text:
# Interacting electrons in a two-dimensional disordered environment: Effect of a Zeeman magnetic field

## Abstract

The effect of a Zeeman magnetic field coupled to the spin of the electrons on the conducting properties of the disordered Hubbard model is studied. Using the Determinant Quantum Monte Carlo method, the temperature- and magnetic-field-dependent conductivity is calculated, as well as the degree of spin polarization. We find that the Zeeman magnetic field suppresses the metallic behavior present for certain values of interaction- and disorder-strength, and is able to induce a metal–insulator transition at a critical field strength. It is argued that the qualitative features of magnetoconductance in this microscopic model containing both repulsive interactions and disorder are in agreement with experimental findings in two-dimensional electron- and hole-gases in semiconductor structures.

A hundred years after the Nobel prize was awarded in 1902 for the discovery of the Zeeman effect and the subsequent explanation by Lorentz, applying a magnetic field continues to be a powerful means to elucidate puzzling phenomena in nature. One of the most recent examples is the interplay of interactions and disorder in electronic systems. This field has witnessed a revival of scientific activity after pioneering experiments in low-density silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) found clear indications of a metal–insulator transition (MIT) in effectively two–dimensional (2D) systems . Until then, electrons in a 2D disordered environment were thought to always form an insulating phase; this mind-set was based on the scaling theory of localization for non-interacting electrons, supplemented by perturbative treatments of weak interactions, as well as studies of the limiting case of very strong interactions. The surprising phenomena were soon confirmed in other semiconductor heterostructures, although the interpretation in terms of a quantum phase transition remains controversial, and a wide variety of experimental and theoretical approaches were unleashed at the problem .

Among these approaches is the application of magnetic fields. Contrary to the well-known effect of a magnetic field in weak-localization theory to disturb interference phenomena and hence undo localization and insulating behavior, the negative magnetoresistance effect , in the Si MOSFETs and similar heterostructures, the magnetic field is found to suppress the metallic behavior and therefore promote insulating behavior . The effect is present for all orientations of the magnetic field relative to the 2D plane of the electrons. In particular, a Zeeman magnetic field, applied parallel to the 2D plane of electrons and therefore coupling only to the spin, and not the orbital motion of the electrons, has been used extensively. This puts into focus the important role played by the spin degree of freedom of the electron, and its polarization .

In this Letter, we present a numerical study of a microscopic model for interacting electrons in a disordered environment including the effect of a Zeeman magnetic field. The present study extends our earlier work without a magnetic field , in which we found clear indications that interactions enhance the conductivity and lead to metallic behavior in a temperature range (about $`1/10`$ of the Fermi energy) similar to that of experiments. Later numerical approaches have sometimes  led to different conclusions from ours, but they either treat the problem within a Hartree-Fock method, or else use diagonalization methods which deal with considerably smaller numbers of electrons than can be studied in our approach. Very recently, an improved study using the same approach as in Ref. confirmed our main finding . While the numerical evidence is mixed concerning the occurrence of a MIT due to interactions, there is a consensus in favor of a Zeeman magnetic field tuned transition , as we shall describe in more detail below.

The microscopic model that we study is the disordered Hubbard model defined by:

$$\widehat{H}=\underset{i,j,\sigma }{}t_{ij}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }^{}+U\underset{j}{}n_jn_j\underset{j,\sigma }{}(\mu \sigma B_{})n_{j\sigma },$$
(1)
where $`c_{j\sigma }`$ is the annihilation operator for an electron at site $`j`$ with spin $`\sigma `$ and $`n_{j\sigma }=c_{j\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }^{}`$ is the occupation number operator. $`t_{ij}`$ is the nearest neighbor hopping integral (i.e. $`t_{ij}=0`$ if $`i`$ and $`j`$ are not neighboring sites), $`U`$ is the on-site repulsion between electrons of opposite spin, $`\mu `$ the chemical potential, and $`B_{}`$ the Zeeman magnetic field. We consider a square lattice. Disorder is introduced by taking the hopping parameters $`t_{ij}`$ from a probability distribution $`P(t_{ij})=1/\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$ for $`t_{ij}[t\mathrm{\Delta }_t/2,t+\mathrm{\Delta }_t/2]`$, and zero otherwise. $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$ measures (bond) disorder strength .

We use the Determinant Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method, which has been applied extensively to the Hubbard model, both with and without disorder . While disorder and interaction can be varied in a controlled way and strong interaction is treatable, QMC is limited in the size of the lattice, and the sign problem restricts the temperatures which can be studied. To alleviate the sign problem, we use off-diagonal rather than diagonal disorder, and tune the value of $`\mu `$ such that density $`n=0.5`$ (where the sign problem is less severe). Interestingly, the sign problem is also reduced by the presence of disorder .

The quantity of immediate interest when studying possible metal–insulator transitions is the conductivity and in particular its $`T`$– and $`B_{}`$–dependence. By the fluctuation–dissipation theorem $`\sigma _{dc}`$ is related to the zero-frequency limit of the current-current correlation function. A complication of the QMC simulations is that the correlation functions are obtained as a function of imaginary time. To avoid a numerical analytic continuation procedure to obtain frequency-dependent quantities, which would require Monte Carlo data of higher accuracy than can be produced in the presence of even a tolerable sign problem and the need for disorder averaging, we employ an approximation to obtain $`\sigma _{dc}`$ from the wavevector- and imaginary-time-dependent current-current correlation function (see e.g. , where also tests of the approximation are discussed). Another interesting quantity to study in conjunction with the magnetoconductivity is the degree of spin-polarization $`P`$ of the electronic system: $`P=(n_{}n_{})/(n_{}+n_{})`$, where $`n_{},n_{}`$ are the average spin-densities of the corresponding number operators in (1).

In order to study the effect of the Zeeman magnetic field $`B_{}`$ on the metallic behavior, we start from the case with density $`n=0.5`$ and disorder strength $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t=2.0`$ for which the model exhibits clear metallic behavior: $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ rising when lowering temperature $`T`$ . Figure 1 shows that turning on $`B_{}`$ reduces the conductivity and suppresses the metallic behavior; at field strength $`B_{}=0.4`$, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ appears $`T`$-independent (within the error bars), and at larger field strengths shows a tendency to decrease upon lowering $`T`$. We do not expect $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ to go to zero, as for a real insulator, unless very low T and very large lattices (out of reach of our computational approach) are employed. Nevertheless, Fig. 1 shows the qualitative features of a magnetic-field-driven metal–insulator transition, similar to what is seen in experiment . Previous numerical approaches using different techniques have also produced this effect .

In order to ascertain that we are indeed dealing with a critical phenomenon and in order to locate the critical field strength, we focus on fields close to $`B_{}=0.4`$. It is important to note that the effect of $`B_{}`$ is to polarize the electronic system (with our choice in (1), $`n_{}`$ is promoted at the expense of $`n_{}`$) and therefore a large enough $`B_{}`$ will result in electrons with spin down only and, because of the nature of the Hubbard interaction, in a non-interacting system . Consequently, in the limit of large 2D lattices and low temperature, the hopping disorder will force the conductivity to vanish. Subtracting out the non-zero value of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ that we obtain at very large $`B_{}`$ is then a systematic way to correct for finite size and non-zero $`T`$. In Figure 2, we show the resulting $`\delta \sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ vs. $`B_{}`$ for our lowest temperatures. A rather abrupt onset appears of $`\delta \sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ below $`B_{}0.5`$, which agrees with the field value where the curves of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ vs. $`T`$ change from insulating to metallic (Fig. 1). Our data for a 2D system in Fig. 2 are consistent with a linear vanishing of $`\delta \sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ as the (quantum) critical point is approached. At present, our results, while presenting compelling evidence for the transition itself, are clearly not precise enough to obtain critical exponents. Interestingly, a transition from insulator to metal upon increasing magnetic field, i.e. the known negative magnetoresistance effect, occurs in an amorphous three-dimensional Gd-Si alloy (showing a MIT at zero field), also with a linear vanishing of the conductivity .

