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# Confinement of 𝒩=1 Super Yang-Mills from Supergravity

## I Introduction

Physicists now believe non-abelian gauge theory exhibits some dramatic behaviors at long distance, such as confinement and mass gap, etc.. It is difficult to study these properties using traditional quantum field theory (QFT) method due to its nonpertubative characters. However, the remarkable success of AdS/CFT correspondence reveals a practical approach to study strong coupling gauge theoryMald98 ; GKP98 ; Witten98 . The similar correspondence is believed to exist in broad class of theories even with less supersymmetry and non-conformal theories (so-called gauge/gravity duality). According to continuously breaking supersymmetry, we can expect to study strong-coupling properties of non-abelian gauge theory via dual weak-coupling gravity. So far, several nonsingular supergravity (SUGRA) solution have been constructed. They preserve 1/2 or 1/4 of the maximal supersymmetry and are conjectured dual to $`d=4`$, $`𝒩=2`$GKM01  or $`𝒩=1`$MN01 ; KT00 ; KS00  super Yang-Mills (SYM) theories. In particular, the case $`𝒩=1`$ super SYM is very interesting, because it possesses the common features of non-abelian gauge theory at long distance but is hard to be study using usual QFT method. For this SYM, two dual SUGRA solution were found:

* The Maldacena-Nu$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{n}}`$ez (MN) solutionMN01 : It corresponds to a large ($`N`$) number of D5-branes wrapped on a supersymmetric two-cycle inside a Calabi-Yau threefold. Meanwhile, 6d SYM theory onto D5-branes is reduced to pure $`d=4,𝒩=1`$ $`SU(N)`$ SYM in the IR.
* The Klebanov-Strassler-Tseytlin (KST) solution KT00 ; KS00 : It describes the geometry of the warped deformed conifold when one places M D3-branes and N fractional D3-branes at the apex of the conifold. It is dual to a certain $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric $`SU(N+M)\times SU(M)`$ gauge theory. If $`M`$ is a multiple of $`N`$, then this theory flows to $`SU(N)`$ in the IR, via a chain of duality cascade which reduces the rank of the gauge group by $`N`$ units at each cascade jump. Thus at the end of the duality cascade the gauge theory is effectively pure $`𝒩=1`$ $`SU(N)`$ SYM.

The purpose of this paper is to study confinement of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM from KST solution. We will give a brief comments on MN solution at the end of the paper.

The natural criterion for confinement of pure Yang-Mills theory is expectation value of large Wilson loop satisfying area lawWTM . The evaluation on Wilson loop of $`𝒩=4`$ SYM from supergravity in $`AdS`$ space has been studied in various aspects. It was proposed inMald98b ; RY98  that Wilson loops of the CFT can be described in AdS by

$`<W(𝒞)>\underset{\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{}}{lim}e^{(S_\mathrm{\Phi }l\mathrm{\Phi })},`$ (1)
where $`S`$ is the proper area of a fundamental string world-sheet which lies on the loop $`𝒞`$ on the boundary of AdS, $`l`$ is the total length of the Wilson loop and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the mass of the $`W`$ boson. The presence of the term $`l\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is to subtract divergence from infinity mass of the $`W`$ boson. It corresponds to UV divergence in QFT. The evaluation for the rectangular Wilson loop was performed in refs.Mald98 ; RY98  and for simpler circular loop was performed in refs.BCFM99 ; DGO99 . There are no any surprise results due to conformal invariance. The more non-trivial results is from calculation of operator product expansion for the Wilson loop when probed from a distance much larger than the size of the loopBCFM99 , and from calculation on Wilson loop correlatorGOphase . The extension of Eq. (1) to KST background is in principle direct. However, since KST background is much more complicated than AdS space, we can not expect to obtain any analytic results. So that although there is a simple scaling argument that large Wilson loops of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM resulted by KST solution satisfies the area lawHKO01 , the direct verification is still lacked so far. In this paper we use numerical tools to search minimal surface of string world-sheet in KST background which lies on the Wilson loop on the boundary of KST space. In order to simplify the calculation, we consider circular Wilson loop of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM in Euclidean space. The proper area of string world-sheet can be expressed as a function of radius of circular loop. We will evaluate both of cases for small and large radius. It can be expected that behavior of Wilson loop exhibits the following conclusions,

* The confinement of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM at large distance.
* The asymptotical freedom of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM at short distance.
* Phase transition from short distance to large distance.

This study can also be treated as an examination for duality between SUGRA KST solution and $`𝒩=1`$ SYM.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec.II, we extend to calculation on Wilson loop in AdS space to KST background and derive Euler-Lagrangian equation which governs minimal surface of string world-sheet. In Sec.III, We show some numerical results such as curve of Wilson loop vs. radius of the loop. The physical results are obtained via those numerical results. A brief summary will be devoted in Sec.IV and several details on numerical evaluation are presented in the Appendix.

## II Wilson Loop of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM from KST solution

The Wilson loop operator in $`𝒩=1`$ SYM is

$`W(𝒞)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}TrPe^{i_𝒞A},`$ (2)
where $`𝒞`$ denotes a closed loop in spacetime, and the trace is taken over the fundamental representation of the gauge group. The expectation of the Wilson loop can be calculated by supergravity in terms of Eq. (1) directly, with action $`S`$ is given by

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}}{\displaystyle d^2\sigma \sqrt{g}},`$ (3)
where $`\sigma ^1`$ and $`\sigma ^2`$ parameterize fundamental string (Euclidean) world-sheet,

$`g_{\alpha \beta }=G_{MN}_\alpha X^M_\beta X^N,`$ (4)
is induced metric on the world-sheet. In this paper, we focus our attention on nonsingular KST background such that $`G_{MN}`$ is given by

$`ds_{10}^2`$ $`=`$ $`h^{1/2}(\tau )dx_ndx_n+h^{1/2}(\tau )ds_6^2,`$
$`h(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha {\displaystyle _\tau ^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{x\mathrm{coth}x1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2x}}(\mathrm{sinh}(2x)2x)^{1/3}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`\alpha I(\tau ),`$
where $`\tau `$ is the radial parameter of the transverse space, $`\alpha =2^{2/3}(g_sN\alpha ^{})^2ϵ^{8/3}`$. $`ds_6^2`$ is the metric of the deformed conifoldDC ,

$`ds_6^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ^{4/3}K(\tau )\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3K^3(\tau )}}(d\tau ^2+(g^5)^2)+\mathrm{cosh}^2({\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{2}}){\displaystyle \underset{i=3}{\overset{4}{}}}(g^i)^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2({\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{2}}){\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}}(g^i)^2\right]`$ (6)
where $`ϵ`$ parameterizes length of the deformed conifold and possesses mass dimension $`3/2`$, $`K(\tau )`$ is defined by

$`K(\tau )={\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{sinh}(2\tau )2\tau )^{1/3}}{2^{1/3}\mathrm{sinh}\tau }},`$ (7)
and the 1-form basis $`g^i`$ parameterize transverse five-dimension space. To simplify complicated calculation we do the following notions:

* Set angle parameters of transverse space as constants such that $`g^i0`$. The Wilson loop in $`𝒩=4`$ SYM with non-constant angle parameters has been considered in ref.TZ02 . When we extend this consideration to $`𝒩=1`$ SYM calculation becomes very difficult.
* To define a new dimensionless radial parameter $`r=e^{\tau /3}`$, $`0r1`$. The boundary of KST space is $`r=0`$.
* We consider that $`𝒩=1`$ SYM is defined in Euclidean space, and circular Wilson loop is located at $`x^1x^2`$ plane. Since we are aiming at finding a minimal surface, the string world-sheet can be considered as a rotational surface. Then we define

$`x^1`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\alpha }ϵ^{2/3}f(r)\mathrm{cos}\theta ,`$
$`x^2`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\alpha }ϵ^{2/3}f(r)\mathrm{sin}\theta ,`$ (8)
with a dimensionless function $`f(r)`$. Consequently the string world-sheet is parameterized by $`r`$ and $`\theta `$,

$`ds^2={\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\sqrt{\alpha }ϵ^{4/3}I^{1/2}(r)\left\{[f^2(r)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}I(r)K^2(r)]dr^2+f^2(r)d\theta ^2\right\},`$ (9)
where prime denotes derivative on $`r`$.

