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# Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems

## Abstract

We investigate measurement of electron transport in quantum dot systems by using single-electron transistor as a noninvasive detector. It is demonstrated that such a detector can operate in the “negative-result measurement” regime. In this case the measured current is not distorted, providing that it is a non-coherent one. For a coherent transport, however, the possibility of observing a particular state out of coherent superposition leads to distortion of a measured current even in the “negative-result measurement” regime. The corresponding decoherence rate is obtained in the framework of quantum rate equations.

PACS: 03.65.Bz, 73.20.Dx, 73.23.Hk

Rapid progress in nanoscale devices made it possible to produce new type of detectors like the quantum point-contact and the single electron transistor (SET), which have been already used in different quantum measurements. These devices have been considered also as possible detectors for a single two level system (q-bit). It is of a great advantage that these detectors can be treated entirely quantum mechanically, so that the related measurement process can be investigated in great details. In particular, one can study quantum mechanical mechanism of decoherence and its influence on a measured system.

In this letter we consider a measurement of electron current in quantum dots by using SET in close proximity of a measured system, so it monitors the movement of single electrons inside the system. We demonstrate that varying parameters of SET one can put it in the “negative result measurement” regime. In this case the detector becomes a non-distractive if a measured current is incoherent one. However, in the case of coherent measured current, the negative result measurement distorts it via the decoherence. We evaluate the decoherence rate for this process and demonstrate that it is directly related to a possibility of observation of a particular quantum state of the measured system out of the linear superposition. Otherwise the negative result measurement would not affect the measured current, even if the latter is a coherent one. This phenomenon produces a peculiar effect in the current which can be observed experimentally.

We start with a description of measurement of resonant tunneling currents in quantum dots by using SET. The system is shown schematically in Fig. 1. The SET, represented by the upper dot, is in close proximity to the lower dot (the measured system). Both dots are coupled to two separate reservoirs at zero temperature. The resonant levels $`E_0`$ and $`E_1`$ are taken between the Fermi levels in the corresponding reservoirs, $`\stackrel{~}{E}_F^L>E_0>\stackrel{~}{E}_F^R`$ and $`E_F^L>E_1>E_F^R`$. In the absence of electrostatic interaction between electrons the dc resonant currents in the detector and the measured system are respectively

$$I_D^{(0)}=e\frac{\gamma _L\gamma _R}{\gamma _L+\gamma _R},I_S^{(0)}=e\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\mathrm{\Gamma }_R}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_L+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R},$$
(1)
where $`\gamma _{L,R}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{L,R}`$ are the tunneling partial widths of the levels $`E_0`$ and $`E_1`$ due to coupling with left and right reservoirs. The situation is different in the presence of electron-electron interaction between the dots, $`H_{int}=Un_0n_1`$, where $`n_{0,1}`$ are the occupancies of the upper and the lower dots and $`U`$ is the Coulomb repulsion energy. If $`E_0+U>\stackrel{~}{E}_F^L`$, an electron from the left reservoir cannot enter the upper dot when the lower dot is occupied \[Fig. 1 (b)\]. On the other hand, if an electron occupies the upper dot \[Fig. 1 (a,b)\], the displacement of the level $`E_1`$ of the lower dot is less important, since it remains below the Fermi level, $`E_1+U<E_F^L`$. Thus, the upper dot can be considered as a detector registering charging of the lower dot via variation of its current. For instance, by measuring the variation of the average detector current ($`\mathrm{\Delta }I_D`$) due to the measurement, one can determine the average current in the lower dot, $`I_S`$. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_DI_S`$, the detector represents an amplifier, which can measure very small currents.

Fig. 1: Measurement of resonant current in a single-dot structure by another, nearby dot. All possible electron states of the detector (the upper well) and the measured system (the lower well) are shown. Also indicated are the tunneling rates ($`\gamma `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) of the detector and the measured system respectively.

In fact, the described detector affects the measured system. Indeed, if the detector is occupied \[Fig. 1 (a,b)\], an electron enters the lower dot with the energy $`E_1+U`$. As a result, the corresponding tunneling rates are modified ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{L,R}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{L,R}^{}`$), and therefore the measured current is distorted. One finds, however, that the states with empty detector, $`|a`$ and $`|b`$ \[Fig. 1 (a,b)\], do not distort the measured system. Nevertheless, the measurement process does take place: the detector current is interrupted whenever an electron occupies the measured system, but it flows freely when the measured system is empty. Such a measurement is in fact the negative result measurement. Therefore, in order to put the above detector in the negative result regime, we need to diminish the role of the states $`|a^{}`$ and $`|b^{}`$ in the measurement process. It can be done by varying the penetrability of the detector barriers, so that $`\gamma _R\gamma _L`$. In this case the dwelling time of an electron inside the detector can be strongly diminished. Indeed, the average charge inside a double-barrier structure $`e\gamma _L/(\gamma _L+\gamma _R)0`$ for $`\gamma _L/\gamma _R0`$. Then an electron entering the detector leaves it immediately, remaining the measured system undistorted.

Now we evaluate the measured current explicitly in order to confirm that the above measurement is a non-distractive one. The currents through the detector and the measured system are determined by the density-matrix for the entire system $`\rho (t)`$, which obeys the Schrödinger equation $`i\dot{\rho }(t)=[,\rho ]`$ for $`=H_D+H_S+H_{int}`$, where $`H_{D,S}`$ are the tunneling Hamiltonians of the detector and the measured system, respectively, and $`H_{int}=Un_0n_1`$. The current in the detector (or in the measured system) is the time derivative of the total average charge $`Q(t)`$ accumulated in the corresponding right reservoir (collector): $`I(t)=\dot{Q}(t)`$, where $`Q(t)=e`$Tr$`[\rho ^R(t)]`$ and $`\rho ^R(t)`$ is the density-matrix of the collector. It was shown that $`I(t)`$ is directly related to the density-matrix of the multi-dot system $`\sigma _{ij}(t)`$ with $`i,j=\{a,a^{},b,b^{}\}`$, obtained from the total density-matrix $`\rho (t)`$ by tracing out the reservoir states. One finds that the current in the detector or in the measured system is given by

$$I(t)=e\underset{j}{}\sigma _{jj}(t)\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{(j)},$$
(2)
where the sum is taken over the states $`|j`$ in which the well adjacent to the corresponding collector is occupied, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{(j)}`$ is the partial width of the state $`|j`$ due to tunneling to the collector ($`\gamma _R`$ or $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R`$). In turn, $`\sigma (t)`$ obeys the following system of the rate equations

$`\dot{\sigma }_{aa}=(\gamma _L+\mathrm{\Gamma }_L)\sigma _{aa}+\gamma _R\sigma _{a^{}a^{}}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{bb}`$ (4)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{bb}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{bb}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\sigma _{aa}+(\gamma _L^{}+\gamma _R^{})\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}`$ (5)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{a^{}a^{}}=(\gamma _R+\mathrm{\Gamma }_L^{})\sigma _{a^{}a^{}}+\gamma _L\sigma _{aa}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{}\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}`$ (6)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{b^{}b^{}}=(\gamma _L^{}+\gamma _R^{}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{})\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_L^{}\sigma _{a^{}a^{}},`$ (7)
where the states $`|a`$, $`|b`$, $`|a^{}`$, $`|b^{}`$ are the available states of the entire system, Fig. 1. Note the off-diagonal density-matrix elements (coherencies) do not enter in Eqs. (2), and therefore these equations describe a non-coherent transport. The reason is that there is no transitions between the isolate states in this system, which characterize the coherent transport.

In the case of measurement, Fig. 1, the currents in the detector and in the lower dot are $`I_D^{(1)}(t)=e[\gamma _R\sigma _{a^{}a^{}}(t)+\gamma _R^{}\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}(t)]`$ and $`I_S^{(1)}(t)=e[\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{bb}(t)+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{}\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}(t)]`$, respectively, Eq. (2). The stationary (dc) current corresponds to $`I=I(t\mathrm{})`$. Solving Eqs. (2) in the limit $`\gamma _R,\gamma _R^{}\gamma _L,\gamma _L^{}`$ we find

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I_D}{I_S^{(1)}}=\frac{\gamma _L}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_R},I_S^{(1)}=e\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\mathrm{\Gamma }_R}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_L+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R}=I_S^{(0)},$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_D=I_D^{(0)}I_D^{(1)}`$ is a variation of the detector current with respect to the case of no measurement. The first equation shows that the SET amplifies quantum signals if the ratio $`\gamma _L/\mathrm{\Gamma }_R1`$. Thus, one can measure small current $`I_S`$ by measuring variation of the detector current $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_D`$. On the other hand the measured current $`I_S`$ is not distorted by the detector, as follows from the second equation.

Consider now a measurement of resonant transport in a coupled-dot structure, Fig. 2. In this case the electron transport is a coherent one, since an electron inside the double dot appears in the linear superposition of two states ($`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$). The SET detector, represented by the upper dot, is taken in close proximity to the second dot of the double-dot system, thus measuring charging of that dot. For simplicity, we assume strong Coulomb repulsion between two electrons inside the coupled-dot, so only one electron can occupy the measured system. Fig. 2 shows all possible electron configurations of the double-dot when the detector is empty. Similar to the previous case (Fig. 1) each of the states, $`|a`$, $`|b`$, $`|c`$ has its counterpart $`|a^{}`$, $`|b^{}`$, $`|c^{}`$ corresponding to the occupied detector. $`U_{1,2}`$ is the Coulomb repulsion energy between the detector and the measured system for the electron occupying the first or the second dot. We consider $`E_0+U_2>\stackrel{~}{E}_F^L`$, but $`E_0+U_1<\stackrel{~}{E}_F^L`$. Therefore the detector is blocked only when the second dot is occupied.

