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# Transient backbending behaviour in the Ising model with fixed magnetization

## I Introduction

The origin of singularities in thermodynamic functions which characterize infinite systems undergoing phase transitions is a central issue in statistical mechanics. A possible approach deals with the distribution of zeroes of the partition sum in the complex temperature plane grossman . Alternatively it has been observed that non-analyticities can originate from a backbending in an equation of state corresponding to an anomalous curvature of the thermodynamic potential surface prl99 . In particular a convex intruder in the microcanonical entropy, leading to a backbending in the functional relationship between temperature and energy (caloric curve) has been proposed as a general definition of first order phase transitions in finite systems gross . Indeed negative heat capacities have been observed and connected to first order phase transitions in different models iso-iso ; ruffo ; cohen  and even experimentally measured michela ; haberland ; farizon .

In this context the Ising model with fixed magnetization (IMFM) presents some very peculiar features. For small systems the microcanonical caloric curve which relates energy to temperature does not show any backbending in the temperature domain where a first order phase transition exists in the Ising model richert . This finding shows that backbendings are deeply connected to the constraints which are imposed on the system richert ; spherical  and their presence may depend on the physical quantities which are used in order to define the considered statistical ensemble as it will be shown later. It is well known that IMFM is isomorphous to an isochore Lattice Gas model. If we consider that no divergence is expected for the heat capacity at constant volume in the macroscopic liquid to gas phase transition, the absence of a backbending in the microcanonical caloric curve illustrates the fact that there may be no one to one correspondence between first order phase transitions and convexity anomalies of the microcanonical entropy as a function of energy. However, according to Ref. pleimling , a backbending appears in the caloric curve of very large lattices. The thermodynamic limit of this behavior is not clear in view of the present status of Montecarlo simulations. Moreover, recent analytic arguments kastner  lead to the conclusion that the transition is continuous in the thermodynamic limit. The cluster properties of small IMFM lattices also show different signs of critical behavior carmona . Together with the information coming from the caloric curve, this could suggest that the apparent order of the transition in the IMFM model changes with the size of the system.

In the present paper, we shall try to clarify these issues by using a definition of phase transitions based on the occurrence of bimodalities in the probability distribution of an observable topology . This definition is a generalization of the one based on curvature anomalies and satisfies the Yang Lee unit circle theorem in the thermodynamic limit lee ; topology . Since, in Gibbs equilibria, a bimodal distribution of an observable is connected to the backbending of the associated equation of state in the ensemble where the observable is constrained by a conservation law, this study will allow us to elucidate the relationship between backbendings, constraints, and the order of the transition.

We shall first analyze the topology of the events in the Ising model (section II) to show that many properties of IMFM can be understood starting from the standard Ising model. We shall see that backbendings are not characteristic of the caloric curve only but can appear in other equations of state and closely depend on the constraints applied to the system, i.e. on the statistical ensemble in which the system is studied. In section III we shall consider the behavior of the IMFM and we shall see that for all sizes the transition can be unambiguously recognized as a first order transition even if a backbending appears in the microcanonical caloric curve only for large sizes and may disappear at the thermodynamic limit. Concerning this limit, a first order transition does not imply the convergence of the backbending to a finite energy jump. Some general arguments for a zero energy discontinuity will be given in section IV and complemented by a study of cluster properties. In order to confirm the outcome of the numerical simulations, an analytical model of a finite system with negative heat capacity converging to a caloric curve which does not show a plateau in the thermodynamic limit even if the system is undergoing a first order phase transition will be given in section V.

## II Topology of events in the Ising model

We shall first concentrate on the well known Ising model to show that the topological properties of observable distributions topology  allow to reconstruct the thermodynamics of the model and at the same time to get some hint about the behavior of the IMFM model. The order parameter of the standard Ising model is the magnetization $`M=_is_i`$, where $`s_i=\pm 1`$ and the sum extends to the $`N`$ sites of a lattice. It is interesting to note that because of the mapping between the Ising model and the Lattice Gas model $`s_i=2n_i1`$, a spin up $`s_i=1`$ can also been interpreted as an occupied site $`n_i=1.`$ Then the magnetization is mapped into the order parameter for the Lattice Gas model which is nothing but the number of particles $`A=_in_i`$. Since the volume is fixed, $`A`$ indeed corresponds to the density $`\rho =A/N`$, the known order parameter of the liquid-gas phase transition. We shall also use the average magnetization per site $`m=M/N`$ which is then isomorphous to a particle density via $`m=2\rho 1`$. In the Ising model neighboring sites interact via a constant attractive coupling $`ϵ`$. In our numerical implementations of the model we have considered three dimensional cubic lattices characterized by a linear dimension $`L=N^{1/3}`$ with periodic boundary conditions. Details about the Metropolis simulations can be found in Ref. carmona\_npa .

Below the critical temperature $`T_c`$ the Ising model shows a first order phase transition at zero field $`h=0`$ which is characterized, in infinite systems, by a discontinuity of the magnetization when the field changes sign. This jump is clearly visible in the standard average magnetization versus field equation of state already for a lattice as small as $`L=6`$ as shown in the right part of Fig. 1. It is important to notice that for a finite system the magnetization is an observable which does not take a unique value but fluctuates from event to event so that the constant field statistical ensemble corresponds to a whole magnetization distribution. This distribution is shown in the left part of Fig. 1 for three different values of the applied external field. For sufficiently large fields $`h<0`$ ($`h>0`$) the system gets a negative (positive) magnetization peak. The transition from the dominantly negative to the dominantly positive solution passes through a bimodality of the magnetization distribution which can be taken as a definition of phase coexistence, the two peaks being associated to the two phases topology ; lee ; binder . The transition field is the one for which the two peaks have the same height so that the most probable magnetization jumps from negative to positive values. For symmetry reasons this of course occurs at $`h=0`$. The intuitive understanding of phase coexistence given by this topological definition is clearly seen in Fig. 2 which gives the magnetization distribution as a function of temperature for the same $`L=6`$ lattice at $`h=0`$ field. At supercritical temperatures the distributions are normal while the critical point can be seen as a bifurcation point from which the distribution splits into two separated components or phases.

It is important to notice that a bimodality in the distribution of an observable (here the magnetization) implies a backbending for the associated equation of state in the statistical ensemble where this observable is controlled on an event by event basis. Indeed the magnetization distribution of the Ising model in the presence of a fixed magnetic field at a temperature $`T=\beta ^1`$ reads

$$p_{\beta h}(M)=\frac{1}{Z_{\beta h}}\underset{E}{}W(E,M)e^{\beta (EhM)}=\frac{Z_\beta (M)}{Z_{\beta h}}e^{(\beta hM)}$$
(1)
where $`W(E,M)`$ is the number of configurations or microstates with energy $`E`$ and magnetization $`M`$, and the relation between the partition sum of Ising with a magnetic field $`Z_{\beta h}`$ and at fixed magnetization $`Z_\beta (M)`$ is

$$Z_{\beta h}=\underset{M}{}Z_\beta (M)e^{(\beta hM)}=\underset{E,M}{}W(E,M)e^{\beta (EhM)}.$$
(2)
Equation (1) shows that the magnetization distribution $`p_{\beta h}(M)`$ in standard Ising can be directly related to the partition sum of the IMFM. The thermodynamic relations for the IMFM can thus at least in principle be calculated from $`p_{\beta h}(M)`$ without a direct simulation of the IMFM. In particular the equation of state related to the magnetization in the IMFM reads

$$h_M\frac{1}{\beta }\frac{\mathrm{log}Z_\beta (M)}{M}=\frac{1}{\beta }\frac{\mathrm{log}p_{\beta h}(M)}{M}+h.$$
(3)
Equation (3) shows that a bimodality in $`p_{\beta h}(M)`$ implies a backbending of the intensive parameter $`h_M`$ (which has the dimension of a magnetic field) associated with the magnetization as shown on the r.h.s. of Fig. 1. It is important to stress that $`h_M`$ is not a mathematical artifact but represents the physical magnetic field which, applied to Ising, gives $`M`$ as the most probable response. Indeed in the presence of an external field $`h`$, the most probable magnetization should fulfil

$$\frac{\mathrm{log}p_{\beta h}(M)}{M}=\frac{\mathrm{log}Z_\beta (M)}{M}+\beta h=\beta (hh_M)=0$$
(4)
i.e. the (most probable) response is $`M`$ if the applied field is $`h=h_M`$. This is true as long as the system is not undergoing a phase transition i.e. as long as Eq. (4) has only one solution. Indeed, Eq. (4) defines the extrema of the probability distribution. When the solution is unique this unique extremum can only be a maximum. In the transition regions i.e. in the backbending region Eq. (4) has three solutions, two maxima and a minimum in between. This corresponds to the subcritical temperatures for which $`p_{\beta h}(M)`$ is bimodal in a region around $`h=0`$. In this regime the interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }h_M`$ associated with the backbending corresponds exactly to the interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }h`$ for which $`p_{\beta h}(M)`$ is bimodal 111The values of the magnetization between the two peaks of the probability distribution are strongly suppressed (see Fig.1), and this suppression increases with the size of the system. This means that in practical simulations of large lattices the correspondence between Ising and IMFM breaks down and Eq.(1) is no longer an efficient method to calculate the thermodynamic properties of IMFM.

This discussion can be immediately extended to any generic Gibbs equilibrium topology . A phase coexistence (first order phase transition) is signalled by a bimodality in the probability distribution of an extensive variable which can then be identified as an order parameter. This topological anomaly is equivalent to a convexity anomaly in the thermodynamic potential of the ensemble in which the order parameter is constrained by a conservation law (extensive ensemble), and reflects in a backbending of the associated intensive variable in this extensive ensemble. A backbending in the order parameter equation of state is an alternative possible definition of a first order phase transition in an extensive ensemble of a finite system gross .

