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# Critical fluctuations and pseudogap observed in the microwave conductivity of BSCCO and YBCO thin films

## I INTRODUCTION

Soon after the discovery of high-$`T_c`$ superconductors it was found that fluctuations were more pronounced in these compounds than in the classical low temperature superconductors Freitas:87 ; Ausloos:88 . It is due primarily to short coherence lengths and large transition temperatures, but anisotropy and the degree of doping may also play a role. While classical low temperature superconductors exhibited only Gaussian type fluctuations, Skocpol:75  it was estimated that high-$`T_c`$ superconductors could give experimental access to a study of critical fluctuations Lobb:87 . Yet, early studies of the $`dc`$ fluctuation conductivity Hopfengartner:91 ; Gauzzi:95  were interpreted within the Gaussian behavior, except for a narrow region (fraction of a degree) around $`T_c`$ which was left out as possibly critical. Later on, the penetration depth measurements in $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{7\delta }`$ revealed critical behavior as wide as $`\pm 10`$K from $`T_c`$, Kamal:94  belonging to the universality class 3D XY. More recent measurements of thermal expansivity Pasler:98 ; Meingast:01  and two-coil inductive measurements Osborn:02  have confirmed this wide range of critical fluctuations, while $`dc`$ fluctuatuation conductivity measurements still claimed very narrow critical regions Cimberle:97 ; Menegotto:97 ; Han:98 ; Han:00 ; Silva:01 ; Menegotto:01 . A major problem in the analysis of a $`dc`$ fluctuation conductivity is to account for the short wavelength cutoff, Hopfengartner:91 ; Gauzzi:95 ; Cimberle:97 ; Silva:01  and energy cutoff Carballeira:01 ; Vina:02  at higher temperatures. These effects are so strong that other inherent properties of the fluctuation conductivity can be obscured.

A more stringent test of a given theoretical model can be made through a study of the microwave fluctuation conductivity since it yields two experimental curves, one for the real part $`\sigma _1(T)`$, and the other for the imaginary part $`\sigma _2(T)`$, with different shapes but ensuing from the same physics assumed in the model. Some of the earlier microwave studies reported Gaussian and critical behavior, Anlage:96 ; Booth:96 ; Nakielski:97 ; Waldram:99  but failed to account for the cutoff effects. However, a recent analysis has shown that the short wavelength cutoff yields a strong effect at higher temperatures, and a small, but experimentally detectable feature at $`T_c`$ Peligrad:03 . The latter was shown to be useful in setting a constraint on the cutoff parameters, which are then used in the whole temperature region above $`T_c`$. Further advantage of the $`ac`$ fluctuation conductivity is that the imaginary part $`\sigma _2(T)`$ has no contribution from the normal electrons so that its analysis is free from subtraction problems often encountered in $`dc`$ conductivity studies.

In this paper we present an analysis of the microwave fluctuation conductivity in $`Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta }`$ (BSCCO-2212), $`Bi_2Sr_2Ca_2Cu_3O_{10+\delta }`$ (BSCCO-2223), and $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{7\delta }`$ (YBCO) thin films. The central result is the temperature dependence of the coherence length which shows multiple critical regimes in each of the superconductors. Also shown in the present analysis is the reduction of the contribution of the normal conductivity in the measured real part $`\sigma _1(T)`$ of the complex conductivity. It is a direct evidence of the reduction of the one-electron density of states at the Fermi level, known as the pseudogap effect Timusk:99 .

## II THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In this paper, we use the expressions for the $`ac`$ fluctuation conductivity which have been derived and extensively discussed recently Peligrad:03 . The derivation was based on the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory and the approach introduced by Schmidt Schmidt:68  long time ago. The new feature was the cutoff in the integration over the $`𝐤`$-space which was imposed in order to comply with the slow variation principle of the Ginzburg-Landau theory Tinkham:95 . Equivalent expressions were also obtained Silva:02  from the linear response to an applied $`ac`$ field Dorsey:91 .

In order to treat also the critical state, we have adopted the requirement that close to the superconducting transition all physical quantities should be expressed through the coherence length $`\xi (T)`$. In particular, the relaxation time of the lowest fluctuation mode becomes $`\tau _0\xi ^z`$, where z is the dynamical critical exponent Fisher:91 . This is essential since the temperature dependence of the coherence length in the critical state takes a form different from that of the Gaussian or mean field result. On the other hand, the very form of the expressions obtained using the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory remain valid even in the critical state Wickham:00 .

For the three dimensional ($`\mathit{3}D`$) anisotropic case the $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ fluctuation conductivity is given by Peligrad:03

$$\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathit{3}D}=\frac{e^2}{32\mathrm{}\xi _{0c}}\left(\frac{\xi (T)}{\xi _0}\right)^{z1}_0^{Q_{ab}}_{Q_c}^{Q_c}\frac{4q_{ab}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}\left[1i\mathrm{\Omega }(1+q_{ab}^2+q_c^2)^1\right]}{\pi (1+q_{ab}^2+q_c^2)[\mathrm{\Omega }^2+(1+q_{ab}^2+q_c^2)^2]}𝑑q_{ab}𝑑q_c,$$
(1)
where the prefactor is the well known Aslamazov-Larkin term, Tinkham:95  except that the Gaussian temperature dependence $`1/\sqrt{ϵ}`$ is replaced by that of the reduced coherence length $`\xi (T)/\xi _0`$. This dimensionless temperature dependent function is equal for both, the in-plane and c-axis coherence lengths, i. e. $`(\xi _{ab}(T)/\xi _{0ab})=(\xi _c(T)/\xi _{0c})`$, Peligrad:03  so that we omit the subscripts. The dimensionless parameter

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(\omega ,T)=\frac{\omega \tau _0}{2}=\frac{\pi }{16}\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{k_BT}\left(\frac{\xi (T)}{\xi _0}\right)^z,$$
(2)
involves the operating microwave frequency $`\omega `$ and the temperature dependence of the reduced coherence length. Note that we have used here the thermodynamically correct form $`k_BT`$, rather than the approximative $`k_BT_c`$ used before Peligrad:03 . The latter will be used below only in theoretical simulations where $`\xi (T)/\xi _0`$ is used as the only variable. The cutoff in the fluctuation wavevector is introduced in $`Q_{ab}(T)=k_{ab}^{max}\xi _{ab}(T)=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}\xi _{ab}(T)/\xi _{0ab}`$ for the ab-plane and $`Q_c(T)=k_c^{max}\xi _c(T)=\mathrm{\Lambda }_c\xi _c(T)/\xi _{0c}`$ along the c-axis, rather than a single cutoff on the modulus Silva:02 . The analytical result of the integration in Eq. (1) and its application in the data analysis has been reported in detail Peligrad:03 . A careful analysis has shown that, due to this cutoff, the real and imaginary parts of the $`ac`$ fluctuation conductivity are not equal at $`T_c`$. The ratio $`\sigma _2(T_c)/\sigma _1(T_c)`$, which can be determined straightforwardly from the experimental data, puts a constraint on the choice of the parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ Peligrad:03 .

Time dependent Ginzburg-Landau approach is based on relaxational dynamics so that the dynamic critical exponent should be $`z=2`$ Hohenberg:77 . Indeed, it has been shown by expansion of the $`𝒮`$-functions in the limit of $`T_c`$ that only for $`z=2`$ one obtains a finite nonzero $`ac`$ fluctuation conductivity, in agreement with experimental observations Peligrad:03 . This value of the dynamic critical exponent was also found in Monte Carlo simulations for a vortex loop model of the superconducting transition Aji:01 .

With the slow variation principle alone, the parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ may be kept as constants from $`T_c`$ up to any higher temperature. However, it has been shown recently that energy cutoff should also be imposed in order to satisfy the uncertainty principle for the minimum wave packet of the Cooper pairs Carballeira:01 ; Vina:02 . For the anisotropic $`\mathit{3}D`$ case one should have the condition

$$(\xi _0/\xi (T))^2+2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^2=C,$$
(3)
where $`C`$ is the energy cutoff parameter. At $`T_c`$ the first term on the left hand side of Eq. (3) vanishes and one retrieves the pure wavevector cutoff condition. With the constraint ensuing from the experimental ratio $`\sigma _2(T_c)/\sigma _1(T_c)`$, Peligrad:03  and Eq. (3) with a given energy cutoff parameter $`C`$, one can determine the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s at $`T_c`$. Within the concept of the energy cutoff, one should keep $`C`$ fixed at all temperatures. Eq. (3) can then be satisfied only if the parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ become temperature dependent. It is reasonable to assume that their ratio $`K=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}/\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ remains constant, i. e. as determined at $`T_c`$. Then, Eq. (3) yields both $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s as functions of the reduced coherence length $`\xi (T)/\xi _0`$. With these replacements in our expressions for the $`ac`$ fluctuation conductivity Peligrad:03  one accounts also for the energy cutoff. One may remark that the value $`C=1`$ implies that the minimum $`\xi (T)`$ is equal to $`\xi _0`$. However, for $`C<1`$ the minimum $`\xi (T)`$ is bigger than $`\xi _0`$. This is important in high-$`T_c`$ superconductors where $`\xi _0`$ is found to be unphysically small Peligrad:03  so that the minimum $`\xi (T)`$ must be bigger than that value. It is given by min($`\xi (T)`$) = $`\xi _0/\sqrt{C}`$.

In order to illustrate the importance of the cutoff effects in a data analysis, we may simulate some cases. In Fig. 1 we present the calculated $`\sigma `$’s for an isotropic superconductor. In that case, there is only one cutoff parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ Peligrad:03 . We have assumed that $`(\sigma _2(T_c)/\sigma _1(T_c))=1.2`$, which is a typical experimental value. It yields unequivocally the values $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.1`$, and $`C=0.03`$. The $`\sigma `$’s in Fig. 1 are calculated as functions of $`(\xi _0/\xi (T))`$ in order to make the presentation independent of the specific temperature dependence of the coherence length. The dotted, dashed and full lines in Fig. 1 present the calculated $`\sigma `$’s using no cutoff, wavevector cutoff with the value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ fixed, and energy cutoff with $`C`$ fixed, respectively. The upper three and lower three curves refer to $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _2`$, respectively. One can see that the cutoff brings about significant changes in the calculated curves so that great care is needed in attempts to fit a given set of experimental data.

