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# Detection of weak-order phase transitions in ferromagnets by ac resistometry

## Abstract

It is shown that ac resistometry can serve as an effective tool for the detection of phase transitions, such as spin reorientation or premartensitic phase transitions, which generally are not disclosed by dc resistivity measurement. Measurement of temperature dependence of impedance, $`Z(T)`$, allows one to unmask the anomaly, corresponding to a weak-order phase transition. The appearance of such an anomaly is accounted for by a change in the effective permeability $`\mu `$ of a sample upon the phase transition. Moreover, frequency dependence of $`\mu `$ makes it possible to use the frequency of the applied ac current as an adjusting parameter in order to make this anomaly more pronounced. The applicability of this method is tested for the rare earth Gd and Heusler alloy Ni2MnGa.

It is well known that impedance $`Z`$ of a magnetic conductor depends on the effective permeability $`\mu `$ of the material. In particular, this is evident from the fact that impedance of soft ferromagnetic materials changes considerably in a magnetic field, which is accounted for by a drastic change of $`\mu `$ upon application of the field. This phenomenon, called giant magnetoimpedance, is most pronounced in soft ferromagnetic wires with a peculiar configuration of magnetic domains (Refs. 1-3 and references therein), but generally it seems to be an intrinsic property of soft ferromagnets and recently it was observed in several Heusler alloys. 4-k ; 5-f

The fact that $`Z`$ depends on the effective permeability $`\mu `$ gives rise to suggest that it can be used for studying weak-order phase transitions, such as spin reorientation, order-disorder, and so on, occurring in the ferromagnetic state. Indeed, since dc resistivity does not allow detection or accurate determination of a temperature of the transition, upon which no significant change in the Fermi surface, mean free path or electrons concentration occurs, such transitions are usually studied by magnetic measurements. The existence of the anomaly corresponding to a weak-order phase transition at a temperature dependence of magnetization evidences that such a transition is accompanied by a change in permeability of the sample, therefore, measurements of $`Z(T)`$ could also be effectively used for this aim. Moreover, in certain cases, this method can have an advantage compared to the magnetic measurements, for example, if a weak-order phase transition is located in the proximity to another phase transition, characterized by a drastic change in the magnetization.

It is shown in this article, that ac resistometry can serve as an effective tool for this purpose. The validity of this method is demonstrated for the case of the rare earth Gd, which undergoes a spin reorientation transition at a low temperature, and for a Ni2MnGa alloy, which undergoes a weak-order premartensitic phase transition.

Impedance $`Z`$ of a cylindrical conductor can be derived using Maxwell equations: 6-l

$$Z=R+iX=\frac{1}{2}R_{dc}ka\frac{J_0(ka)}{J_1(ka)},$$

where $`R_{dc}`$ is dc resistance of the conductor at a frequency $`f=\omega /2\pi =0`$, $`a`$ is the conductor radius, $`J_i`$ are Bessel functions of the first kind, and $`k=(1+i)/\delta `$, where $`\delta `$ is the skin depth,

$$\delta =c\sqrt{\frac{\rho }{2\pi \omega \mu }}.$$

The skin depth $`\delta `$ is determined by resistivity $`\rho `$ and effective permeability $`\mu `$ of the conductor, and by the frequency $`\omega `$ of applied to the conductor ac current. In the case of a slab geometry, the expression for the impedance is 7-m

$$Z=R_{dc}ikd\mathrm{coth}(ikd),$$

where $`d`$ is the half thickness. Both of these equations show that at a constant frequency the temperature dependence of $`Z`$ is determined by the temperature dependence of $`\rho `$ and $`\mu `$ as $`Z(T)\sqrt{\rho (T)\mu (T)}`$.

The experimental setup for the measurement of temperature dependencies of the impedance $`Z`$ consists of a lock-in amplifier, a function synthesizer, a reference resistor connected in a serial way with the sample, and a computer. Alternating voltage of amplitude $`V_0`$ at a frequency $`f`$ was applied to the reference resistor using the function synthesizer. The voltage drop on the sample and the phase shift between the voltage and the reference signal were measured by the lock-in amplifier.

Measurements of $`\rho (T)`$ and $`Z(T)`$ were performed on a Gd sample measuring $`8\times 2\times 1`$ mm3 and a Ni2MnGa sample measuring $`10\times 1.5\times 0.5`$ mm3. Using typical values of $`\rho `$ and $`\mu `$ for Gd, $`\rho 130\times 10^6`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{cm}`$ and $`\mu 200`$, and Ni2MnGa, $`\rho 30\times 10^6`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{cm}`$ and $`\mu 200`$ (Ref. 4), the skin depth for $`7\mathrm{kHz}<f<100\mathrm{kHz}`$ is $`1500\mathrm{\AA }<\delta <5000\mathrm{\AA }`$ for the Gd sample and $`700\mathrm{\AA }<\delta <2600\mathrm{\AA }`$ for the Ni2MnGa sample. These values are much smaller than typical sample thickness ($`0.5`$ mm), so that the skin effect is essential at these frequencies.

A. Spin reorientation transition in Gd

It is known from the literature that Gd orders ferromagnetically at Curie temperature $`T_C293`$ K and undergoes a spin reorientation transition at a lower temperature, $`T_s225`$ K (Refs. 8 and 9 and references therein).

Temperature dependencies of $`\rho `$ and $`Z`$, measured upon heating, are presented in Fig. 1. As evident from Fig. 1(a), $`\rho (T)`$ has an anomaly at Curie temperature $`T_C`$, equal to 290 K for this sample. No anomaly, corresponding to the spin reorientation transition is seen on the curve. This result is in agreement with early transport measurements of Gd. 9a-n

Temperature dependencies of the impedance $`Z`$, measured on this sample \[Figs. 1(b) and 1(c)\], drastically differ from the temperature dependence of the resistivity $`\rho `$. $`Z(T)`$, measured at a frequency $`f=7.8`$ kHz has a complex temperature dependence \[Fig. 1(b)\], namely, two marked peaks are clearly seen on this curve. The first peak is observed at the temperature of spin reorientation phase transition, $`T_s=226`$ K. This temperature, determined from the $`Z(T)`$ measurement, is in good agreement with the temperature determined by another experimental techniques. 8-d ; 9-c  Since $`\rho (T)`$ does not exhibit anomaly at $`T_s`$, the local maximum of $`Z(T)`$ at this temperature is accounted for by a larger permeability $`\mu `$ at the spin reorientation transition temperature. The origin of the second peak observed near the ferromagnetic phase transition is presumably the same because Gd has a pronounced peak of susceptibility $`\chi =(\mu 1)/4\pi `$ in the vicinity of $`T_C`$ (Ref. 9). The result of $`Z(T)`$ measurement performed at a higher frequency, $`f=67.8`$ kHz, is shown in Fig. 1(c). This curve also has a pronounced peak at the spin reorientation temperature $`T_s`$. Since upon transition from the ferromagnetic to paramagnetic state the impedance $`Z`$ drastically decreases, this peak is shown in the inset in Fig. 1(c). The existence of this prominent and well-defined peak permits an accurate determination of the spin reorientation transition temperature from the $`Z(T)`$ measurements.

Therefore, these results have shown that measurement of impedance $`Z`$ can be effectively used, along with magnetic measurements, for study spin reorientation transitions and construction of phase diagrams of compounds undergoing such transitions.

B. Premartensitic transition in Ni2MnGa

An interesting property of near stoichiometric Ni2MnGa alloys is that they undergo a so-called premartensitic phase transition, which is characterized by a modulation of the Heusler cubic structure. 10-z  Resistivity measurement of these alloys showed 11-k ; 12-c ; 13-z  that it is difficult to determine the temperature of premartensitic and martensitic phase transition from $`\rho (T)`$ data because the resistivity has weak and broad anomalies at these phase transformation temperatures. Measurement of magnetization is an effective tool to determine martensitic transformation temperature, 14-w  but as for the premartensitic transition, $`M(T)`$ measurement is sometimes not sufficient to determine the temperature of the premartensitic transition in the case of polycrystalline samples. 15-z  In order to proove that the premartensitic transition can be disclosed by $`Z(T)`$ measurements, temperature dependencies of $`\rho `$ and $`Z`$ were measured on a polycrystalline sample of stoichiometric Ni2MnGa composition.

Measurement of $`\rho (T)`$, shown in Fig. 2(a), revealed typical for the stoichiometric Ni2MnGa behavior of resistivity. 11-k ; 12-c ; 13-z  A marked anomaly is seen only at the ferromagnetic transition temperature $`T_C=380`$ K, whereas the martensitic and premartensitic phase transitions are accompanied by a broad change in the slope of the curve at $`T_m200`$ K and $`T_P260`$ K, respectively.

Unlike the resistivity $`\rho `$, the impedance $`Z`$ of this sample has quite different temperature dependence \[Figs. 2(b) and 2(c)\]. $`Z(T)`$ measured at $`f=7.8`$ kHz \[Fig. 2(b)\] exhibits a peak in the vicinity of Curie temperature $`T_C`$, which is accounted for by a high susceptibility of the sample. Contrary to $`\rho (T)`$, the temperature dependence of the impedance $`Z`$ exhibits a jump-like behavior at the martensitic transition temperature $`T_m`$. This is due to the fact that the martensitic phase has a lower permeability $`\mu `$ as compare to the austenitic cubic phase. Finally, the premartensitic transition appears at this curve as a small dip at $`T_P=260`$ K. Measurement of $`Z(T)`$ at a higher frequency $`f=77.8`$ kHz \[Fig. 2(c)\] indicates that the anomalies corresponding to the phase transitions are enhanced. The most interesting finding is that the increase in the frequency of the current results in the appearance of a pronounced dip at the premartensitic phase transition. This observation allows an accurate determination of the premartensitic transition temperature $`T_P`$. Since the impedance $`Z`$ decreases and then increases smoothly around $`T_P`$, whereas the drastic drop of $`Z`$ is observed at $`T_m`$, it can be suggested that by measuring $`Z(T)`$ one can easy distinguish these transitions even if they are close to each other.

In conclusion, the results presented in this article have shown that, by measuring the temperature dependence of impedance $`Z`$, it is possible to unmask anomalies which are generally not observed on dc resistivity curves. This has been confirmed for the case of gadolinium, which exhibits a spin reorientation transition at $`T_s=226`$ K, and for the case of Ni2MnGa, which exhibits a premartensitic phase transition at $`T_P=260`$ K. Moreover, the results of this study indicated that by adjusting the frequency of the ac current one can observe a sharp anomaly at the temperature of such a transition. Therefore, this method can be used, along with magnetic measurements, as a simple and effective tool for the study of spin reorientation transitions and construction of phase diagrams in intensively studied rare-earth alloys and in other magnetic alloys and compounds.

The authors are thankful to Professor R. Z. Levitin for providing the gadolinium sample. A Postdoctoral Fellowship Award from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) is greatly acknowledged.


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# Near-Perfect Correlation of the Resistance Components of Mesoscopic Samples at the Quantum Hall Regime

thanks: Present address: Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Salamanca, E-37008 Salamanca, Spain

## Abstract

We study the four-terminal resistance fluctuations of mesoscopic samples near the transition between the $`\nu =2`$ and the $`\nu =1`$ quantum Hall states. We observe near-perfect correlations between the fluctuations of the longitudinal and Hall components of the resistance. These correlated fluctuations appear in a magnetic-field range for which the two-terminal resistance of the samples is quantized. We discuss these findings in light of edge-state transport models of the quantum Hall effect. We also show that our results lead to an ambiguity in the determination of the width of quantum Hall transitions.