This observation has a very important consequence. The two definitions of first order phase transitions in finite systems (bimodalities and backbendings) are strictly equivalent topology . The observation of a bimodal probability distribution in an ensemble where the order parameter is not strictly fixed allows then to conclude about the order of the phase transition in the corresponding extensive ensemble without explicitly observing or simulating it.

In particular the bimodality of the magnetization distribution observed for the standard Ising model with no constraints on the magnetization ($`h=0`$) at subcritical temperatures (Fig. 2) implies that the magnetic susceptibility of IMFM is negative for magnetization domains lying between the two dominant peaks of Ising. This negative susceptibility, analogously to a negative heat capacity in a microcanonical ensemble, indicates a first order phase transition. The connection between the bimodality of the magnetization distribution and a negative susceptibility is valid for all finite sizes up to the thermodynamic limit. Therefore, the well known fact that the Ising bimodality converges to a finite jump in the thermodynamic limit guarantees that the corresponding phase transition in IMFM is also first order up to the thermodynamic limit. This situation is analogous to the relationship between the grancanonical and the canonical ensemble discussed in the context of the Yang-Lee theorems vanhove . Indeed because of the exact mapping between Ising and Lattice Gas the magnetization can be viewed as a particle density and $`\beta `$ times the magnetic field is isomorphous to the logarithm of a fugacity. Using the fact that the equation of state at the thermodynamic limit is the limiting curve of an analytical function, the equivalence between ensembles can be demonstrated for short range interactions even in the coexistence region of first order phase transitions vanhove .

In the recent literature of phase transitions in finite systems gross  backbendings have been often observed in the microcanonical caloric curve, leading to negative heat capacity. Following the general relationship between ensembles discussed above, a negative heat capacity univocally implies a bimodal energy distribution in the corresponding canonical ensemble. Figure 2 shows that because of the symmetry between spins up and down in the Ising Hamiltonian, the two magnetization solutions correspond to the same energy. This means that the energy cannot be used as an order parameter for this model. On the other hand, all variables correlated to the magnetization can present a bimodality, i.e. can be considered as order parameters. As an example, Figs. 3 and 4 show the correlation between the magnetization and the size of the largest connected domain $`A_{max}`$, here defined with the Coniglio-Klein algorithm CK  in its simplified version proposed by X. Campi and H. Krivine campi . These figures also illustrate the fact that a first order phase transition in a finite system can be seen as a bifurcation in the observable plane defined by the control variable (here the temperature) and (one of) the order parameter(s).

## III The IMFM and the effect of constraints

In the previous section we have recalled that an order parameter of a first order phase transition can be defined as any observable $`O`$ which allows to separate the two phases, i.e. such that if events are sorted as a function of $`O`$, they split into two components separated by a minimum of the distribution function. This definition is valid only if the order parameter is free to fluctuate. If the order parameter is constrained by a conservation law, the first order character of the transition can still be recognized from the backbending of the equation of state relating the order parameter to its conjugated intensive variable. For example, a first order phase transition in a microcanonical model is signalled by a backbending in the caloric curve. Some models have been reported where the kinetic energy plays the role of an additional order parameter and shows a bimodal distribution in the microcanonical ensemble lynden ; inequivalence  but in the general case bimodalities have not to be expected if the order parameter is fixed by a conservation law. In the same way since the magnetization is the same for all events in the IMFM model, the Ising bimodality at zero field observed in the previous section cannot subsist any more in IMFM. However in the case of finite systems fluctuations are not negligible and the relationship between $`M`$ and $`A_{max}`$ is not a one to one correspondence but rather a loose correlation. This implies that for finite systems a bimodality in the $`A_{max}`$ distribution can remain even in the constant magnetization ensemble.

This is shown in Fig. 5, which displays the $`A_{max}`$ distribution for the IMFM with a number $`A=60`$ of positive spins (or Lattice Gas particles) in a $`L=20`$ cubic lattice (corresponding to a magnetization $`m=M/N=0.985`$ and a low density $`\rho =0.0075`$) at a temperature $`T=T_{tr}`$ where $`T_{tr}`$ corresponds to the transition temperature, i.e. the temperature at which the two maxima of the energy distribution have the same height. As shown in Fig. 6 (left), $`A_{max}`$ is correlated with the energy $`E`$, so that the bimodality in $`A_{max}`$ reflects in a bimodality in the energy distribution. The bimodality in the energy distribution implies that the microcanonical IMFM caloric curve presents a backbending. We have just interpreted this backbending as a finite size effect (and we shall come back to this point in the next section). However for very small systems this behavior is not visible. This is shown in the right parts of Figs. 5 and 6 below, in agreement with the results of Ref. pleimling . In the upper right part of Fig. 5, the same system of $`A=60`$ positive spins now occupies an $`L=5`$ lattice, corresponding to a magnetization $`m=0.04`$ (or a density $`\rho =0.48`$). The calculation has been done at a temperature such that the average energy $`E`$ is the same as in the $`L=20`$ case, to be sure that the expected region of the backbending is explored. The $`A_{max}`$ as well as the $`E`$ distributions are monomodal, and no bimodality is ever seen for any value of $`T`$ in this small lattice. The fact that this is correlated to a finite size effect is demonstrated in the lower part of Fig. 5, where the same trend is observed keeping the reduced magnetization constant and varying only the size of the lattice.

This behavior can be understood because the correlation between $`A_{max}`$ (and so the energy) and $`M`$ becomes looser the smaller the size of the system. For very small systems the width of the two peaks becomes comparable to their distance and the bimodality cannot be seen any more.

An intuitive understanding of this phenomenon can be obtained looking at Fig. 7, which gives the total energy as a function of the Metropolis steps for two systems, $`L=10`$ and $`L=60`$, at the same density $`\rho =0.13`$. The width of the distribution is comparable for the two lattice sizes (the energy jump evolves slowly with $`L`$ pleimling ), but in the small lattice the large fluctuations around each solution do not allow to resolve the two peaks calvo . An equivalent way of expressing the same idea is to recall that the two different energy solutions or phases which give the backbending correspond to very different spatial extensions. These configurations cannot be explored in the small lattice because of the boundary condition constraint.

## IV Size distributions and the thermodynamic limit

We have just shown that for (not too) small systems, the energy distribution of the IMFM can be bimodal. A systematic study of this phenomenon can been found in Ref. pleimling . If this bimodality (or, equivalently, backbending of the microcanonical caloric curve) would survive up to the thermodynamic limit, at the canonical temperature $`T_{tr}`$ at which the two peaks have the same height, one would observe at the thermodynamic limit a jump in the average energy from the disordered to the ordered phase. $`T_{tr}`$ would then be the transition temperature of a conventional first order phase transition with a finite latent heat.

In section III we have noticed that the bimodality in energy is correlated to a bimodality in $`A_{max}`$, therefore an indication about the thermodynamic limit of the energy distribution can be obtained from an inspection of the size distribution.

Figure 8 shows the distributions of fragment sizes at the fixed magnetization density $`m=0.5`$. The corresponding phase diagram is reported in Fig. 9 prl99 . At a given lattice size, a two parameter power law fit has been performed for each temperature; the temperature at which the $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit is minimum is then defined as the “critical” temperature and reported in Fig. 9 as a dashed line (for $`L=8`$) and as a dotted line (for $`L=50`$prl99 . A first order transition is clearly indicated in the bigger lattice calculation. At a temperature slightly lower than $`T_c`$ (lower left panel of Fig. 8 and lower horizontal line in Fig. 9) the “infinite” percolation cluster is still present. At a temperature slightly higher than $`T_c`$ (lower right panel of Fig. 8 and higher horizontal line in Fig. 9) the “infinite” percolation cluster has disappeared. As it can be seen from Fig. 8, the disappearance point of the percolation cluster does not correspond to a power law (and in fact finite size scaling of the cluster size distributions is violated on the dotted line up to the critical point prl99 ). Similar results have also been presented in Ref. carmona .

In the case of very small lattices the percolation cluster is so small that its size is comparable to the size of the other fragments; this creates an apparent and transient power law behavior in the middle of the coexistence zone prl99  which is a finite size effect which should not be confused with a continuous transition. The sudden disappearance of the percolation cluster suggests a finite jump in the distribution of $`A_{max}`$ at the transition temperature in the thermodynamic limit, and consequently a finite latent heat. For the results of Fig. 8 to be compatible with zero energy jump it is however enough that the size of the largest cluster increases more slowly than $`L^3`$ with increasing lattice size.

From a conceptual point of view we do not expect that the bimodality of the $`A_{max}`$ distribution or equivalently the backbending of the caloric curve converge to a discontinuity at the thermodynamic limit. Indeed the Van Hove theorem vanhove  guarantees, for short range forces, the equivalence of the ensembles at the thermodynamic limit. Therefore the IMFM equations of state should converge to the Ising ones even in the coexistence region of first order phase transitions. Moreover the Ising model belongs to the liquid-gas universality class (the IMFM is in fact isomorphous to the canonical lattice-gas model at constant volume) and this implies that the IMFM at the thermodynamic limit should be equivalent to the macroscopic liquid gas phase transition at constant volume which exhibits a continuous caloric curve with no energy jump at a constant temperature. On the other side, if one constructs a Lattice Gas model at fixed pressure iso-iso  the backbending is visible even for very small lattice sizes and should converge to a plateau in the thermodynamic limit. The constant volume and constant pressure situations are the same in the particular case of zero pressure which corresponds to an infinite volume independent of the number of particles (i.e. of the magnetization $`M`$). Since the infinite volume is a constant pressure situation, a backbending is expected for the microcanonical caloric curve of the finite system in an infinite volume i.e. for a density going to zero. This is indeed what is observed in Fig. 6 above. The left side of Fig. 6 can be interpreted in this context as a calculation at constant (low) pressure, such that the spatial extension of the system is not constrained by any boundary conditions ($`N\mathrm{}`$). Within this interpretation it is natural that the backbendings observed in Ref. pleimling  appear for large lattice sizes compared to the number of particles. Going towards the thermodynamic limit however the isobar and isochore paths correspond to different physical situations and an energy jump should be associated only to a transformation at constant pressure.