In Figure 3, we show the resistivity $`\rho `$ ($`1/\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$) as a function of $`B_{}`$ for low $`T`$. The crossing point ($`B_{}=0.35\pm 0.10`$) demarks a critical field strength $`B_c`$ which separates fields for which the resistivity decreases when lowering temperature (low-field metallic behavior) from fields for which $`\rho `$ increases upon lowering $`T`$ (high-field insulating behavior). It is especially noteworthy that the critical field strength (which can be roughly estimated to lie between $`0.3`$ and $`0.5`$ from Figs. 2 and 3) is clearly lower than the field for which full spin-polarization sets in. Indeed, in Figure 4, we show how the spin polarization $`P`$, defined above, behaves as a function of $`B_{}`$ at the lowest temperature used: there is no reflection of the critical field strength in the behavior of the polarization and full spin-polarization only happens for $`B_{}>1.2`$. This feature of our data is in agreement with recent experiments performed on 2D electron- and hole-gases in GaAs and AlAs . Since complete spin-polarization is equivalent to a non-interacting system, the separation of the two field strengths and the incomplete polarization at the MIT present evidence that the Zeeman field tuned MIT must be seen as a property of a fully interacting many-body system, at least in the 2D disordered Hubbard model.

Another interesting feature of Figure 3 is what appears to be the saturation of resistivity at a field not much higher than $`B_c`$. Experiments also show this behavior, but only for AlAs, where the saturation is shown to coincide with full spin polarization . We argue that the on-site nature of the interactions in the Hubbard model make the saturation happen at much reduced field strength compared to that of complete polarization: at our rather low total density the minority spin species will effectively be decoupled from the majority spin species and both spin species form non-interacting subsystems at a field where the minority spin has not disappeared completely. Increasing magnetic field further at constant total density will then not change the conducting properties anymore.

The notion of a predictable and straightforward effect of $`B_{}`$ is also concordant with the phenomenon that $`\rho (B_{})`$ behaves qualitatively the same in the metallic and insulating phases (see e.g. Ref.), and therefore the same physical mechanism seems at play in both cases. Our results suggest the reduction of the effective interaction by spin polarization as a likely candidate for this mechanism.

In summary, applying a Zeeman magnetic field in the 2D disordered Hubbard model reduces the effect of the Hubbard interaction and is able to bring about a transition from a metallic phase to an insulator at a critical field strength. We find this critical field is considerably less than the field required for full spin polarization, emphasizing that, for the disordered Hubbard model, the metal-insulator transition occurs in a region where a considerable degree of electronic correlation remains. This is in good qualitative agreement with experimental observations when a magnetic field is applied parallel to a 2D electron or hole gas in GaAs– and AlAs–based heterostructures . For Si MOSFETs, the general phenomenon of suppression of the metallic behavior is in agreement, but the issue of the critical field being smaller than a saturating field is less clear . In earlier work, we studied the $`T`$-dependence of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ for various $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$ without a $`B`$-field and showed that the Hubbard interaction enhances $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ and leads at low $`T`$ to metallic behavior that can be turned into insulating behavior by sufficiently strong disorder. Our present results concerning the effect of a magnetic field are consistent with that conclusion: the rather strong interactions that caused the conducting phase at disorder strength $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t=2.0`$ (below the critical disorder strength of approximately $`2.4`$ above which the system is insulating) without $`B`$-field are reduced by a $`B`$-field which is able to drive the system back to its insulating phase. The latter is also its natural state in the absence of interactions. We believe that this consistency indicates that the disordered Hubbard model provides a coherent, qualitative picture of the phenomena in 2D electronic, disordered systems both in the presence and absence of a Zeeman magnetic field.

We would like to thank T.M. Klapwijk, V. Dobrosavljević, L. Reed, and W. Teizer for useful discussions or expert advice. This work is part of the research programme of the ‘Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM)’, which is financially supported by the ‘Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)’ (PJHD). This research is further supported by NSF-DMR-9985978 (RTS), and also in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY99-07949.


format: text

text:
# Lyman Break Galaxies and the Star Formation Rate of the Universe at 𝑧∼6

## 1 Introduction

How, when, and over what time-scale galaxies formed are questions at the forefront of both observational and theoretical cosmology. In recent years there has been tremendous progress in the study of galaxy formation from an observational perspective. Spectroscopic samples of star-forming galaxies have been detected at progressively higher redshifts: $`z1`$ (Cowie et al. 1996); $`z3`$ (Steidel et al. 1996); $`z4`$ (Hu & McMahon 1996; Steidel et al. 1999); beyond $`z=5`$ (e.g., Spinrad et al. 1998; Weymann et al. 1998; Hu, McMahon & Cowie 1999; Dawson et al. 2001; Lehnert & Bremer 2003) and now up to $`z=6.6`$ (Hu et al. 2002; Kodaira et al. 2003).

Complementing this ground-based spectroscopic work there have been a number of programmes based on the Lyman break “photometric redshift” technique (e.g., Steidel, Pettini & Hamilton 1995). Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging with WPC2 and NICMOS has extended such studies to fainter magnitudes than accessible through ground-based spectroscopy (e.g., Madau et al. 1996; Dickinson et al. 2000; Thompson, Weymann & Storrie-Lombardi 2001). From the results of this work, great progress has been made in reconstructing “the star formation history of the Universe” – the evolution of the comoving volume-averaged star formation rate (as shown on the ‘Madau-Lilly’ diagram: Lilly et al. 1996; Madau et al. 1996) over the redshift range $`04`$.

Here we describe a survey that extends such work to $`z6`$. A survey may be considered useful for selecting candidate star forming galaxies if it satisfies the following primary criteria: (i) it can distinguish $`z6`$ galaxies from lower redshift objects; (ii) it is deep enough to reach star formation rates characteristic of this population; (iii) the volume is sufficient to encompass a statistically meaningful sample.

In this paper we show that public data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS, Ford et al. 2002) on HST, released as part of the public Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS – Dickinson & Giavalisco 2002111see http://www.stsci.edu/ftp/science/goods/) programme, is of sufficient depth and volume to detect very high redshift galaxies, and that colour selection should reject less distant objects. We use this data set to examine the space density of UV-luminous starburst galaxies at $`z6`$. Observational evidence of the Gunn-Peterson effect in $`z6`$ QSOs (Becker et al. 2001) suggests that this is the epoch of reionization, where starlight may for the first time dominate the Universe – although recent results on the polarization of the cosmic microwave background from the WMAP satellite indicate that the onset of ionization may have been at even higher redshift (Kogut et al. 2003). Using deep imaging by ACS through its SDSS-$`i^{}`$ and -$`z^{}`$ filters, we identify a sample of objects which are likely to be Lyman break star forming galaxies at $`5.6<z<7.0`$. From the UV continuum longward of $`\lambda _{\mathrm{rest}}=1216`$ Å detected in the $`z^{}`$-band, we place a lower limit on the global star formation rate at $`z6`$ and hence extend the Madau-Lilly diagram to early epochs.

Throughout we adopt the now widely accepted ‘concordance’ cosmology: a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-dominated, flat Universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$ and $`H_0=70h_{70}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$. The HST/ACS magnitudes in this paper are quoted in the AB system (Oke & Gunn 1983).

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 The ACS data

We have analysed the first three epochs of GOODS data from the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS) taken with HST/ACS222available from ftp://archive.stsci.edu/pub/hlsp/goods/. Each epoch of data comprises a half-orbit $`i^{}`$-band image taken through the F775W filter (1040 sec, split into 2 for cosmic ray rejection) and a full-orbit $`z^{}`$-band image observed with the F850LP filter (2010 sec, split into 4). We use the v0.5 release of the reduced data.

The released data set has been pipeline-processed for dark and bias subtraction and flat-fielding, and known hot pixels, bad columns and other cosmetic defects flagged in a data quality file. The post-pipeline images are sky-subtracted,“drizzled”(Fruchter & Hook 2002) and corrected for geometric distortion. Cosmic rays were also identified and masked.

We use the zero-points for AB magnitudes determined by the GOODS team: $`\mathrm{mag}_{\mathrm{AB}}=\mathrm{zeropoint}2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}(\mathrm{Count}\mathrm{rate}/\mathrm{s}^1)`$ where the zeropoints for $`i^{}`$-band (F775W) and $`z^{}`$-band (F850LP) are $`25.66`$ and $`24.92`$ respectively. We have corrected for the small amount of foreground Galactic extinction toward the CDFS using the COBE/DIRBE & IRAS/ISSA dust maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998). The optical reddening is $`E(BV)=0.008`$, equivalent to extinctions of $`A_{F775}=0.017`$ & $`A_{F850LP}=0.012`$.