If one assumes that the superconductor is anisotropic, one has to deal with two cutoff parameters. Assuming the same value for the ratio $`(\sigma _2(T_c)/\sigma _1(T_c))=1.2`$ as in Fig. 1, one can have the choices of the parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ as shown in Fig. 2 Peligrad:03 . An alternative presentation is possible in terms of the ratio $`K=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}/\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and the energy cutoff parameter $`C`$ as shown in the inset to Fig. 2. The lower branch of this curve corresponds to the cases $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ while the upper branch is for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$. The crossover $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ is shown by the dotted line in the main panel of Fig. 2, and corresponds to $`K=1`$ in the inset. In Fig. 3(a)-(c) we present the calculated $`\sigma `$’s for three largely different choices of the cutoff parameters. The style of the presentation follows that of Fig. 1. We have argued earlierPeligrad:03  that only the case with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ is physically acceptable in anisotropic superconductors where $`\xi _{0ab}\xi _{0c}`$. Here we present in Fig. 3(a) the results for energy cutoff and compare them to those for wavevector cutoff. The curves calculated with no cutoff are always added for the sake of reference. One can observe that both, $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _2`$ have well pronounced slopes at higher temperatures. The effect of the cutoff is to change those slopes. The effect of the energy cutoff is observable only at very high temperatures where the fluctuation conductivity rapidly vanishes. The choice $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ for the wavevector cutoff, and the accompanying choice $`K1`$ and $`C=1`$ for the energy cutoff, are shown in Fig. 3(b). The shape of these curves are quite different from those of the previous case, thus showing the sensitivity of the numerical calculations to the choices of the cutoff parameters. Fortunately, the freedom of taking a diversity of choices for the cutoff parameters is restricted by physical arguments which make a large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ unacceptable in systems having very small $`\xi _{0c}`$, as is the case in high-$`T_c`$ superconductors Peligrad:03 . Detailed analysis of the experimental data presented below, provide further support of this rule. Finally, we present also in Fig. 3(c) the case $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ which appears to be very similar, but not identical, to that of the isotropic case. It will also be shown as inadequate for the experimental data analysis shown later in this paper.

It is of interest for the data analysis in this paper to examine also the cutoff effects in two dimensional ($`\mathit{2}D`$) cases. The $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ fluctuation conductivity is then given by Peligrad:03

$$\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathit{2}D}=\frac{e^2}{16\mathrm{}s}\left(\frac{\xi (T)}{\xi _0}\right)^z_0^Q\frac{4q^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}\left[1i\mathrm{\Omega }(1+q^2)^1\right]}{(1+q^2)[\mathrm{\Omega }^2+(1+q^2)^2]}𝑑q,$$
(4)
where $`s`$ is the effective layer thickness. The wavevector cutoff is made only in the $`ab`$-plane with $`k_{ab}^{max}=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }/\xi _{0ab}`$ while along the c-axis only the lowest $`k_c=0`$ term is taken. Eq. (3) can again be applied for the energy cutoff. The calculated curves for $`\sigma _1^{\mathit{2}D}`$ and $`\sigma _2^{\mathit{2}D}`$ are shown in Fig. 4. We have used the $`\mathit{2}D`$ cutoff parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, i. e. equal to the choice of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}`$ in the $`\mathit{3}D`$ case of Fig. 3(a). In contrast to the $`\mathit{3}D`$ case, we observe that the cutoff does not bring about a change in the slopes of $`\sigma _1^{2D}`$ and $`\sigma _2^{2D}`$ at higher temperatures.

The slopes of the $`\sigma `$’s at higher temperatures are believed to be essential in an effort to determine the dimensionality of the fluctuations in an experimental analysis. Indeed, the slopes of the curves calculated with no cutoff in the $`\mathit{3}D`$ and $`\mathit{2}D`$ cases are different. However, the cutoff increases the slopes in the $`\mathit{3}D`$ case as shown in Fig. 3(a). A direct comparison of the $`\mathit{2}D`$ and $`\mathit{3}D`$ curves in Fig. 5 shows that the cutoff makes the distinction between the two cases more difficult. The parameters $`\xi _{0c}`$ and $`s`$ in the prefactors of Eq. (1) and Eq. (4) determine just the offsets in the logarithmic plot of Fig. 5. These have been chosen so as to match the values of $`\mathit{2}D`$ and $`\mathit{3}D`$ calculations at higher temperatures. At temperatures closer to $`T_c`$ it is easy to determine the dimensionality of the fluctuations, but at higher temperatures the two cases become indistinguishable.

It is worth noting that the above feature is pertinent not only to the $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ but also to the $`\mathrm{𝑑𝑐}`$ fluctuation conductivity. Fig. 6 demonstrates that the cutoff affects strongly $`\sigma _{dc}^{\mathit{3}D}`$ beyond some temperature, so that it becomes indistinguishable from that of $`\sigma _{dc}^{\mathit{2}D}`$. Hence, the dimensionality of the fluctuations cannot be infered from the behavior of the $`dc`$ fluctuation conductivity at higher temperatures, provided that the cutoff effects are properly accounted for.

We may also remark that if only the wavevector cutoff were considered, the curves in Fig. 6 would acquire slope $`6`$ in the limit of very high temperatures. If the coherence length acquired the Gaussian form $`(\xi (T)/\xi _0)=1/\sqrt{ϵ}`$ at those temperatures, the $`dc`$ fluctuation conductivity would have the behavior $`\sigma _{dc}1/ϵ^3`$ in both, $`\mathit{2}D`$ and $`\mathit{3}D`$ cases Cimberle:97 ; Silva:01 ; Silva:02 . However, significant deviations from this behavior have been observed experimentally, and ascribed to the energy cutoff Carballeira:01 ; Vina:02 .

Finally, it may be of interest to compare the behavior of the $`\mathrm{𝑑𝑐}`$ fluctuation conductivity and the real part of the fluctuation conductivity in the $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ case. Fig. 7 shows the corresponding $`\mathit{3}D`$ curves calculated with the same set of parameters. Obviously, the fluctuation conductivity in the $`\mathrm{𝑑𝑐}`$ case diverges when $`T_c`$ is approached, while $`\sigma _1`$ of the $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ case reaches a finite value. However, at higher temperatures, the information gained from a $`\mathrm{𝑑𝑐}`$ measurement is equivalent to that of the real part $`\sigma _1`$ in the $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ case Peligrad:03 . The imaginary part $`\sigma _2`$ is an additional information provided by an $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ measurement.

Note that here we have considered only the fluctuation conductivity, but, for the sake of simplicity, no subscript has been used . The total conductivity above $`T_c`$ includes also a contribution from the normal electrons. The latter has to be added to both, $`\sigma _{dc}`$ and the real part $`\sigma _1`$ of the $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ fluctuation conductivity, but not to the imaginary part $`\sigma _2`$ which is due solely to the superconducting electrons.

## III EXPERIMENTAL

We have measured a number of YBCO and BSCCO thin films grown on various substrates. The main features in our results did not change with the change of the substrate or thickness of the film. Here we report specifically on the measurements in an YBCO thin film (thickness 200 nm) grown on $`MgO`$ substrate, BSCCO-2212 (350 nm) on $`LaAlO_3`$ and BSCCO-2223 (100 nm) on $`NdGaO_3`$. The sample was cut typically to 4 mm in length and 1 mm in width and mounted on a sapphire sample holder which extends to the center of an elliptical copper cavity resonating in eTE111 mode at $`9.5`$ GHz. The sample was oriented with its longest side along the microwave electric field $`E_\omega `$. In this configuration the microwave current flows only in the $`ab`$-plane of the film. The sapphire sample holder was thermally connected to a heater and sensor assembly but isolated from the body of the microwave cavity. With a temperature controller the temperature of the sample could be varied from 2 K up to room temperature. However, the cavity was kept in pumped helium flow at 1.7 K in order to eliminate spurious signals from cavity heating.

The measured quantity is the complex frequency shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\omega }/\omega =\mathrm{\Delta }f/f+i\mathrm{\Delta }(1/2Q)`$ in which the resonant frequency $`f`$ and the $`Q`$-factor of the cavity change with the sample temperature. The empty cavity had $`1/2Q`$ close to 20 ppm, which was subtracted from the data measured with the sample. The level of $`1/2Q`$ with the sample in the normal state could be several hundred parts per million (ppm) and we were interested in detecting small changes due to the superconducting fluctuations above $`T_c`$. For this purpose it was beneficial to use the recently introduced modulation technique, Nebendahl:01  which enables the resolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1/2Q)`$ to 0.02 ppm. The resonant frequency of the cavity was measured by a microwave frequency counter.

For the film in the microwave electric field the cavity perturbation analysis yields Peligrad:01

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\omega }}{\omega }=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{N}\left[1N+\frac{(\stackrel{~}{k}/k_0)^2N}{\left[\mathrm{coth}(i\stackrel{~}{k}d/2)+\mathrm{tanh}(i\stackrel{~}{k}\zeta )\right]i\stackrel{~}{k}d/2}\right]^1,$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the filling factor of the sample in the cavity, and $`N`$ is the depolarization factor of the film. The intrinsic property of the sample is its complex conductivity $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }=\sigma _1i\sigma _2`$. It is contained in the complex wavevector $`\stackrel{~}{k}=k_0\sqrt{1i\stackrel{~}{\sigma }/(ϵ_0\omega )}`$, where $`k_0=\omega \sqrt{\mu _0ϵ_0}`$ is the vacuum wavevector. The thickness of the film is $`d`$, and $`\zeta `$ is the asymmetry parameter due to the substrate.Peligrad:01  The unknown parameters in Eq. (5) can be evaluated from the ratio of the slopes of the experimental curves $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1/2Q)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }f/f`$ in the normal state far above $`T_c`$, provided that the normal state conductivity is known at the temperature where the experimental slopes were evaluated. Eq. (5) can then be used to convert the experimental data for $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1/2Q)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }f/f`$ at any temperature to obtain the corresponding experimental values of $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _2`$.

## IV BSCCO-2212

Fig. 8 shows the experimental data of BSCCO-2212 thin film and the complex conductivity deduced from these data by means of Eq. (5). One can observe clearly the peak in the real part ($`\sigma _1`$) due to the superconducting fluctuations. Its maximum appears when the coherence length diverges, Dorsey:91 ; Fisher:91  and this occurs at the critical temperature of the superconducting transition. The imaginary part ($`\sigma _2`$) rises from its zero value found above $`T_c`$, to a saturation at low temperatures.

The total experimentally determined conductivity above $`T_c`$ may include the contributions due to the normal conductivity and the superconducting fluctuation conductivity. In all previously reported $`\mathrm{𝑑𝑐}`$ conductivity measurements, it was assumed that the experimentally observed conductivity was the sum $`\sigma ^{exp}=\sigma _n+\sigma `$. The normal conductivity near $`T_c`$ was obtained from the extrapolated linear resistivity far above $`T_c`$. Hence, the fluctuation conductivity $`\sigma `$ was obtained upon subtraction $`\sigma ^{exp}\sigma _n`$, and then analyzed. This approach, however, neglects the effect of the pseudogap which has been observed by other techniques in high-$`T_c`$ superconductors Timusk:99 . The opening of the pseudogap reduces the density of one electron states at the Fermi level so that the normal conductivity is also reduced below $`\sigma _n`$. The pseudogap is observed in optimally doped samples near $`T_c`$, and in underdoped samples even well above $`T_c`$. If the pseudogap is fully opened near $`T_c`$, the normal conductivity should completely vanish, and the whole experimentally observed conductivity should be due to the fluctuation conductivity, i. e. $`\sigma ^{exp}=\sigma `$.

