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# The Variable Light Curve of GRB 030329: The Case for Refreshed Shocks

## 1 Introduction

The afterglow light curve of most GRBs shows a smooth power law decay with the time after the burst. This is consistent with the prediction of the simplest model of a spherical blast wave propagating into a uniform medium, where the spectrum consists of several power law segments in which $`F_\nu \nu ^\beta t^\alpha `$ (Sari, Piran & Narayan 1998), and remains valid for an external density that drops as $`r^2`$ as expected for the stellar wind of a massive star progenitor (Chevalier & Li 2000) and for a jetted outflow (Rhoads 1999; Sari, Piran & Halpern 1999).

However, a few GRBs do show deviations from a smooth power law light curve. GRB 970508 showed a brightening at $`t2`$days, which was observed in optical (Galama et al. 1998) and possibly also in X-rays (Piro et al. 1998). An achromatic bump was observed in the afterglow of GRB 000301C at $`t4`$ days (Berger et al. 2000; Sagar et al. 2000) and was attributed, among other interpretations, to gravitational microlensing (Garnavich, Loeb & Stanek 2000). In these two cases a single epoch of re-brightening was observed. In contrast to this, GRB 021004 displayed a highly variable light curve, with several wiggles and deviations from a simple power law behavior. This variable light curve was interpreted as arising either due to a variable external density (Lazzati et al. 2002; Nakar, Piran & Granot 2003; Heyl & Perna 2003) or due to a variable energy in the observed portion of the afterglow shock. The latter can arise due to an irregular initial distrubotion of the energy per unit solid angle in the outflow (the patchy shell model, e.g. Kumar & Piran 2000b). The early slow decay of GRB 021004 was interpreted by Fox et al. (2003) as arising from delayed shocks and continuous energy ejection from the source (Rees & Mészáros 1998; Kumar & Piran 2000a; Sari & Mészáros 2000).

GRB 030329 was detected by HETE-II on March 29, 2003 (11:37:14.67 UT), and its location was distributed (Vanderspek et al., 2003) $`t=1.4`$hr later. Optical observations from ground based telescopes soon followed, and a bright optical afterglow with R=12.6 was detected at $`t=1.5`$hr (Peterson & Price 2003, Torii 2003). Observations at many different wavelengths followed, and a very bright afterglow emission was detected in the radio, sub-millimeter, millimeter and X-ray (Marshall & Swank 2003, Berger, Soderberg & Frail 2003, Hoge et al. 2003, Kuno, Sato & Nakanishi 2003). Its redshift, $`z=0.1685`$ (Greiner et al. 2003), places it as the closest GRB whose redshift was firmly established111GRB 980425, if indeed associated with SN 1998bw, was at a still lower redshift, of $`z=0.0085`$.. It is therefore not surprising that the afterglow of GRB 030329 is by far the brightest afterglow detected so far222Here we exclude the prompt optical emission which was observed for GRB 990123 (Akerlof et al. 1999) and peaked at tens of seconds after at 9th magnitude, which is attributed to the reverse shock (Sari & Piran 1999; Mészáros & Rees 1999)., and is also the most well studied GRB afterglow to date.

A spectral signature very similar to SN 1998bw began to emerge in the spectrum of GRB 030329 after $`7`$days (Stanek et al. 2003), and became more prominent in the following days. This provides the best evidence so far for the association of GRBs with core collapse supernovae of the type of SN 1998bw, which are also called hypernovae. The optical light curve showed a jet break at $`t=0.45`$days, and several re-brightenings between $`1.5`$ and $`6`$days, each with a duration of $`0.30.8`$days. We explore different possible explanations for the variability in the light curve using different physical mechanisms and show that the most likely explanation for the observed variability is refreshed shocks.

## 2 Interpretation of the Variable Light Curve

The optical light curve of GRB 030329 steepened from $`\alpha _1=0.93\pm 0.04`$ to $`\alpha _2=1.90\pm 0.03`$ at $`t_j0.45`$ days (http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Bursts/GRB030329/). The most likely explanation for this smooth change in the temporal decay index $`\alpha `$ is a jet break, and in the following we shall assume that this is indeed the case. Since the jet break is quite sharp, a roughly constant (underlying) external density is required. A stellar wind profile would not produce a sufficiently sharp jet break (Kumar & Panaitescu 2000).

The fluence GRB 030329 in the $`155000`$keV range was measured by Konus-Wins to be $`1.6\times 10^4\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (Golenetskii et al. 2003), which for its redshift of $`z=0.1685`$ and using the WMAP cosmological parameters, implies an isotropic equivalent $`\gamma `$-ray energy output of $`E_{\gamma ,\mathrm{iso}}1\times 10^{52}`$erg. The X-ray flux in the $`210`$keV range was measured by RXTE at $`t=5`$hr to be $`F_X=1.4\times 10^{10}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{sec}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$, which implies an isotropic equivalent X-ray luminosity at $`t=10`$hr of $`L_{X,\mathrm{iso}}5\times 10^{45}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{sec}^1`$ (Marshall & Swank 2003). Using the same formula and the fiducial parameter values of Frail et al. (2001) we find $`\theta _{j,0}=0.07`$ which corresponds to a beaming factor of $`f_b\theta _{j,o}^2/21/400`$. This implies a true $`\gamma `$-ray output of $`E_\gamma 3\times 10^{49}`$erg, and a true X-ray luminosity at $`t=10`$hr of $`L_X1\times 10^{43}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{sec}^1`$. Both values are at the very low end of the standard distribution for GRBs: Frail et al. (2001) find $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(E_\gamma [\mathrm{erg}])=50.7\pm 0.5`$, while Berger, Kulkarni & Frail find $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_X)=44.5\pm 0.5`$.

The optical light curve shows a well monitored re-brightening between $`t1.3`$ and $`1.7`$days. This re-brightening begins to effect the light curve after about one day, which is only a factor of $`2`$ in time after $`t_j`$. Therefore, we expect that the asymptotic decay slope $`\alpha _2`$ has not yet been reached, and the value of $`1.9`$ inferred from observations may be regarded as a lower limit. At least 3 additional and similar features appear in the light curve at $`t2.42.8`$days, $`t3.13.5`$days and t$`4.95.7`$days, though the latter are not as densely monitored (see Figure 1). Another possible flattening of the light curve is observed at $`t910`$days, however this may be at least in part due to the contribution of an the underlying SN 2003dh, and is therefore not included in our analysis. If the amplitude of each bump is measured as the offset between the decay epochs before and after the rise in the flux (which is roughly constant, as the temporal decay indices $`\alpha `$ after the different bumps are rather similar), we find that the amplitude of the first bump is a factor of $`2`$, while the amplitude of the following bumps is $`1.31.4`$. The exact determination of the amplitude depends on the assumption for the underlying “average” flux, and may vary somewhat.

### 2.1 Variable External Density

Variations in the external density was the first mechanism proposed to account for variability in the light curve of GRB afterglows. The variability due to small amplitude density fluctuations caused by interstellar turbulence was considered by Wang & Loeb (2000). A density bump in the external medium was suggested as a possible explanation for the bump in the light curve of GRB 000301C (Berger et al. 2000), and a highly variable external medium was suggested as an explanation for the large variability in the afterglow of GRB 021004 (Lazzati et al. 2002; Nakar, Piran & Granot 2003; Heyl & Perna 2003). A variable external density produces a much larger variability below the cooling break frequency $`\nu _c`$ (typically optical or IR), compared to above $`\nu _c`$ (typically X-ray). For a spherically symmetric external density distribution, it cannot produce sharp variations in the flux on time scales $`\mathrm{\Delta }t<t`$ (Nakar & Piran 2003), due to angular spreading (i.e. the spreading in the arrival time of photons to the observer due to the curvature of the shock).

Turning to GRB 030329, we find that the rise in the normalization of the decaying part of the light curve after each bump implies that the external density would have to increase with radius, and to do so in discrete steps, rather than in a smooth manner. However, such a density profile seems very unlikely. If such a density profile would still somehow occur, then the observed optical light curve could be reproduced, if the jet would hardly expand sideways at $`t>t_j`$. In this case, we expect much smaller fluctuations in the X-ray light curve. As of yet, there is no good X-ray light curve available that would enable us to compare the variability in the light curve below and above $`\nu _c`$.

### 2.2 Patchy Shell

The patchy shell model (Kumar & Piran 2000b) suggests a variability in the energy per unit solid angle of the GRB outflow, on some typical angular scale. According to this model, the amplitude of the fluctuations in the afterglow light curve is expected to decrease with time $`\gamma `$ (Nakar, Piran & Granot 2003). However, in GRB 030329 the bumps occur after the jet break, when all the jet is visible, so that fluctuations in the energy per unit solid angle across the jet should no longer induce significant fluctuations in the light curve. Therefore, assuming that the smooth steepening in the light curve at $`t=0.45`$ days is indeed a jet break, the patchy shell model can be ruled out as the source of the variability at $`t>1`$day.

### 2.3 Refreshed Shocks

According to the refreshed shocks scenario, slow moving shells that were ejected from the source with a modest Lorentz factor catch up with the afterglow shock at late times well after the internal shocks that are responsible for the prompt $`\gamma `$-ray emission have ceased (Rees & Mészáros 1998; Kumar & Piran 2000a; Sari & Mészáros 2000). Each such shell injects energy into the afterglow shock as it collides with it from behind, and causes a re-brightening in the afterglow light curve. After the re-brightening the same power law decay as before the bump should be resumed, as long as the observed frequency remains within the same power law segment of the spectrum (i.e. if no break frequency passes through the observed band). Similarly, under these conditions the color indices should not change. The normalization of the decaying light curve after the bump is higher than before the bump by a factor $`f`$, due to the increase in the energy of the afterglow shock. The energy increases by a factor $`f^{4/(3+p)}`$ for $`\nu _m<\nu <\nu _c`$ and $`f^{4/(2+p)}`$ for $`\nu _m,\nu _c<\nu `$. For GRB 030329 $`p2`$ and $`\nu _c(t_j)`$ is around the optical, so that the increase in the energy is approximately linear in $`f`$. We find that across all the bumps in the first several days, this normalization increased by a factor of $`f_{\mathrm{total}}10`$, and deduce that this implies a similar increase in the energy of the afterglow shocks due to energy injection from the shells that caught up with it. The conservative estimate of $`f_{\mathrm{total}}`$ using the value of $`\alpha _2`$ from just after $`t_j`$ is $`5`$, while if we take $`\alpha _2`$ from the decay after the second or third bumps we obtain $`f_{\mathrm{total}}20`$ (see Figure 1). Therefore $`f_{\mathrm{total}}10`$ with an uncertainty of a factor $`2`$ seems like a reasonable estimate.