### 2.2 Construction of the catalogues

Candidate selection for all objects in the field was performed using version 2.2.2 of the SExtractor photometry package (Bertin & Arnouts 1996). As we are searching specifically for objects which are only securely detected in $`z^{}`$, with little or no flux in the $`i^{}`$-band, fixed circular apertures $`1\stackrel{}{.}0`$ in diameter were trained in the $`z^{}`$-image and the identified apertures were used to measure the flux at the same spatial location in the $`i^{}`$-band image, running SExtractor in two-image mode. For object identification, we demanded at least 5 contiguous pixels above a threshold of $`2\sigma `$ per pixel ($`0.01\mathrm{counts}\mathrm{pixel}^1\mathrm{s}^1`$) on the drizzled data (with a pixel scale of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$05 pixel-1). From the output of SExtractor, we create a sub-catalogue of all objects brighter than $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}<25.6`$ mag, which corresponds to an $`8\sigma `$ detection in each epoch.

In the compilation of the catalogues a number of ‘figure-eight’ shaped optical reflections and diffraction spikes near bright stars were masked, as was the gap between the two ACS CCDs and its vicinity in each tile. This means that the survey area is non-contiguous.

Excluding the masked regions, the total survey area in the 15 tiles of CDFS is 146 arcmin2. In this region, we detect 10728 sources in the $`z^{}`$-band brighter than $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}=25.6`$ (our $`8\sigma `$ cut for the F850LP image from each individual epoch). The IRAF ‘Artdata’ package was used to create artificial objects of known magnitude and we confirmed that we recover $`>`$95 per cent of such objects at the magnitude limit of our catalogue.

## 3 Candidate $`z>5.6`$ galaxies

### 3.1 Redshift Discrimination

In order to select $`z>6`$ galaxies, we use the Lyman break technique pioneered at $`z3`$ from the ground by Steidel and co-workers and using HST by Madau et al. (1996). The usual Lyman break technique at $`z34`$ involves three filters: one below the Lyman limit ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{rest}}=912`$ Å), one in the Lyman forest region and a third longward of the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ line ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{rest}}=1216`$ Å). At higher redshifts, we use just two filters, since at $`z6`$ the integrated optical depth of the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ forest is $`1`$. Hence the continuum break at the wavelength of Lyman-$`\alpha `$ is large, as is illustrated in Figure 1, and the shortest-wavelength filter below the Lyman limit becomes redundant. Thus provided one works at a sufficiently-high signal-to-noise ratio, $`i^{}`$-band drop-outs can be safely identified through detection in a single redder band (i.e., SDSS-$`z^{}`$). This has been elegantly shown by Fan and the SDSS collaboration in the detection of $`z6`$ quasars using the $`i^{}`$\- and $`z^{}`$-bands alone (Fan et al. 2001). The sharp sides of the SDSS filters help in clean selection using the photometric redshift technique.

In Figures 2 & 3 we illustrate how the use of a colour cut of $`(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{AB}}>1.5`$ can be used to select objects with $`z>5.6`$, and we have 9 at $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}<25.6`$. Objects satisfying our selection criteria in any of the three epochs were gathered into a preliminary catalogue. The flux of these objects in the three epochs was averaged for each waveband, and those objects still satisfying the criteria $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}<25.6`$ and $`(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{AB}}>1.5`$ in the combined data set were selected. A number of objects appearing in catalogs generated by the SExtractor software were identified by eye as different regions of the same extended source (visible in the ACS F606W $`v`$-band or F775W $`i^{}`$-band images) and eliminated from the final selection. The 9 remaining objects satisfying our selection criteria are detailed in Table 1.

### 3.2 Interlopers at Different Redshifts

Using our $`(i^{}z^{})`$ colour-cut criterion alone may also select elliptical galaxies at $`z2`$ (as shown by Figure 2), the Extremely Red Object (ERO) population (e.g., Cimatti et al. 2002). Another potential source of contamination are Galactic L- or T-dwarf low-mass stars (e.g., Hawley et al. 2002). We can guard against these lower-redshift interlopers by considering the near-infrared colours. Deep $`J`$ and $`K_s`$ band observations of the ACS survey field have been obtained with ISAAC on VLT, and reduced data from this ESO Imaging Survey has also been publically released as part of the GOODS programme333see http://www.eso.org/science/goods/releases/20020408/. As Figure 4 illustrates near-infrared colours effectively discriminate the ERO population from high redshift objects. Of the five candidates satisfying our selection criteria for which such data is available, one (object 2) is detected in F606W $`v`$-band ($`v_{\mathrm{AB}}=27.0\pm 0,.2`$) and has colours consistent with being an ERO contaminant. All other candidates have $`v_{\mathrm{AB}}>28.0`$ (our $`3\sigma `$ detection limit), although object 9 also has red near-IR colours. Object 5 has a colours which suggests that it is likely to be a low mass star: $`(z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}J_{\mathrm{Vega}})_=3.12`$ & $`(JK_s)_{\mathrm{Vega}}=0.2`$ (an L- or T-dwarf). Comparison with the sample in Hawley et al. (2002) indicates a spectral type around T3. However, of the remaining objects for which no reduced infrared data is yet available, one is now confirmed as a high redshift object (see ‘Note Added in Proof’) and the others are all fully resolved as shown in Figure 5. The contamination rate would thus appear to be about 25 per cent.

### 3.3 Limiting Star Formation Rates

We are sensitive to objects above $`z5.6`$ and in principle could identify objects out to $`z7.0`$ where the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ line leaves the $`z^{}`$ filter. The rapid falloff in sensitivity of the ACS detectors above 9000 Å, however, combined with the transition of the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ break through the $`z^{}`$ filter and the resulting incomplete coverage of that filter, means our sensitivity to star formation drops rapidly past $`z6.0`$, and renders us unlikely to detect anything past $`z6.5`$ (Figure 6). The effect of luminosity-weighting of the redshift range also affects our effective survey volume, and we quantify this in Section 4.1.

The observed luminosity function of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) around $`\lambda _{\mathrm{rest}}=1500`$ Å is $`m_R^{}=24.48`$ at $`z=3.04`$ and $`m_I^{}=24.48`$ at $`z=4.13`$, from Steidel et al. (1999), with a faint end slope $`\alpha =1.6`$ and normalization $`\varphi ^{}0.005h_{70}^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$. If there is no evolution in the luminosity function from $`z=3`$ (as is found to be the case at $`z=4`$) this would predict an apparent magnitude of $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}=25.6`$ for an $`L_{\mathrm{LBG}}^{}`$ at $`z6`$. Thus our complete catalogue of $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}<25.6`$ would include galaxies down to $`L_{\mathrm{LBG}}^{}`$ at $`z6`$ if there is no evolution in the LBG luminosity function.

The relation between the flux density in the rest-UV around $`1500`$ Å and the star formation rate ($`\mathrm{SFR}`$ in $`M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$) is given by $`L_{\mathrm{UV}}=8\times 10^{27}\mathrm{SFR}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Hz}^1`$ from Madau, Pozzetti & Dickinson (1998) for a Salpeter (1955) stellar initial mass function (IMF) with $`0.1M_{}<M^{}<125M_{}`$. This is comparable to the relation derived from the models of Leitherer & Heckman (1995). However, if the Scalo (1986) IMF is used, the inferred star formation rates are a factor of $`2.5`$ higher for a similar mass range. From Steidel et al. (1999), the characteristic star formation rate at the knee of the luminosity function, $`L_{\mathrm{LBG}}^{}`$, is $`\mathrm{SFR}_{\mathrm{UV}}^{}=15h_{70}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ for $`z=34`$. Figure 6 shows our limiting star formation rate as a function of redshift, inferred from the rest-frame UV flux in the $`z^{}`$-filter. We account for the filter transmission, and the blanketting effects of the intervening Lyman-$`\alpha `$ forest. We introduce small $`k`$-corrections to $`\lambda _{\mathrm{rest}}=1500`$ Å from the observed rest-wavelengths longward of Lyman-$`\alpha `$ redshifted into the $`z^{}`$-band: we consider both a spectral slope $`\beta =2.0`$ (where $`f_\lambda \lambda ^\beta `$) which is appropriate for an unobscured starburst (flat in $`f_\nu `$), and also a redder slope of $`\beta =1.1`$ (approriate for mean reddening of the $`z3`$ Lyman break galaxies, Meurer et al. 1997). At limiting magnitude of $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}=25.6`$, we can detect unobscured star formation rates as low as $`15[16.5]h_{70}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ at $`5.6<z<5.8`$ and $`21[25]h_{70}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ at $`z<6.1`$ for spectral slope $`\beta =2.0[1.1]`$. Our $`(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{AB}}>1.5`$ colour cut should remove most galaxies at $`z<5.6`$.