Fig. 2: Measurement of resonant current in a double-dot structure. Only the states with empty detector (the upper dot) are shown.

Consider first the case of no measurement (no interaction with the upper dot). The available states of the double-dot system, $`|a`$, $`|b`$ and $`|c`$, are those as shown in Fig. 2. The resonant current through this system is described by the Bloch-type rate equations, derived from the microscopic Schrödinger equation

$`\dot{\sigma }_{aa}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\sigma _{aa}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{cc}`$ (10)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{bb}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\sigma _{aa}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{bc}\sigma _{cb})`$ (11)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{cc}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{cc}i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{bc}\sigma _{cb})`$ (12)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{bc}=iϵ\sigma _{bc}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{bb}\sigma _{cc}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{bc},`$ (13)
where $`ϵ=E_2E_1`$ and $`\sigma _{cb}=\sigma _{bc}^{}`$. The diagonal density-matrix elements $`\sigma _{ii}`$ are the probabilities of finding the system in one of the states, $`|a`$, $`|b`$ and $`|c`$. In the distinction with the resonant tunneling through a single dot, the diagonal density-matrix elements are coupled with the non-diagonal elements $`\sigma _{bc}`$, $`\sigma _{cb}`$ (“coherences”) by a hopping amplitude between two isolated states, $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$. The total resonant dc flowing through this system is $`I_S^{(0)}=e\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{cc}(t\mathrm{})`$, Eq. (2). Solving Eqs. (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems) one obtains

$$I_S^{(0)}=e\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{ϵ^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^2/4+\mathrm{\Omega }^2(2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R/\mathrm{\Gamma }_L)}$$
(14)
Note that the dissipation of the “coherences”, $`\sigma _{bc}`$, is generated by the last term in Eq. (13), proportional to the half of decay rates of the states $`|b`$ and $`|c`$ due to their coupling with the reservoirs. (In our case the state $`|b`$ cannot decay, but only the state $`|c`$, so the corresponding dephasing rate is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R`$). Since the resonant current proceeds via hopping between two dots, generated by $`\sigma _{bc}`$, it decreases with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R`$, Eq. (14).

Now we “switch on”the detector. The available states of the entire system are $`|a`$, $`|b`$, $`|c`$, Fig. 2, and $`|a^{}`$, $`|b^{}`$, $`|c^{}`$, corresponding to empty and occupied detector, respectively. For simplicity we assume that all transition tunneling amplitudes are weakly dependent on energy, so $`\mathrm{\Gamma },\gamma ,\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{},\gamma ^{},\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$, The rate equations describing the transport in the entire system are

$`\dot{\sigma }_{aa}=(\mathrm{\Gamma }_L+\gamma _L)\sigma _{aa}+\gamma _R\sigma _{a^{}a^{}}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{cc}`$ (16)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{a^{}a^{}}=(\mathrm{\Gamma }_L+\gamma _R)\sigma _{a^{}a^{}}+\gamma _L\sigma _{aa}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{c^{}c^{}}`$ (17)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{bb}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\sigma _{aa}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{bc}\sigma _{cb})\gamma _L\sigma _{bb}+\gamma _R\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}`$ (18)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{b^{}b^{}}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\sigma _{a^{}a^{}}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{b^{}c^{}}\sigma _{c^{}b^{}})+\gamma _L\sigma _{bb}\gamma _R\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}`$ (19)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{cc}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{cc}i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{bc}\sigma _{cb})+(\gamma _L+\gamma _R)\sigma _{c^{}c^{}}`$ (20)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{c^{}c^{}}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\sigma _{c^{}c^{}}i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{b^{}c^{}}\sigma _{c^{}b^{}})(\gamma _L+\gamma _R)\sigma _{c^{}c^{}}`$ (21)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{bc}=iϵ\sigma _{bc}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{bb}\sigma _{cc}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_R+\gamma _L)\sigma _{bc}+\gamma _R\sigma _{b^{}c^{}}`$ (22)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{b^{}c^{}}=i(ϵU_1+U_2)\sigma _{b^{}c^{}}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}\sigma _{c^{}c^{}}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\gamma _L+2\gamma _R+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R)\sigma _{b^{}c^{}}.`$ (23)
Solving these equations one finds the average current in the detector and the coupled-dot system, given by Eq. (2): $`I_D^{(1)}=e\gamma _R(\sigma _{a^{}a^{}}+\sigma _{b^{}b^{}}+\sigma _{c^{}c^{}})`$, and $`I_S^{(1)}=e\mathrm{\Gamma }_R(\sigma _{cc}+\sigma _{c^{}c^{}})`$.

Let us take again the limit of the negative result measurement, $`\gamma _R\gamma _L`$, in which the detector is not expected to affect the measured system. If so, the density-matrix of the entire system, traced over the detector states would coincide with the density-matrix for the double-dot system without detector, Eqs. (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems). However, this is not the case. Indeed, by introducing the reduced density matrix of the measured system, $`\overline{\sigma }_{ij}=\sigma _{ij}+\sigma _{i^{}j^{}}`$, one finds from Eqs. (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems) that in the above limit of the negative result measurement $`\overline{\sigma }_{ij}`$ obeys the following equations

$`\dot{\overline{\sigma }}_{aa}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\overline{\sigma }_{aa}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\overline{\sigma }_{cc}`$ (25)
$`\dot{\overline{\sigma }}_{bb}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\overline{\sigma }_{aa}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\overline{\sigma }_{bc}\overline{\sigma }_{cb})`$ (26)
$`\dot{\overline{\sigma }}_{cc}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\overline{\sigma }_{cc}i\mathrm{\Omega }(\overline{\sigma }_{bc}\overline{\sigma }_{cb})`$ (27)
$`\dot{\overline{\sigma }}_{bc}=iϵ\overline{\sigma }_{bc}+i\mathrm{\Omega }(\overline{\sigma }_{bb}\overline{\sigma }_{cc}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_R+\gamma _L)\overline{\sigma }_{bc},`$ (28)
where the resonant current flowing through this system is respectively $`I_S^{(1)}=e\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\overline{\sigma }_{cc}(t\mathrm{})`$, Eq. (2). Note that Eqs. (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems) obtained for the SET detector in the negative result regime, coincide with the rate equations for the point-contact detector, although the both detectors operate in a different way.

Let us compare Eqs. (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems) with Eqs. (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems). One finds that equations for the diagonal matrix elements are the same. Yet it is not so for the off-diagonal matrix elements. The difference is in the additional dephasing rate, $`\gamma _L/2`$, generated by the detector. It is easy to trace its origin. In accordance with the Bloch equations the dissipation of the nondiagonal density-matrix elements $`\overline{\sigma }_{bc}`$ is the half of all possible decay rates of each of the states ($`|b`$ and $`|c`$). In the presence of the detector, the state $`|b`$, Fig. 2, has an additional decay channel, corresponding to the possibility for an electron to enter the detector. Thus, despite of the dwelling time of an electron in the detector tends to zero and therefore the related detector state does not distort the measured system, the possibility for an electron to enter the detector influences the measured current very drastically. Indeed, solving Eqs. (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems), (Negative result measurements in mesoscopic systems) one obtains

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I_D}{I_S^{(1)}}=\frac{\gamma _L}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_R},I_S^{(1)}=e\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{ϵ^2/\eta +\eta \mathrm{\Gamma }_R^2/4+\mathrm{\Omega }^2(2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R/\mathrm{\Gamma }_L)}I_S^{(0)},$$
(29)
where $`\eta =1+(\gamma _L/\mathrm{\Gamma }_R)`$. If we compare Eqs. (29) with Eqs. (8) we find that SET can measure the resonant current in a coupled-dot structure precisely in the same way as in the previous case of a single dot. However, the measured system is distorted now. For instance, if $`\gamma _L\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ and $`ϵ=0`$, the measured current $`I_S^{(1)}I_S^{(0)}/\eta I_S^{(0)}`$.

The additional decoherence rate $`\gamma _L`$ appears in Eq. (28) only when the detector can distinguish a particular dot occupied by an electron. Yet, such an “observation” effect disappears if $`\stackrel{~}{E}_F^L<E_0+U_1`$. In this case an electron cannot enter the detector no matter which of the dots of the measured system is occupied. Then the additional decay channel for the state $`|c`$ is blocked and Eq. (28) coincides with Eq. (13), i.e. the measured average current remains undistorted, $`I_S^{(1)}=I_S^{(0)}`$ although the detector still interacts with the measured system ($`\mathrm{\Delta }I_D0`$). Such a peculiar dependence of the average current $`I_S`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{E}_F^L`$ is shown in Fig. 3. This “measurement” effect can be observed experimentally by varying the detector voltage, or by moving the resonance level $`E_0`$.

Fig. 3: The average current in the double-dot structure with aligned level ($`E_1=E_2`$) as a function of the Fermi energy of the left reservoir adjacent to the detector.

In conclusion, by using the quantum rate equations method we demonstrated that SET detector can work in the negative result measurement regime. In this case the SET detector does not distort an observed system, if its motion is determined by classical rate equations, i.e. involving only the diagonal density-matrix elements. Such a situation is realised in the resonant transport through a single level. However, in the case of coherent transport, as in the resonant tunneling through coupled dots, the negative result measurement always distorts a measured system, providing that the detector can measure the charging of a particular dot. This measurement effect is accounted by the quantum rate equation, which allows us to evaluate the corresponding decoherence rate. However, if the detector cannot distinguish the charging of a particular dot it becomes a non-distractive again.