In the original refreshed shocks scenario it was expected that these shocks occur before the jet spreading, and therefore $`\mathrm{\Delta }tt`$ (Kumar & Piran 2000b). However, in GRB 030329 the jet break is at $`0.45`$days, and the refreshed shocks took place at a later time, after the whole jet becomes visible as its Lorentz factor is smaller than the inverse of its opening angle. We expect that all the shells ejected from the central source will have roughly the same opening angle, $`\theta _{j,0}`$ (see illustration in Figure 2). The most forward shell sweeps up the ambient medium and produces the afterglow emission. Since it is very hot, with an internal energy much higher than its rest energy, it could potentially expand sideways at close to the speed of light $`c`$ (or $`c/\sqrt{3}`$) in its local rest frame, though the lateral expansion could still be much smaller than this. However, the slower shells that follow in the wake of the forward shell encounter very little material before they catch up with the forward shell, and therefore are expected to be cold, and should not expand sideways significantly before colliding with the afterglow shock. In this case the duration of the bump in the light curve is given by the angular time $`\mathrm{\Delta }tR\theta _{j,0}^2/2=t_j(R/R_j)=t_j(t/t_j)^a`$, where $`a=1/4`$ if the lateral spreading of the jet is negligible, while $`a0`$ if the lateral spreading is at the local sound speed. This allows $`\mathrm{\Delta }t<t`$. Numerical simulations suggest that the lateral spreading is quite modest (Granot et al. 2001), implying $`a1/4`$. This is consistent with the almost constant duration of the first 3 bumps, and the slightly larger duration of the fourth bump, that are seen in GRB 030329.

The temporal decay slope after the first bump is very close to $`\alpha _2`$, while after the second and third bumps $`\alpha `$ is slightly larger than $`\alpha _2`$. Unfortunately, it is hard to accurately determine the value of $`\alpha `$ after the forth bump due to the contribution from the underlying SN, though it seems similar to the values for the preceding bumps. The steeper temporal decay slopes, $`\alpha >\alpha _2`$, may be due to the fact that the asymptotic power law decay after the jet break was not reached, and is underestimated by $`\alpha _2`$. The small differences between the slopes may be attributed to a slight inhomogeneous distribution of the Lorentz factor across the slow shell that catches up (i.e. its Lorentz factor decreases smoothly from its front edge to its back edge, so that the energy injection is not step-like but more gradual). We conclude that the refreshed shocks model provides the best explanation for the variability in the light curve of GRB 030329. The timing of the bumps suggest that the Lorentz factors of the slower shells ranged from $`6`$ to $`3.5`$. The lower limit is obtained for the extreme case of when after the jet break the jet expands sideways at the the local speed of sound and its radius is almost constant (Rhoads 1997). The higher values are obtained if the jet does not spread sideways significantly, as suggested by the results of Granot et al. (2001). In this case the radius of the front shell increases with time and the inner shells need a larger Lorentz factor to catch up with the forward one.

## 3 Discussion

We have compared the variable light curve of GRB 030329 to the predictions of the different models for variability in GRB afterglows and find that the only satisfactory explanation for the observed variability in GRB 030329 is refreshed shocks that take place after the jet break. This interpretation is supported by the almost constant durations of the different bumps, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t0.40.8`$days, which is also of the order of the jet break time, $`t_j=0.45`$days, and by the step-wise shape of the light curve. According to the refreshed shocks interpretation, we find that the energy injected into the afterglow shock by all the slow shells that catch up with it, increases its initial energy by a factor of $`10`$. This implies that the total energy in this GRB outflow is an order of magnitude larger than the energy inferred from the prompt $`\gamma `$-ray emission, or from the early afterglow emission before $`1`$day, and thus explains the anomolously low values inferred for $`E_\gamma `$ and $`L_X`$. A direct prediction of this interpretation is that we should expect very significant radio flares corresponding to the observed optical bumps. These should arise from emission by the reverse shocks that form in the refreshed shocks.

This research was supported in part by funds for natural sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study (JG), by a grant from the Israel Space Agency (EN and TP) and by a grant from the Horowitz foundation (EN).


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# Kondo effect in a double quantum-dot molecule under the effect of an electric and magnetic field

## Abstract

Electron tunneling through a double quantum dot molecule, in the Kondo regime, under the effect of a magnetic field and an applied voltage, is studied. This system possesses a complex response to the applied fields characterized by a tristable solution for the conductance. The different nature of the solutions are studied in and out thermodynamical equilibrium. It is shown that the interdot coupling and the fields can be used to control the region of multistability. The mean-field slave-boson formalism is used to obtain the solution of the problem.

The electron tunneling through a double-quantum-dot (DQD) molecule in the Kondo regime has received much attention in the last years.jeong ; aguado ; georges ; busser ; aono ; eto ; izumida ; ivanov ; orellana  Recently Jeong et al.jeong  reported the observation of a coherent Kondo effect in a double quantum dot, which is a direct experimental realization of a two-impurity Anderson model.aguado ; georges ; busser ; aono ; eto ; izumida ; ivanov  The strength of the coupling between the QD’s determines the character of the molecular electronic states and the transport properties of the artificial molecule. In the tunneling regime, the states are extended across the entire system and can be constructed from a coherent state based on the bonding or anti-bonding levels of the quantum dots. These many-body molecular states are observed in a transport experiment as a differential conductance of two peaks, a consequence of the splitting of the Kondo resonance.

Recently Aono and Eto studied theoretically the problem of a DQD in thermodynamical equilibrium, under the effect of a magnetic field oriented parallel to the current direction. eto They calculated the magnetoconductance and found a suddenly drop of the conductance as a function of the field, when $`t_c>\mathrm{\Gamma },`$ where $`t_c`$ is the interdot interaction and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the resonant width of the dot levels due to coupling among them and the contacts. Some aspects of the non-equilibrium transport properties of a DQD in the Kondo regime, under the effect of an applied voltage, has recently been studied orellana . When the inter-dot coupling is greater than the level broadening and there is an external voltage applied to the system, the conductance shows a tristable behavior.

In this work we analyze the physics derived from the complex behavior that characterizes the electron tunneling through a DQD molecule in the Kondo regime under the simultaneous effect of a magnetic and an electric field. We show that the discontinuity of the conductance found by Aono and Eto,eto  increasing the magnetic field when the system is in equilibrium, is a result of a tristable behavior of the magnetoconductance. This results is similar to the behavior the system has when it is out of equilibrium, due to the application of an external voltage.orellana

We consider a DQD connected in series attached to two leads. The physics associated to this artificial molecule electrically connected can be readily understood in terms of two impurities Anderson Hamiltonian where the impurities located in the site $`0`$ and $`1`$ are the quantum dots. The leads are represented by a one dimensional tight-binding Hamiltonian connecting the dots to two particle reservoirs characterized by Fermi levels $`\mu _L`$ and $`\mu _R`$ respectively. The left (right) dot is connected to the left (right) lead by the hopping $`V_{L(R)}`$ and the dots are connected among themselves by the interdot tunneling coupling $`t_c.`$ Each dot $`\alpha `$ has a single energy $`\epsilon _\alpha (\alpha =0,1)`$. Under an applied magnetic field the energy levels of the dots are split by the Zeeman effect into $`\epsilon _\alpha \pm \sigma g\mu _BB`$. We adopt the two-fold degenerate Anderson Hamiltonian in the limit $`U\mathrm{},`$ that is diagonalized using the mean-field slave-boson formalism. barnes ; coleman ; read  The double occupancy in each dot is forbidden and the inter-dot Coulomb interaction neglected. We introduce the slave-boson operator $`b_\alpha ^{}`$ that creates an empty state and a fermion operator $`f_{\alpha \sigma }`$ that annihilates a single occupied state with spin $`\sigma `$. To eliminate the possibility of double occupancy we impose the constraint $`Q_\alpha _\sigma f_{\alpha \sigma }^{}f_{\alpha \sigma }+b_\alpha ^{}b_\alpha =1`$. The annihilation operator of an electron in the dot $`\alpha `$ is $`c_{\alpha \sigma }=b_\alpha ^{}f_{\alpha \sigma }`$. In the mean field approximation the bosonic operators $`b_\alpha ^{}`$ and $`b_\alpha `$ are replaced by their expectation values, $`b_\alpha =\stackrel{~}{b}_\alpha \sqrt{2}=b_\alpha ^{}=\stackrel{~}{b}_\alpha ^{}\sqrt{2}.`$ Hence the Hamiltonian of the DQD molecule connected to leads plus constraints is written as,

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`H_{lead}+{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =0,1,\sigma }{}}(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_\alpha +\sigma g\mu _BB)f_{\alpha \sigma }^{}f_{\alpha \sigma }+\stackrel{~}{V}_L{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}(c_{1\sigma }^{}f_{0\sigma }+f_{0\sigma }^{}c_{1\sigma })+\stackrel{~}{V}_R{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}(f_{1\sigma }^{}c_{2\sigma }+c_{2\sigma }^{}f_{1\sigma })`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`\stackrel{~}{t}_c{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}(f_{0\sigma }^{}f_{1\sigma }+f_{1\sigma }^{}f_{0\sigma })+{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =0,1}{}}\lambda _\alpha (\stackrel{~}{b}_\alpha ^{}\stackrel{~}{b}_\alpha 1).`$
where $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_\alpha =\epsilon _0+\lambda _\alpha `$, $`\stackrel{~}{V}_L=V_L\stackrel{~}{b}_0`$, $`\stackrel{~}{V}_R=V_R\stackrel{~}{b}_1`$, $`\stackrel{~}{t}_c=t_c\stackrel{~}{b}_0\stackrel{~}{b}_1,`$ the $`\lambda _\alpha `$ are Lagrangian multipliers, which guarantee the constraint conditions on the $`Q_\alpha `$ .

The first term on the right-hand side of Eq.1 represents the electrons in the left and right leads;

$$H_{lead}=\underset{\sigma ,i0,1}{}\epsilon _in_{i\sigma }+t\underset{<ij0,1>\sigma }{}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }.$$
(2)
where the operator $`c_{i\sigma }^{}`$ creates an electron in the site $`i`$ with spin $`\sigma `$, $`\epsilon _i`$ is the site energy and $`t`$ is first-neighbor hopping in the leads. Here $`H_{lead}`$ is a free-particle Hamiltonian with eigenfunctions of the Bloch type,

$$|k,\sigma =\underset{j}{}e^{ikja}|j,\sigma ,$$
(3)
where $`|k,\sigma `$ is the momentum eigenstate with spin $`\sigma `$ and $`|j`$ is a Wannier state localized at site $`j`$ of spin $`\sigma `$. The dispersion relation associated with these Bloch states reads

$$\epsilon =2t\mathrm{cos}(kd).$$
(4)
The model has an energy band, extending from $`2t`$ to $`+2t`$, with the first Brillouin zone expanding the $`k`$ interval $`[\pi /d,\pi /d]`$.

The stationary state of the complete Hamiltonian $`H`$ with energy $`\epsilon _k`$ can be written as

$$|\psi _{k\sigma }=\underset{j}{}a_{j\sigma }^k|j,\sigma ,$$
(5)
where the coefficients $`a_{i\sigma }^k`$ are given by,

$$a_{j\sigma }^k=<j,\sigma |\psi _{k\sigma }>.$$
(6)
We obtain the following eigenvalue equations for the Wannier amplitudes $`a_{j\sigma }^k`$

$`\epsilon a_{j,\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`j,\sigma \left|H\right|\psi _{k\sigma }`$
$`\epsilon a_{j,\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _ja_{j,\sigma }^k+t(a_{j1,\sigma }^k+a_{j+1,\sigma }^k)(j1,0,1,2),`$
$`\epsilon a_{1(2),\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _{1(2)}a_{2(2),\sigma }^k+\stackrel{~}{V}_{L(R)}a_{0(1),\sigma }^k+ta_{2(3),\sigma }^k,`$
$`\epsilon a_{0(1),\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_{0(1)}+\sigma g\mu _BB)a_{0(1),\sigma }^k+\stackrel{~}{V}_{L(R)}a_{1(2),\sigma }^k`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`\stackrel{~}{t}_ca_{1(0),\sigma }^k,`$
where $`a_{j,\sigma }^k`$ is the probability amplitude to find the electron in site $`j`$ and state $`k`$ with spin $`\sigma `$.

