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# Collective Atomic Motion in an Optical Lattice formed inside a High Finesse Cavity

## Abstract

We report on collective non-linear dynamics in an optical lattice formed inside a high finesse ring cavity in a so far unexplored regime, where the light shift per photon times the number of trapped atoms exceeds the cavity resonance linewidth. We observe bistability and self–induced squeezing oscillations resulting from the retro–action of the atoms upon the optical potential wells. We can well understand most of our observations within a simplified model assuming adiabaticity of the atomic motion. Non-adiabatic aspects of the atomic motion are reproduced by solving the complete system of coupled non–linear equations of motion.

preprint: preprint

Single atoms interacting with a few photons inside a high finesse cavity are an extensively studied key system of quantum optics. Only recently the significance of the atomic motion in this model system has been recognized and a wealth of new physics was found including cooling and trapping single atoms by single photons Pin:00 ; Hoo:00 . More recently, it has been pointed out that optical cavities with sufficient finesse and large mode volumes could provide a new means to cool and trap even large atomic samples by coherent scattering, with the promise of extending laser cooling to a wider class of atomic species and possibly even molecules Doh:97 ; Hor:97 ; Hec:98 ; Cha:03 ; Els:03 . A so far unexplored regime of atom–cavity interactions arises for large atom samples trapped in cavity–enhanced far off–resonant light fields, if the collective coupling strength (i.e. the light shift per photon times the atom number) exceeds the cavity resonance linewidth. For sufficiently high finesse of the cavity, the otherwise tiny retro–action of the moving atoms upon the light field becomes a significant feature of this system. This leads to an inherently collective character of the atomic motion and a corresponding non–linear dynamics of the intra–cavity field. Such collective long–range interactions might allow to create controlled quantum entanglement Hem:99 , a perspective possibly useful for quantum computation with neutral atoms. Other intriguing perspectives are the implementation of improved cooling schemes for atomic species otherwise not accessible, for example, as indicated in ref. Els:03 . Sympathetic cooling without collisions might become possible for low particle densities via thermalization of atom samples trapped at distant locations inside the cavity.

In this paper we explore the collective motion of atoms trapped inside an optical standing wave formed by two mutually counterpropagating travelling wave modes in a high–finesse ring resonator. A fast servo tightly locks the laser frequency in resonance with one of the modes. Within a narrow window around the case of exactly symmetric pumping of both cavity modes, a stable optical lattice is formed. Asymmetric pumping on the order of a few percent yields surprisingly complex dynamics. The most striking feature is a drop of the intra–cavity intensity of the unlocked mode by more than an order of magnitude, if the incoupled powers deviate by only a few percent in favour of the locked mode. This reduced intensity level is maintained up to several ten milliseconds until the slowly decaying lattice population and thus the collective interaction strength fall below a certain value, where the system suddenly jumps back to the mode of operation characteristic for a cavity without atoms. This jump is accompanied by a sudden spatial shift of the lattice. Depending on the total intensity directed to the cavity and the exact degree of pumping asymmetry the bistable behavior can be more or less pronounced and under certain circumstances self–induced radial squeezing oscillations of the atoms arise. Non–linear dynamics due to optical pumping and saturation is known to occur in low–finesse resonators operating close to an atomic resonance Lam:95 . Our lattice operates far from resonance where optical pumping and saturation are negligible and the atoms merely act as a dispersive medium.

Our system is described in detail in ref. Nag:03  and sketched in Fig.1(a). The triangular ring cavity has a finesse of $`1.8\times 10^5`$, a cavity resonance linewidth of $`\gamma _c/\pi =17.3kHz`$ and a large mode volume of 2.6 $`mm^3`$. The linearly polarized output of a diode laser is servo locked into resonance with one of the travelling wave modes. The laser frequency is red detuned with respect to the D2-line of rubidium ($`{}_{}{}^{85}Rb`$) by 0.7 $`nm`$. Cold rubidium atoms are provided by a standard magneto-optic trap (MOT). We can observe the powers transmitted through the cavity and perform temperature and position measurements by means of fluorescence imaging. Our intra–cavity optical lattice operates in the regime of strong collective interactions characterized by $`UN1`$, where $`N`$ is the number of trapped atoms and $`U\mathrm{\Delta }_0/\gamma _c`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0.091s^1`$ being the light shift per photon.

In a typical experimental cycle the MOT superimposed on the lattice loads up to several $`10^6`$ atoms into the lattice, before it is shut off and the atoms are kept by the lattice only. We record the power of the unlocked mode leaking out of the cavity through one of the mirrors as illustrated in Fig.1(a). From the known transmission of the mirror we obtain the intra-cavity intensity $`I_{}`$ of the unlocked mode. Similarly we can observe the intra-cavity intensity $`I_+`$ of the locked mode. We thus measure the scaled quantities $`\chi _\pm I_\pm /I_0`$, where $`I_0`$ denotes the sum of the intensities in both travelling modes without atoms inside the cavity. We provide adjustable powers $`P_{0\pm }`$ to be coupled into the travelling wave modes which we refer to in terms of the scaled quantities $`\chi _{0\pm }P_{0\pm }/P_0`$ with $`P_0`$ being the total power coupled into the cavity. Note that $`\chi _\pm =\chi _{0\pm }`$, if no atoms are present inside the cavity. Moreover the fast servo acts to maintain the condition $`\chi _+=\chi _{0+}`$ for any value of the atom–cavity coupling $`UN`$.

In Fig.1(b) we illustrate the time evolution of the intra–cavity intensity in the unlocked mode. In the uppermost trace we have adjusted perfect symmetric pumping, i.e, $`\chi _{0\pm }=50\%`$. In this case we find a constant value $`\chi _{}=50\%`$ independent of the presence of atoms or the MOT beams which are shut off at $`t=0`$ ms. Both modes build up with equal intensities and a stable optical lattice is formed. This is confirmed by temperature measurements, showing that the atoms are kept for long times at the initial temperature provided by the MOT. If $`\chi _0`$ is adjusted above $`50\%`$, $`\chi _{}`$ initially drops to $`50\%`$ independent of the exact value of $`\chi _0`$. As the atom number $`N`$ decreases in time $`\chi _{}`$ gradually approaches $`\chi _0`$. For the locked mode $`\chi _+=\chi _{0+}`$ is maintained at all times. More dramatic consequences arise for values of $`\chi _0`$ below $`50\%`$. The lower traces in Fig.1(b) are observed for $`\chi _0`$ adjusted to $`49\%,46\%,43\%,36\%,33\%,26\%`$, and $`18\%`$ respectively. The corresponding values of the initial interaction strength $`UN(t=0)`$ 4.48, 4.25, 4.01, 3.54, 3.30, 2.95, 2.48 are carefully determined by measuring the initial particle number $`N(t=0)`$ via fluorescence detection. The observed decrease of $`N(t=0)`$ with decreasing $`\chi _0`$ arises because the capture efficiency decreases with the lattice well depth. Note that already during the MOT phase a significantly reduced value of $`\chi _{}`$ is found. When the MOT is turned off, $`\chi _{}`$ drops to nearly zero. Subsequently, as the number of trapped atoms decreases due to collisional losses, $`\chi _{}`$ gradually increases until a sudden jump occurs which nearly restores the intensity level $`\chi _0`$ expected in absence of atoms. The time for this jump to occur increases with decreasing $`\chi _0`$ while the level to which the intensity initially drops decreases. Moreover, as $`\chi _0`$ decreases, the jump feature washes out and is not anymore visible below $`\chi _0=38\%`$. In the vicinity of the boundary, where the jump feature vanishes, pronounced oscillations in the kHz range are observed, corresponding to twice the radial vibrational frequency. An example for this behavior is shown in the $`43\%`$ trace of Fig.1(b). An expanded view on the jump in the $`\chi _0=49\%`$ trace of Fig.1(b) is given in Fig.1(c) showing some residual oscillatory behavior right before the jump. Note that the observed rise time approximately equals a quarter of the radial oscillation time. The observed drop in transmission for the unlocked mode in the traces of Fig.1(b) is accompanied by a corresponding increase of the reflected power, i.e., the overall intra–cavity intensity is reduced in the presence of atoms. Note that in all cases the unperturbed cavity condition $`\chi _+=\chi _{0+}`$ is well kept for the locked mode. We have measured the radial temperature before and after the jump finding T = 90 $`\mu `$K and T = 142 $`\mu `$K respectively. The temperature increase observed is compatible with adiabatic heating expected as a result of the change in potential well depth during the jump. This is plausible since the observed rate of change of the potential well depth satisfies the condition for adiabaticity.

