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# Untitled Document

Introductory comments to the Archive version of the paper

“Can We Detect Tachyons Now?”

The present paper is placed in this Archive to call attention of a large community of experimenters to the fact that there exists a sound theoretical prediction that the light barrier may be overcome in relatively simple experiments. The paper acquaints the reader with the situation in an abbreviated and general form, and outlines the main empiric conditions that should exist or be created in the considered case. It should be emphasized that the mentioned prediction closely relates to the theoretical prediction that gravitational waves exist, since in terms of general relativity these two predictions belong to the same family. Let us also note that massive and very expensive experiments to search for these waves have already been performed, some others are being prepared, and new ones are planned.

Informative remarks

The present version slightly differs from the published one \[Acta Physica Polonica B31 (2000) 523\]. Namely, we have here small modifications (on p. 9) and extensions (on pp. 2, 3, and 9), which are marked by underlining. Note that the title page of the paper carries here number 2.

CAN WE DETECT TACHYONS NOW?000Presented at the XXVI Mazurian Lakes School of Physics, Krzyże, Poland, September 1–11, 1999. This contribution is a fragment of the presentation. The full text can be found in the LANL Archives (http://xxx.lanl.gov/hep-ph/9911441),  or in Acta Physica Slovaca 50 (2000) 381–395.

J. K. KOWALCZYŃSKI

Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences,

Al. Lotników 32/46, 02–668 Warsaw, Poland

e-mail: jkowal@ifpan.edu.pl

An exact solution of the Einstein–Maxwell equations enables us to construct a hypothesis on the production of tachyons. The hypothesis determines the kinematical relations for the produced tachyon. It also makes possible to estimate the empiric conditions necessary for the production. These conditions can occur when nonpositive subatomic particles of high energy strike atomic nuclei other than the proton. This suggests how experiments to search for tachyons can be performed. According to the hypothesis properly designed experiments with air showers or with the use of the strongest colliders may be successful. Failure of the air shower experiments performed hitherto is explained on the grounds of the hypothesis.

PACS numbers: 14.80.Kx, 25.90.+k

1. Introduction

The subject of this note is a hypothesis on the tachyon creation, based on an exact solution of the Einstein–Maxwell equations. Details are given in Ref. , where this solution is referred to as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$. The solution yields a realistic picture of the tachyonic phenomenon. This fact can therefore be regarded as an indication on the part of general relativity that the tachyon exists in nature, considering the analogy to many theoretical predictions that found later empirical confirmation. Our solution invariantly determines a spacetime point (event) that can be interpreted as a point of creation of the tachyon; and this makes the construction of the hypothesis possible. According to our solution the tachyon produces an electromagnetic field bounded by the tachyon’s shock wave. In the generated spacetime the gravitational field, i.e. the direct cause of spacetime curvature, does not exist autonomously but is only an “emanation” of the electromagnetic field. Thus, even if the latter field were by many orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest electromagnetic fields observed so far, the spacetime curvature would be completely negligible. This and the fact that the tachyon’s shock wave is electromagnetic mean that our solution is proper to describe an ionizing tachyon belonging to the microworld. The hypothesis is presented in Section 2.

Various experimental searches for ionizing tachyons have been described in a number of papers. A large majority of them is cited in Refs. \[2–7\]. The experiments were of low and high energy type. Failure of the low energy experiments is explicable by our hypothesis, as will be seen in Sections 2 and 3. In the high energy experiments air showers were exploited; and many of the experiments have reported detection of tachyon candidates but as statistically insignificant data. A single possibly positive result  has also been rejected . This situation has presumably disheartened most experimenters (the last relevant record in the Review of Particle Properties  is dated 1982 ), though some efforts were still made . According to our hypothesis, however, air shower (and accelerator) experiments may be successful and they are discussed in Section 3.

2. The hypothesis

The hypothesis says that the tachyon is produced when a neutral subatomic particle of sufficiently large rest mass (further called the generative particle) is placed in the strong electromagnetic field described just below (further called the initiating field). The generative particle is then annihilated giving birth to the tachyon.

In this section all the quantities, relations, and situations are presented in terms of the proper reference frame of the generative particle, with the use of the Lorentzian coordinates $`x,y,z`$, and $`t`$ (further $`t`$ does not appear explicitly). We assume that the origin $`x=y=z=0`$ of the spacelike coordinates is at the centre of the generative particle.

Let $`𝐄`$ and $`𝐇`$ be accordingly the electric and magnetic three-vectors of the initiating field, and let their components be denoted by $`E_i`$ and $`H_i`$. There are two types of the initiating field:

$$E_x=AB|w|,E_z=\pm 2\text{jABC},H_y=\text{jAB}|w|,$$

$$E_y=H_x=H_z=0,$$
$`(1)`$
and

$$E_y=\pm AB|w|,H_x=\text{jAB}|w|,H_z=\pm 2\text{ABC},$$

$$E_x=E_z=H_y=0,$$
$`(2)`$
where

$$j=\pm 1,|w|>1,jw<0,$$

$$A>0,B:=(5w^24)^{1/2}0,C:=(w^21)^{1/2}>0,$$
$`(3)`$
and where $`w`$ is a dimensionless parameter determining the tachyon’s velocity. Then, according to the hypothesis, the tachyon produced in the generative particle and fields (1)–(3) moves along a semi-axis $`z`$ with a velocity $`cw`$, $`c`$ being the speed of light in vacuum. The discrete parameter $`j`$ plays an important role in the exact theory based on our solution . Note that in accordance with the known properties of the spacelike world lines we may have $`|w|=\mathrm{}`$.

From relations (1)–(3) we see that

$$𝐄𝐇,|𝐄||𝐇|,|𝐄||𝐇|\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},$$
$`(4)`$
and that $`A=|𝐄|>|𝐇|`$ in the case (1) and $`A=|𝐇|>|𝐄|`$ in the case (2).

Let the tachyon produced in the initiating field (1) and (3) be called the e-tachyon (predominance of the electric field) and that produced in the initiating field (2) and (3) be called the m-tachyon (predominance of the magnetic field). The e- and m-tachyons differ since they generate different electromagnetic fields.111On the analogy of the subluminal microworld, in which only one type of charges (electric) is known, we may suspect that only one type of our tachyons exists in nature (i.e. either the e-tachyons or the m-tachyons), but today we do not yet know which one. Thus, for safety, both types should be considered.

Let $`U`$ be defined as follows: $`U=|𝐇|^1|𝐄|`$ in the case (1) and $`U=|𝐄|^1|𝐇|`$ in the case (2). Thus, by relations (1)–(3), we have $`U>1`$ and

$$U^2=54w^2,$$
$`(5)`$
i.e.

$$1<U^25.$$
$`(6)`$
If the angle between the tachyon path (a semi-axis $`z`$) and the longer three-vector of the initiating field is denoted by $`\alpha `$, then

$$\mathrm{sin}\alpha =U^1.$$
$`(7)`$
By generating perpendicular electric and magnetic fields we determine empirically the directions in space. If these fields satisfy the condition (6), then, according to the hypothesis, for each type of tachyons under consideration Eqs. (5) and (7) determine four variants of the complete kinematical conditions for the produced tachyon. The existence of four variants results from relations (1)–(3) and (7). Namely, there are double signs of the nonzero components $`E_i`$ and $`H_i`$, a double sign of $`j`$ (i.e. a double sign of $`w`$ since $`jw<0`$), and $`\mathrm{sin}\alpha =\mathrm{sin}(\pi \alpha )`$, i.e. we apparently have eight variants, but each one of these three items depends on two others.

In order to determine the principal empiric conditions for the tachyon production, we should also know the quantity $`A`$ and the rest mass $`M`$ of the generative particle. I am able to estimate only their lower limits .

In the case of $`A`$, we get

$$A6.9\times 10^{17}\mathrm{esu}/\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{or}\mathrm{oersted}.$$
$`(8)`$
In the case of $`M`$, I am able to estimate its lower limit only when $`|w|1`$ (thus for $`U1`$; note that $`|w|>1`$ and $`U>1`$), i.e. when the produced tachyon is very “slow” in the proper reference frame of the generative particle.222Such a tachyon can, however, be observed as considerably faster than light if the sense of its velocity is opposite in the laboratory reference frame to the sense of the generative particle velocity (sufficiently high but subluminal of course); cf. remarks on the backward tachyons in Section 3. Laborious calculation  gives

$$M75\mathrm{GeV}/c^2.$$
$`(9)`$
Our hypothesis concerns the production of the tachyons generating convex spacetimes; and such tachyons can exist autonomously. Let us call them principal tachyons. Each principal tachyon may be accompanied with an arbitrary (formally) number of tachyons generating concave spacetimes. The latter tachyons cannot exist autonomously but they can exist if they form a “star of tachyons” together with a principal tachyon. Let us call them accompanying tachyons. All the tachyons forming their “star” are born at one event (common creation point). Details are given in Ref. , and briefly in Ref. .

