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# Progress report on the staggered ϵ'/ϵ project Presented by W. Lee. Research supported in part by BK21, by the SNU foundation & Overhead Research fund, by KRF contract KRF-2002-003-C00033 and by US-DOE contract DE-FG03-96ER40956/A006.

## Abstract

We report on progress and future plans for calculating kaon weak matrix elements for $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ using staggered fermions.

The first goal of this project is to provide a check of the results ($`ϵ^{}/ϵ<0`$) obtained using quenched Domain Wall fermions (DWF) by the CP-PACS  and RBC  collaborations. The second goal is to extend the work to dynamical simulations, since quenching is likely one of the main systematic errors in present calculations . The third goal is either to find a window for new physics or to confirm the standard model, when our numerical results are compared with the observed values.

Staggered fermions are appropriate for this purpose, because they preserve enough chiral symmetry to prevent composite operators from mixing with wrong chirality operators and to protect quark mass from additive renormalization, which is essential to calculate $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$. They have the advantages over DWF of requiring less CPU time and dynamical simulations are already possible with relatively light quark masses. By construction, staggered fermions carry four degenerate flavors (also called “tastes”). They allow large flavor changing quark-gluon interactions, which makes it impractical to non-perturbatively determine matching constants for operators of our interest. Another disadvantage is that the unimproved action and operators receive large perturbative corrections at one loop and have large scaling violations of order $`a^2`$. Both of these disadvantages can be alleviated by improving staggered fermions using smeared links. Flavor symmetry breaking in the pion spectrum is significantly reduced with such links .

Our project has progressed through the following steps.

1. We calculated the current-current diagrams for the gauge-invariant unimproved staggered fermions at one loop , which provided a complete set of perturbative matching formula for $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$, combined with existing results for penguin diagrams .

2. We performed a numerical study on $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ using the Columbia QCDSP supercomputer . Using the matching formula given in , we constructed fully one-loop matched gauge-invariant operators. As expected, we found large perturbative corrections for $`B_6`$, so that we cannot quote quantitative results for this although the statistical uncertainty is under control. An unexpected result was that different quenched transcriptions of the continuum operators on the lattice (proposed by Golterman and Pallante ) lead to substantially different values for $`B_6`$ . This indicates a large quenching uncertainty and deserves further study.

3. The goal was to find an improvement scheme which can reduce perturbative correction down to 10% or smaller. To achieve this goal, we calculated, explicitly, one loop matching factors for a variety of improved staggered actions and operators : 1) Fat7, 2) Fat7+Lepage, 3) HYP, and 4) Asqtad-like (Fat7+Lepage+Naik) actions. We observed that all the above improvement schemes significantly reduce the size of the matching coefficients. After a higher level of mean-field improvement, the HYP and Fat7 links lead to the smallest one-loop corrections . Since the HYP action reduces the non-perturbative flavor symmetry breaking more efficiently in the pion spectrum, we adopted the HYP scheme in our numerical study.

4. We studied further on the HYP link . The HYP links possess some universal properties, which are summarized in the following 5 theorems.

###### Theorem 1 (SU(3) Projection)

Any fat link can be expanded in powers of gauge fields ($`A_\mu `$).

$`B_\mu =B_\mu ^{(1)}+B_\mu ^{(2)}+B_\mu ^{(3)}+\mathrm{}`$
$`B_\mu ^{(n)}=𝒪(A^n)`$
1. The linear term, $`B_\mu ^{(1)}`$ is invariant under SU(3) projection.
2. The quadratic term, $`B_\mu ^{(2)}`$ is antisymmetric in gauge fields.

###### Theorem 2 (Triviality of renormalization)

1. At one loop level, only the $`B_\mu ^{(1)}`$ term contributes to the renormalization of the gauge-invariant staggered fermion operators.
2. At one loop level, the contribution from $`B_\mu ^{(n)}`$ for any $`n2`$ vanishes.
3. At one loop level, the renormalization of the gauge-invariant staggered operators can be done by simply replacing the propagator of the $`A_\mu `$ field by that of the $`B_\mu ^{(1)}`$ field.

This theorem is true, regardless of details of the smearing transformation.

###### Theorem 3 (Multiple SU(3) projections)

1. The linear gauge field term $`B_\mu ^{(1)}`$ in the perturbative expansion is universal.
2. In general, the quadratic terms may be different from one another. But all of them are antisymmetric in gauge fields.
3. This theorem is true, regardless of the details of smearing.

###### Theorem 4 (Uniqueness)

If we impose the perturbative improvement condition of removing the flavor changing interactions on the HYP action, the HYP link satisfies the following:

1. The linear term $`B_\mu ^{(1)}`$ in perturbative expansion is identical to that of the SU(3) projected Fat7 links.
2. The quadratic term $`B_\mu ^{(2)}`$ is antisymmetric in gauge fields.

###### Theorem 5 (Equivalence at one loop)

If we impose the perturbative improvement condition to remove the flavor changing interactions, at one loop level,

1. the renormalization of the gauge invariant staggered operators is identical between the HYP staggered action and those improved staggered actions made of the SU(3) projected Fat7 links,
2. the contribution to the one-loop renormalization can be obtained by simply replacing the propagator of $`A_\mu `$ by that of $`B_\mu ^{(1)}`$.

The first two theorems were used in  and , although they did not present their derivations. For derivations of all five theorems and further details, see . As a result of these theorems, we can prove that for each Feynman diagram,

$`C_{fat}<C_{thin}.`$ (1)
Here, $`C_{fat}`$ ($`C_{thin}`$) represents perturbative corrections to gauge-invariant staggered operators constructed using SU(3) projected fat links (thin links). This inequality is not valid for those fat links without SU(3) projection. Hence, this lead to a conclusion that we may view the SU(3) projection of fat links as a tool of tadpole improvement for the staggered fermion doublers . We also present alternative choices of constructing fat links to improve staggered fermions in . The above five theorems make the perturbative calculation simpler for the HYP scheme, because one can perform the calculation merely by replacing the thin link propagator with that of the HYP links. This simplicity is extensively used in calculating the renormalization constants of the four-fermion operators in the next stage.

5. We calculate the current-current diagrams to obtain perturbative matching coefficients for the staggered four-fermion operators constructed using the HYP links. Especially, we are interested in the $`(𝒪_3)_{II}`$ operator (we use the same notation as in ), because this receives large perturbative corrections ($`1`$) in the case of unimproved staggered fermions.

$`(𝒪_3)_{II}=2([P\times P][P\times P][S\times P][S\times P])_{II}`$
In Tables 1 and 2, we present values of one-loop corrections to $`(𝒪_3)_{II}`$ constructed using both the HYP link and unimproved thin link (denoted as NAIVE). Here, $`C_N=13.159`$ and $`C_H=0.7709`$, which correspond to tadpole improvement contributions. The results shows that, by choosing the HYP scheme, the perturbative corrections are reduced to $``$ 10% level. In the case of the HYP scheme, note that the size of one-loop correction is already under control even without tadpole improvement. For further details, refer to .

6. At present, we are performing a numerical study using the Columbia QCDSP supercomputer. We calculate weak matrix elements for $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ using the HYP links at quenched $`\beta =6.0`$ on the $`16^3\times 64`$ lattice. So far, we have completed measurements on about 80 gauge configurations.

We plan to complete the one-loop calculations with HYP fermions, including the penguin diagrams . This will allow us to match the complete set of $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ and $`3/2`$ four-fermion operators constructed using HYP links to the corresponding continuum operators in, say, the NDR scheme.

We have also generalized the definition of the optimal matching scale, $`q^{}`$ , to the case of matching factors for operators with non-vanishing anomalous dimensions . Ultimately, we wish to extend the calculation to partially quenched and unquenched QCD.

We thank N. Christ, C. Jung, C. Kim, G. Liu, R. Mawhinney and L. Wu for their support of this project and assistance with numerical simulations on the Columbia QCDSP supercomputer.


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# The Frequency Content of the VIRGO/SoHO Lightcurves: Implications for Planetary Transit Detection from Space

## 1. Introduction

Transit detection algorithms in photometric time series, developed by the COROT (Defaÿ, Deleuil, & Barge 2001), *Eddington* (Aigrain & Favata 2002) and *Kepler* (Jenkins, Caldwell, & Borucki 2002) teams are very effective in the presence of white noise, and show that the latter two missions could detect habitable Earth-sized planets in data with white noise only. However, the non-Gaussian, ill-known stellar variability can have amplitudes over an order of magnitude larger than an Earth-analogue transit. Simulations using PMO6 data and the Bayesian algorithm developed for *Eddington* show that the minimum detectable planet size changes to $`3R_{}`$ when Sun-like variability is introduced without sophisitcated filtering techniques111Simulations for a K5V star with $`V=14.5`$, 4 transits in the light curve (Aigrain, Gilmore, & Favata, 2001). Variability will thus impact the choice of pre-processing techniques as well as target selection and colour information issues.

Pre-processing methods are already under investigation. After testing a highpass filter with some success, the *Eddington* team have developed a more optimized filter, based on a priori knowledge of the transit shape. Initial tests suggest it will be very successful, but realistic lightcurves with various levels of activity are needed for a quantitative assessment. The only star monitored with sufficient photometric precision and sampling is the Sun, which we use as a starting point.

## 2. Method

The power spectrum of the Sun’s lightcurve contains, beside the sharp oscillatory peaks used in helioseismology, an underlying ‘solar background’. It is mostly concentrated at low frequencies and has a complex, multi-component structure extending to a few mHz. It is commonly modeled as a sum of power laws (Harvey 1985, Andersen 1991, Andersen 1992, Harvey et al. 1993):

$$P(\nu )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}P_i(\nu )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{\mathrm{A}_i}{1+(\mathrm{B}_i\times \nu )^{\mathrm{C}_i}}$$

Various authors (Harvey et al. 1993, Andersen, Leifsen, & Toutain 1994, Rabello Soares et al. 1997) found up to 5 components in total irradiance: active regions, with characteristic timescale $`\tau =1`$ to $`3\times 10^5\mathrm{s}`$; super-granulation ($`\tau =3`$ to $`7\times 10^4\mathrm{s}`$); meso-granulation ($`\tau 8000\mathrm{s}`$); granulation ($`\tau =200to500\mathrm{s}`$); bright points ($`\tau 70\mathrm{s}`$). Interestingly, analysis of the narrow channel SPM data to date has shown no evidence for a meso-granulation component (Andersen et al. 1998, Pallé, Roca Cortés, & Jiménez 1999).