In order to understand the oscillation feature in Fig.1(b) we have measured the atomic position and momentum distributions during this oscillation. The results are plotted in Fig.2(a). We observe an anticyclic variation of the position and momentum spread at twice the radial vibrational frequency. This shows that the origin of the oscillatory feature is a self–induced squeezing oscillation arising for the radial degrees of freedom. This explanation is confirmed by plotting the observed oscillation frequency versus the well depth as shown in Fig.2(b) where the expected square root dependence is found.

We have probed the response of the system to a sudden change of the total power $`P_0`$ coupled to the cavity, which is introduced during a 2 ms long time window in a region well before the jump occurs. The change of $`P_0`$ is parametrized in terms of the remaining fraction $`\xi _P`$. In Fig.3(a) a typical example of the response is shown for $`\xi _P=0.5`$. As a first immediate reaction to the reduction of $`P_0`$ the intra–cavity intensity in the unlocked mode $`I_{}`$ rapidly drops on a time scale given by the cavity decay time $`\gamma _{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}`$, as might be expected. However, subsequently an increased steady state value of $`I_{}`$ is approached on a much slower time scale. At $`t=2`$ ms the original value of $`P_0`$ is reestablished, i.e., $`\xi _P`$ jumps back to $`1`$. After a fast transient increase, $`I_{}`$ drops nearly to its original value before the change of $`P_0`$ was introduced. Note also the additional ripple at about 3 kHz, which amounts to about six times the radial vibrational frequency. We have recorded similar traces for varying values of $`\xi _P`$. In Fig.3(b) the value of $`\chi _{}/\xi _P`$ at $`t=1.9`$ ms is plotted versus $`\xi _P`$, i.e. $`I_{}`$ is scaled to $`I_0\xi _P`$. This graph nicely illustrates the paradox behavior that more external power yields less intra-cavity power.

Our system is classically described by $`6N+2`$ coupled non-linear differential equations for the $`3N`$ position and momentum coordinates and the two complex electric field amplitudes of the cavity modes Gan:00 . We assume a Gaussian geometry of the cavity modes with atoms located merely close to the focus. We can combine the two equations for the fields into a single equation because the servo lock keeps the field amplitude of the locked mode at a constant value. A significant part of the experimental findings can be explained by a simple model based on the assumption of a thermal sample of atoms adiabatically adjusting to the potential well depths and positions. We may thus eliminate 6N equations of motion concerned with the external degrees of freedom and remain with a single non-linear differential equation for the intra-cavity complex electric field amplitude $`a(t)`$ of the unlocked mode scaled to $`\sqrt{I_0}`$. Leaving the details of its derivation to a forthcoming publication we merely indicate the result here:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\tau }}a=i{\displaystyle \frac{UN}{\sqrt{\chi _{0+}}}}L(a)|a|aa+`$
$`+\sqrt{\chi _0}iUN\sqrt{\chi _{0+}}L(a){\displaystyle \frac{a}{|a|}},`$
$`L(a)e^{\eta _{ax}\sqrt{\frac{|a_0|}{|a|}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\eta _{rad}\frac{\sqrt{\chi _{0+}}+|a_0|}{\sqrt{\chi _{0+}}+|a|}}}`$ (1)
In this equation $`\tau \gamma _ct`$ and $`a_0a(t=0)`$. The function $`L(a)`$ is comprised of two factors describing the axial and radial degrees of localization. The truncation parameters $`\eta _{ax}`$ and $`\eta _{rad}`$ are defined as the ratios between the thermal energy $`k_BT`$ and the well depth at time $`t=0`$ for the axial and radial directions respectively. Eq. (1) can be readily integrated numerically, using the initial values $`a_0`$ prepared by the MOT according to the traces of Fig.1(b). In the time dependence of $`N`$ we account for linear losses due to collisions with hot background atoms and losses due to inelastic two-body collisions with rates measured in our experiment. The values of $`\eta _{ax}`$ and $`\eta _{rad}`$ are determined by temperature measurements to be approximately 0.5 and 0.3 respectively with about 0.1 uncertainty. The difference is due to different well depths in axial and radial directions at t=0.

In Fig.4(a) and (b) we show simulations excellently matching our experimental findings in Fig.1(b) and (c). For the initial atom–cavity coupling strength $`UN(t=0)`$ we used the values 2.38, 2.23, 2.15, 1.75, which fall within a few percent of those determined for the corresponding experimental traces, however reduced by a common scaling factor 1.89. The need for this factor is not surprising, because in our atom number measurements up to a factor two uncertainty should be expected for the absolute values, while relative values are on the few percent level. The basic characteristics of the jump feature, i.e. the time for the jump to occur and the rise time, are well reproduced. Eq. (1) lets us also calculate the phase $`\varphi `$ of the complex field $`a(t)`$ showing that the jump is accompanied by a rapid shift of the optical lattice of approximately a fraction $`\lambda /10`$, where $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength of the lattice light. This is illustrated by the dashed trace in Fig.4(b). As shown in Fig.4(c) and (d) we may also reproduce the findings of Fig.3. Again we calculated the corresponding phase of $`a(t)`$, finding that also the change of $`P_0`$ yields a spatial shift of the lattice.

We may not expect that our simple model can account for non-adiabatic motion as for example the squeezing oscillations shown in Fig.1(b) and Fig.5(a). Non-adiabatic motion is particularly expected to occur with regard to the radial degrees of freedom, which are not very tightly bound. In order to admit non-adiabatic dynamics we have solved the complete system of coupled equations of motion for hundred particles including axial and radial degrees of freedom. The result shown in Fig.5(b) nicely reproduces the frequency observed in (a). The calculation even reproduces the fact that the frequency of the squeezing oscillation slightly decreases with time, a detail that we cannot explain so far. Apart from such squeezing oscillations the results obtained by the full calculations are in good agreement with those of the adiabatic model.