We have analyzed our measured microwave conductivity, with and without subtracting the extrapolated $`\sigma _n`$ from the real part $`\sigma _1^{exp}`$. Fig. 9(a) shows on an enlarged scale around $`T_c`$ the two sets of data, i. e. $`\sigma _1^{exp}`$, and $`\sigma _1^{exp}\sigma _n`$. The inset in Fig. 9(a) shows a linear $`\rho _n`$ fitted to the real part of the resistivity at temperatures above 150 K. This linear $`\rho _n`$ is shown extrapolated to lower temperatures. It is used to calculate the extrapolated normal conductivity $`\sigma _n=1/\rho _n`$ shown by the dotted line in the main panel of Fig. 9(a). Note that the imaginary part $`\sigma _2`$ is due solely to the superconducting fluctuations, i. e. $`\sigma _2`$ is background free so that no subtraction should be in place. It is obvious that the experimental ratio $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1`$ at $`T_c`$ is different in the two sets of data. This ratio is important in the determination of the cutoff parameters as discussed in Section II. In this paper, we study the conductivities above $`T_c`$ shown in Fig. 9(b) as functions of the reduced temperature $`ϵ=\mathrm{ln}\left(T/T_c\right)`$.

We shall first consider the conventional approach in which $`\sigma _n`$ is subtracted. In that case we find $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1`$=1.46 at $`T_c`$, and use this value to set a constraint on the choices of the cutoff parameters.Peligrad:03  The inset in Fig. 10(a) shows the relationship between the parameters $`K=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}/\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ at $`T_c`$ and the energy cutoff parameter $`C`$ defined in Eq. (3). Taken an allowed choice of the cutoff parameters, one can equate the imaginary part of Eq. (1) to the experimental value of $`\sigma _2`$, and solve numerically for the reduced coherence length $`\xi (T)/\xi _0`$. Note that the parameter $`\xi _{0c}`$ in the prefactor of Eq. (1) can be determined straightforwardly from the value of $`\sigma _2`$ at $`T_c`$ where $`\xi (T)/\xi _0`$ diverges. Namely, the value of $`\sigma _2`$ at $`T_c`$ is practically insensitive to the choice of the cutoff parameters which can, for that purpose, be set to any value Peligrad:03 . Here we obtained $`\xi _{0c}=0.05`$ nm. Once the values of the reduced coherence length $`\xi (T)/\xi _0`$ are calculated for all the experimental points, one can use them in the real part of Eq. (1) to calculate $`\sigma _1`$ and compare with the experimental data. Fig. 10 shows the results for several choices of the cutoff parameters. The concomitant coherence lengths are presented in Fig. 11. Near $`T_c`$ one obtains the same values for the coherence length regardless of the choice of the cutoff parameters. This is due to the fact that $`\sigma _2`$ is practically insensitive to the wavevector cutoff in that temperature region. It appears that very close to $`T_c`$ the coherence length follows the critical exponent $`\nu =1`$. The differences between the various choices appear at higher temperatures.

Let us first look at the anisotropic $`\mathit{3}D`$ case with $`C=1`$ and $`K1`$. It yields the coherence length in Fig. 11 having the critical exponent $`\nu =2/3`$ pertaining to the $`3D`$ XY universality class. This behavior would be in agreement with the results of other experiments Pasler:98 ; Meingast:01 ; Osborn:02 . However, the calculated $`\sigma _1`$ fits the experimental data only near $`T_c`$ as seen in Fig. 10. At higher temperatures the calculated $`\sigma _1`$ overestimates the experimental fluctuation conductivity represented by the data set $`\sigma _1=\sigma _1^{exp}\sigma _n`$. This overestimation has no physical explanation. Therefore, we should reject this choice of the cutoff parameters.

The choice $`K=1`$ entails the condition $`C1`$ so that the energy cutoff is more severe. The calculated $`\sigma _1`$ is therefore more reduced at higher temperatures, and the overall fit to the experimental points appears to be improved (cf. Fig. 10). However, some overestimation is still present, in particular at high temperatures, so that this solution should also be rejected. Even stronger argument for the rejection comes from the inspection of the concomitant coherence length in Fig. 11. At higher temperatures, its slope is reduced well below the value 2/3 found in other experiments. This is particularly well seen in Fig. 11(b) where high temperature region is presented on an enlarged scale. The reduced slope appears as the mathematical result of the strong energy cutoff $`C1`$.

For $`K1`$ the calculated $`\sigma _1`$ overestimates largely the experimental values at higher temperatures. Hence, this choice of the cutoff parameters can be rejected, too.

We may also look at the results of the $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation based on the expression given in Eq. (4). One can adjust the parameters so that the calculated $`\sigma _1`$ fits the experimental data very well at higher temperatures as seen in Fig. 10. Therefore, one might be tempted to consider the scenario in which the system obeys the anisotropic $`\mathit{3}D`$ behavior with $`K1`$ and $`C=1`$ at temperatures close to $`T_c`$ followed by a crossover to a $`\mathit{2}D`$ behavior at higher temperatures. This scenario could yield an overall good fit to the experimental data, except at very high temperatures (cf. Fig. 10(b)). However, the coherence length obtained in the $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation is physically unacceptable because of the saturation at high temperatures as seen in Fig. 11. Having explored all the possibilities, we have to conclude that none of the above scenarios yields a satisfactory result with the data set $`\sigma _1=\sigma _1^{exp}\sigma _n`$.

Next, we turn to the case in which no subtraction is made so that the whole experimental $`\sigma _1^{exp}`$ near $`T_c`$ is attributed to the fluctuation conductivity $`\sigma _1`$. From Fig. 9 we find first $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1=1.22`$ at $`T_c`$, and find the corresponding curve for the cutoff parameters in the inset of Fig. 12(a). It is quite different from that of the preceding case in the inset of Fig. 10(a). The data analysis can be done as before and the results for the various choices of the cutoff parameters are shown in Fig. 12, while the concomitant coherence lengths are presented in Fig. 13.

The highest temperature where $`\sigma _2`$ is still detectable beyond the noise level is $`ϵ=0.5`$ (145 K). At that temperature, $`\sigma _2`$ has decreased by four orders of magnitude from its value at $`T_c`$ (Fig. 12(b)), and further on our signal is lost in the experimental noise. Our method of analysis relies on the experimental values of $`\sigma _2`$ to calculate the reduced coherence length. Hence, the latter is also available only up to this same temperature (Fig. 13). The same applies to $`\sigma _1`$ which is calculated from the coherence length. Beyond this temperature, the measured conductivity contains only the nonzero real part $`\sigma _1^{exp}`$, which is shown in Fig. 12 up to $`ϵ=0.66`$ (170 K).

One observes in Fig. 12 that the anisotropic $`\mathit{3}D`$ expressions with $`K=2.5`$ and $`C=0.065`$ yield $`\sigma _1`$ which matches very well the experimental data up to $`ϵ0.1`$. At higher temperatures the calculated values deviate from the experimental points, but in this case the deviation falls below the data and can be physically explained. Namely, the calculated $`\sigma _1`$ is the fluctuation contribution. At temperatures close to $`T_c`$ there is no normal conductivity contribution if the pseudogap is fully opened so that the calculated fluctuation conductivity $`\sigma _1`$ equals the measured $`\sigma _1^{exp}`$. Beyond some temperature, the pseudogap starts to close and the normal conductivity contribution appears gradually growing from zero to its full value $`\sigma _n`$ at high temperatures. This growing normal conductivity contribution is seen in Fig. 12 as the difference between the experimental points and the calculated fluctuation conductivity $`\sigma _1`$ shown by the full line. A more detailed discussion of the pseudogap will be given in a subsequent section.

The other choices of the cutoff parameters used in the $`\mathit{3}D`$ calculations are also presented in Fig. 12. The fits of the calculated $`\sigma _1`$ to the experimental data are less good. Also, the coherence length does not follow the expected slope 2/3 in Fig. 13.

The $`\mathit{2}D`$ analysis is particularly interesting. One can choose the parameters so that the calculated $`\sigma _1`$ is practically indistinguishable from that of the best anisotropic $`\mathit{3}D`$ choice in Fig. 12. Also, the coherence length obtained in the $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation approaches the slope 2/3 at higher temperatures. The indistinguishability of the $`\mathit{3}D`$ and $`\mathit{2}D`$ behavior at higher temperatures has already been discussed in Section II. Here we may examine whether a $`\mathit{3}D`$ to $`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover is a possible scenario. A crude criterion for the crossover is that $`\xi _c(ϵ)`$ becomes comparable to $`s/2`$. The $`\mathit{2}D`$ curves in Fig. 12 were calculated with $`s=3`$ nm so that the above criterion is met when $`\xi _c(ϵ^{})1.5`$ nm. Since $`\xi _{0c}=0.05`$ nm is determined from Eq. (1) and the experimental value of $`\sigma _2`$ at $`T_c`$, one finds $`\xi _c(ϵ^{})/\xi _{0c}30`$. From Fig. 13 one finds that this condition corresponds to $`ϵ^{}0.06`$. This value is in accord with the observation of a good fit of the calculated $`\sigma _1^{\mathit{2}D}`$ to the experimental data in Fig. 12. From that point of view, the $`\mathit{3}D`$-$`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover appears as a likely scenario. However, the coherence length in the $`\mathit{2}D`$ case does not reach the slope 2/3 at that temperature, but only at a much higher one ($`ϵ0.18`$). Therefore, one does not find decisive arguments in favor of the $`\mathit{3}D`$-$`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover in BSCCO-2212.

Having established the consistent analysis of the data, we may comment on the resulting coherence length. Fig. 12 reveals the existence of two critical regimes with the static critical exponents $`\nu =2/3`$ well above $`T_c`$, and a crossover to $`\nu =1`$ when $`T_c`$ is approached. The former critical regime corresponds to the $`3D`$ XY universality class, and has been reported before Pasler:98 ; Meingast:01 ; Osborn:02 . However, the well defined crossover to the critical regime with $`\nu =1`$ is novel and surprising. We may also remark that our analysis yields not only the slopes, but also the absolute values of the reduced coherence length. Thus, we observe that these absolute values are very high, much higher than those predicted by the mean field or Gaussian expression $`(\xi (T)/\xi _0)=1/\sqrt{ϵ}`$. Note also that the crossover between the two critical regimes is not just a change of the slopes but involves a step in the absolute values of the reduced coherence length. We find that the critical behaviour persists as far above $`T_c`$ as the reduced coherence length is still large.

