter gate window, we estimate the actual light power in the active area to be 2.8 $`\times `$ 10-8 times smaller than the total power (assuming a Gaussian profile). The incident photon number is estimated by multiplying this scaling factor by the measured power divided by the photon energy.

By applying a negative voltage to the split window gates, the source/drain current through the channel layer is pinched off. Simultaneously, the applied negative voltage creates a two-dimensional potential minimum in the window at the absorption layer. This is because the surface Fermi level in the circular area is pinned by the extrinsic surface states chou . The electric field in the electrostatic potential well can separate an electron-hole pair created by a photon. The electron is attracted to the potential minimum at on center, and the hole is attracted to the negative gates as schematically shown in Fig. 2b.

The source/drain current is measured at a constant voltage drop (Vsd) of 0.5mV, at a temperature of 4.2 K. The interesting property of these photodetectors is that $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m light produces positive photoconductivity effectively doping the channel, and $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m light produces negative photoconductivity. We attribute the channel doping by $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m light to be due to photo-ionization of donors in the n-InAlAs doping layer. As a normal practice, we initially prepare the photodetectors for use by means of a deep soak in $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m light, to fully ionize the donors and to populate the source/drain channel. The pinch-off behavior in the source-drain conductance (Isd-Vg curve) is shown in the inset of Fig. 3. The left-most I-V curve in that inset corresponds to full modulation doping after a deep soak in $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m light.

After the deep soak in $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m light to produce full channel doping, the gate voltage is adjusted for a current around 0.6nAmp. The device is then exposed to a photon flux at a wavelength of $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m (red curve labeled 1.3 $`\mu `$m in Fig. 3). The photon exposure at $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m causes current to drop inexorably, step-by-step, except for occasional upward spikes. Thus as a result of trapped photoelectrons, the current is again pinched off, and the Isd-Vg curve was shifted toward positive gate voltages as shown in the right-most curve of the inset in Fig. 3. At this pinch-off condition, if the device was again exposed to $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m, the channel current would be restored (blue curve labeled 1.7 $`\mu `$m in Fig. 3). The incident photon rate in the active window area for both wavelengths is about 100 photons/s. Since the absorptivity in the absorption layer is about 1%, on average 1 photon/sec is absorbed in the window area. Thus the quantum efficiency for producing negative steps is estimated to be 1%.

The current drop for $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m means that net negative charge is trapped near the source/drain channel. The exposure to $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m photons is energetically able to cause only photo-ionization, because the photon energy is smaller than any bandgaps.
Detailed examination of the spectral dependence is not straightforward since the channel conductance depends on the starting bias, and the full history of spectral exposure. In Fig. 4 we start with an unpinched channel, and sweep wavelength starting from $`\lambda `$ = 1 $`\mu `$m up to $`\lambda `$ = 1.8 $`\mu `$m over an 80second time period. First the current monotonically decreases with increasing wavelength, corresponding to trapped electrons, with no further decrease at around $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m, the bandgap of the InGaAs quantum wells. Negative trapped charge at wavelengths shorter than $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m is caused by photon absorption in the absorption layer or the channel layer. The photoelectrons in the conducting channel are mobile, and thus cannot contribute to trapped charge. Thus the negative steps must originate from photoelectrons produced in the absorption layer.

By having an incomplete initial soak in $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m radiation, we can control the pinch off voltage in between -0.5V and +0.1V. Now, when the pinch-off voltage is set to nearly zero, the $`\lambda `$ = 1.3 $`\mu `$m photocurrent still shows steps but they are equally likely to be either positive or negative. The incomplete photo-ionization of donors in the initial state allows a balance between electron trapping and photo-ionization. To make this phenomenon clear, we periodically opened the optical shutter for 10 seconds in every 50 seconds, maintaining the SPT in a balanced condition biased at $``$0 Volts. The resulting current pulses are shown in Fig. 5. The optical shutter is open during the time slots labeled a, b, c, etc., and closed during the intervening periods. Successive optical pulses usually produced either electron trapping or photo-ionization, alternating, depending on the previous state. Sometimes multiple optical pulses were required before the state would alternate. Within the 10sec optical pulse there might be a transient thermal response, especially in time slot g; but that returned to either of the two alternating states after the optical pulse. The photon number absorbed in the window area is $``$30 on average within the 10sec pulse. The estimated quantum efficiency is consistent with that in Fig. 3.

The switching behavior in Fig. 5 is due to photoelectron trapping/de-trapping located either in; (a) the shallow circular potential well between the window gates in the absorption layer, or (b) at donor sites. In case (b) the donors that could contribute to trapping/de-trapping are the residual donors in the absorption layer rather than those in the modulation doped layer. The modulation-doped donors, which are located far below the channel, would only produce a smooth increase in conductivity by photo-ionization as was seen in Fig. 3 for $`\lambda `$ = 1.77 $`\mu `$m light. In either case (a) or (b), there are two possible mechanisms for the positive steps in Fig. 5; photo-ionization of the trapped electron, or annihilation of the trapped electron by injected holes. The photo-ionization mechanism would require a specific photo-ionization cross-section to be consistent with the rough equality between trapping and de-trapping rates. On the other hand, annihilation by photo-holes would require a hole trapping rate that is roughly coincident with the electron trapping rate. Such an adjustment may have been made by the adjustment of potential wells through the pinch-off voltage requirement of Fig. 5.

In conclusion, we have trapped and safely stored single photoelectrons in a window-gate double-quantum-well transistor structure. This Single Photoelectron Transistor detector satisfies three key requirements for a quantum repeater photo-detector. It has a wavelength suitable for optical fibers, it safely traps and detects a single photoelectron, and the ge-factors can be designed to satisfy the requirements for an entanglement preserving photo-detector. The wavelength could be shifted to $`\lambda `$ = 1.55 $`\mu `$m, which is more preferable, by using strain engineered substrates . The Single Photoelectron Transistor announces the arrival of the photoelectric charge, without disturbing the transfer of quantum information from photon polarization to the electron spin state. We have yet to prove the entanglement transfer, but we believe such a demonstration will be a breakthrough for realizing long-distance quantum key distribution or long distance teleportation.

