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# Quantum and classical localization in the lowest Landau level

## Quantum dynamics in the lowest Landau level

The Hamiltonian for two-dimensional spinless electrons confined to the x-y plane, and under the combined effects of a magnetic field $`𝐁=B\widehat{z}`$ and a random potential $`V(𝐫)`$, is $`H=1/2m(𝐩e𝐀)^2+_𝐤V_𝐤\rho _𝐤`$. Here $`𝐀`$ is the vector potential, $`\rho _𝐤=e^{i𝐤𝐫}`$ is the one-particle density operator, and $`V_𝐤`$ is the Fourier transform of the disorder potential. At high magnetic fields (or low temperatures), the quantum dynamics of the electron are governed by the projection of the Hamiltonian onto the lowest Landau level (LLL),

$$\widehat{H}=\underset{𝐤}{}V_𝐤\widehat{\rho _𝐤},$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{\rho }`$ is the projected density operator. We focus our attention on the localization properties of the eigen-functions of $`\widehat{H}`$. Previous numerical studies Huckestein (1995a) indicate that the localization length increases towards the center of the LLL band, with a localization length exponent $`\nu _q7/3`$. In these studies the random potential was assumed to be short range correlated. Here we take up the question of how power-law correlated potentials might affect the value of $`\nu _q`$.

Recently, Sinova et al. Sinova et al. (2000) have shown that the localization length exponent can be computed from the disorder averaged density-density correlation function projected onto the LLL. It was further shown by Gurarie and Zee Gurarie and Zee (2001) that the classical limit of the time evolution of this correlation function describes electron drift along the equipotentials of $`V(𝐫)`$, as expected. These results lead to a simple scaling argument for the subdiffusive spreading of wavepackets in the lowest Landau level Boldyrev and Gurarie . Namely, start by assuming that the disorder potential completely breaks the degeneracy of the LLL, leaving only one extended state at energy $`E_c=0`$. Let us examine the time evolution of a wavepacket $`|\psi _E(t)`$ constructed from localized eigenstates of Eq. (1) that are taken from an interval of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ centered around $`E`$. The dispersion of this wavepacket, $`<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>_E\psi _E(t)\left|x^2\right|\psi _E(t)`$, is expected to be diffusive for short times ($`t\xi ^2(E)/D`$, $`D`$= diffusion constant), attaining a constant value set by the localization length $`\xi (E)`$ at long times. This can be summarized by a scaling form:

$$\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>_E}=Dtf\left(\frac{Dt}{\xi ^2(E)}\right)$$
(2)
where the bar denotes disorder averaging and $`f`$ is a scaling function, with properties: $`f(x)\mathrm{const}`$ for $`x1`$, and $`f(x)\mathrm{const}/x`$ for $`x1`$. Now, if we construct a wave-function in the LLL as a superposition of the wavepackets $`|\psi _E(t)`$ its dispersion can be written as

$$\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>}\underset{E\mathrm{}}{\overset{E=0}{}}\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>_E},$$
(3)
where the contributions of the non-diagonal terms can be neglected since only the state at $`E=0`$ is extended. Replacing $`\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>_E}`$ by Eq. (2), making use of $`\xi (E)E^{\nu _q}`$, and the non-singular nature of the density of states for $`E0`$, we obtain:

$$\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>}(Dt)^{11/2\nu _q}.$$
(4)
Therefore, the spread of the wavefunction at late times is subdiffusive due to the presence of the extended eigenfunction at the band center, and the anomalous diffusion exponent $`\theta =11/2\nu _q`$. This forms the basis of the numerical method we use below to compute $`\nu _q`$.

## Power-law correlated disorder potential

To study quantum dynamics and localization in the LLL in the presence of power-law correlated disorder potentials, we make use of the Hamiltonian in Eq. (1) with $`V(𝐤)`$ a random Gaussian variable with zero mean and variance given by $`|𝐤|^{\alpha 2}`$. After Fourier transforming this leads to a potential which is power-law correlated in real space:

$$V(𝐫)V(\mathrm{𝟎})\frac{1}{|𝐫|^\alpha }.$$
(5)
The projected Hamiltonian matrix is written in the basis of states given by the Landau eigenstates on the torus, which in the Landau gauge can be written as:

$`\psi _l(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi i{\displaystyle \frac{y}{L}}(Nm+l)\right)`$ (6)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left(\pi {\displaystyle \frac{N}{L^2}}[x{\displaystyle \frac{L}{N}}(l+Nm)]^2\right).`$
Here $`l`$ goes from $`0`$ to $`N1`$, labelling the $`N`$ states on the torus, $`N`$ is the number of flux quanta through the torus, and $`L`$ is the system size. These wavefunctions are defined on $`[0,L)\times [0,L)`$, they are centered at $`x=Ll/N`$ and have appreciable amplitude in a narrow strip of width given by the magnetic length $`\mathrm{}_c=\sqrt{L^2/2\pi N}`$. (Below we set $`L=1`$, rendering $`(x,y)`$ dimensionless.)

The electron density operator $`\widehat{\rho }(k_1,k_2)=\text{exp}(2\pi i(k_1x+k_2y))`$ projected onto the LLL is a matrix of the form:

$$\widehat{\rho }(k_1,k_2)=\text{exp}\left(\frac{k_1^2+k_2^2}{2N}\pi \right)L(k_1,k_2),$$
(7)
where $`k_1,k_2`$ are integers in the units chosen, ($`(k_1,k_2)(0,0)`$), and the matrix elements of $`L(k_1,k_2)`$ are given by:

$$\left[L(k_1,k_2)\right]_{l_1,l_2}=e^{2\pi i[k_1k_2/2+k_1(l_11)]/N}\delta _{l_1,l_2k_2}|_{modN}.$$
(8)
(The formalism used to project the density operator $`\rho _𝐤`$ onto the LLL was developed in Ref. Girvin and Jach, 1984.)

For a given realization of $`V(𝐫)`$, the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of $`\widehat{H}`$ are obtained by exact diagonalization Press et al. (1988). A wave-packet localized along $`x`$ is made using all the eigenstates. As it evolves it spreads, and its width in the x-direction is computed as a function of time. For one realization of the short-range correlated random potential, Fig.1 shows a set of snapshots for the evolution of a wavepacket initially localized at $`x=0.5`$. To obtain $`\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>}`$ the width of the wavepacket is averaged over all initial positions and over 1000 different disorder realizations; Eq. 4 is then used for computing $`\nu _q`$.

First, we checked this numerical procedure for a short-range correlated disorder potential, where the Fourier components of $`V(𝐫)`$ (in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$) are independent and uniformly distributed on the interval $`[0.5,0.5]`$. The value of $`\theta =11/2\nu _q`$ is given by the slope of $`\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>}`$ when plotted on a log-log graph. To take into account finite size effects we repeat the computation of $`\theta `$ for $`200N1500`$ and plot it as a function of $`1/N`$; see inset of Fig. 2. By linear extrapolation we find $`\nu _q=2.33(9)`$ in the $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit, consistent with previous results. We then repeat the computation for long-range correlated disorder potentials for different values of the parameter $`\alpha `$. Results are shown in Fig. 2.

For each $`\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>}`$ curve in Fig. 2, three regions can be identified. Due to the finite system size, at long enough times the spread of the wave-packet reaches a constant value which corresponds roughly to $`70\%`$ of the system size. The critical region corresponds to intermediate times, while the short time behavior is described by the slope $`\theta 2`$. Ballistic motion ($`\theta =2`$) follows from a perturbative calculation of $`\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>}`$ at short times Sandler et al. . Comparison among different $`\overline{<\mathrm{\Delta }x^2(t)>}`$ curves shows that the value of the slope in the critical region begins to increase for $`\alpha <\alpha ^{}0.750.80`$.

## Extended Harris criterion

The effect of short-range correlated disorder on a critical point is summarized by the Harris criterion Harris (1974). The criterion states that critical exponents for the disordered and the clean system remain equal as long as the value of the correlation length exponent $`\nu `$ satisfies: $`d\nu 20`$, where $`d`$ is the dimensionality of the system under consideration. It is derived by demanding that the fluctuations of the random potential within a volume set by the correlation length do not grow faster than its average value, as the transition is approached. An extension of the criterion was proposed by Weinrib and Halperin A.Weinrib and B.I.Halperin (1983) to include power-law correlated disorder potentials, like that in Eq. (5). When applied to two-dimensional percolation this ”extended Harris criterion” reads A.Weinrib (1984):

$$\alpha >\alpha ^{}\nu _c=\frac{2}{\alpha ^{}};\alpha <\alpha ^{}\nu _c=\frac{2}{\alpha }.$$
(9)
where $`\nu _c=4/3`$ and $`\alpha ^{}=3/2`$. However, there is to our knowledge no evidence of the validity of the extended Harris criterion for quantum critical points. Since the localization transition in the LLL is believed to be the quantum counterpart of the classical percolation transition, it provides an ideal testing ground for the applicability of the criterion in the quantum realm.

With this in mind we calculate the value of the anomalous diffusion exponent $`\theta =11/2\nu _q`$ by computing the value of $`\theta `$ in the critical region for different values for the degeneracy of the LLL, ranging from $`N=330`$ to $`N=1000`$, and then extrapolating to $`N\mathrm{}`$. Results from this computation, as well as the theoretical prediction based on the extended Harris criterion are shown in Fig. 3. In the quantum case the criterion reads as written in Eq. (9) except now $`\alpha ^{}=2/\nu _q=0.786(8)`$. In the inset of Fig. 3 we also show results of numerical analysis of classical electron motion in the same long-range correlated random potential, and compare to the prediction from the extended Harris criterion Sandler et al. . The classical results were reported previously in Ref. Prakash et al. (1992). Our data confirm the validity of the extended Harris criterion for both quantum and classical electron dynamics in the LLL.