### 3.4 Candidate Objects

Using the selection criteria described above we have identified 7 candidate galaxies photometrically selected to lie at $`z>5.6`$. These (along with the probable star and ERO included for comparison) are described in Table 1 and cut-out images of each object in the $`z^{}`$, $`i^{}`$, $`v`$(F606W) and (where available) $`J`$ and $`K_s`$ bands are presented in Figure 7.

As Figure 5 illustrates most of our $`(i^{}z^{})_{\mathrm{AB}}>1.5`$ objects are spatially resolved in the HST/ACS images (6 of the 9). Of the three compact objects, object 5 has the colours of an L- or T-dwarf star. We note that object 4 is almost 1 magnitude brighter than the next brightest object and lies close to the FWHM stellar locus, and is thus likely to be an AGN.

## 4 Global Star Formation at $`z6`$

### 4.1 The Survey Volume

Galaxies in the range $`5.6<z<7.0`$ would be selected by our colour-cut provided they are sufficiently luminous. However, in practice we are sensitive over a smaller range of redshifts, because galaxies become progressively fainter at higher redshift, and so an ever smaller fraction of them are able to satisfy the magnitude limit of $`z_{\mathrm{AB}}^{}=25.6`$. There are three main reasons for this:

1. The selected galaxies lie primarily on the steep exponential cut-off of the luminosity function (brighter than $`L^{}`$ for a no-evolution model), so small changes in the absolute magnitude limit with redshift will greatly affect the number of galaxies brighter than the limit.
2. Another effect is the $`k`$-correction (Section 3.3): as redshift increases, the $`z^{}`$-band samples light in the rest-frame of the galaxies at wavelengths that are increasingly far to the blue of 1500 Å, where the LBGs’ luminosity function was calculated. This $`k`$-correction makes higher redshift galaxies fainter (as LBGs are red, with $`\beta >2.0`$), and therefore less likely to satisfy the magnitude limit.
3. At redshifts $`z>6`$, Lyman-$`\alpha `$ absorption from the forest enters the $`z^{}`$-band and makes galaxies fainter still, as there is incomplete coverage of the filter by the continuum longward of Lyman-$`\alpha `$.

We have followed the approach of Steidel et al. in calculating the effect of this luminosity bias on our sample of $`z6`$ LBGs. We compute an effective survey volume using

$$V_{\mathrm{eff}}(m)=𝑑zp(m,z)\frac{dV}{dz}$$

where $`p(m,z)`$ is the probability of detecting a galaxy at redshift $`z`$ and apparent $`z^{}`$ magnitude $`m`$, and $`dz\frac{dV}{dz}`$ is the comoving volume per unit solid angle in a slice $`dz`$ at redshift $`z`$. We integrate over the magnitude range we are sensitive to, and over the redshift range $`5.6<z<7.0`$ from our colour selection. We calculate that for a spectral slope of $`\beta =2.0`$ (i.e., flat in $`f_\nu `$) the effective comoving volume is 40 per cent the total volume in the range $`5.6<z<7.0`$ (i.e., equivalent to $`5.6<z<6.1`$). For our 146 arcmin2 survey area (after excluding the unreliable regions close to the CCD chip gaps) this is a comoving volume of $`1.8\times 10^5h_{70}^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$. For a redder spectral slope of $`\beta =1.1`$ (the average of the $`z=3`$ LBGs, Meurer et al. 1997) the effective volume is 36 per cent of the total.

Since our aim is to investigate the high-redshift progenitors of present-day normal galaxies we must survey a comoving volume at $`z6`$ sufficient to encompass many $`L^{}`$ galaxies by the current epoch, in order to reduce the effects of cosmic variance. From local surveys, the number-density of $`L^{}`$ galaxies is $`\varphi ^{}=(0.0048\pm 0.0006)h_{70}^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ (Loveday et al. 1992). Hence, the comoving volume occupied by the progenitors of a present-day $`L^{}`$ galaxy is $`V^{}200h_{70}^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$. Our $`(i^{}z^{})`$ colour selection surveys an effective comoving volume of $`180,000h_{70}^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$. Thus in principle, assuming the data reaches sufficient depth, we could detect the progenitors of $`1000`$ present-day $`L^{}`$ galaxies in the CDFS survey field.

Since significantly fewer objects than this have been identified in this work we are able to conclude that at $`z6`$ the ancestors of $`L^{}`$ galaxies have continuous unobscured star formation rates lower than $`20h_{70}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ per galaxy over $`5.6<z<6.1`$.

### 4.2 The Star Formation Rate at $`z6`$: Lower limits and Caveats

Our selection criteria have identified 6 candidate star-forming galaxies with $`z>`$5.6, (excluding the probable star, the ERO and the potential AGN with nominal SFRs of 17, 15 and 82 $`h_{70}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ respectively). These have an integrated star formation rate of $`(122\pm 50)h_{70}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (where the error is based on Poisson statistics), giving a comoving volume-averaged star formation density between $`z=5.6`$ and $`z=6.1`$ of $`\rho _{\mathrm{SFR}}=(6.7\pm 2.7)\times 10^4h_{70}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$.

This value is compared to global star-formation rates found at lower redshift in Figure 8, reproduced from Steidel et al. (1999) and recalculated for our $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ cosmology and higher limiting luminosity. It appears that the comoving star formation rate (based on the bright end of the UV luminosity function) was 6 times less at $`z6`$ than at $`z=34`$. The interpretation of this result, however, depends on several considerations.

Firstly, the star formation densities plotted have not been corrected for dust extinction within the galaxies in question. Although this will reduce the observed UV flux, and hence the implied star formation rate, the method used to select galaxies (the Lyman break technique) has been consistently applied at all redshifts above $`z2`$. Thus equivalent populations should be observed at all redshifts and the resulting dust correction will alter the normalization of all the data points in the same way if there is no evolution in the extinction.

Secondly, previous authors have integrated the star formation density over the luminosity function for their objects down to star formation rates of 0.1 $`L^{}`$ even if these SFRs have not been observed. We prefer to plot what we actually observe and not to extrapolate below the limit of our observations. If the luminosity function is extended down to $`0.1L^{}`$ then the global SFR is increased by a factor of $`5`$ for $`\alpha =1.6`$.

Furthermore, Lanzetta et al. (2002) note that at high redshifts the effects of cosmological surface dimming of objects can lead to failure to detect dispersed regions of low star formation and thus to an underestimation of the total star formation density when calculations are based purely on compact and intense regions of high star formation.

Since these potential corrections to our data are expected to increase the volume-averaged star formation density, the value quoted above should be considered a firm lower limit rather than an absolute determination. Combining this work with planned deeper HST/ACS observations in the $`i^{}`$\- and $`z^{}`$-filters, such as the Ultra Deep Field, will enable fainter magnitudes to be probed and allow the slope of the luminosity function to be determined (e.g., Yan et al. 2003), further constraining the integrated star formation rate and associated contribution to the UV background.

## 5 Conclusions

We have determined the space density of UV-luminous star-burst galaxies at $`z6`$ using deep HST ACS SDSS-$`i^{}`$ (F775W) and SDSS-$`z^{}`$ (F850LP) and VLT ISAAC $`J`$\- and $`K_s`$\- band imaging of the Chandra Deep Field South from the GOODS survey. The Lyman Break technique was used to identify 7 candidate high redshift objects, of which one may be an AGN. We reach an unobscured star formation rate of $`15h_{70}^2M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ at $`z6`$, equivalent to $`L^{}`$ for the Lyman break population at $`z34`$ over a comoving volume of $`1.8\times 10^5h_{70}^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ – which should encompass the progenitors of about a thousand $`L^{}`$ galaxies at the current epoch. It appears that the comoving star formation rate (based on the bright end of the UV luminosity function above $`L^{}`$) was 6 times less at $`z6`$ than at $`z=34`$. These results have used to determine a lower bound on the integrated volume averaged global star formation rate at $`z6`$. Hence we have been able to extrapolate the star formation history of the Universe to earlier epochs than the existing Madau-Lilly diagram. These observations provide an important lower limit on contribution of galaxies to the UV background over a redshift range that some recent observational evidence suggests is the epoch of reionization.