When placed in strong magnetic fields ($`B`$s), two-dimensional electron systems can display a series of states known as the Quantum Hall effect (QHE) Klitzing1980PRL45 . These states display a remarkable universality: irrespective of many of the system’s properties such as geometry and disorder strength, its Hall resistance ($`R_H`$) exhibits exact quantization at $`h/ie^2`$ ($`h`$ is Planck’s constant, $`e`$ is the charge of the electron, and $`i`$ is an integer), while its longitudinal resistance ($`R_L`$) vanishes.

When the size of the samples becomes smaller, approaching the mesoscopic regime, the features of the QHE begin to diminish. In addition, a pattern of reproducible fluctuations appears, whose magnitude increases as the sample size and the temperature ($`T`$) decrease. Near $`B=0`$ these are the well-known universal conductance fluctuations Lee1987PRB35  famous for the universality of their amplitude, which is close to $`e^2/h`$. In the quantum Hall (QH) regime the understanding of the fluctuations is not as complete, despite the large number of experimental Timp1987PRL59 ; Chang1988SSC67 ; Staring1992PRB45 ; Main1994PRB50 ; Machida2000PE6 ; Cobden1996PRB54 ; Cobden1999PRL82 ; Machida2001PRB63 ; Simmons1989PRL63 ; Goldman1995SC267 ; Geim1992PRL69 ; Morgan1994PRB50 ; Hohls2002PRB66  and theoretical Ando1994PRB49 ; Wang1996PRL77 ; Galstyan1997PRB56 ; Cho1997PRB55 ; Ho1999PRB60 ; Jain1988PRL60 ; Maslov1993PRL71 ; Xiong1997PRB56  studies. In particular, the amplitude of the fluctuations in this regime shows a distinct $`B`$ dependence and is not universal.

In this Letter we report on the observation of a new type of universal behavior of the fluctuations in the QH regime. We have measured $`R_L`$ and $`R_H`$ under the conditions of the QHE, in mesoscopic samples for which finite-size effects are dominant. Our samples display reproducible resistance-fluctuations that are cool-down, as well as contact configuration, specific. We found that there are near-perfect correlations between the fluctuations measured in $`R_L`$ and those measured in $`R_H`$. Specifically, in the vicinity of the transition between the $`\nu =2`$ and the $`\nu =1`$ QH states, we find that

$$R_L+R_H=h/e^2$$
(1)
over a wide range of $`B`$. We trace the origin of these correlations to the quantization, over the same $`B`$-range, of the two-terminal resistance of the sample ($`R_{2t}`$). The link between the sum $`R_L+R_H`$ and $`R_{2t}`$ is in accordance with the transport model of Streda et al. Streda1987PRL59 , that combines the Landauer formulation for conductance with the existence of electronic edge states at high $`B`$s Buttiker1988PRB38 ; McEuen1990PRL64 . Finally, we demonstrate that our findings reveal an ambiguity in the determination of the width of QH transitions, a property that is material to the subject of scaling and universality in QH transitions.

The samples we used (T2Cm2, T2Cm20, and T2Cm100) were made from a InGaAs/InAlAs wafer containing a 200 Å quantum well. The short-range scattering in the wafer leads to the formation of a low-mobility, low-density two-dimensional electron system, after illumination with an LED. Our samples have an average density $`n_s=1.1510^{11}`$ cm-2 and average mobility $`\mu =16,600`$ cm2/Vsec, limiting our study to the integer QHE. We have defined three Hall-bar samples, wet-etched with the same aspect ratio (see Fig. 1(a)), but with lithographic widths of $`W=`$ 2, 20, and 100 $`\mu `$m. To ensure maximum uniformity, the three samples were prepared on the same chip within 2 mm of each other. The black areas in Fig. 1(a) represent Au-Ge-Ni alloyed contacts that were designed to reach the edges of the Hall-bars. The samples were cooled in a dilution refrigerator with a base $`T`$ of 10 mK, at which all of the data presented here were taken. Four- and two-terminal measurements were done using standard AC lock-in techniques with a frequency of 3.17 Hz and an excitation current of 1 nA. The value of 1 nA for the current was chosen to avoid electron heating. At higher current values ($`I`$ 10 nA) we find evidence for heating: the resistance fluctuations diminish in magnitude and the width of the QH transitions increases.

We begin the description of our data by presenting, in Fig. 1(b), $`B`$ traces of $`R_L`$ and $`R_H`$ for the 2 $`\mu `$m Hall-bar in the vicinity of the transition between the $`\nu =2`$ and the $`\nu =1`$ QH states. Referring to the diagram in Fig. 1(a), and using the standard notation $`R_{ij,kl}=V_{kl}/I_{ij}`$, where $`V_{kl}`$ is the voltage difference between probes $`k`$ and $`l`$ and $`I_{ij}`$ is the current between probes $`i`$ and $`j`$, the data we show are $`R_L=R_{14,65}`$ and $`R_H=R_{14,53}`$. Despite the small size of the sample, the $`\nu =1`$ ($`B>3.95`$ T) and $`\nu =2`$ ($`B<2.55`$ T) QH states are clearly seen, evident by the quantization of $`R_H`$ and the corresponding vanishing of $`R_L`$.

The finite size of the sample is manifested by the appearance, in the transition region, of large, reproducible, fluctuations in both $`R_L`$ and $`R_H`$. As seen in previous studies of mesoscopic samples in the QH regime, these noise-like fluctuations maintain their pattern as long as the sample is kept cold, and diminish in magnitude as $`T`$ is increased. A new fluctuation pattern is found each time the sample is temperature-cycled.

The central finding of our work is the existence, on the $`\nu =1`$ side of the transition ($`B=`$ 3.1 – 3.9 T in Fig. 1(b)), of near-perfect correlations between the fluctuations of $`R_L`$ and those of $`R_H`$. Graphically, we observe that for each peak in $`R_L`$ there corresponds a dip in $`R_H`$ of nearly equal magnitude, and vice versa. This holds for almost all the fine details of the fluctuation patterns. While such correlations could arise from mixing of the resistance components, it is unlikely that this is the case in our work since the correlations are limited to a specific range of $`B`$ and do not show up at either low $`B`$ or at the $`\nu =2`$ side of the transition.

Mathematically, the correlations we observe can be conveniently expressed by the simple relation of Eq. 1. To see this dependence more clearly we plot, in Fig. 2, $`R_L`$ vs $`R_H`$ for all three samples. In this unconventional plot McEuen1990PRL64  each dot represents one ($`R_H`$, $`R_L`$) data-pair from $`B`$ traces such as those in Fig. 1(b). Focusing on the data from the 2 $`\mu `$m sample of Fig. 1(b) (red dots in Fig. 2) we see that, aside from some scatter, the dots fall into two ordered groups: a diagonal line stretching from ($`0.5h/e^2`$, $`0.5h/e^2`$) to ($`h/e^2`$, $`0`$) and a vertical line at $`R_H=0.5h/e^2`$. The diagonal line corresponds to $`R_L+R_H=h/e^2`$, and is comprised of the correlated ($`R_H`$, $`R_L`$) data-pairs from the $`\nu =1`$ side of the transition. The dots that form the vertical line are from the $`\nu =2`$ side of the transition, in the $`B`$ range of 2.6 – 2.9 T in Fig. 1(b). In that $`B`$ range $`R_H`$ remains quantized at 0.5 $`h/e^2`$, while $`R_L`$ can take any value in the range 0 – 0.5 $`h/e^2`$. The remaining, scattered, dots are mainly from the intermediate $`B`$ range (2.9 – 3.1 T in Fig. 1(b)) of the transition between the QH states, and also include the (relatively few) deviations from the ordered lines. We note that the observed $`R_L`$-$`R_H`$ relation is different from the derivative-law relating the resistivity components observed in macroscopic samples Chang1985SSC56 ; Rotger1989PRL62 ; Stormer1992SSC84 ; Simon1994PRL73 .

Fig. 2 also includes data obtained from the 20 and 100 $`\mu `$m Hall-bars (green and blue dots, respectively). While the 20 $`\mu `$m dots exhibit similar behavior to those of the 2 $`\mu `$m sample, the 100 $`\mu `$m sample shows somewhat different characteristics. When $`R_H>0.7h/e^2`$ the 100 $`\mu `$m dots are close to the $`R_L+R_H=h/e^2`$ diagonal line, but otherwise they form a continuous curve, with $`R_L`$ values that are lower than the corresponding 2 and 20 $`\mu `$m $`R_L`$ values, and do not split into either a diagonal or vertical line. We attribute this difference in the $`R_L`$-$`R_H`$ dependence to the larger size of the 100 $`\mu `$m Hall-bar. An infinite, homogenous, sample with the same aspect ratio as our samples is expected to have a semicircle $`R_L`$-$`R_H`$ dependence as shown in dashed line in the figure Ruzin1995PRL74 ; Semicircle . Comparing the measured data with the semicircle trace we find that although the 100 $`\mu `$m Hall-bar has the characteristics of a wider sample, it may not be large enough to exhibit the full semicircle behavior. This may be related to the fact that resistance fluctuations in the 100 $`\mu `$m Hall-bar begin to be discernible at our lowest $`T`$.

The clear ordering of the ($`R_H`$, $`R_L`$) pairs evident in Fig. 2, and the fact that data from different size samples fall on top of each other, are surprising from several respects. First, the $`\nu =`$ 2-1 transition does not take place at the same $`B`$ range in all samples, due to small differences in electron density. Second, the apparent $`B`$-width of the transitions, although not clearly defined due to the large fluctuations present in the 2 and 20 $`\mu `$m samples, varies between samples of different widths and is larger for the narrower samples (see Fig. 4 and discussion below) Koch1991PRL67 ; Machida1996PRB54 . And third, the random nature of the fluctuations, unique to each sample and cool-down, indicates that a fundamental mechanism underlies the appearance of order in the data of Fig. 2.

The theoretical model that is most suitable for discussing transport in mesoscopic samples in the QH regime is the edge-state model McEuen1990PRL64 ; Chang1989SSC72 ; Haug . In this model the electrons move along one-dimensional channels that follow the edges of the sample, with the direction of their motion set by the polarity of $`B`$. The resistance of the sample can be determined, following the Landauer formulation, by the probabilities of an edge-state electron to be transmitted forward along the same edge or reflected to a different edge of the sample. Using this approach, Streda et al. Streda1987PRL59  and Büttiker Buttiker1988PRB38  were able to derive explicit formulas for the resistances in the QH regime.

An intriguing result that directly stems from the Landauer analysis of QH samples was pointed out by Streda et al. Streda1987PRL59 . They explicitly calculated $`R_L`$ and $`R_H`$ and showed that they obey the simple sum rule Buttiker

$$R_L+R_H=R_{2t}.$$
(2)
To test this prediction we plot, in Fig. 3, $`R_{2t}`$ ($`R_{63,63}`$, black line) of the 2 $`\mu `$m Hall-bar together with the sum $`R_L+R_H`$ (blue line) of the resistances from Fig. 1(b). $`R_{2t}`$ is plotted after subtracting a $`B`$-independent contact resistance of 1,402 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, chosen by requiring that $`R_{2t}`$ will be equal to $`R_H`$ deep in the $`\nu =`$ 1 QH state. As can be seen, the agreement between our data and Eq. 2 is very good, and includes the overall shape of the resistance trace between the $`\nu =2`$ to the $`\nu =1`$ QH states as well as most of the fluctuations.