According to the above notions, the action defined in Eq. (3) is rewritten to

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{3}{2^{2/3}}}g_sN{\displaystyle 𝑑rI^{1/2}f\sqrt{f^2+G(r)}},`$ (10)
with

$`G(r)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}I(r)K^2(r).`$ (11)
From action (10) we obtain the Euler-Lagrangian equation which govern minimal surface of string world-sheet,

$`f^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{ln}IG)^{}f^{}{\displaystyle \frac{I^{}}{2IG}}f^3{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f}}(f^2+G)=0.`$ (12)
The minimal surface implies the initial conditions of Eq. (12) should be

$`f(0)=R,f^{}(0)=0.`$ (13)
In order to show that this initial condition is taken care of properly, let us find asymptotical solution of Eq. (12) for $`r0`$. Noticing the expressions,

$`\begin{array}{ccc}I(r)& \stackrel{r0}{}& \frac{3}{162^{1/3}}r^4(1+12\mathrm{ln}r)+O(r^{10})\\ & & \\ K(r)& \stackrel{r0}{}& 2^{1/3}r+O(r^7)\end{array}\}G(r)\stackrel{r0}{}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}(1+12\mathrm{ln}r),`$ (17)
at limit $`r0`$, the Euler-Lagrangian equation (12) approaches to

$`ff^{\prime \prime }({\displaystyle \frac{2}{r}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r\mathrm{ln}r}})ff^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{9}{8}}\mathrm{ln}r+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}=0.`$ (18)
Considering the initial condition (13), we obtain asymptotical solution of the above equation as follows

$`f(r0)`$ $`=`$ $`R+{\displaystyle \frac{9}{16R}}r^2\mathrm{ln}r{\displaystyle \frac{15}{64R}}r^2+O(r^3),`$
$`f^{}(r0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{8R}}r\mathrm{ln}r+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32R}}r+O(r^2).`$ (19)
In addition, the minimal surface also implies that $`f(r)`$ must vanish at a point $`r=r_0`$ with $`0<rr_0<1`$, but $`f^{}(r)`$ is divergent at this point. So that the numerical evaluation will not be valid near this point, and we have to find asymptotical solution analytically for $`rr_0`$,

$`f(rr_0)=c(r_0r)^{1/2}+O((r_0r)^{3/2}),`$ (20)
with constant $`c^2=8I(r_0)G(r_0)/I^{}(r_0)`$.

Another aspect which need to be dealt with manually is renormalization of divergence. It is caused by integration in Eq. (10) when $`r0`$. This divergence should be subtracted from numerical result on proper area of string world-sheet. Explicitly, using Eqs. (17) (II) and taking a cut-off $`\lambda 0`$, we obtain the divergence as follows

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑rI^{1/2}f\sqrt{f^2+G(r)}}={\displaystyle \frac{R}{2^{1/3}\lambda }}+{\displaystyle \frac{9}{2^{1/3}32R}}\lambda +O(\lambda ^2)+\mathrm{other}\mathrm{terms}\mathrm{independent}\mathrm{of}\lambda .`$ (21)
Here we include sub-sub leading term which is proportional to $`\lambda /R`$ such that it will strictly vanish at limit $`\lambda 0`$. In numerical evaluation, however, the cut-off $`\lambda `$ is no longer very small. Then this term will play a role for small $`R`$.

According to the above discussions, the Euler-Lagrangian equation (12) can be solved numerically. The consistence of numerical calculation will be checked via match initial conditions (13) and (20). Consequently, the proper area (10) of string world can be obtained after subtracting $`\lambda `$-dependent terms in Eq. (21). Since difference equation associating equation (12) is ill-defined for $`ss_0`$, some tricks on numerical evaluation are needed. We put all details on numerical evaluation in appendix of this paper.

## III Numerical results and discussions

We first show some numerical results:

* Fig. 1 includes some curves of $`f(r)`$ vs. $`r`$, which represents some solutions of Euler-Lagrangian equation (12) with different initial values $`R`$.
* Fig. 2 denotes curve of $`r_0`$ vs. $`R`$, where $`r_0`$ is zero-point of $`f(r)`$ and govern integral region in Eq. (10), i.e., $`0rr_0`$.
* Fig. 3 and fig. 4 show that the resulted numerical data and related fit curves on proper area $`A`$ of string world-sheet vs. radius $`R`$ of Wilson loop at large distance and short distance respectively. The unit of area $`A`$ is taken over $`3g_sN/2^{2/3}`$.

The main conclusions of this paper are included in fig. 3 and fig. 4. In order to precisely describe behavior of $`A\mathrm{ln}<W(𝒞)>`$ with variation of radius $`R`$ of Wilson loop, we fit numerical data with several different functions and pick up the functions with the smallest $`\chi ^2`$ to approach the behaviors of Wilson loop.

The resulted functions for long distance (larger $`R`$) are listed in Eq. (22-a)-(22-c), which fit the numerical data in fig. 3.
$`A`$ $`=`$ $`1.5126+0.2941R+1.04R^22.162\mathrm{ln}R`$    $`A`$ $`=`$ $`0.78351.0274R+1.1367R^2`$    $`A`$ $`=`$ $`0.04641.717R+1.342R^20.014R^3`$        $`\chi ^2=0.0013`$  (22-a)   $`\chi ^2=0.0046`$  (22-b)   $`\chi ^2=0.0017`$  (22-c)

We can see that Eq. (22-a) is the best approach on Wilson loop at large distance. Therefore, it is obvious that Wilson loop exhibits area law for large $`R`$. In Eq. (22-a) we also meet linear term and logarithmic term of $`R`$ which are unexpected. These extra terms may be induced by the following reasons:

1. Due to error bar of numerical evaluation, the subtraction on divergence in Eq. (21) is not precise.
2. Other error bar of numerical evaluation.
3. Due to lack of powerful computers, in our numerical evaluation $`R`$ is not taken very large. Then resulted Wilson loop does not lie in pure confinement phase. These extra may implies some “mixing-phase”.

However, it is unambiguous that Wilson loop will be dominant by $`R^2`$-term for very large $`R`$. Consequently $`𝒩=1`$ SYM is confined at long distance.

Now let us pay attention to short distance (smaller $`R`$). The numerical data and fit curve are shown in fig. 4, and fit functions are listed as follows,
$`A`$ $`=`$ $`1.511+0.829R+0.0753\mathrm{ln}R`$    $`A`$ $`=`$ $`1.682+1.128R0.131R^2`$        $`\chi ^2=6.4\times 10^4`$  (23-a)   $`\chi ^2=0.001`$  (23-b)
It is unambiguous that Eq. (23-a) is the best fit. Therefore, Wilson loop of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM exhibits logarithmic behavior at short distance. It indicates that $`𝒩=1`$ SYM is asymptotical freedom or approach to Coulomb phase at short distance. In addition, we see that the constants in Eq. (22-a) and in Eq. (23-a) are almost same. Then this constant is harmless. It should be associated to renormalization or normalization of Wilson loop. This also indicates fitting in Eq. (22-a) and in Eq. (23-a) are consistent.

Another interesting issue is that a phase transition occurs when $`R`$ varies from small ones to large ones. This phase transition occurs between the phase of asymptotical freedom and the phase of confinement of non-abelian gauge theory. The transition point lies in region $`0.5<R<2`$ in unit $`3g_sN/2^{2/3}`$. Consequently from Eq. (II) we can define $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}=ϵ^{2/3}/\alpha ^{}`$ as a scale associating to confinement. Using the results listed in ref.KS00 ; HKO01 ; CH01 , we have:

* The masses of glueball and Kaluza-Klein (KK) states scale as

$`m_{\mathrm{glueball}}m_{\mathrm{KK}}{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ^{2/3}}{g_sN\alpha ^{}}}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}/g_sN.`$ (24)
We usually expect $`m_{\mathrm{glueball}}m_{\mathrm{KK}}>\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}`$ such that it requires smaller $`g_sg_{_{\mathrm{YM}}}^2`$. In other words, the glueball is formed at near perturbative region. Using NSVZ $`\beta `$ functionNSVZ  for $`𝒩=1`$ SYM, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g_{_{\mathrm{YM}}}^2N}}={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{3}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}\mu ^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}^2+c_0}{12\frac{\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{ln}\mu ^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}^2+c_0)}{\mathrm{ln}\mu ^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}^2+c_0}}},`$ (25)
where $`c_0`$ is a small constant regularizing divergence at $`\mu =\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}`$ and $`\mu `$ is the scale that glueball or KK states are produced (roughly we can set $`\mu m_{\mathrm{glueball}}`$). Since the singularity in KST solution is removed through the blowing-up of the $`S^3`$ of $`T^{1,1}`$, more precisely, we can include relevant coefficient to Eq. (24),

$`m_{\mathrm{KK}}3I^{1/2}(s_0)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}/g_sN,`$ (26)
where $`I(s_0)`$ was defined Eq. (II) and $`s_0`$, which denotes the lowest energy detected by certain Wilson loop, is zero-point of $`f(s)`$. Considering radius/energy-scale relation for KST backgroundWH02 , in our nations $`s\mu /\mu _0`$, where the typical scale $`\mu _0\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}`$ consequently it corresponds to $`R_01`$ and $`\overline{s}_00.8`$. Then defining $`x=m_{\mathrm{KK}}/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}\mu /\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}`$, we achieve the following equation

$`x3I^{1/2}(\overline{s}_0/x){\displaystyle \frac{\frac{3}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}x^2}{12\frac{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{ln}x^2}{\mathrm{ln}x^2}}}.`$ (27)
The solution of the above equation is $`x2.6`$ such that we obtain

$`m_{\mathrm{glueball}}m_{\mathrm{KK}}2.6\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}.`$ (28)
* The mass of the baryon scales as

$`M_bN{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ^{2/3}}{\alpha ^{}}}N\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}.`$ (29)
* The gluino condensate of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM scales as

$`<\lambda \lambda >N{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ^2}{\alpha ^3}}N\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SYM}}^3.`$ (30)

In QCD we knew that there is a so-called “confinement scale”, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}0.3GeV`$. Extend to the above results to QCD, we have

$`m_{\mathrm{glueball}}`$ $``$ $`2.6\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}0.8GeV,`$
$`M_{\mathrm{baryon}}`$ $``$ $`N_c\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}0.9GeV,`$ (31)
$`<\overline{\psi }\psi >`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}^3(0.3GeV)^3,`$
where we use gluino condensate to mimic quark condensate in QCD, but we ignore $`N_c`$ in Eq. (30) since those chiral quarks are fundamental representation of gauge group. It is surprised that the above results agree with phenomenology results of QCD well. It apparently means that pure $`𝒩=1`$ SYM mimics some low energy behaviors of QCD even without chiral multiplets.

