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# Defect formation in the Swift-Hohenberg equation

## Abstract

We study numerically and analytically the dynamics of defect formation during a finite-time quench of the two dimensional Swift-Hohenberg (SH) model of Rayleigh-Bénard convection. We find that the Kibble-Zurek picture of defect formation can be applied to describe the density of defects produced during the quench. Our study reveals the relevance of two factors: the effect of local variations of the striped patterns within defect-free domains and the presence of both point-like and extended defects. Taking into account these two aspects we are able to identify the characteristic length scale selected during the quench and to relate it to the density of defects. We discuss possible consequences of our study for the analysis of the coarsening process of the SH model.

The formation of topological defects in symmetry-breaking phase transitions is a very generic phenomenon in physics, and can be studied analytically and experimentally in different condensed matter systems chaikin ; hohenberg . An example is the onset and formation of stripe patterns in Rayleigh-Bénard convection hohenberg ; bodenschatz . In this paper, we focus on the Swift-Hohenberg (SH) model sh  for this process. Once above the convective threshold, the system develops a labyrinthine morphology, consisting of domains of stripes which are oriented along arbitrary directions seul . Between those domains, the system displays several types of topological defects such as grain boundaries, disclinations and dislocations. This structure orders with time basically by grain boundary relaxation and defect annihilation. Similar to other models, in which this coarsening process is self-similar bray , any linear scale of the structure is expected to grow as a power law in time $`\xi t^{1/z}`$. However, simulations of sudden quenches of the SH equation elder ; cross ; goldenfeld ; bray2 ; boyer ; mazenko  have revealed that the observed exponent $`z`$ is sensitive to non-universal model features such as the quench depth or noise strength. Moreover, different definitions of the length scale have led to different exponents with values reported in the interval $`2z5`$. This apparent absence of self-similarity in the coarsening is also found in related experiments of electroconvection purvis  and diblock copolymers harrison . Multiscaling bray2 ; purvis  and/or defect pinning boyer  have been proposed as being responsible for the scattered value of $`z`$, but no general picture has been reached so far about the true nature of the coarsening process.

In this paper we consider a complementary, but related aspect of the non-equilibrium dynamics of the SH equation. Namely, we are interested in the formation of defects in a finite-time quench (annealing). Interestingly, some features of finite-time quenches were considered in some early works comparing the SH model with Rayleigh-Bénard experiments ahlers . Specifically, we study situations in which the control parameter, the reduced Rayleigh number $`\epsilon (RR_c)/R_c`$, is swept smoothly over the bifurcation point, $`\epsilon =0`$. Our study is thus related to earlier papers on defect formation in nonequilibrium second-order phase transitions zurek ; zurek1 ; Lythe . The theoretical picture which is believed to be applicable in this case is the Kibble-Zurek mechanism zurek : because of critical slowing down close to the transition point, the system can not follow the external change of the critical parameter and the dynamics are suspended in an interval $`[\widehat{\epsilon },\widehat{\epsilon }]`$ around the transition. After this suspension a characteristic length $`\xi `$ is selected and is found to scale with the rate of increase, $`\mu `$, of the critical parameter like $`\xi \mu ^\gamma `$. In particular, mean-field theory predicts $`\widehat{\epsilon }\mu ^{1/2}`$ and $`\xi \mu ^{1/4}`$ for models of the Ginzburg-Landau type with $`O(N)`$ symmetry zurek . This length $`\xi `$ sets an initial density of defects, $`\rho `$, directly after the quench. Within a Gaussian approximation one expects $`\rho \xi ^2`$ for point-like defects and $`\rho \xi ^1`$ for line defects in two dimensions liumazenko . Thus, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism predicts that the density of defects observed directly after the quench scales with $`\mu `$ as well, as confirmed in various models zurek1 ; Lythe ; casado .

The purpose of this paper is to confirm the validity of the Kibble-Zurek scenario for the SH model. To this end, we identify the characteristic length $`\xi `$ selected during the annealing process and study its relation to the density of defects. We model the annealing protocol of the Rayleigh-Bénard system by the SH equation in two dimensions and in dimensionless variables sh ; hohenberg

$$_t\varphi =\epsilon (t)\varphi (q_0^2+^2)^2\varphi \varphi ^3+\eta .$$
(1)
where $`\epsilon (t)=\mu t`$. This corresponds to an experimental situation where the temperature difference between the upper and the lower plate of the convection cell is increased linearly in time. The order parameter field $`\varphi (𝐱,t)`$ is related to the vertical fluid velocity. The last term in Eq. (1) is a stochastic forcing term, with $`\eta (𝐱,t)\eta (𝐱^{},t^{})=2F\delta (𝐱𝐱^{})\delta (tt^{})`$, where the noise strength $`F=5\times 10^{17}`$ is compatible with typical experimental values sh ; ahlers  . Our simulations are performed on a square lattice of $`512\times 512`$ nodes with lattice spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=\pi /4`$, corresponding to 8 lattice points per ideal wavelength ($`q_0=1`$). Initial conditions are $`\varphi (𝐱,t_0)=0`$ at the instant $`t_0`$ given by $`\epsilon (t_0)=1/2`$.

As the critical parameter $`\epsilon `$ is increased in time the magnitude of the order parameter remains close to $`\varphi =0`$ until well after the onset of the instability at $`\epsilon =0`$ (see Fig. 1). At some later instant $`\epsilon =\widehat{\epsilon }>0`$ the field abruptly jumps towards its symmetry-broken quasi-equilibrium at $`\varphi ^2=2\epsilon (t)/3`$ and spatially periodic modulations of the signal are created, see Fig. 2. We identify the instant $`\widehat{\epsilon }`$ at which dynamics are resumed as the time when $`\varphi ^2=\delta \widehat{\epsilon }`$ Lythe  \[with $`\delta =𝒪(1)`$, meaning that the first and third term on the right-hand side of Eq. (1) are of equal importance\]. Results are presented in Fig. 1 where we find $`\widehat{\epsilon }\mu ^{0.48\pm 0.01}`$, which compares well with the Kibble-Zurek predicted scaling $`\widehat{\epsilon }\mu ^{1/2}`$. It is interesting to note that the same scaling was found in ramp experiments of Rayleigh-Bénard convection ahlers , where the temperature difference between the upper and lower plate of the convection cell was increased linearly in time. This setup is similar to the annealing protocol in our simulations suggesting that the scaling found in those experiments can be explained within the Kibble-Zurek scenario as well.

Since the order parameter remains small up to $`\epsilon =\widehat{\epsilon }`$, the observed scaling can be obtained from a simple linear approximation of Eq. (1). Fourier transforming the linearized SH-equation yields

$$_t\widehat{\varphi }_𝐪(t)=\left[\mu t(q_0^2𝐪^2)^2\right]\widehat{\varphi }_𝐪(t)+\widehat{\eta }_𝐪(t).$$
(2)
where $`\widehat{\varphi }_𝐪(t)`$ is the Fourier mode of the order parameter field with wave vector $`𝐪`$. Thus, the structure factor $`S(q,t)|\widehat{\varphi }_𝐪(t)|^2`$ is given by

$$S(q,t)=2F\mathrm{e}^{2\omega _q(t)}_{t_0}^te^{2\omega _q(s)}𝑑s$$
(3)
where $`\omega _q(t)\frac{1}{2}\mu (t^2t_0^2)(q_0^2q^2)^2(tt_0)`$. The structure factor $`S(q,t)`$ is peaked around $`qq_0`$ (see Fig. 3b) and the time dependent width of this peak, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)`$, is obtained from $`S[q_0\pm \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(t),t]\frac{1}{2}S(q_0,t)`$. We find that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)`$ satisfies the implicit equation

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)=\left(\frac{\mathrm{ln}(2\alpha )}{2q_0^2t}\right)^{1/2},$$
(4)
where $`\alpha =1+𝒪(\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)`$. Assuming that $`S(q,t)`$ is sharply peaked around $`q_0`$ (i.e. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$) and that it can be approximated by a squared Lorentzian around $`q_0`$ cross ; goldenfeld  (see Fig. 3b) we write

$$\varphi ^2=\underset{𝐪}{}S(q,t)\frac{q_0S(q_0,t)}{8(\sqrt{2}1)^{1/2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }(t).$$
(5)
Combining this result with the implicit equation $`\varphi ^2=\delta \widehat{\epsilon }`$, we find that $`\widehat{\epsilon }`$ satisfies

$$\widehat{\epsilon }^2\mu \mathrm{ln}[(2F)^1\delta q_0C_0\widehat{\epsilon }^{3/2}]$$
(6)
where $`C_04.93`$ is a numerical constant. Thus, the linear approximation leads, up to logarithmic corrections, to the scaling behavior $`\widehat{\epsilon }\mu ^{1/2}`$ predicted by the Kibble-Zurek scenario and confirmed by our simulations (see Fig. 1).

We now proceed to identify the typical length scale selected by the dynamics during the quench. A canonical measure for this length is the width of the structure factor cross ; elder ; goldenfeld ; bray2 ; boyer ; mazenko : in a defect-free domain the order parameter field takes the form

$$\varphi (𝐱,t)A(𝐱,t)\mathrm{cos}(𝐪(𝐱,t)𝐱)+\mathrm{higher}\mathrm{harmonics}$$
(7)
where $`A(𝐱,t)`$ and $`𝐪(𝐱,t)`$ vary slowly within the domain. Thus, in the absence of any defects one expects the structure factor $`S(q,t)=|\widehat{\varphi }_𝐪(t)|^2`$ of an infinite system to be a delta function centered around $`q=q_0`$. When defects are present, the structure factor broadens around $`q_0`$ and the width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ at half-height can be used as a proxy for the length, i.e. we define $`\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$. Fig. 3a shows the data for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ at $`\epsilon =\widehat{\epsilon }`$ and $`\epsilon =1`$ numerically obtained from a circular average of the structure factor. We find that $`S(q,t)`$ has a scaling form $`S(q,t)/S(q_0,t)f[(q^2q_0^2)/(q_0\mathrm{\Gamma })]`$ (see Fig. 3b) at least for a given (scaling) interval around $`q=q_01`$. Results are thus independent of the threshold (half-height) used to obtain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, provided the analysis is performed within this scaling region. At $`\epsilon =\widehat{\epsilon }`$ we find $`\xi \mu ^{0.24\pm 0.01}`$ which again confirms the Kibble-Zurek prediction $`\xi \mu ^{1/4}`$. Note that this scaling can be recovered within the linear approximation by combining Eqs. (4) and (6) to obtain

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\widehat{\epsilon })\mu ^{1/4}\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{ln}2}{2q_0^2}}[\mathrm{ln}(\delta q_0C_0\widehat{\epsilon }^{3/2}(2F)^1)]^{1/4}$$
(8)
which agrees with the Kibble-Zurek result up to logarithmic corrections and compares quantitatively well with the numerical data (see Fig. 3a).

