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# Heating and atom loss during upward ramps of Feshbach resonance levels in Bose-Einstein condensates

## I Introduction

Since their first experimental demonstration Inouye98 , magnetic field tunable interactions have proven their potential and usefulness in the physics of quantum degenerate gases. This technique takes advantage of the Zeeman effect in the electronic energy levels of the atoms to manipulate their binary collision properties in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance. For several atomic species it is now possible to change the scattering length by orders of magnitude, and even to reverse its sign, making the atoms either repel or attract one another. One of the impressive applications of this technique was the successful creation of stable 85Rb Bose-Einstein condensates with thousands of atoms Cornish00 , that would otherwise collapse if consisting of more than about 80 atoms. These experiments have now been refined to associate pairs of atoms to ultracold molecules and probe their coherence properties Donley02 ; Claussen03 ; Regal03 ; Herbig03 ; Duerr03 ; Strecker03 ; Cubizolles03 ; JochimPRL03 ; Regal04 ; Xu03 ; Greiner03 ; JochimScience03 ; Mukaiyama03 ; Zwierlein03 ; Barenstein04 ; Regal04-2 ; Zwierlein04 ; Barenstein04-2 . The dissociation energies of the highly excited dimer molecules have been measured accurately down to several kHz Donley02 ; Claussen03 ; Regal03 .

Early attempts to associate Feshbach molecules in Bose-Einstein condensates Stenger99  relied upon linear ramps of the magnetic field strength across the resonance position, in which the resonance level (see, e.g., Mies00 ; GKGTJ03 ) was swept upward in energy footnote:upward . Subsequent theoretical studies Abeelen99 ; Mies00  have shown that these particular ramps lead to a heating of the cloud rather than to molecular production. The condensate atoms were lost into correlated pairs of atoms with a comparatively high velocity of their relative motion. These atom pairs were also produced in the interferometric experiments of Ref. Donley02 , involving a special sequence of magnetic field pulses, and directly detected as a dilute burst of atoms with a spread far beyond the size of the remnant Bose-Einstein condensate. The theoretical studies in Refs. Kokkelmans02 ; Mackie02 ; KGB02  have confirmed this interpretation and provided a quantitative understanding of the number of burst atoms observed in Ref. Donley02  as well as their measured energy spectrum KGB02 .

Several approaches have been proposed to describe the conversion of condensate atoms into bound or continuum molecular states (see, e.g., Drummond98 ; Timmermans99 ; Abeelen99 ; Yurovsky99 ; Mies00 ; KGB02 ; Kokkelmans02 ; Mackie02 ; Koehler02 ; Duine03 ; Naidon03 ; Yurovsky03 ; GKGTJ03 ). Early approaches are based either on mean field theory, with an exchange of particles between the atomic condensate and the Feshbach resonance level (e.g. Drummond98 ; Timmermans99 ; Abeelen99 ), or on a two-body configuration interaction picture, extended in such a way that it includes the Bose stimulation of the transition between free atom pairs and the resonance level Mies00 . While these approaches effectively include only two energy levels of the atom pairs, i.e. the zero energy scattering state and the Feshbach resonance level Mies00 ; GKGTJ03 , the interferometric experiments in Ref. Donley02  have clearly revealed that a complete description of the molecular association requires many-body approaches, which treat the two-body collision dynamics including all states in a non-perturbative manner Koehler02 ; Kokkelmans02 ; KGB02 .

In this paper we use the beyond mean field approach of Refs. Koehler02 ; KGB02  to describe the atom loss in upward ramps of a Feshbach resonance level in a Bose-Einstein condensate and compare the results with the simpler two level mean field approach of Refs. Drummond98 ; Timmermans99 ; Abeelen99 . Our studies involve the Feshbach resonance crossing experiments of Refs. Stenger99  and Cornish00 . In the experiments Stenger99  a Bose-Einstein condensate of 23Na in the $`(F=1,m_F=+1)`$ hyperfine state was exposed to a magnetic field swept across the Feshbach resonances at 853 and 907 G Inouye98 , respectively. In Ref. Cornish00  the magnetic field strength was swept across the 155 G resonance of a gas of 85Rb atoms, which was condensed in the $`(F=2,m_F=2)`$ hyperfine state. In all cases dramatic losses of atoms were observed, which increased with decreasing ramp speed.

The widths of the 23Na Feshbach resonances have been predicted to be 1 G (at 907 G) and 0.01 G (at 853 G), respectively Inouye98 . The 85Rb 155 G Feshbach resonance has been characterised very accurately in several experimental and theoretical studies Donley02 ; Roberts01 ; vanKempen02 ; Claussen03 , and its width is predicted to be 11 G. We shall show on the basis of binary collision physics that the microscopic dynamics caused by the ramps of the magnetic field strength is decisively different between the 23Na experiments Stenger99  and the experiments Cornish00  with the broad 85Rb Feshbach resonance, although the direction of these resonance crossings excludes the adiabatic association of atoms to molecules (see, e.g., Mies00 ; GKGTJ03 ) in both cases. We shall show that a two level picture is particularly inappropriate to describe the Feshbach resonance crossing in 85Rb Cornish00 . Our studies reveal, however, that both the first order microscopic quantum dynamics approach of Refs. Koehler02 ; KGB02  and the two level mean field theory of Refs. Drummond98 ; Timmermans99 ; Abeelen99  predict largely the same atom loss for the experiments in Refs. Stenger99  and Cornish00 . We show that this remarkable insensitivity of the remnant condensate fraction with respect to the description of the microscopic binary collision physics is characteristic for linear ramps of the magnetic field strength and provide the essential physical parameters that determine the losses. We show furthermore that our findings are quite general as they also apply to the dissociation spectra of Feshbach molecules in upward ramps of the Feshbach resonance level, which are widely used for the purpose of molecular detection (see, e.g., Herbig03 ; Duerr03 ; Mukaiyama03 ; Duerr04 ). We note, however, that the interferometric experiments of Refs. Donley02 ; Claussen03  provide an example of a sequence of magnetic field pulses, which as a whole varies non-linearly in time. These experiments indeed reveal details of the microscopic binary collision physics beyond universal considerations Kokkelmans02 ; KGB02 ; KGTKKB04 .

## II Microscopic quantum dynamics approach

In general, the interatomic interaction depends on the relative coordinates of the atoms and couples all their hyperfine energy levels, labelled in the following by Greek indices. A trapped gas of Bose atoms is then described by the many-body Hamiltonian:

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐱\psi _\mu ^{}(𝐱)H_\mu ^{1\mathrm{B}}(B)\psi _\mu (𝐱)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu \nu \kappa \lambda }{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐱𝑑𝐲\psi _\mu ^{}(𝐱)\psi _\nu ^{}(𝐲)V_{\{\mu \nu \},\{\kappa \lambda \}}(𝐱𝐲)\psi _\kappa (𝐱)\psi _\lambda (𝐲)}.`$ (1)
Here $`H_\mu ^{1\mathrm{B}}(B)=\mathrm{}^2^2/2m+V_\mu ^{\mathrm{trap}}+E_\mu ^{\mathrm{hf}}(B)`$ is the Hamiltonian of a single atom in the hyperfine state $`\mu `$ containing the kinetic energy, the trap potential and the hyperfine energy that depends on the magnetic field strength $`B`$ due to the Zeeman effect, and $`m`$ is the atomic mass. $`V_{\{\mu \nu \},\{\kappa \lambda \}}(𝐫)`$ is the potential associated with the asymptotic incoming and outgoing binary scattering channels $`\{\kappa \lambda \}`$ and $`\{\mu \nu \}`$, which depends on the relative coordinates $`𝐫=𝐱𝐲`$. The field operators obey the Bose commutation relations $`[\psi _\mu (𝐱),\psi _\nu ^{}(𝐲)]=\delta _{\mu \nu }\delta (𝐱𝐲)`$ and $`[\psi _\mu (𝐱),\psi _\nu (𝐲)]=0`$.

All physical quantities of a gas are determined by correlation functions, i.e., expectation values (denoted by $`\mathrm{}`$) of normal ordered products of field operators in the state at time $`t`$. Quantities of particular interest are the mean field $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu (𝐱,t)=\psi _\mu (𝐱)_t`$, the pair function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mu \nu }(𝐱,𝐲,t)=\psi _\nu (𝐲)\psi _\mu (𝐱)_t\mathrm{\Psi }_\nu (𝐲,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu (𝐱,t)`$ and the one-body density matrix of the non-condensed fraction $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }(𝐱,𝐲,t)=\psi _\nu ^{}(𝐲)\psi _\mu (𝐱)_t\mathrm{\Psi }_\nu ^{}(𝐲,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu (𝐱,t)`$. We have shown in Refs. Koehler02 ; KGB02  how the exact infinite hierarchy of dynamic equations for correlation functions can be truncated to any desired degree of accuracy. In the first order approach KGB02  the mean field and the pair function are determined by the coupled dynamic equations GKGTJ03 :

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu (𝐱,t)=`$ $`H_\mu ^{1\mathrm{B}}(B)\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu (𝐱,t)+{\displaystyle \underset{\nu \kappa \lambda }{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐲\mathrm{\Psi }_\nu ^{}(𝐲,t)V_{\{\mu \nu \},\{\kappa \lambda \}}(𝐱𝐲)\left[\mathrm{\Phi }_{\kappa \lambda }(𝐱,𝐲,t)+\mathrm{\Psi }_\kappa (𝐱,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_\lambda (𝐲,t)\right]},`$ (2)
$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mu \nu }(𝐱,𝐲,t)=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\kappa \lambda }{}}\left[H_{\{\mu \nu \},\{\kappa \lambda \}}^{2\mathrm{B}}(B)\mathrm{\Phi }_{\kappa \lambda }(𝐱,𝐲,t)+V_{\{\mu \nu \},\{\kappa \lambda \}}(𝐱𝐲)\mathrm{\Psi }_\kappa (𝐱,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_\lambda (𝐲,t)\right].`$ (3)
Here $`H_{\{\mu \nu \},\{\kappa \lambda \}}^{2\mathrm{B}}(B)=[H_\mu ^{1\mathrm{B}}(B)+H_\nu ^{1\mathrm{B}}(B)]\delta _{\kappa \mu }\delta _{\lambda \nu }+V_{\{\mu \nu \},\{\kappa \lambda \}}`$ is the Hamiltonian matrix of two atoms. All the other correlation functions can be expressed in terms of the mean field and the pair function KGB02 . The coupled equations (2) and (3) are the most general form of the first order microscopic quantum dynamics approach of Refs. Koehler02 ; KGB02 , but they also include the two level mean field approach of Refs. Drummond98 ; Timmermans99 ; Abeelen99  in the Markov approximation GKGTJ03 . Higher order approximations TK02  in the general truncation scheme Koehler02  include few-body inelastic loss phenomena, like three-body recombination footnote:inelastic . We shall focus in this work on the dominant two-body scattering in the presence of the surrounding Bose gas.

## III Resonance enhanced binary collisions

### III.1 General properties of Feshbach resonances in ultracold collisions

We denote the open $`s`$ wave binary scattering channel of two asymptotically free 23Na condensate atoms in the $`(F=1,m_F=1)`$ state as the $`\{1,1\}`$ open channel (or simply as the open channel) with an associated background scattering potential $`V_{\{1,1\},\{1,1\}}(𝐫)=V_{\mathrm{bg}}(r)`$, where $`r`$ is the internuclear distance. Analogously, for 85Rb the background scattering potential is denoted by $`V_{\{2,2\},\{2,2\}}(𝐫)=V_{\mathrm{bg}}(r)`$. Throughout this paper we shall choose the zero of energy as the dissociation threshold of $`V_{\mathrm{bg}}(r)`$, i.e. $`V_{\mathrm{bg}}(r)\underset{r\mathrm{}}{}0`$. Figure 1 shows, for the case of the 85Rb Feshbach resonance, that in the vicinity of the range of magnetic field strengths (from 162.2 to 132 G) in Ref. Cornish00  the energy $`E_{\mathrm{res}}(B)`$ of a closed channel vibrational state (a Feshbach resonance level) $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ crosses zero (at $`B_{\mathrm{res}}=164.1`$ G). The resulting strong coupling between the open and the closed channel is accompanied by the emergence of a highly excited multichannel vibrational molecular bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$, whose binding energy $`E_\mathrm{b}(B)`$ vanishes at the measurable position of the Feshbach resonance of $`B_0=154.9`$ G. When the magnetic field strength is swept across the resonance from above, i.e. the energy of the Feshbach resonance level $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ is tuned upward, $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ thus ceases to exist (see Fig. 1). The $`s`$ wave scattering length of two asymptotically free condensate atoms, therefore, has a singularity at $`B_0`$. The emergence of a multichannel diatomic bound state, which causes the singularity of the scattering length at $`B_0`$, is the decisive feature of all Feshbach resonances in ultracold collision physics.