## IV Summary and Comments

Circular Wilson loop of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM from supergravity KST solution. The Wilson loop exhibits area law at long distance and logarithmic law at short distance. Therefore, $`𝒩=1`$ SYM lies in confinement phase at low energy, and is asymptotical freedom or approach to Coulomb phase at high energy. The phase transition occurs when energy varies. We also discuss glueball mass, baryon mass and gluino condensate. It is shown that pure $`𝒩=1`$ SYM mimics some low energy behaviors of QCD even without chiral multiplets.

We would like to make a comment on MN background. In principle, the extension the calculation of this paper to MN background is directly. The Euler-Lagrangian equation in MN solution, however, does not possesses initial condition like Eq. (13). Instead, it will be $`f`$ fixed, $`f^{}\mathrm{}`$ at boundary. Since another initial condition at zero-point $`r=r_0`$ of $`f(r)`$ is $`f0`$ fixed, $`f^{}\mathrm{}`$, the numerical evaluation on solution of Euler-Lagrangian is very difficult according to criterion in Appendix. The study on this issue, however, is valuable because it can help us to understand which phase of $`𝒩=1`$ SYM in UV is dual to MN background. Some more discussions on MN background and its noncommutative extension are in ref.MMP03 .

*

## Appendix A Numerical Evaluations

The main difficulty on numerical evaluations are from near-zero point behavior of $`f(r)`$, i.e., $`f^{}(rr_0)\mathrm{}`$. It makes Euler-Lagrangian equation (12) be stiff for $`rr_0`$. If we use Eq. (13), or more precisely, Eq. (II) with very small $`r`$ as initial conditions of numerical evaluation. Due to inevitable error on initial condition in numerical evaluation, this error will be enlarged rapidly for $`rr_0`$. Consequently we can not obtain a convergent solution. Fortunately, since we can analytically obtain solution of Eq. (12) for $`rr_0`$, we can use Eq. (20) as initial condition of numerical evaluation. In this case, the error bar induced by numerical approximation on initial condition is controllable, and it will decrease when $`r`$ is evaluated from $`r_0`$ to zero. So that we obtain the convergent result.

In our evaluation, we adopt the forth order Runge-Kutta method. We take initial condition at $`r_0r=10^6`$ and interval $`2\times 10^9`$. According to Eq. (20), the error bar on initial condition is about $`10^6`$. When we let initial value vary $`0.1\%`$, the resulted $`f(0)=R`$ and area only vary $`0.0001\%`$. It indicates that the numerical evaluation is indeed convergent, and subleading order on initial condition (20) can be ignored consistently.

Another detail is to fix the value of cut-off $`\lambda `$ defined in Eq. (21). Theoretically, function $`f^{}(r)`$ is single-valued in region $`0rr_0`$, and increases from $`\mathrm{}`$ to zero when $`r`$ varies from $`r_0`$ to zero. When string world-sheet lies across branes, i.e., in region $`r<0`$, $`f^{}(r)`$ is again single-valued and increases from $`\mathrm{}`$ to zero when $`r`$ varies from $`r_0`$ to zero. It means that $`f^{}(r=0)`$ is maximal value of $`f^{}(r)`$ if we extend space to $`r_0rr_0`$. Numerically, however, we can not expect to obtain the maximal value of $`f^{}(r)`$ at $`r=0`$ exactly and maximal value of $`f^{}(r)`$ is not precise zero. Then we can take maximal-value point $`f^{}(r)`$ as a natural cut-off. In our evaluation, the value of the cut-off $`\lambda `$ varies from $`0.0015`$ to $`0.0033`$ when $`R=f(0)`$ varies from $`0.1`$ to $`5.5`$. It implies that we indeed consider the second term in Eq (21) for smaller $`R`$ in order to achieve high precision fit.


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# Vector constants of the motion and orbits in the Coulomb/Kepler problem

## Abstract

The equation for the conic sections describing the possible orbits in a potential $`Vr^1`$ is obtained by means of a vector constant of the motion differing from the traditional Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector.

The Laplace-Runge-LenzLaplace ; Runge ; Lenz ; Goldstein1  (or Hermann-Bernoulli-LaplaceGoldstein2 ) vector provides a simple and elegant way of obtaining the equation for the orbit of a particle moving under the influence of a radial inverse-square-law force.GorringeLeach  This method also has the added advantage over the more common approach of direct integration of the equations of motionMarionThornton  that the very existence of this single-valued constant of the motion explains the otherwise surprising degeneracy of the Coulomb/Kepler problem.Fradkin  Our aim here is to show that there is another vector constant of the motion which makes a first principles derivation of the equation of the orbit even easier than the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector or the direct integration methods.

The force law $`𝐅=k\widehat{𝐫}/r^2`$ (we assume $`k>0`$; the repulsive case may be treated along the same lines) leads to the nonrelativistic equation of motion

$$\frac{d𝐩}{dt}=k\frac{\widehat{𝐫}}{r^2},$$
(1)
and to the well-known conservation laws for energy $`E=\frac{1}{2}mv^2k/r`$ and angular momentum $`𝐋=𝐫\times 𝐩`$. If we choose polar coordinates in the plane of the orbit, we have the usual expression $`L=mr^2\dot{\theta }`$, and also

$$\frac{d𝐩}{dt}=m\frac{d𝐯}{d\theta }\dot{\theta }=\frac{d𝐯}{d\theta }\frac{L}{r^2}.$$
(2)
Combining Eq. (2) with Eq. (1) we obtain

$$\frac{d𝐯}{d\theta }=\frac{k}{L}\widehat{𝐫}.$$
(3)
Note that Eq. (3) implies immediately that $`𝐯(0)=𝐯(2\pi )`$ and that the velocity vector traces out a circle if $`\theta `$ is allowed to vary from $`0`$ to $`2\pi `$. Integration of Eq. (3) is trivial if we recall that $`d\widehat{𝜽}/d\theta =\widehat{𝐫}`$:

$$𝐯\frac{k}{L}\widehat{𝜽}=𝐮,$$
(4)
where $`𝐮`$ is a constant vector. This vector is the constant of the motion we propose to use instead of the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector in the derivation of the orbits. It is interesting to note that a quaternion equivalent to Eq. (4) was already known to Hamilton in 1845.Hamilton  Unfortunately, this simple result seems to have vanished from textbooks on classical mechanics after the first decade of the twentieth century.AbelsondiSessaRudolph

The vector $`𝐮`$ may be evaluated in terms of the physical parameters of the problem. If we choose the angle so that the minimum value of $`r`$ is at $`\theta =0`$ and adjust our coordinate system so that $`𝐯=v_0\widehat{𝐲}`$ at $`r_{\mathrm{min}}`$, we have

$$𝐮=(v_0\frac{k}{L})\widehat{𝐲}.$$
(5)
Because $`L=mr_{\mathrm{min}}v_0`$, the energy is $`E=\frac{1}{2}mv_0^2k/r_{\mathrm{min}}=\frac{1}{2}mv_0^2kmv_0/L`$. We solve this equation for $`v_0`$ and obtain

$$v_0=\frac{k}{L}\pm \sqrt{\left(\frac{k}{L}\right)^2+\frac{2E}{m}}=\frac{k}{L}(1\pm ϵ),$$
(6)
where $`ϵ=\sqrt{1+2EL^2/mk^2}`$ will turn out to be the eccentricity. The plus sign is required at $`r_{\mathrm{min}}`$; substituting this result into Eq. (5) provides us with an alternative form for $`𝐮`$:

$$𝐮=\frac{k}{L}ϵ\widehat{𝐲}.$$
(7)
Obtaining the equation of the orbit is now straightforward. By taking the scalar product of Eq. (4) with $`\widehat{𝜽}`$ and using $`𝐯\widehat{𝜽}=r\dot{\theta }=L/mr`$, $`\widehat{𝐲}\widehat{𝜽}=\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, we find

$$\frac{L}{mr}\frac{k}{L}=\frac{k}{L}ϵ\mathrm{cos}\theta .$$
(8)
The definition $`\alpha =L^2/mk`$ allows us to write the solution for $`r`$ as

$$r=\frac{\alpha }{1+ϵ\mathrm{cos}\theta },$$
(9)
which is the usual equation of a conic section with one focus at the origin and eccentricity $`ϵ`$. Note that the velocity $`𝐯=k[ϵ\mathrm{sin}\theta \widehat{𝐫}+(1+ϵ\mathrm{cos}\theta )\widehat{𝜽}]/L=k[\mathrm{sin}\theta \widehat{𝐱}+(ϵ+\mathrm{cos}\theta )\widehat{𝒚}]/L`$ follows almost trivially from Eqs. (4) and (7). Hence the orbit in velocity space is always circular and characterized by $`v_x^2+(v_ykϵ/L)^2=k^2/L^2`$. More precisely, the orbit in velocity space is a circle of radius $`k/L`$ and center at $`(0,kϵ/L)`$ if the orbit in position space is a circle ($`ϵ=0`$), an ellipse ($`0<ϵ<1`$), or a parabola ($`ϵ=1`$). On the other hand, if the spatial trajectory is a hyperbola ($`ϵ>1`$), the angle ranges from $`\mathrm{cos}^1(1/ϵ)`$ to $`\mathrm{cos}^1(1/ϵ)`$ only, and the velocity space orbit is a section of a circle in the upper $`v_x,v_y`$ plane with $`k(ϵ^21)/ϵL<v_yk(ϵ+1)/L`$.