The simple sum rule expressed by Eq. 2, together with its verification in Fig. 3, may seem, at first glance, a natural consequence of Kirchhoff’s law. This becomes clear if we rewrite Eq. 2 as $`(V_{65}+V_{53})/I_{14}=V_{63}/I_{14}=V_{63}/I_{63}`$, and remember that we use the same value of current, $`I_{14}=I_{63}=1`$ nA, for both measurements. However, we must keep in mind that the current paths, and the measurement geometry, in the two measurement configurations are different, and therefore the second equality in the equation above should not hold. Wider $`B`$-range measurements of our 2 $`\mu `$m sample, shown in the inset to Fig. 3, indicate that the sum rule of Eq. 2 is clearly violated near $`B=0`$ and also where QH features are not fully developed. We can therefore regard Eq. 2 to be a special property of the QH regime.

In Fig. 3 we have shown that the simple sum-rule of Eq. 2 predicted by Streda et al. Streda1987PRL59  holds over the entire range of $`B`$ covering the $`\nu =2`$ and $`\nu =1`$ QH states and the transition region between them. We have also shown that, over a limited, but large, $`B`$-range, our data obey the experimentally derived Eq. 1. The coincidence of the two relations is where $`R_{2t}=h/e^2`$. An intriguing question is why the quantization of $`R_{2t}`$ is maintained over a much broader range of $`B`$ than the quantization of the four-terminal $`R_H`$ (and the vanishing of $`R_L`$).

While we are unable to answer this question, we wish to remark on an additional difficulty that arises from this observation. This difficulty is related to the determination of the transition width, along with its $`T`$ dependence, which are key parameters in the description of QH transitions Pruisken1988PRL61 ; Wei1988PRL61 ; Koch1991PRL67 ; Machida1996PRB54 . In order to define the transition region for mesoscopic samples one fits a smooth function to the fluctuating data and obtains the width from this fit. If we apply this procedure to $`R_H`$ and $`R_L`$ that are obtained from the 2 $`\mu `$m sample, we find a much broader transition than the corresponding transition in the 100 $`\mu `$m sample. If, on the other hand, we use $`R_{2t}`$ or, equivalently, the combination $`R_L+R_H`$ the resulting width is similar to that obtained from the 100 $`\mu `$m sample. This is illustrated in Fig. 4, where we plot $`R_L`$, $`R_H`$, and $`R_L+R_H`$ of the 2 and 100 $`\mu `$m Hall-bars at the vicinity of the $`\nu =`$2-1 transition. $`R_L`$ and $`R_H`$ of the 100 $`\mu `$m Hall-bar display very small fluctuations and their transition region is narrower than that reflected from $`R_L`$ and $`R_H`$ of the 2 $`\mu `$m Hall-bar. In contrast, for both samples, the sum $`R_L+R_H`$ has approximately the same width.

Generally, in mesoscopic samples, measurements that use different contact configurations yield different average resistance and fluctuation patterns. In our samples we find that the different resistance measurements are related in a way that is consistent with the $`R_L`$-$`R_H`$ correlations discussed above. All of the measurements that were presented thus far were done using the contact configuration of $`R_L=R_{14,65}`$ and $`R_H=R_{14,53}`$. The relations to other contact configurations can be summarized as follows: each possible contact configuration of $`R_H`$ ($`R_{14,62}`$ or $`R_{14,53}`$) results in a different resistance and fluctuation pattern. To each of these two options there corresponds one correlated $`R_L`$ configuration ($`R_{14,23}`$ or $`R_{14,65}`$, respectively): $`R_{14,65}+R_{14,53}=R_{14,23}+R_{14,62}=R_{63,63}`$. When reversing the $`B`$ polarity $`R_H`$ changes sign and the corresponding $`R_L`$ configuration is switched to the other side of the Hall-bar: $`R_H(B)=R_H(B)`$ and $`R_{14,23}(B)=R_{14,65}(\pm B)`$ Ponomarenko2003CM0306063 .

To conclude, we have shown that in the QH regime $`R_L+R_H=R_{2t}`$, in agreement with the results of the model of edge-state conduction. For the $`B`$ range where $`R_{2t}=h/e^2`$ this leads to $`R_L`$-$`R_H`$ correlations of the form $`R_L+R_H=h/e^2`$. We have pointed out difficulties in estimating the width of QH transitions in mesoscopic samples.

We wish to thank discussions with Y. Imry, Y. Oreg, A. Stern, and D. C. Tsui. This work is supported by the BSF and by the Koshland Fund. Y. C. is supported by the (U.S.) NSF. E.D. is supported by the Ramón y Cajal Program of the Spanish Minister of Science and Technology.


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# 𝐽/𝜓 production from proton-proton collisions at √𝑠 = 200 GeV

PHENIX Collaboration

## Abstract

$`J/\psi `$ production has been measured in proton-proton collisions at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 200 GeV over a wide rapidity and transverse momentum range by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. Distributions of the rapidity and transverse momentum, along with measurements of the mean transverse momentum and total production cross section are presented and compared to available theoretical calculations. The total $`J/\psi `$ cross section is 3.99 $`\pm `$ 0.61(stat) $`\pm `$ 0.58(sys) $`\pm `$ 0.40(abs) $`\mu `$b. The mean transverse momentum is 1.80 $`\pm `$ 0.23(stat) $`\pm `$ 0.16(sys) GeV/c.

Understanding $`J/\psi `$ production mechanisms requires data over a large range of collision energies and with broad coverage in rapidity and transverse momentum ($`p_T`$). Existing data at lower energies from fixed target hadron experiments yield total cross sections and mean $`p_T`$ ($`p_T`$) values in the energy range $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 7 - 38.8 GeV fixed\_target . Limited kinematic coverage in collider experiments fixed\_target ; cdfd0\_jpsi ; cdf\_prompt\_jpsi  has so far meant that total cross sections and mean $`p_T`$ values could not be measured. The systematic study of $`J/\psi `$ production at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energies with wide $`p_T`$ and rapidity coverage should therefore provide crucial tests of $`J/\psi `$ production models. In addition, the RHIC proton-proton results provide a baseline for studying cold and hot nuclear matter in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions using $`J/\psi `$ yields as a probe.

Intense theoretical interest in the $`J/\psi `$ production mechanism was stimulated when the Color Singlet Model (CSM) was found csm  to dramatically underpredict the high $`p_T`$ CDF prompt $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi (2S)`$ cross sections cdf\_prompt\_jpsi . Attention turned toward models in which color octet $`c\overline{c}`$ states can also contribute to the $`J/\psi `$ yield. The Color Octet Model (COM), which is based on the Non-Relativistic QCD model cdf\_nrqcd , has been successful in reproducing the high $`p_T`$ CDF prompt $`J/\psi `$ cross sections, as has the more phenomenological Color Evaporation Model cem .

In this paper we report results of the first measurements of $`ppJ/\psi +X`$ at RHIC, made at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 200 GeV by the PHENIX experiment. The data yield the first total cross sections for $`J/\psi `$ production beyond fixed target energies, and the first measurement of $`p_T`$ beyond $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 63 GeV. They will constrain models in the lower $`p_T`$ region where gluon fusion is expected to dominate (at $`p_T`$ beyond about 5 GeV/c, the direct $`J/\psi `$ production cross section is expected to be dominated by fragmentation of high $`p_T`$ gluons fragmentation ).

The PHENIX experiment phenix\_nim  detects electrons in the pseudo-rapidity range $`\eta 0.35`$ in two central spectrometer arms covering $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ = 90, and forward rapidity muons in two muon arms covering $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ = 360. Only one muon arm, covering $`1.2<\eta <2.2`$, was operational for this data set. Electrons are identified by matching charged particle tracks to energy deposits in the Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EMC) and to rings in the Ring Imaging Čerenkov Detector (RICH), which has a threshold of 4.7 GeV/c for pions. Muons are identified by finding deeply penetrating roads in the Muon Identifier (MuID) and matching them to tracks in the Muon Tracker (MuTr).

The data were recorded during the 2001/2002 $`pp`$ run at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 200 GeV. After quality assurance and vertex cuts ($`\pm `$ 35 cm for $`ee`$ and $`\pm `$ 38 cm for $`\mu \mu `$), 67 nb-1 were used for the $`J/\psi \mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ analysis, and 82 nb-1 for $`J/\psi e^+e^{}`$. The minimum bias interaction trigger required at least one hit on each side of the interaction vertex in the Beam-Beam counter (BBC). Minimum bias trigger rates varied from 5 to 30 kHz. Events containing $`J/\psi `$ decays were selected using level-1 triggers in coincidence with the minimum bias interaction trigger. The $`J/\psi e^+e^{}`$ trigger required a minimum energy deposit of either 0.75 GeV in a 2 $`\times `$ 2 tile of EMC towers or 2.1 GeV in a 4 $`\times `$ 4 tile. The $`J/\psi \mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ trigger required at least two deeply penetrating roads in separate azimuthal quadrants of the MuID hiroki\_thesis .

$`J/\psi `$ yields in the central arms were obtained by reconstructing electron-positron pairs. Electron candidates were charged particle tracks that were associated with a RICH ring ($`2`$ hit phototubes) and an EMC hit ($`\pm 4\sigma `$ position association cut), and which satisfied $`0.5<E/p<1.5`$, where $`E`$ is the EMC cluster energy and $`p`$ is the reconstructed track momentum. A 5 GeV/c upper limit on electron momentum prevented charged pions from firing the RICH.

$`J/\psi `$ yields in the muon arm were obtained by reconstructing $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ pairs. Muon tracks were reconstructed by finding a track seed in the MuID and matching it to clusters of hits in each of the three MuTr stations. The momentum was determined by fitting, with a correction for energy loss, the MuID and MuTr hit positions and the BBC vertex position. Each track was required to pass $`5\sigma `$ cuts on the $`\chi ^2`$ from the track fit and on the radial distance of the fitted track from the measured $`z`$-vertex position.

Unlike-sign pairs and, for background estimation, like-sign pairs satisfying the above conditions were combined to form invariant mass spectra. Simulations show that the acceptance for like-sign and unlike-sign pairs is the same to within a few percent for invariant masses above 1 GeV/c2 for electrons. In Fig. 1, unlike-sign and like-sign invariant mass spectra from the entire $`pp`$ data set are shown together. For electrons, the net yield inside 2.8 - 3.4 GeV/c2 is 46, for muons inside 2.71 - 3.67 GeV/c2 it is 65. For electrons, the peak width is 110 MeV/c2 and the centroid agrees well with the PDG value pdg . For muons, the width is 160 MeV/c2. The muon peak centroid is higher than the PDG value by about 3%, consistent with the uncertainty in the muon magnetic field calibration.

The $`J/\psi `$ cross sections were determined from the measured yields using

$$B_{ll}\frac{d^2\sigma _{J/\psi }}{dydp_T}=\frac{N_{J/\psi }}{(𝑑t)\mathrm{\Delta }y\mathrm{\Delta }p_T}\frac{1}{ϵ_{bias}ϵ_{lvl1}}\frac{1}{Aϵ_{rec}}$$

where $`N_{J/\psi }`$ is the measured $`J/\psi `$ yield, $`𝑑t`$ is the integrated luminosity measured by the minimum bias trigger, $`B_{ll}`$ is the branching fraction for the $`J/\psi `$ to either $`e^+e^{}`$ or $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ pairs (PDG average value 5.9% pdg ), $`ϵ_{bias}`$ is the minimum bias trigger efficiency for an event containing a $`J/\psi `$, $`ϵ_{lvl1}`$ is the level-1 trigger efficiency for detecting a $`J/\psi `$, and $`Aϵ_{rec}`$ is the acceptance times reconstruction efficiency for a $`J/\psi `$.