Also important is to comment on the smallness of the parameter $`\xi _{0c}=0.05`$ nm found above. Such small values were also obtained in the analysis of the $`\mathrm{𝑑𝑐}`$ fluctuation conductivity Hopfengartner:91 . It is to be noted that this parameter is not the zero temperature coherence length, but the coefficient in the linear term of the Ginzburg-Landau functional. The zero temperature coherence length should have a larger, physically acceptable dimension. Also, the obtained value for $`\xi _{0c}`$ is certainly too small to represent the shortest length for the variation of the order parameter. In fact, the above analysis based on the energy cutoff yields min($`\xi _c(T)`$) = $`\xi _{0c}/\sqrt{C}`$. In the present case with $`C=0.065`$ as in Fig. 13(a), one obtains min($`\xi _c`$) = 0.2 nm. This is large enough to be physically acceptable for the shortest variation of the coherence length along the c-axis.

The above calculations were all carried out with energy cutoff, but the main conclusions of the analysis remain valid even if only wavevector cutoff is taken. Fig. 14 shows a comparison of the calculations with wavevector and energy cutoffs. In the former approach, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ are determined at $`T_c`$ by the experimental ratio $`\sigma _2(T_c)/\sigma _1(T_c)`$, and then kept fixed at all temperatures. On the contrary, in the energy cutoff approach, the values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ab}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ are reduced at higher temperatures according to Eq. (3). Their temperature variation is shown in the inset of Fig. 14(a). One can readily observe that there is practically no difference between the two approaches over most of the temperature range covered by the actual data. Only at the highest temperatures one observes a slightly stronger decrease of the calculated values when the energy cutoff is applied.

## V BSCCO-2223

Fig. 15 shows the measured complex frequency shift and the conductivity in BSCCO-2223 thin film. The main features are similar to those observed in BSCCO-2212 thin film. The transition here appears to be broader and $`T_c`$ is lower, both indicating that the sample is underdoped. We have carried out the complete analysis for each of the various cases as described in the preceding section. Fig. 16 shows the conductivities with and without the subtraction of the extrapolated normal conductivity $`\sigma _n`$. The analysis based on the subtracted data set is shown in Fig. 17 and the concomitant coherence lengths are shown in Fig. 18. One can easily verify that none of the choices for the cutoff parameters can yield satisfactory results with this data set. This is parallel to the conclusion reached above in the case of BSCCO-2212.

If the unsubtracted data set with $`\sigma _1=\sigma _1^{exp}`$ is taken, one gets the best fit using the anisotropic $`\mathit{3}D`$ expression with $`K=3.9`$ and $`C=0.08`$ as shown in Fig. 19. The other choices for the cutoff parameters yield $`\sigma _1`$ curves which depart from the experimental points much earlier. Also important is to observe that the concomitant coherence length in Fig. 20 deviate from the slope 2/3.

As for the $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation, one observes that the coherence length acquires exactly the slope 2/3 at $`ϵ=0.1`$, and the calculated $`\sigma _1^{\mathit{2}D}`$ is found on the data points in Fig. 19. The parameter $`s=1.2`$nm was used in the $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculations in this case. The $`\mathit{3}D`$-$`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover is expected at $`\xi _c(ϵ^{})=s/2=0.6`$nm. From $`\sigma _2(T_c)`$ one finds $`\xi _{0c}=0.016`$ nm in BSCCO-2223 so that $`\xi _c(ϵ^{})/\xi _{0c}=38`$, and finally from Fig. 20 one can evaluate $`ϵ^{}=0.05`$. Fig. 19(c) shows on an enlarged scale that the calculated $`\sigma _1^{\mathit{2}D}`$ fits very well to the experimental points at that temperature. Hence, the $`\mathit{3}D`$-$`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover is a likely scenario in BSCCO-2223.

An enlarged view of the coherence length at higher temperatures in Fig. 20(b) reveals that there is a step in the temperature dependence of the coherence length. The origin of this feature is not yet known. We may only speculate that it is due to the multiple layer structure of BSCCO-2223.

Also important is to notice in the behaviour of $`\sigma _1`$ in Fig. 19(a) that the normal conductivity starts to recover its full value at higher temperatures than in BSCCO-2212. It means that the pseudogap is fully opened up to a relatively higher temperature. This will be discussed in detail in a subsequent section.

## VI YBCO

The experimental complex frequency shift and microwave conductivity in YBCO thin film is shown in Fig. 21. The transition appears to be sharper than in BSCCO thin films. This already points that the fluctuations in YBCO are weaker. The conductivities are shown in Fig. 22 with the two data sets. One can observe that the ratio $`\sigma _2(T_c)/\sigma _1(T_c)`$ varies between the two sets much more than in the case of BSCCO samples. Also one observes that $`\sigma _2`$ drops much faster in YBCO. Already at $`ϵ=0.2`$ it has decreased by four orders of magnitude from its value at $`T_c`$, and then turns into noise around zero value. Therefore, the coherence length can only be calculated up to this temperature. The same holds for the calculation of $`\sigma _1`$ as shown in the various cases below.

The full analysis based on the data set with subtracted $`\sigma _n`$ from $`\sigma _1^{exp}`$ is presented in Fig. 23 and the concomitant coherence lengths are shown in Fig. 24. The $`\mathit{3}D`$ case with $`K1`$ yields $`\sigma _1`$ values which overestimate the experimental points at higher temperatures so that one should reject this choice. The other choices of the cutoff parameters yield lower calculated $`\sigma _1`$ but the corresponding coherence lengths have slopes which deviate from the expected 2/3 value. Only the $`\mathit{2}D`$ coherence length approaches the slope 2/3, but the fit of $`\sigma _1`$ in Fig. 23 is poor so that even this case has to be rejected.

The analysis of the data set where no subtraction was made is shown in Fig. 25 and the concomitant coherence lengths are presented in Fig. 26. The best choice of the $`\mathit{3}D`$ cutoff parameters is $`K=4.7`$ and $`C=0.08`$. It yields the slope 2/3 for the coherence length at higher temperatures. The calculated $`\sigma _1^{\mathit{3}D}`$ deviates early from the experimental points in Fig. 25. This means that the pseudogap starts to close very soon and the normal conductivity grows rapidly, reaching its full value already at $`ϵ=0.2`$. Regarding the dimensionality, we find that a $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation yields also the slope 2/3 for the coherence length at temperatures above $`ϵ0.04`$. Since $`s=6.5`$ nm was used in this $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation, one may expect the $`\mathit{3}D`$-$`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover when $`\xi _c(ϵ^{})=s/2=3.8`$ nm. From $`\sigma _2`$ at $`T_c`$ in YBCO we found $`\xi _{0c}=0.07`$ nm so that the crosover should occur at the reduced coherence length $`\xi _c(ϵ^{})/\xi _{0c}=47`$. Using the data in Fig. 26(a) one finds $`ϵ^{}0.015`$. The calculated $`\sigma _1^{\mathit{2}D}`$ crosses the experimental points in Fig. 25(a) around this same temperature. Hence, the $`\mathit{3}D`$-$`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover in YBCO is not excluded already at temperatures so close to $`T_c`$.

The coherence length (Fig. 26) shows again the two critical regimes as in the BSCCO samples, but their temperature range is squeezed closer to $`T_c`$. The $`3D`$ XY critical regime with $`\nu =2/3`$ is found within $`0.05<ϵ<0.12`$. This finding is in agreement with the combined analysis of the $`\mathrm{𝑑𝑐}`$ conductivity, specific heat, and susceptibility measurements in YBCO single crystals Ramallo:99 .

The point of interest is also to look at the absolute values of the reduced coherence length. Theese are much lower in YBCO than in BSCCO samples at the same temperature above $`T_c`$. The observation made above, that the absolute values of the reduced coherence length are essential for the critical behaviour, appears to be confirmed. In other words, a given critical regime persists as long as the reduced coherence length has high enough values. Due to the divergence of the coherence length in the limit of $`T_c`$, one always has to reach this condition. Thus, in classical low temperature superconductors, the critical regime should also occur, but only within a tiny temperature interval around $`T_c`$ which is experimentally unaccessible. In high-$`T_c`$ superconductors, however, this temperature interval is very much extended. As the analysis in the present paper shows, there is a systematic extension of the critical regime towards higher temperatures in YBCO, BSCO-2212, and BSCCO-2223 samples.

## VII PSEUDOGAP

It has been shown in the preceding sections that in all our samples the consistent analysis of the data could be made when no subtraction of the normal conductivity was made near $`T_c`$. This feature is profoundly different from that known in conventional low temperature superconductors. Obviously, the fact that superconducting fluctuations are orders of magnitude stronger in layered high-$`T_c`$ superconductors, makes their physical behaviour quite different. It has been observed using other experimental methods that one electron density of states at the Fermi surface start to diminish already well above $`T_c`$. This phenomenon has been named the pseudogap Timusk:99 . Our analysis of the microwave fluctuation conductivity has shown that the depletion of the normal electrons is dramatic near $`T_c`$. There, the system obeys the critical regime with $`\nu =1`$ and a crossover to the $`3D`$ XY critical regime with $`\nu =2/3`$. As the latter regime evolves further by reducing the coherence length, there appears gradually some normal conductivity which adds to the fluctuation conductivity to make the experimentally observed one. In Fig. 27 we present the growth of this normal conductivity to its full value $`\sigma _n`$ in our samples. The presentation is made with the calculated fluctuation conductivity $`\sigma _1`$ in both, $`\mathit{3}D`$ and $`\mathit{2}D`$ cases. Only positive values for the reduced normal conductivity are physically acceptable. Hence, YBCO is seen to behave certainly as a $`\mathit{3}D`$ system at temperatures very close to $`T_c`$. Ony at $`ϵ>0.015`$ the $`\mathit{2}D`$ behavior becomes a possible scenario since the calculated normal conductivity becomes positive. In BSCCO-2212 the $`\mathit{3}D`$ behavior is established up to $`ϵ0.06`$. At higher temperatures the values of the normal conductivity calculated in the $`\mathit{2}D`$ case become also positive, and not much different from the $`\mathit{3}D`$ case. The interesting situation occurs with BSCCO-2223. There, the corresponding values calculated in the $`\mathit{3}D`$ case vanish at temperatures from $`T_c`$ up to $`ϵ0.05`$, which is the sign of the fully opened pseudogap. In that temperature region, the $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation yields physically unacceptable negative values. In the interval $`0.05<ϵ<0.1`$ the $`\mathit{3}D`$ calculation yields negative values while the $`\mathit{2}D`$ calculation now retains the zero values characteristic of the still fully opened pseudogap. Hence, we conclude that $`\mathit{3}D`$-$`\mathit{2}D`$ crossover has taken place at $`ϵ^{}0.05`$. At $`ϵ>0.1`$, the $`\mathit{3}D`$ calculation yields again positive values for the normal conductivity. At higher temperatures they become even indistinguishable from those of the $`\mathit{2}D`$ case. However, a reversed crossover from $`\mathit{2}D`$ to $`\mathit{3}D`$ behavior at higher temperatures is physically unacceptable because the coherence length does not increase but continues to shrink to ever smaller values. Therefore we may conclude that the system remains $`\mathit{2}D`$ at all temperatures above $`ϵ^{}0.05`$. In view of this observation, we may suggest that the formal indistinguishability of the $`\mathit{2}D`$ and $`\mathit{3}D`$ cases at higher temperatures should be interpreted in favor of the $`\mathit{2}D`$ behavior.