The four parameters ($`\stackrel{~}{b}_0`$, $`\stackrel{~}{b}_1`$, $`\lambda _0`$, $`\lambda _1`$) are determined minimizing the expectation value of the Hamiltonian (1). They satisfy the set of equations:

$`\stackrel{~}{b}_{0(1)}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,\sigma }{}}\left|a_{0(1),\sigma }^k\right|^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{V}_{L(R)}}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,\sigma }{}}Re(a_{1(2),\sigma }^ka_{0(1),\sigma }^k)+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{t}_c}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,\sigma }{}}Re(a_{1(0),\sigma }^ka_{0(1),\sigma }^k)+\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{0(1)}\stackrel{~}{b}_{L(R)}^2=0.`$ (8)
The sum over the wave vector $`k`$ cover all the occupied states. The resulting equations are nonlinear due to the renormalization of the localized levels in the dots, the interdot coupling tunneling and the coupling tunneling between the quantum dots and the leads.

In order to study the solutions of equations (7) and (8) we assume a plane wave incident from one lead with an amplitude $`I`$ and with a partial reflection amplitude $`R`$. The waveform at the other lead is a simple plane wave with intensity given by the transmission amplitude $`T`$. Taking this to be the solution of the system at infinite, for positive $`k`$, we can write

$`a_{j\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`I_\sigma ^+e^{ikdj}+R_\sigma ^+e^{ikdj}\text{ },j<0`$
$`a_{j\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`T_\sigma ^+e^{ik_Rdj},\text{ }j>1`$ (9)
and those with negative $`k`$

$`a_{j\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`I_\sigma ^{}e^{ikdj}+R_\sigma ^{}e^{ikdj},j>1,`$
$`a_{j\sigma }^k`$ $`=`$ $`T_\sigma ^\mathrm{\_}e^{ik_Ldj},j<0.`$ (10)
These functions describe free electrons approaching the scattering potential from $`j=\mathrm{}`$ and $`j=+\mathrm{},`$ respectively, with transmission and reflections amplitudes $`T_\sigma ^+`$ and $`R_\sigma ^+`$ for $`k>0`$ and $`T_\sigma ^\mathrm{\_}`$ and $`R_\sigma ^{}`$ for $`k<0`$.

The solution of equations (7) can be obtained through an adequate iteration from right to left for $`k>0`$, and from left to right for $`k<0`$. For a given transmitted amplitude, the associated reflected and incident amplitudes may be determined by matching the iterated function to the proper plane wave at the left lead for $`k>0`$ and at the right lead for $`k<0.`$ The transmission amplitude $`t_\sigma =T_\sigma ^+/I_\sigma ^+`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}_\sigma =T_\sigma ^\mathrm{\_}/I_\sigma ^{}`$ are obtained using an iterative procedure. The total transmission probability with a spin $`\sigma `$ and energy $`\epsilon =`$ $`2t\mathrm{cos}(kd)`$ given by $`T(\epsilon )=\underset{\sigma =,}{}\left|t_\sigma (\epsilon )\right|^2.`$ Then the linear conductance at zero temperature is written as,

$$G=\frac{2e^2}{h}T.$$
(11)
The equations (7) and (8) are nonlinear and require a self-consistent solution that is obtained using a conjugate gradient algorithm. In this work, we are interested in analyzing all the stationary solutions for the conductance. As $`G(B)`$and $`B(G)`$ are multivalued functions, the multiple solutions for the quantities $`\stackrel{~}{b}_0`$, $`\stackrel{~}{b}_1`$, $`\lambda _0`$, $`\lambda _1`$ are obtained by fixing the magnetic field $`B`$ and obtaining the value of the conductance $`G`$ that corresponds to the solution of the equations of motion of the system. This method permits us to obtain the complete $`GB`$ curve.

We study first a model which consists of two leads equally connected $`(V_L=V_R=V_0)`$ to both sides of a DQD dots in equilibrium with chemical potential $`\mu _L=\mu _R=0`$, $`t_\text{ }=30\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$, $`V_0=5.48\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$, $`\epsilon _0=\epsilon _1=3.5\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ (Kondo regime with $`T_K10^3\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0=2\pi V_0^2\rho (0)`$).

Fig 1 shows the linear conductance versus the applied magnetic field for different values of $`t_c`$ with $`t_c\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$. For small values of $`t_c`$, $`t_c\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ our results agrees with those obtained by Aono and Eto. The magnetoconductance is negative in this region. However for greater values of $`t_c`$, $`t_c\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ another behavior of the magnetoconductance starts. Within a range of values of the magnetic field there is a tristability behavior with three stationary solutions of the conductance for each value of the magnetic field. Fig 2 shows the results for $`t_c>\mathrm{\Gamma }_0.`$ As in the results found by Aono and Eto, at a critical value $`B_{c,}`$ there would be a discontinuous reduction of the conductance when $`B`$ is increased and other $`B_c(B_c>B_c)`$ where the conductance would rise discontinuously, when $`B`$ is reduced. Using this procedure, the interior of the tristability remains inaccessible to the experiment. However, the internal shape could eventually be reached, as it is for the case of double barrier heterostructrures, if it were possible to employ a load line in the experimental measurement to go along all the points of the $`GB`$ curve. From this point of view the electrons goes along a nonlinear potential, that is magnetic field dependent. In this case the magnetic field plays the role that the external electric potential plays in the case of a standard double barrier heterostructure, where the current has as well a multistable behavior.eaves

Increasing the magnetic field the tristability probably arises from a many-body ground state that changes its character due to a energy crossing. It is a singlet of the Kondo type when there is no applied magnetic field, while for a critical field onwards the ground state results to be the component of the triplet wave function, (two parallel spins one at each dot) with spin projection parallel to the magnetic field. In the parameter space this two ground states have their own basin of attraction constituting metastable states when they loose the condition of been the ground state of the system. As soon as the metastability is lost increasing or decreasing the field, the system abruptly relaxes to the ground state producing a discontinuous behavior of the current.anda1

It is very interesting to study these non-linear effect when the system is under the simultaneous action of an external magnetic and electric field. In this case the DQD is out of equilibrium as it operates within two chemical potentials $`\mu _L=V/2`$ and $`\mu _R=V/2`$ defined by the applied dc bias voltage $`V`$. Imposing a fixed value of the magnetic field, once the amplitudes $`a_{j,\sigma }^k`$ are known, the current can be numerically obtained from,

$$J=\frac{2e}{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{~}{V}_L\underset{k,\sigma }{}Im\{a_{1,\sigma }^ka_{0,\sigma }^k\}.$$
(12)
We study first the problem when $`t_c=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. For this value of $`t_c`$, in the absence of an external magnetic field, the system is at the threshold of having a manifestation of the non-linearity produced by correlation. For a regime in which $`g\mu _BBT_K`$, figure 3 shows that the magnetic field reduces the height of the peak and valley of the $`JV`$ characteristic curve. However, for larger magnetic fields, $`g\mu _BB<T_K`$, a tristability behavior of the current is promoted. For greater values of $`t_c`$ ($`t_c=1.4\mathrm{\Gamma }`$), where the system has already a highly non-linear behavior in the absence of magnetic field, the shape of the tristability is highly dependent on $`B`$. As shown in figure 4, here as well, a remarkable increase of the peak to valley ratio is obtained in the regime $`g\mu _BB<T_K`$. This ratio goes from about $`20`$ at zero magnetic field to about $`2000`$ at $`g\mu _BB=0.333T_K`$. These phenomena are a result of the reduction and eventual elimination of the Kondo correlation when the magnetic field is of the order of the Kondo temperature. The Zeeman effect destroys the coherent behavior of the two QD’s produced by the molecular Kondo coupling, the electrons localize at each dot occupying levels that are mismatched by the applied potential and consequently the current goes to zero.

In non-equilibrium the nonlinear behavior described above has similarities with the well-known bistability present in three dimensional resonant tunneling double barrier systems and multistabilities in doped superlattices. goldman ; anda ; orellana ; prengel ; kastrup ; aguado2  In three dimensional tunneling double barrier systems, the Coulomb interaction pins the renormalized energy level at the well when the applied voltage $`V`$ is augmented maintaining the system at resonance. However, when $`V`$ goes above a critical value, the abrupt leakage of the charge accumulated in the well takes the system out of resonance. For doped superlattices, at large carrier densities, the internal potential profile produced by the applied voltage breaks up into domains giving rise to a multistable behavior in the current.prengel ; kastrup ; aguado2  In both systems, the non-linear deformation of the potential profile due to the electron-electron interaction is responsible for the phenomenon. Although in our case the Kondo effect is a strong many body effect of a different nature in comparison with the previous systems, the multistability is as well a consequence of the non-linear potential profile deformations that the electrons suffer when the external potential is modified.

In conclusion, we have investigated the magnetoconductance in a DQD molecule in the Kondo regime. We have shown that the magnetoconductance has a tristable behavior depending of the ratio of $`t_c/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the value of the magnetic field that controls the non-linearity of the system. This evidence was obtained using a mean-field approach that neglects fluctuations, appropriate for large spins as it is the first term of an $`1/N`$ expansion, where $`N`$ is the spin dimension. Some experiments have shownsasaki  that it is possible to design dots with a configuration that, due to the exchange interaction, the parallel spin coupling following Hund’s rule gives rise to a total dot spin $`S_t>1/2`$. For this cases our results are more reliable as fluctuations are less important. Although we believe that our results are robust against them, a study that goes beyond mean field is necessary to confirm our conclusions.

Work supported by grants Milenio ICM P99-135-F, FONDECYT Grants 1020269 and 7020269 and Red IX.E ”Nanoestructuras para la Micro y Optoelectronica Sub-Programa IX ”Microelectronica” Programa CYTED.


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# Co-ordination between Rashba spin-orbital interaction and space charge effect and enhanced spin injection into semiconductors

\[

## Abstract

We consider the effect of the Rashba spin-orbital interaction and space charge in a ferromagnet-insulator/semiconductor/insulator-ferromagnet junction where the spin current is severely affected by the doping, band structure and charge screening in the semiconductor. In diffusion region, if the the resistance of the tunneling barriers is comparable to the semiconductor resistance, the magnetoresistance of this junction can be greatly enhanced under appropriate doping by the co-ordination between the Rashba effect and screened Coulomb interaction in the nonequilibrium transport processes within Hartree approximation.

\]

The spintronics is interesting since this involves exploration of the extra degrees of freedom provided by electron spin, in addition to those due to electron charge, which is believed to be very useful in manipulating future electronic devices . To realize such a spin device, the Rashba spin-orbit interaction is often considered . Since this is caused by structural inversion asymmetry in quantum wells, it can be artificially controlled by adjusting the applied gate voltages and specifically designing the heterostructure .