The integrated luminosity can be written as $`𝑑t=N_{MB}/\sigma _{BBC}`$, where $`N_{MB}`$ is the number of minimum bias triggers and $`\sigma _{BBC}`$ is the minimum bias trigger cross section. Using a van der Meer scan measurement, $`\sigma _{BBC}`$ was determined to be 21.8 $`\pm `$ 2.1 mb pi0\_trigger . We have estimated $`ϵ_{bias}`$ in two ways. First, the minimum bias trigger efficiency for $`J/\psi `$ events from a simulation study using Pythia pythia  (with the GRV94NLO parton distribution functions (PDFs)) was 0.74, with no $`p_T`$ dependence. Good agreement is observed in the $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$ distribution between Pythia simulations and measurements pythia\_charged  for events involving high $`p_T`$ $`\pi ^0`$ production. Second, we measured pi0\_trigger  our minimum bias trigger efficiency for high $`p_T`$ $`\pi ^0`$ production using events recorded with a high $`p_T`$ EMC trigger. The efficiency of 0.75 $`\pm `$ 3% is constant within uncertainties over the measured range of $`1.5<p_T<9`$ GeV/c. We chose to use our measured trigger efficiency from high $`p_T`$ $`\pi ^0`$ events when calculating the $`J/\psi `$ cross section, assuming that the trigger efficiency is the same for both processes.

For the electron analysis, $`Aϵ_{rec}`$ was determined as a function of $`p_T`$ using a full GEANT simulation of single $`J/\psi `$ events with flat distributions in $`dN/dy`$ ($`y<0.6`$), $`p_T`$ ($`p_T<6`$ GeV/c) and collision vertex ($`z<35`$ cm). The GEANT simulations were tuned to match real detector responses for single electrons. The reconstruction efficiency calculations used a typical dead channel map. An average correction for run-to-run variations in detector active area was determined from single electron yields. An estimate of the systematic uncertainty in $`Aϵ_{rec}`$ due to $`z`$ vertex dependence of the acceptance, momentum resolution effects, the pair mass cut, and electron identification cuts is given in Table 1, along with the uncertainty in the yield due to Drell-Yan and correlated charm decay contributions. The efficiency $`ϵ_{lvl1}`$ of the level-1 $`J/\psi `$ triggers in the central arms was determined as a function of $`p_T`$ by using a software trigger-emulator to analyze simulated single $`J/\psi `$ events. The results are shown in Table 1. The trigger emulator was tuned by analyzing simulated single electrons and comparing with the real single electron trigger efficiency.

For the muon arm, $`Aϵ_{rec}ϵ_{lvl1}`$ was determined as an average within each rapidity and $`p_T`$ bin, using a full GEANT simulation with $`J/\psi `$ events generated by Pythia (with GRV94LO PDFs). The Pythia $`J/\psi `$ rapidity and $`p_T`$ distributions are very similar to those of the real data, so that bin averaging effects should be approximately accounted for by this procedure. The simulated events were reconstructed using the same reconstruction software and cuts as for the real data, assuming nominal detector efficiencies and typical realistic dead channel and dead high-voltage maps. Each event had to pass the simulated dimuon trigger. The systematic error includes discrepancies between Monte Carlo and real detector response, run to run variations in the detector state, and uncertainties in the Pythia distributions. The results, integrated over the rapidity range of the muon arm, are shown in Table 1, along with an estimate of the systematic error on the yield due to the background subtraction technique. In both the electron and muon cases the $`J/\psi `$ polarization was assumed to be zero, since existing $`J/\psi `$ polarization measurements are consistent with zero at low $`p_T`$ cdf\_pol . The effect of the unknown $`J/\psi `$ polarization has not been included in the systematic error.

The $`p_T`$ distributions for $`J/\psi e^+e^{}`$ and $`J/\psi \mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ are shown in Fig. 2, with predictions rhic\_nrqcd  from the COM. Predictions of the CSM, which greatly underpredicts the cross sections, are also shown. These predictions are limited to $`p_T>2`$ GeV/c because parton intrinsic transverse momentum ($`k_T`$) broadening is not accounted for properly in the calculation. The COM calculations do not include fragmentation contributions, which become important at around 5 GeV/c cdf\_prompt\_jpsi . Calculations covering all $`p_T`$ and including fragmentation contributions are needed. The solid lines are a phenomenological fit of a form that has been shown to fit $`J/\psi `$ data well at fixed target energies pt\_phen . The dashed line is an exponential fit. The phenomenological fits yield $`p_T`$ values of 1.85 $`\pm `$ 0.46(stat) $`\pm `$ 0.16(sys) GeV/c (central arm) and 1.78 $`\pm `$ 0.27(stat) $`\pm `$ 0.16(sys) GeV/c (muon arm), with a combined value of 1.80 $`\pm `$ 0.23(stat) $`\pm `$ 0.16(sys) GeV/c. The systematic uncertainties were estimated from the spread in $`p_T`$ from a weighted mean of the binned data, the phenomenological fit, and the exponential fit. An additional 3% was assigned to the muon $`p_T`$ due to the uncertainty in momentum scale.

The $`J/\psi `$ rapidity distribution obtained by combining the dielectron and dimuon measurements is shown in Fig. 3, with the muon arm data divided into two rapidity bins. The COM curves are theoretical shape predictions hiroki\_thesis  using the same models as are discussed in connection with Fig. 4b, except that they are normalized to our data to make the shape comparison clearer. Since gluon fusion is the dominant process in all of the models, the rapidity shape depends mostly on the gluon distribution function and is not very sensitive to the production model. Most of the available PDFs are consistent with the data, and improved statistical precision will be needed to constrain them. A Pythia calculation that reproduces the shape of our data best is also shown in Fig. 3. Normalizing this to the data, the total cross section was determined to be 3.99 $`\pm `$ 0.61(stat) $`\pm `$ 0.58(sys) $`\pm `$ 0.40(abs) $`\mu `$b. The quoted systematic error of 14% was estimated by setting the measured cross sections all to their upper systematic error limits or all to their lower systematic error limits and noting how the cross section changed. The variation in the total cross section extracted if we use the same procedure with different PDF choices and models was estimated to be small ( 3%).

A comparison is made in Fig. 4a of the present $`p_T`$ value with values from previous experiments fixed\_target . There are no theoretical predictions that we can compare with the $`p_T`$ measurements. The total $`J/\psi `$ cross section determined in this analysis is shown in Fig. 4b, along with cross sections determined by lower energy experiments fixed\_target  and predictions from the COM hiroki\_thesis  using two different PDFs. The $`\sqrt{s}`$ dependence of the cross section is sensitive to the factorization scale $`Q`$, since the shape of the PDFs depend on $`Q`$. The values of $`Q`$ (3.1 GeV for GRV98NLO and 2.3 GeV for MRST2001NLO) were chosen to give good agreement with the data. The total cross section normalization was obtained using color octet matrix elements from beneke , but has large theoretical uncertainties associated with the charm quark mass and the renormalization scale. The renormalization scale was taken to be equal to the quark mass Mc, and their values (1.48 GeV for GRV98NLO and 1.55 GeV for MRST2001NLO) were chosen to give good agreement with the data. The CEM is also able to describe the total cross section data cem . All measurements and models include feed-down from the $`\chi _c`$ and the $`\psi ^{}`$ to the $`J/\psi `$. We estimate bfeed\_down  that $`B`$ decay feed-down contributes less than 4% to the $`J/\psi `$ total cross section at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 200 GeV.

In summary, we have presented the first $`ppJ/\psi +X`$ measurements from RHIC, obtained at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 200 GeV. The rapidity distributions, $`p_T`$ distributions, $`p_T`$ and total cross sections have been presented and compared with available model calculations. The transverse momentum distributions above 2 GeV/c are reasonably well described by the COM. With the present statistical precision, our rapidity distribution shape is consistent with most of the available PDFs. COM calculations are able to reproduce the $`\sqrt{s}`$ dependence of the cross section using color octet matrix elements found in the literature, with a reasonable choice of QCD parameters.

RHIC is expected to have proton-proton runs with enhanced luminosity at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 200 and 500 GeV in the near future. The increased luminosity will improve the statistical precision and $`p_T`$ reach of the PHENIX data, and will ultimately make it possible to measure the $`J/\psi `$ polarization, which has been an important test for models cdf\_pol .

We thank the staff of the Collider-Accelerator and Physics Departments at BNL for their vital contributions. We acknowledge support from the Department of Energy and NSF (U.S.A.), MEXT and JSPS (Japan), CNPq and FAPESP (Brazil), NSFC (China), CNRS-IN2P3 and CEA (France), BMBF, DAAD, and AvH (Germany), OTKA (Hungary), DAE and DST (India), ISF (Israel), KRF and CHEP (Korea), RMIST, RAS, and RMAE, (Russia), VR and KAW (Sweden), U.S. CRDF for the FSU, US-Hungarian NSF-OTKA-MTA, and US-Israel BSF.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The application of cellular automata, Ising models and other tools of (computational or statistical) physics has a long tradition . Of course, thinking human beings are not enthusiastic about being treated like a randomly flipping magnetic moment, since they form their opinions by complicated cognitive processes. But to see general properties of mass psychology, such simple approximations may be realistic enough. Similarly, conceiving a child is a very private affair; nevertheless from average birth rates one can predict reasonably well how many babies will be born next year in a large country. Whether I smoke, drink or eat steaks, has influence on my health and on my time of death; nevertheless, average mortality rates are published in many countries and were already studied three centuries ago by comet researcher Halley.

More recently, starting perhaps with  (see  for recent simulations and further literature), the “consensus“ literature tried to find out when (in a computer simulation) a complete consensus from initially diverging opinions emerges. Deffuant et al  (henceforth denoted as D, where earlier papers on this model are cited) and Hegselmann and Krause (HK)  had opinions on a continuous scale between $`1`$ and 1, while the Sznajd model  (for a review see ) mostly used the binary choice $`\pm 1`$ for opinions.

The HK model and most other “voter” models  assume that every agent is influenced by its neighbours or by all other agents and takes, for example, the opinion of the majority of them, or of a weighted average, as its own next opinion. The Sznajd model, on the other hand, assumes that every agent tries to influence its neighbours, without caring about what they think first. Thus in the Sznajd model the information flows outward to the neighbourhood, as in infection or rumour spreading, while in most other models the information flows inward from the neighbourhood. The D model is in between: Two people who exchange opinions move closer together in their opinions. The models of HK and D assume that only people whose opinions are already close to each other can influence each other: bounded confidence. The results of these two models are similar but the D model is faster to simulate, up to 450 million agents by the present author, Fig.1. The main result is that a complete consensus is reached if the interval of opinions over which people influence each other is large enough, while for small such intervals at the end several distinct opinions survive. For the D model this can also be seen from approximate analytical treatment .

The Sznajd model, with only the opinions $`\pm 1`$ allowed, always leads to a complete consensus, and this remains true if $`Q>2`$ different opinions are allowed and all opinions can influence each other. With bounded confidence in the sense that opinion $`q`$ can influence only the neighbouring opinions $`q\pm 1`$, the results are similar to those of D and HK. Full consensus for $`Q`$ up to three but not for larger $`Q`$. However, the Sznajd model takes into account the well-known psychological and political fact that “united we stand, divided we fall”; only groups of people having the same opinion, not divided groups, can influence their neighbours.

In contrast to the other consensus models, the Sznajd model as published thus far deals only with communication between neighbours, not between everybody. It is a “word-of-mouth” model.

## 2 Models

To see if a consensus emerges out of initially different opinions, all three models here start with a random initial distribution of opinions $`S_i,i=1,2,\mathrm{}N`$ of $`N`$ “people”, where $`S_i`$ is a real number (between 0 and 1) in the D  and HK  models, while it is an integer in the Galam  and the Sznajd model . Only the basic D and HK versions are reviewed here. Fortran programs are listed in  or given in the appendix.