The main result of this paper is contained in Fig. 3. From the striking resemblance between classical and quantum behavior, we conclude that disorder correlations affect in a qualitatively similar way quantum and classical percolation. Indeed, the quantum version of the extended Harris criterion can be argued in close analogy with its classical counterpart. In this case we should consider the fluctuations of the random potential in a volume set by the localization length $`\xi (E)E^{\nu _q}`$, and compare them to $`E`$. The calculation that follows Sandler et al.  exactly parallels that done by Weinrib and Halperin A.Weinrib and B.I.Halperin (1983), and Eq. (9) follows with $`\nu _q`$ replacing $`\nu _c`$.

An interesting consequence of the applicability of the extended Harris criterion to the IQHT, is the conclusion that the simple relation between the classical and quantum localization length exponent, $`\nu _q=\nu _c+1`$ Mil’nikov and Sokolov (1989), can not be valid in general. According to the quantum version of Eq. (9), for a long-range correlated disorder with $`0.8\alpha 1.5`$ the quantum localization exponent will be the same as in the case of short-range correlated disorder while the classical one will vary continuously with $`\alpha `$.

We conclude by speculating about a possible experimental test of our findings. The random potential present in samples that exhibit the IQH effect is thought to be short-range correlated, due to the nature of the spatial distribution of impurities within the heterojunction Prange and Girvin (1990). However, the effect of a random magnetic field in the presence of a much stronger constant magnetic field is equivalent to that of a random potential Huckestein (1995b). This opens up the possibility of engineering the properties of the disordered environment seen by the electrons, by applying a random magnetic field. This was, for example, demonstrated in Ref. Zielinski et al., 1998 using a magnetic material with a rough contact surface placed in close proximity to the electron layer. The height fluctuations of the material surface, and hence the correlations in the random field, can in principle be controlled by adjusting the growth conditions under which the material is made. Magnetic decoration techniques or magnetic force microscopy can be used to determine spatial correlations of the field and thus extract the value of $`\alpha `$. At $`T25mK`$, the saturated width of the Hall conductance step is $`\mathrm{\Delta }B0.5T`$ for $`AlGaAs/GaAs`$ structures. The temperature and $`\mathrm{\Delta }B`$ place limits on the size of the random field fluctuations, which should roughly be in the interval $`10^3`$T $`\delta B10^1`$T . Whether or not magnetic materials with these properties can be prepared, and placed in close proximity to the two-dimensional electron gas so as to effect its dynamics, remains to be seen.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge useful conversations with B. Halperin, J. Sinova, V. Gurarie, S. Boldyrev, J. Moore, and S. Simon. JK is supported by the NSF under grant number DMR-9984471, and is a Cottrell Scholar of Research Corporation.


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# Dispersion management for atomic matter waves

## Abstract

We demonstrate the control of the dispersion of matter wave packets utilizing periodic potentials. This is analogous to the technique of dispersion management known in photon optics. Matter wave packets are realized by Bose-Einstein condensates of 87Rb in an optical dipole potential acting as a one-dimensional waveguide. A weak optical lattice is used to control the dispersion relation of the matter waves during the propagation of the wave packets. The dynamics are observed in position space and interpreted using the concept of effective mass. By switching from positive to negative effective mass, the dynamics can be reversed. The breakdown of the approximation of constant, as well as experimental signatures of an infinite effective mass are studied.

The broadening of particle wave packets due to the free space dispersion is one of the most prominent quantum phenomena cited in almost every textbook of quantum mechanics. The realization of Bose-Einstein condensates of dilute gases allows for the direct observation of wave packet dynamics in real space on a macroscopic scale BEC\_general . Using periodic potentials it becomes feasible to experimentally study to what extent the matter wave dispersion relation can be engineered. This approach is similar to dispersion management for light pulses in spatially periodic refractive index structures Agrawal01 .

First experiments in this direction have already been undertaken in the context of Bloch oscillations of thermal atoms Dahan96  and condensates Morsch01b . The modification of the dipole mode oscillation frequency of a condensate due to the changed dispersion relation in the presence of a periodic potential has been studied in detail Burger01 ; Kraemer02 . In contrast to these experiments where the center of mass motion was studied, we are investigating the evolution of the spatial distribution of the atomic cloud in a quasi one-dimensional situation. For the wave packet dynamics many new effects are expected due to the interplay between nonlinearity resulting from atom-atom interaction and dispersion. In particular, non-spreading wave packets such as gap solitons Meystre01  and self trapped states Trombettoni01  are predicted. Our experiments show that even propagation in the linear regime with modified dispersion can change the shape of an initially Gaussian wave packet significantly.

For atomic matter waves inside a one-dimensional optical waveguide, we have achieved dispersion management by applying a weak periodic potential with adjustable velocity. Fig. 1 shows the results of an experiment in which the propagation of an atomic wave packet is studied in the normal (Fig. 1b) and anomalous (Fig. 1c) dispersion regime corresponding to positive and negative effective mass, respectively.

A broadening of the wave packet is observed in both cases. The faster spreading in the case of anomalous dispersion is a consequence of the smaller absolute value of the negative effective mass. However, if we switch from one regime to the other during the propagation by changing the velocity of the periodic potential, the effects of normal and anomalous dispersion cancel. The wave packet, which has initially broadened under the influence of normal dispersion, reverses its expansion and compresses until it regains its initial shape (Fig. 1d). This is a direct proof of the realization of negative effective mass.

The concept of effective mass $`m_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ Ashcroftenglish76  allows to describe the dynamics of matter wave packets inside a periodic potential in a simple way via a modified dispersion relation. The periodic potential in our experiments is well described by

$$V(x)=\frac{V_0}{2}\mathrm{cos}\left(Gx\right)$$

with a modulation depth $`V_0`$ on the order of the grating recoil energy $`E_G=\mathrm{}^2G^2/8m`$, with $`G=2\pi /d`$ where $`d=417\text{nm}`$ represents the spatial period. The energy spectrum of atoms inside the periodic potential exhibits a band structure $`E_n(q)`$ which is a periodic function of quasimomentum $`q`$ with periodicity $`G`$ corresponding to the width of the first Brillouin zone (Fig. 2a). In our experiment, we prepare condensates in the lowest energy band ($`n=0`$) with a quasimomentum distribution $`w(q)`$ centered at $`q=q_c`$ with an rms width $`\mathrm{\Delta }qG`$ Denschlag .

It has been shown by Steel et al. Steel98  that in this case the condensate wave function in a quasi one-dimensional situation can be described by $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)=A(x,t)\varphi _{q_c}(x)exp(iE_0(q_c)t/\mathrm{})`$, where $`\varphi _{q_c}`$ represents the Bloch function in the lowest energy band corresponding to the central quasimomentum. The evolution of the envelope function $`A(x,t)`$, normalized to the total number of atoms $`N_0`$, is described by

$$i\mathrm{}\left(\frac{}{t}+v_g\frac{}{x}\right)A=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_{\mathrm{eff}}}\frac{^2}{x^2}A+\stackrel{~}{g}|A|^2A.$$
(1)
The strength of the atom-atom interaction is given by $`\stackrel{~}{g}=\alpha _{nl}2\mathrm{}\omega _{}a`$, with the transverse trapping frequency of the waveguide $`\omega _{}`$, the s-wave scattering length $`a`$, and a renormalization factor $`\alpha _{nl}=1/d_0^d𝑑x|\varphi _{q_c}|^4`$. Besides the modification of the nonlinear term the periodic potential leads to a group velocity of the envelope $`A(x,t)`$ determined by the energy band via $`v_g(q_c)=\mathrm{}^1(E_0(q)/q)|_{q_c}`$ (Fig. 2b). In addition, the kinetic energy term describing the dispersion of the wave packet is modified by the effective mass (Fig. 2c)

$$m_{\mathrm{eff}}(q_c)=\mathrm{}^2\left(\frac{^2E_0(q)}{q^2}|_{q_c}\right)^1.$$

It is important to note that group velocity and effective mass are assumed to be constant during the propagation. Since the approximation of constant effective mass corresponds to a parabolic approximation of the energy band, it is only valid for sufficiently small $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ as can be seen in Fig. 2.

The general solution of Eq. (1) is a difficult task, but simple analytic expressions can be found in the special cases of negligible and dominating atom-atom interaction. Omitting the last term in Eq. (1) it is straightforward to see that $`|m_{\mathrm{eff}}|`$ controls the magnitude of the dispersion term and thus the timescale of the wave packet broadening. A change in sign of $`m_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ corresponds to time reversal of the dynamics in a frame moving with velocity $`v_g`$. In the regime where the atom-atom interaction is dominating, e.g. during the initial expansion of a condensate, the evolution of the envelope function can be found in standard nonlinear optics textbooks Agrawal95  and in form of scaling solutions in the context of Bose-Einstein condensates scaling . Note that in this regime the kinetic energy term is still relevant and thus a change of the sign of the effective mass will reverse the dynamics.