On the other hand, one of the current focus in spintronics lies in injecting spin polarized electrons into non-magnetic semiconductors. This is partially motivated by the high magnetoresistance observed in ferromagnet tunnel junctions. However, in the diffusion region and the room temperature, experiments have so far observed a small magnetoresistance ratio of 1%  in ferromagnet/semiconductor/ferromagnet structures. Rashba proposed a ferromagnetic metal/tunneling-insulator/semiconductor (FIS) junction to improve the spin injection rate . Many different geometries of the tunneling junction were discussed in Ref.. It is possible that to lift the magnetoresistance to near 10% with a very high electric field .

In a recent work , we investigated the space charge effect in the nonequilibrium transport process within the Hatree approximation and found that the magnetoresistance of a double FIS junction could be greatly increased if one carefully adjusts the parameters of the junction, such as the charge screening length and the size of the semiconductor. The space charge effect in the nonequilibrium transport process first was found playing an important role in the characteristics of the device of ferromagnetic/non-magnetic/ferromagnetic metal junction . Under steady state nonequilibrium conditions, a magnetization dipole layer much larger than the charge dipole layer is induced at the interface while the magnetization dipole layer is zero under equilibrium conditions. We have applied this idea to the double FIS junction .

We now ask the question: How do co-ordinations between the Rashba spin-orbital interaction and the space charge affect the spin transport in the double FIS junction? It was known that the Coulomb interaction may enhance the Rashba effect. In a one-dimensional Luttinger liquid formalism, Hausler has reported an enhancement of the Rashba effect due to the spin charge separation . Such an enhancement was also found in a two-dimensional electron gas system . However, the effect of the Rashba spin-orbital interaction in the diffusion region was thought to be not important. In this work, we would like to investigate the co-ordination between the Rashba spin-orbital interaction and the space charge effect in the double FIS junction in the nonequilibrium transport process. To completely solve the nonequilibrium problem with interactions is highly non-trivial. It requires solving self consistently Boltzmann type spin transport equation with the Poisson equation. What we want to touch in this work is using a simple Hartree approximation to check if the effect comes from these interactions is significant. Consequently, it is found that if (i) the resistance of the tunneling barrier is comparable to the semiconductor resistance and (ii) the $`n`$-type semiconductor has an appropriate doping, then while the magnetoresistance of the junction is greatly enhanced as the charge screening length becomes shorter as we already showed in , it is grown up as the Rashba spin-orbital coupling. The shorter charge screening length is , the more gain in the magnetoresistance comes from the Rashba term. Comparing with the non-interacting model where the Rashba effect may not be observed in the diffusion region, we see a great increment of the magnetoresistance comes from the co-ordination between the Rashba spin-orbital interaction and space charge effect.

Rashba Spin-Orbital Coupling: We consider a two-dimensional electron gas in a narrow gap quantum well, such as those based on InAs. The spin-orbital coupling in this kind of systems is dominated by Rashba term :

$`H_{so}=\alpha (\sigma _xp_y\sigma _yp_x),`$ (1)
where $`\sigma _{x,y}`$ are the Pauli matrices and the Rashba parameter $`\alpha `$ is determined by the asymmetry of the potential confining the electrons in the two-dimensional $`x`$-$`y`$ plan and can be controlled by a gate voltage . For the system we are considering, its value is about $`10^{12}10^{11}`$ eVm . For a double FIS junction where the current flows in the $`x`$-direction, we can estimate the spin dependence of the density of state and the resistance of the electron gas. According to the Rashba term (1), the single particle dispersion reads

$`E_\sigma ={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2k_\sigma ^2}{2m^{}}}+\sigma \alpha k_\sigma ,`$ (2)
where $`m^{}0.04m_e`$ for the bare electron mass $`m_e`$ and $`k_\sigma =k+\sigma \frac{m^{}\alpha }{\mathrm{}^2}`$; $`\sigma `$ is called spin-orbital coupling label . The Rashba spin-ortial interaction contributes a current $`j_{so}`$ to the system. However, in the diffusion region, such an effect may be small . Here, we would like to see another effect arising from the Rashba term. When the Rashba term is non-zero, it is easy to see the density of state $`N_N^{so}`$ is given by

$`N_N^{so}=N_F^N(1+\alpha _N),`$ (3)
where $`N_F^N`$ is the density of state at the Fermi surface of the semiconductor for $`\alpha =0`$ and $`\alpha _N=\frac{\alpha }{\mathrm{}v_F}`$ for the Fermi velocity $`v_F`$. It is seen that the density of state is not $`\sigma `$-dependent . For a typical two-dimensional electron gas, the electron density is of order $`\rho _e=10^{11}`$ and $`10^{12}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup>. Thus, using $`v_F=\frac{k_F}{m^{}}=\frac{\mathrm{}}{m^{}}\sqrt{2\pi \rho _e}`$, $`\alpha _N`$ is in order of $`10^2`$ and $`10^3`$. In the following, we will see that the magnetoresisatnce of the double FIS junction is very sensitive to the change of the charge screening length which is determined by the density of state.

Description of the Junction:  In the diffusion region and the room temperature, we consider the junction F1-I1-S-I2-F2 along the $`x`$-direction. The thickness of the metal (F1, F2), the insulating barriers (I1, I2) and the semiconductor (S) are denoted by $`L^{L,R}`$, $`d_{1,2}`$ and $`x_0`$, respectively (See, Figure 1). For the practical case, $`x_0`$ is less than the spin diffusion length $`l_N`$ of the two-dimensional electron gas in the semiconductor. The charge screening lengths in the metal and the semiconductor are denoted by $`\lambda _{L,R}`$ and $`\lambda _N`$, respectively. In our model, we assume $`\lambda _Nl_N`$ and $`\lambda _{R,L}l_{R,L}`$, the spin diffusion lengths in the metal. Typically, $`\lambda 10^1`$nm, $`l10^1`$nm, and $`l_N>1\mu `$m. $`x_0100`$nm to $`1\mu `$m, depending on the structure of junctions. The screening length in the semiconductor, $`\lambda _N`$, is dependent on the doping of the semiconductor and can vary in a wide range, say 10nm for the heavy doped semiconductor and 100nm-1$`\mu `$m for the lightly doped or undoped semiconductor. To avoid discussing the spin-orbit splitting of the heavy and the light-holed bands near the zone center, we consider the $`n`$-type semiconductor only.

The problem we would like to solve has been defined in . Summarily, it is four sets of equations

(1) The total charge-current conservation is described by

$`𝐣={\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{t}},`$ (4)
where $`\rho `$ is the charge density.

(2) The spin $`s`$-dependent current is determined by the diffusion equations. In order to allow an analytic analysis, we take a simple Hartree approximation into account to see the space charge effect. Under such an approximation, the diffusion equations reads

$`j_s=\sigma _s(\mu _sW_0+E),`$ (5)
where the magnitude of the electric charge has been set as one; $`E`$ is the external electric field; the chemical potential $`\mu _s`$ is related to the charge density $`\rho _s`$ by $`\mu _s=\frac{\rho _s}{N_s}`$ where $`N_s`$ is the spin-dependent density of state. $`W_0=𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}U_{int}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})\rho (\stackrel{}{r}^{})`$ is the potential caused by the screened Coulomb interaction $`U_{int}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ and $`W_0`$ is the so-called screening field induced by $`U_{int}(\stackrel{}{r})`$.

(3) The third is the magnetization relaxation equation where the magnetization density $`M=\rho _{}\rho _{}`$ relaxes with a renormalized spin diffusion length $`l`$. In the relaxation time approximation, one has

$`^2MM/l^2=0.`$ (6)
(4) The boundary conditions at the interfaces are given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mu }_s\mathrm{\Delta }W=r(1s\gamma )j_s,`$ (7)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_s=\mu _s+Ex`$; $`Ex`$ is the voltage drop on the left side of the barrier and $`\mathrm{\Delta }W`$ is the electric potential drop across the barrier, which is assumed much smaller than $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _s`$; $`r_s=r(1s\gamma )`$ is the barrier resistance. We assume that there is no spin relaxation in the insulator, the spin-dependent currents are continuous across the junctions, $`j_s^L(d_1/2)=j_s^N(d_1/2)`$ and $`j_s^R(x_0+d_2/2)=j_s^N(x_0d_2/2)`$.

In addition, we have the neutrality condition for the total charges ($`Q_{L,N,R}`$, e.g., $`Q_N=_{d_1/2}^{x_0+d_1/2}\rho 𝑑x`$) accumulated at the interfaces. By Gauss’ law, for the point $`d_1/2<x<x_0+d_1/2`$, i.e., inside the semiconductor, the potential $`W_0`$ is determined by

$`W_0(x)=4\pi Q_L+4\pi {\displaystyle _{d_1/2}^x}\rho 𝑑x,`$ (8)
whose constant part of the right hand side gives the constraint on the charge while the $`x`$-dependent part gives the function form of the potential $`W_0`$. Another constraint is the neutrality of the system:

$`Q_L+Q_N+Q_R=0.`$ (9)
With those sets of equations (Eqs.(4)-(7)) and the two constraint on the charges (Eqs.(8) and (9)), the problem can be solved. The formal solutions of the problem are

$`\rho ^L(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _L}{l_L}}\rho _{10}^Le^{(x+d_1/2)/\lambda _L}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _L^2}{l_L^2}}\rho _{20}^Le^{(x+d_1/2)/l_L},`$ (10)
$`M^L(x)`$ $`=`$ $`M_0^L(1{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _L^2}{l_L^2}})e^{(x+d_1/2)/l_L},`$ (11)
with similar solutions for the right hand side. In the semiconductor, if $`\lambda _Nx_0`$,

$`\rho ^N(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho ^{(1)}(x)+\rho ^{(2)}(x),`$ (12)
$`\rho ^{(1)}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N}{l_N}}\rho _{10}^{(1)}e^{(xd_1/2)/\lambda _N}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N^2}{l_N^2}}\rho _{20}^{(1)}e^{(xd_1/2)/l_N},`$ (13)
$`\rho ^{(2)}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N}{l_N}}\rho _{10}^{(2)}e^{(xx_0+d_2/2)/\lambda _N}`$ (14)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N^2}{l_N^2}}\rho _{20}^{(2)}e^{(xx_0+d_2/2)/l_N}.`$ (15)
$`M^{(1),(2)}`$ can be obtained similarly. All of coefficients in (11) and (15) can be determined by using Eqs.(4)-(7) and the constraint (8) and (9). The screening potential $`W_0`$ is determined by Gauss’ law. The total current is $`j=_sj_s`$. Although $`j_s`$ are not a constant, the total current $`j`$ is still a constant.