3. Comments on the empiric possibilities

The production conditions determined by our hypothesis can occur in high energy collisions with atomic nuclei other than the proton. In such collisions we can locally obtain the conditions (4) (for details see Ref. ) and the relativistic intensification of the electromagnetic fields of nuclei necessary to satisfy the condition (8). It is easy to calculate that this intensification gives $`U1`$, i.e. the condition (9) holds. Thus the gauge boson Z0 is the lightest known candidate for the generative particle. Though the mean life of this boson is very short, the production conditions can be satisfied. In fact, if a subatomic particle of sufficiently high energy strikes a nucleon included in an atomic nucleus and produces the boson Z0, then in statu nascendi this boson moves with respect to the nucleus (its remainder) with a velocity that sufficiently intensifies the electromagnetic field. In particular, neutrons present in nuclei should be struck by neutral particles, while protons by negatively charged ones. In the case of nuclei so large that we may speak of peripheral nucleons, the collision with such a nucleon (“tangent” collision) is the most effective. Note that the principal m-tachyon is produced only when the proton in the 2H, and perhaps 3H, nucleus is appropriately struck. When designing controlled collisions, we can practically use only electrons or antiprotons as the striking particles. In all the mentioned collisions we have $`U1`$ and therefore, by Eq. (7), the striking particle and the produced principal tachyon have practically the same direction of motion, but according to our theory they may have different senses . In the case of opposite senses for brevity we shall be speaking about backward tachyons, and in the case of the same senses about forward tachyons. This nomenclature relates to the principal tachyons only.

The collisions described above should occur in air showers and can be realized in or at some high-energy colliders. Let us discuss these two cases in terms of the laboratory (and thus the earth) reference frame.

The collisions producing tachyons should occur in the air showers initiated by cosmic (primary) particles of energy of $`10^{13}`$ eV and greater (events above $`10^{20}`$ eV have been reported ). Thus our hypothesis justifies air shower experiments designed to detect tachyons. The time-of-flight measurement experiments (e.g. described in Refs. ) are obviously more credible than the experiments described and/or cited in Refs. \[2–4,7,8\] and designed only to detect charged particles preceding the relativistic fronts of air showers, though a massive-measurement experiment of the latter type performed by Smith and Standil with the use of detector telescopes  has had great weight. Tachyon candidates were observed in the time-of-flight experiments  and in many “preceded front” ones including that described in Ref. , but these unlucky candidates were sunk in backgrounds and/or statistics. Thus, formally, we have to consider the results as negative. In the light of our hypothesis, however, properly designed experiments with air showers (“poor man’s accelerator” ) are worth repeating, the more so as they are relatively inexpensive.

Let us note that no forward tachyons can be observed in any air shower experiment performed in the terrestrial reference frame, since these tachyons cannot practically precede the shower fronts. In fact, it is easy to calculate from relations (5), (8), and from the relativistic law of addition of velocities that the forward e-tachyons produced in collisions with nuclei 40Ar can move in this reference frame with speeds not greater than $`1.0000008c`$. In the case of nuclei 16O or 14N, or 2H in the case of production of the forward m-tachyons, the upper speed limit is still lower. On the other hand, some tachyons accompanying those “slow” forward tachyons may travel considerably faster than light towards the ground. This is possible provided that the angle, denoted by $`\psi `$ for short, between the motion directions of such a forward tachyon and of its accompanying tachyon is sufficiently large.333In every given reference frame, if a principal tachyon moves with a speed $`|W|<\mathrm{}`$ and if the angle $`\psi `$ between the velocity $`W`$ and velocity $`V`$ of a tachyon accompanying this principal one is, for simplicity, smaller than $`\pi /2`$, then $`|V|c|W|/[c\mathrm{cos}\psi +(W^2c^2)^{1/2}\mathrm{sin}\psi ]`$ and there is a lower limit for $`\psi `$, namely $`\mathrm{arccos}(c/|W|)<\psi <\pi /2`$ in the case under consideration. Of course $`|V|>c`$ and $`|W|>c`$. Unfortunately, these fast accompanying tachyons cannot be observed in typical “preceded front” experiments since they escape from the showers sidewise. They could be observed in the previous time-of-flight experiments in the cases when the shower axis was largely inclined with respect to the flight corridor of the detector (large $`\psi `$).

The described situation seems to explain the poor statistics obtained from the previous experiments, and suggests how to design new air shower experiments to search for tachyons. It seems that the best solution would be an apparatus with many time-of-flight corridors of various directions. In order to increase efficiency, such an apparatus should be possibly close to the region of tachyon production (mountains? balloons?). To increase credibility, simple air shower detectors (placed on the ground for convenience) can additionally be used. They should be far from the main apparatus (its projection on the ground) to act when $`\psi `$ is large, i.e., when the registered showers are remote or largely inclined. If some tachyon flights through the main apparatus coincide with the signals from some of the additional detectors, then we get stronger evidence that tachyons are produced in air showers. The use of the main apparatus alone should also give us valuable results without detecting any showers.

The appearance of tachyon candidates in some previous “preceded front” experiments can be explained as the arrival of tachyons accompanying the backward tachyons. The backward tachyons produced in air showers are slightly faster than $`5c/3`$ in the terrestrial reference frame. Thus, at sufficiently high altitudes (balloons? satellites?), they should be easily identified as tachyons and the detecting system can be very simple.

Failure of the previous air shower experiments may also be explained by the very low deuterium content (cf. the beginning of this section) in the earth’s atmosphere. Indeed, if the principal e-tachyons do not exist in nature but the principal m-tachyons do (cf. Footnote 1), then the probability of production of principal tachyons is very low. Then, however, this probability strongly depends on weather. Roughly speaking, the cloudier the skies the higher the probability. (This also concerns the case of the $`5c/3`$ backward tachyons when the detecting system must be of course above the clouds.) It seems that the effect of cloudiness has not been taken into account in the experiments performed hitherto. If the principal tachyons are only the m-tachyons, then the efficiency of air shower experiments may be increased by introducing extra deuterium. For instance, we can place the above mentioned apparatus (i.e. that with many time-of-flight corridors) inside a large balloon filled with hydrogen and next dispatch the balloon to the region of tachyon production.

In the case of performing tachyon search experiments with the use of accelerators we can choose the striking particles (practically either electrons or antiprotons), the nuclei to be struck, and the energy of collisions. Relations (8) and (9) mean that the strongest colliders should be employed. At present, however, we can only direct a beam of electrons or antiprotons onto a stationary target. This would give us principal tachyons such as in the case of air showers, i.e. forward tachyons so “slow” that indistinguishable as tachyons and backward tachyons slightly faster than $`5c/3`$. As regards accompanying tachyons, we would have a much better situation since the target can be surrounded with tachyon detectors, e.g. with time-of-flight ones. The fact that tachyon candidates were observed in air shower experiments indicates that there should be no problems with the range of tachyons in the collider experiments. A collider with a high energy beam of atomic nuclei would extend our empiric possibilities. We could then control the observed speeds of backward and forward tachyons and, in consequence, change the observed velocities of the accompanying tachyons. Besides, we could then produce principal m-tachyons (cf. the preceding paragraph), which is impossible in the near future when a stationary target is used. For instance, a beam of electrons of energy of $`25`$ GeV or a beam of antiprotons of energy of $`0.1`$ TeV when colliding with a beam of deuterons of energy of $`1`$ TeV ($`0.5`$ TeV/u) or of $`0.24`$ TeV ($`0.12`$ TeV/u), respectively, would already realize the production conditions, whereas in the case of the deuterium target the energy of the striking negative particles must be $`26`$ TeV. When using stationary targets to produce principal e-tachyons, we need the striking negative particles of energy of $`0.8`$ TeV for the targets made of heavy nuclei, and of $`2`$ TeV for the targets made of light nuclei.

Let us note that in the experiments designed to detect tachyons the existence of a reference frame preferred for the tachyons should be taken into account. In terrestrial experiments we should therefore analyze the measurements in correlation with the time of the day, and additionally, in long-lasting experiments, with the season of the year. It seems obvious that from this point of view the experiments with the use of colliders are more suitable than those with air showers.

The existence of the reference frame preferred for the tachyons has been considered or postulated by many authors. Most of the relevant literature is cited in Refs. \[14–16\]. Some ideas are, however, in conflict with empiric data, some others can only be verified by means of tachyons. According to the latter ideas such a frame is imperceptible for bradyons and luxons, which means that this frame is a usual non-preferred inertial reference frame for all the tachyonless phenomena. This is not contradictory to relativity (which has been verified only in the bradyonic and luxonic domains) and is not empirically ruled out since tachyons have not yet been employed. The most natural idea (i.e. when the (local) Minkowski’s spacetime is assumed to be spatially isotropic also for tachyons) has thoroughly been analyzed in Section 3 of Ref. . Following this idea, many authors suggest that the frame in question is that in which the cosmic microwave background radiation is isotropic. If their intuition is correct, then in terrestrial experiments this frame can be revealed only by means of tachyons which are very fast (over $`800c`$) in the laboratory reference frame. If, however, the “tachyon corridor” described by Antippa and Everett  did exist, then “slow” tachyons would be sufficient to reveal it.

REFERENCES

 J.K. Kowalczyński, The Tachyon and its Fields, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw 1996.

 J.R. Prescott, J. Phys. G2, 261 (1976).

 L.W. Jones, Rev. Mod. Phys. 49, 717 (1977).

 P.N. Bhat, N.V. Gopalakrishnan, S.K. Gupta, S.C. Tonwar, J. Phys. G5, L13 (1979).

 A. Marini, I. Peruzzi, M. Piccolo, F. Ronga, D.M. Chew, R.P. Ely, T.P. Pun, V. Vuillemin, R. Fries, B. Gobbi, W. Guryn, D.H. Miller, M.C. Ross, D. Besset, S.J. Freedman, A.M. Litke, J. Napolitano, T.C. Wang, F.A. Harris, I. Karliner, Sh. Parker, D.E. Yount, Phys. Rev. D26, 1777 (1982).

 Particle Data Group, Review of Particle Properties, Phys. Rev. D50 (1994) No. 3–I, p. 1811.

 R.W. Clay, Aust. J. Phys. 41, 93 (1988).

 R.W. Clay, P.C. Crouch, Nature 248, 28 (1974).