In the following we will analyze the obtained experimental results in more detail. The initial wave packet shown in Fig. 1a) is characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_0=14.8(6)\mu \text{m}`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$ is the r.m.s width of a Gaussian fit) and shows the density distribution of a Bose-Einstein condensate of $`210^4`$ atoms in a three-dimensional dipole trap. Before releasing the atomic cloud into the one dimensional waveguide, a weak periodic potential along the waveguide is adiabatically ramped up to $`V_0=2.8(2)E_G`$ within $`6\text{ms}`$. This turns the initial Gaussian momentum distribution of the atoms into a Gaussian distribution of quasimomenta $`w(q)`$ centered at $`q_c=0`$ in the lowest energy band of the lattice with a corresponding effective mass $`m_{\mathrm{eff}}=1.25m`$. The density distribution shown in Fig. 1b) is a result of propagation within the stationary periodic potential for $`t=26\text{ms}`$ and exhibits a spread of $`\delta x:=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }x(t)^2\mathrm{\Delta }x_0^2}=18.4(12)\mu `$m in contrast to $`\delta x_f=20.2(14)\mu \text{m}`$ for expansion without periodic potential. The resulting ratio $`\delta x_f/\delta x=1.10(15)`$ indicates that the evolution is dominated by the nonlinearity, in which case one expects $`\delta x_f/\delta x\sqrt{m_{\mathrm{eff}}/m}=1.11`$ Potasek86 . In the case of linear propagation one expects $`\delta x_f/\delta x=m_{\mathrm{eff}}/m=1.25`$.

The dynamics in the anomalous dispersion regime are investigated by initially accelerating the periodic potential within $`3\text{ms}`$ to a velocity $`v=v_G:=\mathrm{}G/2m`$, thus preparing the atomic wave packet at the edge of the Brillouin zone, where $`m_{\mathrm{eff}}=0.5m`$. The velocity is kept constant during the subsequent expansion. In the regime of negative mass a condensate exhibits collapse dynamics similar to condensates with attractive atom-atom interaction. Two-dimensional calculations for our experimental situation reveal that this collapse happens within the initial 3-6 ms of propagation. This leads to a fast reduction of the density and therefore of the nonlinearity due to excitation of transverse states. An indication of the population of transverse states is the observed increase of the transverse spatial extension of the wave packets for anomalous dispersion by almost a factor of two. The optical resolution of our setup does not allow for a quantitative analysis of the transverse broadening. The measured spread of $`\delta x=38.5(15)\mu \text{m}`$ after $`23\text{ms}`$ of expansion leads to a ratio $`\delta x_f/\delta x=0.46(5)`$. This ratio represents an upper limit due to the initial collapse, indicating that a coherent nonlinear evolution in one dimension cannot describe the experimental results.

In the case of dispersion management Fig. 1d) the wave packet was first subjected to normal dispersion for $`17\text{ms}`$ at $`q_c=0`$. The time of subsequent propagation with anomalous dispersion at $`q_c=G/2`$ was adjusted to achieve the minimal wave packet size of $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=15.4(2)\mu \text{m}`$. The minimum was achieved for times ranging from $`7\text{ms}`$ to $`9\text{ms}`$ which is in rough agreement with the expected time resulting from effective mass considerations $`\sqrt{0.5/1.25}\times 17\text{ms}=10.7\text{ms}`$. The experimental results exhibit a rapid increase of the wave packet width for overall propagation times longer than $`27\text{ms}`$ also indicating collapse dynamics.

Before presenting the detailed experimental studies of the applicability of the constant effective mass approximation and evidence of infinite masses, we turn to a brief description of our setup.

The wave packets have been realized with a 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate. The atoms are collected in a magneto-optical trap and subsequently loaded into a magnetic time-orbiting potential trap. By evaporative cooling we produce a cold atomic cloud which is then transferred into an optical dipole trap realized by two focused Nd:YAG laser beams with $`60\mu \text{m}`$ waist crossing at the center of the magnetic trap. Further evaporative cooling is achieved by lowering the optical potential leading to pure Bose-Einstein condensates with up to $`310^4`$ atoms in the $`|F=2,m_F=+2`$ state. By switching off one dipole trap beam the atomic matter wave is released into a trap acting as a one-dimensional waveguide with radial trapping frequency $`\omega _{}=2\pi 80\text{Hz}`$ and longitudinal trapping frequency $`\omega _{}=2\pi 1.5\text{Hz}`$.

The periodic potential is realized by a far off-resonant standing light wave with a single beam peak intensity of up to $`5\text{W/cm}^2`$. The chosen detuning of 2 nm to the blue off the D2 line leads to a spontaneous emission rate below $`1\text{Hz}`$. The frequency and phase of the individual laser beams are controlled by acousto-optic modulators driven by a two channel arbitrary waveform generator allowing for full control of the velocity and amplitude of the periodic potential. The light intensity and thus the absolute value of the potential depth was calibrated independently by analyzing results on Bragg scattering Bragg  and Landau Zener tunneling Morsch01b .

The wave packet evolution inside the combined potential of the waveguide and the lattice is studied by taking absorption images of the atomic density distribution after a variable time delay. The density profiles along the waveguide, $`n(x,t)`$, are obtained by integrating the absorption images over the transverse dimension $`z`$.

Since the assumption of a constant effective mass used so far is only an approximation, it is important to check its applicability in experiments. Therefore we investigate the dynamics of wave packets prepared at the Brillouin zone edge ($`q_c=G/2`$) for different potential depths. The observed density profiles after $`60\text{ms}`$ of propagation are shown in Fig. 2d-f). While both the initial wave packet shape $`n(x,0)`$ and the quasimomentum distribution $`w(q)`$ are measured to be approximately Gaussian, the wave packet changes its shape during evolution. We attribute this distortion to the invalidity of the constant effective mass approximation, which assumes that the populated quasimomenta experience the same negative curvature of $`E_0(q)`$. Since the range of quasimomenta fulfilling this criterion becomes smaller with decreasing modulation depth, a more pronounced distortion of the wave packet shape for weak potentials is expected (see Fig. 2d).

This explanation is confirmed more quantitatively by comparing the observed wave packets with the results of an integration of Eq. (1) neglecting the nonlinear term. Since the initial collapse of the condensate cannot be described by a linear theory, we take a Gaussian function fitted to the density distribution measured at $`20\text{ms}`$ as the initial wave packet for the numerical propagation. Due to the fact that this is not a minimum uncertainty wave packet we add a quadratic phase in real space such that the Fourier transform of the wave packet is consistent with the measured momentum distribution. In first approximation this takes into account the initial expansion including the repulsive atom-atom interaction. For the subsequent propagation of $`40\text{ms}`$ we use the full expression for $`E_0(q)`$ which is obtained numerically. Finally we convolute the obtained density distribution with the optical resolution of our setup. In Fig. 2d-f) we compare the data with the linear theory described above (solid line) and with the constant effective mass approximation (dashed line). Clearly the effective mass approximation cannot explain the observed distortion and it strongly overestimates the expansion velocity for weak potentials. Additionally, for small potential modulation depths new features appear in the central part of the wave packet which cannot be explained using the linear theory. We are currently investigating these features in more detail.

The observed distortion is mainly a consequence of another very interesting feature of the band structure: the existence of $`|m_{\mathrm{eff}}|=\mathrm{}`$ for certain quasimomenta $`q=q_{\mathrm{}}^\pm `$ (see Fig. 2c). A diverging mass implies that the group velocity is extremal and the dispersion vanishes as can be seen from Eq. (1). As a consequence an atomic ensemble whose quasimomentum distribution is overlapping $`q=q_{\mathrm{}}^\pm `$ will develop steep edges as can be seen in Fig. 2d). These edges propagate with the maximum group velocity of the lowest band.

The systematic investigation of the velocities of the edges is shown in Fig. 3 for different values of $`V_0`$. In order to get a significant overlap of $`w(q)`$ with $`q=q_{\mathrm{}}^\pm `$, we prepare atomic ensembles with $`\mathrm{\Delta }q=0.17G/2`$ at $`q_c=G/2`$ realized by Bose-Einstein condensates of $`210^4`$ atoms with a spatial extension of $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=15\mu \text{m}`$. The velocities of the edges are derived from two images taken at $`20\text{ms}`$ and $`60\text{ms}`$, respectively. In each image the position of the edge is evaluated at the levels indicated by the arrows in the insets of Fig. 3 (50% and 25% of the maximum density). Since the momentum spread is too small to populate the infinite mass points for potentials deeper than $`2E_G`$ the atomic ensemble was then prepared at $`q_c=G/4`$ by accelerating the periodic potential to the corresponding velocity $`v=v_G/2`$. The resulting wave packet shapes are asymmetric exhibiting a steep edge on one side which becomes less pronounced for potentials deeper than $`5E_G`$. The obtained experimental results in Fig. 3 are in excellent agreement with the numerically calculated band structure predictions. In contrast to the good agreement of the maximum velocity for all potential depths we find that for $`V_0>5E_G`$ the group velocity of the center of mass is only 10% of the expected velocity deduced from the dispersion relation at $`q_c=G/4`$. This could be an indication of entering the tight binding regime where the nonlinear effect of self trapping, i.e. stopping and non-spreading wave packets, has been predicted by Trombettoni et al. Trombettoni01 . We are currently investigating the transport properties in this regime in more detail.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated experimentally that the dispersion of atomic matter waves in a waveguide can be controlled using a weak periodic potential. Matter wave packets with positive, negative and infinite effective masses are studied in the regime of weak and intermediate potential heights. The preparation of matter waves with engineered dispersion ($`m_{\mathrm{eff}}<0`$) is an important prerequisite for the experimental investigation of atomic gap solitons and other effects arising from the coherent interplay of nonlinearity and dispersion in periodic potentials.