### III.2 Two channel approach

The coupling between the $`\{2,2\}`$ open channel of 85Rb and other open channels, leading, e.g., to inelastic two-body losses, is weak footnote:inelastic . In the case of 23Na the condensate atoms are in the electronic ground state and inelastic two-body losses are ruled out from the outset. It thus turns out that for the Feshbach resonances of both species the Hamiltonian of the relative motion of two atoms in free space can be reduced to just two channels Mies00 ; TKTGPSJKB03 :

$`H_{2\mathrm{B}}(B)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m}}^2\left[|\mathrm{bg}\mathrm{bg}|+|\mathrm{cl}\mathrm{cl}|\right]+V_{2\mathrm{B}}(B),`$ (4)
$`V_{2\mathrm{B}}(B)`$ $`=(|\mathrm{bg},|\mathrm{cl})\left(\begin{array}{cc}V_{\mathrm{bg}}(r)& W(r)\\ W(r)& V_{\mathrm{cl}}(B,r)\end{array}\right)(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{bg}|\\ \mathrm{cl}|\end{array}).`$ (9)
Here $`|\mathrm{bg}`$ is the product of hyperfine states associated with the open channel, $`|\mathrm{cl}`$ is the superposition of products of atomic hyperfine states associated with the strongly coupled closed channel Mies00 , and $`W(r)`$ couples the two channels. $`V_{\mathrm{cl}}(B,r)`$ is the closed channel potential that supports the resonance state $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$, i.e.

$$\left[\mathrm{}^2^2/m+V_{\mathrm{cl}}(B,r)\right]\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)=E_{\mathrm{res}}(B)\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r).$$
(10)
As only the resonance state couples strongly to the open channel, $`\mathrm{}^2^2/m+V_{\mathrm{cl}}(B,r)`$ can be replaced by the one dimensional Hamiltonian $`|\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}E_{\mathrm{res}}(B)\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}|`$ to an excellent approximation GKGTJ03 . Within the limited range of magnetic field strengths under consideration the energy associated with the resonance state is linear in the magnetic field strength, i.e.

$$E_{\mathrm{res}}(B)=\left[\frac{dE_{\mathrm{res}}}{dB}(B_{\mathrm{res}})\right](BB_{\mathrm{res}}).$$
(11)
Here $`dE_{\mathrm{res}}/dB`$ denotes the difference between the magnetic moment of the resonance state and an atom pair in the open channel, and is usually referred to as the slope of the resonance.

### III.3 Effective low energy potentials

The typical de Broglie wave lengths of the condensate atoms are much larger than the length scales set by the spatial extent of the binary interactions. The details of the potentials are, therefore, not resolved in the binary collisions. Consequently, we can use the approach of Ref. GKGTJ03  whose parameters for the 23Na and 85Rb Feshbach resonances we shall briefly summarise. For the potential energy operator $`V_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ we use the separable form

$$V_{\mathrm{bg}}=|\chi _{\mathrm{bg}}\xi _{\mathrm{bg}}\chi _{\mathrm{bg}}|,$$
(12)
with the convenient Gaussian ansatz

$$\chi _{\mathrm{bg}}(r)=\frac{e^{r^2/2\sigma _{\mathrm{bg}}^2}}{(\sqrt{2\pi }\sigma _{\mathrm{bg}})^3},$$
(13)
as introduced in Ref. KGB02  to describe the low energy background scattering of 23Na Mies00  and 85Rb Donley02 ; Roberts01 ; vanKempen02 ; Claussen03 . The background scattering potential $`V_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ then recovers the background scattering length of the atoms in the vicinity of the respective resonance, as well as the length scale

$$l_{\mathrm{vdW}}=\frac{1}{2}(mC_6/\mathrm{}^2)^{1/4}$$
(14)
set by the van der Waals interaction $`C_6/r^6`$, which is determined by the dispersion coefficient $`C_6`$. Table 1 provides the relevant physical parameters associated with the Feshbach resonances considered in this paper, and Table 2 shows the parameters $`\xi _{\mathrm{bg}}`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{bg}}`$ characterising the low energy background scattering potential. To recover the widths $`\mathrm{\Delta }B`$ of the resonances and the shifts $`B_0B_{\mathrm{res}}`$ (see Fig. 1) as given in Table 1 it is sufficient to specify $`W(r)\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$. We have used the ansatz

$$W(r)\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)=\zeta \frac{e^{r^2/2\sigma ^2}}{(\sqrt{2\pi }\sigma )^3}.$$
(15)
The parameters $`\zeta `$ and $`\sigma `$ can be obtained from Table 2. The scattering length is then exactly given by the formula

$$a(B)=a_{\mathrm{bg}}\left(1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }B}{BB_0}\right).$$
(16)
The binding energies $`E_\mathrm{b}(B)`$ in Fig. 1 have been obtained with this low energy potential matrix $`V_{2\mathrm{B}}(B)`$ by

$$H_{2\mathrm{B}}\varphi _\mathrm{b}=E_\mathrm{b}\varphi _\mathrm{b}.$$
(17)
Figure 2 shows a comparison of $`E_\mathrm{b}(B)`$, for the 907 G Feshbach resonance of 23Na, between the low energy potentials in this work and the highly accurate two channel model of Ref. Mies00 . The associated two-body time evolution operator $`U_{2\mathrm{B}}(t,\tau )`$ can be obtained by relatively simple means KGB02 , even for the time dependent magnetic field strengths in Refs. Stenger99 ; Cornish00 . $`U_{2\mathrm{B}}(t,\tau )`$ will serve as an input to the solution of the coupled equations (2) and (3).

### III.4 Differences between the 23Na and 85Rb Feshbach resonances

Although the 23Na and 85Rb Feshbach resonances considered in this paper can all be described by a low energy two channel Hamiltonian of the form of Eq. (4), with a single resonance state, the multichannel bound states which cause the singularities of the scattering length differ decisively among the resonances within comparable ranges of the magnetic field strength. The differences are illustrated in Fig. 3, which shows the admixture $`|\varphi _{\mathrm{res}},\mathrm{cl}|\varphi _\mathrm{b}|^2`$ of the closed channel state to the two channel vibrational molecular bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ of the Hamiltonian (4). For 85Rb the admixture stays small ($`<30`$ %) over the entire range of experimental Cornish00  magnetic field strengths from 154.9 to 162.2 G on the high field side of the Feshbach resonance (cf., also, Ref. TKTGPSJKB03 ). Even for the broader ($`\mathrm{\Delta }B=1`$ G) resonance of 23Na at 907 G, however, the multichannel bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ is transferred immediately into the closed channel resonance state $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$, with an admixture of more than 80 % within the resonance width. The single channel nature of the 85Rb 155 G Feshbach resonance is also visible in the binding energies in Fig. 1 because the near resonant single channel Gribakin and Flambaum estimate Gribakin93 ; KGB02

$$E_\mathrm{b}=\mathrm{}^2/m(a\overline{a})^2$$
(18)
is applicable, where

$$\overline{a}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/4)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(5/4)}l_{\mathrm{vdW}}$$
(19)
is the mean scattering length Gribakin93 , which accounts for the long range behaviour $`C_6/r^6`$ of the background scattering potential in terms of the van der Waals length in Eq. (14). For the 907 G Feshbach resonance of 23Na, however, Fig. 2 shows that Eq. (18) is even less accurate than the universal near resonant estimate Donley02 ; TKTGPSJKB03 ; GKGTJ03  $`E_\mathrm{b}=\mathrm{}^2/ma^2`$ of the binding energy.

The reason for the single channel nature of the 85Rb 155 G Feshbach resonance is the large shift of $`B_0B_{\mathrm{res}}=9.2`$ G (see Fig. 1), which leads to a large detuning of $`E_{\mathrm{res}}(B_0)/h=32`$ MHz at the resonance position. The naive physical two level picture, in which the resonance level $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ is swept across the zero energy level of the background scattering potential at the measurable position $`B_0`$ of the Feshbach resonance, and is then transferred to a bound molecular state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ at negative energies $`E_{\mathrm{res}}<0`$ (see, e.g., Ref. JTK03 ), is therefore inapplicable. In fact, the resonance state does not even cross the threshold within the entire range of experimental magnetic field strengths (from 162.2 to 132 G) in Ref. Cornish00 .

## IV Many-body approaches to Feshbach resonance crossing experiments

### IV.1 Non-Markovian nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Inserting the two-channel Hamiltonian (4) into Eq. (3) implies that the pair function has a closed channel component $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{cl}}(𝐱,𝐲,t)`$, proportional to $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$, and a long range component $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}(𝐱,𝐲,t)`$ in the open channel. Only the $`(F=2,m_F=2)`$ hyperfine state of 85Rb and the $`(F=1,m_F=1)`$ hyperfine state of 23Na have a mean field that we will denote simply by $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)`$. The dynamic equation (3) can be solved formally in terms of the mean field and inserted into Eq. (2) Koehler02 ; KGB02 . In the first order microscopic quantum dynamics approach the entire dynamics of the gas is then described by a single nonlinear Schrödinger equation Koehler02 ; KGB02 ; GKGTJ03 ; footnote:NLS

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}^2+V_{\mathrm{trap}}(𝐱)\right]\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐱,t){\displaystyle _{t_0}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\tau \mathrm{\Psi }^2(𝐱,\tau ){\displaystyle \frac{}{\tau }}h(t,\tau ),`$ (20)
with

$$h(t,\tau )=(2\pi \mathrm{})^30,\mathrm{bg}|V_{2\mathrm{B}}(B(t))U_{2\mathrm{B}}(t,\tau )|0,\mathrm{bg}\theta (t\tau ).$$
(21)
Here $`U_{2\mathrm{B}}(t,\tau )`$ is the time evolution operator associated with the magnetic field dependent Hamiltonian (4), $`\theta (t\tau )`$ is the step function, which yields unity for $`t>\tau `$ and vanishes elsewhere, and $`|0,\mathrm{bg}`$ is the zero momentum plane wave of the relative motion of two atoms in the open channel. We note that Eq. (20) accounts for the entire two-body collision dynamics including the continuum of modes above the dissociation threshold of the background scattering potential in a non-perturbative manner.

### IV.2 Contributions beyond mean field approaches

The solution of Eq. (20) determines the pair function, via Eq. (3), through its components in the open and closed channels:

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }(t)=|\mathrm{bg}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}(t)+|\mathrm{cl}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{cl}}(t).$$
(22)
A derivation KGB02 ; GKGTJ03  beyond the scope of this paper shows that the pair function determines the components of the density matrix of the non-condensed fraction in the open and closed channel to be

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{bg}}(𝐱,𝐱^{},t)={\displaystyle 𝑑𝐲\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}(𝐱,𝐲,t)\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}^{}(𝐱^{},𝐲,t)}`$ (23)
and

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{cl}}(𝐱,𝐱^{},t)={\displaystyle 𝑑𝐲\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{cl}}(𝐱,𝐲,t)\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{cl}}^{}(𝐱^{},𝐲,t)},`$ (24)
respectively. The density of the gas is thus given by

$$n(𝐱,t)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{bg}}(𝐱,𝐱,t)+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{cl}}(𝐱,𝐱,t)+|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)|^2,$$
(25)
and the total number of atoms $`N=𝑑𝐱n(𝐱,t)`$ is a constant of motion KGB02 ; GKGTJ03 .