In summary, we have studied collective atomic motion and corresponding non-linear phenomena arising in an optical lattice formed inside a high finesse ring cavity. The spatial phase of the lattice is not pinned by the phases of the incoupled laser beams, but rather determined by the collective atom–cavity interaction. The bistable behavior found experimentally for asymmetric pumping can be understood in terms of an adiabatic approximation for the atomic motion, whereas the general equations of motion must be considered to model self–induced squeezing oscillations arising in a certain parameter range. In this article we have only discussed selected aspects of the system dynamics. A wealth of further interesting phenomena could be studied, as for example collective atomic recoil lasing (CARL) Bon:94  which is expected to occur for unidirectional pumping of the cavity.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work has been supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under contract number $`He2334/32`$. We are grateful to Helmut Ritsch for discussions and numerical support.


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# The multiple stellar population in 𝜔 Centauri: spatial distribution and structural propertiesBased on Wide Field Image data collected at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile during the observing programmes 62.L-0354 and 63.L-0439.

## 1 Introduction

The peculiar nature of the Galactic globular cluster $`\omega `$ Centauri has been known and studied for more than forty years. Besides being the most massive and luminous in the Milky Way, it is presently the only globular cluster that shows a spread in its heavy elements content. Recent findings have shown that (i) at least three primary enrichment peaks do exist in this cluster, including the recently discovered metal-rich component (Lee et al., 1999; Pancino et al., 2000); (ii) an age spread of 3–5 Gyrs seems to be required to explain the turnoff region morphology (Hughes & Wallerstein, 2000; Hilker & Richtler, 2000); (iii) the chemical enrichment of the metal-poor and intermediate stars is mainly due to the retention of SNe II and intermediate mass AGB stars ejecta (Smith et al., 2000; Norris & Da Costa, 1995); (iv) the metal-rich stars appear to have a lower $`\alpha `$-enhancement, most probably due to SNe Ia pollution (Pancino et al., 2002).

All these pieces of evidence suggest that $`\omega `$ Centauri could be an intermediate object between normal globular clusters, which are unable to retain any of the supernovae ejecta, and the dwarf spehroidal galaxies (dSph), which are the smallest stellar systems capable of self-enrichment. $`\omega `$ Centauri could also be the remaining nucleus of a dwarf galaxy that was stripped during its interaction with the Milky Way, in possible analogy with the complex and still debated case of M 54 and the Sagittarius dSph. The possibility that $`\omega `$ Centauri comes from “outside” the Milky Way seems also required to explain its present orbit (Dinescu et al., 1999).

However, other clues complicate the picture. For example, the unusually high ellipticity of $`\omega `$ Cen, that has been demonstrated to be sustained by rotation (Merritt & Tremblay, 1994), is compatible with the flattened shapes resulting from the merger of two globular clusters (Makino, Akiyama & Sugimoto, 1991), and anyway the long relaxation time (Djorgovski, 1993; Merritt et al., 1997) grants that $`\omega `$ Centauri is not completely relaxed dynamically. Moreover, Norris et al. (1997) showed that only stars with \[Fe/H\]$`1.2`$ in $`\omega `$ Cen do rotate, while the more metal-rich components show no evident sign of rotation. Pancino et al. (2000) showed that, while the metal-poor population exhibits the well known E-W elongation, the two metal-rich populations show a more pronounced ellipticity, but with an elongation in the N-S direction. Finally, Ferraro et al. (2002) have shown how the most metal-rich population shows a different bulk proper motion with respect to the whole cluster. These pieces of evidence point toward a different dynamical origin for the various sub-populations in $`\omega `$ Cen, possibly resulting from a major merger event in the cluster’s past history.

Given this framework, we have started a coordinated spectro-photometric study of $`\omega `$ Centauri (see Pancino et al., 2000, 2002; Bellazzini, Ferraro & Pancino, 2001; Ferraro, Pancino & Bellazzini, 2002a, b; Origlia et al., 2003), specifically devoted to the characterization of the sub-populations, and aimed at understanding the origin and evolution of this complex stellar system. In this paper, we exploit the large number of stars (more than 230,000 in total) and the wide area coverage ($`33^{}\times 33^{}`$) of the photometry published by Pancino et al. (2000), to study in deeper detail the structural properties of the red giants in $`\omega `$ Centauri.

The article is organized as follows. In Section 2 we define the photometric samples corresponding to the sub-populations of giants in $`\omega `$ Centauri; in Section 3 we study the surface density distributions and concentration of the three sub-samples; in Section 4 we measure the ellipticity, the centres positions and the orientation of the three sub-populations; in Section 5 we comment on the metallicity segregation found by Jurcsik (1998). Finally, in Section 6, we summarize our main results and discuss them in the framework of the present theories about the formation and evolution of $`\omega `$ Centauri.

## 2 Samples definition

Using the metallicity information from the low resolution Ca triplet survey by Norris et al. (1996) and the morphology of the RGB from the colour-magnitude diagram, Pancino et al. (2000, see their Fig. 2) identified three sub-populations of RGB stars, with different average metallicity and photometric properties. To analyse in detail the structural properties of these sub-populations, we have extracted from the Pancino et al. (2000) catalogue the following photometric samples (with $`B<16`$ mag):

1. the RGB-MP sample, corresponding to the main, metal-poor peak of the metallicity distribution, around \[Ca/H\]$``$–1.4 or \[Fe/H\]$``$–1.7. This population comprises $`70\%`$ of the whole RGB population, and our photometric sample contains 2630 stars.
2. the RGB-MInt sample, comprising the secondary, intermediate metallicity peak around \[Ca/H\]$``$–1.0 or \[Fe/H\]$``$–1.2, together with the long, extended tail to higher metallicities. This sub-population accounts for $`25\%`$ of the whole RGB population, and our sample contains 816 stars.
3. the RGB-a sample, the newly discovered metal-rich population that comprises $`5\%`$ of the RGB stars and has a metallicity of \[Ca/H\]$``$–0.5 and \[Fe/H\]$``$–0.6 (Pancino et al., 2002). Our photometric sample contains 128 stars. Although this last sub-population has many fewer stars, it is the most numerous sample presently at our disposal, and its size could be significantly increased only when the RGB-a counterparts in other evolutionary phases (i.e., horizontal branch, sub-giant brach and main sequence) will be identified.

## 3 Surface density distributions

We computed the surface density distributions of the three sub-populations defined in Section 2, using a fixed kernel estimator algorithm (Silverman, 1986; Merritt & Tremblay, 1994; Seleznev, 1998), with a kernel half-width of 500 pixels111In what follows, it is useful to bear in mind that the WFI scale is 0.238 arcseconds per pixel. Thus, 100 pixels correspond approximately to 24 arcseconds. and a grid of 100 pixel cells. The resulting surface density plots are shown in Figure 1, where the isodensity contour lines shown are normalized to the maximum density of each distribution, in steps of 10%. From now on, we will refer to each isodensity level using the fraction of the peak value, i.e., 0.3 for the isodensity level corresponding to 30% of the peak value. The peak density values are: 48.3 stars arcmin-2 for the RGB-MP, 14.6 stars arcmin-2 for the RGB-MInt and 2.3 stars arcmin-2 for the RGB-a.