The spin-dependent currents: It is necessary to simplify the problem to demonstrate the essential physics. One sets the parameters of the metals and barrier widths on the left and right sides to be the same: $`\lambda _R=\lambda _L=\lambda `$, $`l_L=l_R=l`$, $`d_1=d_2=d`$ and so on. The resistances of the barrier layers are taken as $`r^{(1)}=r^{(2)}=r`$; $`\gamma _1=\gamma _2=\gamma `$ for the parallel configuration and $`\gamma _1=\gamma _2=\gamma `$ for the anti-parallel configuration. To illustrate, we focus on the calculation in the left barrier located at $`x=0`$. The tunneling resistance is given by

$$r_s^{(1)}=r(1\gamma s)=r_{0,s}\mathrm{exp}[d(\kappa _s(\mu )\kappa _s(0))],$$
(16)
where $`\kappa _s(\mu )_0^d𝑑x[2m(U\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _s(0)x/d)]^{1/2},`$ with $`U`$ the barrier height. The current $`j_s^L(x)`$ at $`x=0`$ is dependent on the bias voltage and the interaction, which is given by

$`j_s^L(0)=A_sj_{0s},`$ (17)
where, for the ferromagnet metal on left hand side,

$`A_s=1+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \lambda ^2}{l}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha (\beta s)}{1\alpha \beta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{10}^L+M_0^L}{E}},`$ (18)
and $`j_{0s}=\sigma _sE`$ is the current with no interaction and the current $`j_{so}`$ that is contributed to from the Rashba term has been neglected; $`\beta `$ ($`\alpha `$) measures the spin asymmetry of the conductivities $`\sigma _s`$ (densities of states at the Fermi surface $`N_s`$): $`\sigma _s=\frac{\sigma }{2}(1+\beta s)`$ and $`N_s=\frac{1}{2}N_F(1+s\alpha )`$ where $`N_F`$ is related to the screening length $`\lambda `$ by $`\frac{1}{N_F}=2\pi \lambda ^2\frac{1\alpha ^2}{1\alpha \beta }`$. Noting that both $`\rho _{10}^L`$ and $`M_0^L`$ are proportional to the external electric field $`E`$, $`A_s`$ is solely determined by the material parameters.

Eq. (17) implies that the spin-dependent current $`j_s(0)`$ passing the interface differs a factor $`A_s`$ from the non-interacting current $`j_{0s}(0)`$. For the parallel configuration, $`j_{0s}(0)`$ is given by

$`j_{0s}^s(0){\displaystyle \frac{V}{R_N^{so}+2r_{0,s}Y_s(0)}},`$ (19)
where $`Y_s(0)=e^{\kappa _{0s}d[\frac{2}{3\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mu }_s(0)}(1(1\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mu }_s(0))^{3/2})1]}`$ and $`R_N^{so}=R_N(1\beta _N)`$ with $`\beta _N\alpha _N`$. For the anti-parallel configuration,

$`j_{0s}^a(0){\displaystyle \frac{V}{R_N^{so}+_sr_{0,s}Y_s(0)}}.`$ (20)
The magnetoresistance: Since the total current is constant everywhere, we have, for the parallel configuration $`\frac{1}{R_P}=_sj_s(0)/V`$ and for the anti-parallel configuration, $`\frac{1}{R_{AP}}=_sj_s(0)/V`$. From these, we obtain the magnetoresistance ratio

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }R}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{R_{AP}R_P}{(R_{AP}+R_P)}}={\displaystyle \frac{X}{2+X}},`$ (21)
where $`X=_s\frac{A_s^P(R_N^{so}+_s^{}r_{0,s^{}}Y_s^{}^{AP}(0))}{2(R_N^{so}+2r_{0,s}Y_s^P(0))}1`$. For non-interacting electrons, $`A_+^P=A_{}^P=1`$ and we knew that that $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ will not be beyond a maximal value (at $`V0`$) about 3.2% for $`r_{0+}:r_0:R_N=1:2:1`$ and decays as the bias voltage increases . Since $`j_{so}`$ has been neglected, there is no observable Rashba effect without interactions. After the interaction is included, the ratio (21) grows greatly and the Rashba effect is enhanced as $`\lambda _N`$ becomes smaller. This can be clearly seen in Figs. 2 and 3. We take $`x_0=1.25\mu `$m, $`\lambda =0.1`$nm, $`l=20`$nm, and $`l_N=3\mu `$m and set $`\alpha =\beta =1/2`$. The different choice of $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ will not qualitatively affect the result if they do not deviate from 1/2 too much. In Fig. 2, we depict the magnetoresistance versus the bias voltage for $`\lambda _N=100`$nm with $`\alpha _N`$ from 0 to 0.05. It is seen that $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ raises from 16% to 18% when $`\alpha _N`$ from 0 to 0.05. In Fig. 3, for $`\lambda _N=50`$nm, it is shown that the Rashba effect lifts much faster. $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ raises from 25% to 30% for $`\alpha _N`$ from 0 to 0.05. Hence, we see a strong co-ordination between the Rashba spin-orbital and the screened Coulomb interactions to increase the magnetoresistance. While the Coulomb interaction largely enhances the magnetoresistance, the Rashba spin-orbital interaction may enhance $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$. This kind of Rashba effect becomes more significant in a shorter charge screening length.

In conclusions, we have shown the co-ordination between the Rashba spin-orbital and screened Coulomb interactions on electron injection from ferromagnet to semiconductor. The magnetoresistance grows fast as the charge screened length in the semiconductor becomes shorter. The Rashba term also enhances the magnetoresistance and plays more important role as the Coulomb interaction is stronger. In fact, by a chose examination to our solution, this Rashba effect is corresponding to a renormalization to the screening length $`\lambda _N\lambda _N^{}=\lambda _N/(1+\alpha _N)`$ in the dominate terms of the solution. Because our solution is very sensitive to $`\lambda _N`$, it is understood that why a small spin-orbital coupling can cause a relative large gain in the magnetoresistance.

This work was partially supported by the NSF of China.

Fig. 1 The sketch of the double FIS junction.

Fig. 2 The magnetoresistance versus the bias voltage (in unit $`U`$) with $`\lambda _N=100`$nm. The junction parameters are $`x_0=1.25\mu `$m, $`\lambda =0.1`$nm, $`l=20`$nm, and $`l_N=3\mu `$m. Three different values of $`\alpha _N`$ are taken.

Fig. 3 The magnetoresistance versus the bias voltage with $`\lambda _N=50`$nm. Other parameters are the same as those in Fig. 2.


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# A Fossil Record of Galaxy Encounters

## The CIRB

The x-ray background discovered in 1962 by Giacconi and his collaborators during a pioneering rocket experiment was first partially resolved into individual sources in the soft energy range by the Roentgen X-ray Satellite (ROSAT) (1), then more deeply and in a wider energy range by the present-day x-ray observatories Chandra and X-ray Multi-Mirror (XMM-Newton) (2-4). Most of the sources are active galactic nuclei (AGNs), supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies that are accreting matter at a high rate. Recent spectroscopic studies of these sources with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory revealed that they mostly lie at redshifts (z) below 1, with a mean value of z $``$ 0.7 (4). In the same way, the light emitted by stars, integrated over time, is expected to generate an almost uniform background. In the optical, a lower limit to this background was established by calculating the integrated contribution of galaxies in the deepest field observed, the Hubble Deep Field North (HDFN) (5, 6). The existence of an infrared (IR) background in the 5- to 15-$`\mu `$m wavelength range was also predicted (7) but was attributed to the redshifted ultraviolet (UV) or optical light from very early galaxies.

In 1983, the first all-sky survey at mid-infrared (MIR) and far-infrared (FIR) wavelengths (12 to 100 $`\mu `$m), performed by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), brought about a revolution in our understanding of IR emission from local galaxies. Since the IRAS data were acquired, we know that in the nearby Universe galaxies globally radiate about two-thirds of their light below $`\lambda `$ = 5 $`\mu `$m (i.e., through direct stellar light); the remainder is absorbed by dust in the interstellar medium and re-emitted at dust temperatures (i.e., in the IR above 5 $`\mu `$m). Moreover, a new class of galaxies was discovered \[(8) and references therein\] that radiate the bulk of their luminosity in the FIR, between 5 and 1000 $`\mu `$m. These galaxies, with bolometric luminosities larger than 1011 or 1012 solar luminosities, are classified as luminous or ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs or ULIRGs), respectively. They produce only 2 $`\%`$ of the bolometric luminosity density in the local Universe, and the starbursts in them are nearly always triggered by galaxy-galaxy interactions. These galaxies must have been more numerous in the past, when the Universe was denser and galaxies richer in gas. Unfortunately, IRAS was not sensitive enough to detect distant objects, but counts of sources at 60 $`\mu `$m in a few deeper fields already showed hints of evolution–that is, an increase in the source density or luminosity in the past.

The extraction of a CIRB from COBE data \[(9, 10) and references therein\], 34 years after the discovery of the x-ray background, was almost simultaneous with the introduction of new IR and submillimeter observing facilities on the ground \[the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) and the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) 30-m telescope\] and in space (the Infrared Space Observatory). The CIRB is a measure of the stellar light radiated in the optical and UV (over the history of the Universe) that was absorbed by dust and thermally reradiated in the IR in the 5- to 1000-$`\mu `$m range. The energy density of this background, about 200 times that of the x-ray background and equal to or greater than that of the optical background, came as a surprise. It implies that in the past a larger fraction of starlight was absorbed by dust and that giant starbursts were more common than now. But when? Or at what distance from us? When trying to assess at which epoch the Universe was most active in the IR, the first clue is the shape of the CIRB spectrum. It is reminiscent of the spectral energy distribution of galaxies, as observed by IRAS, exhibiting a hump at a wavelength that for starburst galaxies or for LIRGs is located at $``$ 80 $`\mu `$m. With a peak intensity of the CIRB around $`\lambda `$ $``$ 140 $`\mu `$m (Fig. 1), and if we assume that the spectral energy density of distant starbursts is similar to that of the local ones, then the sources responsible for the bulk of the CIRB should be located around a redshift of z $``$ 0.8; that is, we see them as they were about 7 billion years ago, when the Universe was about half as old as it is today (11). A contribution of more distant galaxies at larger wavelengths is suggested by the slope of the CIRB between 300 and 1000 $`\mu `$m, which is flatter than the spectral energy distribution of a single galaxy at z $``$ 0.8 (12). Further studies will be needed to identify the sources of the CIRB and to see whether these conjectures are confirmed.

## Identification of the Galaxies Responsible for the CIRB

Ideally, one would wish to observe the IR sky with sufficient spatial resolution at $``$140 $`\mu `$m to pinpoint the individual galaxies producing the peak intensity of the CIRB. Unfortunately, this has not yet been possible. The ISOPHOT detector on board the Infrared Space Observatory (13) did find a population of galaxies emitting at 170 $`\mu `$m, which are one order of magnitude more numerous than expected if the number density and luminosity of IR galaxies had remained constant with time (14). The combined contribution of these galaxies to the CIRB amounts to only $``$10 $`\%`$ of its value as measured by COBE (14, 15) (Fig. 1), although fluctuation analysis indicates that fainter sources contributing to a greater extent to the CIRB are also present in the ISOPHOT (16, 17) and IRAS images (18). Identifications are difficult because of the relatively large error box \[full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the point spread function (PSF) = 50 arc sec\], but it appears that the sources detected are either nearby or rare, extremely bright distant objects.

In the MIR, the gain of sensitivity of the Infrared Space Observatory with respect to IRAS was more than three orders of magnitude. Deep surveys at 15 $`\mu `$m with the camera ISOCAM, also on board the Infrared Space Observatory, yielded an excess of detections of up to a factor of 10 with respect to what would be expected if the relevant galaxy populations had not evolved in the last 10 billion years (19). This constitutes another proof that the IR luminosity of distant galaxies and/or their density were much larger in the past than they are today. Integrating over the ISOCAM source counts, a lower limit to the CIRB at 15 $`\mu `$m was established (11) (Fig. 1).