It was shown by Corson et al. Corson:99  that underdoped BSCCO-2212 had extended region of superconducting fluctuations above $`T_c`$. The evidence for superconducting fluctuations in underdoped high-$`T_c`$ superconductors was found also from the measurement of the Nernst effect Xu:00 ; Wang:01 . These results could support the interpretation of the pseudogap as preformed Cooper pairs above $`T_c`$ Emery:95 . However, direct relationship of the superconducting fluctuations to the pseudogap could not be made. The relevant study of the pseudogap features could be achieved by other experimental techniques Timusk:99 . The analysis given in the present paper shows that both, superconducting fluctuations and the pseudogap, can be studied by the same experimental technique. A single set of data can be used to establish a direct relationship of the superconducting fluctuations to the pseudogap in a given sample. We find that the two phenomena are indeed intimately related. Namely, the growing normal conductivity discussed above is the difference of the experimental values and the calculated fluctuation conductivity $`\sigma _1`$. The latter could be calculated due to the direct measurement of the imaginary part $`\sigma _2`$. One should note that the detection of $`\sigma _2`$ is a sign of the presence of the superconducting fluctuations. Due to the high sensitivity of our experimental setup, we could measure the decay of $`\sigma _2`$ over four orders of magnitude from $`T_c`$ up to some sample dependent higher temperature. When this evolution is compared to that shown in Fig. 27, one finds that the intensity of the superconducting fluctuations is related to the opening of the pseudogap. In our YBCO sample, the superconducting fluctuations diminish relatively soon above $`T_c`$, and the normal conductivity recovers up to the full $`\sigma _n`$, i. e. the pseudagap closes. In more underdoped BSCCO-2223 sample, the critical fuctuations extend to much higher temperatures, and the pseudogap is seen to follow this behaviour concomitantly. We find this observation to be a strong argument that the loss of the one electron states at the Fermi level, which constitutes the main feature of the pseudogap, is due to the strong participation of the electrons in the superconducting fluctuations.

## VIII CONCLUSIONS

We have measured complex microwave conductivity in $`Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta }`$, $`Bi_2Sr_2Ca_2Cu_3O_{10+\delta }`$, and $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{7\delta }`$ thin films above $`T_c`$. We have found that the experimental curves for the real and imaginary part of the $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑐}`$ fluctuation conductivity can be consistently interpreted only if the theoretical expressions take into account a proper wavevector or energy cutoff in the fluctuation spectrum. Strong fluctuations extending far above $`T_c`$ were observed in all of the three underdoped superconducting films. Our analysis yields the temperature dependence of the coherence length. Quite surprisingly, we observe multiple critical regions. Near $`T_c`$ the static critical exponent appears to be $`\nu =1`$. Following a crossover, one finds $`\nu =2/3`$ at higher temperatures. This evolution is paralleled by closing of the pseudogap as seen directly in our analysis through the contribution of the normal conductivity in the total experimentally observed one.

###### Acknowledgements.

D.-N. Peligrad and M. Mehring acknowledge support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) project Nr. Me362/14-2. A. Dulčić acknowledges support from the Croatian Ministry of Science. D. -N. Peligrad acknowledge also V. Rǎdulescu for the help in the development of some of the required software for data analysis.


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# Velocity distributions in dissipative granular gases

## Abstract

Motivated by recent experiments reporting non-Gaussian velocity distributions in driven dilute granular materials, we study by numerical simulation the properties of 2D inelastic gases. We find theoretically that the form of the observed velocity distribution is governed primarily by the coefficient of restitution $`\eta `$ and $`q=N_H/N_C`$, the ratio between the average number of heatings and the average number of collisions in the gas. The differences in distributions we find between uniform and boundary heating can then be understood as different limits of $`q`$, for $`q1`$ and $`q1`$ respectively.

Granular materials consisting of macroscopic particles or grains can exhibit behavior reminiscent of conventional phases of matter. Sand, for instance, can flow like a liquid under some conditions. Dilute granular systems, or gases, have been extensively studied both experimentally and theoretically, in large part as simple model systems exhibiting nonequilibrium and dissipative behavior. These systems are intrinsically dissipative and out of equilibrium, even though it is tempting to apply such equilibrium notions as temperature. Since the collisions in such a gas are inelastic, a gas-like steady state is achieved only with a constant *drive*, or input of energy. Otherwise, all motion ceases after only a finite time mcnamara ; kadanoff1 . In principle, it is possible to drive the system uniformly throughout the container, with every particle in contact with a heat source all the time (uniform heating). This has been done in simulations mackintosh ; moon  and is assumed in analytic theories ernst . In experiments, however, one usually drives a granular gas by shaking or vibrating the walls of the container. Such boundary heating means that the energy is inserted in a spatially inhomogeneous way luding ; rouyer ; kudrolli . As a consequence, the gas will develop a gradient in density and mean kinetic energy kadanoff2 . Even for uniform heating, however, significant deviations from equilibrium gases, e.g., in density correlations, are observed mackintosh .

One of the most fundamental aspects of molecular gases is the Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution ReifOrOtherText . A very general and striking feature of driven dissipative gases, however, is the apparently strong deviation from this classical behavior. Such velocity distributions have been the subject of numerous recent experimental studies luding ; rouyer ; losert ; kudrolli , and characteristic velocity distributions of the form $`P(v)=C\mathrm{exp}[\beta (v/\sigma )^\alpha ]`$ have been observed, where $`\sigma =v^2^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ is often called the granular temperature, in analogy with equilibrium gases. Experiments of Rouyer and Menon rouyer , in particular, have suggested that a universal exponent of $`\alpha =1.5`$ occurs over a wide range of experimental parameters. This observation was particularly intriguing, as Van Noije and Ernst ernst  predicted a high-velocity tail with an exponent 1.5 using kinetic theory. Here, we demonstrate instead that a family of distributions showing apparent exponents covering a wide range of values $`\alpha <2`$ is expected, depending on both material and experimental conditions. Furthermore, we show that the velocity distribution is governed primarily by the relative importance of collisions to heating, *i.e.*, the way in which energy flows through the system of particles. Specifically, we introduce a new parameter $`q=N_H/N_C`$, which measures the ratio between numbers of heating events and collisions experienced by a typical particle. These theoretical observations can explain both the observed non-Gaussian behavior, as well as the ambiguities in the experimental and theoretical literature on dissipative gases to date. We also demonstrate that the behavior of the velocity distributions can be captured quantitatively by a simple model that takes only $`\eta `$ and $`q`$ into account, with no spatial degrees of freedom.

Even though the distribution of velocities is such a basic property of gases, results for velocity distributions in dissipative systems have remained ambiguous. Both in simulation and experiment, different setups and driving mechanisms usually give different behavior of the velocity distribution. For a setup where particles on a horizontal plate were driven in the vertical direction, Olafsen and Urbach olafsen  found a crossover from exponential to Gaussian distributions as the amplitude of the driving was increased. The result of Rouyer and Menon rouyer  was obtained for a different configuration where particles were confined between two vertical plates and driven in the vertical direction. Blair and Kudrolli kudrolli  use a different setup where particles move along an inclined plane. Friction with the plane during collisions reduces the effective coefficient of restitution to $`\eta 0.5`$, in contrast to $`\eta =0.93`$ in the setup of Rouyer and Menon. They find the distribution with exponent $`\alpha =1.5`$ only in the very dilute case. Otherwise, the distributions deviate strongly from both Gaussian and the distribution obtained by Rouyer and Menon. For the denser case Blair and Kudrolli find a distribution that has one exponent for low velocities and crosses over to another for high velocities. This crossover is also observed in simulation by Moon, et al. moon .

Thus, it remains unclear what the analogue (if any) of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is for dissipative gases, let alone what the origin of the non-Gaussian behavior is. Puglisi, et al. puglisi  have suggested that the deviations are caused by the spatial correlations in the gas. They propose that for a region of uniform density the velocity distribution of the gas actually is Gaussian, with a density dependent width. The spatial correlations cause density fluctuations and they claim the non-Gaussian distributions arise as an average over the velocity distributions over these regions of different density. Experiments rouyer ; olafsen  show that this is not the case. Even within windows of uniform density the velocity distributions remain non-Gaussian. Our results below confirm this.

We study velocity distributions using an event-driven simulation of $`N`$ particles of radius $`r`$ moving in a two-dimensional box. Particles gain energy by heating and lose energy through inelastic collisions. When two particles $`i`$ and $`j`$ collide their final velocities depend on their initial velocities in the following way:

$$𝐯_i^{}=𝐯_i\frac{1+\eta }{2}(𝐯_i\widehat{𝐫}_{ij}𝐯_j\widehat{𝐫}_{ij})\widehat{𝐫}_{ij},$$
(1)
where $`\eta `$ is the coefficient of restitution and $`\widehat{𝐫}_{ij}`$ is the unit vector connecting the centers of particles $`i`$ and $`j`$.

When heating uniformly, we add every time step $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ a random contribution to the velocity of all the particles and we use periodic boundary conditions to simulate bulk behavior. Note that this is significantly different from the spatially homogeneous heating used in experiments olafsen , as here in uniform heating the driving is uncorrelated in space and time. When heating through the boundary, particles are confined in a box with radius $`R=1`$. The particles receive a kick upon collision with the boundary. We assume that the collision between particles and the boundary is elastic and we add a random contribution to the velocity in the direction perpendicular to the boundary. For more details, we refer to jeroen . We allow the system to reach steady state before taking data. For both uniform and boundary heating, data is taken periodically every $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$.

One of the first striking differences between uniform heating and boundary heating is clustering. When heating through the boundary, a stable liquid-like cluster surrounded by a hot gaseous state will form for low coefficients of restitution $`\eta `$ or high area fraction $`\varphi `$. This occurs as particles are compressed in the center of the box by particles moving in from the boundary. The increase of density leads to collapse and a stable cluster is formed. A typical example is shown in Fig. 1. These clusters do not occur in our simulations with uniform heating. This is because particles are heated all the time, which prevents the collapse to a cluster.

Velocity distributions obtained for uniform and boundary heating are shown in Fig. 2. When heating through the boundary, the gas develops a gradient in area fraction and granular temperature. In this case, we record the velocity distribution in a ring of radius $`0.4<r0.6`$ around the center of the box, where the granular temperature is approximately constant. The velocity distributions in the different rings varies only slightly. For uniform heating, we collect data everywhere in the box.