The vector constant of the motion $`𝐮`$ is simpler (and its derivation certainly easierKaplan ) than the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector, but the two are, of course, not independent constants of the motion. Indeed, the cross product of Eq. (4) with $`m𝐋`$ yields

$$𝐩\times 𝐋mk\widehat{𝐫}=m𝐮\times 𝐋.$$
(10)
The left-hand side is the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector $`𝐀`$, so $`𝐀=m𝐮\times 𝐋`$. The three conserved vectors $`𝐀`$, $`𝐮`$, and $`𝐋`$ form a right-handed orthogonal system equivalent to $`\widehat{𝐱}`$, $`\widehat{𝐲}`$, and $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ after normalization.

As a final comment of pedagogical interest, we present a second approach that may be useful in an elementary discussion of the Coulomb/Kepler problem. We begin with the expression for the energy $`E=\frac{1}{2}mv^2k/r`$. If we use $`𝐯\widehat{𝜽}=r\dot{\theta }=L/mr`$ to replace $`1/r`$ by $`m𝐯\widehat{𝜽}/L`$ in the potential term, we may write $`E`$ as

$$E=\frac{1}{2}mv^2\frac{mk}{L}𝐯\widehat{𝜽}.$$
(11)
If we complete the square in the velocity, we find

$$E=\frac{1}{2}mu^2\frac{mk^2}{2L^2},$$
(12)
with $`𝐮`$ the same vector as in Eq. (4). It follows that the magnitude of $`𝐮`$ must be constant. To prove that this vector is conserved both in magnitude and direction, we must only take a derivative of $`𝐮`$ and substitute $`d𝐯/dt=k\widehat{𝐫}/mr^2`$ and $`d\widehat{𝜽}/dt=\dot{\theta }\widehat{𝐫}`$ into the result. The equation of the orbit may then be found as before. This approach does not require any integrations and amounts to a change of gauge from a scalar potential to an effective vector potential description of the problem.


text:
# Quantum behavior in nanoscale ballistic rectifiers and artificial materials

thanks: Corresponding author. Email address: A.Song@umist.ac.uk

## Abstract

Low-temperature experiments are performed on novel nanoscale nonlinear devices (ballistic rectifiers) as well as nano-structured artificial materials, fabricated from an InP/InGaAs quantum well wafer. A DC output is generated between the lower and upper contacts of these devices, when an AC voltage is applied between the left and right contacts. As the temperature is lowered from room temperature, the DC output voltage of the ballistic rectifiers gradually changes from negative to positive. Since the negative output at high temperatures has been well understood in the framework of the classical ballistic electron transport, our results indicate that the electron transport comes into a new physical regime at low temperatures. Furthermore, we find that at even lower temperatures, the devices generate a pronounced oscillatory output as a function of the applied bias. Very similar phenomena are observed in the artificial nanomaterials, suggesting the existence of a common mechanism. We present a simple model based on quantum transport, which explains the key phenomena that we have observed at low temperatures.

The rapidly advancing nanotechnology has made it possible to fabricate devices that are smaller than the electron mean free path, $`l_e`$. In these devices, electrons are mainly scattered at device boundaries rather than by randomly distributed scatterers such as impurities and phonons, and it is the device geometry that largely determines the paths traced by the electrons and, hence, the electronic properties. Based on this so-called ballistic electron transport, new device functionalities can be generated by simply tailoring the device shape. Although most studies on the ballistic electron transport were carried out in the linear regime,ballistic-reviews  more and more attention is paid to the non-linear regime.Lorke-physicaB ; AiminPRL98 ; Linke-europhys ; Linke-sci ; Cumming ; Novoselov ; Hieke ; Xu ; Worschech  Recently, it was also realized that the symmetry of the device geometry can have a pronounced influence on the nonlinear device properties. Lorke-physicaB ; AiminPRL98 ; Linke-europhys ; Linke-sci  One such example is the recently realized ballistic rectifier, in which a triangular antidot was fabricated in a ballistic micrometer-sized cross junction.AiminPRL98  The triangular antidot breaks the symmetry of the device, and also serves as an artificial scatterer, which deflects the ballistic electrons to a certain direction independent of the direction of the applied electric field. The generated rectifying functionality has been shown to be so strong that when ballistic transport was realized at room temperature by fabricating nanometer-sized ballistic rectifiers, the sensitivity of microwave detection was found to be roughly as high as a commercial microwave diode. AiminJJAP01  Based on a similar working principle, artificial functional materials have been made by fabricating an array of nanometer-sized triangular antidots. The obtained nanomaterials have also been demonstrated to operate at room temperature and at frequencies up to at least 50 GHz. AiminAPL01

Apart from the promising potentials for real applications, the ballistic rectifiers and the nanomaterials might produce pronounced quantum effects at low temperatures. This is because the width of the channels, from which the ballistic electrons are ejected, is comparable to the electron Fermi wavelength. From the physics point of view, studying the influence of geometric symmetries of nanodevices on the quantum electron transport in the nonlinear regime is important, and only very limited number of such experiments have been reported.Linke-europhys ; Linke-sci ; Ueno99  In this work, we report on temperature-dependent experiments performed on the nanometer-sized ballistic rectifiers and nanomaterials. Surprisingly, reversed as well as oscillatory output is observed when the temperature, $`T`$, is sufficiently lowered. This is in strong contrast to the case at room or high temperatures, where the experimental results have been well understood in the framework of the classical ballistic electron scattering.Aiminmodel99  The results indicate that at lower temperatures, the electron transport in the devices has come into a new physical regime. We also discover very similar phenomena in the nano-structured artificial material. We propose a simple model, and show that the experimental results of the ballistic rectifiers and the nanomaterials can be qualitatively explained in a unified physical picture based on the quantum electron transport.

Both the ballistic rectifiers and the nanomaterials are fabricated from a modulation-doped $`\mathrm{In}_{0.75}\mathrm{Ga}_{0.25}\mathrm{As}/\mathrm{InP}`$ heterostructure (details in Ref. Ramvall, ), in which electrons are confined to a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a 9 nm thick quantum well located 40 nm below the surface. The patterns are defined using standard electron beam lithography and wet chemical etching (details in Ref. Maximov, ). Figures 1 (a) and (b) show the scanning electron micrographs of a typical ballistic rectifier and a part of a typical nanomaterial measured in the experiments. The dark triangular areas are etched down through the 2DEG layer, and serve as artificial scatterers for the ballistic electrons. In both cases, there are four electrical contacts: left or source (S), right or drain (D), lower (L), and upper (U). The width of the source and drain channels of the ballistic rectifier, shown in Fig. 1 (a), is about 100 nm, while the width of the upper and lower channels is about 500 nm. The triangular antidot is situated away from the center of the cross junction, which results in pronounced nonlinear effects as will be discussed below. The nanomaterial, which we show the results from here, has a repetition period of 600 nm in the horizontal direction, and 300 nm in the vertical direction. Both the base and the height of the triangles are 150 nm. The device consists of a cross junction with four contacts, and the written pattern covers the whole area. The distance between the contacts is 45 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ both between the source and the drain, and between the upper and the lower contacts. Without illumination, the 2DEG has the following parameters: carrier concentrations of $`4.5\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{m}^2`$ and $`4.7\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{m}^2`$, and mobilities of 45 $`\mathrm{m}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$ and 1.2 $`\mathrm{m}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$, at $`T=0.3`$ K and room temperature, respectively. Thus, the mean free path $`l_e`$ varies from 5 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ at 0.3 K to 140 nm at room temperature. At room temperature, $`l_e`$ is shorter than but comparable to the distance between the triangular antidot and the source or drain channel in the ballistic rectifier, meaning that the electron transport is partially ballistic. Similarly, the electron transport within one “unit cell” of the artificial lattice in Fig. 1(b), which largely determines the transport properties of the whole nanomaterial, is also partially ballistic at room temperature. As the temperature is lowered, the electron transport in both the ballistic rectifier and one unit cell in the nanomaterial becomes purely ballistic.