 J.K. Kowalczyński, Phys. Lett. 74A, 157 (1979).

 T.K. Gaisser, T. Stanev, Phys. Rev. D54, 122 (1996).

 F. Ashton, H.J. Edwards, G.N. Kelly, Nucl. Instrum. Methods 93, 349 (1971).

 H. Hänni, E. Hugentobler, in Tachyons, Monopoles, and Related Topics, ed. E. Recami, North-Holland, Amsterdam 1978, p. 61.

 G.R. Smith, S. Standil, Can. J. Phys. 55, 1280 (1977).

 R. Girard, L. Marchildon, Found. Phys. 14, 535 (1984).

 J.K. Kowalczyński, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 23, 27 (1984).

 J. Rembieliński, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A12, 1677 (1997).

 A.F. Antippa, A.E. Everett, Phys. Rev. D8, 2352 (1973).

 A.F. Antippa, Phys. Rev. D11, 724 (1975).


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# The RR Lyrae Star Period – K-band Luminosity Relation of the Globular Cluster M3

## 1 Introduction

For more than a century, RR Lyrae stars, in addition to classical Cepheids, have played an important role as primary distance indicators in the Milky Way and the Local Group of galaxies. The importance of RR Lyrae stars stems primarily from their brightness, being presently observable efficiently out to distances of several Mpc; they have characteristic light curves, easily measured periods, a narrow magnitude range, and a high frequency in many globular clusters, but their intrinsic luminosity is uncertain, both empirically and theoretically (see Caputo et al. 2000, and reference therein). Indeed, the dependence of intrinsic luminosity on metal content is uncertain: metal-rich and -poor RR Lyrae stars appear to follow different linear MV – \[Fe/H\] relationships (Caputo et al. 2000).

In contrast, near-infrared observations of RR Lyrae stars hold several distinct advantages over optical investigations: they have a significantly weaker dependence on \[Fe/H\] (Bono et al. 2001); the K-band amplitudes of RR Lyrae variables are smaller than their V-band values; and their near-IR light curves are more symmetrical. All these points lead toward more easily measured and accurately determined absolute magnitudes, and importantly, with a much reduced sensitivity to reddening. The relationship between the periods and K-band magnitudes of RR Lyrae stars has been measured in the pioneering semi-empirical work of Longmore et al. (1990) who found a tight relationship for several galactic globular clusters. Bono et al. (2001) provided the theoretical support for these findings. They calculated the dependence of the relation on metallicity, and determined the intrinsic dispersion in the three relevant parameters, namely period, luminosity and chemical composition. Confirming the reliability of the relation further, Bono et al. (2001) applied the PLK relation together with predicted mass and luminosity from current evolutionary models, to forecast the parallax of RR Lyr and found a good agreement with the HST result (Benedict 2002).

As quoted in the literature before, horizontal branch (HB) stars could be regarded has having crucial importance in our understanding of several unresolved astrophysical problems such as the second-parameter problem, the UV-upturn in elliptical galaxies (Ferguson 1999), as well as the dependence of the absolute V-band magnitude MV of RR Lyrae stars on chemical composition.

A relevant key issue is abundance variations in stars. Abundance variations (typically of C, N, and O) have been found to occur along the whole stellar evolutionary sequence from below the turn-off of the main sequence to the red giant branch (RGB) in several globular clusters. It is hard to list all the significant reviews in this field, but Kraft (1994), Cannon et al. (1998), Briley et al. (2001) and references therein provide an overview of current thoughts on the subject for giant stars, while on the topic of main sequence stars, useful references can be found in Harbeck et al. (2003). RR Lyrae star luminosities, colours, and periods could be affected by inhomogeneities in the initial chemical composition of the primordial gas, internal stellar mixing processes, mass loss, and possibly multiplicity in globular clusters, and the cumulative effect of such variations may reveal themselves in precise multi-wavelength period-luminosity relation studies. It is fair to say that a database of precise, consistent measurements for a large number of RR Lyrae stars covering a range of environments (in globular clusters, the field, different galaxies, etc.) will be important for useful future tests of the intrinsic dispersion predicted by Bono et al. (2001).

In this paper, the period–K-band luminosity relation for the inner region (r $`<`$ 20′′) of the globular cluster M3 is presented. As a close agreement with the outer region relation (r $`>`$ 50′′) is generally expected to exist but has not been shown, the inner and outer region relations are compared. The motivation has been to provide further support for the near-IR period-luminosity relation as a distance indicator. This work has been made possible by K-band adaptive optics – assisted observations.

## 2 Observations and data analysis

The data consists of a series of K-band frames taken on April 19th, 21st 2000 using natural guide star adaptive optics (AO) imaging with ALFA (Kasper et al. 2000) on the 3.5 m telescope at the German-Spanish Astronomical Centre on Calar Alto. The science camera was Omega Cass with a plate scale of 0.08′′ pixel-1 giving a field of view (FoV) of 80′′ $`\times `$ 80′′. Dithering of source frames during exposures was not performed, but there were occasional changes of guide star between exposures. Observing overheads were of the order of a few $`\times `$10%, and there were target-of-opportunity override observations at the beginning of each night. Conditions were photometric on the 19th and some light cloud was present on the 21st. The K-band source details are given in Table 1. On the 21st some J-, and H-band frames were taken, but are omitted as they are not within the scope of this study. The Shack-hartmann wavefront sensor (WFS) FoV was set to 3′′ to block out neighbouring stars, and a signal threshold level was used to ignore faint stars in the WFS FoV. There were two suitable AO guide (or reference) stars, namely S1 (mV $``$ 12.8, mK = 9.3) and S2 (mV $``$ 13.2, mK = 10.2), marked in Fig. 1. A consequence of the AO correction is that the best correction occurs in the direction of the guide star, becoming worse at off-axis angles. There is no obvious evidence of systematic residuals due to radial PSF changes in the star-subtracted frames, though the central PSF flux is more pronounced toward the guide star. Through comparison with K-band data from Davidge & Grundahl, in preparation, which is reported in the next section, the effect on photometric measurements is up to a few percent at most, similar to reports by Davidge (2000) and references therein. The point spread function (PSF) FWHM varied between frames from about 0.3 to 0.6′′ (see Table 1) due to varying seeing, and signal-to-noise. The globular cluster M3 (NGC 5272; dgalactocentric = 12.2 kpc; Harris 1996) was selected because of its plentiful supply of RR Lyrae stars (Corwin et al., in preparation; Corwin et al. 2001; Clement 1997; Sawyer-Hogg 1973). Several potential guide stars are within the central few arc-minutes, and there is a relatively low number density of stars compared to M15, which presently is the only other cluster with both a well studied, and plentiful central RR Lyrae star population (Butler et al. 1998; referred to hereafter as B98). Additionally, public Hubble Space Telescope (HST) integrations taken in 1995 April 25 are available and were retrieved from the STScI science archive. Calibration details are given by Bagget et al. (2002) and Holtzman et al. (1995). The observations consist of two 70s and two 3s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) integrations with the F336W and F555W filters respectively (referred to here as U336 and V555). They are listed in Table 1. The U336 data was used to provide accurate stellar astrometry, and both filters were required for high signal-to-noise giant star magnitudes.

In the U336 frame, the core of M3 is roughly centred on the Planetary Camera (PC1) chip which has the highest angular resolution (0.045′′ pixel-1). It was thus decided to concentrate on the PC1 frame only. The exact locations of stars have been obtained by reducing the Planetary Camera (PC1) frame following the procedure developed by B98. The resulting standard deviation (rms) of the astrometry residuals from a high order U- to V-band coordinate transformation are of the order of 0.0025′′ in both axes. By using this astrometry the positions of stars in the K-band field have been accurately located. For the present application, the simple charge transfer efficiency ramp correction of Holtzmann et al. (holtzman95a (1995)) is adequate and has been applied. The U336 and V555 have been zero point calibrated according to the Holtzman et al. (holtzman95a (1995)) recipe (their Eq. (8) and Table 7).

For the near-infrared data reduction standard IRAF111IRAF is distributed by the National Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Associations of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under the cooperative agreement with National Science Foundation.  routines and scripts were used. The basic image frames (typically 60 s) were taken with the cluster centre positioned on one of the CCD quadrants, and a standard near-infrared reduction scheme of sky-subtraction and flat-fielding was followed. However, the measured sky frame illumination is non-uniform, varying across each camera quadrant, predominately along the readout direction. In contrast, the dome frames have a flatter appearance. The effect is such that the drop-off in illumination intensity is up to 20% in each quadrant. The cause is not clear. For correction of this effect, the parameters involved are the number of counts per pixel from the source S, the thermal signal T, and the observed signal O which is related to the normalized flat-field response (or relative quantum efficiency) of the imaging system, k, by

$$\mathrm{O}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{y})=\mathrm{k}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{y})\times \mathrm{S}+\mathrm{T}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{y})$$
(1)
The standard iterative procedure of fitting a low order surface function to the median filtered quadrants was applied to sky and dome flat-fields to determine the conversion image ksky / kdome (where Sdome,sky = 1.0). For each source image, the final flat-field was created by taking the inverse-normalized lights ‘on’ and lights ‘off’ dome frames in turn, then multiplying each by the appropriate conversion image, and finally taking the difference between the two of them. Importantly, this process removes the average bias and dark count in each pixel.