Fig. 2 shows clear qualitative differences between uniform and boundary heating. For uniform heating the velocity distribution is close to Gaussian for a large range of $`\eta `$. In contrast, for boundary heating the distribution is only Gaussian in the nearly elastic case $`\eta =0.9`$. As the coefficient of restitution is lowered, a crossover develops where the exponent changes from $`\alpha _12`$ to a lower value $`\alpha _2`$. The exponent $`\alpha _2`$ becomes smaller as dissipation is increased (for smaller $`\eta `$ or higher $`\varphi `$) and we find any value in the range $`0.7\alpha _2<2`$. As $`\alpha _2`$ decreases it becomes increasingly difficult to describe the high velocity tail with a single exponent $`\alpha _2`$. This crossover in exponent is observed in boundary heating for all values of $`\varphi `$ and $`N`$.

For a certain range of parameters we also find high-velocity tails with exponent $`\alpha _2=1.5`$. For their experiments Rouyer and Menon used $`N`$ particles with $`\eta 0.9`$, where $`100<N<500`$ and $`0.05<\varphi <0.25`$ rouyer . In Fig. 3 we plotted the velocity distribution for $`\eta =0.9`$, $`\varphi =0.05`$ and several values of $`N`$. We also show the fit with $`\alpha =1.52`$ as made in rouyer . This line clearly coincides with the high-velocity tail of the velocity distribution found by the present simulation. This suggests that instead of a universal distribution with $`\alpha =1.5`$, they might have observed a part of a more complex velocity distribution, with more than one apparent exponent.

The main difference between uniform and boundary heating is that in the first case heating takes place homogeneously throughout the box, whereas in the latter case energy is injected inhomogeneously at the boundaries. This is not the direct cause for the difference in velocity distributions. When heating homogeneously, one can go from a Gaussian distribution to one with a crossover by increasing the time between heatings jeroen  allowing the average number of heatings per unit time to become smaller than the average number of collisions. The reverse is also true. When heating inhomogeneously through a boundary, one finds Gaussian distributions in very dilute systems, when the particles on average collide more often with the boundary than with other particles. This suggests that in our system the shape of the velocity distribution is not a function of all parameters $`\eta `$, $`\varphi `$, $`N`$ and the details of the energy injection, but only of $`\eta `$ and $`q=N_H/N_C`$, the ratio between the average number of heatings $`N_H`$ and the average number of collisions $`N_C`$.

This idea can easily be tested in boundary heating. When increasing the number of particles $`N`$ or the area fraction $`\varphi `$, the average number of collisions increases. One can show in a mean field approximation that $`q(N\varphi )^{1/2}`$. The average distance a particle travels between collisions is given by $`l_{coll}1/\varphi `$. For a box of area $`A`$ the average distance between boundaries is given by $`l_{heat}A^{1/2}(N/\varphi )^{1/2}`$. Finally, we know $`N_H/N_Cl_{coll}/l_{heat}`$. Our simulation obeys this approximation very well. In Fig. 4 we show velocity distributions for $`\eta =0.8`$ and different combinations of $`N`$ and $`\varphi `$. We measure the heating-dissipation ratio $`q`$ in the simulation and show velocity distributions with the same $`q`$ on top of each other. For $`q=1.3`$ and $`q=0.13`$ we find excellent collapse for different $`N`$ and $`\varphi `$, even when we scale the system by a factor $`8`$. For $`q=0.013`$, where spatial correlations become very strong, we still find reasonable collapse. As we increase $`q`$ we observe the usual pattern, where a crossover appears in a distribution that was initially close to a Gaussian.

It has been speculated that the non-Gaussian distributions are caused by spatial correlations in the gas puglisi . However, we can qualitatively reproduce the different distributions we observe in simulation with a simple model (based on Ref. ulam , but including dissipation) of a two-dimensional inelastic gas of $`N`$ particles without spatial degrees of freedom. In this model, every time step $`C`$ pairs of particles are selected at random and collide using equation 1 with a random impact parameter $`2r<b<2r`$, where $`r`$ is the radius of the particles. At the same time $`H`$ particles are selected at random to be heated by adding a random velocity. This gives us a heating-dissipation ratio of $`q=H/C`$. In Fig. 5 we compare velocity distributions from the model and simulations for different values of $`q`$. We find good qualitative agreement between simulation and model, even though it has no spatial degrees of freedom. This implies that spatial correlations play a minor role, if any, in $`P(v)`$.

Due to the idealized nature of our system, it is not possible to do a direct comparison between our simulation and experiments. Yet, some experiments seem to show a similar behavior, accounting for the parameter $`q`$ that we introduced here. In the experiments of Ref. olafsen  velocity distributions go from non-Gaussian to Gaussian when a rough plate or a layer of heavy particles is used instead of a flat plate. In this case, energy is injected directly into the directions parallel to the plate, effectively increasing the number of in-plane heatings over collisions. Most convincing is the experiment by Blair and Kudrollli kudrolli . Here the number of collisions is increased by adding more particles. As a result, their velocity distributions develop the same crossover we see both in our simulations and model.

We studied behavior of the velocity distributions of granular gases as a function of $`\varphi `$, the area fraction, and $`\eta `$, the coefficient of restitution. Specifically, we considered the effect of driving the gas by heating uniformly, as is assumed in theory and many prior simulations, and by heating through a boundary, as is done in most experiments. We find that there exists clear qualitative differences between the velocity distributions for uniform and boundary heating, which demonstrates that the form of the distributions is not simply a function of material parameters (*e.g.*, $`\eta `$). Furthermore, we show that there is no evidence for a universal velocity distribution with a constant exponent $`\alpha =1.5`$. Instead, for boundary heating, we find that velocity distributions cross over from one exponent to another for the high-velocity tail. For this high-velocity tail we observe a wide range of exponents and we find $`\alpha =1.5`$ only for specific values of $`\varphi `$ and $`\eta `$.

Instead, we demonstrate that the distribution of velocities for dissipative gases, while not universal in form, depends only on two parameters: the coefficient of restitution $`\eta `$ (a material parameter) and $`q=N_H/N_C`$, the average ratio of heatings and collisions in the gas (a function of experimental conditions). We find that velocity distributions range from Gaussian for $`q1`$, where heating dominates dissipation, to strongly non-Gaussian for $`q1`$, where the dynamics of the gas is dominated by the dissipative collisions between particles. Furthermore, a simple model of a driven, inelastic gas without spatial degrees of freedom reproduces the entire family of velocity distributions we find in simulation, as we vary $`\eta `$ and $`q`$. This means that the velocity distributions are non-Gaussian not because of spatial correlations. Rather, it is the cascade of energy from a few high-energy particles to the slow-moving bulk of the gas that is the key determinant of the non-Gaussian velocity distributions.

We thank L.P. Kadanoff, N. Menon, A. Kudrolli, D. Blair and J. Bougie for useful conversations. This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant PHY99-07949.


text:
# Non-Gaussian Signatures in the Temperature Fluctuation Observed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

## 1 Introduction

Recently the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe111http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov (WMAP) satellite mission has opened a new door to the precision cosmology. The WMAP has measured the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy and polarisation with high resolution and sensitivity (Bennett et al. 2003a). The WMAP data implies that the observed CMB fluctuations are consistent with predictions of the concordance $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model with scale-invariant and adiabatic fluctuations which have been generated during the inflationary epoch (Hinshaw et al. 2003; Kogut et al. 2003; Spergel et al. 2003; Page et al. 2003; Peiris et al. 2003).

An important feature of the simplest inflation models is that the primordial density fluctuation field has a Gaussian random phase distribution (Guth & Pi 1982; Hawking 1982; Starobinsky 1982; Bardeen, Steinhardt & Turner 1983; see Riotto 2002 for a review). Therefore, an observational test of the Gaussianity of the initial density fluctuation field will provide an important constraint on inflation models. Fortunately, the CMB temperature anisotropy, which reflects the density fluctuation on the last scattering surface, is expected to be the best probe of the primordial Gaussianity.

There have been many tests for the Gaussianity of the CMB anisotropy at large ($`10\mathrm{°}`$; Kogut et al. 1996; Colley, Gott, & Park 1996; Ferreira, Magueijo, & Górski 1998; Heavens 1998; Pando, Valls-Gabaud, & Fang 1998; Novikov, Feldman, & Shandarin 1999; Bromley & Tegmark 1999; Magueijo 2000; Banday, Zaroubi, & Górski 2000; Mukherjee, Hobson, & Lasenby 2000; Barreiro et al. 2000; Aghanim, Forni, & Bouchet 2001; Phillips & Kogut 2001; Komatsu et al. 2002), intermediate ($`1\mathrm{°}`$; Park et al. 2001; Shandarin et al. 2002), and small angular scales ($`10\mathrm{}`$; Wu et al. 2001; Santos et al. 2002, 2003; Polenta et al. 2002; De Troia et al. 2003). Most of the results implies that the primordial density fluctuation is consistent with Gaussian random phase. Recently, Komatsu et al. (2003) have presented limits to the amplitude of non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations in the WMAP 1-year CMB maps by measuring the bispectrum and Minkowski functionals, and found that the WMAP data are consistent with Gaussian primordial fluctuations. Similar result has been obtained by Colley & Gott (2003), who independently have measured the genus, one of the Minkowski functionals, from the WMAP maps. Gaztañaga & Wagg (2003) and Gaztañaga et al. (2003) also have concluded that the WMAP maps are consistent with Gaussian fluctuations from the measurement of the three-point correlation function and the higher-order moment of the two-point correlations, respectively. On the other hand, Chiang et al. (2003) argue that non-Gaussian signature has been detected from the foreground-cleaned WMAP map produced by Tegmark, de Oliveira-Costa, & Hamilton (2003) using the phase mapping technique. However, it should be noted that their analysis has been done for the whole sky map whose Galactic plane region still has significant foreground contamination.

In this paper, we perform an independent test for the Gaussianity of the CMB anisotropy field using the WMAP 1-year maps by measuring the genus and the genus-related statistics. Previous works on the genus measurement from the WMAP simulation can be found in Park et al. (1998) and Park, Park, & Ratra (2002, hereafter PPR). This paper is organized as follows. In $`\mathrm{\S }2`$, we summarise how the recent release of the WMAP 1-year CMB sky maps are reduced for data analysis. In $`\mathrm{\S }3`$, we describe how the genus is measured from the CMB maps, and give results from the WMAP 1-year maps. The genus for the north and the south hemispheres of the WMAP maps are compared in $`\mathrm{\S }4`$. Possible sources that can cause non-Gaussian features in the genus curve are discussed in $`\mathrm{\S }5`$. We conclude in $`\mathrm{\S }6`$.