ISOCAM spectra of local galaxies of all types \[(20) and references therein\] show a set of features in the MIR (Fig. 1) that are attributed to large molecules, probably polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (21) transiently heated to a few hundred kelvin. These features facilitate the detection by ISOCAM of starburst galaxies up to redshifts $`<`$ 1.3 (Fig. 2). These galaxies invariably have easily identifiable optical counterparts whose IR colors are indistinguishable from those of optically selected galaxies, but they exhibit strong H emission (22-25). Their redshift distribution peaks around z $``$ 0.7 to 0.8 (11, 26, 27), as expected if they are responsible for the bulk of the intensity of the CIRB at its peak. Their FIR emission was evaluated using the MIR-FIR relation observed for local galaxies (11, 28). The FIR luminosity of galaxies correlates strongly with the radio continuum (29), as it does with the MIR at least up to z $``$ 1 (11). It is generally assumed that massive stars are responsible for the UV photons that heat the IR-emitting dust and, when they explode as supernovae, for the acceleration of electrons producing the radio continuum. In the future, the Herschel satellite will detect these galaxies directly in the FIR up to z $``$ 3 (Fig. 2), provided that the spectral energy densities in these distant galaxies with low metallicity and possibly different distributions of grain sizes and abundances of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (30, 31) are not too different from the local ones.

MIR surveys with ISOCAM reach a sensitivity of $``$0.1 mJy at 15 $`\mu `$m; that is, they are able to detect any galaxy producing more than 20 solar masses of stars per year up to a redshift of z = 1, hence over the last 60 $`\%`$ of the history of the Universe. Using the MIR-FIR correlations, it is possible to derive a total IR luminosity for each of the galaxies. Integrating the emissions, it was found that the galaxies detected in ISOCAM deep and ultradeep surveys are responsible for about two-thirds of the peak and integrated intensity of the CIRB. About 75 $`\%`$ of these galaxies are LIRGs ($``$55 $`\%`$) and ULIRGs ($``$20 $`\%`$) (11); they produce stars with a median rate of about 50 solar masses per year. As a consequence, the density of IR luminosity (per unit of comoving volume) produced by the IR-bright galaxies at z $``$ 1 was 70 $`\pm `$ 35 times their present-day luminosity density. This shows that even though LIRGs and ULIRGs play a negligible role in the local Universe, they were important actors in the past and represent a common phase in the evolution of galaxies in general.

An excess of faint galaxies was also detected with the bolometer array SCUBA on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope down to the confusion limit (2 mJy) (32), accounting for about 20 $`\%`$ of the CIRB at 850 $`\mu `$m \[(33) and references therein\]. Deeper surveys using gravitational lensing resolved 60 $`\%`$ of the CIRB at 850 $`\mu `$m into individual galaxies (33). Unfortunately, the large beam size and the large redshifts favored by this wavelength range have limited the identification of the optical counterparts of the bulk of the sources, and thus the determination of their redshifts, except in rare cases using interferometry (34-36). In a recent study of bright SCUBA galaxies with radio counterparts (37) that allow secure identifications, it was inferred that some of these are indeed powerful ULIRGs located around z $``$ 2. However, the contribution of sources brighter than 8 mJy to the CIRB is not dominant (38).

Models have been constructed that fit ISOCAM, ISOPHOT, and SCUBA galaxy counts as well as the CIRB itself (12, 26, 39, 40). There is a degeneracy in the parameters assumed, defining the relative roles played by the evolution of galaxies in luminosity and density with time, but all the models share some general conclusions: About 80 $`\%`$ of the peak of the CIRB at 140 $`\mu `$m is due to galaxies closer than z = 1.5; this explains why ISOCAM deep surveys were so efficient in finding the sources of the CIRB. In contrast, about 70 $`\%`$ of the intensity of the CIRB at 850 $`\mu `$m is due to galaxies more distant than z = 1.5 (28), of which SCUBA is already detecting the brightest members. This also explains why ISOCAM and SCUBA preferentially detect different populations of galaxies but nonetheless obtain perfectly consistent results. Overall, 85 $`\%`$ of the integrated light of the CIRB can be attributed to IR luminous galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs).

## The CIRB and Large-Scale Structure Formation

In the local Universe, nearly all ULIRGs are produced by the merging of two spiral galaxies that will probably result in one intermediate-mass elliptical galaxy (41, 42). About 75 $`\%`$ (43) of the local ULIRGs already present a luminosity profile following a r1/4 law, typical of early-type galaxies (ellipticals or S0s). The origin of the starburst phase in LIRGs is less evident, but a recent study of local objects (44) shows that it is also linked to galaxy environment ranging from advanced mergers to pairs of spiral galaxies.

In the same vein, less than half of the ISOCAM galaxies exhibit the disturbed morphology typical of merging galaxies, but it is likely that tidal interactions or previous encounters triggered the starbursts, even in the apparently undisturbed ones. The fact that the integrated contribution of bright starbursts to the cosmic star formation history or to the CIRB dominates over that of galaxies forming stars at moderate rates not only implies that most galaxies must have experienced such a phase in their lifetimes but also suggests that each of them went through several such phases (39). In summary, the CIRB appears to be a fossil record of numerous encounters and/or mergers of galaxies, responsible for their briefly prominent IR brightness.

An intriguing corollary is that luminous IR galaxies at redshifts lower than z $``$ 1.3 may also be responsible for the formation of the majority of present-day stars, as well as of heavy elements, in the local Universe. Indeed, because LIRGs and ULIRGs dominate the cosmic star formation rate history over that estimated on the sole basis of direct UV light (26, 28), they should also dominate in the production of the low-mass stars present today, unless the initial mass function of stars in these starbursts is strongly depleted of low-mass stars. Assuming an updated version of the classical Salpeter initial mass function departing from it below one solar mass (45), the models of Chary and Elbaz (28)–which fit the CIRB and account for ISOCAM and SCUBA results–predict that 60 $`\%`$ of present-day stars were born nearer than z $``$ 1.3, that is, during the most recent 65 $`\%`$ of the age of the Universe (40 $`\%`$ below z $``$ 1, 80 $`\%`$ below z $``$ 2). Because of the dilution of light in an expanding Universe, it is the galaxies at z $``$ 0.8 that have emitted the bulk of the present-day CIRB. Overall, 80 $`\%`$ of the stars born at z $``$ 2 originated in dusty starbursts (LIRGs and ULIRGs). If these were triggered by galaxy-galaxy interactions, then the environment of galaxies played a major role in the formation of present-day stars, as predicted in hierarchical scenarios of galaxy formation.

About 68 $`\%`$ of the field galaxies from a magnitude-limited sample, located in a field 8 arc min wide centered on the HDFN, are located in redshift peaks, whereas all but three of the ISOCAM galaxies in this field (i.e., 94 $`\%`$) belong to these redshift peaks (46, 47), which trace large-scale structures such as sheets, filaments, and groups or clusters of galaxies. A structure located at z $``$ 0.848 alone contains almost 30 $`\%`$ of the ISOCAM galaxies in the field and includes two AGNs detected in the x-rays (Fig. 3). At this redshift, the 6-arc min extension of the structure corresponds to 3 Mpc proper (i.e., too small to discriminate between a galaxy cluster and a sheet). This hints at a connection between the formation of large-scale structures and of galaxies. This also indicates that large-scale structures may play an important role in the switching on of star formation within galaxies, but additional MIR deep fields with complete spectroscopic redshift surveys are obviously required to test the robustness of this result.

## What Powers the CIRB: Nucleosynthesis or Accretion onto a Black Hole?

The observed CIRB may originate from light due to nucleosynthesis at the center of stars or active nuclei (i.e., accretion onto a black hole). However, detailed studies of the hard x-ray emission of the ISOCAM galaxies using the deepest x-ray surveys performed with XMM-Newton in the Lockman Hole and the Chandra X-ray Observatory in the HDFN have shown that $`<`$ 20 $`\%`$ of their luminosity at 15 $`\mu `$m is due to an active nucleus (48). This result is consistent with the fraction of AGNs within LIRGs and ULIRGs in the local Universe (49, 50). Similarly, the AGNs responsible for the bulk of the x-ray background were found to produce less than 7 $`\%`$ of the submillimeter background (51). Nonetheless, the redshift and spatial distribution of ISOCAM galaxies present some striking similarities to x-ray AGNs. Contrary to optically selected AGNs and x-ray quasi-stellar objects, the redshift distribution of the Seyfert-type galaxies responsible for the bulk of the x-ray background also peaks around z $``$ 0.7 (4). Moreover, x-ray AGNs also exhibit strong clustering, as can be seen in the two deepest images of Chandra, the Chandra Deep Field South at z = 0.66 and 0.73 (4) and the Chandra Deep Field North at z $``$ 0.843 and 1.017 (52). The structure at z $``$ 0.843 is the same as that mentioned earlier at z $``$ 0.848 (Fig. 3). Among the 10 x-ray AGNs detected by Chandra, only two are also ISOCAM sources.

This suggests that x-ray AGNs and IR luminous galaxies can act as beacons indicating the regions of growth of large-scale structures. A similar effect was suggested (53) for the more distant population of SCUBA galaxies, although this may instead be an artifact of gravitational lensing (54). The fact that strong starbursts and AGNs exhibit similar spatial distributions suggests that they represent successive phases in the life of galaxies. A recent Chandra discovery (55) may shed new light on this issue: NGC 6240 is a symbiosis between a typical dusty starburst and an x-ray AGN. Recent Chandra observations have revealed that this object encompasses in its center two supermassive black holes probably in the process of merging. NGC 6240 may therefore represent the missing link between dusty starbursts and x-ray AGNs.

## Conclusions and prospects

The recent extraction of a CIRB from the data obtained by the COBE satellite, combined with the results of deep surveys in the IR and submillimeter range, has revealed the importance of star formation in strong starbursts in the history of the Universe. The cosmic star formation rate density was more than one order of magnitude larger about 7 billion years ago (z = 0.8) than it is today (28). More than 75 $`\%`$ of this evolution is due to dusty starbursts (LIRGs and ULIRGs) that produced stars at a mean rate of $``$50 solar masses per year at the earlier epoch. Although the peak and the bulk of the CIRB can be attributed to galaxies at relatively modest redshifts (z $``$ 1.3), more distant galaxies dominate the emission at submillimeter wavelengths, to which their intrinsic emission is redshifted because of the expansion of the Universe. The brightest of these galaxies, ULIRGs at redshifts z $``$ 2, are being detected at 850 $`\mu `$m from ground by bolometer arrays at the focus of radio telescopes. The overall importance of ULIRGs seems to have been even greater in those earlier times.

The rapid star formation revealed by IR observations may be connected to large-scale structures. There is a similarity in the redshift distributions, and possibly also the clustering properties, of the bright starburst galaxies and x-ray-selected AGNs. The existence of a link between the triggering of a starburst phase in galaxies and the fueling of a central black hole, already suggested by the study of local ULIRGs discovered by IRAS (56), is supported by this independent evidence.

These findings can also be summarized by noting that galaxies, paradoxically, are sociable and shy at the same time. They are sociable because they brighten up in company. They are shy because during their encounters with other objects, the UV light of their newly formed stars is absorbed by dust and thermally re-emitted in the IR, so that they blush.