The transient nature of the bimodality can be in principle directly demonstrated looking at the distance between the two energy peaks at the transition temperature (energy jump) pleimling  at fixed magnetization as a function of the lattice size. Table 1 shows the magnitude of the energy jump between the two peaks for several lattices between $`L=42`$ and $`L=60`$ at $`\rho =0.13`$. This calculation is excessively delicate. Indeed, the transition region in large lattices is very narrow, and the bimodality is only seen in a very short range of $`T`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }T10^3ϵ`$ for $`L=60`$). The transition temperature is then obtained by a Ferrenberg-Swendsen algorithm FS  which moves the energy histograms found at a certain $`T`$ at which the bimodality is present, and finds the $`T_{tr}`$ at which both peaks have the same height. Figure 10 illustrates this procedure.

The results of Table 1 show a tendency of the distance between the peaks to decrease, although very slowly. Extending this study to larger lattices is a very hard computational task. Appart from the increase in computer time of Monte Carlo steps ($`L`$), when $`L`$ is very large, the Monte Carlo time between jumps increases too, what makes very difficult to perform the Ferrenberg-Swendsen analysis described above. For the moment, making this analysis for lattice sizes $`L>60`$ lies beyond the possibilities of our present computers.

## V An analytical model

The fact that energy can play the role of an order parameter in the IMFM, as well as its transient character, has been up to now discussed in the framework of numerical simulations. Whatever the numerical procedure, the quality of the exploration of the phase space becomes increasingly delicate with increasing number of possible configurations, i.e. size of the lattice. In this section we shall therefore make use of the fact that Ising belongs to the liquid-gas universality class to show in a simple analytical liquid drop model that

* the microcanonical caloric curve can backbend at constant volume
* this backbending disappears at the thermodynamic limit
* the convergence can be very slow and it is not surprising that an apparent energy jump still survives for lattice sizes as large as $`L=50`$.

Let us consider a liquid-gas phase coexistence as a spherical liquid drop in equilibrium with an ideal gas of monomers moretto . This picture will not apply to very small systems (for which the liquid drop approximation as well as the monomer approximation will fail), while the thermodynamic limit will be recovered by letting the droplet radius $`R\mathrm{}`$. The equilibrium between the droplet and the vapor can be obtained by equalizing the chemical potential of the two phases which leads to the Clapeyron equation

$$\frac{dp}{dT}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }s}{\mathrm{\Delta }v}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }e+p\mathrm{\Delta }v}{T\mathrm{\Delta }v}$$
(5)
which expresses the relation between the pressure $`p`$ and temperature $`T`$ in the coexistence zone of the first order phase transition. Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }e`$ represent the difference in entropy, volume and energy per particle between the two phases. In the low pressure regime the liquid specific volume $`v_l`$ is much lower than the gas specific volume, $`v_lv_g`$, and the vapor can be considered as an ideal gas of monomers $`pv_g=T`$ leading to ma

$$\frac{dp}{dT}=\frac{\left(\mathrm{\Delta }e+T\right)p}{T^2}.$$
(6)
If in addition we consider the subcritical regime where the temperature is much lower than the typical latent heat $`T\mathrm{\Delta }e`$ we can consider the latent heat as a constant $`\mathrm{\Delta }e(p,T)\text{const.}`$ and the Clapeyron equation is readily integrated giving

$$p=p_0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }e}{T}\right).$$
(7)
If the liquid fraction is constituted by a finite drop, its binding energy per particle $`\mathrm{\Delta }e`$ is reduced with respect to its bulk value $`\mathrm{\Delta }e_0`$ moretto , $`\mathrm{\Delta }e=\mathrm{\Delta }e_03a_sv_l/R`$ where $`a_s`$ is the surface energy coefficient and $`R=r_0A^{1/3}`$ is the drop radius. The equality between the liquid pressure Eq. (7) and the vapor pressure $`p=T/v_g`$ gives

$$p_0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }e_0}{T}+\frac{3a_sv_l}{r_0A^{1/3}T}\right)=\frac{T(A_{tot}A)}{VAv_l}$$
(8)
where $`A`$ is the mass number of the droplet and $`A_{tot}`$ is the total mass of the system (droplet plus vapor) and a strict mass conservation has been implemented. If we introduce the vapor fraction $`x=1A/A_{tot}`$ and the reduced temperature $`\tau =T/\mathrm{\Delta }e_0`$, the relation between $`\tau `$ and $`x`$ (which is monotonically correlated to the energy) at constant volume can be written as

$$c_1\frac{1}{\tau }+\frac{c_2}{\tau (1x)A_{tot}^{1/3}}=\mathrm{log}\tau +\mathrm{log}\frac{x}{1c_3(1x)}.$$
(9)
Here $`c_1=\mathrm{log}(p_0/\rho \mathrm{\Delta }e_0)`$, $`c_2=3a_sv_l/r_0\mathrm{\Delta }e_0`$, $`c_3=\rho v_l`$ contain the specific features of the physical system under study and are linked to its bulk pressure, surface properties and to the system volume respectively. In the thermodynamic limit $`A_{tot}\mathrm{}`$ the relation between the temperature and the vapor fraction (i.e. the caloric curve) Eq. (9) is monotonic in the physical domain $`0<x<1`$ for all physical values of the constants as expected. For finite systems the equation of state can present a backbending with an amplitude depending on the value of the parameters $`c_1,c_2,c_3`$. An example is given in Fig. 11 for $`c_1=1`$, $`c_2=0.25`$, $`c_3=0.1`$. The quantity $`c_1`$ represents a global shift and does not influence the monotonic character of the equation of state. The quantity $`c_2`$ governs the speed of convergence towards the thermodynamic limit while the influence of $`c_3`$ is shown in the right part of Fig. 11. The backbending progressively decreases with the increasing size of the system but this phenomenon is not specific of very small droplets only. In order to quantify the evolution towards the thermodynamic limit one may study the variation of the extension of the backbending region with the size of the system. To this aim we have represented the vapor fraction interval corresponding to the slope inversion of the equation of state in the right part of Fig. 11. The monotonous correlation between the energy and the vapor fraction assures that the backbending in $`x`$ corresponds to a backbending in energy, i.e. the adimensional quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$ is directly correlated to the energy jump in the backbending region. The clear power law behavior as a function of the total mass of the system shows that the energy jump goes to zero only at the thermodynamic limit.

## VI Conclusions

In this paper we have analyzed the different effects due to the finite size of the systems on the determination of order parameters and on the definition and classification of phase transitions using the Ising model with fixed magnetization (IMFM). A detailed comparison with the standard Ising model at zero field has shown the general effect of constraints on the equations of state of finite systems. Indeed ensembles are in general not equivalent in finite systems and in particular first order phase transitions manifest themselves in a very different way in the ensemble in which a constraint is put on the order parameter or on an observable closely connected to it inequivalence . If we consider an ensemble in which a constraint is put on the order parameter, the bimodality in the order parameter distribution reflects as a backbending in the equation of state which links the order parameter to its associated intensive variable. Looking at the global topology of events in the observables space topology  we have shown that the first order character of the transition also manifests itself even in lattice sizes as small as $`L=6`$ through bimodalities in variables only loosely connected to the magnetization. The connection between the event topology and the cluster distribution led to the conclusion that the apparent signs of a continuous transition seen in this model for small lattice sizes prl99 ; richert ; carmona  can be interpreted as a finite size effect. Indeed fluctuations around the transition temperature can lead to an anomolously wide cluster distribution with an apparent power law behavior and eventually a bimodality in the distribution of the largest connected domain. Because of the correlation between the cluster sizes and the total energy we have suggested that the anomalous backbendings observed in the caloric curve for very large lattices pleimling  are due to the same finite size effects, and should disappear in the thermodynamic limit as expected from the van Hove theorem. These speculations are comforted by the analytical study of a macroscopic liquid droplet in equilibrium with its vapor in a low density and low temperature approximation. The equation of state at constant volume presents a backbending in the coexistence region with an energy jump which decreases as a power law towards the thermodynamic limit.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank A. Tarancón for many and very useful discussions. This work was partially supported by Spanish MCyT FPA2001-1813 research contract. S. Jiménez is a DGA fellow.


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# The Field Condition: A New Constraint on Spatial Resolution in Simulations of the nonlinear Development of Thermal Instability

## 1 Introduction

The physical properties of turbulence in an interstellar medium (ISM) are considered to be important to the theory of star formation (Nakano 1998; Mac Low & Klessen 2003) and the Galactic ISM (Elmegreen 1999). Arons & Max (1975) proposed that molecular cloud turbulence may be primarily in Alfveńic motions, because for linear-amplitude waves, no compressions are involved. However, the results of numerical magnetohydrodynamic simulations showed that the dissipation time of turbulence is of the order of the flow-crossing time or less (Stone, Ostriker, & Gammie 1998). On the other hand, the triggering of thermal instability (TI) in ISM by strong compressions, and the subsequent production of small-scale structures, has also been studied (Parravano 1987; Hennebelle & Pérault 1999, 2000; Koyama & Inutsuka 2000, hereafter KI00). Recently, Koyama & Inutsuka (2002, hereafter KI02) proposed a mechanism based on TI to generate and maintain tiny clouds with supersonic velocity dispersion in a shock-compressed layer of ISM by performing numerical calculations with radiative heating, cooling, and thermal conduction. Kritsuk & Norman (2002) studied TI-induced turbulence in ISM numerically and measured the monotonic decay of turbulence. In contrast, Vázquez-Semadeni, Gazol, & Scalo (2000) have done large-scale numerical simulations of TI, with and without prescribed energy injection (forcing), and conclude that TI is of minor importance to the resulting spatial and probability distributions of the density field if the interstellar turbulence is driven by stellar and other energetic sources.