A first, qualitative comparison of the three distributions shown in Figure 1 reveals the following general facts:

1. The RGB-MP population is clearly elongated along the E-W direction, reflecting the well known elliptical shape of the whole system. The main peak position is consistent with the cluster centroid estimated by Pancino et al. (2000).
2. Both the RGB-a and the RGB-MInt populations have perturbed isodensity contour lines, showing structures similar to bubbles, shells and/or tails. While in the case of the RGB-a the complexity increases in the outer parts, where it is almost certainly due to low number statistics, in the case of the RGB-MInt we find complex structures in the central parts, where data points are more numerous.
3. The RGB-MInt population is clearly elongated along the N-S direction in the inner parts, while in the external parts it seems to become elongated in the E-W direction. The main peak lies south of the RGB-MP peak, with a possible secondary peak north of it, that gives an evident asymmetric shape to the distribution.
4. The RGB-a population is also elongated along the N-S direction in its inner parts; its main peak lies north of the RGB-MP peak.

A simple monodimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (K-S, see e.g., Press et al., 1997) as a function of a radial coordinate is not sufficient to properly assess the significance of these features. We thus used a two-dimensional generalization of the K-S statistical test, which was proposed and investigated with Monte-Carlo experiments by Fasano & Franceschini (1987), as a variant of an earlier idea by Peacock (1983). This test, similarly to the usual K-S test, quantifies the probability $`P`$ that two (two-dimentional) distributions are extracted from the same parent distribution, using a more sophisticated definition of the maximum difference $`D`$ in the cumulative distributions.

The results are summarized in Table 1. The very low probabilities obtained in the comparison of the RGB-MP population with both the RGB-MInt and the RGB-a ensures us that their spatial distributions are significantly different, i.e., they cannot be drawn from the same parent distribution. On the other hand, the probability obtained in the comparison between the RGB-MInt and the RGB-a populations confirms that they are not significantly different from each other.

We can also notice from Figure 1 that the RGB-a population appears more concentrated than the RGB-MP one, while we cannot say much about the RGB-MInt population, which has a complicated shape in its inner isodensity contour lines. A more quantitative evaluation confirms this impression: Table 2 reports the equivalent radii222The equivalent radius for an ellipse of semi-axes $`a`$ and $`b`$ is defined as $`r_e=\sqrt{ab}`$, i.e., the radius of a circle with the same area. of the three sub-populations, calculated with the ellipse parameters derived in Section 4, for the 0.9 and 0.6 isodensity contour lines. The RGB-a equivalent radii are $``$2-3 times smaller than the RGB-MP correspondent radii.

## 4 Ellipticity

To describe in a more quantitative way the shape and structure of the sub-populations defined in Section 2, we fitted ellipses to the isodensity contours of each sample. The spatial distributions were derived as in Section 3, with the same kernel, but using higher resolution grids of 20 and 50 pixel cells. We used the finer grid (20 pix) for the internal regions that are more densely populated, i.e., within the 0.6 isodensity level, and the coarser grid (50 pix) for the outer regions. As in Section 3, we defined densities in units of maximum (peak) density for each distribution, and we chose isodensity levels going from 90% to 10% of the peak density, in steps of 10%. Ellipses were fitted to each isodensity line, defined by those grid nodes that bracket the chosen density value (see Figure 2). The best-fit ellipses are hereafter designated with the same notation used for the isodensity contours in Figure 1, i.e., 0.9 for the 90% ellipse and so on.

Kholopov (1953) suggested that the best way to approximate equal density lines with ellipses in globular clusters is to use polar coordinates ($`r`$,$`\psi `$). This method has the advantage that the deviations of points from the ellipse along the radial direction are close to the deviations in the direction perpendicular to the ellipse. In polar coordinates, the ellipses have the following form:

$$\frac{1}{r^2}=A+B\mathrm{sin}2\psi +C\mathrm{cos}2\psi $$
(1)
The relations of the coefficients $`A`$, $`B`$ and $`C`$ with the usual ellipse parameters (Figure 3) are

$$A=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{a^2}+\frac{1}{b^2}\right)$$

$$B=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{a^2}\frac{1}{b^2}\right)\mathrm{sin}2\phi $$

$$C=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{a^2}\frac{1}{b^2}\right)\mathrm{cos}2\phi $$

As demonstrated by earlier studies (Geyer, Nelles & Hopp, 1983), the “a priori” adoption of the cluster centre position can produce errors (i.e., an overestimation) on the ellipticity estimate. This point is even more important in our particular case, since we suspect that the centroids of the three sub-populations differ from each other. Therefore, we determined the coordinates of each ellipse centre as the mean coordinates of the input points on each isodensity line. The ellipse coefficients $`A`$, $`B`$ and $`C`$ where determined by least square approximation with singular value decomposition (Press et al., 1997). An example of the result of the fitting procedure is shown in Figure 2.

### 4.1 Ellipse centres

Following the procedure described above, we determined the ellipse centres for each of the three sub-populations defined in Section 2, and for each isodensity level. The same procedure has been applied, for ease of comparison, also to the total RGB sample, defined as the union of the three sub-samples. The results are listed in Table 3: the RGB-MInt and RGB-a centres are significantly different from the RGB-MP centre. We can also compare with the centre position found by Pancino et al. (2000), which is (700$`\pm `$20,1900$`\pm `$20) in the WFI pixel system. As we can see, the centre of the global RGB sample is perfectly compatible with that estimate.

A look at the centre position trend with the isodensity level (Figure 4) shows that the RGB-MP, dominating the cluster population, has a quite stable centre position and coincides reasonably well with the centre of $`\omega `$ Centauri measured by Pancino et al. (2000), except for its two inner isodensity levels. The RGB-MInt centre is slightly displaced to the east ($`10\mathrm{}`$) and significantly to the south ($`1\mathrm{}`$), at least for the inner fits. This reflects the behaviour seen in Figure 1: in the central parts the main peak of the population is clearly S-E of the RGB-MP population, while the behaviour in the external parts becomes smoother. The RGB-a centre is instead slightly displaced to the west ($`10\mathrm{}`$), and significantly to the north ($`1\mathrm{}`$), at least for the few isodensity contour lines that we were able to fit with ellipses. Again, this reflects what seen in Figure 1. We recall here that the literature estimates of $`\omega `$ Centauri’s core radius go from a maximum of $`r_c=`$2.89$`\mathrm{}`$ (Trager et al., 1995) to a minimum of $`r_c=`$1.4$`\mathrm{}`$ (van Leeuwen et al., 2000), so the observed displacements are comparable in size to the core radius of $`\omega `$ Centauri.

### 4.2 Flattening and orientation

As shown in Table 4, the three sub-populations axial ratios have similar behaviours, within the errorbars. They do not show dramatic trends moving away from the centre, with both the RGB-MP and the RGB-MInt becoming slowly rounder away from their density peaks. For the RGB-a, due to the low number of objects in the external parts, only the inner isodensity levels could be fitted. The weighted averages of the axial ratios shown in Table 4 are: $`<(b/a)>=0.81\pm 0.01`$ for the RGB-MP, $`<(b/a)>=0.81\pm 0.06`$ for the RGB-MInt and $`<(b/a)>=0.78\pm 0.11`$ for the RGB-a.