We find, however, that right after the jump the absolute value of $`\xi `$ decreases and then rapidly saturates to a value smaller than the one at the jump. The data at any later instant (e.g. $`\epsilon =1`$) deviates from the Kibble-Zurek prediction in the regime of small $`\mu `$, in fact in the interval $`10^4\mu 10^3`$ it can be fitted to $`\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mu ^{0.18\pm 0.01}`$. To understand this apparent inconsistency, we first note that coarsening of the defect structure cannot be responsible for this effect, since $`\xi (\epsilon =\widehat{\epsilon })>\xi (\epsilon =1)`$. Instead, a possible explanation is given in egolf ; purvis : the broadening of the spectrum and hence the observed value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is not only related to the spatial distribution of defects, but also to variations of the local wavenumber $`q(𝐱,t)`$ within the defect-free domains. Using the numerical procedure suggested in egolf  we find that although the distribution of local wave-numbers $`q(𝐱,t)`$ in (7) is centered around the expected value $`q(𝐱,t)=q_0`$, it exhibits a finite width indicating variations in the actual values of $`q(𝐱,t)`$. To quantify this effect we measure the RMS of those fluctuations, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q[q(𝐱,t)q_0]^2^{1/2}`$, where the average extends over defect-free domains only. We find that $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ is a significant fraction of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ for small values of $`\mu `$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is small (see Fig. 3a). Although in principle the observed value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ can be a complicated convolution of both the local variations of the value of $`q(𝐱,t)`$ and the presence of defects, we have tried a simple linear Ansatz to disentangle both contributions, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}+\mathrm{\Delta }q`$, where we assume that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}`$ is directly related to the spatial distribution of defects. In fact, the data for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}`$ at $`\epsilon =1`$ obtained using this simple Ansatz can be fitted to a power law $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}\mu ^{0.24\pm 0.01}`$ and rescaled by a constant factor to collapse well with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ taken at $`\epsilon =\widehat{\epsilon }`$ as shown in Fig. 3a. This indicates that the Kibble-Zurek scaling $`\xi \mu ^{1/4}`$ might still hold at $`\epsilon =1`$, although it appears to be masked by local variations of the wavenumber jump .

An independent way of checking the Kibble-Zurek predictions is to measure the density of defects, $`\rho `$, created during the quench. Several methods have been devised to identify defects numerically boyer ; bray2 ; cross ; goldenfeld ; mazenko . Here we present results for two independent measures of the number of defects: the first one is based on the local amplitude of the order parameter field goldenfeld , while the second one relies on the local curvature of the observed stripes boyer . Far away from any defect the order parameter field $`\varphi (𝐱,t)`$ is of the sinusoidal form (7), so that the local amplitude can be numerically estimated as $`A^2(𝐱,t)\varphi (𝐱,t)^2+(\varphi (𝐱,t))^2/q_0^2`$. In equilibrium, it is found that $`A^2(𝐱,t)A_0^24\epsilon /3`$ to lowest order in $`\epsilon `$ for a set of parallel stripes hohenberg . The density of defects, $`\rho _a`$, can thus be calculated using the filter $`|[A^2(𝐱,t)A_0^2]/A_0^2|>\vartheta `$, where $`\vartheta `$ is some threshold. The second method consists in numerically extracting the probability distribution $`P(\kappa ,t)`$ of the local curvature $`\kappa (𝐱,t)=|𝐧(𝐱,t)|`$ of the stripe patterns boyer . Here $`𝐧=\varphi /|\varphi |`$ is the unit vector normal to the lines of constant $`\varphi `$. For a defect-free pattern, the curvature is zero, so again defect points can be identified as those with $`\kappa (𝐱,t)>\mathrm{\Theta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is a given threshold. Thus the density of defects is $`\rho _c=_\mathrm{\Theta }^{\mathrm{}}P(\kappa ,t)𝑑\kappa `$. In Fig. 2 we display typical configurations of the SH signal and the corresponding defect structures obtained using the first filter, demonstrating that this method can detect the defect structure efficiently. The thresholds $`\vartheta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ are carefully chosen to be within the finite interval in which our results for $`\rho _a`$ and $`\rho _c`$ are (up to a constant prefactor) independent of the particular choice of $`\vartheta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$.

As shown in Fig. 4 the numerical values for $`\rho _c`$ can be rescaled to agree very well with the density of defects obtained from the amplitude signal, $`\rho _a`$, so that (up to a constant factor) both methods independently yield the same density of defects. For relatively large values of $`\mu `$, we find that the density scales like $`\rho \mu ^{1/2}`$ and also that $`\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}^2`$, as shown in Fig. 4. Consequently, if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}`$ is related to the density of defects, those should be point-like for quick quenches. A simple inspection of the configurations after the jump confirms this picture, see Fig. 2: we observe that for small values of $`\mu `$ most of the defects are point-like, while only a minor fraction is spatially extended. Only at small values of the sweep rate does the density of defects deviate from the $`\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}^2\mu ^{1/2}`$ scaling, and we observe an increasingly significant amount of extended defects. If extended defects dominate over point-like defects, a crossover to $`\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}\mu ^{1/4}`$ should be expected for small $`\mu `$. Although a departure from the $`\rho \mu ^{1/2}`$ behaviour is evident for slow quenches, our computational facilities at present do not allow us to give an accurate confirmation of this possible crossover.

In conclusion, we have confirmed the validity of the Kibble-Zurek picture for the creation of defects in the annealing of the SH equation. Specifically, we have identified a length scale $`\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{def}}^1`$ directly related to the density of defects, and found that it scales with the sweep rate as $`\xi \mu ^{1/4}`$. For large values of $`\mu `$, where most of the created defects are point-like, we expect $`\rho \xi ^2`$, a result which is observed in our simulations. However for slow quenches, where an increasing fraction of extended defects is produced, we expect a deviation from this scaling law and a possible crossover to $`\rho \xi ^1`$. We hope this work will stimulate other simulations of the SH model in order to confirm this picture.

Finally, we note that in studies of the coarsening in the SH model boyer ; bray , it is observed that at large times defects are extended and that thus $`\rho \xi ^1`$. Our study suggests that the presence of point-like defects might be relevant, and thus some care has to be taken in the SH model when comparing the density of defects with the characteristic length observed in the system. We hope that taking into account this aspect together with the identification of the length scale associated with the density of defects as suggested in this paper might be useful to shed some light on the question of self-similarity in the coarsening process after an sudden quench of the SH system ournew .

We thank G. Lythe for participation in the early stages of this work and D. Boyer and J. Viñals for discussions. Support is acknowledged from EPSRC (UK) Grant GR/M04426 and Studentship 00309273, and EU fellowship HPMF-CT-2000-0487. TG acknowledges the support of the Rhodes Trust and Balliol College Oxford.


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# On the usefulness of finding charts

## 1 Introduction

The question adressed in this Research Note is the following : can one cross–identify old catalogues listing inaccurate coordinates with modern ones providing good coordinates using automatic blind matches ? Of course one can, one just has to write or borrow rather simple routines and to digitize the old catalogue. But is the error rate acceptable ?

Here we give a piece of answer, based on the cross–identification of the carbon star catalogue of Blanco & McCarthy (1990, acronym LMC–BM) with the one of Kontizas et al. (2001, acronym \[KDM2001\]), as well as with the DENIS Catalogue towards the Magellanic Clouds (Cioni et al. 2000, acronym DCMC). The sensitivity of both surveys is similar, but Blanco & McCarthy were limited to 49 circular regions of $`0.12^^2`$, while Kontizas et al. have surveyed the whole LMC. From the restricted point of view of this article, the main difference between both surveys is the astrometric accuracy, $`1\mathrm{}`$ for Kontizas et al., and better than $`17\mathrm{}`$ in Blanco & McCarthy. Moreover, the way the astrometry was performed in Blanco & McCarthy involved much more manual work than in Kontizas et al., leading to a much higher risk of human errors, as will be seen in Sect. 2. Kontizas et al. have matched (automatically) both catalogues and present the results in their Table 3. During the course of a more general work about cross–identifications in the LMC, we have checked some of their results by looking at the finding charts. This led us to cross–identify the whole Blanco & McCarthy catalogue in the same “old–fashion” way, and to compare it with automatic matches, as presented in Sec. 3. Sec. 4 lists a few additional errata. Short conclusions are given in Sect. 5.

## 2 The case of the Blanco & McCarthy field 37

The case of the Blanco and McCarthy field number 37 illustrates very well the risk of cross–identifications in a “blind way”, that is, on the basis of poor coordinates only. We would like to suggest the reader to visit the Centre de Données Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS, http://cdsweb.u–strasbg.fr), then the Aladin image facility, to type in the coordinates of, for instance, LMC–BM 37–20 (05 43 42 –70 27.5, J2000), and to load the ESO MAMA or AAO DSS2 digitized R image. At first view one does not recognize the field of the finding chart. At second view neither. The experience can be made with any star of the field 37, the field centered on the coordinates never corresponds to the one of the finding chart. However, if one looks at, for instance, LMC–BM 37–24 (05 44 03 –70:26.1, J2000), one can recognize the field thanks to two bright stars, both very far away from the expected location, more precisely about 50s ($`4\mathrm{}`$) towards the West and $`2\mathrm{}`$ towards the South. It turns out that all the positions of the LMC–BM stars in the field 37 are erroneous by about $`4.5\mathrm{}`$, as well as the position of the field center. (The reason for this error remains unknown).

Kontizas et al. find 13 cross–identifications in this field, 29% of the total number of C stars found by Blanco & McCarthy. As the shift of the position is about $`4.5\mathrm{}`$, while the search radius of Kontizas et al. was about $`1\mathrm{}`$, it is clear that the 13 cross–identifications given by Kontizas et al. must all be erroneous. They are just random associations. This problem has some consequences on the cross–identifications with field 42 as well, because it is located very close to field 37. Five cross–identifications were missed because the corresponding \[KDM2001\] star was already associated to an LMC–BM star of the field 37. In reality, Kontizas et al. and Blanco & McCarthy have 30 stars in common in the field 37.

## 3 Finding charts versus automatic blind match

The case of the Blanco & McCarthy field 37 may be considered as an accident. However, Kontizas et al. find a surprisingly large number of random associations in this field. It does occur that two LMC–BM C stars are separated by less than $`1\mathrm{}`$, and sometimes by less than $`30\mathrm{}`$. Moreover, for various reasons discussed in both catalogues, both surveys are incomplete, especially the one of Kontizas et al. in the most crowded regions (see their Sect. 5.3 and the field 33 in Table 1). It follows that to find a carbon star in both catalogues separated by less than $`1\mathrm{}`$ does not necessarily mean that they are the same star. From the example of the field 37 we thus expected to find some misidentifications in the other fields.