Thermal conduction can stabilize TI when the perturbation wavelength is smaller than the Field length $`\lambda _\mathrm{F}=(KT/\rho ^2\mathrm{\Lambda })^{1/2}`$ (Field 1965, see description below eq. ). If the thermal conduction is not included in the numerical analysis, the perturbations of smaller wavelengths (down to the size of a cell) become unstable so that, in principle, the result depends on the size of the cell in a numerical model. The Field length also determines the width of the intermediate region between the cold medium and surrounding warm medium, in which heating and cooling by thermal conduction balance the radiative heating and cooling (Begelman & McKee 1990). This intermediate region is lost in calculations without thermal conduction. Thus, the inclusion of thermal conduction is necessary to describe the physical evolution of TI and to resolve the critical length scale of TI.

Similar circumstances can be found in hydrodynamical evolution with self-gravity, where the Jeans length plays a critical role. Truelove et al. (1997, 1998) studied the convergence of numerical solutions in isothermal gravitational collapse problems and found it necessary to keep the ratio of cell size to a Jeans length $`(\mathrm{\Delta }x/\lambda _\mathrm{J})`$ below 0.25 to avoid artificial fragmentation. They termed this constraint on Jeans instability the “Jeans condition”. Bate & Burkert (1997) found a similar criterion for particle methods.

In this Letter, we investigate the convergence property of numerical solutions in TI-induced two-phase gas dynamics. We show how thermal conduction plays a role in the nonlinear development of the TI, and find a necessary condition for the numerical analysis of the nonlinear development of the TI.

## 2 Simulations

We solve the following hydrodynamic equations:

$$\frac{\rho }{t}+\frac{}{x}(\rho v)=0,$$
(1)
$$\frac{}{t}\rho v+\frac{}{x}\left(P+\rho v^2\frac{4\mu }{3}\frac{v}{x}\right)=0,$$
(2)
$$P=\frac{\rho k_\mathrm{B}T}{m},$$
(3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{E}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}\left((E+P)v{\displaystyle \frac{4\mu }{3}}v{\displaystyle \frac{v}{x}}K{\displaystyle \frac{T}{x}}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{m}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{m}}\right)^2\mathrm{\Lambda }(T).`$ (4)
In the above equations, $`\rho `$ is the mass density of the gas, $`v`$ is the velocity of the fluid elements, $`P`$ is the gas pressure, $`m`$ is the average particle mass, $`k_\mathrm{B}`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`E=P/(\gamma 1)+\rho v^2/2`$ is the total energy per volume, and $`K`$ is the coefficient of thermal conductivity. For the range of temperatures considered, the dominant contribution to thermal conductivity is that of neutral atoms, for which $`K=2.5\times 10^3T^{1/2}\mathrm{cm}^1\mathrm{K}^1\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Parker 1953). We assume that the gas consists of monoatomic molecules, and the ratio of the specific heats is $`\gamma =5/3`$. The relation between kinetic viscosity $`\mu `$ and thermal conductivity $`K`$ is characterized by a Prandtl number:

$$p=\frac{\gamma }{\gamma 1}\frac{k_\mathrm{B}}{m}\frac{\mu }{K}.$$
(5)
In this Letter, we assume the Prandtl number $`p=2/3`$ for monoatomic molecules. For the heating/cooling function, we adopt a simple fitting formula (see eqs.  and  in KI02) based on detailed thermal and chemical calculations (KI00).

The adopted hydrodynamical method is the one-dimensional Eulerian code based on the second-order Godunov scheme (van Leer 1979). We use explicit time integration for cooling and heating. We also use explicit time integration for thermal conduction, and physical viscosity with spatially second-order accuracy.

### 2.1 Results

Figure 1 shows the typical numerical results. The length of the computational domain is $`L=`$4.8 pc. The boundary conditions are periodic. In this case, cell number of 16,384 is used. Upper panel shows the initial density. The initial condition is a static unstable equilibrium ($`\rho /m=2.93`$cm<sup>-3</sup>, $`T=756`$ K) with a superposition of isobaric density perturbations with wavelengths in the range 0.15 pc $`|\lambda |`$ 4.8 pc. Here, we introduce the characteristic length scale of TI, $`\lambda _\mathrm{a}`$ defined as the sound speed times the cooling time. We can say that perturbations with $`\lambda \lambda _\mathrm{a}`$ correspond to the long-wavelength mode; those with $`\lambda _\mathrm{F}\lambda \lambda _\mathrm{a}`$, to the intermediate-wavelength mode. It has been established that the intermediate-wavelength perturbations evolve almost quasistationarily, maintaining quasi-isobaricity throughout their evolution. On the other hand, the long-wavelength perturbations cool before they can equate pressures and therefore develop larger pressure gradients, which then cause them to evolve highly dynamically (Meerson 1996; Burkert & Lin 2000; Sánchez-Salcedo et al. 2002). The $`\lambda _\mathrm{a}`$ is 0.5 pc in the initial parameters, and thus our simulations include both modes. The middle panel in Figure 1 shows the result of cooling+ viscosity models (hereafter model CV). In this case, 17 clouds are formed because smaller wavelength perturbations have larger growth rates of TI. The lower panel in Figure 1 shows the result of cooling+ conduction+viscosity models (hereafter model CCV). In this case, however, only nine clouds are shown. Note that all perturbations grow at the initial stage because their wavelengths are larger than the Field length $`\lambda _\mathrm{F}`$ = 0.008 pc in the initial parameters. The decrease in the cloud number is the consequence of coalescence. Across the interface between the two-phase medium, the conductive heat flux changes the local pressure distribution, and the induced pressure gradient produces gas motion. Thus, the coalescence is driven by thermal conduction.

Figure 2 shows the time evolution of kinetic energy per volume. In the early phase ($`0t3`$ Myr), the linear perturbation grows. The smaller wavelength perturbations have larger growth rates and hence evolve rapidly and attain a quasiequilibrium state in short timescales. In the late phase ($`t5`$ Myr), the kinetic energy in model CCV (solid line) is 1 order of magnitude larger than the case in model CV (dotted line). This shows that the kinetic energy of the translational motions are enhanced by the effect of thermal conduction. This shows how thermal conduction plays a role in the nonlinear development of TI.

The conductive-length scale is characterized by the Field length. The Field length is a function of temperature and density, and hence should be defined locally: it varies spatially with a range of 0.6–0.003 pc in this problem. We measured the number of clouds and the maximum local Mach number with various resolutions (Table 1). In model CCV, both numbers converge when the cell size, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$, is smaller than 0.39$`\lambda _{\mathrm{F},\mathrm{min}}`$. In model CV, on the other hand, the results with higher resolutions have larger numbers of clouds and smaller Mach numbers. These resolution-dependent results indicate that model CVs have a numerical problem. In the absence of thermal conduction, a spatially smooth transition from a cold to a warm phase is impossible, and the spatial distribution of temperature tends to produce discrete jumps from a cold phase to a warm phase. When the cloud moves, the advection between the Eulerian cells produces cells with intermediate and thermally unstable temperatures. Each of these cells becomes unstable, because the most unstable wavelength becomes infinitesimal in the absence of thermal conduction. This thermally unstable cell generates unphysical unstable motion. This artificial noise cannot be removed by increasing the number of cells.

The above results suggest that conductive length scale characterized by the local Field length should be resolved in physically acceptable numerical solutions. Figure 3 shows the convergence test for density distribution at $`t=8`$ Myr. The error function is defined as

$$ϵ_N=\underset{i}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{\Delta }x_N|\rho _N(x_i,t)\rho (x_i,t)|,$$
(6)
where $`N`$ is the number of cells and $`i`$ is the label of cells. We use the result with 32,768 cells as a reference solution: $`\rho (x,t)=\rho _{32,768}(x,t)`$. The filled circles denote model CCV, and the open boxes denote model CV. Because the numerical scheme we use is spatially a second-order scheme, the numerical errors should decrease with the square of cell length. In the calculations with 256, 512, and 1024 cells, the errors in models CV and CCV are comparable, because neither model resolves Field length. The errors with 4096, 8192, and 16,384 cells in model CCV show second-order convergence, while the amount of error in model CV does not decrease toward second-order accurate solutions. The calculation with 4096 cells uses a uniform cell length, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{4096}=0.39\lambda _{\mathrm{F},\mathrm{min}}`$. Therefore, we conclude that we should always use no less than three cells per local Field length to obtain a physically acceptable solution in the calculation of TI. We term this new constraint the ‘Field condition’. The inclusion of thermal conduction is a necessary but not sufficient condition to satisfy the Field condition.

## 3 Discussion

The thickness of the interface characterized by the Field length is typically much smaller than the physical sizes of the interstellar clouds. Thus, the effect of the thermal conductivity is assumed to be negligible in many numerical studies, with the exception of our own. Our simulations that satisfy the Field condition show more dynamical motions. Let us consider the physical meaning of the difference. For convenience of explanation, we assume the steady state of the two-phase medium. By integrating hydrodynamic equations over the interface, we obtain

$`\left[\rho v\right]_{\mathrm{warm}}^{\mathrm{cold}}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (7)
$`\left[P+\rho v^2\right]_{\mathrm{warm}}^{\mathrm{cold}}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (8)
$`\left[(E+P)v\right]_{\mathrm{warm}}^{\mathrm{cold}}`$ $`=`$ $`q,`$ (9)
where

$$q=_{\mathrm{warm}}^{\mathrm{cold}}\left[\left(\frac{\rho (x)}{m}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\rho (x)}{m}\right)^2\mathrm{\Lambda }(T(x))\right]𝑑x.$$
(10)
Note that the gradients of velocity and temperature are negligible in the region far from the interface and therefore the net viscosity and thermal conductivity vanish in this integral form. If the integral $`q`$ vanishes, the set of the equations is equivalent to the Rankine-Hugoniot jump condition. This condition enable us to estimate the difference between preshock and postshock states without solving the detailed structure. In the case of two-phase medium, on the other hand, $`q`$ does not always vanish: $`q`$ vanishes only when the pressure is equal to the saturated pressure (Zel’dovich & Pikel’ner 1969). When the thermal conductivity is not included, the corresponding two-phase interface becomes zero-thickness and $`q`$ vanishes. This is the most essential physical difference between systems with and without thermal conduction. Here we emphasize that the finite value of the integral $`q`$ should not be ignored — in spite of the small thickness of the interface — because this $`q`$ causes the time dependence in pressure and hence maintain dynamical motion. It seems impossible to estimate this integral $`q`$ without knowing the specific structure between the interface. At present, only one method is available for handling this problem — the use of a high spatial resolution to describe the detailed interface structure. The need for the spatial resolution of the Field length does not require the spatial resolution of shock fronts because the former is much larger than the latter:

$$\lambda _\mathrm{F}=\sqrt{\frac{KT}{\rho ^2\mathrm{\Lambda }}}l\sqrt{\frac{t_\mathrm{c}}{t_{\mathrm{mfp}}}}>l,$$
(11)
where $`l`$ is the mean free path, and $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{mfp}}`$ are the cooling time and mean flight time, respectively.