## 2 WMAP 1-year Maps

The WMAP mission was designed to make the full sky CMB maps with high accuracy, precision, and reliability. The sky map data products derived from the WMAP observations have 45 times the sensitivity and 33 times the angular resolution of the COBE/DMR mission (Bennett et al. 2003a). There are four W band ($`94`$ GHz), two V band ($`61`$ GHz), two Q band ($`41`$ GHz), one Ka band ($`33`$ GHz), and one K band ($`23`$ GHz) differencing assemblies, with $`0\stackrel{}{.}21`$, $`0\stackrel{}{.}33`$, $`0\stackrel{}{.}49`$, $`0\stackrel{}{.}62`$, and $`0\stackrel{}{.}82`$ FWHM beam widths, respectively. The maps are prepared in the HEALPix222http://www.eso.org/science/healpix format with $`\mathrm{nside}=512`$ (Górski, Hivon, & Wandelt 1999). The total number of pixels of each map is $`12\times \mathrm{nside}^2=3,145,728`$. Since the K and Ka band maps are dominated by Galactic foregrounds, we use only Q, V, and W band data in our analysis.

The Galactic dust, free-free, and synchrotron emissions are highly non-Gaussian sources, and their contribution to the measured genus is not negligible even at high Galactic latitude (PPR). Therefore, we use the 100 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ dust (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis 1998; Finkbeiner, Davis, & Schlegel 1999), H$`\alpha `$ (Finkbeiner 2003), and synchrotron (Haslam et al. 1981, 1982) emission maps multiplied with coefficients given in Table 3 of Bennett et al. (2003b) to reduce the foreground emission in each differencing assembly map of the Q, V, and W bands. At each frequency band, we combine the foreground-subtracted WMAP differencing assembly maps with noise weight given by $`N_{\mathrm{obs}}/\sigma _0^2`$, where $`N_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ is the effective number of observations at each pixel, and $`\sigma _0`$ is the global noise level of the map (Bennett et al 2003a, Table 1). Finally, we obtain three foreground-subtracted WMAP CMB maps for Q, V, and W bands. The WMAP team also presented the Internal Linear Combination (ILC) by computing a weighted combination of the maps that have been band-averaged within each of the five WMAP frequency bands, all smoothed to $`1\mathrm{°}`$ resolution (Bennett et al. 2003b). Tegmark et al. (2003) independently produced a foreground- and noise-cleaned WMAP map with W band resolution using a foreground-subtraction technique different from that of WMAP team. As compared to the combined Q, V, and W band maps, Tegmark et al.’s cleaned map (TCM) has higher signal-to-noise ratio, and can be used as an independent probe of Gaussianity.

These maps are stereographically projected on to a plane before the genus is measured. The stereographic mapping is conformal and locally preserves shapes of structures (see, e.g., Calabretta & Greisen 2002, $`\mathrm{\S }5`$). The final Q, V, and W band maps have resolution of $`0\stackrel{}{.}60`$, $`0\stackrel{}{.}45`$, and $`0\stackrel{}{.}35`$ FWHM, respectively, due to the additional smoothing during the projection. We mask 23.2% of the sky that has significant foreground contamination from our Galaxy and point sources using the conservative Kp0 mask (Bennett et al. 2003b). We also remove additional 0.3% of the sky corresponding to the small islands outside the north and south caps. The remaining survey area in the genus measurement is 76.5% of the sky.

## 3 Genus Measurement

We use the two-dimensional genus statistic introduced by Melott et al. (1989) and Gott et al. (1990) as a quantitative measure of topology of the CMB anisotropy field. For the two-dimensional CMB anisotropy temperature field, the genus is the number of hot spots minus the number of cold spots. Equivalently, the genus at a given threshold level $`\nu `$ is

$$g(\nu )=\frac{1}{2\pi }_C\kappa 𝑑s,$$
(1)
where $`\kappa `$ is the signed curvature of the iso-temperature contours $`C`$, and the threshold level $`\nu `$ is the number of standard deviations from the mean. At a given threshold level, we measure the genus by integrating the curvature along iso-temperature contours. The curvature is positive (negative) if the interior of a contour has higher (lower) temperature than the specified threshold level. Compared to the CONTOUR2D algorithm (Melott et al. 1989) that was used in Colley & Gott (2003), this direct contour-integration method has an advantage that it can accurately calculate the genus when the survey region is enclosed by complicated boundaries (see Fig. 4$`a`$ below).

We present the genus curves as a function of the area fraction threshold level $`\nu _A`$. The $`\nu _A`$ is defined to be the temperature threshold level at which the corresponding iso-temperature contours encloses a fraction of the survey area equal to that at the temperature threshold level $`\nu _A`$ for a Gaussian field

$$f_A=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{1/2}}_{\nu _A}^{\mathrm{}}e^{x^2/2}𝑑x.$$
(2)
The $`\nu _A=0`$ level corresponds to the median temperature because this threshold level divides the map into high and low regions of equal area. Unlike the genus with the temperature threshold level, the genus with the area fraction threshold level is less sensitive to the higher order information (e.g., skewness) coming from the one-point distribution (Vogeley et al. 1994). For each map we calculate area fraction threshold levels on a sphere with HEALPix format and with the same resolution as the stereographically projected map. This is because the stereographic mapping does not preserve the areas.

For a two-dimensional random phase Gaussian field, the genus has a form of $`g(\nu )=A\nu e^{\nu ^2/2}`$ (Gott et al. 1990). The amplitude $`A`$ is normalised so that $`g(\nu )`$ is the genus per steradian. Non-Gaussian feature in the CMB anisotropy will appear as deviations of the genus curve from this relation. Non-Gaussianity can shift the observed genus curve to the left or right directions, and also alter the amplitudes of the genus curve at positive and negative levels differently, causing $`|g(\nu 1)||g(\nu +1)|`$. We define shifts at negative and positive threshold levels, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{/+}`$, with respect to the Gaussian relation by minimizing the $`\chi ^2`$ between the genus points and the fitting function

$$G=A_{/+}\nu ^{}e^{\nu ^2/2},$$
(3)
where $`\nu ^{}=\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{/+}`$ and the fitting is performed over the range $`2.4\nu 0.2`$ and $`0.2\nu 2.4`$, respectively. Asymmetry parameter is defined as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }g2\left(\frac{A_+A_{}}{A_++A_{}}\right).$$
(4)
Positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ means that more hot spots are present than cold spots. The Galactic foreground emission as well as point sources have significant effects on the genus curve even at high Galactic latitudes. The Galactic foregrounds make the genus shifted to the left at all threshold levels while the radio point sources cause positive genus asymmetry (see Table 3 of PPR).

As shown in Figure 1$`a`$, the genus measured from the foreground-subtracted Q, V, and W band maps appear to have shapes consistent with Gaussian random phase field. Compared to the Gaussian fitting curves, there is not any noticeable shift and asymmetry in the genus curves at all bands. The genus measured from the ILC, TCM, and Wiener filtered TCM also show features similar to those of WMAP Q, V, and W band maps (Fig. 1$`b`$). Table 1 summarises the genus-related statistics, namely the genus amplitude ($`A`$), the shift ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _+`$), and the asymmetry ($`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$) parameters for the observed WMAP CMB maps of different bands. The measured genus shifts at both negative and positive threshold levels as well as the genus asymmetry are very small.

To quantify the significance level for the non-Gaussianity from the measured genus shift and asymmetry, we simulate 500 WMAP Gaussian CMB maps for each differencing assembly at each band. To make the genus amplitudes for the mock observations similar to those for the observed WMAP maps, we use the unbinned WMAP power spectrum (Spergel et al. 2003) at low $`\mathrm{}`$’s ($`342`$) and the CMBFAST-generated power spectrum (Seljak & Zaldarriaga 1996) that fits the WMAP power spectrum together with the CBI and ACBAR results at high $`\mathrm{}`$’s ($`>342`$). For each mock observation, the same initial condition for $`a_\mathrm{}m`$’s is used for all frequency channels, where $`a_\mathrm{}m`$’s are coefficients in spherical harmonic expansion of the temperature anisotropy field. During the map generation, the WMAP beam transfer function $`B_{\mathrm{}}`$ is used for each differencing assembly, and the instrument noise at each pixel is randomly drawn from the Gaussian distribution with variance of $`\sigma _0^2/N_{\mathrm{obs}}`$. The average genus measured from the 500 mock WMAP observations are shown in Figure 2.

The genus-related statistics for the 500 mock observations are listed in Table 2, where the mean and standard deviation for each genus-related parameter are shown. Due to the complex noise property in the WMAP data, the genus shift parameters have means far deviating from zero, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _+`$ having opposite signs with each other. Figure 3 shows the distribution of genus shift and asymmetry parameters drawn from the 500 WMAP W band Gaussian mock observations. The shift and asymmetry parameters well follow the Gaussian distribution. Comparing the observed genus-related statistics with those for mock observations, we conclude that the WMAP temperature fluctuation is consistent with the Gaussian field. This confirms the recent results of Komatsu et al. (2003) and Colley & Gott (2003).

The theoretical genus curve expected from the WMAP observation can be obtained by (Park et al. 1998)

$$g(\nu )=\frac{1}{2(2\pi )^{3/2}}\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)(2\mathrm{}+1)\left[C_{\mathrm{}}W_{\mathrm{}}^2+N_{\mathrm{}}\right]F_{\mathrm{}}^2}{(2\mathrm{}+1)\left[C_{\mathrm{}}W_{\mathrm{}}^2+N_{\mathrm{}}\right]F_{\mathrm{}}^2}\nu e^{\nu ^2/2},$$
(5)
where $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{}}`$ are WMAP CMB and noise power spectra, $`W_{\mathrm{}}=B_{\mathrm{}}P_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the window function that describes the combined smoothing effects of the beam ($`B_{\mathrm{}}`$) and the finite sky map pixel size ($`P_{\mathrm{}}`$), and $`F_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the additional smoothing filter which in our case has been used during the stereographic projection. We use $`N_{\mathrm{}}`$ as the average noise power spectrum derived from the noise power model given in Hinshaw et al. (2003). The theoretical genus amplitudes expected from the WMAP power spectrum are $`A=866`$, $`1313`$, and $`2034`$ for Q, V, and W bands, respectively, and are very similar to those from mock observations.

## 4 Genus in Northern and Southern Hemispheres

As we have shown in the previous section, the CMB temperature fluctuation measured by the WMAP appears to be consistent with Gaussian random phase field. However, the temperature distributions of the Galactic northern and southern hemispheres look very different with each other, especially due to the presence of large cold spots near the Galactic plane in the southern hemisphere (see Fig. 4). There are two big cold spots near $`(\mathrm{},b)(330\mathrm{°},10\mathrm{°})`$ and $`(200\mathrm{°},20\mathrm{°})`$. Figures 4$`b`$ and 4$`c`$ compare the temperature distributions of the ILC northern and southern hemispheres, showing that both are quite different from each other.