The next issue is sky subtraction. As K-band sky emission varies over time, sky frames taken close in time (less than about two minutes) to each object frame, which might otherwise swamp the light from the faintest stars, need to be subtracted. Sky frames were built by stacking image frames taken at different pointings at 300′′ from the cluster centre and dithered by 10-15′′. Incomplete star removal in the bottom-right chip of some median sky frames occurred due to the presence of a few close stars; but these stars are outside the PC1 region and thus have no effect on the results presented in this paper. The best fitting function \[k$`\times `$S\]sky (Ssky = 1.0) was determined for each stacked sky frame; subtraction of it from the sky frame itself yields the thermal component. As it is important to remove most of the night sky flux, the sky component (the best surface fit to the appropriate sky frames) was scaled slightly for most science frames, typically by about 1%. The thermal component, which is about 1-2% of the sky flux was then added. For hot/bad pixel removal, the flat-field was multiplied by a hot pixel mask derived from the flat-fielded sky frame. Next, for sky background removal, the flux-weighted centroid of each source frame was determined and the frames were shifted to a common centroid. This stacked source frame and the stacked sky frame, both of equal integration time, were then flat-fielded and the difference was taken.

Following the calibration of all the K-band frames, eleven frames with sub- half arc second spatial resolution were selected for signal-to-noise/crowding reasons, the flux-weighted centroid of each frame was determined, and all were shifted to a common centroid. This was done three times using a different set of frames at each turn to allow three high signal-to-noise estimates of the K-band magnitudes. In this way, a bootstrap estimate of magnitude uncertainty can be obtained later after determining the photometry. To test the internal photometric precision later using the brightest stars the individual frames were also reduced.

It is possible that analysis of the non-PC1 portion of the full K-band field in Fig. 1 may reveal some evidence for red giant branch variable stars that could be considered in the context of giant star evolution; but such a study is outside the scope of this paper.

### 2.1 Photometry

The photometric reductions have been carried out using the DAOPHOT (Stetson 1987) photometry package. The procedure used to derive U336 and V555 instrumental magnitudes, is taken from that described by B98. The V555 astrometry is estimated to be complete down to V555 = 17 (K $`<`$ 15 for (V-K)giants $`<`$ 2) based on insertion of artificial stars into the V555 frame and repeating the data reduction.

PSF-fitting was performed using the routine ALLSTAR (Stetson & Harris 1988), part of the DAOPHOT package. Each K-band frame has been considered as two sections overlapping by 20′′, and the following procedure for each section, taken partly from B98, has been carried out: The initial PSF was obtained using standard recursive techniques; the star list at this point consisted only of stars detected by DAOFIND, which typically found about 250-300 in the PC1 region. This allowed a high-order coordinate transformation between the K-band frames and the HST/PC1 field, thereby accounting for relative geometrical distortion near known RR Lyrae stars in the field. 60-90 stars were selected from each section. After applying this transformation, one for each section, to the HST/PC1 star list, the rms positional accuracy was of the order of 0.02′′ in both axes. Then, a background-subtracted image and its PSF were fed into the PLUCY (Hook et al. Hook94 (1994)) restoration task in IRAF. Although not photometrically reliable, the data from the restoration task provided good initial magnitude estimates for the brightest stars in the field. Together with these magnitudes, accurate coordinates, sky background estimates and a unique ID number for each star, a final PSF fitting could be performed. Next, U336222The light from the undetected stellar population is dominated by light from upper main sequence stars in a narrow colour range; the deviation from the mean colour for the bulk of these stars over the field is expected to be up to a few tenths of a magnitude. background estimates were scaled up appropriately, followed by re-making the PSF, and transformation of the list fitted by ALLSTAR using the new star IDs, in groups of 500 stars; the sky background is re-calculated for each star individually rather taking a group estimate as the background varies significantly across the field. Finally, the photometry from each section was tied to the same internal zero point. This step was performed by taking a calibration of a sequence of stars in the range K $`<`$ 17 against their counterparts in an average dataset. Firstly, the histogram of individual offsets, typically forming a normal-like distribution, was created. Then, in an iterative process, histogram outliers were ignored until two different estimates of the zero point offset, the weighted-histogram average and median value, differed by less than 0.01 mag. In this way, the calibration of the K-band magnitude zero point is on a robust statistical footing, insensitive to large amplitude variable stars and photometry outliers.

In the context of photometric precision, it is worth mentioning that a space-invariant empirical PSF made using 2 - 4 of the brightest stars, and modeled on a moffat elliptical function of index 1.5 works best because the background light due to the faint unresolved stellar population is distributed in an inhomogeneous way. As there is a pointing difference of about 12′′ for some frames, it was possible to test the photometric precision along both axes for each individual frame; for this, the way in which magnitudes differ from their time averaged/intensity weighted average was examined. No obvious indication of a trend with field position was found.

For validation of the quality of the instrumental magnitudes a sequence of stars in the range K $`<`$ 17 was calibrated against their counterparts in Canadian-France-Hawaii Telescope AO data from Davidge & Grundahl (2002, in preparation; referred to here as DG). Davidge & Courteau (1999) reported an absolute zero point error of $`\pm `$0.009 mag for their K-band magnitudes which came from CFHT AO observations; but conservatively, $`\sigma _\mathrm{K}`$ = 0.05 mag is assumed for the DG data. The difference between the intensity weighted average KPC1 and the DG data are compared in Fig. 2; and known RR Lyrae stars from Corwin et al. (2002, in preparation) are marked with open circles. Apart from the outlying RR Lyrae star which may be a false measurement due to stellar crowding, there is a good agreement. In Fig. 3 the rms scatter is plotted as a function of K for stars in the PC1 region with at least two (out of three) data points (bottom); and (top) for stars in common with the KDG data for which at least two KPC1 data points have been measured. It can be seen that the rms value in the RR Lyrae star magnitude range is about 0.05 mag, caused by both intrinsic variability and photometric error. It is useful to note that intrinsic K-band amplitudes of RR Lyrae stars of type RRab are up to a few tenths of a magnitude, and smaller for RRc-type variables.

For zero point validation, the Cohen et al. (1978; referred to hereafter as C78) giant branch data was considered. The V-K colour of their M3 giant branch ridgeline at MK = -3.0 ($`\sigma _{\mathrm{V}\mathrm{K}}`$=$`\pm `$0.03 mag) was checked and compared with the value found on the Ferraro et al. (2002; referred to hereafter as F00) ridgeline for globular clusters with a similar metallicity to M3; \[Fe/H\] = - 1.34 dex from Carretta & Gratton (1997) is adopted. A good agreement was found to within $`\pm `$0.05 mag. Next, in order to convert the F00 ridgeline MK to K-band magnitudes, a distance modulus of 15.00$`\pm `$0.07 mag (Caputo et al. 2000) (see Sect. 3.1 later for a discussion) was assumed and the V/K data was overlaid with the C78 V/K giant star data on the (V, V-K) colour magnitude diagram in Fig. 4. A solid line fit to the C78 data (excluding the outliers (asterisks)) is included. The slight mismatch in ridgelines close to the tip of the RGB arises because the corresponding metallicity of the F00 line is only similar but not equal to that of M3. The lower end of the RGB is much less metal-sensitive, and so, as confirmed above, it is safe to compare the ridgelines at two or more magnitudes fainter than the RGB Tip. Taking the C78 data as the reference dataset, the offset between the C78 and F00 lines suggests that the lower end of the C78 ridgeline comprises asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars at V $`>`$ 13.5. Next, the (V555, V555-KPC1) colour magnitude diagram for stars with $`\sigma _\mathrm{K}`$ $`<`$ 0.03 mag and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{V},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}555}}`$ $`<`$ 0.05 mag (the V-band zero point error is $`\pm `$0.05 mag) was overlaid with the KPC1 magnitudes shifted by -0.1$`\pm `$0.05 mag to match the lower end of the RGB fiducial ridgeline for \[Fe/H\]=-1.34 dex, (dot-dashed/thick) which was deduced from the F00 (V-K)–\[Fe/H\] relations.

### 2.2 Deriving $`<`$K$`>`$

The epochs of individual K-band frames are distributed over 20-50% of RR Lyrae star light curve cycles. Uncorrected, the measured average magnitude for each variable might differ from the intrinsic average value which is required for the PLK relation. This fact is also true for the deep/composite frames that are considered here for signal-to-noise reasons. The adopted way to tackle this issue is taken from Jones et al. (1996; referred to hereafter as J96): based on template near-IR light curves for both RRab- and RRc-type variables, the method allows the offset from the true mean magnitude to be estimated if the period, optical amplitude, and light curve phase of each exposure is known. By taking frames from different light curve phases, template shifting acts to minimize deviations from the true mean magnitude arising from uncertainties in emphemeris phase (J96). For this reason, the magnitude offset associated with each composite frames is determined by calculating the offset associated with each of its constituent frames, and then summing these values, weighted by the constituent integration times. The magnitude offset associated with each star in any of the deep frames is in the range -0.05 to 0.03 mag. The error reported for the J96 recipe is typically less than 0.03 mag; however, for each deep frame there are eleven frames covering a range of light curve phases, leading to a negligible average error, and is ignored.