## 4 Conclusion

In this Letter, we investigate the dynamical evolution of TI using one-dimensional hydrodynamical calculation, including heating, cooling, thermal conduction, and physical viscosity. We present the results of the convergence tests, with and without thermal conduction. Our findings are as follows:

1. The simulations without thermal conduction show that the results are resolution-dependent. The majority of the clouds are formed in higher resolution runs. The maximum local Mach number decrease with increasing resolution.

2. The translational motions survive in the calculations with thermal conduction and sufficient spatial resolution. This shows that thermal conduction helps to generate the kinetic energy of the translational motions of the two-phase medium. We found the maximum local Mach number to be 0.13 at t = 8 Myr in the numerical model.

3. At least three cells are required to resolve the crucial length scale, the Field length, to attain the convergence of the numerical calculations. We refer to this constraint as the “Field condition”. The inclusion of thermal conduction is imperative to satisfy the Field condition.

Numerical computations were carried out on VPP5000 at the Astronomical Data Analysis Center of the National Astronomical Observatory, Japan.


text:
# Deuteron Photodisintegration in the Quark-Hadron Picture

## 1 Introduction

One of the major goal of Jlab is to explore and study the interplay between the nucleonic and partonic pictures of the strong interaction. Although the standard nuclear models are successful in reproducing the overall picture of hadrons interacting at large distances and QCD is convincing in the description of quarks interacting weakly at small distances (pQCD), the physics connecting the two regimes is almost non existent. When probing distances comparable to those separating the quarks, classical nuclear physics should break down at some point, yet the nucleonic picture still describes many features of the strong interaction. The alternative is to look for the onset of experimentally accessible phenomena which are naturally predicted by QCD.
Deuteron photodisintegration is well suited to address the intermediate energy region in order to clarify the transition from the hadronic to the partonic description of hadrons and nuclei. This because: i) large momentum transfers to the constituents can be obtained with photon energies of only a few GeV holt , ii) the deuteron is the simplest nucleus (A=2) and iii) the electromagnetic probe is well known.
The first measurement of the $`\gamma dpn`$ differential cross section in the GeV region and for proton angle $`\theta _{CM}=90^{}`$ SLACNE81  showed the onset of asymptotic scaling near a photon energy of 1 GeV. This result stimulated a renewed interest in studying this reaction: experiments were planned to continue at SLAC SLACNE82 ,SLACNE17  and a broad program of physics, including the measurement of the recoil proton polarization, has been started at Jlab in all the three experimental halls Bochna ,Schulte ,Gilman1 ,Gilman2 ,Rossi . The situation is summerized in Table 1. It is worth noticing that the experiment E93-017 Rossi  is the only one covering a very broad angular and energy range.

## 2  $`\gamma dpn`$ : Theoretical Overview

Predictions for the energy dependence of the cross section at high energies are given by the Constituent Counting Rules (CCR) Matveev , Brodsky , the Reduced Nuclear Amplitude analysis (RNA) rna , the Hard quark Rescattering Model (HRM) hrm , the Asymptotic Meson-Exchange Current (AMEC) amec  and the Quark-Gluon String Model (QGSM) gris .
The CCR predict that, for sufficiently high energy and fixed angle, the differential cross section for any binary reaction must scale with the square of the total energy $`s`$:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dt}=\frac{1}{s^{N_F2}}f(\theta _{CM})$$

where $`N_F`$ is the total number of elementary fields in the initial and final states. In our case $`N_F`$ = 13, thus $`d\sigma /dts^{11}`$.
All the available experimental data of the $`\gamma dpn`$ differential cross section for photon energy above 1 GeV and for four proton angles, are shown in fig. 1. In order to evidentiate the possible CCR scaling, the cross section is multiplied by $`s^{11}`$, and the arrows in the plots indicate the expected threshold for the onset of the scaling, $`p_T>`$1 GeV. The data show scaling only at large proton angle, $`\theta _{CM}=69^{}`$ and $`89^{}`$, while for more forward angles the situation is less clear.
In the RNA approch, the amplitude is described in terms of parton exchange between the two nucleons. The low energy components responsable for quark bindingin are removed by dividing out the empirical nucleon form factors and the elementary cross section is computed assuming CCR scaling. This method gives excellent agreement with $`ed`$ elastic scattering rnael , but not with the deuteron photodisintegration data for which is able to describe the cross section with an appropriate normalization factor only for $`\theta _{CM}=69^{}`$ and $`E_\gamma >`$ 2 GeV. This is surprising because this model is expected to approach scaling at lower energies than the Constituent Counting Rules.
In the HRM, it is supposed that the main contribution to the interaction comes from the absorption of the photon by a quark of a nucleon, which subsequently interacts with a quark of the other nucleon with high momentum transfer. This exchange is described by high energy, large angle, neutron-proton scattering data while the long range behavior of the deuteron is described by a deuteron wave function. The limitation for the applicability of this model are $`E_\gamma >`$ 2.5 GeV and t $`>`$ 2 GeV2, but, under particular assumptions for the short distance $`pn`$ interaction, it can be extended beyond its limits. However, the agreement with the data is poor especially at higher energies (there is a fair description of the energy dependence at $`\theta _{cm}=37^{}`$ and $`53^{}`$ below $`E_\gamma =`$ 4 GeV) and the uncertainty is large, due to the poor knowledge of the $`pn`$ amplitude.
Traditional models based on hadronic degrees of freedom are expected to fail to reproduce data at $`E_\gamma >`$ 1 GeV. However, this approach has been extended to the few GeV region in the Asymptotic Meson Exchange Current model, using form factors to describe the $`dNN`$ interaction vertex and an overall normalization factor fixed by fitting the experimental data at 1 GeV. The results reproduce the energy dependence of the cross section only for $`\theta _{cm}=89^{}`$. It is worth noticing that also this non QCD-based model is able to provide a scaling law for the cross section, with an exponent depending on the scattering angle.

### 2.1 The Quark Gluon String Model

The Quark Gluon String Model (QGSM) is a non perturbative approach, which has been extensively used for the description of hadronic reactions at high energies kaida . Due to duality property of scattering amplitudes, it can also be applied at intermediate energies for reactions without explicit resonances in the direct channel. In fact, it well describes the reactions $`ppd\pi ^+`$ and $`\overline{p}dMN`$ qgsmadr  and has also been used for the description of heavy ions collisions at high energy ions . The QGSM is based on a topological expansion in QCD of the scattering amplitudes in power of $`1/N`$ 1/n  (where $`N`$ is the number of colors $`N_c`$ or flavors $`N_f`$) and assumes that the scattering amplitude at high energy is dominated by the exchange of three valence quarks in the t-channel dressed by an arbitrary number of gluons. This picture corresponds to the formation and break up of a quark-gluon string in the intermediate state, leading to the factorization of the amplitudes: the probability for the string to produce different hadrons in the final state does not depend on the type of the annihilated quarks, but is only determined by the flavour of the produced quarks. The intermediate quark-gluon string can be easily identified with the nucleon Regge trajectory kaida . Actually, most of the QGSM parameter can be related to the parameters of Regge Theory, as trajectories or residues. In this sense, the QGSM can be considered as a microscopic model for the Regge phenomenology, and can be used for the calculation of different quantities that have been considered before only at a phenomenological level.
In Ref. gris , the QGSM has been applied for the description of the deuteron photodisintegration reaction, using QCD motivated non linear nucleon Regge trajectories brisu , with full inclusion of spin variables and assuming the dominance of the amplitudes that conserve s-channel helicity. The interference between the isoscalar and isovectorial components of the photon has been also taken into account, leading to forward-backward asymmetry in the cross section.