The project is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency & Army Research Office Nos. MDA972-99-1-0017 and DAAD19-00-1-0172. The content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.


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# Chandra Observations of Arp 220: The Nuclear Source

## 1 Introduction

Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) have quasar-like bolometric luminosities ($`>10^{12}L_{}`$) dominated by the far-infrared (8–1000$`\mu `$m) part of the spectrum (Sanders & Mirabel, 1996). Almost all ULIRGs are interacting or merging galaxies (Clements et al. 1996), possibly linking them to the transformation of disk galaxies into ellipticals (eg. Wright et al, 1990; Baker & Clements, 1997). The prodigious luminosity of ULIRGs is thought to be powered by a massive starburst, a dust–buried AGN or some combination of the two. Despite a decade of work we still have not been able to decide between these paradigms. Various scenarios have also been suggested linking the evolution of quasars with ULIRGs (eg. Sanders et al., 1988). These suggest that part of the luminosity we see from some ULIRGs originates in a dust–obscured AGN which later destroys or expels the enshrouding material. Meanwhile, studies of the X-ray background (Mushotzky et al, 2000) suggest that dust–enshrouded AGN make a substantial contribution to its hard component. Such objects may also be linked (Trentham & Blain, 2001; Almaini et al., 1999) to the recently discovered Cosmic Infrared Background (Puget et al. 1996; Fixsen et al., 1998) and the objects that contribute to it (Puget et al. 1999; Sanders 2000 and references therein). As the most obscured objects in the local universe, and as strong candidates for making the CIB, ULIRGs are ideal local laboratories for studying many of these issues.

Arp 220 is the nearest ULIRG, having an 8-1000$`\mu `$m luminosity of $`1.2\times 10^{12}L_{}`$ and a redshift of $`z=0.018`$. As such it is an ideal target for ULIRG studies. The consensus since ISO is that Arp 220 is powered by a massive burst of star formation rather than an AGN (Sturm et al 1996), but the possibility of a heavily obscured AGN powering the bulk of its emission remains (Haas et al 2001). The evolutionary scenario linking ULIRGs to AGN also allows the possibility that a weak, but growing, AGN may lie at the centre of Arp 220. While this may not be energetically significant at the present time, it may grow to prominence at later stages in the object’s evolution. The plausibility of such a scenario has been investigated by Taniguchi et al. (1999), who show that it is quite possible for a massive black hole ($`10^6M_{}`$) to grow to $`10^8M_{}`$ during the course of a galaxy merger, and thus to be capable of powering a quasar.

Signs of AGN activity can be sought with X-ray observations. The current data for Arp 220 includes soft X-ray images from ROSAT (Heckman et al. 1996). These show extended X-ray emission associated with the H$`\alpha `$ nebula (Arribas, Colina & Clements 2001), which are thought to be produced by a superwind. However the overall soft X-ray luminosity is small relative to the far-IR luminosity when compared to other starbursts, and might allow room for some AGN contribution (Iwasawa, 1999). At higher energies, where an AGN would be more prominent, data is available from HEAO-1 (Rieke, 1988), CGRO (Dermer et al., 1997), ASCA (Iwasawa 1999), and BeppoSAX (Iwasawa et al. 2001). These rule out the possibility of an unobscured energetically significant AGN in Arp 220. The possibility remains, however, of a Compton thick AGN, with an obscuring column in excess of 1025cm-2, or of a weaker lower luminosity AGN that will grow into a quasar. We have thus undertaken Chandra X-ray observations of Arp 220 aimed at detecting a weak or obscured AGN in its nucleus, and to study the extended superwind emission in detail. This paper presents the first results from our study of the nuclear regions. Our results on the superwind can be found elsewhere (McDowell et al. 2002, Paper II). We assume a distance of 76 Mpc (Kim & Sanders 1998) to Arp 220 throughout this paper.

## 2 Observations

Chandra observed Arp 220 with the ACIS-S instrument for 58 ks on 2000 Jun 24. The ACIS-S instrument was chosen for its good soft response to allow us to study the low energy X-ray emission of the superwind, as well as the harder emission expected from any nuclear source. We chose to use the back-illuminated CCD S3, for maximum soft response and to avoid any charge transfer difficulties arising in the front-illuminated chips. Arp 220 is sufficiently faint that no pile-up issues were expected or found in the data. The data were reduced by the standard Chandra pipeline through level 1 (calibrated event list) and further analysed using the CIAO package111http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao version 2.1 and 2.2. The data were taken with the chip at a temperature of -120C and were gain-corrected using acisD2000-01-29gainN0003.fits from the July 2001 recalibration. The observation was relatively unaffected by background flares and only a small amount of exposure was removed, leaving an effective exposure time of 55756s. Astrometry was corrected using a revised geometry file (telD1999-07-23geomN0004.fits) which is believed to provide positions across the full ACIS field accurate to about 1 arcsecond. The standard screening (good time intervals and grade filtering for grades 0,2,4,5,6) was applied to generate a cleaned event file. The X-rays from Arp 220 extend over 20 kpc (Paper II), but emission above 2 keV is restricted to the central few kpc.

## 3 The Nuclear Source

### 3.1 Imaging the Nuclear Source

Figure 1 is a true X-ray color image of the Arp 220 nuclear region. It was smoothed in separate bands of 0.2-1 (red), 1-2 (green) and 2-10 keV (blue) using the CIAO adaptive smoothing routine csmooth. The image shows that the nuclear region of Arp 220 is clearly distinguished from the rest of the object by being the site of much harder emission.

The centroid of the soft emission is displaced 1.5 arcseconds to the northwest of the hard emission. The hard emission coincides with a dust lane in the galaxy (Joy et al. 1986), and indeed the soft emission is suppressed there. However, the absence of hard emission away from the nucleus shows that the spectral change is due to a different type of source, and not merely an absorption effect.

Figure 2 shows an image of the hard emission ($`>4`$ keV) coming from the nuclear regions of Arp 220, together with circles indicating the area within 1” of the well-studied dual radio and IR nuclei (see eg. Scoville et al. 1998). The positional match between the radio/IR nuclei and the hard emission is $``$1”, within the expected pointing accuracy of Chandra. (The surprising lack of detections of USNO stars in the field limits our ability to improve the astrometric accuracy, but three galaxies are found within one arcsecond of their published positions.)