We have cross–identified the 849 C stars listed in the Blanco & McCarthy catalogue with the Kontizas et al. and the DCMC (Cioni et al. 2000) catalogues, using the finding charts. We have proceeded in the following way. We use the CDS Aladin facility. We first load a R image (ESO MAMA or AAO DSS2) centered on the Blanco & McCarthy coordinates. Then, comparing with their finding chart, we mark the carbon star. Finally, using the CDS VizieR database, we superimpose the Kontizas et al. and DCMC (or 2MASS or GSC2.2) catalogues on the digitized image. As in general these catalogues have good coordinates ($`1\mathrm{}`$ accurate), there is usually no doubt on identifying the star, except in very few cases of double stars. In the latter case, we could always identify the carbon star, by comparing the I magnitude in Kontizas et al. and in the DCMC, or because one star was much too blue to be a carbon star ($`JK_S<0.5`$ mag.).

Table 1, available electronically only at CDS, summarizes the cross–identifications between the Blanco & McCarthy and Kontizas et al. catalogues, field by field. In total, out of 849 stars, 69.0% are re–discovered in Kontizas et al., and 99.1% are listed in the DCMC. The list of the cross–identifications for individual stars is given in Table 2, available electronically only at CDS. It gives the LMC–BM, \[KDM2001\], and DCMC identifications. We found some double entries in the DCMC, which are listed as well. Cross–identifications between the DCMC, 2MASS, and the GSC2.2 catalogues are given in Delmotte et al. (2002).

The distribution of distances between the LMC–BM and DCMC positions is shown in Fig. 1. According to Blanco & McCarthy, the accuracy of both their coordinates is expected to be smaller than $`12\mathrm{}`$, so that the global error on the position is expected to be smaller than $`17\mathrm{}`$. In fact more than a quarter of the sources have a distance to the DCMC position larger than $`17\mathrm{}`$. The tail of the distribution reaches $`40\mathrm{}`$. To this general distribution one has to add 52 particular cases: (i) the 45 sources of the field 37 are shifted by $`4.5\mathrm{}`$ as seen in Sect. 2; (ii) the 4 sources of the field 49 are shifted by $`5055\mathrm{}`$; (iii) LMC–BM 6–20, 38–10, and 42–32, are found $`62`$, $`67`$, and $`48\mathrm{}`$ away from the DCMC position, respectively. One thus may say that the Blanco & McCarthy positions are erroneous for 6.1% of their sources. Finally, we suspect that there could be an additional error in one finding chart. LMC–BM 3–3, as drawn on the finding chart, corresponds to DCMC J044614.35-675116.8 = 2MASSI J0446143-675116, with $`IJ0.5`$ and $`JK_S0.35`$ mag. This source seems to be much too blue to be a C star. About $`40\mathrm{}`$ away, there is a C star, \[KDM2001\] 457. We thus suspect that \[KDM2001\] 457 and LMC–BM 3–3 are in fact the same star while Blanco & McCarthy would have indicated the wrong star on the finding chart.

To cross–identify 849 objects by looking at the finding charts is not the most pleasing work one could imagine, nor is it the technique one would first think of to cross–identify catalogues. By default one would first make a digitized version of the old Blanco & McCarthy catalogue, and match it automatically with that of Kontizas et al. To compare with the results derived from the finding charts, we have also matched blindly both catalogues. Without knowing the distribution in Fig. 1, and being a little cautious, one would most likely use a search radius of $`30\mathrm{}`$. We finally matched both catalogues using two radii, $`30\mathrm{}`$ and $`1\mathrm{}`$. In case of multiple associations, we strictly keep the closest one, checking on both entire catalogues. The results field by field are listed in Table 1. Compared to the finding chart method, an automatic match leads to 11 (1.3%) and 20 (2.4%) misidentifications using a radius of $`30\mathrm{}`$ and $`1\mathrm{}`$, respectively. Among these misidentifications, only 30% are due to erroneous LMC–BM coordinates, all the others are due to the presence of two close carbon stars. The number of missed cross–identifications amounts to 5.4% using $`30\mathrm{}`$, and 3.3% using $`1\mathrm{}`$. For both search radii the total number of errors is about 6%. This is far from being negligible. Misidentifications are especially problematic for individual sources. It could lead to discover strange variables, and derive incorrect physical parameters. Missed cross–identifications lead to a loss of information on individual sources. Both are problematic for statistical purposes because some sources would disappear, or conversely would be counted twice.

In their Table 3, Kontizas et al. give cross–identifications between their catalogue and that of Blanco & McCarthy. According to their Sect. 5.3, they have matched both catalogues. Their results are summarized in the last 3 columns of Table 1. They find a match for 3 out of 4 LMC–BM sources of the field 49, for LMC–BM 6–20, but not for LMC–BM 38–10 (see above), so most likely they used an association radius of about $`1\mathrm{}`$. However, there are some differences between their results and our match with the same radius. In the field 37, we get only 7 misidentifications, while they list 13. The most likely reason is that, in case of multiple associations, they have kept the closest one field by field rather than on the entire catalogue. Out of the 6 matches that we do not find in the field 37, one source is a little more than $`1\mathrm{}`$ away from the \[KDM2001\] position, and the 5 others have a closer association in the field 42 (see also Sect. 2). The other difference is the larger number of missed cross–identifications in the list of Kontizas et al. than found in our match. According to Morgan (private communication) they are due to human errors when compiling the final Table. In total, the number of misidentifications and missed cross–identifications amounts to 2.7 and 7.9%, respectively, in the Table 3 of Kontizas et al.

Finally, out of curiosity, we have also matched the Blanco & McCarthy and DCMC catalogues, using a search radius of $`30\mathrm{}`$, and taking into account some redundant entries in the DCMC which are correctly seen as the same source. Of course, the density of sources in the DCMC (or in 2MASS) is such that it would not be reasonable to just match both catalogues on the basis of the coordinates only. We have then added some colour criteria. Almost all LMC–BM stars have $`IJ>1.2`$ and $`JK_S>0.8`$. The last colour criterion is confirmed by the Fig.5 of Kontizas et al. Even applying this, a match between both catalogues leads to …a disaster, with 24.8% of misidentifications, and 2.5% of missed cross–identifications. To use a larger radius would not change much the result because only 23 LMC–BM sources do not have a match within $`30\mathrm{}`$.

## 4 More errata …

It is not uncommon to find erroneous or missed cross–identifications, or errors on the listed coordinates, in published catalogues. During the course of more general cross–identifications in the Large Magellanic Cloud, we found a few errors in various papers, sometimes real errors, sometimes probably misprints.

In the catalogue of M supergiants and suspected giants of Westerlund et al. (1981), the listed coordinates are in general better than $`5\mathrm{}`$, with a tail in the distribution up to about $`20\mathrm{}`$. We however found 5 stars in the list of the M supergiants with erroneous coordinates (i.e. in disagreement by more than $`1\mathrm{}`$ with the finding chart location). These sources are: WOH S 66, S 151, S 156, S 199, and S 212. Like in the case of Kontizas et al. with the Blanco & McCarthy field 37, we find that the erroneous coordinates of Westerlund et al. have led to at least one misidentification in the literature. We have checked on finding charts that WOH S 66, SP77 30–6 (Sanduleak & Philip 1977), RM 1–45 (Rebeirot et al. 1983), and DCMC J045421.73–684524.1 are the same star. Remarkably, the coordinates listed by Westerlund et al. for WOH S 66 are in excellent agreement with those of Hughes (1989) for SHV 0454257–684856, alias DCMC J045414.33–684414.2. It follows that WOH S 66 was misidentified with SHV 0454257–684856 in Loup et al. (1997). The IRAS source IRAS 04544–6849, LI–LMC 153 (Schwering & Israel 1990), is more likely associated to the SHV star than to the M supergiant. For sure, the object observed with ISO in Trams et al. (1999) was the Long Period Variable (SHV) star and not WOH S 66.

Old catalogues, though in principle checking carefully the cross–identifications on finding charts, do not all escape the problem. For instance Sanduleak & Philip (1977) have erroneously identified SP77 46–59 with HV 2650, while the SP77 star is actually HV 996. Similarly, SP77 51–7 is HV 5916, while Sanduleak & Philip give HV 591. This latter case is probably a misprint.

The Blanco & McCarthy catalogue has a few mistakes as well. In particular, it associates twice SP77 30–20, once with LMC–BM 9–13, and once with LMC–BM 9–23. A careful check of the finding charts shows that LMC–BM 9–13 is not associated to any SP77 star, that SP77 30–20 is LMC–BM 9–18, and that LMC–BM 9–23 is SP77 30–21. The last case is very likely a misprint. Blanco & McCarthy also forgot some associations. In particular, their fields 16 and 15 (“Bar West”, published earlier by Blanco et al. 1980, acronym BMB) overlap. They provide 15 cross–identifications between both fields. Detailed checks show that they missed three additional cross–identifications: BMB–BW 37 = LMC–BM 16–16, BMB–BW 38 = LMC–BM 16–20, and BMB–BW 54 = LMC–BM 16–26.

## 5 Conclusions

In practice, depending on the quality of the finding charts and on problems arising, and using modern facilities like Aladin at CDS, it is possible to check 20 to 50 finding charts per day, including lunch and coffee breaks. To use finding charts to cross–identify the DCMC, 2MASS, and GSC2.2 catalogues, each containing a few million stars towards the LMC only, one would need an army of Benedictine monks working day and night over 10 years. It is fortunately not required either because, in general, the three catalogues provide coordinates more accurate than $`1\mathrm{}`$. Thus, a match based on coordinates, plus some additional validation criteria, allows one to reach an acceptable error rate (Delmotte et al. 2002).

On the other hand, not all astronomical objects have good coordinates yet, especially those discovered in old catalogues. Most of them have been reobserved in modern catalogues, however the observations of these modern catalogues do not necessarily allow to determine the nature of the object. Thus it is important to keep our knowledge, and then to cross–identify properly old and modern catalogues. For instance, many planetary nebulae discovered in the Magellanic Clouds have been detected by 2MASS. But from the 2MASS data, it is impossible to set any selection criteria to find planetary nebulae. Most of them just look like faint blue stars, or overlap with the large population of RGB stars, like millions of others sources. In such a case it is obvious that to cross–identify old catalogues of planetary nebulae with 2MASS must be done with the finding charts. Carbon stars are a better case because they are red objects which are much less numerous than faint blue stars. However, as shown in this Research Note, even this is not so straightforward. Misidentifications in the literature are also a problem for compilation databases such as SIMBAD and NED. Matching procedures are continuously improved, but case by case examination by an expert often remains necessary, as demonstrated in this Note. Among others, the contribution of B. Skiff, in this respect, is specifically acknowledged by the CDS.

To conclude, if one of the catalogues has poor coordinates (accuracy worse than $`5\mathrm{}`$), if one is not looking at an empty region of the sky, if the objects do not have extraordinary colours or physical properties, and are not shining like the lighthouse of Alexandria, there is no other way to make cross–identifications than to go back to the finding charts. Yes, it is time–consuming.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are very grateful to the referee Dr. H.J. Habing for his helpful comments and suggestions. We would like to thank Dr. D.H. Morgan to have discussed and clarified some points during the submission process. This research has made use of the Simbad database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. This publication makes use of data products from the Deep Near Infrared Survey which is the result of a joint effort involving human and financial contributions of several institutes mostly located in Europe, and from the Two All Micron Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Aanalysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA and NSF.