### 2.1 Deffuant et al

In the D model , at every Monte Carlo step a randomly selected pair $`i,k`$ checks if the opinions $`S_i`$ and $`S_k`$ differ by less than a fixed parameter $`ϵ`$. If no, nothing happens; if yes, both opinions move closer to each other by an amount $`\mu |S_iS_k|`$. In Fig.1, the weight $`\mu `$ was taken as 0.3, and $`ϵ=0.05,0.25`$ and 0.40 for low, intermediate and high tolerance of dissent.

### 2.2 Hegselmann-Krause

Also in the HK model , the opinions vary between 0 and 1. At each Monte Carlo step, one randomly selected $`i`$ takes the average opinion of all other opinions $`S_k`$ which differ less than $`ϵ`$ from $`S_i`$. Because of this large sum, the simulation for large numbers $`N`$ of people is much slower than in the D model; nevertheless the final results are quite similar, Fig. 2 of .

### 2.3 Galam

The Galam model  is not really a consensus model since dissenters are ignored, not convinced. $`N=4^n`$ people are divided into $`N/4`$ groups of four each, each group determining by majority vote which of two possible opinions the single delegate of that group will support. Four such delegates again select one representative by majority vote, four such representatives select one council member, and so on, until after $`n`$ such steps of majority hierarchies one opinion represents the whole community. In case of a 2:2 tie, the status quo is preserved, i.e. the government wins over the opposition. Even if in the initial random distribution of opinions, the opposition has a sizeable majority, at the end the minority government wins, also in the case of more realistic Monte Carlo simulations or modified models .

### 2.4 Panic

Some sort of consensus is also reached if all people in a room on fire run to one of two exits, leaving the other exit unused. This panic is the limiting case of a simulation  using molecular dynamics techniques, where in general each person follows partly the majority direction and partly his/her own judgement.

### 2.5 Sznajd

The Sznajd people usually sit on lattice sites, and a pair of two neighbours $`i,k`$ having the same opinion $`S_i=S_k`$ convinces all its neighbours of this opinion $`S_i`$. Instead of a pair, also a single site, or a plaquette of four agreeing neighbours has been simulated  to convince all neighbours.

## 3 Basic Sznajd Results

The basic Sznajd model with random sequential updating always leads to a consensus, even if more than two opinions are allowed or for higher dimensions. If initially half of the opinions are $`+1`$ and the other half $`1`$, then at the end half of the samples will have $`S_i=+1`$ for all $`i`$, and the remaining half have $`S_i=1`$ everywhere. A phase transition is often observed as a function of the initial concentration $`p`$ of up spins $`S_i=1`$: For $`p<1/2`$ all samples end up with $`S_i=1`$, and for $`p>1/2`$ they all end up in the other fixed point $`S_i=+1`$, for large enough lattices. This phase transition at $`p_c=1/2`$ does not exist in one dimension  or when a single site (instead of a pair or plaquette) on the square lattice  already convinces its neighbours. Pictures and cluster analysis of the domain formation process  show strong similarity with Ising models. The time needed to reach a complete consensus fluctuates widely and (in the cases were a phase transition is found) does not follow a Gaussian or log-normal distribution. If convincing happens only with a certain probability, then no complete consensus is found . A Hamiltonian-like description seems possible (only ?) in one dimension . The number of people who never changed their opinion first decays with a power of time, and then stays at a small but finite value , quite different from Ising models. See  for an economic application.

## 4 Sznajd Modifications

Switching from the square to the triangular or a diluted lattice does not change the qualitative results . Elgazzar  and Schulze  left the word-of-mouth limit of nearest-neighbour interactions and looked at longer ranges of interaction, using a “small world” network  or a power-law force . If the probability to convince others decays with a power of the distance, the phase transition remains in the usual case (when a pair is needed to convince neighbours), but no phase transition appears in the simpler case of a single site being able to convince . In contrast, the Ising model may show a transition for power-law decay of interactions even if for nearest neighbours in one dimension no transition occurs.

Schulze also simulated a “ghost site” connected to all normal sites on the square lattice ; this ghost site convinces each normal site of the ghost opinion with a small probability. In marketing, this probability corresponds to the influence of advertising, e.g. through TV commercials. The larger the lattice is the smaller is the amount of advertising needed to convince the whole market.

A different subject is “frustration”: What should I do if my neighbours to the left tell me to vote for $`+1`$, and those to the right tell me to vote for $`1`$ ? For the usual random sequential updating I follow first the opinion of which I am convinced first, and later I follow the one of which I am convinced later: no problem. But if simultaneous updating is used, then I am frustrated, I do not know whom to follow, and thus do not change my opinion. In this case, a consensus is difficult in small lattices and impossible in big ones . (Our introduction is mostly taken from there.) These difficulties are partially reduced if I am less obedient to authority and in case of conflicting advice follow my own opinion, defined as the majority opinion in my own past voting record . The blocking effect of frustration is also removed by a small amount of noise , when people with a low probability do not follow the above rule. Then after sufficiently long time a nearly complete consensus is found.

Talking about voting, the results of Brazilian elections (distribution of number of votes among many candidates) were reproduced quite well if the Sznajd model with many different opinions (instead of only $`\pm 1`$) is put on a Barabási-Albert network . If the Sznajd dynamics is simultaneous to the growth of this network, complete consensus no longer is possible . On the square lattice, if only $`Q=4`$ or 5 parties are simulated  with bounded confidence, even-odd oscillations as a function of the opinion number may appear at intermediate times, with the effect that the party which was on second place halfway through the convicing process ends up with no votes, just as the fourth-ranked party, while the third-ranked party at the end still has a small number of followers. Also, bounded confidence makes it difficult to reach a consensus for a large number $`Q`$ of parties .

Returning to one dimension, Behera and Schweitzer showed that numerically their Sznajd results cannot be distinguished from a probabilistic voter model with interactions from nearest and next-nearest neighbours .

## 5 Summary

In its first three years, the Sznajd model , first rejected by Phys. Rev. Letters, found followers in four continents. Some of its results are Ising like, others are not. More sociological numbers than only Brazilian elections would be nice for comparison.

Thanks to F. Pütsch and A. O. Sousa for comments on the manuscript.

## 6 Appendix: Sznajd Chain and Programs

In one dimension one can see without computer simulations why an initial random distribution of votes (which is not up-down periodic everywhere like an antiferromagnet) results in a complete consensus. After some time large domains of $`+`$ and $``$ are formed, with domain boundaries like $`++++`$. If the righmost plus pair in this picture is selected, it convinces the leftmost minus to become plus, and the boundary is shifted to the right. If instead the leftmost minus pair is selected, it shifts the boundary to the left. Thus the boundaries undergo a random walk until they annihilate each other or are annihilated at the two sample ends. An intermediate step of this annihilation process are configurations like $`+++++++`$ or $`++++`$. Here the inner mixed region cannot expand since in contrast to Ising models only adjacent pairs convince; but the inner region can shrink to annihilation when the outer pairs are selected to convince their neighbours. Thus all boundaries finally vanish and we arrive at a complete consensus. These arguments apply also to more than two opinions, while simulations show this behaviour also in higher dimensions, Fig.2, in not too large lattices. Simple programs for D and HK are listed below.

```
      parameter(n=200,max=30,iseed=1,eps=0.4,weight=0.3)
c     Deffuant et al consensus (Weisbuch’s C program)
c     s(i)=opinion of agent i; n=number of agents
      dimension s(n)
      print *, n, eps, max, iseed
      ibm=2*iseed-1
      factor=1.0d0/2147483648.0d0
      do 1 i=1,n
        ibm=ibm*16807
 1      s(i)=iabs(ibm)*factor
      do 2 iter=1,max
       do 3 i=1,n
 4      ibm=ibm*16807
        j=1+(ibm*factor+0.5)*n
        if(j.le.0.or.j.gt.n) goto 4
        if(abs(s(i)-s(j)).gt.eps) goto 3
        shift=weight*(s(j)-s(i))
        s(i)=s(i)+shift
        s(j)=s(j)-shift
 3      print *, iter, s(i)
 2    continue
      stop
      end

      parameter(n=200 ,eps=0.40,max=10,iseed=1)
c     Hegselmann-Krause consensus with sequential updating
c     s(i) = opinion of agent i, n = number of agents
      dimension s(n)
      print *, n,eps,max,iseed
      ibm=2*iseed-1
      factor=1.0d0/2147483648.0d0
      do 1 i=1,n
        ibm=ibm*16807
 1      s(i)=iabs(ibm)*factor
      do 2 iter=1,max
       do 3 i=1,n
        sum=0.0
        neighb=0
        si=s(i)
        do 4 j=1,n
         if(abs(s(j)-si).gt.eps) goto 4
         sum=sum+s(j)
         neighb=neighb+1
 4      continue
        s(i)=sum/neighb
 3      print *, iter, s(i)
 2    continue
      stop
      end

```


text:
# CP violation in the associated production of a charged Higgs boson with a top quark at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

## Abstract

We explore the CP violation in the charged Higgs production associated with a top quark at the LHC in the MSSM. The supersymmetric phases of gaugino masses and trilinear $`A`$ terms lead to a CP violation of the cross section in the $`ppgbtH^\pm `$ process through loop corrections to the $`tbH^\pm `$ vertex. We find that more than 10 % of CP violating asymmetry is possible when the charged Higgs boson is heavy enough.

The Higgs mechanism provoked by the non-zero vacuum expectation value (VEV) of a scalar doublet is the key structure of the Standard Model (SM), which gives rise to the electroweak symmetry breaking and the generation of fermion masses. There is one SU(2) doublet of scalar field in the SM lagrangian and only one neutral Higgs boson exists as a physical state after the breakdown of the electroweak symmetry. The Higgs boson is the only unobserved ingredient of the SM. LEP experiment favors a light Higgs boson from the global fit of data and has suggested a candidate of the Higgs boson of 115 GeV higgs1 . The discovery of the Higgs boson is the principal goal of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). For the SM Higgs boson, LHC promises to cover the wide range of Higgs boson mass higgs2 .

Most extensions of the SM require the introduction of extended Higgs sector to the theory. Generically, charged Higgs boson arises in the extended Higgs sector, which does not exist in the SM. It implies that the observation of a charged Higgs boson is a clear evidence for existence of the new physics beyond the SM. The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) is one of the most promising candidate for physics beyond the SM. In the MSSM, we need two Higgs doublets to preserve the supersymmetry and then there are a pair of charged Higgs boson $`H^\pm `$ with two neutral CP-even Higgs bosons $`h^0`$, $`H^0`$, and a neutral CP-odd Higgs boson $`A^0`$ in the particle spectrum of the MSSM. Direct experimental search for $`H^\pm `$ at LEP II has set the lower bound of mass to be 79.9 GeV lep2  through $`e^{}e^+H^{}H^+`$ production. The direct and indirect studies of $`H^\pm `$ at the Tevatron constrain the parameter space of $`(m_{H^\pm },\mathrm{tan}\beta )`$. CDF and D0 groups have excluded the low and high $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ regions up to $`160`$ GeV tevatron . The discovery potential of the charged Higgs boson at the LHC has been studied by ATLAS atlas  and CMS cms  groups. We expect to discover a charged Higgs boson as heavy as 1 TeV at the 5-$`\sigma `$ confidence level, or may exclude it up to the mass of 1.5 TeV at 95 % C.L. at the LHC with the MSSM radiative corrections belyaev . We concentrate on the process $`gbtH^\pm `$ which is the most promising channels for the charged Higgs boson production at the LHC when $`H^\pm `$ is heavier than the top quark. The discovery potential of this channel has been studied in the Ref. gbth1 ; gbth2 . The Drell-Yan mechanism $`gg`$, $`q\overline{q}H^{}H^+`$ and the associated production with a $`W`$ boson, $`q\overline{q}H^\pm W^{}`$ are suppressed due to the weak couplings, low quark luminosity, and loop suppressions. If the mass of $`H^\pm `$ is below the top quark mass, $`H^\pm `$ is produced by the sequential decay of top quark $`tbH^\pm `$ following the $`t\overline{t}`$ pair production.