### Note Added in Proof

We have recently obtained spectroscopy on a subset of the objects described in this paper using the DEIMOS instrument on the Keck II telescope, in collaboration with Prof. Richard Ellis (Caltech) and Dr. Patrick McCarthy (OCIW). While analysis of this data is ongoing, one of the objects (Object 3) shows Ly-$`\alpha `$ in emission at a redshift of $`5.78`$, and we report this spectrum in Bunker et al. (2003, astro-ph/0302401) submitted to MNRAS (Letters).

### ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ERS acknowledges a Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) studentship supporting this study. We are extremely grateful to the referee, Kurt Adelberger, for his constructive comments (particularly on the issue of the luminosity-weighted effective volume of the survey). We thank Richard Ellis, Andrew Firth, Simon Hodgkin, Ofer Lahav, Pat McCarthy and Rob Sharp for useful discussions. This paper is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the Data Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with proposals #9425 & 9583 (the GOODS public imaging survey). We are grateful to the GOODS team for making their reduced images public – a very useful resource. The archival GOODS/EIS infrared images are based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile, as part of the ESO Large Programme LP168.A-0485(A) (PI: C. Cesarsky), and ESO programmes 64.O-0643, 66.A-0572 and 68.A-0544 (PI: E. Giallongo).


text:
# MIRAX: A BRAZILIAN X-RAY ASTRONOMY SATELLITE MISSION

## INTRODUCTION

The “Monitor e Imageador de Raios-X” (MIRAX) is a high-energy astrophysics satellite mission which is part of the space science microsatellite program at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil. MIRAX has been selected to be the astrophysics mission within this program and has been proposed to the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB). Since the Brazilian astronomical community is mostly devoted to the fields of optical and radio astronomy, the development and operation of MIRAX is expected to have a major impact on Brazilian science through the opening of a new observation window for astrophysical research. The MIRAX project has strong international partnership. The University of California in San Diego (UCSD) will provide the hard X-ray detectors and participate in the design of the hard X-ray cameras; the Space Research Organization Netherlands (SRON) is expected to provide the soft X-ray imager; the Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik of the University of Tübingen (IAAT) will provide the on-board computer and participate in software development; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will participate in software development for data acquisition, analysis, storage and distribution. The main scientific goal of MIRAX is the nearly continuous (9 months per year) , broad-band (2 to 200 keV), high-resolution ($``$5-7 arcminutes) monitoring of a specific large region of the sky that is particularly rich of X-ray sources (a 76 x 44 field centered on the Galactic center and oriented along the Galactic plane). This will not only provide an unprecedented monitoring of the X-ray sky through simultaneous spectral observations of a large number of sources, but will also allow the detection, localization, possible identification, and spectral/temporal study of the entire history of transient phenomena to be carried out in one single mission. During the $``$3 months/year when the Sun will be crossing the central Galactic plane, MIRAX will be pointed to other rich fields such as the Magellanic Clouds and the Cygnus and Vela/Centaurus regions. MIRAX will be able to contribute to the study of a variety of phenomena and objects in high energy astrophysics, especially in the so far poorly explored non-thermal domain of hard X-ray observations. With the planned continuous monitoring approach, MIRAX will address key issues in the field of X-ray variability such as black hole state transitions and early evolution, accretion torques on neutron stars (especially through monitoring of X-ray pulsars), relativistic ejections on microquasars and fast X-ray novae. MIRAX will also be able to contribute to Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) astronomy, since it is expected that $``$1 GRB will be detected per month in MIRAX’s field-of-view (FOV). MIRAX will not only provide positions of GRBs with an accuracy a few arcminutes but will also obtain broadband X-ray spectra of the bursts and possibly their X-ray afterglows. MIRAX instruments are expected to be assembled in a dedicated small ($``$200 kg) satellite to be launched in a low altitude, equatorial circular orbit around 2007/2008. Table 1 shows the baseline parameters of MIRAX. In comparison with the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on the Swift mission, expected to be launched in 2003, MIRAX has a smaller detector area in the hard X-ray range (factor of $``$7) but a higher angular resolution (factor of 2.3). The main advantage of MIRAX over BAT is the continuous viewing approach for the study of transient phenomena and variability.

Table 1. MIRAX baseline parameters

| Mission and spacecraft parameters | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mass | $``$200 kg (total), $``$100 kg (payload) | |
| Power | $``$240 W (total), $``$90 W (payload) | |
| Orbit | equatorial, circular, $``$600 km | |
| Telemetry | S-band (2200-2290 MHz), $``$1.5 Mbps downlink | |
| Launch | 2007/2008 by Brazilian VLS (“Veículo Lançador de Satélites”) | |
| Instrument parameters | Hard X-ray Imager (CXD) | Soft X-ray Imager (CXM) |
| Energy range | 10-200 keV | 2-28 keV |
| Angular resolution | 7.5 arcmin | 5 arcmin |
| Localization | \< $`1`$ arcmin (10$`\sigma `$ source) | $`<`$ 1 arcmin (10$`\sigma `$ source) |
| Field-of-view | 58 x 26 FWHM along the GP | 20 x 20 FWHM |
| Spectral resolution | $`<`$ 5 keV @ 60 keV | 1.2 keV @ 6 keV |
| Time resolution | $`<`$ 10 $`\mu `$s | 122 $`\mu `$s |
| Sensitivity | $`<`$ 2.6 mCrab (1 day, 5$`\sigma `$) | $`<`$ 5 mCrab (1 day, 5$`\sigma `$) |
| Detector area | 2 x 360 cm2 | 650 cm2 |

## MIRAX INSTRUMENTS

In the current planned configuration, the payload will consist of a set of two hard X-ray cameras (CXD - “Câmera de Raios-X Duros”) and one soft X-ray camera (CXM - “Câmera de Raios-X Moles”). Both imagers will employ the technique of coded-aperture imaging (Dicke, 1968; Skinner, 1984; Caroli et al., 1987; Braga, 1990), which has been highly successful on X-ray satellite instruments such as Spacelab 2/XRT (Willmore et al., 1984), GRANAT/ART-P (Sunyaev et al., 1990), RXTE/ASM (Levine et al., 1996), BeppoSAX/WFC (Jager et al., 1997), Kvant/COMIS-TTM (In ’t Zand, 1992), and especially GRANAT/SIGMA (Roques et al., 1990; Paul et al., 1991; Bouchet et al., 2001), as well as on balloon experiments such as GRIP-2 (Schindler et al., 1997) and EXITE (Garcia et al., 1986; Braga, Covault and Grindlay, 1989).

### The Hard X-Ray Cameras

The CXDs will be built in collaboration with the Center for Astrophysics and Space Science (CASS) of UCSD and will operate from 10 to 200 keV. The detector plane will be a 3 x 3 array of state-of-the-art CdZnTe crossed-strip detector modules with 0.5 mm spatial resolution developed at CASS, with a total area of 360 cm2. Each detector module is a 2 x 2 array of 32 mm x 32 mm x 2mm thick CZT detectors. The detectors will be surrounded by an active plastic scintillator shield and by a passive Pb-Sn-Cu graded shield. A 315 mm x 275 mm Tungsten coded-mask with 1.3 mm-side square cells (0.5 mm-thick) will be placed 600 mm away from the detector to provide images with 7’30" angular resolution. The basic pattern of the mask will be a 139 x 139 Modified Uniformly Redundant Array (MURA - Gottesman and Fenimore, 1989; Braga et al., 2002), which will allow for full shadowgrams to be cast on the position-sensitive detector area and will provide no source ambiguity problems in the fully-coded field-of-view (FCFOV). A sketch of the CXD is shown in Figure 1. The pointing axes of the two CXDs will be offset by an angle of 29 in order to provide a uniform sensitivity over a 39 FCFOV in one direction; the perpendicular direction will have a 612’ FCFOV. In such a configuration the FWHM FOV is 58 x 26. During the observations of central Galactic Plane, the wider direction of the FOV will be aligned with the GP. Figure 2 shows the fractional coded-area (considering the two cameras) as a function of angle, for the direction aligned with the GP.