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# Imaging Large Scale Structure in the X-ray Sky

## 1 Introduction

Recent Chandra and XMM observations have resolved over 85% of the 2–8 keV X-ray background (XRB) into discrete sources, presumably active galaxtic nuclei (AGNs; Mushotzky et al. 2000; Brandt et al. 2001; Tozzi et al. 2001; Campana et al. 2001; Cowie et al. 2002; Giacconi et al. 2002; Hasinger et al. 2001). However, the nature of the sources is unclear, with many of the faint sources showing little or no optical activity (Barger et al. 2001, 2002; Hornschemeier et al. 2001; Rosati et al. 2002). There is a large field-to-field variance in the source counts in the Chandra deep surveys in the 2–8 keV band (Cowie et al. 2002). This cosmic variance is generally believed to arise from the underlying large-scale structure (LSS) that is traced, in some fashion, by the Chandra sources. Clustering of the XRB sources in redshift space has been seen in both Chandra Deep Fields (Barger et al. 2002; Hasinger 2002), indicating that LSS does exist in the XRB source distribution. From a cosmological point of view, AGNs are expected to be highly biased tracers of cosmic structure formation at medium to large redshifts. The XRB sources, which have $`10`$ times the areal density of optically selected AGNs, provide for the first time a sufficiently high density to be used as tracers of the LSS.

The clustering at various scales of X-ray selected AGNs has been pursued previously using observations from HEAO-1 ( e.g. Barcons & Fabian 1988; Mushotzky & Jahoda 1992) and ROSAT (e.g. Soltan et al. 1997; Vihklinin & Forman 1995). The ROSAT results based on deep pointings (Carrera et al. 1998) show a much smaller amplitude of correlation than predicted from optical samples, while an analysis of the ROSAT North Ecliptic Pole sample, which is shallower but covers a wider solid angle (Mullis 2002), comes to the opposite conclusion. It has been claimed that at a flux level below $`1.5\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$(0.5–2 keV) the XRB exhibits no clustering (Soltan & Hasinger 1994). This contradicts the observed cosmic variance in the ultradeep surveys by Chandra and XMM. How to combine these seemingly disparate results is one of the new mysteries of the XRB.

To allow a direct measurement of the auto-correlation functions (ACFs) of the XRB sources, and to optically identify these objects to obtain their redhshifts, one needs arcsecond spatial resolution, a wide contiguous field of view, and sufficient sensitivity. To achieve these goals we have performed a large solid angle, moderately deep Chandra survey of the Lockman Hole North-West region. This survey currently has a contiguous sky coverage of $`0.4`$ deg2 and is sensitive to X-ray flux levels of $`3\times 10^{16}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$(0.4–2 keV) and $`3\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$(2–8 keV). Most of the XRB is resolved at these flux levels (Cowie et al. 2002).

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

The survey covers the Lockman Hole North-West region centered at $`\alpha =10^h34^m`$, $`\delta =57\mathrm{°}40\mathrm{}`$ (J2000). The region has very low Galactic column density ($`N_H5.72\times 10^{19}`$$`\mathrm{cm}^2`$, Dickey & Lockman 1990) and was covered by the deepest 170$`\mu `$m ISOPHOT field observed from ISO (hereafter ISONW). The field has also been observed at 850$`\mu `$m with the SCUBA camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and at cm wavelengths with the VLA, as well as at optical and near-IR wavelengths with the Subaru (using the unique Suprime-Cam instrument) and Keck telescopes. The ISONW region will be intensively observed with SIRTF as part of the LEGACY program. The multiwavelength analysis of this field will be presented in subsequent papers.

The observation consists of 9 ACIS-I pointings (labeled as ISONW1–ISONW9) separated from each other by $`10\mathrm{}`$ to allow close to uniform sky coverage. ISONW1 has an exposure time of $`70`$ ks while the other 8 pointings have exposure times of $`40`$ ks.

The data were reduced with CIAO 2.2.1 and CALDB 2.15. The CXC Science Threads were followed in data preparation. The resulting event lists were binned into 2 energy bands, the soft (0.4–2 keV) and the hard (2–8 keV).

Point sources were detected for each pointing in both energy bands with wavdetect within the CIAO package. The wavelet scales of square root series $`1,\sqrt{2},2,2\sqrt{2},4,4\sqrt{2},8`$ and a false detection threshold of $`1\times 10^7`$ were used. Spectrally weighted monochromatic exposure maps were created, assuming a power law with photon index of 1.2 for the hard band and 1.4 for the soft band (Mushotzky et al. 2000; Barger et al. 2001). Count rates were converted to flux assuming the above power law spectra with only Galactic absorption. The conversion factors are $`4.74\times 10^{12}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$(soft) and $`2.34\times 10^{11}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$(hard). The degradation of the ACIS low energy quantum efficency during the flight was corrected using the measurements of the ACIS team.

The catalogs for all observations were merged. Source properties for objects detected in more than one observation (due to the overlapping of fields) were taken from the field in which the source had the smallest off-axis angle. In the soft band, 431 sources were detected, and in the hard band, 278. The combined catalog contains 554 sources.

## 3 Analysis and Results

Since the effective area decreases and the point spread function (PSF) increases with off-axis angle, the sensitivity is not uniform across the field. We quantified this with Monte-Carlo simulations. First we constructed background maps by removing the wavelet detected sources from the observed images and filled the holes with Poisson noise sampled from regions surrounding the sources. Sources with fluxes drawn from the LogN-LogS derived from the Chandra deep fields (Cowie et al. 2002; Garmire 2002) were generated and distributed uniformly within $`8\mathrm{}`$ from the aim point. PSF images of each source were made using mkpsf. The exposure maps described in the previous section were then applied to simulate the effect of vignetting. The simulated sources were added to the background maps to create simulated images. About 100 simulations were performed for each band and exposure (for details see Yang et al. 2003). Above flux thresholds of 10 cts/exposure (soft) and 12 cts/exposure (hard), the detection is complete and the derived fluxes are consistent with the input values. We use the flux unit in cts/exposure because we found the wavdetect exposure-corrected count rates threshold in such unit only depends weakly on the exposure time in our observations due to the low backgrounds. We obtain the same results by assuming a uniform background and the wavdetect detection thresholds described in Freeman et al.(2002). Within $`4.5\mathrm{}`$ of the aim point, the detection is complete above 5 cts/exposure in the soft band and 7 cts/exposure in the hard band.

Above flux thresholds of $`1.2\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$(soft) and $`8\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$(hard), the source catalog in the combined field within $`8\mathrm{}`$ from each aim point is complete. This defines a flux limited sample that contains 115 hard band and 298 soft band sources. The solid angle covered by the complete sample field is 0.33 deg2.

We constructed the cumulative number counts (LogN-LogS) for each of 9 fields, as well as the whole merged catalog (Fig. 1). The Eddington bias found at these flux levels from the simulations is small and can be ignored.

Fig. 1a and 1b show comparisons of the LogN-LogS in the 9 pointings. Although the overlapping of fields could minimize the differences between them, this is the simplest way to demonstrate the cosmic variance because exactly the same procedures were used in each field and 8 of the 9 fields have virtually identical exposures. Variance is seen in both the soft and hard bands. The full range of variance seen in the Chandra deep surveys published to date is reproduced in this set of contiguous fields.

The LogN-LogS of the whole field is compared with that from Chandra deep field North (CDF-N; Brandt et al 2001), the Chandra Deep Field south (CDF-S, Rosati et al. 2001) and SSA13 (Mushotzky et al. 2000) in Fig. 1c and 1d. Our LogN-LogS connects smoothly with that of CDF-N, which has the highest normalization of all the published Chandra deep fields.

The LogN-LogS distribution of the combined fields is modeled with power laws in the form of $`N(>S)=A(S/S_0)^\alpha `$, using the area weighted maximum likelihood method (Murdoch, Crawford & Jauncey 1973). For the soft band, between $`2\times 10^{15}`$ and $`10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`A=630,S_0=2\times 10^{15}`$, and $`\alpha =0.72\pm 0.18`$; above $`1\times 10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`A=152,S_0=1\times 10^{14},and\alpha =1.58\pm 0.23`$. For the hard band above $`1\times 10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, the best fit parameters are $`A=359,S_0=1\times 10^{14},and\alpha =1.56\pm 0.16`$.

To visualize the source distributions, we used adaptive smoothing to create density maps of the flux limited sample (Fig.2). Structure is visible in both the soft and hard band maps, but the hard band sources are more clustered. To test whether the observed over-density could arise from Poisson fluctuations, we employed the likelihood test described in Carrera et al.(1998). Comparing with 10000 simulated samples which are Poisson distributed, we found 97.67% of the soft and 99.99% of the hard band simulations had better likelihood than the observations. The significance of clustering is therefore 2$`\sigma `$ (soft) and 4$`\sigma `$ (hard).

Using the source distribution in cells tiling the field (counts-in-cells), we can estimate the correlation scales of the sources. The variance of counts-in-cells defined as $`\mu _2(N\overline{N})^2`$, where $`\overline{N}`$ is the mean counts in the cell, is directly related to the angular correlation function (Peebles 1980) by

$$\mu _2=\overline{N}+\frac{\overline{N}^2}{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}w(\theta )𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_1𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_2$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the cell size. The first term is the Poisson fluctuation. For correlation functions with a power-law form $`w(\theta )=(\theta /\theta _0)^{1\gamma }`$ (where $`\gamma `$ is the power law index of the spatial correlation function) and square cells with size $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Theta }\times \mathrm{\Theta }`$ deg2, the integration can be obtained as (Totsuji & Kihara 1969; Lahav & Saslaw, 1992),

$$\sigma ^2\frac{\mu _2\overline{N}}{(\overline{N}/\mathrm{\Omega })^2}=C_\gamma \theta _0^{1\gamma }\mathrm{\Theta }^{5\gamma }$$
(2)
where $`\sigma ^2`$ is the normalized variance. $`C_\gamma `$ is a function of $`\gamma `$ and is calculated numerically. We calculate $`\sigma ^2`$ for square cells of various sizes that tile the whole field. By fitting the $`\sigma ^2\mathrm{\Theta }`$ relation we should be able to estimate $`\theta _0`$ and $`\gamma `$. We found the present data cannot constrain both parameters accurately. By fixing $`\gamma =1.8`$, the “universal” slope measured in galaxies and in groups and clusters of galaxies (Bahcall 1988), and minimizing $`\chi ^2`$, we found $`\theta _0=40\pm 11\mathrm{}`$ and $`\theta _0=4\pm 2\mathrm{}`$ for the hard and soft band sources respectively. While the soft band sources agree very well with the angular correlation scale previously seen in ROSAT surveys (Vikhlinin & Forman, 1995), the hard band sources are much more strongly correlated.