Previous observations of Arp 220 have shown the presence of hard emission, using, for example, Beppo/SAX (Iwasawa et al. 2001). However, it is only with the angular resolution of Chandra that we have been able to localise some of this emission to the region of the nuclei.

The mean off-axis angle of the nucleus during the observation was only 38 arcseconds, so the point spread function (calculated using the standard CIAO tools) is very close to the on-axis value. To estimate source fluxes, we generated monochromatic point spread functions for the midpoints of the three energy bands using the CIAO tool mkpsf, and subtracted a point source from the raw images at the location of the hard peak, with the maximum amplitude that did not create a dip in the local diffuse flux when the data was then smoothed. This procedure was repeated at the location of remaining flux peaks.

The central region is consistent (within the 1” absolute astrometric accuracy of the Chandra data) with a pair of hard point sources at the positions of radio nuclei A and B (Scoville et al 1998), with the western nucleus dominant, although the best fit separation for two point sources is only 0.7” rather than the 1.1” of the radio positions and the decomposition of this small region into multiple point sources and diffuse emission is not unique.

We designate the sources in order of total flux. The hard band image shows emission concentrated around a nuclear source, X-1, with extended emission around it. Point source subtraction suggests the presence of a much weaker second hard nucleus, X-4, together with a diffuse component which we denote as the X-1 halo; its centroid is 0.5 arcseconds east of X-1. X-2, further out from the nucleus, is a hard source detected out to 5 keV; only 33 net counts are seen. Its luminosity of $`6\times 10^{39}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$ puts it in the interesting category of non-nuclear ULX (ultra-luminous X-ray) sources. X-3, the soft peak, is not reliably separated from the extended soft circumnuclear emission, and coincides with the peak of the H$`\alpha `$ emission (Arribas, Colina & Clements 2001; McDowell et al. 2002).

The 2–10keV luminosity we derive for the nuclear source X-1 and surrounding hard emission (assuming the spectral model derived in the next section) is 6.9$`\times 10^{40}`$ ergs s-1, measured from a 3” aperture centred on the nucleus. Because of the poorly constrained absorption, here and below we quote observed luminosities rather than absorption-corrected ones unless explicitly stating otherwise. The hard luminosity found here compares to the 2–10keV luminosity found by Iwasawa et al. (2001), in a 3 arcminute aperture, of 11$`\times 10^{40}`$ ergs s-1, assuming a similar distance to Arp 220. The background in our observation makes us insensitive to hard emission on 3 arcminute scales, and we cannot rule out an extended contribution of this magnitude. However, the 3 sigma upper limit to any remaining hard (2-8 keV) flux within 1 arcminute of the nucleus is $`2.6\times 10^{40}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$ and we speculate that emission from the nearby southern group may be contributing to the Iwasawa et al result. Deeper observations with XMM/Newton would resolve this issue.

### 3.2 Spectral Analysis

We considered two extraction regions: a 5.5” radius ‘circumnuclear’ region, including X-3 but with the X-1/X-4 region omitted; a ‘nuclear’ region with X-1/X-4 and the hard halo, taking photons within a 3” radius circle, but excluding photons within 0.75” of the X-3 location to minimize contamination by the soft source. The extraction regions are indicated in figure 3. For background we extracted counts from two 50” radius circular regions 3’ away on either side of the galaxy and lying on the same node of the chip.

Responses were generated using the CIAO tools mkwarf and mkrmf; a PI (gain-corrected) spectrum was extracted and grouped by a factor of 10 (0.15 keV bins). Both XSPEC and Sherpa were used to fit models to the data, and gave similar results.

The circumnuclear emission is fit with a Raymond-Smith or Mekal model with a two-temperature plasma of 0.14 and 0.9 keV and absorption of $`0.31\times 10^{22}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$. It is probably composed of a mixture of diffuse emission and point sources. There is no sign of hard emission in this spectrum, confirming the impression from the images that hard emission is restricted to the central kiloparsec of Arp 220. The data are shown in figure 4.

Fitting the region of hard nuclear emission we find a spectrum similar to the soft circumnuclear emission but with an additional power law component. A representative fit has a power law component of photon index 1.4$`\pm `$1 behind $`N_H=3\pm 2\times 10^{22}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$. The absorbed 0.3-10 keV luminosity of the power law component is $`6.9\times 10^{40}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$, and most of the counts are above 2 keV. The thermal components, assumed to be superimposed circumnuclear emission, have twenty percent of the flux of the power law, so the hard component dominates the energetics of the nuclear emission. The overall fit, with 9 free parameters, has a reduced chi-squared of 0.84 for 59 d.o.f and the C-statistic is 62.4; see figure 5.

If instead of modelling the soft emission directly, we use the off-nuclear circumnuclear emission as a background, we find a fit to the remaining emission consistent with a simple power law of index 1$`\pm `$0.5, a lower NH around $`0.4\times 10^{22}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$, and a similar absorbed luminosity of $`5.6\times 10^{40}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$. However, the remaining emission is also consistent with the slope 1.4 power law plus a modest amount of additional thermal emission at 0.9 keV.

The thermal models are not good at fitting the 2.0 keV (rest) Si XIV line; an extra contribution at 1.95 keV (rest) with L=$`9\times 10^{38}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$ reduces the $`\chi ^2`$, suggesting a possible slight gain error.

There is a high bin near 6.5 keV which could be a weak Fe K line. To evaluate this possibility we inspected the raw gain-corrected pulse height data without binning. There are a mere 10 photons with gain-corrected energies in the 0.4 keV wide bin between 6.3 and 6.7 keV, compared to 7 photons in the 0.8 keV on either side between 5.9-6.3 and 6.7-7.1, a 2 sigma ‘detection’. The distribution of the counts is consistent with the instrumental width at that energy, and their spatial distribution suggests a distribution centered towards the eastern source X-4 (although a tighter spatial selection only improves the detection significance to 2.6 sigma). If real, this line would have a luminosity of $`4\times 10^{39}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$, an equivalent width of 700 eV and a rest energy of $`6.62\pm 0.05`$ keV; these may be taken as approximate upper limits to any narrow Fe K line.