To compare our results with previous work, we performed the same measurements on the entire RGB sample, resulting from the union of the three sub-samples defined in Section 2. In particular, Figure 5 shows the comparison with Geyer et al. (1983 – see their Table 4): the overall agreement is reasonably good, with a marginal discrepancy in the region between 2$`\mathrm{}`$.5 and 4$`\mathrm{}`$.5 from the cluster centre. Moreover, our average axial ratio and ellipticity ($`\epsilon =1b/a`$) for the whole RGB sample, $`<(b/a)>=0.89\pm 0.04`$ and $`<\epsilon >=0.11\pm 0.04`$, compare well with previous results like $`<(b/a)>=0.83\pm 0.03`$ (White & Shawl, 1987), $`<\epsilon >=0.12\pm 0.04`$ (Geyer et al., 1983), or $`<\epsilon >=0.077`$ (van Leeuwen et al., 2000).

Finally, while the flattenings of the three sub-populations appear rather similar, the orientations of the best-fit ellipses are instead quite different (see Table 4). The RGB-MP major axis is always close to the E-W direction, with $`<\phi >4^{}\pm 10`$, and its inclination seems to increase slowly with the distance from the cluster centre, although at these low flattenings the uncertainty on the inclination angle can be substantially higher than the formal errors quoted in Table 4 (Geyer et al., 1983). The RGB-MInt shows instead a complex structure in the central parts (Figure 1), with a possible double peak. But its 0.6–0.4 isodensity levels (the most reliable ones) are always inclined along the N-S direction, with $`<\phi >100^{}`$, while the outer parts suddenly drop to $`<\phi >25^{}`$, much closer to the E-W direction. Finally, the RGB-a is oriented along the N-S direction, although ellipses could be fit only to the inner parts, with $`<\phi >`$ close to 90–100, except for the innermost fit. Again, these quantitative estimates closely reflect what seen in Figure 1.

## 5 Metallicity segregation

Recently Jurcsik (1998), using a compilation of good-quality spectroscopic data from the literature, has shown that the bright giants ($`V12.75`$) in $`\omega `$ Centauri, belonging to the two metallicity groups with \[Fe/H\]$`1.75`$ and \[Fe/H\]$`1.25`$, have a weird spatial distribution. Each of the two groups occupies one half of the cluster: no star of one group is found on the other side and the two centroids are separated by $`6.2^{}`$ (see her Figure 1). The separation line runs approximately perpendicular to the apparent minor axis of the cluster, which is roughly oriented towards the Galactic centre: the most metal rich giants are on the southern half, that faces the Galaxy.

Ikuta & Arimoto (2000) questioned this effect. They used the same compilation of data and showed that no spatial segregation of stars with different metallicity is evident. However, we would like to note here that, as clearly stated by Jurcsik (1998), the effect is only visible if one applies the specified selections, i.e., only for bright stars of the two extreme metallicity groups. The effect was instead partially confirmed by Hilker & Richtler (2000), who measured abundances of stars in $`\omega `$ Centauri with Strömgren metallicity indexes. Their Figure 15 shows a clear segregation of the most metal-rich stars in the southern half of the cluster, but they could not confirm the segregation of the most metal-poor stars.

The metal-rich group in Jurcsik (1998), with \[Fe/H\]$``$1.25, is mainly a sub-sample of our RGB-MInt population, which has a pronounced peak just $`1^{}`$ south of the cluster centre (see Figure 1 and Table 3), a value that is roughly compatible with Jurcsik estimate ($`3^{}`$). We thus easily explain the observed segregation of her metal-rich group, since when one draws randomly a sample of metal-rich stars, there is a higher probability to find them close to the main peak of the density distribution, i.e., in the southern half of the cluster.

Jurcsik (1998) metal-poor group, with \[Fe/H\]$``$1.75, is instead a sub-sample of our RGB-MP, or more precisely it represents the lowest metallicity tail of the RGB-MP. We tried to isolate this sub-population by dividing our RGB-MP sample vertically, in the ($`I`$,$`BI`$) plane, in three sub-samples, equally wide in colour: (i) the bluest RGB-MP sub-sample, the RGB-MP1, most probably corresponding to Jurcsik’s metal-poor group; (ii) the intermediate sub-sample, the RGB-MP2 and (iii) the reddest sub-sample, the RGB-MP3. A two-dimensional KS test, like the one described in section 3, gives a low probability that the RGB-MP1 is extracted from the same parent distribution of the RGB-MP2 ($`P_{12}=`$1.42 10-6) or RGB-MP3 ($`P_{13}=`$3.92 10-5). However, we were not able to measure any significant difference in the peaks positions or in the concentration of the RGB-MP sub-samples.

We thus are unable to explain the metal-poor part of the spatial metallicity segregation found by Jurcsik (1998) on the basis of our photometric catalogue. If Jurcsik (1998) effect will be confirmed and understood in the future, it could mean that an additional, metal-poor sub-population exists in $`\omega `$ Centauri, with its own distinct properties. Otherwise, the observed spatial segregation of that group of stars could simply be due to a statistical fluctuation, explaining why Hilker & Richtler (2000) were not able to confirm the metal-poor part of the segregation effect. More data on abundances of a significant sample of stars with \[Fe/H\]$`1.75`$ are thus needed to completely explain this second half of the puzzle.

## 6 Summary and discussion

Using the nomenclature defined in Pancino et al. (2000), we have selected three samples with $`B<16`$: the RGB-MP, the RGB-MInt and the RGB-a. We have shown that the three samples are significantly different in their spatial and structural properties. In particular:

1. Both the RGB-MInt and the RGB-a main density peaks are shifted by $``$1 with respect to the cluster centre.
2. Both the RGB-a and the RGB-MInt populations are elongated on a direction that is perpendicular to the elongation of the RGB-MP population.
3. The RGB-a population is significantly more concentrated than the RGB-MP population. No firm conclusion can be reached for the RGB-MInt, due to the complex isodensity contour line’s shapes in its central parts.
4. Both the RGB-MInt and the RGB-a show complex and perturbed isodensity contour lines, resembling bubbles, shells and tails. While for the outer isodensity contours this can be due to statistical undersampling (especially for the RGB-a), in the inner parts these features are probably real.
5. Finally, we were able to explain the metal-rich part of the weird spatial metallicity segregation, found by Jurcsik (1998) and confirmed by Hilker & Richtler (2000), thanks to the peculiar surface density distribution of the RGB-MInt and, in particular, to its centre displacement with respect to the RGB-MP centre.

Let us discuss these findings in the framework of the current scenarios for the formation and evolution of $`\omega `$ Centauri. As briefly mentioned in Section 1, there is a consistent body of evidence supporting the fact that $`\omega `$ Centauri built up by itself at least part of the chemical elements that we can observe today. In a standard self-enrichment scenario, we would expect the more metal-rich (and younger) populations to be more centrally concentrated than the metal-poor, dominant population. This is almost always the case for the dwarf galaxies of the local group, with only a few exceptions (Harbeck et al., 2001), and it is exactly what we observe for $`\omega `$ Centauri (point (iii) above).