The striking difference in clustering between the soft and hard band sources indicates the hard sources which are not detected in the soft band are highly clustered. About 60% of the hard-band-only sources lie in overdense regions which form a ‘band’ connecting the ‘lumps’ on the western and eastern side of the field (Fig. 2). This band includes only about 1/3 of solid angle of the whole field. The counts-in-cells analysis (Fig. 3) also indicates that these hard-band-only sources have larger correlation scales than the soft band or hard band sources.

## 4 Discussion

ASCA observations have shown that the rms variance of the 2–10 keV XRB on a scale of 0.5 deg2 is $`6\%`$(Kushino et al. 2002). With a sky coverage of 0.4 deg2 and a depth that resolves $`>50\%`$ of the hard band XRB, the normalization of LogN-LogS derived from our observations should be very close to the “true” value. The fact that the observed LogN-logS connects onto the CDF-N field at low fluxes then indicates that $`>90\%`$ of the XRB is resolved using the ASCA/ROSAT XRB normalization (Chen et al. 1997). The main uncertainty is the normalization of XRB itself.

The LSS seen in our field has reproduced the cosmic variance observed previously in deep field surveys. It is noticeable (Fig. 1b) that on scales of a Chandra field the variance is demonstrated as holes rather than lumps, i.e., the number counts in 9 fields are close to the mean, while only 2 field have very low value (ISONW5 & CDF-S). This indicates the existence of voids in the X-ray LSS, which should, within a factor of a few, be of the same angular size as an ACIS-I field. Most of the hard-band-only sources cluster in relatively small regions, which may be topologically connected. If this is not a result of a projection effect, then it is the first time a wall-like structure has been seen in the X-ray sky.

We have found more variance in the hard band than in the soft band, consistent with the lower mean redshift of the hard X-ray sources. However, the difference in the mean redshift cannot account for most of the large difference in the soft and hard band angular correlation length found by the counts-in-cells statistic. The mean redshift found previously for the Chandra/XMM deep fields sources is $`0.8`$. Unless most of the hard band sources are at very low redshift, which does not seem likely because we see no low redshift spikes in the redshift distribution of deep field surveys, the relatively low redshifts for the hard X-ray selected sources could not account for the factor of 10 larger differences in correlation scales seen in these sources. The similarity of the redshift distributions for the sources found in CDF-N and in an observation with a similar exposure to ours (Castander et al. 2003), indicates that the luminosity functions have likely been sampled below the “knee” for all redshifts in our observations. Thus we feel that the stronger correlation function for the hard sources seen in our data is likely due to their stronger spatial correlation rather than a redshift effect.

The large variance in the Chandra source counts indicates that they must be highly biased tracers of matter. Direct calculation of the bias will require redshifts and an understanding of how the luminosity function changes with redshift, but it is already clear that the Chandra sources show much more variance than galaxy counts (Cohen et al 2000) at similar optical magnitudes.

We thank CXC for their excellent work, G. Garmire and N. Brandt for providing the CDF-N logN-logS, C. Reynolds, K. Arnold, K. Jahoda, D. Davis, K. Kuntz, D. Smith and A. Young for very helpful discussions. The project is funded under IDS program of R. Mushotzky, NSF grants AST-0084847 (A.J.B.) and AST-0084816 (L. L. C. ), the University of Wisconsin Research Committee with funds granted by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (A.J.B.) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (A.J.B.). D. B. S. gratefully acknowledges the hospitality of the MPE and is grateful for support from a senior award from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung and from NASA through Chandra Award number GO2-3191C.


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# Sharply increasing effective mass: a precursor of a spontaneous spin polarization in a dilute two-dimensional electron system

## 1 Introduction

At sufficiently low electron densities, two-dimensional (2D) electron systems become strongly correlated, because the kinetic energy is overpowered by energy of electron-electron interactions. The strength of the interactions is usually characterized by the ratio between the Coulomb energy and the Fermi energy, $`r_s=E_c/E_F`$, which, assuming that the effective electron mass is equal to the band mass, in the systems with single-valley spectrum reduces to the Wigner-Seitz radius, $`1/(\pi n_s)^{1/2}a_B`$ (here $`n_s`$ is the electron density and $`a_B`$ is the Bohr radius in semiconductor). There are several suggested candidates for the ground state of the system, for example, (i) Wigner crystal characterized by spatial and spin ordering , (ii) ferromagnetic Fermi liquid with spontaneous spin ordering , and (iii) paramagnetic Fermi liquid . In the strongly-interacting limit ($`r_s1`$), no analytical theory has been developed to date. According to numeric simulations , Wigner crystallization is expected in a very dilute regime, when $`r_s`$ reaches approximately 35. The refined numeric simulations  have predicted that prior to the crystallization, in the range of the interaction parameter $`25<r_s<35`$, the ground state of the system is a strongly correlated ferromagnetic Fermi liquid. A paramagnetic Fermi liquid is realized at yet higher electron densities when the interactions are relatively weak ($`r_s1`$). The effective mass, $`m`$, and Landé $`g`$ factor within the Fermi liquid theory are renormalized due to spin exchange effects, with renormalization of the $`g`$ factor being dominant compared to that of the effective mass . Alternatively, near the onset of Wigner crystallization, strong increase of the effective mass is expected .

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in the electron properties of dilute 2D systems due to the observation of an unexpected metal-insulator transition (MIT) in zero magnetic field, strong metallic temperature dependence of the resistance in these systems, and a giant positive magnetoresistance in a magnetic field parallel to the 2D plane (for a review, see Ref. ). The most pronounced effects have been observed in high-mobility silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), with the low-temperature drop of the resistance reaching an order of magnitude and magnetoresistance exceeding five orders of magnitude. Significant progress has been recently made in understanding the metallic behaviour of the resistivity and its suppression by a magnetic field ; the metal-insulator transition, however, still lacks adequate theoretical description.

In this paper, which summarizes results obtained in Refs. , we report measurements of the effective mass, $`m`$, and Landé $`g`$ factor in a wide range of electron densities including the immediate vicinity of the MIT. We have used two independent methods to determine these parameters. In the first method, we have studied low-temperature magnetotransport in a parallel magnetic field. It turns out that the magnetic field, $`B_c`$, required to fully polarize electron spins, is a strictly linear function of the electron density: $`B_c(n_sn_\chi )`$ where $`n_\chi `$ is some finite electron density close to the critical electron density $`n_c`$ for the $`B=0`$ metal-insulator transition. Vanishing $`B_c`$ points to a sharply increasing spin susceptibility, $`\chi gm`$, and gives evidence in favour of the spontaneous spin polarization at a finite electron density. (Similar conclusion about possible spontaneous spin polarization in the dilute 2D electron system in silicon has been reached in Ref. .) Comparing our data for zero-field resistivity with the recent theory , we extract the values of $`m`$ and $`g`$ separately. It turns out that it is the value of the effective mass that becomes strongly (by more than a factor of 3) enhanced with decreasing electron density, while the $`g`$ factor remains nearly constant and close to its value in bulk silicon. In the second method, we have determined the effective mass by analyzing temperature dependence of the weak-field Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations and found good agreement with the data obtained by the first method. Furthermore, using tilted magnetic fields, we find that the value of the effective mass does not depend on the degree of spin polarization, which points to a spin-independent origin of the effective mass enhancement. This is in clear contradiction with existing theories .

## 2 Samples and experimental technique

Measurements have been made in a rotator-equipped Oxford dilution refrigerator with a base temperature of $`30`$ mK on low-disordered (100)-silicon samples similar to those previously used in Ref. . Peak electron mobilities in these samples are close to 3 m2/Vs at 0.1 K. To minimize the contact resistance, which tends to grow very high at mK temperatures and low electron density, thin gaps in the gate metallization have been introduced; this allows for maintaining high electron density near the contacts (about $`1.5\times 10^{12}`$ cm-2) regardless of its value in the main part of the sample. These gaps are narrow enough ($`<100`$ nm) for the given gate-oxide thickness to provide a smoothly descending electrostatic potential from the high-density part to the low-density part. The resistance, $`R_{xx}`$, has been measured by a standard 4-terminal technique at a low frequency (0.4 Hz) to minimize the out-of-phase signal. Excitation current has been kept low (0.1-0.2 nA) to ensure that measurements are taken in the linear regime of response; the power generated in the samples has been maintained under $`10^{14}`$ W. To verify that the electrons are not overheated, we have studied the temperature dependence of the amplitude of the SdH oscillations; the latter has been found to follow the theoretical curve down to temperatures less than 50 mK (for more on this, see below).

## 3 Experimental results

We start by showing a low-temperature longitudinal magnetoresistance $`R_{xx}`$ in a perpendicular magnetic field $`B_{}`$ for a relatively high (Fig. 1(a)) and relatively low (Fig. 1(b)) electron densities. At the high density, positions of SdH oscillations correspond to “cyclotron” filling factors , some of which are marked by arrows. Indeed, the energy splittings $`\mathrm{\Delta }_s=g\mu _BB_{}`$ at “spin” filling factors, $`\nu =`$ 2, 6, 10… $`=4i2`$, in high-density Si MOSFETs are known to be much smaller than the splittings $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c=\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_cg\mu _BB_{}`$ at “cyclotron” filling factors, $`\nu =`$ 4, 8, 12… $`=4i`$, disregarding the odd $`\nu `$ valley splitting which is small (here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c=eB_{}/mc`$ is the cyclotron frequency and $`i=`$ 1, 2, 3…). The behaviour of the sample at a relatively high electron density is thus rather ordinary. In contrast, at low electron density (just above the metal-insulator transition which in this sample occurs at $`n_s=n_c=8\times 10^{10}`$ cm-2), the magnetoresistance looks quite different . The resistance minima are seen only at $`\nu =`$ 2, 6, and 10 (see the inset); there is also a minimum at $`\nu =1`$ (not shown in the figure) corresponding to the valley splitting. There are neither dips nor other anomalies at magnetic fields corresponding to $`\nu =`$ 4, 8, or 12 where cyclotron minima are expected.

Figure 2 shows how the resistance minima corresponding to the cyclotron splittings gradually disappear as the electron density is reduced. At the highest electron densities (the lower curves), deep resistance minima near even filling factors are seen ($`\nu =`$ 4, 6, and 8 in Fig. 2(a); $`\nu =`$ 10, 12, and 16 in Fig. 2(b)), and a shallow minimum is visible at $`\nu =14`$ in Fig. 2(b). As $`n_s`$ is reduced, the minima at $`\nu =`$ 4, 8, 12, and 16 become less deep, and at the lowest electron densities (the upper curves), neither of them is seen any longer, and only minima at $`\nu =`$ 6, 10, and 14 remain.