The absorption-corrected luminosity of the nuclear emission, including the hard halo, is $`1.3(12.6)\times 10^{41}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$. Based on the PSF subtraction calculations, we assign 30 percent of this to X-1, giving $`4\times 10^{40}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$ which is in the range of both ultra-low luminosity AGN and ultra-luminous binaries (Fabbiano 1998, King et al. 2001). See Table 1 for derived source positions and luminosities.

Could there be a further hard source at this location, behind a much larger column? Using a canonical photon index of 1.7, we set limits of L(0.2-10 keV) = $`1.4\times 10^{42}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$ for a column of $`10^{24}\text{cm}^2`$, and $`2.5\times 10^{44}`$ for a column of $`5\times 10^{24}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$. However, for a column of $`10^{25}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$, which is entirely plausible in the center of Arp 220, no useful limit can be set by the ACIS data as even the most luminous quasars would have their X-ray flux absorbed; one must turn to the harder X-ray limits from the BeppoSAX PDS of $`2\times 10^{42}\text{erg s}\text{-1}`$ in 13-50 keV (Iwasawa et al. 2001) to eliminate this possibility. In general, because of the low sensitivity of Chandra above 6 keV, the limits we set as a function of absorbing column are weaker than those in Figure 5 of Iwasawa et al. for the range they study (log $`N_H`$=24.3 and above).

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Spatial Distribution of Nuclear X-ray Emission

The X-ray emission in Arp 220 is clearly divided into two parts — the compact, hard nuclear emission, and the diffuse, softer extended emission. This diffuse emission clearly extends right into the nucleus since the thermal component of the nuclear emission appears very similar to the thermal emission found in the off-nuclear spectrum. The hard emission is not extended beyond a region $``$1kpc in size (3” at 76 Mpc, our adopted distance for Arp 220). This makes an interesting contrast with other starburst and interacting/merging galaxies already studied by Chandra. For example, in the Antennae (Fabbiano, Zezas & Murray 2001) hard emission comes from numerous point sources extended over a 10kpc region, and in NGC 3256 (Ward et al. 2000), we see similar clumps spread over 3.5kpc. If such sources existed in Arp 220, we would expect to detect all those above $``$5$`\times 10^{39}`$ergs s-1 cm-2 in luminosity. We only see one such source, X-2, which lies 7” away from the nucleus. The hard X-ray emission from Arp 220 thus appears to be significantly more concentrated in the nucleus than that of other interacting or merging galaxies observed by Chandra. Indeed, the spatial distribution of hard emission in Arp 220 would appear to be more similar to that of Mrk273 (Xia et al. 2002), a ULIRG containing an AGN at its core, than NGC3256 or the Antennae, neither of which seem to have a significant AGN contribution.

### 4.2 Spectrum of the Arp 220 Nuclear Region

The X-ray output from the nuclear regions of Arp 220 is energetically dominated by an extended hard kpc-scale component, with a significant point source contribution ($`<200`$pc), that has a power law spectrum with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=1.4$`\pm `$1.0, with an unabsorbed 2-10keV luminosity of 4$`\times 10^{40}`$ ergs/s. The central question is the origin of this radiation – does it arise from young supernovae, X-ray binaries, or the result of accretion onto a more massive body, possibly a weak AGN. We consider each of these possibilities in turn:

* Young Supernovae Young supernovae can be strong X-ray emitters especially if in a dense circumstellar or interstellar environment (Schlegel, 1995). Such objects are also strong radio emitters. Colina et al (2001) detected a luminous radio supernova in the nuclear starburst of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 7469, a marginally ultraluminous infrared galaxy. 12 candidates for such ’radio supernovae’ have been detected by VLBI/VLBA observations in the nuclei of Arp 220 (Smith et al. 1998), so we know such objects are present. The X-ray properties of such objects are highly heterogeneous. SN1986J, for example, had an integrated 0.1-2.4keV luminosity of 2–3$`\times `$1040ergs s-1 cm-2, while SN1993J has a luminosity in the same band of 3$`\times `$1038ergs s-1 cm-2. The temporal behaviour of these objects are also different, ranging from relatively constant emission over several years for SN1978K to decay times of a few weeks or months for SN1993J (Schlegel, 1995). A number of such objects are capable of powering the emission we see in Arp 220, though some long term variability should be detectable, especially since no new radio supernovae appear to have occurred for some years (Lonsdale et al. 2000). Spectrally the emission from young supernovae are best fitted by thermal bremsstrahlung spectra. Attempts to fit the nuclear spectrum of Arp 220 with a thermal bremsstrahlung model give an implausibly high temperature of 10.5 keV with a 1.7$`\times 10^{22}`$cm-2 absorbing column ($`\chi ^2`$=52.4 with 77 degrees of freedom); supernovae typically have T$``$0.5keV. Fixing the emission to this temperature gives a fit with a poorer $`\chi ^2`$ than other models, with $`\chi ^2`$ = 83 with 78 degrees of freedom.
* X-Ray Binaries and ULX sources Typical galactic X-ray binaries have luminosities up to $``$1037ergs s-1 cm-2 (White, Nagase & Parmar 1995), so several thousand would be required to produce the luminosity seen in Arp 220’s nucleus, which is implausible. However, galaxies such as the Antennae and NGC3256, with considerably more active star formation than our own galaxy, have been found to contain ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULX) with luminosity comparable to Arp 220. A survey of 11 nearby spirals with Chandra finds 15 ULX sources (Kilgard et al, in preparation). The ULX sources may be accreting objects with mass $`500M_{}`$, as seen in M82 (Griffiths et al. 2000, Kaaret et al. 2001); or, the objects may be high-mass X-ray binaries with compact object masses in the stellar range, but with beamed emission (King et al. 2001). The M82 source appears to have a 10keV thermal bremsstrahlung spectrum, which can fit the data well (see above), so the presence of several ULX sources in the core of Arp 220 is feasible.
* Inverse Compton Emission Moran et al. (1999) suggested that the hard X-ray emission in NGC3256 is produced through inverse Compton scattering of the far-IR photons by relativistic electrons produced by supernova remnants in the starburst. Conditions suitable for inverse Compton emission might also exist in the nuclei of Arp220, and give rise to the hard emission seen here. One test of inverse Compton emission is that the radio and X-ray power law indicies should match, and this does indeed prove to be the case. However, as noted by Iwasawa et al. (2001), the inverse Compton process in Arp220 must be quite inefficient or the hard X-ray luminosity would be much greater.
* Active Galactic Nuclei The restriction of much of the hard X-ray emission to just the central regions of Arp 220 is naturally explained if the source is an AGN rather than an agglomeration of XRBs. However, whilst the nuclear regions of Arp 220 have a high luminosity for an individual XRB, they have a low luminosity for an AGN, being about 2 orders of magnitude fainter than typical Seyfert 1’s (George et al. 1998). However, luminosities this low are not without precedent for suspected AGNs. Ho et al. (2001) have conducted a survey of nearby galaxies with Chandra, examining the X-ray emission of objects that might contain low luminosity AGNs. They find weak AGNs in a substantial fraction of their sample, with X-ray luminosities (2-10keV) as low as $`10^{39}`$ergs s-1 cm-2. They also find a correlation between X-ray and H$`\alpha `$ luminosity which Arp 220 fits on when only the nuclear H$`\alpha `$ luminosity is considered (Armus, Heckman & Miley 1990). If there is a weak AGN such as this in Arp 220, it will contribute only about 108—109L to the bolometric luminosity, ie. less than 1%. However, the presence of even a weak AGN in the dense environment of the nucleus of Arp 220 raises the possibility that it will grow and significantly increase in luminosity as the system continues to evolve. There is also the possibility that we are only seeing a small fraction of the emission from an AGN if the source itself is Compton obscured. The tentative detection of an emission line at 6.5keV, with equivalent width $``$1 keV, raises the possibility that the power-law source seen is just a reflected component from an otherwise obscured source. Harder X-ray observations by Beppo/SAX (Iwasawa et al. 2001) set the best limits to date for any obscured AGN. A moderately Compton thick AGN, with 2$`\times 10^{24}`$ cm-2 column, according to these limits, could supply a few percent of the bolometric luminosity, assuming standard Lx/Lbol ratios. Absorption by $`>`$1025 cm-2 is needed before a substantial fraction of Arp 220’s luminosity can come from an AGN. Such extinction is not impossible. Haas et al. (2001) use the 7.7$`\mu `$m/850$`\mu `$m flux ratio to suggest very high extinctions, while the LWS spectrum from Fischer et al. (1999), indicating $`\tau >1`$ at 100$`\mu `$m, would imply an HI column of 2.7$`\times 10^{25}`$cm-2. Improved sensitivity spectra for the nuclear regions of Arp 220 is clearly needed to confirm whether the 6.5keV line is real and if it is associated with reflected emission. The presence of extended hard X-ray emission in the nuclear regions of Arp220 cannot be easily explained by a simple AGN model. Possible explainations would include a mixed nature for the nuclear regions, with unresolved AGN emission combining with extended XRB emission in the halo. Such an arrangement would naturally follow from Taniguchi et al.’s (1999) model of nuclear black hole growth by accretion of XRBs during a merger. Alternatively, an obscured AGN might be associated with extended scattered hard emission. The acquisition of deeper Chandra images to examine any differences in X-ray properties between unresolved and halo hard X-ray emission would be able to address these possibilities.

## 5 Conclusions: The Nature of Arp 220

We have shown that there is a source of hard, power-law-like, X-ray emission in the nuclear regions of Arp 220. This source is extended EW, consistent with the emission coming from both the radio/IR nuclei. The central concentration of hard X-ray emission in Arp 220 is in contrast to other interacting galaxies, where hard emission comes from clumps distributed across much larger physical distances. This difference may be associated with the merger in Arp 220 being older than in the Antennae or NGC3256, and that compact objects have sunk to its core (Tremaine, Ostriker & Spitzer, 1975) but may also be associated with Arp 220’s greater luminosity. The origin of the hard emission is unclear. Its spectrum is unlikely to be produced by young supernovae, but inverse Compton emission, albeit of very low efficiency, accretion onto ultra-luminous X-ray binaries or onto an AGN are all possible. If there is an AGN contribution, it has too low a luminosity for it to play a significant role in the energetics of the object, but the presence of even a weak AGN in Arp 220 would support a connection between ULIRGs and quasars (Sanders et al. 1988). If it is not an AGN, we cannot rule out the presence of a true AGN behind a Compton screen of column $`10^{25}\text{cm}\text{-2}`$. If XRBs are responsible for the emission then a large number of conventional XRBs are needed, or a smaller number of ultraluminous ULX sources. In either case, the concentration of these objects in the very centre of Arp 220 might indicate that these objects will later merge together to form a supermassive black hole and AGN (Taniguchi et al. 1999). If there is a weak AGN already in the nuclear regions, then this process may already have begun.

We acknowledge use of the ADS, NED, and CIAO. Partial support for this work was provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Chandra Award Number GO1-1166 issued by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073. S. Lamb acknowledges support from the DOE, through LLNL. DLC and ACB were supported by PPARC, CM by the Royal Society. We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Bernie Peek and Charlie Baker to this work.


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# Interferometric Detection of Planets/Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks

## 1. Introduction

Hydrodynamical simulations concerning the evolution of protoplanets in protoplanetary disks have shown that giant protoplanets may open a gap and cause spiral density waves in the disk (see, e.g., Kley 1999, Kley et al. 2001, D’Angelo et al. 2002). Depending on the hydrodynamical properties of the planet and the disk, the gap may extend up to several AU in width. We investigate the possibility to find such a gap as an indicator for the presence of a protoplanet with present-day or near-future techniques. For this reason, we use hydrodynamical simulations of a protoplanetary disk with an embedded planet and compute the expected brightness distributions. We show that ALMA will provide the necessary basis to detect gaps in circumstellar disks in the millimeter/submillimeter wavelength range.