Unfortunately, while there is no doubt on the fact that self-enrichment must be one of the fundamental ingredients of a successful formation and evolution theory for $`\omega `$ Centauri (Norris & Da Costa, 1995; Smith et al., 2000), we are dealing with a complex set of observational facts, containing conflicting evidence. In fact, a few of the observational properties of $`\omega `$ Centauri, concerning the structure, the shape and the kinematics (Section 1) are not easily accommodated into a simple self-enrichment scenario (Norris et al., 1997; Pancino et al., 2000; Ferraro et al., 2002b), and suggest the possibility of a merger or accretion event. However, the simple merging of two or more single metallicity clusters cannot account for the broad metallicity distribution of the RGB (Norris et al., 1996; Smith et al., 2000) and the high speed of ordinary, already formed globular clusters in the present potential well of the Milky Way makes this kind of merging quite unlikely (Thurl & Johnston, 2002)333In a lower potential environment, like in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal, the chance would be substantially higher.. The evidence presented here, concerning the structure and shape of the different sub-populations in the RGB of $`\omega `$ Centauri, supports these findings and thus confirms the need for a more sophisticated scenario, that takes into account all the observational evidence collected so far.

### 6.1 A Complex Dynamical History

Let us first discuss the relative orientation of the three RGB sub-populations. It is now well established that the elongated shape of the whole cluster (dominated by the RGB-MP population) is mainly due to rotation (Harding, 1965; Merritt & Tremblay, 1994; Meylan & Mayor, 1986), which is consistent with the picture of a dynamically young and not completely relaxed cluster: the cluster’s peak rotational velocity is 7 km s-1 at 11 pc from the centre (Merritt et al., 1997) and the relaxation times for $`\omega `$ Centauri are of the order of magnituide of its age, being $`\mathrm{log}t_{rc}=`$9.73 yr in the core and $`\mathrm{log}t_{rh}=`$10 yr at half mass (Harris, 1996).

Thus, it becomes tempting to explain the elongations of the RGB-MInt and RGB-a populations in terms of rotational velocity, too, but in this case it would be necessary to assume that these two populations rotate around a perpendicular axis with respect to the RGB-MP. An inspiring comparison is posed by the recent work by Sarzi et al. (2000), who examine an example of galaxy that has undergone a major merging or accretion event in its past. The signature of such an event is the simultaneous presence of (1) an orthogonally elongated bulge with respect to the disk, and of (2) two rotation curves, perpendicular to each other, one for the host galaxy and another for the accreted component.

Now, we have shown here (point (ii) above) that the first signature could indeed be present in $`\omega `$ Centauri: we have (at least) two components with orthogonal elongations. What can we say about the rotation curves? It has been demonstrated in the past (Norris et al., 1997) that while the metal-poor stars in $`\omega `$ Centauri rotate, no sign of rotation is evident for the metal-rich stars. Again, the metal-rich stars of Norris correspond mainly to our RGB-MInt population, while too few data are presently available for the RGB-a population. So, the second signature is only partially present in $`\omega `$ Centauri. Clearly, to fully demonstrate or falsify the point, one needs more precise radial velocities for a much larger sample of RGB-MInt and RGB-a stars, and a model which is best suited to small systems embedded in a common potential well. For example, if we consider simulations of the merger of two globular clusters with unequal masses (Makino et al., 1991), the most massive object retains a larger share of the initial orbital angular momentum, as Norris et al. (1997) point out to explain why we see rotation for the metal-poor stars and not for the metal-rich ones.

### 6.2 An Accreted Component?

Another interesting point has recently emerged from the coupling of the photometric catalog by Pancino et al. (2000) and the proper motion work by van Leeuwen et al. (2000), i.e., that the RGB-a population appears to have a different bulk proper motion of $`\delta \mu `$=0.8 mas yr-1 with respect to the main population of $`\omega `$ Centauri (Ferraro et al., 2002b). This evidence suggests that the RGB-a could be an accreted population, captured by the main body of $`\omega `$ Centauri. We thus should expect the RGB-a to have a different centre from the main cluster population, too, and it is exactly what we find here (point (i) above). Moreover, if a merging event has really taken place in the past history of $`\omega `$ Centauri, how long ago do we expect it to have happened? We already know that $`\omega `$ Centauri has a very long relaxation time, comparable to its age. We also know that the RGB-a is $``$2–3 times more concentrated than the RGB-MP (point (iii) above), and the fact that it is almost one core radius away from the centre suggests that it is moving in a significantly less dense environment, so it could have survived as a self-gravitating system for many Gyr. It is however puzzling that the (few) radial velocities measured for the RGB-a so far are not so different from the cluster average444In this respect, it should be noted that we could be seeing the RGB-a “orbit” from its pole, although this configuration does not have a large probability of being observed..

So, a self-consistent set of observational facts, supporting the occurrence of an accretion or merger event in the cluster past history, is beginning to take shape. We would like to note here that this fact in not necessarily in contradiction with the occurring of self-enrichment, nor with the hypothesis that $`\omega `$ Centauri is the remaining nucleus of a larger body (a dwarf galaxy), accreted and partially disrupted by the Milky Way. If we consider the case of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal (Sgr), which is the only one showing some resemblance with the case of $`\omega `$ Centauri, we see that more than one GC seems to be associated with the system. In particular, one of these (Terzan 7) has a metallicity of \[Fe/H\]$``$–0.62 (Harris, 1996) compared with the \[Fe/H\]$``$–1.59 of M 54, which may be the nucleus of the Sgr. Interestingly, the RGB-MP has a similar metallicity to that of M 54, and the RGB-a to Terzan 7555An interesting discussion on the survival of globular clusters within dwarf elliptical galaxies has been presented by Lotz et al. (2001)..

### 6.3 A Promising Framework

An interesting scenario, that could accommodate all of the observational evidence collected so far, was discussed by, e.g., Freeman (1985), Norris et al. (1997) and Smith et al. (2000): the so-called merger within a fragment scenario, descending from the general framework proposed by Searle (1977) and Searle & Zinn (1978). In this framework, a conglomerate of star-forming sub-systems or regions could evolve within a large cloud and a common potential well (a fragment), each section evolving with slightly different timescales, and slightly different chemical properties. In this context, the chemical evolution of the RGB-MP and of the RGB-MInt could have been tightly related to each other, especially since there are reasons to believe that the RGB-MInt is younger by a few Gyr (Hughes & Wallerstein, 2000) and could have been enriched by the ejecta of the RGB-MP stars.

Later, a dwarf galaxy with its own globular cluster system could form, and a few globular clusters (like the RGB-a, or even the RGB-MInt) could spiral towards the system centre, while the remaining clusters could be stripped by the interaction with the Milky Way, along with most of the dwarf galaxy halo. Recent calculations by Bromm & Clarke (2002) support this line of reasoning (see also Fellhauer & Kroupa, 2002), together with the example of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy discussed above.

Although still speculative, this idea deserves to be further explored since it appears the most promising to explain $`\omega `$ Centauri’s puzzling properties.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank E. Pignatelli and E. Pompei for interesting discussions on galaxy mergers. The financial support of the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) is kindly acknowleged. This research was also partially supported by the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR). E. Pancino is grateful to the Eropean Southern Observatory (ESO), where part of this work was carried out, within the Studentship Programme. A. Seleznev acknowledges the support of the Russian Federation State Scientific and Technical Program “Astronomy”.