Our results thus show that as one approaches the metal-insulator transition, the energy gaps at “cyclotron” filling factors become gradually smaller than those at “spin” filling factors and eventually vanish. The condition for vanishing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ is $`g\mu _BB_{}=\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$ (within the uncertainty associated with the broadening of the energy levels), or $`gm/2m_e=1`$, which is higher by more than a factor of five than the “normal” value of this ratio, $`gm/2m_e=0.19`$. Therefore, the spin susceptibility $`\chi gm`$ is strongly enhanced near the MIT.

One could attempt to link the observed behaviour to a many-body enhancement of spin gaps specific for a perpendicular magnetic field . However, the disappearance of the cyclotron splittings in a wide range of magnetic fields would require an enhanced $`g`$-factor which is independent of magnetic field, in contradiction with Ref. . On the other hand, our results are consistent with the suggestion  that the effective $`g`$ factor is nearly field-independent and approximately equal to its many-body enhanced zero-field value. To probe this conjecture, we have studied the parallel-field magnetotransport in a wide range of electron densities.

Typical curves of the low-temperature magnetoresistance $`\rho (B_{})`$ in a parallel magnetic field are displayed in Fig. 3. Note that the thickness of the 2D electron system in Si MOSFETs is small compared to the magnetic length in accessible fields, and, therefore, the parallel field couples largely to the electrons’ spins while the orbital effects are suppressed . The resistivity increases with field until it saturates at a constant value above a certain density-dependent magnetic field. According to Refs. , the saturation of the magnetoresistance indicates the onset of a complete spin polarization. In the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition, the magnetoresistance is strongly $`T`$-dependent down to the lowest achievable temperatures. As one moves away from the transition, however, the temperature dependences saturate at very low temperatures. The data shown below are obtained in this low-temperature limit where the magnetoresistance becomes temperature-independent.

In Fig. 4, we show how the normalized magnetoresistance, measured at different electron densities, collapses onto a single curve when plotted as a function of $`B_{}/B_c`$. The scaling parameter, $`B_c`$, has been normalized to correspond to the magnetic field at which the magnetoresistance saturates (within the accuracy with which the latter can be determined). The observed scaling is remarkably good for $`B_{}/B_c0.7`$ in the electron density range $`1.08\times 10^{11}10^{12}`$ cm-2, although with increasing $`n_s`$, the scaled experimental data occupy progressively shorter intervals on the resulting curve. Both at $`B_{}/B_c>0.7`$ and outside the indicated range of electron densities, the scaled data start to noticeably deviate from the universal curve. In particular, the scaling breaks down when one approaches ($`n_s<1.3n_c`$) the metal-insulator transition which in this sample occurs at zero magnetic field at $`n_c=8\times 10^{10}`$ cm-2. This is not surprising as the magnetoresistance near $`n_c`$ depends strongly on temperature, as discussed above. We note that the observed scaling dependence is described reasonably well by the theoretical dependence of $`\rho /\rho (0)`$ on the degree of spin polarization $`\xi =gm\mu _BB_{}/\pi \mathrm{}^2n_s=B_{}/B_c`$ predicted by the recent theory .

In Fig. 5, $`B_c`$ is plotted vs. $`n_s`$. With high accuracy, $`B_c`$ is proportional to the deviation of the electron density from its critical value, i.e., to $`(n_sn_c)`$, over a wide range of electron densities. In other words, the field, at which the magnetoresistance saturates, tends to vanish at $`n_c`$ (see also Refs. ). We emphasize that our procedure provides high accuracy for determining the behaviour of the field of saturation with electron density, i.e., the functional form of $`B_c(n_s)`$, even though the absolute value of $`B_c`$ is determined not so accurately. Note that at $`n_s`$ above $`2.4\times 10^{11}`$ cm-2, the saturation of the resistance is not reached in our magnetic field range; still, the high precision of the collapse of the high-density experimental curves onto the same scaling curve as the low-density data allows us to draw conclusions about the validity of the obtained law $`B_c(n_s)`$ over a much wider range of electron densities.

The observed tendency of $`B_c`$ to vanish at a finite electron density is consistent with the strong increase of the spin susceptibility $`\chi gm`$  and gives evidence in favour of a spontaneous spin polarization at $`n_\chi n_c`$. In principle, either $`g`$ or $`m`$ (or both) may be responsible for the strong increase of the spin susceptibility. As has already been mentioned, within the Fermi liquid theory, both the effective mass and $`g`$ factor are renormalized due to spin exchange effects, with renormalization of the $`g`$ factor being dominant compared to that of the effective mass. In contrast, the dominant increase of the effective mass follows from an alternative description of the strongly-interacting electron system beyond the Fermi liquid approach . To separate $`g`$ and $`m`$, we have measured the temperature-dependent conductivity in zero magnetic field and analyzed the data in the spirit of recent theory . According to this theory, $`\sigma `$ is a linear function of temperature:

$$\frac{\sigma (T)}{\sigma _0}=1A^{}k_BT,$$
(1)
where the slope, $`A^{}`$, is determined by the interaction-related parameters: the Fermi liquid constants, $`F_0^a`$ and $`F_1^s`$:

$$A^{}=\frac{(1+\alpha F_0^a)gm}{\pi \mathrm{}^2n_s}.$$
(2)
The factor $`\alpha `$ is equal to 8 in our case . This theoretical relation allows us to determine the many-body enhanced $`g`$ factor and mass $`m`$ separately using the data for the slope $`A^{}`$ and the product $`gm`$.

Typical dependences of the normalized conductivity on temperature, $`\sigma (T)/\sigma _0`$, are displayed in Fig. 6 at different electron densities above $`n_c`$; the value $`\sigma _0`$, which has been used to normalize $`\sigma `$, was obtained by extrapolating the linear interval of the $`\sigma (T)`$ dependence to $`T=0`$. As long as the deviation $`|\sigma /\sigma _01|`$ is sufficiently small, the conductivity $`\sigma `$ increases linearly with decreasing $`T`$ in agreement with Eq. (1), until it saturates at the lowest temperatures. As seen from the figure, the linear interval of the dependence is wide enough to make a reliable fit.

The $`n_s`$ dependence of the inverse slope $`1/A^{}`$, extracted from the $`\sigma (T)`$ data, is shown in the inset to Fig. 5 by open circles. Over a wide range of electron densities, the values $`1/A^{}`$ and $`\mu _BB_c`$ turn out to be close to each other. The low-density data for $`1/A^{}`$ are approximated well by a linear dependence which extrapolates to the critical electron density $`n_c`$ in a similar way to the behaviour of the polarization field $`B_c`$.

In Fig. 7, we show the so-determined values $`g/g_0`$ and $`m/m_b`$ as a function of the electron density (here $`g_0=2`$ is the $`g`$ factor in bulk silicon, $`m_b`$ is the band mass equal to $`0.19m_e`$, and $`m_e`$ is the free electron mass). In the high $`n_s`$ region (relatively weak interactions), the enhancement of both $`g`$ and $`m`$ is relatively small, both values slightly increasing with decreasing electron density in agreement with earlier data . Also, the renormalization of the $`g`$ factor is dominant compared to that of the effective mass, which is consistent with theoretical studies .

In contrast, the renormalization at low $`n_s`$ (near the critical region), where $`r_s1`$, is much more striking. As the electron density is decreased, the renormalization of the effective mass overshoots abruptly while that of the $`g`$ factor remains relatively small, $`gg_0`$, without tending to increase. Hence, the current analysis indicates that it is the effective mass, rather than the $`g`$ factor, that is responsible for the drastically enhanced $`gm`$ value near the metal-insulator transition.

Since the procedure for extracting $`g`$ and $`m`$ described above relies on theoretically calculated functional form for the slope $`A^{}`$ , we have performed independent measurements of the effective mass based on the temperature analysis of the amplitude, $`A`$, of the weak-field (sinusoidal) SdH oscillations. A typical temperature dependence of $`A`$ for the normalized resistance, $`R_{xx}/R_0`$ (where $`R_0`$ is the average resistance), is displayed in Fig. 8. To determine the effective mass, we use the method of Ref.  extending it to much lower electron densities and temperatures. We fit the data for $`A(T)`$ using the formula

$$A(T)=A_0\frac{2\pi ^2k_BT/\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_c}{\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi ^2k_BT/\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_c)},$$
(3)
where $`A_0=4\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ^2k_BT_D/\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_c)`$ and $`T_D`$ is the Dingle temperature. As the latter is related to the level width through the expression $`T_D=\mathrm{}/2\pi k_B\tau `$ (where $`\tau `$ is the elastic scattering time) , damping of the SdH oscillations with temperature may be influenced by temperature-dependent $`\tau `$. We have verified that in the studied low-temperature limit for electron densities down to $`1\times 10^{11}`$ cm-2, possible corrections to the mass value caused by the temperature dependence of $`\tau `$ (and hence $`T_D`$) are within our experimental uncertainty which is estimated at about 10%. Note that the amplitude of the SdH oscillations follows the calculated curve down to the lowest achieved temperatures, which confirms that the electrons were in a good thermal contact with the bath and were not overheated. The fact that the experimental dependence $`A(T)`$ follows the theoretical curve justify applicability of Eq. (3) to this strongly-interacting electron system.

The so-determined effective mass is shown in the inset to Fig. 7. In quantitative agreement with the results obtained by the alternative method described above (the dotted line), the effective mass sharply increases with decreasing $`n_s`$. The agreement between the results obtained by two independent methods adds confidence in our results and conclusions. Our data are also consistent with the data for spin and cyclotron gaps obtained by magnetocapacitance spectroscopy .

A strong enhancement of $`m`$ at low electron densities may originate from spin effects . With the aim of probing a possible contribution from the spin effects, we have introduced a parallel magnetic field component to align the electrons’ spins. In Fig. 9, we show the behaviour of the effective mass with the degree of spin polarization, $`p=(B_{}^2+B_{}^2)^{1/2}/B_c`$. As seen from the figure, within our accuracy, the effective mass $`m`$ does not depend on $`p`$. Therefore, the $`m(n_s)`$ dependence is robust, the origin of the mass enhancement has no relation to the electrons’ spins and exchange effects .

## 4 Discussion

Under the conditions of our experiments, the interaction parameter, $`r_s`$, is larger by a factor of $`2m/m_b`$ than the Wigner-Seitz radius and reaches approximately 50, which is above the theoretical estimate for the onset of Wigner crystallization. As has already been mentioned, two approaches to calculate the renormalization of $`m`$ and $`g`$ have been formulated. The first one exploits the Fermi liquid model extending it to relatively large $`r_s`$. Its main outcome is that the renormalization of $`g`$ is large compared to that of $`m`$ . In the limiting case of high $`r_s`$, one may expect a divergence of the $`g`$ factor that corresponds to the Stoner instability. These predictions are in obvious contradiction to our data: (i) the behaviour of the 2D dilute system in the regime of the strongly enhanced susceptibility — close to the onset of spontaneous spin polarization and Wigner crystallization — is governed by the effective mass, rather than the $`g`$ factor, through the interaction parameter $`r_s`$; and (ii) the insensitivity of the effective mass to spin effects also cannot be accounted for.