We wish to thank J. Mlynek for his generous support, A. Sizmann and B. Brezger for many stimulating discussions, and J. Bellanca, and K. Forberich for their help in building up the experiment. This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Emmy Noether Program, and by the European Union, Contract No. HPRN-CT-2000-00125.


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# Meteors And Showers A Millennium Ago

## 1 Introduction

Comets scatter their evaporated particles around their orbit, and these materials eventually fill the cometary orbit due to the dispersion of momenta. The belts of such remnants are called meteor streams. When the Earth passes through meteor streams, meteor showers are seen on the sky. In particuler, just before and after a comet passes through its perihelion, its meteor stream is greatly enriched and the meteor shower looks almost like a firework. This is often described as a meteor storm. After a long time, cometary materials are dispersed into the interplanetary space. If the dispersed meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere, we may see sporadic meteors. Presently the rate of major meteor showers is approximately one meteor shower per month. Meteors are observed and recorded by astronomers around the world both optically and in radio. Regular pattern of annual meteor activity is well illustrated in Figure 6 and Table 2 of Yrjölä and Jenniskens (1998).

Due to the advancement of observational techniques, weak meteor showers have become an attractive topic in this field. Hughes (1990) discovered that the apparently random sporadic meteors are not so random, and that about 20% of meteors during a non-shower day belong to weak showers. He also suggested that the flux of sporadic meteors can vary by about 30-40% over $`10^410^5`$ years due to the statistical variations in the numbers of massive short period comets. Although modern astronomy provides precise and sensitive techniques for massive observation of meteors and showers, they cannot provide the data that can show the long-term variations of meteor activity over more than a few hundred years. Hence, it is worth discovering whether we can investigate the long-term variation of meteors and showers by analysing the astronomical records of ancient people.

Another important factor that determines the meteor flux, either sporadic or showery, is the distance between the Earth’s orbit and the nodal points of the cometary orbits. The orbits of comets are affected by gravitational perturbations due to major objects in the Solar system. The non-gravitational forces are also strong sources of orbital changes, but it is very hard to calculate the effects even in the modern astronomy. Hence, the ancient astronomical records in chronicles can be useful to understand the long-term effects of these forces on orbital displacement.

In this study we will investigate the meteor records written in the Koryo dynasty (918-1392) which is one of the dynasties in the Korean history. In Section 2 we explain which archives are authentic and reliable and how we compile the data. The analysis method is explained in Section 3, and the results are followed in the next Section. In the final Section we discuss our results.

## 2 Korean Records

Korean astronomical records written in history books have several merits. Firstly, the duration of a Korean dynasty was typically around 500 years, and so the astronomers in the Koryo dynasty could observe the astronomical phenomena continuously. Moreover ancient Korean dynasties established their own Royal Observatories, and hired a number of professional astronomers. The astronomers recorded observational data in official documents, which were systematically compiled into Royal history books after kings’ death. Kings could not see the historical records of his own, as well as those of preceding kings. Thus the historians did not need to forge or discard the astronomical phenomena which were usually interpreted as bad omens against kings. In China, contrary to Korea, kings could consult their own history books and documents during their lives. Japanese records are of limited use because they are few in number. Nha (1997) investigated the records of solar and lunar eclipses in The Chronicle of the Koryo dynasty (Koryosa), and confirmed the regularity of the astronomical data during the Koryo dynasty (918-1392). Therefore, although other factors might also cause recording bias, the above factors support the reliability of the Koryo data.

The majority of astronomical records in the Korean history are preserved in a few major history books published by the historians of the successive dynasties. Some history books were also published privately. A number of the astronomical records of the Old Choson dynasty are remained in a book titled by The Ancient Chronicle of the Old Choson dynasty. However, this book was discovered in modern times, and unfortunately historians and bibliographers suspect that it may be a forged one. The astronomical records in the era of the Three Kingdoms (57 B.C. - 668 A.D.) and the Unified Shilla dynasty (668-935) are written in The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms (Sam-Guk-Sa111The name of this book is widely known as Sam-Guk-Sa-Ki.) (Kim et al. 1145). Almost no astronomical records of the Parhae dynasty (698-926) are left due to the lack of its own history books. The astronomical records during the Koryo dynasty (918-1392) are preserved in The Chronicle of the Koryo dynasty (Koryosa) (Kim et al. 1451) and The Simplified Chronicle of the Koryo dynasty (Koryosa-Joryo) (Kim et al. 1452). The information during the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) are written in The Chronicle of the Choson dynasty (Choson-Wang-Jo-Shillok). These are surely vast sources of astronomical data for modern astronomy. The Korean records have been introduced to the international society mainly by foreign scholars (e.g. Imoto & Hasegawa 1958). However, they did not refer to the original historical books such as those in Table 1. They merely used digested versions of Korean history books, such as Mun-Heon-Bi-Go and Yol-Sung-Shillok, which have a number of ambiguous or wrong dates and misleading expressions for astronomical events.

In this paper we concentrate on the meteor records of the Koryo dynasty. The records have never been catalogued after thorough examination on errors in their dates, and so we first made the catalogue after correcting several erroneous dates. We use the data in the authentic history book or Koryosa. The records of meteor storms in the Korean history books are also surveyed. The detailed procedure of compilation was published in another Korean journal (Ahn et al. 2002).

A typical record of meteor reveals a few kinds of information such as date, time, starting and ending points, brightness, colour, and sound. The dates were represented by the calendar system used at that time, and they can be converted into Julian dates by utilizing the calendar conversion table established precisely before this work (Han 1996, Shim et al. 1999). In Koryosa there are 729 meteor records in total. One of them has no date, eight of them have ambiguity in calendar system, and fifteen of them were described as precursors of a meteor storm. These fifteen records are also excluded in our analysis, because they may bias the result. Hence, we have 705 meteors which can be analysed.

There appears no meteor records in the 10th century, to say nothing of other kinds of astronomical records. The extreme rarity of historical data during this century was caused by the invasion of the Kitanese army in 1011 A.D.. When the army occupied the capital city of Koryo, they fired the Korean documents and books of former ages. However, the Korean records from the 11th century to the 14th century show largely no discontinuity of records. On the other hand, the Chinese records show a bimodal distribution, in that there are few records in the reign of the Mongolian Empire (Hasegawa 1992).

## 3 Method

Events of sporadic meteors resemble random noise, while meteors belonging to meteor showers can be considered as a signal. The meteors caused by a meteor stream are likely to fall at nearly the same time of year, while sporadic meteors fall randomly. Hence, any concentration in appearance dates of meteors in Koryosa can be thought of as a sign of a meteor shower.

For meteor showers, astronomers usually rely on the solar ecliptic longitude ($`\lambda _{}`$) which is defined by the angle in degrees along the ecliptic from the Vernal equinox to the position of the Earth. Evidently the ecliptical coordinate system (equivalently the Julian and the Gregorian calendar systems) is not convenient to compare two events whose interval is as large as thousand years. That is because the origin of the ecliptical longitude or the Vernal equinox varies with time due to the precession of the Earth’s rotation axis.

In this paper we first locate meteor showers a millennium ago, and then compare their appearance dates with the modern observations to identify the meteor showers. In order to do so, we define the number of days after the perihelion passage time of the year, which is denoted by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. In other words it is equivalent to relocate the origin of the ecliptic coordinate from the Vernal equinox to the perihelion. Since the orbit of the Earth is more stable than the Earth’s rotation, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is more adequate for our purpose. The perihelion passage time of the year is calculated by using the method in Meeus (1991).

## 4 Results

### 4.1 Seasonal Variation of Sporadic Meteors

The results are shown in Figure 1, where peaks appear over a fluctuating background of sporadic meteors. These prominent peaks represents the major meteor showers in the Koryo period. According to Yrjölä & Jenniskens (1998), the level of sporadic activity can be expressed by a functional form:

$$N(\lambda _{})=N_{spo}\mathrm{\Delta }N_{spo}\mathrm{cos}(\lambda _{}),$$
(1)
where $`N_{spo}`$ is mean daily sporadic hourly count at the Summer solstice on June 21 and $`\mathrm{\Delta }N_{spo}`$ is the yearly amplitude due to the seasonal variation. Here $`\lambda _{}`$ is the solar ecliptical longitude. The Koryo data are too sparse to give us meaningful values for $`N_{spo}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }N_{spo}`$. We need more detailed description and additional data such as weather conditions to compensate the sparseness of data, but there are few such detailed data in history books of the Koryo era. Hence, we will simply check the sinusoidal variation of seasonal activity of sporadic meteors in this study. Thus, we make a simple eye-fitting to the sporadic flux by Eq.(1). Here we exclude the prominent peaks over the fluctuating background. Data around $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=200`$ are also excluded, because they can bias results. This is a season of Jangma, during which it rains continuously, being related with the East Asian Monsoon. However, the fitting is merely qualitative and can be thought of as an adjoint line in Figure 1.

We can see in the figure that the sporadic fluctuations show rough agreement with the fitting curve. This general trend that the flux is small in spring and large in autumn, is caused by the fact that the Earth’s rotation axis is inclined and so altitudes of radiant points are higher in autumn than in spring. Our result supports the idea that the meteor data of the Koryo dynasty is faithfully representing the natural phenomena.