In general, the solutions of the coupled equations (2) and (3) depend not only on the initial condensate wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t_0)`$ and but also on the initial pair function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t_0)`$, which has so far been neglected in Eq. (20). These initial conditions are determined by the experimental situation. For Feshbach resonance crossing experiments with 23Na it appears reasonable to require the condensate density to be stationary in the absence of any variation of the magnetic field strength. To find the stationary solution of the coupled equations (2) and (3), we assume that the magnetic field strength at time $`t_0`$ is sufficiently far away from the Feshbach resonance that the binary dynamics is determined entirely by the background scattering. The closed channel component of the initial pair function can then be neglected, and for its open channel component $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ as well as for the mean field $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ we choose the ansatz:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑,t)`$ $`=\sqrt{n_0(𝐑)}e^{i\mu _0(tt_0)/\mathrm{}},`$ (26)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}(𝐑,𝐫,t)`$ $`=\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}(𝐑,𝐫,t_0)e^{i2\mu _0(tt_0)/\mathrm{}}.`$ (27)
Here $`𝐑=(𝐱+𝐲)/2`$ and $`𝐫=𝐲𝐱`$ are centre of mass and relative coordinates, respectively, $`n_0`$ is the equilibrium condensate density, and $`\mu _0`$ can be interpreted as the chemical potential. The formal solution of Eq. (3) then provides the general form of the stationary pair function

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bg}}(𝐑,𝐫,t_0)=n_0(𝐑)(2\pi \mathrm{})^{3/2}\mathrm{Re}\left[𝐫|G_{\mathrm{bg}}(2\mu _0+i0)V_{\mathrm{bg}}|0\right],`$ (28)
where

$$G_{\mathrm{bg}}(2\mu _0+i0)=\left[2\mu _0+i0+\mathrm{}^2^2/mV_{\mathrm{bg}}\right]^1$$
(29)
denotes the energy dependent Green’s function associated with the background scattering potential $`V_{\mathrm{bg}}`$. Inserting the stationary ansatz of Eq. (26) for the mean field into Eq. (2) then yields the stationary nonlinear Schrödinger equation:

$`\mu _0\sqrt{n_0(𝐱)}=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}^2+V_{\mathrm{trap}}(𝐱)\right]\sqrt{n_0(𝐱)}`$
$`+[n_0(𝐱)]^{3/2}(2\pi \mathrm{})^3\mathrm{Re}\left[0|T_{\mathrm{bg}}(2\mu _0+i0)|0\right].`$ (30)
Here $`T_{\mathrm{bg}}(2\mu _0+i0)`$ is the energy dependent $`T`$ matrix associated with the background scattering potential $`V_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ (see, e.g., Ref. Koehler02 ). Evaluating the $`T`$ matrix at the energy $`2\mu _00`$, Eq. (30) recovers the usual Gross-Pitaevskii equation in the dilute gas limit ($`n_{\mathrm{pk}}a_{\mathrm{bg}}^31`$, where $`n_{\mathrm{pk}}`$ is the peak density), which then determines the chemical potential $`\mu _0`$ as well as the stationary condensate density $`n_0(𝐱)`$. In the experiments with 23Na Stenger99  the peak condensate density is on the order of $`n_{\mathrm{pk}}1.5\times 10^{15}`$cm-3 and including the initial pair function influences the dynamics on the time scales of the passage across the Feshbach resonances. We have thus included the initial pair function in Eq. (20) as explained in Ref. Koehler02 . In the experiments with 85Rb the peak density $`n_{\mathrm{pk}}2.2\times 10^{12}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ turns out to be sufficiently low for initial pair correlations to be negligible.

### IV.3 Two level mean field approach

The two level mean field approach of Refs. Drummond98 ; Timmermans99 ; Abeelen99  can be derived from the first order microscopic quantum dynamics approach in Eqs. (2) and (3) with the ansatz

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{cl}}(𝐑,𝐫,t)=\sqrt{2}\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{res}}(𝐑,t)$$
(31)
for the closed channel component of the pair function in centre of mass and relative coordinates. Here $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ is the closed channel resonance level. A derivation GKGTJ03  beyond the scope of this paper then shows that Eqs. (2) and (3) yield the coupled equations

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{m}{2}}\omega _{\mathrm{ho}}^2|𝐱|^2\right]\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)`$
$`+g_{\mathrm{bg}}|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)|^2\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)`$
$`+g_{\mathrm{res}}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐱,t)\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{res}}(𝐱,t)`$ (32)
for the condensate mean field, and

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{res}}(𝐑,t)=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{4m}}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2m}{2}}\omega _{\mathrm{ho}}^2|𝐑|^2\right]\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{res}}(𝐑,t)`$
$`+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{dE_{\mathrm{res}}}{dB}}(B_{\mathrm{res}})\right][B(t)B_0]\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{res}}(𝐑,t)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}g_{\mathrm{res}}\mathrm{\Psi }^2(𝐑,t)`$ (33)
for the mean field associated with the resonance level in the Markov approximation. Here we have assumed that the atom trap is spherical and that the closed channel resonance state experiences twice the trap potential of the atoms. The coupling constants $`g_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ and $`g_{\mathrm{res}}`$ are given by $`g_{\mathrm{bg}}=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a_{\mathrm{bg}}/m`$ and $`g_{\mathrm{res}}=(2\pi \mathrm{})^{3/2}\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}|W|\varphi _0^{(+)}`$, where $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ is the background scattering length, and $`\varphi _0^{(+)}(𝐫)`$ is the zero energy wave function associated with the background scattering GKGTJ03 . The physical picture underlying the two level mean field approach (see, e.g., Ref. JTK03 ) can be described in terms of a linear curve crossing between the energy $`E_{\mathrm{res}}(B)`$ associated with the closed channel resonance level $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ and the zero energy level of two condensate atoms (see Fig. 1). This picture, however, neglects all the other modes of the two-body background scattering continuum and, consequently, does not recover the nature of the highest excited vibrational diatomic bound state TKTGPSJKB03 . Even more importantly, in the context of this paper, the absence of continuum modes also implies that the two level mean field approach is unsuited to describe the energy distribution of the atoms lost from the condensate in an upward ramp of the Feshbach resonance level.

## V Comparison between different many-body approaches

### V.1 Loss of condensate atoms in upward ramps of the resonance level

Since, in accordance with Eqs. (23) and (24), the non-condensate density stems directly from the pair function, the build-up of pair correlations is the dominant source of atom loss from the condensate. In general, a time dependent magnetic field can transfer pairs of trapped condensate atoms either into highly excited diatomic molecules or into the complementary part of the two-body energy spectrum that contains a quasi continuum of excited levels KGB02 . In the experiments in Refs. Stenger99 ; Cornish00  molecular formation can be ruled out because the linear ramps start on the side of the Feshbach resonance where the scattering length is positive and cross the resonance in such a way that the highest excited multichannel vibrational bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ ceases to exist during the passage (see Fig. 1) footnote:phi\_res . The remaining source of atom loss from the condensate is the formation of correlated pairs of atoms in initially unoccupied excited energy levels. As the time dependent homogeneous magnetic field provides only energy but no momentum the centre of mass motion of these pairs is limited by the initial momentum spread of the Bose-Einstein condensed gas. Their comparatively fast relative motion, however, has been observed as a very dilute burst of atoms, e.g., in Ref. Donley02 , and the typical scale of experimental single particle kinetic energies of $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}/k_\mathrm{B}150\mathrm{nK}`$ has been confirmed with the first order microscopic quantum dynamics approach of this work KGB02 . We note that the two level mean field approach can only describe the transfer of condensate atoms into the resonance level $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$. The subsequent decay of this metastable state has been modelled in Ref. Abeelen99  in terms of a constant decay width. Corrections to this approach, which account for the energy dependence of this decay width have been provided in Refs. Mukaiyama03 ; GKGTJ03 .

### V.2 Experimental conditions

We have solved Eq. (20) and Eqs. (32) and (33) using a cylindrical trap potential with the radial (axial) trap frequencies of $`\nu _r=150\mathrm{Hz}`$ ($`\nu _z=1500\mathrm{Hz}`$) for the sodium experiments Stenger99 , and of $`\nu _r=17.5\mathrm{Hz}`$ ($`\nu _z=6.8\mathrm{Hz}`$) in the case of 85Rb Cornish00 . As the initial condensate mean field we have used the ground state of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with $`N=900000`$ 23Na atoms Stenger99  and $`N=1594`$ 85Rb atoms Cornish , respectively. The initial scattering length was chosen to be the background scattering length $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ for the 23Na atoms (cf. Table 1), and $`a=228a_{\mathrm{Bohr}}`$ in the case of 85Rb, corresponding to the experimental evaporation field strength of about 162.2 G. Under these initial conditions the condensate is weakly interacting (23Na: $`n_{\mathrm{pk}}a^36\times 10^5`$ with a peak density of $`n_{\mathrm{pk}}1.5\times 10^{15}\mathrm{cm}^3`$; 85Rb: $`n_{\mathrm{pk}}a^310^6`$ with a peak density of $`n_{\mathrm{pk}}2.2\times 10^{12}\mathrm{cm}^3`$).

Starting from 162.2 G, in the case of 85Rb, we have studied linear ramps of the magnetic field strength across the 155 G Feshbach resonance down to 132 G Cornish00 . In the course of these studies we have varied the inverse ramp speeds within the experimental range Cornish00  between $`1.2\mu \mathrm{s}/\mathrm{G}`$ and $`200\mu \mathrm{s}/\mathrm{G}`$. The sodium ramps where extended over much larger timescales in the experiments Stenger99 ; Ketterleprivcomm . We have therefore chosen the ramp intervals in such a way that for each ramp speed the detuning $`|E_{\mathrm{res}}(B)|`$ of the closed channel resonance state was sufficiently large at the initial and final times that increasing the ramp intervals did not significantly change the total loss of atoms from the condensate.

### V.3 Predictions of the different many-body approaches

Figure 4 shows the theoretical condensate loss curves $`(N𝑑𝐱|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)|^2)/N`$ in dependence on the inverse ramp speed for the 23Na Feshbach resonances Na907G , together with the experimental data from Ref. Stenger99 . In the course of these studies, we have solved Eq. (20) with a variety of different methods. These methods involve complete solutions of Eq. (20) including the potential of a spherical trap with the mean frequency $`\nu _{\mathrm{ho}}=\sqrt[3]{\nu _r^2\nu _z}=697`$Hz, as well as the local density approximation, which consists in solving Eq. (20) in the homogeneous gas limit with densities weighted according to the initial density distribution associated with the realistic cylindrical atom trap. We have performed these calculations including the two-body time evolution associated with the full two channel Hamiltonian (4) and with the single channel approach described in Refs. KGB02 ; GKGTJ03 . The single channel approach includes the time evolution of two atoms in the open channel with the background scattering potential adjusted in such a way that it recovers, at each magnetic field strength, the scattering length in Eq. (16) as well as the Gribakin and Flambaum estimate of the binding energy $`E_b`$ in Eq. (18). We note that the single channel approach does not explicitly include the closed channel resonance state. For comparison, we have also solved Eqs. (32) and (33) of the two level mean field approach using a spherical trap potential with the mean frequency of the cylindrical trap in the experiment Stenger99 .

The comparison between the theoretical predictions shows that although the description of the underlying microscopic collision physics differs decisively among the approaches, the predicted total loss of condensate atoms is always virtually the same. The remnant condensate fractions are therefore largely insensitive not only to phenomena related to the inhomogeneity of realistic Bose-Einstein condensates, like collective excitations, but also to the two channel nature of the two-body energy states at magnetic field strengths in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonances. In particular, the applicability of the single channel approach of Refs. KGB02 ; GKGTJ03  appears surprising because the underlying single channel Gribakin and Flambaum estimate Gribakin93  of the near resonant binding energy $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ in Eq. (18) is rather poor in the case of the 23Na Feshbach resonances (cf. Fig. 2). The comparison between theory and experiment suggests good agreement for the 853 G Feshbach resonance of 23Na but there are significant deviations for the broader 907 G resonance. Similar observations were reported also in Ref. Abeelen99 .

Figure 5 shows the analogous theoretical predictions of the different approaches with respect to the loss of condensate atoms $`(N𝑑𝐱|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,t)|^2)/N`$ in a gas of 85Rb, together with the associated experimental data from Ref. Cornish00 , in dependence on the inverse ramp speed. Also in this case, all many-body approaches, including the two level mean field model, yield virtually the same results. This is particularly remarkable because the physical picture of a single linear curve crossing JTK03 , underlying the two level mean field approach, is not applicable to the experiments Cornish00  (cf. Subsection III.4). The predicted monotonic curves in Fig. 5 follow the experimental trend but they consistently underestimate the observed losses in Ref. Cornish00 .