With the VIRGO dataset now spanning the interval from solar minimum to maximum, the evolution of the various components with the activity cycle can be studied. An algorithm has been developed to fit the Fourier Transform (FT) of lightcurve sections of duration $`L`$, adding components one by one until adding a component no longer improves the fit. A new section, offset from the previous one by a step $`S`$, is then fitted in turn, using the last fit as an initial guess. An example fit is shown in Fig. 1(a). Thus we monitor variations in amplitude, timescale and slope for each component and attempt to relate them to observables measured in many stars.

## 3. Results

The algorithm described above was run on the PMO6 and SPM data with $`L=180`$ days and $`S=20`$ days, resulting in two components plus a third whose turnoff was unresolved at higher frequencies. A number of points of interest emerge from the results. In all 4 datasets the amplitude of the first component, with $`\tau 1.3\times 10^5\mathrm{s}`$ (active regions) increases from solar minimum to maximum and is correlated with the Ca II K-line index, indicator of chromospheric activity (see Fig. 1(b)). The amplitude of the second component also increases, but is not correlated to the Ca II index. In both cases, the red channel shows a lower amplitude than the blue and green channels. Noticeably, the timescales are different in the PMO6 and the SPM data. The difference is significant for the second, granulation related component, with $`\tau 8\times 10^3\mathrm{s}`$ (meso-granulation) and $`\tau 5\times 10^4\mathrm{s}`$ (super-granulation) for PMO6 and SPM data respectively. This may result from a difference in contrast between super- and meso-granulation in the different channels, as suggested by Andersen et al. (1998). The meso-granulation signal present in total irradiance may also be due to spectral features not included within the narrow SPM channels. This question will be investigated by examining the spectral content of the channels and comparing solar disk images to the components’ evolution. The slopes are 3.8 (active regions) and 1.75 (granulation, both datasets), in good agreement with Andersen et al. (1998).

## 4. Discussion and future work

We have shown that indicators of chromospheric activity such as the Ca II K-line index provide a good proxy to the amplitude of the Sun’s variability at low frequencies. As similar indicators are commonly measured in other stars, we may infer their expected variability level up to a few $`\mu \mathrm{Hz}`$. However, little theoretical or observational insight is yet available to relate granulation-type phenomena to stellar observables. Relating the observed components in the power spectrum to spectral and/or surface features may allow us to identify some new indicators of this type of variability.

In the mean time, a lightcurve ‘simulator’ is being developed, using known scaling laws between chromospheric indicators, rotation period and colour, in which we can realistically scale up the active regions component. In the absence of more information a variety of scaling laws will be tried for the granulation component. This will provide a thorough test of pre-processing techniques under development.

In the longer term missions such as MOST, MONS and COROT will provide an ideal dataset to calibrate a general micro-variability model222A proposal for the COROT Parallel Science Working Group, entitled *Hours-timescale stellar background variability and exo-planet transit detection prospects* (PI A. Collier-Cameron) has recently been accepted.. Our understanding of the mechanisms behind low frequency, low amplitude stellar variability promises to improve vastly over the next few years.

Work is underway to quantify any increase in detection power gained from concentrating on the red part of the spectrum where we observe smaller variability, and from optimizing the filter bandwidth to exclude particularly variable spectral regions. These must be weighed against loss of photometric accuracy.

### Acknowledgments.

The authors wish to thank the staff at Big Bear Solar Observatory for kindly providing us with their Ca II K-line index data, and the VIRGO Science team for access to the PMO6 and SPM data. This work was supported in part by the European Space Agency’s Young Graduate Trainee program and by studentships from the UK’s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the Isaac Newton Trust.

## References

Aigrain, S., Gilmore, G., & Favata, F. 2001, in Techniques for the Detection of Planets and Life beyond the Solar System, 4th Annual ROE Workshop ed. W. R. F. Dent, 8

Aigrain, S., & Favata, F. 2002, A&A, submitted

Andersen, B. N. 1991, Adv. Sp. Res., 11, 4, 93

Andersen, B. N. 1992, in Proceedings of Mini-Workshop on Diagnostics of Solar Oscillations Observations (University of Oslo), 15

Andersen, B. N., Leifsen, T., Toutain, T. 1994, So. Ph., 152, 247

Andersen, B. N., Appourchaux, T., Crommelnynck, D., Fröhlich, C., Jiménez, A., Rabello Soares, M. C., & Wehri, Ch. 1998, IAU Symp. 181

Defaÿ, C., Deleuil, M., & Barge, P. 2001, A&A, 365, 330

Harvey, J. W. 1985, ESA SP-235, 199

Harvey, J. W., Duvall, T. L., Jefferies, S. M., & Pomerantz, M. A. 1993, in ASP Conf. Ser., 42, 111

Jenkins, J. M., Caldwell, D. A., & Borucki, W. J. 2002, ApJ, 564, 495

Pallé, P. L., Roca Cortés, T., Jiménez, A., & GOLF & VIRGO Teams 1999, ASP Conf. Ser., 173, 297

Rabello Soares, M. C., Roca Cortés, T., Jiménez, A., Andersen, B. N., & Appourchaux, T. 1997, A&A, 318, 970


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# Exclusive Vector Meson Production at HERA

## I Introduction

The sharp rise of the electromagnetic proton structure function, $`F_2`$, toward low values of Bjorken $`x`$, discovered at HERA zeusf2 ; h1f2 , and the observation of a large fraction of diffractive-like events zeusdiff ; h1diff  are attributed to a large gluon density in the proton at very low $`x`$ values, typically $`x<0.01`$. The rise of $`F_2`$ with decreasing $`x`$ can be accommodated by the QCD, DGLAP evolution equations DGLAP  in NLO down to momentum transfer squared $`Q^21\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ DGLAPlowq2 ; CTEQ5M . This suggests that perturbative effects set in at relatively low values of the interaction scale. However, the validity of the DGLAP evolution equation is established through fits to data which involve many unknown parameters and therefore it may be doubtful. Exclusive vector meson (V) production at high $`Q^2`$ has been proposed as an alternative method to infer the gluon content of the proton brodsky .

High energy elastic V production in Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) may be described, in the rest frame of the proton, by the fallowing sequence of happenings strikfurtHA . The incoming lepton emits a virtual photon, which subsequently fluctuates into a $`q\overline{q}`$ pair. The life time of such a quark pair fluctuation is long enough so that it is the pair that elastically scatters off the proton and evolves, long after the interaction, into a V state.

The character of the interaction of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair with the proton depends on the transverse momenta of the pair. If the transverse momentum is large, the spatial transverse separation between the quarks is small and it forms a color dipole, whose interaction with the proton may be calculated perturbatively strikfurt-dipole . The leading process is two gluon exchange. If the transverse momentum is small, the color dipole is large and perturbative calculations do not apply. In this case the interaction looks similar to hadron-hadron elastic scattering and the process should proceed through Pomeron exchange as expected from Regge phenomenology collins .

The $`q\overline{q}`$ wave function of the virtual photon depends on the polarization of the virtual photon. For longitudinally polarized photons, small transverse size $`q\overline{q}`$ dominate. The opposite is true for transversely polarized photons. The attractive features of elastic V production is that, at high $`Q^2`$, the longitudinal component of the virtual photon dominates. The interaction cross section for the latter can be, in principle, fully calculated in perturbative QCD. Moreover, for heavy vector mesons, like the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ or the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$, perturbative calculations apply even at $`Q^2=0`$, as the smallness of the dipole is guaranteed by the mass of the quarks.

Independently of particular calculations reviewVM ; ivanov , in the region dominated by perturbative QCD, the following features are predicted:

* the total $`\gamma ^{}pVp`$ cross section, $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}pVp}`$, exhibits a steep rise with $`W`$, the photon-proton center-of-mass energy, that can be parameterized as $`\sigma W^\delta `$, with $`\delta `$ increasing with $`Q^2`$;
* the $`Q^2`$ dependence, which for a longitudinally polarized photon is expected to behave like $`Q^6`$, becomes milder, more like $`Q^4`$, due to the sharp increase of the gluon density with $`Q^2`$;
* the distribution of $`t`$, the four momentum transfer squared at the proton vertex, becomes universal, with little or no dependence on $`W`$ or $`Q^2`$;

All these features have been observed at HERA review-data ; osaka ; h1apom ; z-disrho  in the exclusive production of $`\rho ^0`$, $`\varphi `$, $`\omega `$ and $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ mesons. However, the agreement between measurements and theory is far from perfect. There are many factors that may spoil the agreement. First and foremost, the measured cross sections contain the possibly soft transverse component of the virtual photon, which has to be modeled. In addition, the perturbative calculations have the following uncertainties:

* the calculation of $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}pVp}`$ involves the so-called skewed parton distributions skewed , which are not yet well tested and involve gluon distributions outside the range which is constrained by global parton density analyses jhep:103:45 ;
* higher order corrections have not been fully calculated, therefore the overall normalization is uncertain and the scale at which the gluons are probed is not known;
* the fast rise of $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}pVp}`$ implies the presence of the real part of the scattering amplitude, which is not fully known;
* the wave functions of the vector mesons are not fully under control.

In spite of all these problems, it is generally felt that precise measurements of $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}pVp}`$ as a function of $`W`$, $`Q^2`$, $`t`$ and the mass of the vector meson, $`M_V`$, with a separation into longitudinal and transverse components amirim , will help to resolve the theoretical uncertainties and ultimately lead to a better understanding of the parton distributions in the proton as well as of the dynamics of high energy interactions in the presence of a large scale.

One of the challenges in confronting perturbative QCD calculations with data is the ability to establish a region where hard interactions dominate over the soft component. The soft component is believed to be well described by Regge phenomenology, according to which at high energy, the Pomeron exchange dominates in the production of diffractive states. The parameters of the Pomeron trajectory are known from measurements of total cross sections in hadron-hadron interactions and elastic proton-proton measurements. It is usually assumed that the Pomeron trajectory is linear in $`t`$ and has the following form:

$$\alpha _{IP}(t)=\alpha _{IP}(0)+\alpha _{IP}^{}t.$$
(1)
The parameter $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ determines the energy behavior of the total cross section,

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{tot}}s^{\alpha _{IP}(0)1},$$
(2)
and $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ describes the increase of the exponential slope $`b`$ of the $`t`$ distribution with increasing $`s`$. The value of $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ is expected to be inversely proportional to the typical transverse momenta squared of the partons participating in the exchanged trajectory Gribov:1961 . Indeed a large value of $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ would suggest the presence of low transverse momenta, typical of soft interactions. The latest fits of $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ cudell  and $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ landshoff-aprime  are give:

$`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ $`=`$ $`1.096\pm 0.003`$ (3)
$`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`0.25\mathrm{GeV}^2.`$ (4)
These values for the trajectory parameters describe the so called soft Pomeron trajectory. The non-universality of $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ has been established in DIS, where the slope of the rise of the $`\gamma ^{}p`$ total cross section with $`W`$ has a pronounced $`Q^2`$ dependence h1lambda ; zeuslambda . The issue of the $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ dependence on the hardness of the interaction may be addressed in the study of exclusive V production at HERA. The value of $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ may be determined from the $`W`$ dependence of $`b`$, since $`b`$ is expected to behave as

$$b(W)=b_0+4\alpha _{IP}^{}\mathrm{ln}\frac{W}{W_0}.$$
(5)
The parameter $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ may also be derived from the $`W`$ dependence of the differential cross section $`d\sigma /dt`$ at fixed $`t`$,

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dt}(W)=F(t)W^{2[2\alpha _{IP}(t)2]},$$
(6)
where $`F(t)`$ is a function of $`t`$ only. The latter approach has the advantage that no assumption needs to be made about the $`t`$ dependence. The measurements of $`\alpha _{IP}(t)`$ in exclusive $`J/\psi `$ photoproduction show that, while $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ for $`J/\psi `$ is larger the soft $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ value, the value of $`\alpha _{IP}^{}`$ for $`J/\psi `$ is smaller h1apom ; levyapom ; zeusapom  than the soft value.