The other theoretical approach either employs analogy between a strongly interacting 2D electron system and He3  or applies Gutzwiller’s variational method  to Si MOSFETs . It predicts that near the crystallization point, the renormalization of $`m`$ is dominant compared to that of $`g`$ and that the effective mass tends to diverge at the transition. Although the sharp increase of the mass is in agreement with our findings, it is the expected dependence of $`m`$ on the degree of spin polarization that is not confirmed by our data: the model of Ref.  predicts that the effective mass should increase with increasing spin polarization, whereas the prediction of the other model  is the opposite.

Thus, the existing theories fail to explain our finding that in a dilute 2D electron system the effective mass is strongly enhanced and does not depend on the degree of spin polarization. The fact that the spin exchange is not responsible for the observed mass enhancement reduces the chances for the occurrence of the ferromagnetic Fermi liquid prior to the Wigner crystallization. However, should the spin exchange be small, the spin effects may still come into play closer to the onset of Wigner crystallization where the Fermi energy may continue dropping as caused by mass enhancement.

In summary, we have found that in very dilute two-dimensional electron systems in silicon, the effective mass sharply increases with decreasing electron density, while the $`g`$ factor remains nearly constant and close to its value in bulk silicon. The enhanced effective mass does not depend on the degree of the spin polarization and, therefore, its increase is not related to spin exchange effects, in contradiction with existing theories. The corresponding strong rise of the spin susceptibility may be a precursor of a spontaneous spin polarization; unlike in the Stoner scenario, the latter originates from the enhancement of the effective mass rather than the increase of the $`g`$ factor. Our results show that the dilute 2D electron system in silicon behaves well beyond the weakly interacting Fermi liquid.

## Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge discussions with I. L. Aleiner, D. Heiman, F. Kusmartsev, M. P. Sarachik, B. Spivak, and S. A. Vitkalov. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grants DMR-9988283 and DMR-0129652, the Sloan Foundation, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Ministry of Sciences, and the Programme “The State Support of Leading Scientific Schools”.

## References


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In spite of the great success in the quantum field theory, there is still no consistent scenario in which quantum gravity is included. The most promising scenario in this direction would be the string theory. In the context of the string theory, the consistency is ensured by the requirement of additional dimensions. As for the first time, sizes of extra dimensions had been assumed to be as small as $`M_p^1`$. Then later observations showed that there is no reason to believe such tiny compactification radius. In these models with large extra dimensions, the observed Planck mass is obtained by the relation $`M_p^2=M_{}^{n+2}V_n`$, where $`M_{}`$ and $`V_n`$ denote the fundamental scale of gravity and the volume of the $`n`$-dimensional compact space. Assuming more than two extra dimensions, $`M_{}`$ may be close to the TeV scale without conflicting any observable bound. The most natural embedding of this picture in the string theory context will be realized by the brane construction. Of course, the brane construction will be a viable candidate for the Universe even if the fundamental scale is not so low as the TeV scale. In the brane world scenario, there is no obvious reason to believe that the fundamental scale is as high as the Planck scale.

Although this new idea inspired many physicists to lead them to a new paradigm of phenomenology, a drastic modification is required for the conventional cosmological scenarios. Models of inflation and baryogenesis are especially sensitive to such a low fundamental scale, i.e., $`M_{}<<M_{GUT}`$ where $`M_{GUT}`$ denotes the standard (old) GUT scale. To avoid extreme fine-tuning, one should reconstruct conventional scenarios of the standard cosmology. This requires inclusion of novel ideas that are quite different from the conventional one. For example, if one puts the inflaton field on the brane, their masses are required to be unnaturally small. On the other hand, in generic cases, the mass of the inflaton is bounded from below to achieve successful reheating. Thus it seems quite difficult to construct a model for inflation driven by a field on the brane. A way to avoid this difficulty is put forward by Arkani-Hamed et al., where inflation is assumed to occur before the stabilization of the internal dimensions. In this case, however, late oscillation of the radion field is a serious problem, which may or may not be solved by the second weak inflation. One may find other ways to realize inflation in models with large extra dimensions. Due to some dynamical mechanisms, the extra dimensions may be stabilized before the Universe exited from inflation. If the stabilization of the internal dimensions occurred before the end of inflation, it is rather difficult to construct a model for inflation by the field on the brane, since their energy densities are suppressed. In this case one may use the bulk field rather than a field on the brane. In this direction, it is found in ref. that the phase transition of the hybrid inflation becomes fast because of the huge number of the destabilized Kaluza-Klein modes at the end of inflation. Although the problem of the slow phase transition seems to be solved, another problem appears because of the excited Kaluza-Klein modes. Overproduction of the excited Kaluza-Klein modes is a serious problem, because they efficiently emit Kaluza-Klein gravitons when they decay into lower excited modes. Thus one should conclude that the models for bulk inflation with low $`M_{}`$ are not a candidate for the last (including weak) inflation. There is an another serious obstacle in constructing models for hybrid inflation by the bulk field. Although the scale of inflation is enhanced by the factor of $`O(M_p^2/M_{}^2)`$ for the bulk field, it is still difficult to produce the required CMB anisotropy, because of the serious constraint from the loop correction. In this respect, realizing successful hybrid inflation with fundamental scale $`M_{}`$ as low as the TeV scale seems very difficult both for conventional and weak inflation. 222To avoid the most serious constraint from the CMB anisotropy, one may consider curvaton scenario for an alternative.

In the brane world scenario, one may find another interesting possibility, “brane inflation”, in which the interbrane distance is used for the inflaton. In this case, hybrid version of brane inflation is naturally obtained by the tachyon instability. In generic models for hybrid brane inflation, the system develops tachyon modes when the brane distance becomes small, then leads to a natural end of inflation via extra field as in the conventional hybrid models. This type of scenario has been discussed on various occasions. On the other hand, however, there are problems333The properties of the tachyon may be attractive for the people who want to explore a new paradigm of the tachyon cosmology. related to the peculiar properties of the tachyon field. For example, reheating after inflation is not so easy as in the conventional hybrid inflation. Moreover, the analysis on such a collapsing process requires more investigations on the quantum deformation of the branes with manifestation of the couplings to matter fields. According to the above viewpoints, it should be interesting if one can construct models for hybrid brane inflation that does not depend on the physics related to the tachyon.

In this paper we will consider new types of hybrid brane inflation. The instability at the end of inflation is induced by the localized fields on the brane. During inflation, their cross terms are suppressed by the brane distance. Then at the end of inflation, the cross terms become as large as O(1). We focus our attention to the possible models where the brane distance drives hybrid inflation after the radion stabilization. In our model, unlike other models for hybrid inflation in the brane Universe, the tachyon is not required. Inflation ends because the localized fields on each brane begin to interact. Then the interaction destabilizes the potential on the brane. Unlike the tachyon, the field on the brane can reheat the Universe. The most attractive point in our model is that reheating is realized by the localized matter fields on the branes, which may have (1) couplings to the standard model matter fields, while the serious loop correction to the inflaton mass is well suppressed during inflation.

In section 2, we will first make a brief review of hybrid inflation in the braneworld cosmology. There are two important possibilities along this direction, one is hybrid inflation due to the conventional field, and the other is brane inflation. In this paper we consider the latter possibility, inflation due to the branes at a distance. Then we show explicit examples of our idea, non-tachyonic hybrid inflation due to branes separated at a distance. The potential on one brane is destabilized by the interaction between fields on the other brane, which terminates the brane inflation. The destabilized field can immediately decay into fields in the standard model. The important point is that the field destabilized at the end of inflation is not a tachyon but a conventional field on the brane, which may have couplings to the fields in the standard model. In spite of the large interaction after inflation, the serious loop correction, which is discussed in ref. to put serious constraint on hybrid inflation, is exponentially suppressed and negligible during inflation.

## 2 Hybrid brane inflation

If the brane world represents the present Universe, supersymmetry is required to be broken by soft supersymmetry breaking terms, unless the fundamental scale is as low as the electroweak scale. Flat directions, which become flat in the supersymmetric limit, may have been raised by small supersymmetry breaking terms. The brane distance, which will be parametrized by a massless moduli field in the supersymmetric limit, will also be raised.

Intersecting brane world with angles is discussed by many authors as a candidate for supersymmetry breaking configurations that may realize the hybrid brane inflation. Within the context of interesting brane models, it was shown that obtaining successful inflationary period is possible from slightly non-supersymmetric configurations consisting of D4-branes interescting at one angle on a six-dimensional compact space. In these models for inflation, the inflaton field is the moduli field that represents the distance between branes, whose potential is raised by the supersymmetry breaking. Inflation is terminated by the tachyon condensation that destabilizes the brane configuration when two branes come close and collapse into lower dimensional branes.

Although these models are interesting and theoretically attractive, reheating and the collapsing process is not well investigated, which may have serious difficulty. To clarify our purpose of this paper, we should first discuss why reheating is difficult in thess scenarios. The simplest version of brane inflation begins with a parallel brane and an anti-brane at some separation. Although parallel branes preserve supersymmetry and there is no force between them, the brane-antibrane system can break supersymmetry so that a nonvanishing potential energy appears to induce an attractive force between them. This potential drives inflation. The form of the potential changes once the branes have reached a critical separation, where branes become unstable to annihilate or collapse into lower dimensional branes. The instability of the brane-antibrane system is described by the condensation of a tachyonic mode. Because of its peculiarity, the tachyon starts from the unstable maximum at $`T=0`$ and rolls down to $`T\mathrm{}`$. Here the crucial difference from a conventional hybrid inflation is that the tachyon cannot oscillate to reheat the Universe in the usual way. Although there are papers in which reheating by varying the tachyon is discussed, it is still interesting to find a model for hybrid brane inflation that is not due to the tachyon condensation.

From the above viewpoints, in order to obtain successful reheating, we investigate models for hybrid brane inflation without the tachyon. In our model, the origin of the supersymmetry breaking is not the angle between branes. Here we assume that supersymmetry is broken on the brane. We expect that at the end of inflation, when two branes come close, the trans-bulk interaction between localized fields on different branes becomes O(1) and destabilizes the potential. We show two examples in this direction. In one case the potential is destabilized by a tree level interaction, and in the other case the destabilization occurs dynamically.

### 2.1 Models with tree-level interactions

Here we consider a brane configuration that does not invoke the tachyon at the end of brane inflation. If one considers domain walls instead of branes, walls should consist of independent field configurations that satisfy independent BPS conditions at least tree level. Supersymmetry is expected to be broken by the fields on the branes.