Parts of this work were done while the author stayed at University of Trento, Trento, Italy and TRIUMF, Vancouver, Canada. I thank these institutions for their hospitality. I am also grateful to A. Korotkov for important comments, related to this work.


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# The Importance of Dry and Mixed Mergers for Early-Type Galaxy Formation

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The formation of elliptical galaxies by merging disk galaxies has been studied in numerous simulations since it was proposed by Toomre & Toomre (1972) (see Barnes & Hernquist (1992) and Burkert & Naab (2003) for reviews). This merging hypothesis has proven very successful in explaining many of the properties of ellipticals. Even though there are still questions which need further investigation, like the origin of peculiar core properties of ellipticals, it is now widely believed that ellipticals formed by mergers of disk galaxies. In the framework of hierarchical structure formation, merging is the natural way in which structure grows. Indeed, the observed merger fraction of galaxies is in agreement with the predictions of hierarchical models of galaxy formation (Khochfar & Burkert, 2001). Semi-analytical models of galaxy formation, which successfully reproduce many observed properties of galaxies, generally assume that star formation takes place in a galactic disk which formed by gas infall into dark matter halos (e.g. White & Frenk, 1991; Kauffmann et al., 1999; Somerville & Primack, 1999; Springel et al., 2001). Once these disk galaxies merge, depending on the mass ratio of the galaxies, elliptical galaxies form. N-body simulations suggest a mass ratio of $`M_1/M_23.5`$, with $`M_1M_2`$ to generate ellipticals (Naab & Burkert, 2001). We refer to these events as major mergers and to events with $`M_1/M_2>3.5`$ as minor mergers. Ellipticals can later on build up new disks by accretion of gas and become bulges of spiral galaxies (e.g. Steinmetz & Navarro, 2002) or merge with other galaxies. Up to now the frequency of elliptical-elliptical mergers (dry mergers, e-e) or spiral-elliptical mergers (mixed mergers, sp-e) has not been studied in detail despite observational evidence indicating their importance. van Dokkum et al. (1999), for example, find mergers of red, bulge dominated galaxies in a rich cluster at intermediate redshifts.

In this letter we investigate the liklihood of dry and mixed mergers. Our semi-analytical model was constructed similar to those described in detail by Kauffmann et al. (1999) and Springel et al. (2001). Merger trees of dark matter halos with different final masses $`M_0`$ at $`z=0`$ were generated using the method described by Somerville & Kolatt (1999), which is based on the extended Press-Schechter formalism (Bond et al., 1991; Bower, 1991). The mass $`M_0`$ traces different environments. We adopt $`M_0=10^{12}M_{}`$ which represents a field environment and $`M_0=10^{15}M_{}`$ which is a galactic cluster environment. Present day ellipticals are identified by their B-band bulge-to-disc ratio as in Springel et al. (2001), which corresponds to roughly more than $`60\%`$ of the stellar mass in the bulge. We divide the progenitor morphologies into two distinct classes. Those with dominant bulge component are labeled e and those with dominant disk component are labeled sp. In what follows our standard model assumes that the stars of accreted satellites in minor mergers contribute to the bulge component of the more massive progenitor and bulge dominated galaxies have more than $`60\%`$ of their stellar mass in the bulge. We adopt a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1.

## 2 MORPHOLOGY OF PROGENITORS

We start by analyzing the morphology of progenitors involved in major mergers adopting our standard model. Due to continuous interactions, the fraction of bulge dominated galaxies increases with decreasing redshift. As a result, the probability for them to be involved in a major merging event increases too, which is shown in the left panel of fig. 1 for a field ($`M_0=10^{12}M_{}`$) and cluster environment ($`M_0=10^{15}M_{}`$). Due to more frequent interactions the increase of the e-e and sp-sp fraction is faster in more dense environments and at redshifts $`z1`$ the sp-e and e-e fraction show clear environmental dependencies. The fraction of e-e mergers increases faster (slower) while the fraction of sp-e mergers increases slower (faster) with time in high density (low) regions. The most massive galaxies are mainly bulge dominated (e.g. Binney & Merrifield, 1998; Kochanek et al., 2001), suggesting that the fraction of e-e and sp-e is mass dependent. The right panel of fig. 1 illustrates the fraction of present day ellipticals at each magnitude which experienced last major mergers of type e-e, sp-sp or sp-e. The fraction of e-e and sp-e mergers indeed increases towards brighter luminosities with a tendency to increase faster in more dense environments, due to the higher fraction of bulge dominated galaxies. One can distinguish between three luminosity regions: for $`M_B21`$ dry, at around $`M_B20`$, mixed and for $`M_B18`$ sp-sp mergers dominate.

It is important to understand how our results depend on the model assumptions. We focus on cluster environments with $`M_0=10^{15}M_{}`$, where the fraction of ellipticals is largest, and investigate the dependence on our definition of a bulge dominated galaxy. We varied the definition of a bulge dominated galaxy from more than $`60\%`$ mass in the bulge component to more than $`80\%`$ mass in the bulge. The results are shown in fig. 2. The tighter definition of a bulge dominated galaxy reduces (increases) the fraction of e-e (sp-sp) mergers at all redshifts, which results in a lower (higher) fraction of last major mergers being between bulge (disk) dominated galaxies. The right panel of fig. 2 reveals in which mass range the galaxies are most sensitive to the definition of a bulge dominated galaxy. At the high mass end with $`M_B21`$ (e-e region) most of the e-progenitors have a very large fraction of their mass in their bulge component, while in the sp-e and sp-sp region the e-progenitors do not have such dominant bulge components, which explains why the sp-e fraction increases for $`M_B21`$ if a tighter definition of bulge dominated galaxies is assumed.

In our standard model we assumed the stars of a satellite in a minor merger to contribute to the bulge component of the more massive progenitor. However the fate of the satellite’s stars is not that clear, as e.g. Walker, Mihos, & Hernquist (1996) find that in mergers with $`M_1/M_2=10`$ the stars of the satellite get added in roughly equal parts to the disk and the bulge. We tested three different models assuming the stars of satellites in minor mergers to contribute to the bulge (bulge model) (e.g. Kauffmann et al., 1999), the disk (disk model) (e.g. Somerville & Primack, 1999) or half of the stars to the bulge and the other half to the disk (disk-bulge model) of the more massive progenitor. We find that the fraction of sp-e merger does not change significant while the fraction of sp-sp (e-e) mergers increases (decreases) from bulge to disk model (fig. 3). This demonstrates that minor mergers play an important role between two major merging events of a galaxy. The stars and the gas contributed from the satellites will affect the morphology of elliptical galaxies and make them look more like lenticular galaxies.

It is interesting to investigate the fraction of present day ellipticals brighter than a given magnitude which experienced last major mergers of e-e, sp-e or sp-sp type. If bulge dominated galaxies are defined as those with more than $`60\%`$ of their mass in the bulge. We find, independent of the fate of the satellite stars, that more than $`50\%`$ of the ellipticals brighter than $`M_B18`$ have experienced a last major merger which was not a merger between disk dominated galaxies.

## 3 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

We have analyzed the morphologies of progenitors of present day ellipticals based on their stellar mass content in bulge and disk, finding that in contrast to the common assumption of disk dominated progenitors, a large fraction of ellipticals were formed by the merging of a bulge dominated system with a disk galaxy or another bulge dominated system. Kauffmann & Haehnelt (2000) find that the fraction of gas involved in the last major merger of present day ellipticals decreases with stellar mass. We find the same behavior and show in addition that the fraction of dry and mixed mergers increases with luminosity, suggesting that massive ellipticals mainly formed by nearly dissipationless mergers of ellipticals (dry mergers). Our results combined with those of Milosavljević & Merritt (2001) provide an explanation for core properties of ellipticals as observed e.g. by Gebhardt et al. (1996). Progenitors of massive ellipticals should be bulge dominated with massive black holes and very little gas. Their merging leads naturally to flat cores in the remnant. In contrast, progenitors of low mass ellipticals are gas rich with small bulges and low mass black holes, resulting in dissipative mergers and cuspy remnants. With these assumptions it is possible to reproduce the relation between mass deficit and black hole mass observed by Milosavljević et al. (2002) (Khochfar & Burkert in preparation). It is also interesting to note that Genzel et al. (2001) and Tacconi et al. (2002) find that ULIRGS have effective radii and velocity dispersions similar to those of intermediate mass disky ellipticals with $`18.5M_B20.5`$ (sp-e region). QSOs on the other hand have effective radii and velocity dispersions which are similar to giant boxy ellipticals (e-e region). This suggests that ULIRGS should be formed in sp-e mergers whereas QSOs formed almost dissipationless through e-e mergers.

We find that many bulge dominated progenitors experienced minor mergers in between two major merger events. The morphology of these objects is somewhat ambiguous and may depend on several parameters like the impact parameter of the infalling satellites. However, it is clear that these galaxies will rather look like lenticular galaxies than classical spirals. If lenticulars make up a large fraction of progenitors of present day ellipticals with $`M_B21`$, numerical simulations of the formation of giant elliptical galaxies should start with progenitors which were disturbed by minor mergers and should not use relaxed spiral galaxies (e.g. Burkert & Naab, 2003).

Independent of the fate of satellite stars in minor mergers, more than $`50\%`$ of present day ellipticals brighter than $`M_B18`$ in clusters had a last major merger which was not a merger between two classical spiral galaxies. Despite all the successes of simulations of merging spirals in explaining elliptical galaxies our results indicate that only low mass ellipticals are represented by such simulations. More simulations of sp-e (e.g. Naab & Burkert, 2000) and e-e mergers are required to address the question of the formation of ellipticals via merging adequately.