### The Soft X-Ray Camera

The CXM, expected to be provided by SRON, is the spare flight unit of the Wide Field Cameras (WFCs - Jager et al. 1997) of the recently-terminated BeppoSAX mission (Boella et al. 1997), and will operate from 1.8 to 28 keV. The CXM will have a 5’ angular resolution in a 20 x 20 FWHM FOV. The addition of the WFC to the MIRAX payload will provide soft X-ray spectral coverage which will be extremely important for the study of the several classes of sources in the MIRAX FOV. Furthermore, the excellent perfomance of the WFCs on BeppoSAX brings to MIRAX an instrument that has already been tested and used successfully in orbit with very little degradation on a time scale of several years. A preliminary design of the MIRAX spacecraft is show on Figure 3. The CXM is mounted on top of the two CXDs, which are offset by 29. A star camera with an Active Pixel Sensor (APS), currently being developed at INPE, is placed in the space between the two CXDs.

### The Flight Computer

The instruments on the payload of MIRAX will send data to a Central Electronis Unit (CEU), which will be the data and command interface between the imagers and the spacecraft. The CEU will receive and process data from the three cameras, select the "good" events according to a variety of criteria (thresholds, shield vetoes, calibration source events, etc.) and build the telemetry packets. The processing at the CEU will include determination of position, energy and depth of the X-ray interactions in the CZT detectors, as well as time tagging. The data packets will then be sent to the MIRAX spacecraft computer for transmission to the ground. The CEU will be developed by the IAAT with collaboration from INPE. The IATT has extensive experience on space missions and a strong heritage in flight computers.

### Sensitivity

The MIRAX hard X-ray sensitivity can be estimated based on the expected background level in the low-orbit environment, which is about 200 cts/s for a single imager. The internal component is calculated from balloon flights of prototype CZT detectors launched from Fort Sumner, NM. The Crab nebula plus pulsar photon count rate will be $``$120 cts/s. Taken the approximate total contribution of sources in the primary MIRAX FOV (central GP) to be about 1 Crab, the MIRAX sensitivity is expected to better than 2 x 10-5 photons cm-2 s-1 keV-1 at 100 keV (5 $`\sigma `$) , or $``$2.6 mCrab/day in the 10-100 keV range (approximately 40 times better than the Earth Occultation technique of the Burst and Transient Source Experiment on CGRO). Techniques for background reduction for CZT strip detectors are being developed, especially involving vetoing of multiple, non-contiguous events (expected to come from particle-induced showers within the surrounding material) and low-energy interactions deep in the detector, which are produced by photons incident from the bottom of the detector plane. The CXDs will have a one-year “survey” sensitivity, considering a conservative systematics limit of 0.1% of background, of about 10-11 erg cm-2 s-1 in the 10-50 keV band. This is $``$20 times better than what was achieved by the HEAO 1 A-4 instrument, which carried out the only hard X-ray survey to date (Levine et al., 1984). For the low energy range, the soft X-ray imager will have approximately the sensitivity of the WFCs on BeppoSAX, which is better than 5 mCrab/day in the 2-10 keV band (approximately 2 times better than the All Sky Monitor on RXTE).

## SPACECRAFT AND MISSION OPERATIONS

The MIRAX spacecraft will be based on the satellite bus already developed at INPE for the French-Brazilian microsatellite (FBM) mission, expected to be launched in 2005. The platform employs a 3-axis attitude stabilization system with 2 star trackers, a sun sensor and a magnetometer. Torque rods and reaction wheels will be used as attitude controlers. The MIRAX payload will have no moving parts and a mass of $``$100 kg, while the total spacecraft mass is expected to be under 200 kg. There will be no propulsion and the pointing will be inertial. The pointing precision will be 0.5, with 36"/hr stability (1/10 of the image pixel) and 20" attitude knowledge. The power consumption of the payload will be between 88 and 96 W, depending on the final configuration and the CEU requirements, and the total power of the satellite will be around 240 W. The MIRAX mission duration is required to be 2 years, with a possible extension to 5 years. A ground station at Natal, Brazil, operated by INPE, will be assembled. Possibly, a second ground station in Kenya will be available. The space operation S-band (2200 - 2290 MHz) will be used for downlink and command uplink. It is expected that downlink data rates up to $``$2 Mbits/s will be possible to reach, depending on the modulation and on coordination with other satellites. Our current estimates indicate that a rate of 1.5 Mbits/s will be enough to dump all the data with no compression if we use one station. MIRAX is expected to be launched by 2007/2008 by the Brazilian satellite launcher VLS, in case it is tested successfully and is officially considered a reliable launcher by the Brazilian Space Agency. In case a VLS is not available, other possibilities will be considered, such as a Pegasus launch or as a piggy-back payload on larger launchers. MIRAX data will be 100% available to the community immediately. Databases will be setup at the missions centers in Brazil (INPE) and at UCSD. The database will also be available at HEASARC (Goddard Space Flight Center). Specific webpages with several data products will be available.

## REFERENCES

Boella, G., R. C. Butler, G. C. Perola, et al., BeppoSAX, the wide band mission for X-ray astronomy, Astr. Astrophys. Suppl. Series, 122, 299-307, 1997.

Bouchet, L., J. P. Roques, J. Ballet, A. Goldwurm, and J. Paul, The SIGMA/GRANAT Telescope: Calibration and data reduction, Astrophys. J., 548, 990-1009, 2001.

Braga, J., Técnicas de Imageamento em Raios-X Duros com Máscaras Codificadas, PhD Thesis, University of São Paulo, Brazil, 1990.

Braga, J., C. Covault, and J. Grindlay, Calibration and performance of the Energetic X-Ray Imaging Telescope Experiment, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 36, 871-875, 1989.

Braga, J., F. D’Amico, T. Villela, J. Mejía, R. A. Fonseca, and E. Rinke, Development of the imaging system of the balloon-borne gamma-ray telescope Máscara Codificada (MASCO), Rev. Sci. Instr., 73(10), 3619-3628, 2002.

Caroli, E., J. B. Stephen, G. Di Cocco, L. Natalucci, and A. Spizzichino, Coded aperture imaging in X- and gamma ray astronomy, Space Sci. Rev., 45, 349-403, 1987.

Dicke, H. R., Scatter-hole cameras for X-rays and Gamma rays, Astrophys. J., 153, L101-L106, 1968.

Garcia, M., J. Grindlay, R. Burg, S. Murray, and J. Flanagan, Development of the EXITE detector: a new imaging detector for 20-300 keV astronomy, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 33, 735-740, 1986.

Gottesman, S.R., and E. E. Fenimore, New family of binary arrays for coded aperture imaging, Applied Optics, 28(20), 4344-4352, 1989.

In ’t Zand, J., A Coded-Mask Imager as Monitor of Galactic Center Sources, PhD Thesis, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1992.

Jager, R., W. A. Mels, A. C. Brinkman, M. Y. Galama, H. Goulooze, J. Heise, P. Lowes, J. M. Muller, A. Naber, A. Rook, R. Schuurhof, J. J. Schuurmans, and G. Wiersma, The Wide Field Cameras onboard the BeppoSAX X-ray Astronomy Satellite, Astr. Astrophys. Suppl. Series, 125, 557-572, 1997.

Levine, A. M., H. Bradt, W. Cui, J. G. Jernigan, E. H. Morgan, H. Edward, R. Remillard, R. E. Shirey, and D. A. Smith, First Results from the All-Sky Monitor on the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer, Astrophys. J. Lett., 469, L33-L36, 1996.

Levine, A., F. L. Lang, W. H. G. Lewin, et al., The HEAO 1 A-4 Catalog of High-Enery X-Ray Sources, Astrophys. J. Suppl. Series, 54, 581-617, 1984.

Paul, J., J. Ballet, M. Cantin, B. Cordier, A. Goldwurm, A. Lambert, P. Mandrou, J. P. Chabaud, M. Ehanno, and J. Lande, Sigma - The hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray telescope on board the GRANAT space observatory, Adv. Space Res., 11, 289-302, 1991.