### 4.2 Prominent Meteor Showers

Now let us turn our attention to the major meteor showers which appear as peaks in Figure 1. The most prominent peak appears on about $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=225`$. When we convert this date into the ecliptical longitude, we can see that it corresponds to $`139^{}\lambda _{}142^{}`$. (In this paper, the solar longitudes of meteor showers are expressed for B1950.) According to the table given by Yrjölä & Jenniskens (1998), this corresponds to the Perseids ($`\lambda _{}=139^{}`$), whose parent comet is 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Since the orbit of this comet has a nearly normal inclination, the gravitational perturbation of other objects in the solar system is rather small, and consequently its orbit is preserved for a long time.

The other prominent peaks appear in winter ($`250\mathrm{\Lambda }360`$). One of the most strong peaks appears in the period $`297^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }316^{}`$ which corresponds to $`213^{}\lambda _{}232^{}`$. We can find two current major meteor streams in this period, which are the Taurids ($`\lambda _{}=223^{}`$) and the Leonids. The parent comet of the Taurids is 2P/Encke, and its orbital inclination is merely $`i=12^{}.4`$. However, since its apheilon distance amount to 4.1 AU, the comet does not experience great gravitational perturbation of the Jupiter, so that its orbit is persistent over centuries (Sitarski 1988). The orbital period of comet Encke is only 3.3 years, which is easily short enough to be depleted in dust. Hence, the comet cannot supply lots of meteoroids to the meteor stream these days. However, historical studies indicate that activity of the Taurids during the 11th century may have been comparable to today’s Perseids (Astapovic & Ternteva 1968, Hasegawa 1992, Bone 1993). However, it should be noted that the active durations of the Taurids and the Leonids overlapped in the period of Koryo, so that it is not easy to discriminate between them.

The present ecliptical longitude of the Leonids is $`\lambda _{}235^{}`$, which implies its position on the ecliptic has shifted over the years. In fact, since the precession of the nodal points of the parent comet, 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, is 1.6 day per century (Mason 1995), we can estimate the ecliptical longitude of the Leonids during 10-14th century to be about $`220^{}\lambda _{}225^{}`$, which is in good agreement with the peak seen above at $`250\mathrm{\Lambda }360`$. Contrary to either 109P/Swift-Tuttle or 2P/Encke, the parent comet of the Leonids, 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, has an orbit that is close to the ecliptic, so that the stronger gravitational perturbation makes the orbit precess.

In spring there is another shower at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=126`$ or $`\lambda _{}=48^{}`$. The signal is very marginal, but its ecliptical longitude corresponds to the $`\eta `$Aquarids, whose parent comet is Halley’s comet. It is well-known that this shower has a pair shower, the Orionids at $`\lambda _{}=208^{}`$. We can find the weak feature of the Orionids at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=289`$ or $`\lambda _{}=205^{}`$. Since the bin size of the horizontal axis in the figure is as large as 4 days, we can say that this small peak is likely to be the Orionids. When we compare the annual meteor activity in the Figure 6 of Yrjölä & Jenniskens (1998), we can see that both meteor showers are relatively weak in strength. The signals are observed to be weak, but the pairness of their appearance and the strong activity seen in the data of the meteor storm for both showers indicate that the $`\eta `$Aquarids/Orionids were active in the Koryo period.

### 4.3 Weak Showers

Another conspicuous peak is seen at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=270`$, corresponding to $`\lambda _{}=186^{}`$. In the Table 2 of Yrjölä & Jenniskens (1998), we can find that the Sextantids has the coincident ecliptical longitude $`\lambda _{}=186^{}\pm 2^{}`$. However, its ZHR222Zenithal Hourly Rate is estimated to be merely 9 meteors per hour, which is very weak. However, we can not exclude the possibility that the Sextantids was stronger in the medieval era than now.

There appears a prominent peak at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=335`$. Current major meteor showers observed in December are rather variable in strength. Representative ones are the Boötids and the Geminids. Their present ZHR is as large as 110 and 140, respectively. Although we see in Figure 1 a prominent peak at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=335`$ or $`\lambda _{}=251^{}`$. This peak does not correspond to either the Boötids or the Geminids. According to Table 2 of Yrjölä & Jenniskens (1998), this peak may correspond to the $`\chi `$Orionids.

The peaks at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=34`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=95`$ may correspond to the recent showers, the Feb-Draconids and the N-Virginids, respectively. When considering another catalogue of meteor showers (Bone 1993), these weak peaks are believed to be aged and depleted showers or relics of dead comets. However, the existence and the activity level of these weak showers in the Koryo period are still uncertain.

### 4.4 Temporal Variations

In order to check the possibility of the temporal variation and confirm the validity of our results, we divide the data into two sets, around 1150 A.D.. The histogram is even more fluctuating because of the small amount of data. However, the seasonal variation of the meteor flux and the conspicuous peaks such as the Perseids and the possible Leonids around $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=300`$ can be seen in Figure 2. The dotted lines represent the annual variation of sporadic meteors observed recently. This indicates that the meteor activity had persisted during the Koryo dynasty, and that the showers we discovered are realistic and meaningful. This is also supported by other researches for the independent data set compiled out of the history books of the Sung and the Ming dynasties (Hasegawa 1992), and for the Koryo data (Hasegawa 1998). We will discuss this in Section 5.

### 4.5 Meteor Storms

Roughly speaking, the meteor storms written in chronicles form a subset of meteor showers, but they are splendid enough to be frequently recorded in ancient chronicles. We define the data sets as follows: (A) meteor showers found by analysing the data of sporadic meteors in Koryosa, (B) meteor showers and storms recorded in historical books listed below, (C) meteor showers observed recently.

It is much interesting if three data sets have some correlations. Motivated by this fact, we check the consistency among these three sets of data. We collect the records of meteor showers and storms from chronicles of Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Arabian, and European countries (Dall’olmo 1978, Kanda 1935, Rada & Stephenson 1992, Hasegawa 1996, Mason 1995, Imoto & Hasegawa 1958, Beijing Observatory 1988). We collect the Korean records of meteor showers with a thorough survey of the Korean archives, and the catalogue will be published elsewhere. After appearance dates of all the data being converted into the same time coordinate or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, we check the conformity in appearance dates between the showers and the storms. We show in Figure 3 their appearance dates in year. The broad stripes that are yellow, blue, and red in colour represent the active duration of each current meteor shower denoted on the left of the box. The narrow lines represent the durations of maximal activity for each current meteor shower. The symbols represent the meteor storms reported by civilizations, and each meaning can be consulted in the figure caption.

First of all, it is remarkable in the figure that the current maxima of the $`\eta `$Aquarids and the Orionids, remnants of Halley’s comet, show an exact conformity to those of the historical meteor storms. The Perseids also shows similar agreement, and the appearance date seem to have been a few days later than now. That is to say, its $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ was a few days larger than now.

The Leonids displays its firework in a relatively short duration, and their displaying date has been delayed year by year at a rate of 1.6 days per century (Mason 1995). According to the compilation of Mason (1995), the earliest record of the Leonid storm is traced back to 902 A.D. in Egypt. However, the Orionids overlapped with the Leonids around the 9th century. Hence, even if there are any record of the Leonids in any chronicle, it is uncertain whether it belongs to the Leonids or the Orionids.

## 5 Discussion

We have investigated the sporadic meteors and showers in the Koryo dynasty (918-1392). We found that the seasonal activity of sporadic meteors shows rough agreement with the modern observation. We also found that there were a few prominent meteor showers and storms: the Perseids, the Leonids, and the possibly $`\eta `$-Aquarids/Orionids pair. There were also weak and aged meteor showers. The meteor showers known from the Koryo data are in good agreement with the meteor storms compiled from the world-wide chronicles, as well as with the modern observation.

Our results can be supported by analyses of independent data in another historical archives such as the Sung dynasty (960-1279) and the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Hasegawa (1992) investigated the Chinese and the Japanese records of meteors. The number of the Chinese records during the period of the Koryo dynasty (918-1392) amounts to 1638, while that of the Koryo records is 729. The Chinese meteor records increase sharply in number around 1070 A.D. and 1430 A.D., just at the beginnings of the Sung and the Ming dynasties. This may be attributed to the changes in the principles or the methods of the meteor observation in the dynasties (Hasegawa 1992). Also there are few meteor records during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) of the Mongol empire. On the other hand, the temporal distribution of the meteor records in the Koryo dynasty has a broad peak around the 12-13th centuries. Hence two sets of data are statistically independent and complementary with each other, because both the observers and the characteristic periods are different.

Hasegawa (1992) investigated the monthly variations of meteors recorded in China during 1-1000 A.D. and all centuries after 1001 A.D., which was shown in Figure 3 of his paper. He discovered two conspicuous maxima in July-August and November-December. He thought that these two maxima are in agreement with recent observations, and insisted that this supports the reliability of the Chinese records. He concluded that the July-August peak is the Perseids, and that the November-December peak is the Taurids.

Hasegawa (1998) also applied his work to the Koryo meteor records, and concluded that the meteor records of the Koryo dynasty show the same pattern in the variations of meteor flux as seen in the Chinese records. However, unfortunately, he only inspected the monthly variations in both papers, and so the time-resolution is not fine enough to see the individual meteor showers. The temporal resolution in our study is about five days. As a result, we can see that the Perseids existed a thousand years ago, and that the Hasegawa’s November-December shower is not likely to be the Taurids, but the Leonids, because of its appearance date and the coincidence with the records of the meteor storms. At any rate, Hasegawa’s study supports our conclusions.

The meteor records of the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) were written in the Chronicle of the Choson dynasty. The total number of records amounts to about 3500. We have been carrying out the similar researches on the Choson data, and the analysis for the part of records in the Choson dynasty have been finished. The results support our conclusion in this paper. The results will be published elsewhere.