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# Polarization-dependent photoluminescence-excitation spectra of one-dimensional exciton and continuum states in T-shaped quantum wires1footnote 11footnote 1to be published in Applied Physics Letters

## Abstract

We measured polarization-dependent photoluminescence-excitation spectra of highly uniform T-shaped quantum wires at 5 K. We attribute one peak to the one-dimensional(1D)-exciton ground state and the continuous absorption band to 1D continuum states. These had similar polarization dependences. We also observed some other peaks above the 1D-exciton ground state and attribute them to exciton states consisting of excited hole subbands. These results show good agreement with a model calculation of a single electron-hole pair in T-shaped geometry with exact diagonalizations of the Coulomb interaction.

preprint: H.Itoh, APL

In quantum wires, one-dimensional (1D) excitons are expected to have a large binding energy Loudon (1959); Eliott and Loudon (1960); Ogawa and Takagahara (1991a, b); Wegscheider et al. (1993); Someya et al. (1995); Rossi et al. (1997); Goldoni et al. (1998); Thilagam (1997); Glutsch et al. (1997); Brinkmann and Fishman (1997); Walck et al. (1997); Zhang and Mascarenhas (1999); Stopa (2001); Szymanska et al. (2001) and large oscillator strength in the ground state Loudon (1959); Eliott and Loudon (1960); Ogawa and Takagahara (1991a, b); Akiyama et al. (1996a), while the oscillator strength of exciton excited states and 1D continuum states should be suppressed Ogawa and Takagahara (1991b, a).

The absorption line shape of the 1D continuum states was recently measured Akiyama et al. (2003) in a photoluminescence-excitation (PLE) spectrum of T-shaped quantum wires (T-wires) with improved homogeneity, which were fabricated by cleaved-edge overgrowth with growth-interrupt annealing Yoshita et al. (2001) in molecular-beam epitaxy. The results did indeed show reduced absorption of the continuum states, and qualitatively support a simple model calculation Ogawa and Takagahara (1991a, b). On the other hand, some excited-exciton states that were predicted in a more detailed calculation Szymanska et al. (2001) for the T-wire geometry were not found in the observed spectrum. This seems to indicate an inconsistency between the experiment and the theory concerning the above fundamental effect, which must be solved before this effect can be applied to optical devices such as quantum wire lasers Wegscheider et al. (1993, 1994); Rubio et al. (2001); Hayamizu et al. (2002).

In this work, we demonstrate PLE spectroscopy of highly uniform T-wires in an improved optical configuration that allows us to measure polarization-dependent PLE spectra with less scattering-light noise than before Akiyama et al. (1996a); Akiyama et al. (2003). The observed spectra of the T-wires exhibit small isolated peaks, found to be in good agreement with the excited-exciton states predicted in the calculation Szymanska et al. (2001). The peak assignments are supported by the polarization-dependence of the PLE spectra.

We studied several samples that had a nominally identical T-wire-laser structure containing 20 T-wires formed at 20 T-shaped intersections of 20 periods of 14 nm $`\mathrm{Al}_{0.07}\mathrm{Ga}_{0.93}\mathrm{As}`$ quantum wells (stem wells) and a 6 nm GaAs quantum well (arm well), as schematically shown in Fig. 1. The barrier layers in the core and cladding regions had different Al concentrations, 35% and 50%, respectively, so the arm wells in the core and cladding regions had slightly different energies. Details of the structure and fabrication method are presented elsewhere Akiyama et al. (2003). The configuration for optical excitation and detection is also shown in Fig. 1. The excitation was performed via a 0.5 numerical aperture objective lens through a (110) GaAs surface using a continuous-wave titanium-sapphire laser at an input power of 6.7 $`\mu `$W (Fig. 1) or 2.4 $`\mu `$W (Fig. 2). The excitation light had polarization perpendicular($``$) or parallel (//) to the T-wires. In order to eliminate intense backward scattering of the excitation light, photoluminescence (PL) from the sample was collected via a (1̄10) surface.

Figure 1 shows PLE spectra for perpendicular ($``$) and parallel (//) polarizations at 5 K. Large peaks denoted “HH” and “LH” are due to 2D heavy-hole and light-hole excitons in the stem wells, and they demonstrate the typical polarization anisotropy of (001) GaAs quantum wells. The two peaks denoted “core” and “cladding” are due to 2D heavy-hole excitons in the core arm well on 35% barrier and the cladding arm well on 50% barrier, respectively, which were confirmed by a separate PL imaging experiment. In those peaks, optical anisotropy exists due to the crystallographic anisotropy of a (110) GaAs quantum well Gershoni et al. (1991); Akiyama et al. (1996b). The lowest energy peak is due to the 1D ground-state excitons in the T-wires. The PLE spectrum for the parallel polarization reproduces our previously reported spectrum Akiyama et al. (2003).

Figure 2 shows PLE spectra for perpendicular ($``$) and parallel (//) polarizations at 5 K measured in detail around the low energy region in Fig. 1. The strong peak at the lowest energy (1.575 eV) shown in both the spectra is due to 1D ground-state excitons in the T-wires. Between this peak and the 2D arm-well exciton peak, continuous absorption with an onset at 1.586 eV is observed for parallel polarization, while small peaks are observed at 1.582 and 1.586 eV (7 and 11 meV above the ground-state-exciton peak) in perpendicular polarization together with the continuous absorption above 1.586 eV. The origins of the small peaks is most likely the exciton states formed with the electron ground-subband and hole excited-subbands, for the peaks showing strong polarization dependence. The continuous absorption band is expected to correspond to the 1D continuum states. A detailed discussion will now be given comparing a data with a theoretical calculation.

We performed a model calculation of a single electron-hole pair, or an exciton, in the present 14 nm$`\times `$6 nm T-shaped geometry using a formulation reported previously Szymanska et al. (2001). Our model assumes a single hole band corresponding to the ground hole subband in the arm well, which has an anisotropic effective mass due to the band-mixing effect Sercel and Vahala (1990a, b); Brinkmann and Fishman (1997); Kyrychenko and Kossut (2000); Watanabe et al. (2002). Additional band-mixing effects due to lateral confinement is neglected, since the second hole subband in the arm well is deviated over 30 meV. Calculated results are accurate in the low energy region of our interest. The calculation is based on exact diagonalizations of Coulomb interaction matrix elements, which gives energy eigenvalues $`E_n`$ and electron-hole envelope wavefunctions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_n(x_e,y_e,x_h,y_h,z=z_ez_h)`$ $`(n=1,2,3,\mathrm{})`$ of not only the ground but also the excited states of the exciton system. Here, $`(x_e,y_e,z_e)`$ and $`(x_h,y_h,z_h)`$ denote the positions of an electron and a hole. The method of the calculation is the conjugate-gradient minimization Payne et al. (1992) in a coordinate where $`x_e,y_e,x_h`$ and $`y_h`$ move within 42 nm length, and $`z`$ goes from -50 nm to 50 nm. Since we use a dense grid, the results are well converged. Though results for low-energy confined states are accurate, care must be taken over results for high-energy states which are not accurate, because of the extension in the finite sized box and the mixing effect of high energy bands. Thus, the energies of 2D exciton states in the arm well and 1D continuum states in the T-wires were calculated by another method.

The oscillator strength of the $`n`$-th state was evaluated as $`|𝑑x𝑑y\mathrm{\Psi }_n(x,y,x,y,0)|^2`$, a square of an integral of an electron-hole wavefunction with respect to the same electron and hole positions. This evaluation is justified for wavefunctions spatially smaller than the wavelength of light in conventional far-field optical detections. In a previous paper Szymanska et al. (2001), oscillator strength was evaluated as $`𝑑x𝑑y|\mathrm{\Psi }_n(x,y,x,y,0)|^2`$, which is applicable for a particular detection via a local probe in a near-field scanning optical microscope. Such “local-probe oscillator strength” is not used in the present analysis.

For comparison with experimental data, we added an offset energy of 1.521 eV (corresponding to the bulk GaAs band-gap energy) to $`E_n`$, and plotted the calculated oscillator strengths of the $`n`$-th states by circles in Fig. 2. The energies of the 1D continuum states and the arm-well 2D-exciton states are shown by dashed lines. The calculated energy of the $`n`$=1 state with large oscillator strength and the 2D exciton energy in the arm well both show good agreement with the measured strong PLE peaks of the T-wire excitons at 1.575 eV and the arm well excitons at 1.596 eV. Though the oscillator strength of the $`n`$=3 state is zero, those of the $`n`$=2 and 4 states have finite small values. The calculated energy positions as well as the small oscillator strength of the $`n`$=2 and 4 states show good agreement with the measured small PLE peaks at 1.582 and 1.586 eV.

Figure 3 shows wavefunctions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_n(x_e,y_e,x_h,y_h,z=z_ez_h)`$ for $`n`$= 1-5 and 16, where $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_n|^2`$ for various parameter pairs are plotted in the way described in the previous paper Szymanska et al. (2001). The wavefunction for the $`n`$=1 state has no node against any parameter axis. It is well confined in the T-wire and demonstrates that the $`n`$=1 state is the ground-state exciton in the T-wire. This confirms that the observed strong PLE peak at 1.575 eV is due to the ground-state exciton in the T-wire.

For $`n`$=2 and 4, wavefunctions have no node in the electron $`(x_e,y_e)`$ motion and the electron-hole relative $`z`$ motion, while nodes appear in the hole $`y_h`$ motion, which show that the $`n`$=2 and 4 states are exciton states consisting of the electron ground subband and the hole excited subbands. Errors in the calculated energy eigenvalues of these excited states in the finite-sized-box are small, because of the heavy effective mass of hole. The oscillator strengths of these states are small, but not zero, because wavefunctions for different subbands of electrons and holes are approximately orthogonal. The calculated energy and oscillator strength of these states agree well with the experimentally observed two small peaks at 1.582 and 1.586 eV.