Roques, J., J. Paul, P. Mandrou, and F. Lebrun, The Sigma mission on the GRANAT satellite, Adv. Space Res., 10, 223-225, 1990.

Shindler, S. M., W. R. Cook, J. Hammond, F. A. Harrison, T. A. Prince, S. Wang, S. Corbel, and W. A. Heindl, GRIP-2: A sensitive balloon-borne imaging gamma-ray telescope, Nucl. Instr. Meth., 384, 425-434, 1997.

Skinner, G. K., Imaging with coded-aperture masks, Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res., 221, 33-40, 1984.

Sunyaev, R. A., S. I. Babichencko, D. A. Goganov, S. R. Tabaldyev, and N. S. Jambourenko, X-ray telescopes ART-P and ART-S for the GRANAT project, Adv. Space Res., 10(2), 233-237, 1990.

Willmore, A., G. Skinner, C. Eyles, and B. Ramsey, A coded mask telescope for the Spacelab 2 mission, Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res., 221, 284-287, 1984.

Figure captions

Fig. 1. Exploded diagram of the MIRAX hard X-ray camera. From left to right, the elements are: coded-mask, coded-mask support structure, Pb-Sn-Cu passive-shield walls, two structural flanges, detector modules, plastic scintillator and Pb-Sn-Cu passive shield.

Fig. 2. The fractional coded area of the two hard X-ray cameras of MIRAX with the main axes offset by 29. This angle provides a nearly uniform FCFOV of 39 along the GP.

Fig. 3. A preliminary view of the MIRAX spacecraft. The two cameras mounted over the satellite bus are the hard X-ray cameras (CXDs), whereas the soft X-ray camera is on top of the CXDs. The APS optical star camera is placed in between the CXDs. The external dimensions are approximately 1.5 m x 0.7 m x 0.7 m (with the solar panels folded over the spacecraft).


text:
# Laser-induced hydrodynamic instability of fluid interfaces

## Abstract

We report on a new class of electromagnetically-driven fluid interface instability. Using the optical radiation pressure of a cw laser to bend a very soft near-critical liquid-liquid interface, we show that it becomes unstable for sufficiently large beam power $`P`$, leading to the formation of a stationary beam-centered liquid micro-jet. We explore the behavior of the instability onset by tuning the interface softness with temperature and varying the size of the exciting beam. The instability mechanism is experimentally demonstrated. It simply relies on total reflection of light at the deformed interface whose condition provides the universal scaling relation for the onset $`P_S`$ of the instability.

Deformations and break-up of fluid interfaces under an applied field play a significant role in scientific and technologic endeavors. Since the early works of Zeleny zeleny  and further investigations of Taylor taylorjets , interface instabilities driven by electric fields are the most familiar examples. They represent nowadays the corner stone of numerous industrial processes as different as electro-spraying ganancalvo , electrospinning of polymer fibers electrospinning  or surface relief patterning schaffer . From the fundamental point of view they also illustrate a simple and fascinating example of behavior leading to finite time singularity nagelspout . A uniform magnetic field can as well destabilize fluid interfaces and form well-organized peak structures mahr  or elongate magnetic droplets bacrisalin , though no liquid ejection occurs in that case. These deformations, as well as those driven by the acoustic radiation pressure elrod , were essentially used to characterize in a non contact manner, the mechanical properties of fluid interfaces cinbis ; bacri2 .

Recently, with the increasing importance of optical forces in emerging nano/bio-technologies, this strategy has been successfully extended to the optical deformation of soft materials or micro-objets and brought new insights into their viscoelastic properties vesicules ; kasbiophys ; sakai02 . However, as the bending of fluid surfaces by the optical radiation pressure is usually weak, further developments require larger beam intensities with smaller disturbing effects. Interface disruption under the applied field could constitute a major drawback for this promising method and should therefore be investigated. Yet, even if non linear elongations of red blood cells kasbiophys  and droplets disruption zhang  were already shown, to the best of our knowledge interface instability driven by the optical radiation pressure has never been observed nor discussed in detail.

Using very soft transparent liquid interfaces to enhance optical radiation pressure effects, we show in the present Letter that, contrary to expectations, the hump induced by a continuous laser wave becomes unstable for sufficiently large beam powers. To analyze this new opto-hydrodynamic instability, we explore the universal behavior of its onset on near-critical liquid-liquid interfaces by varying the interface softness with a temperature scanning, and by changing the size of the exciting beam. When properly rescaled, the dispersion in measured onsets reduces to a single master behavior which is retrieved theoretically from simple arguments. In fact we demonstrate that the total reflection condition of light at the interface defines an onset in power which agrees with the observed scaling law. Finally we show that the optically-driven interface instability leads to the formation of a stationary beam-centered liquid micro-jet emitting droplets, which anticipates the bases for new applications in microfluidics and liquid micro-spraying.

Experiments.—Opto-hydrodynamic instabilities of fluid interfaces are realized in a quaternary liquid mixture made of toluene, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), n-butanol and water. At room temperature we prepare a water-in-oil micellar phase of microemulsion whose composition in weight fraction is 70 % toluene, 4 % SDS, 17% n-butanol and 9% water. Close to $`T_C`$, where $`T_C=35\mathrm{°}C`$ is the liquid-liquid critical temperature, the mixture belongs to the universality class (d=3,n=1) of the Ising model eric . For a temperature $`T>T_C`$ it separates in two micellar phases of different concentrations $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$. The use of these mixtures was motivated by the fact that significant interface deformations by optical radiation, without nonlinear propagation effect or disturbing thermal coupling eric , require weak surface tension and buoyancy. Indeed both effects vanishes when the critical point is neared respectively with the critical exponents $`2\nu =1.26`$ and $`\beta =0.325`$. Then the surface tension $`\sigma `$ of phase-separated supramolecular liquids is intrinsically small. For example from $`\sigma =\sigma _0(\frac{T}{T_C}1)^{2\nu }`$, where $`\sigma _0=\mathrm{1.04\hspace{0.33em}10}^4N/m`$ in our case, we get $`\sigma 10^7N/m`$ at $`(TT_C)=1.5K`$ a value typically $`10^6`$ times smaller than that of the water free surface at room temperature.

The experimental configuration is schematically presented in Fig. 1a. The mixture is enclosed in a fused-quartz cell of path length l=2 mm that is thermally-controlled at the temperature $`T`$ above $`T_C`$ (temperature accuracy: $`\mathrm{\Delta }T0.05K`$). Since density (resp. index of refraction) of water is larger (resp. smaller) than that of toluene, the micellar phase of larger concentration $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ is located below the low micellar concentration phase $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$, while its refractive index $`n_1`$ is smaller than $`n_2`$ of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$. The difference in density is given by $`\rho _1\rho _2=(\mathrm{\Delta }\rho )_0(\frac{T}{T_C}1)^\beta `$ with $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\rho )_0285kg.m^3`$ , and the Clausius-Mossotti relation close to the critical point leads to $`n_2n_1=(\frac{n}{\rho })_T(\rho _2\rho _1)`$ with $`(\frac{n}{\rho })_T\mathrm{1.22\hspace{0.33em}10}^4m^3.kg^1`$. The bending of the liquid-liquid meniscus is driven by a linearly polarized $`TEM_{00}`$ cw $`Ar^+`$ laser (wavelength in vacuum, $`\lambda _0=5145`$ Å) propagating vertically downward from $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$. The beam is focused on the interface by a 10X microscope lens to ensure a cylindrical symmetry of the intensity profile around the meniscus. We adjust also the beam-waist $`\omega _0`$ by changing the distance between a first lens (focal length f=1 m) and the 10X objective.