## 2. The disk model

The density structure of the protoplanetary disk results from hydrodynamical simulations in which the disk is assumed to be flat and non-self-gravitating. The mutual gravitational interaction between the planet and the central star, and the gravitational torques of the disk acting on planet and star are included. The 3D density structure is Gaussian in the vertical direction where for the scale height H(r) we assume a constant ratio H/r=0.05. The mass of the star is assumed to be 1 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$. The planet with a mass of 1 Jupiter mass is located at a distance of 5.2 AU from the star. The disk has a mass of $`0.05\mathrm{M}_{}`$ and a diameter of 104 AU. The structure of the spirals and the gap reaches an equilibrium after about 150 orbits ($`1800\mathrm{yrs}`$).

The dust reemission is simulated with the Monte-Carlo radiative transfer code MC3D (Wolf, Henning, & Stecklum 1999; Wolf & Henning 2000; Wolf 2002). The radiative transfer is simulated self-consistently, taking into account both the initial temperature of the dust due to viscous heating and the additional energy input of the central star (effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=5500`$ K, luminosity $`L=1\mathrm{L}_{}`$). The dust grains are assumed to consist of “astronomical” silicates (optical data from Draine & Lee 1984; radius 0.12 $`\mu `$m; dust-to-gas mass ratio = 1:100). In Figure 1, images of the inner region (diameter 28 AU) of the disk, seen under different inclination angles $`i`$ at a wavelength of $`\lambda `$=700 $`\mu `$m, are shown.

## 3. Simulations of observations with MIDI (VLTI) and ALMA

The goal of the following simulations is to check whether MIDI/VLTI or ALMA can be used to detect gaps discussed in the previous sections.

MIDI: This MID-infrared two-beam Interferometric instrument is designed for operation at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO (Leinert et al. 2000). In Figure 2, simulated visibility curves at $`\lambda `$=10 $`\mu `$m are shown for different disk scenarios. Comparing the results for a disk with/without a gap we find that the visibilities at a given baseline differ by less than 5% since the innermost region – which dominates the 10 $`\mu `$m flux – is only negligibly affected by the presence of the planet at a distance of 5.2 AU. Taking into account uncertainties of “real” measurements a distinction between different disk models (with/without gap) based on significant differences between the visibility profiles is not possible even by a beam combination of the most distant telescopes of the VLTI. However, MIDI will be able to trace the presence of accretion onto the central star. The different density profiles of the innermost region of the disk cause a steeper visibility profile compared to the visibilities simulated for a disk without accretion. Thus, one could clearly distinguish a disk with accretion from a disk without.

ALMA: The Atacama Large Millimeter Array is a planned array of 64 12m-antennas with an aspired maximum baseline of 12 to 14 km. It will cover the submillimeter/millimeter wavelength range ($`\lambda `$=0.3-10 mm). Due to the large number of receivers and the resulting broad distribution of baselines, a sufficient u-v plane coverage can be achieved after a few hours of observation and image reconstruction will be possible. In contrast to the first instruments at the VLTI, the visibility phase can be easily measured in the millimeter wavelength range. In Figure 2, a reconstructed image of the disk based on a simulation of ALMA observations is shown. Even under consideration of the thermal noise caused by a system temperature of $`T_{\mathrm{sys}}`$=500 K, the gap is clearly visible.

## 4. Conclusions

We studied the possibility of the indirect planet detection by observation of the resulting gap in a protoplanetary disk. Based on hydrodynamical simulations and subsequent 3D continuum radiative transfer calculations we generated images of a circumstellar disk with an embedded Jupiter mass planet surrounding a solar-type star.

We found that the gap can be seen very clearly in the simulated images but an extremely high angular resolution is required ($``$ 10 mas). Furthermore, because of the extreme brightness contrast in the innermost region of the disk in the near to mid-infrared, the gap can hardly be detected in this wavelength range with imaging/interferometric observations. However, we found that it will be possible to distinguish between a disk with or without accretion onto the central star with MIDI. In contrast to this, the (sub)millimeter interferometer ALMA will provide the basis for the reconstruction of an image of a gap. Thus, the search for massive protoplanets in circumstellar disks can be based on the indication of a gap.

### Acknowledgments.

This research was supported by the DFG grant Kl 650/1-1.


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# Localized transverse bursts in inclined layer convection

## Abstract

We investigate a novel bursting state in inclined layer thermal convection in which convection rolls exhibit intermittent, localized, transverse bursts. With increasing temperature difference, the bursts increase in duration and number while exhibiting a characteristic wavenumber, magnitude, and size. We propose a mechanism which describes the duration of the observed bursting intervals and compare our results to bursting processes in other systems.

Bursting phenomena are a common feature of nonequilibrium systems. Various bursting mechanisms have been described by Knobloch and Moehlis Knobloch and Moehlis (2000) and characterized in terms of their recurrence properties and dynamic range, distinguishing between temporally localized bursts which are spatially global and those which are spatially local. Some examples of the former are the breakdown of spiral vortices in Taylor-Couette flow Coughlin and Marcus (1996); Coughlin et al. (1999), fluctuations in heat transport in binary fluid convection Sullivan and Ahlers (1988); Moehlis and Knobloch (1998), and shear flow turbulence Waleffe (1998); Grossmann (2000). While a dynamical systems approach has been fruitful in the global case, spatially localized bursts remain less understood.

In the Letter, we characterize a recently discovered Daniels et al. (2000) bursting phenomenon in inclined layer convection (ILC) resulting from the presence of both buoyancy and shear instabilities. Two features are intriguing: spatially localized bursts of a characteristic size and the triggering of local disorder within the burst without completely destroying the underlying roll structure (see Fig. 1). Temporally, we observe multiple cycles of transverse modulation, turbulence, and decay within the bursts. Existing theory does not address either the spatial or temporal dynamics.