Since the present calculation assumes a single hole band, it does not evaluate absolute values of polarization-dependent absorption intensities. However, different hole subbands in general cause different polarization-dependence. Thus, different hole subbands contained in the $`n`$=1, 2, and 4 states qualitatively explain the experimental finding that the two peaks at 1.582 and 1.586 eV show stronger absorption for perpendicular polarization, unlike the ground-state exciton peak.

For $`n`$=3, 5, and 16, wavefunctions have no node for the electron $`(x_e,y_e)`$ motion and the hole $`(x_h,y_h)`$ motion, while nodes appear in the electron-hole relative $`z`$ motion, which show these states are 1D-exciton excited states consisting of the electron ground subband and the hole ground subband in the T-wire. The $`n`$=3 wavefunction is an odd function of $`z`$ and has vanishing oscillator strength, whereas the $`n`$=5 and 16 wavefunctions are even functions of $`z`$ and have large oscillator strength. We should note here that all these states have extended wavefunctions for $`z`$, for which the calculated oscillator strength and energy eigenvalues are not accurate because of the finite-sized-box and the light effective mass of electron, and cannot be compared directly with the experimental spectrum. In fact, the separately calculated onset of 1D continuum states is at 1.589 eV, and all the exciton bound states including the $`n`$=5 and 16 states should be below this energy.

An important point we learn for these states is that these 1D-exciton excited states with even parity consisting of the electron ground subband and the hole ground subband in the T-wire have dominant oscillator strength, while other excited states have only negligible oscillator strength. On the basis of this qualitative point, the experimentally observed continuous absorption band around 1.589 eV is ascribed to excited exciton states and 1D continuum states consisting of the electron ground subband and the hole ground subband in the T-wire. The similarity in polarization dependence between the continuous absorption band and exciton ground state suggests that the contributing hole subband is common.

In summary, we measured polarization-dependent PLE spectra of highly uniform T-wires, and found good agreements with a model calculation. The lowest energy peak due to the 1D-exciton ground state and a continuous absorption band due to 1D continuum states show polarization dependence similar to each other, while two small peaks due to excited hole subbands have different polarization anisotropy. The oscillator strength of the exciton ground state in T-wires is very large, in stark contrast with the small oscillator strength of the excited exciton states and the 1D continuum states. Inverse-square-root singularity was absent in the absorption line shape of 1D continuum states in agreement with theories Ogawa and Takagahara (1991a, b); Szymanska et al. (2001).

This work is partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the MEXT, Japan.


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# Time-Dependent Dynamics of the Bose-Fermi Mixed Condensed System 11footnote 1Proc. of Int. Conf. CM2002

## Abstract

We study the monopole oscillation in the bose-fermi mixed condensed system by performing the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevsky (GP) and Vlasov equations. We find that the big damping exists for the fermion oscillation in the mized system even at zero temperature

It is one of the most excited theme in recent physics to study the time-dependent dynamical motions of traped atoms under the existence of the Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) , such as the collective motions, quantum votices  and atomic novae . In the view of the theoretical research, these phenomena are very important also to construct and to examine the transport theory in finite many body system. In fact many atomic system must give good probes for such study because the fundamental interaction is clear and weak.

In this work we construct the transport model including the condensed bosons and fermions, and as a first step study the collective monopole motion.

Here we briefly explain our formalism. First we define the Hamiltonian for boson-fermion coexistent system as follows.

$$H=H_B+H_F+H_{BF}$$
(1)
with

$`H_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3x\{\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^{}(𝒙)^2\varphi (𝒙)+\frac{1}{2}𝒙^2\varphi ^{}(𝒙)\varphi (𝒙)+\frac{g_B}{2}(\varphi ^{}\varphi )^2\}},`$ (2)
$`H_F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3x\{\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_f}\psi ^{}^2\psi +\frac{1}{2}m_f\omega _f^2\psi ^{}\psi \}},`$ (3)
$`H_{BF}`$ $`=`$ $`h_{BF}{\displaystyle d^3x\{\varphi ^{}\varphi \psi ^{}\psi \}},`$ (4)
where $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ are boson and fermion fields, respectively. Fermion mass $`m_f`$ and the trapped frequency $`\omega _f`$ are normalized with the boson mass $`M_B`$ and the boson trapped frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B`$, respectively. The coordinates are normalized by $`\xi _B=(\mathrm{}/M_B\mathrm{\Omega }_B)^{1/2}`$. The coupling constants $`g_B`$ and $`h_{BF}`$ are given as

$`g_B`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi a_{BB}\xi _B^1,`$ (5)
$`h_{BF}`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi a_{BF}\xi _B^1(1+m_f^1),`$ (6)
where $`a_{BB}`$ and $`a_{BF}`$ are the scattering lengths between two bosons and between the boson and the fermion, respectively.

The total wave function $`|\mathrm{\Phi }(\tau )>`$ has $`N_c`$ condensed bosons, whose wave function $`\varphi _c`$ is defined as

$$\varphi _c(𝒙,\tau )=<\mathrm{\Phi }|\varphi _B(𝒙,\tau )|\mathrm{\Phi }>,$$
(7)
where $`\tau `$ is the time coordinate normalized with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B^1`$. In this work the wave function $`\varphi _c`$ is expanded with the harmonic oscillator wave function $`u_n(𝒙)`$ as

$`\varphi _c(𝒙,\tau )={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N_{base}}{}}}A_ne^{i\theta _n}u_n(b𝒙^2)e^{\frac{i}{2}\nu 𝒙^2},`$ (8)
where $`N_{base}+1`$ is the number of the harmonic oscillator bases. We define the Lagrangian with the collective coordinates as

$$L(A_n,\theta _n,b,\nu )=<\mathrm{\Phi }(\tau )|\{i\frac{}{\tau }H\}|\mathrm{\Phi }(\tau )>.$$
(9)
Instead of solving the time-dependent GP equation directly, we take $`A_n,\theta _n,b,\nu `$ as time-dependent variables and solve the Euler-Lagrange equations with respect to these variables.

The many fermion system can be described with the Thomas-Fermi approximation, which is given in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$. Here we define the phase-space distribution function as

$$f(𝒙,𝒑,\tau )=d^3z<\mathrm{\Phi }|\psi (𝒙+\frac{1}{2}𝒛,\tau )\psi ^{}(𝒙\frac{1}{2}𝒛,\tau )|\mathrm{\Phi }>e^{i𝒑𝒛}.$$
(10)
In this classical limit this phase-space distribution function satisfies the following Vlasov equation:

$$\frac{d}{d\tau }f(𝒙,𝒑;\tau )=\{\frac{}{\tau }+\frac{𝒑}{m_f}_x[_xU_F(x)][_p]\}f(𝒙,𝒑;\tau )=0.$$
(11)
In the actual calculation we solve the above Vlasov equation (11) with the test particle method .

Thus we can get the time-evolution of the condensed bosons and the fermions by solving the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation and the Vlasov equation. As a first step we apply this method to the monopole vibration.

We calculate the monopole vibration of the system 39K-40K; the number of the bosons (39K) and the fermions (40K) are taken to be 100,000 and 1,000, respectively. The trapped frequencies are taken as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B=100`$ (Hz) and $`\omega _f=1`$. Furthermore we use the interaction parameters as $`a_{BB}=4.22`$(nm) and $`a_{BF}=2.51`$(nm) .

Using the root-mean-square radius (RMSR) $`R`$, we here define

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r(\tau )=R(\tau )/R_01,$$
(12)
where $`R_0`$ is the RMSR of the ground state, and $`\tau `$ is the time valiable normalized by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B^1`$. In Fig. 1 we show the time-dependence of this observable for bosons ($`\mathrm{\Delta }r_B`$) and fermions ($`\mathrm{\Delta }r_F`$). In this calculation the initial condition is taken to be $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_B=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_F=0.1`$.

Fig. 1: Time evolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ for boson (a) and fermion (b).

We see a fast damping in the fermion oscillation. The bosonic oscillation, too, is not harmonic. The latter should originate from the bose-fermi coupling, as otherwise the bosonic one is almost daping free at zero temperature. .

In order to study this phenomenon, futher, we examine the spectrum which is obtained by the Fourier transformation

$$F(\omega )=A_C|𝑑\tau R^2(\tau )e^{i\omega \tau }|^2,$$
(13)
where $`A_C`$ is a normalization factor. In Fig. 2 we give two typical results for the spectra obtained by integrating over the regions $`0<\tau <60`$ (Fig. 2a and 2b) and over $`100<\tau <400`$ (Fig. 2c and 2d).

In Fig. 2a we see that the boson vibration mainly has two large peaks at the frequency $`\omega =`$ 1.91 and 2.21 in the early time stage. In this time region the fermion oscillation has one peak at $`\omega =1.91`$ with broad width (Fig. 2b).

Then we can consider the phenomena in the early time stage as follows. At first stage only the fermions moves, and this fermion oscillation triggers the boson vibration. The intrinsic frequencies of the boson and fermion oscillations are $`\omega 2.2`$ and 1.9, respectively. Thus the motion of the bosons corresponds to the forced vibration, and the beat appears in the bosonic vibration. Furthermore the boson motion scatters fermions, so that bosons mediate fermion-fermion interaction and causes a damping in the fermion vibration.

In later time stage the strength of the boson vibration distributes to higher frequency modes while the strength for the fermion almost concentrates to one mode with $`\omega =1.91`$. In addition the beat of the boson vibration disappears in this later time stage (Fig. 1a).