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# Subharmonic gap structure in superconducting scanning tunneling microscope junctions

## Abstract

We observe a subharmonic gap sturucture (SGS) and the Josephson effect in superconducting scanning tunneling microscope junctions with resistances below 100 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The magnitude of the $`n=2`$ SGS is shown to scale with the square of the junction normal state conductance, in agreement with theory. We show by analyzing the Josephson effect in these junctions that the superconducting phase dynamics are strongly affected by thermal fluctuations. We estimate the linewidth of the Josephson oscillations due to phase fluctuations, a quantity that may be important in modern theories of the subgap structure. While phase fluctuations may smear the SGS current onsets, we conclude that the sharpness of these onsets in our data is not limited by fluctuations.

The enhancement of the subgap tunneling current in superconducting (SC) tunnel junctions at voltages $`eV=2\mathrm{\Delta }/n`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the SC gap and $`n`$ is an integer, was first observed many years ago Taylor63 . The phenomenon is termed the subharmonic gap structure (SGS) and is characterized by temperature independent excess current onsets at these voltages. Renewed interest in this effect over the last decade Maezawa94 ; VanDerPost94 ; Bratus95 ; Cuevas96 ; Averin95 ; Scheer97 ; Scheer98 ; Ludoph00 ; Scheer00 ; Suderow00 ; Cron01  was driven in part by advances in fabrication of controllable superconducting point contacts. The emergence of new systems, such as Josephson junction qubits where quasiparticle currents play a role in the decoherence of the qubit state Martinis03 , also calls for a better understanding of subgap quasiparticle tunneling processes.

Early theoretical attempts to describe this effect in “good” (low transparency) tunnel junctions offered several possible mechanisms, most notably multiparticle tunneling Schrieffer63  (MPT) and Josephson self coupling Werthamer66 . Both mechanisms can account for the observed subharmonic structure, but their predictions for the dependence of the effect on the junction transparency is different Hasselberg74 . In the limit of high transparency contacts, Klapwijk et al. Klapwijk82  proposed multiple Andreev reflections (MAR) as a plausible mechanism. Experiments using controllable atomic break junctions VanDerPost94 ; Scheer97  have traced the behavior of the SGS through a wide range of junction transparencies from the tunneling to the point contact regimes. These have led to a theoretical effort Bratus95 ; Cuevas96 ; Averin95 ; Arnold87  to interpolate between the descriptions of SGS in the low (MPT) and high (MAR) transparency limits.

The theories of Refs. Bratus95 ; Cuevas96 ; Averin95 , while successful in explaining the experimental results, formally rely on a well defined time evolution of the SC phase across the junction with the Josephson frequency $`\omega =2eV/\mathrm{}`$ in the presence of a bias voltage. Indeed it is well known that the SGS in atomic junctions is smeared in the presence of rf noise Suderow00 . However, a theoretical description of this smearing within the framework of Refs. Bratus95 ; Cuevas96 ; Averin95 , and its connection with noise induced phase fluctuations and broadening of the Josephson oscillations is not yet established.

We report here on experiments using SC scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tips to form vacuum tunnel junctions against SC films. For moderate junction transparencies Transparency  we observe the Josephson effect and the subgap structures at $`eV=2\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$ and $`eV=2\mathrm{\Delta }/3`$. In contrast with the break junction experiments Scheer97 ; Scheer98 ; Scheer00 , where thermal and noise induced phase fluctuations were kept minimal Goffman00  and their effect on the SGS was negligible, the noise temperature in the present work is quite high. With the observation of a smeared SGS in the current-voltage characteristics of our junctions, and a measurement of the noise temperature based on the Josephson effect, this work represents a first attempt at studying the effects of phase fluctuations on the SGS, which so far has been only qualitative. Furthermore, this work emphasizes the onset of the SGS in the low transparency tunneling regime, where most of the existing literature is concerned with high transparency near-contact junctions.

All measurements were performed at T=2.1 K in a home built STM. The scan signals, thermometer, and bias voltage lines were filtered before entering the cryostat using commercial feedthrough filters. Additional filtering of the bias leads was provided by an RC filter mounted near the junction at 2.1 K. The tunneling current is measured with a current-voltage converter (IVC) at room temperature that is connected to the junction via a coaxial cable. A resistor mounted at the input of the IVC and the capacitance of the cable act as a low pass filter above $``$20 MHz. Since we do not employ special microwave filters in these experiments, and the effectiveness of the filters that we use severely degrades at microwave frequencies, we expect high frequency noise from the room temperature electronics to reach the junction and contribute to an elevated noise temperature.

Superconducting STM tips were prepared as detailed in Ref. Naaman01a  by depositing a Pb(5000 Å)/Ag(30 Å) proximity bilayer onto mechanically cut Pt0.8Ir0.2 tips. A freshly cleaved graphite crystal was placed near the tips at the time of the deposition and a Pb/Ag film was deposited on it as well, serving as the sample. We verified the quality of the tip by scanning the tip over the sample in the imaging mode. Typical spatial resolution obtained with these tips is $``$10 Å. Current-voltage ($`IV`$) and conductance ($`dI/dV`$) curves were then taken to verify the superconducting properties of the junctions. A typical $`dI/dV`$ curve is shown in Fig. 1 where the sharp conductance peaks at voltages $`V=\pm 2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{Pb}}/e`$, the small leakage conductance below the gap, and the Pb phonon structure confirm that these are good tunnel junctions.

A sequence of $`IV`$ curves was recorded as the junction normal state resistance was lowered by moving the tip closer to the sample, thereby increasing the junction’s transparency as $`|T|^2R_N^1`$. Fig. 2 shows selected $`IV`$ curves from such a sequence, for junction resistances ranging from 70 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to 8 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. New features in the tunneling characteristics emerge as the junction resistance is lowered - a current peak near zero bias that is the signature of pair tunneling Naaman01b , and the subharmonic gap structure at voltages $`2\mathrm{\Delta }/2e`$ and $`2\mathrm{\Delta }/3e`$. When the data are numerically differentiated (Fig. 2 inset) the subgap structure is seen as conductance peaks at V=1.35 mV and V=0.85 mV for the $`n=2`$ and $`n=3`$ subharmonics respectively.

In order to determine the transparency dependence of the SGS magnitude, we plot the peak conductance, after subtracting the single quasiparticle background, for the $`n=2`$ structure as a function of the junction normal state conductance on a logarithmic scale in Fig. 3. The linear relation obtained from this graph suggests that $`G_{SGS}G_{\mathrm{Peak}}G_{\mathrm{Single}}G_N^\alpha `$, and from a fit we obtain $`\alpha =2.3\pm 0.2`$, in good agreement with the expected $`|T|^4G_N^2`$ dependence. We observe a similar dependence in all junctions measured to date, with the exponent $`\alpha `$ ranging from 1.8 to 2.3. Strictly speaking, it is the current jump at this voltage that is expected to scale with $`|T|^4`$, but since the width of this onset in our data is independent of $`G_N`$, the behavior of the differential conductance peak reflects that of the current jump. Unfortunately, the present data do not allow us to determine the transparency dependence of the $`n=3`$ feature, although its magnitude relative to the $`n=2`$ feature is consistent with the theoretically predicted $`|T|^6G_N^3`$ dependence.