## VI Universality of molecular dissociation spectra

Upward ramps of Feshbach resonance levels also play an important role in the detection of ultracold molecules produced in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates, as they are frequently used for the purpose of molecular dissociation upon passage across the resonance Herbig03 ; Duerr03 ; Mukaiyama03 ; Duerr04 . The dissociation mechanism can be readily understood from the binding energies in Fig. 1 for the example of 85Rb; tuning the magnetic field strength across the resonance position from the high field side adiabatically transfers the bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ into the zero energy state of two asymptotically free atoms in the open channel. Starting from the molecular bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}(B_i)`$ at the magnetic field strength $`B_i`$, the probability of detecting a free pair of atoms with a relative energy between $`E`$ and $`E+dE`$ is given by GKGTJ03 :

$$n(E)dE=p^2dp𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐩\left|\varphi _𝐩(B_f)|U_{2\mathrm{B}}(t_f,t_i)|\varphi _\mathrm{b}(B_i)\right|^2.$$
(34)
Here $`\varphi _𝐩(B_f)`$ is the continuum energy state of the two-body two channel Hamiltonian (4) GKGTJ03 , at the final magnetic field strength $`B_f`$ of the ramp, which is associated with the final relative momentum $`𝐩`$ of the atom pair, and $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐩`$ denotes the angular component of $`d𝐩`$. We note that the relative kinetic energy of the atoms is related to their relative momentum by $`E=p^2/m`$.

Figure 6 shows the dissociation spectra $`n(E)`$ as obtained from Eq. (34) for the dissociation of 85Rb2 Feshbach molecules in the highest excited multichannel vibrational state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ upon passage across the 155 G Feshbach resonance. In these calculations the initial magnetic field strength was chosen as the experimental evaporation magnetic field strength of $`B_i=162.2`$ G reported in Ref. Cornish00 . We have varied the speeds of the linear ramps from 50 G/ms to 1000 G/ms, which illustrates that the dissociation spectra become broader in the energies with increasing ramp speeds.

The mean kinetic energies

$$E_{\mathrm{kin}}=\frac{1}{2}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑EEn(E)$$
(35)
of the molecular fragments after the dissociation characterise the speed of expansion of the gas of molecular fragments before the detection in related experiments Herbig03 ; Duerr03 ; Mukaiyama03 ; Duerr04 . We note that the kinetic energy of a single atom is $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}=p^2/2m`$, which is half the energy of the relative motion of a pair. A Fermi Golden Rule argument Mukaiyama03  shows that $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}`$ can be expressed in terms of physical parameters of a Feshbach resonance, of the ramp speed $`|dB/dt|`$ and of Euler’s $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ function Mukaiyama03 ; GKGTJ03 :

$$E_{\mathrm{kin}}=\frac{1}{3}\left[\frac{3}{4}\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m}}\frac{\mathrm{}|dB/dt|}{|a_{\mathrm{bg}}||\mathrm{\Delta }B|}\right]^{2/3}\mathrm{\Gamma }(2/3).$$
(36)
The derivation of Eq. (36) given in Ref. Mukaiyama03  relies upon the linear curve crossing picture described in Refs. Mies00 ; JTK03 , which identifies the stable multichannel molecular bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ with the closed channel resonance state $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ below the dissociation threshold of the background scattering potential. Above the threshold $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ acquires a decay width dependent on the energy $`E_{\mathrm{res}}(B)`$, which is associated with $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$. This Fermi Golden Rule decay width leads to the dissociation of the molecules.

We expect Eq. (36) to be accurate provided that the initial and final magnetic field strengths of the linear ramp are sufficiently far from the resonance position. This has been demonstrated in the experiments of Ref. Mukaiyama03 , in which 23Na2 molecules in the highly excited multichannel vibrational bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ were dissociated upon passage of the magnetic field strength across the 907 G Feshbach resonance. The derivation in Ref. Mukaiyama03  is obviously inapplicable to 85Rb ramps in the experimental range of magnetic field strengths from 162.2 down to 132 G of Ref. Cornish00  because the resonance level stays always above the threshold and the molecular bound state $`\varphi _\mathrm{b}`$ has only a small admixture of $`\varphi _{\mathrm{res}}(r)`$ ($`<30`$ % in Fig 3). Figure 7 shows, however, that the analytic formula (36) is remarkably accurate. Small deviations between Eq. (36) and the exact mean energies obtained from Eqs. (34) and (35) only occur with increasing ramp speeds. The molecular dissociation spectra thus exhibit the same insensitivity to the exact microscopic binary collision physics as the remnant condensate fractions in Section V.

## VII Conclusions

We have shown in Sections V and VI that remnant condensate fractions or molecular dissociation spectra associated with linear upward ramps of a Feshbach resonance level do not reveal the details of the underlying microscopic binary collision physics. The formula (36) for the mean single particle kinetic energy of molecular fragments suggests that the Landau Zener parameter Mies00 ; GKGTJ03

$$\delta _{\mathrm{LZ}}=4\pi \frac{N1}{𝒱}\frac{\mathrm{}}{m}\frac{|a_{\mathrm{bg}}||\mathrm{\Delta }B|}{|dB/dt|}$$
(37)
determines the universal observables in Sections V and VI when $`|a_{\mathrm{bg}}|`$, $`|\mathrm{\Delta }B|`$ and $`|dB/dt|`$ are the parameters that can be varied independently. Here $`N`$ is the number of atoms and $`𝒱`$ is the volume of the gas. For $`N=2`$ atoms the Landau Zener coefficient exactly determines the final population in the zero energy level by

$$p_0=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi \delta _{\mathrm{LZ}})$$
(38)
in a two level linear curve crossing model of a Feshbach resonance GKGTJ03 ; JTK03 , provided that the linear ramp starts and ends asymptotically far from the crossing point $`B_{\mathrm{res}}`$ (see Fig. 1). The analysis of the two level mean field equations (32) and (33) of Ref. GKGTJ03  reveals that the final populations of the remnant condensate and of the closed channel resonance state are indeed determined by $`\delta _{\mathrm{LZ}}`$, i.e. the final populations are constant when the parameters $`|a_{\mathrm{bg}}|`$, $`|\mathrm{\Delta }B|`$ and $`|dB/dt|`$ are varied in such a way that $`\delta _{\mathrm{LZ}}`$ is kept constant. In particular, the dependence of Eq. (37) on the modulus of the ramp speed shows that the final populations are insensitive with respect to the ramp direction.

The analysis in Ref. Demkov68  shows that Eq. (38) determines the exact asymptotic population $`p_0`$ in the open channel ground state even when the complete quasi continuum of modes in the open channel is taken into account in a linear curve crossing model of a Feshbach resonance. This explains why including the full two channel time evolution operator in Eq. (20) leads to the same results as the two level mean field approach for the 23Na Feshbach resonances in Section V, given that phenomena related to the non Markovian nature of Eq. (20) are negligible. Our studies of the 155 G Feshbach resonance of 85Rb in Figs. 5 and 7 suggest that also the asymptotic criterion of applicability of the two-body Landau Zener approach can be violated to a large extent without any significant changes in the results. We note, however, that the two level picture is not suited to describe the interferometric experiments of Refs. Donley02 ; Claussen03 , which employ a sequence of magnetic field pulses. In fact, the occupation of binary continuum modes, observed in these experiments, is ruled out in any two level approach from the outset and, in addition, the nature of the highest excited vibrational diatomic bound state is not recovered. This explains why the two level mean field approach fails to predict the experimentally observed atom-molecule Ramsey fringes KGTKKB04 .

Although the Landau Zener coefficient in Eq. (37) can be derived from a linear curve crossing model of a Feshbach resonance, it is independent of the slope $`dE_{\mathrm{res}}/dB`$ of the resonance and contains just the parameters $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }B`$ of the Feshbach resonance, which determine the scattering length in Eq. (16). In fact, the inset of Fig. 5 shows that the main loss of condensate atoms occurs in the close vicinity of the Feshbach resonance, where all low energy scattering properties become universal TKTGPSJKB03 ; GKGTJ03 , i.e. the associated physical observables just depend on the scattering length $`a`$. The universal parameters $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }B`$ as well as the inverse ramp speed that determine Eq. (37) are also accounted for in the single channel description of the first order microscopic quantum dynamics approach of Ref. KGB02 . We have, indeed, confirmed that the single channel description also recovers the theoretical loss curves in Fig. 5, as it does in the case of the 23Na Feshbach resonances in Fig. 4. Consequently, our studies clearly reveal that the losses of condensate atoms in linear ramps of the magnetic field strength across Feshbach resonances depend, to a large extent, just on the Landau Zener parameter. The two or multichannel nature of Feshbach resonances is virtually irrelevant to the loss curves in Figs. 4 and 5.

In summary, we have shown that physical observables, like the loss of condensate atoms or molecular dissociation spectra, associated with linear upward ramps of a Feshbach resonance level, are largely independent of the microscopic binary collision dynamics and depend just on the parameter $`|a_{\mathrm{bg}}||\mathrm{\Delta }B|/|dB/dt|`$ and on the local densities of the atoms in the gas. Consequently, related experimental studies are inconclusive with respect to the details of the interatomic interactions. The interferometric studies in Refs. Donley02 ; Claussen03  and their subsequent theoretical analysis in Refs. Koehler02 ; Kokkelmans02 ; KGB02 ; KGTKKB04  have demonstrated, however, that the universality of the physical quantities described in this paper is characteristic for linear ramps of the magnetic field strength.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are particularly grateful to Simon Cornish for providing the experimental data of Ref. Cornish00  to us. We thank Simon Gardiner, Paul Julienne, Keith Burnett, Simon Cornish, and Wolfgang Ketterle for many interesting discussions. This research has been supported through a E.C. Marie Curie Fellowship under Contract no. HPMF-CT-2002-02000 (K.G.), a University Research Fellowship of the Royal Society (T.K.), and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (T.G.).


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# Final State Interactions in Kaon Decays Revisited

## Abstract

We examine effects of final state interactions (FSI) in kaon decays using a new scheme without the Omnés function, and show that while $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ rule is impossible to be explained in terms of FSI alone, $`ϵ^{}/ϵ16.5\times 10^4`$ is obtained through FSI, if the calculation is concerned only with the CP-violating parts. The $`\pi \pi `$ contribution to the $`m_Lm_S`$ mass difference is shown to be about 14%, if the sizes of the CP conserving amplitudes $`|A_0|`$ and $`|A_2|`$ are correctly given.

@ @ @ @ @

It seems that the established theory to explain simultaneously both of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ rule and the large $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ ratio in kaon decays has not yet been obtained . In order to take a step toward resolving the issues much efforts have been made on the evaluation of hadronic matrix elements of quark operators . Among them it is advocated that taking account of final state interactions (FSI) is crucial to enhance or suppress the decay amplitudes besides giving the strong phases . The final state interactions (FSI) in the kaon decays are usually described in terms of the Omnés function  as seen in Refs.. The FSI effect written in terms of the Omnés function is, however, involved with some ambiguities, inherent in dispersion integrals, coming from the dependence on a subtraction, a cutoff and a multiplicative arbitrary polynomial function . We propose, therefore, a new scheme in this note, which makes the decay amplitude satisfy the final state interaction theorem without any dispersion relations.