We conclude that the major meteor showers and storms a millennium ago might be caused by the same short-period comets to the current ones, and their activities were similar to those of present showers. It is interesting that although everyday meteors seem to be sporadic and random, there is a regularity, which lasts for at least a millennium.

## acknowledgements

It was a great pleasure for me to make a catalogue of the meteor records during the Koryo dynasty with Mr. Bae, Mr. Jeong, and Ms. Cho of Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. The author also thanks to Dr. Julian Lee for his useful criticism and careful reading this manuscript.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In recent five years, much attention has been paid to the problem of evolving networks . For our purposes, the problem can be summarized as follows: we consider a graph, initially small, of $`N`$ nodes. A new $`(N+1)`$-th node is linked to $`m`$ nodes, selected randomly from $`N`$ previously existing nodes, with probability of linking to a given node dependent on its degree, i.e. its number of edges $`k`$. If this probability is constant, we get the so-called exponential network — this term is due to the exponential distribution $`P(k)`$ of the number of edges of a node . The distribution $`P(k)`$ is often treated as giving most essential local characteristics of the network. Example giving, for the Cayley tree $`P(k)=\delta _{k,3}`$. If the probability of linking to a node is proportional to the node degree $`k`$, the network is scale-free, i.e. the distribution $`P(k)k^\gamma `$, where $`\gamma 3.0`$. This kind of networks is called “Barabási–Albert networks” from the names of the inventors . The scale-free character has been discovered in many real networks: a network of web pages which are available one from another, a network of coauthors of scientific papers, a network of actors playing roles in the same movies and some others. In any case, the evolving procedure is to be considered as a non-equilibrium process.

Here we focus on the mean distance $`d`$ between nodes in trees, where $`m=1`$. In trees, the path between each two nodes is unique and it cannot be changed during the system evolution. A number of results on $`d`$ in trees has been derived recently for uncorrelated random networks . These results are based on scaling hypotheses and/or assumptions of lack of correlations between nodes. The goal of the present work is to calculate $`d(N)`$ numerically for the exponential trees and the Barabási–Albert $`m=1`$ scale-free networks, and analytically for the exponential trees. Our analytical results are formulated in terms of iterative equations and they are exact also for small trees.

## 2 Numerical calculations and results

The numerical algorithm is as follows: an initial tree is composed of two nodes connected by an edge. Each time when a $`(N+1)`$-th node is added to a $`q`$-th node, the distance $`s(N+1,i)`$ between the new node and any other (say, $`i`$-th one) is $`1+s(q,i)`$. The set of distances can be presented as a symmetric matrix $`s(i,j)`$. Adding a new node is represented by an enlargement of the matrix size by one. The last $`(N+1)`$-th column and row are equal to one plus the $`q`$-th column (or row), where $`q`$ is the index of a node to which the new node is attached (see Fig. 1).

The mean distance, i.e. the average length $`d`$, is just the average over the nondiagonal matrix elements. Obviously, the diagonal elements are zero. The obtained curve $`d(N)`$ is an average over $`N_{run}=10^3`$ trees.

The results on $`d`$ (hereafter abbreviated as $`d`$) for the exponential trees and for the scale-free trees they are shown in Fig. 2.

For large $`N`$, the obtained curves can be well approximated as linear with $`\mathrm{ln}(N)`$. Namely we get $`d(N)=1.98\mathrm{ln}(N)2.69`$ for the exponential trees and $`d(N)=1.00\mathrm{ln}(N)+0.04`$ for the scale-free trees. Preliminary numerical results on the dispersion for both kind of trees suggest that for large $`N`$, the dispersion $`\sigma _d^2(N)=a\mathrm{ln}(N)+b`$, where $`a`$ is the same as for the average distance $`d`$, i.e. $`2.0`$ and $`1.0`$ respectively for the exponential and the scale-free trees.

## 3 Analytical considerations

During the tree growth, the size of the matrix $`s(i,j)`$ of distances between nodes increases. Then, the time evolution of a tree is equivalent to the evolution of the matrix size $`N`$. We consider the evolution of the ensemble average of the distance matrix $`s(i,j)`$. The mean distance $`d(N)`$ between nodes, averaged over all pairs of nodes $`(i,j)`$ and trees $`t_N`$ with $`N`$ nodes can be written as

$$d(N)=\frac{1}{N(N1)}\underset{t}{}P(t_N)\underset{i,ji}{\overset{N}{}}s_{i,j}(t_N),$$
(1)
where $`P(t_N)`$ is the probability of a tree $`t_N`$ of size $`N`$, and it is normalized to unity within the set of all possible trees with $`N`$ nodes. Although we are interested in $`d`$, it is easier to work just with the average matrix element $`s(N)`$, which includes diagonal elements $`s(i,i)`$

$$s(N)=\frac{1}{N^2}\underset{t}{}P(t_N)\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}s_{i,j}(t_N).$$
(2)
The relation $`(N1)d(N)=Ns(N)`$ comes from the obvious fact that the diagonal element $`s(i,i)=0`$. The evolution of $`s(N)`$ is given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}& (N+1)^2s(N+1)=\underset{t}{}P(t_{N+1})\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N+1}{}}s_{i,j}(t_{N+1})=\hfill \\ & =\underset{t}{}P(t_{N+1})\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}s_{i,j}(t_{N+1})+2\underset{t}{}P(t_{N+1})\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}s_{i,N+1}(t_{N+1})\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
because the matrix $`s(i,j)`$ is symmetrical and $`s(N+1,N+1)=0`$. In the first sum of the latter expression, the average over trees with $`(N+1)`$ nodes is performed over the sum of matrix elements which depend on the subgraph $`t_N`$. That is why in fact $`P(t_{N+1})`$ is the boundary distribution $`P(t_N)`$, and the information on the $`(N+1)`$-th node is averaged out. In the second sum, $`P(t_{N+1})=P(t_N)P(q|t_N)`$, where the latter is the conditional probability of attaching a new node to a preexisting node indexed by $`q`$. On the other hand, we have again $`s(i,N+1)=1+s(i,q)`$. This is the same rule which has been helpful in the numerical calculations, described above. Substituting all that to Eq. (3), we get

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill (N+1)^2s(N+1)=& \underset{t}{}P(t_N)\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}s_{i,j}(t_N)+2N+\hfill \\ & +2\underset{t}{}P(t_N)\underset{q=1}{\overset{N}{}}P(q|t_N)\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}s_{i,q}(t_N).\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
The first term on r.h.s. is nothing but $`N^2s(N)`$; the problem is with the last term. For scale-free trees, the probability $`P(q|t_N)`$ is proportional to the degree of the node $`q`$ in the tree $`t_N`$, i.e. it is equal to $`\gamma k(q)`$, where $`\gamma `$ is a tree-dependent constant. Substituting it to Eq. (4), we obtain the relation between the average distance between nodes of trees with $`(N+1)`$ nodes and the average distance from a node of degree $`k`$ to any other node in trees with $`N`$ nodes. This relation, even if natural, seems hard to use further.

On the contrary, for the exponential trees $`P(q|t_N)=1/N`$. This term can be extracted out from the sum and we get a compact iterative relation

$$(N+1)^2s(N+1)=N^2s(N)+2N+2Ns(N).$$
(5)
Substituting $`d(N)=Ns(N)/(N1)`$, we get

$$d(N+1)=\frac{(N+2)(N1)}{N(N+1)}d(N)+\frac{2}{N+1}.$$
(6)
The same manipulations are possible with the moments of higher order. The average of the squared matrix element is

$$e(N)=\frac{1}{N(N1)}\underset{t}{}P(t_N)\underset{i,ji}{\overset{N}{}}s_{i,j}^2(t_N).$$
(7)
Applying it to the exponential trees, we get the relation

$$e(N+1)=\frac{(N+2)(N1)}{N(N+1)}e(N)+\frac{4(N1)}{N(N+1)}d(N)+\frac{2}{N+1}.$$
(8)
We start from the only existing tree of $`N=2`$; obviously $`d(2)=1`$, $`e(2)=1`$. Successive values of $`d(N)`$, $`\sigma _d^2(N)=e(N)d^2(N)`$ are shown in Fig. 3 together with the respective results of the simulation.

As we see, the agreement is good. For high values of $`N`$, the plots are linear with $`\mathrm{ln}(N^2)`$. For $`10^5N10^7`$, the obtained coefficients are: $`d(N)=2.0\mathrm{ln}(N)2.84`$, $`\sigma _d^2(N)=2.0\mathrm{ln}(N)1.44`$.

## 4 Conclusions

For both kinds of trees, the terms of $`d`$ and $`\sigma _d^2`$ leading in $`N`$ are proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}(N)`$, with apparently the same coefficients ($`2.0`$ and $`1.0`$ for the exponential trees and the Barabási–Albert scale-free trees, respectively). This means, that in both cases the term in $`\sigma _d^2`$ proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}^2(N)`$ cancels.

The selecting of subsequent nodes to attach new nodes is equivalent to a random walk in the space of all trees. At each step, the number of possibilities — nodes where a new node can be attached — increases. In principle, the number $`N_{run}`$ of trees used in the averaging procedure should increase in time to have a good statistics, but such a simulation would be time-consuming. If $`N_{run}`$ is much smaller than the maximal size $`N`$ of trees, the averaging is not ergodic and numerical errors can increase.

In our formulation, the weights of particular trees of size $`(N+1)`$ do depend on the weights of trees of size $`N`$ from which they are formed. This dependence is specific for the process of growing of the trees. In consequence, our results differ from those obtained within the equilibrium statistical mechanics, e.g. in .