Fig. 2: Spectra of the boson oscillation in upper columns (a,c) and fermion oscillation in down columns (b,d). The spectra deduced from the evolution in $`0<\tau <60`$ are shown in the left columns and that in $`100<\tau <400`$ are in the right columns.

The behavior of this oscillation is never repetitive. In the actual calculation the fermion energy $`<H_F+H_{BF}>`$ does not change in the time evolution process. The oscillation energy of the fermions isy turned to another kind of energy, which might be the thermal energy. We will investigate this possibility more in future.


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# Critical Behaviour of Thermal Relaxation in Disordered Systems

## Abstract

At a composition far above the percolation threshold, the resistance of a composite sample increases with time due to Joule heating as a constant current of sufficiently large value is passed through the sample. If the current is less than a certain breakdown current ($`I_b`$) the resistance eventually reaches a steady value with a characteristic relaxation time $`\tau _h`$. The latter diverges with current $`I`$ as $`\tau _h(1I^2/I_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})^z`$. The value of the exponent $`z`$ displays large fluctuations leading to unusual scaling of the relaxation time. It is shown that the results lead to important conclusions about the nature of breakdown phenomena.

Breakdowns or fractures in random systems form an important class of non-thermodynamic phase transitionsChakrabarti and Benguigui (1998). Much of the effortsChakrabarti and Benguigui (1998); de Arcangelis et al. (1985); Hansen et al. (1991); Sornette and Vanneste (1992); Zapperi et al. (1997); Andersen et al. (1997); Pennetta et al. (2000); Lamaignere et al. (1996); Mukherjee et al. (1999) to understand such irreversible phenomena naturally use the framework already developed for thermodynamic critical phenomena although descriptions remain far from complete. Consider, for example, the order of a breakdown transition. Zapperi et al.Zapperi et al. (1997) have suggested that the latter is first-order as a function of the external field. The relevant ’order parameter’, elastic constant or conductivity suffers a discontinuous change from a finite value to zero at a breakdown point. Using a similar but somewhat different model, Andersen et al.Andersen et al. (1997) supported the idea of a first order transition but only at small disorder. They predicted a change to a second-order transition at higher disorder, thus indicating presence of a tricritical point. On the experimental side, some recent results on electrical failure in composites suggest rather conflicting scenerios. When a sufficiently large current $`I`$ is passed through a composite sample (a random binary mixture of a conductor and an insulator Stauffer and Aharony (1992)) with the conducting fraction $`p`$ typically far above the percolation threshold $`p_cp`$, Joule heating causes the sample resistance to increase. If the current is more than the breakdown current $`I_b`$, heating eventually leads to an irreversible electric breakdown. It was foundLamaignere et al. (1996) that the resistance of such a sample increases as a power of time, $`R(\tau _h(I)t)^{0.65}`$ when a constant current $`I>I_b`$ is applied. The relaxation time (i.e. time-to-failure) $`\tau _h`$ also exhibits a critical behaviour (see below). However, measurementsMukherjee et al. (1999) starting with small currents show that the sample conductance drops to zero as soon as the current equals or exceeds the breakdown current, thereby signalling a first-order transition.

In order to resolve this and other issues it would be useful to obtain information about other relevant quantities near the transition. In this paper, we report the results of our dynamic measurements of thermal relaxation using currents $`less`$ than, but upto, the breakdown current in composite samples with $`varying`$ amount of disorder. The observed relaxation behaviour is reminiscent of the well-known phenomena of slowing downHohenberg and Halperin (1977) near critical points in thermodynamic systems. The relaxation times also exhibits an unusual scaling relation due to a strong dependence on disorder. The present results together with the earlier onesLamaignere et al. (1996) constitute, to our knowledge, the first full description of a dynamic breakdown phenomenon $`both`$ above and below the critical parameter. We examine below various features including the interplay of disorder and breakdown dynamics, which becomes significant particularly in the regime of weak disorder $`p_cp1`$. Few related experimental works include investigation of avalanche dynamicsPetri et al. (1994) and strain-relaxation measurements in metal networks near the percolation thresholdGhosh et al. (1990).

Measurements were performed in composites of carbon and wax (C-W) under constant dc current condition at room temperature and the sample resistance was monitored as a function of time during heating. The preparation and characterisation of the system have been described earlierChakrabarty et al. (1991). $`p_c`$ in C-W system is 0.76$`\%`$ (by volume). In the tunneling regimeBardhan (1997) close to $`p_c`$, the resistance $`decreases`$ with bias. It has been recently found out that there exists a Joule regime in, or a conducting fraction $`p_J`$ above, which the resistance always $`increases`$ with biasMukherjee et al. (1999). The nominal carbon fractions of the samples ranging from $`4.5`$ to $`10\%`$ were above or near $`p_J`$ which is approximately 4.5$`\%`$Nandi et al. (2000). Samples prepared with larger carbon fractions were mechanically unstable. On the other hand, samples with lower carbon fractions had tunneling effect offsetting the effect of Joule heating (see Fig. 1 of Ref. Mukherjee et al., 1999). The geometry of current flow in a cylinderical sample is illustrated in the inset in Fig. 1. Various properties of the samples used in the present work are given in Table I. In a typical measurement, the current corresponding to a certain value $`I`$ would be turned on at time $`t=0`$ and the bias across the sample be measured at an interval of time (usually 250 msec) until it reached a steady value when a balance between dissipation and generation of heat within the sample is established. The sample was then allowed to cool for up to 2 hours before measurements would be repeated with an another current, not exceeding the breakdown current. The relaxation during cooling from a hot steady state was also measured. It exhibited an anamalous behaviour. This will be reported elsewhere.

Figure 1 shows a typical relaxation curve (a) during heating, obtained from a cylinderical sample ($`\mathrm{\#}`$3). The curve is well described by a simple exponential process indicated by the solid line in Fig. 1. It may be recalledCampbell and Giovannella (1990) that the relaxation function $`f(t)`$ is almost universally given by $`f(t)\mathrm{exp}[(t/\tau )^\alpha ]`$. Here $`t`$ is time, $`\tau `$ is a relaxation time constant and $`\alpha `$ is an exponent. The exponential relaxation corresponding to $`\alpha =1`$ occurs mostly in simple systems such as homogeneous ordered solidsrem . A simple exponential in the present case may be attributed to a long-time relaxation behaviour. In systems with characteristic time scales such as percolating networks, the relaxation function may change from a stretched exponential at short times to a simple exponential at long times Havlin and Ben-Avraham (1987); Ghosh et al. (1990). For samples with large $`pp_c`$ such as the ones used here, the cross-over times should be quite small. Close to $`p_c`$, $`\alpha `$ was determined to be about 0.8Ghosh et al. (1990) in elastic relaxation in dilute metal foils, and about 0.4Nandi et al. (1997) in voltage relaxation in the same system as the present one.

The relaxation time in several samples of different compositions and dimensions (see Table I) against current are shown in Fig. 2. $`\tau _h`$ of a sample was found to diverge as a power-law

$$\tau _h=\tau _{ho}ϵ^z$$
(1)
Here, $`\tau _{ho}`$ is a prefactor, $`ϵ=(I^2/I_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}1)<0`$ and $`z`$ is a dynamical exponent. $`\tau _{ho}`$, $`I_b`$ and $`z`$ were treated as fitting parameters and its values are listed in Table I. $`\tau _{ho}`$ is really the relaxation time at zero current. It depends on sample dimensions (see Eq. 2) but more importantly, monotonically increases with disorder. In fact, $`\tau _{ho}`$ diverges as $`p`$ approaches $`p_c`$. Such disorder-induced divergence of relaxation time has been qualitatively observed by Ghosh et al.Ghosh et al. (1990). The breakdown current $`I_b`$ scales with $`R_o`$ as $`I_bR_{o}^{}{}_{}{}^{0.44}`$Mukherjee et al. (1999). $`R_o`$ is the resistance at zero current.

The exponent $`z`$ thus determined was not a constant even within experimental unceratinities of 5$`\%`$. It exhibits an unusual sample-to-sample fluctuation as seen in Fig. 3 where it is plotted against a quantity $`r`$ as a measure of disorder. (It is not practical to use $`p`$ due to uncertainities in its values). $`r`$ is defined as the ratio of the zero-current sample resistivity and the resistivity of the pure conducting phase ($`10^2\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{cm}`$). $`r`$ is 1 at zero disorder ($`p=1`$) and increases monotonically with disorder as $`p`$ decreases from 1. Within the range of disorder (two orders of magnitude) investigated in this work, the exponent has an average value of $`0.184\pm 0.06`$ i.e 33$`\%`$ uncertainities. The highest value (0.3) is about four times the lowest one (0.076). Without these two extreme values, uncertainities reduce to 17$`\%`$ which is still beyond the experimental error. Clearly, the relaxation exponent $`z`$ for $`I<I_b`$ is disorder-dependent. In fact, one can classify the breakdown-related exponents, both theoretical and experimental, into two groups: 1) disorder-dependent and 2) disorder-independent or ’universal’. Examples of the first group include, besides $`z`$ of this work, the ones associated with broken bonds in lattice modelsBatrouni and Hansen (1998) while those in the second group include the size exponents in Table I of Ref. Hansen et al., 1991, roughness exponentBatrouni and Hansen (1998), relaxation exponent $`z`$ for $`I>I_b`$ (see below). A disorder-dependent exponent is usually derived from measurements involving a $`single`$ sample and hence, fluctuations in its values possibly reflect lack of self-averaging property.