The fecundity of this topic promises a bright future for the next generation of IR instruments such as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), which will be able to bridge the gap between ISOCAM and SCUBA and to study LIRGs and ULIRGs in the 1 $``$ z $``$ 2 redshift range. Later, the PACS instrument on the Herschel telescope will resolve the CIRB directly in the FIR, and the James Webb Space Telescope with its MIR camera MIRI will permit detailed studies of the individual sources. The fluctuations of confusion-limited surveys with Herschel will also provide the opportunity to obtain information on FIR sources at redshifts so high that they cannot be detected individually (40). Finally, the combination of all these instruments with the high spatial resolution images and spectra of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is likely to bring about a new revolution in our understanding of how stars and galaxies form.


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# The spectroscopic redshifts of SCUBA galaxies: implications for spheroid formation

## 1. Introduction

SCUBA galaxies (Smail, Ivison & Blain 1997; Barger et al. 1998; Hughes et al. 1998; Eales et al. 1999) are an important population (Blain et al. 1999, 2002), but frustratingly difficult to mesh with semi-analytic model frameworks (Guiderdoni et al. 1998; C.Lacey et al., in preparation). They are both numerous, with a surface density about 10% that of optically-selected Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs; Steidel et al., 1999, 2003) at the relative depths of the current surveys, and luminous (possibly because of very high SFRs), with typical bolometric luminosities about 10 times greater than LBGs, adopting plausible spectral energy distributions (SEDs). The existing SCUBA galaxies produce most of the extragalactic submm background radiation intensity, and a significant fraction of the background at far-infrared (FIR) wavelengths (Blain et al. 2002; Smail et al. 2002; Cowie et al. 2002). They represent a population which is often difficult to detect at optical wavelengths, with at least the fainter half clearly being missed in current optical cosmological surveys. Unfortunately, the SCUBA galaxy population is notoriously difficult to study! Until now, we have been able to gather almost nothing about their redshifts and morphologies as fundamental observable properties. As a consequence, deriving properties such as total mass and dust temperature, and finding both the fraction of power contributed by AGN and starbursts, and their connection to optically-selected star-forming LBGs, have been the topic of largely idle speculation over the five years since their discovery.

The principal hurdle has always been identification at other wavelengths. SCUBA/MAMBO surveys have large beam sizes (10”–15”), a situation that will remain true for upcoming single-antenna, wide-field instruments: Bolocam, SHARC-II, a bolometer camera on the APEX telescope and SCUBA2. Candidate counterparts to SCUBA galaxies cannot therefore be identified unambiguously without interferometry to pinpoint their positions. However, mm/submm interferometry is currently an arduous process, with tens of hours of integration required to detect a single object at the OVRO MMA or IRAM PdB interferometers.

As a consequence, the 20-cm radio emission from SCUBA galaxies has become an important, but second best surrogate with which to probe both the energy generation processes and morphology of submm galaxies (Ivison et al. 1998; Smail et al. 2000; Barger, Cowie & Richards 2000; Chapman et al. 2001, 2002a, 2003a; Ivison et al. 2002). The problem remains that in order to use a radio wavelength as a surrogate for submm/FIR emission, we would like a clear physical principle connecting the emission at the different wavelengths. We don’t yet, but we do have a strong empirical connection: the far-IR–radio correlation (e.g., Helou et al. 1985), which has an RMS dispersion of only 0.2 dex over a large range in luminosity at low redshifts. Radio identification of SCUBA galaxies has allowed their optical properties to be explored in detail (Chapman et al. 2003a; Ivison et al. 2002). A large range of optical properties is observed for the radio-selected SCUBA galaxies, with 65% fainter than $`I>23.5`$. They have red optical-IR colors with $`IK=3`$ to 6 and $`<IK>=4.3`$, but they are not all extremely red objects (EROs). Deep radio observations allow SCUBA galaxies to be pre-selected with an efficiency of about 40%.

## 2. Redshifts for SCUBA galaxies

We have been able to secure redshifts for 55 radio-identified submm galaxies through deep Keck/LRIS observations (Chapman et al. 2003b, S.C. Chapman, in preparation.), and the sample is growing rapidly.111Data presented herein were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership between Caltech, the University of California and NASA. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. The sources lie in several distinct fields: CFRS03hr, Lockman-Hole, HDF, SSA13, CFRS14hr, Elais-N2, SSA22. The spectra for several new examples are shown in Fig. 1. The redshifts allow, for the first time, accurate calculation of luminosities and dust temperatures for the SCUBA galaxy population. We emphasize that obtaining redshifts is not easy, relying heavily on the superb blue sensitivity of the new LRIS-B mutliobject spectrograph (Steidel et al. 2003), and often have no detectable continuum emission with which to extract the spectrum. In addition the galaxies are hard to identify, typically being faint, messy, composite objects in optical images. Because of their small radio/optical offsets ($`0.5`$”) it is often difficult to assess the best position at which to align the slit. Often we designated several slit positions on different masks for each target. Our spectroscopic completeness is $``$50% over the magnitude range of the sample from $`I=22`$ to 27.

While the issue of correctly identifying the submm galaxy is concerning, three (out of 3) CO detections with IRAM-PdB have already been made, realizing an unequivocal confirmation of the redshifts (Neri et al. 2003), as well as dynamical mass estimates $`>10^{11}`$M. One goal of the IRAM-PdB program is to obtain CO detections for a statistical sample $``$30 of our submm galaxies, to understand the range in molecular gas properties. We also note that beyond the radio positional identification, we are finding the correct type of object through optical spectroscopy. The identifications are at high-$`z`$, have apparent SFRs of several 100 M yr-1, often show AGN features, and are very rare objects in the LBG distribution. We ask, what else can they be?

We further note that we believe we have spectroscopically identified a sample of blank-field SCUBA galaxy counterpart candidates without radio detections, effectively through trial and error by targeting faint optical sources lying within the SCUBA beam using otherwise redundant spectrograph slits. Observations of these identifications were tried based on our cumulative experience of with the properties of the radio-identified sample: often faint, distorted blue/red composite sources near the SCUBA beam centroid, are found to have Type-II AGN spectra and/or inferred star formation rates of order 100 M yr-1. Again, CO detection will be the final arbiter concerning the validity of the identifications. These identifications overlap significantly in redshift with our radio-submm sample, their radio non-detections implying colder dust temperatures.

In Fig. 2, we show the observed redshift distribution, and a toy model for the radio and submm distributions derived from an evolving far-IR luminosity function (Chapman et al. 2003c, Lewis et al. 2003). The model is very useful for understanding selection effects, and in particular the bias against the highest-redshift galaxies due to the requirement of a radio selection. This bias has a strong dependence on dust temperature ($`T_\mathrm{d}`$). The sources missed by the radio are expected to fill the region lying between the model radio and submm distributions, overlapping significantly in redshift with the radio-identified sample if ther dust temperatures are in the cold to warm regime ($`T_\mathrm{d}<35`$ K). The redshift distribution of a radio-selected QSO sample (Shaver et al. 1998) (which is unlikely to be affected by dust obscuration) is overplotted, suggesting a remarkable correspondence with the submm galaxy population.

If our identifications for submm galaxies without radio detections are correct, then this leaves only a $`20`$% tail of submm galaxies which can lie above $`z>4`$. With a surface density of $`200`$/deg2, this 20% tail is still considerably larger than the $`z>4`$ QSOs detected in the mm/submm (Carilli et al. 2001, Isaak et al. 2002). Continued effort to identify these sources will be a worthy pursuit of the newest instruments and techniques.

## 3. Spheroids in Formation?

We have presented a plausible redshift distribution for submm galaxies, the most important ingredient for addressing whether they could be spheroids in formation. Encouragingly, they lie at the correct redshifts to be proto-ellipticals or the forming bulges of spiral galaxies. (all the stellar population constraints point to most stars being formed at $`z`$=2–3). In particular, we have demonstrated that most submm galaxies do not lie at $`z>4`$, and thus most are not very high redshift Population-III sources. Quite surprisingly, even this small sample of spectroscopic identifications reveals a redshift clustering signal, bolstering their association with massive halos (Blain et al. 2003).

However, to assess what type of formation mechanism is at work we must study the AGN/starburst contribution to the dust heating, the timescales of their luminous phase, and compare their HST morphologies. The AGN versus starburst issue is always difficult to address. We have firstly from our restframe UV spectra, the possibility of diagnosing the presence of an AGN through high ionization lines. Indeed, we find signs of CIV, and other lines which cannot easily be excited in a starburst, in approximately 50% of our sources. Our single near-IR spectrum thus far (Smail et al. 2003) reveals an OIII/H$`\beta `$ ratio typical of Seyfert-2 galaxies as well as strong NeV emission. X-ray detections of 7 submm galaxies in the Chandra Deep Field North were presented in Alexander et al. (2003), while we have measured significant X-ray flux from a further seven of our sample, together implying that $``$70% of the radio-identified SCUBA galaxies have X-ray detections. However, only 1/3 of these are too X-ray bright to be generated by star formation alone (scaling from Nandra et al. 2002 for LBGs). Finally, $``$20% of our sources appear to be unusually bright at radio wavelengths, departing significantly from the far-IR–radio distribution for low-redshift starburst galaxies. Together, this suggests that AGN are prevalent in the sample (as expected from the likely coeval evolution of the BH and bulge required to generate the tight correlation between their masses; Magorrian et al. 1998), but not necessarily dominant in the bolometric energy released by SCUBA galaxies.

The duration of the very luminous activity of the SCUBA galaxies are important: are their timescales 10 Myr or 1 Gyr? If the former, then several bursts would be required to form a massive elliptical galaxy. In the spectra with the highest signal-to-noise ratios, stellar and interstellar features have been observed. These can be fitted using starburst synthesis models, to yield a timescale for the starburst activity visible at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, and a relation between the star-formation rates at observed optical and submm wavelengths. For our brightest object, N2.4 (Smail et al. 2003) the best fit is for a $``$5 Myr-long instantaneous burst of star formation. The implied star formation rate is about 1000 M yr-1, which is similar to that infered directly from its submm and radio flux densities. While not all sources may contain such a short burst of star-formation dominated energy output, this example is likely to define the paradigm for the nature of a significant fraction of SCUBA galaxies.

The morphologies of a subset of SCUBA galaxies have recently been studied with HST-STIS by Chapman et al. (2003d). Fig. 3 shows a montage of several representative examples, typically revealing multi-component, distorted galaxy systems that are reminiscent of mergers in progress. There are no examples of isolated, compact sources, and we conclude generally that the morphologies of SCUBA galaxies are generally consistent with hierarchical galaxy formation scenarios in which the most intense activity occurs when gas-rich, high-redshift galaxies collide and merge. Although they could be the sites of spheroid formation, most spheroids do not form in a monolithic collapse of primordial gas clouds at extreme redshifts.

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Steidel, C., et al., 2003, ApJS, in press


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# Existence of families of Galois representations and new cases of the Fontaine-Mazur conjecture

## 1 Existence of families

The following is a slight generalization of a result proved in \[D3\], which follows from the results and techniques in \[T1\], \[T2\]:

###### Theorem 1.1

Let q be an odd prime, and $`Q`$ a place above $`q`$. Let $`\sigma _Q`$ be a two dimensional odd irreducible $`Q`$-adic Galois representation (of the absolute Galois group of $``$, continuous) ramified only at $`q`$ and at a finite set of primes $`S`$. Assume that $`\sigma _Q`$ is crystalline at $`q`$, with Hodge-Tate weights $`\{0,w\}`$ ($`w`$ odd). Assume also that $`q2w+1`$. Then, there exists a compatible family of Galois representations $`\{\sigma _\lambda \}`$ containing $`\sigma _Q`$, such that for every $`\mathrm{}S`$, $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$, the representation $`\sigma _\lambda `$ is unramified outside $`\{\mathrm{}\}S`$ and is crystalline at $`\mathrm{}`$ with Hodge-Tate weights $`\{0,w\}`$. Moreover, the family $`\{\sigma _\lambda \}`$ is strictly compatible (see \[T1\] for the definition) and all its members are irreducible.