Another way to investigate the contribution of hard and soft components in V production is by projecting out the interactions induced by the longitudinally and transversely polarized virtual photons. Due to the respective wave functions structure, small $`q\overline{q}`$ configurations are dominantly longitudinal while large configurations are dominantly transverse. If one assumes that exclusive V production proceeds through $`s`$-channel helicity conservation (SCHC), the separation into the longitudinal and transverse components is possible. At small $`t`$, the hypothesis of SCHC has been directly tested in the data, and small deviations have been observed H199-010 ; zeusschc . However, the deviations are small enough not to jeopardize the decomposition of the cross sections into the longitudinal and transverse components.

The angular distributions of the decay products of the vector mesons give access to the spin density matrix elements, which are bilinear combinations of the helicity amplitudes $`T_{\lambda _V\lambda _\gamma }`$ where $`\lambda _V`$ ($`\lambda _\gamma `$) is the V (virtual photon) helicity schilling . As $`t`$ increases, a possible change in helicity is more likely due to the change in the V’s direction and the transfer of the transverse momentum carried by the gluons. The following features are expected by pQCD models ivanov ; royen ; niko  in DIS for $`|t|<Q^2`$:

* a constant ratio of the helicity conserving amplitudes, $`|T_{11}|/|T_{00}|`$, with $`t`$ ;
* a $`\sqrt{|t|}`$ dependence for the ratio of the single helicity flip to the non-flip amplitudes $`|T_{01}|/|T_{00}|`$ and $`|T_{10}|/|T_{00}|`$;
* a linear $`t`$ dependence for the ratio of the double flip to the non-flip amplitudes $`|T_{11}|/|T_{00}|`$;
* the hierarchy

$$|T_{00}|>|T_{11}|>|T_{01}|>|T_{10}|>|T_{11}|.$$
(7)

The differential cross section, $`\frac{d\sigma }{dt}`$, of V production has an exponentially falling cross section at low $`t`$ and a power like behavior at high $`t`$. An exponential behavior is associated with a Gaussian charge distribution and the slope, $`b`$, of the exponent is related to the width of the distribution and is a measure of the interaction size. In a naive picture for elastic scattering, $`b`$ has contributions from the size of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair which decreases with $`Q^2`$ and the constant size for the proton. At high $`Q^2`$, for all type of elastic V production, $`b`$ should reach an asymptotic value equal to the proton size.

The cross section for elastic V photo or electroproduction, with small transfer momentum to the proton, has the form t\_Ryskin

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma pVp}}{dt}=F_p^2(t)F_V^2(t,Q^2)|A(W,t,Q^2)|^2,$$
(8)
where $`F_p(t)`$ and $`F_V(t)`$ are the form factors of the proton and the V, respectively, that account for the probabilities of their elastic production, and $`A(W,t)`$ is the amplitude of the constituent interaction. The cross section of proton dissociation V production does not contain the proton form factor

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma pVY}}{dt}=F_V^2(t,Q^2)|A(W,t,Q^2)|^2.$$
(9)
Vertex factorization factorization  predicts that the ratio of proton dissociation over elastic differential cross section is $`Q^2`$ independent. The ratio of equation (8) to equation (9) is equal to the square of the proton form factor.

## II $`W`$ dependence of V production

The dependence of the cross section $`\sigma _V=\sigma _{\gamma ^{()}pVp}`$ on the center of mass energy, $`W`$, is shown in Fig. 1 for photoproduction of various vector mesons allvm . While the $`W`$ dependence of light vector mesons ($`\rho `$ $`\omega `$ $`\varphi `$) is $`\sigma _V(W)W^{0.22}`$, as expected from Regge phenomenology, the $`J/\psi `$ cross section has a steep rise with $`W`$, which is a signature of a hard process, as predicted by pQCD.

A change in the $`W`$ dependence is also seen when moving from low to high $`Q^2`$, as shown in Fig. 3, where the $`W`$ dependence of $`\sigma _\rho `$ for various $`Q^2`$ values H199-010  is plotted . For each $`Q^2`$ value the $`W`$ dependence of $`\sigma _\rho `$ is fitted with a form $`W^\delta `$. The parameter $`\delta `$ is related to the exchanged trajectory $`\alpha _{IP}(t)`$ by $`\delta =4(\alpha (<t>)1)`$. To extract $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ from $`\delta `$, $`<|t|>=1/b`$ is taken from measured values H199-010  and the value $`\alpha _{IP}^{}=0.25\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ is assigned. The resulting $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ is plotted as a function of $`Q^2`$ in Fig. 3 and a marked increase of $`\alpha _{IP}(0)`$ with $`Q^2`$ is observed.

The comparison between the measurements of $`\sigma _{J/\psi }`$ in photoproduction and various pQCD calculations jhep:103:45 ; mrt , based on different gluon distributions, is shown in Fig. 5 ZEUS\_J/psi\_PHP . The pQCD calculations are known to suffer from large theoretical uncertainties, therefore no discrimination between the gluon distributions can be made from this comparison. Also shown in Fig. 5 is the result of a calculation dipole\_model\_1  based on the Golec-Biernat Wüsthoff (GBW) model dipole\_model\_2  of the photon, whose parameters were fitted to the measurements of the inclusive structure function. The GBW model gives a good representation of the data, assuming a double Gaussian wave function of the $`J/\psi `$.

Although the $`W`$ dependence of $`J/\psi `$ photoproduction cannot be explained by the exchange of a universal soft Pomeron, the data can be fitted to the two-Pomeron model D\_and\_L  as shown in Fig. 5 H1\_J/psi\_PHP . The parameters of the established soft and the proposed hard Pomeron trajectories are $`(\alpha (0),\alpha _{IP}^{})_{soft}=(1.08,0.25\mathrm{GeV}^2)`$ and $`(\alpha (0),\alpha _{IP}^{})_{hard}=(1.418,0.1\mathrm{GeV}^2)`$. The relative contributions of the hard, soft and mixing terms of the model are found to vary between $`0.1:0.5:0.4`$ at $`W=30\mathrm{GeV}`$ to $`0.5:0.1:0.4`$ at $`W=250\mathrm{GeV}`$.

In Fig. 7 the $`W`$ dependence of $`\sigma _{J/\psi }`$ is shown for various $`Q^2`$ values z-disjpsi . The measurements are compared with theoretical predictions of Frankfurt et al. (FKS) fks  using CTEQ4M Lai , and of Martin et al. (MRT) mrt  using the CTEQ5M CTEQ5M  parametrization. The calculations are consistent with the data within the uncertainty of the measurements. Also shown in Fig. 7 are the values of $`\delta `$, obtained by fitting in each $`Q^2`$, the functional form $`\sigma _{J/\psi }W^\delta `$. The results may indicate a slight increase in $`\delta (Q^2)`$ at high $`Q^2`$.

### II.1 Test of SU(4) relation

The H1 collaboration h1apom  observed that when the cross sections for various Vs, weighted by the appropriate $`SU(4)`$ factors ($`\rho ^0:\omega :\varphi :J/\psi =9:1:2:8`$) were plotted as function of $`Q^2+M_V^2`$, at $`W=75\mathrm{GeV}`$, they seem to line up on a universal curve, as shown in Fig. 9. However there was a slight indication that the $`J/\psi `$ cross sections lie above the curve (see the insert in Fig. 9). The new precise measurements ZEUS\_J/psi\_PHP ; z-disjpsi  of $`J/\psi `$ production do not fit this picture, as shown in Fig. 9, where the $`W`$ dependence of light and heavy Vs, appropriately weighted by the $`SU(4)`$ factor, is plotted in bins of $`Q^2+M_V^2`$. The $`J/\psi `$ data lie far above the light Vs at all scales. It seems, therefore, that the variable $`Q^2+M_V^2`$ is a good variable for comparing the light Vs but is not adequate when the $`J/\psi `$ is added to the comparison.

### II.2 Measurement of the Pomeron trajectory, $`\alpha _{IP}(t)`$

The $`IP`$ trajectory, $`\alpha _{IP}(t)`$, can be measured by fitting the $`W`$ dependence of the $`\gamma ^{}p`$ cross section in bins of $`t`$, $`\frac{d\sigma }{dt}|_t(W)W^\delta `$, where $`\delta =4(\alpha _{IP}(t)1)`$. The parameters of the $`IP`$ trajectory were extracted from measurements of $`\rho ^0`$ traj-rhopho ; akdis01  and $`J/\psi `$ production h1apom ; ZEUS\_J/psi\_PHP  and are summarized in table 1. The measurements of $`\alpha _{IP}(t)`$ and the fitted trajectories are shown in Fig. 11. and in Fig. 11

The measured trajectories change with the $`M_V^2`$ and $`Q^2`$.

## III Angular distributions and helicity studies

The separation of the $`\gamma ^{}p`$ cross section into the contribution from longitudinal photons, $`\sigma _L`$, and transverse photons, $`\sigma _T`$, can be performed by measuring the V density matrix elements, $`r_{ij}^\alpha `$ schilling . These matrix elements are used to parameterize the angular distribution $`W(\mathrm{cos}\theta _h,\varphi _h,\mathrm{\Phi }_h)`$ of the helicity angles. The density matrix elements, $`r_{ij}^\alpha `$, are related to the transition amplitudes of longitudinal or transverse photons into longitudinal or transverse Vs. The transition amplitudes are denoted as $`T_{ij}`$, where $`i=0(1)`$ is a transverse (longitudinal) photon going into a $`j=0(1)`$ transverse (longitudinal) V. The relations between the transition amplitudes have been predicted by pQCD models ivanov ; royen ; niko .