In order to evaluate our scheme of FSI, we briefly see FSI in production processes of $`S`$-wave dipion states such as $`\gamma +\gamma \pi \pi `$, $`\varphi \gamma \pi \pi `$, cascade decays of heavy quarkonia and others. Let us consider a production amplitude of an $`S`$-wave dipion state with a mass $`\sqrt{s}`$, called an $`f`$-state: It is composed of a direct production term of the $`f`$-state given by tree diagrams, which we call the Born term and denote by $`B_f`$, and an indirect production term, in which at first an $`i`$-state, denoted by $`B_i`$, is directly produced and then transformed into the final $`f`$-state through the $`s`$-channel loop and the $`S`$-wave scattering amplitude $`T_{if}`$. The loop integral should be properly regularized, and it may, then, depend on the renormalization scale parameter or a cutoff parameter. We can write the production amplitude, $`F_f(s)`$ as

$$F_f(s)=B_f(s)+\underset{i}{}G_i(s)T_{if}(s),$$
(1)
where $`G_i(s)`$ is the loop integral composed of the meson propagators in the $`i`$-th channel, whose imaginary part (discontinuity along the physical cut) is given as

$$\mathrm{Im}G_i(s)=B_i(s)\rho _i(s)\theta (ss_i),$$
(2)
where $`\rho _i=p_i/(8\pi \sqrt{s})`$ with $`p_i`$ ($`s_i`$) being the CM momentum (threshold energy squared) of the $`i`$-th channel. We can easily see that the above production amplitudes satisfy the final state interaction theorem,

$$\mathrm{Im}F_f=\underset{i}{}F_i^{}\rho _i\theta (ss_i)T_{if}$$
(3)
owing to Eq.(2), where we define the sign and normalizaton of $`T_{ij}`$ so as to satisfy $`\mathrm{Im}T_{ij}=T_{ik}^{}\rho _kT_{kj}`$. We have found it very effective to use this scheme as shown in Refs.. If the Born term contains two vertices, the loop diagram is a triangle, the third vertex of which is the starting vertex of $`S`$-wave $`T_{if}`$ scattering. The triangle loop integrals are used in the two-photon collision processes , and the radiative $`\varphi `$ meson decay . In the case that the Born term is made of a single vertex, $`G(s)`$ is a two-point loop integral. If the off-shell momentum dependence of the Born term is rewritten as the on-shell part and the remaining off-shell part having a form of $`p^2m^2`$, the off-shell factor $`p^2m^2`$ cancels one of the propagators, and the divergence is absorbed into counter terms in the Lagrangian with higher chiral order. The on-shell part is written as a factorized form of the Born term and the chiral loop integral such as $`G_i(s)=B_i(s)J_i(s)`$ as seen in ChPT and in weak ChPT. Here $`J_i(s)`$ is the renormalization scale dependent chiral loop integral , and $`\mathrm{Im}J_i(s)=\rho _i(s)\theta (ss_i)`$. The scheme respects $`s`$-channel unitarity over the left-hand contributions, and this is shown to be rather valid in low energy dimeson scattering below 1 GeV or more . Vector or heavy mesons are allowed to be exchanged in the loop, but we discard them at all, because their contributions are not significant for low mass dimeson states. This scheme has some advantages over the scheme using the Omnés function; our scheme is applicable to inelastic multichannel reactions, it does not use dispersion integrals over the whole range of the physical cut, and then it is free of the ambiguities coming from the subtraction and from asymptotic behaviors of the integrands, though it depends on the logarithm of the renormalization scale $`\nu `$. Thus, probably this scheme is also useful for the $`K\pi \pi `$ decays.

In order to incorporate the above scheme into the kaon decay amplitudes, we have to know the Born amplitudes, where the decay vertex is regarded as a point, and does not have any discontinuities along the physical cut, $`s>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}m_\pi ^2`$. As $`B_I`$ we take the real amplitude for $`K_0(\pi \pi )_I`$ given as

$`B_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}V_{us}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{X}{\sqrt{6}}}\left[z_1+2z_2+3z_4+3z_6{\displaystyle \frac{Y_6^0}{X}}\right],`$ (4)
$`B_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}V_{us}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{X}{\sqrt{3}}}\left[z_1+z_2\right],`$ (5)
where we take the large $`N_c`$ limit for $`<Q_i>_I`$ and

$$X=\sqrt{2}f_\pi (m_K^2m_\pi ^2)Y_6^0=4\sqrt{2}(f_Kf_\pi )\left(\frac{m_K^2}{m_s+m_u}\right)^2.$$
(6)
For the Wilson coefficients $`z_i`$’s we take the values of the leading order (LO) approximation obtained in Ref.  at $`\mu =1`$ GeV with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{MS}}^{(4)}=435`$ MeV as

$$(z_1,z_2,z_4,z_6)=(0.901,1.541,.016,0.018),$$
(7)
which give

$`B_0`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}9.33\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV}& \hfill m_s+\overline{m}=175\mathrm{MeV},\\ 9.61\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV}& \hfill m_s+\overline{m}=150\mathrm{MeV},\\ 10.33\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV}& \hfill m_s+\overline{m}=120\mathrm{MeV},\end{array}`$ (11)
$`B_2`$ $`=`$ $`1.94\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV}.`$ (12)
The amplitudes of $`O(G_Fp^4)`$ include one-loop contributions, which is of $`O(N_c^1)`$. The $`s`$-channel pion loop term is written

$$T_I^{(2)}(s)J_{\pi \pi }(s)B_I(s)$$
(13)
evaluated at $`s=m_K^2`$ , where $`T_I^{(2)}`$ denotes the $`O(p^2)`$ amplitude for $`S`$-wave $`\pi \pi \pi \pi `$ scattering with the isospin $`I`$. This structure is the same as we encounter in the strong ChPT amplitudes, and implies that the off-shell momentum dependence of $`X`$ is the same as described above.. Thus, we rewrite the decay amplitudes as

$$A_Ie^{i\delta _I}=B_I[1+J_{\pi \pi }(s)T_I^{\pi \pi }(s)]|_{s=m_K^2},$$
(14)
where we replace $`T^{(2)}`$ by the full $`\pi \pi `$ scattering amplitude $`T_{ij}`$, which can be calculated through a unitarized ChPT. Higher order corrections should be added to $`B_I`$, except for the $`s`$-channel loop terms, but $`B_I`$ is left unchanged here in order to know the pure FSI effect. This means that we include higher order terms specially in the $`s`$-channel in order for the amplitudes to satisfy exact unitarity on the elastic physical cut.

The factor,

$$R_I(s)=1+J_{\pi \pi }(s)T_I(s)=|R_I(s)|e^{i\delta _I(s)},$$
(15)
gives the whole effect of FSI coming from the strong $`\pi \pi `$ interaction, which is shown in Fig. 1. Using the scattering amplitudes calculated in terms of a unitarized ChPT , we have

$`|R_0(m_K^2)|=1.506\text{ and }|R_2(m_K^2)|=0.836,`$ (16)
$`\delta _0(m_K^2)=41.5^{}\text{ and }\delta _2(m_K^2)=7.76^{},`$ (17)
where the renormalization scale parameter of the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction is taken to be $`\nu =1`$ GeV. We note that recent ChPT with dispersion relations gives $`\delta _0(m_K^2)\delta _2(m_K^2)=47.7^{}\pm 1.5^{}`$ . We do not take into account of $`K\overline{K}`$ and $`\eta \eta `$ channels, because their effects are very small; for example, adding the $`K\overline{K}`$ loop integral $`J_{K\overline{K}}(s)T_{K\overline{K}\pi \pi }(s)`$ gives only 0.05 at $`s=m_K^2`$. We also note that it is shown that the contributions from the $`u`$\- and $`t`$-channel loop diagrams are small .

Thus, we obtain the values of the PC-conserving amplitudes except for the strong phase $`\mathrm{exp}[i\delta _0]`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}[i\delta _2]`$ as

$$A_0=(14.06,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}14.48},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}15.56})\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV},\text{ and }A_2=1.62\times 10^8\mathrm{GeV},$$
(18)
where three values of $`A_0`$ correspond to the values of $`m_s+\overline{m}`$ at 175 MeV, 150 MeV and 120 MeV, respectively. The size of $`A_0`$ is merely about a half of the experimental value $`33.3\times 10^8`$ GeV, while the size of $`A_2`$ is rather close to the experimental value $`A_2=1.50\times 10^8`$ GeV. The ratio $`\omega ^1=A_0/A_2`$ is

$$\omega ^1=8.68,8.94,9.60$$
(19)
depending on the value of $`m_s+\overline{m}`$, respectively, which is smaller than a half of the observed value 22.1. Since the enhancement factor by FSI would be almost the maximum, it is insufficient to explain the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ rule in terms of the FSI effects alone and then we have to search for higher order contributions or more fundamental mechanism to enlarge $`B_0`$ about twice.

The values of the enhancement of FSI are very similar to those obtained in Ref. , where the once-subtracted Omnés function is used with the parameter set, the subtraction point $`s_0=0`$ and the cutoff energy squared $`\overline{z}=(1.6\mathrm{GeV})^2`$ of the dispersion integral. The dispersion integrals seem to be sensitive to these parameters, however.

Next, we consider the FSI effect on the $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ value. The ratio $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ is given as

$$\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}=e^{i\mathrm{\Phi }}\frac{\omega }{\sqrt{2}|ϵ|}\left[\frac{\mathrm{Im}A_2}{\mathrm{Re}A_2}\frac{\mathrm{Im}A_0}{\mathrm{Re}A_0}\right],$$
(20)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\pi /2\delta _0+\delta _2\theta _ϵ0`$, where $`A_Ie^{i\delta _I}`$ denotes here the full amplitude involving the CP-violating part. Usually, the CP conserving amplitudes, $`\mathrm{Re}A_2`$ and $`\mathrm{Re}A_0`$, their ratio $`\omega `$ and $`|ϵ|`$ are set to their experimental values, and the theoretical calculation is focused on the evaluation of the CP-violating amplitudes, $`\mathrm{Im}A_I`$’s. The ratio is estimated through the formula

$$\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}13\mathrm{Im}\lambda _t\left[B_6^{(1/2)}(1\mathrm{\Omega }_{IB})0.4B_8^{(3/2)}\right]$$
(21)
at $`m_s(m_c)=130`$ MeV, $`m_t(m_t)=165`$ GeV, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{MS}}^{(4)}=340`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{Im}\lambda _t=1.33\times 10^4`$. Taking both parameters $`B_6^{(1/2)}`$ and $`B_8^{(3/2)}`$ to be 1 at the large $`N_c`$ limit and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{IB}=0.25`$ in the lowest order estimate , we have $`ϵ^{}/ϵ6\times 10^4`$.

The FSI effects modify these values to $`B_6^{(1/2)}|R_0|=1.506`$, $`B^{(3/2)}|R_2|=0.836`$ and $`B_6^{(1/2)}\mathrm{\Omega }_{IB}|R_2|=0.209`$, since the last term is proportional to $`\mathrm{Im}A_2`$ , and then the value of the square brackets in Eq.(21) is 0.963, that is larger by a factor of 2.75 than the value at the large $`N_c`$ limit. Thus, we have

$$\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}16.5\times 10^4.$$
(22)
This enhanced ratio is almost the same as the values obtained in Refs. . If higher order corrections except for the $`s`$-channel loops are taken into the calculation of $`B_6`$ and $`B_8`$, we would have a larger value of $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$.

If we do not distinguish the physics underlying the CP-violating part from that of the CP-conserving part, both numerator and denominator of the first and of the second term in the square brackets of Eq.(20) are multiplied by the same factor, $`|R_2|`$ and $`|R_0|`$, respectively, and then the effect of FSI does not work at all. The parameter $`ϵ`$ is also independent of FSI, but $`\omega `$ is suppressed.. In this case it is also impossible to understand the large size of the direct CP violation in terms of the FSI effects.

We discuss last the $`\pi \pi `$ contributions to the $`K_LK_S`$ mass difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=m_Lm_S`$. It is said that the short distance component dominates the mass difference through the effective $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=2`$ Hamiltonian . According to them typically 70% of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ can be described by the short distance contribution, and the remaining of $`30`$% in $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ is attributed to the long distance component. Our interest is in the estimate of the $`\pi \pi `$ contribution to the mass difference. Pennington calculated this by using the once-subtracted dispersion relation with the experimental $`\pi \pi `$ S-wave phase shift, and obtained $`\mathrm{\Delta }m/\mathrm{\Gamma }_S=0.22\pm 0.03`$ , where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_S`$ is the total $`K_S`$ decay width and the experimental value is $`7.36\times 10^{15}\mathrm{GeV}`$.

We apply our scheme to the self-energy with $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=2`$, and consider the following analytic function except for the physical cut;

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(s)=2\underset{I=0,2}{}B_I(s)\left[J_{\pi \pi }(s)+J_{\pi \pi }(s)T_I(s)J_{\pi \pi }(s)\right]B_I(s),$$
(23)
which gives

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_K^2)=2m_K\mathrm{\Delta }m+im_K\mathrm{\Gamma }_S.$$
(24)
Indeed, we have

$$\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_K^2)=\rho _{\pi \pi }[2A_0^2+2A_2^2]|_{s=m_K^2}=m_K\mathrm{\Gamma }_S,$$
(25)
where $`A_I`$ denotes the CP-conserving amplitude defined in Eq.(14). We see that the energy dependence of $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }(s)`$ is almost the same below 1 GeV as the one by Pennington, where $`m_K^2`$ in $`X`$ of $`B_I`$ is replaced by $`s`$.