The experiments are performed by applying a DC voltage, $`V_{SD}`$, between the source and drain and measuring the DC output voltage, $`V_{LU}`$, between the lower and upper contacts.Effective-output  Figure 2 shows the temperature dependence of the ballistic rectifier. At room temperature, $`V_{LU}`$ is negative, which is consistent with the results of our previous experiments, AiminPRL98 ; AiminJJAP01 , which have been described by a model based on the classical ballistic transport.Aiminmodel99  The output remains negative as long as the temperature is above about 70 K. However, starting from about $`T=200`$ K, the curves show a clear trend of upward bending, and a pronounced output reversal is observed at temperatures below about 40 K. Even more surprisingly, when the temperature is below about 78 K, oscillatory behavior can be clearly identified.

Separate experiments show that lower temperatures are needed to observe output reversal if the sample is illuminated by an LED before the measurements. After the illumination, the electron concentration is increased by up to 30% and the electron Fermi wavelength becomes shorter. A number of devices with different geometric parameters (from half to about twice the size in Fig. 1) have also been measured, and the general trend is that the larger the device, the lower the temperature at which the output reversal starts to be seen. Both facts suggest that quantum effects play an important role in causing the reversed and oscillatory output. This may be expected because the width of the source and drain channels, from which the ballistic electrons are ejected, is comparable to the electron Fermi wavelength.

Reversed and oscillatory output from a ballistic rectifier was predicted very recently by Fleischmann and Geisel.Fleischmann  The mechanism was attributed to the large difference between the channel widths of the upward and downward electron transmissions from S and D in the ballistic rectifier, i.e., the gap between the triangular antidot and the edge of the upper channel is much narrower than the gap between the triangle and the edge of the lower channel. They argued that when the applied voltage is small, the number of occupied modes of lateral quantum confinement in the (lower) wider gap may increase because of the applied voltage, while the number of occupied modes in the (upper) narrower gap remains constant due to the larger energy separation of the lateral confinement energy levels. This gives rise to the “normal” rectifying effect ($`V_{LU}<0`$). When the applied voltage is high enough to open up a new mode in the upper gap, however, the output $`V_{LU}`$ should undergo a change of sign, i.e., output reversal.

While the result predicted by the model appears to be in good agreement with the experimental results in Fig. 2, such mechanism for the output reversal does not seem to exist in the nanomaterials shown in Fig. 1(b). This is because that in a nanomaterial, the width of the channel, which the electrons have to pass to transmit upwards after being ejected from a narrow gap between two neighboring triangles in a vertical column, is identical to the channel width of the downward electron transmission. As a result, the changes in the occupied lateral confinement modes in the channels of both upward transmissions and the downward transmissions are essentially identical. However, when measuring the nanomaterials with various geometric parameters, we observe very similar reversed as well as oscillatory output to that shown in Fig. 2. Figure 3 shows typical results measured from a nanomaterial, which are unexpected from the model in Ref. Fleischmann, .

In Fig. 3, the output is “normal” at room temperature, which has been understood in the framework of the classical ballistic transport.AiminAPL01  Output reversal starts to be seen at temperatures as high as 204 K. A blow-up of the curve at $`T=4.2`$ K clearly shows an oscillatory output. voltage-scale  Also, similar to the case of the ballistic rectifiers, the experiments show that the larger the gaps or the “lattice constants” of the artificial lattice, the lower the temperature at which output reversal starts to be seen. In samples with much larger gaps between neighboring triangles (not shown here), no output reversal is observed down to $`T=4.2`$ K. This again suggests that quantum effects play an important role. Furthermore, the striking similarities in the experimental results in the ballistic rectifiers and the nanomaterials suggest the existence of a common physical process that gives rise to the phenomena.

To understand the output reversal and the oscillatory output, we noticed that the width of the source and drain channels in the ballistic rectifier and the width of the gaps between neighboring triangles in a vertical column in the nanomaterial are all comparable to the electron Fermi wavelength, which is about 35 nm in our samples. By taking into account of the finite depletion depth at the etched device boundaries, the real widths of the lateral quantum confinement are even narrower than those shown in Fig. 1.

To simplify the presentation of our model, we first consider the artificial nanomaterial. At high temperatures, the transverse quantum confinement modes in the gaps between neighboring triangles in a vertical column cannot be well resolved due to the broad Fermi-Dirac distribution. The angular distribution of electrons ejected from a gap is not uniform but, to some extent, collimated,Beenakkercollimation ; Molenkampcollimation ; Shephard92 ; Hornsey96 , as schematically shown in Fig. 4. The pattern of the angular distribution in the nanomaterial is tilted upwards a little because the geometry of each gap between the two neighboring triangles is asymmetric.Hornsey96 ; Akis96  From the angular distribution, one anticipates that the triangular scatterer immediately on the right will deflect most of the electrons downwards, while fewer electrons can transmit upwards without being scattered by the triangle. This may appear to result in an accumulation of electrons in the lower contact, and consequently induce a negative output voltage $`V_{LU}`$. However, this certainly cannot happen if no voltage is applied to the nanomaterial, since there are always the same number of transmissions along the opposite directions under the equilibrium condition. As is shown by the model of the ballistic rectifier,Aiminmodel99  a nonzero output can only be generated by changes of the transmission coefficients caused by the applied voltage. For a finite negative $`V_{SD}`$, for example, the voltage drops, mainly at the openings and the exits of the gaps,Willi  will cause an increase in the velocity components of the electrons along the S-D direction, while the velocity components in the perpendicular direction are virtually not affected. This leads to smaller ejection angles of the electrons with respect to the S-D axis, and therefore an overall narrower angular pattern of the electron flow from S, as shown in Fig. 4(b). Furthermore, the overall angular distribution of the ejected electrons should also level a bit as it tends to follow the direction of the electric field. Such a collimation effect induced by the applied voltage will clearly change the transmission coefficients, resulting in more downward deflections of the electrons by the triangular scatterer, and fewer upward transmissions. This leads to a “normal” negative output $`V_{LU}`$ as observed at high temperatures in Fig. 3 (The probabilities for the electrons from L and U to transmit to the drain contact are not much affected because the electric field is only strong in the region very close to the gaps between neighboring triangles within a vertical column). If a positive $`V_{SD}`$ is applied, the angular pattern of left-moving electrons from the gaps determines the net flow of carriers, and should be considered. Also in this case, the angular pattern becomes narrower and more leveled due to the applied electric field, and yields the same negative $`V_{LU}`$. This is also required by the geometric symmetry with respect to the L-U axis.

At sufficiently low temperatures, the transverse modes in the gaps become well resolved. It is rather complex to determine the number of occupied modes in the gaps, because while the electron transport between neighboring triangular antidots is ballistic, the transport over the whole material is not. Furthermore, both electron back scatterings and multiple reflections from the antidots also seriously influence the resistance. However, from the width of the gaps (about 100 nm) and the depletion depth (about 10 to 20 nm at each edge of the etched gaps), we estimate that there are between one and four occupied modes at low temperatures. Separate resistance measurements on devices consisting of only a single narrow channel of similar width have confirmed the above estimate on the number of occupied modes. Similarly to the case of a quantum point contact in the adiabatic transport regime, each mode contributes to a specific angular pattern of electron flow from the gaps. The number of lobes (or branches) in the pattern of electron flow corresponds to the number of maximums in $`|\psi |^2`$ (where $`\psi `$ is the electron transverse wavefunction), as a direct result of the adiabatic transport. Therefore, for the Nth transverse mode, the number of lobes is N. Such branch-like patterns of electron flow were recently imaged using a low-temperature scanning probe microscope.TopinkaScience ; Crook00  In their experiments, additional fine fringes, separated by half the Fermi wavelength, were discovered on the branch-like patterns, which are caused by coherent constructive and destructive backscattering of the electron waves. In general, such effects of quantum phase coherence can be easily destroyed by increasing the temperature or applying a bias voltage LinBirdReview02 , which is the reason why the fine fringes were observed only at very low effective electron temperatures. However, the branch-like electron flow survived at biases up to at least 3 mV (corresponding to 30–40 K), because it is associated with the spacing between the transverse quantum confinement subband levels. In our experiments, since the reversed and oscillatory output is observed at up to about 150 K and quite large biases, where the phase coherence is unlikely to exist over the distance between neighboring triangles, only the branch-like electron flow is considered and will be shown below to result in the observed phenomena.