### III.1 The ratio of longitudinal to transverse cross sections, $`R=\sigma _L/\sigma _T`$

The most extensive measurements H199-010 ; akdis01  of $`R(Q^2)`$ were preformed for $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction. The ratio $`R`$ of cross sections induced by longitudinal polarized virtual photons to the transversely polarized ones, $`\sigma _L/\sigma _T`$, is related to the spin density matrix elements of $`\rho ^0`$ through

$$R=\frac{1}{ϵ}\frac{r_{00}^{04}\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{1(r_{00}^{04}\mathrm{\Delta }^2)},$$

where $`r_{00}^{04}`$ is a linear combination of the $`\rho ^0`$ density matrix elements, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ is proportional to the contribution of the SCH non Conservation amplitude over the total amplitude. A small breaking of SCHC has been predicted ivanov  and measured H199-010 ; zeusschc  ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=7.9\pm 1.6\%`$ zeusschc ).

The $`Q^2`$ and $`W`$ dependence of $`R`$ is plotted in Fig. 13 and Fig. 13, respectively. A continuous rise of $`R`$ with $`Q^2`$ is observed. The $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`R`$ is well described by a functional form $`R=\frac{1}{\xi }(Q^2/M_\rho ^2)^\kappa `$ with $`\xi =2.16\pm 0.05`$ and $`\kappa =0.74\pm 0.02`$ akdis01 . On the other hand, there seems to be no $`W`$ dependence of $`R`$ for fixed values of $`Q^2`$. This indicates that $`\sigma _L`$ and $`\sigma _T`$ have the same energy dependence, which is fixed by the $`Q^2`$ value rather than the longitudinal or transverse configuration.

### III.2 A measurement of the $`t`$ dependence of the helicity structure

The extracted h1\_t\_helicity  values of $`r_{00}^{04}`$ for $`\rho ^0`$ production are presented in Fig. 15, where $`r_{00}^{04}\frac{|T_{00}|^2+|T_{01}|^2}{N}\sigma _L/(\sigma _T+\sigma _L)`$ and $`N=_{i,j}|T_{ij}|^2`$. No significant variation of $`r_{00}^{04}`$ with $`t^{}=|tt_{min}|`$ is observed. This observation implies that the slopes of the exponentially falling $`t`$ distributions for the transverse and longitudinal $`s`$-channel helicity conserving amplitudes, $`T_{00}`$ and $`T_{11}`$, are very similar.

The combination $`r_{00}^5+2r_{11}^5`$ is presented in Fig. 15 h1\_t\_helicity . $`r_{00}^5`$ is expected ivanov ; royen ; niko  to be proportional to the product of the dominant non-flip amplitude $`T_{00}`$ and the single flip $`T_{01}`$ amplitude, $`r_{00}^5\frac{1}{N}Re(T_{00}T_{01})`$. The $`T_{01}`$ amplitude is expected to be the largest helicity flip amplitude. The $`r_{11}^5`$ matrix element, on the other hand is proportional to the non-dominant amplitudes $`r_{11}^5\frac{1}{N}Re(2T_{11}T_{10}^{}2T_{10}T_{11}^{})`$. The strong $`t^{}`$ dependence of the $`r_{00}^5+2r_{11}^5`$ combination is thus attributed mainly to the predicted ivanov ; royen ; niko  $`\sqrt{t^{}}`$ dependence of the ratio of $`T_{01}`$ to the non-flip amplitudes.

The values for $`r_{00}^1+2r_{11}^1`$ are shown in Fig. 16. The matrix element $`r_{00}^1`$ is proportional to the single flip amplitude $`T_{01}`$ square, $`r_{00}^1\frac{|T_{01}|^2}{N}(\sqrt{t})^2`$, while the matrix element $`r_{11}^1`$ is expected to have the same $`t`$ dependence as the double flip amplitude $`T_{11}`$, $`r_{11}^1\frac{1}{N}(T_{11}T_{11}^{})t`$, therefore the $`t^{}`$ dependence of the combination $`r_{00}^1+2r_{11}^1`$ is expected to be linear, up to effects of the single and double-flip amplitudes in the denominator $`N`$. The combination $`r_{00}^1+2r_{11}^1`$ is significantly different from zero and negative, which implies violation of SCHC. The sign of the combination gives information on the relative strength of the $`T_{01}T_{01}^{}`$ and $`T_{11}T_{11}^{}`$ products of amplitudes, $`|T_{01}|^2>(T_{11}T_{11}^{})`$, and therefore $`T_{01}>T_{11}`$. It confirms that the $`T_{01}`$ amplitude is significantly larger than the double flip amplitude in the present kinematic domain.

## IV  the differential cross section at low $`t`$

The differential cross section as function of $`t`$ has been studied for $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction. The values of $`b(Q^2)`$ are extracted from a fit to an exponential form, $`\frac{d\sigma }{dt}\mathrm{exp}(bt)`$, for $`t<1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ in elastic production $`(b_{el})`$ and for $`t<2\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ in proton dissociation $`\rho ^0`$ production $`(b_{pd})`$, for different $`Q^2`$ regions . The data cover a kinematic range of $`50<W<140\mathrm{GeV}`$ and $`2<Q^2<80\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ (elastic) and $`2<Q^2<50\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ (proton dissociation).

The values of $`b_{el}`$ and $`b_{pd}`$ are shown in Fig. 18 as a function of $`Q^2`$. The $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`b`$ is well described by the following functional forms,

$`b_{pd}(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`A/(M_V^2(1+R(Q^2))),`$
$`b_{el}(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`b_{pd}(Q^2)+b_{\mathrm{}},`$
$`R={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _L}{\sigma _T}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi }}(Q^2/M_V^2)^\kappa ,`$
$`A`$ $`=`$ $`3.46\pm 0.14,`$
$`b_{\mathrm{}}`$ $`=`$ $`4.21\pm 0.12\mathrm{GeV}^2.`$
One clearly sees the decrease in the value of $`b_{el}`$ with $`Q^2`$, approaching an asymptotic value, from fit $`b_{\mathrm{}}=4.21\pm 0.12\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. The slopes $`b_{el}`$ and $`b_{pd}`$ are described with the same $`Q^2`$ dependence, in compliance with the expectations of vertex factorization factorization . It is interesting to note that the ad hoc parametrization of $`b_{pd}`$, based on the $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`R`$, describes well the measurements of $`b_{pd}`$ and $`b_{el}`$. The parameterization is motivated by the expected $`Q^2`$ dependence of the cross section and the relation between the probability for longitudinal configuration and the size of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair.

The measurements of $`b_{el}`$, done by H1 H199-010  (Fig. 18), show the same $`Q^2`$ behavior. It is also evident that at low $`Q^2`$, the HERA measurements lie systematically above the low energy fixed target results. This might indicate shrinkage of the diffractive peak, at low $`Q^2`$, as $`W`$ increases.

In order to test the factorization hypothesis at the proton vertex factorization , the ratio of $`d\sigma /dt`$ of the elastic and proton dissociation reactions is studied as function of $`Q^2`$, for two fixed values of $`t`$, as shown in Fig. 19. The ratio is consistent with being $`Q^2`$ independent. This lends support to the hypothesis that factorization holds at the proton vertex for $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction in the region $`2<Q^2<20\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ and $`|t|<0.4\mathrm{GeV}^2`$.

## V Conclusions

It is evident that the hardness of the process in the elastic production of vector mesons in $`ep`$ collisions at high energy, is influenced by both initial (e.g. $`Q^2`$) and final state configurations (e.g. $`M_V^2`$). This is demonstrated by the change of the energy dependence with $`Q^2`$ and $`M_V^2`$, and by the decrease of the $`b`$ slope with increasing $`Q^2`$ and $`M_V^2`$. Longitudinal and transverse photons seem to have the same energy dependence at fixed $`Q^2`$, as well as the same $`t`$ dependence. This indicates that the $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs initiated by a longitudinal or transverse photon, and contributing to the production of a given vector meson, are typically of the same size. This size is determined both by the virtualty $`Q^2`$ of the fluctuating photon and by the probability to form the vector meson final state.

Although the overall picture is consistent with pQCD predictions, the quantitative calculations need further improvements.

## VI Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Alberto Santoro and the LISHEP organizing committee for their financial support and hospitality during the LISHEP advanced school on HEP and the following workshop on diffractive physics.

This research was supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), by the German Israel Foundation (GIF) and by Israel Ministry of Science.


text:
# Scratching the Bose surface

## Abstract

This is a ‘News and Views’ article (Nature 418, 739 (2002)) discussing recent proposals for ground states of many boson systems which are neither superfluids nor Mott insulators.

There are two distinct types of particles in nature: fermions and bosons. But it seems bosons may assume similar characteristics to fermion systems in the low-temperature regime typical of Bose-Einstein condensation.

Particles known as fermions (such as electrons) obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which decrees that only a single fermion can occupy a particular state, such as an orbital in an atom. But the second family of particles, bosons (such as helium atoms), have no corresponding restrictions on their occupation of states. This distinction in their individual properties also carries over to the collective properties of large numbers of fermions or bosons at low temperatures. The typical quantum state of many fermions is a Fermi liquid, formed, for example, by the valence electrons in all metals: the electrons can move from atom to atom in this state and conduct electricity across macroscopic distances, albeit with a finite resistance. In contrast, bosons typically form a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is the basis of superfluidity in helium and its ability to flow perpetually with negligible dissipation.

Now, Paramekanti and colleagues 1 , in an article to appear in Physical Review B, have proposed an innovative state for boson systems which shares many of its characteristics with the metallic state normally associated with fermions. According to Paramekanti et al., strong interactions among the bosons entangle them in a delicate quantum-mechanical superposition that mimics the properties of fermions.

One of the defining properties of a Fermi liquid is its Fermi surface. In a metal, we can label the states available to the fermionic electron by its momentum vector k. The Fermi surface resides in k-space, and in the lowest-energy state of the metal, electrons occupy all states inside the Fermi surface, while those outside the surface remain unoccupied (Fig. 1a). This surface is of particular physical importance because it defines the low-energy excitations observed experimentally: a fluctuation in the density of the electrons is created by moving an electron from an occupied state inside the Fermi surface to an unoccupied state outside the Fermi surface; probes that eject an electron from the metal (such as an energetic photon in a photoemission experiment) will act most efficiently on states just inside the Fermi surface. The Pauli exclusion principle, by enforcing single occupancy of fermionic states, is crucial in defining the concept of a Fermi surface, as electrons can only be removed (or added) from states inside (or outside) the Fermi surface.

The striking proposal of Paramekanti et al. is that bosons can also form a Bose liquid with a Bose surface, analogous to the Fermi liquid and Fermi surface. Clearly, as there is no Pauli exclusion principle for bosons, the Bose surface cannot be the boundary between occupied and unoccupied states. Instead, the Bose surface defines the locus of points in momentum space with low-energy excitations (Fig. 1b). Nevertheless, the excited states of the Bose liquid are defined by the Bose surface in a manner that is very reminiscent of the Fermi surface in a Fermi liquid: low-energy fluctuations in the density of the bosons involve rearrangement of the states near the Bose surface, as does an excitation that ejects a boson from the liquid.