The numerical value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_K^2)`$ gives the ratio of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\pi \pi }`$ to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_S`$ as

$$\frac{\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Sigma }}{2\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\pi \pi }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_S}=0.0720.074$$
(26)
for $`m_s+m_u=120`$ and 175 MeV, respectively. We note that if we modify the sizes of $`A_0`$ and $`A_2`$ so as to reproduce the experimental ones, the above ratio does not change, but we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\pi \pi }/\mathrm{\Delta }m^{\mathrm{exp}}=0.14`$, which should be compared with the value obtained by Pennington, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\pi \pi }/\mathrm{\Delta }m^{\mathrm{exp}}=0.46`$.

It should be noticed that the enhancement by $`R_0`$ near the kaon mass is not due to the $`\sigma `$ resonance, but due to the whole rescattering dynamics without the pre-existing $`\sigma `$ pole . The effects expected by introducing the $`\sigma `$ pole through the linear $`\sigma `$ model  or the nonlinear $`\sigma `$ model  can be replaced by the FSI effects without the degrees of freedom of the genuine $`\sigma `$ resonance. This replacement resolves a problem between the final state phase $`\mathrm{exp}[i\delta _0]`$ and the width ignored in the $`\sigma `$ propagator , and does the difficulty that the $`\sigma `$ pole dominance may give a too large contribution to the $`K_LK_S`$ mass difference .

The scheme for the FSI effects explained in this note is useful in the sense that it is less worried by the ambiguities concerning with the dispersion integrals. We have shown in this note that FSI alone is impossible to reproduce the expected size of $`A_0`$, but it naturally gives a large $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ ratio, if we have a sufficient size of $`|A_0|`$. It turns out that the two-pion contribution to the $`m_Lm_S`$ mass difference is about 14 % under the condition that the size of $`A_0`$ is sufficient. Thus, the crucial point for the $`K_S\pi \pi `$ decay is how to obtain $`B_022\times 10^8`$ GeV.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks K. Funakubo, Saga University, and K. Terasaki, Institute for Fundamental Physics, Kyoto University, for valuable comments. He also thanks the Department of Physics, Saga University for the hospitality extended to him.


text:
# The Optical Counterpart to SAX J1808.4–3658 in Quiescence: Evidence of an Active Radio Pulsar?

## 1 Introduction

SAX J1808.4–3658 is a transient low mass X-ray binary (hereafter LMXB) first detected with the Wide Field Cameras on board BeppoSAX in 1996 (in’t Zand et al. 1998). The source showed type I X-ray bursts and was classified as a LMXB in which the compact object is a neutron star (hereafter NS). Analysis of the burst emission, showing Eddington-limited photospheric radius expansion, allowed an estimate of the source distance of 4 kpc (in’t Zand et al. 1998). This distance has been recently updated to 2.5 kpc (in’t Zand et al. 2001). SAX J1808.4–3658 shows X-ray outbursts, lasting a few tens of days, approximately every two years, with outburst luminosities between $`10^{35}`$ and $`10^{36}`$ ergs/s and quiescent luminosities between $`10^{31}`$ and $`10^{32}`$ ergs/s (see e.g. Wijnands et al. 2001; Campana et al. 2002).

In RXTE observations performed during the 1998 outburst Wijnands & van der Klis (1998) detected coherent pulsations, at a frequency of $`401`$ Hz (corresponding to a NS spin period of $`2.49`$ ms). Timing analysis on the same data revealed Doppler orbital modulation with a period of $`2.01`$ hr and negligible eccentricity. The X-ray flux shows a weak modulation of $`2\%`$ with a broad minimum when the NS is behind the companion. Adopting a typical NS mass of $`M_1=1.35M_{}`$, the mass function of the system suggests a very low mass companion, $`M_20.14M_{}`$ at 95% confidence level, of inconspicuous intrinsic luminosity (Chakrabarty & Morgan 1998). SAX J1808.4–3658 was the first (low magnetized) LMXB to show coherent pulsations in the millisecond range in its persistent emission, thus providing the first evidence of the current evolutionary scenario, the so called recycling scenario, according to which LMXBs are the progenitors of binary millisecond radio pulsars. These are systems containing a NS, active as a radio pulsar, orbiting a light ($`0.1M_{}`$) companion and spinning at millisecond periods, with a relatively weak surface magnetic field ($`10^810^9`$ Gauss, as derived from the measure of the spin period derivative).

The optical counterpart of SAX J1808.4–3658 was identified by Roche et al. (1998) with the variable star V4584 Sagittarii. Optical spectra of the companion star showed absorption lines which are characteristic of mid to late type stars (Filippenko et al. 1998), thus supporting the conclusion that the companion star has a very low mass (probably a low-mass, irradiation-bloated, brown dwarf; Bildsten & Chakrabarty 2001). Giles et al. (1999) reported on optical photometry during the decline of the 1998 outburst (April-June): the source faded from $`V=16.72`$ to $`V20.50`$. The optical flux also showed a $`0.060.08`$ mag semi-amplitude modulation, roughly in antiphase with the weak X-ray orbital modulation, at a period which is consistent with the X-ray binary period of the system. The phasing of the X-ray optical modulation is consistent with X-ray reprocessing on the facing hemisphere of the companion star. Wang et al. (2001) interpreted the observed optical flux in outburst as emission from an X-ray heated accretion disk.

Homer et al. (2001) reported on high time resolution CCD photometry of this optical counterpart observed when the X-ray source was in quiescence. The optical component was detected at $`V21.5`$ mag, much fainter than the value observed during the X-ray 1998 outburst. The two observations in quiescence reported by Homer et al. (2001) were performed on 1999 August 10 and on 2000 July 3, respectively. An X-ray outburst of the source occurred between December 1999 and January 2000 and ended around May 2000 (Wijnands et al. 2001). Therefore these observations occurred roughly $`45`$ months before the start of this outburst and $`12`$ months after the end of the outburst, respectively. Colour images in B, V, and R obtained on 2000 July 3, were analyzed and corrected for interstellar extinction towards SAX J1808.4–3658, and are shown in Table 1. The ratio $`F_X(210\mathrm{keV})/F_\mathrm{V}`$ is $`1100`$ in outburst and $`10`$ in quiescence, respectively. This indicates that while the optical emission in outburst is certainly due to X-ray reprocessing, similar to other outbursting transients, X-ray reprocessing alone cannot be responsible of the bright optical emission observed in quiescence (Homer et al. 2001).

In these data a $`6\%`$ semi-amplitude modulation at the 2-hr orbital period of the system is still significantly detected. The photometric minimum is found when the companion star lies between the pulsar and the observer and the shape of the modulation is approximately sinusoidal, similar to what is observed during outbursts. The faintness of the low-mass companion, as well as the lack of double-humped morphology, due to an ellipsoidal modulation, excludes the direct optical emission from the companion as the origin of the observed optical flux and modulation.

Homer et al. (2001) interpret the observed optical flux as due to viscous dissipation in an unirradiated accretion disk truncated at the corotation radius, $`r_{\mathrm{co}}=(GM_{\mathrm{NS}}P_s^2/4\pi ^2)^{1/3}`$ (where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant, $`M_{\mathrm{NS}}`$ is the NS mass and $`P_s`$ is the NS spin period), that is $`30`$ km in the case of SAX J1808.4–3658, and fuelled by a mass transfer rate of $`\dot{M}10^{11}M_{}`$/yr, consistent with gravitational radiation orbital angular momentum losses. Although the adopted accretion rate is consistent with that measured during X-ray outbursts (e.g. Wijnands et al. 2001), this disk model is only consistent with the lower limits on the optical fluxes, indicating that the required mass accretion rate may be even higher than the one adopted. The optical modulation is interpreted as due to X-ray irradiation of the companion star by the remnant accretion disk. From the amplitude modulation the required level of irradiating flux has been estimated to be $`L_{\mathrm{irr}}10^{33}`$ ergs/s (Homer et al. 2001).

As already pointed out by Homer et al. (2001) this scenario meets with some difficulties. First of all, an X-ray luminosity is expected due to accretion onto the NS at a level of $`10^{35}`$ erg/s, adopting a standard efficiency of $`10\%`$ for accretion onto NSs. In principle a propeller effect could centrifugally inhibit accretion, although a residual $`10^{33}`$ erg/s are still needed to heat the companion at the level required from the optical data. This is a factor of $`1050`$ higher than the measured X-ray luminosity of SAX J1808.4–3658 in quiescence. The quiescent X-ray luminosity of SAX J1808.4–3658 has been measured several times, always resulting lower than $`10^{32}`$ ergs/s (Stella et al. 2000; Dotani et al. 2000; Wijnands et al. 2002; Campana et al. 2002). The most recent measure, $`L_q5\times 10^{31}`$ erg/s in the 0.5–10 keV range, was obtained using an XMM observation taken in March 2001 (Campana et al. 2002).

In this letter we show that these difficulties are solved if we make the case that actually the irradiation of the remnant disk and/or the companion star is due to illumination from the radio pulsar, which may switch on during quiescence, once the magnetospheric radius is pushed beyond the light cylinder radius (see e.g. Burderi et al. 2001). We suggest that the optical emission and modulation during quiescence is the first evidence that a magneto-dipole rotator (i.e. a radio pulsar) is active in this system during quiescence.

## 2 Irradiation of the disk and companion star by rotating magneto-dipole emission

It has been demonstrated that a rotating magnetic dipole in vacuum emits electromagnetic dipole radiation. Also, a wind of relativistic particles associated with magnetospheric currents along the field lines is expected to arise in a rotating NS (e.g. Goldreich & Julian 1969). This radiative regime occurs when the space surrounding the NS is free of matter up to the light cylinder radius ($`r_{\mathrm{LC}}=cP_s/2\pi `$, where $`c`$ is the speed of light, i.e. the radius at which an object corotating with the NS attains the speed of light; see Ruderman et al. 1989; Illarionov & Sunyaev 1975). Di Salvo & Burderi (2003) have shown that a magneto-dipole rotator can easily be active in SAX J1808.4–3658 during quiescence. In fact, for a luminosity in quiescence of $`5\times 10^{31}`$ ergs/s (Campana et al. 2002), the NS surface magnetic field should be $`B0.05\times 10^8`$ Gauss in order to truncate the disk inside the corotation radius and allow accretion onto the NS surface. This upper limit is incompatible with the presence of X-ray pulsations at the highest flux levels during outbursts, which requires the disk to be truncated before the NS surface, and therefore $`B1\times 10^8`$ Gauss (Psaltis & Chakrabarty 1999). On the other hand, the onset of a propeller regime or the intrinsic emission in X-rays by a magneto-dipole rotator switched-on during quiescence, implies upper limits on the magnetic field above $`1\times 10^8`$ Gauss, compatible with the presence of X-ray pulsations during outbursts.

In the hypothesis that the magneto-dipole rotator is active in SAX J1808.4–3658 during quiescence, we can evaluate the power of the pulsar beam and, consequently the irradiation luminosity. To this aim we need an estimate of the NS magnetic field in this system. As mentioned above, from a measure of the source luminosity in quiescence and using simple considerations on the position of the magnetospheric radius during quiescent periods, it is possible to estimate an upper limit on the NS magnetic field of $`B5\times 10^8`$ Gauss (Di Salvo & Burderi 2003). This, together with the lower limit mentioned above, constrains the SAX J1808.4–3658 NS magnetic field in the quite narrow range $`(15)\times 10^8`$ Gauss. Adopting this magnetic field we can calculate the spin-down energy loss of the pulsar, i.e. the energy emitted by the pulsar in the case in which the radio pulsar switches on: $`L_{PSR}=(2/3c^3)\mu ^2\omega ^4=3.85\times 10^{35}P_3^4\mu _{26}^2\mathrm{ergs}/\mathrm{s}(125)\times 10^{34}`$ ergs/s, where $`\omega `$ is the rotational frequency of the NS, $`P_3`$ is the NS spin period in milliseconds, $`\mu `$ is the NS magnetic moment, and $`\mu _{26}`$ is the NS magnetic moment in units of $`10^{26}`$ Gauss cm3.