Zero-pointed photometry for a sample of seven RR Lyrae stars, labelled in Fig. 1 according to Bakos et al. (2000), was matched to their associated periods (see Table 2). The RR Lyrae stars comprise five stars of the type RRab and two stars of the type RRc. Period data with a precision better than 1% is taken from CC01, Corwin (2002, in preparation) and Strader et al. (2002). The epochs in Table 2 are taken from CC02 which is based on their earlier work (CC01). The CC01 study made use of observations made on six nights in 1992, seven nights in 1993 and one night in 1997. The observations for the present study were made in 2000. Of the inner region variables considered in this paper all have a precise emphemeris, (except V253 for which none has been reported). It turns out that the results in this paper are insensitive to a random choice of emphemeris for this star, as might be expected for an intrinsically low amplitude variable. No period change has been measured by CC01 for the inner region sample considered here, although period change rates up to about 0.5 days Myr-1 were found for 38 outer region RR Lyrae stars. Even if such changes were common to each star, it is reasonable to believe that the ephemerides that CC01 published are valid for 2000. Incidentally, the robustness of the PLK technique to period uncertainties is further strengthened by the template shifting mentioned earlier which causes considerable reduction in errors arising from errors in the light curve phases. B-band amplitudes with a precision better than 5% are available from CC01 for two of the variables (A(B)V193= 1.6; A(B)V201= 1.6) and has been estimated for the remaining five variable stars using the A(B)–period plot of CC01. As noted later in Sect. 3, adopting a conservative error of $`\pm `$0.3 mag for any of the B-band amplitudes, produces a change in the measured slope of the period–luminosity relation of up to $`\pm `$0.01 mag and an even smaller error in the zero point of the relation.

Another issue is the possible presence of Blazko variables in the inner region sample of RR Lyrae stars – the light curve shapes of such Blazko-type stars could change on timescales of weeks or months. As none of the stars are labelled as Blazhko-type variables in CC01 or CC02, there is no ‘a priori’ reason to suspect the presence of such variables in the available sample but the possibility remains. However, inspection of CC01’s B-band light curves for Blazhko variables indicates that typical amplitude changes are up to about 0.5 mag, in which case the derived PLK would be relatively insensitive to the effect.

Next, the intensity weighted average of the magnitudes determined from the three deep frames is considered. For stars with at least two valid measurements, the adopted recipe for intensity weighted averaging of photometry is this: the magnitudes for each star are converted into a flux level with a certain zero point, averaged and converted back to magnitudes. The rms value was calculated for each star; they vary in the range 0.02 - 0.05 mag. For line fitting later, the instrumental magnitude error for each RR Lyrae star is taken as the average (arithmetic mean) of the rms values for the seven variable stars, scaled down by $`\sqrt{3}`$, leading to 0.03 mag. In this way, statistical differences in magnitude errors are smoothed out. The rms value is included in the measurement of the slope of a linear fit to the period versus K-band relation described in the next section.

The error in the absolute zero point of the K-band photometry from three deep frames is $`\pm `$$`\sqrt{3}`$$`\times `$0.01 mag ( relative zero pointing error); plus the error in the zero point offset is $`\pm `$0.05 mag (systematic), leading to an absolute zero point error of $`\pm `$ 0.053 mag.

### 2.3 Results

#### 2.3.1 Inner region

The fundamental period Po has been calculated for first-overtone (RRc) periods using the conversion Log Po = Log (PRRc) + 0.127 (Iben 1974), and is plotted against the calculated mean K-band magnitude for each star in Fig. 5 (top-left). Of the nine RR Lyrae stars with K-band magnitudes two stars V192, and V262 are outside the $`\pm `$ 1$`\sigma `$ envelope in Fig. 2 as they are systematically too bright; only V262 is plotted in Fig. 5 for the sake of presentation but the measured mean magnitude and uncertainty are given for both in Table 2. V192 is displaced to a brighter magnitude than the longest period RR Lyrae star; CC01 classified the star as an RRab-type variable with P = 0.481d, B = 14.94, (B-V) = 0.554, and noted it as a blend in their data. For comparison, RR Lyrae stars observed in M3 by CC01 have B-band magnitudes as bright as $``$15.8. As V192 is an outlier it is ignored in subsequent discussions. The second outlier is V262 which is marked with an open square in the left panel and has a small standard error (0.02 mag). For the seven remaining RR Lyrae stars there are three mean magnitude estimates, and the intensity weighted average is taken; one exception is V221 for which one measurement appears to be spuriously faint by 0.3 mag and the remaining two are used to estimate the average. For the measurement of the slope of the PLK relation, $`\sigma _\mathrm{K}`$, is taken to be $`\pm `$0.03 mag (rms internal scatter). Both the data and the line fit are shown in Fig. 5 (left-top). Coefficients of the relation are tabulated in Table 3. The error in the true zero point of the relation is made up of the error in the absolute zero point ($`\pm `$0.053 mag) of the K-band photometry plus (in quadrature) the error in the PLK zero point calculated by the line fitting ($`\pm `$0.05 mag) which leads to $`\pm `$0.073 mag. An additional error must be included for the MK–period relation. For reasons explained in Sect. 3.1, the adopted distance modulus is 15.07$`\pm `$0.07 mag, which leads to a zero-point error of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K},\mathrm{zero}\mathrm{pt}.}`$=$`\pm `$0.10 mag in the relation. For different future distance modulii this uncertainty must be changed accordingly.

Out of academic interest, the relation for the photometrically superior DG data set (FWHM $``$ 0.14′′) is plotted in Fig. 5 (top-right), shifted by -0.1 mag$`\pm `$0.05 mag to match the KPC1 -band photometry (zero pointed to C78); conservatively, the uncertainty in the DG photometry is taken to be 0.05 mag for the line fitting. The outlier marked with an open square at K=15.87 is V215 in CC01 and has been ignored during line fitting. There is a significant difference between the best fit line in this panel and that of the outer region relation (bottom), most likely because no J96 correction has been applied as the observing epoch is absent.

#### 2.3.2 Outer region

The work by Corwin & Carney (2001; referred to here as CC01) provides up to date information on RR Lyrae star periods and classification for the outer cluster region. The Longmore et al. (1990; hereafter referred to as L90) data was reanalyzed using the new periods for the cases of inclusion and exclusion of stars classified as Blazhko or double-mode (RRd) RR Lyrae stars. In this way, the sensitivity of the slope to these stars can be estimated, in addition to improving the precision of the relation. K-band magnitudes were taken from L90 which have an error $`\sigma _\mathrm{K}`$ = $`\pm `$0.06 mag, and the latest period values come from CC01. There are 48 stars with K-band magnitudes from the L90 study, and they cover the radial range 2.6-13.3 arc minutes. Of these stars, 37 are now known to be of type RRab, nine are of type RRc, one is of type RRd and one, V113, is not in the CC01 catalogue of variable stars in M3. However, V113 has been recorded by Szeidl (1965) as an RR Lyrae star and is therefore included. The period of V113 used by L90 is 0.513d; the same value is recorded in the Clement (1997) catalogue of variable stars. V113 is not classified by Clement (1997) but is fairly safe to take it as an RRab-type variable based on its period. The RRd star, and 15 of the RRab stars which are classified as Blazhko (irregular) RR Lyrae stars by CC01 have been ignored for the fitting; they are marked by open circles in Fig. 5 (bottom). The gradient and zero point of the PLK relation are tabulated in Table 3 for the cases of inclusion and exclusion of irregular RR Lyrae stars (rows 2 & 3 respectively). The error in the zero point of the absolute PLK relation consists of $`\pm `$ 0.06 mag (internal zero point error); $`\pm `$ 0.04 mag (rms fitting error); and $`\pm `$ 0.07 mag (distance modulus uncertainty – referred to in the previous section). This leads to a zero point error of $`\pm `$0.10 mag.

## 3 Discussion

### 3.1 Harmony in the PLK relation

Together with accurate period data from the literature, the K-band observations prove on good photometric grounds that there is no apparent difference between the inner and outer region PLK relation. This conclusion is based on the following:

1. The gradient of the inner region relation is weakly dependent on the way $`<`$K$`>`$ is calculated (intensity- or magnitude-weighted average) as shown in Table 3. The agreement is dependent on the J96 magnitude correction for RRab-type stars; excluding the correction produces a significantly steeper slope. The agreement between the inner and outer region relation is not dependent on uncertainty in A(B); an error of $`\pm `$30% in any of the amplitudes produces a change in slope of $`\pm `$0.01, which is negligible compared to fitting errors, and an even smaller error in the zero point. For both the inner and outer region relations, periods from CC01/CC02 (and Clement 1997 in the case of V113) are well determined to a precision significantly better than 1%. CC01 mean B-band magnitudes are precise to at least 5%.

2. The absolute K-band extinction, AK, can be derived using AK/E(B-V) = 0.13 (Cardelli et al., 1989). As E(B-V) = 0.01 (Dutra & Bica, 2000) which is negligible, no correction has been made for K-band atmospheric extinction which would be of the order of 0.001 mag.

From these findings I conclude the following:

1. Including the irregular variables, but taking improved periods, there is good agreement between the L90 slope measurement -2.35$`\pm `$0.15 for the outer region and value from an updated analysis of the L90 data (-2.35$`\pm `$0.14). There is also a fine agreement with the ensemble average of the relation -2.338$`\pm `$0.067 determined by Frolov & Samus (1998) who reanalyzed the period/K-band magnitude data tabulated by L90 for nine galactic globular clusters.

2. Inclusion or exclusion of the irregular variable stars has marginal impact on the gradient and zero point of the relation (see Table 3, rows 2 & 3); this arises because the irregular stars are well-distributed about the PLK line.