Inclined layer convection is a variant of Rayleigh-Bénard (thermal) convection Bodenschatz et al. (2000), in which a fluid layer is heated from one side and and cooled from the other. Tilting this layer by an angle $`\theta `$ (see Fig. 2) results in a base state which is a superposition of a linear temperature gradient and a shear flow up along the hot plate and down along the cold. When heated beyond a critical temperature difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_c`$, the fluid convects due to the buoyancy of the hot fluid. As $`\theta `$ is increased, the buoyancy provided by the perpendicular component of gravity $`g_{}g\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ becomes weaker and the shear flow provided by $`g_{}`$ becomes stronger. Above a codimension-two point at $`\theta _c`$, the primary instability is due to this shear flow instead of buoyancy Hart (1971); Clever and Busse (1977); Fujimura and Kelly (1993). Interesting bursting behavior has been observed in the vicinity of this codimension-two point Daniels et al. (2000).

We perform experiments in high pressure CO2 in an apparatus similar to that described in de Bruyn et al. (1996), modified to allow for inclination. The gas was at a pressure of $`(48.26\pm 0.01)`$ bar regulated to $`\pm 0.005`$ bar with a mean temperature of $`(25.00\pm 0.05)^{}`$C regulated to $`\pm 0.3`$mK. Our three convection cells were of height $`d=778\pm 2\mu `$m and length $`97.3d`$. The widths in the $`\widehat{𝐱}`$ direction are $`L_1=10.4d`$ for Cell 1, $`L_2=20.9d`$ for Cell 2, and $`L_3=31.0d`$ for Cell 3. These parameters give a vertical viscous diffusion time of $`\tau _v=d^2/\nu =(4.50\pm 0.02)`$ sec, a Prandtl number $`\sigma =1.301\pm 0.001`$, and weakly non-Boussinesq conditions ($`Q=0.2`$ to 0.8, as described in Bodenschatz et al. (2000) for horizontal fluid layers). The planform of the convection pattern was observed via the shadowgraph technique de Bruyn et al. (1996) using a digital camera. The two control parameters are the angle $`\theta `$ and the nondimensionalized temperature difference $`ϵ\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T}{\mathrm{\Delta }T_c}1`$. Images were collected at 27 frames/$`\tau _v`$ with runs of duration at least 1000 $`\tau _v`$ at various values of $`ϵ`$, $`\theta `$.

Fig. 3 shows the phase diagram for ILC in the vicinity of the codimension-two point, with onset measured experimentally (data points) and compared to predictions from linear stability analysis Pes . The localized transverse bursts appear intermittently within the underlying longitudinal rolls as a secondary instability for $`\theta <\theta _c`$. These bursts are triggered within a secondary instability in which there is already local growth of regions of high-amplitude longitudinal convection, as seen in the sequence of images in Fig. 1; a movie of the corresponding images are available online EPA . Within these regions, transverse modulations repeatedly grow and decay, becoming disordered or turbulent in the process. Eventually, this cycle of bursting ends and the system returns to quiescent, weak longitudinal rolls. The phenomenon becomes more pronounced at large $`ϵ`$, so that eventually the whole cell is bursting. Each localized patch does not spread and no global bursting was observed. At lower inclination (further from the codimension-two point), the bursting is indistinguishable from the crawling rolls described in Daniels et al. (2000).

The measured wavenumber $`p`$ of the transverse modulations is shown in Fig. 4 and observed to be approximately constant. At $`\theta =80^{}`$, the transverse rolls were determined to have a wavenumber of $`p_c=(2.82\pm 0.04)d`$ at onset; the burst wavenumber $`p`$ is nearly subharmonic with respect to this value. The appearance of this bursting phenomena close to the stability curve for transverse rolls suggests that a related shear instability is playing a role. Nonetheless, no mode resonant with $`p_c`$ is observed as part of the bursting spectrum (see Fig. 1).

Using Fourier decomposition, we determined the area of each cell occupied by transverse bursting and found the width of the region for those instances in which only a single burst was present. As shown in Fig. 5, the bursts generally have a characteristic of size of $`15d`$ in the transverse direction and $`20d`$ in the longitudinal. Bursts are smaller in Cell 1 (see Fig. 5a), where they fill the cell in the $`\widehat{𝐱}`$ (transverse) direction, and larger for $`\theta =76^{}`$ (Fig. 5b) and increased $`ϵ`$ (Fig. 5c) Cell 2 and Cell 3 typically contain multiple bursts; therefore, we will utilize data from Cell 1 to focus on the temporal behavior of single bursts. For Cells 1, 2, and 3 the onset of bursting was observed to occur at $`ϵ=0.075`$, $`ϵ=0.02`$, and $`ϵ=0.04`$, respectively ons .

We describe the bursts based on the modes they excite in Fourier space, using the power spectra of background-divided images as a function of time. Sample spectra and their corresponding shadowgraph images are shown in Fig. 1, with three prominent modes: a pure $`\widehat{𝐱}`$ mode $`q`$, a pure $`\widehat{𝐲}`$ mode $`p`$, and a mixed mode $`pq`$. The longitudinal rolls are composed of the pure $`q`$ mode, while the transverse modulations are constructed from the $`p`$ and $`pq`$ modes. Higher-order modes serve to create the characteristic shape of the bursts and will be ignored here. A further simplification should be noted: the shadowgraph technique integrates through the fluid layer ($`\widehat{𝐳}`$), while these bursting phenomena exhibit three dimensional behavior, particularly when the modulations become disordered.

We define $`S_q`$, $`S_{pq}`$, and $`S_p`$ as the power in each of these three peaks, taken as the total intensity in a fixed region of Fourier space. Fig. 6 shows time traces of the power in each of the three modes. Prior to the beginning of the burst $`S_q`$ typically increases in relative amplitude, as shown in Fig. 7a. The beginning of a burst is characterized by the rapid growth of the transverse modulations (via $`S_{pq}`$). The $`S_p`$ mode is weaker and grows after a delay of about $`0.5\tau _v`$ (see Fig. 7b), which suggests that it is due to a nonlinear interaction or resonance condition between the $`q`$ and $`pq`$ modes. The simplest such nonlinearity would be quadratic, and by multiplying $`S_q(t)`$ and $`S_{pq}(t)`$, we obtain a good reproduction of the curve for $`S_p(t)`$, shown as the gray dashed line in Fig. 6.