## 3 The experiment E93-017 at TJNAF

The Experiment E93-017 was performed at TJNAF with a bremsstrahlung photon beam produced by a continuous electron beam of $`E_0=`$ 2.5 and 3.1 GeV hitting a gold foil of $`10^4`$ radiation lengths. A bremsstrahlung tagging system tagging , with a photon energy resolution of $`0.1\%`$ $`E_0`$, was used to tag photons in the energy range from 0.5 to 3 GeV producing a photon beam of $`10^7`$$`\gamma /s`$.
The protons were detected in CLAS (CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer)clas , a spectrometer with nearly $`4\pi `$ coverage with a toroidal magnetic field generated by six superconducting coils which define six indipendent modules. Each module is equipped with 3 regions of drift chambers dc  for tracking of charged particles, and time-of-flight (TOF) scintillators tof  for charged hadron identification. Other detectors of CLAS (not used for the present analysis) are two electromagnetic calorimeters, covering angles up to 70 degrees, for the detection of neutral particles, and Cerenkov counters for $`e/\pi `$ separation.The resolution of the proton momentum is of the order of a few percent, while the proton acceptance is close to 90$`\%`$ in the fiducial region of the detector.
Real photodisintegration events were selected requiring the identification of a photon in the tagger and a proton in CLAS, and then applying a missing mass cut to the reaction $`\gamma dpX`$.
The CLAS acceptance and reconstruction efficiency were evaluated with Monte Carlo simulations of the photodisintegration reaction. The generated events were processed by a GEANT-based code simulating the CLAS detector, and reconstructing using the same analysis procedure that was applied to the raw data. The acceptance and reconstruction efficiency were also experimentally verified using the reaction $`\gamma dpp\pi ^+`$. The background contribution has been computed by a fit to the experimental missing mass distributions.
The preliminary data thus far obtained for the $`\gamma dpn`$ reaction are based on about $`30\%`$ of the accumulated statistic and are shown in fig.2. Moreover, an additional cut $`\theta _p^{CM}>20^{}`$ has been applied, that will be removed in the final analysis. Notice that, in spite of the limited data set, the statistical error is lower than $`5\%`$ for $`E_\gamma <1.5`$ GeV. When the whole data set will be analysed, the statistical error will be improved by a factor 3 or more for photon energies up to 2.5 GeV. The particular striking and unique feature of the present data is the broad angular and energy range measured with the CLAS detector. This allows to highlight a persistent forward backward-asymmentry in the differential cross section all over the energy range. The data also show good agreement with previous measurement SLACNE81 ,SLACNE82 ,SLACNE17 ,Bochna ,Schulte ,Gilman2  in the overlapping regions. In the figure is also shown as full line the results of the QGSM calculation. The agreement between data and calculations is very good for all energies: the QGSM reproduces the angular dependance of the cross section at fixed photon energy and predicts the forward-backward asymmetry showed by the data. From these plots, it results also the importance of measuring the cross section at very forward angles, in order to check the QGSM prediction of a decrease of the cross section for angles smaller than $`10^{}20^{}`$.

The QGSM also predicts correctly the decrease of $`d\sigma /dt`$ at fixed angle as a function of the photon energy, as shown in fig. 3 for four CM proton angles. Also here, the cross section is multiplied by the factor $`s^{11}`$.

## 4 Conclusions

The study of high-energy two-body photodisintegration of the deuteron has received a renewed interest in recent years with attempts to illuminate the quark structure of the nucleus. The differential cross section of this reaction has been measured for the first time with nearly compleate angular coverage in the energy range between 0.5 and 3 GeV in the Hall B of Jlab. The preliminary results of about of $`30\%`$ of the total statistic accumulated and photons with energy between 0.9 and 2.5 GeV show persistent forward-backward asymmetry and are in good agreement with the few published data in the overlapping region. The QGSM well reproduces the data for all proton angles and photon energy above 1 GeV. In the final analysis the points at $`10^{}20^{}`$ will allow to check the decrease of the cross section predicted by the QGSM.


text:
# Intra-granular 𝑇𝑖 precipitates in 𝑀𝑔𝐵₂

## Abstract

Superconducting magnesium diboride has been prepared with intra-granular $`TiB`$ precipitates that have appropriate size and spacing for the pinning of superconducting vortices. The $`TiB`$ particles have a size ranging from $`1nm`$ to $`20nm`$ and a spacing about $`5`$ times as large. By co-depositing $`Ti`$ and $`B`$ on a commercial carbon coated silicon carbide substrate with chemical vapor deposition methods, it was possible to obtain a starting fiber with $`Ti`$ well dispersed in the $`B`$. Reacting these fibers in a $`Mg`$ vapor then transformed the fiber into a superconductor capable of carrying $`10,000A/cm^2`$ at $`25K`$ and $`1T`$. The $`Ti`$-$`B`$ bonds are strong enough that there is relatively little migration of the $`Ti`$ as the $`MgB_2`$ grains form around the $`TiB`$ precipitates. $`TiB_2`$ precipitates, if they are present, can not be seen in the selected area diffraction pictures that show the $`TiB`$ precipitates.

titanium precipitates, magnesium diboride, superconductivity  preprint: APS/123-QED

In an important series of papers, Zhao and co-workers1 showed that the critical current density, $`J_c`$, of $`MgB_2`$ could be substantially enhanced by $`Ti`$ doping. Using a solid state reaction of ground powders of $`Mg`$, $`Ti`$, and $`B`$, they produced sintered pellets with $`J_c5\times 10^4A/cm^2`$ at $`5K`$ and in $`5T`$. These were extremely small grained materials with $`MgB_2`$ grains approximately $`10nm`$ in size having $`TiB_2`$ decorating the grain boundaries. High resolution transmission electron microscopy seemed to indicate that the $`TiB_2`$ was only one unit cell thick on the surface of the $`MgB_2`$ grains. No $`Ti`$ was found within the $`MgB_2`$ grains. It was suggested that the presence of the $`TiB_2`$ limits the grain size of the $`MgB_2`$. For optimum $`J_c`$, approximately $`10\%`$ $`Ti`$ replacing $`Mg`$ is needed.

Samples of $`Ti`$-doped $`MgB_2`$ also can be prepared by a rather different chemical vapor deposition (CVD) approach.2  In this CVD deposition, $`TiCl_4`$ is added to the $`BCl_3`$ and $`H_2`$ gas stream and the $`Ti`$-doped $`B`$ is deposited on the conducting substrate at about $`1100^{}C`$.3  These $`Ti`$-doped fibers are subsequently placed in a $`Ta`$ tube along with excess $`Mg`$ and the fibers are transformed to $`MgB_2`$ in the $`Mg`$ vapor.4  These conductors typically show $`MgB_2`$ grains in range of $`0.5\mu m`$ to $`5\mu m`$ and critical current densities of $`10,000A/cm^2`$ at $`25K`$ and $`1.4T`$.5 . These enhancements are similar to those observed for $`SiC`$ nano-particles in $`MgB_2`$.6

The purpose of this work is to report a transmission electron microscope ($`TEM`$) study of the titanium boride precipitates in the $`MgB_2`$ matrix. Scanning electron microscope ($`SEM`$) pictures3  show that the precipitates are small compared to the $`1\mu m`$ $`SEM`$ beam size, and they show no evidence of $`TiB_2`$ precipitates on grain boundaries as found for samples made by solid state diffusion from ground powders of the elements.1  The goal here is to determine the size and distribution of the titanium boride precipitates and to look for intra-granular precipitates if they occur.

Titanium doped boron fibers are prepared in a reel-to-reel continuous flow $`CVD`$ apparatus in which both the $`B`$ and $`Ti`$ are deposited onto a $`75\mu m`$ diameter $`SiC`$ fiber that has been coated with a few micrometers of glassy carbon (commercially available as $`SCS9A`$). The reactor is similar to those used to make commercial boron fiber. The reactant gas was predominantly $`BCl_3`$ and $`H_2`$ gas at atmospheric pressure. The $`H_2`$ gas is bubbled through liquid $`TiCl_4`$ at zero degrees centigrade to give a $`TiC_4`$ partial pressure of about $`2\times 10^3bar`$. The substrate is drawn through the reactor at about $`100mm/s`$. The filament in the reactor was resistively heated to a peak temperature of about $`1100^{}C`$. The resulting $`Ti`$-doped $`B`$ layer was about $`10\mu m`$ thick. To form $`MgB_2`$, short lengths of fiber are places in a $`Ta`$ tube with about three times excess $`Mg`$ and sealed under $`Ar`$. This tube in turn was sealed in quartz and placed in a furnace at $`950^{}C`$ for $`2h`$.4  Scanning electron microscope chemical analysis with energy dispersive spectroscopy indicated variations in the $`Ti/Mg`$ ratio of about three to five percent when a beam size of a $`1\mu m`$ diameter scans the sample.

To form a transmission electron microscope ($`TEM`$) sample, pieces of the $`Ti`$-doped $`MgB_2`$ layer were flaked off the $`SiC`$ substrate and crushed. The resulting powder was floated onto a holey carbon grid and grains having a thickness in the range of $`100`$ to $`200nm`$ were selected for study using a Philips $`CM30`$ $`TEM`$ operating at $`300keV`$.

A typical grain of $`Ti`$-doped $`MgB_2`$ is shown in Fig. 1. From the conditions of diffraction contrast in the $`TEM`$, the thickness of the $`MgB_2`$ grain is estimated to be about $`100`$ to $`200nm`$. Typical precipitate size is $`1`$ to $`10nm`$. Because the micrograph shows all the precipitates through the entire thickness, the spacing of the overlapping precipitates is substantially larger than the apparent separation of this image due to the through thickness projection and is estimated to be in the $`20`$ to $`50nm`$ range. If an energy dispersive spectrum (EDS) is taken over a large volume relative to the precipitate size, the $`Ti/Mg`$ ratio is about $`0.05`$ in accord with the values found with the $`SEM/EDS`$.

Tilting the grain so that a selected area diffraction pattern is taken with the beam covering an approximately $`500nm`$ portion of the grain, a single hexagonal pattern is seen that indexes to be $`MgB_2`$ as shown by Fig. 2. The ring patterns are presumably caused by the precipitates and would indicate that the precipitates are randomly oriented. The crystal structure of $`TiB_2`$ is very close to $`MgB_2`$ with nearly the same lattice constant. Hence the smaller rings probably do not arise from $`TiB_2`$.

If the beam is tilted off the c-axis a few degrees, the ring structure is more easily seen as shown by Fig. 3. The three most prominent rings index well for the (111), the (200), and the (220) lines of $`TiB`$. If there is $`TiB_2`$ present, it is too small in volume to be observed here. This is to be contrasted with the work of Zhao and coworkers.1  They found that samples prepared by solid state reaction of powders of $`Ti`$, $`Mg`$, and $`B`$ gave $`TiB_2`$ precipitates on the grain boundaries of the $`MgB_2`$ grains and no intra-granular precipitates. It was a surprise to find the dominant intra-granular precipitate to be $`TiB`$. These results indicate that the introduction of $`Ti`$ impurities into the $`B`$ before the $`Mg`$ is introduced, leads to a final morphology and type of the $`Ti`$ precipitates different from the precipitates found from solid state reaction of ground powders.1

Critical current performance of these materials produced by $`CVD`$ are illustrated in Fig. 4. At $`5K`$, $`J_c`$ derived from magnetization measurements4  drop from about $`4\times 10^6A/cm^2`$ in self field to about $`50,000A/cm^2`$ at $`5T`$. At $`25K`$, $`J_c`$ drops from about $`900,000A/cm^2`$ in self field to about $`1,000A/cm^2`$ at $`1.5T`$. For this material, the Meissner screening in $`50Oe`$ drops from zero at $`36K`$ to $`70G`$ at $`32K`$, so the effective $`T_c`$ has been suppressed by about $`5K`$.