The northern hemisphere has very few big spots while the southern hemisphere has many.

We calculate the genus separately from the northern and the southern parts of the WMAP maps and the TCM, and also measure the genus-related statistics. The results for the observed maps and for the 500 mock observations are included in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. At the W band ($`0\stackrel{}{.}35`$ scale), the asymmetry parameter for the southern hemisphere is very large ($`\mathrm{\Delta }g=+0.047`$), which is a non-Gaussian feature that is statistically significant at $`2.4\sigma `$ level. However, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ for the north is consistent with zero. Such a large asymmetry does not appear in the lower resolution Q and V maps.

Figure 5$`a`$ shows the genus for the northern and southern hemispheres measured from the W band data. Both genus curves have different genus amplitudes, especially at the negative threshold levels. We measure amplitude differences, $`A_{}^\mathrm{N}A_{}^\mathrm{S}`$ and $`A_+^\mathrm{N}A_+^\mathrm{S}`$, from the observed W band map (Kp0-masked) and its 500 mock maps, and list the result in Table 3. Here $`A_{}^{\mathrm{N}(\mathrm{S})}`$ is the amplitude obtained by fitting the genus points at $`\nu _A<0`$ measured in the northern (southern) hemisphere with a fitting function in equation (3), and likewise for $`A_+^{\mathrm{N}(\mathrm{S})}`$. The $`A_{/+}^\mathrm{N}A_{/+}^\mathrm{S}`$ have non-zero mean values even for the Gaussian mock observations. The measured value $`A_{}^\mathrm{N}A_{}^\mathrm{S}=255`$ for the W band map is 2.6 times larger than the standard deviation of those expected from the simulated Gaussian observations ($`[25517]/902.6`$). On the other hand, $`A_+^\mathrm{N}A_+^\mathrm{S}`$ has smaller value due to the large genus asymmetry ($`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$) in the south.

We also have measured $`A_{/+}^\mathrm{N}A_{/+}^\mathrm{S}`$ from the WMAP Q and V band maps, TCM, and ILC. From Table 3, we find that the large genus amplitude difference between the north and the south also appear at both Q and V bands (Fig. 5$`b`$ and 5$`c`$), deviating the Gaussian prediction with significance levels of about $`2\sigma `$ ($`A_{/+}^\mathrm{N}A_{/+}^\mathrm{S}=1.9\sigma `$$`2.0\sigma `$), which shows that this non-Gaussian feature does not have any frequency dependence. We have computed a probability of finding such a significant deviation from the Gaussian prediction in the mock WMAP CMB fields with the Gaussian statistics. The probability that the genus curves show such a large genus amplitude differences exceeding the observed values in Table 3 at all Q, V, and W bands is only 1.4%.

With a Galactic cut at $`b=30\mathrm{°}`$, the large cold spots are removed (Fig. 4$`c`$). However, the trend of the genus amplitudes and asymmetries in the north and south are not significantly changed by the Galactic cuts (see Tables 1 and 3). For the Galactic cut at $`b=30\mathrm{°}`$, $`A_{}^\mathrm{N}A_{}^\mathrm{S}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ still deviate from the Gaussian prediction at $`1.6\sigma `$ and $`1.8\sigma `$ levels, respectively. Since the genus amplitude significantly decreases with higher Galactic cut, it is natural that the difference between $`A_{/+}^\mathrm{N}`$ and $`A_{/+}^\mathrm{S}`$ should be smaller while its standard deviation in the mock observations becomes larger due to sample variance. However, the probability that such genus amplitude differences are larger than the measured values for $`b=30\mathrm{°}`$ cut is still 4.6%. All non-Gaussian features of the W band map described above are also seen in the TCM (Tables 1 and 3; Fig. 5$`d`$).

## 5 Origin of the Non-Gaussianity

Let us consider possible sources that may induce the non-Gaussian signatures shown in $`\mathrm{\S }4`$. First, the foreground effect on the genus may not be negligible, causing non-Gaussianity. The residual of the foregrounds after foreground-template correction is known to be very low. Bennett et al. (2003b) estimate that the residual Galactic contamination after the template correction is 2.2%, 0.8%, and $`<0.4`$% of the CMB power in Q, V, and W band, respectively, when the less conservative Kp2 mask is applied. Tegmark et al. (2003) also show that the foregrounds in their TCM are subdominant in all but the very innermost Galactic plane, for $`\mathrm{}100`$. Furthermore, Galaxy foregrounds induce non-Gaussian feature by making the genus shifted to the left at all threshold levels. As for the positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ on the southern hemisphere in the high resolution W band data, it is more reliable that such non-Gaussianity is caused by point sources that have not been removed by the Kp0 mask because positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ means that more hot spots are present than cold spots. Furthermore, another non-Gaussian signature, the large genus amplitude difference between the north and the south, does not show frequency dependence since all WMAP band maps (Q, V, and W), ILC and TCM show the similar non-Gaussian feature. It should be noted that the three independent methods of foreground-subtraction were applied to make the WMAP band maps, ILC, and TCM. However, we cannot conclude that the non-Gaussian signatures are free from the effect of foreground contamination. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ and $`A_{/+}^NA_{/+}^S`$ decrease as the higher Galactic cut is applied, though their dependence on the Galactic cut is weak.

Second, the non-Gaussianity can appear due to the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) and the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effects. The large-scale structures, which intersect the paths of CMB photons, can affect the primary CMB anisotropy. In a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-dominated CDM universe, the CMB anisotropies are expected to be correlated with matter density fluctuations at $`z2`$ through the ISW effect (Crittenden & Turok 1996). Nolta et al. (2003) have detected cross-correlation of the NRAO VLA Sky Survey radio source catalog with the WMAP data. Boughn & Crittenden (2003), Fosalba & Gaztañaga (2003), Fosalba, Gaztañaga, & Castander (2003), and Scranton et al. (2003) have reported that there exists a correlation between the WMAP temperature anisotropy and the galaxy distribution. Diego, Silk, & Sliwa (2003) estimate the cross-power spectrum between the WMAP CMB and the ROSAT X-ray maps, and did not find any significant correlation between two data sets. The SZ clusters appear in arcminute scales and the angular resolution and the sensitivity of WMAP are not ideal for detection of the typical SZ effect. However, if a large number of SZ clusters contribute to the CMB map, their imprint can be statistically measurable. Recently, the positive cross-correlation between the X-ray clusters and the WMAP map has been detected. Hernández-Monteagudo & Rubiño-Martín (2003) claim their detection at $`2\sigma `$$`5\sigma `$ level, which corresponds to the amplitude of typically 20 – 30 $`\mu `$K in the WMAP map (see also Boughn & Crittenden 2003; Fosalba & Gaztañaga 2003; Fosalba et al. 2003; Myers et al. 2003).

Third, the non-Gaussian signatures may be caused by the inhomogeneous photon damping during the reionisation at the earlier epoch. Reionisation damping depends on the total optical depth $`\tau `$ and the angular scale subtended by the horizon at the last scattering surface defined during the reionisation epoch. The primary CMB anisotropy $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ is damped to $`\mathrm{\Delta }Te^\tau `$ by the Thompson scattering with electrons, and the damping contribution to the anisotropy depends on scales. The characteristic damping scale $`\mathrm{}_r`$ is given by $`\mathrm{}_r=(1+z_r)^{1/2}(1+0.084\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }_0)1`$ (Hu & White 1997; Griffiths, Barbosa, & Liddle 1999), where $`z_r`$ denotes the reionisation epoch. For $`z_r20`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_00.3`$, the characteristic damping scale is $`\mathrm{}_r3`$. Therefore the damping is also important at low $`\mathrm{}`$-modes. For homogeneous reionisation, the reionisation process damps the CMB anisotropy linearly and keeps the Gaussianity of the primordial fluctuations. However, if the reionisation is inhomogeneous, for example, due to the inhomogeneous ionisation fraction or the patchy reionisation, the CMB anisotropy of low $`\mathrm{}`$-modes can be partially contaminated by the inhomogeneous Thompson scattering, and becomes non-Gaussian. These low $`\mathrm{}`$-modes (quadrupole and octopole) happen to be aligned along the Galactic plane, make the biggest spots near the Galactic plane (Tegmark et al. 2003; de Oliveira-Costa et al. 2003), and may change the temperature distributions of the Galactic north and south hemispheres differently.

Finally, the non-Gaussian signatures that have been detected may have the primordial origin. While the simple inflation predicts that the primordial fluctuation field is Gaussian, the non-linear couplings between the inflaton and the fluctuation fields or between the quantum and the classical fluctuation fields can produce weakly non-Gaussian fluctuations (Komatsu & Spergel 2001, references therein). Multi-field inflationary models predict that the primordial metric fluctuations do not need to obey Gaussian statistics (e.g., Bernardeau & Uzan 2002). There are also many mechanisms that can generate non-Gaussian density perturbations during the inflation (e.g., Bartolo, Matarrese, & Riotto 2002; Dvali, Gruzinov, & Zaldarriaga 2003).

## 6 Conclusions

We have investigated the topology of CMB anisotropy from the WMAP 1-year maps by measuring the genus and its related statistics. The measured WMAP genus curves clearly deviate from the Gaussian prediction in two distinctive manners. First, the genus asymmetry parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ is positive on the Galactic southern hemisphere in the WMAP W band map ($`0\stackrel{}{.}35`$ scale), a non-Gaussian feature that is significant at $`2.4\sigma `$ level, while $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ on the Galactic northern hemisphere is consistent with zero. Second, the genus amplitude difference between the north and the south hemispheres ($`A_{/+}^\mathrm{N}A_{/+}^\mathrm{S}`$) deviates from Gaussian prediction at $`2.0\sigma `$$`2.6\sigma `$ levels at WMAP Q, V, and W bands. Compared to the 500 Gaussian mock observations, the observed genus amplitude differences indicate that the Gaussianity of CMB anisotropy field is ruled out at about 99% (95%) confidence level when the Kp0 mask (Kp0 mask and $`b=30\mathrm{°}`$ Galactic cut) is applied. These non-Gaussian features have weak dependence on the Galactic cut. Similar results based on the power spectrum analysis have also been reported by Eriksen et al. (2003).

To investigate the nature of the non-Gaussian features that have been detected, we need CMB data with higher signal-to-noise ratio as well as the accurate models for the Galactic foregrounds. We wish that the next release of WMAP data or those of the future CMB experiments would enable us to resolve these problems. As for the possibility of reionisation-induced non-Gaussianity at large scales, we also need to study the topology of the CMB polarisation map (e.g., Park & Park 2002).

## Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges valuable comments from Changbom Park and the anonymous referee. This work was supported by the BK21 program of the Korean Government and the Astrophysical Research Center for the Structure and Evolution of the Cosmos (ARCSEC) of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) through Science Research Center (SRC) program. Some of the results in this paper have been derived using the HEALPix and CMBFAST packages.