Paramekanti et al. also discuss the conditions under which this fascinating Bose liquid may form. Weakly interacting bosons invariably collapse into the single state of a Bose-Einstein condensate, but merely turning up the strength of the repulsive interactions between the bosons is not enough to establish a Bose liquid. In fact, this leads to a state known as a Mott insulator, in which the bosons localize in a regular, crystalline arrangement. The transition between the Bose-Einstein condensate and the Mott insulator in a trapped gas of rubidium atoms was observed recently in a beautiful experiment by Greiner et al. 2 .

To deter the bosons from forming a Bose-Einstein condensate or a Mott insulator, a more complex interaction between the bosons is necessary. In particular, a large contribution from ’boson ring exchanges’ appears to be crucial. This feature arises because the quantum-mechanical description—or wavefunction—of the ground state contains a superposition of states in which pairs of bosons move in a correlated manner around a ring. In such a state, the positions of the bosons around the ring are uncertain, but a measurement that locates one boson at a particular site also specifies the position of the second boson at another site on the ring.

Stimulated by the proposal of Paramekanti et al., Sandvik et al. 3  have already reported results from a computer simulation of the simplest quantum description of boson behaviour in two dimensions, including a large boson-ring-exchange term. So far, they have not found a state with a Bose surface, but have instead obtained a new form of Mott insulator in which the bosons crystallize on half the horizontal bonds of the lattice; this type of state had also been predicted 4 .

Paramekanti et al. 1  also discuss the prospects for experimental discovery of their Bose liquid state. They suggest that such a state might be formed by pairs of electrons (which act like composite bosons and are known as Cooper pairs) in the cuprate compounds that superconduct at high temperatures. Mason and Kapitulnik 5  have recently reported an unexpected regime of metallic conduction in a disordered thin film of Mo43Ge57 in a magnetic field—the film is a superconductor in zero field, and a Bose liquid of Cooper pairs is an intriguing possibility for the metallic phase. And there are other competing theories6 ; 7 ; 8 , involving a more fundamental role for disorder in the film. It is clear that the resolution of the puzzle set by Paramekanti et al. brings the prospect of much exciting new physics.


text:
# Effects of hydrogen adsorption on single wall carbon nanotubes: Metallic hydrogen decoration

## Abstract

We show that the electronic and atomic structure of carbon nanotubes undergo dramatic changes with hydrogen chemisorption from first principle calculations. Upon uniform exohydrogenation at half coverage, the cross sections of zigzag nanotubes become literally square or rectangular, and they are metallic with very high density of states at the Fermi level, while other isomers can be insulating. For both zigzag and armchair nanotubes, hydrogenation of each carbon atom from inside and outside alternatively yield the most stable isomer with a very weak curvature dependence and a large band gap.

Single wall carbon nanotubes,iijima ; dressel  SWNTs, are among the most attractive systems for fabricating nanodevices because they exhibit many unusual mechanical and electronic properties. Variation in the chiral vector or a small radial deformation result in marked changes ranging from insulating to ideal one–dimensional (1D) conducting properties.hamada ; white ; cntsts ; zyao ; oguz1  The physical and chemical properties SWNTs can also be efficiently engineered by the adsorption of atoms or molecules on nanotubes.dillon ; kudin ; tada ; yuchen ; milee ; spchan ; kudin2 ; htrans  Recently, it has been shown that the chemical activity of carbon nanotubes also depend on the chirality and radius,tubech ; tubestr  denoting tunable absorption of atoms on SWNTs by structural deformation.tubestr ; deepak  The interplay between adsorption and electromechanical properties can give rise to novel physiochemical properties.tubestr ; deepak  The experimentally observed sensitivity of the electronic properties of SWNTs to the presence of oxygen and hydrogen is clear evidence for the importance of this interplay.impur

Motivated by these considerations, we have investigated the structural and electronic properties of hydrogenated SWNTs (H-SWNT) as a function of hydrogen coverage and decoration (i.e. isomers) by extensive first principles calculations. Our results indicate that hydrogen adsorption on nanotubes gives rise to many novel properties which can mediate important applications in molecular electronics. One of our most important results is that upon hydrogenation at uniform half coverage, the zigzag $`(n,0)`$ SWNTs are metallized with high density of states at the Fermi level and the circular cross sections of the tubes are changed to square or rectangle ones. The carbon atoms near the corners form new diamond–like C–C bonds. Therefore, these carbon atoms are electronically and chemically passive, isolating the four conducting faces of the H-SWNT. Hence, loosely speaking a uniform half-coverage (n,0) H-SWNT is composed of four-wire nanocable.

Our study comprises zigzag ($`(7,0)`$, $`(8,0)`$, $`(9,0)`$, $`(10,0)`$, $`(12,0)`$) and armchair ($`(6,6)`$, $`(10,10)`$) SWNTs which are hydrogenated at two different coverages. For full coverage ($`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$1), we consider two isomers; namely (i) exohydrogenation where each carbon atom is bonded to a hydrogen atom from outside of the nanotube (labeled by C4nH4n) and (ii) endo-exohydrogenation where each carbon atom is bonded to a hydrogen from inside and outside of the tube alternatively (labeled by C4nH2nH2n). For half coverage ($`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$0.5), we consider the three most interesting isomers (labeled by C4nH2n); namely (i) uniform pattern where every other carbon atom is bonded to a hydrogen from outside, (ii) chain pattern where every other carbon zigzag chain is saturated by hydrogen, and (iii) dimer pattern where every other carbon dimer rows perpendicular to the zigzag carbon chains are saturated by hydrogen. Fig. 1a shows these three isomers at half coverage.

The first principles total energy and electronic structure calculations have been carried out within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) gga  using the pseudopotential plane wave method castep  in a supercell geometry. Details of the parameters used in this work are the same with those given in Ref.tubestr, . Fully relaxed geometries are obtained by optimizing all atomic positions and the lattice constant $`c`$ along the tube-axis until the maximum force and stress are less than 0.01 eV/Å and 0.1 GPa, respectively.

We find that geometric and electronic structures and binding energies of H-SWNTs strongly depend on the pattern of hydrogenation (i.e. decoration). The most remarkable effect is obtained when zigzag nanotubes are uniformly exohydrogenated at half-coverage ($`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$0.5). Upon hydrogenation the structure undergoes a massive reconstruction, whereby circular cross section of the $`(7,0)`$ SWNT changes to a rectangular one, and those of $`(8,0)`$, $`(9,0)`$, $`(10,0)`$ and $`(12,0)`$ change to square ones as shown in Fig. 1b. These new structures are stabilized by the formation of new diamond–like C–C bonds with $`d_{CC}`$ 1.51-163 Å near the corners of rectangular or square H-SWNTs. Hence, triangular and pentagonal C rings are formed instead of hexagonal. Depending on ($`2nmod4`$), either one bond is formed just at the corners or two bonds at either side of the corners. Most interestingly, all these structures are found to be metallic with a very large density of states at the Fermi level. The uniform adsorption at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$0.5 for zigzag nanotubes are metastable. Such a local minimum does not exist for armchair nanotubes, since uniformly adsorbed H atoms are rearranged upon relaxation by concerted exchange of C–H bonds to form zigzag chains along the tube axis. Several snap shots for hydrogen dimerization on an armchair tube are shown in Fig. 1c. The cross sections of chain isomer at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=0.5`$ of armchair tubes are polygonal where the corners are pinned by the zigzag H chains along the tube axis. For other isomers at half-coverage as well as exo- and endo-exohydrogenations at full coverage, the cross sections remain quasi-circular (see Fig. 2).

The average binding energies of H are obtained from the expression,

$$E_b=(E_{T,C_{4n}}+mE_HE_{T,C_{4n}H_m})/m$$
(1)
in terms of the total energies of the bare SWNT, $`E_{T,C_{4n}}`$, the hydrogen covered SWNT, $`E_{T,C_{4n}H_m}`$, and the energy of atomic hydrogen, $`E_H`$ ($`m`$ is the number of H atoms per unit cell). According to the above definition stable structures have positive binding energies. The average binding energies as a function of nanotube radius are shown in Fig. 2. The variation of $`E_b`$ with the radius of the bare nanotube can be fitted to a simple formula,tubech ; tubestr

$$E_b=E_o(\mathrm{\Theta })+\frac{C_p(\mathrm{\Theta })}{R^p}.$$
(2)
Note that $`1/R`$ form (i.e. $`p=1`$) is quite common to SWNTs and scales various properties.white ; cntsts ; oguz1 ; tubech ; tubestr  Here $`E_o(\mathrm{\Theta })`$ is the binding energy when $`R\mathrm{}`$, and hence corresponds to the adsorption of H on graphene at a given coverage, while $`C_p(\mathrm{\Theta })`$ is a constant that depends on coverage $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, and represents the curvature effect. Calculated $`E_b`$’s are fitted to Eq. 2 with the values listed in Table 1. While $`E_b`$ increases with decreasing $`R`$ in the case of exohydrogenation, this trend is reversed for endo-exohydrogenation due to increased H–H repulsion inside the tube at small $`R`$. Nevertheless, the endo-exohydrogenation of SWNTs, which transforms the $`sp^2`$ to $`sp^3`$-like bonding, gives rise to the highest binding energy saturating at 3.51 eV as $`R\mathrm{}`$. At this limit, the exo-endo hydrogenated graphene (from above and below) is buckled by 0.46 Å as if two diamond (111) planes with interplanar distance of 0.50 Å .

As with the atomic structure, the electronic structure of SWNTs undergo important changes as a result of hydrogenation. For bare zigzag SWNTs the variation of the band gap, $`E_g`$, with $`n`$ is rather complex due to interplay between zone folding and curvature induced $`\sigma ^{}\pi ^{}`$ mixingoguz1 ; blase  while bare armchair SWNTs are metallic. Here we find that sizable band gaps are opened as a result of hydrogenation (Fig. 3). At $`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$1, the band gap displays a similar behavior for both type of nanotubes and hydrogenation, and decreases with inreasing $`R`$. Relatively larger band gaps (in the range of 3.5-4 eV) of endo-exohydrogenated SWNTs ($`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$1) can be explained by the fact that the adsorption of H alternatively inside and outside leads to the atomic configuration closer to the diamond structure having rather large band gap ($`E_g=`$5.4 eV).