Were the junctions single channel contacts, their transparency would have saturated to 1 at $`R_N=12.9`$ k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The fact that we still observe tunneling-like $`IV`$’s down to 8 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ suggest that our tips accomodate a few channels. This conclusion is also consistent with the $``$10 Å spatial resolution that we estimate from working in the imaging mode. The relatively large scatter in the data in Fig. 3 can thus be understood as resulting from atomic rearrangements in the tip during the time of the experiment. Such rearrangements may change the transparencies of the individual channels in the junction; while there are many different combinations of channel transparancies that can result in the same normal state conductance, the $`IV`$ characteristics below the SC gap are highly nonlinear and therefore sensitive to the particular channel content of the junction Scheer97 .

In light of the theoretical descriptions of the SGS in Refs. Bratus95 ; Cuevas96 ; Averin95  it is important to further characterize the phase dynamics of these junctions. The evolution of the Josephson current as a function of the junction normal state resistance allows us to quantify the strength of the phase fluctuations in the junction. Because of the junctions’ small size and the high resistance associated with it, the Josephson binding energy $`E_J=\pi \mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }/4e^2R_N`$, which is the energy scale for the coupling of the phases across the junction, is comparable to $`k_BT`$. In this regime, where $`E_Jk_BT`$, the motion of the phase difference is diffusive Ivanchenko69 ; Ambegaokar69 , and the pair current is therefore associated with finite voltages. The $`IV`$ characteristics due to pair tunneling for small $`E_J/k_BT`$ were shown by Ivanchenko and Zil’berman Ivanchenko69  to have the form $`I(V)=A\times V/(V^2+V_p^2)`$, where $`A=I_c^2Z_{\mathrm{env}}/2`$, $`I_c=2eE_J/\mathrm{}`$, $`V_p=(2e/\mathrm{})Z_{\mathrm{env}}k_BT_n`$, $`Z_{\mathrm{env}}`$ is the impedance of the junction’s environment, and $`T_n`$ is the effective noise temperature. We fit the $`IV`$ curves using the equation above with $`A`$ and $`V_p`$ the only fitting parameters (Fig. 4 inset). A plot of $`\sqrt{(4e/\mathrm{})A/V_p}`$ as a function of $`G_N`$ yields a linear graph with a slope of $`I_cR_N/\sqrt{k_BT_n}`$ Naaman01b . Such a plot (Fig. 4) is constructed from analysis of the data of Fig. 2. From the slope of the graph, and using the Ambegaokar-Baratoff relation Ambegaokar63  to find $`I_cR_N=1.67`$ mV in this junction, we estimate the noise temperature $`T_n=33\pm 1`$ K SteinbachNote , and the environment impedance $`Z_{\mathrm{env}}=78\pm 7\mathrm{\Omega }`$ close to the impedance of free space as expected SETbook .

The quantity of importance to the dicussion here is the linewidth of Josephson oscillations around $`\dot{\varphi }=2eV/\mathrm{}`$. The mechanism for the formation of the SGS within the theory of Bratus’ et al. Bratus95  is the inelastic Andreev scattering of quasiparticles impinging on the junction into $`n`$ sidebands. The splitting in the spectrum of scattered waves into sidebands is induced by the time varying phase across the junction with the Josephson frequency $`\omega =2eV/\mathrm{}`$. Our experiments show that in the presence of thermal phase fluctuations there is a considerable broadening in the time evolution of the phase Naaman01b , where the linewidth $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ around the Josephson frequency depends on the effective noise temperature and the impedance of the junction’s environment. In the RSJ model this broadening can be estimated Likharev  as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(2e/\mathrm{})^2Z_{\mathrm{env}}k_BT_n=2eV_p/\mathrm{}`$. For the data shown here $`V_p=0.11\pm 0.01`$ mV, resulting in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }300`$ GHz.

We expect that the effects of phase fluctuations would be to broaden the subgap features Suderow00 ; Arnold87  similarly to the broadening of microwave induced Shapiro steps Naaman01b . It is therefore important to determine whether the broadening of the SGS features in our junctions (Fig. 2 inset), with full width of approximately 0.35 mV, arise from phase fluctuations. Since any subgap quasiparticle tunneling process would eventually involve the injection of a quasiparticle at the gap edge of the SC electrode, the SGS current onsets can be no sharper than the current rise at $`eV=2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. A well documented phenomenon in Pb, of which our junctions are made, is the apparent broadening of the gap edge in tunneling experiments Giaver62 ; Rochlin67 ; Lykken71 . This broadening is intrinsic in bulk Pb, and is a result of the $``$10% anisotropy in the Pb order parameter Blackford69 ; Short00 . Figure 5 shows a comparison between the conductance peaks at the gap edge and at the $`n=2`$ SGS. The fact that the widths of these peaks are approximately the same, and larger than the characteristic broadening of the Josephson oscillations $`(\mathrm{}/2e)\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, suggests that the sharpness of the SGS in our junctions is not fluctuation limited, but rather it is intrinsic to the superconductors comprising the junction. We would expect that with increasing strength of the phase fluctuations, the width of the SGS would eventually increase above the width of the gap edge.

To summarize, we have observed the $`n=2`$ and $`n=3`$ subharmonic gap structure in superconducting STM vacuum junctions, and found a $`G_N^2`$ dependence for the magnitude of the $`n=2`$ SGS. This experiment has been done under conditions where strong phase fluctuations are present, and by analyzing the Josephson effect in these junctions we have determined the broadening of the Josephson oscillation linewidth due to these fluctuations. Since modern theories for the origins of the excess subgap current Bratus95 ; Cuevas96 ; Averin95 ; Arnold87  suggest that the subharmonic gap structure and the ac Josephson effect are intimately related, it could be expected that strong phase fluctuations will alter the shape of the SGS. Nevertheless, we conclude that the apparent smearing of the observed SGS in our data is most likely due to the intrinsic gap anisotropy in Pb, rather than phase fluctuations. Experiments such as described here, could in principle, provide a testing ground for theoretical descriptions of the effects of fluctuations on the SGS. The complications introduced by the intrinsic width of the gap edge in Pb, can be easily overcome by fabricating the junctions from Pb1-xBix alloys with $`x0.100.15`$ in which the mean free path is shorter, and as a result, the gap edge is sharper, with characteristic widths at 2 K of 0.068 meV and 0.048 meV, for $`x=0.10\mathrm{and}0.15`$ respectively Campbell66 ; Dynes78 .

This experiment demonstrates that STM studies with well characterized SC tips are suitable for careful measurements of the subgap structure. Additional advantage of STM experiments is that in contrast with break junctions that are necessarily symmetric, the STM setup offers the possibility to study asymmetric junctions (e.g. Pb/I/NbSe2) Naaman03 . We note that the STM has been used before Scheer98 ; Suderow00  to observe the SGS, but unfortunately a quantitative analysis of the phase fluctuations in those experiments was not reported. We argue that the measurement of the phase fluctuations rather than their suppression may further help to test the existing theories.

We would like to thank L. Bokacheva, W. Teizer, and the UCSD Physics Electronics Shop. We have benefitted from discussions with H.F. Hess, H. Suderow, E. Bascones, and V. Shumeiko. This work was supported by DOE Grant number DE-FG03-00ER45853.