For simplicity, we assume that there is only one occupied mode at zero applied voltage, which corresponds to the angular pattern of the electron flow shown in Fig. 5(a), but the following discussion applies to other (if not too large) numbers of initially occupied modes. The angular distribution in Fig. 5(a) is narrower than that in Fig. 4(a) because of the lower temperature. We note that $`l_e`$ is not longer than a few unit cells of the artificial lattice even at 4.2 K, implying that the electron transport within a unit cell should be, to a large extent, representative of the overall behavior of the nanomaterial. If a small negative source-drain voltage is applied, the voltage-induced collimation effect leads to a narrower and more leveled angular pattern of the electron flow, which is similar to the case at higher temperatures shown in Fig. 4(b). As a result, the downward transmissions of the electrons deflected by the triangle increase, which gives rise to a negative output $`V_{LU}`$. This explains the initial negative output voltage (or “normal” behavior) at low temperatures. If the applied negative voltage is decreased further, the right-moving electrons from the left-hand side of a gap will eventually occupy the second lateral confinement mode,KouwenhovenNonlinear89  which gives rise to a two-branch angular distribution, on top of the single-branch pattern of electron flow of the first occupied mode. In total, there are three lobes of electron flow as shown in Fig. 5(c). The widening of the angular distribution clearly results in an increased probability (or percentage) for the electrons to transmit upwards, and a reduced probability of the downward transmissions. As shown by a detailed model and analysis in Ref. Aiminmodel99,  (see Eq. (6) and the discussions), the output of a ballistic rectifier is determined by the relative changes of the transmission coefficients, $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T`$, rather than the absolute values of the changes in the transmission coefficients $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$. This should be true for the artificial material as well, because of the similarities between a ballistic rectifier and a unit cell of the artificial material. Therefore, the increased probability (or percentage) for the electrons to transmit upwards and the reduced probability of the downward transmissions, which are discussed above and illustrated in Fig. 5(c), will lead to an increase in $`V_{LU}`$ and may even cause the output reversal (from negative to positive) as observed in Fig. 3 in the intermediate $`V_{SD}`$ range.

If the negative applied voltage is decreased further, the applied voltage or electric field should again cause the narrowing and leveling of the overall angular pattern of the electron flow as shown in Fig. 5(d). The right-moving electrons hence have more and more chance to be scattered downwards by the triangle on the right-hand side, and this contributes again to a decrease in $`V_{LU}`$. The voltage-induced collimation effect is more pronounced at lower temperatures, since the average kinetic energy of the electrons is smaller and it is easier to reduce the ejection angle of an electron at a given voltage drop across the gaps. At sufficiently low temperatures the downward bending of the curve may be strong enough to cause negative output again, and therefore gives rise to an overall oscillatory output, which is in good agreement with the experimental data in Fig. 3.

The electron transport in the ballistic rectifier is quite similar to that in the nanomaterial discussed above. At high temperatures, the collimation effect induced by a finite negative applied voltage narrows the angular distribution of the electrons ejected out of S, as shown in Fig. 4(d). This enhances the probability for the electrons to be deflected downwards by the triangular antidot, and decreases the probability of the upward electron transmissions, leading to the “normal” negative output $`V_{LU}`$. At sufficiently low temperatures, also similar to the case of the artificial nanomaterial, by decreasing the applied voltage $`V_{SD}`$ from zero, the angular distribution of the electrons ejected out of S changes alternately by subsequentially narrowing as shown in Fig. 5(f), widening(g), narrowing (h), due to the interplay between the electric field induced collimation and the openings of additional lateral confinement modes in the source channel. This results in oscillatory modulations to the transmission probabilities for the electrons to be transmitted upwards and downwards, and hence leads to an oscillatory output $`V_{LU}`$.

Based on this model, it is easy to predict that at low temperatures the output reversal may well start showing up around $`V_{SD}=0`$. In the above discussion, it is assumed that the Fermi energy at $`V_{SD}=0`$ lies well inbetween two transverse subbands, either in the source and drain channels of the ballistic rectifier or in the gaps between neighboring triangular antidots in a vertical column in the nanomaterial. In reality, it is possible that the Fermi energy is just below the bottom of the next subband. Because of the finite broadening of the subband as well as the Fermi-Dirac distribution, the occupation of the higher subband is not an abrupt process. In this case, any finite negative applied voltage may greatly enhance the population of the high subband, and result in the broadening of the angular distribution of the ejected electrons and hence a reversed output starting right from $`V_{SD}=0`$. Experimentally, we indeed observe such a phenomenon, and the low-temperature curves in Figure 2 are such an example. Also, since the chance for the Fermi energy to be just below a transverse subband is relatively small, in most cases one should observe a “normal” negative output around $`V_{SD}=0`$, which is indeed the case in our experiments where the devices are measured at different processes of cooling downs, which cause small variations in the electron concentration and therefore changes in the electron Fermi energy.

Apart from the similarities in the results of the ballistic rectifier and the nanomaterials, we notice that there are differences between the temperature dependences in Figs. 2 and 3. This is not surprising because of the noticeable differences between the ballistic rectifier and the nanomaterial. So far, we have only discussed the electron scattering within one unit cell of the nanomaterial. While a unit cell should largely represent some of the key transport properties of the whole nanomaterial, long trajectories of the ballistic electron over more than one unit cells also play an important role in the determination of the output voltage $`V_{LU}`$, especially when the mean free path is long at low temperatures. The analysis of the detailed influence of long trajectories of the inter-unit-cell scatterings is very complex and is not presented in this paper. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the large difference in the channel widths between the upward and downward transmissions in the ballistic rectifier does not exist in the nanomaterial. Therefore, it is expected that the transport properties of the nanomaterial and the ballistic rectifier can well have different temperature dependence.

To conclude, we have investigated the electron transport in nanoscale ballistic rectifiers and nano-structured artificial materials, from the classical ballistic transport regime at room temperature down to a new regime at low temperatures. Reversed and oscillatory outputs are observed. We present a model based on the quantum and adiabatic electron transport, which explains the key phenomena that we have observed at low temperatures, and the similarities in the output from the ballistic rectifiers and the nanomaterials.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to L. Samuelson for constant support and W. Seifert for providing us the InP/InGaAs material. We wish to thank I. Maximov for the technical help and H. Q. Xu for the discussions. This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, and the European Commission through LTR research projects Q-SWITCH and NEAR.


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# Fano resonance in crossed carbon nanotubes

## Abstract

We report the observation of the resonant transport in multiwall carbon nanotubes in a crossed geometry. The resonant transport is manifested by an asymmetric peak in the differential conductance curve. The observed asymmetric conductance peak is well explained by Fano resonance originating from the scattering at the contact region of the two nanotubes. The conductance peak depends sensitively on the external magnetic field and exhibits Aharonov-Bohm-type oscillation.

Being a good conductor , metallic carbon nanotube (CNT) is considered to be an ideal system to study various quantum transport phenomena in low dimension, such as single electron tunneling effect , Luttinger liquid behavior , Kondo effect , etc. Also expected but yet to be observed is the Fano resonance  which is a general phenomenon that can be observed whenever resonant and non-resonant scattering interfere. Recently it has been observed in the transport through a single electron transistor (SET) , which proved the phase-coherent transport in the SET structure.

In this paper, we report the observation of the Fano-like resonance in transport through two multiwall CNTs in a crossed geometry, demonstrating coherent and quasi-ballistic nature of the electronic transport in the CNTs. The resonance is manifested by a sharp asymmetric peak in the differential conductance curve. The asymmetric conductance peak, after subtracting background power-law behavior due to the Luttinger liquid effect, is well fitted to the Fano formula. Such Fano-like resonance is attributed to the interference of resonant and non-resonant scattering in the contact region of the two CNTs. Also observed is a quasi-periodic oscillation of the Fano-like resonance with the magnetic field. The evolution of the conductance peak with the magnetic field exhibits characteristic oscillation of the peak position and shape, which can be explained by the Aharonov-Bohm oscillation of the Fano resonance.

The multiwall CNTs were synthesized by arc discharge method. We have dispersed ultrasonically the CNTs in chloroform for about half an hour and then dropped a droplet of the dispersed solution on the Si substrate with 500 nm-thick thermally-grown $`\text{SiO}_2`$ layer. The multi-wall CNTs in a crossed form were searched by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The patterns for electrical leads were generated using e-beam lithography technique onto the selected CNTs and then 20 nm of Ti and 50 nm of Au were deposited successively on the contact area by thermal evaporation. Shown in the inset of Fig. 1(b) is the SEM photograph of the measured sample which consists of two multiwall CNTs in a crossed geometry. The atomic force microscope study showed that the diameter of the CNTs were in the range of 25 - 30 nm. In order to form a low-ohmic contact between the CNT and the Ti/Au electrode, we performed a rapid thermal annealing at 600-800 C for 30 s . The contact resistances were in the range of 5 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ \- 18 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at room temperature and became 10 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ \- 60 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at 4.2 K. The cross junction had a junction resistance of 5.4 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at room temperature and of 16.8 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at 4.2 K. The four-terminal resistance of each CNT increased monotonically with lowering temperature and depended sensitively on the bias current level, implying non-ohmic current-voltage characteristics of the CNTs.

Figure 1(a) shows the temperature dependent differential conductance ($`dI/dV`$) curves for the horizontally placed nanotube (hereafter named CNT-1). We have adopted the four-probe measurement configuration, with the current leads 1, 4 and the voltage leads 2, 3. At low temperatures the differential conductance curve of CNT-1 displays a pseudogap structure near zero bias. It has been shown that such suppressed conductance can be fitted to the power-law, $`G=dI/dVV^\alpha `$, and was attributed to the Luttinger-liquid behavior . The Luttinger-liquid behavior of the CNTs in our sample was carefully analyzed before , and it was found that the contact between the two nanotubes plays a crucial role.