To show how well Eq. 1 represents the relaxation time data, one notes that plotting $`(\tau _h/\tau _{ho})^{1/z}`$ against $`I^2/I_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ should lead to data collapse. This is indeed seen in Fig. 4(open symbols, $`I^2/I_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}<1`$). The solid line is a fit to (1), which is excellent even at low currents. Thus, Eq. 1 holds not only near $`I_b`$ but also for the entire range of current $`I<I_b`$. Goodness of the data collapse near $`I_b`$ is highlighted in the plot in the inset. Staight lines have slopes of unity. To complete the description of the dynamic breakdown, time-to-failure data (closed symbols) obtained above the breakdown point ($`ϵ>0`$) by Lamaignere et al.Lamaignere et al. (1996) are also shown in the figure. In this case, $`\tau _{ho}`$ is fixed arbitrarily to display the data within the graph and can not be interpreted as the relaxation time at zero current as in the case $`ϵ<0`$. The dashed line is again a fit to (1) with $`z=1`$. The single function fits reasonably well all the data whereas previously, different functions were used to fit different ranges of data. The function $`\tau _h(I/I_b1)^2`$ as considered in Ref. Lamaignere et al., 1996 near $`I_b`$ is also shown in Fig. 4(dotted line). As seen, it does not fit the whole set of data. It is important to note that the value of the exponent $`z`$ (i.e. 1) for $`ϵ>0`$ is $`independent`$ of disorder in contrast to the varying exponent for $`ϵ<0`$. This is ensured by Eq. 1 and the requirement that $`\tau _h`$ must vary as $`I^2`$ at large currents Lamaignere et al. (1996) as dissipation of heat becomes negligible at large currents.

It is now useful to summarize characteristics below and above the breakdown point $`I=I_b`$. (i) For $`ϵ<0`$, the resistance ratio $`R/R_o`$ (see, for example, Fig. 1 of Ref. Mukherjee et al., 1999) smoothly increases with current to a limiting value (or breakdown ratio) $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}1.5`$Nandi et al. (2000) at $`ϵ=0`$. $`R=R(t\mathrm{})`$ is the steady resistance at a given current. It is best fitted by an expression $`R/R_o=\mathrm{{\rm Y}}+a_1ϵ+a_2ϵ^2+a_3ϵ^3`$ that has a finite slope $`a_1`$ at $`ϵ=0`$. For $`ϵ>0`$, there is no steady state. On the other hand, $`\tau _h`$ diverges as a power-law of $`ϵ`$ on both sides; ii) $`z`$ is not same on both sides as discussed above. This is in contrast to equality of the exponents on both sides, that is expected from scaling hypotheses in both static and dynamic critical phenomena in thermodynamic systems; iii) While the scaling in Fig. 4 is itself an expression of ’universality’ Hansen et al. (1991), the fluctuations in $`z`$ for $`ϵ<0`$ renders the notion of an universality class unteneble; iv) At $`ϵ<0`$, both $`R`$ and $`\tau _h`$ are $`reversible`$ with respect to current. This rules out any local breakdown $`before`$ the global breakdown occurs. For, any irreversible change in the microstructure should also lead to irreversibility in those quantities. This is incompatible with the picture that emerges in breakdown models with $`annealed`$ disorderde Arcangelis et al. (1985); Sornette and Vanneste (1992); Andersen et al. (1997); Zapperi et al. (1997); Pennetta et al. (2000) where the global breakdown is preceded by increasing bursts of irreversible bond breaking. The composite samples can be considered belonging to a system with quenched disorder for $`ϵ<0`$, and a system with annealed disorder for $`ϵ>0`$. In view of all these, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the usual thermodynamic classification of phase transition is inadequate to describe breakdown phenomena.

The presence of disorder is expected to have a profound effect on the breakdown processes. One of its manifestation lies in the conceptual difficulties of taking the limit of disorder going to zeroAndersen et al. (1997). This is aptly illustrated in the present case. Let us first consider divergence of the relaxation time in a homogeneous medium corresponding to zero disorder. In fact, it has been long discussedJaeger and Carslaw (1959) albeit couched in the language of stability. The Joule heating under a constant current $`I`$ in a medium with a positive temperature coefficient of resistance $`\beta `$ leads to either a steady state or breakdown depending on whether the heat generated is removed quickly enough or not. Full solutions of heat flow have been obtained in some regular geometriesJaeger and Carslaw (1959) where $`\tau _h`$ is given by

$$\tau _hl^2(\kappa abI^2)^1l^2\kappa (1I^2/I_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})^1$$
(2)
where $`I_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=\kappa a/b`$, $`\kappa `$ is thermal diffusivity, and $`l`$ is the smallest distance for flow of heat. $`a,b`$ are constants that depends on the boundary conditions and various material constants including $`\beta `$. Clearly, $`z=1`$ in the case of zero disorder ($`p=1`$). In passing let us note that according to Eq. 2, $`I^2`$ rather than $`I`$ is the proper variable to use in problems involving the Joule heating. Consideration of temperature-coupled resistance is an essential ingradient in obtaing (2). Its absence in the dynamic fuse model of Sornette et al.Sornette and Vanneste (1992) gives rise to a relaxation time $`independent`$ of current.

As the disorder is reduced ($`p1`$), the relaxation exponent increases from $`0.18`$ to 1. Thus, the dependence of $`z`$ on disorder is much stronger than the fluctuations in its values suggest. Presently, there is no theory of $`z`$ for $`p<1`$. An interesting question arises at this point as to how $`z`$ from a lower value at higher disorder would approach 1 at the point P in Fig. 3. Three possible curves are shown schematically. The curve $`a`$ is intuitive and has a zero slope at $`P`$. This means that the system having a small disorder can be simply considered as a homogeneous one with an effective thermal diffusivity. This may be possible if the melting point of the conductor is $`less`$ than that of the insulating matrix. The curve $`c`$ corresponds to the situation where even a slight disorder leads to an abrupt fall in $`z`$. This may happen if the melting point of the conductor is $`greater`$ than that of the insulating matrix. The curve $`b`$ has a finite slope at P. Clearly, furthur theoretical efforts are necessary for understanding of $`z`$ as a function of disorder. Similar problemMukherjee et al. (1999) concerning the breakdown ratio $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ exists near $`p1`$.

In conclusion, a detailed description of the dynamic electric breakdown driven by external current, both below and above the breakdown current, was presented. It was shown that the classification of thermodynamic phase transitions is inadequate for breakdown transitions. The present models having annealed disorder lack reversibility found in composites.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge several discussions with Bikas Chakrabarti and the assistance of Arindam Chakrabarti in the preparation of C-W samples and processing data.


text:
# Improved models of stellar core collapse and still no explosions: What is missing?

## Abstract

Two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of stellar core-collapse with and without rotation are presented which for the first time were performed by solving the Boltzmann equation for the neutrino transport including a state-of-the-art description of neutrino interactions. Although convection develops below the neutrinosphere and in the neutrino-heated region behind the supernova shock, the models do not explode. This suggests missing physics, possibly with respect to the nuclear equation of state and weak interactions in the subnuclear regime. However, it might also indicate a fundamental problem of the neutrino-driven explosion mechanism.

Despite of more than three decades of theoretical research and numerical modeling, the processes which cause the explosion of massive stars are still not understood. Current observational data of supernovae (SNe) do not provide direct information. Although neutrinos ($`\nu `$) and gravitational waves could yield such insight, the $`\nu `$ events detected in connection with SN 1987A were too sparse to constrain the SN mechanism. Progress in our understanding of the complex phenomena in collapsing stars and nascent (“proto-”) neutron stars (PNSs) is therefore mainly based on hydrodynamic simulations.

Stars more massive than about 10 solar masses (M) develop an iron core in a sequence of nuclear burning stages. This iron core becomes gravitationally unstable when it reaches a mass close to its Chandrasekhar limit and collapses to a neutron star. A hydrodynamic shock forms when nuclear density is reached and the matter becomes incompressible. There is general agreement, supported by detailed numerical models, that this shock is not able to promptly cause a SN explosion. Instead, it suffers from severe energy losses by the photodisintegration of iron nuclei to free nucleons. It finally stalls after having reached densities low enough that electron neutrinos ($`\nu _e`$) can rapidly escape in a luminous outburst and thus drain even more energy from the shock-heated matter bru85 ; bru89ab ; myra .

While $`\nu `$ losses damp the shock in this early phase, the situation changes some 50 ms later. As more stellar matter falls onto the collapsed inner core, the shock is pushed to larger radii and the density and temperature behind the shock decrease. On the other hand, the central core begins to settle and heats up, thus radiating more energetic neutrinos. Both effects lead to the situation that $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ can now be absorbed with a small probability (10–20%) by free neutrons and protons behind the shock. A region of $`\nu `$ heating between the so-called “gain radius” and the shock front develops betwil85 . If the $`\nu `$ energy deposition is efficient enough, the stalled shock can be revived and drives a “delayed” explosion.

The success of pioneering calculations betwil85  could be maintained in later models only by invoking neutron-finger convective instabilities in the PNS wilmay8893 . These boost the $`\nu `$ luminosities and thus enhance the $`\nu `$-energy transfer to the shock. Explosion energies similar to those of observed SNe required even higher $`\nu `$ fluxes. It was proposed that these could be obtained when pions appear in large numbers in the PNS matter maytav93 . The existence of neutron-finger instabilities, however, depends on very specific thermodynamical properties of the equation of state and on the details of the $`\nu `$ transport brudin96 . The formation of pions in hot PNS matter, on the other hand, is highly uncertain and requires particular assumptions about their dispersion relation.