Exotic CP violating phenomena are generically predicted in the MSSM due to new complex phases. Assuming the R-symmetry and the gauge coupling unification at the GUT scale, the physical phases come from the $`\mu `$ parameter, the soft trilinear coupling $`A`$ terms, and two gaugino masses after rotating away other phases. Then the supersymmetric loop corrections to the $`tbH^\pm `$ vertex involving squarks, charginos, gluinos and neutralinos generically lead to the manifest CP violation in charged Higgs production and decay due to the SUSY CP phases. The CP violation in the decays of $`H^\pm `$ into $`t,b`$ quarks and $`\tau ,\nu `$ has been studied in Ref. christova ; christovatau . In this work, we investigate the direct CP violating asymmetry in the MSSM charged Higgs boson production in association with a single top quark at the LHC.

In the MSSM, the relevant interaction lagrangian of the charged Higgs boson production is given by

$`_{\mathrm{int}}=V_{tb}\overline{t}\left(Y_t^+P_L+Y_b^+P_R\right)bH^++H.c.,`$ (1)
ignoring the light quark masses and mixing. We incorporate the SUSY correction in this Yukawa coupling to make the effective vertex. The SUSY loop corrections arise through the vertex corrections with $`\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{b}\stackrel{~}{g}(\chi ^0)`$ loop, $`\chi ^\pm \chi ^0\stackrel{~}{t}(\stackrel{~}{b})`$ loop, $`H^0W^\pm t(b)`$ loop, and the $`H^\pm W^\pm `$ self-energy diagram with $`\chi ^\pm \chi ^0`$ loop, $`\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{b}`$ loop, $`H^0W^\pm `$ loop. We parametrize the Yukawa couplings as $`Y_{t,b}^\pm =y_{t,b}^0+\delta y_{t,b}\pm \frac{1}{2}\delta y_{t,b}^{\mathrm{CP}},`$ where the SUSY loop corrections consist of the CP invariant part $`\delta y_{t,b}`$ and the CP violating part $`\delta y_{t,b}^{\mathrm{CP}}`$. The relevant quantity for the CP violation is $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}\mathrm{Re}(Y_i^+Y_i^{})`$ where $`i=t,b`$ of which analytic form is derived in Ref. christova  for the decay of the charged Higgs boson. Since we consider the one loop correction to the vertex, the effective vertex is expressed by one loop integral and, in consequence by the Passarino-Veltman function. We note that the $`t`$ ($`\overline{t}`$) quark of the $`tbH^\pm `$ vertices is not on shell for the $`t`$-channel process and the argument of the Passarino-Veltman function should be the partonic Mandelstam variable $`\widehat{t}`$ instead of $`m_t^2`$., The principal contribution to $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}`$ comes from $`\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{b}\stackrel{~}{g}(\chi ^0)`$ loop and $`\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{b}`$ loop diagrams depicted in Fig. 1. With the minimal supergravity model (mSUGRA) type particle spectrum, contributions of $`\chi ^\pm \chi ^0\stackrel{~}{t}(\stackrel{~}{b})`$, $`H^0W^\pm t(b)`$, $`\chi ^\pm \chi ^0`$ and $`H^0W^\pm `$ loops to $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}`$ are less than 1 % for any value of the charged Higgs mass and irrelevant for observation in the experiment.

In terms of the couplings given in Eq. (1), we write the scattering amplitude as

$`i(g\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)=ig_s\overline{b}\left[T_{ab}^c\mathit{ϵ̸}(p_g){\displaystyle \frac{Y_t^{}P_L+Y_b^{}P_R}{\mathit{}_H\mathit{}_bm_t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{Y_t^{}P_L+Y_b^{}P_R}{\mathit{}_H+\mathit{}_tm_b}}\mathit{ϵ̸}(p_g)T_{ab}^c\right]t,`$ (2)
and obtain the partonic cross section as

$`\widehat{\sigma }(g\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi \widehat{s}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(\widehat{s}m_t^2m_H^2)^24m_H^2m_t^2}}{\widehat{s}m_b^2}}|\overline{}|^2,`$ (3)
where the colliding energy is kinematically allowed if $`\widehat{s}>(m_t+m_H)^2`$. We define the direct CP asymmetry at the parton level

$`\widehat{A}_{CP}={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\sigma }(g\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)\widehat{\sigma }(gbtH^{})}{\widehat{\sigma }(g\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)+\widehat{\sigma }(gbtH^{})}}{\displaystyle \frac{y_t^0\mathrm{Re}\delta y_t^{\mathrm{CP}}+y_b^0\mathrm{Re}\delta y_b^{\mathrm{CP}}}{|y_t^0|^2+|y_b^0|^2}},`$ (4)
when assuming $`\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}y_i^0`$. The relevant quantity for the CP asymmetry $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}\mathrm{Re}(Y_i^+Y_i^{})`$ consists of the supersymmetric CP violating phase part and imaginary part of the loop integrals such that $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}`$ Im(squark couplings)$``$ Im($`C_I,B_0`$), $`I=0,1,2`$ where $`C_I,B_0`$ are 3-point and 2-point Passarino-Veltman functions passarino . The SUSY phases in trilinear $`A`$ terms, $`\mu `$ parameter and gaugino masses lead to nonzero imaginary part of squark couplings. On the other hand, for the non-zero imaginary part of the Passarino-Veltman function, a pair of internal lines of the loop should be on-shell, and thus the mass of the charged Higgs should exceed the sum of the stop and sbottom masses, $`m_{H^\pm }>m_{\stackrel{~}{t}}+m_{\stackrel{~}{b}}`$. Then the gluino loop and $`\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{b}`$ self-energy contribution to $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}`$ are switched on and we obtain a sizable CP violating asymmetry. It is also possible to obtain non-zero Im($`C_I,B_0`$) when $`\sqrt{\widehat{t}}`$ exceeds the sum of the gluino and stop masses, $`\sqrt{\widehat{t}}>m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}+m_{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$, but this effect is convoluted by the parton distributions and brings on fluctuations as shown in the figures.

The hadronic cross section is given by

$`\sigma (ppg\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)={\displaystyle 𝑑x𝑑yf_g(x)f_b(y)\widehat{\sigma }(g\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)},`$ (5)
where $`f_g`$ and $`f_b`$ are the parton distribution functions (PDF) for gluon and $`b`$-quark respectively. We use the leading order MRST functions for a gluon and a $`b`$-quark PDF in a proton MRST . The QCD factorization and renormalization scales $`Q`$ are set to be the $`gb`$ invariant mass, i.e., $`\sqrt{\widehat{s}}`$. The $`Q^2`$-dependence will be small by the cancellation in the CP asymmetry which is of our main interest. The center-of-momentum (c.m.) energy of $`pp`$ collisions at the LHC is $`\sqrt{s}=14`$ TeV and the kinematic cuts of $`p__T25`$ GeV and $`|\eta |2.5`$ have been employed in this paper. The CP violating asymmetry is defined at the hadronic level by

$`A_{CP}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (ppg\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)\sigma (ppgbtH^{})}{\sigma (ppg\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)+\sigma (ppgbtH^{})}}.`$ (6)
We do not assume the specific SUSY model in our analysis but just fix a few parameters in order to avoid the confusion caused by too many parameters. The values of parameters are taken to be

$`M_2=200\mathrm{GeV},m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}=350\mathrm{GeV},`$
$`|A_t|=|A_b|=500\mathrm{GeV},\mu =500\mathrm{GeV},`$ (7)
and the GUT relation is assumed for the gaugino masses. The phase of $`\mu `$ is strictly constrained by the electric dipole moments (EDM) of the electron and neutron in the mSUGRA. Although the constraint on the phase of $`\mu `$ would not be serious in other SUSY models, we ignore the $`\mu `$ phase for simplicity in this work. Consequently varied parameters are the charged Higgs mass, $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, and phases of $`A_t`$, $`A_b`$, and $`M_3`$. For instance, our choice of parameters yields the sparticle spectrum as follows:

$`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`208.84,473.62\mathrm{GeV},`$
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}}`$ $`=`$ $`351.66,371.13\mathrm{GeV},`$
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }^0}`$ $`=`$ $`97.70,189.04,503.81,517.27\mathrm{GeV},`$
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }^\pm }`$ $`=`$ $`204.51,715.25\mathrm{GeV},`$
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}`$ $`=`$ $`703.65\mathrm{GeV},`$ (8)
for $`m_{H^\pm }=800`$ GeV, $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =5`$. Our choice is similar to the sparticle spectra of the typical or the light stop scenario in the mSUGRA model snowmass .

In the Fig. 2 and 3, we show the behaviors of the CP violating asymmetry with respect to $`m_{H^\pm }`$ when the phases of $`A_t`$ and $`M_3`$ are nonzero. We take $`\theta _t=\pi /2`$ and other phases are set to be zero in Fig 2 and take $`\theta _t=\pi `$ and $`\varphi _3=\pi /2`$ in Fig. 3 to maximize $`A_{CP}`$. Since the CP violating correction $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_t^{\mathrm{CP}}`$ is generically larger than $`\mathrm{Re}\delta y_b^{\mathrm{CP}}`$, the CP violating asymmetry becomes larger as $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ decreases in the plots. We can see that the sizable $`A_{CP}`$ arises around 600 GeV when $`m_{H^\pm }`$ exceeds $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}+m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_1}`$ and the Passarino-Veltman function develops the non-zero imaginary part. The next rising-up of the plot arises caused by the loops with the internal lines of heavier stop around $`m_{H^\pm }=850`$ GeV, that is, when $`m_{H^\pm }>m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}+m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_1}`$.

At a collider, what we observe is not the charged Higgs boson itself but its decay products. The charged Higgs boson dominantly decays into $`tb`$ and $`\tau \nu _\tau `$ pair if $`m_{H^\pm }>m_t`$. The CP violating SUSY corrections to the Yukawa coupling $`tbH^\pm `$ also give rise to a difference between decay rates of $`H^+t\overline{b}`$ and $`H^{}\overline{t}b`$ indicating a CP violation as considered in Ref. christova . Therefore the measured asymmetry is actually the combined asymmetry

$`A_{CP}^{\mathrm{tot}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (ppg\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)\mathrm{\Gamma }(H^+t\overline{b})\sigma (ppgbtH^{})\mathrm{\Gamma }(H^{}\overline{t}b)}{\sigma (ppg\overline{b}\overline{t}H^+)\mathrm{\Gamma }(H^+t\overline{b})+\sigma (ppgbtH^{})\mathrm{\Gamma }(H^{}\overline{t}b)}}.`$ (9)
Under the assumption of Re $`\delta y_i^{\mathrm{CP}}y_i^0`$, the asymmetry is approximately the sum of the production asymmetry and the decay asymmetry,

$`A_{CP}^{\mathrm{tot}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma }{\sigma }}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}=A_{CP}^{\mathrm{prod}}+A_{CP}^{\mathrm{decay}}.`$ (10)
Thus it is expected that the total asymmetry is amplified due to the asymmetry in decay. We show the total asymmetry with respect to $`m_{H^\pm }`$ in Fig. 4. If we consider the events with $`H^\pm `$ decays into $`\tau \nu _\tau `$, it is enough to consider the asymmetry of Eq. (6) since the rate asymmetry of $`H^\pm \tau \nu _\tau `$ is nothing but of order $`10^3`$ christovatau .