Acknowledgements. Two of the authors (K.M. and K.K.) are grateful to Prof. Dietrich Stauffer for illuminating discussions. Part of the calculations were carried out in ACK-CYFRONET-AGH. The machine time on SGI 2800 is financed by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN).


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# Vortex lattice dynamics in a-NbGe detected by mode-locking experiments

## I Introduction

An important tool to study an interacting particle system moving over a (random) pinning potential, e.g. a sliding solid, charge density wave or vortex array, is to probe the force-velocity characteristics with a superimposed rf-drive. For a coherently (elastically) moving array, the rf-drive may interfere with lattice modes at an integer $`q`$ times the ’washboard’ frequency $`f_w=v/a`$, with $`a`$ the periodicity of the array and $`v`$ its velocity, when the frequency $`f`$ of the rf-drive equals an integer fraction $`1/p`$ of $`qf_w`$ . In the particular case of a vortex array (VA), the resulting ’mode’-locking (ML) at the velocity $`v_{p,q}=(p/q)fa`$ appears as voltage ’plateaus’ in the dc current-voltage ($`IV`$) curves (peaks in the differential conductance $`dI/dV`$). For a plastically moving VA, which may arise for strong random pinning, at small velocity or in the vortex liquid phase, the coherent modes are destroyed and the ML effect vanishes . This distinction allows to construct dynamic phase diagrams from the velocity or magnetic field dependence of ML, as we have shown recently for confined VA’s in disordered channels .

Focussing on a disordered film with an elastically moving VA (at relatively large velocity), Ref.  predicts a particular form for the dc-current range $`\mathrm{\Delta }I`$ over which the ML effect occurs. To first approximation, the current range $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_{1,1}`$ of the main ML step ($`p=q=1`$) is:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }I_{1,1}=2I_c[J_1(I_{rf}R_f/V_{1,1})]^2,$$
(1)
where $`J_1(x)`$ is the first order Bessel function, $`R_f`$ the flux flow resistance, $`V_{1,1}`$ the fundamental ML voltage and $`I_c`$ the dc-critical current in absence of rf-drive.

So far, the only report of ML of a VA in a disordered superconducting film is Ref. , where Al films were used and the rf-amplitude dependence was not addressed. In this report we show that a-NbGe films with weak random pinnning  also exhibit the ML effect and we examine its dependence on $`I_{rf}`$.

## II Experimental

A $`400`$ nm thick amorphous (a-)NbGe strip ($`T_c3.0`$ K and normal state resistivity $`\rho _n2`$ $`\mu \mathrm{\Omega }`$m), with current leads covered by a strong pinning NbN film ($`T_c10`$ K) to reduce sample impedance, was prepared by RF sputtering and standard lithography. In the resulting four-probe configuration both the strip width and the distance between voltage contacts was $`100`$ $`\mu `$m. In the transport measurement, the rf-current (amplitude ranging from $`00.5`$ mA) was applied through a matched circuit. All data were taken with the sample immersed in superfluid 4He at a temperature $`T=1.8`$ K and the magnetic field $`B`$ perpendicular to the film.

## III Results and discussion

In Fig. 1 we plot $`dI/dV`$ versus the dc-voltage measured with a superimposed rf-current of $`20`$ MHz and an amplitude $`I_{rf}100`$ $`\mu `$A at magnetic fields $`B`$ ranging from $`0.25`$ to $`1.45`$ T. In the whole field range, the curves show a clear ML peak in $`dI/dV`$ which can be identified as the fundamental $`p=q=1`$. Additionally, for some fields, (weaker) subharmonic peaks can be observed. The ML voltage $`V_{1,1}`$ of the main peak scales with magnetic field as $`V\sqrt{B}`$, in agreement with the relation $`VvB=faB`$ where $`a1/\sqrt{B}`$. In addition we checked that the ML voltage at fixed field scales linearly with the frequency of the applied rf-current. The observed ML implies that the moving VA predominantly experiences elastic deformations, validating the previous use of the collective pinning theory in this material .

We now turn to the rf-amplitude dependence of the ML. Due to rounding of the steps in the $`IV`$ curves the ML current width $`\mathrm{\Delta }I`$ is best defined as shown in the inset to Fig. 2. The data in the main panel show the result of such analysis at $`B=1`$ T. The width $`\mathrm{\Delta }I`$ clearly exhibits oscillatory behavior as function of $`I_{rf}`$. We also plot the dependence according to Eq. (1) (drawn line) where both $`R_f`$ and $`V_{1,1}`$ were extracted from the experiment, the only fit parameter being $`I_c`$. The experimental data follow the theoretical prediction remarkably well. The fitted value $`I_c=1.7`$ $`\mu `$A is smaller than the critical current $`I_{c,L}6`$ $`\mu `$A determined by linearly extrapolating the ’bare’ $`IV`$ curve (at $`I_{rf}=0`$) to $`V=0`$. This difference may arise from the approximation made in Eq. (1) (see ). Comparing our result to the numerical work of Kolton et al. , we find no evidence for their suggestion that $`\mathrm{\Delta }IJ_1(I_{rf}R_f/V_{1,1})`$, valid for an rf-dc driven Josephson junction at large voltage ( a single particle moving rapidly in a periodic potential). This discrepancy with their results, including the lack of step broadening, might originate from the neglect of long wavelength fluctuations in a finite size simulation.

Finally we mention that preliminary data taken at a larger frequency $`f=100`$ MHz exhibit ML up to a field $`B^{}(<B_{c2})`$ at which the critical current has completely vanished and the IV curves have become fully linear with a slope $`R_f0.75R_n`$. The field $`B^{}`$ may be identified as the equilibrium melting field of the 2D vortex lattice, in line with Ref. . For fields slightly below $`B^{}`$, ML sensitively depends on the frequency. Since the VA softens considerably just below melting, the effect of pinning disorder is stronger in this regime. Based on the dynamic ordering theory in  and our measurements in disordered mesoscopic channels , one then indeed expects the appearance of a coherent state to depend strongly on the vortex velocity.

This work was supported by the ’Stiching voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie’ (FOM).


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# Realistic Semiconductor Heterostructures design using Inverse Scattering

## I Introduction

A semiconductor heterostructure can be modeled by a system of equations describing (with a certain degree of completeness and precision) the state of the system. The equations depend on a set of structural and compositional data: the spatial dependence of the chemical composition (including dopant profiles), the applied external fields, etc. The system behavior (response) is described by functional data, such as the electric or thermal conductance, the energy dependence of the electron transmittance, the wavelength dependence of the optical absorption coefficient, etc. The functional data can be computed using the solution of the equations, and are thus functionals of the structural and compositional data.

To design a heterostructure for a certain application is to find a set of structural and compositional data, which is physically (and technologically) achievable, such that the values of a chosen subset of functional data will be within a desirable range. The designer, in principle, solves an inverse problem: inverting the dependence of the functional data on the structural and compositional data.

In the usual approach, the starting point is a proposed configuration of the structural and compositional data which is then varied to optimize the component’s performance; at each iteration the spectral-scattering data describing the performance have to be re-calculated. In this method, much depends on the initial choice of parameters as in general several non equivalent local extrema of the response are present in the parameter space.

Inverse methods, when available, are not subject to this drawback. Contrary to the previous situation, the designer starts from data describing the system’s performance, such as current spectral response curves and determines the optimal structural and compositional data. He automatically gets an optimized set of parameters. Even if the model used to make the optimization calculation feasible lacks all the details of the full physical situation, one has still the possibility to use the traditional approach to fine tune the results from such a new starting point.

The inverse method we use requires three different steps :

1. The reconstruction of the phase of the transmittivity of a quantum device using Finite Dispersion Relations under the very convenient form of the Padé approximations.

2. The Standard Inverse Scattering method, making use of the results of Kay and Sabatier  for the inverse problem with rational coefficients (Padé approximations). This allows to build an efficient algorithm for solving the inverse problem and obtaining the potential.

3. A unitary transformation that maps the place dependent mass problem of a BenDaniel equation onto the usual constant mass Schroedinger problem keeping the potential in the equation local .

By applying the previous procedure, it becomes possible to design new realistic quantum wells  submitted to optimization constraints. In particular, one can use inverse methods to design and fabricate novel color sensitive QWIPs in the medium- and long-wave IR. Moreover, one of the most unexpected and astonishing results of the inverse method is that inclusion of the self-consistent potential of the conduction electrons is far much simpler than in the usual direct approach .

As a first application, we will use the versatility of the inverse scattering methods for the Schroedinger/BenDaniel-Poisson model , for designing and building prototypes of improved electronic filters.

An aspect that has not yet been dealt with in depth is how to discretize the potential profiles obtained by inverse scattering methods so as to make their production viable while mantaining at the same time their properties, their electron wave reflectance in particular. An added complication is the necessary presence in the devices of substantial densities of conduction electrons: the electric potentials they generate do not, if suitably compensated by doping the devices , significantly alter the reflectance of the ”smooth” potentials obtained by inverse scattering; but what about the discretized potentials? The aim of the present paper is to deal with the problems stemming from this necessity to both discretize the potentials and have substantial densities of conduction electrons. To avoid unnecessary complications, we shall skip the last step of the procedure described in Ref. , namely the mapping of the (constant mass) Schroedinger equation into the (variable mass) BenDaniel and Duke equation, as it has no direct bearing on the present discussion.