The effect of hydrogenation on the electronic structure is even more remarkable at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$ 0.5 and is the most interesting aspect of our study. Depending on the pattern of hydrogen adsorption, an isomer can be either a metal or insulator. For example, all uniform (n,0) H-SWNTs are metallic. On the other hand, the chain pattern realized on the $`(n,0)`$ SWNTs results in two doubly degenerate, almost dispersionless states at the valence and conduction band edges. The band gap $`E_g`$ between these states decreases with increasing $`R`$. When $`n`$ is odd, $`E_g`$ is large (e.g $`E_g=`$2.1 eV for $`(7,0)`$). When $`n`$ is even the doubly degenerate band at the conduction band edge moves towards the valence band edge and splits as bonding and anti-bonding states. As a result $`E_g`$ is reduced significantly becoming only a pseudogap for large and even $`n`$. Finally, the dimer row isomers are insulators and the $`E_g`$ increases with increasing radius. Surprisingly, there are two dispersive bands with $`1`$ eV bandwidth at both band edges and extremum moves from the center of Brillioun zone ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-point) to the zone edge ($`Z`$-point).

Hydrogen adsorption induced dramatic changes of electronic structure are demonstrated by total density of states (DOS), $`𝒟(E)`$, of $`(9,0)`$ nanotubes in Fig. 4. First of all, the small band gap of the bare $`(9,0)`$ SWNT is opened by $`2`$ eV upon exohydrogenation at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$1. The band gap is still significant for $`\mathrm{\Theta }=0.5`$ with the chain pattern, and increases to 4 eV for dimer pattern. However, a similar chain pattern in the $`(8,0)`$ H-SWNT (see $`C_{32}H_{16}`$ in Fig. 4) has a much smaller band gap. Suprisingly, all zigzag nanotubes uniformly exohydrogenated at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=`$0.5 are metals. As displayed in the sixth panel of Fig. 4 for $`C_{36}H_{18}`$(uniform), their total density of states are characterized by a peak yielding high state density at $`E_F`$. While carbon states are pushed apart, yielding a $``$ 4-5 eV gap, a new dispersive metallic band with $``$ 1-2 eV bandwidth crosses the Fermi level. Apart from being an ideal 1D conductor, this very high density of states at $`E_F`$ might lead to superconductivity. Note that, these uniform H-SWNTs undergo a massive reconstruction and their circular cross sections change into square ones with the formation of new C–C bonds ($`C_4`$) at the corners. All C atoms without H attached (except those at corners) as well as the H atoms at the center of four planar sides contribute to the high $`𝒟(E_F)`$. This way four individual conduction paths are formed on each side of square tube. It is emphasized that the transformation from the $`sp^2`$\- to the $`sp^3`$ bonding underlies various effects discussed in this study. The H-SWNTs, especially C4nH2nH2n structures can be conceived as if they are more diamond-like than graphitic. Our arguments are justified by the comparison of $`𝒟(E)`$ of the endo-exohydrogenated $`(9,0)`$ with that of bulk diamond in Fig. 4. Apart from opening a large band gap, the quasi metallic $`𝒟(E)`$ of the bare $`(9,0)`$ is modified to become similar to that bulk diamond. The latter has relatively larger valence band width due to coupling of distant neighbors.

In conclusion, our study reveals many important and novel effects of hydrogen adsorption on SWNTs, and brings a number of new problems and issues to be explored. For example, one can argue that the band gap of a SWNT can be engineered by the controlled hydrogenation of a single nanotube as in the alloy of SixGe1-x. A number of isomers which can be tailored with different hydrogen decoration provide options in developing new materials. Furthermore, multiple quantum well structures, or one dimensional chain of quantum dots, can be tailored by periodic and modulated hydrogenation of a single nanotube. Finally, the very high density of states at the Fermi level of uniform pattern isomer at half coverage may result in to superconductivity in SWNT based nanowires. Needless to say, realization of the systems proposed here will be an experimental challenge. However, the fact that other carbon clusters such as cubane, dodecahedrane, and C60H32 have been successfully synthesized suggests that this is not impossible.

Acknowledgments This work was partially supported by the NSF under Grant No. INT01-15021 and TÜBÍTAK under Grant No. TBAG-U/13(101T010).


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# Thermal description of transverse-momentum spectra at RHIC Supported in part by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research, grant 2 P03B 09419.

## Abstract

We show that the transverse-momentum spectra of all hadrons measured at RHIC, including the hyperons, are described very well in a thermal model assuming the simultaneous chemical and thermal freeze-outs. The model calculation takes into account all hadronic resonances and uses a simple parametrization of the freeze-out hypersurface.

We present a simple model describing the $`p_{}`$-spectra of hadrons measured at RHIC at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 130 GeV. Our approach is a combination of the thermal model, used frequently in the studies of the relative hadron yields , with a model of the hydrodynamic expansion of matter at freeze-out. The main assumptions of the model  are as follows: i) the chemical freeze-out and the thermal freeze-out occur simultaneously, which means that we neglect elastic rescattering after the chemical freeze-out, ii) all hadronic resonances are included in both the calculation of the hadron multiplicities and the spectra, and iii) a simple form of the freeze-out hypersurface is proposed, which is a generalization of the Bjorken model  (see also ),

$$\tau =\sqrt{t^2x^2y^2z^2}=\text{const}.$$
(1)
The hydrodynamic flow on the freeze-out hypersurface (1) is taken in the form resembling the Hubble law,

$$u^\mu =\frac{x^\mu }{\tau }=\frac{t}{\tau }(1,\frac{x}{t},\frac{y}{t},\frac{z}{t}).$$
(2)
Recently, new arguments have been accumulated in favor of our first assumption. The measurements of the $`K^{}(892)`$ states by the STAR Collaboration  indicate that either the daughter particles from the decay $`K^{}(892)K\pi `$ do not rescatter or the expansion time between the chemical and thermal freeze-out is short (smaller than the $`K^{}(892)`$ lifetime, $`\tau `$=4 fm/c). Moreover, the measured yield of $`K^{}(892)`$ fits very well to the pattern obtained from the thermal analysis of the ratios of hadron abundances. This fact suggests again a short expansion time between the two freeze-outs. The assumption about the single freeze-out also solves the antibaryon puzzle . Since the annihilation cross section for $`p\overline{p}`$ pairs is much larger than the elastic cross section, most of the protons would annihilate with antiprotons during the long way from the chemical to the thermal freeze-out. Such effect is not seen. In addition, let us mention that the single-freeze-out scenario is natural if the hadronization process occurs in such a way that neither elastic or inelastic processes are effective. An example here is the sudden-hadronization model of Ref. .

Our model has two thermodynamic and two geometric (expansion) parameters. The two thermodynamic parameters, $`T`$ = 165 MeV and $`\mu _B`$ = 41 MeV, were obtained from the analysis of the ratios of the hadron multiplicities measured at RHIC . In this calculation the grand-canonical ensemble was used without the strangeness suppression factor ($`\gamma _s`$=1). Since the particle ratios depend weakly on the centrality of the collision, we treat the thermodynamic parameters as the universal parameters (independent of centrality). The two geometric parameters are $`\tau `$ of Eq. (1) and $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}`$. The parameter $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}`$ determines the transverse size of the firecylinder at the freeze-out,

$$\rho =\sqrt{x^2+y^2}\rho _{\mathrm{max}}.$$
(3)
In the natural way, the values of $`\tau `$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}`$ depend on the considered centrality class of events. For the minimum-bias data, which average over centralities, we find: $`\tau =5.55\text{ fm}`$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}=4.50\text{ fm}`$, whereas for the most central collisions we find: $`\tau =7.66\text{ fm}`$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}=6.69\text{ fm}`$ . The calculation of the spectra (and determination of the geometric parameters) is based on the standard Cooper-Frye formalism. The details of our method, especially of the technical problems concerning the treatment of the resonances, are given in the Appendix of Ref. .

In Fig. 1 we show our results for the most central collisions. In the upper part (a) we show the spectra of pions, kaons, antiprotons, the $`\varphi `$ mesons, and the $`K^{}(892)`$ mesons. In the lower part (b) we show the spectra of the hyperons $`\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The model calculation agrees very well with the data. Note, e.g., the convex shape of the pion spectrum, crossing of the pion and the antiproton spectra at $`p_{}`$ 2 GeV, and the good reproducing of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ spectrum. The good agreement between the model calculation and the data supports strongly the idea of thermalization of the hadronic matter produced at RHIC. Let us emphasize that the expansion parameters were fitted in Ref.  to the spectra of pions, kaons and protons only. The spectra of other particles were calculated with the same values of the parameters, hence, they are predictions of our model. In view of this fact, the good agreement of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ spectrum, predicted before the data were available, is highly non-trivial, especially in the context of the SPS results . 111The newest data on $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ production shown by Castillo during this conference have smaller overall normalization and also agree very well with our model calculation.

A characteristic feature of our approach is a rather high decoupling temperature $`T`$ 165 MeV. However, the (inverse) slope parameters corresponding to this temperature are lowered by the decays of the resonances . This “cooling” of the spectrum by the decays of the resonances explains the difference between the high temperature of the chemical freeze-out and a smaller “apparent” temperature inferred from the shape of the spectra. We note that a similar high decoupling temperature has been found in the full hydrodynamic calculation of Ref. , where also a complete set of hadronic resonances is employed. It remains a challenge to check whether our particular freeze-out conditions (shape of the freeze-out hypersurface and Hubble flow) may be obtained as the final stage of hydrodynamic evolution. First steps in this direction have been already made .

Let us make a few comments about the size of our geometric parameters. Translated to the measured HBT radii, $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$, they turn out to be too small. This problem can be circumvented by the inclusion of the excluded-volume corrections  which affect only the overall normalization of the spectra. If we rescale $`\tau `$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{max}}`$ by about 30%, we obtain a satisfactory agreement with the HBT data. On the other hand, the ratio $`R_{\mathrm{out}}/R_{\mathrm{side}}`$ is close to unity in our model, independently of the excluded-volume corrections. The approximate equality of these two radii follows in our model from the fact that the time extension of our system at freeze-out is much shorter than its space extension.

In conclusion, we want to stress that a simple thermal model (with altogether four parameters) reproduces the transverse-momentum spectra of all hadrons which have been measured so far at RHIC. This fact brings strong evidence for thermalization of hadronic matter at RHIC and, possibly, indicates that a thermalized system of quarks and gluons was formed at the earlier stages of the collisions.

We thank Boris Hippolyte for pointing out his talk  with the experimental results.