It is known that the SUSY corrections play an important role in the charged Higgs production processes. They can enhance the signal-background ratio to shift the reach of the LHC search by a few hundred GeV and may yield CP violation in the charged Higgs production belyaev . The QCD corrections and SUSY corrections to the gluonic vertex and propagators are canceled out in the CP asymmetry and we do not consider them here. We find that the CP violating asymmetry can reach more than 10 % when the mass of the charged Higgs boson is larger than 850 GeV. If we consider the CP asymmetry of decay products, $`ppt\overline{t}b/\overline{t}t\overline{b}`$, it is amplified by the CP violation of decay process and we could obtain the asymmetry more than 25 % as shown in Fig. 4. In conclusion, the CP violation in the charged Higgs boson production associated with a top quark can be large dependent on SUSY phases and $`m_{H^\pm }`$. Thus we expect that the CP violating asymmetry could be detected in the charged Higgs boson production at the LHC.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Dr. S. Baek for helpful discussions and Dr. J.S. Lee for his valuable comments. This work was supported by Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2003-050-C00003).


text:
# A Survey of 10-Micron Silicate Emission from Dust around Young Sun-Like Stars 1footnote 11footnote 1Data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.

## 1 Introduction

One of the first, and serendipitous, discoveries of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) was excess infrared emission from circumstellar dust around main sequence stars Neugebauer et al. (1984). These disks are present well after the T Tauri phase of stellar evolution and its associated massive accretion disk. The lifetime of dust grains around such stars is short compared to the ages of these stars and their detection is thus indirect evidence for the presence of larger source bodies that resist Poynting-Robertson drag, perhaps analogous to asteroids or comets. Our Solar System contains a dust cloud (the Zodiacal Cloud) that reprocesses $`f8\times 10^8`$ of the Sun’s radiation Backman & Paresce (1993), re-emitting it with a spectral energy distribution similar to that of a 260 K black-body Leinert et al. (2002). The dust originates in collisions between asteroids and the disintegration of short-period comets. The early Solar System may have contained larger numbers of minor bodies and hence elevated levels of dust. Ancient cratered surfaces in the inner Solar System record intense bombardment that occured within 800 million years (Myr) of planetary accretion Strom (1987). Such impacts influenced the evolution of inner planet surfaces, atmospheres and volatile inventories Fegley et al. (1986); Melosh & Vickery (1989); Chyba et al. (1990). These impactors may have appeared suddenly after the breakup of a larger body, or belonged to a population with a long dynamical lifetime, perhaps in the outer Solar System Fernandez & Ip (1983); Levison et al. (2001). Gaidos (1999) used a model of comet-like impactors scaled to the lunar cratering record to show that an early Zodiacal dust cloud with $`f>3\times 10^4`$ was possible if Poynting-Robertson drag was the dominant removal mechanism. Circumstellar dust is thus a potential probe of the dynamics of extrasolar planetary systems and their impactor history.

The scattered or reprocessed light from residual dust disks around young main sequence stars can be (and have been) detected, usually at mid-infrared wavelengths where the contrast ratio with the stellar photosphere is greatest. IRAS detected excess 12-60 $`\mu `$m emission from dust around many main-sequence A-K stars Backman & Paresce (1993). Searches around solar-type (G and early K) stars were hampered by the sensitivity limits of the IRAS telescope. An analysis of IRAS observations of a sample of single, nearby ($`d<20`$ pc) young ($`<800`$ Myr) solar analogs selected on the basis of their high coronal X-ray emission and chromospheric activity Gaidos (1998); Gaidos et al. (2000) found excess emission from only one star, however this is now known to be the result of source confusion with a background giant star (C. Beichmann, private communication). IRAS detection limits around these stars are typically $`f8\times 10^4`$, or $`10^4`$ “Zodis”. A slightly more sensitive search was carried out at 25-170 $`\mu `$m with the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) (Habing et al. 2001). That study found that detectable ($`f>10^4`$) levels of dust are present around half of stars younger than 400 Myr but only 10% of older stars. Three of five young ($`<800`$ Myr), solar-type stars in that survey have significant excess emission, including one star (HD 30495) in the Gaidos (1998) sample. This suggests that yet more circumstellar disks will be found around young main sequence stars at lower detection threshholds.

Ground-based detection of dust disks in the infrared is very difficult. At a wavelength of 10 microns, the resolution of even the largest telescopes is equivalent to a semimajor axis of 1.3 AU at 10 pc, limiting imaging searches for dust to the nearest few bright stars Kuchner et al. (1998). Ground-based infrared photometry is notoriously inaccurate and the absolute mid-IR fluxes of stars cannot be precisely predicted, rendering such an approach inutile in improving the observational status quo. The flux density from a hypothetical 260 K dust cloud with $`f8\times 10^5`$ around a G5 star at 10 pc is 30 mJy at 11.7 $`\mu `$m, representing only 6% of the photospheric signal at this wavelength. A 3$`\sigma `$ detection would require 2% photometric accuracy, extremely challenging in the mid-infrared. Alternatively, one can use mid-infrared spectroscopy to search for the 10 $`\mu `$m emission feature produced by the Si-O stretch vibration in crystalline silicate dust. Silicate emission features comparable to the continuum emission have been detected from $`\beta `$ Pictoris and young early-type stars with circumstellar disks Skinner et al. (1992); Knacke et al. (1993); Fajardo-Acosta et al. (1993); Waelkens et al. (1996); Hanner et al. (1998) and resemble those observed in comets Knacke et al. (1993); Sitko et al. (1999); Hayward et al. (2000). In principle, spectroscopy is more precise than photometry because it is sensitive to the wavelength dependence of the emission within the band-pass and insenstive to the absolute total value. The marked features associated with crystalline silicate emission are more easily discernable than continuum emission with a Planck or power-law spectral energy distribution (SED) (Fig. 1). In addition, the intensity and shape of the emission feature can provide information about the mineralogy of the dust grains Jäger et al. (1998).

We obtained N-band (8-13 $`\mu `$m) spectroscopy of several nearby young stars using the Keck 1 telescope and the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) to search for silicate emission from circumstellar dust. Our approach was to correct for the effects of the atmosphere, telescope, and detector combination by comparing target and calibrator stars. The ideal calibrator star would, of course, be completely dust free. However, the presence or absence of dust around most nearby stars has not been established at a precision comparable to that of our current observations. Thus, while we observed older calibration stars in the expectation that they would be less likely to harbor significant dust clouds, our conclusion will be limited to statements about the relative amount of silicate emission flux from pairs of stars.

Most of the targets (Table 1) are young solar analogs from the updated, volume-limited version of the Gaidos (1998) catalog of nearby young solar analogs. These single or wide-binary stars are all within 25 pc, have spectral types G0-K2, and coronal X-ray luminosities suggesting ages less than 800 Myr. Followup spectroscopy and photometery of these objects have confirmed marked chromospheric activity, high lithium abundance, and rapid rotation, all indicative of stellar youth Gaidos et al. (2000). Two other stars in the sample, HD 17925 and HD 77407 were identified as active solar-type stars by Montes et al. (2001). We also observed Vega ($`\alpha `$ Lyra) and the calibrator A stars Altair ($`\alpha `$ Cygnus) and Castor ($`\alpha `$ Gem). Vega is the archetypal IRAS-detected infrared excess star and its fluxes at 25 and 60 $`\mu `$m exceed those predicted for its photosphere. Circumstellar dust may also have been resolved at sub-millimeter wavelengths Koerner et al. (2001); Wilner et al. (2002). No excess has been detected at 12 $`\mu `$m to the IRAS calibration accuracy of 5% Aumann et al. (1984). However, Ciardi et al. (2001) have reported resolving the stellar disk of Vega with interferometry at 2.2 $`\mu `$m and suggest that 3-6% of the flux is emanating as scattered or reprocessed starlight from circumstellar dust within 4 AU of the star. As equilibrium black-body temperatures at those distances exceed 380 K, this material would be expected to produce a signal at mid-infrared wavelengths as well.

## 2 LWS Observations and Data Reduction

Observations were carried out with Keck 1 and Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) in low-resolution spectroscopic mode during two runs; 2 September 2002, and 18-19 March 2003 (Table 1). The gold-coated secondary has a speed of f/25 and the LWS was mounted on the forward Cassegrain module of the telescope. The LWS is described in detail by Jones & Puetter (1993). Briefly, the LWS detector is a Boeing 1282 pixel Si:As array with 75 micron pixels read out by amplifiers with a co-adder inverse gain of 360 e- DN-1 at 12 bit accuracy. The low-resolution grating was used (dispersion of 0.037 $`\mu `$m pixel-1 at the detector) with a 6-pixel (0.5 arc-second) slit and an N-wide (8.1-13.0 $`\mu `$m) filter. The detector is oriented such that rows are approximately parallel to the direction of dispersion.

Multiple frames for each star were taken in the usual four telescope states associated with ground-based observations in the mid-infrared, with the chopping secondary and telescope nod set to their on-source and off-source positions. Typical chop amplitude and frequency were 10 arc-sec and 2 Hz. Preprocessing of the spectral frames consisted of subtraction of the average of the (chop off, nod on) frames in each file from the average of the (chop on, nod on) frames to produce a chop-subtracted nod-on frame. Similarly, the average of the (chop off, nod off) frames in each file was subtracted from the average of the (chop on, nod off) frames to produce a chop-subtracted nod-off frame. Subtracting the nod-off frame from the nod-on frame, dividing by the flatfield, and fixing the bad pixels produced a stellar spectrum frame suitable for spectral extraction. A dark current image was constructed by averaging multiple frames with the same exposure time and subtracted from each image. “Hot” pixels were identified in spectra of a warm stop that was placed in the beam and are removed from further analysis.

Care was taken during the extraction of the stellar spectra to account for the distortion of the image plane, which causes the wavelength corresponding to each column of pixels to differ from row to row, and the file-to-file shifts of the spectra caused by imperfect setting of the grating and pointing of the telescope. It was important that these effects be corrected before dividing each target spectrum by a calibrator spectrum to avoid producing spurious spectral features, especial in the region of deep atmospheric absorption features. The wavelength calibration was done using bright telluric emission features in mid-infrared. An airglow frame was constructed by averaging all the frames in a file (including both chop and nod positions), subtracting the averaged dark frame, dividing by the flatfield frame, and fixing bad pixels. (The sky emission is much brighter than the stars so the airglow frame was not affected by the presence of the stellar spectrum). The telluric lines are visible as gently curving vertical stripes in the airglow frame. A narrow horizontal strip across the middle of one of the airglow frames provided a template spectrum for the airglow. This was stretched vertically to produce an airglow template frame with the same dimensions as the frames from which the stellar spectra were to be extracted. The airglow lines are nearly vertical in the airglow template frame. The airglow frame derived from each file was numerically undistorted to fit the airglow template frame, and the same undistortion parameters were applied to the calibrated stellar spectrum frame for that file. This produced a set of calibrated stellar spectrum frames with consistent wavelength scaling.

Because the alignment between the target and calibrator spectra uses sky emission, spectral misalignment can still occur if the centroids of the target and calibrator stars are offset within the slit. The slit width (6 pixels) is equivalent to 0.22 $`\mu `$m and thus significant misalignment is possible. We mitigate this effect by performing a secondary alignment between the target and calibrator spectra using a weighted cross-correlation in a 0.8 $`\mu `$m-wide window centered on the 9.6 $`\mu `$m ozone feature. (This portion of the spectrum is not used for subsequent spectral analysis). Typical offsets were 0.5 pixels (0.019 $`\mu `$m) (Uncertainties in offset are accounted for in §3)

A spectrum was extracted from a narrow strip containing the starlight that was projected along columns. Each spectrum was normalized by the average of all columns (channels). A final spectrum was generated by averaging over the spectra for each star. An error spectrum was constructing by calculating, channel by channel, the variance of the summed spectra. Finally, a calibrated science spectrum was generated by taking the ratio of the normalized target and calibration spectra. The errors in each spectral channel was calculated from the target and calibration spectrum errors added in quadrature. Representative spectra are shown in Fig. 2. A dust-free calibrated spectrum should be essentially flat. Differences in photosphere temperature equivalent to an entire spectral class would induce a slope of less than 1% across the entire N-band.