As already demonstrated, the optical radiation pressure originates from light momentum discontinuity at the interface. It always pushes normally to this interface the fluid with larger refractive index into that with smaller refractive index, regardless of the direction of propagation Ash2 . As a result, radiation pressure acts downwards in our case (see Fig. 1), and the height $`h(r)`$ of the induced deformation is determined by a balance with the buoyancy and Laplace restoring forces. Then, at steady state $`h(r)`$ is described by sakai02 :

$$(\rho _1\rho _2)gh(r)\sigma \frac{1}{r}\frac{d}{dr}\left(\frac{rh^{^{}}(r)}{\sqrt{1+h^{^{}}(r)^2}}\right)=\mathrm{\Pi }(r)$$
(1)
Primes denote derivatives versus $`r`$ and $`g`$ is the gravity constant. In the general case, the optical radiation pressure $`\mathrm{\Pi }(r)`$ is given by borzdov :

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(r)=\frac{n_2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _2}{c}\left[1+R\frac{\mathrm{tan}\theta _2}{\mathrm{tan}\theta _1}T\right]I(r)$$
(2)
where $`I(r)=\frac{2P}{\pi \omega _0^2}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2r^2}{\omega _0^2})`$ is the intensity of the incident wave, $`P`$ the beam power and c is the light velocity in vacuum. $`R`$ and $`T`$ are the Fresnel coefficients of reflection and transmission in energy. $`\theta _2`$ and $`\theta _1`$ are respectively the incident and the refraction angles versus the interface normal and are given by $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _2=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+h^{^{}}(r)^^2}}`$ and the Snell relation.

Results.— For small bending curvatures, i.e. for $`h^{^{}}(r)1`$, deformations are function of an optical Bond number $`Bo`$ defined as the ratio of buoyancy over the Laplace force prlgiant : $`Bo=(\frac{\omega _0}{l_C})^2`$ , where $`l_C=\sqrt{\frac{\sigma }{(\rho _1\rho _2)g}}`$ is the capillary length. In the present analysis, we used values of $`\omega _0`$ and $`(TT_C)`$ ranging respectively from 3.5 to 11 $`\mu m`$ and 1.5 to 15K in order to work in the $`Bo<1`$ regime (we have experimentally 0.006 \< $`Bo`$ \< 0.54) and reproduce the case of classical liquid free surfaces. A typical evolution of the induced deformations versus incident beam power $`P`$ is illustrated in Fig. 1a-1h for $`TT_C=15K`$ and $`\omega _0=3.5\mu m`$, i.e. for the smallest $`Bo`$ investigated. Fig. 2 depicts also the variation of $`h(r=0)`$ versus $`P`$ for the two extreme values of our $`Bo`$ number range; experimental errors are $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }P}{P}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _0}{\omega _0}5\%`$ . As expected, $`h(r=0)`$ is linear in $`P`$ as far as $`h^{^{}}(r)1`$, i.e. typically for $`P970mW`$ in the example presented (Fig. 1a-1e). The measured slope is moreover in complete accordance with the linear behavior predicted prlgiant . Then, with further increase in $`P`$, $`h(r=0)`$ rapidly deviates from the linear regime ($`970P1170mW`$) and suddenly diverges when $`P`$ reaches a power onset $`P_S=1230mW`$ (see the transition from Fig. 1g to Fig. 1h). Fig. 2 shows that this behavior is observed over a large range of the parameter space and that instability occurs even more rapidly ($`P_S=370mW`$) when the critical point is neared ($`TT_C=1.5K`$ ), despite an increase in beam-waist ($`\omega _0=11\mu m`$).

Consequently, since $`P_S`$ vary noticeably in the range of $`Bo`$ investigated, we analyzed its behavior over large variations in $`\omega _0`$ and ($`TT_C`$). At first, as illustrated in Fig. 3 over one order of magnitude in ($`TT_C`$), $`P_S`$ varies linearly versus $`\omega _0`$: the instability onset decreases with focusing. Moreover results show that the slope of $`P_S`$ versus $`\omega _0`$ also decreases when the critical point is neared. This behavior is much better illustrated in the Inset of Fig. 3 for the smallest beam-waist used $`\omega _0=3.5\mu m`$. A power law fit leads to $`P_S(TT_C)^{1.01\pm 0.05}`$.

Discussion.— While interface deformations do not depend on the direction of propagation at low laser excitations, this is no more true at higher field strengths. Instead of a liquid jet, huge tethered deformations are induced by an upward propagating beam, but they remain always stable, despite surprising aspect ratios coloq7 . A simple physical mechanism that differentiates both cases is the possibility to reach total-internal reflection when the beam propagates from $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$, i.e. from the large to the low refractive index phase. Furthermore, as it can be seen from Eq. (2), the transfer of momentum at the interface is maximum under total reflection condition because $`R=1`$ and $`T=0`$ in that case. A comparison with the momentum transfer at normal incidence shows that the radiation pressure is thus enhanced by a factor $`(1+\frac{n_2}{n_1})^24`$ ($`n_1n_2`$ in our case). This factor is obviously underestimated because secondary reflections and even self-guiding of light inside the deformation will also contribute to a further increase. Then, let us express the total reflection condition:

$$\mathrm{sin}\theta _2=\frac{h^{^{}}(r)}{\sqrt{1+h^{^{}}(r)^2}}>\frac{n_1}{n_2}$$
(3)
Since experiments are realized in the $`Bo`$ \< 1 regime, buoyancy does not play any important role and can thus be neglected. On the other hand, we expand the expression of the radiation pressure given by Eq. (2) to first order in $`n_2n_1`$ because $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ are coexisting phases of close composition due to the vicinity of the critical point. Eq. (1) becomes:

$$\sigma \frac{1}{r}\frac{d}{dr}\left(\frac{rh^{^{}}(r)}{\sqrt{1+h^{^{}}(r)^2}}\right)=\frac{2n_2}{c}\left(\frac{n_2n_1}{n_2+n_1}\right)\frac{2P}{\pi \omega _0^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2r^2}{\omega _0^2}\right)$$
(4)
Integration of Eq. (4) gives directly the expression of $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _2`$ and Eq. (3) leads to:

$$\frac{n_2}{c}\left(\frac{n_2n_1}{n_2+n_1}\right)\frac{P}{\pi \sigma }\frac{1}{r}\left[1\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2r^2}{\omega _0^2})\right]>\frac{n_1}{n_2}$$
(5)
Total reflection will then be locally reached for $`\frac{\sqrt{2}r}{\omega _0}=1.121`$, which renders the left hand term of Eq. (5) maximum. This condition defines an onset in power

$$P>\frac{1.121\pi }{0.715\sqrt{2}}\frac{n_1}{n_2}\left(1+\frac{n_1}{n_2}\right)\frac{\sigma c}{n_2n_1}\omega _0$$
(6)
which is linear in $`\omega _0`$ and behaves as $`(TT_C)^{2\nu \beta }`$ , i.e. with the exponent $`2\nu \beta =0.935`$, in very close agreement with the critical behavior of $`P_S`$. In looking for scaling, Eq. (6) also provides a natural way for presenting the instability onsets. This is illustrated on Fig. 4 where the whole set of data is brought onto a single master curve. As expected, a linear behavior of $`P_S`$ versus $`\frac{\sigma c\omega _0}{n_2n_1}`$ is observed and a linear fit leads to $`P_S(W)=(6.3\pm 0.3)10^6[\frac{\sigma c}{n_2n_1}]\omega _0(\mu m)`$ while the predicted slope is $`\mathrm{6.9\hspace{0.33em}10}^6`$. Optohydrodynamic interface instability is then clearly triggered by the total reflection of the exciting beam inside the induced deformation. Hence, the brightness of the liquid jets (see Fig. 1i,j) confirms that they behave as liquid waveguides.

Finally, since matter with large refractive index is always trapped in high beam intensity regions by optical forces Ash1 , the optical destabilization of liquid interfaces leads to the formation of a stationary beam-centered jet which eventually breaks into a spray of nearly monodisperse droplets (Fig. 1i). Bearing in mind that our system has ultralow surface tension and that the density difference between the phases is also weak, it can be calculated that the radius of the induced jet is much smaller than the typical size for which fluctuation effects become important for pinching brennershinagel ; eggersrmp ; eggersnanojet . The break-up mechanism, which deserves further investigation, is very robust and convenient because inclined jets can also be easily created by tilting the laser beam, as shown on Fig. 1j.

In conclusion, we have presented a new electromagnetic instability mechanism of fluid interfaces driven by the optical radiation pressure of a cw laser wave. It opens the way to optical streaming of fluid interfaces, even if laser pulses could be necessary for stiffer interfaces zhang . The stability of the resulting jet, as well as the regularity of the produced micro-droplets, offers also new perspectives for optical guiding of microfluidic flows.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was partly supported by the CNRS and the Conseil Régional d’Aquitaine.