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# 1 Identification of sulfur and phosphorus lines in the FUSE spectra

The O VIII phenomenon describes the occurrence of ultra-high ionization absorption lines of the CNO elements (e.g. O VIII, N VII, C VI, and even Ne X) in the optical spectra hot of DO WDs. This requires temperatures of almost $`10^6`$ K. Since the first discovery of two such objects (Werner et al. 1995) we realized that 50% of all DO WDs are affected (Dreizler et al. 1995), hence it could be that all DO WDs experience this phenomenon at the beginning of the WD cooling sequence. The He II profiles are symmetric, hence line formation occurs in hydrostatic layers. However, we cannot uniquely fit the unusually strong profiles with any model atmosphere, preventing precise parameter determinations. The optical high ionization CNO lines have pronounced blue wings, corresponding to outflow velocities of up to several thousand km/s. We stress that none of the objects was detected in the X-ray region. The inferred low X-ray luminosity confirms that we do not see absorption lines from super-hot photospheres, but that the high temperatures are possibly localized along shock fronts in the wind.

In the UV range (IUE, HST) no high ionization CNO line is detectable, except possibly O VIII 2978Å (Werner et al. 1997, 1999). This negative result is still not understood. On the other hand we see two unidentified broad absorption features at 1420Å and 1500Å. The 1500Å feature may be the blue shifted absorption component from a P Cygni profile of C IV 1550Å. This is corroborated by a very weak and broad emission bump near the rest wavelength. The terminal wind speed is about 10 000 km/s and mass-loss could be driven by radiation pressure. The only photospheric line clearly identified is He II 1640Å. The presence of O V 1371Å is uncertain and the C IV resonance doublet could be of interstellar origin.

We performed FUSE observations of the two prototype DOs. HS0713+3958 was recorded on Nov 21, 2000, for 9825 sec and HE0504-2408 on Dec 5, 2001, for 6625 sec. The spectra confirm earlier ORFEUS observations (Werner et al. 1999) showing that the FUV spectral shape is surprisingly flat. Strong reddening by interstellar dust alone is unlikely because no 2200Å feature is seen (E(B-V) below 0.05). With the superior capabilities of FUSE it was hoped to identify opacity sources responsible for the flat spectral shape, however, we see no hint to any potential absorbers, probably due to insufficient S/N. It is possible, that a dense curtain of weak lines from the iron group elements remains undetected. Note that a similiar flat UV shape observed in the sdOB EC11481-2303 results from heavy line blanketing (see Hammer et al. this proceedings). The usual ISM absorption lines can be identified. H2 is very weak in HE0504-2408 but prominent in HS0713+3958. The only photospheric lines that can be identified in both objects are from S VI and P V (Fig. 1). In addition, HS0713+3958 shows a weak O VI resonance doublet which, however, can also stem from the ISM.


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# Survey for Transiting Extrasolar Planets in Stellar Systems (STEPSS): The Frequency of Planets in NGC 1245

## 1. Introduction

The recent detections of candidate low-mass companions to local disk stars via transits by several groups has verified the possibility of discovering statistically significant numbers of extrasolar planets through ground based transit surveys (Udalski et al. 2002, Mallen-Ornelas et al. 2003). Although such surveys will provide valuable information about the types of planetary systems that exist, it will be difficult to piece together the dynamical, chemical, and evolutionary history of the parent stars. The parent stars’ physical properties are particularly important since radial velocity surveys for low-mass companions have revealed the trend of the fraction of stars with planets increases as a function of the metallicity of the parent star. The interpretation of this trend is unclear and more information is needed.

Simple stellar systems, such as globular clusters and open clusters, are an excellent laboratory for transit surveys. Such fields provide $`10^{35}`$ stars of the same age and metallicity. Interpretation of the null result for the metal-poor globular cluster 47 Tuc (Gilliland et al. 2000) has been complicated by the possible effects of the dense stellar environment on planet formation and survival. Therefore, we are concentrating on metal-rich, sparser open clusters. By observing main-sequence stars in 4-5 open clusters of known (and varied) age, metallicity, and stellar density, we will gain insight into how these various properties affect planet formation, migration, and survival. Our primary instrumentation is the MDM 8192x8192 4x2 Mosaic CCD imager. In combination with the MDM 2.4m telescope it yields a 25x25 arcmin2 field of view with 0.18”/pixel. The Ohio State University has access to a 25% share of the MDM facility; in 2001 we were granted 19 nights on the 2.4m, we have been granted $`60`$ nights during Fall 2002, and we expect to obtain 20-40 nights for each cluster in the future with the same instrumental setup.

## 2. Observations, Analysis and Preliminary Results for NGC 1245

In Oct. 2001 we obtained data over 19 nights for the open cluster NGC 1245, an old ($`1`$ Gyr), solar-metallicity cluster with $`1500`$ members. We lost 4 nights to inclement weather and the remainder were non-photometric, resulting in a total of 960 $`I`$-band images. We performed the photometric reduction using the DoPhot PSF fitting package. Differential light curves for individual target stars were derived by locating 13 optimal comparison stars close to each target. We plan to test difference imaging techniques in the future. The points in Figure 1(a) show the RMS scatter in the light curves as a function of I-magnitude. The lower, tight sequence of points in Figure 1(a) shows the expected photon noise. At the faint end, the RMS scatter is only $`15\%`$ larger than the photon limit. At the bright end, there is a systematic error $`0.26\%`$, which we suspect is due to flat-fielding errors. The lines in Figure 1(a) represent the transit depth for a 1.3 and $`1.0R_{Jup}`$ planet. Figure 1(b) shows the ratio between the transit depth of a $`1.0R_{Jup}`$ planet and the light curve RMS scatter. There are $`4300`$ stars with sufficient $`S/N`$ to detect a $`R_{Jup}`$ transit. Also shown in this figure is the estimated mass of the parent star assuming a 1 Gyr, solar-metallicity population at 2.5 $`\mathrm{kpc}`$ and E(B-V)=0.26. We estimate $`35\%`$ of these stars to be cluster members.

A preliminary search through the data has revealed a transit candidate with a depth $`4\%`$. We observed the transit on two separate nights and the light curves are shown in Figure 3. Unfortunately, the transit is unlikely to be a planetary transit, since the transit shape is indicative of a grazing binary eclipse. Planetary transits tend to be boxier in shape with more rapid ingress and egress durations and flat-bottom eclipses (Seager & Mallen-Ornelas 2003). However, this example demonstrates the extreme importance of sufficient time resolution in transit surveys in order to easily discard signals that can be confused with planetary transits.

## 3. Expected Transit Results and Future Work

We calculate our sensitivity to planetary transits using the formalism outlined in Gaudi (2000). Taking into account the cluster luminosity function, distance, and reddening, our observational photometric sensitivity and window function, and assuming that $`1\%`$ of stars have $`R_{Jup}`$ companions evenly distributed in log semi-major axis between 0.03 and 0.3 AU, we expect to detect $`2`$ transits in the NGC 1245 data set. The curves in Figure 3(a) show the $`95\%`$ upper confidence limits we can place on the fraction of stars with planets for a given configuration of planetary companion separation versus radius. For instance, based on our data obtained for NGC 1245 and a null result, we can exclude greater than $`10\%`$ of the cluster members having a Jupiter-sized object orbiting within $`0.1\mathrm{AU}`$. Figure 3(b) shows the theoretical limits if we had observed NGC 1245 for 40 nights, with 8 hours each night, using the identical instrumental setup. Such results may be achieved with our upcoming 60 nights (30 on MDM 2.4m and 30 on MDM 1.3m) to observe NGC 2099 which is 2.5 times closer than, and has comparable number of members to NGC 1245.

We have demonstrated that we can easily achieve the photometric precision necessary to detect Jupiter-sized transits around main-sequence stars. In light of the uncertain radial velocity results of the fraction of stars with planets as a function of metallicity, our theoretical expectations show that even without the discovery of planetary transits our survey will place interesting constraints on this relation for a population of determinable metallicity, age, and stellar density. We emphasize the importance of sufficient time resolution in transit surveys, as has been demonstrated by other surveys (Mallen-Ornelas et al. 2003). We will continue to optimize our transit detection methods to search for lower amplitude ($`<1\%`$) transit signals.

### Acknowledgments.

This work was supported by NASA through a Hubble Fellowship grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.

## References

Gaudi, B. S. 2000, ApJ, 539, L59

Gilliland, R. L. et al. 2000, ApJ, 545, L47

Mallen-Ornelas, G. et al. 2003, ApJ, submitted (astro-ph/0203218)

Udalski, A. et al. 2002, Acta Astronomica, 52, 1

Seager, S., & Mallen-Ornelas, G. 2003, ApJ, submitted (astro-ph/0206228)


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# Control of interlayer exchange coupling in Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers by ion beam irradiation

## Abstract

The manipulation of the antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling in the epitaxial Fe/Cr/Fe(001) trilayer system by moderate 5 keV He ion beam irradiation has been investigated experimentally. It is shown that even for irradiation with very low fluences ($`10^{14}`$ ions/cm2) a drastic change in strength of the coupling appears. For thin Cr-spacers (below 0.6 – 0.7 nm) the coupling strength decreases with fluence, becoming ferromagnetic for fluences above ($`2\times 10^{14}`$ ions/cm2). The effect is connected with the creation of magnetic bridges in the layered system due to atomic exchange events caused by the bombardment. For thicker Cr spacers (0.8 – 1.2 nm) an enhancement of the antiferromagnetic coupling strength is found. A possible explanation of the enhancement effect is given.

ion beam irradiation, interlayer exchange coupling

Since the discovery of the antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling effect in the Fe/Cr/Fe layered system by Grünberg et al. Grunberg86  this effect has been widely investigated both theoretically and experimentally (for a recent review see handbook01 ). Antiferromagnetically coupled layers are now used in applications like antiferromagnetically coupled media (AFC-media Fullerton00 ) and artificial antiferromagnets, (AAF Schmalhorst00 ). In many cases such applications greatly gain from a potential of lateral modification of the media parameters with high resolution, after the preparation process of the layered system has been completed. It is not trivial to change the interlayer coupling strength after sample preparation. Until now, to our knowledge, the only reported methods are annealing Leng93  and charging of the spacer with hydrogen or deuterium Klose97 ; Sweden ; Leiner02 . However, such techniques can hardly provide any reasonable lateral resolution. On the contrary, beams of light ions with keV energies known for their ability to deeply penetrate into a solid can be focused down to 20 nm Aign98 ; Warin01 ; Lohau01 , and should provide a promising pass to accomplish the goal. One of the key advantages of ion irradiation is that magnetic nanopatterning becomes feasible without a change of the sample topography. This is especially important to avoid tribology problems in so-called patterned media New94 .

In this Letter, we present first experimental results demonstrating that the strength of the interlayer exchange coupling between two ferromagnets, separated by a non-ferromagnetic spacer, can be modified in a controlled manner by ion beam irradiation. It is also shown, that for some values of the spacer thickness the ion beam bombardment enhances the coupling.