In addition to the pseudogap structure, there appears a sharp peak in the differential conductance curve at temperatures below 1 K. The peak appears at non-zero bias voltage and its shape is not symmetric with respect to its center. We have redrawn in Fig. 1(b) the differential conductance curve after subtracting background pseudogap structure. Then the asymmetric feature of the conductance peak becomes more apparent. The differential conductance curve clearly shows that there are two distinct energy scales. One energy scale, of the order of 0.1 meV, is related to the pseudogap structure in the conductance curve and is attributed to the Luttinger liquid behavior . The other energy scale, of the order of 0.02 meV, corresponds to the width of the conductance peak which we address in the following.

We interpret this asymmetric conductance peak in terms of the resonant scattering of the electrons at the contact region of the two nanotubes. It is well known that, in the presence of non-resonant background contribution as well as the resonant scattering, interference between the two components leads to the asymmetric conductance peak, known as the Fano resonance. For our sample, the existence of the cross junction is essential for the resonant scattering and thus for the observation of the Fano resonance, based on the following three facts: (1) We have never observed the present resonant behavior in many (more than 20) single nanotubes without cross-contact we have studied, (2) we have observed Fano-like behavior in another sample with the cross-contact geometry, though not in all the samples with cross-junction, and (3) that both nanotubes (CNT1, CNT2) of the present sample show the Fano-resonance behavior which implies that it is very unlikely that the resonances originate from some accidental impurities or defects.

We also point out that highly nonlocal characteristics of the transport in the CNT  can explain the occurrence of a conductance peak in the measurement configuration where the voltage is measured within one side of the CNT, not across the cross junction.

As shown in Fig. 1(b), the conductance peak, after subtracting the background power-law contribution, can be well fitted to the Fano line shape of the form

$$dI/dV=G(V)\frac{|ϵ+Q|^2}{ϵ^2+1},$$
(1)
where $`ϵ=(VV_0)/(\mathrm{\Gamma }/2)`$. The Fano factor $`Q`$ is a complex number determined by the relative values of the magnitude and the phase difference between the resonant and the non-resonant transmission amplitude. Note that the imaginary component of $`Q`$ is directly related to decoherence and/or breaking of the time reversal symmetry . The best fit gives $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=9.0`$ $`\mu `$eV, $`\text{Re}(Q)=7.1`$, and $`\text{Im}(Q)=0.22`$ at $`T=13\text{mK}`$. The imaginary part of the Fano factor is small compared to the real part and is not affected much with increasing temperature. This is consistent with the observation that aside from the peak height and width the the asymmetry of the resonance is almost unaffected with the temperature. This implies that the coherence of the electron transmission is preserved at the measured temperature range ($`T1`$ K). Since the peak structure vanishes for $`T>1`$ K mainly due to thermal smearing, decoherence in transport could not be investigated at higher temperatures. Shown in Fig. 2 are the width and the height of the conductance peak as a function of the temperature. The resonance width increases linearly with the temperature as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }6.63+0.2k_BT(\mu eV)`$, aside from the saturation at the very low temperature. ¿From the Fermi-Dirac distribution, the resonance width is expected to exhibit a linear temperature dependence with the temperature coefficient of 3.5, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=3.5k_BT`$. We believe that deviation from such ideal behavior comes from the four terminal configuration of our measurement.

As shown in Fig. 2(b), the peak height seems to exhibit $`1/T`$-law dependence expected from the Fermi-Dirac distribution. However, with the short range of the temperature, we cannot conclude that it follows the $`1/T`$-law. Actually, logarithmic law provides equally reasonable fit for this temperature range, which might indicate the existence of the strong electronic correlation such as the Kondo effect, for example. However, it seems that the Kondo effect can be ruled out because the peak position locates at non-zero bias. Further, the fact that the anomaly exists at relatively high magnetic field (up to 6T) indicates that the conventional Kondo effect should not be present.

The vertically placed CNT (CNT-2) also shows asymmetric conductance peak. For the CNT-2, however, the pseudogap structure in the differential conductance curve is not so apparent as in the CNT-1. We have measured the magnetic field dependence of the differential conductance of the CNT-2. With the application of the magnetic field, the shape of conductance peak changes significantly. Fig. 3 (a) shows the evolution of the differential conductance curve with the magnetic field in the range of 3.5 T$`H`$ 5.7 T. For $`H=3.5`$ T, the peak position is located at a negative bias voltage. With the increase of the magnetic field, the peak position shifts to the positive bias. Further increase of the magnetic field ($`H5.7`$ T) results in the return of the peak position and shape similar to those for $`H3.5`$ T.

Such oscillatory evolution of the conductance peak can be explained by the Aharonov-Bohm oscillation of the Fano resonance. In the presence of a magnetic field, the time reversal symmetry of the system is broken and the resonant and the nonresonant components of the transmission amplitude may have arbitrary phase difference $`\psi `$, determined by the magnetic field. Ignoring the decoherence, this phase difference leads to the the Fano factor $`Q`$ given by

$$Q=Q_R\mathrm{cos}\psi +iQ_I\mathrm{sin}\psi .$$
(2)
Assuming an effective area $`A`$ associated with the resonant level at the cross junction, $`\psi `$ can be written as $`\psi =\psi _0+2\pi AH/\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ where $`\psi _0`$ is an offset and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0=h/e`$ is the magnetic flux quantum of the electron. Here it is assumed that the magnetic field affects only the phase difference of the two different transmission amplitudes originating from the resonant and the non-resonant component. We have shown in Fig. 3(b) the evolution of the Fano resonance with the phase factor, determined by Eqs (1,2). The oscillation amplitudes of the real and the imaginary parts of the Fano factor are chosen as $`Q_R=2.0`$ and $`Q_I=0.5`$, which provides reasonable agreement with the experimental result of Fig. 3(a). Note that the Fano resonance for $`\psi =\pi `$ is a mirror image of that for $`\psi =0`$. Such characteristic feature is consistent with the experimental observation, supporting strong evidence of the Fano resonance in the crossed CNTs.

Following Eq.(2), the shape of the Fano resonance changes continuously with the phase factor in a oscillatory manner with the period of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =2\pi `$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }H=\mathrm{\Psi }_0/A`$. We call such oscillatory evolution of the Fano resonance as a Aharonov-Bohm (AB) oscillation of the Fano resonance. For our sample, such oscillatory evolution of the differential conductance curve was clearly seen in the field range of 3.5 T$`H`$ 5.7 T as shown in Fig. 3(a). The AB oscillation of the Fano resonance is also expected to give magnetoresistance (MR) oscillation. We have shown in Fig. 3(c) the bias-dependent MR curves of the CNT-2. The measured MR curve exhibits small quasi-periodic fluctuation embedded in a large oscillation with the period of about 3.5 T. The large MR oscillation in the range of 3.5 T$`H`$ 5.7 T reflects the evolution of the Fano resonance with the magnetic field. The MR curve depends strongly on the bias current due to the highly nonlinear current-voltage characteristics. One can identify the occurrence of the second MR peak near 8 T. Leaving aside the complex structure near zero field, MR oscillation with the period of 3.5 T can be clarified by the AB oscillation of the Fano resonance. Assuming that the phase factor is acquired at the cross junction, the MR oscillation period of 3.5 T corresponds to the effective area $`A`$ of about (33 nm)2. This is comparable to the estimated diameter of the CNTs, 25-30 nm.

Here it should be noted that our model (Eq.(2)) is also relevant to the system of an AB interferometer containing a quantum dot in one of the two reference arms . The oscillatory behavior of the Fano resonance as a function of the magnetic field has been observed and analyzed , but its origin was not properly explained. Our model explains clearly the behavior of the AB oscillations of the Fano resonance, including the sign change of the real part of the Fano factor.

The conductance curve changed in shape with the application of magnetic field also for the CNT-1. But such dramatic evolution as shown in Fig. 3(a) was not observed. The peak height decreases with the increase of the magnetic field for the CNT-1. Such difference in the evolution of the conductance peak was attributed to the structural difference of the CNTs. The two CNTs are considered to be metallic but may have different chirality and diameters. It is well known that tiny difference in diameter or chirality leads a noticeable difference in the transport properties of CNT, though the microscopic origin of the difference cannot be clarified in our study.

In summary, we have observed Fano resonance of electronic transport in two cross-contact carbon nanotubes. The observed asymmetric conductance peak could be explained in terms of the Fano resonance originating from the scattering at the contact region. Further, by applying external magnetic field peculiar Aharonov-Bohm oscillation of the Fano resonance has been found and analyzed.

This work was supported by Center for Nanotubes and Nanostructured Composites. We also acknowledge financial supports from Nano Research and Development Program, Nano Structure Project, and Tera-level Nano Device Project.


text:
# The case for late-time optical bumps in GRB afterglows as a supernova signature

## 1. Bumps Associated With Cosmological GRBs

The first observational detection of a bump associated with a “cosmological” burst222The detection of a low-redshift supernova, SN 1998bw, coincident with a GRB (980425) (Galama et al. 1998; E. Pian, this workshop) provided an observational link that until then had only been explored theoretically. However, since the burst must have been extraordinarily dim when compared to other well-studied bursts—rather than definitively prove that long-duration bursts arise in the core-collapse of a massive stars—it is now believed that GRB 980425 might simply represent a sub-class with a different bursting mechanism than the lion’s share of long-duration bursts (Bloom et al., 1998; Tan, Matzner, & McKee, 2001). Nevertheless, we might consider SN 1998bw as the ultimate bump associated with a GRB. came with afterglow observations of GRB 980326 (Bloom et al. 1999). There, the early afterglow was seen to fade rapidly in the first few days ($`f_\nu t^2`$) with a fairly generic afterglow spectrum ($`f_\nu \nu ^{0.8}`$). At day 22 and day 28, imaging and spectroscopic detections revealed a source that was about 60 times brighter than the early extrapolation and significantly more red ($`f_\nu \nu ^{2.3}`$). By the next series of observations at 200 days, the bump had faded by at least a factor of ten. HST imaging observations later revealed a faint galaxy at the position of the transient (Fruchter et al. 2001).