In the hypothesis that the pulsar beam heats a remnant accretion disk and/or a side of the companion star and assuming isotropic emission, we can evaluate the fraction of the irradiation luminosity that will be intercepted and reprocessed by the disk and the companion star, respectively. For the accretion disk this fraction, $`f_D`$, is given by the projected area of the disk as seen by the central source, $`2\pi R\times 2H(R)`$ (where $`R`$ is the disk outer radius and $`H(R)`$ is the disk semi-thickness at $`R`$) divided by the total area, $`4\pi R^2`$. Adopting a standard Shakura-Sunyaev disk model (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973), we find: $`f_D1.6\times 10^2\alpha ^{1/10}\dot{M}_{10}^{3/20}m_1^{3/8}R_{10}^{1/8}`$, where $`\alpha `$ is the viscosity parameter, $`\dot{M}_{10}`$ is the mass accretion rate in units of $`10^{10}M_{}`$/yr, $`m_1`$ is the NS mass in solar masses, and $`R_{10}`$ is the outer radius of the disk in units of $`10^{10}`$ cm assumed to be at $`0.8`$ of the Roche lobe radius, $`R_{L1}`$, of the primary. For a reasonable value of the viscosity parameter, $`\alpha =0.1`$, and adopting $`R_{10}2.9`$ and $`\dot{M}_{10}=0.11`$ (note that $`f_D`$ depends weakly on the mass accretion rate), we find $`f_D(1.52.1)\times 10^2`$.

Indeed the outer accretion disk can still be present in the system during the optical observations performed in quiescence by Homer et al. (2001). In fact, the observations in July 2000 were performed approximately $`12`$ months from the end of the nearest outburst (May 2000). This time interval can be compared with the time scale to “evaporate” the disk, once the magneto-dipole rotator is active. This time can be computed from the relation $`L_{PSR}f_Dt_{\mathrm{evap}}=0.5<U_D>M_D`$, where $`<U_D>`$ and $`M_D`$ are the average potential and the mass of the disk, respectively. For SAX J1808.4–3658 this rough calculation gives $`t_{\mathrm{evap}}30`$ days. On the other hand, the time scale to re-form the disk will be of the order of (or larger than) the viscous time scale of the disk: $`t_{\mathrm{visc}}=2.6\times 10^5\alpha ^{4/5}\dot{M}_{10}^{3/10}m_1^{1/4}R_{10}^{5/4}`$ s. For SAX J1808.4–3658 $`t_{\mathrm{visc}}130`$ days, that is comparable to the time interval between the optical observations performed in August 1999 and the beginning of the following outburst (December 1999). This means that a significant fraction of the disc could still be present during the July 2000 and August 1999 observations.

A fraction $`f_C`$ of the pulsar spin-down luminosity will be reprocessed by the companion star and emitted in the optical band; in this case the intercepted fraction can be written as: $`f_C=2\pi a^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )/(4\pi a^2)`$, where $`a`$ is the the orbital separation and $`\theta `$ is the angle subtended by the companion star as seen from the central source; if the companion star fills its Roche lobe, this can be written as: $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =R_{L2}/a`$, where $`R_{L2}`$ is the Roche lobe radius of the secondary and $`R_{L2}/a=0.49q^{2/3}/[0.6q^{2/3}+\mathrm{ln}(1+q^{1/3})]`$ (Eggleton 1983). Assuming a mass ratio of $`q=m_2/m_1=0.14/1.35`$ (Chakrabarty & Morgan 1998), where $`m_2`$ and $`m_1`$ are the masses of the companion and the NS in solar masses, respectively, we obtain: $`f_C1.1\times 10^2`$.

If both the outer accretion disk and the companion star are reprocessing the pulsar spin-down luminosity, the total fraction of this luminosity that will be intercepted and reprocessed is: $`f=f_D+f_C3.1\times 10^2`$ (where we adopted $`f_D2.0\times 10^2`$), giving an optical reprocessed luminosity of $`3\times 10^{32}\mu _{26}^2`$ ergs/s. At a distance of 2.5 kpc, and adopting an average inclination angle $`<i>=50^{}`$ of the normal to the plane of the disk with respect to the line of sight, this corresponds to fluxes of $`F_C1.4\times 10^{13}\mu _{26}^2`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 and $`F_D3.5\times 10^{13}\mu _{26}^2`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 from the companion and the disk, respectively. The corresponding blackbody temperatures are estimated to be $`T_C5430\mu _{26}^{1/2}`$ K for the companion star and $`T_D5080\mu _{26}^{1/2}`$ K for the irradiated surface of the disk. From the sum of two blackbodies of temperatures $`T_C`$ and $`T_D`$ and fluxes $`F_C`$ and $`F_D`$, respectively, we have calculated the predicted apparent magnitudes in three optical bands, which are perfectly in agreement with the measures reported by Homer et al. (2001) in the same optical bands. The results are shown in Table 1.

In our model, the optical modulation should again be caused by the heated side of the companion star, in agreement with the lack of ellipsoidal variations that should be expected in the intrinsic optical emission if the companion star fills its Roche lobe, as required in this system.

## 3 Conclusions

The optical counterpart of the binary millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4–3658 during quiescence was detected at $`V21.5`$ mag by Homer et al. (2001). This star shows a $`6\%`$ semi-amplitude sinusoidal modulation of its flux at $`2.01`$ hr, i.e. at the orbital period of SAX J1808.4–3658. The absence of a double peaked profile, expected in case of ellipsoidal modulation, implies that the bulk of the optical flux does not arise from the isothermal photosphere of the companion, that is believed to fill its Roche lobe because of the presence of accretion episodes indicated by frequent X-ray outbursts, and suggest irradiation of the companion star. In order to explain these puzzling observations we have proposed here that this irradiation is due to the release of rotational energy by the fast spinning NS, switched on as a magneto-dipole rotator (radio pulsar) once the magnetospheric radius is pushed beyond the light cylinder radius during quiescence. Our computations indicate that the optical magnitudes are fully consistent with this hypothesis. The scenario we propose does not require a high mass accretion rate through the disk nor a quiescent X-ray luminosity of $`10^{33}`$ ergs/s, because the luminosity for the reprocessing is supplied by the rotational energy of the pulsar, $`L_{\mathrm{PSR}}(125)\times 10^{34}`$ ergs/s. Also, we can explain why a similar semi-amplitude of $`6\%`$ is observed in the optical modulation both in outburst and in quiescence, since the reprocessor geometry in our scenario does not substantially change between outburst and quiescence.

The presence of an active magneto-dipole emitter during quiescence in SAX J1808.4–3658 as required in this scenario, suggest that SAX J1808.4–3658 should show radio pulsations in quiescence. Indeed, despite thoroughly searched in radio during its X-ray quiescent phase, no pulsed radio emission has been detected from this source up to now. In particular Gaensler et al. (1999) found an upper limit on the radio emission from this source of 0.12 mJy at 1.4 GHz using the Australia Telescope Compact Array. Burgay at al. (2003) found an upper limit of 0.98 mJy at 1.4 GHz searching for pulsed emission at the Parkes radiotelescope. The lack of radio detection can be caused by the presence of a strong wind of matter emanating from the system, i.e. the mass released by the companion star swept away by the radiation pressure of the pulsar, as predicted in the so-called radio-ejection model (Burderi et al. 2001; see also Burderi et al. 2002). This means that SAX J1808.4–3658 may show radio pulsations in quiescence when observed at frequencies higher than the standard 1.4 GHz (the frequency at which radio pulsars are normally searched), where the free-free absorption is less severe, as suggested by Ergma & Antipova (1999). We therefore suggest that the observed optical flux and modulation in quiescence may be the first evidence that a radio pulsar is active in this system when it is in quiescence.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the anonymous referee for useful suggestions. This work was partially supported by a grant from the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MURST Cofin 2001) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).


text:
# Conditions for Adiabatic Spin Transport in Disordered Systems

\[

## Abstract

We address the controversy concerning the necessary conditions for the observation of Berry phases in disordered mesoscopic conductors. For this purpose we calculate the spin-dependent conductance of disordered two-dimensional structures in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic fields. Our numerical results show that for both, the overall conductance and quantum corrections, the relevant parameter defining adiabatic spin transport scales with the square root of the number of scattering events, in generalization of Stern’s original proposal. This could hinder a clear-cut experimental observation of Berry phase effects in diffusive metallic rings.

\]

In contrast to phenomena related to Aharonov-Bohm (AB) phases  for charge carriers, the corresponding observation of Berry phases  due to the coupling of a spin to an orientationally nonuniform magnetic field $`B`$ requires the limit of adiabatic spin evolution. In mesoscopic conductors, such a limit corresponds to the situation where the carrier spin can follow the spatially varying field during transport through the system. In terms of time scales, the adiabatic limit is reached when the Larmor frequency of spin precession, $`\omega _\mathrm{s}=2\mu B/\mathrm{}`$, is large compared to the reciprocal of a characteristic time scale $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ on which, from the point of view of the spin, the direction of the field has changed significantly during motion. There is consensus that for *ballistic* (disorder-free) systems with magnetic field configurations commonly theoretically considered  and experimentally realized, it holds $`t_\mathrm{c}L/v_\mathrm{F}`$, where $`v_\mathrm{F}`$ denotes the Fermi velocity of the carriers, and $`L`$ is the characteristic length scale of the system over which the field changes. For one-dimensional (1d) ballistic systems the condition for adiabaticity, $`\omega _\mathrm{s}2\pi /t_\mathrm{c}`$, therefore reads

$$Q_{1\mathrm{d}}\frac{\omega _\mathrm{s}}{2\pi v_\mathrm{F}/L}1,$$
(1)
where we introduced the adiabaticity parameter $`Q_{1\mathrm{d}}`$.

However, in the case of disordered systems there are two candidates for the characteristic time $`t_\mathrm{c}`$: (i) the mean elastic scattering time $`\tau `$ and (ii) the Thouless time $`t_{\mathrm{Th}}=(L/\mathrm{})^2\tau `$, with $`\mathrm{}=v_\mathrm{F}\tau `$ the elastic mean free path. The issue which of these two time scales is the relevant one has recently led to a controversial discussion .

In his proposal for 1d diffusive rings Stern  perturbatively calculated the lifetime of the adiabatic eigenstates and compared it to $`t_{\mathrm{Th}}`$. He arrived at the condition

$$Q_{1\mathrm{d}}L/\mathrm{}$$
(2)
for adiabatic spin transport (Eq. (7) in Ref. ). This corresponds to setting $`t_c=\tau `$. Comparing Eqs. (1) and (2) one recognizes that in the diffusive regime, $`L\mathrm{}`$, the adiabatic limit would require a magnetic field $`L/\mathrm{}`$ times larger than in the ballistic case. This “pessimistic criterion”, which later has also been advocated by van Langen *et al.*  , would imply field strengths in the quantum Hall regime that let an experimental observation of Berry phases in diffusive metallic rings appear rather unlikely.

Alternatively, in analogy to the ballistic travelling time $`L/v_F`$, it appears convincing to associate $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ for diffusive systems with $`t_{\mathrm{Th}}`$, the time it takes the electron to *diffuse* through the structure. This argumentation has been put forward by Loss *et al.*  . By calculating the quantum corrections of the conductance in diffusive 1d rings they predicted clear signatures of Berry’s phase to be observable in a regime given by

$$Q_{1\mathrm{d}}\mathrm{}/L.$$
(3)
This condition for adiabaticity differs from criterion (2) by a factor $`(L/\mathrm{})^2`$ and predicts for the observability of Berry phases a field strength above 20 mT, which is well in reach of modern experimental techniques .