Interaction between two magnetic layers separated by a nonmagnetic spacer layer can be phenomenologically described by:

$`E=J_1cos\varphi J_2cos^2\varphi `$
where $`E`$ is the magnetic coupling interface energy, $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the magnetizations of two magnetic layers and the parameters $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ represent the strength of the bilinear and biquadratic coupling, respectively Ruhrig91 . If $`J_2`$ dominates and is negative, it promotes perpendicular ($`90^{}`$) orientation of the two magnetization vectors. The microscopic origin of the bilinear coupling is a long-range interaction between the magnetic moments via conduction electrons of the spacer. For smooth interfaces $`J_1`$ oscillates as a function of the spacer thickness Parkin90 ; Parkin91 . Essential roughness diminishes the bilinear coupling strength and the amplitude of the oscillations Unguris97 ; Wang90 . For perfect layered systems $`J_2`$ is thought to be small Erikson93 . The experimentally observed strong biquadratic coupling is believed to be due to extrinsic effects Slonczewski91 ; Demokritov94 .

Light ion irradiation is known to be an excellent tool to modify magnetic parameters of multilayer systems. Chappert et al. Chappert98  have shown that ion irradiation of Co/Pt multilayers leads to a reduction of the perpendicular interface anisotropy. This has been attributed to an interfacial mixing of both atom species. In FePt alloy systems an increase of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy due to a short range chemical ordering has been observed after ion irradiation Ravelosona00 . The technique has been recently applied to exchange-bias systems, consisting of adjacent ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic layers. It was shown that the magnitude and direction of the exchange-bias field can be tailored by ion irradiation if a magnetic field is applied during bombardment Mewes00 ; Mougin01 .

Epitaxial Fe/Cr/Fe(001) samples used in the current studies were prepared in an ultra high vacuum molecular-beam epitaxy system with the base pressure below $`5\times 10^{11}`$ mbar. A Cr buffer with a thickness of 100 nm providing a lattice matched template for the subsequent growth of the Fe/Cr/Fe Fullerton93  system was deposited on a MgO(001) substrate. Two Fe films separated by an wedge-shape, 0.4 to 4 nm thick Cr spacer were deposited on the buffer. Different samples with the thickness of the Fe films from 5 to 10 nm have been prepared. Finally the system was covered by 3 nm Cr to avoid corrosion for ex-situ measurements. The details of substrate preparation and the growth procedure are published elsewhere Rickart01 . Figure 1 displays the topography of the lower Fe film and of the Cr spacer as observed by STM. Atomic terraces and monoatomic steps are clearly seen in the images.

Using the measured RMS values of the surface roughness (0.11 and 0.18 nm for the Fe and the Cr surface, respectively) and assuming uncorrelated thickness fluctuations for the two films, one obtains an RMS value for the thickness fluctuations of the Cr spacer of 0.14 nm, which is close to the thickness of one monolayer (ML). Based on this value and assuming a Gaussian distribution of the probability for the spacer to consist of a given number of monolayers, one obtains, for example, for a nominal thickness of the Cr spacer, $`d_{Cr}`$ of 4 ML that: 38% of the film area has $`d_{Cr}`$ = 4 ML, 24% has $`d_{Cr}`$ = 3 ML, 6% 2 ML, 0.6% 1 ML, and 0.025% corresponds to direct contact between the two Fe films (so-called ”magnetic bridges”). The latter provide a strong ferromagnetic coupling between the Fe films.

Irradiation was performed with 5 keV He+ ions without applied magnetic field with the sample being kept at room temperature. TRIM simulations Ziegler85  show that for the used parameter set most ions pass both magnetic layers and are stoped in the Cr buffer layer. The maximum fluence used was $`8\times 10^{14}`$ ions/cm2. The interlayer coupling was derived from the magnetization curves recorded by longitudinal magneto-optical Kerr-effect (MOKE) magnetometry. A magnetic field of up to 6 kOe was applied in the plane of the sample parallel either to the easy or to the hard magnetic axes of the four-fold magnetic anisotropy of the Fe(001) films.

The magnetization curves measured for the field applied along the easy -axis show several jumps, characteristic for magnetic double layers with antiferromagnetic and $`90^{}`$-coupling Ruhrig91 . The saturation field, $`H_S`$, which is proportional to $`J_1+2J_2`$ extracted from the magnetization curves is shown in Fig. 2 as a function of the nominal Cr-spacer thickness for different ion irradiation fluences. The data obtained on the as-prepared sample clearly demonstrate both long- and short-period oscillations with a moderate amplitude in agreement with the RMS value of the spacer thickness fluctuation obtained from the STM studies. The arrows indicate the first three oscillation maxima of the coupling strength. As it is seen in Fig. 2, such a well prepared layered magnetic system is very sensitive to ion irradiation. The first oscillation maximum ($`d_{Cr}=`$ 0.58 nm = 4 ML) exhibits the strongest effect of the irradiation on the coupling strength. Even the lowest used ion fluence of $`0.5\times 10^{14}`$ ions/cm2 reduced $`H_S`$ nearly by 25%. For the fluences above $`2\times 10^{14}`$ ions/cm2 no antiferromagnetic coupling is observed for this thickness of the Cr-spacer. The change of the measured coupling strength for thicker Cr-spacers is more intriguing: the coupling increases for small ion fluences and then decreases for fluences above $`1\times 10^{14}`$ ions/cm2 note .

An additional study made by means of Brillouin light scattering on spin waves has indicated no change in the four-fold in-plane and out-of-plane anisotropy constants after the bombardment for the studied fluence range.

Of particular interest are the dependencies of the coupling constants $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ as functions of ion fluence and spacer thickness. From the measured remagnetization curves the fluence dependence of those constants for the spacer thicknesses corresponding to the first (4 ML), second (6 ML), and third (8 ML) oscillation maxima have been evaluated. Note that only the values of the antiferromagnetic ($`J_1<0`$) and $`90^{}`$-degree ($`J_2<0`$) coupling constants can be usually derived in such a way. The data is presented in Fig. 3. It is clearly seen from the figure, that $`J_1`$ strongly decreases with the fluence for $`d_{Cr}`$= 4 ML, while it shows a maximum for fluences near $`0.5\times 10^{14}`$ ions/cm2 for $`d_{Cr}`$ equal to 6 and 8 ML. $`J_2`$ instead shows a monotonic decrease. Thus, one can conclude from Fig. 3 that the increase of the saturation field at small irradiation fluences is caused by the increase of $`J_1`$ .

The origin of the observed phenomena is not understood in all details yet, but they are definitely connected with the surface intermixing caused by the He ions. To understand this qualitively let us first consider the fluence dependence of $`J_1`$ for the nominal thickness $`d_{Cr}`$= 4 ML. Direct magnetic bridges between the two Fe films provide strong direct ferromagnetic coupling, $`J_{direct}`$ $`2A/d_{ML}`$= 280 mJ/m2, where $`A=2\times 10^{11}`$ J/m is the bulk exchange constant of Fe and $`d_{ML}`$ = 0.144 nm is the thickness of one monolayer. The contribution to the measured interlayer coupling due to the magnetic bridges can be then easily estimated, since the percentage area of those bridges is known from the RMS analysis of the STM images discussed above. For the as-prepared sample the obtained value of 0.07 mJ/m2 is essentially smaller than the measured one and indicates that the interlayer coupling via the spacer is an order of magnitude larger than direct coupling across the bridges.

It is known that an ion propagating within a lattice partly dissipates its energy due to nuclear collisions Ziegler85 . Such collisions cause recoil of atoms of the lattice and creation of lattice defects and intermixing. Although light ions, like helium, have a low displacement rate and cause a short range intermixing, these processes are of importance if taking place at the interface. Estimations show that a 5 keV He ion initiates in average between one and two atom pair exchange events per monolayer in Fe and Cr Urbassek . In the areas with $`d_{Cr}`$ = 1 ML such an exchange event induces an atomic size magnetic bridge. Assuming that each ion generates one exchange event per monolayer as a lower bond and taking into account also a possibility of two successive exchange events at adjacent lattice sites, one obtains that for the fluence of $`2\times 10^{14}`$ ions/cm2 the relative area of the magnetic bridges increases to 0.2% and their contribution to the interlayer coupling is 0.6 mJ/m2. This is in rather good agreement with the experimentally observed coupling reduction of 0.72 mJ/m2. The calculation also demonstrates that the probability for formation of magnetic bridges due to the bombardment decreases exponentially with the nominal spacer thickness at a given interface roughness. Thus, it is not surprising that the effect of the irradiation is weaker for larger spacer thicknesses (the second and third maximum).

Surprising is, however, the observation of an increase of the antiferromagnetic coupling strength. These findings might be related to the fact, that, first, an intermixing at the Fe/Cr(001) interface with a width of 1-2 monolayers is supposed to be energetically favorable Sauer96 ; Freyss97 ; Heinrich99 , but it is usually not completely achieved during the film growth because of kinetic growth effects. Second, He ions in the discussed energy range very effectively transfer energy to phonons (8 – 12 eV per monolayer), which in turn help the system to relax into this optimum.

It is known that the interlayer coupling in the Fe/Cr/Fe(001) layered system can be increased by a gentle annealing Leng93 . Stronger coupling in this case is usually connected with higher lateral homogeneity of interface intermixing between Fe and Cr. On the other hand, a close relation between a homogeneous intermixing at the interface and the interlayer coupling has been recently nicely demonstrated for Fe/Si/Fe Gareev02 : the introduction of two monolayers of Fe0.5Si0.5 at every Fe/Si interface brought about a much stronger coupling, as observed on the samples where the intermixing took place naturally.

Using all the above presented facts, the observed increase of the interlayer coupling can be qualitatively understood as the effect of ”phonon annealing”: An ion propagating in the lattice creates pulses of hyperthermic phonons along its trajectory. The emitted phonons increase the probability that those parts of the interfaces, where the energetically favorable mixing has not been reached during the growth, move towards this equilibrium. Note here, that since this process at its end can produce additional energy, the phonons do not spend their energy and act just as a catalyst. In a similar way as it is observed in the Fe/Si/Fe system Gareev02 , a higher degree of the interface homogeneity causes higher interlayer coupling. The proposed model is rather speculative and demands further studies, which are outside the scope of this paper.

In conclusion, we have experimentally shown that antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling of the Fe/Cr/Fe(001) layered system can be modified using ion beams after system preparation. Depending on the thickness of the Cr-spacer and the ion beam fluence the coupling strength can either decrease or increase. Our results might open new fields of applications of antiferromagnetically coupled systems by laterally tayloring the coupling strength with the potential high lateral resolution of ion beams. Systems with controlled spatial variation of the local magnetization can be fabricated using this approach.

Support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is gratefully acknowledged. C.B. acknowledges support by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. The authors are also indebted to H. Urbassek for his fruitful comments on the ion intermixing power.