3. There is good agreement between the PLK relation for the inner and outer regions (see Table 3, rows 1, 2, & 3).

4. For the absolute K-band magnitude – period relation, the distance modulus to taken to be 15.0$`\pm `$0.07 mag (Caputo et al. 2000, hereafter referred to as C00) and the reasoning behind the value chosen is explained as follows: It is true that the distance modulus for M3 is uncertain with values in the range 14.8-15.2 appearing in the literature (C00). Setting observational errors aside for the sake of clarity, the uncertainty arises because in order to measure a distance modulus in a certain bandpass, the average magnitude of a sample of RR Lyrae stars in that bandpass, corrected for reddening, is measured through observations while the absolute magnitude is estimated through modeling. Thus, as a metallicity and a luminosity must be assumed for modeling, affecting the model stars’ magnitude differently in different bandpasses, there may be a mismatch between the distance modulus derived for one bandpass and the value derived for another bandpass. However, Bono et al. (2001) report a way to find an average luminosity for RR Lyrae stars by determining the luminosity that gives the same visual and IR distance modulus, thereby yielding a mean distance modulus. For M3 they find (m-M)K = 15.03$`\pm `$0.07 mag which they note as being in good agreement with the mean V-band distance modulus of 15.00$`\pm `$0.07 mag derived by C00. As Bono et al. (2001) concluded for this point, this harmony proves the internal consistency of the pulsation modeling and reinforces the belief in the literature that the reddening towards M3 is almost zero. Adopting the C00 distance modulus for the inner region relation, the absolute K-band magnitude for the inner region is:

$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=0.96\pm 0.102.42\pm 0.16\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}$$
(2)
There is good agreement with the slope of the empirical metal-free relation available in the literature provided by Jones et al. (1992),

$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=0.88\pm 0.062.33\pm 0.20\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}$$
(3)
which differs significantly from the slope of

$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=1.07\pm 0.102.95\pm 0.10\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}$$
(4)
by Skillen et al. (1993). For the outer region, excluding irregular variables, one has

$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=1.07\pm 0.102.38\pm 0.15\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}.$$
(5)
### 3.2 Comparison with theory

Bono et al. (2001) have recently calculated the theoretical PLK relation using non-linear convective stellar pulsation models over the range of stellar temperatures covered by the instability region. They considered a range of masses, chemical composition, and luminosities, and then assessed the sensitivity of the relation to these parameters. They derived that absolute K-band magnitude of RR Lyrae stars with metal content in the range 0.0001 $`<`$ Z $`<`$ 0.006 is correlated with period and metallicity as

$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=0.1392.07(\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}+0.30)+0.167\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{Z}$$
(6)
with a total intrinsic dispersion of $`\sigma _\mathrm{K}`$ = 0.037 mag, including a luminosity uncertainty of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ Log L $``$ $`\pm `$0.04, and mass variations of 4%.

The empirical study of L90 found good agreement between the PLK relations measured for several galactic globular clusters which suggests that both the evolutionary (i.e. luminosity) effects and the spread of stellar masses inside the instability strip marginally affect that relation. On the theoretical side, Bono et al. (2001) concluded that for a certain metallicity the predicted PLK relation is marginally dependent on stellar mass uncertainties. A mass difference would appear as a zero point offset in the PLK relation. In this context, it is worth remarking that CC01 tentatively suggested a possible scenario to explain the presence of some optically sub-luminous RR Lyrae stars observed toward the central region of M3, namely that collisions due to stellar crowding might prematurely halt core helium burning, leading to a lower luminosity than normal.

Another relevant issue is metallicity. Reviewing the literature, one has

$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=0.6471.72\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}+0.04[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]$$
(7)
$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=0.762.257\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}+0.08[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]$$
(8)
and

$$\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{K}=0.72\pm 0.112.03\pm 0.11\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{P}_\mathrm{o}+0.06\pm 0.08[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]$$
(9)
by L90, Liu & Janes (1990), and Jones et al. (1992) respectively. Setting \[Fe/H\] = -1.34 dex (Carretta & Gratton 1997) in Eq. ( 7) and ( 8) gives MK = -0.18 and -0.19 mag respectively for Log Po = -0.3. Eq. ( 9) gives a similar result. In contrast, the IR flux method that gives Eq. ( 5) yields MK = -0.36, which is significanty brighter; this is the same discrepancy noted by L90 and Bono et al. (2001). Next, adopting a distance modulus of 15.0 mag, tracks of constant Z were derived from Eq. ( 6) and overlaid in Fig. 5 (bottom). Measurement errors, especially in the zero point forbid a useful fit, but there is fair qualitative agreement between the data and log Z = -3.04 dex which corresponds to the adopted M3 metal abundance \[Fe/H\] = -1.34 dex. It is hard to draw a more substantial conclusion from the graph due to L90 measurement uncertainties ($`\pm `$0.06 mag) and the distance modulus uncertainty ($`\pm `$0.07 mag). Solving Eq. ( 6) yields MK = -0.367 mag in fine agreement with the IR flux method (Eq. ( 5)). Hence, the PLK relation, a metal-free relation, is in good agreement with the predicted PLZK relation, meaning that the observations are fairly well matched by the results of stellar evolutionary models. This study cannot address the issue of intrinsic dispersion in the PLK relation for signal-to-noise reasons. Incidentally, the signal-to-noise ratio of stars in the central regions of globular clusters is affected by stellar crowding quite severely. To explore the physics of stellar evolution and pulsation theory through the PLK relation in the central regions of globular clusters, very high angular resolution imaging is required, and is becoming available with adaptive optics assisted near-IR imagers, such as NAOS-CONICA on the ESO VLT, and later with NIRCam on the James Webb Space Telescope.

###### Acknowledgements.

The support of S. Hippler, M. Kasper, and the rest of the ALFA-team during observations is much appreciated. T. Davidge is thanked for providing his K-band magnitude data, as is M. Corwin for the updated list of RR Lyrae stars with their periods. The author acknowledges the support of the research and training network on ‘Adaptive Optics for Extremely Large Telescopes’ under contract HPRN-CT-2000-00147. It is a pleasure to thank the anonymous referee for several very helpful comments and suggestions.


text:
# High–𝑇_𝑐 RF SQUIDs with Large Inductance of Quantization Loop

## Introduction

At the beginning of the 90th, at the Institute in Physical–Technical Problems, Dubna, an original way of preparation high–temperature superconducting (HTS) YBa2Cu3O7-δ thick films (TFs) by a quasi binary technique Vuong\_1993 , was developed. The superconducting layer of YBa2Cu3O7-δ was formed during the reaction of synthesis between the chemically active Y2BaCuO5 substrate and the layer of “paint” prepared from a mixture of BaCuO2 and CuO, which was applied to the substrate.
A modification of this technique by means of the melting–growing (MG) technology Murakami\_1992  allowed one to obtain the TFs with microscopic inclusions of the Y2BaCuO5–phase, which play the role of additional pinning centers in the YBa2Cu3O7-δ–matrix Vuong\_1994 .
Temperature and field dependency study of the AC susceptibility of these MG TF structures shows that pinning force is increased several times as compared with TF reference samples (without MG) which superconductive characteristics are similar to those of the samples synthesized by the conventional ceramic technique Vuong\_1994 . The high density (minimum porosity) is an important feature of the MG TFs, and determines higher stability of such structures against a degradation process. Next, one–hole RF SQUIDs (see Fig. 1) were built on the basis of the MG TFs with the help of a developed method of making SQUID bridges (by a degradation in hot water vapour), and their main characteristics were investigated Vasiliev1995 .
At the operating (pumping) frequency 20 MHz, the best performance of SQUID parameters with $`L_S=29.7`$ pH was obtained: the spectral noise density (s. n. d.) $`S_\phi 310^4\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$/Hz1/2, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is the flux quanta, the energy resolution $`\epsilon 6.510^{27}`$ J/Hz, the cutoff frequency of the excess $`1/f`$ noise was less than $`1`$ Hz, and the field sensitivity $`S_F310^{13}`$ T/Hz1/2.

These studies did not aim to develope an RF SQUID with the large inductance; such SQUIDs were a by–product of works, i. e. a consequence of painting defects that led to the disorganized geometry of a quantization loop but not to degradation of superconductive properties as well.

It is clear now that it is precisely these good superconductive properties of the high–$`T_c`$ TFs synthesized in this way, and their high stability to degradation, that allowed us to obtain the data for s. n. d. of several large inductance SQUIDs with $`L_SL_F`$ (see Fig. 2).
In these SQUIDs, the popular pattern of the steady state quantum interference, as it is shown in Fig. 3, was observed.

Large inductance SQUIDs. Usually, SQUIDs with obvious defects of uniformity of TF, such as the unpainted sites on their surface, manifest high magnitude of quantization loop inductance, which is much higher than the calculated magnitude of geometrical SQUID–hole inductance.
In the case of biconnected samples, similar phenomenon is considered commonly as a manifestation of the percolation nature of supercurrent in ceramics with poor content of superconducting phase Verkin .
In our case, this fact can be interpreted as follows. The one–hole SQUID is not a one–inductance device; in this regard, it is similar to a two–hole Zimmerman’s SQUID Zimmerman1970 , but, unlike that, the one–hole RF SQUID should be considered as an asymmetric one, including two different loops of inductance.
The main, or the master, quantization loop is $`L_S`$ loop (see Fig. 4) located on the internal surface of the SQUID hole. When the SQUID bridge occurs in a normal resistive state under the action of pumping, the inductance $`L_S`$ joins in series the loop $`L_C`$ located on the external surface of SQUID (see Fig. 4). If there are no defects, then $`L_CL_S`$ (see Fig. 4 A). One can see that $`L_C`$ and $`L_S`$ are connected in a subtractive polarity mode, then such a contour operates as a differential flux transformer having a small effective inductance and a low field sensitivity, as was observed in Vasiliev1995 . The defects of painting as is shown in Fig. 4 B, may yield $`L_CL_S`$; then, the effective inductance of RF SQUID is determined by the external loop inductance $`L_C`$. The kinetic inductance, which influence in the case of thin–film is considered essential VVS , may give some contribution to the impedance of the quantization loop; in general, this aspect needs a separate research (see, also Koelle\_Chesca , Sermyagin\_2003 ).