What powered the bump in GRB 980326? The timescale for rise and decay are natural in the supernova interpretation. Moreover, the red color of the bump can be understood as due to metal line blanketing of a core-collapsed supernova redward of $``$4000 Å in the restframe. That the spectrum differed significantly from the early afterglow spectrum suggests a different physical emission process than in the afterglow. In other words, the bump in 980326 disfavors a synchrotron shock origin, such as might be expected from a more dense external medium or from delayed energy injection of a central source.

Bumps, attributed to SNe, have since been claimed in a number of other cosmological bursts. The bump in the afterglow of GRB 970228 was based on observations in at least three bandpasses (Reichart 1999; Galama et al. 2000). Moreover, the probable turn over in the spectrum at $`1\mu `$m (Reichart 2001) could not be easily explained by thermal emission from dust or a dust echo. The peak of redshifted thermal emission should occur redward of $``$2 $`\mu `$m and dust echo spectra should not exhibit a strong roll over. Optical/IR bumps discovered 20–30 days after GRBs 000911 (Lazzati et al. 2001), 990712 (Björnsson et al., 2001), 980703 (Holland et al. 2001) provided suggestive evidence of bumps — all of which the authors claimed found a reasonable explanation in the context of an added supernova component. For several bursts, however, no bump was detected to limits of comparable brightness to 1998bw (see Price et al. 2002 for a review). Note that due to severe line blanketing in the restframe UV, a bump from a supernovae is not expected to be seen at optical wavelengths for bursts beyond redshifts of $`z1.2`$ whereas bumps from dust echoes could be seen to higher redshifts. Consistent with the SN hypothesis, no bumps were detected by our group in the afterglows of GRBs 010222 ($`z=2.09`$) and 000926 ($`z=1.48`$).

## 2. Using HST to overcome observational impediments

The ability to detect the bump in 980326 was aided by two important occurrences. First, the rapid fading of the early afterglow effectively removed any possible light contamination from the afterglow beyond a few days. Second, the host galaxy was exceedingly faint ($`R=29.4`$ mag). Therefore, as we pointed out in Bloom et al. (1999), a bump in new GRBs could be easily outshone for bright host galaxies and/or by bright afterglows. The latter difficulty can be minimized by observing bursts with rapidly fading afterglow or with early temporal breaks (presumably due to jetting). Even for these, without an excellent multi-wavelength characterization of the early-time afterglow, which allows for accurate predictions of the flux at 10–40 days, bump detections will be more difficult to claim unambiguously. Overcoming the former host difficulty requires either an intrinsically faint galaxy (like 980326) or the ability to resolve the GRB afterglow from its host. To dig deeper into the bump luminosity function, observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, then, seemed the natural choice.

As of this workshop there have been 12 reported searches for bumps in GRB afterglows for bursts originating from $`z<1.2`$. Of these, half utilized only ground-based observations, and half used both ground-based and HST photometry. GRB 020405 (Price, this workshop) and GRB 020331 (Soderberg, this workshop) are two new positive detections from our HST program. As illustrated in Figure 1, for the bursts where a bump was seen or an upper-limit found from ground-based observations alone, the host galaxy is a dominant contaminant. Interestingly, only three bumps appear brighter than their respective hosts at the same wavelengths.

HST observations have allowed us to probe nearly four magnitudes fainter than the total magnitude of the host (in the case of GRB 010921; $`z=0.45`$). The non-detection of a bump in GRB 010921 is the deepest constraint on a bump: any bump must have been at least 70% fainter than 1998bw at the redshift of the burst. In other words, despite the added depth with HST photometry, we still have not been able to probe for bumps fainter than about $`M_V=18`$ mag.

## 3. GRB 011121: The Best Case for a Bump

Given the low redshift of GRB 011121 and extensive ground-based observations at early times, we undertook a multi-epoch multi-wavelength program with HST to try to detect a bump and test our hypothesis that any detected bump could be due to a supernova. Garnavich et al. (2002) first pointed out that the $`R`$-band flux at day 14 was higher than the extrapolated light curve from earlier times. As described in more detail in Bloom et al. (2002), we detected a significant bump in four HST filters. In that paper we described how the light curve and spectra over the next 78 days appeared to resemble a supernova. In addition, afterglow models of 011121 provided the first clear-cut case of a wind-stratified medium around the burst. This, coupled with the SN interpretation, provides strong evidence for a massive star origin.

As both we and Garnavich et al. (2003) described, the behavior of the bump of 011121 did not follow a simple redshifted 1998bw: this rise time appeared a to be quicker (17% more rapid) and the peak flux lower (55% fainter). A few explanations could be possible. The supernova could be of a different type than 1998bw (e.g., type IIn; Garnavich et al., 2003). Instead, the supernova could be a type Ic but with an energy and ejecta mass between that of 1998bw and 1994I (see Figure 1). Alternatively, the supernova could be a dimmed version of 1998bw but with an explosion date that preceded the GRB by $`6\pm 5`$ days ($`\chi ^2`$/dof $`<1`$; Zeh et al., this workshop).

Accepting the supernova interpretation, the Zeh analysis is an important one because it places constraints on the relative timing of the supernova and the GRB. In a “supranova”, a supramassive neutron star is created as the massive star explodes to produce a supernova (Vietri & Stella 1998). When this neutron star spins down (via magnetic breaking or gravitational radiation) — losing centrifugal support — it collapses to form a black hole producing the GRB. Thus a supernova could precede a GRB in time. Unfortunately, the time offset is not a strong prediction of the supranova hypothesis—in fact, we point out that the original incarnation of the model suggested a 10 year offset, which is clearly ruled out by the 011121 observations.

## 4. Conclusions

The short time-offset in 011121 (consistent with contemporaneous GRB and supernova explosions) underscores one of the more fundamental observational limits in understanding the origin of bumps and GRB progenitors. Since the explosion time of even the best studied supernovae cannot be dated to better than about $`\pm 2`$ days, we may never be able to infer the true time offset for short-delay supranovae. That is, we may never be able to distinguish between the collapsar model (zero delay) and short-delay supranova scenarios based upon optical observations alone (neutrino arrival times would help!).

Clearly not all bumps can be fit with redshifted versions of 1998bw, suggesting an intrinsic diversity in the properties of bumps (even without appealing to a supernova interpretation). If these bumps are due to supernovae then this diversity is unsurprising: local examples of core-collapsed supernovae are anything but standard. Mazzili et al. (2002) compiled spectra and light curves of a few well-observed core-collapse supernovae and emphasized the large scatter in peak fluxes ($`M_V(\mathrm{peak})15`$ to $`20`$ mag) and broad range of colors at peak. Since the best non-detection of a bump reaches only $`18`$ mag, I suggest that we may be only detecting the tip of the iceberg of supernovae associated with GRBs.

There are several points to take away from the existing sample:

1. Late-time bumps are real and common. Bumps have been detected with high significance in at least five GRB afterglows (980326, 970228, 020405, 011121, 020331) with several other proposed bump identifications (e.g., 000911, 990712, 980703). The non-detections or ambiguity in the significance of bumps have been largely due to contaminating light from the host galaxies. HST observations have allowed us to push bump sensitivity almost four magnitudes fainter than the integrated host magnitude. Still, the best non-detection reaches only to $`M_V18`$ mag.
2. The best case suggests a supernova origin. GRB 011121 is the best case for a bump and has a spectrum and light curve similar to a type Ic or IIn supernova. This is also the best example of a burst that occurred in a wind-stratified medium.
3. Limits on supranovae. The original supranova hypothesis, which posited an offset in time between the GRB and the associated supernova of 10 years, is clearly ruled out. Modified-supranovae (with time offsets of less than a $``$one week) are stilled allowed but may be indistinguishable from collapsar models using bump observations alone.

With such a small number of intensive bump searches, we know very little about the frequency of occurrence of GRB bumps. In a supernova-centric interpretation, the current non-detections of bumps at redshifts $`z<1.2`$ may be due to a lack of sensitivity and intrinsic supernovae diversity. Despite the concordance of a number of detected bumps with simplistic a priori supernovae models, a spectrum of a bump — showing either the absence or presence of metal lines — would be most convincing one way or another. (Somewhat lost in the various disagreements over the specifics of the bump emission and timescales is: most viable alternatives put forth thus far to explain bumps require a massive star progenitor rather than merger products.) In the future, to more accurately characterize the nature of bumps, we hope to undertake HST spectroscopy of a bump (see Figure 2) and determine if bump decay rates are indeed exponential.

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