Let us consider a potential on one brane,

$$V(\varphi _a)_a=m^2\varphi _a^2+\lambda _a\varphi _a^4$$
(2.1)
where the field $`\varphi _a`$ is localized on the brane. We also consider a potential on the other brane,

$$V(\varphi _b)_b=\lambda _b\left[\varphi _b^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\right]^2$$
(2.2)
where $`\varphi _b`$ denotes the field that is localized on the brane. The interaction between $`\varphi _a`$ and $`\varphi _b`$ is exponentiall suppressed by the brane distance,

$$V(\varphi _a,\varphi _b)_{int}=\lambda _Ie^{(M_{}r)^2}\varphi _a^2\varphi _b^2$$
(2.3)
where $`r`$ denotes the distance between branes.

In our model, the inflaton field is the moduli field that parametrizes the distance between branes, which we denote by $`\sigma M_{}^2r`$. The potential for the moduli field $`\sigma `$ is flat if the BPS condition is satisfied, but will be raised when supersymmetry is broken by the fields on the branes. The four-dimensional effective potential is

$$V(\varphi _a,\varphi _b,\sigma )=m^2\varphi _a^2+\lambda _a\varphi _a^4+\lambda _b\left[\varphi _b^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\right]^2\lambda _Ie^{(\sigma /M_{})^2}\varphi _a^2\varphi _b^2+m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2.$$
(2.4)
Inflation starts when $`\sigma `$ is large. Then the minimum of the potential on each brane is located at $`\varphi _a=0`$ and $`\varphi _b=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Here we assume that the cosmological constant is tuned so that it vanishes after inflation.

Then what happens at the end of inflation, when $`\sigma `$ becomes smaller than $`M_{}`$ ? When two branes come close, the trans-bulk interaction between fields (2.3) becomes strong, then it destabilizes the potential $`V(\varphi _a)_a`$. The destabilization occurs when $`m^2<\lambda _I\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. In this model the localized field $`\varphi _a`$ can couple to the field in the standard model through O(1) interactions, which makes it easier to reheat the Universe after brane inflation.

Our model also presents a new kind of steep binding energy between branes or quasi-BPS domain walls. The localized potential is destabilized only when branes come close, which appears as a short-range attraction between branes. The attractive force is induced by the field that breaks supersymmetry on the brane.

### 2.2 Models with dynamical destabilization

We consider a familiar mechanism for the radiative symmetry breaking in minimal supersymmetric standard model(MSSM) as the most naive realization of our idea. In MSSM, after supersymmetry breaking, the Higgs potential is destabilized due to the loop correction from the top quark, because of its large Yukawa coupling. On the other hand, in models of the brane world, one can find many models for the fermion mass hierarchy that utilizes the localization of the matter fields along extra dimensions. Here we consider a model in which the top and the Higgs are localized on different branes, and the supersymmetry breaking is induced by the tree level soft mass $`O(M_{})TeV`$. In the true vacuum, these two branes must coincide to certificate the large Yukawa coupling for the top quark. However, in the early Universe, these branes may be placed at a distance along extra dimensions, which means that the Higgs potential is not destabilized at this time. Weak brane inflation can take place within the above settings, if the effective mass for the brane-distance moduli is well suppressed. Reheating is successful in this model, because the field that decays after inflation is the conventional Higgs field on the brane. The potential near the origin becomes steep for the inflaton field, because of its exponential dependence on the distance between branes.

In general, inflation model with higher energy scale is more realistic. To construct such models, we should include additional components so that their typical scale become higher than the above simplest example. In ordinary models for inflation, a light inflaton is a problem since it cannot reheat the Universe up to the MeV scale. However, in the above example, the field that decays and reheats the Universe at the end of inflation may have O(TeV) mass and O(1) interaction to the fields on the brane. The mass of the inflaton after inflation becomes much larger than that was during inflation, because the potential becomes steep near the origin.

### 2.3 Cosmological constraints

When one considers inflation, one of the most obvious expectations will be that it explains the origin of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy of the present Universe. On the other hand, sometimes, the requirement from the CMB anisotropy imposes serious constraint on the models for inflation. Although the constraint from the COBE measurement disappears when one considers alternative mechanisms, such as cosmic strings or curvaton hypothesis, it is still very important to ask whether the inflation itself can produce the required CMB anisotropy.

For the models that we have discussed above, it is easy to see that no fine-tuning is required if it is liberated from the COBE constraint. As we have mentioned above, reheating is successful in our model. Thus our models for hybrid inflation are safely used at least for weak inflation.

According to the above arguments, here we consider the question whether our model can produce the required CMB anisotropy during inflation without peculiar fine-tunings.

For the standard models for hybrid inflation, the requirement from the COBE mesurement puts severe bounds on their scales and couplings, because of the large loop correction. For example, here we consider the original hybrid inflation model with the potential

$`V(\varphi ,\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`V_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g\varphi ^2\sigma ^2`$ (2.5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\lambda \varphi ^4{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\varphi ^2\varphi ^2.`$
Let us consider the loop correction, which comes from the $`\varphi `$ field. If there is supersymmetry, the result is simplified and only the logarithmic part of the following form is relevant,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }V_{1loop}(\sigma )\frac{1}{64\pi ^2}\left(m^4(\sigma )ln\frac{m^2(\sigma )}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\right)$$
(2.6)
where the effective mass of the $`\varphi `$ field is given by

$$m^2(\sigma )=(g^2\sigma ^2m_\varphi ^2)$$
(2.7)
and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the renormalization scale. The flatness conditions require

$$g\frac{<\varphi >}{M_p}$$
(2.8)
and the COBE normalization requirement gives an additional constraint

$$<\varphi >^4\sigma _{COBE}(10^9GeV)^5\frac{V_0^{\frac{1}{2}}}{(1MeV)^2}$$
(2.9)
where $`\sigma _{COBE}`$ denotes the expectation value of $`\sigma `$ when the COBE scales leave the horizon. Considering these conditions, one must conclude that hybrid inflation is not viable at the TeV scale. In this model, the lower bound for the energy scale is about $`10^9`$ GeV. 444In ref., it is discussed that an alternative model, which is called inverted hybrid inflation, can evade the above serious constraints and works even at the TeV scale.

Here we consider the potential (2.4) and examine the loop correction from $`\varphi _a`$ and $`\varphi _b`$. In our model, the relevant coupling is given by eq.(2.3). During inflation, when $`r`$ is much larger than $`M_{}^1`$, the loop corrections from the field $`\varphi _b`$ does not depend on $`\sigma `$ because the $`\sigma `$-dependent part of $`m(\sigma )_{\varphi _b}`$ is actually zero during inflation. On the other hand, although the loop corrections from the field $`\varphi _a`$ does not vanish, the $`\sigma `$-dependent part of $`m(\sigma )_{\varphi _a}`$ is suppressed by the exponential factor in eq.(2.3), which makes the loop correction irrelevant to the inflaton potential.

Although the serious constraint from the loop correction is removed in our model, another problem still remains. Assuming that the inflaton fluctuation is the origin of the structure of the Universe, one will find the constraint

$$M_p^3\frac{V_0^{3/2}}{V^{}}=5.3\times 10^4.$$
(2.10)
This implies that

$`\sigma _{COBE}`$ $``$ $`M_p^3V_0^{3/2}(5.3\times 10^4)^1m_\sigma ^2`$ (2.11)
$``$ $`10^4GeV\left({\displaystyle \frac{V_0}{(10^5GeV)^4}}\right)^{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{V_0/M_p^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}\right)`$
where $`\sigma _{COBE}`$ is is the expectation value of the inflaton when scales explored by COBE leave the horizon. Here we have used the simplest potential for the inflaton field, $`V(\sigma )=V_0+m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2`$.

Obviously, the bare mass for the $`\sigma `$ field is required to be smaller than $`\sqrt{V_0/M_p^2}`$. If supersymmetry is broken on the brane and the transition to the bulk fields occurs at the tree level, one can estimate an upper limit for the soft mass by dimensional analysis,

$$m_{modulus}^2G_{4+n_E}\frac{|F_{brane}|^2}{R_E^{n_E}},$$
(2.12)
where $`G_{4+n_E}`$ is the gravitational constant in the $`4+n_E`$ dimensions and $`F_{brane}`$ denotes the supersymmetry breaking on the brane. Without additional symmetries or mechanisms, the soft masses for the modulus are expected to be a few orders smaller than the above upper limit. The lower limit will be given by the requirement from the conventional soft supersymmetry breaking terms in the supersymmetric extension of the standard model. Then the required supersymmetry breaking on the brane is about $`F_{brane}`$TeV. If the mass for the inflaton is required to be much smaller than the above lower limit, the model requires peculiar fine-tunings or specific mechanisms to forbid the soft mass, even if one uses D-term inflation. This problem arises when the scale of D-term inflation is much smaller than the required F-terms on the brane. In our model, the energy density during inflation can be derived from the D-term, but the scale is assumed to be larger than the TeV scale. Thus in our case, we may assume $`|F_{brane}|^2<V_0`$ during inflation.

To be more explicit, here we consider a model with $`V_0M_{}^4(10^5GeV)^4`$ and $`m_\sigma 0.1\times \sqrt{V_0}/M_p`$. Then the required value is $`\sigma _{COBE}10^2GeV`$, which is smaller than the expected value of the field when the trigger field terminates inflation at $`\sigma M_{}^1`$. As inflation ends at $`\sigma 10^5GeV`$, the produced CMB anisotropy becomes much smaller than the requirement from the COBE mesurement. Thus we conclude that the fluctuation of the inflation in our model cannot produce the required structure of the Universe, if the scale of inflation is as low as the TeV scale.

In our model, the energy density on the brane has a limit $`V_0<M_{}^4`$, where $`M_{}`$ is the fundamental scale. On the other hand, $`\sigma _{COBE}`$ is bounded from below, because inflation is terminated at $`\sigma M_{}`$. Considering the above limits, we can find a bound for the fundamental scale in order to satisfy the requirement from the COBE mesurement. After simple calculations, we find $`M_{}>10^6`$ GeV, which is weaker than the one for the original model for hybrid inflation.

Our conclusion in this section is the following. Although the serious constraint from the loop correction is removed in our model, it is still difficult to produce the required CMB anisotropy by inflation with low energy scale. The requirement is $`M_{}>10^6`$ GeV, which is an improvement from the original model for hybrid inflation.

## 3 Conclusions and Discussions

In this paper, we have proposed new idea for brane inflation, which does not utilize the tachyon. Our model may as well be considered as a novel realization of hybrid inflation, which is not discussed yet.

In any models for brane Universe, it is natural to think that some fields are localized on branes at a distance. It is also natural to expect that these fields may have $`O(1)`$ couplings when branes are on top of each other. If the interaction destabilizes a potential, our idea for hybrid brane inflation works.

With these things in mind, we have constructed two explicit examples. There are two advantages compared to the previous models for tachyonic brane inflation or standard hybrid inflation. The most attractive point is that reheating is natural in our model. It is also attractive that the serious constraint from the loop correction is evaded. As we have stated above, our settings are quite natural in models for the brane world.

## 4 Acknowledgment

We wish to thank K.Shima for encouragement, and our colleagues in Tokyo University for their kind hospitality.