In summary, $`Ti`$-doped $`MgB_2`$ can prepared with a fairly uniform array of intra-granular precipitates that is well suited for flux pinning and high critical current densities. The $`Ti`$ and $`B`$ can be co-deposited by $`CVD`$ methods that are similar to those used to make commercial boron fiber. Then, the material can be converted to $`MgB_2`$ in $`Mg`$ vapor. The resulting $`Ti`$-doped $`MgB_2`$ is found to have a dense array of randomly oriented $`TiB`$ precipitates have dimensions of about $`1`$ to $`10nm`$ and a separation $`10`$ to $`50nm`$. Critical current densities are substantially enhanced over the pure $`MgB_2`$ material.

###### Acknowledgements.

Ames Laboratory is operated for the US Department of Energy by Iowa State University under Contract No. W-7405-Eng-82. This work was supported by the Director for Energy Research, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.


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# Interferometric Observations of the T Tauri Stars in the MBM 12 Cloud

## 1 Introduction

Physical and chemical characteristics as well as evolution process of a circumstellar disk are tightly connected to formation of stars and planets. Millimeter observations, both of continuum emission and of molecular gas emission, reveal that young stellar objects (YSOs) commonly have a circumstellar disk (Beckwith et al. 1990). Duvert et al. (2000) carried out millimeter continuum and line survey for YSOs in the Taurus molecular cloud. They detected thermal emission from all classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) in the sample, while they did not detect emission from any weak-line T Tauri stars (WTTSs) with a disk mass upper limit of $`2\times 10^4M_{\mathrm{}}`$. They attribute this difference to the evolution of the circumstellar disks. Emission from a circumstellar disk, such as dust continuum emission, molecular gas emission, and an infrared excess, decrease as the disk evolves.

The MBM 12 (L 1457) cloud is a high-latitude cloud with a signature of star formation. Three LkH$`\alpha `$ stars and several emission-line stars have been identified by optical surveys (e.g. Magnani, Caillault, & Armus 1990; Ogura et al. in preparation) , an X-ray survey (Hearty et al. 2000a), and a near-infrared study (Luhman 2001). Some sources exhibit mid-infrared excesses, implying circumstellar disks (Jayawardhana et al. 2001). However, no radio continuum emission nor molecular gas emission have been detected so far with an upper limit of the disk mass of $`0.09M_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Pound 1996; Hogerheijde et al. 2002). Hogerheijde et al. (2002) claim a deficiency of massive circumstellar disks in the cloud. If all YSOs in the cloud do not have even a small disk, the formation of circumstellar disks should have been prevented, or the disks should have already dissipated.

Until recently the MBM 12 cloud was thought to be one of the nearest star forming regions with a distance of $``$ 65 pc (Hobbs, Blitz, & Magnani 1986; Hearty et al. 2000b). However, Luhman (2001) suggests its distance of $``$ 275 pc. Anderson et al. (2002) claim that there are two components toward the MBM 12 cloud, with a dense part at $``$ 360 pc, and a thin layer at $``$ 80 pc. If the YSOs are associated with the dense cloud, the YSOs are low-mass stars with a young age ($``$2 Myr), the same generations of or successors to the YSOs in the nearby star forming regions such as the Taurus molecular cloud. The evolution process of the circumstellar disks can be discussed by comparing the YSOs in the MBM 12 cloud with those in the nearby star forming regions.

We present here the results of a millimeter interferometric continuum survey toward the YSOs in the MBM 12 cloud. Thanks to high-sensitivity of the Nobeyama Millimeter Array, we have first detected millimeter continuum emissions from the YSOs in the MBM 12 cloud.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

Radio interferometric observations were carried out in 16 days in 2001 December, 2002 January, and 2002 December with the Nobeyama Millimeter Array. The targets are bright YSOs in the MBM 12 cloud identified by the optical and X-ray wavelengths. The array consists of six 10 m antennas operating at rest frequencies of 103.8 GHz ($`\lambda =2.9`$ mm), 141.0 GHz ($`\lambda =2.1`$ mm), and 224.5 GHz ($`\lambda =1.3`$ mm). The signals from the antennas were sent to the Ultra Wide Band Correlator (UWBC; Okumura et al. 2000), which covers 1024 MHz with a spectral resolution of 8.0 MHz. Total system temperatures ranged from 200 K to 800 K. The spatial resolution was about 4$`\mathrm{}`$ with the D antenna configuration. Due to poor weather conditions, the integration time for 230 GHz observations was strictly limited. QSO B0234+285 (4C 28.07) was used as the phase calibrator. The observations were carried out on a cycle of 15 minutes on the source and 5 minutes on the calibrator. Total on-source integration times were between 100 minutes and 300 minutes. The flux of the quasar was calibrated by the observations of Uranus about every 5 days. The derived flux have a maximum uncertainty of 20%.

The data were calibrated and reduced using the UVPROC-II package developed at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory, and the AIPS package developed at NRAO. After determining the phase and amplitude gain curve, the uv-visibilities were gridded and Fourier-transformed using natural weighting to produce dirty maps with $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ per pixel. Each dirty map was CLEANed until 1 $`\sigma `$ noise level.

## 3 Results

The survey results are listed in Table 1. Continuum emissions at 2.1 mm were detected toward LkH$`\alpha `$ 262 and LkH$`\alpha `$ 264 above the 3 $`\sigma `$ level, and marginally toward S18. We also detected 1.3 mm continuum emission toward LkH$`\alpha `$ 264. At the position of the other objects, no sources were detected above the rms noise level. No objects are spatially resolved. The measured fluxes and the 3 $`\sigma `$ upper limits of the objects are summarized in Table 1. The flux uncertainties for the detected objects include rms of the sky in the map and a possible 20 % error in absolute flux calibrations. Figure 1 shows a 2.1 mm continuum contour map of the LkH$`\alpha `$ 262/263 region.

The spectral energy distributions of LkH$`\alpha `$ 262, LkH$`\alpha `$ 264, and S18 are presented in Figure 2. The data were taken from the 2MASS survey, the IRAS survey, and previous optical and near-infrared photometric studies, and mid-infrared photometry (Hearty et al. 2000a; Luhman 2001; Jayawardhana et al. 2001). Observed fluxes were dereddened using $`A_V`$ (Luhman 2001) with the interstellar extinction law (Rieke & Lebofsky 1985). In these figures, the upper limits are also shown. The spectral energy distributions of the objects are well fitted by a combination of a stellar photosphere model (Allard, Hauschildt, & Schweitzer 2000) and a power-law disk model (Beckwith et al. 1990). We adopt a power law form as the disk temperature $`T=T_1(r/1\mathrm{A}\mathrm{U})^q`$, surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(r/1\mathrm{A}\mathrm{U})^p`$, and mass opacity $`\kappa _\nu =\kappa _0(\nu /\nu _0)^\beta `$. At frequencies at which emission from a circumstellar disk are optically thin, $`F_\nu \nu ^{2+\beta }`$. We find $`\beta =1.0`$ for LkH$`\alpha `$ 264, though uncertainties in the millimeter fluxes are very large. We assume $`p=1.0,\kappa _0=0.1`$ at $`\nu _0=10^{12}`$ Hz, a disk outer radius $`R_D`$ = 100 AU, $`\beta =1.0`$, and an inclination of $`\theta =45^{}`$ for all objects. Note that because none of the objects were spatially resolved, the maximum outer radius is 550 AU for $`d=275`$ pc. The spectral types of the stars are taken from Luhman (2001). The fitted disk parameters are presented in Table 2. Note that the derived disk masses in Table 2 can be easily changed by disk parameters, such as $`p`$, $`\beta `$, and $`R_D`$. The spectral energy distributions of the fitted power-law disk models are shown in Figure 2 by the dashed lines, those of the stars by the dotted lines, and the composite spectra by the solid lines. As seen in the figures, the upper limits of the 3 mm continuum observations (Pound et al. 1996; Hogerheijde et al. 2002) are consistent with the spectral energy distributions derived from the models. Chauvin et al. (2002) have recently discovered an edge-on disk near LkH$`\alpha `$ 263 (LkH$`\alpha `$ 263 C), whose dust mass is estimated to be $`2\times 10^6M_{\mathrm{}}`$. This implies that the gas mass of the disk is below the detection limit of our survey, though this estimated mass is highly sensitive to the disk parameters.

## 4 Discussion

The disk masses of the objects are around $`0.05M_{\mathrm{}}`$, comparable to the intermediate mass disks in the mearby molecular clouds (e.g. Beckwith et al. 1990; André & Montlerle 1994).

Hogerheijde et al. (2002) observed 7 YSOs in MBM 12 by the 13CO (2–1) line. No objects show the molecular line. Assuming a standard CO abundance, they estimated upper limits of the disk mass to be $`(510)\times 10^4M_{\mathrm{}}`$, which are far smaller than our results ($`0.1M_{\mathrm{}}`$). Therefore, depletion of 13CO occurs in the disk with two orders of magnitude. Such a depletion is predicted by chemical models (Aikawa et al. 1996) and is indeed observed commonly in T Tauri stars (e.g. Dutrey, Guilloteau & Simon 1994).