In view of various recent experimental efforts to observe Berry phases in the magneto conductance of mesoscopic rings , a clarification of this issue of the relevant time scale is desirable. The derivations of the conditions (2) and (3) were based on diagrammatic and semiclassical techniques. Here we choose a different approach and study numerically the spin-dependent conductance of ballistic and disordered mesoscopic systems in the presence of a spatially varying magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}(\stackrel{}{r})=\times \stackrel{}{A}(\stackrel{}{r})`$. The Hamiltonian for noninteracting electrons with effective mass $`m^{}`$ and charge $`e`$ reads

$$H=\frac{1}{2m^{}}\left[\stackrel{}{p}+\frac{e}{c}\stackrel{}{A}(\stackrel{}{r})\right]^2+V(\stackrel{}{r})+\mu \stackrel{}{B}(\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{}{\sigma }.$$
(4)
The nontrivial coupling of the spin to the magnetic field enters via the Zeeman term $`\mu \stackrel{}{B}(\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$, where $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ is the Pauli spin vector and $`\mu =g^{}e\mathrm{}/(4m_0c)`$ the magnetic moment with $`g^{}`$ the gyromagnetic ratio. The electrostatic potential $`V(\stackrel{}{r})`$ includes the confinement and the potential of random impurities in the disordered case. At $`T=0`$ the spin-dependent conductance of a mesoscopic system with two attached leads is given by the Landauer formula

$$G=\frac{e^2}{h}\underset{s^{},s=\pm 1}{}T_{s^{}s}=\frac{e^2}{h}\underset{m^{},m=1}{\overset{M}{}}\underset{s^{},s=\pm 1}{}|t_{s^{}s}^{m^{}m}|^2.$$
(5)
Here $`t_{s^{}s}^{m^{}m}`$ is the transmission amplitude from an incoming channel $`m`$ with spin $`s`$ to an outgoing channel ($`m^{},s^{}`$). We calculate $`t_{s^{}s}^{m^{}m}`$ by projecting the corresponding Green function matrix onto the asymptotic spinors in the leads. We compute the Green function for the Hamiltonian (4) numerically, using a generalized version of the recursive Green function technique based on a tight-binding model  including spin . We model the (non-magnetic) disorder potential leading to elastic scattering within an Anderson model by chosing random delta-like scatterers with amplitudes following a box distribution. The spin-dependent conductance is then obtained from ensemble averages over independent disorder configurations .

We now turn to the subject of interest and study how adiabaticity is approached in mesoscopic spin quantum transport. For this purpose we introduce a model system consisting of a 2d strip with a rotating in-plane magnetic field between two ballistic leads, see Fig. 1. This system can also be regarded as a model for transport through magnetic domain walls. We assume incoming electrons with spin-down polarization in the $`y`$ direction, injected from the left with Fermi wave number $`k_\mathrm{F}=2\pi /\lambda _\mathrm{F}`$.

We first consider the overall conductance. In the ballistic case, it is feasible to derive an analytical expression for the spin-resolved transmission of this system using a transfer matrix approach. The normalized transmission $`T_{}`$ for spin-down polarized incoming electrons to exit the system with spin-down polarization reads

$$T_{}\frac{1}{M}\underset{m^{},m=1}{\overset{M}{}}|t_{1,1}^{m^{}m}|^2=\underset{m=1}{\overset{M}{}}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\pi }{2}\sqrt{1+Q_m^2}\right)}{M(1+Q_m^2)}$$
(6)
with the generalized adiabaticity parameter (Eq. (1)),

$$Q_m\frac{g^{}}{k_\mathrm{F}W}\frac{m^{}}{m_0}\left(\frac{LWB}{hc/e}\right)\left[1\left(\frac{m\pi }{k_\mathrm{F}W}\right)^2\right]^{1/2},$$
(7)
for the $`m`$-th propagating mode in a 2d strip of length $`L`$ and width $`W`$. Summing over all transverse modes in Eq. (6) we find that the overall dependence of the ballistic transmission (dashed lines in Fig. 2) is given by a Lorentzian $`T_{}1/(1+Q^2)`$ (dotted lines). This defines an ‘effective’ adiabaticity parameter $`QB`$ for the 2d strip, with $`Q_1<Q<Q_M`$ and $`Q1.4Q_{1\mathrm{d}}`$. This allows us to introduce a quantity that solely characterizes the adiabatic regime in the case of several open channels.

For $`B0`$ the spin direction is preserved and $`T_{}`$ is maximal. In the limit of a strong $`B`$-field the spin stays adiabatically aligned with the orientationally inhomogeneous field during transport, minimizing the probability of leaving the conductor in Fig. 1 in a spin-down state. The Lorentzian dependence of $`T_{}`$ on $`QB`$ reflects this behavior and appears as the natural measure for the crossover from the non-adiabatic ($`T_{}1,Q1`$) to the adiabatic ($`T_{}0,Q1`$) regime.

To find a proper condition for adiabaticity in the disordered case we compute the ensemble averaged transmission $`T_{}`$ in the presence of elastic scattering for $`\lambda _\mathrm{F}\mathrm{}`$ as a function of $`Q`$ and compare it to the ballistic result (6). Our results for different ratios $`L/\mathrm{}`$ are shown as the solid lines in Fig. 2 exhibiting the following features:
(i) The oscillations in the ballistic transmission are averaged out with increasing disorder. (ii) For $`Q1`$, the normalized $`T_{}`$ is larger in the disordered than in the ballistic case. This means that in the presence of elastic scattering a stronger scaled field $`Q`$ is required for acceding to the adiabatic regime of $`T_{}0`$. (iii) For $`Q1`$ we observe the opposite behavior: The non-adiabatic limit of almost maximum transmission $`T_{}`$ is restricted to lower magnetic fields compared to the ballistic case. (iv) The crossover region $`Q1`$ is characterized by a transmission plateau, which approaches $`T_{}T_{}0.5`$ with increasing diffusiveness. Here, the non-magnetic disorder acts as a spin randomizer of the originally spin-polarized current. The features (i)-(iv) already begin to appear in the quasi-ballistic regime (Fig. 2(a)) and become more pronounced with increasing degree of diffusiveness given by the ratio $`L/\mathrm{}`$ (Fig. 2(c)).

After this qualitative discussion we now derive a quantitative condition for adiabaticity in the disordered strip. In analogy to the ballistic case we expect the disorder averaged transmission $`T_{}`$ to exhibit a scaled Lorentzian dependence in the limits of small and large $`Q`$. Indeed, in the adiabatic limit the Lorentz function is an excellent fit to the diffusive curve $`T_{}`$ in Fig. 2(c), if the ballistic parameter $`Q`$ is replaced by $`Q/\sqrt{N_{\mathrm{ad}}}`$ with $`N_{\mathrm{ad}}`$ being fitted (left inset Fig. 3). Corresponding results hold for the nonadiabatic limit where we use the scaling $`Q\sqrt{N_{\mathrm{nad}}}`$ (right inset in Fig. 3). We further determined $`N_{\mathrm{ad}}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{nad}}`$ for various ratios $`L/\mathrm{}`$ and obtain power-law dependences illustrated in Fig. 3. We hence can formulate as a necessary condition for adiabatic spin transport through the disordered 2d strip: $`Q(L/\mathrm{})^{0.95}`$. Comparing this with Eq. (2) we obtain a little smaller exponent. To explain this deviation we note that Eq. (2) can be written in the more general form $`Q\sqrt{N}`$, with the average number of scattering events $`N=t_{\mathrm{Th}}/\tau =(L/\mathrm{})^2`$. This suggests to associate $`N_{\mathrm{ad}}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{nad}}`$ with the number of scattering events the electron has to undergo upon traversing the microstructure. Due to the strong coupling of the finite-size 2d strip to the ballistic leads we expect the diffusion time to be smaller than the Thouless time $`t_{\mathrm{Th}}`$, thus reducing the number of scattering events.

To confirm the above arguments we independently checked numerically the dependence of $`N`$ on the scaled length $`L/\mathrm{}`$ of a finite disordered conducting strip. To this end we used a 1d  random walk model taking explicitely into account the interface between disordered and ballistic regions. We find that $`N`$ obeys a power law in $`L/\mathrm{}`$ with exponent $`1.91`$ which, as expected, is lower than two (dotted line in Fig. 3). In Fig. 3, besides small deviations for small $`L/\mathrm{}`$ in the non-diffusive limit, there is good agreement with the fitted straight lines for $`L/\mathrm{}5`$, indicating diffusive behavior. Within the given error tolerance all three curves in Fig. 3 exhibit identical exponents and deviate only in the prefactor of order one.

We conclude from our numerical, quantum mechanical results, together with the expression for $`N`$ from the independent random-walk model, that the adiabaticity parameter scales with $`\sqrt{N}`$. This enables us to formulate a *general* (system-independent) adiabaticity condition for diffusive systems, that only depends on the corresponding adiabaticity parameter $`Q`$ of the ballistic system and the mean number of scattering events $`N`$ :

$$Q\sqrt{N}.$$
(8)
For diffusive 1d rings this criterion is in perfect agreement with Stern’s original condition (2).

So far we considered the total conductance which is dominated by the Boltzmann contribution. However, signatures of Berry phases in diffusive conductors appear only in the phase coherent part of the conductance, i.e. quantum corrections such as Aharonov-Bohm (AB) oscillations and universal conductance fluctuations (UCFs). To decide whether distinct Berry phase effects, e.g. in diffusive rings, can be observed at realistic magnetic field strengths, one has to check if an adiabaticity condition different from (8) holds for the quantum corrections. For this purpose, spin-resolved UCFs represent a suitable quantity, defined as $`\delta g_{s^{}s}=\sqrt{T_{s^{}s}^2T_{s^{}s}^2}`$ in units of $`e^2/h`$. We calculated $`\delta g_{s^{}s}`$ numerically as a function of $`Q`$ for a diffusive 2d strip with $`L/\mathrm{}=15`$. The results are depicted in Fig. 4 in terms of the normalized difference $`(\delta g_{}\delta g_{})/(\delta g_{}+\delta g_{})`$ which can be regarded as a polarization. We note that the UCFs exhibit precisely the same scaling behavior as the corresponding quantity for the total conductance, $`(T_{}T_{})/(T_{}+T_{})`$, and consequently obey condition (8). Fig. 4 also illustrates the important fact that in a wide region $`\mathrm{}/LQL/\mathrm{}`$ the respective adiabatic ($`T_{}`$, $`\delta g_{}`$) and nonadiabatic ($`T_{}`$, $`\delta g_{}`$) components are comparable in magnitude.

We further note that numerical quantum calculations of the spin-dependent magneto-conductance in disordered rings subject to a circular inhomogeneous $`B`$-field show that signatures of Berry phases appear only in the AB-oscillations of the adiabatic components ($`T_{}`$ and $`\delta g_{}`$), which are dominated by electrons with spin always aligned with the local field . In view of Fig. 4 we hence can conclude for diffusive rings that in the experimentally relevant plateau region $`\mathrm{}/LQ<1`$ the adiabatic components, which show Berry phase signatures are of the same magnitude as the nonadiabatic components. Berry phase effects in the AB-oscillations of the total conductance and the UCF’s are hence masked by the regular, nonadiabatic contribution . However, in this broad plateau region one still finds effects of the inhomogeneous magnetic field that can be ascribed to the nonadiabatic generalization of the Berry phase, the Aharonov-Anandan phase . Our numerical results imply that to observe clear Berry phase effects such as the ’magic angles’ found by Engel *et al.*  in the magneto conductance and UCF’s of diffusive rings one has to go to the truly adiabatic regime given by condition (8).

For a typical experimental AB setup based on copper rings with radius $`r_0=500`$ nm and $`\mathrm{}=15`$ nm  strict application of the criterion (8) corresponds to $`B`$-field strengths larger than $`10^3`$ T. On the other hand, according to the condition $`Q1/\sqrt{N}`$, the opposite non-adiabatic regime ($`T_{}1`$) is restricted to fields smaller than 0.1 T. In the broad intermediate $`B`$-field range, covering four orders of magnitude, the magneto conductance is expected to show at most signatures of the Aharonov-Anandan phase.

Recently, imprints of Berry’s phase in AB oscillations have been reported for holes in quasi-ballistic 2d GaAs rings with strong spin-orbit interaction. A rough estimate of the system parameters suggests that the experimental conditions may fulfill the adiabaticity criterion (8) with $`B`$ replaced by an effective Rashba field strength.

To summarize we studied spin-dependent quantum transport through 2d disordered geometries. We showed that the relevant parameter defining the adiabatic limit both for the total conductance and the quantum corrections scales with the square root of the number of scattering events. This can be cast into a generalized criterion for adiabaticity for both, ballistic and disordered systems. It appears as a severe obstacle for direct experimental observation of Berry phases in the conductance through diffusive metal rings. Our numerical findings indicate that elastic scattering due to non-magnetic impurities in the presence of a spatially varying magnetic field exhibits features similar to those in systems with spin-flips associated with the scattering process as for magnetic impurities or Rashba spin orbit coupling.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank H.-A. Engel and D. Loss for helpful discussions and acknowledge support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.