Throughout the present paper we shall make use of the ”natural” units thus defined: energy (e.u.): $`0.1`$ $`eV`$; mass: $`0.1`$ $`m_e`$; length: $`1`$ $`nm`$; time: $`2.3845`$ $`fs`$; in these units $`\mathrm{}=2.7604`$.

## II Inverse Scattering Problem

The procedure to build a potential having a given reflectance profile for elecron waves and no bound state is described in detail in Ref. ; here we wish to stress that while standard type II Padé  fitting routines can be a useful first step in building a Padé approximant, it is often the case that the parameters thus found must be adjusted, as care must be taken to avoid obtaining a potential either impossible to build because exceeding in height the available potential difference (for $`Al_cGa_{1c}As`$, where $`c`$ is the Aluminum concentration, this value is about $`3e.u.`$) or impractical to grow because having a support too wide and/or too many peaks. The reconstruction of the potential makes use of the poles and relative residues of the reflection coefficient $`R_+(k)`$ for plane waves incoming from $`+\mathrm{}`$ where $`k=\sqrt{mE/\mathrm{}^2}`$ is the electron momentum. The frequencies of oscillation relate to the real part ($`a_j`$) of the poles (where $`j=1,n`$, $`n`$ being the number of poles), the decay factors to the imaginary part ($`b_j`$), and the amplitudes to the residues ($`\rho _j`$). Large values of the $`a_j`$’s give fast oscillations of the potential; small values of the $`b_j`$’s result in slow decays of the oscillations and therefore in a wide support for the potential; finally, large $`\rho _j`$’s -that are often the case when poles are very close to each other- result in large oscillations of the potential; all three must therefore be avoided. Sometimes these conditions can be satisfied with no problems, sometimes instead they force us to some kind of compromise. An example of the latter case is a bandpass filter: since the more the poles are close to the real axis and close to each other the more the transmission plateau is flat and close to unity, some extra care must be taken when choosing the Padé approximant parameters.

## III Discretization of the Potential

A continuous potential as the one obtained by inverse scattering  is impractical to build; we must therefore discretize it by a sequence as small as possible of flat steps. Several options are possible, the choice depending on the characteristics of the heterostructure we wish to build:

a) placing the steps at the inflection points of the original potential and choosing their height to be equal to that of the original potential gives us an (almost) zero transmittance in the forbidden zones and an almost satisfactory plateau in Fig. 2 without significant shifts. A desirable characteristic of this method is the unexpected reduced width of the two peaks in Fig. 1. A second scheme can be used to enhance this characteristic:

b) If we move the position of the steps to the zeroes of the original potential, both peaks are now shifted, but we have succeeded to reduce the width of both of them by a factor of $`4`$!

As a rule, both methods should be tested and the one that gives the result nearest to the desired one retained.

## IV Doping for Non-zero Density of Conduction Electrons

The (selfconsistent) electric field generated by the conduction electrons can seriously modify the effective potential and thus alter the transmission profile. It must therefore be compensated. We achieve this in two steps: first, from the potential obtained by inverse scattering we subtract the selfconsistent field of the electrons themselves and of some suitable doping charge such that the total charge and dipole moment in the device are zero (see Ref. ); then, after obtaining the ”chemical composition potential” by discretization of the resulting potential, we calculate the selfconsistent field for this new potential itself, adjusting the position and value of the doping charge, so that again the total charge and dipole in the device are zero and the effective potential is as close as possible to the ”chemical composition potential” itself. An iterative selfconsistent calculation starting from the doping charge and dipole moment obtained for the potential before discretization converges in the worst case we considered in less than ten steps to a precision of five digits. Note that, once the correct doping has been added, the changes to the potential are usually very small; on the other hand a wrong doping is bound to seriously deteriorate the transmittance profile. In both of the following examples we assumed the doping to be in the form of a sheet charge; this approximation is valid as long as the doping can be kept in a region more narrow than the steps of the potential; should this not be the case, a suitable charge width should be considered and taken into account, requiring only minor changes to the codes.

## V Two Examples

To illustrate the above procedure, we now give two examples. The starting point for both is a Padé approximant to the reflectance of the form:

$`(E)={\displaystyle \frac{𝒜_{2N}(E)}{(𝒜_{2N}(E)+E𝒦_{2(N+2)}(E))}}`$ (1)
$`𝒦_{2(N+2)}(E)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{j=1,N+2}\left[\left(EF_j\right)^2+\delta _j^2\right]`$ (2)
$`𝒜_{2N}(E)=g\left[\mathrm{\Pi }_{i=1,N}\left(EE_i\right)\right]^2E_i,F_j,\delta _j𝐑^+`$ (3)
Eq. (1) guarantees that $`(0)=1`$; it was already given in Ref.  but there higher degrees for $`𝒦_{2(N+2)}(E)`$ were allowed. We choose to use the lowest possible degree ensuring the absence of $`\delta `$-function terms in the potential . Eq. (2) guarantees that, excepted the zero at the origin, the transmittance has complex conjugate zeroes; Eq. (3) instead guarantees that the reflectance has real double zeroes. The three equations together guarantee that $`0(E)<1`$ for $`E>0`$.

We assume the devices to be grown from $`Al_cGa_{1c}As`$; we therefore use as parameters those for the substrate $`GaAs`$: effective electron mass $`m_{\mathrm{}}=0.67`$ in natural units, and electrical permeability $`\epsilon =13`$.

### A A Filter with Two Narrow Transmission Resonances

Our construction of a filter with two narrow peaks, the one at higher energy being the narrower , starts from a Padé approximant having the same number of poles and zeroes as the one given in Refs.  but in the form (1) given above with: $`N=2`$, $`g=1.5`$, $`E_1=0.4e.u.`$, $`E_2=1.1e.u.`$, $`F_1=0.2e.u.`$, $`\delta _1=0.05e.u.`$, $`F_2=0.8e.u.`$, $`\delta _2=0.01e.u.`$, $`F_3=1.2e.u.`$, $`\delta _3=0.10e.u.`$, $`F_4=1.5e.u.`$, and $`\delta _4=0.20e.u..`$ $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$ give the positions of the transmittance peaks; the four $`F_j`$ frame them and determine the peaks’ width.

The final transmittance using procedure b) to discretize the potential, is shown in Fig. 1 for three temperatures ($`T=70`$, $`233`$, and $`300`$ $`K`$) and two background electron densities ($`10^{13}`$, $`10^{15}`$); the six curves are undistinguishable. The compensating doping charges and their positions are given in table $`1`$. We have also studied other temperatures and densities that are not reported for lack of space. Only at the highest density studied ($`10^{17}`$ $`el/cm^3`$) the reflectance is strongly affected by the electron density, especially at low temperatures. The reason is that since at low temperatures the deviation from the background value of the electron density is less spread out, it has sharper peaks which are reflected in analogous sharp peaks in the selfconsistent electrical field; the plateaus of the discretized potential are therefore more strongly deformed than at higher temperatures.

### B A Bandpass Filter

For this case some preliminary remarks are in order: the reflectance of an ideal bandpass filter should be zero inside the band and one everywhere else. On the other hand for a (piecewise) continuous potential that decays at infinity we have:

a) $`(E)0`$ for $`E\mathrm{}`$.

As a consequence, the forbidden region will have to be finite; it will be our aim to make it as wide as possible on both sides of the transmission band.

b) $`(E)=1`$ only for $`E=0`$; otherwise $`(E)<1`$.

Therefore, there will be a residual transmittance in the forbidden region; it will be our aim to make it as small as possible.

c) $`(E)`$ can be zero only on a set of points which is at most countable.

Because of this, the desired transmission band will have to be built by a superposition of peaks, close enough that the transmission plateau is almost flat and sharp enough that the transition from forbidden region to allowed band is narrow compared to the band width.

We found convenient to choose the following parameters in eq. (1): $`N=3`$, $`g=20`$, $`E_1=0.9e.u.`$, $`E_2=1.1e.u.`$, $`E_3=1.3e.u.`$, $`F_1=F_2=0.3e.u.`$, $`\delta _1=0.08e.u.`$, $`\delta _2=0.22e.u.`$, $`F_3=F_4=F_5=1.6e.u.`$, $`\delta _3=0.48e.u.`$, $`\delta _4=0.30e.u.`$, and $`\delta _5=0.16e.u.`$. The transmittance plateau is given by the three reflectance zeroes in $`E_i`$, $`i=1,2,3`$; the five $`F_j`$ frame them and determine the two forbidden zones at each side of the allowed band.

The final transmittance using procedure a) to discretize the potential, shown in Fig. 2 for the same three temperatures and two background electron densities used in the previous example, is again equal in all cases; the compensating doping charges and their positions are given in table $`2`$. Again we found that only at the highest density studied ($`10^{17}`$ $`el/cm^3`$) the reflectance is strongly affected by the electron density.

## VI Conclusions and Aknowledgements

We have shown that both discretization of the potential and substantial densities of conduction electrons can be dealt with in ways that preserve the essential characters of the desired reflectance. We should note that in both the examples given the background electron distribution is repelled from the potential and therefore the required compensating doping is of the N-type; this can sometimes be impractical. A way to circumvent the problem is to add a (monodimensional) bound state via a Darboux transformation : the high electron density in it ensures that the doping be of the P-type.

Finally, we would be glad to receive feed-back from readers. We are ready to analyze and design electronic filters that are difficult or impossible to deal with by the ordinary method.

We wish to aknowledge the participation to the first phases of the present research of the late G.A. Mezincescu, who has been for a long time a driving force in our group.