Meyer et al. (1997) show that a YSO with an accretion disk has a near-infrared excess. A near-infrared color-color diagram of the sample is presented in Figure 3. Near-infrared magnitudes are taken from Luhman (2001) or measured by us using the UH 2.2 m telescope (Ogura et al. in preparation). As spectral types of LkH$`\alpha `$ 262 and LkH$`\alpha `$ 264 are M0 and M3 respectively, they each has a near-infrared excess. Because S18 is of spectral type of M3, it seems to suffer interstellar reddening without an intrinsic near-infrared excess. Therefore two of the YSOs with radio continuum emission have near-infrared excesses. On the other hand, the YSOs without radio continuum emission have near-infrared color consistent with no intrinsic near-infrared excess. This general trend is also seen in the sample of the YSOs in Taurus (Figure 3). This can be interpreted as follows: at least two of the YSOs with radio continuum emission have an outer portion of the disk, as well as an inner portion of the disk which generates the near-infrared excess.

Jayawardhana et al. (2001) detected near- and mid-infrared excesses from the YSOs in the MBM 12 cloud. All YSOs with radio continuum emission have the mid-infrared excesses. However it is not the case vice versa. For example, E 2553+2018 which has the largest $`KL`$ excess and third largest $`KN`$ excess in the sample does not have radio continuum emission. Nürnberger, Chhini, & Zinnecker (1997) conducted a radio continuum survey of T Tauri stars in the Lupus associations. They find no correlation between the infrared indices (2.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ – 12 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$) and the disk masses. Also found are no correlations for the YSOs in the Taurus molecular cloud, the $`\rho `$ Oph cloud (André & Montmerle 1994) , and the Chamaeleon cloud (Henning et al. 1993). However, there is a trend for the MBM 12 and the Chamaeleon clouds in which the objects with large radio continuum emission have large mid-infrared excesses and the objects without large mid-infrared excesses do not have large radio continuum emission.

The YSOs in the MBM 12 cloud are known to have a high binary frequency (Chauvin et al. 2002). In the sample, LkH$`\alpha `$ 263, E02553+2018, and S18 are binaries with small separations, whereas the other objects are single stars or a wide binary. However the small number of the sample prevents us to investigate the relationship between a binary and a circumstellar disk.

The circumstellar disks in the MBM 12 cloud detected by this survey have properties in common with the disks in nearby star-forming regions, in terms of disk parameters, such as a disk mass, as well as an infrared excess.

We owe great thanks to the staff members of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory for their help during the observations and data reduction. Y.I. is supported by the Sumitomo foundation. K. N. is supported financially by the JSPS fellowship.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

A low noise Double-sided Silicon Strip Detector (DSSD) is a fundamental element to realize a Semiconductor Multiple-Compton Telescope (SMCT), which utilizes a multiple-Compton scattering technique to achieve good efficiency with high background rejection capability. The SMCT is a hybrid semiconductor gamma-ray detector, which consists of silicon and CdTe detectors. The excellent energy resolution of the SMCT allows it to detect photons with good angular resolution and background rejection capability. In addition, the ability to measure polarization, a wide energy band (0.1–20 MeV), a wide field of view ($``$60) and light weight are important properties of the SMCT. Polarization sensitivity enables us to study particle acceleration mechanisms in supernovae remnants, pulsars and back holes. Synchrotron radiation, inverse Compton scattering and bremsstrahlung are main photon processes and they produce distinct photon polarization features.

A stack of many thin scatterers is used in the multiple-Compton technique, which allows increased detection efficiency by stacking more elements, while maintaining the ability to record individual Compton scatterings.

Fig. 1 (a) illustrates the case with two Compton scatterings and one photoelectric absorption. In this situation, scattering angles $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$ can both be obtained from the recoil electron energies as

$$\mathrm{cos}\theta _1=1+\frac{m_ec^2}{E_1+E_2+E_3}\frac{m_ec^2}{E_2+E_3},\mathrm{cos}\theta _2=1+\frac{m_ec^2}{E_2+E_3}\frac{m_ec^2}{E_3},$$
(1)
where $`E_1`$, $`E_2`$ and $`E_3`$ are the energy deposits in each photon interaction. Note that $`\theta _2`$ can be reconstructed from the hit positions of the three interactions. The order of the interaction sequences, hence the correct energy and direction of the incident photon, can be reconstructed by examination of this constraint for all possible sequences. This over-constraint also provides stringent suppression of random coincidence backgrounds. The direction of the incident photon can be confined in a cone determined from $`\theta _1`$ and the first two interaction positions. Fig. 1 (b) shows a distribution of the difference of the recoil electron energy calculated from the scattering angle and the “measured” energy from a EGS4 Monte Carlo simulation with low energy extension. Solid and dotted histograms indicate signals and backgrounds, respectively. Underflows and overflows are shown in the leftmost and rightmost bins. The polarization of the incident photon can be measured by the azimuthal angle ($`\varphi `$) distribution of the first Compton scatter. Fig. 1 (c) shows the $`\varphi `$ distribution reconstructed from hits in DSSDs in a MC sample for 100 keV photons with 100% linear polarization. Clear modulation can be observed.

## 2 Low Noise SSD System

We have developed prototype modules for a low noise DSSD system in order to understand all noise sources in detail, which is necessary to achieve the best possible energy resolution. A low noise DSSD system consists of a DSSD, an RC chip and a VA32TA front-end VLSI chip. To keep the strip yield close to 100%, the DSSD does not employ an integrated AC capacitor. We have produced 300 $`\mu `$m thick DSSDs with strip lengths of 2.56 cm, strip gaps of 100 $`\mu `$m and strip pitches of either 400 $`\mu `$m or 800 $`\mu `$m. The C-V curve measurement yields the depletion voltage of 65 V, therefore the following measurements are performed at 70 V bias. Leakage current is measured to be 0.5 nA/strip at 20C and 0.05 nA/strip at 0C. The strip capacitance is measured to be $`6.3\pm 0.2`$ pF for a 400 $`\mu `$m pitch sample. A resistance value of 1 G$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is chosen for bias resister to minimize thermal noise without compromising production stability. Expected noise performance of VA32TA is $`(45+19\times C_d)/\sqrt{\tau }e^{}`$ (RMS) in ENC or $`(0.37+0.16\times C_d)/\sqrt{\tau }`$ keV (FWHM), where $`C_d`$ is the detector load capacitance and $`\tau `$ is the peaking time, which can be varied from 1 to 4 $`\mu `$s.

We have assembled two prototype modules: one consists of a 400 $`\mu `$m pitch SSD, an RC chip and a VA32TA (AC module); the other consists of an SSD and a VA32TA (DC module). Absolute gain of the system is calibrated using the $`\gamma `$-ray spectra obtained below. The DC module has yielded a best noise performance of 1.0 keV at 0C and $`\tau =4`$ $`\mu `$s, which is in a good agreement with the expected value derived from known noise performance of VA32TA and the measured strip capacitance.

The energy resolution for the $`\gamma `$-ray detection is investigated using the 59.54 keV $`\gamma `$-ray line from 241Am and the 122.06 keV $`\gamma `$-ray line from 57Co. Absolute gain is calibrated for each channel using the same $`\gamma `$-ray sources in such way that all channels give the nominal peak height. Figs. 2 (a) and (b) show the sum of the energy spectra for all channels, except for the first and last strips where we observe larger noise. We observe a clear Compton edge just below 40 keV in the 57Co spectrum. Note only 59.5 keV and 122.1 keV lines are calibrated. Energy resolution is measured to be 1.3 keV at 0C and 4 $`\mu `$s for both 59.54 and 122.06 keV $`\gamma `$-rays. A detailed description of the SSD system and the noise and energy resolution measurements can be found elsewhere.

## 3 Imaging Test Results and Conclusions

In order to investigate the $`\gamma `$-ray imaging capabilities, we have assembled a DSSD module with an 800 $`\mu `$m pitch DSSD, RC chips and VA32TA ASICs. A 57Co source is placed 4 cm above the DSSD module. We select events in which one Compton scattering and one photoelectric absorption take place in a single DSSD as illustrated in Fig. 3 (a). Events with two hits on both sides and whose energy is greater than 10 keV are selected. Hits with larger energy deposits on both sides are paired to form a 2D hit. Remaining hits on both sides are paired to form another 2D hit. The energy difference of hits in each pair is required to be less than 7 keV to suppress wrong combinations. The pair of 2D hits must be separated by more than 0.4 cm to ensure adequate angular resolution for the scattered photon direction. The open histogram in Fig. 3 (b) shows the resulting distribution of the sum of average energies of two 2D hits. Fig. 3 (c) shows a $`\theta _{\mathrm{kin}}\theta _{\mathrm{geo}}`$ distribution for the events within 6 keV of the 122 keV peak, where $`\theta _{\mathrm{kin}}`$ is the Compton scattering angle calculated from two energy deposits using eq. (1) and $`\theta _{\mathrm{geo}}`$ is the angle calculated from the known source location and observed positions of the energy deposits. A fit to a sum of two Gaussian functions yields an angular resolution of 13.4 (FWHM), which is in a good agreement with the MC result of 11.8. Dominant contributions are estimated to be Doppler broadening (8.8), the energy resolution (6.0) and the angular resolution of scattered photon (5.1). The latter two contributions can be reduced by using smaller strip pitch and removing RC chips. A hatched histogram in Fig. 3 (a) shows the energy sum distribution for the events with $`|\theta _{\mathrm{kin}}\theta _{\mathrm{geo}}|<12`$, which shows usefulness of such constraint. Fig. 3 (d) shows an image of the 57Co source produced by a superposition of all cones from the events within 6 keV of the 122 keV peak without a constraint on $`|\theta _{\mathrm{kin}}\theta _{\mathrm{geo}}|`$.

In conclusion, we have fabricated prototype modules for a DSSD system, which is a crucial element of the SCMT. Intrinsic noise performance is measured to be 1.0 keV (FWHM) at 0C in the DC configuration, which is in good agreement with the analytically calculated noise value of 0.9 keV. The energy resolution is measured to be 1.3 keV (FWHM) in the same configuration, indicating that an energy resolution of 1 keV is within reach. Gamma-ray imaging with a DSSD using Compton kinematics is demonstrated for energy around 0.1 MeV.