## 3 Analysis of LWS Spectroscopy

In none of the spectra is silicate emission obvious, i.e., at the level of 20% of the photosphere or larger. We used a matched filter/least-squares fit technique to search for lower levels of silicate emission from a target star. Each calibrated spectrum $`S`$ (where unity has been subtracted) was compared with a template spectrum of silicate emission $`T`$. We derived the template from the mid-infrared spectra of Comet Hale-Bopp near perihelion reported by Hayward et al. (2000). The comet exhibited pronounced double-peaked silicate emission with respect to a continuum that can be described by a 390 K blackbody (Fig. 1). Crystalline olivine, glassy olivine, and crystalline pyroxene may all contribute to the complex structure of the emission. The relatively narrow, intense peak and the hot color temperature with respect to the blackbody prediction (“superheat”) may reflect a significant contribution by submicron particles to the mid-infrared flux Hanner et al. (1987).

To carry out a linear least-squares fit, we construct the template spectrum from the comet spectrum by multiplying the latter by a small number $`ϵ`$ (here 0.01) at 10 $`\mu `$m. The comet spectrum is added to and divided by a 5600 K blackbody spectrum (representing typical target and calibrator star), the resulting template normalized by its average, and unity subtracted. The least-squares fit amplitude of the silicate emission signal at 10 $`\mu `$m ($`A_{10}`$) in a calibrated spectrum is given by the ratios;

$$\frac{A_{10}}{10.75A_{10}}=ϵ\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_iS_iT_i/\sigma _i^2}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_iT_i^2/\sigma _i^2},$$
(1)
where the sums are over all channels. the factor of 0.75 in the left-hand denominator is the average of the silicate emission spectrum relative to its 10 $`\mu `$m value. A $`\chi ^2`$ value is calculated as follows;

$$\chi ^2=\mathrm{\Sigma }_iS_i^2/\sigma _i^2\left[\mathrm{\Sigma }_iS_iT_i/\sigma _i^2\right]^2\left[\mathrm{\Sigma }_iT_i^2/\sigma _i^2\right]^1$$
(2)
The accuracy and robustness of our analysis were tested by taking one star as both target and calibrator and artificially adding a Hale-Bopp signal with a specified amplitude to the former. We then compare the original and recovered amplitudes. Fig. 3 shows that the signal recovered from actual spectra is proportional to and close to the actual signal. Of course, any excess flux with an SED different than that of the stellar spectrum will also produce a signal. The recovery efficiency (recovered signal/actual signal) for excess emission with a blackbody spectrum is plotted in Fig. 4 using the star HD 20630 as both target and calibrator. The matched filter is most sensitive to 170-190 K blackbody, although the $`\chi ^2`$ will be relatively high. Sensitivity to hotter blackbodies is reduced as the spectrum becomes more Raleigh-Jeans-like and resembles that of the star. Below 150 K the exponential shape of the SED makes any template fit meaningless and regardless, we do not expect a significant signal in the N bandpass from dust at these temperatures.

A detection limit was calculated for each calibrated spectrum by repeating the least-squares fit with $`10^5`$ artificial spectra generated by adding gaussian-distributed noise (with errors as calculated above) to a perfect spectrum (unity ratio). Systematic errors created by the imperfect wavelength alignment between the source and calibration spectra must also be considered. This error will be proportional to the local slope of the observed spectrum and will thus be larger in regions where there are strong features, e.g., the ozone absorption line. We add these errors to the artificial target spectra by introducing a gaussian-distributed misalignment with mean of zero and $`\sigma =0.5`$ pixels before dividing the relevant stellar spectrum by itself. The least-squares fit amplitudes generated from the artificial spectra are sorted and the 99.97% confidence level (3$`\sigma `$ for gaussian-distributed errors) found.

## 4 Comparison to IRAS Photometry

Where appropriate, we estimated or put limits on the excess flux in the IRAS 12 $`\mu `$m channel by fitting a theoretical SED to visual and near-infrared photometry and comparing the predicted mid-IR fluxes to IRAS photometry. Visual (0.55 $`\mu `$m) magnitudes were obtained from the Hipparcos catalog Perryman (1997). Near-infrared magnitudes in the $`J`$,$`H`$, and $`K`$ passbands (1.24, 1.66, and 2.16 $`\mu `$m) measured by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) were extracted from the Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) using the Gator query engine Skrutskie (2001). Additional near-infrared measurements were obtained from the Catalog of Infrared Observations, Version 4.1 Gezari et al. (1993). Most stars also have 12 $`\mu `$m fluxes reported in source catalogs generated from observations by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) Moshir et al. (1990). The IRAS fluxes reported in the FSC are calculated based on a $`\nu ^1`$ SED and must be color-corrected for stars. As in Gaidos (1999) and others, we correct all fluxes to a 5600 K blackbody: The color corrections for 12 and 25 $`\mu `$m are 0.687 and 0.714, respectively.

Analysis was as described in Gaidos (1999). Kurucz (1992) spectra for solar metallicity and temperatures of 4750, 5000, 5250, 5500, 5750, and 6000 K were linearly interpolated with 100 mesh points between each original spectrum. Weighted least-squares fitting to the visible and near-infrared photometry was performed and the best-fit model used to generate predicted fluxes at ISO and IRAS wavelengths. Errors in these predictions were calculated by a standard Monte Carlo approach using the errors in the photometry. The significance of an excess was assessed by comparing it with the independent errors in the prediction and photometry added in quadrature.

Our LWS detections and upper limits were expressed in terms of the equivalent flux in the 12 $`\mu `$m IRAS channel. The conversion factor (0.433) between the fractional amplitude of a silicate emission feature at 10 $`\mu `$m to the fractional IRAS flux at 12 $`\mu `$m (corrected to a 5600 K blackbody) was found by direct integration of the Hale-Bopp SED over the IRAS response curve. For example, an infrared excess with the spectrum of Hale-Bopp and a peak amplitude of 10% of the photosphere at 10 $`\mu `$m would create an excess color-corrected flux of 4.3% of the photosphere in the IRAS 12-micron channel.

## 5 Results and Discussion

One star (HD 17925) in the observed sample has an N-band spectrum that significantly deviates from that of the calibrator star (HD 20603). The calibrated spectrum and the silicate emission template scaled to the detection amplitude (7.7% of the photosphere at 10 $`\mu `$m) are shown in Fig. 5. HD 17925 is a nearby (10.4 pc) active K1 dwarf star identified as a young main-sequence star by Montes et al. (2001). Habing et al. (2001) report a marginally significant (3.1$`\sigma `$) excess at 60 $`\mu `$m from ISO observations but no excess was detected at 25 $`\mu `$m (Laureijs et al. 2002). The 2MASS JHK images of this star were saturated and we used instead 4 measurements from the Catalog of Infrared Observations Version 5.1 (http://ircatalog.gsfc.nasa.gov). Photometric errors are not given in the catalog; we assume 3% precision. Least-squares fitting of an interpolated (5090 K) Kurucz model to the VJHK photometry and comparison with IRAS and ISO photometry closely reproduces the ISO 60 $`\mu `$m excess reported by Habing et al. ($`78\pm 24`$ mJy). While there is a marginal (2.2$`\sigma `$) excess of 50 mJy at 25 $`\mu `$m, there is no significant excess at 12 $`\mu `$m. The IRAS measurement is still insufficiently precise at this wavelength ($`\sigma =35`$ mJy) compared to the expected excess produced by the spectroscopic feature (23 mJy). We note that HD 20630 (the calibrator star) is also relatively young but does not have IRAS-detected excess emission.

As is customary, we convert these limits into an optical depth. Assuming the template silicate spectrum describes the actual SED of the infrared excess the ratio of the integrated excess signal to the photosphere within the N-band is about 0.057. A K1 star emits about 0.13% of its energy in the N band, therefore this detected excess represents $`f7\times 10^5`$. Of course, if this excess is dust hotter than 300 K, it will contribute a similar amount (relative to the photosphere) at longer wavelengths, but inclusion of this effect increases $`f`$ only to $`9\times 10^5`$, or about 1000 times that of our Solar System’s zodiacal cloud. For other stars we can place $`3\sigma `$ limits on the amount of silicate emission of about 3% of the photosphere at 12 $`\mu `$m, a factor of ten below that of IRAS and equivalent (per the calculations above) to $`f4\times 10^5`$. Of course, these limits are only valid for a dust SED like that of of Hale-Bopp: Our investigation is less sensitive to continuum emission but nonetheless could detect dust at the level of $`f1\times 10^4`$. Our lack of detections suggest that young main-sequence stars possessing warm ($``$200 K) circumstellar dust with $`f>10^4`$ are the exception rather than the rule. The launch of the Space Infrared Telescope (SIRTF), currently scheduled for 23 August 2003 and the advent of nulling imaging at the Keck Interferometer will allow us to probe with still greater sensitivity the dust contents of the circumstellar environments of nearby solar-type stars.

In two of the three observations, high signal-to-noise spectra of Vega calibrated by those of Altair produced a calibrated spectrum with a negative slope of about -3% across the entire N bandpass. While the spectrum of Castor calibrated by Altair also has a similar slope, the spectrum of Vega calibrated by Castor appears flat. One possible explanation is a difference in the SED of the photosphere of Altair, an A7 star, compared to those of the other two stars (which have spectral types A0 and A2). Normalization of a 9650 K blackbody (Vega) by a 8200 K blackbody (Altair) generates a slope of only 0.8% across the 8-13 $`\mu `$m range, however stars do deviate from the ideal black-body even in the mid-infrared. Another, less likely, explanation is that Altair has a circumstellar infrared excess undetected by IRAS.

The report of a circumstellar signal of 3-6% of Vega at 2.2 $`\mu `$m Ciardi et al. (2001) must be reconciled with the absence of significant excess emission at N-band wavelengths. A nominal isothermal blackbody dust model predicts that for a dust albedo of 0.1 (Backman
& Paresce 1993) and a temperature of 1500 K, the excess flux at 12 $`\mu `$m will be $``$7 times that at K-band. The IRAS limit of 5% thus constrains the K-band excess to $`<`$1%. Cooler dust temperatures make the constraint even tighter. Our detection limit of about 0.5% for silicate emission from Vega crudely translates into a 3% limit on the 12 $`\mu `$m excess for 1500 K blackbody emission, restricting the K-band excess to less than 0.4%. (The limits on cooler dust emission are lower still). Two possible explanations for reconciling the observations of Ciardi et al. (2001) with the mid-infrared observations are that the dust albedo is close to unity, implausible for hot dust, or that the dust particles are micron-sized or smaller and poor emitters at mid-infrared wavelengths. Our lack of detection of a silicate emission peak from such dust particles suggests that the second explanation is also untenable.

The authors are grateful to all people, and all peoples, that have made it possible for the summit of Mauna Kea to be a premier site of human scientific inquiry. We thank the personnel of the William Keck Observatory, particularly Randy Campbell, for courteous and professional assistance in the observations. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. The SIMBAD database, maintained by the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS), and NASA’s Astrophysics Data Systems Bibliographic Services were used also extensively.