The time series in Fig. 6 show two temporal features: (1) intermittent, alternating periods of quiescence and bursting and (2) burstlets characterized by peaks and troughs within the bursting intervals. As $`S_{pq}(t)`$ rises at the beginning of a burstlet, the pattern exhibits the increasingly well-defined modulations shown in Fig. 1b. When $`S_{pq}`$ peaks, these modulations become spatially disordered on short time scales, moving rapidly within the underlying rolls. While the general roll pattern is retained in any single image (see Fig. 1c), the roll segments move turbulently within the localized bursting region EPA . At higher $`ϵ`$ and $`\theta `$, both of which increase the shear flow, this disorder is increased (see Fig. 1d). From the disordered state, the modulations either decay — resulting in the end of the bursting interval — or grow again, creating another burstlet within the same interval. A succession of such events is suggestive of the presence of a limit cycle. Stochastic limit cycles have been previously described in Knobloch and Moehlis (2000); Busse (1984), relying on a random forcing effect such as pressure fluctuations to produce random events with a single, well-defined mean rate.

To determine the quiescent and bursting intervals, we set a threshold for $`S_{pq}(t)`$ above which the system was considered to be bursting. Because the onset and decay of the burst is sharp, the results were not sensitive to the choice of threshold over a reasonable range of values. Using this information, we examined the duration of quiescent intervals $`T_Q`$, bursting intervals $`T_B`$. Burstlets are separated by intervals $`\tau _b`$ within the $`T_B`$, with burstlet peaks identified by local maximum. Examples of the determined bursting intervals are shown by the gray bars at the bottom of Fig. 6. Sample probability distribution functions (PDFs) and mean values as a function of $`ϵ`$ are plotted in Fig. 8. The quiescent intervals $`T_Q`$ were longest close to the onset of bursting, and decreased until they were no longer detectable at higher $`ϵ`$. Conversely, the bursting intervals $`T_B`$ grow with $`ϵ`$. The combined effect is that at high $`ϵ`$ the whole cell is in a perpetual state of bursting since each localized burst lives longer and new ones begin sooner. All of these trends hold at other values of $`ϵ`$ and $`\theta `$ as well.

Such behavior distinguishes this bursting from the behavior of bursts in Taylor-Couette flow Coughlin and Marcus (1996); Coughlin et al. (1999). There, the bursting is attributed to a secondary instability whose growth above a threshold triggers turbulence throughout the fluid. Once the turbulence has begun it destroys the underlying rolls which were providing energy and thus it dies away after a well-defined period of time. It appears that the initial transverse modulations in ILC are such a secondary instability, although they appear to arise due to a growing primary mode which triggers their onset, as shown in Fig. 7. However, instead of fully bursting, the burstlets cause only local disorder and fail to globally trigger turbulence. Because the modulation and rolls are not completely destroyed (see Fig. 6), they are readily able to grow back up again after they decay. This creates bursts comprised of multiple burstlets. As a result, $`T_B`$ is not constant as was observed for the Taylor-Couette bursts but instead increases with $`ϵ`$, as shown in Fig. 8f. The mechanism for the growth of the Taylor-Couette bursts Coughlin and Marcus (1996); Coughlin et al. (1999) provides for $`T_Q1/ϵ`$ behavior based on a constant growth rate of the secondary instability. It is possible that a similar mechanism is at work since a similar trend of longer quiescent periods at lower $`ϵ`$ is observed (see Fig. 8d.)

To create cycles of burstlets within each bursting interval, a second bursting process must be at work as well. At each $`ϵ`$ and $`\theta `$ the PDF of $`\tau _b`$ (see Fig. 8b) exhibits a negative exponential distribution

$$𝒫(\tau _b)=\frac{e^{\tau _b/\tau _b}}{\tau _b}$$
(1)
where $`\tau _b`$ is the mean waiting period of a Poisson process generating the bursts. Because the lowest $`\tau _b`$ bin is underreported due to the finite sampling of the time series, $`\tau _b_{\mathrm{e}ff}`$ is found instead by fitting the negative exponential to all data except for the first bin.

This description can also explain why $`T_B`$ isn’t constant. In a Poisson process, the events are memoryless: the wait time for the next event is independent of how long the system has already been waiting. If a new burstlet were not generated before the decay to quiescence, the modulations would die away and the burst interval would be over. Assuming a constant, unknown decay time $`\tau _d`$, the probability distribution for $`N`$ burstlets for which each $`\tau _b`$ is no more than $`\tau _d`$ is calculated using the cumulative distribution of Eqn. 1, $`𝒫(\tau _b\tau _d)=1e^{\tau _b/\tau _d}`$.

$$𝒫(N)=\frac{(1e^{\tau _d/\tau _b})^N}{e^{\tau _d/\tau _b}1}$$
(2)
This distribution contains a single parameter $`Ne^{\tau _d/\tau _b}`$, which can be measured directly from the experimental $`𝒫(N)`$. Eqn. 2 then reduces to

$$𝒫(N)=\frac{(N1)^{N1}}{N^N}$$
(3)
where $`N`$ is the measured mean number of burstlets per interval. This formulation allows for comparison with the observed data with no fit parameters. Fig. 8c shows good agreement with this model, as do plots at other parameter values. Therefore, our results are consistent with the burstlets being Poisson-distributed events.

Transverse bursts in inclined layer convection show many consistent and unexplained properties across a range of $`ϵ`$ and $`\theta `$: spatial localization, transverse modulations of uniform wavenumber, persistence of the roll structure while bursting, and repeated cycles of growth and decay once triggered. Aspects of both spatiotemporal chaos and turbulence appear to be relevant and these results represent a first step in understanding the structure and dynamics of this novel bursting phenomenon. In particular, more work is needed to understand both the local growth of longitudinal rolls which triggers the bursting and the implications of a resonance condition between the $`p`$, $`q`$, and $`pq`$ modes.

We wish to thank W. Pesch and J. Brink for sharing results from stability analysis and full numerical simulations and J. P. Sethna for fruitful discussions. We are grateful to NSF for support under DMR-0072077 and the IGERT program in nonlinear systems, DGE-9870631.