Hereinafter $`L_S`$ means the RF SQUID efficient quantization loop inductance, which can be evaluated experimentally.
For an experimental determination of RF SQUID parameters, techniques Polushkin1989\_JINR\_Rapid , Polushkin1990  were employed. The techniques allow one to find the SQUID inductance $`L_S`$ and its coupling coefficient $`k`$ between the interferometer loop and the tank circuit, with the accuracy approximately of 20$`\%`$. A critical current $`I_c`$ of weak link is calculated directly from the value of the hysteresis parameter $`\beta =2\pi (I_cL_S/\mathrm{\Phi }_0)`$ defined from the measuring of the amplitude and displacement of the flux–to–voltage characteristic Likharev1985 .
In this paper, experimental data for RF SQUIDs with large and very large inductances $`L_SL_F`$, considerably exceeding the known published values Polushkin1989 , Vasiliev1990 , Il'ichev1997 , Chesca\_1998 , are presented. A derivation of a new flux–resolution formula for $`S_\phi `$ depending on $`L_S`$, which seems to be correct over the broad range $`L_SL_F`$, is given. It is shown, by applying the relationship for $`S_\phi (L_S)`$, that experimental data for s. n. d. of a large inductance RF SQUID allow one to estimate a sensitivity of the RF SQUID with the loop inductance $`L_S=L_F`$; i. e., to actually determine a sensitivity of the RF SQUID made of a given HTS in the case of optimal quantization loop inductance.

## 1 Fluctuations in the Interferometer

An important inherent feature of HTS SQUIDs working at 77 K, is a high level of fluctuations. If thermal fluctuations dominate in a SQUID, a method of the Fokker–Plank equation should be applied Likharev1985 , Polushkin1989 , Chesca\_1998 .
The Fokker–Plank equation is written for the probability density $`\sigma (t,\phi ,v)`$ to find a system at a time $`t`$, phase $`\phi `$, and volume $`v`$. Knowing $`\sigma (t,\phi ,v)`$, it is possible to find the average of a function $`F(\phi ,v)`$ over the statistical ensemble by the usual way

$$F(t)=\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑v\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑\phi \sigma (t,\phi ,v)F(\phi ,v).$$
(1)
In a non–hysteretic ($`\beta <1`$) SQUID, only the steady state corresponding to the minimum of the Hibbs function $`G`$ exists, i. e., the system energy

$`G=K+U`$
$`=Q^2/2C+E_c[(1\mathrm{cos}\phi )+(\phi \phi _{ext})^2/2\beta ],`$ (2)
where $`K`$ and $`U`$ are the kinetic and the potential energy of the SQUID, $`Q`$ and $`C`$ are the charge and the capacity of the Josephson junction, accordingly, $`E_c=\mathrm{}I_c/2e`$ is the Josephson coupling energy of the junction, $`\phi =2\pi \mathrm{\Phi }/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the magnetic flux coupled to the quantization loop by the relationship $`\beta \mathrm{sin}\phi =\phi _{ext}\phi `$, $`\phi _{ext}=2\pi \mathrm{\Phi }_{ext}/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{ext}`$ is the external magnetic flux.
A small noise yields, therefore, small phase fluctuations within this state. The probability density of finding a system in a phase space point is proportional to the Bolzmann distribution

$$\sigma \mathrm{exp}(G/k_BT).$$
(3)
If $`\beta 1`$, it is enough to hold the last term in the potential energy expression (1), and for the dispersion of flux fluctuations one receives

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}^2(\mathrm{\Phi }_0/2\pi )^2\stackrel{~}{\phi }^2k_BTL_S.$$
(4)
The expression (4) permits one to estimate the interference degradation in the case of $`L_S>L_F`$ Likharev1985 ,

$$UE_c\mathrm{cos}\phi \mathrm{exp}(L_S/2L_F),$$
(5)
where $`L_F(\mathrm{\Phi }_0/2\pi )^2(k_BT)^1`$; at $`T=4`$ K, $`L_F=210^9`$ H.
The relationship (5) is valid for a nonhysteretic mode the criterion of which is the validity of the inequality for the hysteretic SQUID parameter, $`\beta <1`$, by the former theories which have been offered prior to the discovery of HTS.
However as early as in 1975, in the theoretical analysis of an RF SQUID it was noticed Khlus\_Kulik , that in the case of large fluctuations, i. e., when the Josephson coupling energy $`E_c`$ of junction is less than the average thermal energy ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=(k_BT/E_c)>1`$), the SQUID is nonhysteretic. B. Chesca Chesca\_1998  and Ya. Greenberg Greenberg\_1999  have come to a similar conclusion developing an RF SQUID theory applicable to the case of high fluctuations and which conclusions are supported by the known experimental data. In particular, according to the Chesca–Greenberg theory, an RF SQUID is non hysteretic under conditions of high fluctuations, up to the hysteresis parameter value of $`\beta 3`$. Thus, there is a basis for applying a simple form (5) of the interference supression dependence on inductance to estimate a noise of the SQUID with high inductance $`L_S`$.
The components of a net noise of an interferometer that determine its sensitivity, are as follows Rogachevskiy1993 , Koelle :

* self–noise, or internal noise of the sensor (SQUID) of the interferometer;
* the noise of the tank circuit coupled inductively to the SQUID;
* the noise of a feeder connecting the tank circuit to the preamplifier; if the preamplifier is placed outside the dewar, the ends of the feeder have a temperature difference causing the noise.
* Noises of the first amplifier stage and of a resistor in the feedback loop. They can be reduced sufficiently by cooling the first stage. It is profitable, from the view point of increasing sensitivity, in the case of low–$`T_c`$ SQUIDs having the own sensor noise much lower than the rest noise sources. For high–$`T_c`$ SQUIDs operating at liquid nitrogen temperature, the sensor noise is not much less than the noise of electronics.
* The external noise. To estimate the interferometer sensitivity, it should be minimized. The best way to minimize external influences is to apply a superconducting shield the SQUID sensor is placed into. For this purpose, the high–$`T_c`$ shield should have a low level of the self–noise. This condition is met when the high–$`T_c`$ shield has a high enough value of the penetrating field Polushkin\_Buev . Nevertheless, employing an ordinary ferromagnetic shielding provides a relevant solution.

The internal noise of the SQUID sensor is defined by Josephson junction properties, and by magnetic flux fluctuations having dispersion (4). Self–noise of HTS–based Josephson junction can be low enough; the higher the critical current density, the lower the self–noise. In YBCO systems, it is possible to achieve high values of the pinning force Vuong\_1994 , Vasiliev1995 , Koelle , which guarantees high values of critical current density in the $`ab`$–plane of a YBCO crystal cell, and an acceptably low level of excess $`1/f`$ noise as well. A theoretical estimate of the internal noise level and the maximum inductance of the RF SQUID quantization loop can be carried out in a simple way Polushkin1989\_JINR\_Rapid . For an RF SQUID with the inductance $`L_S=10^{10}`$ H the estimate of s. n. d. at the temperature 77 K gives

$$S_\phi =10^5\text{ }\mathrm{\Phi }_0/\text{Hz}^{1/2}.$$
(6)
According to Polushkin1989\_JINR\_Rapid , quantum interference in the RF SQUID is hardly observed if the value of the RF SQUID threshold inductance $`L_{max}`$ is exceeded

$$L_S>L_{max}=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2/k_BT=410^9\text{ H.}$$
(7)
At that time (1989), these conclusions were not experimentally proven probably due to poor quality of HTS ceramics, which did not allow simple handling of SQUIDs. At present, the sensitivity level (6) is successfully achieved in high–$`T_c`$ RF SQUIDs produced on the basis of modern thin film technologies Zhang . In its turn, studying of the SQUIDs made by using the thick–film technique, have a confirmation and specification of these estimates as well. Thus, according to the estimate (7), for the high–$`T_c`$ SQUIDs operated at $`77`$ K, a wide enough inductance range including even “He–values” up to several nH is available. According to the estimate (6), in the case of the optimum quantization loop inductance, the interferometer sensor self–noise is appreciably below the tank circuit noise and the noise of the “warm” preamplifier, as well as in the case of the low–$`T_c`$ RF SQUIDs. As evident from what follows, the estimates of the maximum sensitivity of the RF SQUIDs with the optimum quantization loop inductance, carried out on the basis of the experimental s. n. d. data for large inductance SQUIDs, agree well with (6).

## 2 Dual SQUID

Let us introduce a concept of a SQUID which is dual to the RF SQUID with a large quantization loop inductance. A dual SQUID is a SQUID with the same weak link properties as a SQUID with a high inductance value, but with the optimum quantization loop inductance value equal to $`L_F`$. In a formal way, it is possible to obtain a dual SQUID from a large inductance RF SQUID by deforming the quantization loop to reduce its inductance down to $`L_F`$, preserving the weak link parameters. Since the noise of the SQUID sensor with the large inductance $`L_SL_F`$ is determined, in accordance with (5), by the “Debye” factor $`\mathrm{exp}(L_S/2L_F)`$ only, it is possible to carry out a simple theoretical estimate of the sensitivity of the appropriate dual SQUID, and, thus, to estimate the suitability of the given HTS for a high sensitivity SQUIDs building.