Remark: the proof given in \[D3\] applies in this generality, just observe that for the case of $`w=1`$, in general when Taylor proves that the restriction of $`\sigma _Q`$ to some totally real field $`F`$ will correspond to a representation attached to a Hilbert modular form $`h`$, this is not enough to conclude that the representation is motivic (the construction of Blasius-Rogawski does not apply in some cases), thus is not enough in general to prove the Fontaine-Mazur conjecture, but in any case there is a strictly compatible family of Galois representation attached to $`h`$ (by previous results of Taylor) and so the argument in \[D3\] (descent of this family to a compatible family of $`G_{}`$-representations) can be applied also in this case. The family obtained will be strictly compatible, as follows from the results in \[T1\]. All representations in the family are irreducible because when restricted to the Galois group of $`F`$ they agree with the modular Galois representations attached to $`h`$, which are irreducible (because $`h`$ is cuspidal).

## 2 Fontaine-Mazur for “projectively rational” Barsotti-Tate representations

Now suppose that we are given a representation $`\sigma _Q`$ as in theorem 1.1 with $`w=1`$ and $`det(\sigma _Q)=\chi `$. Then, we will prove the following:

###### Theorem 2.1

Assume that $`\sigma _Q`$ verifies also the following two conditions:
1) If $`q3`$, then $`3S`$ ($`\sigma _Q`$ unramified at $`3`$).
2) The traces $`\{a_p\}`$ of the images of Frobenii, for every $`pq,pS`$ verify: $`a_p^2`$.
Then $`\sigma _Q`$ can be attached to an abelian variety $`A`$ (of course, $`A`$ is of $`\mathrm{GL}_2`$-type).

Remark: In particular, in case all the traces are integers, this result shows that a Galois representation that “looks like” the one attached to an elliptic curve with good reduction at $`3`$ does indeed come from such an elliptic curve.

Remark: A similar result is proved in \[T1\] without restriction on the traces but (sticking to the case $`w=1`$) with the extra assumption that there is a prime $`uS`$ such that the restriction of $`\sigma _Q`$ to the decomposition group $`D_u`$ is of a particular type (corresponding to discrete series under the local Langlands correspondence). Thus, this result does not apply, for example, if $`\sigma _Q`$ has conductor 1 or is semistable (i.e., unipotent) locally at every prime of $`S`$. Therefore, in the semistable case, the results of \[T1\] are not enough to prove the Fontaine-Mazur conjecture for $`\sigma _Q`$.

Proof: The proof follows from the combination of theorem 1.1 with modularity results la Wiles. We know that there exists a strictly compatible family $`\{\sigma _\lambda \}`$ containing $`\sigma _Q`$. Take $`t3`$ and consider the Galois representation $`\sigma _t`$ (if $`q=3`$, just take $`t=Q`$). As $`3S`$, we know that $`\sigma _t`$ is crystalline at $`t`$, and has Hodge-Tate weights $`\{0,1\}`$. Following the initial idea of Wiles (see also \[D1\]) we know, from condition 2) in the theorem (via results of Langlands and Tunnell), that the residual representation $`\overline{\sigma }_t`$ will be either modular or reducible. The information we have on $`\sigma _t`$ is enough then to conclude, via a combination of modularity results la Taylor-Wiles and Skinner-Wiles, that $`\sigma _t`$ is modular. This is a non-trivial assertion, but this is done in \[D1\] in exactly the same situation! So we conclude that the family $`\{\sigma _\lambda \}`$ is modular, and from $`w=1`$ we easily check that it will be attached to a weight $`2`$ cusp form f. This proves that $`\sigma _Q`$ can be attached to the abelian variety $`A_f`$.

Remark: It follows from condition 2) in the theorem that the variety $`A_f`$ will have a large endomorphism algebra (cf. \[R\]).

## 3 Non-existence of Barsotti-Tate representations of conductor 1

In this section we will prove the following result:

###### Theorem 3.1

There are no irreducible Barsotti-Tate $`2`$-dimensional Galois representations of conductor $`1`$ and odd residual characteristic.

Remark: By Barsotti-Tate we mean crystalline Galois representations as $`\sigma _Q`$ in theorem 1.1 with $`w=1`$.

Proof: As in the previous section, $`q`$ is odd and $`\sigma _Q`$ has $`w=1`$. Now there is no restriction in the field of coefficients, but $`S`$ is empty. If $`q3`$, once again we use the results in section 1 to construct a strictly compatible family $`\{\sigma _\lambda \}`$ containing $`\sigma _Q`$. We consider again $`\sigma _t`$ for $`t3`$ (just take $`t=Q`$ if $`q=3`$). From strict compatibility, this $`t`$-adic Galois representation will be unramified outside 3. But such a representation can not exist, as was proved in \[D2\]. Let us briefly recall the argument for the convenience of the reader: the residual representation $`\overline{\sigma }_t`$ has coefficient in a finite field of characteristic $`3`$ and is unramified outside $`3`$. Then, a result of Serre tells us that it must be reducible. An application of results of Skinner-Wiles (that can be applied because $`\sigma _t`$ is Barsotti-Tate) shows that $`\sigma _t`$ is modular, but this is a contradiction because it must correspond to a level 1, weight 2, cuspidal modular form.

###### Corollary 3.2

Let $`f`$ be a genus $`2`$, level $`1`$, cuspidal Siegel modular form (Hecke eigenform) having multiplicity one and weight $`k>3`$. Suppose that $`f`$ is not a Maass spezialform. Then, for every odd prime $`\mathrm{}`$, $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$ in $`E`$= field generated by the eigenvalues of $`f`$, the Galois representation $`\rho _{f,\lambda }`$ attached to $`f`$ is absolutely irreducible. In particular, this representation can be defined over $`E_\lambda `$.

Proof: In \[D2\] it is shown that the only possible reducible case is: $`\rho _{f,\lambda }\sigma _{1,\lambda }\sigma _{2,\lambda }`$ where one of the two (necessarily irreducible) components, say $`\sigma _{2,\lambda }`$, is crystalline, with Hodge-Tate weights $`\{k2,k1\}`$, and has conductor 1. But theorem 3.1 says that such a representation (after twisting by $`\chi ^{2k}`$) can not exist. This proves the corollary.

Remark: This improves the main result of \[D3\], for the level 1 case: “uniformity of reducibility” now does not make sense, because all representations will be irreducible.

In the semistable case, the main theorem of \[D3\] can be extended, just by applying theorem 1.1, to be valid for every prime:

###### Proposition 3.3

Let $`\{\rho _\lambda \}`$ be a compatible family of 4-dimensional, pure, symplectic, Galois representations, with finite ramification set $`S`$, semistable (at every place in $`S`$) in the sense of \[D3\] and such that for every $`\mathrm{}S`$, $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$, $`\rho _\lambda `$ is crystalline with Hodge-Tate weights $`\{0,k2,k1,2k3\}`$. Then, if for some $`q>2,qS`$, $`Qq`$, the representation $`\rho _Q`$ is reducible, all the representations in the family are reducible.

Proof: It is known (cf. \[D2\], \[D3\]) that the only possible reducible case is: $`\rho _Q\sigma _{1,Q}\sigma _{2,Q}`$, where the two components are irreducible odd two-dimensional Galois representations of the same determinant, one of them having Hodge-Tate weights $`\{0,2k3\}`$, the other having weights $`\{k2,k1\}`$. If $`q4k5`$, an application of theorem 1.1 to both components (for one of them, you may twist by a power of $`\chi `$ before applying the theorem, and then untwist to obtain the desired family) proves the result, because from compatibility and Cebotarev density theorem it is clear that the families $`\{\sigma _{1,\lambda }\}`$ and $`\{\sigma _{2,\lambda }\}`$ verify: $`\rho _\lambda \sigma _{1,\lambda }\sigma _{2,\lambda }`$ (up to semisemplification) for every $`\lambda `$.
If $`2<q<4k5`$, then we can only apply (with the twist and untwist trick) theorem 1.1 to one of the components, say $`\sigma _{2,Q}\{\sigma _{2,\lambda }\}`$. The techniques of \[D3\] apply precisely in this situation: it is enough (because we are assuming semistability) to have the “existence of a family” result for one component, to conclude reducibility of $`\{\rho _\lambda \}`$ for almost every prime But this implies that we can take now a second prime $`r`$ as large as we want ($`r4k5,rS`$), and $`Rr`$ such that $`\rho _R`$ is reducible: $`\rho _R\sigma _{1,R}\sigma _{2,R}`$, and now because $`r`$ is sufficiently large we can apply theorem 1.1 also to the other component, and conclude as before that the whole family $`\{\rho _\lambda \}`$ is reducible.

Remark: When we assume that $`\rho _Q`$ is reducible, reducibility must necessarily “occur over the field of coefficients” (the field generated by the traces of the images of Frobenii), i.e., the field of coefficients of $`\rho _Q`$ must contain the fields of coefficients of its irreducible components (this is required in the proof above, because we have used the results of \[D3\]). That reducibility always occurs over the field of coefficients was proved in \[D2\] for $`q4k5`$ but the proof holds for every odd prime $`q`$: if we assume that this is not the case, following the arguments in \[D2\], we conclude that the field of coefficients of $`\sigma _{2,Q}`$ is an infinite extension of that of $`\rho _Q`$ (to orient the reader, let us point out that this result strongly depends on the fact that $`\rho _Q`$ has four different Hodge-Tate weights, and that when reducibility is not over the fields of coefficients this forces the images of the representations $`\{\rho _\lambda \}`$ to be “generically large”, cf. \[D2\], \[D3\])), but this contradicts the fact that $`\sigma _{2,Q}`$ (after twisting) is potentially modular (thus, the field of coefficients of $`\rho _Q|_{G_F}`$ is a number field for some totally real number field $`F`$, and a fortiori the field of coefficients of $`\rho _Q`$ is also a finite extension of $``$).

## 4 Bibliography

\[D1\] Dieulefait, L., Modularity of Abelian Surfaces with Quaternionic Multiplication, Math. Res. Letters 10 no. 2-3 (2003)
\[D2\] Dieulefait, L., Irreducibility of Galois actions on level $`1`$ Siegel cusp forms, preprint, (2002)
available at http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/gtem/view.php (preprint 19)
\[D3\] Dieulefait, L., Uniform behavior of families of Galois representations on Siegel modular forms, preprint, (2002)
available at http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/gtem/view.php (preprint 68)
\[R\] Ribet, K., Abelian varieties over $``$ and modular forms, Algebra and Topology 1992, KAIST Math. Workshop, Taejon, Korea (1992) 53-79
\[T1\] Taylor, R., On the meromorphic continuation of degree two L-functions, preprint, (2001); available at http://abel.math.harvard.edu/$``$rtaylor/
\[T2\] Taylor, R., Galois Representations, proceedings of ICM, Beijing, August 2002, longer version available at http://abel.math.harvard.edu/$``$rtaylor/