While all simulations addressed so far were performed in one dimension (1D) assuming spherical symmetry (neutron-finger convection was treated by a mixing-length approach), SN 1987A provided evidence for large-scale mixing processes which carried radioactive nuclei from the region of their formation near the PNS into the helium and hydrogen shells of the exploding star. Simulations suggested that their origin may be linked to hydrodynamic instabilities behind the stalled shock already during the first second of the explosion herben92 . Two-dimensional (2D) explconv  and most recently also three-dimensional (3D) frywar02  models that take into account $`\nu `$ effects then showed that convective overturn indeed develops in the $`\nu `$ heating region and is helpful for shock revival, thus making explosions possible even when spherically symmetric models fail janmue96 .

The multi-dimensional situation is generically different because it allows accretion to continue while shock expansion already sets in. Narrow downflows bring cold, low-entropy matter close to the gain radius, where the $`\nu `$ energy deposition is strongest. At the same time heated matter can rise in buoyant bubbles, thus pushing the shock farther out and reducing energy loss by the reemission of neutrinos. Although this increases the efficiency of $`\nu `$-energy transfer, convection is still no guarantee that explosions occur janmue96 . A particular concern with all multi-dimensional models which yielded explosions was the much simplified treatment of the $`\nu `$ transport by grey diffusion schemes, which was inferior to the more elaborate multi-group transport description used in unsuccessful spherical models mezcal98:ndconv .

Recently it has become possible to go a step further and solve the time-dependent Boltzmann equation for $`\nu `$ transport in 1D hydrodynamic simulations with Newtonian ramjan00 ; mezlie01 ; thoetal02  and relativistic gravity liemez01 . It turned out that even this improvement does not lead to explosions. The question, however, remained whether convection might bring the models to a success. Here we present the first 2D simulations which were performed with a Boltzmann solver for the $`\nu `$ transport. At the same time we have also upgraded the description of $`\nu `$-matter interactions compared to the conventional treatment of Refs. bru85 ; brumez93 ; ramjan02 .

Numerical techniques and input physics. For the integration of the equations of hydrodynamics we employ the Newtonian finite-volume code PROMETHEUS frymue89 . This second-order, time-explicit Godunov scheme is a direct Eulerian implementation of the Piecewise Parabolic Method (PPM) colwoo84  and is based on a Riemann solver.

The Boltzmann solver scheme for $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ of all three flavors is described in detail in Ref. ramjan02 . In multi-dimensional simulations in spherical coordinates, we solve for each latitude $`\theta `$ of the numerical grid the monochromatic moment equations for the radial transport of $`\nu `$ number, energy, and momentum. This set of equations is closed by a variable Eddington factor that is calculated from the solution of the Boltzmann equation on an angularly averaged stellar background. In addition, we had to go an important step beyond this “ray-by-ray” approximation of multi-dimensional transport. Physical constraints, namely the conservation of lepton number and entropy within adiabatically moving fluid elements and the stability of regions which should not develop convection according to a stability analysis, made it necessary to take into account the coupling of neighboring rays at least by lateral advection terms and $`\nu `$ pressure gradients buretal03 .

General relativistic effects are treated approximately by modifying the gravitational potential with correction terms due to pressure and energy of the stellar medium and neutrinos, which are deduced from a comparison of the Newtonian and relativistic equations of motion ramjan02 . The $`\nu `$ transport contains gravitational redshift and time dilation, but ignores the distinction between coordinate radius and proper radius. This is necessary for coupling the transport code to our basically Newtonian hydrodynamics. Comparison with fully relativistic 1D simulations showed that these approximations work well at least when the deviations of the metric coefficients from unity are moderate lieetal03 .

Improving the description of $`\nu `$ interactions buretal03  compared to the “standard” opacities bru85 ; brumez93  we added $`\nu `$-pair creation (and annihilation) by nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung hanraf98 , scattering of $`\nu _\mu `$, $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$, $`\nu _\tau `$, and $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ off $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$, and pair annihilation reactions between neutrinos of different flavors burjan02:nunu . We also take into account the detailed reaction kinematics with nucleon thermal motions, recoil, and fermion phase-space blocking effects in the charged- and neutral-current $`\nu `$-nucleon interactions. Moreover, nuclear correlations bursaw9899 , weak-magnetism corrections hor02 , and the reduction of the nucleon effective mass and possible quenching of the axial-vector coupling in nuclear matter carpra02  are included, too.

Our current SN models are calculated with the equation of state (EoS) of Ref. latswe91  using an incompressibility of bulk nuclear matter of 180 MeV (other values make only minor differences thoetal02 ). This EoS is based on a compressible liquid-drop model including nuclei, nucleons, $`e^{}`$, $`e^+`$, and photons.

The 2D simulations were performed with a spherical coordinate grid with about 400 radial zones and assuming azimuthal symmetry around the polar axis. A wedge of roughly 90 degrees was chosen in the angular direction between the angles $`\theta _0`$ and $`\theta _1`$ and with the number of mesh points, $`N_\theta `$, as given in Table 1. For the nonrotating models periodic boundary conditions were taken. For the rotating model reflecting boundaries at the axis and the equator were imposed.

We considered three (solar metallicity) progenitors with main sequence masses of 11.2 M, 15 M, and 20 M wooheg02 . The model specific parameters are given in Table 1. For the transport we used an energy grid of 17 geometrically spaced bins with centers from 2 MeV to 333 MeV. Higher energy resolution was tested without giving significant differences. Model s15p is a calculation where random density perturbations with 1% amplitude were imposed on the pre-collapse core to follow their growth during infall laigol00 . In the rotating Model s15r the angular frequency was assumed to be constant in the Fe and Si core and decreasing like $`r^{3/2}`$ outside of 1750 km (1.43 M). These choices and the adopted rotation rate (cf. Table 1) are basically in agreement with predictions from stellar evolution models hegwoo03 .

Results. Convective overturn starts to appear in the region of $`\nu `$ heating behind the shock about 25 ms after shock formation, and begins to affect the SN dynamics about 50 ms later. Expanding bubbles of heated matter deform the shock (Fig. 1) and lead to a transient increase of the average shock radius (Fig. 2). The difference to spherically symmetric simulations, however, is small in case of Models s15 and s20 because the convectively unstable layer between gain radius and shock remains narrow and the overturn motions never become very strong. The largest relative change occurs when the big entropy discontinuity at the inner boundary of the oxygen enriched shell ($`M_{\mathrm{Si}+\mathrm{O}}`$; Table 1) of the progenitor star crosses the shock. The sudden decrease of the density and ram pressure of the infalling matter allows the shock to transiently expand also in 1D simulations. In Model s11.2 the corresponding growth of the shock radius is nearly 50 km. This in turn widens the gain layer and thus allows convection to strengthen. The combined effects lead to a much larger shock radius than in the 1D case (Fig. 2). A similar result is caused by centrifugal forces in the rotating Model s15r (Fig. 2). Here decelerated infall of matter near the equatorial plane and a reduced density near the poles create a more favorable situation for violent convection (Fig. 1).

Ledoux convection sets in below the neutrinosphere already about 40 ms after bounce. It is persistent until the end of our simulations and slowly digs farther into the star (cf. Fig. 1, lower left panel) in agreement with previous 2D simulations keietal96 . But the active layer is rather deep inside the PNS (at a density above $`10^{12}`$g cm-3) and is surrounded by a convectively stable shell in which the surface fluxes of $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ are mainly built up. Therefore the PNS convection has little influence on the emission of these neutrinos and is irrelevant for the SN dynamics. The differences in the $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ luminosities and mean energies relative to the 1D case (Fig. 3) are caused by rotation and matter downflows from the shock to the neutrinospheric region.

Random density perturbations in the progenitor (Model s15p) increase in the supersonically infalling layers and are damped in the subsonically collapsing inner core as predicted by linear analysis laigol00 . We have not discovered any influence on the development of convection. Also the shock radii of Models s15p and s15 are nearly identical. Higher angular resolution allows convection to grow somewhat faster because of reduced numerical viscosity. Within the limits of our tests the later evolution in cases of strong convection exhibits quantitative but no qualitative differences (see Models s11.2 in Fig. 2).

Conclusions. Our simulations show that an accurate treatment of the neutrino physics does not yield sufficiently efficient $`\nu `$-energy transfer behind the stalled SN shock to produce explosions, even though convection occurs below the neutrinosphere and in the $`\nu `$-heating region. This finding confirms concerns mezcal98:ndconv  that the success of previous models explconv  was favored by gross simplifications of the $`\nu `$ transport.

None of the included effects is therefore able to cause explosions. Truly multi-dimensional transport buretal03  or full relativity lieetal03  are not likely to change the situation. But the long-time evolution of the shock is sensitive to the $`\nu `$ emission that originates from the neutrinospheric layer. The EoS properties and $`\nu `$ interactions at densities below some $`10^{13}`$g cm-3 are therefore particularly relevant. The structure, temperature, and convective stability of this layer depend also on the compactness of the PNS and thus on the uncertain physics in its supranuclear core. The influence of the EoS on the post-bounce dynamics, however, has not been explored extensively so far. Necessary improvements of weak interactions on nuclei include electron capture rates lanetal03  and inelastic neutrino scattering. Moreover, generically 3D phenomena cannot be studied with 2D hydrodynamics. Also the properties of the progenitor cores need reexamination.

The current paradigm for explaining massive star explosions would have to be revised if the $`\nu `$-driven mechanism were fundamentally flawed. SNe might be aided by, e.g., magnetohydrodynamic processes akietal02  or even more exotic physics. Although it is still too early for this conclusion, such investigations deserve more interest.

We are indebted to K. Takahashi and C. Horowitz for help in improving $`\nu `$-nucleon interactions. Support by the Sonderforschungsbereich 375 on “Astroparticle Physics” of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is acknowledged. The simulations were done on the IBM “Regatta” supercomputer of the Rechenzentrum Garching.