## 3 About Scaling Behaviour of the Interferometer Sensor Noise

Let the total interferometer spectral noise energy density (s. n. e. d.) $`S_ϵ`$ be determined in a general way, as usual (see, for example Polushkin1993 , Sloggett1993 ), by its fluctuation components $`S_{ϵi}`$, $`i=1,2\mathrm{},n`$, which are considered uncorrelated

$$S_ϵ=S_{ϵ1}+S_{ϵ2}+\mathrm{}+S_{ϵn}.$$
(8)
Let, for example, $`S_{ϵ1}`$ be a s. n. e. d. of the SQUID sensor, $`S_{ϵ2}`$ – s. n. e. d. of the tank circuit coupling inductively to the SQUID, $`S_{ϵ3}`$ – s. n. e. d. of the feeder, $`S_{ϵ4}`$ – s. n. e. d. of the first preamplifier stage. In the best case, the components specified differ from each other no more than one order of magnitude Koelle . Let the s. n. e. d. of the SQUID sensor be written as

$$S_{ϵ1}=S_{ϵ1}(L_S)=S_{ϵd}K(L_S),$$
(9)
where $`S_{ϵd}`$ is the value of the SQUID s. n. e. d. (energy resolution) depending on the absolute temperature and weak link parameters, a critical current and a normal resistance, and also, maybe, on Josephson junction capacity, but independent of $`L_S`$, and $`K(L_S)`$ is a dimensionless scale factor depending monotonously on $`L_S`$. It is supposed that all other components $`S_{ϵi}`$, $`i1`$, do not depend on $`L_S`$. Thus, $`S_{ϵd}`$ is s. n. e. d. of the SQUID sensor with a rather small inductance. Let now $`K(L_S)`$ increases, together with $`L_S`$, and the remaining parameters in (8) remain constant, so that, when $`L_SL_F`$, one could obtain $`S_{ϵ1}S_{ϵi}`$, $`i=2,3,4`$. Hence, from (8) and (9), it evidently follows:

$$S_ϵS_{ϵ1}(L_S)=S_{ϵd}K(L_S).$$
(10)
The last equation (10) reflects two important facts. First, in the case of high inductance of the quantization loop, the interferometer noise is determined mainly by the SQUID sensor noise. Second, the interferometer s. n. e. d. at the high values of inductance of the quantization loop is proportional to the s. n. e. d. of the SQUID sensor with the same weak link parameters, but a small quantization loop inductance. If the functional dependence of the $`K(L_S)`$ is known, in the presence of the experimental data for $`S_ϵ`$ of a SQUID with a large inductance, the relationship (10) allows one to determine energy resolution $`S_ϵ`$ of a SQUID with the same weak link but with optimum inductance value. Let us obtain now a relationship between the s. n. d. $`S_\phi `$ of a SQUID with a large quantization loop inductance and the s. n. d. $`S_{\phi d}`$ of a SQUID with an optimum quantization loop inductance. By definition, the SQUID s. n. e. d. $`S_ϵ`$ (with a dimension of the action, $`[S_ϵ]=\text{J}\text{Hz}^1`$) is connected with the s. n. d. $`S_\phi `$, $`[S_\phi ]=\mathrm{\Phi }_0/\text{Hz}^{1/2}`$, by the relationship

$$S_ϵ=\frac{S_\phi ^2}{2L_S}$$
(11)
It has been experimentally proved Polushkin1989 , that the optimum quantization loop inductance value is close to $`L_F`$. Taking into account the equation

$$S_{ϵd}=\frac{S_{\phi d}^2}{2L_F},$$
(12)
and, combining (10), (11), (12), it is easy to obtain the useful estimate

$$S_{\phi d}S_\phi \left[\frac{L_F}{L_SK(L_S)}\right]^{1/2},\text{ }L_SL_F.$$
(13)
Let us regard the (13) as s. n. d. of dual SQUID, i. e.

$$S_{\phi \text{ }dual}S_\phi \left[\frac{L_F}{L_SK(L_S)}\right]^{1/2},\text{ }L_SL_F.$$
(14)
Assuming that $`K(L_S)=\mathrm{exp}[(L_S/2L_F)1/2]`$, we obtain

$$S_{\phi \text{ }dual}S_\phi \left(\frac{L_F}{L_S}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{4}\left(1\frac{L_S}{L_F}\right)\right],\text{ }L_SL_F.$$
(15)
Thus, we have obtained the relationship (15) which links $`S_\phi `$ of a SQUID with a large quantization loop inductance value of $`L_SL_F`$, with $`S_{\phi \text{ }dual}`$ of a dual SQUID with the optimum quantization loop inductance value of $`L_F`$. This relation allows one to estimate, using the experimental data, the suitability of a given high–$`T_c`$ material, from which the large inductance SQUIDis was made, for building high–sensitive interferometers.
In Table 1, the experimental data for real RF SQUID parameters are given, including loop quantization inductances $`L_S`$, coupling coefficient $`k`$ measured by the technique Polushkin1989\_JINR\_Rapid , and the values of SQUID hysteresis parameter $`\beta `$ and s. n. d. $`S_\phi `$, measured at pumping frequency indicated in the last column. The critical current of contact $`I_c`$ is calculated then from $`\beta =2\pi L_SI_c/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, and the flux sensitivity $`S_{\phi \text{ }dual}`$ for the appropriate dual SQUID is calculated from (15). The RF SQUID transfer function grows with the growth of the pumping frequency $`f`$ as $`f^{1/2}`$, and RF SQUID s. n. d. decreases with the same rate; it is necessary to take into account these dependencies when comparing quality of SQUIDs functioning at different pumping frequencies Kurkijarvi\_1986 . An appropriate technique of SQUID signal characteristics ranging, by the pumping frequency, will be considered elsewhere Sermyagin\_2003 .

## 4 A Comment on the Table

For SQUIDs $`\mathrm{\#}\mathrm{\#}`$1$`÷`$7, the experimental data obtained by the author of the present paper are given, other data are taken from references.
The data are not complete; s. n. d. for $`\mathrm{\#}`$2 and $`\mathrm{\#}`$7 are not retained. Parameters for $`\mathrm{\#}`$7 were defined with an error difficult to estimate, therefore the real value of $`L_S`$ could differ from the specified; most likely it was smaller. Data of $`k`$, $`\beta `$, and $`I_c`$ for $`\mathrm{\#}`$5 are lost as well; for SQUIDs $`\mathrm{\#}\mathrm{\#}`$8 $`÷`$11, the reader is kindly addressed to the references. However, the data omitted are not crucial for conclusions of the qualitative theory submitted. It can be seen that in the range $`L_S<2`$ nH, for $`S_{\phi \text{ }dual}`$, real values can be obtained corresponding to the self–noise of the optimum SQUID made from the sertain HTS. For $`\mathrm{\#}`$8, the value of $`S_{\phi \text{ }dual}10^4`$$`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$/Hz1/2 is not very high, which is usual for bulk SQUIDs made of ceramics typical to the initial period of HTS research in the late eighties, though already sufficient for applications. $`\mathrm{\#}`$1 and $`\mathrm{\#}`$2 are created by the painting method, and by far overcome the psychological barrier of $`10^4`$$`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$/Hz1/2, into the value area of units $`10^5`$$`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$/Hz1/2, close to the best theoretical estimate (6), near which the thin film RF SQUIDs $`\mathrm{\#}`$9, $`\mathrm{\#}`$10 and $`\mathrm{\#}`$11 are situated; these latter two were operated at the pumping frequency of 300 MHz. Hence, sample $`\mathrm{\#}`$10 has the weak link quality close to our samples $`\mathrm{\#}`$1 and $`\mathrm{\#}`$2.
For SQUIDs whith a very large inductance $`L_S>2`$ nH, the extrapolation to the dual SQUIDs does not work thus far due the very low level of the noise predicted. It means, that in RF SQUIDs with a very large quantization loop inductance values, quantum interference is suppressed not so strongly as it follows from the simple formula (15); our assumption of the suppression character (5) of quantum interference with growth of inductance $`L_S`$, appears inexact in this area. One of the possible ways of solving this problem consists in a consequent account of the reduction phenomena of the RF SQUID transfer function, with the fluctuation level growing Il'ichev1997 , Chesca\_1998 , Greenberg\_1999 , Enpuku1994 ; this concerns both thermal and quantum fluctuations Sermyagin\_1997\_1 . The general conception is that with the reduction of SQUID transfer function, the SQUID sensitivity decreases both to the useful signal and to fluctuations.
The interference in $`\mathrm{\#}`$6 and $`\mathrm{\#}`$7 was observed, despite of extremely high SQUIDs inductance values $`L_S`$ and small values of critical current $`I_c`$. These values were much less the fluctuation current value of 3 $`\mu `$A, which is considered the lower value of a critical current for isolated HTS–based junction at 77 K, admitting the observing of the quantum interference.

## 5 Conclusions

The fluctuation inductance $`L_F`$ is not an upper limit of the quantization loop inductance, exceeding which the quantum interference becomes unobservable and SQUID ceases to operate. More likely, one should consider $`L_F`$ as a quality criterion of the SQUID, actually as an optimum value of the quantization loop inductance. So far the large inductance SQUIDs with $`L_SL_F`$ were considered not applicable as supersensitive magnetic flux sensors, due to a large level of their self–noise. However, this feature allows one to receive an estimate of the maximum sensitivity of the RF SQUID with an optimum inductance of the quantization loop and made of appropriate HTS. The obtained estimate (15) of the $`S_\phi (L_S)`$ dependence based on a rough model (5), appears true, if compared to the obtained experimental data for the large inductance values of $`210^9>L_S>10^{10}`$, H. However, an interpretation of the experimental data for higher inductance values of $`L_S>210^9`$ H needs a new approach (see e. g. Sermyagin\_2003 ).

## 6 Acknowledgments

The results presented could not be obtained without an intensive development of the painting on method and HTS–sample investigations carried out by Prof. N.V. Vuong and Dr. E.V. Pomyakushina (Raspopina), under supervision of Prof. B.V. Vasiliev. Also, I wish to thank Dr. M.B. Miller and O.Yu. Tokareva for their support and help.